Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Joyce Wagner

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1988.23.1 | RG Number: RG-50.004.0001

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Joyce Wagner
    Transcript
    I remember when I was in fourth grade,
    I heard my voice played back.
    And I didn't talk for--
    [LAUGHS]
    --for the longest time.
    My voice is high to begin with, and it just sounded so bad.
    So if you think your voice sounds bad, it sounds fine.
    [LAUGHS]
    That's right.
    It's a natural reaction.
    So you said you were born in Poland.
    Yes, I was born in Poland.
    I came from a family of nine children.
    What is your name?
    My name, it was Jetka Witkowska, my maiden name.
    What is your name now?
    Joyce Wagner.
    And what is your daughter's name?
    My daddy's name?
    Your daughter.
    My daughter?
    I have a daughter Gilda Ross, son-in-law Paul
    Ross, son Harold Wagner, and my daughter, [PERSONAL NAME]..
    My husband's name is Michael Wagner.
    That's my family.
    I came from a family of nine children.
    And their name was-- my oldest-- my father's name
    was Hersch Janki.
    My mother's name was Gidel thus Gilda
    is having the name from my mother.
    And Harold is having the name from my father.
    Gidel, as in Fiddler on the Roof, the--
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Oldest brother was Maier, Then I was the next one, Jetka.
    And I had brother, Shlomo.
    Then I had Berek, and David, Szymek.
    And the next three children.
    They're named from-- close to each other--
    Chaya, Chava, and Hilda.
    My father came from a very religious-- he was a yeshiva
    bochur.
    A what?
    Yeshiva bochur-- he went to the yeshiva, that Hebrew school.
    He got Hebrew education in a special--
    to became a rabbi.
    He wanted to be a rabbi because my grandpa came
    from a rabbinical family too.
    His father was a rabbi.
    Your grandfather's father was a rabbi.
    Was a rabbi.
    Yeah.
    And my grandfather was--
    he couldn't speak.
    When he was a little child, he came down from the basement.
    In Europe, they used to have the basement,
    where they kept the potatoes for the winter and the coals.
    They used to have it under the table, an opening.
    So Grandma put the opening up--
    not Grandma-- Great-Great-Grandma
    put the opening.
    She went down in the basement.
    She forgot to close the opening.
    So as the child, he was playing around, and he fall down.
    And he lost his voice, and he couldn't hear.
    So that's why he couldn't be a rabbi.
    His father was a rabbi.
    But he wanted his son to be a rabbi.
    And my father--
    You mean your great-great-grandfather
    was a rabbi?
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    So your great-great-grandfather was a rabbi.
    Your grandfather couldn't be a rabbi
    because he couldn't speak.
    So your father was a rabbi.
    My father was a rebbe, but he--
    So your whole family was rabbis.
    Yeah, rabbinical family.
    My father didn't want to be.
    He had the education for it, the training for it.
    He didn't want to be a rabbi because that time, the rabbis
    for that had to live very poor.
    Whatever gave them, you know, like from--
    how can I express myself?
    They didn't have it like today, every rabbi
    has a monthly pension, so much and so much.
    But you know--
    What's your handouts.
    Handouts.
    And he's--
    It's funny.
    So, Rabbi Akris was here for graduation.
    Somebody was talking about possibility of Naperville
    having a Jewish community.
    And the rabbi's wife was saying, oh, that can't be.
    No.
    They want a rabbi, and know that they're going to be supporting.
    They're not going to have it, have an ad hoc [CROSS TALK]..
    That's right.
    That's right.
    And my father felt that he will not
    wait till somebody with handouts,
    so he became a businessman.
    What kind of business?
    We had a grocery store.
    And we had all kind of housewares-- china.
    A general store.
    General store-- a small department store.
    It was in Europe, in Poland.
    Where in Poland was it?
    Radziejów.
    Radziejów was the name of the town.
    How's is it spelled?
    R-A-D-C-E-J-O-W. Radziejów.
    What part of Poland was that?
    Kujawy, called it Kujawy.
    It's not far from the Vistula, really close to the Vistula.
    [CROSS TALK]
    It's close to the German border.
    We were close to the German--
    close to Posen.
    Oh.
    Close to the German border, Posen.
    The Germans used to be there before the first war, world
    war.
    And then the German went out and the Polish took it over.
    Oh, so when Poland was partitioned,
    it was originally given to Germany?
    To Germany, Yes.
    But when the independent Polish nation was created,
    it was the part of former German Poland that--
    Yeah.
    Divided to Danzig, to Danzig--
    and now it was Polish, part of Poland.
    And we were close to along to those little towns.
    Did you ever visit Posen?
    Posen?
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    I visited Posen.
    What occasion would you have to visit Posen?
    What occasion?
    That's unusual.
    Was it a shopping expedition?
    Or--
    No.
    No.
    It was after the war when I went back to Poland.
    I went to--
    I was in Posen because we didn't have the transportation
    to go, like trains.
    Oh, this is after World War Two.
    This was after World War Two, when I went.
    So as a child you hadn't visited.
    No.
    No.
    We didn't had the opportunity to travel like the United States.
    You take a plane, and in two hours you're 1,500 miles--
    you know what I mean-- from one town to the other.
    But there it was very hard.
    You had to travel by wagon.
    And I was the oldest child.
    I was the second-oldest, and my brother passed away when he was
    16 years--
    15 years old.
    So I was kind of oldest.
    What year were you born?
    What year?
    1922.
    My, you were very young.
    [LAUGHS]
    I was born September 20, 1922.
    And then we had this store, and my father
    was a very religious man.
    So in the morning he went to the temple.
    In the evening he went to the temple.
    So customers used to remember me.
    When I was a little tiny child, I already took care of them.
    And they didn't know how I could go,
    why I could reach the table.
    So when I was still going to school-- at the school,
    I was [INAUDIBLE],, was taking care of the store.
    And in the free time, I was making my homework
    in the store.
    So it's really it wasn't--
    there were nine kids in the house,
    so we couldn't travel too much.
    We didn't have the opportunity to travel and see places.
    How did that story compare with the one
    that you and your husband operated in Milwaukee?
    About the same size?
    Much larger?
    Smaller?
    That was-- it was a big difference.
    In Milwaukee, everything came packaged.
    You know, the sugar came 2 pounds, 1 pound, 2 pounds,
    5 pounds.
    In Europe, if somebody came in and wanted a pound of sugar,
    you have to take a bag and scale, put the sugar
    and then scale it and give it to the customer.
    Or when a customer came in and wanted pepper,
    you know, an ounce of pepper, black pepper, you made that.
    On a piece of paper, you made a little bag.
    And you put the pepper in the piece of paper,
    and then you cover this up.
    You would know.
    You have a piece of paper what explains
    to you how it was done.
    It's really unusual when you came there.
    So everything--
    Did you have meats in store in Poland also?
    No.
    No.
    Or fish?
    No.
    No, just dry goods, you know, sugar, pepper.
    So you didn't have bread either?
    Yes.
    No.
    We didn't have bread.
    If you want a bread, you went to the baker.
    It was separate.
    We didn't.
    You couldn't buy a bread in a grocery store, no,
    that time in Europe.
    Yeah, that was a baker.
    You wanted meat, you went to a meat market.
    You wanted fish, you went to a fish market.
    How big a town was this you're talking about?
    Not too big.
    It was about 10,000 people.
    And there were only 150 Jewish families.
    Oh really?
    It was a very small Jewish population.
    Yeah.
    Everybody knew everybody.
    Was there just one shul, just one?
    No.
    We had one shul, but the shul had two--
    how can I say?
    One was for the very religious people, the very Orthodox.
    And the other part was for the people
    who weren't as religious.
    That's what I mean.
    You know the Orthodox.
    And the women used to sit upstairs.
    Was a two-story temple.
    Downstairs were the men, and upstairs
    were the women sitting.
    We could only look down when they were praying.
    Was it a wooden structure?
    I really don't remember.
    The first one was a wooden structure,
    and then they built--
    then there used to be a family.
    Oh, I don't remember the name now.
    I forgot their name.
    They used to live in Warsaw.
    It used to live in Lvov, and then they moved to Warsaw,
    and they became very rich.
    So they came back to Radziejów, to the town.
    And they built a beautiful temple in this.
    There were living quarters for the rabbi
    and a school, a day school for the children to study Hebrew.
    So this one was a beautiful built brick building,
    gorgeous building.
    But when the German came in, they
    turned it down in our town.
    This was the end of it.
    Did you go to public school in Poland?
    Yes.
    And a religious school also?
    I went to religious school.
    Bais Yaakov they called it.
    It was special for girls, a school with a woman teacher.
    And only--
    This was public school or the religious?
    This was the religious school.
    And my father was very interested.
    He was the-- like, he had a job--
    not a job, but he--
    Took responsibility?
    --took responsibility of having teachers in the town.
    So he always hired and fired the teachers.
    He always looked that these children
    would get a good Jewish education,
    was always [INAUDIBLE].
    He always was the one who hired and fired the teachers.
    Did your father speak Polish?
    Yes.
    Do you speak-- did you speak Polish as well?
    Very good, sure.
    So what was the home language, Yiddish or Polish?
    In the house, it was Yiddish.
    But we, because I had the--
    my oldest brother, he had difficulty learning Polish
    because we spoke so much Yiddish in the house.
    So when he went to the public school
    and he had to speak Polish, and it was a difficulty for him.
    So from that time, we start speaking Polish in the house.
    So we all younger children, we spoke a very good Polish.
    And that's what we spoke in our house, Polish.
    We use the language Yiddish too.
    All the children knew how to speak Yiddish.
    But on account to get to know the language
    of the country what we were in, we spoke Polish.
    Matter of fact, one day my father
    used to go with the rabbi around to collect money
    for some poor people, for the holidays or something
    like that.
    So the rabbi came to my father.
    They came to our store to get a donation.
    So I asked him, I says, [POLISH]..
    So the rabbi looks at my father.
    He said, what?
    In your house the children speak Polish?
    So my father answered that.
    Yes, they speak Yiddish.
    They also speak Polish.
    He was very proud of it, that the children
    speak very good Polish.
    Your father knew Hebrew, did he not?
    Yes.
    He knew very good Hebrew.
    I knew Hebrew too.
    Is that unusual for a girl to be taught Hebrew?
    No.
    No.
    It was very-- no.
    You're supposed to know the language.
    That's what I went to Hebrew school for.
    I went to public school.
    We didn't had, in our town, a high school.
    We didn't have a college.
    But we went to a public school.
    And the public school was [NON-ENGLISH]..
    How do you say that, [NON-ENGLISH]??
    To a like high school--
    public school in Europe, it was seven years of public school.
    It's like here.
    How many years you have to go?
    Oh, eight years for grade school and then four years
    for high school.
    Yeah.
    This was like-- and we learned in seven years as much
    as you learn here in 12 years, something like.
    How much?
    Seven and four, you say?
    This be 11 years.
    When you went to your classes in public school,
    did they have both boys and girls in the same classes?
    Yes.
    Boy and girls, the same classes.
    How large a class was it?
    About 40, 40 children.
    Was it all Jews, or you just--
    No.
    No.
    No.
    Mostly-- because it was about 10,000 family in the town,
    and 125 families were Jewish.
    10,000 families, and 125 were Jewish?
    10,000 population.
    Population, yeah.
    And only 125 people?
    No.
    Families.
    It sounds almost like Aurora's Jewish population
    in comparison.
    So, really, it's everybody knew everybody.
    It was a nice--
    how can I say--
    close relationship.
    Was there a Jewish district that you lived in?
    No.
    No.
    What kind of a house did your family have?
    We always lived in our own.
    We always had our own home.
    And as long as I remember, we had always nice living
    quarters.
    We didn't had, for nine children, nine maybe sleeping
    rooms.
    But we had very nice living quarters.
    And because my mother had to help out in the business,
    there was always a maid in the house, always
    somebody to help out.
    With nine children, you needed somebody.
    She couldn't do it, everything, take care of the business, not
    the house.
    There always was a housekeeper for helping out.
    And they were all very lovely children, beautiful, nice, nice
    looking kids.
    And it really was unusual-- nine children, each one was perfect.
    Nothing was wrong, thank God, with them.
    Was that unusual that there wouldn't be infant mortality
    and the children die?
    Yeah, it's happened.
    Yeah, it's really have.
    I lost two brothers.
    One I lost when he was a year and a half.
    This was an epidemic of diphtheria, diphtheria.
    And one then died in 1935.
    Then we had an epidemic of typhus.
    And I was sick myself too.
    I had typhus myself.
    And I was not able to go with him when he died.
    But I didn't know about that.
    You know what I mean.
    So it was nine who lived to at least 15 or 16 years of age.
    Yes.
    Yeah.
    Sure.
    You mentioned you had an uncle, who in 1935, went
    from Poland to Palestine.
    Was he a Zionist, or did he feel that things were not
    right for the Jews in Poland at the time?
    He was a Zionist.
    He was a Zionist.
    He was very, a religious man too.
    And he believed that the Jews belong in Israel.
    Where in Israel did he settle?
    He went to Jerusalem.
    And then he settled in Bat Yam.
    He lives in Bat Yam with his wife.
    He married my-- he married a first cousin who came
    from Poland with her family.
    The whole family moved.
    They used to live in Wloclawek.
    It was about, let's say, about 30 miles from Radziejów,
    where I used to live.
    And the whole family moved to Israel.
    So my uncle married his first cousin.
    Her name was Witkowska too.
    So she didn't change her real name now.
    Then my father had one sister and two brothers.
    One went to Israel, and one died with the--
    was in the Holocaust with his family.
    They had about six children.
    And then my auntie, my father's sister,
    they were-- they had, too, about six children.
    Nobody is alive from them.
    All perished in the Holocaust.
    You mentioned the Holocaust.
    And I know you were incarcerated in Auschwitz
    for what, two years?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Do you remember when the Germans came into Poland?
    I'll never forget it.
    I will not forget it.
    It was in January--
    in September the 1st, 1919.
    I was staying in this--
    19 what?
    19.
    '39?
    1939.
    I'm sorry.
    1939.
    And I was in the store.
    And across the street had a radio in the window.
    We were listening to the radio because we
    know that the Germans are preparing to invade Poland.
    And I-- through the radio they said it was about 12 o'clock
    that the Germans crossed the Polish border.
    And I will never forget.
    I start crying.
    I had the feeling that something terrible, it's going to happen.
    You know what I mean.
    I was crying like--
    I just couldn't stop crying.
    I was so sad just to listen to the news.
    And then after that, two days later,
    you can already see the--
    around the-- the farmers, they had stack of corn,
    and they were burning.
    And I think it didn't take even a week.
    They were in our town already, the Germans.
    And we all prepared too.
    We thought they're going to take our town,
    and they won't go farther.
    So we ran from one town to another,
    just a few miles away, thinking this will be safe there.
    But they came there too.
    So your family went to another town?
    No.
    My parents didn't want to go.
    My father and my mother didn't want to go.
    So I was the oldest.
    And I-- maybe-- not the whole family, but part of the family
    went.
    I can't remember exactly how many went with me.
    Did you say that your husband Michael was from the same town?
    From the same town.
    Now, he then spent World War Two heading East, eventually
    getting to Tashkent and then Tehran and then Palestine?
    That was later.
    That's not now.
    Oh, that wasn't-- he didn't--
    No.
    No.
    Russia.
    Russia.
    He was in Russia.
    What happened with my husband, he was listening to a radio.
    You know what I mean-- not supposed to listen to a radio
    because the Germans took away all the radios.
    And somebody--
    What year do you think this was?
    What year was this?
    1939.
    Still.
    Was after the Germans invaded Poland.
    Yeah.
    And two Germans came in, and they--
    so they were afraid.
    And he was there with his brother.
    So they were afraid that something
    is going to happen to them.
    They find out they were listening to radio.
    So they ran-- the German came in with one door,
    and they would run out with the other door.
    And then the German chased them, and they were shooting at them.
    And, thank God, they didn't shot them to death.
    You know what I mean.
    So he ran away.
    And then he went to another town.
    And then he came back home.
    He came back home.
    He stayed in the town till about 1940.
    And then he-- somebody pointed the finger on him
    that, I don't know, some German Deutsche folks, [GERMAN]
    in German.
    Said he bought a bicycle from him
    and then he cheated him, something,
    just to have an excuse.
    You know what I mean.
    He didn't give him as good service.
    I don't know what.
    Maybe he didn't pay him or something like that,
    and he wanted the money for the bicycle or something.
    So this time, they were so independent
    that they could do with you whatever they wanted.
    So he was after Michael.
    So he ran away to Russia.
    And then the living, it was very hard there.
    They're in the dirt, and they didn't have what to eat.
    So he came back to Poland.
    And he was in camp, too, a while.
    And he went back to Russia.
    You're saying camp-- in Auschwitz?
    In a working camp-- not in Auschwitz.
    First we were in working camps.
    When were you taken to a working camp?
    In 1940.
    So it was a year or so?
    They came in in September 1939.
    In 1940, I was taken to--
    all the young people--
    even my father was taken to a camp.
    He had to work.
    Was this near [POLISH], or--
    It was not far from our town.
    So you had to work in a field for the Germans.
    Or what I was doing, we had to demolish some homes
    and clean up the blocks so they can
    build other, more important--
    Did you stay in the camp or go home at night?
    No.
    No.
    We stayed in the camp.
    We stayed.
    It was like a working camp.
    We ate there, and we stayed there.
    Was it just Jews, or were the Poles in the camps too?
    No, just Jewish, just Jewish people.
    And we were watched by Volksdeutschen.
    It means they are civilian people.
    They didn't-- they were-- it wasn't watched by the SS
    people.
    Polish people?
    No.
    German people, but they want the Volksdeutschen,
    the German people--
    Did you speak German?
    Yes.
    So you spoke German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish.
    Not-- my husband used to--
    Michael used to know.
    Michael used to speak five languages, Yiddish, Russian,
    and the German, Hebrew, and Polish--
    five languages.
    I spoke Yiddish and German and Polish.
    But I am [INAUDIBLE].
    Russian is very close to the--
    to Polish.
    So we could understand.
    I understood a Russian.
    Go back to where you said you went to a town, the next town
    over.
    And then you thought by getting, you'd be able to hide there.
    And then you came back home?
    No.
    And then the German came to the other town.
    They didn't stop.
    Right.
    So they took the whole Poland.
    We thought that they would stopped because our town was
    once part of the German.
    So we thought--
    Oh, they would just fulfill the--
    That's it.
    They'd take their part away, and that's it.
    And they would stop.
    But that wasn't right.
    So then you went back to Radziejów?
    Then I went back to Radziejów and opened the store.
    We opened the store.
    And the German came in, and they took whatever they want.
    Even they said, bring it home.
    They came into the house, you know.
    Customers used to come in and pay for whatever they bought.
    After the German came in, the German people came in and just
    said, I want this now and this.
    And please bring it to my house.
    And we had to do it because we were afraid of them.
    So they-- it's just they did whatever they wanted.
    They took whatever they wanted.
    That's it.
    When did the family get split up then?
    First you got split up when we were taken to the work camps,
    around--
    When was that?
    That was in 1940.
    1940.
    So my father and 1, 2, 3 of my brothers went to one camp.
    And I went by myself.
    Yeah.
    And I went with girls to another camp.
    I was taken to another working camp.
    And we worked there for about a year.
    And then they sent us home because they
    didn't had work to do no more.
    Finished your job.
    I finished my job.
    And then my father came home too.
    And one of my brothers came home.
    But one brother, Shlomo, didn't came back
    because she was sent to Posen.
    And it was a harder camp.
    And, no, he didn't.
    He never got back home.
    And I never--
    I don't, to this day, I don't know
    what happened to him, where he died or what's happened to him.
    To this day, I don't know.
    I know where my parents died.
    I know what my brother and sister,
    who were with me in Auschwitz, they died in Auschwitz.
    And your parents died in Auschwitz as well?
    No.
    My parents were in--
    in--
    Treblinka.
    No.
    My parent were in--
    I sent them-- then we were--
    they were talking about this.
    The Germans going to send out all the Jews
    from the town where we are, and then they're
    going to stop again.
    So in Czestochowa and [POLISH],, and that was--
    they said this is going to be called, like a protectorate,
    that from there, you're not going to touch the Jews.
    So whatever we had in money and so on, my--
    I know that my father and my mother,
    they wouldn't be able to work in a camp or something like that.
    So I took my father and my mother and my youngest two
    sister, and we took whatever money we had,
    and we get the clothing, whatever
    they could take with them, and a little jewelry.
    And we sent them to [POLISH].
    And from there, there were-- and than I--
    three times I went down.
    I was baking some bread at home and making some--
    how do you call that--
    those dried noodles, and peas, and then
    beans, whatever I could.
    You know, I was back harvest to take down
    to them what is there, [INAUDIBLE] with more food
    to eat.
    And from there, they were sent to Treblinka.
    And there-- there it--
    what can I say?
    It was then.
    Perhaps with Yom Kippur coming on Monday,
    it's not an inappropriate time to have
    it remembered that they are still remembered, still
    in your feelings.
    It's easier said than done.
    You know what I mean.
    But that's life.
    It's 40 years now, 40 years almost.
    And time is the best healer, they say.
    You could cry a year, two, five, 10.
    How long can you cry?
    You know, get used to the idea that--
    I don't know if they would still be alive
    because I'm sure my mother would be, today, 85.
    And my father would be 95 years old.
    And maybe they wouldn't be alive now anyhow.
    But it's just like my birthday was last month--
    this month, September 20.
    And I was thinking, my mother did
    live to have a birthday the way I had.
    Because when she died, how old was she?
    '25, she would be about--
    she wasn't 50 years old, was a young woman.
    My sisters were too young too.
    One was about 12 years.
    The other was just 14 years.
    So you were back at home, at the house.
    You had taken your parents and your two younger sisters
    to this next town, thinking they would be safe.
    Safe.
    And then you went-- what did you do?
    Then we were taken.
    That's all.
    We know that they're going to send us out from our town.
    We had the feeling that something like that was coming.
    So we thought, I was in the house, myself
    and a sister and two brothers.
    And I thought, when they come during the night
    or during the day, they want to take us out, we'll hide.
    And we prepared a place on the attic, where all the four of us
    will hide.
    And during the night--
    as a matter of fact, I got--
    I was packing during the day, challahs.
    And I prepared, everything, to go again to visit my parents
    and take them some food down to [POLISH]..
    And then during the night, we heard noise in the street.
    The Germans were shouting, get out, Juden.
    Kommen out, Juden, that we should all
    get out from the houses and come outside.
    We should dress up and come out.
    So we know that it's a bad signal.
    So we all--
    I just had, in my nightgown, I just put a coat over myself.
    I couldn't even dress.
    The same thing happened to my brothers and my sister.
    And we run up on the attic.
    And then Michael's sister, my husband's sister
    used to live on the other side of the attic.
    So they came up too.
    So the two families worked together.
    And on one side, the German came in.
    And they were, without a flashlight.
    They're going around and checking or somebody's
    at attic.
    So I said, oh God, my God, here they're coming.
    So my brother got scared, and he ran down from the other side.
    And the Germans caught him.
    And that was the end of him.
    Did they take all the Jews that they found that night?
    And what did they do with them?
    So they didn't take you?
    Then they came on the other side, from the other side.
    And one of Michael's nieces was there.
    And she grabbed the SS man's hand.
    And she said-- because this man came to their house,
    and their father used to work, make suitcases for them,
    for the Germans.
    And they used to send with the suitcase, whatever
    they could get, force from the Jews, jewelries.
    Whatever they could get valuable things,
    they used to put in the suitcase and sent to Germany
    for their families.
    So he caught his hand, and she said-- he came up.
    He said, get down, Juden, something like that.
    So she said to him, Herr Drakowski,
    my father was so good to you.
    We helped you make the suitcases.
    You know what I mean.
    Let us alone.
    We go down.
    We come down later.
    So he went down, and he put-- knocked two nails in the walls.
    And he-- we heard what he said to the other SS man.
    No-- [GERMAN] is here.
    Nobody's here.
    And that's how we survived, the two families.
    Did you have any idea at that time
    what the Germans were doing with the Jews when they came--
    We know.
    We know.
    Did you know that they were taking them to death camps?
    Yes.
    We know that.
    We know that, that they were taking them to--
    the people were talking about they have buses
    what they put the gas in it.
    You know what I mean, big trucks, closed up trucks,
    would put the gas in it.
    And the people would choke there.
    Did anybody try and fight when they came
    to round up the Jews at night?
    No.
    Did anybody have guns?
    No, nobody.
    Nobody had a gun?
    Nobody had the guns.
    Nobody had guns.
    They were afraid because for one German,
    they would kill the whole lot--
    But they'd kill everybody anyway.
    --everybody else.
    They'd kill everybody anyway.
    As long you weren't killed, you didn't believe it,
    that this could happen.
    You always-- we always thought, oh, it's
    not going to happen to me.
    It happened to somebody else.
    They're not going to kill me.
    You know what I mean.
    As long you're alive, there's always hope.
    Because I wouldn't be here if I wouldn't have hope.
    So when they rounded up the people in your town,
    nobody offered any resistance?
    No.
    It was no-- with what?
    They were the Germans with the guns, and they had nothing.
    With what could they fight?
    The younger people are gone.
    And they took them to the camps.
    You know what I mean.
    There's a [INAUDIBLE] there.
    There were just older people there.
    So then when it got dark, we went down from the attic.
    So then I lost one brother.
    Then instead of four, there were three of us already.
    So we went down from the attic.
    And we were running through the streets.
    So some Polish woman went to the Gestapo
    and told them the Jews are running.
    So the Gestapo came after us.
    But they couldn't catch up, catch up with us.
    And, thank God, we got to a camp, where the younger
    people were working.
    And we went in there.
    They called that camp [INAUDIBLE]..
    Do you know what happened to the Jews in the town?
    Yes, they took them in the woods, and they, they--
    They shot them.
    We don't know exactly what happened.
    Or they were gassed in the trucks and then buried there,
    or they were shot there.
    We don't know exactly what's happened.
    So one of our friends, a friend of mine,
    was in the church with all those other people.
    He walked over to my brother.
    He said to him, let's hide in the chimney.
    So my brother said to him, hide?
    I can't hide no more.
    No.
    And he wasn't too well either because he was sick.
    From a tooth he got a bad infection
    and was out of the hospital.
    So he didn't want to fight no more.
    So this friend of mine hide in the church, in the chimney.
    Where they rounded up all the Jews?
    Where they rounded up all, he hide in the chimney.
    Then after they took all the Jews,
    he sneak out from the chimney, came down to the camp.
    And she told me that he asked my brother
    to go in to hide the chimney in the church, had a big chimney.
    You know, we would go in [INAUDIBLE] around there.
    So that was this is part of the story.
    So you were now--
    now you're in the working camp.
    Now I was in a working camp.
    And I had my younger sister with me.
    Hilda was with me, and Szymek, my brother Szymek.
    And Berek was now taken from the basement.
    And we were working there in the fields.
    We were building--
    Is this 1940 that this--
    This was 1941.
    It's 1941.
    We were building the streets, were putting cement--
    how do you call it-- concrete, concrete.
    It was a very hard job.
    It wasn't a job made for a woman.
    But you had no choice.
    You had to work to survive.
    And then for lunch we got a little soup, which
    was more water than food in it.
    We got our portion of bread.
    But still there were Polish people around us.
    You could go out and ask for a piece of bread.
    And some of them were nice.
    They helped you.
    And some didn't.
    So I was working there.
    In the meantime, I was sent to another camp.
    And then I went back to the first camp.
    And then I was sent to a third camp.
    And then finally we got an order to come back
    to this camp, the first camp where we start.
    Łojewo was the name of the camp.
    It was not far from Inowrocław.
    How is that spelled?
    Inowrocław.
    No, [PLACE NAME]?
    [INAUDIBLE] I-N-O-W--
    Even if she spelled it, we still can't figure out how to say it.
    Inowrocław.
    So we went back to the camp.
    We were at the camp two days.
    And then we got an order that we all should pack our thing.
    And then this was--
    that could be [INAUDIBLE].
    Let's see.
    I don't remember exactly.
    I have it written out on my--
    I cannot remember everything [INAUDIBLE] So it's like
    a black [INAUDIBLE].
    So we were sent there.
    And then two days--
    they give us two days to take our thing.
    And then we don't-- then we all had to match out.
    And we were-- we marched into this big field.
    There was a prison in Inowrocław,
    used to be a prison.
    And we stayed there overnight.
    Next morning, we all--
    then we didn't take our food with us no more.
    This time, from this camp to the prison,
    they told us to take the food and all
    whatever belongings we had.
    But when it came to going out from the-- and we were brought
    to Auschwitz--
    You left your belonging there?
    We had to leave everything, just went the way we were in our--
    and we went to the railroad station.
    And they packed us in this-- in the--
    Cattle cars.
    Cattle cars, closed cattle cars.
    They were not the open ones, the closed one.
    And some people ran away, so they were shot.
    Some they caught, and they were sent back to the camp.
    And some they were caught later, and the were sent to Auschwitz.
    So I think the ride took us about two days, something
    like that, till we came to Auschwitz.
    And that was dark on the night when we arrive in Auschwitz.
    We didn't know where we are going.
    We know something about Auschwitz,
    but we really didn't know definitely where we are going.
    So then we got to Auschwitz.
    And you saw the story on the Holocaust--
    exactly the way they showed it.
    What happened when you came off the cattle cars?
    When came off the cattle, there were Germans, SS people.
    And they were making selections.
    They put the-- we stood in a line about--
    I don't know how many-- six or eight people in the line.
    I do not remember.
    The women were taken separate, and the men
    were taken separate.
    The camp where we were, there were the men and women
    were together.
    We had our sleeping quarters separate,
    but we ate and we worked together.
    So there, when we got to Auschwitz,
    they separate the men in separate camp, side.
    And the women had a separate side.
    I don't know.
    Did we-- yes, I think we traveled together.
    The men and the women traveled together to Auschwitz.
    And then we were separate in Auschwitz.
    And then they separate--
    again, they had a selection.
    And they took the older women on one side.
    There were a few older women still.
    Most of us were young girls, still in 20s, let's say--
    from 18 till about 25.
    How old were you at the time?
    How old was I?
    I'm going to figure that out.
    I was born in--
    20 years old.
    That's right.
    If you were born in '20, this is 1942 we're talking about.
    Yeah.
    20 years old.
    Who was making the selection?
    I forgot his name.
    They were looking for him.
    Mengele?
    Mengele.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    He was making the selection.
    He was-- I saw him close.
    I came close in touch with him too.
    You saw Eichmann too.
    Didn't you?
    No, I didn't see Eichmann.
    I thought you said he was at the camp one time.
    He was at the camp.
    But I didn't-- I didn't came close to see him,
    but he was there.
    But Mengele, I came close.
    I saw him face-to-face, like.
    Once even, when my sister was taken for a--
    they took her away from me by selection--
    I went over, and I begged him to free my sister.
    And he said, she's going only to the hospital to get help.
    And they didn't select them right away.
    They had to-- next day they had to come to the hospital.
    So when we got home, I begged the [GERMAN]
    the oldest from the block what we were in in Auschwitz,
    that she should save my sister.
    She said, I cannot do that because her number is
    on already.
    My number is 57779.
    Her number was 5778.
    So she says, I cannot take the number.
    But I was crying, and I was begging her.
    It so happened that somebody died during the night
    in the block.
    And they replaced her for my sister.
    That's how--
    They changed the bodies.
    --saved her life for another few months.
    When you mentioned your number, you raised up your sleeve.
    And on the middle of your arm, between your wrist
    and your elbow, there's the number with the letters 3/4
    of an inch high and comparably spaced.
    Under it, it looks like there's a heart under the middle seven.
    Yeah, this means that you Jew, that you are Jewish.
    Because even the Gentile people came because some
    were against Hitler.
    Some German people came in to Auschwitz,
    were sent to Auschwitz because they
    didn't believe it was right, what Hitler was doing.
    They were against him, so they were sent to Auschwitz.
    Political prisoners.
    Political prisoners, that's right.
    They didn't got the numbers like we have tattooed,
    the numbers in our arm.
    They just had a number on their clothing.
    Now, the Polish people or different nationality,
    the French people, or the Russian people,
    they had the number but without this little triangle,
    which means they are Gentile.
    They're not Jewish.
    So only the Jews had this triangle on the bottom.
    So after you--
    So when we came to Auschwitz, then that was the selection.
    They picked out the older people.
    And some boy that was sick, that they
    saw that didn't look right, they took them on the side.
    And they put them in separate quarters.
    Next day, they were sent to the gas chamber.
    Did you know they were going to gas chambers?
    We didn't know exactly.
    Not at that time.
    Not that time.
    Not that time because we were still at the railroad station.
    Right.
    From the railroad station, they took us to a big hall,
    where they first cut off our hair.
    Cut off--
    They shave all--
    They shave all the hair off from our heads and our--
    [AUDIO OUT]
    No, that probably was half an hour.
    If you'd rather not finish tonight or do another day--
    I realize it's--
    OK.
    Let's do it.
    So finish the rest in one.
    I want to sleep tonight.
    Well, the only thing is, you're not going to sleep anyway.
    You may as well finish your story
    and then get one bed night of sleep.
    Why don't you finish, Mom?
    Is it on?
    It's on.
    It's on, so it must [INAUDIBLE] to finish or not to finish.
    It's not such a pleasant story.
    It's not supposed to get in mind.
    There were times that I couldn't speak about it.
    Well, now having it on tape--
    It was time.
    Like I said, the time is the best healer in our day.
    You can speak it [INAUDIBLE].
    But it won't be--
    on the beginning, I couldn't talk about it.
    I was crying.
    So then after the--
    the prisoner shaved us, and then--
    they shaved the hair of our heads off.
    And then we had a shower.
    And then they gave us those--
    then they took us from one hall to another hall
    to get the clothes things, the wooden shoes with their--
    with those prison-- prison clothing with the stripe,
    striped clothes.
    So we walked-- by that time, it was daytime.
    And we walked through the street, from one block
    to another.
    There were men working there.
    We had nothing on.
    We were all naked.
    And the men were looking at us.
    And you-- like you had no feeling,
    like you weren't human at all.
    You know it's different when you saw a man coming
    by and you are naked, you thought, my God,
    this was a-- you cover yourself up.
    And you are ashamed somebody should see you naked.
    But there, by cutting your hair your off,
    but you have relation what happened in these--
    the wagons were sitting there.
    There were no facility where you could go to a bathroom,
    so everybody who had to go went there.
    So the process makes you feel that you're
    not a human being no more.
    So then we went this other block.
    And we got our clothes.
    And then we looked at each other,
    and we didn't recognize each other.
    I didn't recognize my sister.
    My sister didn't recognize me because you look so different.
    Here you came in a human being.
    You had your hair on still.
    Still you were still dressed.
    And all of a sudden, you are nothing.
    And after that, they put us in the barracks.
    And now we slept about 10 people in one barrack--
    five or eight-- five on one side,
    and five on the other side.
    So we were just packed like the herring.
    And every morning they used to wake us up in the morning,
    and they used to count us.
    And it was very--
    you know, we were too- how can I say--
    too crowded.
    And people were, before, there.
    And it was nothing.
    The louses you-- the bugs used to eat us up.
    You know what I mean.
    So they were there from the other people
    who were there before.
    There were the bugs left there.
    So you, being there a week or two,
    your clothes were full of the--
    Lice.
    --lice.
    Yeah, full of lice.
    And then some prison--
    and then the typhus broke out.
    And people just died one after another.
    It was no time, there--
    so many died from our group that we came into Auschwitz with.
    We came in together.
    And because, like I mentioned before, I had typhus in 19--
    in 1937, so like two days before--
    two years before the war broke out.
    So I was-- how do you say that?
    Immune?
    Immune.
    Immune to the typhus.
    I did not have the typhus.
    No.
    That's what's saved me.
    That's my one reason I don't got the sickness, because I--
    some of my closest friends, I talked to them in the evening.
    In the morning, I went out there on the field.
    Next to the blocks they were putting
    bodies, one on the other, stacked up like a few feet
    high.
    So people, because it was no-- you
    had no medication, and nobody cared for you.
    So you were just laying there and dying.
    That's all what you could expect.
    So we didn't had enough to eat.
    They give us one small portion of bread
    and a little soup in the evening.
    The morning you got the bread with a little coffee--
    black water or something like that.
    You know I mean.
    In the evening, give you a little water.
    And another thing what happened, the stronger the people
    were when they came into Auschwitz,
    the quicker they died.
    Because the-- like myself, I never was a big eater.
    They are not a big eater.
    And I never was a big eater.
    So whatever they give us, my body didn't need more,
    desired more food.
    So I survived.
    Those people who could eat more, the body
    needed more food, they starved.
    For myself, it was enough.
    So I survived the hunger.
    But some people just didn't.
    And then after-- and then they came in,
    and they took out some people to work
    in a factory of ammunition.
    So they picked me--
    myself and my sister.
    Both of us were selected to work in the ammunition.
    And then this one was-- where we were before was they
    called it Birkenau.
    And then they took us to Auschwitz.
    It was a different camp.
    And from there we used to go to work.
    In the beginning, we used to go from Birkenau
    to work in the factory.
    And then later on they took us to separate quarters
    because there were some civilian German people working with us.
    And they don't want that we should
    bring some sickness to the German people,
    to the civilian people.
    That was at Birkenau?
    That was at Birkenau.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    So they took us.
    They give us separate quarters so we
    won't be mixed with the rest of the people.
    And we had a little bit food more.
    And I was lucky because we didn't had to work--
    in the beginning, I used to work outside,
    carrying stones to help the men to build the railroad
    station so they shouldn't have to have the people walk
    from the station, from the railroad station
    to the crematorium.
    So we built the railroad closer to [INAUDIBLE]
    that should be close from the station,
    right away to the crematorium.
    So it was very hard work.
    But we worked outside.
    But when you were inside, you were
    protected a little bit from the wind, from the snow,
    from the rain.
    So that was a little bit easier to survive.
    And then again, when every time when we came home, before we
    got to our barracks, they took us, every day, for a--
    to take a shower after work so that we
    should keep ourselves clean because we were
    working with civilian people.
    So you never know.
    Like one day you came in, and there was this--
    what's his name, what you mentioned?
    Mengele.
    Mengele, he was standing there.
    And he just asked us, show me your tongue.
    So we had to show him the tongue.
    And then he looked our face.
    And if he didn't--
    he wanted-- he needed-- he want to take out 100, 200
    people to the crematorium.
    You come here, and you come here.
    And he took the people out in our time.
    And now we didn't see them.
    So you never know what the tomorrow will bring.
    You were living just for today.
    You didn't know, tomorrow you're going
    to go back to work because these selections were so often.
    And then they replaced new people.
    They brought in New people to replace those sick people.
    And when we saw him, we knew that something is coming up.
    So we rub our cheek, so we have nice red cheeks, that we
    look healthy not sickly like.
    And then my sister got sick.
    She caught the typhus.
    She got sick.
    And they send her to the hospital
    because we couldn't take care of them.
    I couldn't take care of her.
    So they sent her to the hospital.
    And I was hoping that maybe she will survive, but she died.
    She died in her sleep.
    When I went to visit-- you're not allowed to go in there.
    But I went to sneak.
    I sneak in twice.
    Once I sneak in again she was still alive.
    I brought her-- somebody--
    I begged for a piece onion for my sister,
    giver her a piece of my bread, what I saved.
    I didn't eat it.
    Didn't eat it myself and just saved it for her.
    And the next time I came in, there
    was this cap and the onion.
    And she wasn't in the bed now.
    So I asked the people next bed to her.
    I said, where is my sister?
    So they said, oh, she's better off.
    She didn't-- she just fell asleep,
    and that's how she died.
    So I didn't cry.
    I didn't cry at all because I just pray to God.
    I says, please, if it's going to happen to me,
    I just want [INAUDIBLE].
    I envy her, that she died not knowing
    that she's going to the crematorium right now.
    I was so scared.
    This is the only thing what I was scared the most.
    I wasn't scared for my life.
    I knew that--
    I didn't expect that I will be able to get out from there.
    But I was scared that they shouldn't take
    me alive to the crematorium.
    I prayed to God this.
    Please, let me die in my bed, in my sleep, that I wouldn't know
    what's going to happen to me.
    So I envy her when she passed away.
    I didn't cry, didn't cry at all.
    Thank God that he took her away without knowing.
    She didn't know that she's going alive to the crematorium.
    So it was like a blessing.
    Because I did not expect I will survive.
    Then we were working.
    I was working there till 1945, January the 15, 1945.
    They came in, and they told us that we should get together.
    We're all going to march out from the camp.
    We knew.
    We had-- some people knew that the Russians are not
    far away from us.
    So when we left the camp, the Germans
    were burning all the papers.
    They didn't want to leave that the Russians should
    see what really happened there.
    So they brought-- they burned all the documents what
    they had, whatever they could, not
    to leave even the crematorium there and burn it down.
    No.
    Not to show the Russians what happened.
    And then we went for a-- they took us out to give us a piece
    of bread.
    And that's what we had.
    The clothes what we had on our body, that's what we owned.
    We didn't have nothing else.
    And then we were munching for, I don't know, quite a few days.
    And there were sick people there.
    They couldn't march.
    So they-- if you--
    somebody was behind, couldn't be in the group,
    so they shot them, and they threw them in the--
    how do you say that?
    Ditches?
    Ditches, yeah.
    Threw them in the ditches.
    And then whatever went by, when we saw a crematorium,
    then we said-- not a [INAUDIBLE] whenever we saw a chimney,
    we thought, OK, that's the next stop.
    They didn't have a chance to burn us here.
    They're going to take us in the next crematorium.
    They're going to finish us up there.
    You know what I mean.
    We never thought that someday we'd be free.
    And we stopped over during the night.
    And then I had thought to try to hide in the--
    in some of the bombs, attics, where we stayed
    overnight there.
    The German left already.
    And the [INAUDIBLE],, like the [INAUDIBLE] used to leave.
    So everything was empty.
    So we stayed overnight there, the whole group.
    And so I went.
    I hide in there.
    And then I figured out, what am I going to do here?
    When the German come, they're going to kill me anyhow.
    I says, let me be with everybody, whatever
    going to happen to everybody.
    So I went down to the attic, and I marched with them farther.
    And finally we came to another railroad station.
    And there they had those open wagons.
    And the snow was about two feet high in the wagons.
    And they kept us in like the herrings in those wagons again.
    You know what I mean?
    And for about, I don't remember how many hours,
    but we were there, riding in those wagons.
    Then when we came to a stop, and now we were so packed,
    and we were warmed by each other's body
    because we were staying in the snow.
    So when I went down from the--
    from the wagon, from the railroad wagon,
    I couldn't walk.
    My feet were all swollen.
    Then they took us to Ravensbrück.
    That was the-- then they took us to another camp.
    They called it Ravensbrück.
    It was closer to Berlin.
    It was closer to Berlin.
    They took us close to [INAUDIBLE]..
    And then for the night, they didn't have barracks
    where to put us in.
    So they put us--
    we slept overnight in the tent.
    And it was in January.
    The snow was high.
    It was freezing cold, below zero outside.
    And we slept just on a straw.
    And the wind was blowing through the tents.
    You know what I mean.
    And then I took off my shoes.
    Next morning, I couldn't put on my shoes.
    My feet were all swollen.
    Frozen?
    Frozen.
    I was probably frozen.
    So somebody gave me a needle.
    So I took a-- we had a blanket.
    Somebody had a needle.
    Took the blanket, and I cut off, and I made booties, like,
    something to wear maybe.
    And that's where somebody gave a little needle--
    yarn, or needle, something.
    And I made a pair of booties.
    And we were there about just pure two or three weeks,
    something like that.
    And after this they--
    and then I couldn't walk.
    I couldn't.
    I was dragging my right foot.
    My left foot--
    I was dragging my left foot.
    I could walk with my right foot.
    But my left foot, I could not lift.
    So I was dragging my foot.
    And then one woman came in.
    And then, again, they were making a selection
    to take some people to send to help out in a air field,
    on the airport, something like that, where
    the Germans and the American were
    [INAUDIBLE],, were shooting down, were
    attacking the German Luftwaffe.
    No, that wasn't-- do you understand what I mean?
    It's an airport that the Americans had been bombing.
    The Americans were bombing.
    And they need some people to clean up the airport.
    So they took us there.
    So I knew I couldn't walk.
    And then we had to walk, like, from this end
    of the room to the other.
    Now how many feet would that be?
    About, let's say, 10 or 15 feet.
    You know what I mean.
    So she can look you over, if you're healthy enough
    to be sent to work.
    And now here I was standing in the selection to be selected.
    And I said, God, my God, how can I do that if I cannot walk.
    She won't take me.
    And I don't know what's happened.
    I just walked the few feet, like never nothing happened, just--
    I don't know, like it's a miracle, the way I walked,
    stayed.
    And I was OK.
    I cannot-- I cannot explain it, what's happened with me.
    I couldn't walk.
    And all of a sudden, I had the power to walk, like never.
    And I was selected to be sent to this other camp
    because the condition in the Ravensbrück
    was just unbelievable.
    So everybody wants to get out from there.
    And so I was pretty lucky then, that I got from here,
    out from Ravensbrück.
    And we came to Mecklenburg.
    That was the-- and there were barracks,
    where the soldiers used to--
    the German soldiers used to live there, the pilots, you know,
    what took care of the--
    it was army.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Do you want to stop now and continue another day?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    OK?
    Why don't you--
    All right.
    All right.
    The time is now 8:40, September--
    8:40 PM, September the 23rd, 1979.
    Approximately 10 minutes ago, Paul Ross,
    Dr. Paul Ross, his wife Gilda Wagner Ross,
    and Gilda's mother, Joyce Wagner--
    let's tape her-- left.
    Hopefully we will continue the rest of Mrs. Wagner's story,
    1945 to 1979, later this week.
    I'm Bob Ross, Paul's brother.
    And my wife Clara and I have come to Chicago, ostensibly
    for a Society of American Archivists meeting.
    We're now it Paul's mother's, my mother's apartment.
    Yes, Gilda-- yes, Clara?
    Did you get the date also?
    What's today?
    Today's date.
    What's today's date?
    23rd, honey.
    23rd?
    We're now at Mom's apartment.
    Mom has just bought this apartment.
    It's a co-op apartment located at 519 North Main
    Street in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, apartment 2E.
    Is that the right number?
    For years Mom lived in Batavia, at-- about two--
    no, September of 1977, Mom finally moved out of Batavia
    into a co-op, a condominium in this building
    that was owned by Reverend Enright, which he
    had purchased for his mother.
    Mom had got evicted.
    And she bought this apartment, signing off
    to start a new tape.
    So the next tape, hopefully, will
    be a continuation of Mrs.--
    all right.
    OK.
    Turn it off?
    No.
    Time is 8:57.
    I just wanted to add as a postscript,
    after Mrs. Wagner had been speaking
    and we turned off the recorder and people
    were ready to go home, Mrs. Wagner
    indicated that what she had said was really just an outline
    of her experiences.
    And she added the comment that it
    was difficult talking about the real feel of her experience
    of living and working in Auschwitz,
    with the smell of burnt bodies from the crematoria,
    and knowing that these were people.

    There is no transcript available for this track

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Joyce Wagner
    Interviewer
    Rodney A. Ross

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Wagner, Joyce.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Joyce Wagner in 1988.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 07:57:28
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn508975?utm_source=noahtoly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=joyce-wagner-97-auschwitz-survivor

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us