Oral history interview with Ruth Knopp
Transcript
- Hello.
- I'm Jack Needle, professor of history at Brookdale Community
- College and director for the Center of Holocaust Studies.
- With me today we have a very special guest, Ruth Knopp.
- Ruth has worked with us at the Center
- for Holocaust Studies for two years as a volunteer,
- and she's organized our library.
- But more importantly, it has taken us
- this long to convince Ruth to tell us
- her story, which is, again, a tragic story
- from the Holocaust.
- Ruth, thank you for coming and sharing these painful memories
- with us.
- You were born where?
- I was born in a small town in the southeast of Germany, Bad
- Reinerz.
- It was a spa.
- And my parents had one, or owned one of the two Jewish hotels
- in the spa.
- So our youth or our childhood, my sister--
- I had an older sister--
- was a happy one until, of course, 1933.
- And Hitler started to come to power.
- Everything changed very drastically.
- At the time, we went to school and had all those friends,
- non-Jewish friends.
- And suddenly they started to call us names.
- And you were the only two?
- We were the only.
- There was no Jewish community in that town.
- And my sister and I, we were the only Jewish children
- living there, going to school.
- And up till '33, we really didn't have any problems.
- But of course, as I said, afterwards it changed.
- And for another two years, we both were kept in school.
- But then my parents decided it would be better
- to put us in a big city, put us into a Jewish school.
- So we were put into a boarding school in Breslau.
- At your original school, the elementary school,
- do you remember any definite change
- as far as the teachers were concerned?
- Yes.
- The teachers didn't treat us very nice.
- They wouldn't ask us questions.
- You know, they-- we couldn't, or they wouldn't
- let us, participate as usual.
- Did you sit anywhere in the classroom, or--
- They didn't change the seats.
- They didn't change the seats.
- I don't recall that.
- But you did felt that you were left out of--
- Yeah.
- Definitely There were some teachers which were fine,
- and some teachers were just--
- you felt there was a definite change.
- And the children too, they started with nasty remarks,
- called us names.
- And there was also an incident where one guy, one little boy
- threw stones at us just because we were Jewish children.
- So at that point, the parents decided this is not--
- you know, no place for us to be.
- And they sent us to a boarding school in Breslau.
- Breslau was the capital of Silesia.
- Had a large Jewish community-- two big synagogues,
- two big schools.
- And we continued there, went on the gymnasium.
- And that was-- from that on, things
- became a little normal again because we were under Jews.
- Normally that would be--
- that went on till '38.
- And then came Kristallnacht.
- Which was November 9--
- November--
- --1938
- --9, 1938.
- And we experienced Kristallnacht by being woken up
- and hearing terrible noises, glass bursting, lots
- of loud voices on the streets.
- And our rooms had balconies.
- We were on the third floor.
- So we ran out.
- And here we saw the Jewish shoe store across the street
- was being demolished, everything thrown on the street.
- And we said-- of course, we were afraid something
- will happen to us too, being a Jewish dormitory.
- And amazing enough, they never crossed the street,
- didn't do anything.
- Nor did they do anything to the Jewish orphanage,
- which was just a block, not even a block away.
- Something else we noticed, that was the sky was red.
- And it was in the direction of the big, big synagogue.
- And that beautiful dome was all on fire.
- And with that day, our school was past because they also
- closed Jewish schools.
- So what happened to you then with the school closed?
- The school closed.
- In the meantime, my parents had lost their hotel
- in Bad Reinerz.
- And they both came to Breslau.
- So for a while we lived together.
- My sister had met a nice Jewish boy at the time.
- And they planned to get married and tried
- to get out to Palestine.
- So they went on hakhshara, which is
- the preparation for Palestine.
- They learned gardening and all that stuff.
- For me, I didn't really know what to do.
- I was always interested in medicine.
- So we found an ad in a Jewish paper
- that, in the Jewish hospital in Berlin,
- they were looking for Jewish girls to be trained as nurses.
- So we went there, applied, and I was admitted.
- In 1939, I think it was April, I left for Berlin
- to start nurses training.
- And amazing enough, in spite of the war,
- we had regular training.
- And we finished our training.
- And I even have my diploma with a big swastika on it.
- And there, yes, the hospital became more or less a ghetto.
- Transport left from there.
- We had only Jewish patients.
- There was one time, in 1943 I recall,
- they were picking up all the Jews from the streets.
- They just went with huge trucks on the street.
- And whoever they saw wearing a swastika was picked up--
- A star-- the star.
- The yellow star, not--
- excuse me.
- Not-- the yellow star with Jew on.
- And at that time, I remember there were hundreds
- of patients brought in.
- They had committed suicide.
- Knowing that they were picking up the Jews on the street,
- they just went and committed suicide.
- And I remember for the doctors, it was a big decision.
- Should they save them, or should they
- give morphine to help them?
- And I do know, the young people were saved.
- When they were very old, and it was pretty hopeless,
- the doctors almost gave morphine to help
- them to finish their life because it
- was either going there, to Auschwitz, or die in a bed.
- Had you heard of Auschwitz at that time?
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- We have heard because there were constantly
- transports going to Auschwitz.
- Auschwitz was actually the only one,
- you know, the big concentration camp everyone feared.
- Birkenau, the name came through, but we
- didn't know if people were going there or not.
- It was always, you go to the east, to Auschwitz.
- And there were also transports to Theresienstadt from Berlin.
- And up to '43, I was in the hospital working there.
- In 1943, it was my turn.
- And I was picked up.
- We were notified the day before to get everything ready.
- That was a little bit of--
- I think you had 10 kilos or something like that.
- And you put it in a knapsack, put your name
- on-- you got a number.
- And then the next day, they came to pick you up.
- And there was no sense to run away unless you
- knew where you were going.
- Where would you go?
- So we went.
- I came on the transport and left for Theresienstadt.
- And I spent two years in Theresienstadt.
- The time there-- hmm.
- Now, what had you heard about Theresienstadt
- that when you were in Berlin?
- Oh, we knew that Theresienstadt was a better camp,
- that people, prominent people were sent there.
- The Czech Jews were there.
- We knew that.
- Nobody had returned from there, but it was known.
- And also, they would send people there out of mixed marriages.
- As you know, Theresienstadt became a show-off camp.
- So they wanted to show off, look, we have it.
- We have concentration camp, but it isn't all that bad.
- You never, never heard anything about Auschwitz.
- You only knew you go to Auschwitz,
- you work there, as work camps.
- But you knew, in Theresienstadt, it wouldn't be so bad.
- And fortunate enough, I just was selected
- to transport to Theresienstadt.
- I don't know how come.
- But it's, again, fate, luck, whatever.
- And in Theresienstadt, we had to work in the beginning,
- something they called [NON-ENGLISH]..
- I don't know why.
- We worked on a--
- built barracks.
- And they didn't care if it was men or women.
- The younger people were selected for that.
- Very heavy work, we had to unload
- wood, which was used for the barracks,
- put it on huge heaps and things like that.
- And I worked there for about four weeks, I think.
- And then I had to change.
- And I was ordered to work in a laundry.
- And I think the laundry was worse than the wooden--
- the barrack place because you had--
- the people had dysentery, and the dirty linen came.
- We had no hot water.
- We had hardly soap or things like that.
- We tried our best to clean the sheets and dry them again.
- I don't know-- I don't remember where we dried them.
- I'm sure we didn't have dryers there.
- But being that that was I think by now November, very cold.
- And we stood there with bare feet, the cold water running
- over our feet.
- So I got a cold, turned into pneumonia.
- And they put me in a barrack where
- they had all the sick people.
- They were younger people who were sick.
- And there I got a little better after the pneumonia,
- got an infectious hepatitis.
- I was very sick again.
- But after this time, it had one advantage.
- I wasn't hungry anymore because I was so sick
- and didn't feel the hunger.
- Before that we suffered very much,
- the first few months, nothing really to eat.
- We had our barley soup and bread, but it wasn't too much.
- It wasn't the most nourishing things they gave us.
- How many meals a day did you have?
- We got, I think, some sort of coffee--
- it looked like coffee--
- to drink in the morning.
- It wasn't-- it wasn't coffee.
- Then we got our ration of bread, I think, every four days.
- We got a little tiny package of sugar
- at times, sometimes, not always.
- Middays, they had some barley soup or sometimes
- real barley to eat.
- That was good because it filled your stomach a little more.
- And in the evening, you had to eat your bread.
- And you had to ration it yourself.
- When it was gone, it was your tough luck.
- But I survived all that.
- I survived the hepatitis.
- And at that time, one of the doctors
- who used to come and check us found out that I was a nurse.
- And he said, oh, well, we need you.
- I'll make sure you come to the hospital.
- And from then on, I worked as a nurse in the hospital.
- They had a regular hospital there.
- And the doctors-- the prisoners who were doctors
- worked there as doctors.
- And this, you claim, saved your life.
- And that saved my life, I'm quite sure.
- Because-- and it was also--
- the patients would get their food.
- If they didn't eat it, we could eat the rest.
- And you weren't fussy.
- You just-- whenever you could find some extra food,
- we ate it.
- That was the way to survive.
- And I was there for two years.
- And of course, during that time, the people were talking.
- Oh, the war, I think, ended, since '43, since I got there,
- the war ended every month.
- This was rumors which went around.
- And you believe it because you want,
- you hope that things will come to an end,
- that you will survive, that you will see your family again.
- So you just keep on hoping.
- And I think that's human, and it's good.
- Otherwise, nobody would have survived.
- When it-- excuse me.
- No, I just want to say, do you remember
- any special groups coming through?
- Do you remember the Red Cross coming through
- for the inspections?
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- I do remember the Swiss Red Cross coming in.
- And there were big, big preparation before.
- They changed the middle of that little garrison
- town, made a park out of it.
- There were suddenly flowers, tables, chairs.
- They had a little store, they wrote on "cafe."
- You couldn't buy anything, but it was written on.
- Yeah, it looked pretty.
- And they had-- there was an orchestra.
- And they had to play.
- Children were dressed, and they were playing around.
- You know, it was just an ideal place
- to show the world and mainly the Red Cross,
- look, what are they talking about?
- Concentration camps.
- This is fine.
- This is the way they live here.
- So it was all a hoax.
- And the moment the Swiss Red Cross disappeared,
- everything else disappeared too.
- And yet, the incarcerated did try to keep up their morale
- with cultural events.
- Yes, with cultural events.
- Yeah, there were.
- We used to go to, like, chamber music.
- They would play.
- Or someone would give lectures.
- Oh, we tried that.
- Every free minute, if you heard there was a lecture somewhere,
- you went in order to--
- I think you wanted to live.
- You know, you didn't want to become an animal.
- And this was the only source which kept us alive
- Yeah, it was amazing.
- Of course, you know, you worked most of the time.
- But we had some free time.
- We did have some free time and would go there
- and would meet friends.
- And as I said, this is the only thing that keeps you alive.
- And then came-- and there was another incident I remember,
- that was very much in the beginning.
- They were trying to count us.
- I think it was November in the first year I was there.
- We all had to go to a huge place, everyone, old, children,
- thing.
- I think we stood there almost 24 hours.
- They put groups.
- It was a big counting.
- We don't know why, what, or when.
- But we stood there and stood there.
- People-- people died there, you know, old people.
- It was horrible.
- That was the only-- that was something I remember.
- And otherwise-- hmm.
- And the transports kept kept going out.
- The transports kept coming and going,
- coming from Germany of from Denmark, a big transport came.
- And the transport kept going out,
- and they were going to Auschwitz.
- And we knew that.
- And of course, everybody dreaded to be on there.
- And again, being a nurse, they needed me,
- and it probably saved me from a trip to Auschwitz.
- You see?
- And I remember, when I got to the camp in 1943,
- there were approximately 60,000 prisoners in there.
- And I remember, in the beginning of '45,
- there were less than 10,000.
- So all those people had come and gone, come and gone.
- And then came April '45.
- We heard-- we could hear alarms from the bombing.
- And the Swedish Red Cross came one day.
- They were picking up all the Danish people.
- And they had room for 460.
- How many Danish people came in, they wanted to pick up.
- In the meantime, quite a number had died.
- So they did take a few of us.
- We were fortunate.
- I knew someone who came from Denmark,
- and he spoke with the Danish soldiers--
- with the Swedish soldiers.
- And this way I got onto that transport.
- And we were leaving for Denmark.
- So the war ended for me in 1945, in April
- already, even though the Russian,
- who later came to Theresienstadt didn't
- come until the beginning of May, I believe.
- And I ended up in Denmark, came to a wonderful Danish family,
- total strangers.
- They just took me into their home.
- And these were the ones, the people
- who taught me to do the first steps as a free person again.
- And they also helped me to cope with the most difficult time,
- which was still to come.
- That is when you find out that your family didn't survive.
- They taught me how to live without bitterness.
- They taught me how to live without hatred.
- They were just marvelous.
- Ruth, we're going to take a short pause at this time.
- Mhm.
- OK.
- Does she want some-- can I get you water or something,
- or are you OK?
- No, I think so.
- Do you want some water?
- Yes, I'd love to.
- What we'll do is we'll--
- they're just doing some editing now.
- They're doing some editing now.
- Oh, I see.
- And then what we'll do is we'll go back,
- and we'll mention a few other things.
- OK.
- I hope you're not taping now.
- Oh, are you?
- Good.
- I want to talk about the bombing in Berlin
- and what life was like--
- In Berlin.
- --in Berlin.
- Well--
- Then we'll go back to the liberation, how you went,
- how you got--
- physically how you got out of Auschwitz and where you went.
- When the white the buses came.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- And then--
- Yeah.
- This I remember very well, of course.
- And there's a book written by the way, The White Buses.
- Oh.
- Do you know the author?
- I think we have it.
- Oh.
- I didn't know that.
- Oh, yes.
- I didn't know that.
- The White Buses, it's our trip out of camp to Denmark.
- And this was, by the way, during one of the biggest bombardments
- in Berlin.
- OK.
- Ruth, I wanted to go back to what life was like in Berlin.
- The Allies started to bomb Berlin
- very early in the war in retaliation
- for the bombings of the major cities,
- but particularly of London.
- What was that like, living under the bombing?
- We didn't feel the bombing as a bombing.
- For us it was--
- every bombing was a step towards the end
- of that war, which we hoped.
- And we didn't mind it as much.
- I don't think we were afraid.
- The only thing, we had, like working in the hospital,
- it was--
- real setup.
- The moment the alarm came, we had to be on our stations
- transporting patients into the cellars.
- At times, when everyone was at the cellar,
- we would run up and look at the fireworks
- because for us the bombing didn't mean that.
- It didn't mean what it means for the Germans,
- that they lose their homes or so.
- For us, the bombings was the Allies are coming.
- And you know, Hitler will lose out at the end.
- Did you see much devastation in the cities?
- Could you get out to see it?
- Yes.
- We would go out the next day.
- As a matter of fact, I had one incident, where
- I was at a friend's house.
- And the bombing started.
- And the west of Berlin was very badly hit.
- And afterwards, there was no way of taking
- a subway or a streetcar back to the hospital.
- I walked.
- And I think I walked for several hours.
- And I do remember, when I got home,
- I had all my legs are bleeding-- were bleeding.
- All little splits of glass had jumped up.
- I didn't even feel it.
- But it was burning right and left.
- And you had to try to go a little bit
- this street and the street, until you finally--
- took hours.
- So this was one, you know--
- I've been in many, many bombings.
- But most of the time we had to stay with the patients
- and transport the patients.
- When it's clear, we would go up.
- And I think it was already in 1943, once there was an alarm,
- we would remain there during the entire night.
- Because in the beginning, we would take the patients up
- and an hour later take them down again.
- So it was much easier to remain downstairs.
- And at the time of the Swiss intervention,
- could you tell us more about that in detail?
- The-- which Swiss?
- Not-- the Swedish, I'm sorry.
- I'm sorry-- the Swedish intervention, when
- the Swedish Red Cross came.
- Came into the--
- Into Theresienstadt.
- --Theresienstadt.
- Yes, they came to--
- I was working, and I remember the people came running to us
- and said, can you believe it?
- The Swedish Red Cross is here.
- They came with a whole slush of buses, white buses
- with a big red cross painted on top of the buses.
- So that they had done that they can be seen.
- And all the Danish people-- and as I mentioned before, we--
- I was fortunate enough to get out with the Swedish Red
- Cross in that action.
- It was, by the way, an action--
- Greve Bernadotte.
- Count Bernadotte.
- He was responsible for that action,
- that the people were taken out.
- And this was-- the war was still going on.
- So we were loaded into the buses.
- The music had to play, by the way, when we left.
- That was a horrible sight.
- You know, we were already on Swiss territory.
- The moment we stepped into the bus,
- they couldn't touch us anymore.
- And here all the other people-- and war was still going on.
- We left, and it took about eight days
- to drive through Germany to reach the Danish border.
- And I remember we had two German soldiers in each bus.
- They were just sitting there.
- And all the buses, the windows had shades.
- They didn't want us to see anything.
- And at the time--
- I don't recall which day it was--
- they just kept driving.
- And there was two motorcycles which
- kept the whole group of buses together.
- They would just forth and back, back and forth.
- And we came towards Berlin.
- And suddenly we heard we had to turn around
- because there was a big bombardment plan, from one side
- the Russians, from the other side the Americans.
- And they could not stop it.
- We would have been in the fire.
- So we turned about 60 kilometer back, into a forest,
- and waited there until it was over.
- You could hear the whole night the bombs flying.
- We had a few broken windows in the buses,
- but nothing happened to us.
- And the next morning we start--
- when everything was over, we started again.
- And I think it took an entire day just
- to go through Berlin because Berlin was, by then, ashes,
- nothing but ruins.
- You went a little while, the street was closed.
- Ruins were lying on the street.
- It was burning.
- We turned around again.
- But we finally made it through Berlin.
- By then the German soldiers, they didn't look at us anymore.
- They didn't object when we opened up the shades.
- It was-- we knew it was going to the end.
- And this way we reached, after about seven days,
- we reached Flensburg, which is the border town between Germany
- and Denmark.
- And this was by then--
- even though Denmark was still under German occupation,
- but we felt it was freedom already.
- The people knew that we were coming
- and were throwing flowers into our busses.
- It was like a--
- it was a very strange feeling to be free again.
- And even though they had German--
- Germans on the street, they didn't do anything anymore.
- And then you took the boat to--
- We took the boat to Sweden.
- We remained in Sweden for three weeks.
- First they checked us.
- They had to see.
- We came with lots of fleas.
- And our hair-- we were--
- as a matter of fact, I think they also--
- the doctors checked us, and we had an X-ray.
- They wanted to see if people come with tuberculosis
- or things like that.
- And then for three weeks, they kept us in quarantine
- in Sweden.
- And then we were returned to Denmark.
- And that's when I came to that family
- in the country somewhere.
- It was beautiful.
- Did they give you any opportunity to go elsewhere?
- Or you just all had to go back to--
- No.
- Most of the people who were on the bus,
- they had-- they came from Denmark.
- So they had--
- I see.
- --either homes there--
- I see, of course.
- --or relatives.
- Everyone but a very few, about 10--
- we were about 10, which they took along, and we were not--
- we'd never been in Sweden-- in Denmark.
- So that was the only--
- and as I said, they found homes for us.
- Do you remember the names of the people?
- Oh, yes, Rasmussen.
- Yes, I will always remember them--
- just wonderful, wonderful people.
- They had three children, a girl who was younger than I am,
- a boy was my age, and an older one.
- And even though I didn't know a word of Danish,
- they made me feel so much at home.
- And as I said, they helped me very, very much.
- And they also--
- I'm grateful to them because they
- taught me to look ahead and not to look back constantly,
- which is probably the most important thing once you
- survive things like that.
- And how did you find out about your family?
- In the meantime, it became known that
- in Geneva is a place, where you could write to.
- And if they have lists from the concentration camps
- and so forth.
- And I don't know how they got them,
- but I wrote the names down of my parents, my sister.
- And I got the answers that they perished in Auschwitz.
- And that my-- my sister, I couldn't find out
- anything about my sister.
- Much, much later I found out.
- I only knew she was stuck in Yugoslavia before I even
- went to camp.
- And they perished.
- That transport perished.
- I think altogether three illegal transports
- trying to go to Palestine at the time, two made it
- and one perished.
- And my sister was there.
- How did you bring your life together after that?
- Hmm?
- How did you bring your life together after that?
- Again, the profession I had helped me.
- I could start working in a hospital.
- I was left alone, but you find other people
- who were left alone.
- You meet friends.
- You make friends.
- And slowly but surely your life becomes worth living again.
- And as I said, you just--
- I will never forget.
- But you can't just look back all the time.
- It will kill you.
- It really would kill you.
- In this way I survived.
- Then I went to Sweden.
- I worked in Sweden for a while and eventually managed
- to get an affidavit.
- And I came to the United States in 1949.
- This was a testimony from Mrs. Ruth Knopp.
- And we greatly appreciate it.
- We know that the recounting of memory is painful.
- But it's something that the future has to know.
- Thank you, Ruth.
- Yes, I think that's the most important thing.
- Thank you, Jack.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Ruth Knopp
- Date
-
interview:
1992 June 01
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
- Knopp, Ruth.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Ruth Knopp donated the oral testimony to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in January 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:16:48
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn520373
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