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Oral history interview with Helena Ticker

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0095.85 | RG Number: RG-50.163.0085

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    Oral history interview with Helena Ticker
    Transcript
    Today is January 13, 1986.
    I am here to interview Helen Ticker, 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.
    Please tell us your name and the city and country
    in which you were born.
    My maiden name?
    Mm-hmm.
    My maiden name is Helen Neimeister Excuse me.
    I was born in Warsaw, Poland, January 14, 1924.
    OK.
    Could you describe those who made up
    your household before the war?
    Who was in your family?
    My mother, my father, my two brothers, and a sister.
    OK.
    My sister-in-law and the baby, my little niece,
    a year-and-a-half old.
    OK.
    Could you tell me about your family's social status
    and educational background?
    Yes.
    My mother was a high school graduate.
    [POLISH] that was very famous high school in Warsaw, Poland.
    My father was [NON-ENGLISH], in leather business,
    in [NON-ENGLISH].
    And so was my brother in the business--
    shades and clothing business, my oldest brother.
    My youngest brother was going to school.
    My sister got married in 1939.
    Her husband came to the United States before the war,
    just before the war, September 1939.
    He sent her the papers to Poland,
    but when the war broke out, they destroyed the papers, of course.
    And then I lost my sister in Auschwitz
    in the crematorium in 1943.
    Was your family religious?
    They were conservative Jews.
    And you said, essentially, they were in business,
    the means of support.
    Yes.
    So you grew up in the city of Warsaw.
    That's right.
    OK.
    Could you describe your contacts with non-Jews before the war?
    Yes.
    People, they used to live in our building,
    and the people who used to work for my father.
    Did you have any antisemitic experiences?
    That's right.
    We had a lot.
    The one son of the people who were working for my father--
    and that was in ghetto.
    I lost already everybody.
    And I was going with my sister, and she pointed out
    to a German police that I am a Jew.
    They took me to the SS quarters, and they beat the hell out of me
    that I am a Jew.
    And I pretended that I am not a Jew.
    I spoke a little bit German that I picked up in the school,
    and I was constantly lying to them that I am not a Jew.
    And eventually, they let me go, all beaten up as a young girl.
    You could imagine.
    And did you find any antisemitism before the war?
    That's right.
    This was--
    Yes, antisemitism was in Poland.
    Yes.
    Can you remember anything specific
    that you recall, any specific incidents or people
    or basically from before the war?
    Before the war?
    Before the war, it was antisemitism.
    You could go on the street, and if somebody
    knew that you're Jewish, they used to go, zydowa.
    That means-- zydowa is a Jew, you know?
    Or a man, a Jew, was a zyd, you know?
    So they used to follow him, beat him up or something like that.
    You had to be lucky if you were in a section
    where people, Gentiles didn't touch you.
    That's the way it was, it's up how lucky you were.
    But the antisemitism was worse.
    What kind of a school did you attend?
    I went to a public school.
    Were there non-Jews in your class?
    Non-Jews and Jews, mixed.
    Did you have friends among the non-Jews, or did you--
    Yes, I had.
    I had.
    I had some friends from--
    especially, I had two friends.
    Maybe you heard about that, of Dr. Korczak, the,
    how do you say, orphans?
    There were two best friends, and they were gone.
    They were my best friends.
    They were going with me to school.
    And they were involved with Dr. Korczak?
    Yes.
    They used to live in Dr. Korczak's house.
    I see.
    And went to school with you in the public school?
    Yes, there were a couple.
    As the prospect of war became closer,
    what options were open to you and your family?
    Did you have any choices about what you might do?
    Did you think of running away or--
    You mean when the war broke out?
    Right, as it came closer, as people realized
    there was going to be a war.
    The war came unexpected.
    In 1939, September the 1st, 1939,
    they were talking about the war.
    But Poland, they used to advertise all the time
    on the radio.
    They used to talk they were very well prepared,
    and nothing will happen, and people shouldn't be afraid.
    So the people weren't running.
    But it came all of a sudden, unexpected.
    The 1st, I remember that was a Friday, I think Friday, 1939.
    They were starting to prepare like shelters underground.
    They used to take even the kids out from the schools,
    and we used to dig to shelters in case something
    would happen that they should have a shelter outside.
    That was ridiculous, you know?
    But that came just unexpected.
    That's it.
    How old were you when the war broke out?
    1924, 39-- 14, 15.
    How did you first learn about the war?
    Was it through airplanes coming over or--
    There were 27 days they were fighting
    Warsaw, alone, with bombs.
    And our house was bombed down to the ground.
    And we were running from one scoot to another.
    And one day with the shrapnel fell over my head,
    and it was such an impulse.
    We were holding one another by the hands, my mother,
    and my father, and my sister, and my brothers.
    And I held them.
    And oh, I lost an arm.
    I lost an arm.
    And my mother, she was afraid to turn around.
    I said, you got your hand, because I'm holding you.
    I'm holding you with such an impulse.
    And I had my hand, but our house was down.
    So we were running from one shelter to another.
    The shelters weren't even good made,
    because they weren't prepared for it.
    So you were running from one house to another.
    Then I was covered in one house.
    We were separated all of a sudden,
    because the impulse from the falling buildings was so heavy.
    But so I was covered with bricks and everything.
    But my father, he noticed my feet,
    so he pulled me out from under the bricks, without shoes.
    I lost the shoes, everything.
    And that's the way.
    27 days they were fighting like this.
    We were drinking dirty water.
    There was no lights, no water, everything that was ghetto.
    That was not ghetto.
    That's before the ghetto, I mean before they took over.
    Are your first memories of the war of the house being bombed?
    Was that the first thing or was it--
    That's right.
    Did that happen during the day or during the night?
    Do you remember?
    No, that was in the morning when they bombed down the house.
    It was a six, seven story high house.
    Can you imagine something like this
    falls on you all of a sudden?
    People, they went to the basement.
    They never came out, because the whole building fell down.
    That's the worst thing, was to go to a basement.
    And even now, when they tell you to go shelter to a basement,
    I am afraid to go.
    Because when I saw when the buildings were falling down,
    everything patched up.
    It's no way to get out.
    We realized that the best thing is to run from one place
    to another.
    Could you describe the effect on your family life?
    As the war came and it began, what happened?
    You lost your home quite early on.
    Right away we lost our home.
    We didn't have even where to sleep.
    We didn't have a bed.
    And you had to go.
    Some houses, they were bombed down,
    like a heavy house was staying.
    Some people were killed.
    So you just go in.
    You just went in and get nothing, get after this.
    Wherever you saw an empty room, there you went in.
    You didn't think, whose is this?
    You just went to sleep overnight.
    And you stayed-- your entire family stayed together?
    Yeah, we stayed together as long as we had one another.
    How did you get food?
    All of a sudden, they had some food.
    Wherever use to be somewhere a bakery, used to stay.
    They used to bake.
    But they didn't have much.
    You started already to be everything like black market,
    you understand?
    Even a carrot-- if you want to buy a potato,
    they used to tell you, she has potatoes for sale.
    This one has a carrot.
    This one has a bread.
    They weren't already-- the stores were demolished.
    It's got to be entirely--
    it changed so immediately.
    It wasn't even a regular store.
    Because the Germans already came in,
    and it was right away entirely different.
    They start to ration everything, and they
    start building the ghetto.
    Could you describe how the ghetto was formed?
    They made like two parts of ghetto.
    They called it the big ghetto and the small ghetto.
    Our part of the streets, where we
    used to find the room where to live,
    we used to call it the small ghetto.
    The big ghetto used to be there with the main majority of Jews
    used to live on Smocza, Dzika, Nalewki, the business section.
    They used to call it the big ghetto.
    And there was around there was the Umschlagplatz,
    if you heard about it?
    You heard about that Umschlagplatz?
    That's where they would gather people.
    They used to gather together the people
    and take the concentration camps from there.
    And how did it come about that you
    went from just living in these houses
    wherever you could into the ghetto proper?
    Was there a roundup?
    Was divided with walls, the ghetto.
    On one side of the ghetto was the Gentile people,
    used to live.
    We used to call it the Irish side.
    They used to call it in Poland, that used to call it.
    And there was a big wall.
    When you wanted to go on the Polish side
    where the Poles used to live, the Gentile people,
    you got to have like a pass.
    They're putting on right away on you the Jewish star,
    and you become all of a sudden a Jew.
    Wherever you used to go, people used
    to see it that you were Jewish.
    Well, of course, on the Christian side,
    you could get the bread.
    You could buy.
    And they have there the stores, and they
    have the clothes to buy.
    But the Jews didn't have it.
    It was like a black market between the Jews.
    When one had something, you used to buy, had to pay money.
    If you don't have it, you used to pay diamonds.
    That was it.
    So essentially, the ghetto was built up around you.
    You were in the area that became the ghetto.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    And can you tell me about the daily routines in the ghetto?
    How was business carried out, education?
    How did people get food?
    What can you remember of the life, the daily life?
    First of all, the Germans used--
    when you used to go down on the street in ghetto,
    the Germans used to catch the Jews for their hard work.
    You understand?
    Yes.
    And if you oppose something, they
    shoot you to death where you had to go certain places,
    like helping them out in factories.
    They had the ammunition they used to do.
    They had all kinds of work.
    And they used-- you used to go to the patrol
    from the German police, so you couldn't go alone.
    If you objected, you'd be beaten to death.
    You had to go to work.
    And then they start to ration, like bread
    every second day, one bread for four or five people.
    You used to-- people in Poland, they don't have steam coming up,
    or everything was broken anyhow.
    You have to buy a piece of wood or coal and this and that.
    It was very difficult in ghetto.
    When it started to be very hard, you
    couldn't get a lot of things.
    So there were horses where they used to live,
    the dead horses in the street we used to cut for meat.
    Did your father lose his business
    as soon as the war broke out?
    That's right, as soon as the war broke out.
    Did they have any money?
    Would they manage to take anything from the apartment?
    Only what they had.
    From apartment, you couldn't take nothing,
    only what you had on you.
    Because everything was demolished.
    Forget it.
    Those things, you couldn't take nothing.
    Let's see, if somebody was very fortunate
    that their house wasn't touched by the bomb,
    when they had a few pillows in the house,
    maybe they gave you a pillow and a blanket to cover yourself.
    Clothes was very hard, as I told you.
    And black market, you had two dresses, you sold me one
    or you gave me if you were a good nature.
    But this-- times got to be very tough.
    What did the members of your family do?
    What did your father do, for instance?
    Did he try to work?
    He was trying to go, because his business
    was with the leather business.
    But business got to be very, very bad.
    You couldn't keep up with business,
    because the business would involve with the Gentile people,
    like the factories.
    And then when the ghetto was, you couldn't go out on the side
    where you're supposed to go.
    So it's got to be very difficult.
    Like, for example, there were manufacturers
    from the leather, what my father used
    to sell leather to the manufacturers of shoe
    manufacturers.
    So I met one manufacturer, and he had some shoes for sale.
    And he said, gee, before the Germans will take away.
    And I had to go to buy like a bread.
    Start to be every day, start to be worse.
    My father was killed in ghetto.
    They killed my father in the street
    with a bayonet in his neck.
    So first, I lost my father.
    Then when they start the wars, I lost my older brother when
    he left his wife with a kid.
    Then they killed my other brother in the street.
    As a matter of fact, when they were shooting
    my brother, the younger one, and I came out,
    I had a bullet in my leg here.
    And I came out, and I was crying, my brother, my brother.
    And he was an old soldier, the one
    who shot my brother, because he was afraid.
    One soldier was afraid for the other.
    And I came out, and he saw another soldier coming.
    And he told me, quiet, he doesn't want to shoot me,
    but he will.
    And the bullet came straight.
    I'll show you.
    I have here, all in my leg.
    And I was playing dead, because I saw the--
    I don't with know, with the bullet.
    And they killed my brother, you know?
    And I want to protect him, my brother.
    My brother-- and the bullet, I played dead.
    And we were living in ghettos.
    And when they went away, my mother and my sister
    came down from the-- they picked me up, and they found him a man.
    He was coming to get her.
    He was a doctor, a Gentile.
    And he used to know my parents.
    And they didn't have any chloroform.
    And my mother was covering my face with schmattas,
    with anything when I was screaming.
    And they took out the bullet from my leg.
    I still have it.
    Such a big scar.
    A scar.
    Yeah.
    So you were left with your mother.
    When they first-- when they killed my father,
    and they took away my oldest brother,
    and they killed my brother, I was left over with my sister--
    my mother and my sister and the baby.
    Then, they make like a clean out already in Warsaw
    three months later, and they took away my sister-in-law
    with the baby.
    And one day, in the morning when the Germans took me from work,
    there was a munitions factory.
    And I came back to that little room
    that they took us, not as my mother straight from bed
    naked in a nightgown, because her shoes were on the floor
    and everything.
    That was it.
    Then, a day or later, when they disarmed the Polish police,
    they took away their belts.
    They took away--
    I met him.
    And he told me that he saw my mother taking to the Treblinka,
    on the trains to Treblinka.
    That was the last thing I heard from my mother.
    Then I was left over only with my sister.
    And how old was she?
    My sister, when she got married, she was 18 years old.
    As I told you, he came to the--
    I'll show you a picture, he gave me, my brother-in-law.
    So you were the youngest, actually, of all the children.
    Yeah.
    So the two of you, you continued what,
    going to your work, the German--
    My sister?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    They were separating.
    My sister was going somewhere else,
    and I was going somewhere else.
    And she was-- when we said in the morning,
    we said, I meet you here in broken buildings-- broken
    buildings.
    Wherever you see a room, a place to go in, you went in, dirty.
    I used to tell her, I'll meet you later here.
    Later here wasn't a place already.
    Somebody else took it, so you have to look around.
    It's very difficult. If your mind is straight,
    it's a wonder from God, I'm telling you.
    Like this, you have a home.
    You have parents, and sisters, and brothers.
    And one minute, you have nobody.
    It's tragic.
    You mentioned that you were in the underground in the ghetto.
    Can you tell me about what kind of resistance that was?
    You see here like a window?
    They were building a hiding place for Jewish people.
    That's amazing, the brain.
    We used to take out the leaf from the window, like you said.
    They call it a [POLISH] in Polish.
    Some windows, they have people putting up,
    let's see, flowerpots on it, like a little board.
    So they used to take out the board,
    and they used to dig with machine to take out
    the bricks, that between the basement and the room,
    let's see on the bottom is a basement here.
    It's unbelievable.
    And those places, you never could stay straight.
    You had to go back like this.
    Bent over.
    Bent over.
    And you used to ask--
    it's amazing-- to take out like this.
    And when you went in there between the bricks,
    you used to push it back this.
    And then you used to be, let's see, the hallways.
    They used to be-- they used to have a little closet, let's see,
    in this.
    So they used to take like a leaf from this.
    Make believe that's a closet.
    Right.
    Behind the closet, they used to make like a small place.
    Only you could stay like that.
    When the Germans inspect, used to see a closet, nothing else.
    It was amazing.
    They were the bunkers.
    They used to call it the bunkers, you know?
    It was all made of garbage cans.
    Here, the garbage they are taking away.
    In Europe, they have special rooms to put the garbage.
    Then comes the truck and takes it away above this.
    It was fantastic, the ideas what they had.
    And, in sewer, I cannot even tell you.
    I was in sewer with the rats.
    You're coming in on one street, you're going in the other.
    You can't think of it.
    Did you help to do this building?
    Is this what you did in the resistance?
    Was that part of what you were doing?
    I was helping the men and the women.
    Everybody was working to hide.
    All of a sudden, you become so strong that you overpower,
    you know?
    You become very strong.
    You can think of everything what you lost,
    what you're thinking of yourself to hide your own life.
    That was that.
    Was there any attempt to do damage to the Germans,
    or was it basically an attempt to hide
    the people that were there?
    We couldn't damage the Germans, because they
    had their own ammunitions.
    And, let's see, it was 100 years,
    was maybe 1,000 soldiers with ammunitions.
    They were strong.
    Just when you heard the walking, the stamping of their boots
    could make your heart stop beating.
    And I remember one day they came.
    Remember, we used to live in ghetto.
    And my oldest brother came, and we
    had like a bed in that ghetto, in a room,
    like a sleeping couch.
    And we heard the Germans coming, so we put him
    underneath-- between the mattress and the closet.
    He could choke to death.
    And the Germans found him there.
    And I was laying in bed like a kid, and they came.
    They hit me so in a bed, terrible.
    And they took out my brother.
    That was it.
    It's so many incidents where you can't even think of it.
    You said you were walking once with your sister and somebody
    who had worked for your father told the Germans that you
    were a Jew.
    Yes.
    Where was that?
    That was in Warsaw.
    They took me on plac Saski, where
    it was the headquarters of the SS men,
    the unknown soldiers right away there.
    They beat me to death.
    But in the end, they believed that you were not Jewish?
    That's right, because they let me go.
    I didn't have the number at that time.
    Why I put on that [NON-ENGLISH] .
    They call this the [NON-ENGLISH], that star.
    Used to, they called it the [NON-ENGLISH].
    Because I told them, because I was in ghetto.
    Then, to go out from the ghetto, you
    were afraid maybe they got a bit follow you.
    That was the worst thing.
    You couldn't go even out from the ghetto.
    You were taken into a concentration camp.
    Could you describe the situation that led to you being taken?
    I was hiding in a bunker, and in the bunkers,
    they scratched away a little bit that cement between the bricks,
    and we used to look out from the brick was there.
    And this-- I never forget this.
    They used to take some Jewish people, the Germans,
    and they used to holler in the streets in Yiddish.
    Can I tell you in Yiddish?
    Yes.
    [YIDDISH]
    That means Jew, you come out.
    The Germans are gone.
    The war is gone.
    So some people used to come out, because they believed.
    And as soon as the Jews started coming out from the bunkers,
    the machine guns go rat-a-tat-tat.
    Everybody was laying dead.
    So we're staying in that particular bunker
    for quite a while.
    But the following day, in the morning,
    somebody described to them that there's
    the bunker what I told you we took away that from the window.
    And one by one, they took us.
    And whoever didn't listen to stay in line,
    then they took us on the umschlagplatz.
    And there we were laying, and urinating, and making
    on the floor till they put us.
    And there were trains, close trains.
    And those trains they locked.
    I can't even explain to you.
    We drink the urine from one another.
    They were choking and people were killing one another.
    It was the most horrible thing that you can think of.
    And then this was Birkenau the first time when we came in.
    Were you part of a transport?
    Or essentially, you were just gathered.
    They gathered all these people from the bunkers
    and they had to transport.
    That's a transport.
    A lot of people came.
    That's why I was separated from my sister right away, too.
    Was she in the bunker with you when you were taken out?
    Yes, in the same bunker.
    That's why we came just to Majdanek.
    That was the first thing we did.
    So she was with you on the transport
    and separated from you when you got to Majdanek?
    Yeah, after a few months, they separated.
    They used to make a right and left, right and left.
    I didn't know which was the right.
    You had to obey the orders.
    If not, you have the machine gun on you.
    Terrible.
    We used to work there.
    What happened when you first arrived at the camp?
    You came on the train from Warsaw?
    What happened when you first arrived?
    What is your first memory of what happened?
    My first memory--
    Of the camp.
    I didn't know even where I was.
    I just know that I was looking around and came.
    And then I found out that she was an SS woman.
    And I was looking around and she gave me a slap
    in the face, a very hard one.
    Well, I wasn't used to it, to be beaten so terrible to a woman.
    And I said to her, [NON-ENGLISH],
    so she beat the hell out of me.
    So a girl who was there previous time, she told me right away,
    don't ask questions.
    Just take it.
    She's going to kill you.
    Then I learned and eventually that I
    don't have to ask any questions, to just let myself
    be beaten and obey the order.
    When you first came, were you--
    was there a selection at Majdanek, people
    being sent to die right away and to work?
    Yes.
    The work was outside on the fields, we used to work.
    And certain places, I just don't know how they
    were thinking of such a thing.
    They had like sticking curly wires, painted.
    And the wires were coming in like a crystal, not straight.
    But you had to work like this, you see?
    All bent over.
    Bent over.
    You could never bend back.
    Let me show you.
    I am always special girl, a special girl.
    Yes, I see, a support for your back.
    That's from beating.
    My back is curved.
    And I was showing you the back--
    such a hole from the machine.
    So that was very--
    When you first came, your sister was with you.
    Did she work with you--
    Yes.
    At Majdanek.
    Yes.
    And when was she separated from you?
    What happened?
    They separated us.
    They sent me to Birkenau, and all of a sudden,
    I saw that she's not with me.
    And when I was already working in Birkenau--
    so they call us a transport, like pigs, you know?
    The transport came.
    Would you believe I ran there to see if my sister is at--
    you couldn't go wherever you wanted.
    It was after the selection.
    Let's see.
    They count us every day.
    They used to count us twice a day.
    Nobody-- where you could escape?
    Was impossible.
    So I went there to the barrack, and she came to Birkenau.
    She could recognize me, and I could recognize her,
    because our hair was shaved off, just like your arm, straight.
    You see?
    And then I would like she should be in the same barrack with me.
    So I figure, let me tell somebody this.
    Saw a plain soldier what he was in charge for the barracks.
    I lay, and I kissed his boots while he was walking.
    And I didn't say a Schwester, a sister,
    because they were trying to separate the families.
    So I told him that I have a friend there,
    she came with the transport, if she
    could be in the same barrack.
    Well, the other soldiers saw me, that I
    was lying, kissing his boots, that they were punishing me
    for it.
    So let me stop you there.
    When they saw you kissing his boots, they got angry at you.
    Yes, they beat me up terrible.
    And they made me a punishment to go
    to the gate, where the gate coming into the concentration
    camp.
    And they gave me two bricks in both hands,
    and I should stay on my knees with the bricks up.
    And this is like a death.
    You could be dead, because your hands.
    I don't know how long I was with the bricks, but all of a sudden,
    I saw one German was riding on a horse.
    He jumped down from the horse, and with that--
    Riding crop.
    Yeah.
    He threw the bricks from my hands,
    and he kicked me in my tush, and he told me to get up in German.
    That means [NON-ENGLISH], that's get out from there.
    But I collapsed.
    While I was walking, some two girls put me on their backs,
    because we used to take dead bodies in our back
    to schlep them, to drag them.
    And they brought me into the barrack.
    And my hands were complete stiff.
    You couldn't do a thing.
    When they used to build something,
    we had to take the bricks in front of you, 10, 12 bricks.
    And the dogs were walking next.
    If a brick fell off from your hands,
    they beat you up to death.
    We used to do such a hard work in the war till here,
    to take out bricks and sand.
    It's a miracle where there was such a long time that is alive.
    It was such a torture--
    no food, no nothing.
    Do you feel that it was because you were young and healthy
    that helped you survive?
    What do you think helped?
    That was when I was young and healthy,
    because when somebody didn't look so healthy,
    you know what we used to do?
    One girl used to pinch another, the cheeks, to bring the color.
    And when you had--
    there was no whether to wash up.
    And when they give you that little bit, they call this tea.
    That was sunburned leaves.
    You couldn't even drink that tea.
    So some girls, well, they wash up a little bit, you know?
    It wasn't even with nothing to wipe it off.
    You see, that was terrible.
    And to a toilet, you had to go when they call you.
    You never went to a toilet when you had to.
    They used to put together.
    They used to call it [NON-ENGLISH].
    Excuse my expression.
    That's all right.
    They used to call it [NON-ENGLISH].
    They used to put like 100, 200 girls.
    We came in.
    The toilets were so big, like a big, big room.
    And it was just the holes made there.
    So the girls start to fight who's going to be first.
    Then they-- till you going to go sit down and make it.
    They used to call you [NON-ENGLISH],
    and you had to go back.
    I had surgery, rectal surgery I had rectal surgery as soon
    as when I was liberated.
    You could never go when you wanted to.
    That was the most--
    girls used to make in the camps wherever you used to find.
    It was a terrible life just for a dog--
    not even for a dog.
    Certainly.
    And we were separated from men.
    We never used to know what day it is, what year it is.
    Forget about the holiday.
    And when they used to--
    they used to hang Jewish people for something not done right.
    When they hang one man, so they hang one woman or two women
    or one man or one man, two women.
    And we used to see how they're hanging the people,
    for something not done exactly the way they wanted
    or you dropped a stone or something like that.
    Did the work have any purpose?
    Were you actually building something,
    or was this just carrying bricks around to make you weak?
    I never saw something actually done.
    Just we used to carry.
    We used to put the railing tracks for the--
    they don't have the men there.
    But we never saw our finished work, you know?
    Used to build, build.
    That was torture.
    What were your thoughts and reactions
    when you came to the camp?
    Were you shocked, or were you already sort of used to this
    from being in the ghetto?
    Was it more disorienting?
    No, I was prepared that I'm going to die every day.
    I was asking myself in my heart.
    I was talking to my mother and my father.
    I used to say to myself, what is here?
    I don't want to die.
    I didn't do nothing wrong.
    I would like to live a little bit.
    And we used to say, where is God?
    Where is all those things?
    We used to see when I was already a time there of a year,
    because I already got used to the thing
    that they burning alive people.
    The smell was horrible.
    And then from the fats, they used to make soap.
    I never wanted to use that soap.
    It used to stink.
    And from them men's skin, they used to make the lampshades.
    They butcher them.
    It was a terrible thing.
    When they used to give you the food,
    they used to bring the big can, an iron can, and one big bowl.
    Four people used to eat from one bowl,
    and you don't have even a spoon.
    You were lucky when you found a piece of stick to put in.
    Then the girls were fighting one with another
    who was eating quick, who was eating slow.
    We never ate, only that piece of bread
    when they gave it to us already, so hard, like a rock, moldy.
    We used to eat this.
    It was very hard.
    What became of your sister when she came into the camp?
    You didn't succeed in getting her into your barracks,
    obviously.
    She was in my barrack.
    Oh, she did.
    She was till before Christmas time.
    I think was '44.
    And she wasn't feeling good.
    So they used to stay.
    They used to call it revier And that one, the revier,
    they used to call it the hospital.
    Once you went there, you never came out.
    So they finished her there.
    I never saw her.
    How did she wind up in your barracks?
    Because you said when you approached--
    Yeah, she came to my barrack.
    She just came, or the soldier that you had approached
    sent her?
    Yeah, yeah, he sent her.
    He came in.
    I never used to--
    I found her number was 48 minus 47.
    She came later than me.
    And I told him the number, because you never
    were there by name.
    You were a number, like a cow, you understand?
    That was it.
    That's the way I found her.
    And I was warning her.
    She had like the diarrhea, terrible, that she
    shouldn't in the revier there.
    But she figures, oh, she'll go in the revier.
    And maybe they'll give her some help.
    She was burning out.
    She had temperature.
    And once she went there, she never came back.
    I never saw her.
    Did you do any other kind of work at Auschwitz-Birkenau other
    than the brick?
    Yes, and ammunitions factory, Union.
    They used to call it the Union Ammunition Factory.
    The factory was built from glass.
    All around, you see glass, and on the roof there were flowers.
    They were bombing ones from the time.
    I think the English--
    the English, I think, was involved.
    They found out what it is, but didn't touch us somehow.
    We were lucky.
    And what did you do there?
    When they were bombing?
    No, when you worked.
    What work did you do?
    Oh, we used to work by machines, the ammunition.
    And there was-- we used to cut out
    the bullets for the machine guns and the bullets and grenades.
    And this is very heavy work.
    You used to be watched what you're doing.
    You should, God forbid, do something wrong,
    then you're killed.
    Then you get killed.
    You said there were soldiers behind you watching you
    through the glass.
    That's right.
    I never could see them.
    They could see me.
    I never could see them.
    They teach you first.
    Certain things you used to do on a table.
    But then when you went, the handles were in the walls,
    so you had to know which handle to use,
    that the bullets were falling down there somewhere,
    the hell who knows where.
    They were so mysterious done, everything,
    but you couldn't see nothing.
    Was that a better job than working outside?
    When I was already inside, I was lucky,
    because you used to work in winter time.
    Poland has a climate.
    Wintertime, when it's cold, it's freezing.
    And that particular climate, when I was there,
    was very, very bad.
    It was hard.
    We used to make the best.
    We had cold wood.
    You know how we used to sleep on the floors?
    They used to call [NON-ENGLISH] on the wood,
    this plain piece of wood.
    You put your hand under your head.
    I just don't know how they were thinking of such things.
    And the people say it wasn't so.
    Here you have something, and here you don't.
    Here you're beaten to death, and you can't even
    ask a question why.
    Once they were beating, an SS woman, when the brick fell down,
    who was carrying the bricks--
    fell down.
    So she had like you're hitting the dog, how you call it?
    Whip or--
    The whip.
    And the whip had on the sides a wire, and that hurt.
    And when I came to Denmark first,
    and then they took us to Sweden, and the doctors
    were observing us, they said they never
    saw such a bruised up body.
    I couldn't sleep on my back, just on my belly a little bit,
    because I was so bruised up that some of my bones
    were forced inside my spine.
    And my ear-- had surgery on my ears.
    They used to hit so much.
    And I can't hear in this ear.
    My drum is complete gone.
    It was a lot of things.
    It's very, very hard.
    Were the women that were with you,
    were they mostly women your own age, or were they various ages?
    They were-- no, they were a little bit older.
    Some maybe-- mostly were the same age--
    mostly.
    Our dreams, we were talking to our parents.
    Why?
    Why?
    Was no question, because when I was already a long time there,
    and they bring--
    they used to call it the transport.
    And we used to go to--
    we used to march to work with the soldiers.
    They were watching us on the side.
    And one time, we're going, and we
    see the Jews with the shtreimel came in, they Jewish people.
    And they see us.
    They spoke to us, but we weren't allowed even-- we were afraid.
    So they asked us, [NON-ENGLISH].
    They didn't know.
    Where did you come from?
    They come.
    They ask us in Yiddish, in Jewish, where are we going here?
    Where are we going here?
    The packages-- they had the bundles, and the little kids
    were crying by their hands.
    And we were looking.
    They were going straight to the gas chamber.
    They were walking them.
    They didn't even stop them-- straight to the gas chambers.
    And the clothes what the Jews had on them--
    so some Jews were hiding their jewelry
    in the shoulder pads and this.
    They found them.
    They had the rooms with jewelry, with clothes.
    I can't even explain to you.
    You were walking into mountains of gold and money and clothing.
    They don't pay us for nothing.
    They had plenty.
    I wouldn't want them when I would want
    to have a brother or a sister.
    Did you ever work among those things?
    In the clothes?
    Yes.
    No.
    Maybe twice I went there, then they took me back
    to the ammunition.
    I was working very, very hard.
    Did the women in the barracks make friends with one another?
    Yes, we were friendly, because we felt for one another.
    We were friendly.
    We were holding-- let's see, when one girl was crying
    so emotionally, she gets the therapist to tell her, oh,
    we're going to be--
    one day, we're going to go, and especially when
    they made us once to work in January,
    that was when they took us, when they thought that Auschwitz is
    attacked by the Allies already.
    So they start shipping us out from Auschwitz.
    That's why we came to Ravensbrück.
    And when we came to--
    when we were walking, and the snow was so high,
    and I was wearing some boots, and the boots were so big--
    wooden boots, and boots.
    And when the snow kicks up on the wooden boots,
    you can't walk.
    But there's some girls, when they turn around,
    they took off the boots.
    They were dead right away.
    You couldn't even turn around.
    You had to walk straight.
    So one night, one day we were walking through the whole day,
    was already night coming out.
    And all of a sudden, the Allies, they start shooting them.
    And that was just--
    you didn't care for your life.
    What's the difference?
    Like a light for us.
    And the Germans started running away, and we found--
    we went in, luckily.
    It was a barn with cows.
    We don't know even where we were,
    somewhere on the border somewhere, you know?
    And some girls started milking the cows, and the bombs--
    we heard shouting.
    Nothing happened to us.
    And they found some pails.
    We had some milk.
    It was unbelievable things.
    Then they put us back together, and we went on an open train.
    And it was so cold, so they wanted to leave us in Frankfurt.
    I remember that we passed by Frankfurt am Main,
    and some girls got to be frozen to death.
    So they took the bodies just to throw over the train.
    And this incident, everybody knows this incident what I had.
    Because I was explaining when I was
    liberated to rabbis and to priests.
    I was sitting on a throne, and I had from me--
    and me, while I was running, I found that I was running,
    and they were cleaning up the covers from the clothes.
    So I found the men's union suit.
    So I tore out the sleeves, and I put that on my hand
    and on my head forever.
    I could cover my body, and no shoes, no nothing.
    It was terrible.
    And I was sitting in the open train,
    and they threw out some girls.
    And on the corner of the train, they
    had the soldiers like a little boot.
    They covered this.
    And they had some of the food, and they had the big, big dogs.
    This-- I never forget this.
    And I'm sitting.
    Am so afraid for a dog even today,
    because the dogs constantly were biting the people,
    big German shepherds.
    And the dog is coming straight with the can on his mouth.
    And he puts on me, and he lays down on my feet.
    And I was so afraid.
    And the can was saying that was dog food.
    I reached my hand, and I was eating out from the can,
    and I ate the dog food.
    And he was laying on my feet.
    She went off.
    He went away.
    He came with another can.
    And when I was telling, this is something
    I never forget till I die.
    He kept me so warm, and he put another can.
    The girl was sitting next to me, I told her, take it.
    She was afraid to touch it, because we
    didn't know what it is.
    And maybe the dog will bite us.
    He was laying a long time till the soldier called him
    back there.
    So my body was warm.
    And when I came and we were interviewed in Sweden,
    I was telling this till now.
    They told me that that was a good angel,
    and that wasn't a dog.
    And my husband, my children know about this.
    And I also read.
    My son writes very well.
    My oldest son is an attorney.
    And this I never will forget, that big dog.
    I ate dog food.
    I ate horse meat.
    Now, I have everything.
    I'm looking to the Frigidaire to be on a diet.
    It's just unbelievable.
    Were there any attempts at resistance or escape,
    any organized attempts that you knew about in the camp itself?
    Yes, some men were trying to escape.
    That's why I've been just telling you.
    When they hang two men--
    so they hang one woman from us, from where
    we used to work at the Union Factory that time.
    And they caught the man what he was trying to run.
    And that's what we had, because we were separated from men.
    But they came, and we had to witness
    how they're hanging the people.
    Oh, they were people that had tried to escape.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Was there any talk about trying to destroy what you were trying
    to make, or you were watched so closely
    that you couldn't possibly try to do anything?
    No, I wasn't trying to do, my God.
    I would be dead right away.
    You were afraid.
    You were doing things over your power, things
    that you-- the work was so hard that you can't imagine.
    How many hours in a day did you work?
    We worked from well in the morning till late at night.
    Then they didn't give you the food.
    They used to count you.
    The [GERMAN], they used to call it [GERMAN].
    They count the people until you went into the barracks.
    And they brought that barrel with the food for four people.
    Till you came to eat.
    You didn't have nothing.
    I want to show you something.
    This, you won't believe it.
    Everybody knows, because my husband met that girl.
    I was in Malchow, and from Malchow, I was liberated.
    And in Malchow, we didn't have even a tent.
    There were tents from material, and there
    was wooden floors, snow.
    And we were living in the rats, and it was cold.
    I can't even explain to you, it was cold.
    And after the lager, I woke, and I went into one barrack
    by coincidence.
    And in one barrack, I was a skeleton when
    I came to Sweden, 70 pounds.
    Can you imagine a grown-up girl already 70 pounds?
    I was counting my bones.
    And I'm coming into that barrack,
    and on the bed-- that was a barrack for the Gentile girls.
    Non-Jewish girls were there.
    They had their hair.
    They were pretty.
    Some of them used to live with the soldiers.
    Who the hell knows what.
    And one girl comes over.
    She calls me.
    I'm telling you, I was very fortunate.
    God was watching over me.
    And she calls me.
    She said to me, are you Jewish?
    She saw that I am Jewish, because I had the number.
    So she said, my name is Maria.
    And she start calling all the girls.
    I went in with my other friend.
    She lives now in Florida.
    And she gave me a piece of bread.
    And the one girl, the shiksa, the goy, she had some soup,
    so she gave me this soup, and she gave me a piece of bread.
    And I share with my friend that piece of bread,
    because we were hungry.
    We didn't have nothing.
    And I ate that soup.
    And she said to the other Christian girl, all right,
    we're here.
    At least we have something to eat.
    Look at those Jewish kids.
    They have nothing to eat.
    Look at her.
    She said to me, tomorrow, if nothing will happen,
    come on the barrack.
    I give you something to eat, OK?
    So the following day, I remember I said to my friend, come.
    Nothing will happen.
    So she gave me again a piece of bread.
    And she already--
    I made a combination from all those, the Gentile girls
    that they had plenty to eat.
    So she gave me a piece of bread.
    She gave me a kielbasa, the wurst, a piece of--
    Meat.
    Meat or salami.
    I don't know even what it was.
    I don't remember.
    I ate.
    And then a few days later, there was the selection again.
    You go to that.
    You go this here.
    You couldn't remember all those things.
    I was liberated.
    And this I must tell you, she went off.
    I came to the United States, and after that, I already
    met my husband.
    And I went to-- the first thing he want
    to learn is to read and write.
    You go to school.
    You can't be a dope.
    You go to school.
    I'm coming to school.
    I work.
    The second week comes in a beautiful girl.
    She sits down on a bench, gorgeous girl.
    And she looked at me.
    She looked at me.
    She looked at me, and she called me over to her.
    She said, do you remember Maria from Malchow.
    She was giving you soup and this.
    I said, yes, I won't forget.
    She helped me a lot.
    So she said, I am not Maria.
    I am Molly Segal.
    She was pretending that she's a goy, those non-Jews.
    And she came to my wedding, and [INAUDIBLE].
    She gave me this.
    And she gave me another little bit of Mexican hat.
    And I--
    She went away.
    She's from Vienna.
    She went back to Vienna to look around for her husband.
    They killed her husband.
    This is the way with some incidents.
    There were so many incidents, I can't even tell you.
    I had there my sister friend.
    Her husband was with the partisans.
    He was a lawyer in Warsaw.
    And I was selected to go to the gas chamber.
    All of a sudden, she took her jacket.
    She threw on my number, because the Gentiles didn't--
    Christians didn't have the numbers.
    And she cover, and she told me to make a cross.
    And I was talking to the cross, this and this and that.
    And before, the other guy, the other soldier,
    he was holding me.
    And somebody was talking to him, so he forgot about me.
    So she pushed me back behind before she put this on me.
    And I was talking, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
    And he took somebody else in my place.
    Where was this, in Auschwitz?
    In Auschwitz.
    The gas chambers was a big, like this room, and the shower,
    like a shower.
    And the people, you could smell all the things.
    I hurt my foot there.
    There were such things that you saw.
    It's unbelievable.
    I never wanted to go back to Poland, never in my life.
    When I was liberated to Sweden, I
    passed my test to go to school.
    And I worked in a hospital.
    She was at Beckomberga in Stockholm.
    And the doctor came, and he said, now, some Polish soldiers
    who were treated in Sweden, they're
    going back to Warsaw, Poland and to other states.
    And as a translator, I do speak different languages,
    if I should go.
    I said, I am not going back.
    And my other friend, she lives in Paris.
    And I said, I'm not going.
    I said, look, when I'm going to come to Poland, to Warsaw,
    I have to go on the street where I was born,
    when I went to school, when I had my grandparents, when
    I had my parents.
    I'd drop dead.
    I'd go crazy.
    As long as my mind is good--
    God gave me the one thing I'm sick, but my mind is clear.
    I don't want to go back there.
    So he apologized to me, and I didn't go.
    You can't go.
    I would never go--
    any other country, but not Poland.
    It's terrible, your memory.
    Did you think you would survive?
    Did you think that?
    No.
    No.
    I just believed in one thing, a miracle.
    If I survive, it's going to be a miracle.
    As a matter of fact, that I made up my mind with my sister
    while she was in Auschwitz.
    So we used to talk every chance we had,
    because every time we were separated, I used to tell her,
    God willing, when we will be alive,
    where are we going to meet to go back to Poland?
    My grandpa was in real estate, and the maids who
    were working in our home, I knew where they used to live.
    So I said, we're going to meet in Marysia's house.
    Let's see the maid who was working for us.
    She used to throw out a piece of bread for me from the wall--
    the people they worked for, for our household.
    So we made up the mind that we're going to meet in Wolska--
    Ulica Wolska, where my grandpa had the real estate.
    But it never came to it.
    When I was liberated, I never wanted to go back.
    I haven't got nobody there, and bad memories
    could make you crazy.
    When your sister died, did you know it?
    Did you hear it?
    Were you aware?
    Yes, I heard that that day, when she went to that Revier,
    that they cremated all the people who came there.
    That was a trap.
    That wasn't a hospital.
    That was a trap.
    You know how they did?
    They had trucks that you lowered out the garbage.
    Oh, God, we saw the police.
    That's why I had to go to her.
    The bodies-- you know, the truck picked up
    and the bodies were going straight
    in the grave with the fire.
    How did you come to be chosen to be gassed?
    Had you gotten very weak, or was it something that you did?
    How did you come--
    What do you mean?
    You said you were chosen to go to the gas chamber.
    Yeah, you're staying in line, then one after the other.
    Just your luck.
    Just a matter of luck.
    They just chose?
    Yeah, he gave me--
    that time for this split of a second time,
    I was there, because my foot was there.
    He came.
    He gave me such a--
    he hit me so hard on my shoulder.
    He threw me away.
    He throw me away, just like you pick up somebody like that.
    To the left side-- who shouldn't know which one is the left?
    The ones, the left side and the right side-- right side
    goes to the gas chamber, left side
    is going to-- the next time, you never knew which way to go.
    But he just picked me up from the door.
    He hit me.
    He threw me away.
    So she was afraid, that gentile girl, that he's going to do,
    so she threw again the jacket.
    What was she doing there?
    As a partisan.
    They had Gentile people.
    That's what I told you.
    I met those-- they were against the Germans.
    But she was inside the camp.
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    So they were working within the camp, the partisans?
    Yeah, they had a little bit lighter work than we had.
    They went to the shops where the Jews
    were taking off the clothes.
    They used to make assortments.
    A jacket went to this side, and then the dress
    went to this side.
    They were sorting.
    If you had in the shoulders hidden some diamonds, gold,
    they used to take out even golden teeth
    from people's mouths.
    They used to do lots of things.
    And then, you know--
    What was she doing at the door of the gas chamber
    at that point?
    Do you know?
    Was she there as a Sonderkommando?
    Because some of them, they were sick, they used to burn them.
    But she was lucky.
    They used to take like a whole group,
    and then they were looking who was a Jew,
    the Jew had the number.
    If you don't have a number, you stay on the side.
    You're not going in a gas chamber.
    I see.
    So they rounded up a whole bunch of people--
    That's right.
    --brought them there, and then made the selection.
    And then they make the selection.
    For no rhyme or reason.
    They just--
    That's right.
    Well this, they made me the number.
    I didn't know they're making a number.
    There was a barrack, and you went into staying in line.
    And when the gas--
    let's see, somebody was before me.
    I didn't know why she was crying,
    what she was wiping, because the soldiers with the machine guns
    were where your head.
    So you let yourself do whatever they wanted to.
    You were helpless.
    Forget that you could say, I don't want it or fight back.
    It's no way of fighting back.
    So when we're staying in the line,
    was a needle was big as this--
    very big needle.
    And this is pointed.
    And he said to me, the soldier, when I'm going to cry or scream,
    he's going to shoot me right away.
    So you let yourself do whatever they want.
    You know that this is the first Aleph from 5,000 years ago?
    I didn't know that.
    This is the sign that I am a Jew.
    See?
    My friends came a little bit later than me.
    They have the number here inside their arm.
    And this says I am the first.
    47 is the first--
    the first transport.
    That was numbered.
    Yes, they came.
    The Czechoslovakian were before us and--
    Your husband is born here in the United States.
    No, he's from Israel.
    My husband was born in Israel.
    He was born there.
    I do need to pick up that you were--
    we were talking just before the tape ended
    about how it was that people got to be selected with the number.
    You explained to me about the number,
    that you were among the first transport that came--
    That's right.
    --there to Auschwitz.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That's true.
    Your number is farther on the outside of your arm
    than most of them.
    47.
    That tells you, right?
    My sister, when she came, she already had 48.
    That's why I remember.
    You see?
    48.
    She came later than me, because I told you, they separated us.
    You could never say that this is my sister.
    It was such a thing.
    When we were digging the graves, to dig out some graves,
    we came to bones.
    We found bones.
    And I had little pearls in my ears
    my grandma just gave me before the war, little pearls.
    And I forgot all about that, that I have little pearls.
    And then that came, that SS woman and a horse.
    And we coming from the graves we were digging to do [NON-ENGLISH]
    Kommando.
    It was such a hard work.
    I don't know even what kind of work it was.
    We were digging.
    I don't know what we were digging.
    And she noticed the little pearls in my ears.
    Do you know that till today, I can have--
    I have pierced ears.
    I can put on earrings through the holes.
    I always feel the way she pulled down the earrings from my ears
    that she cut everything, and the blood was streaming down.
    Never in my life.
    Ask my husband.
    I have a beautiful things I never will put on, just
    to screw it up.
    It's so many years, and you can--
    it still is in you.
    She just pulled them from your ears.
    They pulled.
    You were digging in what was already graves
    or you were digging graves for bodies?
    They were digging graves.
    And in the graves we found bones already, a skeleton.
    They were burying there.
    Who the hell knows what they were doing?
    Then they took this, and they were burning.
    And that stinks.
    I tell you, the smell of burning body.
    It is such a smell.
    When you pass by the gas chambers, and they were burning,
    you could see the chimneys, [? guns, ?]
    that we already know that the selection,
    that they're going to burn.
    It's such a scared that today you're going to be burned.
    You never knew.
    Just a miracle.
    If it's any miracle.
    And I want to tell you something.
    Nothing in life can change me, because I
    do believe it's a miracle, because I saw the miracles.
    And I believe that this is something.
    And I tell my children.
    I don't know how you believe.
    You're a person, but I'm meeting you for the first time.
    But I warn my children that I wanted Judaism should exist.
    I don't want any intermarriages.
    And if it is, should it be this, I
    wanted the Jewish religion should remain.
    Because for the few Jews what we have, we're existing.
    If not, we wouldn't be nobody.
    But I see.
    It doesn't pay to be different.
    I suffered as a Jew.
    [DOOR CREAKING] Honey?
    I wanted to be clear on the--
    Yes.
    --the selection that brought you to the door of the gas chamber
    was just-- they just sort of rounded up a group of people
    from-- did they take you from the barracks?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    No, they took-- the first, the [GERMAN].
    Just they didn't even count us.
    Just they called us to tell to stay in line,
    and they took everything, where we came in.
    That was the gas chamber.
    People start going in already.
    And I had my foot in the door and I saw--
    The shower head.
    The shower heads.
    That's right.
    And he hit me very strong, one of them.
    He just pulled me away.
    I was to-- please God.
    That's why I tell you, I believe in a miracle.
    Hmm.
    It was a German who pulled you away?
    That's right.
    They only had Germans there.
    Do you know was there a reason, or he--
    I just don't know.
    He just probably-- probably God told him, take her out.
    That's why we have miracles in life.
    I took people are going to Betsy for surgery.
    One is dying, and one is alive.
    The same kind of surgery.
    One is in this room.
    One is in this room.
    It's no question.
    That's your individual luck.
    Because you were describing that originally one was holding you
    and then he turned to talk to someone.
    And that's why the other one pulled you.
    Yes, that's right.
    That's right.
    He didn't see it.
    He pulled me.
    [INAUDIBLE] had split up-- not even a split of a second.
    And I remember the place just like I told you, when
    Mengele was in the same room.
    He took another one.
    And where was that?
    Was that at Auschwitz?
    In Auschwitz.
    Mengele was in Auschwitz then.
    When you first came, was that when you saw him?
    I was already, I was there some time.
    When he made the selection, they set up the room.
    They gave the people better to eat.
    And they did the whole thing there.
    So they would periodically make selections
    from the people that were already in the camp.
    That's right.
    And you came face to face with him.
    Face to face, like I see you.
    I saw Ribbentrop and I saw Himmler.
    They used to come sometime.
    They used to make fancy.
    They used to put up music to play.
    And they made the music.
    They used to make selections.
    They used to burn the people.
    They used to call that today, they're going to give you
    a [NON-ENGLISH].
    That means they're going to give you
    that bread, a piece of salami or a piece of margarine
    just to tempt you with something.
    And then they burn you.
    And what the purpose was, we just don't know.
    Nobody knows.
    So it was like a holiday, a festival?
    They used to make like a festival for themself.
    And you said you were-- there was a girl next to you
    who was a very pretty girl.
    And she was chosen.
    That's right.
    They took her.
    She was a girl from our street.
    And I used to know her very well.
    What did they take her for?
    For the experiments.
    Mengele liked take out everything.
    It was the building just across.
    They made one building.
    He came in and he selected whom he wanted to.
    Nobody could tell him that they're
    going to give him some women.
    He was making the selection.
    He was the one who made the selections.
    So he came in to select people for his experiments.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    And they put them right away.
    And I was lucky.
    Yep.
    It was hiding a lots of times in garbage cans, that you shouldn't
    be harmed or something like that.
    Life wasn't so easy.
    To start telling these stories, it's no end to it,
    because to live there one hour, it's
    the most drastic thing in life that you could--
    I could tell you.
    It's no way of telling how it was.
    You were hungry.
    You were praying only for one thing.
    I used to say, please God, before they exterminate me,
    the food [INAUDIBLE].
    I want to fill up my stomach not to feel the hunger.
    The hunger is such a pain.
    You have no idea.
    Did you see any of those--
    Thanks, Mrs. Ticker.
    When I'm going to see you?
    [AUDIO OUT]
    Did you ever see these women again
    after he had chosen them for experiments?
    No, never.
    They were isolated.
    They were constantly making experiments there.
    Did you know what was going on?
    Yes.
    You see, when you are in those places,
    somehow one girl, she gets, like, the news from somebody.
    And the other girl, maybe a German woman.
    We never knew how all the things came about.
    Because some of those German, they used to be kapos.
    You know kapo?
    You know what is a kapo?
    Right.
    Some of those kapos, some of them, they were horrible.
    But some, they had to fulfill their duty to hit us,
    to give their death.
    But some, they used to put the work in.
    But they knew, the one girl.
    Then we knew what's going on.
    We knew that today is going to be a very heavy selection.
    So we knew from the kapos.
    And she told one girl.
    The girl was telling me, then I was--
    And that's the way the rumor was spraying around.
    That's the way we knew what was going on, what's going to be,
    what's going to happen, where we're going to go,
    even if they're going to give you a rotten soup today.
    So you knew already.
    Who's going to hit you.
    And if you came close to the barrel from the food,
    we figured maybe on the bottom's a little bit more thicker.
    So you used to get with that serving all over your hands
    so that you, clang, clang, you could hear the banging.
    It was a terrible life.
    And the woman that covered your arm,
    she was a partisan that was in that group.
    Was the man who pulled you away, a German soldier, or he was also
    a German who was imprisoned in the camp?
    No, no.
    Again, no, we didn't see German prisoners.
    We were isolated from them.
    That was a soldier.
    I don't know if he was--
    I don't remember the rank, he was an SS man
    or he was a plain just a soldier.
    If you want to be nice could see a [? prank. ?]
    You could go to a Oberscharführer.
    You want to make him big.
    And he was the whole thing.
    That's why I kissed the boots from him as a plain soldier.
    I used to tell him, Herr Oberscharführer, or who the hell
    know what you want.
    Right.
    You did all kinds of things because you
    knew [INAUDIBLE] later.
    Among the soldiers and the guards,
    were some of them more decent than other ones
    to the prisoners?
    Some of them, they were maybe good natured,
    but they were afraid for the others
    because they were watched.
    They were watched from one another.
    You were afraid.
    So they couldn't really--
    No, no.
    --be kind.
    Is there any other special or unusual incident,
    experience from the camp that you would like to tell me about?
    Yes.
    In one ammunition factory, when I
    was working in the union, and my friend who I remember,
    [? Florida, ?] was there.
    Meister.
    They call it the Meister.
    You know what is it.
    Like an overseer or a master.
    Yeah, what he is taking care.
    And he had, like, he's in the factory,
    in the center of the factory.
    He had like a boot that he could look.
    But the boot was also from [? mess. ?]
    And he was very nice.
    He sometime used to tell me and my friend,
    because we were watched with the Germans walking the--
    how do you call it?
    They used to watch it, those people, the soldiers,
    to the factory were walking with the dogs.
    Patrolling.
    Patrolling.
    That's right.
    Patrolling.
    If we wouldn't do any monkey business in there.
    And he used to come.
    He used to put food under the table, a piece of bread,
    and not a liquid, because you couldn't--
    So he used to watch himself.
    If the soldier went away that way,
    so he used to tell you, [GERMAN].
    He never used to tell me, you do something.
    "Sie."
    That means elegant he was talking.
    And his name was Ryc, I think.
    And he used to tell me, but I had to go very, very fast
    to take up.
    He was afraid to give it to me because there was no way,
    because he could get killed.
    But he was watching.
    If the soldier walked away, as quick as I
    could to go under the table in his office
    to grab that piece of bread and that piece of salami, whatever
    he could to give it to me and my friend.
    So he ran in or I ran in, and we ate so and hid
    in places that they shouldn't see us.
    They shouldn't even a third girl shouldn't see it,
    because the third girl could squeal on you.
    There were squealers in there.
    Did a lot of that go on?
    Yeah, you have to be very careful.
    The people didn't-- some girls didn't care for their life,
    that they're going to squeal on you, that they should have it.
    It was no way.
    So you have to be very, very careful what you've been doing.
    You learn.
    If you're in a long time already.
    So you learn.
    You were learning and counting the every day you're blessing.
    Maybe God will let you live.
    All I wanted is to fill up my stomach.
    Can you imagine?
    I remember when we came, when I was stolen out.
    [SIDE CONVERSATIONS]
    When I came to, when we were stolen out.
    I told you how I was stolen out?
    No, no.
    The war was still on.
    And we were very, very hungry.
    That was in Malchow.
    Yeah, before you tell me that, we kind of left you at--
    you said you went into that barn,
    and then the Germans came back after the bombing was over,
    and they regrouped you.
    And then you were on the train, and you wound up
    going finally to Ravensbrück and Malchow on a train.
    Yeah.
    And what happened when you got there?
    They took us.
    They let us out of the train, and we came to Ravensbrück.
    It was wintertime.
    And the mount, that was a mountain place.
    I never knew whether this.
    No one knew.
    And for the first time in life that we ate snow-- not only me.
    All the guests.
    We were so hungry that the mountains
    were covered with snow.
    So we washed ourself.
    And when you rubbing yourself in with snow, it's so warm.
    It's hot.
    And we're eating the snow.
    We're swallowing the snow.
    And then they said, we're going to go to the barracks.
    But there were no barracks.
    Like, they did tents from material.
    It's terrible.
    The snow was on the ground, water.
    They put some straw on some boards.
    And you were laying on the floor one on another.
    The most miserable life that you can ever think of.
    It's unbelievable to think of it.
    Did you do work there also?
    Yes, we worked ammunition.
    They were just hot on ammunition because they were afraid.
    I think, as I read later, and this and that
    from our experience, that they felt
    that they were going to lose the war,
    so they needed more ammunition.
    So that's why we were working so much on the ammunition,
    to prepare a lot for them.
    So day and night, night and day.
    So we were the workers for the ammunition
    because they took their own people in the war.
    So we had to be there.
    Do you have any sense of how many
    people that started out from Auschwitz
    actually made it to Ravensbrück?
    Did a lot of them die?
    A lot.
    A lot of them died.
    A lot.
    They were shooting us.
    They told you, in the trains, whoever was froze-- first,
    we were walking a lot.
    If you turn around, they shoot you right away.
    You couldn't.
    You had to walk straight, not to you
    look behind of you and [INAUDIBLE].
    Just to walk and walk and walk night and day.
    I know we were working night and day.
    As a matter of fact, there, one night, it was already night.
    And the men were pushing wagons with bread for the Germans.
    And one man start hollering, [NON-ENGLISH] in Yiddish.
    And one man hollered from [PLACE NAME].
    I am not from [PLACE NAME].
    I just [NON-ENGLISH].
    He gave me a bread.
    You so strong when you're hungry.
    So we were [INAUDIBLE].
    So we start pulling the bread for everybody
    should have a crumb.
    That's the way it was.
    And then, that's why I told you.
    They start bombing them.
    Nothing happened.
    Who cares?
    And we're hungry.
    So we found, and we [INAUDIBLE] barn.
    And when we came in, there were cows there.
    So it means [? no one ?] know where we were.
    [INAUDIBLE] between cows and horses.
    That was from the Poles, probably.
    We came to smaller cities.
    We didn't know where we were going.
    We found there raw potatoes in the barn,
    so we were eating raw potatoes.
    And some girls sat there milking the cows.
    They found pails.
    And the bombing went away, so we had to go out from the barns
    because we had to walk again.
    This is, even a moving picture cannot make,
    can't describe to you.
    We can do it.
    And were the conditions in Ravensbrück or Malchow better
    or worse than in Auschwitz?
    It's the same thing, even worse.
    Even worse.
    So we had the barrack.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    I was laying on you.
    You were laying on me.
    There was no place.
    We were laying in the water in tents.
    That's why I told you.
    The Christian people, the gentile, they had the barracks.
    That's why I met the girl there.
    My husband knew her.
    I came to school.
    It's unbelievable.
    And she survived.
    Yeah.
    And so then you wanted to tell me
    how you were taken away from there, how you were free.
    From Malchow, I was liberated.
    One morning, we were very, very hungry.
    And all of a sudden, probably, the shooting stopped with them.
    They were toward the end, I guess.
    And we were hungry.
    So one girl says, let's go on the German's barrels.
    Maybe we'll find something.
    We used to take the potato peels, what they were throwing
    away, the bones from me.
    They had everything.
    And we'll go on the barrels.
    So we were looking on the barrels.
    And all of a-- this is something unbelievable.
    Comes a truck.
    And the truck had the Red Cross.
    And they, Germans, when they were taking us
    to the gas chambers, they used to tell you
    they're going to take you on the Revier.
    That's what I was just telling.
    They were Red Cross painted.
    And that was to the gas chamber.
    So I was a tough one.
    And he said-- one soldier jumps out.
    I couldn't tell the difference between the German,
    and this is a Swedish.
    And this was a Swedish soldier.
    They were going to where they keeping
    the soldiers from the war.
    How you call it?
    Displaced person.
    Oh, displaced person camp?
    Displaced person camp for the soldiers,
    international soldiers, with food.
    And one soldier comes out, and he said, what is here?
    So I was tough.
    I said, now I'm done.
    Now they're going to take me to the gas chamber.
    Me and my friend, who sits right there, I said to him, [GERMAN].
    And if you don't know what is here,
    that's a concentration camp.
    So he said, no.
    And somehow we were very lucky that day.
    The truck what they had with the food
    to go to the displaced persons soldiers,
    they were giving away to the Germans.
    They already were low on food.
    And they had, in the Reichstag, in the Reichstag
    in Germany, a meeting.
    And they wanted to stole us out as soon as they [INAUDIBLE].
    So they had one truck, and all of a sudden,
    we saw another truck coming.
    So they started loading in quick as much as they could, people.
    There were about 300 guests they took on the two trucks.
    And I was so weak that I couldn't go
    on the truck, couldn't pick up.
    So they picked me up like a baby.
    They put me on a truck.
    And they start running away from us.
    I remember when they were loading me
    on the truck, one German, what she was beating me a long time,
    and I used to know her.
    And she wanted something from the Swedish--
    cigarettes or something.
    Food, probably.
    And she said to me for the first time,
    while the soldier told her how the [GERMAN]-- that means--
    you speak German?
    No, I don't.
    [GERMAN]
    That means shut up.
    And she said to me, [GERMAN], that she was good to me.
    She was already a little bit afraid.
    They start running away from--
    We traveling with the buses.
    Do you know?
    We came.
    I don't know where it was.
    Before any border.
    They led some plane was following the trucks,
    and that was the German.
    It was painted as English.
    And they killed Count Folke Bernadotte.
    He was limping at that time.
    The bullet came in his leg.
    They killed two soldiers.
    And I was jumping out from one truck,
    because they told us they are Swedish--
    they were Swedish-- that we should jump out
    and to hide somewhere.
    There was no place to hide.
    And if you'll just lay down.
    And once I jumped out, they start going again,
    the same thing.
    I said to my friend, whatever's going to be,
    that it happened in a truck.
    I can't jump already.
    It was too hard.
    I was-- well, I was a skeleton.
    A few, about a few girls were killed.
    About 8 or 11 girls got killed through the bombs.
    In the trucks.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    But we came.
    We came to Padborg.
    Padborg is between Denmark and Germany.
    It's a border.
    That's Padborg.
    And we came there.
    They were already, the Danish princesses.
    They were told already that a transport is coming,
    just like in a movie picture.
    We came there.
    I couldn't believe it.
    They start giving us a small portion.
    First of all came a soldier.
    And he said to me--
    what he said to the others, I didn't know.
    He said, he is a little dish, and he
    is water and a piece of soap.
    And he said to me, in German--
    you don't speak German.
    No, I don't.
    And he said to me in German that I should wash my hands,
    and I'm going to eat.
    So I was so afraid.
    And I had, on a string here, in a blanket I was wrapped up.
    And I have a string around me.
    And I had a little tin cup and a piece of wood.
    That was my spoon.
    And I never want to lose this.
    In case I get some way to eat, I have something.
    And he said that we're going to eat.
    I need throw away this.
    I said to my friend, now we're going to-- now
    they're going to take us to the gas chamber.
    You couldn't believe it.
    And he said to me, [GERMAN].
    I am your brother.
    Don't be afraid for me.
    And he's taking out a piece of chocolate.
    I figure he's giving me poison.
    I was afraid to take it.
    You know?
    Then I went in and I see the princesses.
    The one princess, she bows to me.
    She bows to me, that--
    I couldn't believe it, what's going on.
    It was something.
    And she was having that hat with the Red Cross,
    in a Red Cross uniform.
    And she said-- they couldn't speak any other language, just
    German or Danish.
    And she said to me that we're going
    to get very little to eat till the doctors will see us,
    and that we're going to sleep [INAUDIBLE].
    And then [INAUDIBLE], that place was
    a whole mountain of potatoes.
    They took us to the stationary place, not the fancy place,
    just because to receive us, because we were stolen out.
    I was stolen out.
    And they gave us the sleeping bags to sleep on the floor.
    It's the first time in past four years
    I was sleeping in a bag, and mine with lice
    and [INAUDIBLE] there.
    They were sleeping in a bag.
    And in the morning, they gave us [NON-ENGLISH] they call it.
    One piece of bread is black, one piece of bread is white.
    They call it [NON-ENGLISH].
    And they gave us some coffee to drink.
    And we had to be examined first.
    Came the most luxurious boat that same day.
    And we had that.
    That boat was built in 1939.
    At that time was brand new.
    I tell you, the waiters were dressed in tuxedos,
    and we were dressed in blankets and naked,
    practically, without shoes.
    And everybody's-- and one girl came in.
    She said, it's a toilet here.
    That they want to bring us across to Sweden,
    because Denmark was occupied through the Germans.
    So they want to get rid of us.
    They were afraid because the war was still on.
    It was toward the end, but still was the war.
    And one girl, [? Hala, ?] here is a toilet on the ship.
    And we came in toilet.
    And I looked myself in the mirror.
    This is my [INAUDIBLE].
    And I count my 13--
    14 skeleton bones.
    And one girl said, oh, it was a [INAUDIBLE] what happened to me.
    And I couldn't believe it.
    I was talking to the mirror to call myself.
    Helen, Helen, Helen.
    I couldn't recognize that's me.
    So many years I haven't seen a mirror.
    A mirror.
    You couldn't see the bones [INAUDIBLE]
    sprayed like [INAUDIBLE].
    And then came a doctor to checked us
    for a minute on the boat.
    And I said to him, that was the first time that I
    was thinking of something.
    And I said, now I don't want to even live.
    He told me, I'm going to freedom.
    I said, for what?
    So he said to me--
    I saw him.
    I saw myself in the mirror.
    I am a skeleton.
    How can I live?
    So he said to me in German, when you bone have,
    you're going to have plenty meat when you have bones.
    The other thing what I want to tell you,
    they used to put something in their food
    that we shouldn't menstruate.
    You know that.
    You know--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    I have heard that.
    Did you have that experience?
    Yes, because when first I came, I
    had my menstruation, the first month or two.
    I haven't got even what to put in.
    My blood was run, running.
    And when they saw you on the blood they killed you.
    So you used to steal piece of papers from the oranges,
    from the German, because they used to have food.
    But how much can you go and steal?
    It's ridiculous.
    So they used to put something.
    And the body start getting weaker.
    When you're young, you have to menstruate.
    That's healthy.
    And this is it.
    And so he told me, this doctor, [GERMAN].
    When you bone have, you're going to have plenty of meat.
    Anyhow, when we came in that boat across to Sweden,
    and that was--
    they brought us in.
    If you read the book, the story, they
    brought us in to Malmo, Sweden, International Tennis Stadium.
    To Malmo.
    And that was the tennis stadium that
    was the most luxurious thing that I ever saw.
    And they brought the Swedish soldiers.
    And they were playing day and night.
    When I hear that song, I see them in [NON-ENGLISH],
    [VOCALIZING].
    They were playing day and night for us, day and night, night
    and day.
    And that day when we arrived in the International Tennis
    Stadium, if you read the book, this is in the book.
    So we checked through the doctors.
    They gave us showers to wash up.
    They burned the blankets from us.
    And we were without a hair.
    And in the showers, the doctors used to,
    while we were showering, the biggest doctors
    used to come in to check us.
    We was all bruised up.
    We were so hurt.
    And then they start checking us.
    I had one friend with me.
    And all of a sudden, I don't see her.
    They found out she had tuberculosis.
    She was right away separated.
    Thank God I didn't have tuberculosis.
    I was weak.
    I couldn't walk.
    I was beaten up.
    I was quarantined for three months.
    And they gave me clothes.
    They gave us clothes.
    Everybody got a dress and shoes and clothes.
    I even still have.
    They want to make you feel good.
    So they gave you a little bit of cologne water.
    And I still have my [NON-ENGLISH].
    I never in my life.
    I used this for the--
    The mascara.
    Mascara.
    I still have it as a memory, because once I put down,
    I said, oh, my God, I have a [INAUDIBLE].
    I never used my makeup.
    Thank God I have a good face, thank God.
    I didn't use makeup at all.
    Just lipstick and a little bit of cold cream with no powder.
    And they gave me.
    I still have it, all those things.
    I was just looking on it.
    And I remember what I got.
    Anyhow, they gave us the clothes,
    and we were checked through the doctors.
    And they gave something that we start menstruating back.
    And whoever was very sick was sent away to the hospital where
    [INAUDIBLE].
    My back.
    My spine.
    So they strapped my spine.
    It was special things.
    And I was laying for a time on the belly, because my spine,
    they wanted to even up.
    To straighten.
    To straighten that.
    Because the bones.
    And they put me.
    They right away, they told me I will have to wear it.
    The brace.
    Yeah, I'm always in it all the time.
    And we start eating small amounts five times a day,
    not three.
    They gave us special vitamins to build up the body.
    We were quarantined.
    The reporters used to come to visit us.
    Was this from the Red Cross?
    Is that who was taking care of you?
    Do you know who it was?
    In Sweden, I think that was Swedish Red Cross.
    They were the princesses here.
    But the intern, when I came to Sweden,
    and the reporters are coming to interview you,
    that was my first thing, when they-- you see, it's so many.
    Maybe I'm skipping one line or two, but you know.
    And we were staying.
    And the reporters came.
    And one reporter came over to me.
    One girl was saying, yeah, I have a brother in German.
    She said, I have a brother who lives in South America.
    One said, the brother and sister in the United States.
    One, she had a sister together with her.
    And he came over to me.
    As hard as I was in my life, when he ask me in German,
    [GERMAN]--
    that means, do you have somebody?
    I collapsed.
    That was the first time that I collapsed.
    I said, no, I don't have nobody--
    when I came to.
    I don't have nobody.
    But I have one thing.
    I have, in my head, an address from my brother-in-law,
    for my brother-in-law.
    My sister was cremated, and my brother-in-law came.
    Because as I told you, she was married in Poland.
    And he came to the United States.
    And I had his address in my head,
    because we never had a piece of paper or a pencil.
    But my sister always told me how much she loves him, Henry.
    She was a beautiful girl.
    And that he lives in the United States.
    When I came to, and he asked, I said, yes, I have an address,
    and that's my brother-in-law.
    Would you be so kind to notify my brother?
    And I give him the address.
    She went off.
    My brother-in-law enlisted himself in the United States,
    to the Army, in order to bring his wife with my sister.
    Would you believe it, that my husband had him on the ship?
    My husband was giving him injections when he met,
    my husband.
    He couldn't believe.
    You see, that's what I told you.
    If you have-- you believe in something,
    who should believe that he's going to be my husband?
    He gives injections to my brother-in-law.
    My husband was in Medical Corps during the war.
    Yeah, and that was it.
    How I came to the United States.
    While my brother-in-law, his mother, received a telegram,
    what the reporter sent from Sweden.
    So she thought, and me, that this is her daughter-in-law.
    This is my sister.
    And she was so, so nervous that she couldn't read the telegram.
    So she called a neighbor because my brother-in-law
    was already enlisted and he was in the Army.
    And the same.
    This is where my husband was.
    And she said, ah, this is not Lili.
    That's my sister.
    This is Helen.
    So the neighbor told her, listen, woman.
    What's the difference?
    That's her sister.
    But she had an address here from the United States,
    from my aunt and a cousin, because my sister,
    when she got married in Poland, my aunt came to visit relatives.
    So she came to the wedding to my sister.
    So she assured my father, when she's
    going to come to the United States,
    she'll see to it that he should bring her quick.
    But they didn't know that the war is going to broke out.
    So she called up, and she gave the address from the telegram
    where I'm staying in Sweden.
    So he sent me some money, my cousin, in the end.
    And they thought I'm so hungry that I should buy food.
    Didn't know where I am.
    And sure enough, slowly that I started
    working out papers for me to come to the United States.
    And that was it.
    But in Sweden, I was quarantined till I
    gained little bit of weight.
    By 90 pounds.
    By 90 pounds I want to go to work,
    and I want to stay like this.
    But it's like this in any country.
    When you want to be a citizen, you have to be there 10 years.
    When you're married, get married to a Swedish man,
    it's five years.
    I wasn't married, and I wanted to come to the United States.
    But in order to work, you have to pass your test.
    What was your profession?
    I wanted to go first to school.
    I didn't finish.
    And then there was a language barrier.
    I couldn't speak any Swedish.
    But I spoke German, and I spoke Polish, and [INAUDIBLE] Yiddish.
    Yiddish wasn't so helpful as [INAUDIBLE].
    I bought myself a book.
    And I wanted to work.
    I felt that the safest thing for me as a young girl
    would be to work in a hospital, to go.
    You kid, you playing.
    You want to be a nurse.
    You want to be this.
    A boy wanted to be a fireman, a policeman.
    And a girl wanted to be--
    Well, thank God.
    And I comes to the test, what's so funny--
    For a nurse.
    Is that what you chose, to become a nurse?
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    But you have to go to school.
    Sure.
    And I passed my--
    it was so funny with my test.
    I have a friend, and they gave me the papers to fill out.
    I said to my friend, so many years
    I didn't hold a pen in the hand.
    How should I write?
    And she's very-- she's older than me.
    And she said to me like that, listen,
    when you know to [? seven, ?] you're going to know
    to [? seven ?] to take the pen and write.
    And I start writing, just like that,
    because you're afraid you're going to do so many things.
    And thank God.
    I passed my test.
    I went to school with the dictionaries.
    You go.
    Very hard.
    The basic thing, I was surrounded by nice girls.
    I had my dorm and with another girl.
    And I was going to--
    Who sent you?
    Did you-- who paid for the school?
    Do you know?
    No, that the government, because I was a Flüchtling.
    Flüchtling means--
    Refugee?
    Refugee.
    Refugee.
    So they gave you from beginning, like 7 kronen a month.
    And they gave you food and--
    but then, when you start working in a hospital, so you
    got your ticket three times a day,
    they give because you were a Flüchtling.
    And they pay you the money for working in a hospital.
    You work.
    You taking away the bedsheets, you're making the beds,
    meantime, you learn.
    You sterilize the needle.
    And you, until you learn the language,
    you help the doctor taking away.
    They needed a lot because they had the soldiers from the war,
    coming in there, to recuperate, to see what's wrong with them.
    Rehabilitation.
    Rehabilitation, yeah.
    So in the meantime, you're looking for your own people.
    Maybe you find somebody.
    [INAUDIBLE] nobody.
    It's very, very hard.
    It wasn't so easy.
    That's the way I came to the United States, to know that,
    through my brother-in-law that I call,
    and his mother called my aunt.
    She said, what's the difference?
    Whoever is alive who want to help [INAUDIBLE].
    That's the way I came to the United States.
    And I met him, my husband.
    One thing I wanted to ask about the concentration camp.
    It occurred to me, you said when you got to Sweden,
    you had no hair.
    Did they shave your head periodically in the camp?
    Yeah.
    As it would grow back, they would shave it again?
    Every day, when I came to Sweden,
    I used to make measurements, my hair.
    I have still that kerchief at the international reporter
    gave me.
    He gave me a pin with the Jewish star.
    I have it.
    And I have a beautiful kerchief that I have.
    I will show you the album.
    There's beautiful things, and he gave me this.
    He brought me a box of chocolate.
    At that time, I wasn't allergic to chocolate.
    Now I'm allergic.
    And that correspondent, I met a nice people.
    I felt my hair started growing.
    So every time it started to grow back in the camp,
    they would shave it again.
    It wasn't a one time situation.
    No, they were shaving.
    Oh, they coming with the machine, with the razor.
    Pshhh.
    The head was just like that, like [INAUDIBLE].
    You could never think that your hair will grow out.
    But it kind of nice see my hair.
    My husband, he sees when I cut my hair.
    He likes long hair.
    Long hair.
    Right.
    You know anything about--
    was this this Count Bernadotte who arranged this?
    No, that was-- I told you.
    He was going to this place, Paris, and then this.
    He didn't know that the concentration camp--
    So it was just on the spur of the moment that he took this--
    That's right.
    --all these people.
    That's right.
    It wasn't an organized thing.
    No, no.
    Who he could only push it in in the two trucks.
    Why did the Germans let him take them?
    They were [? playing. ?] It was [INAUDIBLE].
    That was just then we found out that they had, in the Reichstag,
    they had the meetings there.
    And they were only two or three--
    you know what is a [GERMAN] in German?
    The one who watches the door.
    The plane soldier.
    The number nothing should come in
    because they were busy already.
    That was toward the end, like you know.
    Oh, I see.
    The headquarters.
    They were having a meeting at the headquarters.
    That's right.
    And he happened to come through at that time.
    Yeah, yeah.
    And it just on the spur--
    it wasn't an organized kidnap attempt.
    No, he didn't even know what it is.
    That's why I told you.
    I told, I was the tough one, and the other guy would say,
    gee, you don't know what it is.
    We thought the Red Cross is going to come
    to take us the gas chamber.
    The gas chamber, right.
    He said, no.
    He said he comes here with the displaced person,
    for with the food.
    So he stoled us out.
    And it was a one-time thing, that it was--
    One time.
    Never, never again.
    I was lucky.
    I was lucky.
    I was-- that's why [INAUDIBLE] the one, the first transport
    that came to Sweden, to.
    We came to Padborg near-- to Denmark.
    Then I came to Sweden.
    And how about how many women were rescued that way?
    You think about 300, did you say?
    Yeah, almost 300.
    But they were killed on the way because the Germans were--
    When they figured out what happened, they went after you.
    They went after.
    They wouldn't want to let you live.
    They let you go.
    It was a terrible thing.
    But I want to tell you, the Swedish people, they
    were so nice.
    I remember when we came out from the boat, from Padborg,
    and we came--
    that was a war going.
    That was already in Padborg.
    And a woman-- first of all, they weren't allowed even to come
    close to--
    a woman took off her shoes, and she gave it to me,
    and I was the first, like, on the row.
    The shoes were a little bit big.
    I was barefoot.
    And she was crying terrible.
    They weren't allowed to come near us.
    But then, when we had to go with the trains,
    and the soldiers across in all the trains were staying,
    the wounded soldiers.
    And people were staying there watching because they were
    throwing flowers on our trains.
    And it was something I can't even explain to you.
    It was something--
    I can't believe it myself, but I--
    that enthusiasm, that they see the people coming from the war.
    But it's no good to be alone.
    Well, that was certainly have been the [? hardest. ?] Were you
    aware that the war might be coming to an end, in the camps?
    Did you get news from the outside world?
    Did you have any sense of what was happening?
    No, we didn't know.
    They said, oh, Hitler is losing, and this and this and that.
    But we knew one thing.
    Before he's going to finish up, he's going to finish us up.
    That's what we were afraid of.
    When we were running, they were still
    strong till the last minute.
    That they had the guts--
    they pick to kill you and to do anything that they wanted to.
    Right till the end.
    What are your feelings today about how
    the war influenced you?
    It left me very bad memories.
    I still live with a photogenic mind,
    that I see in my mind my family.
    And I personally think that this is a very good thought.
    I see the graves of the people, the scream,
    because they used to take away from-- their mothers came.
    When I was already long time, I saw this practically every day,
    when people came with their mothers, with their children
    in their arms.
    First of all, the women from the husbands,
    they were separated-- men separate, the women separate.
    The woman always stays with the kids.
    And she had two children.
    And let's see.
    Two boys.
    They used to give them a ball and throw it in a grave of fire.
    The little girl [INAUDIBLE], throw it in the fire.
    And when the mother was screaming,
    they shot her right away.
    She had to see her kid burning down.
    This is it.
    Alive?
    They were throwing--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Alive.
    What do you think?
    They wouldn't even waste the bullet.
    No.
    And when we used to see hanging the people,
    we had to sing the song, [GERMAN].
    You know what this means?
    No.
    When the Jewish blood springs--
    Spills.
    --with blood.
    [GERMAN]
    They didn't talk to you by a number.
    [GERMAN] in their face.
    [GERMAN]
    You used to be so beaten.
    You used to be so beaten.
    I can't even tell you.
    Did you ever talk about your war experiences?
    If so, with whom did you share them?
    The war experiences?
    When I came to the United States, I visit some people.
    And that was unbelievable that people
    didn't want to even believe it.
    And that hurts you.
    That's why I said to myself, I had somebody.
    They called up.
    They want to write a book.
    They want to pay me money.
    And I told them, the fellow, I don't want to have any money
    and I don't want to talk about it, because it hurts me.
    It hurts me plenty.
    When I was filing applications for my wounds to the doctors,
    they should pay me the money.
    So lots of times my husband used to say, the hell with them.
    You worth so much.
    They want to pay me.
    They still didn't pay me enough for this, what I wounded.
    So they-- everything.
    But they took away from my parents and everything.
    But people still-- today, even if they have a meeting,
    they-- our rabbi here [INAUDIBLE]
    to have in February about the Holocaust.
    These people don't come.
    "I don't want to hear that."
    They don't believe in it.
    It isn't so.
    You have to talk because it did happened You look at it, the Ku
    Klux Klans, and all the things.
    They say it didn't happen.
    It did happen.
    It shouldn't happen.
    It hurts you.
    And this year, our boys, they're running
    after the goyim, the mixed marriages and this and that.
    And I'm sometimes afraid for an antisemitism,
    maybe because I saw so much.
    And I pledge myself that I want to have a Jewish man.
    I didn't want it.
    Do you feel that your religious-- your degree
    of religious observance or your feelings about Jewish,
    being Jewish, changed because of the war?
    No, I am not changed.
    I am the same Jew as I was.
    I think personally, religion has a lot to do with the home.
    Remember one thing-- I have two sons.
    This is my younger son.
    This is-- there is my older son there.
    And this one is in [INAUDIBLE], Crystal City,
    and [INAUDIBLE] He has degrees, master's degrees,
    and he's going for a PhD.
    My eldest son has a doctor of law.
    He's a very bright young man.
    He writes books, everything.
    I think that the kids--
    I was brought up in a very warm home.
    I always had the--
    touch your kid.
    Touch your kid.
    Embrace it.
    I have always, I need the warm touch
    of my father and my mother.
    The tucking in, and the warm.
    So my brothers and my sister, they
    are embracing the love, the love for one another.
    And in the house, the candles Friday
    night, and the guests around the table.
    And my father used to say, when you see a poor, poor person,
    give him, but don't hurt them.
    Give it in a nice way.
    And the warmness.
    And the holiday.
    My mother used to say, when I came out,
    I knew that my father was a kahan, a Jewish this.
    And my mother was a Israeli.
    I know.
    How I know?
    As a kid, I [INAUDIBLE], and my father used to say.
    I used to [INAUDIBLE].
    When a [NON-ENGLISH], kahan.
    My mother Israeli.
    When it came to my marriage, the rabbi asked me who I [? was. ?]
    I said, my father was a kahan, my mother was Israeli.
    Then I wrote to my uncle to Israel to certify.
    He said, sure, you are right, because you
    have to know who you are.
    My children know who they are.
    See, I have a daughter-in-law, who comes out from a home.
    Two sisters.
    She has three-- two sisters.
    They married two gentiles.
    She's the only one who marry my son, a jew.
    When it comes to a holiday, she's calling, I'm coming.
    She's coming to my shul.
    See?
    Because my children, I believe, didn't want to change me
    a bit, because I wouldn't be Jewish.
    My children wouldn't be Jewish at all.
    You know who's holding us [INAUDIBLE]?
    The older Jews where they're coming to pray.
    I enjoy going to shul.
    I enjoy to say Kaddish after my parents.
    They don't have nobody.
    And if you don't have a feeling, and if you didn't have
    any kindness, you're not human.
    I'm sorry.
    You got to have a conscience.
    If the conscience don't go with you.
    That's why they didn't have any conscience.
    They were animals.
    They were killing people.
    But if you have any tenderness, this is entirely different.
    I still call.
    My sons are grown up.
    My oldest son is going to be 35.
    This one is 28.
    Still "honey, "darling."
    I never had a [INAUDIBLE].
    And God forbid.
    They are nice.
    They are elegant.
    They observe a holiday.
    They come to shul.
    And I want them to be like that.
    I don't care what anybody says.
    We are not Orthodox.
    We conservative Jews.
    I bless my candles Friday.
    I love it.
    You have to make yourself a special day in life.
    A sabbath should be a sabbath.
    I always tell the-- put the special tablecloth,
    put the candles on.
    Beautify your life.
    If you won't beautify, it's no interest in life.
    That's my personal opinion.
    It's a special day, a special meal.
    My sons know that today is Friday.
    They're going to come [INAUDIBLE].
    Saturday, we do.
    We would drive the car and everything.
    But what's to the house, my house is kosher.
    I keep it kosher.
    Outside, I'm not.
    I must tell you.
    But inside and everything just so.
    I wouldn't mix my dirty dishes with [NON-ENGLISH],
    with [NON-ENGLISH], with separate.
    I don't care what anybody say.
    This is in me.
    I think that a husband [INAUDIBLE].
    I'm telling you.
    [INAUDIBLE] or something.
    What are your feelings about war reparations?
    I gather you do receive--
    the war payments for what you suffered in the war.
    Reparations they're called.
    What are your feelings about that?
    I feel they didn't pay me enough.
    The few pennies what I have.
    Look how wounded I am.
    I can't hear on this ear.
    I had so many surgeries.
    I have a hole in the leg here.
    My spine bothers me.
    I have to-- you see, to be always protected with something.
    I had open hearts.
    If I would tell you how many surgeries I had.
    These from [INAUDIBLE].
    Every time I open my eyes, he's sitting next to me.
    It's a lot.
    That's not enough what they pay me.
    Whether you are collecting the almost $100 a month.
    What is it?
    Look how much they took from you.
    Do you know, when I would show you the medical book what
    I have to spend on medication, when
    I'm going to the pharmacist, it's impossible.
    Here it hurts me, and here it hurts me here.
    It's a good thing that I have a person who could cope,
    I guess, very good with myself.
    But some people are very nervous.
    I am not so terrible nervous.
    I know how to cope myself with myself.
    And to talk.
    I always tell my husband I have company with myself.
    I'm talking to myself.
    So it's a good [INAUDIBLE].
    We joking around.
    And you have to think.
    Before you say three, there has to be two.
    If you're doing something wrong, that's
    ridiculous, and everything.
    And sometime you get excited.
    And we're all only human.
    But do you know that my parents and my sisters and my brothers,
    every day they're with me in my mind.
    You know that?