- [TEST TONE]
- Get that, Irene?
- Yeah.
- Not them.
- What's a no-no?
- To look into the lens?
- The light?
- I understand.
- We'll direct your attention.
- You don't have to be riveted to me.
- But you can just--
- your attention in my direction.
- But actually, you're right.
- This is the big test.
- I am going to ask you your name.
- Oh, no.
- I am.
- It's the hardest question of all, I'm sure.
- But just for the record, for the beginning of the tape,
- they want you guys to identify yourselves.
- Well, just, it's not such a simple question.
- Which name do you want?
- A birth name, middle name?
- I mean, I've had lots of second names from the beginning.
- I'll tell you what--
- I'll give you the whole--
- --give me the whole litany, starting with your first name
- and moving forward.
- OK.
- OK.
- So I assume you want me to go first?
- Sure, go ahead.
- OK, my name is Rene Slotkin.
- I was born Rene Guttmann.
- And then in the middle in between those two names,
- I had a name called Mann, a second name Mann.
- And also one other name, which I can't recall right now.
- I can't-- Kalina, Kalina.
- So I really have had four second names.
- Rene was the original, which stuck
- with me, even though I took a little bit of abuse
- for that name.
- But that's my name.
- And I was born in Czechoslovakia, December 21,
- 1937.
- Great.
- There goes my phone.
- Saved by the bell.
- Should we get that or let the machine pick it up?
- Yeah, just let me.
- OK.
- I can go?
- Yep.
- OK.
- My name is Irene Hizme.
- I was born Renata Guttmann, same time as Rene,
- in Czechoslovakia.
- And you two took the name Slotkin?
- Slotkin, yes, I was adopted by the Slotkins.
- And then I got married, and now I'm Hizme.
- I'm going to sort of go right to the hard stuff, which is--
- and you can decide who wants to answer first.
- But I'd like to hear from you both on everything,
- pretty much.
- Do you remember when you were deported from Prague
- to-- and I'm going to mispronounce this--
- is it pronounced Terezin?
- Theresienstadt.
- Terezin.
- Oh, it's Theresienstadt.
- And Terezin was?
- Terezin-- I think Terezin is the city.
- I'm not sure.
- OK.
- So do you remember that trip or how that came about?
- I personally don't remember going there.
- I just found myself awake there one day.
- Not that I remember getting up and oh, here I am.
- I was just there.
- And I don't know what Irene really remembers about it.
- If she does.
- OK.
- I remember going on a train.
- And it was a long trip.
- Or to me, it seemed like a long trip.
- I was little and that's all I remember, was a train ride.
- If you can describe it for me.
- Do you remember before that where you were living?
- And did you pack up and go?
- What were the circumstances surrounding your leaving?
- Well, we were living in Prague at the time.
- And I don't recall that we packed or anything.
- Probably our mom did.
- But I don't recall that.
- But I do remember definitely taking a train ride.
- It was a nice train, not a cattle car or anything.
- And we were, I guess, even excited
- about where we were going.
- That's it.
- And do you remember arriving?
- Specifically, no.
- We just-- we were someplace new, that's all I knew.
- But our mother was with us.
- And so that was OK.
- And Rene was-- we were all together.
- And what were the conditions like there?
- I can't say I remember anything much about Theresienstadt
- except cobblestone walkways and bridges.
- Well, not bridges but--
- Archways?
- --archways.
- Did you have enough food to eat?
- Did you have-- how many people?
- Did you live in an apartment?
- If you can describe what the living--
- I'm not sure what we lived in.
- I don't remember.
- Rene, do you remember any of this?
- The archways connected buildings that
- were more than one story high.
- I remember they were at least two or three stories high.
- Well, to me, they appeared tall.
- They were red brick.
- The inside, I really don't.
- I do remember the streets.
- And I do remember, on the streets, there was traffic.
- And one of the things that I remember
- was a cart with two wheels.
- And there were bodies on it covered with, I guess,
- a huge cloth.
- But you could tell because there were parts sticking out.
- So I do remember that.
- On those streets, cobble streets.
- Because I remember how you had to shift the wagon.
- Whoever was pulling it, they had going
- to get over one hump and then like that.
- I remember that.
- I don't know if I remember this, anything like that.
- When you saw that, were you curious about what
- had happened to those people?
- No.
- I might have been then.
- But I don't recall trying to explain it in any which way.
- So you don't recall asking?
- No.
- Asking anybody what?
- Were you living with other families?
- Were you living just the three of you in a room?
- Do you recall any of that?
- No.
- I remember the indoors was clean in the sense
- that it was painted, I think.
- It was light colored.
- Some reason, light green comes to mind.
- I don't know why, but that's what comes to mind.
- But no, I don't recall the specific place, or bed,
- or anything like that, room.
- Irene?
- Now that I heard Rene talk about the carts,
- I do remember seeing that as well.
- I don't recall that they were covered bodies.
- I thought they were just bodies in a cart.
- The one thing I do remember is sometimes
- having to wait on line for food.
- But I'm not sure exactly how aware.
- And I remember music.
- Music in Theresienstadt.
- Again, I don't know.
- What do you mean you don't know?
- I'm not sure in what context.
- I don't know if we went to hear music,
- or they were playing music, or there was a show.
- I just remember music.
- Is your memory of your time there,
- which I realize you were very young
- so the memories are very sort of sparse and fragmented--
- do you recall it being a good time?
- Do you recall that it was a difficult time?
- Were you scared?
- Were you going to school?
- That's really a hard question.
- I don't know.
- It seems-- I don't get a feeling today
- that I was terribly scared.
- We were with our mom and we seemed to have things to do.
- Possibly drawing or crayons or something like that.
- And again, I'm going to go back to the music
- and learning songs.
- So I don't know.
- What about you, Rene?
- I more seem to now recall doing drawings
- on paper with other kids.
- And I also remember playing in the outdoors with friends.
- We were throwing things, I think mischievously
- at second-story things.
- That's how I remember the buildings were tall.
- Into the windows.
- But on the whole, the question of whether we were--
- whether I was frightened or anything like that,
- I don't seem to recall.
- But it seemed like a very organized kind of setting.
- Things went on according to schedule.
- Nothing was out of the ordinary that happened.
- But I do now recall this.
- I don't know when it happened, but the taking of a picture
- that we have of my mom, and Irene, and myself,
- being set up into--
- I had to be a photo shop of some kind.
- Because we had to be in front of a camera.
- And I do recall from there my last contact with my mother.
- I remember.
- We have the picture here.
- You could see my hand is on her shoulder.
- And I remember the feel, the coarseness
- of that wool garment.
- I think it was wool.
- And also the odor of it.
- But that's vivid.
- But that's.
- It's amazing what sticks with you.
- Smells.
- Yeah.
- Where was your father during all this?
- My father-- and we only know this now--
- was deported to Auschwitz in '41.
- We had gotten to Theresienstadt in '43.
- And he was killed in Auschwitz in '41, December also, 18th.
- Do you remember asking your mother--
- I get it, at that time, I'm sure, again, as you say,
- you know this now.
- At the time asking or wanting to know from your mother
- where your father was?
- Or did she ever talk to you about him?
- I myself don't.
- I think maybe Irene will.
- But I myself have absolutely no recollection.
- Because '41-- and I think he was taken a little bit
- before the end of December-- so he had to be taken probably
- in the middle of that year.
- If you figure out how old I was, I don't recall anything.
- I really don't.
- Irene, do you recall?
- To answer your question, whether our mom spoke about where
- our father was, I'm not sure.
- The only thing that I definitely do recall
- is when the Gestapo came to take him away from us.
- That it was in the middle of the night
- and it was a very scary ordeal.
- There was just something so final
- about them taking him away.
- You felt that even then?
- Yeah.
- I'd love to know.
- Where was I at that point?
- Because I don't recall this at all.
- You might have-- you know, it was at night.
- And it's possible that you were even sleeping.
- And in the years after that, in the couple of years after that,
- did you--
- how can I put this--
- did you question his absence in terms
- of talking to your mom about it, or wanting
- to know where he was, or when he was coming back?
- Do you recall?
- Do you recall him not being there and how that--
- I recall him not being there.
- But I don't recall asking our mom questions.
- I think we intuitively knew something not good
- had happened.
- And I do remember my mom crying at night.
- So I wasn't going to ask anything.
- I do recall now on at least two occasions,
- we wrapped a package, which was meant to go to him somehow.
- I don't know how, but we wrapped.
- And I think we even went out to deliver it to a place.
- And that's all I seem to recall.
- And this would have still been while you were in Prague?
- Yes.
- Yes, from Prague, right.
- Before Theresienstadt.
- So when you were in Theresienstadt,
- did you have any sense of being prisoners?
- I don't think so.
- You know, it's like, we were what, three or four?
- You know, we had our mom.
- And as Rene said, there were other children.
- I don't think that they thought about it.
- What about-- what happened next?
- Where did you go next after Theresienstadt, what happened?
- Well, after a while, there was one night.
- It was in December.
- And it was a very cold night with snow,
- and there was snow everywhere.
- And we were marched.
- We marched together with our mother and many other people.
- We were marched to a cattle car train.
- And on the way, we, Rene and I, were like clutching to our mom
- and holding on because it was so cold.
- And there were gun shots.
- And we saw people falling to the ground.
- And our mom just kept urging us to go on.
- Because I kind of wanted to not go any more, I was so cold.
- And our mom just said, we have to go, we have to.
- Just urged us on to go.
- And that's when we boarded the cattle car.
- And that was a horrible experience.
- On that same night, I recall dogs barking,
- German shepherd dogs.
- And also, I remember, I think my mom
- had a suitcase of some kind.
- And because of the height of the snow,
- and the fact that we were two of us, and she only had two hands,
- I think she had to grab us one by each hand.
- And I think the suitcase spilled out.
- And it was just left.
- What happened when you got aboard the car, the train car?
- I don't know if it was right after we got on because I think
- it was a little bit later.
- It was extremely hot in there, even though it was cold.
- I think we were just totally squished.
- It's not an English word.
- But I think you know what I mean by bodies all around us
- because very tight, tight fit.
- The odors I recall from there were a real stench.
- It was just not good.
- Sounds of agony, you know, crying and whatnot.
- And then some people who could maintain the upright position
- would fall.
- And that was really bad.
- What would happen if somebody fell?
- There was really no way of helping them.
- It was just added to the chaos of the place.
- And usually, if they fell, they were quite ill, I imagine.
- How long were you in the car?
- I don't know how long the trip was.
- But it seemed like it was an endless ride.
- It was dark.
- And light.
- And all I could see was like the bottom half of people.
- Legs.
- And we were squeezed very tight.
- We could hardly move.
- There was no food.
- There were no bathrooms.
- And I wanted to just cry.
- And the smell was so horrible.
- And the train, just the wheels of the train rumbling.
- It was dark.
- It was like we were going nowhere,
- I mean to some oblivion.
- And I wanted to cry but I was afraid.
- And so instead, I remember I just bit my hand.
- And I squelched my cry.
- Do you need to take a sip of water or something like that?
- Would you?
- Yeah, I'd like.
- OK.
- And when you got to where the train was going,
- do you recall what happened next?
- Well, when the train doors were opened,
- it was a sea of humanity just falling right out of the train,
- trying to get out.
- And it was just a lot of people.
- And we were just marched to a Lager, a house where
- we were going to be housed.
- That's all I remember.
- We were with our mother, and it was a long walk.
- I don't remember that part at all.
- But when the doors were opened, I
- can almost feel the pool, the cold air coming in
- and the German officers shouting, [GERMAN]..
- I can hear it.
- I can hear it.
- And then, I guess, what Irene said happened,
- which I don't recall.
- When you felt the cold air, when you felt the fresh air,
- was that a relief to you?
- Yes.
- It was great relief.
- You know.
- Yes.
- Should we-- do we need to take a break?
- To the [INAUDIBLE].
- I just hear this.
- We're hearing this saw.
- What would the word be?
- Aw.
- [LAUGHTER]
- At the end, you can do that if you're good,
- if you do everything they say.
- [LAUGHTER]
- The big sister.
- How much older?
- She's not weak.
- Believe me.
- The big--
- A half hour older.
- I mean, you can't tell she's older?
- Her recollection is much better than mine.
- I absolutely can.
- But was just thinking, jeez, that half hour really--
- that was a lot.
- For my mother, I'm sure it was a lot.
- [LAUGHTER]
- Well, if we could go back and if you could again, Rene, describe
- the opening of the doors of the train
- and what you remember feeling from that scene.
- When we got to Auschwitz and the train doors open, slid open,
- there was a cold rush of air coming in on us.
- Extremely cold but extremely refreshing, as I recall it.
- And at that point, people started going out.
- They had to almost fall out because there was not
- enough room in there to contain everybody.
- But there were officers outside.
- The German soldiers shouting raus, raus and schnell,
- schnell.
- Schnell I think means "quick."
- Raus, I think "get out" or something like that.
- And it was refreshing, but that's
- all I recollect other than dogs barking occasionally
- and people just pouring out, out of these cars.
- Did you have any sense of relief,
- like you had gotten to some place--
- like the worst part was-- did you have any feeling
- or recollection of, Thank God, the worst part is over
- and now we're going to be OK again?
- Or did you have any sense of that?
- Irene?
- Sorry, I hear my cat.
- [LAUGHS]
- Do we need to let the cat in?
- I think might.
- We can do that.
- We can do that.
- OK.
- Sure.
- Too bad.
- Too bad!
- [LAUGHS]
- You don't like Oscar?
- He does like--
- I don't like the cat.
- I don't like to live with animals.
- That's my thing.
- I don't.
- And because they put too much pressure on you.
- It's not worth it, really, because "but he loves me."
- Baloney.
- I don't believe that.
- [LAUGHS]
- I know the feeling because we have a dog.
- And my son lives elsewhere and we have joint custody.
- Oh, right.
- You do everything.
- Right.
- But it's like when he goes away for the weekend,
- it's like the kid's going away for the weekend.
- It's like, oh, OK.
- Now I don't have to get up and walk him and do all this stuff.
- Somebody else can do that for one day.
- I know.
- Well, I was willed these cats.
- My kids left them for me.
- It's very sweet of them.
- That's right.
- Lucky you.
- But so what I was asking was did you
- feel like this was the end of the journey and that you were--
- there some relief now, or?
- I can't say that I felt any relief.
- As I said, when the doors first opened,
- everybody kind of came tumbling out.
- Again, it was at night.
- And there was a lot of shouting.
- There were dogs barking.
- And it was a sea of humanity, really.
- And again, my vision was, again, only
- the bottoms of people's legs.
- And I do remember following an entire crowd with our mother
- and Rene to this house where we were--
- barrack, barn, whatever --where we would be spending some time.
- I don't think as a four-year-old I had any concept of what
- was going on.
- This was my life and it was just playing out.
- I did not anticipate anything horrible.
- I didn't anticipate anything good.
- I didn't know, really.
- I must make a correction on that.
- We were five years old, almost finishing our sixth year.
- Because our birthday was December 21, and I know
- we got there a couple of days before.
- So we were five plus.
- We are almost six at that point.
- Right?
- So at least five, we were.
- Sorry to do this to my--
- Older sister.
- --older sister.
- [LAUGHS] You said you went into the lager.
- What were those conditions like?
- What kind of a place was it?
- How many people were there, if you can describe it?
- It was just like a big barn and there was--
- Can you start--
- [LAUGHS] I knew you were going to ask me that.
- And tell me, when you say "it," rather than say "it"--
- Right, I understand.
- The lager was like a big barn.
- And there were beds in two or three tiers worth of beds.
- We were together with many, many other people.
- We were with our mother.
- And it was a mixed lager.
- In other words, there were other families
- there with mothers, fathers, other children possibly.
- And as it turned out, we later on
- found out that this was a very special barrack, special
- for the Czech families.
- And it was called the Czech family lager.
- And there we were with our mother.
- Again, I remember having some kind of drawing and learning
- some Hebrew songs, learning something about Israel.
- I don't know from where, or?
- But I also remember very unpleasant things.
- I remember the guards hitting people.
- And I distinctly remember seeing one person kind of hanging.
- But I didn't know.
- I didn't put it in any context.
- I really didn't know what was going on.
- Unfortunately, somebody was honking their horn.
- Tell me again that one image that you
- recall, having seen somebody?
- I remember seeing, I think it was a man and he was naked
- and he was hanging from the, I guess the ceiling, the roof.
- But I didn't understand or comprehend
- what exactly was going on.
- How long were you together in the family barracks?
- We were together for about four months, I believe.
- At which time there was an action called.
- And a few twins and perhaps some doctors and nurses
- were separated.
- And Rene and I were at that time separated from our mother.
- And I can only recall a soul piercing cry from our mother.
- And I know we didn't want to let go,
- but we were forcibly taken from her.
- And then we were also separated from each other.
- It was only later on that we learned
- that that entire lager, about 3,700 people,
- were all killed that night.
- Your mother among them?
- Yes, our mother among them?
- Do you recall this separation as well?
- Yeah, that seems to be the point where I awoke again and began
- remembering this emotional scar or hurt that took place
- when we were separated.
- And from that point on, we were apart.
- And I'd start--
- I now by myself in a men's lager, in a men's camp.
- And I start-- I'm now awake sort of
- and I'm remembering things that happened there.
- What do you remember?
- Well, a roll call was one of the things.
- Early, early in the morning--
- the sun wasn't even up yet.
- It was dark outside.
- And they would line us up and took some kind of a roll call.
- And every once in a while, somebody was hurt.
- You know, shot with a rifle butt and dogs
- barking if they didn't respond properly
- or they weren't standing straight enough or something
- like that.
- Later in the morning, as I recall
- towards the end of our stay there in the mornings,
- some prisoners were taken out of the group
- and lined up against the ditch and shot.
- So and that was it.
- Once the shots were fired, that was it.
- Everybody went about their business, whatever that was.
- Myself and some other kids, boys, we
- were curious about this.
- So we went close to the pits to see
- what had happened to these people that were standing
- and now were--
- and there was life still in their bodies.
- So you could see twitching, movements.
- Some were really moving.
- There was one case I remember that the prisoners pulled
- this one man out because he wasn't dead.
- He had a huge swelling in his head.
- Which I assume, now, is was a bullet lodged in there.
- Not deep in, but just.
- And they brought him in.
- I don't know what happened to him.
- But that was a frequent occurrence
- in the mornings at the end of our stay there.
- Do you recall feeling afraid or feeling numb or feeling--
- I mean, how did you get through it?
- It was just curiosity I felt. I don't
- think I had a mature fear that I would have
- if I saw something or today.
- It was curiosity.
- I remember having my kids, my children today,
- had the same type of curiosity.
- Which I'll explain the surrounding of that.
- We were on Fire Island.
- And when the fishermen came in with their catch,
- they would take these flopping, live fish and skin them
- and behead them and whatever.
- And this was a little harsh for me.
- But they looked at it and they felt nothing.
- They just-- there was curiosity.
- And I can connect it to something like this.
- I'm not sure if it's valid, but that's my feeling on it.
- Do you recall in that lager you were with just boys?
- Were you with men?
- What were you eating?
- How did you sleep?
- What were the conditions there?
- The barrack was tiered with bunk beds
- on both sides of the length of it.
- Through the center was a stove or some kind of a heating.
- I think it was a stove.
- I was mostly with, I think, a special group.
- Because we were twins and we all stuck together.
- We were put there together.
- And the older ones-- and all of them
- were just about older than I was --were taking care of me
- and other younger ones than them.
- So we sort of stuck together.
- As far as food, I'm sure I ate.
- But my only recollection really of doing something with food
- was going on to some garbage heaps and pulling out potatoes.
- And they were sliced and put on the stove to bake.
- And I remember that.
- I still like potatoes or fries.
- So this-- did you know that you were in this barracks
- because you were a twin?
- Did you have any idea why you were with these people
- and not with other people?
- Or were you too young to understand?
- I didn't know that.
- I just knew that we were somehow a little special in the sense
- that every time it was, let's say,
- time for me to go to the infirmary,
- I was sort of spiffied up, readied,
- cleaned in whatever sense that I was made presentable.
- And somebody would take me there.
- This was some boy, younger man, or somebody from the group
- would take me there.
- And so that was special because the rest of the camp,
- I mean, that that was different.
- It was totally different.
- And I did get a pair of boots once.
- I remember a pair of brown boots from some older,
- I imagine it had to be a twin.
- That was special in that setting to have
- a pair of shoes that not necessarily fit, but were dry
- on the inside.
- What happened when you got to the infirmary?
- What sorts of procedures did you go through?
- Well, mostly what I recall is getting undressed.
- I'm sorry.
- Could you start by saying when--
- When I got to the infirmary, mostly what I remember
- is you always had to get undressed at least up to here,
- maybe further too.
- And being put between two cold plates, which I know
- were called rontgen machines.
- I think that's X-ray.
- And measured and weighed and poked and pushed.
- But nothing much more than that, nothing much more than that.
- Do you remember any of the doctors or nurses
- in that place?
- No.
- Oh, they were there.
- There were figures dressed in white coats.
- But not specifically, no.
- Not faces or anything like that.
- Irene, what about you?
- When you were separated from your mother and your brother,
- where did they take you?
- And what kind of conditions were you in?
- Well, when I was separated from my mom and Rene,
- I found myself in a lager full of women, only women
- and young girls possibly.
- I do not recall that I was with other twins,
- but it's possible, other twin girls.
- But it's possible that I was.
- But I only recall older women.
- And the barrack was very much like what
- Rene described, both sides of a large barn with tiered beds.
- And a large brick oven running down the center.
- And though I don't remember a whole day in sequence,
- my memory is rather sporadic, but the things that I remember
- are indelibly etched on my mind.
- I do remember being hungry.
- And I do remember that all there was to eat
- was some black bread that was handed out
- towards the end of the day, and some--
- I don't know if it was a soup of some sort --I guess soup.
- And I remember that I thought I was being rather clever, that I
- would save some bread for the morning when I was hungriest.
- So I wouldn't eat all of it.
- And then in the morning, the bread would be gone.
- And I-- it's only subsequently I figured out
- we had rats in Auschwitz that were probably
- as hungry as I was.
- I do remember being very cold times.
- I was very lonely.
- I thought about Rene.
- I knew he was alive.
- And in some way, I think that gave me
- the will to just continue in whatever this was.
- I had no comprehension of what was really happening.
- I just, by this time, I was beginning
- to understand that bad things were happening.
- Because I could hear the older people
- whispering about this and that, and people dying,
- and people being gassed.
- And I remember myself going to the showers
- and having to stand outside naked in the cold waiting
- to be inspected by the Germans.
- And also, by this time, understanding
- that sometimes you never came back from the showers.
- So it was always a question of would I be coming back?
- Or was this-- whatever --the last time?
- But I was also a little brazen child.
- And I, the very first time that we were lined up,
- I had a locket around my neck from my mother.
- And I knew that if it was found, I would probably
- be punished severely.
- Or I really had no concept, but I knew it was not--
- it would not go well for me.
- And so like a six-year-old I said,
- OK, I'll take it off my neck.
- I'll hide it in my hands.
- And that's exactly what I did.
- And I remember I got into the showers with it.
- But I guess I never came out with it because I imagine
- it fell out of my hand or--
- but I thought I'd put one over on the guards.
- [LAUGHS]
- What about-- what medical procedures
- or quasi-medical procedures do you remember?
- Do you remember being taken to the hospital or infirmary or?
- Well, I remember going to Mengele specifically.
- Actually, the very first time that we went to the doctor
- was when our mother was still with us.
- So we were still in the Czech familienlager.
- And I remember it especially because I was only concerned
- that Rene would cry.
- Because he was a cry baby when it came to doctors.
- And I was scared that he would cry
- and something terrible would happen to him.
- But he got the message.
- He was good.
- He didn't cry.
- And that was the one time he went with our mother.
- After that, I do remember going to the hospital,
- being in the hospital because I was sick.
- I don't know if I was sick with just some childhood disease
- or whether I was sick because I had
- gotten an injection of something that made me ill.
- But I have recollections of blood being
- taken from my neck and my arms.
- I remember many x-rays and injections.
- And I hate doctors.
- I hate hospitals.
- Do you remember whether these procedures were
- painful or just uncomfortable?
- Or how did you react to them?
- The blood from the neck was extremely painful,
- extremely painful.
- But I knew I couldn't cry, and I didn't.
- I never cried.
- How did you know you couldn't cry?
- I guess instinctively.
- Or it could have been something our mom told us
- we were to just behave and be good and go along
- with the flow.
- Do you remember specifically-- you
- say you remember specifically meeting Dr. Mengele?
- Well, I know it was Dr. Mengele.
- I had heard the name.
- That's, you know.
- Do you remember him or what he looked like or how he sounded
- or how he acted?
- Not really.
- I think that one time he did give me a lollipop.
- And I think I was just tickled to death.
- You know, I said, oh, wow.
- What a great guy.
- But specifically, you don't remember
- any of the other doctors or?
- There were other doctors, but not specifically
- that I can remember at all.
- No.
- OK.
- How much time do we have?
- We have about three minutes.
- OK.
- Did anybody tell you, did anybody ever
- try to explain why this was going on
- or what was happening to either of you?
- Or was it just that you did what you were told and that was it?
- No one explained anything.
- I know for myself, I just did what I was told.
- I also discovered that if I could
- hide behind things or behind people and if I wasn't seen,
- then that would be a good thing.
- And I did always try to be behind somebody taller
- at roll call or stuff.
- I tried to be invisible.
- If I could have been, I would have wished myself.
- What about you, Rene?
- I remember I must have been questioning what was going on,
- but not exactly in what sense.
- But I questioned who was in charge?
- Who's in charge here?
- Who's?
- And I was told, Hitler.
- That meant nothing to me, but that's the answer I got.
- And I'm not even sure why I wanted to know.
- But I guess it was confusing to what was going on.
- And I guess I want to know who was directing traffic.
- And that's the answer I got.
- I want to mention one thing, what Irene mentioned before.
- That I also was motivated to keep myself going by the fact
- that I knew that she was somewhere out there.
- I saw her once.
- I think we saw each other once through a fence or two fences.
- Nothing was said.
- We just saw each other and we knew we were alive.
- And always had that feeling that she was alive-- always.
- That never left.
- And everything that happened afterwards
- was just done basically so I could meet up with Irene.
- Did you know already that your mother
- had been killed at that point?
- I think we knew it when we were separated, right then
- and there, that that was the end.
- At least that's how I felt.
- What about you, Irene?
- Do you think you know that your--
- I knew I would never see her again.
- If you're asking did I know that she was dead?
- No.
- But I knew that I was not going to see her again.
- What--
- So yeah, OK yeah.
- Yeah, what is that?
- Jets.
- Jets.
- Kennedy, Idlewild at the time when I came.
- I'm sorry.
- I took it out and then put it back.
- Yeah, I took it out too.
- Thanks.
- Irene, I wanted to go back and ask, do you
- recall from these procedures in the hospital,
- do you recall them making you sick
- or having side effects that were troublesome for you?
- I can't say that I do.
- I do remember how--
- It's all right.
- I do that.
- Hey, we get to do it again.
- My God.
- We have time and takes.
- It's not a problem.
- I don't recall that any procedures that were done on me
- made me sick.
- Not positively.
- But I do know that I was in the hospital many times
- and I was quite ill with high fevers.
- Again, I don't know from what.
- I remember one time in the hospital
- when there was going to be some kind of an action
- and that usually meant that very many people from the hospital
- were taken straight to the gas chamber.
- And I remember that there was a nurse there
- who shoved me under her skirt and just said, be very quiet.
- And I think I escaped an actual action to the gas chambers.
- That's my phone.
- Sorry.
- C A T S. As opposed to K A T Z.
- Are we rolling?
- Because of that sound I'm going to have to ask you to--
- Oh my God.
- Just tell me that portion about how there was an action
- and that how the nurse took you under--
- One day there was an action in the hospital
- when most of the patients were being sent out
- to the gas chamber.
- And I recall there was a nurse who
- just grabbed me and shoved me under her skirt and said,
- just be very quiet.
- And I think that's how I was saved that day.
- Did you have any close encounters
- as it were like that?
- In the infirmary I had no close encounters that I recall.
- I was just taken, examined, done with whatever.
- Nothing seemed painful.
- I didn't spend any length of time there.
- And that was it pretty much.
- So how did you--
- how did you get out of Auschwitz?
- What happened?
- Well, sometimes towards the end of the war
- in January of 1945 things suddenly changed in Auschwitz.
- It was no longer operating in the smooth fashion
- in which it had been.
- There was a lot of confusion and people running every
- which way and people even shouting that we're free.
- The Russians are coming.
- The Russians are coming.
- And I can't say that I really understood.
- I did understand the joy that something good had happened.
- However, by that time I myself was quite ill
- and I had been just lying on the floor.
- I could not even get up at that point.
- And sometime before the Russians actually arrived,
- there was a lady who lived in the city of Auschwitz,
- a Polish lady who actually came into the camp,
- picked me up, put me on her shoulders
- and took me to her home.
- And then what?
- Well, I stayed with her for a while.
- And I was enrolled in Catholic school.
- And I became a Polish little Catholic girl.
- Until the Jewish--
- I can't recall the name now but there was a Jewish organization
- at that time that was seeking to rescue children
- from non-Jewish homes.
- And I was taken from her and put into an orphanage in France.
- How did-- I'm curious that you were--
- that this woman chose you.
- That she came and she chose you.
- I'm sure you wouldn't have known at the time.
- You were probably just--
- this woman came and kind of--
- do you have any sense of why you or how that happened or?
- Not at all.
- I don't know.
- I have no idea.
- What about you Rene?
- What happened?
- How did you come to leave Auschwitz?
- What were the circumstances?
- Well, towards the end of our stay in Auschwitz, my stay
- in in Auschwitz, things changed somewhat
- in the camp atmosphere.
- There were more air raids I recall.
- Because during air raids we all had to go inside the barracks.
- We heard the drone of the aircraft.
- And there was always a soldier placed outside our barrack,
- for what reason I don't know.
- Then there was a general sort of lax feeling we got,
- I got from the soldiers.
- They weren't always around there in as many numbers.
- And then all of a sudden at one point we were asked to line up
- or to congregate.
- And I think they were going to load us, that's my thoughts,
- they were going to load us onto a truck.
- And we were going to be taken to gas chambers.
- I remember the feeling, because it was probably
- the first time I really felt fear, an instinctive fear,
- like an animal knows when it's going to die.
- There's something about this action that was terrified me.
- And we were lined up.
- We were getting-- started to load the truck,
- and the gates of our camp, our area, opened up.
- And this green convertible pulled
- in with high ranking officers I imagine.
- I do recall seeing the boots more than the hats.
- But whoever it was--
- and I think I heard later that might
- have been Mengele stopped this whole thing from happening.
- It was at the very end when we were finally released or taken
- out of the camp we were still marched out by German soldiers
- through the night.
- It was a very cold night and we had to keep marching.
- Anybody that stopped or fell out of line was shot
- and that was it.
- We just kept going.
- That was my--
- I should mention that all of a sudden, while we were
- on the march, there was gunfire in the back, artillery,
- it was rumbling in the back.
- All of a sudden the Germans, guards all around, disappeared.
- They were gone.
- They're just not there.
- And a very short time later, Russians all around us
- on horses.
- Russian.
- Loud.
- And they marched us into an area where
- there were some food stores.
- And it was pretty chaotic.
- What happened when you saw food?
- Well, everybody ran for it.
- I didn't know what I saw.
- I just knew that this was good stuff to get.
- And I was so little I got pushed aside.
- And when I finally got there all I got is a can.
- A gold colored can.
- It looked huge to me.
- I don't know how big it really was.
- When we opened it, it was sauerkraut.
- I remember that very distinctly.
- But I think a lot of people got themselves very ill
- and died as a result of overeating,
- eating on such empty stomachs.
- Did you eat the sauerkraut?
- I just smelled it.
- I wasn't into it.
- No.
- Good thing.
- Yeah, probably.
- I can't imagine sauerkraut of of all things.
- And then what happened to you?
- I was taken to a hospital first.
- Because apparently I had something
- not exactly right with me.
- And then to an orphanage in Czechoslovakia.
- In a town called Kosice.
- That's sort of the end of.
- But as we were sitting here and talking, I was wondering.
- We didn't mention at all, and I don't
- recall when this really happened when our numbers were put on.
- They were put on in Auschwitz I'm pretty sure.
- But I don't recall at what point this happened at all.
- I do remember the pricks.
- I remember all that, but I don't recall when.
- It's like totally--
- Irene, do you remember?
- Do you recall when?
- I can't say actually.
- But I think it was when we first arrived.
- I believe Irene.
- She says that we got the numbers when we first arrived.
- But you ended up in Israel, correct?
- No.
- I did not end up in Israel.
- I was in Czechoslovakia.
- And I was taken out of the orphanage
- by a family and then another family.
- I went to school there till I left Czechoslovakia in 1949.
- So I went to public school there and.
- Now, did you, again, you were still-- you
- had seen each other only once.
- What was your feeling?
- And I'm going to ask you this as well.
- What was your feeling about--
- Well let me ask you this way.
- Did you think about your sister?
- Were you-- what were your thoughts about your sister?
- She was constantly-- my reaction to any adversity,
- any bad things that happened I said
- I have to live through this, I have to go through this,
- I have to do it.
- It's for Irene.
- So she was constantly-- and I knew that she--
- I believed and I knew that she was alive.
- Otherwise I couldn't have gone on with this.
- But that's-- always.
- And even as years passed and you still didn't know where she was
- you still had faith?
- Absolutely.
- I had faith all the way through until we
- made first contact which was I think by mail in 1948.
- Yeah.
- Could you say that again and finish the sentence
- that you had faith that--
- Yeah, I always had faith and knew that she was alive
- even though we had no contact.
- And we did have contact at first in 1948 I think through mail.
- But I always knew that she was there.
- And was she was always my support.
- What about you Irene?
- Did you have similar feelings?
- Were your feelings different?
- What did you feel about your brother?
- Because you were going through all this post-war--
- I knew that he was out there and that he was alive.
- I did not have any idea where.
- But I also, in my heart, I knew that someday we
- would be together.
- I didn't know quite how.
- But I also-- the need to make sure that he was OK
- got me through a lot of things too.
- Did you ever despair that maybe he wasn't or was it
- solid, positive faith that you knew he was out there?
- Did you ever just--
- Totally solid faith that he was out there.
- I have to concur with Irene that constant--
- constantly new always never a doubt that this was going to be
- OK because she was out there and we were going to--
- I wasn't quite sure about being reunited or when I guess
- was the big question.
- But I always knew she was there.
- Irene, can you tell me about how you came to be in this country?
- When I was in the orphanage in Fublaines which
- small town outside of Paris, I was
- chosen by Mr Herbert Tenzer who at that time
- headed an organization called Rescue Children whose
- main purpose was to help children and reunite children
- with parents or possibly find them homes here in the States
- or bring them to Israel just to help war orphans.
- And he selected me to come here to represent
- the war orphans to raise money for this endeavor.
- And that's how I came to America.
- I think he chose me not because I was anything special.
- I think I just had very long hair.
- I think he liked my long curly hair.
- And then how did you come to be with Slotkin's?
- Well, for a while when Mr Tenzer first chose me
- he promised me that I could go back because I didn't really
- want to come to America.
- I had a very dear friend in the orphanage
- and she was going to Israel and I wanted to go with her.
- However, what you don't tell little children
- is you promise them anything and then you do what you want.
- And so once he got me here to the States
- he never ever intended to send me back.
- And he did seek out some people who were willing to adopt.
- And he found this family, the Slotkin's and that's
- how I stayed here.
- And that's how Rene came, because--
- OK, hold on one second.
- How much time do we have?
- About 20.
- we have 15.
- Cut for a second.
- But are we rolling?
- If you can tell me how you found him.
- The way I found Rene is a very long story in itself.
- But it starts with a photo shoot for Life magazine
- when I and another boy had been selected
- to come here to raise funds for the European War Orphans.
- And at that time Dr. Kalina, the doctor
- that Rene had been living with in Czechoslovakia,
- this was already in 1948--
- Actually, the Life magazine was November 1947.
- But this Dr. Kalina had been forced
- to flee Czechoslovakia because the communists were overtaking
- it.
- It was going behind the Iron Curtain and he fled to Israel.
- And one day he was I guess in a stationery store
- and he picked up Life magazine and he opened
- to the page with me on it and he recognized the name Guttman
- and he realized right then that I must be Rene's twin sister.
- And that's how we first made contact.
- Could you tell me that story again,
- and this time give me a little prologue that
- explains that you and Rene had been separated because
- of the war and then tell the story about how the photo
- shoot got you back together?
- OK.
- I'm not a professional actress.
- Does this mean I get a bigger fee?
- Yeah.
- Just have her tell the truth.
- Not acting.
- Just tell like it is.
- Tell it like life is.
- Well, Rene and I, from the time we were separated in Auschwitz,
- even when the war was over we continued our separate ways.
- Rene went to Czechoslovakia and I went to Poland for a while
- and then to France where I was selected
- to represent the War Orphans of Europe
- and I was brought here to America
- by an organization called Rescue Children.
- When I got to America it was a very big story
- because we also went to see President Truman
- and Life magazine did a three page spread on our coming here.
- And it was Life magazine that eventually
- would prove to be the bond, the little miracle that brought
- Rene and I together again.
- Because at that time, Life magazine
- was done in November 1947 and by this time
- Dr. Kalina, the man that Rene was staying with,
- had to flee Czechoslovakia because it was
- going behind the Iron Curtain.
- He fled to Israel, and by some sheer luck
- he picked up Life magazine in 1948
- and he saw the picture of me, saw the name,
- and made the connection that I must be Rene's twin sister.
- And that started the ball rolling
- to getting us reunited which didn't happen for another two
- years.
- But we made contact.
- Great.
- Great.
- You can work on your question.
- This is a hard question to ask, let alone answer I guess.
- But what effect did the experience of the war
- have when you were growing up in America?
- How the war affected my growing up in America
- is a huge, huge question.
- I wonder if we could be a little bit more
- specific about some of it.
- Well I mean, did you--
- I guess I've always wondered, how do you reconcile
- what you went through?
- And then finally getting here and growing up
- at a quote unquote fairly normal time in America?
- How did you incorporate one experience with the other?
- The only way I can answer it is, know how
- the war affected my whole life.
- As a very young child in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt,
- as we discussed before, I didn't realize
- the horror of the whole thing and the emotional toll
- it would have taken on me had I not been a child.
- So everything was just going along
- and I didn't know any different.
- I didn't know.
- I knew that I didn't have a mother and a father,
- but what it really meant I really couldn't put it in.
- I know this, that the Slotkin family, Meyer
- and Dinah Slotkin, did everything they possibly could.
- And I saw all other parents doing for their kids
- so I felt I was loved.
- I was part of their family and I had
- to grow up just like everybody else, which I did.
- I'm not sure that I did it in the same way
- that other kids do it, but I don't think any two
- kids grow up the same way.
- What the war did was I knew in the back of my mind
- that I was an orphan, and I knew that they were not
- my real parents, real meaning biological parents,
- even though everything else they seemed to be covering.
- This led me to question sometimes,
- do I owe them less or more than the norm, whatever the norm is?
- And I could never really answer that question.
- There's just no way of doing it.
- All I know is that they deserve a huge amount of credit
- for adopting us, especially me when they didn't even
- see me or know me and they spared nothing to get
- me reunited with their Irene.
- Which was their Irene at that point.
- And I was 12 years old coming from questionable background
- for sure.
- But they spared nothing.
- And they loved me 100%.
- They also were very active in keeping the war experience away
- from us.
- All the years, all our teenage years
- they really put up a real fence.
- So any inquiries that were made about the war,
- about us or people wanted to make directly to us,
- they wouldn't allow it.
- They just felt that they had to protect us from this.
- So in that sense, we were like in the dark about--
- it wasn't talked about.
- Irene, what was it like when you finally got together
- after all those years?
- It was, after finally seeing Rene for the first time
- after all those years, in some ways it was anticlimactic.
- Because instead of running into each other's arms,
- which with the music playing and all that,
- we just kind of looked at each other
- and we just stared at each other.
- We didn't even know what to say to each other.
- But I think that we--
- inside we knew we had finally made it full circle
- and that we were now together forever.
- But it wasn't all the hoopla that you would imagine.
- Absolutely, the same thing.
- We were reunited at a great distance.
- What I recall is the sidewalk in front of our house.
- I think that's where you came out or something like that.
- And we were like just looking at each other.
- No words were spoken.
- No words were spoken.
- And I have to add, at this point,
- in terms of words spoken about our experiences.
- We never talked about it even though we
- lived in that same house.
- We never, ever talked about it.
- And I'm not just talking about a few years.
- A few decades.
- We have never talked about it.
- Was it, over time did you sort of--
- I assume, because it's happening now, but did it take very long,
- do you think, for you to re--
- you say your bond in a way got you through these experiences.
- Did it take long for you to really re-establish the bond?
- I think it did.
- I think there was so much going on in the beginning,
- for both of us in different ways.
- Rene having to make a tremendous adjustment to American life.
- I had already been here for two years,
- so I was already speaking a good English.
- I was a good student.
- And Rene had a tough act to follow because parents
- can't help comparing children.
- And Rene was just not as studious as me which was fine.
- But it made it very tough for me.
- When you first asked us how the war experience affected
- our life here I really didn't get a chance to say anything.
- But I'm going to jump in now.
- Let me just take this.
- And we're going to change tape.
- OK.
- Irene, you were going to [INAUDIBLE]..
- It's a very broad question, but I
- will try to narrow it down a little bit
- by really saying that my entire life has been affected by what
- happened to us in Auschwitz.
- And even to this day, my life is still affected by it.
- It was not an easy road for me to get to the Slotkins.
- We kind of glibbed over it here.
- But I had stayed with other people first.
- And then other people who, for whatever reason,
- it didn't work out.
- And those are all personal rejections.
- And me and my self-image was extremely, extremely poor.
- And when I finally did get adopted by the Slotkins
- and they did-- they went out of their way
- to do everything within their power
- to try to make life more normal and to make me happy
- and to buy me things.
- But the honesty of it was that we never spoke
- about what happened to me.
- And so I began to even doubt what--
- is this what really happened to me?
- Why isn't anybody talking about it?
- And I began to be very ashamed of what had happened to me.
- In fact, I was so ashamed that I would not
- wear short sleeves because I have a number on my arm.
- I didn't want the children asking.
- And if I did wear short sleeves, my mom
- went out and bought a special cream
- that we would put on every day.
- I also was aghast at the life in America.
- After all, Auschwitz was a very strict--
- in Poland, where I lived with the Polish lady,
- was a very strict Catholic upbringing.
- If I was two minutes late from school, I would get whipped.
- I came to America, and the children
- were shouting out in the classroom to the teachers.
- They didn't do their homework.
- They were running around.
- I could not even fathom this.
- How could you dare?
- I could not believe it.
- I was a very regimented child.
- I did everything that I was told.
- I remember one day--
- I must have been already in eighth grade.
- And I actually came to class late.
- And I remember having to go to the principal's office.
- And I was like, oh my God.
- I didn't know subsequently that the principal said
- it was the happiest day of his life
- that he had seen me do something normal.
- [LAUGHS] But my whole life has been like that.
- I've always felt just a little bit different and not
- quite with it.
- During that time where you were growing
- up together in the same house, you didn't speak of it.
- And yet, you felt like there was something,
- something being hidden.
- I-- go ahead and finish the question.
- No, no.
- Go ahead.
- No, we never spoke about it there.
- Though there was the bond.
- I knew I had a bond with him.
- And I remembered things from when we were little.
- Things we did with our parents.
- Going to the park, and Rene dropping my doll
- from the window and breaking it, and other nice things.
- We never, ever spoke about what had happened to us separately
- in Auschwitz.
- Partly, I think, because of the atmosphere in the home
- not to talk about it.
- And partly, maybe we just didn't know how to talk about it.
- And so nothing was ever said.
- And for that reason, I think in many ways,
- we didn't grow up close.
- Rene kind of had his friends and his things,
- and I had my things and my friends.
- We were very different.
- And we didn't really have a very close relationship
- at that time.
- We are much closer now.
- When did you finally talk about it?
- When did the--
- We finally first spoke about it, believe it or not, in 1985.
- And that occasion was triggered by the fact
- that we finally discovered that we were not the only twins
- to survive Auschwitz.
- Up until then, we believed we were the only twins
- to have survived.
- So that's what triggered it.
- And we found other twins, that there actually
- was a twin organization called CANDLES.
- And they were sponsoring a reunification
- in Jerusalem and to bring Josef Mengele to trial.
- And that's when we started speaking.
- Now, during the years preceding that--
- say, the 10 years preceding --there was beginning,
- people were beginning to speak, the media
- were beginning to speak of the Holocaust.
- And by that time, I suspect--
- well, maybe you didn't quite have children then,
- but you were adults.
- Did you not even speak with then?
- Did questions ever come up?
- Were you--
- Yes.
- You were right.
- By the 1980s, people were talking about it.
- And in fact, I think in 1982 was the very first reunion
- of Holocaust survivors in Washington
- under the auspices of Benjamin Mead.
- And it was there that another twin by the name
- Eva Kor decided to seek other twins.
- And that's how 1985 came into being.
- But until then, we had been invited
- to this reunion in Washington and so on,
- but I had no interest in going.
- Because one of the things was that as I was growing up,
- I heard other adults and even some adult survivors
- saying that I could not have survived Auschwitz.
- They actually denied my very existence
- because they said no children survived Auschwitz.
- And the second part of that--
- and if she did survive Auschwitz, then how bad could
- it have been?
- I mean, she was just a child.
- When in reality, the trauma was the greatest on the children
- because we lost our childhood.
- We lost our childhood.
- And so I was not keen to be with other "older" Holocaust
- survivors.
- And it was only when we heard that there were twins
- and I figured they would be closer to our experience
- and closer to our age that we finally
- decided to open up and go and join them.
- I guess what I'm trying to get to-- but even during that time,
- did you not speak to each other about it when you were having--
- when all this was, you didn't ever
- sort of verbalize this shared experience to each other?
- Before we went to the first reunion of twins
- in Washington, which is early part of '80s,
- I don't recall speaking to Irene about it still.
- Because we were still going in our separate directions,
- separate lives.
- We were married and we had our own sets
- of problems to deal with.
- It was only '85 when we first really, really opened
- up and talked to each other and I guess then to the world also.
- I must say something now.
- Today is December 10, 2002.
- And as I was driving here, I was thinking
- to myself, why are we doing this?
- Why are we recalling these events?
- And it came to my mind that we have to.
- There's such evil that exists in the world today still.
- So apparently, nothing was learned from that lesson.
- We are now learning from another lesson, the 9/11 lesson.
- Even though 12/7 was just three days ago.
- Did anybody even mention it and talk about it?
- No.
- So I felt sort of required.
- I just had to--
- I have to do this for the future.
- For my children, for my grandchildren, for the world,
- period.
- I'm sorry.
- I went off on a tangent on this.
- I'm glad you said that.
- And again, in addressing why we never really did
- talk about our experiences at all until after '85.
- I, however, had made an attempt--
- this is, again, when Lori, my oldest daughter,
- questioned my number on my arm, I did tell her that--
- as smart as she was only about four.
- And I just tried to explain to her that something very bad
- had happened and people were marked with numbers.
- And so well, my mom overheard me.
- And I got-- why did you have to tell her that?
- Why do you have to even talk about it?
- And again, I got that thing like,
- am I supposed to all my life be ashamed
- that I went through this?
- So again, in the best of intentions.
- But it was wrong.
- My children have to know that this happened.
- And their children are going to have to know, so--
- OK.
- Thank you.
- We're going to record the sound to the room for about 20,
- 30 seconds.
- So if you just sit still for 30 seconds.
- Room tone.
- End room tone.
- Half of it was airplanes.
- Listeners also.
- Let's do Rene first
- OK.
- Rene, we need you to just listen to Irene, who's
- going to tell us some stuff.
- We need a reaction shot, in other words.
- So I just need you turned towards Irene, listening.
- Hi, Rene.
- Are we having fun yet?
- [LAUGHS] Almost.
- What should I tell them?
- I'll tell you a very sad story.
- Do you remember one night when I got
- lost going to the latrines in the barracks?
- Yes.
- And I was so bereft and I thought
- I'd really be in trouble.
- And hands were pushing me away.
- You couldn't find your bed.
- I couldn't find my bed.
- I was so confused.
- And then finally just before dawn,
- some kind lady allowed me to share her bunk.
- That was--
- It wasn't yours?
- You don't recall?
- No.
- I couldn't find it.
- So somebody was nice, even there?
- Good deal.
- Yeah, I have some of Irene listening.
- We probably should just get one more.
- OK.
- Yeah, so.
- Now you need to tell her something.
- Do likewise something.
- Driving here, I was going through my head
- one of my-- all these thoughts came to mind.
- One of them was the significance of the numbers.
- They reduced the population to animals,
- like we mark cattle with numbers or signs or whatever.
- And then after we were marked, gave them freedom to treat us
- the same way.
- To treat us like animals, yeah.
- Well, I hope not happen again.
- I hope so too.
- It doesn't look like-- it looks like the world is going there
- again, don't you think?
- Probably.
- Wow.
- [INAUDIBLE] nothing [INAUDIBLE]
Overview
- Interview Summary
- Irene Hizme (née Renate Guttmann) and René Slotkin (né Guttmann), Jewish twins born December 21, 1937 in Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia (Teplice, Czech Republic), discuss being sent to Theresienstadt in 1943; their memories of Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); the death of their father in Auschwitz in 1941; the night they were marched to the cattle car to be deported; arriving at Auschwitz; the conditions of the camp; violence in the camp; being separated from their mother and then each other; how all the people in their barrack were killed that night; René witnessing roll calls and mass shootings; Irene's memories of being hungry; their experiences with Dr. Mengele; painful medical procedures; how they kept going because they knew the other one was alive; how Auschwitz changed in January 1945, a time when there was more confusion; experiencing air raids; how Irene was very ill in 1945 and was rescued by a Polish woman after liberation; a Jewish organization that took her from the woman’s home and put her in an orphanage in Fublaines, France; René's memory of being marched away from the camp; the German guards disappearing suddenly before the camp was liberated by the Russians; how he was taken to a hospital and then to an orphanage in Košice, Czechoslovakia (Slovakia); not remembering when they were tattooed; how René lived with a few different families and left Czechoslovakia in 1949; finding each other in 1948; how Irene was selected to represent the war orphans for in the United States for the organization Rescue Children; being adopted by an American family, the Slotkins; how René found her after she was photographed for Life magazine (November 17, 1947 issue); growing up in the U.S.; how René was adopted by the Slotkins; not talking about their experiences for decades; how their experiences influenced their lives; how Irene was ashamed of what happened to her and was astounded by American leniency; speaking about their individual experiences in 1985 when they discovered other twins who had survived Auschwitz; and how Irene was told as a child about the tremendous odds against her surviving Auschwitz.
- Interviewee
- Rene Slotkin
Hizme, Irene - Interviewer
- Stephen Stept
- Date
-
interview:
2002 October 12
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
4 videocassettes (Betacam SP) : 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
- Copyright Holder
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Child concentration camp inmates--Poland--Oswiecim. Concentration camp guards--Poland--Oswiecim. Concentration camp tattoos--Poland--Oswiecim. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Czechoslovakia--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--Psychology. Holocaust survivors--United States. Human experimentation in medicine. Jewish children in the Holocaust--Czechoslovakia. Jewish orphans--Poland. Jews--Czechoslovakia. Jews--Czech Republic--Teplice. Mass murder--Poland--Oswiecim. National socialism and medicine. National socialism and science. Orphanages--Slovakia--Košice. Orphanages--France--Fublaines. Roll calls--Poland--Oswiecim. Twins. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. Men--Personal narratives. Women--Personal narratives.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum produced the oral history interview with Irene Hizme and Rene Slotkin (Guttmann twins) in preparation for its exhibition "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race." The interview was transferred to the USHMM Oral History Branch from the Museum's Institutional Archives in April 2013.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:29:10
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn60513
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