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Oral history interview with Halina Kleiner

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0088.87 | RG Number: RG-50.002.0087

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    Oral history interview with Halina Kleiner
    Transcript
    [MUSIC PLAYING]
    Good afternoon.
    My name is Robin Rijz.
    I'm a member of the Kean College Oral Testimony
    project of the Holocaust Resource Center.
    We are affiliated with the Video Archives
    for Holocaust Testimonies at Sterling Library of Yale
    University.
    Sharing the interview with me is Dr. Bernard Weinstein,
    director of the Caine Oral History Project.
    We are privileged to welcome Halina Kleiner, a survivor
    presently living in Springfield, New Jersey, who has generously
    volunteered to give testimony about her experiences
    before, during, and after the Holocaust.
    Welcome, Mrs. Kleiner.
    To begin with, could you tell us a little bit
    about your background, where you came from?
    Sure.
    I was born in Poland, the town of Czestochowa in 1929.
    and I was an only child of fairly well-to-do people
    with a very nice family, extended family.
    I was going to private Jewish schools
    and had a very happy childhood.
    Did Czestochowa have a large Jewish community?
    Yes.
    Czestochowa is a-- was a quite nice sized town.
    It's not what you would call a shtetl, it was a--
    A city.
    --a city.
    As a matter of fact, you might have heard about it
    because it's a holy city.
    Have you heard of the Black Madonna?
    The pope visited recently.
    Yeah.
    That's the city.
    It has a famous church.
    It is very holy to the Catholic religion.
    This is the city I come from.
    And there was quite a large Jewish community.
    And my father was a businessman.
    He had a lumber yard.
    He was selling lumber, and my mother was a housewife.
    She also helped him in business.
    And we lived very happily until 1939.
    How many children were in your family?
    I was an only child.
    You were.
    Yes, yes.
    But I had cousins and aunts and uncles.
    My mother's family comes from a different town,
    which you might have heard of.
    It's in Silesia.
    It's Bedzin.
    It's one of the three towns that are close together.
    Sosnowiec, and Bedzin, and Dabrowa.
    It was also a very large Jewish community there.
    This was where my mother's family comes from.
    Was your family very, very observant of--
    Yes.
    We were a very religious family.
    My father was clean shaven, but he observed Shabbat.
    He did not work.
    His business was closed on Saturdays.
    And we, of course, had a kosher home.
    And we were very observant, but my father did not wear a beard,
    and it was a modern--
    rather like you would find here today--
    a modern orthodox family, although both my grandfathers
    were much more traditional and Hasidic.
    Yes.
    They were bearded, and the households were more orthodox.
    So at what point did you begin to realize
    that things were changing, that you
    were in some type of danger?
    Well, not until 1939.
    As a matter of fact, we were--
    I and my mother were on vacation on a resort
    in Poland in August 1939.
    You were about 10 years old at the time?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And we were-- it was quite far from home,
    and we managed to come back on the very last train
    just before the war broke out.
    And this was when actually we realized that we
    are in danger as far as a war.
    We had no idea of any Jewish problems at the time.
    Being an only child, I remember my parents were very concerned
    because Czestochowa is on the border,
    very close to the border of Germany.
    And they thought that there will be great fighting in this area
    because somehow they thought that Poles will be trying
    to protect themselves from the Germans,
    and there will be big fighting on the borders.
    So what happened was in the very last minute,
    they arranged for me and my mother
    to go to Warsaw, or near Warsaw, where we had family,
    so that I would not be exposed to bombings and war.
    And that's what happened.
    Was Warsaw on the way to Czestochowa.
    No.
    Warsaw was actually kind of middle of Poland.
    Yes.
    They thought you would be safer there.
    Yes, because somehow they were foolishly
    mistaken that Poles will be able to withstand
    the German onslaught.
    As it happened, there was no fighting at all,
    that the fighting happened to be in Warsaw.
    Where was your father when the war broke out?
    My father stayed behind to protect the family property
    and the business and the--
    which was, at that time, a very important situation,
    but mistaken because we didn't realize that families
    should not be separated.
    We realized that as the time went on.
    But we did go.
    They hired a taxi, and we put some belongings into that taxi
    and went to a town which was near Warsaw,
    called Skierniewice.
    My mother's family, more distant family, lived there,
    and that's where we went.
    And what did you find when you got there?
    Well, the war was already on.
    And mistakenly, we went from the frying pan to the fire
    because the Germans just walked into my hometown
    without any fight.
    And as you know, any resistance that there was was in Warsaw.
    And it so happened that we were separated
    from my father for six weeks until the Germans broke
    the resistance in Warsaw, and they occupied all of Poland
    and took about that long for us to be able to get back
    to our hometown.
    So then at that point, you were reunited with them?
    Yes.
    At that point we were reunited after quite an experience
    for a 10-year-old because we did experience bombings.
    And we experienced having to flee the town,
    and flee on a horse and carriage with a large family that
    lived in this area, and not being
    able to continue because the Polish army was on the move,
    and we just couldn't pass.
    And we had to get off the carriage
    and walk through the woods.
    And bombs were falling.
    Can you describe for us a little bit
    of your feeling at the time?
    I know it's hard to recreate now.
    Yes.
    It was very scary, but I must say that I don't
    know where I got the strength.
    I really can't explain it.
    Being an only child, and being very protected,
    but somehow I must have had it in me because there was
    a large contingent of my family that
    came to that area from the other part of Poland
    that I mentioned before, and it was mainly the women
    and the children that--
    the husbands moved to supposedly a safer area.
    So we found ourselves-- my grandparents were there,
    who were an older couple.
    And aunts and their smaller children than me.
    And I was somehow had the strength
    to help to take care of the younger ones.
    And remember before we went out from that town, Skeirniewice,
    where we experienced bombing, it was a railroad crossing,
    a very important railroad crossing in the town,
    so the Germans bombed that particular town.
    And the family lived on the first floor,
    and we just went down to the neighbors,
    who lived on the ground floor.
    And they were not Jewish, and it was a very--
    now from the perspective of time,
    I can see what kind of a scene it was.
    The Gentile family was gathered in one part of the room,
    and the Jewish family, which quite a few members were
    in another one.
    And everybody was praying in their own language.
    We were saying [NON-ENGLISH],, and then they were crossing
    themselves.
    Yes.
    And all of a sudden, there was-- a bomb nearby, very close by.
    And the windows were shattered, and we thought that--
    everybody got very scared because we
    thought that it's gas.
    Somehow there was dust in the air or something.
    I don't remember.
    But everybody got scared that the Germans are using gas.
    And we tried, I guess, take towels and handkerchiefs
    to protect ourselves.
    Was this a particularly strong fear
    that people had at the time?
    Oh, yes.
    Sure.
    From what I remember because--
    Did I remember World War One, I suppose.
    I guess so.
    I guess so, because there were--
    just shortly before the war broke out--
    there were preparations of shelters and gas masks.
    But of course, when it happened, nobody
    had any time to use or to worry about it.
    You just had to do the best under the circumstances, which
    was crawl under the table or under a bed
    or whatever at the time.
    But I remember that distinctly.
    And it was very scary, but I somehow
    was able to comfort the other people around.
    I--
    You had a tremendous responsibility placed on you.
    I don't think it was placed on me.
    I think I just took it upon myself.
    Maybe that's what made me eventually survive,
    that I had a strong backbone, which maybe came down
    with my heritage, from maybe my genes because I wasn't raised
    to be actually strong, since my background was, I would say,
    quite affluent.
    You know, a little girl protected.
    How long did you spend in this particular surrounding
    with the Gentile family?
    No, this was just as soon as the bombing was over,
    which was a few minutes, we went back to the family's apartment
    upstairs.
    And at that moment, the older people
    decided that we have to get out of this town
    because they were afraid that there will be more bombings.
    So this is when they hired this big wagon,
    and the family piled up on that wagon.
    But we couldn't really go very far
    because the road was clogged with the army that was--
    I don't remember if it was going to Warsaw or from.
    I can't even remember.
    But I just remember that the wagon
    had to be moved to the side of the road,
    and we just walked through the woods to the next little town.
    And this is where we stayed because actually the Germans
    came very soon after--
    maybe a couple of days after, the Germans
    came to that part of Poland.
    Because if you remember, the resistance was just in Warsaw.
    Right.
    And this was very close to Warsaw,
    but the Germans just walked in there without any fight.
    So we were confronted with that situation in that little town.
    If I remember correctly, it was a very little shtetl
    called Biala.
    And I remember being there.
    And one morning we knew that the Germans
    came because they made all the Jews come to the marketplace.
    And we stood-- all the Jews had to come out and--
    Was this an Aktion?
    Pardon?
    An Aktion?
    No, no, no.
    This was just an announcement that they are there.
    Yes.
    And I really don't remember what--
    they probably told us that we are not
    free anymore to do whatever.
    I don't know exactly what transpired.
    I don't remember, but I just remember
    that they gathered all the Jews in the marketplace.
    And what the announcements were at the time, I don't remember.
    And we were there for about, I would
    say, six weeks in that little town
    until they captured Warsaw.
    And by that time there was already some movement.
    People were able to move from one place
    to another, because until that time
    there was no way that we could even think of going back.
    And of course, we had no communication with my father.
    We didn't know if he survived or where he is
    or what happened to him.
    We had no communication whatsoever.
    But finally, we decided--
    my mother and myself decided--
    or rather she decided--
    although I wanted to go back, I think
    I was instrumental in her making some kind of arrangements
    to get a move on in going back because I
    wanted to be with my father.
    And we were able to get on a train that
    went in that direction, and we traveled
    not in normal ways of train travel,
    but we just came to the railroad station
    and when we found out that this particular train was going
    in the direction that we wanted to go,
    we just piled in, whoever was able to.
    And I think it was a mail wagon that we traveled in.
    I don't know, whoever--
    you know, just piled in.
    So you traveled in freight cars--
    In freight cars, and--
    I'm sure with very little regulation and--
    No, but you see, I don't want you
    to mistake this with the way the Germans transported people.
    This wasn't the situation.
    We still moved freely, and it wasn't just Jews.
    It was anybody that had wanted to move from place to place.
    And we came back to my hometown, and we
    did find my father there.
    How many family members were with you
    at the time when you reached home?
    Was it just you and your mother at the time?
    Or you had other family members?
    No.
    The other family members were from a different town,
    and they managed to get home on their own at a different time.
    But it was just myself and my mother that we got home
    and we met my father.
    During all of this time, this early period,
    did you sense any special danger to yourselves as Jews,
    or was it just the kind of danger
    that perhaps all Poles felt?
    No.
    No it was not.
    It was definitely-- as soon as the Germans came,
    and as soon as they made all the Jews come out
    into the marketplace or wherever it was that they gathered them,
    it was already a danger to the Jews
    because the Poles were just occupied.
    It was a normal--
    for them, it was a normal war situation.
    Yes.
    But for the Jews, it wasn't a normal war situation
    of an occupied country.
    It was a danger--
    right away a definite danger to the Jews
    because they were Jews.
    So that was felt immediately.
    As a matter of fact--
    yes, Robin, you wanted to say something?
    No.
    We met my father and were able to go back to the apartment
    that we lived in.
    But already at that time, the Germans
    took part of this apartment because they were stationed
    somehow in the apartment house.
    So when we went back, it wasn't already to the whole apartment
    that we were able to get back but to part of the apartment
    because the other rooms the Germans occupied.
    Were you on different floors or were they--
    They occupied part of the house, but I
    don't know how it happened.
    They just wanted part of the apartment,
    and there was no question that they took what they wanted.
    What were your feelings while staying there?
    Your own emotions?
    There was constant fear.
    They took my father's business away right away.
    It was a vital business.
    It was lumber, and they needed everything
    and especially lumber.
    So they took that from him immediately.
    So he was immediately devastated.
    And of course, there were right away shortages.
    There was a shortage of food and shortage of clothing.
    And Jewish children did not go back to school.
    They did not allow Jewish children to go back to school.
    And I was a school-aged child, naturally.
    And soon after we had to get out of the apartment
    that we lived because they made a ghetto in Czestochowa.
    I would say that it took maybe half a year, maybe 1940, maybe
    '41.
    I really don't--
    I don't remember exactly when it was that we--
    that they made a ghetto.
    So you know what that meant.
    They designated certain streets that the Jews could live,
    and they had to move out from wherever they were.
    And you were assigned, according to how many in your family,
    but very small quarters because they just pushed everybody
    together into a very small area.
    And we just got assigned a room.
    My father did not work, and I guess
    we lived on whatever my parents had.
    Either they had money or they were selling their jewelry
    or whatever possessions we had.
    And that's how we were surviving.
    By this time, had you lost track of your other relatives,
    the ones were with at an earlier point?
    No, the relatives that were living in Czestochowa
    were my father's relatives, because my father
    came from that town and everybody was still around.
    And also we knew about my mother's relatives,
    who lived in Bedzin because I think
    we communicated by mail still.
    We were able to communicate.
    So we knew that they are still there.
    What was life generally like for you in the ghetto?
    Well, at this particular time, in the very beginning,
    I guess the adults did not realize
    what is going to happen--
    what is happening.
    Or they didn't believe that it could get worse.
    And I think they also had hopes that the war is somehow
    going to end soon.
    And of course, they worried about us
    children not getting an education
    and losing time from school.
    So what happened was the teachers of the--
    Jewish teachers who teachers by profession had no--
    they couldn't do anything to support themselves.
    And the parents of us children wanted us to have an education.
    So what happened was that they created an underground school.
    So we were meeting in small groups in the teachers' homes,
    and so we're getting an education.
    And I was going to a school like that,
    because somehow life was still pretty
    normal under the circumstances.
    With that, we had a place to live,
    although it was much smaller, but we still
    were able to have a place to live.
    And we had the money to pay for this education,
    and the time to do it.
    So I did continue with my education
    like that I think for two years.
    Yeah.
    How long did you stay in the ghetto altogether?
    I stayed in the ghetto until they liquidated it.
    Or just about to the very end, which was until 1942.
    In the time prior to the liquidation,
    did you see a deterioration in the lives of people?
    Yes, absolutely.
    Because first the ghetto was open,
    which meant that the Jews could not go out of the ghetto
    but the Poles could move in the ghetto.
    But soon after they closed the ghetto,
    which meant that the Jews could not go out
    and the Poles could not come in.
    So that made it much, much harder,
    as far as acquiring food articles
    because prior to that closing of the ghetto
    there was a black market.
    People that had some money could buy on the black market.
    And there was an underground trade
    and a little more freedom.
    How soon after the establishment of the ghetto was it closed?
    You know, I don't know exactly, but maybe six months,
    maybe a year.
    Really, I don't remember anymore.
    I had these figures--
    years ago I remember it exactly, but I don't--
    So that for the larger proportion of time--
    It was closed.
    And of course, they were already at that point sending people
    out.
    There was they were bringing people in from other places,
    from other parts of Poland, and concentrating them.
    In Czestochowa, that meant that this ghetto
    was getting more congested.
    And we saw people come from different cities.
    They were just brought in, and they didn't have anything
    with them anymore, whatever they could carry perhaps
    in one suitcase.
    And we saw the devastation of the other people
    that were totally uprooted.
    We were uprooted from our home to a small, terrible place
    because, of course, you realize that the ghettos were always
    in the worst of neighborhoods, the poorest of neighborhoods,
    and the crummiest of apartments.
    That's where they pushed us in.
    But the people that they took from--
    that they brought from other towns were already--
    they already were missing probably parts
    of their families because they did not bring them together.
    Maybe they sent out the husband some place already
    to work camps.
    And there was already broken families--
    So these were already separated from each other.
    Separated people, broken families, with nothing
    except for what they carried on their backs
    and maybe in a small suitcase.
    So it created a terrible stress.
    And of course at that point, we were already wearing,
    naturally, the armbands first.
    And a matter of fact, I just recall
    an incident that happened, I think before we
    were put in the ghetto.
    The Jews had to wear armbands, which
    were white armbands with the white Star of David.
    And the children, the young children,
    were not required to wear them first, but I think at 11 or 12
    or something like that, you had to put it on.
    And I was once picked up by a German policeman
    for not wearing the armband.
    This was the [NON-ENGLISH].
    Do you know, the ones in those round helmets?
    Do you know which ones?
    Yes.
    Now imagine-- I think it was on a Saturday,
    and somehow it was still a semi-normal situation
    for a 10-year-old because I remember
    I was dressed up and going to my friends.
    And all of a sudden, I was picked up
    by this German policeman, and I was petrified.
    And he brought me home.
    He walked with me home, and he brought me to my mother.
    And I think when my mother saw me with this policeman,
    she almost had a heart attack because she
    didn't know what is going on.
    And he brought me there and told her that--
    how come I'm not wearing an armband.
    So this was--
    Must have been frightening.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Were there transports during the time?
    There were transports already.
    They were taking people.
    There were-- you see, the Germans
    started this very, very precisely.
    First they divested us of our possessions, our material
    possessions.
    They took the businesses away from the men,
    devastated them that way.
    Then they took us from our apartments that we lived in.
    They put us in the ghetto.
    First they put us in an open ghetto.
    Then they closed the ghetto.
    And then they started to take young men.
    They just caught them on the streets, or they had lists
    and they came to the houses and picked them up.
    Or the Jewish community had to--
    they had lists and they had to gather the young men or men
    and bring them to the Germans to go--
    they said for labor, for work.
    Right.
    And somehow, I think this is what
    happened to the Polish Jews.
    They very, very slowly and methodically put the screws in.
    And somehow by doing this, they made
    us think that maybe the very next thing that is happening
    is the worst, that we couldn't project that there
    is even worse to come.
    Yeah.
    So the idea was always to keep you a little bit off guard.
    A little off guard, and people just
    tend not to believe in the worst.
    And you know, you just don't want
    to think that it could be worse.
    So you did the best under the circumstances,
    and somehow you build up your strength
    to deal with the situation at hand.
    And also you prepared yourself slowly for the next thing,
    because I know that after a while
    we heard of the terrible things that
    were happening in other places.
    And slowly we heard that there were extermination camps,
    that they are taking people and gassing them.
    How did news--
    So you were hearing this.
    Where were you hearing this from?
    How were you getting this news?
    Well, from people that probably came back or ran away.
    And it filtered through from one to the other,
    and people heard about it.
    Of course, I know that it was very hard to believe,
    and we always thought that it might not be true.
    I think for self-preservation--
    You didn't want to believe it was true.
    Exactly.
    You couldn't go on on a daily basis thinking that this
    is going to be the end.
    In retrospect, do you think you were better off for holding
    on to that belief that it couldn't get worse?
    Yes.
    I think this is self-preservation
    because if you would know what awaits you,
    I think you would just have to take drastic steps,
    and some people did.
    Some people that commit suicide with their families.
    They couldn't deal with it, or they were very realistic.
    And you've heard of families just taking poison or doing
    all kinds of things like that.
    When was the ghetto liquidated?
    The ghetto was liquidated in 1942,
    and that was also done in steps.
    And this is a part which I think will interest you,
    because it happened just before Yom Kippur.
    You know, Germans usually chose big holidays
    for doing these terrible things and confronting Jews or making
    them unaware of things to come in times of holidays.
    Well, this was just before Yom Kippur.
    And one day we woke up and--
    they woke us up very early in the morning,
    and we heard that we have to all report to the railroad station.
    Now at that point, we knew that this is not good news,
    that things are very bad.
    We knew already about the Auschwitz at that point,
    or Treblinka, the other places.
    And we knew that going to a railroad station is the worst.
    An ominous, very ominous sign.
    Very ominous news.
    And prior to that, the people tried
    to protect themselves foolishly, but that was the syndrome--
    by thinking that if they will have papers,
    that they are working at some kind of a labor
    that is important to the Germans,
    that they will be protected.
    So although my husband--
    my father was not working at anything,
    but he was able to get some kind of a paper saying
    that he worked.
    And he also had papers for me that I worked.
    As a matter of fact, I did work at the time
    in some kind of a agricultural something or other.
    I remember once gathering tomatoes in a field.
    But my mother had no papers, no working papers.
    So on that morning when we were confronted with this--
    Having to go to the train station.
    Yes.
    I can't find the word that I'm looking for.
    My parents decided that since the two of us
    have the working papers, we will go,
    hoping that the ones that have the papers
    will be sent back home, and only the ones without papers
    will be taken to wherever.
    And since my mother didn't have any papers,
    it was decided that she's going to stay in the house and hide.
    Now there was no hiding place.
    We did not have any hiding place.
    So she was going to go to the attic and then just stay there.
    Did you have feelings about being separated from her?
    Because you spoke before about--
    Yes.
    But you know, this was--
    it was such a sudden thing that it--
    Didn't have time to think.
    No.
    There was no time to think at the moment.
    It was just an impulse decision.
    And I cannot-- I don't think I can convey to you,
    unless you remember watching any of the movies, Holocaust,
    of an action of that sort.
    The fear and the whole dynamics of the situation
    is just incredible.
    Anyway, we just took whatever was--
    because they said you can take whatever you can carry.
    And so we just took whatever.
    And we went.
    We went out of our house, and there were already
    hordes of people, and the Germans with their guns
    pointed, and the Polish police.
    They also had Ukrainian police that were helping them
    in this action.
    And it was just--
    it was terrible.
    And people with children and old and young,
    and people were just herded into the--
    towards the railroad station.
    And just as we were walking, my father
    pulled me off the street, and we ran into a yard.
    And we hid in a--
    as a matter of fact, it happened to be a lumber yard.
    Not his lumber yard, but a lumber yard that
    was on the way to the station.
    And we hid in the boards that were stacked up.
    It was just an impulse decision that he just pulled me
    because I guess he realized that all this paper, working papers,
    is--
    A facade.
    Wasn't going to help.
    A facade, and it's not going to do any good.
    And he just, I guess, impulsively
    wanted to save himself and me.
    And that's what happened.
    Well, we did stay a whole day in that lumber yard.
    And it wasn't a hiding place because it was just open.
    We just went in there.
    Just crouched somewhere.
    Just crouched under the--
    The lumber.
    Lumber, right.
    And so we heard a whole day terrible things
    because they were hurting the people a whole day.
    They had dogs.
    They were shooting.
    There were screams all around us.
    And we were just sitting there and biding our time,
    not knowing actually what will happen.
    And we were lucky that the dogs didn't find us
    and that the Germans didn't find us.
    And we were there until the night, until it got dark
    and it got quiet.
    And then my father decided that we
    should try to get back to our house
    and to get reunited, at least to see if my mother was still
    there.
    It wasn't very far from the house
    that we lived, that we were hiding.
    But it was a matter of crossing the street.
    And first of all, there was always a curfew.
    Jews were not allowed, even in the ghetto,
    Jews were not allowed to walk the streets at night.
    You know, after 9:00 o'clock--
    it 9:00 or 8:00 or whatever.
    I don't remember exactly--
    it was curfew even before.
    So there was no way of just being able to get up and walk.
    And of course there was German police and Polish police
    all over the streets that we had to cross.
    But we just decided to go.
    And we managed to slither around the sides.
    By this time was the tone entirely deserved?
    Well, this section, this particular section,
    because they did the Judenrein in sections.
    They did not do this to the whole town at once.
    It took two weeks.
    Neighborhood by neighborhood.
    Neighborhood by neighborhood, yes.
    So we lived somehow--
    there was a yard off the street, and we lived in the other--
    like past the yard.
    So we got to this first yard, and we had a bottle that was--
    there was an empty bottle that my father wanted
    to fill with water, because at that point, you know,
    we had no food.
    We didn't need a whole day.
    And I think that maybe we took that bottle out
    with us from home with some tea or whatever,
    but we drank it during the day.
    So he tried to fill this bottle up with water.
    And there was a spigot outside the yard.
    I mean, in the yard, not inside a house.
    And as we were standing there and my father
    was filling the water--
    the bottle with water, a Polish policeman got a--
    found us.
    And you know, what are you doing here?
    And my father tried to bribe him to just leave us alone,
    because at that point he wanted to take us to the Germans.
    He found these two Jews here running away.
    And he took off his watch that he still had on
    and some money that he had.
    And as we went out of the house, he gave me some money
    that I kept in my shoe.
    So he told me to take the money out of my shoe,
    and he gave it to the policeman.
    Somehow the policeman, the Polish policeman,
    either didn't want to risk taking it
    or he wanted to make sure that nobody's observing him.
    He said, you just wait here.
    And he went into the street, I don't know for what.
    But at that moment, I instinctively
    ran without telling my father, or without consulting him.
    I ran into the other part of the yard where our house was,
    and there was a garden behind.
    And I just ran into that garden, and I hid under some bushes.
    If you ask me what made me do it or why I did it
    or why I ran away without my father, I don't know.
    It was just an instinct that prodded me.
    It was the same reason that made your father take you out
    of line.
    Perhaps.
    Desperation.
    I-- yes, but I never could analyze for myself why I did
    this, being at that time, what?
    A 12-year-old.
    Yes.
    And I hid under the bushes and heard--
    and stayed there for a little while.
    This was middle of the night.
    I heard Germans or policemen, more policemen
    coming in and searching.
    And they searched in the garden that I was there, and somehow
    they just--
    I was crouched.
    I was small.
    I was crouching under some shrubs.
    And they didn't find me.
    Now, where my father was at that time, I don't know.
    What happened to him at the time that I
    was hiding in the shrubs?
    He didn't join me, and I didn't know where he is.
    After it got quiet, and the policemen didn't find me--
    somehow they just walked back to the street--
    I wanted to go into the house and see
    if I can find my mother.
    And I walked in, into the foyer like, and I saw in the dark
    that all the things were just pulled out of closets
    and of drawers, you know.
    And there was such disarray of things,
    and I got very frightened.
    What I was frightened of is seeing my mother dead,
    because I knew that when they find people hiding,
    they usually shoot them on sight.
    And somehow, that was in my head that I just
    can't see my mother laying dead there.
    So I just walked out right away, and I didn't continue.
    Later on I found out that my mother was there in the attic.
    They did not find her, or they didn't search for her
    at the time.
    And she was there, but because of this fear that I had,
    I couldn't go into the house to look,
    and I did not meet with her.
    I went back to the yard, to the garden,
    and I laid there in the shrubs.
    And I was thinking to myself, what am I going to do now?
    I couldn't sit there.
    I couldn't be there until the morning
    because then for sure somebody would find me.
    Now, the house and this garden was
    situated on the border of the ghetto, right--
    the garden was the end of the ghetto.
    The garden had a gate--
    not a gate a--
    yes, a gate.
    On the other side of the gate was
    a railroad track, an embankment and a railroad track.
    And on the other side was the Polish side.
    Now what I did was wait until the morning, very early
    morning, because the Poles are also had curfew,
    and they did not walk--
    they were not allowed to walk at night.
    So I waited until very early morning,
    until I saw that there is already some movement.
    I climbed the gate, which was quite tall,
    but somehow I managed.
    I had already one shoe, because when I ran from my father
    I took off one shoe to give him the money.
    So I had only one shoe.
    So that means I had no shoes because I
    couldn't walk in one shoe.
    So I was already barefooted.
    And the embankment, the railroad track embankment, was--
    there was-- the Germans were watching because this
    was the edge of the ghetto.
    So they knew that maybe somebody will try to escape.
    So there was a guard walking up and down the embankment.
    And I observed him, and when I saw that he went past
    where the garden was, away from me,
    I crawled up the railroad track and over the railroad track,
    and I was on the Polish side.
    Incredible.
    Well, where to go from there?
    I didn't really have any place to go except I remembered
    that our former neighbor, there was a grocery
    store that my mother used to buy groceries.
    And it was run by a Polish lady who was very nice,
    and she used to help us during the time of the ghetto.
    My mother used to sometimes go there
    and she gave my mother some more bread or some sugar
    or some flour that she could spare.
    My mother was buying it from her.
    And I thought that--
    oh, you probably heard before that the Germans made
    the Jews give their fur coats.
    First the jewelry, but also fur coats.
    We had to give up fur coats.
    Well, my mother had a fur coat, and my father
    had a fur coat, a lined coat with fur.
    That was quite valuable at the time.
    And instead of giving it up to the Germans,
    my mother gave it to this Polish lady that owned this grocery
    store, and I knew about it.
    So I knew that she's a nice woman.
    She didn't take it from her.
    She kept it for us.
    So I thought to myself, well, this is the only place
    that I can go.
    And this is where I went.
    It wasn't far to walk.
    Can I still have time to tell you this?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    As I was walking--
    as I told you, I was barefooted.
    I was a 12-year-old.
    I was already disheveled because I spent the night
    running and sleeping in bushes.
    And being terrified, I'm sure.
    And being terrified.
    And I knew that I have to look normal,
    that I cannot look scared because you know that the Poles
    were--
    It would arouse suspicion.
    --not exactly very friendly, and they were seeking out the Jews
    and reporting them.
    So I was scared.
    And as I was walking, I think I was either whistling to myself
    or skipping I think, trying to be very nonchalant.
    And behind me walked a Pole, and he probably
    was walking to work, and he knew exactly who I was, regardless
    of my nonchalant behavior.
    And he whispered in back of me.
    He said, you little Jewess-- because the Poles used to--
    there was the normal way of saying, [POLISH],,
    which is in Polish, "you little Jewish girl,"
    you better run because they are going to catch you.
    So he knew exactly who I am, but he was nice enough to warn me
    and not to drag me by my hair to report to me.
    And I did arrive at this Polish lady,
    and I knocked on her door.
    And when she opened it, she almost
    had a heart failure because she didn't expect me,
    and she was very, very scared.
    Well, she took me in.
    And she fed me, and I stayed there for the day.
    But at night she came, and she said that she's
    very afraid to keep me.
    First of all, the Poles were very afraid
    because they were threatened.
    The Germans threatened them that they will kill them together
    with the Jews if they find anybody hiding Jews.
    And also the area was my former neighborhood,
    so people knew me.
    And she said if anybody will see you,
    they will know who you are, and I just can't keep you.
    She said, you have to go.
    And also there were rumors, of course,
    scary rumors that the Germans are going to search
    the area for the Jews.
    Do you want me to stop?
    At this point, I think we will stop you.
    We reached a very pivotal point, and we'll
    continue with our discussion after a short break.
    OK.
    Very good.
    It will give us a breather.
    We'd like to resume our discussion now
    with Mrs. Halina Kleiner.
    Would you like to continue?
    Yes, I think I remember where we stopped.
    I think I was at the point where I told you
    that the lady decided I better go out,
    because she was very scared for herself.
    And for me, she came and said, I'm
    afraid they'll find you here and I'll kill you
    and you have to go.
    Well, you have to go.
    I have to go.
    I absolutely had no place to go.
    But she gave me a bag of food.
    She gave me I think a loaf of bread and a bottle with tea,
    and some hard boiled eggs.
    And she did give me some shoes, some wooden shoes,
    because I had no shoes.
    As I remember, it was September.
    It was September.
    It was still warm.
    But of course, I couldn't just walk barefooted.
    And she didn't have any proper shoes,
    but she had some wooden shoes that she gave me.
    And so I put them on, and towards the evening,
    I walked out.
    And I just had no idea what to do.
    I wished I was together with all the Jews.
    But I was scared.
    With all the Jews who had gone--
    Who had gone wherever.
    Just to be with someone.
    Just imagine being alone, and not having anybody to go
    to, and not knowing where to go, and not having--
    I had no money.
    And even money wouldn't have helped.
    Well, what I did was, go to the cloister,
    to this-- that I told you before,
    it was the cloister is at one end of the town.
    It's like on the edge of town.
    And what moved me, I don't know.
    I just thought that, well, it's away from a lot of people.
    And maybe I thought of going out of town, maybe
    to a village or something.
    But it was already nighttime.
    And I didn't want to walk at night.
    So I just thought to myself to go there, in that direction,
    and stay, maybe just lay down, and you
    know, on the ground and then--
    I don't know.
    Maybe I thought that people there would not harm me.
    I really don't know why I went there.
    Anyway, I did go and I laid down in the church
    under an embankment.
    And I either slept, or just laid there,
    and waited until the morning.
    And this was a Saturday, I remember.
    It was a Saturday night.
    And early in the morning, I got up.
    Because I knew that I can't just lay there.
    And you know, the Poles knew exactly who the Jews are.
    You couldn't really hide.
    And I was a Semitic looking child.
    I didn't have blonde hair.
    My hair was dark, and dark eyes and.
    Even if you were blonde, they knew that were Jewish.
    Somehow, they were able to distinguish Jews.
    So I got up very early in the morning,
    and I started walking down the road away from the town.
    And I thought to myself, maybe if I
    come to some kind of a village, maybe I'll be able to hide out.
    I just didn't have any thoughts or any plan,
    because there was no way to have a plan.
    I walked for maybe three kilometers or so,
    and I came upon the village.
    And since it was Sunday morning, the village
    was quiet, because they didn't get up as early as weekdays.
    And there was nobody around.
    And I just walked.
    And all of a sudden, I spotted a burned out little house.
    Now, a Polish village then, looked
    very much like what you would see
    in picture books, thatched roofs, and a little road,
    and small houses on each side.
    And maybe I don't know, how many houses,
    but you could count them, maybe to 20, or maybe less.
    I don't know.
    Well, I saw this burned out little house.
    There were just walls.
    The walls were burned out.
    There was a roof.
    And I walked inside of there and, I looked around
    for a place, maybe thinking, maybe I
    can hide there for a few days.
    And there was a chimney, a brick chimney,
    that was standing that wasn't burned, because it was brick.
    And I was able to-- don't ask me how,
    but I had this package of food that I couldn't part with,
    because I knew that I needed to eat something if I I'm going
    to hide for a few days.
    So I had a belt around my coat, and I
    discovered that there was a horseshoe built
    in to this brick chimney, like halfway.
    And I guess if you have to, you improvise.
    And I tied this package of food with my belt to this horseshoe,
    and somehow, I was able to get myself
    up that brick chimney to this loft, to this attic loft.
    And once I got up there, I just leaned down
    and pulled that package of food up.
    And all of a sudden, I found myself in this hayloft.
    It wasn't really a hayloft.
    It was like a roof, a [? natted ?] roof,
    and there was some straw.
    And all of a sudden, it was very comfortable.
    I was there.
    I had a roof over my head.
    I had the loaf of bread and a bottle of tea,
    and some hard boiled eggs.
    And I said to myself, well, I'm going
    to stay here, and as long as I can.
    And if I ration my food, I can last.
    How wide was this was the circumference
    of this whole area?
    Maybe a little bigger than the stage, maybe a little bigger
    than the stage.
    Because these houses were really very small.
    It was like a one room house, or maybe a two room house.
    And this attic was just above that house
    with a thatched roof.
    And I was able to observe the life of that village.
    Now, this house was across from a another house
    that people lived.
    And I looked through the boards, you know.
    They weren't very tight.
    There were spaces between.
    And I watched this family get up in the morning.
    And there were children, and they worked.
    They had animals.
    And a Sunday passed, and I ate a slice of bread,
    and I drank a drop of tea.
    And somehow, I managed.
    I was hungry, but I guess I had still enough on me,
    on my body to last.
    And you were conserving food.
    I was conserving food.
    And actually, I just knew that I'd better.
    And I slept that night, and it was quite comfortable,
    because there was straw.
    And it was great.
    I somehow felt safe.
    But then in the morning, I was awakened by a commotion.
    And I saw that some people arrived.
    I don't know from where, with a wagon,
    and to this family that I was observing.
    And they went to the fields.
    And they were digging for potatoes.
    It was the harvest.
    And they dug a whole day.
    I later on I that they were digging the potatoes out
    from the ground.
    And towards the end of the day, the two men
    walked in to underneath where I was laying,
    to this burned out house.
    And all of a sudden, I heard them
    say that they are going to just take a look
    to see what's going up there.
    And I can't begin to tell you how I felt.
    I just didn't know what to do with myself.
    I just knew it was dark in that area,
    and I crept into the corner.
    And I just curled up and I was hoping
    that maybe they would just take a look and they won't see me.
    But they jumped up there, and they looked around.
    And as they got used to the darkness,
    they naturally saw me there.
    And they were very astounded to see, and they said,
    who are you?
    What are you doing?
    And I gave them a story, that I thought I'm giving them
    a story that I lost my parents.
    I don't some, kind of baloney.
    Which of course, they didn't buy.
    And they knew.
    They said right away, you are Jewish girl, and you ran away.
    And they said, it's all right.
    Don't worry.
    We are not going to harm you.
    And at that point, the man that came that morning
    told me that he came from the town.
    And that they are still doing the action,
    that it's still going on.
    And he told me that there are some Jews that they took,
    and put in a certain place.
    He told me the location where they are, that they
    are working from there.
    It was an old movie which was located near the big church
    that I told you about.
    And he told me that they took a few hundred Jews,
    and they were there just as a point of interest.
    But they said, you can stay here.
    And don't worry, we are not going
    to reveal that you are here.
    And the man that lives across is going to bring you food.
    And you can stay as long as you can stay.
    So I was relieved.
    At least there was somebody that knew about me.
    And I was hoping that they meant what
    they said, that they are not going to turn around and bring
    some Germans, and drag me out, which happened a lot of times,
    whether that scenario happened more often than the other way.
    But I was lucky that they were decent people.
    And at night, they brought a stepladder as it got dark,
    and the children were asleep, and the village was quiet.
    They brought a stepladder, and they took me down,
    and they brought me to their house, and I could wash up.
    They gave me something warm to drink.
    And then they brought me back and I slept in the loft.
    Were these men with families of their own children?
    Yes, yes, yes, and somehow, they probably
    identified they were good people.
    And I was there for three days.
    And they used to bring me food three times a day,
    so I didn't have to ration my own food anymore,
    at least I didn't have to worry about food.
    It was more than three days.
    It was almost a week that I was there.
    Towards the end of the week, I was awakened one early morning.
    I heard somebody came, and there was some commotion.
    And all of a sudden, the man from the village
    came up and said, you know, we just
    heard that the Germans are looking for Jews.
    Because they know that some ran away.
    And he's so scared that they are going to come by here.
    And he said, I don't want them to find you here and kill you,
    because I'm scared.
    He was scared for himself, that they might
    think that he was helping.
    And they didn't want to see anything terrible happen,
    because it's not very pleasant to be
    a witness to some atrocities happening
    in front of your eyes.
    Some people thrive on it.
    Some other people can't watch it.
    But mainly, they were scared for themselves.
    They didn't want to be involved.
    And they said, you must leave.
    So again, I was faced with the predicament of,
    where am I going to go now?
    Well, at that point, I decided that I can't take this anymore,
    that I can't be hiding.
    Because there is nobody that is going
    to take me in and help me.
    And I couldn't deal with it.
    And I decided that I rather be with everybody else,
    and whatever happens to everybody, will happen to me.
    And it's fine.
    I can't deal with this by myself.
    I just didn't have the stamina or the strength.
    So in my head, I decided to go back to town.
    And I remembered that he told me that some of the Jews
    were in a certain area.
    And I thought that maybe, I'll be able to infiltrate the back,
    and be with the Jews, and come what may.
    And that's what happened.
    I walked back that morning, and I knew where this place was.
    And sure enough, the Jews were there.
    This was an old movie house that they
    converted to a holding area.
    And from there, in the morning, people
    they took them to certain workshops.
    So in the morning, they brought everybody out.
    And there was a water wagon, water dripping,
    and people took water to drink and they washed up.
    And they assign people to go to work.
    And as they were milling around--
    and this was in the middle of the street,
    and Poles were walking around.
    So I could just mingle.
    And I observed what is going on.
    And at one point, I just snuck in,
    and instead of pretending to be on the other side,
    I was back being a Jew together with everybody else.
    And the people around me realized that I came in.
    And of course, they just put some arm band on me,
    because everybody was wearing it,
    so that I wouldn't be conspicuous.
    You were immediately recognized by them.
    So they--
    Yes, of course.
    Of course.
    And I think we got some bread to eat,
    some loaf, or a little piece of bread to eat.
    And we were assigned to work.
    And we were cleaning a park.
    We were cleaning the leaves, or digging something, or whatever.
    I don't know.
    And I must tell you, that I was so
    happy to be back together with my people,
    that I worked that day like a maniac.
    Still, you must realize that I was a very young child.
    And there were older people there.
    There wasn't just children.
    There were just mainly young people, because the old ones,
    they took to the trains.
    So they told me to just take it easy.
    But you know, I couldn't explain to them how I feel,
    that I was so elated to be with everybody,
    and not to have to worry about what is going to happen
    to me the next minute.
    I mean, I knew that things are not good,
    but whatever will happen with everybody,
    will just happen with me.
    And at that point, it was fine.
    So even though you knew that you could manage
    for a time on your own, you could survive in solitude,
    it was more important to be with others.
    No, it wasn't the solitude.
    Because I couldn't survive, if I would
    have known that I could survive on the outside,
    I would have taken that sense.
    It just that I knew that I cannot survive.
    Because you see that twice they told me that I have to go.
    So there was no way.
    Where could I have gone?
    To another village?
    You felt the same thing would have just reoccurred.
    Not that, but maybe the next time I would have met
    some people that were hostile.
    They would have turned you in.
    Or the Germans.
    They also knew that people ran away.
    And you know, I wasn't looking very kosher anymore.
    Because I was on the run.
    I was a fugitive.
    I was a Jewish fugitive.
    So I felt safe being with everybody.
    And I realized consciously that whatever happens,
    even if they take us to the trains, and they gas us
    tomorrow, this is what will happen
    with me that will happen with everybody else.
    So it was a sense of fatality?
    A sense of acceptance.
    Right.
    At least I couldn't just think for myself,
    and run by myself at that point.
    As a 12-year-old child, to be all
    alone without having anybody must have been terrifying.
    Yeah, yeah.
    So just to have other people around.
    The security of my own people around me.
    I could understand that.
    I felt safe with everybody.
    Now, you probably won't believe what I'll tell you next.
    But when we came back to this place at night, as I said,
    this was a movie house.
    And the accommodations were the floor,
    the bare floor with some straw.
    And a few people were just lined up on both sides of the--
    or maybe a row in the middle, and just people
    were lying down.
    And I happened to just lay down here, I don't know.
    I guess I just lay down, and there was a man near me.
    And he saw me come in.
    He knew that I just came in.
    And he started to ask me, who I am, what is my name.
    And I told him.
    And I said, yes, I said I just came.
    He said, what is your name again?
    And I told him.
    And he said, just wait here a minute.
    I have to check something out.
    And he went to the other part of this area, and he came back.
    And he whispered to me, your father is here.
    And I just couldn't believe it.
    I said, well, show me where.
    I want to see him.
    And he said, your father doesn't want to make a commotion now,
    because he doesn't want anybody to know about it.
    Because he was afraid that maybe somebody will say something,
    and maybe the Germans will hear.
    You know, people were just scared.
    And my father I think, this was something
    that happened to him right after the Germans came.
    And they divested him of his manhood by taking away
    his business, and his way of making a living,
    that he became very scared.
    He was almost scared of his shadow.
    He used to be afraid to walk in the street.
    Because I remember, he used to sometimes come home and say,
    that they looked at him, that the Germans were--
    And it so happened, I remember that my mother
    became at that point, the strong one in the family
    to take charge of surviving.
    That if she had to go and get some food from the Polish lady,
    it was her that went, and perhaps, took off her arm band
    when the ghetto was still open.
    My father was very scared.
    So I'm telling you this for you to understand
    why he was scared to come to me at that particular moment.
    He just wanted it to--
    He wanted to be inconspicuous.
    Inconspicuous.
    He was afraid of maybe somebody is
    going to denounce me to the Germans,
    and something will happen.
    But the man said, in the morning when everybody goes out
    to the street, then you will meet him.
    And it won't be as conspicuous.
    And sure enough, imagine how I waited for this morning.
    And it finally came, and we walked out, he was there.
    My father was there.
    And we were reunited.
    But unfortunately, for a very, very short time.
    Because that same morning, they made another selection.
    And they told us that we are not going to go to work,
    because they are making another selection.
    You know what a selection is?
    Well, my father was very scared that they would take me.
    Because I was a child, and they didn't keep children.
    So he told me to take some makeup, some rouge
    from an older woman, and put some maybe on my face,
    so that I look a little older.
    And that I should stand erect.
    I should look well.
    Because he was afraid that they'll take me.
    But they took a couple hundred men, and he was among them.
    And they took them that same morning.
    And that was the very last time that I saw my father.
    He also told me that while I was in the house running away,
    he told me that my mother was there, at
    and that they took her away with a transport.
    They found her eventually, and they brought her
    to another selection point.
    And she went on the trains with everybody else.
    Where they took him, I really don't
    know if they took the men to Treblinka at that point,
    or I don't know.
    Well, I was there.
    I was left.
    And at that point, I knew that I'm all alone,
    but I guess the survival instinct
    is in every human being.
    And I was surviving.
    There was a factory.
    Now, before that they finally finished the Judenrein.
    That means that they cleaned out the whole city.
    And they left a few thousand people.
    And they incarcerated us in a very small area
    in the ghetto, very tiny area.
    And they used some of us to clean out the ghetto.
    That meant that we were going from house to house,
    and assorting all the things that people left, you know,
    bedding, and clothing, and pots, and pans, out from the houses
    down to the yards.
    And they were utilizing it.
    I don't know what they did they needed at that point.
    They needed to do many things for the front,
    and for the soldiers.
    I don't know what they did with it,
    but they were we were the Kommandos that
    did this type of work.
    I happened to be in one of the Kommandos
    that cleaned out my house.
    And when I came there, whatever was there,
    I was able to gather all my pictures.
    And I was able to smuggle them into the ghetto.
    You see, people used to smuggle things,
    you know, and yourself, you try to bring
    into the ghetto little items, like a sheet, or whatever,
    because you could bargain or barter for some food.
    But you risked your life.
    Because every time that you came back into the ghetto,
    they searched.
    It was almost a bodily search.
    And people just risked their lives.
    And some of them were killed for a sheet.
    Because they found it on you.
    But pictures were very, very important,
    because this was your identity.
    This was what was left.
    And when I saw all these pictures,
    I wasn't going to just leave them.
    I took whatever I could.
    And I managed to bring them back to the ghetto.
    And I had them with me.
    How did you transport them?
    How did you carry them?
    On myself.
    You didn't have a coat, did you?
    Yeah, whatever I had, I stuffed them in my pants,
    or I don't remember, under my blouse.
    But we managed.
    They didn't search everybody.
    They maybe spot checked.
    But I was able to do that.
    And after a while, I got another work detail.
    There was a factory, a big factory,
    that was making the ammunition.
    It was called HASAG.
    And they took me to work there.
    At first, I was peeling potatoes.
    And then they put me on the machine
    that was making bullets.
    And I remember there was a little like a hand
    machine that made some kind of identification,
    I think, like a press.
    And I worked for a while.
    And the life was very, very deteriorating.
    It was very bad.
    And it was it was very dehumanizing.
    And I was alone.
    And I decided that I'm going to run away.
    Now, I thought that my family, my mother's family
    is still in the other town in Silesia in Benzin.
    And I decided to try to smuggle myself there,
    at least to be with some family, and not to just be alone.
    Now, I must say, that it was really very enterprising of me.
    I don't know how I--
    really, I don't know how I did it, and what moved me.
    But that's what happened I decided
    to ask the lady, the Polish lady,
    to give me back the fur coats so that I can sell them,
    and have some money.
    And I knew that there are possibilities,
    because I heard from other people
    that there are smugglers, Polish people, for money
    will try to smuggle you with Polish papers.
    And somehow, I got a hold of somebody
    that said yes, it's possible.
    And for a few thousand zlotys, it's possible.
    So I sent somebody to this Polish lady,
    and she gave me back to furs.
    And this man, who was a Jewish man, sold them,
    gave me the money, and I arranged for a smuggler.
    There was one house where there was a detail, where
    all the best tailors, and shoe makers,
    and furriers worked for the Germans.
    And this was outside of that very concentrated ghetto
    part, this less ghetto part.
    This was a little bit on the outside.
    And people from this concentrated small ghetto
    went to work in that special house.
    So it was arranged that one morning,
    I will go with the detail of people
    that went to that part, which was outside this ghetto.
    And I will meet the smugglers there.
    And they'll smuggle me from there.
    I didn't know exactly how and what, and what will transpire.
    But I took my life in my hands, and I decided to do this.
    And sure enough, one morning when I started to arrange this,
    I somehow had to get out of sight.
    So I had to stop going to this work detail.
    So I found a bunker that people were
    hiding in the small ghetto.
    And it so happened that there was
    some family members of my family that my aunt was hiding there,
    and her daughter, who was still working like I was.
    She survived all the selections.
    And she was still in the detail.
    So she told me about this bunker.
    And they let me stay there for a few days
    until all these arrangement's was.
    Now, why did I have to get out?
    Because the conditions were becoming very, very bad,
    the living conditions.
    I was already lousy.
    I had lice in my hair.
    And I couldn't keep clean.
    And I just felt that if this will continue,
    I won't be able to survive.
    I just felt that I have to do something
    to get out, to save myself.
    And this is I guess, what went on through my head.
    And sure enough, when these arrangements
    were finalized, one day, I went to this house
    and I waited there.
    And there was another couple, there
    were another couple of people.
    There was another young boy that also that unknowing to me,
    but he also wanted to smuggle through to this area
    where I wanted to go, because he had family there too.
    So the same smugglers were going to take us.
    So we met these people, and they took us out.
    All I took is my pictures.
    They didn't have anything to take.
    But I didn't want to part with the picture.
    I had a box, full box of pictures.
    And they said sure, sure, you can take the pictures with you.
    And they took us to their house in the Polish area,
    and we waited there overnight.
    And then in the morning, we were going
    to smuggle, to smuggle ourselves--
    all right, now, I must tell you that, the area that I wanted
    to go, the Germans annexed.
    They called it the Third Reich.
    The area that my town was in was the [? general ?]
    [? government. ?] That was the Polish area.
    But this Silesia, was near the German border--
    Had already been taken by Germany.
    They annexed it.
    So that meant that there was a border.
    It was Poland.
    And before the war, it was all Poland.
    But since they made new borders, so we had to smuggle a border.
    So we did this--
    they call it smuggling a green border in the fields,
    sometimes in the morning, the early morning.
    And we did.
    And when we crossed that border, then we went to the next town,
    and we boarded a train.
    Now, they gave me some papers.
    Now, supposedly, a birth certificate
    with some Polish names.
    And they said, your name is this and this.
    And they didn't travel with us.
    They traveled supposedly, in another wagon,
    or they didn't travel at all.
    They just put me on the train.
    And that was it
    But they said, you know what, don't take the pictures.
    Because they'll catch you with the pictures
    it won't be so good or whatever.
    We'll send the pictures to you.
    So we just left the pictures at that point.
    There was no way that I was going to argue about pictures.
    So I left the pictures behind, and we successfully smuggled
    through the green border, got on the train,
    and managed to arrive in the south in the town
    that I was going to, to Bedzin.
    I came there, and I was on my own again.
    My family did not live anymore where they used to live,
    because there was a ghetto there too.
    So they were already dislocated.
    I So first, I had to find out where the ghetto was.
    Then I had to go to the ghetto.
    And this was already a strange town.
    This wasn't my town.
    So it was that much harder to navigate there.
    And I had no papers.
    Because there, you needed special papers.
    Since this was the German Reich, the Jews
    needed special papers there.
    Well, anyway, I managed to get into the ghetto
    without being observed or apprehended.
    And my family was a prominent family.
    So when I asked people if they are there and where they lived,
    I was directed to my grandfather's house.
    And I came.
    And they were already in a little room in the ghetto,
    and they were already dislocated,
    and in very bad shape, very scared, and very frightened.
    And when I opened the door, they just
    didn't know what to make of it.
    And they couldn't imagine how I arrived there.
    And I remember my grandmother looking behind me.
    This was your mother's mother?
    My mother's mother, yes, to whom I was very close.
    Because she was the only daughter
    that lived in a different town.
    So that made me special, because I was the only grandchild that
    wasn't in the immediate area.
    And I used to come there for vacations and for holidays.
    So you were always the guest?
    I was the guest, and special because of that.
    And I loved my grandfather.
    He was a wonderful man.
    And my grandmother was a very strong and very powerful lady.
    I used to go on vacations together
    with her before the war with my mother and her mother,
    and myself, we used to go.
    But when she saw me, she looked behind me
    to see if her daughter was coming.
    And when they realized, and I told them
    that nobody is there any more, that I made it on my own,
    of course, they were very happy to see me.
    But the situation wasn't very good there either.
    Because it was the same situation that I left behind.
    It was even worse because I was illegal.
    That meant that I couldn't even walk the streets of the ghetto
    because I did not have papers.
    And it was almost impossible to get papers,
    even if you had influence.
    And I had still my uncles there who
    were influential in the town, but they couldn't do anything.
    They could not produce papers for me.
    So that meant that I had to hide.
    And if I walked on the street, it
    was always a danger that the police will pick me up.
    Because they were making roundups,
    and they were making checks for identifications all the time.
    And also, they were grabbing people either off the street,
    or from at night.
    And twice, I was caught by the police.
    Once, from the street, and I was apprehended
    I think, by the Jewish police.
    Because they also were looking for IDs.
    This was in Bedzin.
    In Bedzin, yes.
    And my uncle, my mother's oldest brother,
    was somehow able to get me out.
    And once they were making a round up at night,
    and they weren't looking for me in particular,
    but they came to wherever they came,
    they wanted identifications.
    And if you couldn't identify yourself, they took you.
    And this was the second time that they grabbed me
    from my grandfather's house, a room, not house.
    And it was terrible.
    The ones that they caught like that, they were sent
    to Auschwitz most of the time.
    So twice, they were able to get me out.
    I was there for a few months.
    And then it became very tough, because there
    was one action after another.
    And nobody was safe.
    And it was the same situation.
    They thought the ones that have papers and have working places,
    and one working place is better than the other.
    This whole business was going on in every city
    that they tried to give you false security.
    They told you, well, you have to work,
    and you have to have papers.
    And the Jews thought that while they are working
    and the papers are going to save them.
    It was all a charade.
    And I just had enough of it.
    I decided that I'm going to go into a labor camp.
    How do you say--
    Of work.
    No, but on my own.
    Volunteer.
    Voluntarily.
    I had the German word, freiwillige,
    but I couldn't think of the word--
    Of your own volition.
    Yes.
    And again, what possessed me, I don't know.
    Because nobody volunteered to go to camp.
    Nobody.
    People ran away and hid, and did everything not to go to camp.
    But I said, well, I have no choice.
    Because if they take me, they will send me to Auschwitz.
    So perhaps, if I go to camp, I will have a chance to work
    and maybe I'll survive.
    So I came to my grandfather, and they were already
    hiding, because they were older people,
    and they couldn't walk the streets.
    Because they were taking the old people, and they
    were cutting the beards.
    I remember my grandfather wore a kerchief to hide his beard,
    you know, he was walking with a kerchief tied around his head
    to hide his beard.
    It was a terrible situation.
    And it was such indignity.
    It was incredibly inhuman.
    And I came to him, and he was in hiding.
    And I said, grandfather, I'm going to go
    to volunteer to go to camp.
    And at that time, there were a lot of my family members
    were still around in town, and somehow, everybody
    was waiting, you know, hoping that a miracle will happen
    and they'll survive, but there was no miracle coming.
    So he said, look child, I cannot tell you what to do.
    You have to do what you feel that you want to do.
    And I decided, yes, this is what I want to do.
    And this is what I did.
    I came to the police, and I said, I want to go to camp.
    And they took me, and they sent me to camp.
    And two weeks later, this area was
    Judenrein, that means that--
    It was liquidated.
    Everybody was liquidated.
    My grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, the children,
    everybody that was there went.
    And I went to camp.
    It so happened that they sent me to a very nice camp.
    At that time, there were still labor camps.
    This was end of 1942, '42 or '43, I'll tell you,
    I think '42.
    I think you'll have to check this,
    because I can't remember already.
    I was there about half a year in this town.
    And this was in the fall.
    Or could be '43?
    I think maybe '43.
    So there was no concentration camps.
    They were labor camps.
    The concentration camps were the big ones in Germany.
    And they had Auschwitz.
    They had Dachau.
    They had Birkenau.
    They had the big ones.
    But the small labor camps were staffed by the Wehrmacht,
    not by the SS.
    So military.
    They were still military.
    This was the distinction.
    There were labor camps, and from the labor camps,
    they did not exterminate.
    Only if you did something, and they
    found you doing some kind of they decided was a crime.
    Or if the people got very sick, and then they
    took them to Auschwitz.
    Well, they sent me with a group of young girls
    that they caught on a selection to a camp
    by the name of Bolkenhain.
    This was a weaving factory.
    It was in Germany.
    It was a comparatively small camp.
    It was an established camp, with maybe 150 young women,
    mostly from the area of Beelitz, which
    is a town right on the German border where a lot of people
    were bilingual, German and Polish.
    And the circumstances there were considerably good.
    The living circumstances were all right.
    We had--
    You got sufficient food.
    Bunks, yes, sufficient food.
    And so ways of keeping clean.
    And it was decent.
    As labor camps go, this was a prize.
    So I was extremely lucky to have been sent at this time
    to such a good camp.
    And we worked in the weaving factory.
    They needed us for work, because the men were in the army,
    the German men were in the army.
    Did you work on uniforms, or--
    No, we were weaving fabric.
    And they were blanket fabrics, and parachute fabrics,
    and all kinds of different fabrics at the time, whatever
    they needed for the war effort.
    But there were big weaving machines.
    And they taught us how to work these machines.
    And Jewish girls are pretty brainy,
    and didn't take us very long to learn.
    Yeah, we were operating their factories
    under supervision of some old men that
    were not able to go to work, that
    were old masters in this trade.
    So what happened was, we got up in the morning, went to work,
    worked 12 hours, came back, and were
    incarcerated in this camp area.
    But it was decent.
    But it didn't last very long, because they
    converted this factory into an ammunition factory.
    And I don't know whom they staffed it with,
    but they send us to another place.
    They separated the women that were there, and sent us
    to three different other camps.
    And I wound up in a camp, which was also a weaving factory,
    which was called Landshut.
    And I really don't know how far from this Bolkenhain
    that Landshut was, because they just took us on the train.
    And frankly, I don't think I ever looked at a map
    to see after the war to where this was located.
    And there, we also worked in the same factories.
    They were spinning factories.
    You know, you were spinning the thread, and weaving,
    and the whole operation.
    But in that place, they made us work the night shift.
    They had some Germans working day shift.
    And we worked night shift.
    We worked for nine months nights.
    No changeover.
    We slept during the day, and we went to work at night.
    We worked 12 hours at night.
    The conditions there were already
    inferior to the ones in the first camp,
    but they were still comparatively decent.
    Was this camp more crowded than the first thing one?
    No, it was a small camp.
    It was even less women there.
    We were there maybe 100, or over 100 Jewish women.
    And we had like a big loft with bunk beds.
    There were just rows of bunk beds, and two to a bed.
    But we had some place to lay down our heads,
    and they did give us some food.
    It was a starvation diet, but we did get three meals.
    And we worked.
    At this point Mrs. Kleiner, I want to stop for a moment
    and ask you whether you would like to continue today?
    Or whether you would like possibly
    to come back another time when we
    could complete the interview.
    What do we have?
    A quarter to five.
    Yes.
    You think we should maybe stop and continue at another time?
    Because I don't think that if you want the whole story,
    I don't know if it'll be--
    It's not going to be possible for us to do it
    all in the next five minutes, certainly,
    the story of the rest of your ordeal, and your survival.
    I would hope, perhaps, that you might come back another time.
    I think it'll be good idea.
    And Robin will be working with you and me.
    We'll continue the story.
    Because I think you've left us at a point
    where we're breathless.
    And I just would like to--
    There was lots more to--
    I feel that there is.
    And we don't want to make short shrift of it.
    And we want to carry this through.
    OK.
    If you want more details, then it'll
    probably take another tape.
    At least.
    Or more.
    I sense that.
    Yeah, OK.
    I think we could have a sign off now temporarily.
    And we want to thank you for what you have told us so far.
    The story is far from over.
    But we anticipate very, very soon
    that you'll be able to tell us the rest of the story.
    And what we hope will be in your case, certainly, a happier
    ending than the events that preceded.
    Thank you very much.
    Thank you so much.
    [MUSIC PLAYING]
    We'd like to welcome you back, Halina.
    One of the things that you had mentioned last time
    was some of the relationships that developed
    during the course of the year.
    Could you tell us a little about those relationships?
    Definitely.
    I think that this is a very important part, which
    I want to talk about.
    When I came into camp--
    to the labor camp, I met a group of young girls
    that came there together because they worked prior
    to being sent to this camp.
    They worked together, so they were a group
    already of a group of friends.
    And I was alone, and they somehow
    befriended me and for which I was very thankful.
    And I formed a very close relationship
    with two of the young girls.
    One survived, and the other fortunately didn't.
    But I want to talk about how close we became.
    What were their names?
    There was Lili [? Zilbiger ?],, and the other one was Helenka
    [? Spiegelman ?].
    And they were lovely, lovely girls and we were
    from the same background and that's
    why we were able to relate to each other
    because somehow the family sent--
    and religiously and everything was very similar.
    And they served that purpose as family since you lost so many--
    Yes, yes, very much so.
    And we became very, very close to such a point where I--
    we shared our food and we ate together
    and we used to save our--
    let's say if we got a portion of bread--
    one portion of bread that had to last us for a whole day,
    rather so that we would not eat the whole thing at once
    that you tended to because the portions were very, very small
    and the tendency was to just eat whatever
    you had and then not have anything at all,
    we used to eat one portion and hide the other two.
    So we split the first portion between us,
    and we shared the other two for lunch
    and for dinner or whatever.
    So this made the physical deprivations and everything
    easier to bear because you were sharing--
    Sharing and--
    The responsibility.
    Yes and also you couldn't--
    if you had any honor, which we all had,
    you couldn't take more or go in and eat the other portion.
    So that helped us to share in this food
    and have it so that you didn't gorge on it while you
    were so very hungry.
    You were able to have a little more for the whole day.
    And we-- and socially we used to tell each other
    about our families and about our experiences.
    We were very young girls you must understand this.
    You were all the same age?
    Lili was a year-- is a year older than I am,
    and Helenka was the same age.
    As it turned out, we talked to each other
    and discovered that Helenka and myself were related
    through some distant families.
    Of course, we were very young and I
    lived in a different town, so we didn't know the people.
    But talking long enough, we realized that we
    have a certain relationship--
    a physical relationship also.
    Did that cement the bond even more strongly between you.
    More so.
    Also I--
    Would have been there anyway.
    Yes.
    It really wouldn't have mattered.
    Just that we had some more connection and some people
    to talk about that--
    More in common.
    Yes.
    But we formed-- this was a very close relationship,
    but there was like an extended family.
    The other people were also very close to us, and they formed--
    the other girls formed also close little groups.
    But all of us really supported each other,
    and I just want to talk about it because I
    want you to realize how important it
    is that the Germans tried to strip us
    of this humanity, of this ability
    to think about other people not only yourself.
    And they weren't able to do that we were--
    we looked out for each other, and we
    would have risked our lives for each other, which
    in many cases people did and helped each other.
    And this was a factor and being able to survive
    because you were not an animal, and that's
    what they tried to create.
    They tried to create this animal instinct in one but--
    It sounds like these two women really served
    as your nuclear family, that groups formed,
    and that you cared for these people
    like you would have your nuclear family.
    Right.
    Were you together in both Bolkenhain and Landeshut?
    At Landeshut, and then from Landeshut--
    we were in Landeshut.
    Let me continue with the story.
    We were sent after nine months that we were sent to a third
    camp Grünberg.
    This was already an existing camp.
    It was a larger--
    it was still a labor camp, but it was a much larger facility.
    They sent us out of Landeshut I think because they did not need
    or they didn't--
    they weren't working this factory anymore.
    I think they were closing it or they
    were refurbishing it for ammunition or something
    like that.
    Was Grünberg a weaving factory?
    Was also basically a weaving-- weave--
    very large weaving and spinning and making their raw fiber
    before the spinning.
    It was-- the whole spectrum of weaving
    was contained in this factory, and when we arrived there,
    the small group from Landeshut, and a couple
    of other small camps, this was already
    as I said an existing camp.
    There was about 1,000 women there--
    The three of you were together at that--
    Working.
    Yes, we were together.
    And the people that-- the new people that came
    were given a separate hall.
    And if you want me to describe the facilities in this camp,
    I can briefly--
    if it's important to you, it's important to us.
    Yes.
    Well, it was like a big, big hall with bunk beds
    in very close proximity.
    If you ever saw pictures of the Auschwitz camps
    with the bunk beds, it was the same situation
    except that we were still able to keep ourselves clean.
    We had some of our personal clothes
    which they did not take away from us.
    We had our hair.
    They didn't shave our heads there.
    And we were able to keep clean, to wash
    our ourselves and our clothes, and we had some bedding.
    They gave us blankets and pillows,
    and we had straw sacks that we slept on those beds.
    And we shared a bunk.
    There were two women to a bunk.
    I slept with Lili.
    And Helenka, I don't remember, but she slept right next
    but with another of our friends.
    And that camp was a much different situation
    already than the other ones because there
    were so many more women.
    The Germans that-- it was still very much
    that oversee this facility.
    As opposed to SS?
    As opposed to SS.
    But there was an appel.
    We had to get up in the morning and be ready and stand.
    An appel, you know what that means--
    A roll call.
    To be counted.
    We had to stand in rows of five.
    And because there were so many more, it took that much longer,
    and there was a big hassle because of it,
    stand in fives and straight and be counted.
    And the count wasn't right, it was already
    a much different situation and a much tougher situation.
    The food was much inferior-- more inferior
    than in the last facility.
    What we used to get was some coffee.
    Ersatz, of course, black without sugar, which I became addicted.
    I still drink black without sugar.
    And some piece of bread, a very small piece of bread.
    And we used to be marched to work.
    The camp, the sleeping part was pretty close to the factory,
    so we didn't have to walk very far,
    I would say across the road.
    But we were marched under guard.
    And everybody went--
    How old were you at this time approximately?
    I was 15?
    14, 15.
    And--
    So are you saying the conditions were
    getting progressively worse?
    The conditions were getting progressively worse,
    but they were still--
    they were still livable.
    You could-- it wasn't--
    we weren't in such deprived conditions
    that people were dying.
    If they would have let us, we would
    have survived in these conditions
    because we were able to keep clean.
    We were clean still, and the food was just
    barely enough to survive.
    But you were able to maintain some personal dignity
    it sounds like.
    Yes, because we--
    Which is important.
    Yes, definitely.
    I must tell you that we all tried to look decent,
    and the women tried to look pretty.
    And I remember putting curls out of rags
    into my hair to have a hairdo.
    It was-- the pageboy was very much in fashion
    from before the war, and I remember wearing it.
    And we had few clothes, so we used to lend each other so
    that we look decent.
    And I remember I had a jumpsuit, and I
    used to sleep on it so the crease would be straight.
    So we were still maintained human--
    s human feeling.
    We did not look like some of the camps
    that you saw from Buchenwald or--
    What were the guards like?
    We didn't have much contact with the guards
    except for the marching back and forth.
    And if you-- they weren't too abusive.
    They weren't too abusive.
    We were scared because we knew that they are German,
    but somehow we were able to maintain a distance from them
    unless somebody did something that they paid attention to
    or something that was out of the ordinary.
    Were all of the inmates Jewish or were there--
    Yes, they were all Jewish women.
    And this Grünberg before we arrived there was a camp that
    men were there.
    I think I don't remember if it was mixed to begin with
    or they were men and women in the same camp but separated.
    But when we arrived there, they shipped the men out
    and just became a strictly a women's camp.
    And you were there in Grünberg right through to 1945 or--
    No.
    I don't exactly remember the day or the date,
    but after a short period, this camp--
    this labor camp became a concentration camp.
    And how did this--
    how did they transformed it?
    Well, one day, they did not send us to work,
    and we were very much afraid because if you don't go
    to work, then that's bad news.
    Because what is happening and nobody knew what is happening.
    And if you don't know what is happening, then you know that--
    Any change in regulations is a bad sign.
    But we saw a lot of--
    as the morning progressed, we saw a lot of SS people--
    women and men in the SS uniforms--
    roaming around the area.
    And as the hours progressed, they
    had to stand outside an appel that whole morning.
    And they-- finally what happened was
    that they had an empty hall with a table in the middle,
    and what they said were doctors sitting behind the stable.
    And they had us strip naked and come in front of these people,
    supposedly doctors which I doubt if they were doctors,
    and we were given a number, not a tattooed number but a number
    on a piece of string.
    And we're able to go back to get our clothes.
    But I must tell you that this was the first time
    that they made us feel so low, so degrading--
    so degraded because we knew that this is not
    a doctor's examination.
    And there were men, and they were the SS in uniform
    all around the room.
    And these were young people.
    The women were young women, and the soldier--
    with the SS soldiers were young--
    Was there anything in the attitude of them
    that convinced you that they were not bona fide scientists
    or doctors or whatever.
    Because what kind of an examination
    is it if you just walk in front naked of somebody?
    This is not a medical examination.
    And it wasn't done in private.
    Did they behave-- they snicker?
    Did they do?
    No, they just made us very, very afraid because you didn't
    know what it is all about and what
    does it mean and what are they checking and what do they want
    and what are they looking for and why are they doing this.
    What kind of a-- it wasn't an exam--
    a medical examination where you went and the doctor asks
    you questions or they looked in your throat or your eyes
    or whatever.
    No, this was just--
    it was just something to degrade you.
    This was psychological.
    An attempt to humiliate you.
    And this was at that point a very, very
    demeaning and terrible experience,
    and we were all very shaken up and very
    afraid and the fact that you didn't know actually
    what it is all about.
    But it was over, and this was the designation.
    Now this camp was designated a concentration camp,
    and from that moment on, the SS took charge.
    The wehrmacht went away, and the SS was our--
    they were the guards.
    Did you know at this time, Halina,
    anything about the Final Solution
    or that there was a Final Solution or--
    No, we didn't know the Final Solution
    by the name Final Solution.
    We knew-- absolutely we knew that there was an Auschwitz
    and that they are exterminating people.
    We definitely did.
    We did.
    We didn't know who and how and where,
    but this is what we were afraid of.
    Did you relate what was happening in these places
    to what was happening now when in your camp,
    or was there any connection made?
    Well, of course, when we--
    when any change that transpired and we were--
    they never informed us.
    They never said, well, now you're
    going to be stripped naked and go in front of a doctor
    because we have to check you and this
    is going to now be a necessity.
    No, you just-- they just--
    this was psychologically done, and they kept you in suspense,
    worried, not knowing what is happening.
    And this whole day was a nightmare
    because we didn't know what is happening to us.
    We just knew that nothing good is going to happen.
    When it became a concentration camp, what changes occurred?
    The changes that occurred were just more stringent,
    the appels were done and they--
    in a rougher manner.
    And the people themselves, the SS,
    were just a rougher crowd and a meaner--
    and they were hitting without any cause.
    Whatever they didn't like, they slapped around,
    and they abused us more than otherwise.
    And the fact that they--
    that we knew that this is the SS and they walked around,
    their demeanor was enough to frighten you,
    and the uniform was enough to frighten you.
    And you just were so glad to get inside and then be out of sight
    because just being around them was frightening.
    But work was the same and--
    They still allowed you to work?
    Yes, we were still--
    we were still useful to them.
    And we ran this Jewish contingent-- ran
    this big, big factory because the heavy work, what they
    called [GERMAN],, they found the girls that
    were bigger and stronger, and they did the heavy work
    that mostly big German men used to perform.
    And the whole factory was run by--
    with our help.
    They were just a few Aufseher that were in charge.
    And that happened-- that--
    we were working there until I would say December of '44.
    Now Grünberg was close to the Polish border because I think
    that now Grünberg is Poland.
    This part reverted to Poland.
    So at that point in time, the Russian front
    started to move closer to that area.
    And one day, all of a sudden, we did not go to work,
    and, again, we were frightened, didn't know what is happening.
    And they herded us into one hole out of the hole
    that we slept in into the other part, the older part,
    where the other women were.
    And all of a sudden, we heard that they brought
    a transport of other women.
    They were Hungarian women that they must have just heard
    that them from Hungary and they must've gone already
    through one of the big holding camps.
    I don't remember which one they came through,
    but they were already shaven and they were stripped
    of their clothes and they were in a very, very bad shape
    morally to see what happened--
    You mean they were demoralized.
    Demoralized terribly.
    Because I'm sure that in your studies,
    you read and heard that they came into Hungary, and they--
    what they did to the Polish Jews over a span of time,
    they did to them immediately.
    Concentrated fashion.
    Right.
    They just took them out of their homes,
    out of their families, herded them into trains,
    separated the families, and they were absolutely demoralized.
    They-- it was terrible.
    It was a terrible scene.
    And the [GERMAN],, but they were maybe
    I would say maybe 500 women or 1,000 women
    that they brought in.
    We didn't see them.
    They separated us, but we just heard through the walls
    that they are there.
    And they ransacked that hall because they
    were looking for extra food or some extra closing.
    It was very bad.
    In the morning, the following morning, they
    told us to get dressed and to take our belongings,
    and they marched us outdoors.
    It was in the middle of the winter.
    This was December, and the winter was--
    if you remember or you don't remember but you've heard--
    that it was December '45--
    It was a terrible winter.
    Or rather '44, it was a very, very hard winter
    with lots of snow outside.
    And we realized that they are marching us out of this camp
    and we realize that they are marching us out
    because the Russians were getting closer
    and they didn't want to leave us behind to be liberated
    by the Russians.
    So they took this--
    we were together with the Hungarian women.
    We were about 2,000.
    They split us in half, and they marched us out--
    out of this place--
    When they split you in half, did they march you
    all in the same direction?
    No, they marched us in two different directions.
    One group ended up in Bergen-Belsen
    finally after whatever they went through,
    but the group that I was in was marched
    and we were probably 1,000 or over 1,000 women.
    Now this became the Death March.
    What happened was, they marched us a whole day.
    We were walking perhaps 30 kilometers a day
    away from the Russians in the snow.
    None of us was really equipped for this kind of weather,
    but we tried to protect ourselves as best as we could.
    And the SS were the ones that-- they were guarding us,
    and we were guarded with rifles and the ready.
    So there was no way of just disappearing or running away,
    and there were some cases in the beginning in the first day
    that the girls--
    as we stopped for a break that didn't get up right away
    or thought maybe they will just walk away and maybe disappear.
    And they were shot on the spot, so they did this to frighten
    everybody else not to try--
    To your knowledge, no one managed to escape.
    Or no one successfully.
    Yes.
    Yes, there were women that did escape that stayed behind
    because at night, they used to find
    the shelter in some stables or wherever they were
    able to find shelter for us.
    So they used to herd us into a big stable,
    and we were just squeezed and then shoved
    but it was better than being outdoors.
    What kind of clothing did you have at this time?
    Did you have coats or--
    We had very bare clothing, but we
    used to-- but we put on layers.
    Whatever we possessed, we wore because it was much easier
    than to carry anyway.
    You couldn't-- we-- some girls had a little more than others,
    and they started out carrying some bundles.
    They also gave us whatever they had in supplies.
    Like whatever bread they baked, they gave us a loaf of bread.
    And I remember that we-- they gave us some sugar that they
    still had in the supply place.
    They did give us a little bit.
    I think this was about all that we had.
    But you couldn't carry anything, so it was much easier
    to wear what you had.
    So this is what happened, and the blankets that they told
    us to take, we used as a cover.
    And there are some women that had better shoes.
    Some women right away had no shoes
    to walk in in snow that was reaching your ankles.
    It right away became a very, very crucial situation.
    And the beating that was going on right
    away if you just stepped off to take some snow to use as water,
    do you--
    they clobbered you right away because they thought
    that maybe you want to run away or whatever they thought,
    they had an opportunity to clobber your or hit you,
    they did.
    And this went on for weeks.
    We were marched every single day out of the facility--
    out of the shelter that they found for us and march us a few
    more miles if you--
    Were going further east or--
    did you know the direction you were going?
    No, we didn't know where we are going.
    We had no idea where we are going because they never told
    us, and we just didn't know.
    We just went through towns and through villages
    and on the highway or through the woods.
    People in those towns and villages saw you.
    They saw us, but they--
    nobody--
    Lifted a finger.
    Lifted a finger, no.
    But there were some women that stayed behind or ran away
    in those shelters at night that we were at, and some of them
    survived.
    Some of them the Germans turned in and brought back,
    and then they were made an example of
    and shot in front of our eyes.
    And so it was very scary to run away.
    We knew that if we would only be able to run away and stay
    behind, we felt that the Russians were right behind us.
    They are almost in our tracks, but it was so scary--
    you see, I think the fear of the death
    is so great that unless you are very gutsy or very desperate,
    you were--
    you always had the hope that maybe tomorrow you
    will survive.
    But what happens if you run away and they will shoot you.
    And that's what-- you think--
    now I'm thinking back how could I-- how could
    we just continue doing it.
    How could we just go on?
    Why didn't we stay behind?
    And we planned every night when they brought us to some
    wherever it was that we--
    that they made us stop.
    We were looking.
    Can we run away from here?
    Can we stay behind?
    Can we hide under something?
    But somehow-- when I say we, I'm talking about Lili and Helena
    and our immediate friends that we were--
    that we kept close.
    But somehow we never found an opportune moment
    to be able to do it because we were so scared
    that they will find us and if they find us,
    they surely will shoot us because that's
    what we saw that they did to people that we knew.
    So we continued.
    So we continued walking day in and day out.
    I just know that after weeks, we did pass through Dresden.
    You heard of Dresden.
    Of course.
    It was bombed during--
    And we passed through Dresden through the American bombing
    of Dresden.
    Now if I can just try to give you a picture of this.
    The town was empty because the inhabitants were in shelters.
    And this was-- and this group of these unfortunate women
    in rags already and looking ragged and emaciated already
    at that point because the food that they
    found for us was less and less, we didn't eat a whole day.
    They didn't have any food for us.
    Only when we came to at night that they were somehow able
    from the villagers or from wherever
    we stopped to gather some food.
    But the times were very bad, and the Germans
    didn't have much food for themselves.
    So you can imagine that there wasn't much for us,
    and whatever food that they had, the SS people managed
    to procure for themselves because they had it well.
    They weren't starving.
    They were just marching with us, but they certainly
    weren't starving.
    And at that point, when you think
    of what was the purpose of this march,
    it was a shelter for the SS.
    Do you understand?
    Because they marched us so they would not
    have to go to the front.
    If you think about it because they
    could have just taken a machine gun and finished us off--
    So in a sense--
    It gave them something to do.
    So in a sense--
    The march was their form of invasion.
    Was their form of protection for themselves.
    They had a mission because if they would have finished us,
    where would they go?
    They would go to the front.
    It was better to walk, to march, with the Jews
    than to go to the front.
    But as they were marching you through Dresden--
    Yes.
    And through places like that, which were constantly
    being bombed by Allied planes, weren't they exposing
    themselves as well as you--
    But I'll tell you--
    To that?
    There was no bombs.
    We did not experience until--
    any bombings until we came to Dresden.
    And this was something that they didn't
    know is going to transpire.
    When they-- when we walked through town,
    we had to walk through the bridge
    that was demolished right after we walked through.
    I don't have the map and I don't remember exactly where they
    were going, but they had to go through the town
    and through the bridge to get to where they wanted
    to go to run away from the Germans
    or maybe it was already the Americans that were--
    You mean to run away from the Russians?
    From the Russians.
    Yes.
    I just don't know exactly what at that point
    they were moving us away from, whom, but they did not
    plan this and they did know that this big, big bombing is
    taking place.
    So as I started painting this picture before,
    the bombs were falling all over.
    We were just marching, and they are marching with us.
    And we were not--
    we meaning the Jewish girls--
    we were cheering.
    We were hoping that the bomb will fall right on top of us
    and finish our misery and end all this.
    Or maybe we were also seeing that there is an end to--
    that maybe an end is coming to our misery
    and there will be an end to the war finally.
    Did you see it in terms of retribution also for--
    No.
    We were-- at that point, we were just survival.
    Just we were hoping that even if it finishes us
    right then and there, it was better than continuing.
    But we did manage to go through Dresden and through the bridge,
    and just as we passed the bridge, the bridge was bombed.
    And then they brought us--
    in the beginning-- in the very beginning after the war,
    I was able to remember all the towns, the names of the towns
    that we stopped in chronological terms, but I don't remember now
    and I don't have a record.
    I wonder if any of the survivors that went through the march
    remember the names.
    But I'll tell you how we identified in the beginning
    with these stops was that we remembered if perhaps we
    got a better soup at the end of the day,
    we remembered it by what we ate.
    And this was so vivid in our memories.
    Also I must tell you that through the march,
    we were in a very, very poor condition as far
    as cleanliness, and we were full of lice at that point
    because the Hungarian women were already not clean.
    And we were herded together, and lice spread.
    And, of course, with the dirt and we--
    there was no shower, and there is no washing.
    There was no facilities at all.
    So I must tell you that we marched the whole day,
    and we could not take off our clothes.
    We slept in the clothes that we were in for warmth
    and otherwise.
    The only thing that we did was take off our shoes
    and try to dry them if we still had shoes because there were
    some women that already had rags on their feet
    or the shoes were already full of holes
    because when you march--
    yes.
    As you went on, weren't there some women that
    just couldn't keep up with you?
    Yes.
    And what happened to those women as they would just not
    be able to go any further.
    They were either-- they just died, or they killed them.
    But at that point yet, I don't think
    that they had a wagon because later on they
    had a wagon that was going behind and the ones--
    Collecting bodies.
    Collecting--
    Corpses.
    No, not corpses.
    Corpses they didn't collect.
    Only the ones that were still breathing but couldn't walk.
    So they finished their life on the wagon.
    Did you ever feel that you wouldn't be able to go on?
    Yes, many times.
    Many times but as long as we had the physical strength,
    we managed to push another day.
    After Dresden, they herded us into a camp.
    What was the name of the camp?
    I just--
    I just have a blank.
    This was an existing camp.
    It was a concentration camp, but it wasn't just Jewish people
    there.
    They were--
    This wasn't Flossenburg, was it?
    No.
    Because that was--
    No.
    It'll come to me.
    I can't remember.
    But they-- we stopped there.
    As we came there, they stripped us again,
    and they stripped us of more possessions that we had.
    We still had our personal things like a toothbrush
    or a comb or a mirror or something from home
    or some women were still able to hide
    a little ring or some pictures.
    When we arrived into that camp, they
    made us give all our possessions, whatever it was,
    away--
    pictures and all.
    Now remember I showed you the picture of my mother
    and myself and that other little picture.
    I folded-- this was a little snapshot--
    a little tiny snapshot.
    I folded it, in four and I put it in my shoe
    and I risked my life virtually hiding that because they just
    shot you for such a subordination,
    that this was not allowed.
    But I was able to retain it and survive with it.
    They also stripped us of all our clothes for entlausung.
    Do you know what that means?
    De-lousing.
    I don't know they boiled the clothes, which
    would have been very welcome if it would accomplish the purpose
    but didn't do anything.
    They just-- it was another humility
    to strip you of everything and then you couldn't get back
    your clothes, but whatever you grabbed, you had.
    So the short women were--
    wound up with big dresses or whatever,
    and the taller girls wound up with little things
    that they couldn't wear.
    But later on we tried to trade off and to--
    What was your own physical condition
    like when you arrived this last time.
    It was getting-- it was very-- it was getting deteriorated.
    We were very--
    I was very thin already, lost, of course, a lot of weight.
    But I did not have any sicknesses.
    I still was able to function, and so was Lili and so was
    Helenka and our friends.
    And this facil-- this camp was--
    I can't remember the name of it.
    It's all right.
    Maybe it'll come back to you when we [INAUDIBLE]
    It was a terrible camp.
    It was a terrible experience because we did not work there.
    We just sat there.
    They herded us into a big barrack.
    There were no beds.
    We were on the floor and straw, just loose straw I think.
    It was filthy.
    They-- the food was terrible there.
    There was water for--
    the soup was some cabbage leaves flowing in some dirty water.
    There was a piece of bread sometimes yes, sometimes no.
    And there was sickness.
    There was typhoid prevalent there.
    So women were just getting very sick with typhoid.
    There was a clinic that the sick ones called the Revere.
    The sick ones, they took--
    they separated.
    And, of course, there was no medicine,
    and there's no doctor, no help, and the ones that
    did get sick with typhoid, most of them did not survive.
    They just died there, and we were just sitting there
    and waiting to die.
    And I remember toward-- we were there
    for like maybe four or five weeks.
    It was a very long call, and it was very bad.
    They herded us to appel like three times a day,
    and they just made it very hard for us to even exist.
    Was this the winter?
    This was the winter, yes.
    This was-- I would say maybe this was March,
    but it was winter.
    It was cold and miserable.
    I must relate to you one incident and this woman
    is alive.
    She did survive.
    She managed to hide a bunch of her pictures
    through this initial checkpoint.
    And she wanted to hide them, and she went behind the barrack
    with the pictures and somebody spotted her.
    I don't know if--
    who it was-- if a German spotted her hiding these pictures.
    And they took her, and they shaved her head.
    And they made her stand outside for I think it was 24 hours.
    And they--
    I think they poured water over her, and she survived it.
    She somehow survived it.
    She lives in Queens.
    She was able to survive this terrible ordeal.
    This was for trying to hold on to her family pictures.
    Wasn't gold.
    It wasn't dollars.
    It wasn't guns.
    It was pictures.
    This was another way of de-humanizing you,
    cutting off your connection to your family.
    And doing such a thing as an example to anybody
    else not to try anything.
    There were many incidents for other infractions
    that they did things like that.
    Finally, after I think five or six weeks,
    they marched us out of that place
    again because the Americans were getting closer.
    Did you know that?
    Yes.
    You did.
    We knew that the Americans are getting closer.
    As a matter of fact, it was one or two days
    that the American planes flew over,
    and we were hoping that they are going to bomb the place.
    We were hoping.
    Do you see.
    When you hear now, people say why didn't the Americans
    bomb Auschwitz.
    Many times I've heard that.
    Why didn't they?
    It would have been a relief even if they would
    have bombed and killed people.
    To the inmates, to the people in the concentration camps,
    it would have been a relief.
    It would have been at least dying for a purpose.
    So we-- when we saw the planes, we all
    ran out to greet these planes and to greet whatever is
    coming, but there was no bombs.
    It was just an overflight.
    I think if I remember, there were some leaflets
    that they threw.
    So they knew that there was something here.
    I don't remember what--
    we probably didn't understand the English.
    And, of course, the Germans didn't let us keep any of it,
    and they herded us immediately inside the bunk
    so that we wouldn't know what's going on.
    But we did march out of there, and it was the, again,