Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Esther Sendrowicz

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0095.70 | RG Number: RG-50.163.0070

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 Esther Sendrowicz
    Transcript
    My name is Norma Stern.
    Today is June 5, 1986.
    I am here to interview Esther Sendrowicz, who
    is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
    I am doing this under the auspices of the Oral History
    Project Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.
    The purpose of this interview is to add
    to the oral history of the Nazi Holocaust
    so that, through this living memorial,
    future generations will know what happened.
    With this knowledge, hopefully we
    can prevent any such occurrence in the future.
    This is Norma Stern.
    OK.
    Tell me-- tell me your full name,
    including your maiden name.
    Maiden?
    Maiden?
    Esther Berkensztadt.
    Berkensztadt.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And where were you born?
    Poland, in a very small town.
    What was the name of the town?
    Osjaków.
    What part of Poland was that in?
    The part of Poland that was close to the German border.
    What year were you born?
    What year?
    Yeah.
    The 25th of March, 1927.
    Who was in your family in the years before the war?
    The closest family?
    Yeah.
    Parents.
    What were their names?
    I had the father, Israel, the mother, Chana.
    And did you have brothers or sisters?
    Yes, I had a brother and a sister.
    What were their names?
    My brother was the oldest.
    His name was Wolf, with a W.
    And your sister?
    My sister was Gittel.
    Gitl.
    Did you have grandparents who lived nearby?
    No, my grandfather died in 1937.
    They died before the war broke out.
    Did you have aunts and uncles in the area?
    Oh, many, many.
    What was your parents' education background-- educational
    background?
    Yeah, the education was like public school.
    Yiddish and Polish.
    Was your family religious?
    Not very.
    Not Jewish.
    Like Jewish people before the war,
    my father prayed every day before breakfast.
    Did they keep kosher?
    Yeah.
    Did you speak Yiddish at home?
    Yiddish and Polish, yes.
    Did you go to synagogue for the holidays?
    They took me when I was a young girl to the synagogues,
    just to the big holidays.
    They would open the synagogues for like just women
    and children.
    Not in simple Saturdays like here, Friday evening
    or Saturday.
    Where did your father go to synagogue?
    Where did he pray?
    Every day?
    Yeah.
    At home.
    At home.
    Was your family Zionist?
    Were they interested in Palestine?
    Father-- they lived with the words of Israel
    because his name was Israel.
    Were you members of any Zionist organization?
    Oh, no.
    There was dark before the war, a small city.
    Dark Poland-- no radios, no television, no lights.
    Very, very, very poor and dark.
    Did you have any religious education?
    A religious education?
    I was in a cheder.
    Gone to a cheder.
    Cheder?
    Yeah.
    Was that after your public school?
    After my Polish classes.
    How did your family support itself?
    What did your father do?
    We had a little store.
    And we had land.
    Farm, a farm.
    A small farm.
    A small farm.
    What did the store sell?
    Grocery.
    Groceries.
    Very small.
    Did your mother work?
    Yeah, she-- oh, my goodness.
    She was sewing clothes for people when she had time.
    This is coming to the machine?
    Yes.
    [COUGHING] Excuse me.
    OK.
    Was there just one synagogue in your town?
    Yes, one.
    Very, very small and poor.
    How big a town was it?
    The town was a small city mixed with Jewish people
    and Polish people, like half and half.
    Not too much.
    Did you live in a Jewish area, in a Jewish neighborhood?
    We were in school, we were together,
    like Polish children and Jewish children.
    Yeah.
    The people who came to your father's store,
    were they both Poles and Jews?
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Did you have non-Jewish friends from school?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Did you have any antisemitic experiences before the war?
    Was.
    Yeah.
    You want to tell me about some of them?
    They make fun from us.
    Sometimes they threw stones at us.
    Sometimes they cuss.
    On Saturday, they make--
    We couldn't-- we didn't go to the school on Saturday.
    They make fun.
    I didn't remember in my time, like beating somebody
    to bleeding.
    I don't remember this.
    Nothing like that.
    Just fun, fun, fun.
    How about your parents?
    Did they have any problems because they were Jewish?
    Any special problems?
    You see, maybe.
    Maybe they have.
    Now, how can I remember this?
    I was a young girl.
    Yeah.
    No, I think we were together with neighbors.
    It wasn't bad.
    It wasn't incredible.
    No.
    As the war became closer, did your family ever
    think of leaving Poland?
    Was there ever talk of that?
    No.
    No.
    My father mentioned, because in the first war,
    he was three years a soldier in the Russian Army.
    In the Russian Army?
    Yeah, and he was in Russia.
    And I remember when he was talking about
    to people or to the children, how
    he was the Russian soldier, how hard they walked
    and not having food and sometimes they
    put them in the train from one end to the other
    and not having food in the train,
    not having clothes changed.
    They had a very hard time, OK?
    Because they took the men who not left Poland
    they took to the army.
    He started to talk about maybe we
    go to Russia, because his Russian was excellent.
    OK, now, how to go to Russia?
    We can't leave this everything and go to go to Russia, yes?
    The German came, took everything, evacuated us
    and give us one room.
    Just they took everything from us.
    They took everything?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    What are your first memories of when the war broke out?
    Oh, it was incredible.
    5 o'clock in the morning, however like--
    we were in a small city.
    Now, the city of--
    when we need to card or papers, it was called [POLISH].
    What was that?
    [POLISH] Was-- you see, every city here in America, yeah,
    every small city have--
    had not a card from not the police.
    Police was like you needed a birth certificate, like you
    needed a death certificate, was to walk to go to yellow.
    Oh, this is like a city hall.
    Yeah, like a city hall.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    5 o'clock in the morning, we were out, the children,
    every from the buildings because we heard bombs.
    Bombs.
    The people said, oh, it's the Polish Army has maneuvers.
    And they bombed 5 o'clock in the morning this city [POLISH]
    because was the closest by the border, by the German--
    Prussia, Prussia-- by the German border.
    And they smashed the city.
    We start running.
    Just put on old clothes, run from the city in woods,
    very far, like 10 kilometers, where woods.
    Woods.
    When was this that Germans came to your town?
    '39.
    In '39, in August.
    And when the school started in September.
    September.
    Yeah, '39.
    Also we went-- we took something, just a little,
    into this woods.
    And the German came to this woods,
    too, and shot down the thousands of people in these woods.
    Because they know it.
    They know every move what is going on.
    Because we were close to the Prussian border,
    we had a hard time.
    Did your family stay together?
    Yeah, we were together, and we survived.
    And when we came back--
    How long did you stay in the woods?
    Oh, we stayed in the woods maybe one week.
    Did you have food with you?
    We didn't.
    No, we didn't.
    We didn't think.
    We-- just a little something to go.
    Just we were walking, walking, walking.
    Just a little something.
    Just a little, very little.
    Because when we walked, we saw many soldiers,
    dead people, dead people on the highways and in the woods.
    And every place dead people because they bombed.
    They cleaned up.
    When you left the woods, where did you go?
    Back.
    To your home?
    Back to the home.
    Why did you decide to leave the woods?
    Because they said the law.
    They give us the--
    the law was in the city, the police did this.
    They said, walk to the woods, the big woods.
    It's 10 kilometers.
    Walk there.
    We'll be safe.
    Oh, the Polish government told you.
    The Polish government, yeah.
    To clean up the city.
    Because when they bombed this-- they destroyed this [POLISH],
    and we were close, they said they can come and destroy
    the small city, too.
    No, they didn't destroy the small city
    because they had more important things to do.
    So did the government issue an order
    to come back from the woods?
    Just people started to think.
    After a week in the woods, started, what we need to do?
    Go, to take the risk.
    Where to go?
    To take the risk and then back.
    So you came back.
    Yeah.
    We came back.
    And the German made in the city, in the small city,
    like put closed the Jews together.
    Was it a sort of a ghetto?
    Like a-- wasn't called like a ghetto because it's small.
    No, like put out, and they took the nice apartments
    or nice houses.
    They took, and they gave to these German.
    Or they make something offices.
    They took the furniture, and they just--
    who was a German in Poland.
    Was many German people, too.
    OK.
    So where did the Jews go?
    We were in small--
    located in small apartments.
    Like a family had like this.
    Just a small apartment.
    We had a house, a little house.
    Because we had one little room.
    Were you able to take any of your belongings
    from your original house?
    No, just they said to us, the German police, this
    and this and this.
    You can take this and this and this.
    The rest--
    Took a few things.
    Just a few things.
    OK.
    How long did you stay in that house?
    We were-- like after this, they started
    to take the Jews to make highways, to build highways.
    Yeah.
    Were you still with your family?
    I was still with my family.
    And my brother, they took my brother for work.
    And he never came--
    How old was he?
    18 years old.
    He never came back.
    Never.
    OK.
    After this, they said--
    was right away they made a Jewish committee,
    like a Jewish office.
    The Jews--
    So like a Judenrat?
    Judenrat, yeah.
    Yeah.
    And so they took my father to--
    many people, they took them for building highways--
    stones and-- OK.
    And my father became sick.
    I went to this Judenrat, and I said, my father is sick.
    Can he stay home and can I go for him?
    Because I was the second child.
    And eight years, I got a sister.
    She dead.
    She dead with the parents, to the gas chamber.
    OK.
    They said, OK, we just need the amount.
    OK.
    And my father came back, and I was there working.
    Let me just ask, in this Jewish settlement that you were put in,
    were there any rules?
    Were the Jews able to go and come, or was there a curfew?
    The Jews were moved out of their original houses.
    Yeah.
    No, it wasn't so.
    It wasn't so.
    No, no, no, it wasn't.
    Because it was the beginning.
    Uh-huh.
    Because everything was in the--
    I'm talking the beginning.
    OK.
    Did you have to wear any armbands at that time?
    Yes.
    Jewish star?
    Yes, the star.
    Yes.
    OK.
    I went to this work.
    We were building for a little [NON-ENGLISH].
    We built highways carrying stones here and back.
    OK.
    Where did you live?
    They emptied a school.
    They gave us straw on the floor and straw.
    How far was this from your town?
    It was just 10 kilometers.
    OK.
    Some day, they came, and they took us.
    They took us far away, very far away in Poland to build canals.
    Canals, where the water was full of water on the fields.
    And we need to build the canals.
    We built canals.
    Did the Germans feed the workers?
    No, no.
    No Plastic boots, nothing in water.
    March.
    Did you get something to eat?
    When we came back, we had a piece of bread and a soup.
    When we came back.
    The same, they emptied something--
    buildings, old buildings, and they put us.
    The men separately, the girls separately.
    Was this mostly young people?
    Most young.
    Most young people.
    In-- OK.
    We were in a very hard time because it was cold
    and sicknesses and dying people.
    OK, some day, they said when they cleaned up Poland,
    all to they cleaned up Poland from the Jews,
    they put in the gas chambers.
    They took us, transport to Auschwitz.
    OK, how did you go to--
    Because this is from this transport.
    This is because I came with this transport.
    The triangle--
    Yeah.
    --on your arm?
    Because I came from this transport.
    How did you travel to Auschwitz?
    How we traveled.
    They put us in trucks, and they took us to our city, Hohensalza.
    Were you with anyone you knew at this time?
    Oh, yeah, with the whole group working.
    Did those people also come from your town?
    We were 14 girls from one town.
    And different kinds, from different kinds.
    They had them in the hundreds of people to build
    these canals in the fields.
    So you went to--
    Hohensalza.
    This is called-- today, it's called Inowroclaw.
    A big, empty place with wires covered like concentration camp,
    with the German with the boots and the big flashlights
    and the guns.
    And they put us together there.
    And from this place, they evacuated us to Auschwitz.
    How long did you stay in Hohensalza?
    Hohensalza, we stayed maybe two nights, three days on.
    Just on the ground.
    On the ground?
    On the ground.
    Yeah.
    Were you given any food?
    They gave us something and something.
    It was a big mess because thousands and thousands.
    Did they tell you where you were going?
    No, no.
    No, we know.
    You knew?
    Yeah, we know we need to go into the gas chambers.
    You had heard?
    Because we know-- before us, they cleaned up
    our parents, our families.
    We know that this--
    Had your--
    We know this.
    Had your parents been taken before this?
    Or where were your parents at this time?
    They left my small sister, the youngest sister,
    in the small town.
    They took the whole Jews to the church.
    And there were many, many, many German police
    out on the city with the guns.
    When somebody tries to escape from the small city,
    they killed.
    And they took them in the trucks.
    And they came in--
    not to Auschwitz.
    And it was called-- in woods.
    They built in woods like a little barrack.
    And they put them like this in a barrack.
    Just they go like this.
    I think they told me after this, when they went on the trucks,
    yeah, they came in the middle with the truck, with the people.
    The drivers out because it was German,
    and they closed it, the barrack.
    And gas.
    And after this, clean up and again,
    the other truck, the other truck.
    This is what they done.
    The people were killed by the gas?
    By the gas in the truck, in the back.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    This was the end for my parents and my little sister.
    And my brother was killed in working camp
    before there came the Russians.
    OK.
    You were in Hohensalza for a few days.
    Yeah.
    And then?
    Yeah.
    Yeah, we came to Auschwitz.
    Yeah, when we came to Auschwitz, We didn't know.
    We came.
    It was night, OK?
    And it was so many SS.
    And they said, right and left.
    Who knows?
    Who knows what is right and what is left?
    They put me in the right.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    After this, in the morning, they took us
    and put us in the barracks.
    What were your-- what did you first
    see when you came to Auschwitz?
    When I came to Auschwitz, I saw on the train station--
    the train station, screaming, crying,
    beating to death people, children from different places,
    too, from ghettos.
    In this time was working three crematoriums day and night,
    day and night, because they brought transport by transport,
    nonstop.
    Did you come by train to Auschwitz?
    Yeah.
    They put us first in trucks.
    In trucks.
    And after this, they put us in train, like open.
    No roofs.
    Open cars.
    Open.
    Nothing.
    Was it a long trip from Hohensalza?
    No, because this was--
    Auschwitz is in Poland.
    And Hohensalza is in Poland, too.
    It's Poland.
    Everything is Poland.
    So when you came, you saw that the crematoria were--
    Yeah, when they put us in the barracks-- first of all,
    they make this.
    They gave you a number.
    Before they put us in the barracks,
    and they took us there, and they gave us clothes, the stripes.
    Nothing.
    And a pair of wood something.
    Wooden shoes?
    Bottom was wood and the top was material.
    No socks, no pantyhose.
    Shoes.
    When we came to the barracks, we stopped looking,
    one of the other looking.
    Calling by name because nobody recognized each other.
    Just calling by names.
    Were you still with the people from your area?
    Yeah, I was with a few, just with a few.
    One girl said to me from my-- this one said, my god.
    Now, you look like your brother.
    OK.
    They separated us.
    OK.
    And was Auschwitz barracks, the barracks, they had no beds.
    No, just long.
    They make all walls and straw.
    No pillows, no blankets.
    Nothing.
    There was straw for you?
    Yeah, like this piece was, they said, 10.
    Needs to be 10 on this piece, 10.
    10 girls?
    10 girls, 10 women.
    A piece of straw.
    Nothing.
    OK.
    And they gave us a little piece of bread and one soup a day.
    A little soup a day.
    And go to work.
    Did you have a roll call in the morning?
    Yeah, Appells, Zahlappells.
    Every day in the morning, Zahlappells.
    How long did you have to stay?
    Oh, sometimes when it was cold to stay like this.
    And how many faint and how many died after a short time?
    Because some people-- you see, educated people,
    they were from a beautiful life.
    They died.
    They died.
    OK.
    We worked.
    What kind of work did you do?
    Oh, they took us to carry bricks, stones.
    And when big stone--
    Small stone was OK.
    Now, when the big stone, when somebody
    couldn't carry the big stone, and they had not just SS.
    They had German women from Germany.
    They had separate blocks.
    They had beautiful blocks with beds
    and beautiful separate kitchen, separate food.
    And they had here written "Kapo."
    They were the second hand from the SS German.
    They helped.
    Were they prisoners also?
    Yeah, prisoners.
    They had the number or green or red or black.
    What did they colors mean?
    The black was meaning murder, green a crook,
    and red politics, politician.
    So they put in there.
    I see.
    So they were--
    They gave them a nice life.
    A nice life.
    Is when they had big--
    like the police have the big--
    Like a billy stick?
    Yeah, big one, bigger than the police.
    Bigger.
    And when somebody couldn't with the big stone, sometimes they--
    I was thinking many times, how can you carry a big stone?
    They beat up at the head or something.
    That is--
    Were you building something?
    Oh, yeah.
    We were building.
    We were building.
    They were building.
    We walked a few kilometers after Auschwitz, not inside.
    And they were building a place.
    Called the place [NON-ENGLISH]
    And what was that?
    This is-- they built a beautiful places
    for bringing the soldiers from the East,
    from the East front, where they fight with the German, to rest.
    Like sanitariums, to give to rest and to rest.
    OK.
    Were there washing facilities in the barracks?
    Bathrooms?
    Nothing.
    We need to walk far away.
    Winter time, summer time-- far away.
    No water, nothing.
    No oven, no heat.
    No nothing.
    Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
    Was there any religious life?
    Religious life?
    Yeah.
    Did any of the religious people pray?
    Maybe they pray inside.
    Who can-- who was praying?
    We were not people anymore.
    We were like not a dog anymore.
    We were like rats.
    Like rats.
    Like rats?
    Yeah, not a dog.
    We were jealous when they brought the dogs.
    The SS with the dogs, we were jealous of the dogs
    because they had a beautiful life.
    Was there-- did you ever get to do anything except work?
    Did you ever have time to read or to talk or--
    Wasn't a piece of paper to read.
    We can just a little talk one with the other.
    We were incredible finished every day.
    And OK, not enough this.
    Not enough this.
    They made-- when they came from work, groups in the thousands,
    OK, they said stay, like soldiers.
    You couldn't go to the barracks what they prepared selection.
    OK.
    We went to the special places for selections.
    They took half.
    Half went back to the barracks.
    I was selected by Dr. Mengele twice.
    Dr. Mengele twice.
    What were they looking for?
    How did they--
    They want-- Dr. Mengele selected-- once he
    was by a desk, dressed white.
    And he said, show this, the tongue.
    Just the tongue.
    Mm-hmm.
    And when he didn't like it, something, the face
    or who knows, just the number they written down.
    He would write down the number?
    No, he had help.
    He wasn't.
    He was just-- he had just the number on the paper.
    Yeah.
    He had help from this and this.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    I survived because I didn't know.
    Who cared?
    Who was caring for a life at this time?
    Nobody.
    Were you-- was your health OK at this point?
    I was looking always like a little girl.
    Yeah, a little girl.
    I worked.
    I wasn't me.
    Maybe just the power, the nerves.
    No, I wasn't me.
    I couldn't explain to somebody my second night.
    We just wait for the death, for the gas.
    We wait.
    We were--
    Did you think you would die?
    Oh, yes!
    Every minute.
    Every minute.
    Yeah, once I had that no one-- not me.
    We had a selection from the work,
    to take out the clothes, stay out of clothes.
    And the white gloves, they touched the skin.
    Everyone had-- the skin wasn't the skin.
    Was full of rash, full of holes with the--
    Did you have lice?
    Lice in the holes, full of lice in the thousands.
    In every hole was lice because we didn't have the soap.
    OK.
    My number was written to go to the crematorium
    because the rest left.
    We need to stay.
    Need to go.
    Now, the crematoriums were so busy.
    They brought thousands of-- millions maybe transferred,
    and they didn't have place for us.
    They said, after 24 hours sitting,
    not having clothes, waiting for the trucks
    to take us to the crematorium, they came,
    and they said, go back to the barracks.
    Put on the clothes, this stripe, and back to the barrack.
    And like this.
    OK.
    OK.
    Wait, wait.
    OK, you were telling me that you were taken back to the barracks.
    Yeah.|
    By the way, I just want to ask you,
    when did you arrive at Auschwitz?
    Just for the record.
    When I arrived?
    Yes.
    In '42.
    Was maybe August.
    August.
    Did you have any other close escapes?
    You said another time you thought you might
    be taken to the crematorium.
    Oh, yes.
    Many times.
    We were-- many times they built a barrack covered
    with a wall, very high wall.
    When they need to put new transports,
    and they didn't have place, they took the Kommandos.
    Yeah?
    I was looking, and the name was 103 Kommando.
    They took the Kommandos straight from the work
    to this place, which was a gate, close the gate.
    And from 1,000 or over 1,000, they left back 100,
    maybe 130 because they needed the places.
    I lost my whole girls, my friends.
    I don't know why I survived.
    This is incredible.
    I was always the little girl.
    And I know it was two SS men, two.
    And I know when I go to them, we need to walk to them.
    They said-- they didn't talk.
    They pointed to the left or the right.
    They didn't talk.
    They didn't talk.
    And right away, it was--
    they had the German women working, like holding hands
    nobody can move from this place to this place,
    because were sisters or mother or daughter.
    From this place or from this place,
    go together to the crematorium or go together.
    No way.
    If they point here, you need to stay.
    Yes.
    I was closed, and I was thinking, now I go.
    As I walk back to stay a little longer, one minute longer,
    to to dear life one minute longer.
    And because I'm short, they didn't--
    couldn't see me.
    I was 10, 15 girls in the back.
    OK.
    And one SS man was very busy because some two sisters
    start to scream, to broke up the hands from the German womens
    and go together.
    As he start to beat them.
    And when I came to this SS man, and he said, to the place,
    I didn't know what mean this.
    He was pointing.
    Go back.
    And I came back.
    I came back to this place, to this block.
    Yes, we had Blockaltestes in the block.
    You had what?
    Blockalteste.
    Oh, the Blockalteste.
    Yeah.
    This was most of them the Czechoslovakian women,
    from Czechoslovakia.
    Most of them, they know the German.
    Czechoslovakian know German.
    And when they saw me, they said, Jesus Christi.
    She is-- Czechoslovakian.
    The Polish and Czechoslovakian is like the same language.
    She is back?
    OK.
    Did anyone ever try to escape?
    From the-- yeah, they escaped.
    We were-- we had wires.
    What?
    From electric?
    Yeah?
    Who came close to this, like this place, this--
    Few feet?
    The electric took him.
    It's every day--
    They were killed at the wire.
    Yeah.
    Every day, they need to turn off the electric.
    The German take out from the wires
    the people because they don't want it.
    I'm talking about women because I was in a women camp.
    We're not together, men and women.
    Just a women camp.
    Yes, every day was this struggle.
    They had to take out.
    It was in the thousands.
    They're built the same.
    When they touched with the little legs?
    OK.
    This--
    Did the camp have a smell because of the crematoria?
    Oh, my goodness.
    Not a smell.
    The fire, the fire became bigger, very big.
    And dark smoke.
    A fire, dark smoke.
    The smell was-- when they burned millions, thousands every day,
    the bones, everything.
    Not just-- we heard the scream, the incredible screams.
    We heard working-- when they're working in the ovens, what
    they have to irons.
    We heard the irons moving like this, too.
    When they were very busy with crematoriums, we saw this.
    We saw this, where they were digging holes,
    and they put Jewish beautiful children in the holes,
    sprayed with gas for the fire because the crematoriums were
    very busy, and they need to-- the transport what came--
    a transport, yeah?
    They need to be cleaned up in--
    like in an hour.
    But the German was everything corrected.
    In an hour need to be over.
    Yes?
    They burn the children in the holes in the thousands.
    In the thousands.
    OK.
    OK.
    Now, it was incredible.
    It's incredible to explain everything what we saw,
    what we have, and why I survived.
    I wasn't--
    Did you have any special friend?
    One friend.
    She is now in Florida.
    She moved just-- no, she is temporary
    because her daughter is in Florida.
    Florida.
    They were there all the time in Israel
    since the war is finished.
    They were in Israel.
    They had business, a restaurant business by Dizengoff, Tel Aviv.
    Now, they opened a little restaurant in Florida.
    What's her name?
    Regina Rosenthal.
    She was very active.
    She fight.
    She was a fighter.
    And she had a better little work.
    And she helped me to survive with a piece of bread.
    She took out her underwear or a little blouse or little socks,
    and she went in the morning out of everything
    because she worked by clothes.
    Oh, she took the food from the clothes.
    Yeah, they put girls, some groups of girls
    to sorting clothes.
    When they brought the transport of meal,
    a blouse to blouse, a skirt to skirt, and like this.
    Yeah?
    She gave me sometimes a piece of bread and changed clothes.
    And I survived.
    Thanking of her, I survived.
    Now, just she.
    OK.
    When they wanted the barracks--
    they wanted the barracks.
    They wanted to show maybe they had maybe somebody,
    maybe the world told them they're
    killing by gas, gas, gas.
    Yes, they wanted to show the world we died by a normal death.
    Yeah?
    They needed the barracks for a different kinds of--
    we were finished, not working well, just
    working like dead people.
    OK, when they needed the barracks, they gave us--
    When was summer time, like July, I remember, they
    gave us once a beautiful meal.
    Beautiful.
    Two pieces of salami, a potato, a piece of margarine.
    OK, we ate this.
    We ate.
    We said, oh, this is from God.
    And they put in the salami bowel moving.
    What?
    They mixed bowel moving.
    Bowel moving.
    Oh.
    From-- I don't know.
    People's bowel moving or from horses, from cows.
    And came a typhus, a typhus with the dysentery, with blood.
    And we died like flies.
    And they cleaned up.
    And I had this sickness, too.
    I had this.
    Came-- and she was--
    we can eat a piece of bread.
    We wait like-- we wait for a piece of bread like somebody
    wait to be killed and like to be alive.
    Somebody waiting for help, OK?
    Yes, we wait in the evening for this piece of bread.
    We couldn't eat.
    OK?
    My friend, what is in Florida, she said--
    she came to my barrack.
    She was in a different barrack.
    She came to me, and I was maybe in 40--
    100 and something, the highest temperature.
    Yeah, because of the typhus.
    And the bread was--
    I just had worked to save a piece of bread.
    I put under me the piece of bread.
    And she took the whole bread, and she brought me
    a cup of hot water and two small pieces of garlic.
    And she said, you need to drink this,
    and you need to eat the garlic.
    And I couldn't because I was in the highest temperature.
    I couldn't.
    And she said to me-- when I met her, she said what she did.
    She made them small pieces.
    And with the fingers, she pushed me the garlic
    and this little water.
    And I survived.
    I don't know.
    I survived from this typhus.
    And I had the dysentery.
    And when I had the dysentery, I'm
    talking not I-- the thousands.
    We were bleeding.
    We couldn't have-- just water came with blood.
    Yes, we need to-- we were full of the leaks, full of blood.
    The bodies were full of blood.
    They said,
    OK, when you go to this barrack, they
    will give you help, pills or something.
    And the line was so big, staying in the line for this.
    And they took the people and put them in the trucks
    and put to the crematoriums.
    And I couldn't stay because I couldn't wait for this.
    I was thrown back to the block.
    I said, I don't care.
    I will not take this pill.
    So the people who waited in line--
    They said pills, pills.
    They said pills.
    They just-- when you were inside,
    they put right away to-- when they had a full truck,
    they put in the crematorium, came back.
    They said pills.
    You see?
    As I said, I don't want the pills.
    I wanted to die because I couldn't stay there.
    The blood was running from me.
    OK?
    And I don't know what she did, again,
    this Regina or something else.
    I don't know how I survived this sickness.
    OK, I had this, too.
    OK.
    They cleaned up the barracks with different kinds of tricks,
    yeah?
    Different kinds of tricks like giving this food or saying
    give you pills.
    And they brought right away different people,
    different people, more healthy people
    to work, to work, to work.
    OK.
    Yes, I don't know.
    To explain everything, I need to think.
    I need to think because it's impossible.
    It's impossible.
    What was it?
    Also when came, we were working.
    I stopped working.
    I stopped working because I was very sick.
    This Regina, she made friends.
    She made something-- girlfriends.
    And she said she took me to her barrack.
    She said the Blockalteste is a good, fine woman.
    Maybe you can survive now in block.
    OK.
    What nationality was she?
    Czechoslovakian.
    Most of them, they were Czechoslovakian.
    Czechoslovakian.
    And they worked with the SS.
    They worked together with the SS.
    I was in the block.
    And when she came from work, she takes care,
    and she brought beautiful clothes
    to the Blockalteste covered under the striped dress.
    When they will find out, the SS, they will kill her.
    Because nobody can touch, take nothing.
    Now, she was a very-- she risk.
    She risk.
    She smuggled clothes in to the Blockalteste.
    Yeah, and get the Blockalteste to help
    me to stay and not to report that the number
    to the crematorium.
    OK.
    When I survived-- when I was feeling a little better,
    I went to work.
    Was working for a cleaning-- in a cleaning laundry,
    cleaning laundry for the German people, for the German people.
    Yes, I worked there in this workplace.
    And from there, they took us.
    They said they're going Auschwitz, from this place.
    You left Auschwitz?
    Yeah.
    Do you know when that was?
    18-- January 18, '45.
    How long did you work in the laundry?
    Do you know?
    Oh, I work maybe two Months maybe two months.
    Not longer.
    Two months.
    Were the conditions any better there?
    It was better.
    The condition was better.
    I had a little covered head.
    And I had underwear.
    And they gave this.
    And it was-- we were covered with the roof,
    because I worked always outside.
    Outside working when snow, not snow, not having nothing.
    In the snow barefoot because no shoes, nothing.
    Did you have a sweater or shirt?
    Nothing, just the stripe.
    When they selected, sometimes they put us in a place.
    And they were looking what you have.
    They took it out, out, out, out.
    Nothing, nothing, nothing.
    No way.
    And when sometimes they give us a shower.
    There were special showers.
    They give from time to time a shower.
    They will check what you have.
    When I had something, I lost.
    I was glad--
    I was glad they didn't kill.
    Because sometimes they kill for this.
    To death.
    Once, I worked in a Kommando.
    Was 22.
    I worked in a Kommando.
    Very hard to work in bushes, in wood, in bushes and water.
    And we couldn't survive.
    And the girls stopped working, and they were fainting.
    They had the dogs, the big dogs, the Alsatian dogs.
    German shepherds.
    They said, take the Jude.
    They make pieces.
    The dogs chewed the people?
    They were trained, take the Jude.
    Tchk!
    Pieces.
    Was pieces from girls.
    Pieces.
    We need to-- they always had something.
    We need to take this back from the-- clean up the working
    place.
    To clean up, we need to carry this
    like in special things, the pieces, every day.
    Again, I was looking again because I
    was feeling not today, tomorrow I would be finished.
    Yes, I was looking again for something for help
    from her, from this Regina, what is in Florida.
    Regina.
    Yeah, Regina, what is in Polish, I think.
    What is-- I was looking again for help.
    And she helped me to change the workplace.
    Was she in the laundry area, too?
    Yeah, she was in the laundry area in a different part,
    because it was a very big place.
    We walked three or four kilometers to this place.
    She was in a different area.
    I was in a different area.
    And when they evacuated, we were lost.
    I find her just in Israel, when I came from Poland to Israel.
    OK.
    OK.
    How did you leave the laundry camp?
    OK, they said, stop working.
    It was a very big place.
    This was Poland.
    There are very big factory of leather
    and different kinds of things.
    Poland.
    Leather.
    Leather factory.
    Very big.
    They said, out.
    They know how many thousands they had.
    They count 10 times in five.
    And OK, they said nobody is going back to work to stay.
    And they wait for the--
    The SS wait when to come back to the concentration camp.
    Took us back to the concentration camp.
    We walked to the concentration camp.
    How did you travel?
    You walked?
    Walking, walking, walking, walking.
    Just walking.
    Was it far?
    Was three or four miles.
    Walking, walking.
    We didn't know what is going on, OK?
    We never went back to this work.
    In the evening, they cleaned up, and they said--
    they came, the SS, to every barrack.
    Who will hide?
    If we hide in a place, in the barrack, we'll be shot.
    We need to be outside.
    In the evening, they started to run with us from Auschwitz,
    to clean up Auschwitz.
    Before us walked the men.
    And was very cold.
    The snow was big.
    Poland, who knows?
    Below zero much of the winter.
    When was it that you left Auschwitz?
    Oh, I think you told me.
    18, 18 of January '45.
    OK, we walked off bodies from the men.
    Who stopped was killed.
    Who felled was killed.
    Yes, we walked on the bodies.
    Did you have anything to eat?
    Nothing, nothing.
    They were so angry, the German.
    They were so beating us.
    They were so like wild wolves.
    Because the Russians were in Warsaw,
    and we were in Auschwitz, in Krakow.
    This is short territorial.
    Did you know that the Russians were coming?
    Yeah, we started to know something is incredible
    because they were not walking nor running.
    [KNOCKING]
    Beating.
    OK.
    They who stopped, they killed.
    The plan was to take us to a train station.
    We need to walk all night long to the morning
    to this train station.
    How were you able to do that?
    Who died has died.
    Who died has died.
    When somebody stopped, tchk!
    They were killed.
    Yeah.
    This was in the thousands.
    They killed in the thousands.
    No difference, Jews or not Jews.
    OK.
    They put us in trains, open wagons.
    Yeah?
    No food, no water, nothing.
    And they took us a long time in this train because they
    couldn't--
    They didn't have open the place to go because soldiers
    came in trains.
    Yes, we need to wait when will be open the way to Ravensbrück.
    Yeah?
    Yes, they put us in Ravensbrück.
    How long was the train ride?
    Oh, we were for a few nights and a few days.
    Nothing.
    And dead people.
    And they put so many in these wagons,
    so many we couldn't not move, not move.
    No toilet.
    Nothing, nothing.
    Just who survives survives.
    They brought us to Ravensbrück.
    And we were in Ravensbrück six weeks.
    Six weeks.
    And from Ravensbrück they were--
    they started to take transports in different kinds
    of concentration camps to put to different kinds of concentration
    camps.
    Nobody knows what they want to do.
    It was one crematorium.
    They were taking people out of Ravensbrück?
    Yeah, out of Ravensbrück.
    It was just one crematorium working.
    Yeah, in the same Ravensbrück.
    The same trouble.
    No food.
    A little food.
    And died, not died.
    OK.
    Was there work in Ravensbrück?
    Before us, the people before us, they worked.
    No, we came late.
    This was an old concentration camp, Ravensbrück.
    They brought because they liquidated Auschwitz.
    They took from Auschwitz.
    They cleaned up Auschwitz.
    OK?
    And some-- they took us, a group.
    I don't know.
    I never saw again this Regina.
    Never saw again her.
    They took us again in the wagons.
    And again, again, we traveled so many days.
    We traveled and traveled.
    Excuse me.
    While you were in Ravensbrück, did you live in barracks there?
    Yeah, in a barracks.
    In barracks.
    In barracks.
    No, we didn't-- the old people, they had this little places.
    And we were on the floor, just floor, sitting.
    Like this.
    You just sat?
    Yeah, because it wasn't a place to lie down.
    Sitting like this.
    And during the day, I don't know.
    We didn't work.
    No.
    You didn't work?
    No, no.
    We didn't work.
    Did they feed you?
    They gave us once a day.
    They give-- once a day, they bring something, a soup.
    Once a day.
    Once a day.
    Was there a selection there?
    It wasn't a selection there.
    Because we died.
    Not having selection, we died.
    We died.
    What was your health like?
    No, I was-- no, I wasn't then able to walk.
    When I stood up, I fell down.
    It's OK.
    Nobody cares.
    Who cares of life?
    I wasn't a--
    I wasn't a person.
    I wasn't a person.
    I didn't remember the second name.
    I didn't remember my name is Esther.
    I didn't remember my parents, nothing.
    Who knows?
    Just I don't know why we were so strong.
    Because young, maybe or something.
    How old were you at the time?
    Oh, this time, I will was like 17 years.
    OK, from this Ravensbrück, they decide
    to take people, keep to put them-- keep in Germany.
    I landed in kilometers after Berlin in a concentration camp.
    How did they take you out of Ravensbrück.
    Again, open wagons.
    Open wagons.
    Because closed wagons they needed for the--
    for them, for soldiers because it was so messy.
    We saw.
    Because when we were in open wagon, when
    we came to train station, we saw how they were running,
    the thousands of soldiers and civilians.
    And they put ammunitions in the wagons.
    Was so busy.
    We saw.
    We were thinking like this, oh, the end of the war is coming.
    Or is a bigger war?
    You didn't know.
    OK, we weren't able to think too much.
    No, no.
    We came to the Neustadt-Glewe, to a concentration camp.
    Neustadt-Glewe.
    And that was near Berlin?
    100 kilometer after Berlin.
    OK.
    They brought us to a concentration camp.
    Was between woods.
    Around was woods.
    Big, big territories.
    It was a big territory.
    They trained pilots.
    They trained pilots.
    And we saw women.
    We saw women in barracks with red--
    just not stars.
    Red.
    Red bands.
    Bands.
    They find out they were from Warsaw because Warsaw,
    they made a little revolution against the Germans.
    The Germans smashed Warsaw.
    And they took the people.
    They put in trains like us and put them.
    They worked.
    They worked.
    Because in the other side was big factories
    from ammunition located in woods.
    Located in woods, because we saw boxes like mountains.
    We didn't know what this mean.
    Now, later, later, we find out.
    One said to the other, I wasn't so bright, a little girl.
    Maybe were bright girls.
    They know from the Polish maybe.
    This was ammunition.
    No, mountains of ammunition.
    OK.
    We were in this barracks located--
    AGAIN they brought us once a day a soup.
    They brought once a day soup.
    And it wasn't crematorium.
    It wasn't a crematorium.
    Just we died.
    Do you know when you came there?
    Oh, I came there maybe two months before May.
    Because the 9th of May--
    OK.
    They came-- wasn't a crematorium there.
    They came with horses and a wagon.
    And they cleaned up the blocks, the places because it
    was dead people like flies.
    Did you have barracks there?
    In barracks.
    No, no beds, nothing.
    Nothing.
    Just on the floors.
    And what were you fed there?
    They gave-- once a day, they brought soup.
    And we got the soup, two dishes of soup.
    Two dishes of soup.
    OK.
    Now, people died.
    They died.
    Did you still wear uniforms or did you--
    No, just what we had.
    No, they didn't change nothing there.
    They didn't change nothing.
    Did you have to work there?
    Yeah, they after this, they start
    to take us to dig in the woods, to hide little holes
    for soldiers or something.
    When the bombs come, they can be inside and with the machine
    guns.
    So you were digging holes.
    Digging holes.
    Who was dying, not.
    Now, who not-- they--
    again, was Blockaltestes with the SS.
    And when they saw somebody standing-- because standing,
    they took it.
    OK.
    It's a few days I was working.
    And after this, I became very sick.
    OK.
    You got very sick.
    OK?
    Yeah.
    I became very sick, and I was not working.
    I was thinking of dying.
    Again, somebody helped me with a little water or something,
    the girls.
    I came in.
    OK, we were in this position to the--
    OK, and the German, someday close--
    close to the 9th of may close to the 9th of May,
    they closed us in the barracks.
    No work anymore.
    They closed the doors.
    And they said, who said to me, I don't know.
    One or the other said, they're trying
    to blow up the whole concentration camp because
    from one side is coming the German Army,
    from the other side, the British and American.
    Did you hear the fighting?
    Oh, we heard the planes when they
    bombed Berlin, most of Berlin.
    And the plane were forth and back.
    And not just single planes, like in groups.
    How is calling in groups, this kind of--
    Squadrons?
    Yeah, yeah.
    Forth and back, forth and-- day and night as we were thinking,
    oh, something is happening.
    Something is happening.
    Just the noise was enough, this noise of the plane.
    And they were training.
    From the other side, they were training the German pilots, day
    and night training German pilots.
    They have barracks there.
    They have beautiful things there.
    OK.
    We were closed.
    We need to do-- no, we will be blew up.
    Nobody will see their freedom.
    This we know.
    No, we didn't care.
    You figured you'd be gone.
    Yeah.
    Also, we were sitting one day closed, two days closed,
    three days closed.
    It was a barracks and a little windows with bars.
    Nobody can go out.
    Nobody can work.
    OK, we were afraid to break the doors.
    And what to break the doors with?
    Yes, and we are dying.
    OK, someday they open the barracks.
    And they said, you're free.
    You can go out.
    We were afraid.
    Who opened the barracks?
    Who opened the barracks?
    Like some people, civil people.
    We saw them the first time.
    Opened the barracks, and we--
    you can go out.
    We were afraid to put one step out.
    OK?
    We walked on four because we were afraid.
    Nothing, nothing.
    Yes, we walked on the knees.
    We took the risk because we were talking and talking
    in different language, talking and talking.
    When I walked out on like a dog, I
    saw a beautiful car and officers.
    No Russian, no Polish.
    Was officers explaining in English, we are free.
    The gate is open.
    The German left.
    We are free.
    We were-- again, we are afraid to put one step.
    We didn't believe.
    OK.
    No, they came-- right away came to us,
    a women what they could work.
    They were Polish women, different kinds of women.
    We were little rats dying.
    And they explained.
    Start to walk, start to walk.
    We will organize food.
    OK?
    And they start to bring food, boxes
    what the Americans send to this concentration camp,
    full of boxes.
    Every box was five pounds.
    And they didn't give us nothing, the German.
    Just they put-- located this in places.
    And after the German left, they broke out these doors,
    and they give to everyone a box.
    And some of them died because they
    finished the box, the five pounds in one time,
    and they died.
    They became intestines-- they were--
    intestines like--
    They became ill?
    They--
    Tangled.
    Yeah, tangled.
    Listen, the American left.
    They said, this territorium is taking over the Russian.
    Yeah?
    Taking over the Russian.
    What did you do with your box?
    I ate the box.
    I will be dead, too.
    When I put dry milk in my mouth, I
    couldn't close because something was in the bones happening.
    And I couldn't close my mouth.
    And I stopped eating because I couldn't close my mouth.
    I couldn't swallow all this dry milk.
    And I ate.
    I ate everything.
    Not everything. no, I ate was salami, was chocolate,
    was dry milk, was dry Bread, like pieces.
    I put everything in my mouth.
    And this dry milk makes me alive because I couldn't swallow.
    Because you couldn't swallow it.
    Girls died in the hundreds.
    The Russian came.
    OK, finally-- the girls.
    So I was often this.
    And they brought me water.
    And they start to put water with the hands,
    with the fingers like inside doing something.
    I close the mouth.
    OK, I was afraid to touch something.
    The Russian came.
    The Russian soldiers came.
    Were hundreds of girls dying because they finished the five
    pounds, and they were screaming of pain.
    This was the stomachs.
    Their stomachs stuck out.
    No hospital, no doctors.
    The Russian soldiers came drunk.
    The Russian soldiers came incredible
    drunk, poor and drunk.
    And they were looking for sex.
    And they didn't do nothing for this what we're dying.
    Is one girl-- yes, I had a friend.
    And she said to me, come on, we need to escape from this place
    because the Russian want us destroyed.
    We survived from the Germans.
    Now because we can--
    we can walk a little, we are not on the floor, we need to escape.
    I wasn't so bright.
    The girl was bright because her father, before the war,
    was an officer in the Polish Army.
    And she was saying to me, always,
    I need to go back to Poland because I have
    a feeling my father survived.
    Jewish.
    My father survived.
    OK, she took me, and she said, you know,
    we go to this pilot's barracks.
    We were there closing the doors and sitting.
    Maybe there-- maybe we can survive
    from the Russian soldiers because one soldier is OK,
    one soldier, to have one soldier.
    Now, when one finished, the others started.
    They were drunk.
    They were attacking the women.
    And they killed them, this too.
    They killed us.
    They killed.
    We were closed in this little room with this bright girl,
    and not having nothing.
    Again, not having nothing.
    No toilet, just in one room closed.
    And she said, when the Russian break up the door,
    we will be finished.
    Now, what we can do?
    She said, what we can do?
    Is no other way.
    After three days, she said, we need to know what is going on.
    It's so quiet.
    She said, I take a risk.
    You sit.
    OK.
    She goes out.
    And she said, it's quiet.
    It's quiet.
    She said, come on.
    We leave.
    We start to walk to a village.
    Was villages.
    Around and around was villages.
    We start to walk.
    We start to change the clothes.
    Did you have some food with you?
    Yeah, we organize-- right away, we had food,
    and we went to the village.
    She was-- houses, beautiful houses closed.
    No German.
    She break the windows.
    She walked into small houses.
    She walked.
    And she helped me to--
    What was her name?
    Her name was Anja.
    Anja is like in Yiddish.
    She was in Yiddish.
    She was a member of--
    How was she?
    She said.
    Anja.
    Anja.
    I don't know.
    I don't remember her second name.
    No, she wanted to go not in Yiddish name.
    Anja is Polish.
    Like Aniela.
    Angelika, Aniela.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And she said, we go to this.
    We take some clothes.
    We made a little clothes and food and said,
    we need to go to the highways going back to Poland.
    So you broke into a house?
    Yeah, we broke into a house.
    No, we slept there in this broken house.
    She said, we need to rest at least a few days.
    We took the highway to go back to Poland.
    You see, this was--
    OK.
    OK, we came to Poland.
    We lost these little clothes.
    We came to Poland.
    And she said to me--
    You walked all the way?
    No, no.
    We came to Stuttgart.
    And from Stuttgart, we took the train.
    Did you have any money?
    No, because it was trains what brought back people,
    it was free.
    It was very packed, like one by the other.
    Incredible packed.
    No, for us little--
    we had the place.
    We came to Poland.
    And she said in Poland, I was deciding
    to go to my parents' place.
    And she was in another part, looking for her father.
    And I never saw her.
    Never saw her.
    You never saw her.
    OK.
    What I find out--
    Where did you go in Poland?
    I go to-- I came to my--
    I came to my parents' place.
    I came to a brick city--
    a big city.
    And I asked for Jews.
    And they showed me in this building are Jews.
    It was concentrated Jews coming, survivors.
    I asked, oh, they can help me with a little money
    to take the train and go to my home.
    Maybe somebody survived.
    What city was that?
    This is Osjaków.
    This from the beginning.
    OK.
    I went.
    Nobody survived.
    And I was very idiot, stupid, because they killed the Jews,
    too, when they came back.
    Because I came back, and I were asking, this is my house.
    This is my house.
    They killed.
    They killed the Jews.
    They killed Jews who came back?
    Mm-hmm.
    They killed them.
    OK.
    I went back.
    I asked the Polacks there for what they had my land.
    I came, and I said, give me just a little money,
    and I go back to the big city.
    And I came back to the big city.
    And they organized a club.
    And I find out a cousin what survived, and the wife survived.
    Were there any organizations that helped you at this time?
    Yes, was, was.
    Now, when I find my cousin, he said, you don't go there.
    Stay with her.
    One piece of bread, one potato, and we will share.
    OK.
    What I find out, being in this big city after working there
    for a few years in Poland, what--
    about 10 kilometers from this--
    from this concentration camp, 10 kilometers was the English zona.
    Zona?
    Zona.
    The English, the British and the American had this part.
    They called English zona.
    And I was so close, and I walked back
    to Poland because of this girl.
    OK.
    Then I didn't know what I'm doing.
    OK.
    What I find out when the same, what the American soldiers did
    with their survivors and what the British Army did
    with the survivors, in private homes,
    they made-- they put beds.
    They carried every survivor what couldn't walk.
    And they looked for doctors from the army and medicines.
    And they were take care.
    The soldiers, the doctors, they took care of every survivor.
    And the Americans and the British.
    And the Russians killed with sex because they were very drunk.
    They killed them.
    This was-- this what I find out when I came to Israel.
    When I came to Israel, was my friends.
    I have so many friends with this number.
    And Virginia was in Israel.
    And she said, you are an idiot.
    You are a stupid.
    We couldn't find you.
    And you were sitting in Poland, and we had heaven.
    We ate chocolate, no bread.
    How long did you stay in Poland?
    I stayed in Poland.
    I married.
    I was married in Poland to a Jewish man,
    what he was from the same place, no older than seven years.
    He remembered my parents better than I. And I married him.
    What was his name?
    His name was Marian.
    Marian Przemyslawski.
    Yes.
    Yeah, I married him because so close to my parents.
    And after a little time, like after one or two years,
    he was very bright and writing articles.
    And he became a Communist Party, went to the Communist Party.
    And he became more active and active and active.
    And I was just screaming and crying, go to Israel.
    And he said to me-- between this, I had my son.
    I had one child.
    What year was your son born?
    My son was born in '51.
    What town were you living in in Poland?
    In a big city, Lodz, where the Jews were concentrated.
    Most of Jews were in this city, Lodz.
    And the Jews were very active there.
    They had a club and school.
    Everything was very active.
    My fight was to go to Israel.
    I had my old friends there.
    And he said, no, I'm not going to Israel because Israel is not
    a country.
    It's a capitalist country.
    And he was a survivor, too, from the concentration camps.
    And he said, I don't know about capitalism.
    We need to stay where we survived and we have freedom.
    And I don't know about it.
    I fight for go to Israel.
    I was dying.
    And finally, I came and divorced.
    And I wait a long time because he
    didn't want to give me my son.
    Son was--
    What year were you divorced?
    What year?
    I was divorced like in the '60s.
    Yeah.
    What year did you get married?
    In '47.
    In '47.
    When did you--
    Close to the '60s.
    My son was '51.
    He was-- I fight when he was born.
    He was born, I fight for Israel.
    I fight because I didn't want him to have--
    OK, this was-- my life was a fight with him.
    And he became more and more active in the Communist way,
    more and more and more and more.
    Every day more, every day more.
    We had-- we have nothing together to talk, nothing to do.
    When he signed the paper by a judge to let go my son,
    because he wasn't 18 years old, he gave me this son,
    and I left to Israel.
    Did you have any trouble getting out of Poland.
    Yes, I had trouble.
    This trouble I had.
    You see, when I came to an office in Poland and I said,
    I like to leave Poland to go to Israel,
    I said who was my husband, They Find out
    he's in the Communist Party, I wait four or five
    years for this little passport.
    This is your passport?
    Yeah.
    You had to wait four or five years?
    For this document to from Warsaw to Vienna.
    Four or five years.
    As I walked from office to office and I was saying,
    I have family there, and they can support me.
    I was sick.
    I had papers from doctors.
    I was operated three times.
    My body is in pieces.
    And the number.
    And finally, I became so angry.
    And one of these I said, it's not different.
    It's just one difference between fascism and communism.
    The flag is the difference.
    They said to me, you will never go.
    Because people said, the Jewish people said,
    you're lucky they didn't put you in jail because you
    went to concentration camp.
    Now, you will be finished in jail for this.
    You can't open your mouth in a communist country.
    Say like this.
    How did you finally convince them to let you go to Israel?
    My son?
    To get to Israel.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    When they gave me back to go, I said,
    you can do for me one thing.
    Do for me one thing in life.
    And he said, I can nothing do because you know what you said.
    They called me.
    They called me, and I went to the office.
    And they repeat me your words.
    And I'm afraid.
    I can nothing do.
    You need to fight by yourself.
    And when my son was in trouble, like a little boy,
    a little boy was in trouble because was big boys,
    they took the little children in places,
    hide, and explained about Israel.
    Because we had in Poland, the embassy in Warsaw,
    the Israeli embassy.
    They explained, we need to go to Israel.
    The bigger boys, the small--
    The bigger Jewish boys.
    We need to go to Israel.
    We need to have in our heads, this is not
    our country, not our life.
    The Jewish, the committee, the leaders
    from the Jewish committee, they were communists.
    They find out, and they made a list, who belongs to this list.
    OK, some day, I was walking from office to office.
    Said, you can go.
    We give you the permission, but not with your son.
    I said, I can't leave my son.
    He's a little boy, and I don't have nobody survived, just only
    one child.
    I have nobody.
    I will not go.
    He said-- they said he can't go.
    You can go.
    What is the reason he can't go?
    No, he have a paragraph.
    Something, a paragraph 4 and 5.
    I said, what this mean?
    The police said, go home and find out what this mean.
    And I find it out.
    I find that he was in the list.
    This Jewish club gave the list to the committee,
    to this communist committee party the list.
    When I find out, I said, why are you doing this?
    He said, I'm not doing nothing wrong.
    This is your husband?
    My son.
    Your son?
    A little boy.
    Yes, I went back to the highest police, and I explained,
    he is a little boy.
    What he knows about politics?
    He is 12 years old.
    Politics?
    What he knows about politics?
    What can he?
    They said to me, here is the door.
    Go.
    We know what we are doing.
    Now, what you doing, you don't know.
    And he start-- my son start to fight
    with his father about politics.
    He criticized the father, because maybe they
    told him or something.
    Criticized his father.
    And he started to fight with the father.
    To fight-- incredible.
    This time, he signed the papers.
    My ex-husband went to an office and signed the paper
    and said, let them go.
    Were you married at this time, or was this after your divorce?
    No, this was after the divorce.
    After the divorce.
    Yes, I left with my little son to Israel.
    Yes.
    Excuse me, but how did you support yourself in Poland?
    Oh, I support myself in Poland.
    I worked a little part time.
    You know, I had this apartment, and I worked.
    And he paid me a little every month.
    Your husband.
    My ex-husband, from him.
    And I had a little money.
    I had a little money because when I sold the property
    from my parents--
    after this I sold the property, I put in a bank.
    I put it in a bank.
    You see, after this, I came first to Israel.
    I left him my friends, my little boy.
    And I came a tourist to ask people
    how can I exist in Israel not having a husband.
    And they said, come over.
    Don't worry.
    Come over.
    Come over.
    Just come over.
    Excuse me.
    So you made a trip to Israel before you settled there?
    Yeah, before I settled.
    Yeah, a trip.
    When they give me the permission,
    I said to the communist police, can I go for a few weeks
    to Israel and pay my plane or my this?
    Go.
    They said, you can go.
    Maybe you will change your mind, they said.
    OK.
    Yes, I left.
    I came to Israel.
    And they said, the friends, said, don't think one minute.
    Just bring him and come over to Israel.
    OK.
    Yes, I packed my things, what I had, and left Poland to Israel.
    OK.
    Yes, my son finished high school in Israel.
    And he was--
    Excuse me.
    So did you go back to Poland for your son?
    Yeah, tourist.
    For my son.
    You went as tourists?
    A tourist.
    And you took your son with you.
    Yeah.
    And then you just stayed.
    Yeah, when I was a tourist and I came back,
    I went to the embassy in Warsaw, to the Israeli embassy.
    And I showed him the whole papers,
    the whole things from the police.
    Do you know what they said to me?
    How much money you need?
    We will give you.
    And when they will be making trouble the last minute--
    because you went tourist-- you made a mistake, they said.
    You went as tourist to Israel and coming back.
    You made a mistake.
    Because when you had the permission, just go.
    I see.
    You went back to Poland.
    The embassy, the Israeli embassy said to me in Yiddish,
    they said, we are ready to support you
    with a big amount of money and to pay some workers,
    like police, when you find a way of go out.
    And they gave me money.
    And they said, buy what you want because you paid this what you
    had in Poland, not in Auschwitz, not in the concentration camps,
    not just here.
    Is for these kinds of people we have money.
    I bought some things.
    I brought money, like $300.
    $300 to change in Polish money was a lot of money.
    When did you settle in Israel?
    What year?
    I came to Israel in '66.
    In '66, I came to Israel.
    So late because of my boy.
    Mm-hmm.
    And did he come with you?
    Yeah, to Israel.
    Yeah.
    I will never leave Poland not having him.
    I will never leave Poland not having him.
    OK, we came to Israel.
    They took him right away.
    Because in Israel is a style, taking the young people
    in places where they have the dormitory,
    and they mix from every country in a place, a big place,
    different kinds of countries, young person.
    What was that called?
    Kfar Vitkin, after Tel Aviv.
    Kfar Vitkin.
    And where did you live?
    I lived in Neve Sharret.
    Neve Sharret.
    Tel Aviv.
    Did you know Hebrew already?
    I started to go out.
    I took a job.
    I worked.
    I worked.
    Yes, I never-- I started, and I never made the Hebrew.
    I started to go on with the Hebrew.
    Now, when I left, it's finished because I never
    use one word of Hebrew.
    I know when they're talking.
    Sometimes my son, I understand.
    And I can answer.
    No, not making a conversation in Hebrew.
    Not making because I lose words.
    I lose.
    And my head is not so working fine.
    What did you do?
    What was your job?
    In Israel?
    Mm-hmm.
    I worked in a dress factory, by a sewing machine.
    I worked close to four years there.
    And after this, I came to America.
    I married my second cousin in America.
    He single.
    And my son, please write it down, my son.
    My son finished in Kfar Vitkin.
    He finished high school.
    Mm-hmm.
    And he went to army, to the army [NON-ENGLISH].
    Did your son come to the United States with you?
    Yeah, in Israel is style the soldiers need
    to go out to the parents or to the families,
    yeah, sometimes twice a week, because it's not far.
    So the whole country is small.
    They let him go change a little.
    He worked in a secret place.
    Because [NON-ENGLISH]-- [NON-ENGLISH] means the regular
    [NON-ENGLISH] is two years.
    Now, when a soldier signed four years, is [NON-ENGLISH].
    He is going where he wanted.
    And when it's three years, the government
    is sending the soldiers.
    And they want it.
    And he went to a place what he wanted.
    He was under the ground, electronics.
    Yes, they need to put him home for air, keep air.
    It's twice a week.
    I support him.
    I work.
    I help him because they're not paid anything, soldiers.
    Excuse me.
    What year did you come to the United States?
    I came to the United States in '73.
    And I went back.
    I went back.
    What year did you remarry?
    Yeah, I came to this-- my second cousin,
    he sent me the ticket to visiting America.
    And he was single.
    And I was married with him in '70--
    in '74.
    I was married to him.
    OK.
    I went back to Israel to explain my son,
    I will live in America and working in a dress shop.
    I work in a dress shop with my husband.
    And to explain to him, because he was in the army.
    He had one year more to finish.
    And I said, after you finish the army, we can see what to do.
    And I help him.
    How did you decide to come to the United States?
    How?
    I was dreaming the whole time.
    I was dreaming the whole time to be American.
    When I came to Israel from Poland, this communist regime,
    I came to Israel.
    I wasn't-- my packages was--
    I wasn't packed.
    The war broke out.
    Six Days War broke out.
    OK.
    It's-- I was very bad feelings.
    Just everything, how the war, how the surrounding,
    how the nights not lights.
    I was-- and I was inside dreaming
    when I can be in a free country, not having more war,
    not having more, this whole the killed soldiers and the wounded
    soldiers and sitting in the streets, not having the legs
    and begging for something.
    I became sick.
    My friend, the Virginia, she said,
    when you can look like this in Israel, let's go back to Poland,
    she said.
    In Israel, you need to look like this.
    You know what means this?
    The thing in here, you don't see nothing.
    You see something.
    No, don't see what is going on.
    We need to fight.
    We need to stay.
    We need to dance.
    We need to have music and [NON-ENGLISH].
    And we need to eat.
    And we need to exist.
    And when you can't, because I start crying--
    I start-- I was lost.
    She said, you can't exist when you will be like this.
    OK.
    When you were in Israel, did you associate mostly with survivors?
    Oh, yeah.
    Other Polish people?
    Yeah, we were together.
    Yeah, I have something in a place, a picture, maybe seven
    girls with the same number.
    Yes.
    OK.
    And I had the second cousin here in America.
    I didn't have more family in America, just the second cousin.
    And he was looking for an uncle.
    He was a foreman in a dress shop.
    This uncle came in the first war, had a dress
    shop, an old uncle.
    He worked for him.
    And he was so busy.
    When I wrote him, I like to see America,
    I didn't wrote to him to take me because maybe he have
    a girlfriend, maybe something.
    How can I be mixed up in his life?
    OK, after a few years, he came to Israel, to a wedding
    to his close friend, a friend's wedding.
    He came.
    He promised him to be on the wedding.
    And we met.
    When he saw me, he said, you need to be in America, not here.
    Because I showed him the place where I worked.
    Was a different place than here a dress shop.
    Very, very poor.
    Hot and one machine by the other and a fan
    is making holes on the back, on the head.
    No, no, nothing.
    No comfort, no nothing.
    Nothing, nothing.
    Like just working, making a little money.
    OK, he said, I will do everything,
    and you need to come to see America, where I work.
    Where I came, and I went to the shop.
    Where did he live?
    Amsterdam, New York, by Albany.
    A little city.
    When I went to this shop--
    How did you come?
    By plane, El Al.
    It's very easy.
    Take the ticket and go.
    He picked me up from New York, Kennedy Airport.
    When I came and I saw this shop, this comfort, I said to him,
    I will work day and night.
    Don't let me go back.
    Now, OK, we were married.
    And after three years, he died of cancer, my husband.
    And my son came.
    When he finished the army, he came just for tourist.
    He went back.
    Was this while you were living in New York?
    Yeah, when I was there.
    And how did you feel about living in the United States?
    In the beginning was just difficult the language.
    Just one point.
    The rest, I was just telling to everyone-- heaven, heaven.
    This is heaven.
    This is heaven.
    When I will go, when I saw, what I-- what place I went to.
    And he wanted to me be dressed elegant,
    and he wanted to be shopping.
    I said, I don't want it.
    When I have two, three dresses, is enough.
    I don't-- no, you need to come to the work every day
    in a different dress.
    I said, you're not normal.
    I couldn't understand the life.
    He said, they sewing, they doing cleaning,
    and they coming dressed every day.
    Now, that was not--
    OK.
    Did you have any problems adjusting to the United States?
    Well, the language.
    You seem to speak quite well.
    No, you see, my language is just from the television.
    I didn't have time.
    I worked very-- I said to my husband,
    I wanted to work Saturday and Sunday, make the money,
    send to my son.
    Send the money.
    Every check I send him, him, him, him, him.
    OK, he said he didn't have against nothing.
    He said, OK, I don't need your dollar.
    Did he have any children?
    Oh, he had never married.
    No, he was single.
    He had a girlfriend, not a Jewish.
    He finished with her systematically.
    We were married.
    He explained, she's my second cousin, like a family.
    This.
    We could walk together in Poland.
    In Poland.
    We had feelings.
    No love.
    The love, in this age is no love.
    No, the feelings was so big, each to the other.
    It's not to explain how big the feelings was because his sister
    was my best friend.
    And I slept so many times in this apartment.
    And my brother was his best friend.
    You understand?
    We had so much feelings.
    No.
    OK.
    What's your son's name?
    I'm not sure.
    You have.
    Zev.
    Oh.
    Zev.
    You wrote it down.
    Zev.
    Yeah.
    And when-- yeah, and I didn't have time and place to make
    English, to make the English.
    I didn't have time and no place.
    Wasn't a school for me, English.
    Was regular schools.
    OK.
    And he was very worried about me.
    He said, you need to know English.
    What to do?
    And we started to think what to do, what to do.
    And he died.
    Yes, I was watching television day and night.
    And a little English.
    I catch those little English on the television.
    I never went to school because I'm just 1 and 1/2 year here
    in Washington.
    I was there, in this little town.
    Now, brought me Washington, not my son, because he is here.
    Brought me an incredible sickness here, a dying moment.
    I said to him, I'm dying.
    It's all I can survive because of good doctors in Washington,
    or I will be dead this close to you.
    How did your son come to the United States?
    When did he come?
    Yeah.
    After he finished the army, he came.
    Bought a ticket.
    Finished.
    He was here because soldier with the army, four years army.
    He came, and he said, now, I'm going back.
    I promised.
    I promised.
    Maybe you'll like a drink or something?
    Cold drink?
    No.
    No?
    I promised.
    He said, I promised my friends, my soldiers,
    my army come back because already he had the job.
    Was to finish the army.
    OK, and he worked one year.
    Now, he need to take orders.
    And he was starting to think.
    He said, the heck I need to take all this.
    I need to go to school.
    Maybe can I give up this?
    Because he was an excellent student, high school,
    very excellent in the Hebrew.
    And he was in the army for the sergeant.
    Sergeant.
    And they wanted to make him an officer, papers.
    I got the papers, and I said I not exist.
    I don't want it.
    OK.
    Yes.
    And he said I wanted to have courage.
    I'm not worth it, nothing with high school.
    I need to take orders.
    Yes, he sent permission to the college
    in Jerusalem and permission to the college in Tel Aviv.
    And they give him the answer no place, no place.
    The two places gave him the answer no place.
    And he was angry.
    I said the heck.
    I wanted to pay.
    He called them.
    I wanted to pay-- because the mother is in America, yeah?
    I wanted to pay me college because what worth it?
    What exists I have, not having college?
    They said, maybe some year.
    Now, we don't have place.
    He went to the embassy in Tel Aviv, to the American embassy.
    And he asked him what he need to have,
    because he need to have college.
    And they gave him on the paper, this and this and this and this
    and this and this.
    No problem.
    When you pay the college in America, go to America.
    Yeah, and he sent--
    they sent-- the embassy sent permission for him.
    And they guarantee.
    My husband gave the guarantee of paying.
    And it was very far away.
    And he wanted Troy.
    Troy is a very good college.
    In Troy, New York.
    Troy, New York.
    He finished the college Carter.
    Carter, the president.
    Carter.
    Carter finished the college in Troy.
    It's the same problem.
    They said, the next year.
    And he wasn't so young.
    He said he's losing again a year.
    He was Washington.
    He took Washington.
    He went and came to Washington, George Washington University,
    and went with the children from 18 years starting college.
    And he was this time 24.
    Yes, they called him Uncle Zev.
    They were just children starting college.
    And he made the college.
    And he made the master's degree.
    A master's degree, and he is working in economics.
    Is your son married?
    Yeah, married.
    And they have a baby.
    She will be very soon two years old.
    What are your feelings today about how
    the war influenced you?
    These kinds of what is going on?
    You think--
    Every--
    Everything.
    Everything.
    Everything very frightening.
    Very frightening me.
    I just-- And America, and I see in America--
    you see people from the whole world here.
    You have nice people.
    You have murderers.
    You have bandits.
    And I think the government wanted the best for peace.
    This is what I find out.
    They wanted-- they didn't wanted war.
    They didn't wanted war.
    And frightened me a war.
    I think Russia will make the war.
    Well, Russia is mixing the whole world up.
    They in every place with this iron, what they produce.
    In every place.
    They support people.
    You know when somebody support, somebody support, they telling
    fight, fight the rich, you will have everything, they believe.
    They believe.
    This was before the war, too, the same in Poland.
    The Communist Party in Poland, it was very big.
    And most of them were Jewish people.
    But because they believed.
    And they believed in this.
    They believed.
    It isn't like this.
    The Russian, I know I came from Poland.
    They just wanted grab countries and give them the rules.
    And people need to be on the rules.
    They need to do what they wanted.
    They can never do what the people want.
    Can be educated or not educated.
    No difference.
    They need to do what they want to do.
    And what I am watching television and seeing what
    is going on, my life I put--
    I put my life, and especially when he died,
    my husband, is I put my life--
    I am-- after he died in '77, I put my life just from day
    to day.
    Just today go over to sleep a little and eat a little
    and go on like this.
    And the second way, I am sick of the separation.
    Now, I'm a sick person.
    Sick person.
    OK.
    Yes, No, this incredible.
    It's incredible what is--
    You think your illness was influenced by your concentration
    camp?
    Yeah, the doctor said--
    Dr. Danovich, he is very famous here in Washington.
    Now, I have Dr. Frank.
    And they said that this sickness is built.
    Built, is not coming like tchk.
    No, this is built for years.
    Colitis.
    Colitis, losing weight.
    I can lose in two days three pounds.
    I lost 15 pounds since the sickness.
    And it's close to two years, 15 pounds.
    And I need to be in a very strict diet.
    I can never use the beautiful things
    what is produced in America.
    No, I need to stay in my food.
    When I eat something different--
    sick, sick.
    How did you find--
    excuse me.
    How did you find out what happened to your family?
    Oh, how we find out?
    Mm-hmm.
    OK.
    In the working camp before they took us to Auschwitz,
    '42, some Polish men we worked--
    we weren't-- we worked like we had freedom.
    No, by German took care of us.
    We couldn't go there and there.
    No, we worked together with Polish people.
    The Polish people were separated because making the canals,
    they need to measure.
    They need to-- they had for the nice work,
    they have the Polish people, men, especially men.
    And for digging, for the hard work, they had the Jews.
    This one Polish man said, '42, Hitler,
    Germany cleaned up Poland, the Jews from the ghettos,
    from the little cities.
    '42, they started to be working the crematoriums
    and bringing the millions to the crematoriums, day and night.
    We find out.
    When they took us, we were later than them.
    We were the rest because they needed our work.
    And when they made the decision to take out from the work
    us, put us in crematoriums or in the concentration camps,
    it was like to clean up Poland from the Jews.
    Have you ever spoken about your war experiences to your son?
    My life?
    Yeah, does your son know about your concentration camp
    experience?
    Yeah, oh, he knows about it.
    We never talked.
    My son-- with my son, we never talked like I talk to you.
    The things, what happened, because like this.
    He was a little boy before the war.
    When he came to Israel, no more talking.
    Was always before the war or after the war.
    He started to grow up a soldier in high school.
    Yeah, he started.
    And he was in the army, yeah?
    Yeah, who talked about in Israel about what happened?
    Because it's so much trouble exist or not exist, the Israel.
    Be or not to be.
    I am not-- he knows what I had.
    No, he is--
    [SIGHS] I don't know.
    [SIGHS] Sometimes, he is calling me.
    And when I starting to see something here,
    I start complaining something of neighbors, of this.
    I had trouble here.
    He can say, oh, you are sick.
    Sometimes he can say, you are crazy.
    And this is uneducated.
    [LAUGHS]
    And my daughter-in-law, She's with the national law.
    She works for the Justice Department.
    And she is like a soldier.
    She's like a soldier.
    I like this way.
    I like this way.
    No, no.
    Is she American?
    Yeah.
    No, she can be to me like a soldier.
    Not to me.
    When she is a soldier for the country, I like it.
    I like it.
    When I came to the United States, I was in a five years
    to wait to became--
    to make citizen.
    I had the green card, called the green card.
    After the five years, I wrote them,
    and they wrote me back, I like to make citizen.
    They send me the whole forms and the Constitutions to know this,
    when I will be--
    before I make the citizen, I need
    to be an interview, to have an interview.
    I had an interview.
    And they sent me to know, what to know,
    in a room with a judge by a desk.
    Just he and I. I need to answer.
    I need to write--
    I wrote four questions, and I need to answer some things.
    And my forms is a question with many, many questions
    and the answer.
    And my form, one question was like this.
    In case of war, are you ready to bear arms?
    I had help, help.
    A girl.
    She is a retired teacher, not Jewish, in this small city.
    And Hermine, I said, Hermine, you need to help me.
    I said, Hermine, I will put down yes.
    And she said, oh, Jesus, you?
    Yes, I will help the army, I said.
    When I survived, and I am in America,
    I said to her, yes, I need to answer this question, not
    to say no.
    Maybe I will be unable.
    Maybe I will be very old.
    Maybe I will be dead at this time.
    No, maybe I will be in that age when I can help the army.
    I will be glad.
    And she was sitting me.
    Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, saying like this.
    OK.
    When I was-- he interviewed me.
    He started to talk a little to me.
    In the beginning, he asked me, oh, I am Italian?
    Because he said, I am Italian.
    I said, no, I am born in Poland.
    And he asked me, what do you think?
    You came from the communist country, from Poland.
    And what do you think?
    Because he had my forms.
    He said, I am not so stupid.
    What do you think of this every day of this communist regime?
    What can you tell?
    And he was writing.
    I said to him.
    I said, it's short to tell.
    I said to him, fascism and communism is the same way.
    And he wrote this and put in my papers.
    I said, what is so much to tell?
    They wanted communism.
    And what is communism?
    I know.
    I know.
    Have your feelings about being Jewish changed?
    I mean, your observance changed?
    I am feeling Jewish.
    Like I can tell, I'm very far from God.
    I believe in Moses.
    I believe in David.
    I believe in the Israeli army.
    I'm far from God.
    I don't know how to pray to him.
    I don't.
    Are you a member of a synagogue?
    I'm not a member.
    No, I'm coming.
    I'm coming to the lunches.
    And sometimes I'm coming to the Friday evening.
    At Adas Israel
    Adas Israel.
    I like the whole services.
    I like it.
    No, I can pray.
    I can sit.
    Oh, dear God, thanking for this and thanking for that.
    And I'm in America.
    Yeah, and I'm in America.
    And my girls, what I had, the friends, the Catholics,
    they thanking God.
    They thanking God.
    I say something, say, OK,
    OK.
    I don't know how I am here, how I survive,
    and how I am American.
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    I know thanking my husband I'm in America.
    Yes.
    And why I survived in Auschwitz, I
    am not telling all God wanted or the friend wanted.
    I don't know.
    I don't know how to put together this.
    Are you members, a member of a Jewish organization?
    Hadassah.
    And walking every month to the meetings JCC,
    what they have a little in there in this Venice.
    And his name is Laurie.
    She is going with us every month, making this meeting
    and talking about it a little.
    You go up to Montrose Road or?
    No, no.
    Here in--
    In Venice?
    Venice.
    Oh, they have meetings there?
    Yeah, coming a few persons, having a--
    I like this-- how is her second name?
    Laurie.
    She is coming.
    She is--
    From Hadassah?
    No, this is JCC.
    Oh, JCC.
    OK.
    She comes and has meetings here?
    I have her name.
    Yeah.
    Are you a member of the survivors
    group that's in Washington?
    There's a group of Holocaust survivors.
    No, I'm not a member.
    Because I came in a difficult position of sickness, yeah?
    Now, you see, I came to die to Washington.
    A few months, many months, I didn't know nothing.
    And now when I am feeling better,
    I'm going to the luncheons there, when sometimes they
    have a doctors and talking.
    And not because to eat.
    I never touch.
    Just to hear this, what they explain, they talking.
    Sometimes, it's very interesting.
    And this is the--
    Do you read about the Holocaust or watch shows
    if there's something on television?
    Yes, when is a show, I am not closing, never.
    When somebody calls me--
    I have here a few friends--
    and I can say to them--
    I have a Betty Rothman, she is--
    [PHONE RINGING]
    Oh, excuse me.
    When a friend calls you?
    Yeah, then I have a phone call, or my son is calling me.
    Now my son is calling.
    Betty calls me, I said, now, Betty,
    can call you me later because--
    are you crazy?
    You have this everything.
    I want it to be so scared.
    Who wanted this trouble?
    I said, yes, I want it.
    I never close it.
    I cry.
    After this, I am taking a Valium.
    No, I never close it.
    It's never finished by me.
    Maybe I'm sick.
    It's never finished.
    Never.
    Do you have friends here who are also survivors?
    No, no.
    What did you think about the fact
    that Germany offered reparations to people in the camps?
    What--
    Did you think that Germany should have given reparations
    to people who were in the concentration camps?
    I didn't.
    I didn't have nothing from Germany.
    No, nothing.
    Because when I came to Israel, the lawyer said they--
    to the '65, and I came '66.
    They said nothing can do.
    One lawyer took my whole things, the papers and documents
    and the whole thing.
    Nothing because they finished in '65.
    And my friends, they had pensions every month.
    This Virginia in Florida, she have $500 a month.
    And I don't have $0.05, nothing.
    Because I came too late.
    In Poland-- Poland didn't work.
    Poland said, we were--
    I was in an organization in Poland with the survivors.
    The government said, we're not taking money for blood.
    Poland.
    And I heard they-- when I left, I
    heard they took like amount of money, a big amount of money
    from Germany because they destroyed the cities.
    And for the survivors, no, not by names, you can have nothing.
    No, the government took it in his hand.
    The government took it.
    When I will be there, I will not have $0.01 from the government.
    Yes.
    Is there anything else you want to say?
    I think you're tired.
    I think you're tired of this, everything.
    I have to say--
    You want to show me what--
    that's your--
    Yeah, I was-- I was a little writing in Polish to tell you
    about--
    about just-- just--
    Prices.
    No, to tell, concrete, to tell what was
    in this month and this year.
    Not to set-- to set dates what I saw.
    Fact, very interesting fact--
    we had in Auschwitz a factory.
    They called Union-Fabrik, Union-Fabrik.
    They took to the work these kinds of people, prisoners.
    Because for a soup, for a piece of bread,
    they made the most beautiful things
    in Auschwitz, the most beautiful paintings when they need it.
    The most hard work worked girls.
    And they made granats.
    Granat?
    Grenade.
    Grenade.
    Grenades.
    Grenades.
    And they were in contact with--
    you know, Jewish people were selected
    to work in the crematoriums.
    You know this?
    Jewish men, they choose the most athletic men.
    OK.
    They work day and night by the bodies.
    They were in contact with the Jewish men and a group of girls.
    You can take-- these girls work there.
    They can take a little soup home to the barrack.
    They had soup enough.
    They give them a little soup home.
    They find out we had little cans with handles, little cans
    with handles.
    They give them to cover the middle, to cover.
    And on the bottom was the grenades.
    The girls made these grenades.
    Yes, the girls, maybe they don't-- they didn't finish
    the grenades.
    Maybe were Jews, and they worked.
    Where did they get the--
    The cans.
    They had from the German.
    These little cans, they had from the Germans.
    But how about the explosives?
    Where did they get the--
    The grenades.
    Inside.
    This was like an underground work.
    Risk all life.
    That all they know.
    When they will find out, they need to be killed, the girls.
    Because girls, you know girls, they
    were never looking for this kind of work by men.
    Couldn't do this.
    And then, did they pass the grenades back to the men?
    Yeah, when they bring this grenades, the top was soup,
    and the bottom was the grenades covered with something.
    You see, a little--
    they need a little color.
    Like the can was blue or something.
    They didn't know when they put the soap.
    OK.
    They gave.
    They collected.
    They gave the grenades.
    They came men special working for condensation or electricity
    or something.
    And this was working very smart because to have
    to do with Germany.
    They gave these grenades to this man.
    And one crematorium blew up.
    See, the girls was five girls.
    They were very smart, very bright.
    They collected.
    They started for the second crematorium to do.
    Now, they killed the men.
    Started to escape.
    They killed them.