page 11 of 11

Play Movie

Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.

4-Revisiting Victims & Experiences

You mentioned that you had a reunion with some of the victims from the factory that you worked in. I'm just curious if you could describe your feelings and describe what it was like?

It was great. This is the first time I learned, in another language, what happened to me when we were about to be shot and instead of shooting us they doled out to us a handful of raw macaroni and a handful of sugar. So, what happened, why did they change their minds, all this was a big question in my mind for years. Until I learned about the book that my liberator, Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, a member of the Swedish royal family and also he was the head of the Swedish Red Cross, went to talk with Himmler for the release of the Scandinavian prisoners at first and eventually made a deal with Himmler to let us out. There were about thirteen thousand of us, maybe even fourteen thousand, I forget the exact figures, but I'm going to have it in my book because then I will be able to read the numbers.

Just if you could describe what it was like to revisit with the victims from the factory that you worked with?

And so, yes we received an invitation for a reunion and what was significant about this reunion is that it was in Beendorf. Now this was a small little town, population eight hundred. I still remember the population sign and it still hasn't changed, it still has the same number of people living in it. But underneath the small town is a huge underground factory in a salt mine. Hitler moved his armaments industry underground to protect it from air raids, his war related industry. And he put us into them to work, and that's where I made precision instruments for the V1 and V2 rockets. Now these were the men and women who worked with me there, a top secret place for Germany, who were invited to come down into the mines for the last time because they were about to fill them.

But we prevented them from filling them, they were going to use them actually for nuclear waste, as a nuclear waste dump. So we signed a petition to the head of the state, equivalent of a governor and we requested that the mines be left open and that it should become a memorial considering that many many thousands of people died there, scooping out all the salt by slave laborers and so on. And it was under consideration actually and you know to date they, so far as I know they have not closed the mines. Now, we went back and imagine. When we were slave laborers we just were in our regular clothes and wooden shoes. This time we went back we received hard hats, and a miner’s lamp and on our belt there was oxygen perchance something should happen and heavy socks and boots and I don't know, something to wrap around us. They took very good care of us forty-seven years later. So it was quite a difference, so this is the way we should have been dressed to begin with.

But we went down into the mines and there was a translator with us translating to German. Oh, from German to Polish and from Polish to German. And that's where I first realized that these people with me were liberated with me and so I began to talk to somebody. I said, "do you speak Swedish?" in Swedish, Canutal svenska and several people came over oh ja yoktal svenska and I was so amazed, and they were able to tell me what happened to me after we received the macaroni and sugar, the raw macaroni and sugar. What happened then? Because I was knocked unconscious and I didn't come to until we were inside Denmark already. And they told me that we were, it was about three days later before we reached Denmark, and that we went from one camp to another to pick up more people. It was so incredible because I used to think I was out for a few hours, so long. And they told me that I must have been out, if I have not been to these places, for at least three days.

So that made a big difference to me, it was very useful to me. So I was able to talk to them in Swedish you see because they don't speak any of the languages that I spoke. There were some people, men from Denmark and the Netherlands, from Holland, France and Poland, and I from well, formerly Czechoslovakia/Hungary, but when we returned from the USA, American citizen. I was proud of that.

What are you most proud of today?

What am I most proud of today? My family. And their accomplishments. And I am overjoyed by the fact that I'm able to talk about my past and teach young people about the Holocaust experience. Because I think that everyone who listens, hopefully will be affected to some extent to live, to live his or her life in such a way that it will make a difference in the future for them and in their communities and in their country or to their communities or to their country and to civilization at large. I just think that they are bound to be better human beings.

Reflections

When you hear people talk about the Holocaust, what are your thoughts? You mentioned once that there was this guy who said that the Holocaust didn't occur and that's when you decided, oh no I'm going to tell him that the Holocaust did happen, I was there, I was you know, so what are your thoughts when you hear people talk about the Holocaust?

The very first time that I learned that there's somebody who really believes that the Holocaust never happened was at work. At my work, I worked for a financial institution at the time, for ten years and we routed the mail. And there on top of the mail on my desk was a brochure which said in red and black ink – there was a Magen David, the star of David and a swastika – and across it, it said, "a Zionist hoax, the Holocaust never happened." And when I read that, when I saw that, I was so, really in such a shock. And I realized that, "what am I doing here," you know with financial indicators charts. Everything I was doing... I have a duty to perform, I must tell them about my experiences otherwise enough people will claim later that the Holocaust never happened and I have not done anything about it. And so that's when I began to do something about it.

When you hear people speak like if you're out in public or when you hear somebody saying something about the Holocaust, what do you do?

Oh, I have to set the record straight that it's not acceptable to, to change history to suit the person. History has to be remembered as it happened. It has to be honest truth, truthful and it has to be passed on that way. And this is not a tool to pass, to spread lies. This is a very serious matter and I would never let anybody go by, pass such a thing.

Have you ever had experiences with somebody live talking to them?

Well there was one man. There really was a man in a church where I spoke. But they knew him apparently and he came to record me he heard that I was coming and he was there two, three times when I spoke in that church. And when I got back into my car there he was next to mine in a big Cadillac. And this was a big guy and I thought, he is too big to take on. But next time I was there I requested that Reverend Hunacky, it was in his church, I requested that he not be permitted to record my history. And he asked some very loaded questions. And I didn't want to get angry, but I felt angry inside and I just felt this guy is a trouble maker and I didn't want, I didn't think that he was there to benefit himself or to learn something new because he was ready to challenge any Holocaust experience.

Another time that it happened was when I spoke at Stanford University and got back to my car and under my windshield was a flier and under everybody's windshield around me was a flier. My husband and I noticed. And I took the flier. It said that Mrs. Lyon is going to speak at Stanford today and she claims that Hitler used all the cattle cars to transport Jews to death camps. It's a big lie, Hitler was fighting a war at the time and he needed all the cattle cars to transport his troops. He was too busy to do this with the Jews. And obviously he was, he didn't know what he was talking or he was lying and certainly it's transparent to me. And I felt that I had to do something about it, but not on my own and turned it over to the, the World Jewish Congress and let, have them take the matter up. And it was a hate crime, I mean it's, yeah there are still some, a few people still around who claim the Holocaust never happened. And, while I think we probably can always expect some, we have to educate those who, who just don't know and, and make sure that they understand that the Holocaust did happen and the Holocaust must never become a dry page in a history book, just easy to skip and forget.

When you were just being liberated did you ever feel that something bad might happen in the future, that there might be a relapse of like another Holocaust experience, that you were only liberated for a few months maybe and then something would happen again?

I don't know. I felt threatened for some time. But I, we had people talk to us that we may feel that way. And it did linger for some time until we learned to trust and, until we began to read that Germany is kaput, Germany has lost the war and, and they're not likely to rise again. And we were hoping that, if that's so then perhaps its people – that the German people – will have learned their lesson when they've learned all about the camps, certainly those who didn't know before.

I don't know, at times I still, I really feel that it, the Holocaust can happen again anywhere, anytime, to any people, any race and any color unless, unless we are on guard constantly to eradicate hatred and prejudice and discrimination among all human beings. Yeah, we have to learn our lives, I mean live our lives in such a way that we are kind to each other and respectful and prevent another Holocaust from ever happening again.

How do you, how do you think that another Holocaust can be prevented, like what can people do?

I think it can be prevented by, by respecting each-other. I think when people do this, the governments will follow. And we certainly have our rights to vote and we know how they vote. We can, we can do a great, a big justice I think to our country, for our country and for all of us by weeding out people who are hate-mongers, we don't need them. I don't care about their experiences, if they are hate-mongers they don't belong in our government. We really need to pick people who, who are, who will be, who will, what did Lincoln say? "A government of the people by the people and for the people." That's what we need not people who, who create trouble for us by putting down others. Suppression. I think it all begins with going to the booth and voting. It begins with each of us, I've never missed a vote, voting yet, I take it very seriously. And I study my pamphlet, I don't understand everything, but I think I'm doing the best I can and I vote.