Soundmodules of the exhibition

WR: This memory [about your childhood] that you have, what was it like for you – is this a vivid memory for you or did you find out about everything afterwards?

My mother, my loving mother, a warm Jewish mother, who was so good that she never uttered an unkind word, she was a smart woman, a strong woman, who wanted to raise her five children on her own. Unfortunately, when my father past away when I was 1 ½ years old, his brothers turned their backs on her, because she didn‘t listen to them and didn‘t follow their advice to re-marry. We had almost no contact to my father‘s side of the family, mostly with my mother‘s side.

She said: Don‘t complain, we‘re not doing well, but there are those who live in the same house as we do, who are even worse off than we are. If you look up to those who are doing well, of course we’re doing worse, but those below us are doing much worst and they deserve our compassion.

In the Spring of 1944, there were rumors that something would happen soon. Then came the posters, the announcements all over the ghetto that the inmates would be evacuated into the heart of the Third Reich, out of concern for our well-being. I tried to prevent it after I heard from the courtyard that they were rounding up people. In our room, I pushed the wardrobe from the wall by about a half meter and I stuffed everybody behind it, eight altogether, my mother, my four sisters, Aunt Eva, Cousin Leon and me. We left the door open, left no suitcases lying around and sometimes I even put food on the table.
A couple of times we heard them say, “Ah, they‘ve already been picked up!” We waited until it was really calm, before we left our hiding place. Until the final time: This time we heard. “If we find anybody, we’ll just shoot them!” And my dear mother, she could speak perfect German and Russian, she couldn’t stand it any longer and said, “Please don’t shoot!” My mother, my three sisters, my aunt and I all came out. My fourth sister Rosa, who was two years older than me, and Cousin Leon, the war veteran with his amputated lower left arm, stayed there in the hiding space. When we six came out, the Germans were so astonished that they didn’t even check to see if anybody else was there.
Later, after the war, I found out that they both were brought to Auschwitz. While my Cousin Leon survived, my sister Rosa went to Stutthof from where she was sent for train construction work to Königsberg, where she perished.

First, we were brought into the “sauna,” where the first step of dehumanization took place. All personal items were handed in, while we stood there naked and then came the shower. The next step of dehumanization was a row of prisoners with hair trimmers, who removed all the hair we had. Because it was all done rather hurriedly, seeing as there was a line of several hundred people, sometimes pieces of skin were cut off during the hair removal. After that, you had to walk a few paces forward to some prisoners sitting next to a trough that was filled with an oily liquid that smelled terribly. They dipped a mop, one that today you would clean the floor with, and disinfected your body, your arms and your head. It burned very badly when it got into your wounds.
After all this came the next step, where again there was a group prisoner waiting on us. They tossed us a shirt, a pair of pants and a jacket and then they drew our attention to a pile of wooden shoes. I got a pair of pants that would’ve fitted at least two people, maybe even three. We started to trade our clothes with each other, you looked for a large
prisoner, who had maybe gotten a pair of pants that was too small for him. All of this took place in a deathly calm, you didn’t hear a single noise. We were like paralyzed.

In the mornings, you had to leave the barracks and you got a brown sludge, coffee substitute and a piece of bread. In the afternoon, some prisoners were told to bring a large kettle of food with them into the camp. We waited in line with only a spoon, but no plate. We had a bowl, one bowl for four people, and then one of the Kapos filled the bowl up. Occasionally, there was leftovers in the pot and prisoners would line up for second help Sometimes, second help was some soup, other times a knock on the head with the ladle. And when I saw this, I never got back in line for second help.