Oral history interview with Rose Szabo
Transcript
- OK.
- My name is Rose Szabo.
- I was born in Czechoslovakia in the years--
- in 1913, May the 29th.
- I was born in a village.
- But then we came to the city.
- And in 1940-- in 1938, the war started
- in Czechoslovakia, the Carpathian, Anfall der
- Carpathian.
- Now, is Russia there.
- What was the name of the town?
- Chust, Chust, Chust.
- Chust.
- Chust-- C-H-U-S--
- Chust-- T, Chust.
- 1938, the war started.
- And the German out, they were not fighting.
- Hitler came in in 1938 to Czechoslovakia.
- So there was no more Czech.
- So it was Hitler there, Germany take it over.
- Were there are a lot of Jews in your town at that time?
- Yeah.
- There was 6,000 Jews.
- And they went out.
- And then a lot of people, 80% of Ukraine people--
- and they came in a lot of in Ukraine.
- And they start to fight the Hungarian one of.
- First, they were three months themselves there.
- And then the Hungarian came in.
- It belonged to the Hungarian 19--
- After the First World War in 1918, the Czech take it over.
- They give it to the Czech.
- And then the Hungarian wanted it back.
- So they were fighting there in our city.
- So we went through a war in the city.
- It was 1939.
- And so the Hungarian was for three months fighting.
- The Hungarian win.
- And we were till 1944 April, we were Hungarian.
- Was not so bad with the Hungarian.
- We have to have citizen paper.
- I had to go to Budapest to make the citizen paper.
- And change from being Czech citizen to a Hungarian citizen?
- Right.
- Back to the Czech, to the Hungarian.
- And in that time, they take-- in 1942,
- they take out a lot of Jews from us back to Poland.
- And they killed them there.
- How did you know that?
- In 1942, they killed them?
- Well, they never came back.
- Were these people who you knew?
- Yes.
- My aunt, families never came back.
- They killed them right there.
- It was in 1942.
- The Germans already were there in Poland in 1942.
- So they killed them there already.
- And in 1944, the Germans came in to us.
- Hungary was the last country in Europe
- that the Germans take them over in that side, in the east side.
- I think we were more east like north.
- You were living with your family at the time?
- You were in your 20s.
- My mother, my father, my two sisters, and a brother.
- And my mother comes from a big family.
- There were 14 children.
- Nine of them, they bring their children.
- And they are nine.
- And they bring to Auschwitz.
- In 1944, they started in April, right after Pesach.
- They start-- they started in the ghetto.
- They bringed in all the Jews from the area and from Chust,
- where I live, and from all around Chust.
- So there must be about 10,000 Jews in two streets.
- We were there from April till the 27th of May.
- 27 of May, the ghettos--
- well, the ghettos were there.
- I don't have to tell you.
- It was unbelievable.
- They put us in a room like this, maybe 20 people.
- And we don't know nothing what's going on.
- You were there with your parents?
- My parents.
- So you had to leave your home.
- We left our home completely.
- Did you take anything with you?
- Very little clothes, the food what we had.
- And what were you told when you left your apartment?
- What did they tell you?
- Nothing.
- They just said you had to go.
- Nothing.
- They were not-- they were not saying.
- We go in there.
- And that's it.
- They were not saying why and where.
- And that's it.
- The Hungarian worked already.
- They were the last country that the Germans taked it over.
- They were going through, Germans, to the Black Sea,
- fighting through us there.
- From us, they went to Poland.
- They were in the Poland border.
- From there, they went through to the fighting,
- fighting the Poland, I suppose.
- I don't know.
- Had you gotten any messages from any other people
- about what had been going on?
- Nothing.
- Nothing.
- They take us to--
- one, when we were already in the train, so 1947--
- 1942, second-- 1944--
- I'm thinking '44, May the 27th.
- And in April, they make the ghetto.
- We were there till--
- from April-- we were there a month,
- maybe April 27 till May the 27th.
- They put one transport went two days before, the 25th.
- And one other transport went in May the 27th.
- And they take-- they taked us.
- We find out, they taked us to [? Birobidzhan. ?]
- That's all what we know.
- I don't know why that I remember,
- that they taked us to one place.
- We don't know they going kill us.
- Nobody know.
- There were people, they want to save us.
- And we don't want to go separate.
- We want with the family, like my brother.
- He can be hiding.
- Some people hide.
- But they came out.
- They were afraid.
- They told the Ukraine people-- they were Ukraine there, not
- too much Hungarian, that they going
- kill them if they find a Jew.
- So they were afraid to keep us there.
- So nobody was safe there, not in a-- like in Poland,
- was a lot of Jews saved by the Gentiles, but not by us.
- They were afraid.
- And they were-- I suppose they were glad that they take us too.
- They what?
- They were maybe glad that they take us too.
- Who knows?
- So it was and your brother?
- My brother, my two sisters, my mother, and my father--
- the whole family.
- My mother's sisters-- we lived-- my mother's-- had in the same
- town three sisters living.
- Their children-- some were married.
- They were older.
- And in the village was living two other brother, the two
- younger brothers, my mother.
- They had five children.
- But nobody came back from there.
- Each had six or five children.
- Nobody came back-- not the husbands, not the wife, not
- the children, nobody.
- So in the--
- In our family, from 80 or 90 people was killed.
- So in the ghetto was your-- you and your brother
- and your sisters and your parents.
- And you were all in a room, small room, together
- with many other people.
- Right, on the floor, they were sleeping.
- Yeah, but they take us in a street
- where there were Jews living.
- But the Jews had to give up for the rest of them.
- We stayed in a very nice home.
- It was a lawyer was living in the home too.
- And then they put us in to the train wagon, the trains.
- Trains?
- Yeah.
- And we traveled two nights.
- And it was-- I know, two nights and two days,
- till we got to Auschwitz.
- We came in Auschwitz the second day of Shavuos.
- Shavuos.
- These were the trains that we've seen pictures of,
- the cattle trains?
- Cattle trains.
- Were there were an enormous amount of people in one
- of-- in one train?
- Sitting on the floors there.
- It was terrible.
- Do you remember, Rose, what you were thinking?
- Nothing-- there was nothing.
- And what you think in a time like this?
- When they bring us to Auschwitz, something
- was already suspicious.
- We saw already all around there the wiring, electric wiring.
- When they taked off us from the train--
- I was so close to my mother.
- I don't know why.
- And I hugged her and kissed her that time.
- I was sitting next to her.
- And she looked so upset at me.
- After I-- they kicked us off, they let us, the three girls--
- the men was separate.
- Right away, they separated the men when he came off
- from the train and the women.
- So they told my mother to go off to the-- to the left
- or to the right.
- I don't remember that.
- And he went in another way.
- We don't know nothing.
- You know that we were there four or five weeks already
- that we don't know that there is a gas, that they gas the people?
- We feel the smell.
- We were not too far from the gas, from the crematorium.
- We smelled.
- They had them on the burners up close.
- After I was there, they shipped us up right away.
- And my mother-- I said to my mother, to run there.
- There was a woman going around, to run with her.
- I don't know nothing.
- Sure.
- We were so-- when I start to think
- that they have done before.
- Today, we know better, I suppose.
- We learned something, a lesson.
- And I think the generation after us,
- after us has to learn a lesson.
- Bomb the streets or bomb the bridges.
- We had bridges to go through the trains.
- Bomb them.
- Well, what?
- Nothing.
- Just through young people, they taked away before, to the army.
- The Hungarian taked away the young people to the army.
- Like my brother was still very young, 17 year old.
- But a 21-year-old-- or like my father was not either,
- like the 40-year-old, they taked away.
- They were not taken them home either.
- So the younger people, they took into the-- into the army?
- Yeah, the Hungarian taked away into the army in 19--
- Hungarian was already-- it looks like they have
- to go and fight the Russian.
- So they take them away already in 1943, 1942.
- So your brother was not with you?
- No, my brother was still young.
- But he was with me.
- Yeah.
- So most of them, the young people,
- they taked away to fight Russia.
- I suppose, the Hungarian was already with German that time.
- But it was the women and the older people--
- The older people and the woman--
- --who were taken to the camp.
- --and young boys, most of them, and older men.
- My father was already 51.
- My mother was 51 year old, 50 years old just.
- So they-- but what can they do?
- And the local people don't care either.
- So when we come to Auschwitz, naturally,
- they be gassed right away, the rest of the people,
- they keep some young people they need to go to work.
- See, the Germans were in the war fighting.
- So they decided to have-- to save some people for work.
- What of the end, I was there till August,
- Auschwitz was not-- they were not
- bringing people to live there.
- They give them one meal a day, one piece of bread.
- We were there two, three days, one dress, nothing else.
- It was-- we were in a street, like half of Market Street,
- maybe 30,000-20,000 women, till we got-- once a day,
- they left us.
- In the morning, we had to get up in the morning.
- They count us.
- There was no names, nothing, just count.
- Count, numbers.
- Every morning, every morning, we stayed till 12 o'clock.
- And once somebody is missing, we had to stay till they find her--
- or she's dead, or she is sleep and still there.
- They went to the every barrack to look through.
- Then the sun was hot already.
- And after that, it's only July.
- And maybe they need there.
- I was picked up twice to the gas.
- Once, I picked up, we were staying.
- And I just can't stay.
- I was sick.
- So I sit down.
- And I guess, the SS saw me to sit down.
- So she picked me.
- She picked up every day, five, six of the woman
- to go to the gas.
- So she picks me up.
- So I got up there and I stayed there.
- So one girl came to run.
- She went to count out the rest of them.
- Then she came to run.
- She said, change with me.
- My sister-- I want to be with my sister.
- They picked up her sister.
- I said, go ahead.
- And this was-- maybe I was there three weeks in Auschwitz.
- They went, both of them.
- And I survived.
- Wow.
- Then the second time, they picked me up again, I
- was there maybe six weeks already, maybe more, just
- to get out by the fence.
- So there was a Jewish girl who helped--
- that asked the guard, that couple.
- She helped when they asked.
- The SS was on the other side.
- On this side was nobody.
- So she picks up three girls.
- She says, run that way, run away.
- We run to the kitchen.
- There was a kitchen.
- And we start-- they just started to bring up the meals there.
- So we helped them.
- From 500, maybe they picked up for 300 to 600.
- I don't remember how many.
- But it was quite a bit.
- And she picks up me in there two other girls.
- So you have to believe beshert, there, and nothing else.
- There you are.
- People go through something.
- But you have to believe there is somebody guiding you.
- Did you know where they were going to take you?
- The second time, I figured it out, yeah.
- I tried-- there was-- they picked up a day before.
- And they locked them in in a--
- in a barrack there.
- And there was a good friend of mine from the village.
- I tried to get her out from there.
- We had already figured it out.
- Yet I can't get her out from there.
- The poor girl, she had a brother here
- in America, somewheres in the--
- I never-- I got in touch with them.
- But I never wanted to tell them what happened.
- I don't have the heart to tell her that they--
- she's no more there.
- And that's it.
- Why go to tell them?
- I mean, that was just--
- So there were two situations where
- you knew that you had been picked
- to go to the gas chambers.
- And for some--
- Second time, yes.
- The first time, I don't know.
- But for some--
- Have to go.
- --reason, it worked out that you did not go.
- Yeah.
- She just picks me up.
- She said, on that way, picked up two other ones.
- I don't remember who were the other two.
- You can't.
- They was from all over, the people.
- There were from Romania, the people, already, was--
- there were-- there were people from Poland.
- There were people from--
- they were not speaking Jewish.
- They speak just Hebrew.
- There must have been people already in--
- from the other countries, from the Arab countries or something.
- There were people from all over in Auschwitz.
- They bring the people.
- Were you with your sisters at all at that point?
- What?
- Were you with your sisters?
- My sisters was with me.
- So August, the 28th of August, they pick us up,
- my sister and other people, from the same block and from other
- blocks.
- I think we just from the same block.
- We were about five--
- No, I think must be from the other blocks
- too, from another block.
- From the 18-- we were in the 20th block.
- When you say block, Rose, what do you mean?
- This is what we lived in that block.
- It was a block like for horses, made for horses.
- But they put in beds, make them--
- Beds.
- --up and down, up, from lumber, no blankets, no nothing.
- You warmed yourself with each other.
- How many high were there?
- Two, one down and one up.
- Were you up or down?
- I was down.
- But there were no blankets?
- No, was nothing.
- Nothing, not-- there were nothing, nothing--
- nothing to cover yourself, but nothing for the body.
- You had nothing.
- And food?
- Food, I can tell you one thing-- the food what they bringed in
- in a big, big pot.
- There were the big cask there.
- They bring in the food, like a vegetable soup.
- But it was no-- you don't see no vegetables anyway.
- And everybody had to put in your head there.
- She had a big spoon there.
- And she give everybody the mouth, the spoon.
- You have to stay-- no forks, no knives, no plates, no nothing.
- You can't survive in Auschwitz.
- Who was longer, they were not survived in Auschwitz.
- It was not Auschwitz they bring you to survive.
- Lice-- big fight lice there, no beds
- till you get to the washroom just to drink the water.
- Auschwitz was unbelievable.
- I don't think-- how we survived is the story that we were not
- living in the-- in the richness what you live now
- that you see now.
- We were middle class people.
- The rich people, they went straight to the--
- he killed himself, most of them.
- There was a girl with us, a doctor's daughter.
- She was married already, had two children.
- She went to the wire, electric wire.
- She already-- people saw that.
- There was every day four-five going to the wires.
- We can't survive there.
- Did you know ahead of time when people were going to go?
- Was there any discussion about it?
- Or there, when they picked us up from Auschwitz--
- I have to tell you this story there.
- When they picked us up from Auschwitz to go,
- we had a shower.
- We had to walk maybe two, three miles to take a shower.
- They take us once in a week, taking a shower.
- It's true.
- But we had to walk two, three miles to taking a shower.
- They don't have it in that village.
- Somehow, there were showers.
- So we went in there.
- And they gave us a piece of soap and a towel.
- That's how it was.
- And everybody showered together, a group shower?
- A group shower.
- Yeah, a group shower.
- They taked us there.
- I had to stand on the other side, B--
- A. We were in the C lager.
- The B-- this A lager, they had showers there.
- It looks like this was not barracks.
- Must be like people were living there or they had showers there.
- We were never there.
- But as they taked us in the city to take a shower once a week.
- So when they picked us up to go to--
- away already from Auschwitz, one--
- we were staying maybe a whole day to wait for the train.
- But this was to leave Auschwitz?
- Yeah.
- I see.
- To leave Auschwitz.
- Because you were in Auschwitz from May--
- end of May--
- From May the 27th till August the 20th.
- Till August the 20th, I was in Auschwitz.
- They picked us up.
- My sisters came with me.
- And we were staying the whole day of the sun
- there, no food, no nothing.
- And the train was not coming in on the end at night.
- And they taked us back to lager B.
- And they said, take off the clothes.
- We were naked the whole night.
- So then we take a-- they take us to the gas.
- What else is there?
- Be naked here?
- They take us to the gas.
- The gas was not far from there either, dark.
- Somehow, we survived there.
- In the morning, they gave us the same clothes.
- And we going to the train again.
- So the train came in there.
- We were there maybe five, six hours.
- The train came in.
- And they taked us to work between Magdeburg
- and Braunschweig, not far from Hamburg,
- to a ammunition factory.
- There, we came in, was already--
- they give us a dress.
- We had the yellow star on the dress.
- They-- we had some--
- I don't remember if we had any shoes.
- Yeah, I think we had some shoes they gave us.
- And we came in there.
- There, you have already your own bed.
- And there's a kitchen.
- There's a washroom.
- Now, maybe we going survive already.
- So we were working there 12 hours a day
- in one week and one week, 12 hour a night.
- What did you do there?
- We made the bullets.
- Were-- it was very hard to make-- to work there, to--
- there, we had already--
- in the morning, we had a black coffee with a piece of bread.
- Lunch, what happened?
- How we got a lunch there?
- I don't remember how they got a lunch there.
- They give you a sandwich for lunch--
- a sandwich-- a piece of wurst and two slice of bread.
- And then no coffee, no nothing.
- And then at night--
- at night, when he came back, we had
- a soup, another two slice of bread,
- they gave us, with a soup.
- Sometimes, meat was no such a thing.
- Sometime, they gave us a piece of wurst again--
- but always soup, salami, bologna, something like that.
- I was there or--
- between-- I was in the factory.
- The SS picks me up and two--
- and three other girls to work in the kitchen for the Germans.
- She stays with us there in the kitchen,
- watches us, the four of us.
- Two girls were Hungarian, two girls.
- One of the-- a rabbi's daughter.
- Another one was a young girl, maybe 13, 14 year old.
- But she was mature enough.
- So they let her go through when we went through.
- And she was with her mother.
- When they picked her up, they was not picking up her mother.
- They picked her up to work to go.
- And the mother stayed there in Auschwitz again.
- So she-- they picked her up that time to go in the kitchen,
- to work with me.
- She lives now in Israel.
- And she sees me, how I watched her.
- I was older.
- She can't get it over.
- And her mother survived too.
- Yeah.
- She was in Israel.
- She find her.
- After that, she find her in Czechoslovakia, in Prague.
- Then it was a little better for me to work there.
- I wish they picked up my sister.
- But they picked me up.
- There is another luck.
- You see how lucky I was to work there.
- I don't have to work at night, just in the daytime.
- And it wasn't so hard.
- They peeled potatoes and carrot--
- vegetables there.
- They cooked for the Germans there
- who worked in the factories.
- Was a big factory.
- Then my hair start to grow.
- Well, there were sick people in the--
- in the block.
- So I-- some woman bring me aspirins.
- And they find the aspirins, they cut my hair.
- And she punished me, that she cut the hair.
- Or I bringed in an apple, the German--
- the women who were working with me in the kitchen there,
- so they feel sorry.
- They don't know nothing.
- They asked me what kind of nationality you are.
- Why are you here?
- Why are you have that star?
- Why they treat you like this?
- You can talk here.
- There, you can talk with them.
- So after that, in April, the March, already, they
- start throw bombs already.
- They bombed the factory.
- And there, we were lucky too.
- Who bombed?
- America bombed.
- Who bombed?
- Who came in in 1944?
- The Americans.
- So this is--
- No, 1945 already.
- This is '45 already.
- Right, 1945 already.
- And March, already start, end of March, they start to bomb.
- And then all at once, we got in in April more people.
- We were there altogether 500, all or only 2,000 there.
- They bring in more Jewish people from the other factories
- where they bombed already.
- But they bring them in there.
- They were lucky too by the bomb.
- It was not luck.
- Most of the people died out.
- They got typhus.
- I don't like, in Belsen-Bergen, they bring the people there.
- And they put people together there.
- And they died there too.
- They stop to give them food.
- I was in Belsen-Bergen after that.
- For April the 15th, we was--
- the American came in already.
- They were fighting in the city too.
- So they-- we were free already from the Americans.
- And the American was two days.
- And they went-- they left us to the Englander.
- So the Englander soldiers came in.
- So we were there staying maybe another week or two weeks.
- And the sick people, they don't know what to do with them.
- They taked us to an outfit.
- It was barracks for the army.
- Must be the German army was there or what.
- They taked us there.
- It wasn't too bad there already.
- And England had taked us over.
- They settled there already.
- And they start to take the people, the sick people,
- away from us.
- I had two cousins there, take two cousins, two young girls,
- 18 years old, died of typhus there.
- 1,000 people died there, right there.
- So they had survived Auschwitz.
- They survived the-- they survived Auschwitz, yeah.
- Then they died afterward.
- They came to work.
- They died-- they died.
- So they were in different camps.
- And they don't have no food.
- And they bring-- they came to us.
- I tried to give them food little by little.
- We had there.
- They cannot take it.
- They were very weak.
- Some of them, they bring there girls
- from last section, young girls, 18, 20, 22 year old.
- It was impossible that they were-- they were like this.
- So here was towards the end of--
- it was at the end of the war.
- And yet-- and they were given food.
- And--
- Belsen-Bergen, right.
- Not just-- but the same thing, they laying the stuff
- to give them care food.
- And that's when they died.
- And then people like this, they don't have hospitals,
- they don't have nothing.
- People like this, they have doctors there and give them,
- little by little, just liquid.
- I tried to get my cousin just liquid.
- Would not survive.
- And I don't have--
- what food I had there, a piece of bread?
- You can-- she cannot even swallow it.
- How was your health, Rose?
- My now?
- How was your health?
- My health was not so bad.
- You know why?
- I walked in my--
- I tell you, I have a sister, younger by 10 years from me.
- She survived.
- But mentally, she was not great.
- She is now laying in hospital, sick of liver cancer--
- 10 year younger.
- She was just 70 year old now.
- When you think, how old I am, I'm going to be 80.
- I survived.
- And I'm the older one.
- And my other sister has Alzheimer's disease.
- She's with two year younger than me.
- She's 78.
- It catches.
- My sister was never good.
- She got married.
- She had two children, already depressed.
- Her brother, her mother, she was very--
- I tell you, she was very, very spoiled too.
- After-- see, my father died in 1915,
- in the war, the First World War.
- My mother got married 1912.
- I was born in 1913.
- My father died.
- My sister was with two year younger from me.
- My mother was pregnant.
- He came home.
- And she got pregnant.
- He never met her.
- She was born in 1915 in August.
- And he died in October.
- And we were just the children.
- But my mother was very intelligent woman.
- And then she got married in 1922.
- And she didn't want to get married.
- 1922, she got married.
- And she had two children.
- She had my brother and my sister.
- I see.
- But it was no different then.
- My stepfather was a very nice man,
- very intelligent, very fine.
- When my mother got married, 1922, how old was I?
- Nine year old.
- What kind of work did your father do, your stepfather?
- My stepfather, we had a taxi, but not a automobile taxi, not
- an auto.
- It was horse and buggy.
- And then at the end--
- or before, they taked away the license
- from us, when the Hungarian--
- not the German, it was the Hungarian, in 1942 already.
- We had a wholesale flour to sell with a partner,
- with his brother, my father's brother.
- They were two of them.
- They-- so when they take away their license,
- they don't know nothing else what to do.
- So they brought the horse and buggy.
- And they bringed there the people from the--
- it was not their own either.
- They had to have a Gentile, that is his.
- It was very, very hard.
- Was-- this is really going back to the beginning.
- But was-- what kind of Jewish life was there in your town?
- Very nice.
- Believe me that, when Hitler will never come in,
- I don't think the Jews would leave.
- Czechoslovakia was a very-- they democratic.
- And it was very, very nice.
- They was not too much--
- the people, most of them were in business.
- They were carpenters.
- They were shoemakers.
- They were tailors--
- Jews.
- But they maked a living.
- It was a nice.
- They don't have the luxury what you have here.
- But they was very nice there to live.
- It was a very nice Jewish community.
- We had maybe four or five synagogues there.
- Let's see.
- We have two big one.
- On our street was one, is three--
- four synagogues was there.
- Just in that one?
- Just that has 6,000-- about 6,000 Jews, we were there.
- Right.
- Where did you meet your husband?
- Was that after the war?
- My husband is a-- is a story too to tell you.
- You want to tape that too?
- It's nice to hear.
- I know my husband from Europe.
- And he was a dentist in Europe.
- And I met him in--
- by the beach.
- He lived in--
- I lived in one section.
- He lived in the other section in Chust.
- Was quite a bit a quiet, maybe five-six miles
- where I lived all my life.
- And I never I know him.
- But I saw him in high school when I went.
- But he was with two classes ahead of me.
- But then I met him by the beach.
- And this was in 1933.
- And I went around with him.
- And then in 1934, he decided he's going away to Slovakia.
- And he stayed there till 19--
- he is-- was a partner with a doctor there.
- Then he came back.
- His brother came here from America
- and told him, come to America, you're
- going to make a lot of money.
- He came in 1935 or 1936 to [INAUDIBLE].
- And he came home.
- And he saw me.
- He sent him the papers.
- In 1938, the last train, when the chair went out,
- he was home already.
- He went out.
- He had his paper to go to America.
- So he went out.
- He came to Prague.
- From Prague, he went to France.
- And in France-- was in 1938, just when the German marched
- on--
- and he stayed in France till he had his boat to come here.
- So he came out in 1938 in Thanksgiving Day, he said,
- in November.
- So he was here during the war?
- He was here already.
- He went into the army here in 1942.
- He came to Europe.
- And what you think where he met me at the end?
- In 1945, in June, he passes by the place
- where we stayed in Salzwedel.
- And there was two girls talking Hungarian.
- One had a Czech flag.
- The other one had a Romanian flag.
- They both talked Hungarian.
- And he jumps from the--
- from the Jeep.
- He goes to the girls and ask them from where they come.
- What are they doing here?
- And he don't know nothing about the concentration camp, nothing
- at all.
- He was American Army.
- He was fighting.
- He was in Belgium.
- He was in England.
- He was in France.
- And then all at once, he was in Germany.
- He jumped-- yeah, he went.
- And he ask them, what are you doing here?
- We here in this.
- And there are people from Chust--
- Chust.
- Said, oh, yeah, there is a lot of them from there.
- He said, where is the camp?
- So he said, go into the jeep.
- And I want you to show me the camp.
- He comes into the camp.
- And he comes in.
- They bring him to his Chuster girls.
- I was not there.
- I was outside.
- And some girl comes and tells me, some American-- well,
- she was not a local girl.
- She was married in to a boy from our town.
- And she says, Rose, somebody is looking for you.
- I said, what?
- He ask right away.
- Is Davidovich Rose here?
- My maiden name was Davidovich.
- He says, yeah, she is here.
- Not-- he was not asking.
- A girl go over to him and says, he--
- she knows that he take me home.
- He said that she see us too, and so another--
- so some woman comes in.
- And I am not problem.
- I said, who is asking for me?
- I know, I have family in America,
- but what do they know about me, I'm not going.
- So another girl comes.
- And she says, American soldier is looking for you.
- It never occurred to me that he is a soldier.
- And he was never in America-- in Europe a soldier.
- He was not.
- So I go there and I saw him.
- You know what I was thinking?
- Of my mother.
- My mother liked him a lot.
- I said, boy, I never--
- I never-- when he left, I figured, that's it.
- I might just go with him for one year, a year and a half.
- He left anyway.
- He want me to go there, where he worked in Slovakia,
- about 500-600 miles from me to marry him.
- I don't want to.
- I said, you come home.
- I have my mother and my father.
- I want to be married.
- I said, I don't want to go like this to get married.
- It was no like here, you know what I mean, get married?
- But when he came to you, at this point, after the war was over?
- Yeah, the war was over.
- He was--
- You're saying, then he wanted to--
- --it was in June.
- Then he wanted to get married.
- Are you talking about then?
- Or are you talking about--
- No, I'm talking before, when he was in Europe.
- But this time, he came in June to me.
- He saw me.
- He said, he's going back.
- He went with an officer.
- He was like-- how you can call it different?
- Like a nurse in army.
- He was a dentist.
- So they put him in to help you.
- So they call it different, like a nurse there in the health
- department.
- And he was there with a doctor and officer.
- He went to Mageburg.
- Before, they were stationed in Magdeburg.
- And he and a girl, a woman there,
- he said, come stay with me.
- And he went with him.
- And then the doctor went away.
- And he left.
- He was there with me for two days.
- Then they picked him up.
- They were already in Bremerhaven.
- Bremerhaven was to go back to fight in Japan already,
- with a boat, to pick him up there with the boat.
- Bremerhaven is by the ocean there.
- They pick him up.
- They were waiting for the boats.
- There was still fighting going on in Japan.
- So he has to go to Japan.
- But he says, he's going to try to get me out from here,
- go to Belgium or to France.
- Meantime, he can't do nothing.
- He came back to me the 4th of July.
- He came back.
- He said, I can do nothing.
- And the buses came in for us to Czechoslovakia,
- to pick up the Czech people, to Germany.
- He said, go back.
- And we see what is going be.
- The meantime, he came--
- the war was over.
- He was supposed to go back to America.
- He still stayed there.
- He came to Prague, to Czechoslovakia, to see me again.
- Yeah, he came there.
- And when he went back, he sent me the papers.
- I came out.
- Then I was in Prague.
- I was working.
- I was taking over a whole little factory, shirts to make.
- I was doing sewing in Europe before.
- So I know about sewing there.
- Some should take it over from the Germans.
- They throw out the Germans from there--
- from Czechoslovakia, to the Sudeten.
- The Sudeten-- Czechoslovakia was like this, a front--
- there was Carpathian, was Slovakia, Moravia, Bohemia,
- and Sudeten.
- It was divided like here, Pennsylvania.
- And Sudeten was a lot of Germans,
- 80% Germans living there.
- So the Czech throw them out.
- So some Czech people and the Jewish people came back.
- And that was it.
- They taked over the factory.
- There was a small factory.
- A Czech taked it over.
- And they gave me work to do.
- So they had-- downstairs, they had a store.
- You measure-- people coming in, measuring the shirts,
- custom-made.
- So I was there to measure it and give it to the girls upstairs.
- There were about 10 girls working upstairs.
- So I was there from 19--
- from 1945.
- We came in-- well, I-- in October,
- I went there to the Sudeten.
- I was there till 1945, October.
- In 1946, May, we left Czechoslovakia, the German--
- the Russia taked it over.
- So we don't want to stay with the Russian.
- So we went back to Germany.
- And how we back to Germany, this is another--
- a very-- we went to the border to Karlsbad--
- Marienbad.
- And then from there, we had to walk about 50-60 mile at night.
- And then they-- who picked us up?
- Israeli boys with the trucks picked us up and bringed us
- to Germany, to München.
- And there, I was in München.
- From München, we were altogether five days.
- And then we went to another place they give us to stay.
- See, they made camps for us.
- And there, somehow--
- I don't know how I got a hold of her.
- There were a lot of German--
- a lot of American soldiers came in.
- I got a hold of them who speak Jewish.
- And I sent a letter where I stay now in Germany to my husband.
- And through him, I got the paper.
- All that went on from before the war into the camps
- and after, even after you were liberated--
- Yeah, liberated.
- --the liberation did not mean a good life.
- It meant a lot of struggles?
- A lot of struggles.
- A lot of pain?
- Well, there was a lot of pain too.
- We don't-- we were waiting that he came back already
- to Czechoslovakia.
- Our parents maybe still living.
- My brothers, we were looking.
- We don't know nothing.
- You know when we find out after already?
- Maybe a year later, we find out that they
- was-- that they killed them.
- We already know already.
- And after we left already Auschwitz,
- that they gassed the people there.
- We already know already.
- We were not so dumb not to know there
- and the smell that was going on there.
- So you were able to put the pieces together over time.
- Right.
- Right.
- Right.
- Rose, do you-- do you have nightmares about this?
- Well, naturally, I have nightmares.
- What can I say to you?
- I went through plenty in my life.
- It is just amazing.
- Was just from God a gift that I survived.
- And I'm going through.
- And I have two children.
- And I'm living a normal life.
- There are other people--
- I have still cousins.
- I came to America.
- I find a lot-- my grandfather had-- they were two children.
- So one was in Europe, had 14 children.
- And my grandfather have here a brother in Chicago.
- He had 13 children.
- In 1948, I went to a bar mitzvah there in May was, I think.
- I went from here, with the train there.
- And I find a family there--
- second cousins, first cousins.
- After that, they came here.
- Did you talk together with family members
- about what had happened to them during this time?
- Well, there is still some of them young, living
- in California.
- I have four first cousins in California.
- I have my-- my mother have here three brothers
- and a sister in America.
- They had children.
- We're very close with them too.
- It's a nice, close family in Europe.
- Some people said, though, after the war,
- they did not talk with each other about
- what had happened, about the horrors that they
- had experienced.
- What was that like for you?
- I tell you, some people--
- some people married to husbands who went through the war too.
- Because some of them--
- yeah, most of them went through.
- Most of them went through.
- So they each other, what can I say?
- They each other had to make--
- they have to make a living.
- They came in here.
- And most of them, I'm saying, is disturbed life.
- I think, say, about 50% of them was disturbed life, was.
- I don't know.
- They-- I come from a-- my mother's sisters and brother.
- My mother was the smallest and she had four children.
- The rest of them had eight and 10 and seven, nine children.
- And each of them-- each of them had a different life in Europe
- too.
- I'm not saying they all were--
- they all were poor.
- Some of them were middle class.
- And some of them were rich too.
- The rich used to help the poor one in Europe.
- Rose, why is it important for you to make this video tape?
- For me, important is to do not to forget
- that we were so dumb, we don't know where they take us,
- what they going do with us.
- We were not asking questions.
- I don't want the people to forget about it.
- God forbid, can happen any place, any time.
- Where?
- We don't know-- to protect themself.
- We Jews going through so much.
- But we know the history of Jews.
- So we go too much too.
- And respect each other.
- And don't forget that-- what the Jew goes through.
- And protect yourself, how much you can.
- We there so dumb like we were dumb.
- We were really dumb far that goes--
- young or-- young or old or your children or what.
- They taked us like they take the cows, animals.
- This is how they taked us.
- So I don't wanted it to forget it.
- Let them see.
- They grow up.
- And I'm not lying or saying--
- making up something.
- I went through that.
- And it's amazing they can understand it,
- how we went through that.
- Auschwitz was not-- they bring us theres to die, not to live.
- But they picked up some young people.
- And they needed to work.
- This is how we survived.
- And everything is true what you see in the television,
- it is true.
- And what can I say?
- You can see now what's going through.
- And a lot people just don't care each other, very shellfish.
- And then one person comes like a Hitler and couple of followers,
- it was this side.
- When I came to work in Germany, they asked me, why are you here?
- The Germans.
- The Germans, lot of them don't know nothing what's going on.
- After the war, you mean?
- Yeah, after the war.
- They asked you why you were there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- They don't know nothing.
- I'm saying, a couple of them were there-- let's see,
- maybe 100 people.
- When the Germans came in to us, they went through us.
- They were sleeping in our house.
- We had to give up for them to sleep.
- We had a four-bedroom home there.
- We had to give up two bedrooms.
- But then you know what they said?
- We going now to the Black Sea fighting.
- I will go back to Germany.
- I will take you to Germany with me.
- He says, after we leaving, other Germans come on.
- Is-- this is what they said to us.
- They was good people, German people too.
- I worked with German people in the factory.
- They feel so sorry, they want to give me everything
- to take back to the camp there.
- But like I'm saying, I was twice caught.
- They cut my hair.
- Good thing they were not then-- they
- were taking people from our camp who were pregnant
- back to Auschwitz.
- So I was lucky they were not taking me back there.
- So I had to watch myself.
- You want to be good to somebody.
- But you can't in a time like this.
- What else?
- What can you say?
- What can we say?
- How was this?
- Rose, thank you very much.
- Nothing to thank.
- I'm not ashamed to say.
- I wanted to say what I went through.
- And I'm here in America.
- And I tell you something, it's not
- like an-- there is not another country I ever loved.
- My daughter take me to the Scandinavian countries now
- and then to Switzerland--
- Austria, Italy.
- There's not-- and it's still nice there now.
- It's change.
- Is Democratic there.
- But there is not like America.
- Rose, thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
- Here, my daughter take me here--
- we were-- my daughter is in Israel, the doctor.
- She lives in Israel.
- So she take me from Israel to these countries.
- And I still say that it's not like America.
- Well, we're glad you're here.
- And we're glad you're with us.
- And we're going to end the tape now.
- And we thank you very much.
- Where can I see the tape?
- Can I see it sometime coming here?
- Yes.
- Now, we're going to make a copy for you.
- Oh, you going make?
- Oh, you give me the copy?
- Yes.
- Very good.
- Very, very good.
- It will be-- it will be yours, your own, personal copy.
- Thank you very much.
- I'm glad.
- Thank you, again.
- Yeah
Overview
- Interviewee
- Rose Szabo
- Date
-
interview:
1993
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Personal Name
- Szabo, Rose.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview from Rose Davidovics Szabo in 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:21:22
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512192
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