Oral history interview with Eva Elson

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1990.495.5 | RG Number: RG-50.061.0005

: From the-- my maiden name is Jochebed Perel.
: I came from a very religion home that
: was very, very comfortable.
: And I was a little different because I understand
: the life a little forward.
: I wasn't that trying religion like my parents.
: I used to like to read a book, to go to an organization.
: This was forbidden for me to do.
: They didn't accept that.
: I married a husband.
: He wasn't too fanatic.
: He was not like my parents' lives.
: And he was a really Jew, a good Jew.
: And he was-- he went to--
: we was in a small town.
: And we moved to Warsaw.
: What was the name of the town?
: The town is a small town like Magnuszew.
: This wasn't in the main.
: I don't think so.
: And this was around near Radom, Kozienice, [POLISH]
: gubernia, that they used to call.
: And in Warsaw, we married there.
: We had three children.
: Beginning, we had to suffer a little harder
: because my parents didn't help me
: too much because I didn't marry that fellow
: that they would like it.
: They wanted a [NON-ENGLISH]---- you mean that they want to have
: a son-in-law to give them--
: to sit and learn to the--
: and I was a little against that.
: But after, they was very happy with me.
: I really was a good nature.
: And in beginning, we was working hard
: after we had this [INAUDIBLE].
: We had two stores in Warsaw.
: I had--
: What kind of stores?
: Men clothes in Warsaw on Elektoralna Street
: and Solna Street.
: And I used to live on Nalewki 28--
: Nalewki 28.
: And we was there until the war was broken out.
: My children was-- my daughter was going to yeshiva.
: What was your daughter's name?
: Sarah Silverman.
: I have here the papers.
: And my second was a son, Isa Silverman.
: And the last, the youngest was Sarah--
: Reisel.
: And this two was the--
: my oldest was going to the yeshiva, nowadays Bais Yaakov.
: Bais Yaakov was really very religion.
: And my little boy, he was six years old.
: I gave him in a cheder.
: He says-- he cames back, he says, Ma,
: we have not to go to yarmulkes there.
: In Poland was antisemitism very bad.
: And I didn't want to give him to the school
: and after, go to cheder.
: I gave him in a cheder together with a Polish.
: And I had to change the school.
: He went to a religion school.
: He was so good.
: And I used to come to the cheder.
: They says, Silverman top [INAUDIBLE] in everything.
: He was so good.
: He respect-- was respecting his service.
: I used to come on over.
: He said, Ma, Mama, please, sit there, Mama, Mama--
: so sweet.
: And the war broked out and started.
: I sent them still to the school.
: And the first collection-- elections--
: I mean selekcjas, they used to pick up people
: from the street, kids that still was going there to the schools.
: I had to stop them.
: They started with the selections.
: They used to taking kids away.
: I had a higher place.
: And I was sitting with him there.
: And the time-- that day was a selection, was a little calmer.
: So high-- we had so high distance, about maybe 20
: inches, we had to lay down.
: And the kids was with me at that time all the time.
: Were the selections-- what years was this?
: It was in 1942.
: 1942.
: 1942 was the selection started-- that's right,
: the selections, they used-- when I used to leave
: was the frontier just in the same corner
: where I used to live.
: But inside the ghetto, outside was outside the ghetto.
: Were there walls?
: Were there gates?
: Was not a wall, was just that SS was standing there.
: Was not a wall.
: Wall was further.
: And we had-- and it was a big ghetto and a smaller ghetto.
: Our ghetto was the bigger ghetto.
: And they started-- took sick people from the hospitals.
: They put them in a wagon with a horse, covered up
: with just a little sheet, not a blanket.
: That's where they used to take the sick people
: from the hospitals after they took them from the--
: all the older people and kids.
: And I used to see everything because I
: used to live in the front.
: And I saw what was happening.
: We couldn't help nothing.
: And I was saving the kids more than a year.
: What, you were keeping them hidden?
: Yeah.
: One time, my husband used to work.
: They used to bring them back from the front,
: from the war for the soldiers' suits, what they was--
: they had to fix it and repair them.
: My husband used to help this.
: And I used to work in that place.
: One day, they says, who parents works together in the shop,
: the kids will be saved.
: They took us out, outside in the yard,
: and they make a selection.
: At that time, my kids was with my mother-in-law
: in the same kammer where I used to hire them.
: They find them.
: And my husband says, don't go down.
: He hire me in the shop we used to work.
: And he cames down.
: He cames down.
: He saw the kids are staying there.
: And he went, my husband, to my kids.
: And the SS man say, where you want to go?
: You want to be here?
: You have to go this way.
: You want to go away with the kids?
: You're going to wait to you know where.
: He says, no, I'm going with my kids.
: I didn't know that.
: I was hiding in the shop there.
: Tooks an hour or two, I didn't see back my husband.
: I see everybody gone.
: I say, I'm not going to stay here.
: I have no my kids, I have no my husband.
: I took a little--
: we had a bags and put it on, like the kids were on the long.
: Oh, a backpack.
: And I says, I'm going.
: The people started screaming.
: Eva, what you're doing?
: Where you going?
: You go kill yourself.
: I says, what I have to live for?
: To whom?
: For whom?
: I went there, was an Umschlag.
: They used to call in Warsaw an Umschlag.
: Over there, they had--
: they make trains to go to Treblinka and to Auschwitz.
: And I says, I have nothing-- no what to do over here.
: I left everything.
: And I came over there.
: My kids, when they saw me, they was laughing, and singing,
: and happy.
: And I was, it's going be with us,
: it's called being with all of-- all our family.
: And used to pray in there to see [INAUDIBLE] and so.
: He used to pray in so many prayers and to go on out.
: And my husband said, now, you came over, we are lost.
: This was impossible to get out with kids.
: A woman with kids, this familiars,
: you couldn't take it out.
: So now, at that time was no place, no trains.
: He had to stay there.
: Excuse me, we had always a-- we used
: to stay in the neck, the dirty-- and everything.
: There's no place where.
: We are just sitting in the dirt, nothing,
: no place, just impossible to believe what people can doing.
: And we was staying overnight.
: Was no trains to take us.
: In the station?
: And it was a special place.
: Umschlagplatz, this was a place with no beds, no seats,
: no-- they're just to stand up and, excuse me,
: to do one with your need to go into the bathroom-- everything
: is standing.
: In the morning, camps police, and they're saying,
: they need my husband back to the shop.
: Do a full cut.
: And he called Herschel Silverman--
: was a little distance, about 20 yards, maybe 20-30 yards.
: And they call over here.
: We had to cross over there.
: Over there, the people what they call back to go into the shop,
: they have to cross about 20-30 yards away.
: I had the three children.
: My husband said, what can we do?
: What can we do?
: The little one was about five years old.
: I couldn't take her in my arms.
: But [INAUDIBLE] short.
: I had a girl.
: I had a kid.
: People, when they call one name, 20 people was running.
: Everybody wants go now.
: We know where we going.
: Is there stepped and then on the kid's legs--
: her legs, her skin was just--
: you could see just the bone.
: That kids didn't even not cry, nothing, nothing.
: Ma, Ma, what's going be, Ma?
: I said, please, don't say nothing.
: Is I had a coat.
: I took her under my coat.
: My husband took another one into--
: for the small kids.
: And I had one man.
: He says, I'm going give my life away.
: I'm going to try to save the kids.
: He came over.
: And we say, we can back home, all the three kids
: with my husband.
: This was the time my miracle.
: After a month, six weeks, was Yom Kippur,
: and we wasn't in the shop.
: We make a minyan.
: We used to pray there in the shop.
: And one was waiting outside, watched not to come,
: that the SS, they're coming in.
: And all of a sudden, they say, who has-- we had big numbers.
: Who has numbers on the dress to walk out on the street.
: I took my mother-in-law with my kids and put them in the--
: and send them back in the same place where I
: used to hire them all the time.
: And me, my husband went out on the street and stay in waiting,
: had to wait.
: Was 3 o'clock until they checked the numbers, they checked that.
: And me--
: Did they check it usual--
: what kind of check?
: Just what the number you have, that's all.
: You had to stand in the street, just standing, waiting.
: In the meantime, they make a selections.
: Inside, they find that place.
: And they took my kids, 150 people that time,
: and they took them up in the Umschlag to Treblinka.
: I didn't know that because they had in every yard--
: in every yard was opening.
: We didn't see, they come the other ways.
: And they took them away.
: I wouldn't let them go.
: I would going with them when I would see them.
: I didn't see them.
: We came home, I don't see the kids.
: And I don't see nobody.
: My husband didn't see me.
: I walk out, outside the ghetto.
: And I walk to the Umschlagplatz there.
: I say, I don't care what they going to do with me.
: I have nothing what to live over here.
: And I went there.
: I came over there, was Master Hund.
: He called me, it was master.
: I told him, I says, they took my kids.
: And I want to going with them.
: [GERMAN] I didn't want to go.
: He started beat me up.
: My body was black and blue.
: I says, kill me.
: I'm not going to go home.
: He-- with his boots, he kicked me.
: It's-- I don't know how I survived that time.
: He didn't want to kill me.
: And he took the gun and he brought me--
: I had to go in the--
: first.
: And he followed me with the gun.
: He bring me back to the ghetto in my house
: and didn't want to kill me.
: You can imagine, I started crying days and nights.
: I used to go to the shop.
: I come back to the shop, he said, where's the [INAUDIBLE]??
: I was gray overnight.
: He didn't recognize me how I looked.
: And I was crying, took the cloths every day.
: These cloths are sitting here, crying.
: This was all until I get sick.
: What sick?
: My head was swollen up.
: That clean sack that--
: what keeps the water was infected
: from crying all the time.
: And my head was swollen up.
: My husband said, what we going doing?
: We didn't have no hospitals, no doctors.
: In the smaller ghetto, they said, it's a doctor there.
: My husband get from the shop there,
: from the SS, a permission to go there
: because we couldn't go there.
: I came over there.
: He says, I have nothing what to do.
: And he opened up an opening there and took a glass of pus.
: Was-- all my head was all with that.
: And I survived, came back home.
: I used to drink and drink vinegar
: and what I had in my hand.
: I didn't want to live.
: I had my husband, her sister.
: She was grown up with us.
: She lost their father, she was a year old.
: And my husband was the oldest brother.
: Was six brothers-- nobody survived.
: And she was growing up with me.
: She was like my daughter.
: She was 20 years old that time.
: How old were you?
: I was 25, 26 years old.
: So you were born in what year?
: Hmm?
: What year were you born?
: I was born in Poland.
: What year?
: In Magnuszew, I was born--
: Magnuszew.
: What year?
: What year?
: In 1912-- 1913.
: And she was so good to me.
: They took us-- no, she didn't--
: she was watching me, what I do, where I go.
: And I didn't want to live.
: This was a young kid, though.
: You can't imagine.
: Until Pesach, until Pesach, I was crying and knowing,
: the selections every day, every day.
: And my husband saved me.
: And she saved me.
: It comes-- Erev Pesach was April 14 at that time.
: We made a tunnel in 1939.
: Was at that time when Russia went to Poland.
: And one building was destroyed at that time completely.
: We make a tunnel under the gruz.
: Under the gate?
: We make under the ground, but on the tap
: was no buildings, no nothing, just--
: Rush.
: --a broken-- broken stones, I mean.
: And we made eight meter deep a tunnel for 150 people.
: I didn't want to go there yet.
: We had food for a year to live there.
: We had there conserve all kind of food.
: We had bread and challah.
: We used to dry them up in the oven,
: bake them to be able to keep them.
: And we went down in Erev Pesach.
: I didn't want to go.
: My husband said, come on.
: Maybe we survive and we'll find somebody else.
: Maybe we even save them suffer Hitler.
: Let's go.
: I didn't want to go.
: But I went with him.
: I went with him.
: I did everything for my husband.
: We went that time there.
: But in the same time, people--
: some from the family was in arisch.
: So what-- and some still was in the ghetto.
: And it comes-- would out the--
: Uprising.
: How do you call?
: Uprising.
: Uprising.
: They want to go-- we had a tunnel to go on the other side.
: And they coming through us to the this-- the bunker,
: we used to call bunker.
: And it was too many people.
: It was no air.
: Was not possible for you to stay there.
: And they want to go through the tunnel, they find out,
: the German, they put gas.
: And they couldn't go anymore further.
: And everybody was inside in there in the tunnel.
: Being in the tunnel, they find out that it's a tunnel there.
: And they put a [? burn ?] there and three full bricks.
: Was broken at that time.
: We had everything there.
: We had two doctors.
: We had a dentist.
: We had a cemetery there.
: We had everything.
: We expect to stay there months.
: But when they saw nobody comes out,
: they started open up a hole.
: And they open a hole three days.
: And they said, comes out.
: Otherwise, we put a gas inside.
: But before, we was happy we can going out because it was
: impossible to breathe in there.
: We had was two things--
: we had to stay in a line.
: Was two men with guns.
: We couldn't open the mouth.
: The children, they couldn't talk, nothing, just quiet,
: and go wash ourself.
: We was all naked.
: It was now impossible to even open a [INAUDIBLE]..
: And we had light from the other side.
: We had water from the arisch side
: in case when they put bombs on the something else, they will--
: we wouldn't have them bothered us.
: And we make that would cost hundreds of thousand
: dollars, that bunker.
: Was just essential what we had, what
: a kind bunker we had there.
: And we was happy they tooked us out.
: And how they took us, they put a string inside.
: We had to tie it up the hand, then put the--
: They pull us up the first.
: And we had one another.
: And they're pulling another 200 was that time.
: 200 in your group?
: In the group.
: And a lot of tooks poison.
: But 15-20 people didn't coming out alive because they
: took poison.
: They didn't want to go up.
: Was a dentist, a doctor, someone or other.
: We coming up.
: It was completely nighttime.
: It was April 26.
: 1940?
: 1943.
: We came in there April 14, was 12 days there.
: And we came out--
: we had to sit down right in a line this way.
: We had to sit this way.
: Crouched down.
: Yeah.
: And I went.
: And I went with my husband.
: The mens, they took them the other side
: at a handcuff because everybody has ammunition.
: And they checked him if they have.
: Because I went with my husband, I had to stretch my hands also.
: Staying with my husband, they gave me with a gun in the back
: to going away.
: I just-- that's when says bye to my husband.
: I didn't see him anymore.
: And I had to go with the ladies.
: They were-- and I was sitting naked inside some trunks
: on the street.
: They put it on.
: We didn't have what to put around because we
: left everything there.
: And then coming out was two big bags.
: We had to take off all of the rings, watches, what we have--
: golds, everything.
: They had so higher, they had that bags with diamonds,
: with gold, with everything.
: And we didn't know where we going.
: Where did they do this?
: Where were you at this time?
: Did they take you to--
: when they took you out of the bunker,
: did they take you anyplace?
: Yes, it happened.
: We were sitting beside the house.
: I didn't recognize my house.
: Was everything-- it's then they were there,
: they're destroying every building, the German.
: They destroyed every building.
: Oh, in the 12 days you were underground?
: When we was underground, that time,
: they destroyed the other buildings
: because other people was burn up because they had
: bunkers under the buildings.
: Some boys coming over to us, they coming from the tunnel,
: coming to us to save thems life.
: But they couldn't save.
: They had to take them to-- we didn't have
: a building over our bunker.
: That's why we could stay because was
: buildings upstairs in there, but we
: didn't feel it because over our bunker was not a building.
: This was destroyed in 1939 when they come to Poland.
: When they took on us, we had to sit aside our building,
: a destroyed building.
: It was about an hour after they took us--
: one part to Treblinka, one part to Auschwitz-- no,
: to Majdanek, to Majdanek.
: They took me to Majdanek with my sister,
: by my husband's sister also.
: They come to Majdanek.
: We had to go to work, work making crematorium, Majdanek.
: We had to build a crematorium.
: We had to carry stones on our chest
: from one about five miles, 10 miles to gather stones.
: They put a task-- stone--
: 20 bricks, 25, and we had to carry in our chest there.
: And I had mine sister-in-law.
: She brought me something, some clothes from there.
: She brought me something.
: She is a young girl.
: She was 20 years old.
: She wasn't so--
: I didn't want to live.
: I was so depressed.
: I want to die every minute.
: I was jealous that people were dying because I says,
: I don't have the work.
: I didn't have my husband, didn't have nothing.
: But she tried her best.
: She supported me.
: She gave me something to eat, piece of bread,
: a piece of this.
: And after she says, we go on, the--
: a transport supposed to go from there.
: They picked up her.
: She was young.
: She wasn't-- I was gray.
: I was young.
: I was overnight, I was gray.
: I didn't-- nobody recognized me.
: She says, I'm not going without you.
: Where you go, I'm going with you.
: She was from Holland, was in the kitchen
: there working some boys.
: And she makes up with him that there's
: 300 girls that go stay in Majdanek in the kitchen,
: working in a kitchen.
: She says, Eva, stay with me.
: We going have-- we had to go through a sanitarium.
: A sanitarium?
: A sanitarium to check up us.
: And I was standing with her in a line, five in a line.
: It took so long until our line, two lines cames in.
: And I was standing with her.
: I says, takes her so long.
: I had two left shoes.
: I said, near mine barrack is there shoes.
: Maybe I'm getting a shoes that matched mine other shoe.
: That few minutes what I went there, she was in.
: And I didn't see her anymore.
: I was completely with myself alone.
: I didn't see her.
: And that Majdanek was destroyed, about 3,000 people
: at that time.
: There's no kitchen or nothing, just
: they took them to the kill.
: And the rest was-- they was here, was to burn to--
: no crematorium.
: The crematorium was not finished,
: just they burn in holes.
: They kill and they burning them.
: They killed them with a shotgun?
: With a shotgun, that's how.
: Did they line people up, do you know?
: How did they?
: In the nighttime.
: We didn't see that time.
: But we saw just when--
: a girl and a man disappeared.
: They brought them back.
: And they hanged them.
: And we had to stand around to see how they hanging it.
: This we have to see.
: And I was in Majdanek alone.
: I had to go to work.
: And it was in May.
: The sun comes out cold.
: We didn't have clothes.
: It was cold.
: I burned up my feet.
: Over here, I had blisters.
: And over there, was thin over here.
: I had blisters.
: I had to work.
: We came through the frontier.
: I looked in the legs, it was-- we had swollen legs,
: they take to crematorium.
: But I changed after my mind.
: I says, I'm going to live.
: I'm going to try to fight.
: I'm not going to go with them.
: May I find somebody.
: May I can have something--
: a [NON-ENGLISH]---- you know what [NON-ENGLISH],,
: to see something there, the end of them, of this,
: what they did to us.
: And was a girl what she had boots.
: And I says, give me your boots.
: And I give you my shoes.
: And I put my boots on, I went to work.
: And I take them off comes off the meat from my legs,
: and the skin, everything.
: And I didn't feel that.
: You know what I did?
: I find a little junk, a piece of rock on the sand.
: Excuse me.
: I put urine on there.
: In the night time, I put my legs on a stone, a big stone,
: and put this on the top.
: This over here would get right away an infection.
: And I didn't have an infection at that time.
: It's Sunday was some girls from Poland.
: One girl was a good girl.
: And the other was terrible.
: They said, the crematorium is for you.
: You go to the crematorium.
: And she came Sunday, make us some--
: she put something into an X-ray with her.
: To make it better?
: She makes it better, yeah.
: And she can explain it in Yiddish even better.
: All right.
: It's OK.
: She's good in English.
: She's good.
: And she saw my legs, she says, Jesus.
: How can they cover you in the floor.
: How can-- does she leave with that kind legs and go to work?
: She says-- this way, she says.
: She made a cross.
: A cross.
: She says, how can she live with her-- so kind legs I have.
: And I had to go to work with that kind legs.
: This is-- was the end that they have destroyed Majdanek.
: And we had to go to Auschwitz.
: How-- they destroyed Majdanek?
: Yeah, I wasn't there when they destroyed.
: When I left, they destroyed Majdanek.
: I didn't see anymore my sister-in-law.
: She was with them.
: You see, that's why they wanted to me to live, by meine--
: my family, mine all of that because she was a young girl.
: And she once saved my life.
: And she had to give away her life.
: They pick her up in three camps to go.
: And I know that camps, everybody survived in that camp.
: And she didn't want to go.
: She want save my life.
: And now, they took her away.
: And I survived.
: They took me to Auschwitz.
: Why did they take you to Auschwitz?
: They took to Auschwitz.
: And they took to Treblinka.
: It's mine-- mine girl, mine luck was to Auschwitz.
: You can't tell them for why.
: Well, why did they move people out of Majdanek?
: Because they destroy it, the Majdanek they destroyed--
: [AUDIO OUT] It's they took us to--
: To Auschwitz.
: Auschwitz.
: On the train?
: Who-- trains-- who saw trains?
: Who saw trains?
: That's whatever the thing they're taking the cows to,
: the dogs, the horses.
: They fill us up like, really, dogs.
: We couldn't even breathe.
: It's supposed to go 20-30 people, that put 100-300.
: How many people died there?
: The trucks themselves, they couldn't survive there.
: It's no air, no nothing.
: And we came to Auschwitz.
: We came to Auschwitz, every day, selections, every day,
: selections.
: I was in the-- and then block was a block--
: 1,000 in a block, 1,200, no beds, just woods there.
: A leg, the leg here, they had a leg here, leg here.
: That's how--
: Had no platform?
: It's what?
: No blankets-- the nighttime, the frost was 40 degrees cold.
: We had to go outside and wash ourselves.
: Was water outside, frost is outside.
: In the snow and the frost, we had
: to go naked out washing ourselves.
: In the nighttime, I pull my little blanket,
: a blanket, a little sheet--
: was frozen to the wall.
: I said, somebody-- it's taken.
: That's why we survived.
: I says, I'm not going sit in the koja--
: the beds, we used to call koja, a koja.
: That's just a grave.
: I say, I'm going to work.
: I went to work.
: But we didn't have the vitamins.
: We didn't have the food right.
: We had nothing.
: It's every little what you did, we went to in a field to do--
: to cut the grass or something.
: Every little pinch what we did--
: infection.
: I had all of my legs with infection.
: If they saw this, I couldn't hire there.
: When they saw this, they took me in another camp.
: In Auschwitz-Birkenau-- this was not
: a working place, just over there to wait for the crematorium.
: Was jobs there too.
: In the block, I used to be a night wächter.
: What a night wächter?
: I had to watch the nighttime.
: Was a [GERMAN]---- I don't [GERMAN],, how they call--
: box?
: No.
: No, forget about that.
: I was in--
: In Yiddish-- in Yiddish--
: [NON-ENGLISH].
: It was a [NON-ENGLISH].
: Oh, animals?
: No, it's not animals.
: That's like straws.
: Yeah, but she explained it--
: That's OK.
: So that's OK.
: No, I says, that's where I want to work.
: And I was able to do in everything.
: We had a [GERMAN]--
: she was a head from the block.
: There was the [INAUDIBLE].
: They usually didn't like it, the Polish people.
: But I was lucky there because I used
: to make the fixing a dress, a hem.
: I used to fix the stove.
: They cleaned the stove out.
: I used to make heels.
: I didn't have any of that things.
: But I find a brick, I find something, and I fix it.
: I used to doing everything.
: And she saved my life.
: First of all, she makes me--
: decides that stubendienst, to clean the block.
: The morning, we have to go for coffee.
: I had to take the people from the koja,
: from the bed for coffee.
: They couldn't go down.
: The other one was they used to beat them up.
: And to pull them down, you have to go.
: I couldn't do that.
: I said, that's sick.
: Well, how can I do it?
: Jews used to pull them down?
: Yeah.
: I says-- says to me, you can't be a [GERMAN]..
: That was a [GERMAN] in the nighttime, to watch them.
: Is I used to steal the--
: we used to get coffee.
: Was just-- was no coffee, I just--
: was some from the grass, something to that,
: I don't know, to make a coffee.
: I used to hire this.
: In the nighttime, I used to warm up and give people
: with the heavy diarrheas-- they wouldn't see.
: I give them in the nighttime, nobody has to see that.
: When they will see me, they would kill me.
: When I hear a transport cames from--
: one thing, come a transport from French, a couple, a broom,
: and a bread, like our guest, and they came right
: to the crematorium.
: They came in over there.
: And I was a [GERMAN].
: And I could go on the nighttime.
: The nights, you were.
: I could go on there.
: This was a special sauna, they call a sauna.
: Over there, it was water.
: We used to go wash ourself over there.
: And over there, used the selection--
: they used to bring us all in the same place to concentrate us,
: are all.
: And over there was the selection.
: I know that place.
: And I used to go and take some there to take a water.
: And I started go bring the water to the block.
: I had from Greek--
: Matilda, the name.
: I say, Matilda, I says, come.
: I used to speak a little Greek and English, to come with me.
: We going there.
: I brought them the coffee to drink.
: You should see people that I don't know.
: I don't know how-- what a kind heart we have.
: And they could-- you can see what was hurting there.
: But I use to help them so much.
: That's because my life--
: my life was no interesting anyway.
: Let me at least help some people.
: Even the night came, they didn't go.
: We had a special-- on a truck that I used to go to make
: [INAUDIBLE].
: They didn't make it.
: They make love when
: When they know the head from the block, the block guard,
: we used to call it, she would take them
: right to the crematorium.
: But I couldn't do this myself.
: And I didn't want to say nothing.
: And I don't there wish me--
: they didn't know what to do with me.
: But I was over there.
: And once, she says, Eva, [NON-ENGLISH] is disappear
: in Czechoslovak.
: Today, it's going to be a big selection.
: But I don't know who is going to be survive.
: [NON-ENGLISH]-- we can?
: [GERMAN]---- [GERMAN] they used to call [GERMAN]----
: it's no-- nobody should go on the outside.
: Everybody has to be in the block.
: I will go to the bathroom.
: No.
: I saw some people going with the--
: in it-- some--
: I mean, a lunch soup.
: I couldn't go.
: They had 10 girls.
: Nobody can go.
: What can I do?
: I lay down in my--
: laid there-- had the girl what she
: is there over from the block.
: She had a little tiny room like my pantry.
: Was her bed there.
: I went inside in the bed.
: And I hide there.
: If they would find her, they would take her with me
: together in the crematorium.
: And she used to like me.
: And I was there.
: And he said, he needs 50 girls.
: And the rest all are going.
: I had two nieces.
: That's his sisters too.
: They had infections in his legs, those legs.
: They took her the crematorium too.
: And I saw them take her.
: And I couldn't say nothing.
: And after all that, they take them all away, 1,200 people,
: she says, Eva, [NON-ENGLISH] in Czech.
: Come ahead-- come over here.
: I come over.
: You know what?
: I-- with a pin, I make a little blood from my finger
: and make red my lips-- my lips was white.
: And my face, I make a little red.
: And I come stand down for the 50.
: He saw me staying.
: He said, du, Alte Hexe--
: that time, I wasn't even 30 years
: old-- the Alte Hexe, [GERMAN]?
: What are you doing over here?
: And give me with his feet, I punched in my back--
: I was sure that--
: I don't know what kind of bones I had.
: And I went back there.
: I didn't go.
: I didn't go where he wants me to go.
: I go back there.
: I went back there.
: And he comes to count them up, counts the [GERMAN]..
: That is one-- an SS man also, what he--
: he used to take people to work.
: And I come-- and she calls me back.
: And then he comes.
: He was a little better than the other, not so murder.
: And she says to him in Germany, please, give me that lady.
: Save me that lady.
: I need her.
: He said, what-- in German--
: [GERMAN]
: She says, she makes me for 10 girls.
: She does everything.
: She's a good help.
: And she works good.
: And he told me to go in the other block.
: And that's it.
: I went to the other block.
: They started screaming.
: They took my sister, they took my [INAUDIBLE] and left here.
: I was afraid for them, for the-- even for the Jewish girl there,
: was afraid there.
: And I had over there every day selections
: because we came over, we was selected
: to die to the crematorium.
: It was no good.
: They didn't like us anymore.
: But every day, selections-- every day,
: I had to come through every day a selection.
: And once, a selection is--
: who they take to the crematorium have
: to be naked, completely naked.
: And that girl was what they have to be saved,
: they had the clothes on.
: Was a girl from Czechoslovakia, the clothes was on the ground.
: And I could put her on something.
: And she didn't let me put it on.
: I kill her.
: After the war, she was killed-- me and other girl.
: I took it.
: She didn't let me go and put it on.
: And they took us to the crematorium.
: Took the crematorium, take the number of this.
: we don't live anymore.
: We were sitting in the crematorium there.
: That's not a crematorium, it's a block
: what in the nighttime used to come the trucks,
: takes us in the trucks, and takes us to burn, to gas.
: And we were sitting there 2,000 girls--
: 2,000 on the asphalt and naked in winter time, not to eat,
: nothing.
: We was crying, and praying, and sitting.
: Because what we hear, some noise, a truck.
: Oh, that's it, they're going to take us, kill us.
: In the same night was no gas.
: The second day, Hitler's says--
: enough to gas now.
: We was there 10 days that block.
: They brought us blankets.
: They gave us food.
: But we couldn't go on out.
: We had there was in the yard.
: We could go on when you need something
: to go on to the bathroom in the yard.
: We couldn't run out of sight.
: We was there about two weeks.
: And they send my sisters, they say, auntie,
: you going to be alive.
: This block is going to be a normal block.
: You go come on out.
: And I was sure this is--
: I get death.
: I got my-- how they call--
: [GERMAN]
: I wouldn't be alive.
: I was sure.
: But they say that.
: And comes a commission from the SS, two ladies--
: the ladies was worse than the mens-- and two doctors.
: They make us an examination.
: When I got $100, I wouldn't have an examination.
: And beside me was girls from French
: with the-- they had operation that make them not
: to have any more children.
: And she says, yeah, in German, she's good, she's a [GERMAN],,
: she works good.
: And she's good for everybody.
: And she always until late in the night.
: And they let me go.
: They let me go.
: They pick her up about maybe 50-60 girls of 2,000.
: All are gone.
: And we went in another block.
: And that's what is still every day, selection, selection.
: With end in '45, they took us to Bergen-Belsen.
: They took us to Bergen-Belsen-- is
: a part to the crematorium, a part for working.
: They used to make [YIDDISH]--
: runner, run.
: And I was lucky they took me to Bergen-Belsen.
: Took me to Bergen-Belsen--
: I had a lady when she was from Radom, Poland.
: And she was-- in Yiddish, we call her [YIDDISH]..
: She was a street--
: A prostitute.
: Yeah.
: But she-- I don't know.
: I had lunch with her.
: And I was-- I wouldn't survive because I was too delicate.
: I had a heart.
: I used to give away my peace of bread.
: I wouldn't survive.
: But with her, she used to say [NON-ENGLISH]..
: That's what she used to say.
: And I was-- she took me in a Kubbeh Kommando.
: What mean the Kubbeh Kommando?
: We had to bring you the food.
: Irons or-- kubbeh, that's our soup.
: We had to bring it to the blocks.
: Big pot.
: Four people had to gather us [INAUDIBLE]..
: And I was there.
: She tooks me there.
: She used to take the people to the crematorium
: like you take a dog, so strong she was.
: She didn't-- she has no feeling from her.
: Then she was killed also after the war.
: And I used to work there.
: I used to be sick.
: I couldn't have-- I couldn't put the water.
: I just thought, you put--
: it's terrible, no doctors, no hospital.
: I warm up.
: I break.
: And I put on my leg.
: That's why I helped myself.
: I used to do that.
: It's impossible to believe how we came through what it.
: When I was in Auschwitz, they ask
: me who knows Hanukkah bentchen, the prayer.
: I'm going taking that.
: I says, I know the prayer.
: Somebody has two candles.
: And I pray.
: And I say the prayer.
: In meantime, comes the SS--
: take there-- there.
: The SS came, who put the light on?
: I says, I did.
: Of course, this is a holiday.
: She took me right away to the crematorium.
: First of all, she beat me up so bad that I was almost dead.
: And she takes me to there--
: is the lady where she used to take care for the block.
: She started crying.
: What do you wanted from her?
: She's so good.
: She's so good.
: I'm going to burn.
: And she was very favoring to them
: because she helped them a lot.
: It's-- she let me go.
: She let me go.
: I says, I was so many times--
: the number was so many times to take me,
: I don't know how this--
: they didn't want to take me.
: When they take the crematorium, one day, they put a number
: on who goes to crematorium.
: One day, they put a number on who is free.
: See, went I took the--
: I didn't know that they changed.
: I always used to stay with them people where
: they going to crematorium.
: And they pushed me away.
: They didn't let me go.
: But once, I says, I'm not going with them.
: But there started a commission-- a selection.
: I stand up.
: And he started to look at me.
: I says in Deutsch, [GERMAN]--
: and I have 18 years to mine wedding.
: [GERMAN]-- I am working.
: I work hard.
: And I help a lot of people, or they help me.
: Besides, I used to help them so much, that's
: unbelievable on that time what was there.
: And you can help people that way.
: They say, yeah, this is true.
: And they let me go.
: That's so many times, I had the same way, they let me go.
: But after the war, when I came to Germany, a lot of people
: comes around me from Romanian, Hungarian--
: you Eva?
: Eva?
: And they started kiss me.
: And they started raise me up.
: That's what that lady did, it's unbelievable in camp.
: When everybody was for himself, and I didn't care for myself,
: I just had--
: I just tried to help people.
: And when I was in Czechoslovakia,
: I was in the bus, a lady comes over to me, started talking,
: and said, oh, she's a [GERMAN],, something like this,
: where they helped Germany.
: No, they wants me take, and they give me
: a room to stay in the Czechoslovakia
: what I did for those people.
: That's once why I'm happy I did something for people.
: But I couldn't do nothing for me.
: I couldn't save nobody.
: I had five brothers and four sisters.
: 55 grandchildren-- my parents had 10 grand-grandchildren,
: even one didn't survive.
: And one-- that--
: he was a Russian.
: He went come back.
: My nephew.
: He once come back.
: They find the-- they catched him they sent them to Siberia.
: That's why he survived.
: Another nephew, he was in the partisan.
: He survived.
: How he survived is unbelievable too.
: When I read that, I can't even-- mine hair staying up,
: I can't believe it that people can do it this way.
: And one niece I have, she was one daughter from my brother,
: was very rich.
: He had a son.
: He was in Lubliner yeshiva.
: They took him right in first, when they came in.
: They took the yeshiva right away.
: And this daughter, my brother cames to Auschwitz
: in the end of the Auschwitz.
: That's why I came to Poland in 1945.
: I came to Poland.
: I had just a hope I had [INAUDIBLE] because there
: came after was not a crematorium so at that time.
: And he was killed a month before the war was to end.
: He was working in a mine, in coal.
: Coal mine.
: Coal mine.
: And a coal fell from him in his head.
: And he was killed.
: And the people who he knows, my niece, my brother's daughter,
: how she was one daughter, rich people,
: they sent them with a [INAUDIBLE] Aliyah to Israel.
: And she had an uncle there.
: He was a Rosh Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
: And his kids was nurses.
: And they gave it in--
: as a nurse.
: Now, she is a registered nurse.
: But she didn't marry.
: She's now in the 50s.
: She couldn't find.
: She was alone.
: And she's still alone there in Israel.
: I was there.
: I was there.
: And that's the few survived.
: Her one brother didn't survive.
: It was five-- seven children.
: No one was survived.
: And the sisters, nobody--
: no, no the children, no.
: I miss several I have over here that she find me
: in Bergen-Belsen.
: That's what I have.
: And this is now the saying that this is a lie.
: I say, let me--
: I want to talk to that man or that professor what he said,
: it's a lie.
: It's a lie.
: I can give him the places where I was
: and what was happened there.
: It was-- we were sitting in Auschwitz
: with girls at 14 years old.
: They had to work in the fields, sitting in this way,
: and picked up.
: And one girl couldn't sit that way.
: She put in-- and she sit down on the knee.
: The SS, the lady with her dog comes over.
: And I had 25 [NON-ENGLISH]---- how they call it--
: in the head, my head, to beat me in the head, 25.
: My hair came so out, after the war, I had no hair completely.
: I was in German to go for all kind of treatments.
: I couldn't-- I didn't have hair here, no.
: A lot.
: A lot.
: Did you took that in the ghetto?
: I didn't see them or know.
: They took them from the Yom Kippur.
: And I says in the morning to my son--
: I maked him cabbage, and even have bread,
: and all the kind of vegetable we had,
: and this is for you, how you eat, will eat tomorrow.
: I says, you not going to fast.
: He said, Ma, I'm not going to eat.
: That's what's happened to our sisters and brothers--
: I'm not going to eat.
: I'm going to fast.
: And he died from starving.
: He didn't have-- he didn't eat.
: And I didn't see them anymore.
: And I was operate in German after the war mine eyes.
: I had-- she was scrubbing my bones.
: She says, my [GERMAN],, a lady doctor,
: she says, all these are poisoned, all of mine bones
: was poor.
: I said, OK, yes.
: OK, yes.
: I was on operation.
: I was open.
: On my last child, I had stitches.
: And I used to work so hard.
: But with some possible treatments,
: couldn't do that what we used to do it.
: I was open complete now.
: I went to a doctor for something else,
: he said, how can you live?
: You will lose everything inside.
: That's what happened.
: I came to this country, I didn't have one good part.
: I used to go to Beth Israel every day, every day.
: I go to work, my husband was sick.
: I had to work to make the living.
: He's weak, I came over here.
: I went to work.
: I says, I don't want any help.
: I don't want a charity.
: I don't want nothing.
: I want to go to work.
: In the same place, I worked 29 years--
: 29 and 1/2 years.
: I used to go in every day for X-rays.
: They couldn't find what's wrong with me.
: Every day, done X-rays, every week,
: I have a consult, sitting like a cow on the middle of the floor.
: And they used to measure me and up, and down, and down,
: and here.
: They didn't know what it is.
: I had an infection, I go there infected--
: the food who used to come down was forced in my neck,
: didn't come down.
: I was so weak, I used to work and fainted.
: And every day, I had to go for X-rays,
: to bring in a urine from the past 24 hours.
: And what they did to me, I now--
: when I have a spare dollar, I give to Beth Israel.
: And they help me.
: Well, they work so hard for me.
: They didn't know what to doing to me.
: He said, nothing works on you, not that bones, not your heart,
: not the blood pressure, not nothing.
: And I don't know why I survived, for what, to what?
: I was young, I used to work, I didn't feel what's missing.
: I felt, but not that much.
: Now--
: You must feel in Bergen-Belsen, right?
: Yeah, no.
: Bergen-Belsen, there was-- but this was--
: I control myself.
: The people started eating too much.
: They gave us too much food.
: Oh, after-- when the war ended, after the Americans came?
: You should see--
: England survived us, England--
: English-- English, the British.
: They wasn't too good, either.
: But at that time, everybody was good.
: And they survive us.
: We had so many inside the [INAUDIBLE]..
: In English.
: Was some-- we didn't have water.
: We didn't have salt. We didn't have any change
: clothes, nothing that can--
: And the sores all over your body, yeah.
: So when this-- they come and take it over,
: they had to burn everything.
: We had to go into the bath.
: They give us some disinfections there.
: Oh, for the lice?
: Out take the lice.
: And the difference, we went to another camps.
: And this was all burned completely.
: You should see on this end, the world
: was running, was terrible.
: I don't know how we could live in it.
: It's not so good [INAUDIBLE].
: It was raining, which we had to stay in with our hands,
: and take the water, a little, to wash up.
: Some, we didn't wash up.
: We didn't have the hair.
: They took us-- they cut the hair from us.
: I was in concentration camp 375 [? days-- ?]
: two years, one year the most of them, maybe four years.
: I saw with my eyes the burn.
: They didn't use a gun.
: The kitchen fire bomb.
: They used to came out.
: They did-- they take-- they took after six months a baby
: and throw it on the age from the bridge.
: In the sidewalk, like stove--
: When they took us from the ghetto,
: like the bricks on the sidewalks,
: that's when the people was the Jewish people on there.
: And they couldn't-- even some people would ask for help.
: Who can do that?
: Who can go to them?
: And I said, it's a lie.
: It's a lie.
: I was so sick when I read that.
: I say, why don't you to-- they take me there.
: I will take him.
: And I wanted the $50,000.
: I will tell them, let them go with me,
: show them every space, where I was there, what was there.
: That's why we're doing this.
: I know.
: I have read up from [INAUDIBLE].
: Probably, they had the [INAUDIBLE]..
: The head down and the legs up.
: Yeah.
: And he said before that [NON-ENGLISH]----
: there is no God in the world.
: [NON-ENGLISH].
: I hear with my ears.
: I was different too.
: I was a [NON-ENGLISH].
: I was.
: I'm Yiddish.
: I'm a Yiddish [INAUDIBLE].
: I go to the temple.
: I go-- the first couple of years,
: I didn't go to the temple to Yom Kippur,
: either, not for the Yom Tovim.
: I say, I know what is there.
: I say, whatever I have to fix the master,
: they take the book from me.
: What about family-- sisters, brothers, children, for whom?
: It's all false.
: What I'm going there?
: For whom?
: [INAUDIBLE]

Overview

Interviewee: Eva Elson

Physical Details

Language: English
Extent: 1 sound cassette (60 min.).

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States. Jewish day schools. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Warsaw. Deportation--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camp--Liberation.
Geographic Name: Magnuszew (Poland) Warsaw (Poland)
Personal Name: Elson, Eva.
Corporate Name: Majdanek (Concentration camp) Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)

Administrative Notes

Holder of Originals: One Generation After
Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The interview with Eva Elson was conducted by One Generation After, a Boston based group of children of Holocaust survivors, for the One Generation After oral history project. The tapes of the interview were received by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on January 7, 1990.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-11-16 08:10:00
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510150

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Oral History

Oral history interview with Charlotte Koopman

Oral History

Oral history interview with Netty Schwarz Vanderpol

Oral History

Oral history interview with Kip Winston

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sidney Wolrich

Oral History

Oral history interview with Denise Schorr

Oral History

Oral history interview with Beatrice Simkovich

Oral History

Oral history interview with Samuel Stern

Oral History

Oral history interview with Franya Russak

Oral History

Oral history interview with Carl [Karl] Schlesinger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Eva Schlesinger

Oral History

Oral history interview with Clara Rev

Oral History

Oral history interview with Anna Riemer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Marie Rosenberg

Oral History

Oral history interview with Cecelia Perera

Oral History

Cecilia Perera, born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina), discusses the relations between Jews and non-Jews in Sarajevo before the war; being one of seven children of a religious family; the Italian occupation; living with her husband and 14-year-old son at the time of the occupation; her husband’s olive oil factory; the fate of her family members during the war; going with her family to Italy (November 1943 until 1947); living in Bari and then Torino; immigrating to the United States after her son received a scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology; working as a seamstress; her sister who survived Bergen-Belsen; and two of her siblings who live in Israel.

Oral history interview with Hugo Princz

Oral History

Oral history interview with Szlomo Reff

Oral History

Oral history interview with Zezette Larson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Sam Natanson

Oral History

Oral history interview with Stella Penzer

Oral History

Oral history interview with Berko Kolodner

Oral History

Berko Kolodner, born in 1893 in Krynki, Poland, discusses his five brothers and three sisters; his father who had a leather factory; his religious upbringing; being sent to Bialystok, Poland for high school; his desire to attend university, but not being allowed to because he was Jewish; serving in the Russian army during WWI; his family being poor after the war; moving to Switzerland, where he earned his medical degree at the University of Bern in 1925; working as a physician in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania); the Germans bombing and invading Vilna; being sent to the Vilna ghetto; the terrible conditions in the ghetto; his medical practice in the ghetto; his wife, who was also in Vilna; his family in Krynki being deported to Treblinka; Jacob Gens, a ghetto leader, who tried to hold the people together in the ghetto but was eventually killed; the liquidation of the ghetto; his wife being sent to Auschwitz and killed; being sent to several camps in Estonia, including Vaivara, Kuremäe, Lagedi, and Goldfields; the conditions in those camps; being taken by boat to Germany and then Stutthof, where he worked on roofs; being in Buchenwald for two weeks, where he felt like he was dying but people gave him a little more food; the overwhelming hunger at that time; being sent to Colditz in Saxony, Germany; being sent on a starvation march to Theresienstadt; working as a doctor in Theresienstadt, but having no medications to treat people; being liberated by the Russians; one friend from Vilna, Dr. Brijetski who wrote a book about their experiences and eventually moved to Israel; believing he survived by a miracle; being very sick at liberation and spending several months in the hospital in Prague, Czech Republic with a serious staph infection; recovering; working in a monastery, St. Ottilien Archabbey, near Munich for three years; working as a physician the monastery, which was partially transformed into a hospital; meeting his wife there; his positive interactions with the Americans; going to the Netherlands in 1950; immigrating to the United States; the difficulty he has experienced adjusting to life in the US; and not receiving reparations from Germany.