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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: esthy none adler |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0004 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0004_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504522 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1935.0 |
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place_of_birth: none |
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country: east prussia |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
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needs_research: none |
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data_entry: cl |
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accession: none |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: esthy none adler |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0004 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0004_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504522 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1935.0 |
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place_of_birth: none |
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country: east prussia |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
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needs_research: none |
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data_entry: cl |
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accession: none |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">ESTHY ADLER May 16, 1994</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Can you tell us your name please?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Esthy Adler.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where were you born?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="9">A I think I was born in , <span class="REGION">East Prussia</span>, but I'm not sure.</sentence><sentence id="10">Any of the information that I'm likely to give you I think, but there was nobody close enough to me to corroborate any of the information, so | really am not entirely sure.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: Give us your earliest memories?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: My earliest memories going to <span class="NPIP">seaside place</span> with my parents, which was not too far from where we lived.</sentence><sentence id="16">My guess is, and speaking to people, I was told that it was probably on the Baltic because is not too far from the Baltic.</sentence><sentence id="17">That's really my earliest memory that I have of my parents and being there and not wanting to be left there because we had a caretaker with two children, and they were twins, and they were very mischievous and they always tried to play pranks on me, and I never wanted to be left alone there.</sentence><sentence id="18">So, one of the earliest memories I have is my parents bring me out there and wanting to leave me there and my absolutely refusing to stay without them.</sentence><sentence id="19">They didn't leave me, actually, they didn't.</sentence><sentence id="20">So, that's one of my earliest memories I have.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="27">Q: Do you have any recollection of what they look like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="29">A: Very vague.</sentence><sentence id="30">I remember my mother.</sentence><sentence id="31">I seem to remember a dark haired woman rather pale.</sentence><sentence id="32">My father all I remember is that he wore glasses.</sentence><sentence id="33">Isn't that strange?</sentence><sentence id="34">I don't remember much more about him but that he wore glasses.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Were you an only child as far as you remember?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Yes, yes, as far as I remember I was an only child.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="45">Q: What do you remember after that?</sentence><sentence id="46">Did the war come?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="49">A: Well, I do remember that on one of those trips to our <span class="BUILDING">summer place</span>, the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">sea</span>, I remember being very tense.</sentence><sentence id="50">I didn't understand clearly, but I understood that there was something going on and that my parents were very tense.</sentence><sentence id="51">They were trying to leave me there, and I didn't want to stay.</sentence><sentence id="52">Then I remember that we couldn't go back <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="53">After that, we just couldn't go back <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="54">Somehow, we had to go somewhere else, and we ended up going to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> where my mother's sister lived, and we moved into an <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> in the same <span class="BUILDING">building</span>.</sentence><sentence id="55">I remember the language was different.</sentence><sentence id="56">I remember she had several children including a pair of twins, twin girls, red headed twin girls.</sentence><sentence id="57">I remember.</sentence><sentence id="58">Isn't that funny some of the memories one has?</sentence><sentence id="59">And I remember they spoke a different language and they sort of made fun because I couldn't speak the same language, but it quickly sort of faded because I seemed to have learned enough words to get along.</sentence><sentence id="60">My guess is is that was in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, and that's when I started learning Polish, really.</sentence><sentence id="61">So, that's some of the earliest memories I have.</sentence><sentence id="62">Then I have another memory of my mother dying.</sentence><sentence id="63">I remember she was ill, but very briefly.</sentence><sentence id="64">I have memories of my mother going out and bringing back donuts, jelly donuts, and I remember hugging her and she had snowflakes on her shoulder and her hair, and that's one of the early memories that I have.</sentence><sentence id="65">I assume it snowed quite a bit in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, so I probably had that experience more than once, but I do remember that.</sentence><sentence id="66">Then I remember my mother dying June the 9th and my father bringing me over to my aunt's place, which was in the same <span class="BUILDING">building</span> only a different <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span>, and I remember a great deal of upset in my life as a result of that.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="85">Q: Were you aware that she had died?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="87">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="88">My father told me.</sentence><sentence id="89">My father came to get me from my aunt's and told me that my mother had left.</sentence><sentence id="90">I think that's the way he put it.</sentence><sentence id="91">And that I wasn't going to see her anymore and that I had to be very brave.</sentence><sentence id="92">And then I remember a woman moving in with us, somebody who took care and cooked for us.</sentence><sentence id="93">Then still later, I remember my father remarrying, but that's only a vague memory, and I remember my aunt being very disapproving of the marriage.</sentence><sentence id="94">Apparently he made an unsuitable marriage, and I remember always a lot of talk about it behind closed <span class="DLF">doors</span>, and as soon as I walked in there would be silence.</sentence><sentence id="95">I figured there was something wrong with the marriage.</sentence><sentence id="96">She was very young, the woman he married, and she was a very good looking woman and I suppose that didn't go down too well with my mother's sister and her family.</sentence><sentence id="97">So, that's some of the earliest -- and then suddenly a great deal of the war started intruding.</sentence><sentence id="98">I remember being on the <span class="DLF">street</span> once with my father and Germans marching, and my father was holding on to me in such a tight way that I knew there was something wrong that he was tense.</sentence><sentence id="99">You know, how you communicate with children that there is something not quite right and he told me to be very quiet, which I was.</sentence><sentence id="100">I remember the Germans marching and a lot of the people on the <span class="DLF">street</span> applauding as the Germans marched by.</sentence><sentence id="101">I remember going back <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and there was a very somber atmosphere suddenly and neighbors kept on dropping in and there were meetings late at night.</sentence><sentence id="102">Sometimes I would hear through the slightly opened <span class="DLF">door</span> that there were people meeting in the <span class="INT_SPACE">living room</span>, you know, and talking and sort of making plans on what to do.</sentence><sentence id="103">I knew there was something very menacing going on, but I didn't know exactly what it was.</sentence><sentence id="104">Then the first inkling how menacing it could be.</sentence><sentence id="105">We were at dinner one day and I heard an enormous explosion.</sentence><sentence id="106">The noise, like my heart stopped for a minute.</sentence><sentence id="107">It was so close and so loud and I was told that that was a bomb that dropped very closely by.</sentence><sentence id="108">So, that's how it started.</sentence><sentence id="109">That's how I remember the war really.</sentence><sentence id="110">Then I remember people organizing themselves in a <span class="INT_SPACE">hiding place</span>, a <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> was made ready for people to go down in case of bombings and in case of raids also by the Germans and the Poles together I assume.</sentence><sentence id="111">I remember very often being woken up and being asked to dress very quickly and very quietly and everybody was trooping down into the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span>.</sentence><sentence id="112">After coming out on one of those raids, I wanted to go and see a friend who didn't live in the <span class="BUILDING">building</span> but who lived just a couple of <span class="DLF">streets</span> away, and my father said I couldn't go by myself anymore.</sentence><sentence id="113">I used to go by myself.</sentence><sentence id="114">It was just maybe around the corner, a couple <span class="DLF">streets</span> away.</sentence><sentence id="115">So, he took me there and we walked over there and suddenly all I saw was a pile of rubble.</sentence><sentence id="116">Our <span class="BUILDING">building</span> was gone, and my friend was gone and everybody in it was gone, and I remember coming back and for the first time feeling very threatened, really threatened, that maybe the same thing was going to happen to our <span class="BUILDING">building</span> and to us in the <span class="BUILDING">building</span>.</sentence><sentence id="117">That was a very threatening moment I remember very distinctly.</sentence><sentence id="118">From the on there was a whole series of raids and bombings which I --it got to a point where I was afraid to go to <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span> you know, because it was very frightening when it happened at night and I felt if I didn't go to sleep maybe it wouldn't happen, but it just kept on happening.</sentence><sentence id="119">On one of those raids we all trooped down to the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> and I remember, there must have been bombs falling all over because the noise was just absolutely deafening.</sentence><sentence id="120">I remember very distinctly that stay in that <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> because we ran out of food and water.</sentence><sentence id="121">There were some children, and there was one child who kept on yelling for water.</sentence><sentence id="122">He sat next to me and that child, that little boy and I remember on one of those occasions when he started yelling his father put his hand on his mouth.</sentence><sentence id="123">I didn't see it because there was no light, but I could feel his arm and the little boy started struggling and kicking and then he just lay very still.</sentence><sentence id="124">My father said you have to be very quiet.</sentence><sentence id="125">You cannot do what he did.</sentence><sentence id="126">You cannot yell or cry or do anything.</sentence><sentence id="127">You do exactly as I tell you.</sentence><sentence id="128">He was telling me that in my ear.</sentence><sentence id="129">And I really did what my father told me.</sentence><sentence id="130">I really learned how to be very quiet, because even though I didn't fully understand what it meant I knew it was something final and terrible that had happened to that little boy.</sentence><sentence id="131">So, I knew that I had to do as my father said.</sentence><sentence id="132">We stayed in that <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span>, and I don't know for how long because one day they just discovered us and they ripped open the <span class="DLF">doors</span> and they got us all out in German , of course, and it was full of lice.</sentence><sentence id="133">It was at night and barking dogs and when I hit the <span class="DLF">air</span> I fainted, so I don't remember what else happened there except when I woke up we were in the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>, in <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="134">I was with my step mother and aunt and the two girls, but all the men were gone.</sentence><sentence id="135">There were only one or two old men and all the other men were gone.</sentence><sentence id="136">They must have taken them away.</sentence><sentence id="137">That's the last time I saw my father.</sentence><sentence id="138">I don't remember ever seeing my father after that.</sentence><sentence id="139">So, that was the beginning really of most of my memories of war.</sentence><sentence id="140">That's the way it happened.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="196">Q: Did you ask people what happened to my father?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="198">A: You asked but you didn't get answers and I very quickly learned not to ask because it was annoying, and my step mother was very short tempered.</sentence><sentence id="199">And my aunt did a lot of crying and she had two little girls who were always sort of hanging on to her arms, so there was really nobody I could ask.</sentence><sentence id="200">There was some other people that I knew vaguely but I didn't know them well enough and I very quickly learned not to ask questions unless I would get an answer immediately I never asked a question again because I knew it was annoying.</sentence><sentence id="201">Very often they couldn't give me any answers and I was learning not to annoy people.</sentence><sentence id="202">It was too dangerous.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="203">Q: How old do you think you were?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="204">A: I don't know, maybe five, maybe six.</sentence><sentence id="205">I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="206">I don't know how old I was.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="210">Q: Did you feel close to anybody after your father left at that moment?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="212">A: I was clinging to my aunt, really, because my step mother I hardly knew, and she was not a patient or sort of nurturing kind of person.</sentence><sentence id="213">She was very distant, so I didn't feel comfortable with her, but I was trying to cling to my aunt, but she had two little girls.</sentence><sentence id="214">So, there was a limit of how much she could really do for me.</sentence><sentence id="215">So, I was learning very quickly to be alone, really.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="220">Q: There were other children?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="222">A: There were some other children of various ages, yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="224">Q: Were you friends with them?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="226">A: I didn't know them.</sentence><sentence id="227">I didn't know those children because I didn't know where they came.</sentence><sentence id="228">I'm not even sure that many of the people who were with in the <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span> survived, because we were there for quite a while.</sentence><sentence id="229">My guess is a week, no food no water.</sentence><sentence id="230">That is a long time.</sentence><sentence id="231">I think probably a lot of the elderly died.</sentence><sentence id="232">The men were all taken away.</sentence><sentence id="233">They're weren't that many left, really.</sentence><sentence id="234">Some of them I knew by sight but I really didn't know them well enough and there weren't that many children in that <span class="INT_SPACE">cellar</span>.</sentence><sentence id="235">There were my two cousins and that little boy who died and if there were any others I hardly remember them.</sentence><sentence id="236">I don't.</sentence><sentence id="237">So there weren't really.</sentence><sentence id="238">There were other children in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, but I didn't know them really.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="252">Q: Tell us about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="253">What do you remember?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="256">A: It was out in the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence><sentence id="257">It was surrounded by <span class="DLF">fields</span> and trees and it was obviously <span class="DLF">wheat fields</span>, is that what <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> must have had because that was in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="258">It must have been <span class="DLF">wheat fields</span>.</sentence><sentence id="259">Also, you know, wood and such and there were mostly <span class="BUILDING">barns</span> and people were housed very crowded in and every morning the younger women would be marched out at daybreak into the <span class="DLF">fields</span> to work, and the others were left in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp.</span></sentence><sentence id="260">At night they would come back and we would all congregate on that <span class="ENV_FEATURES">tree</span> where they would bring out some food.</sentence><sentence id="261">Everybody went up.</sentence><sentence id="262">We all had a tin plate or something or wooden plate, even.</sentence><sentence id="263">I don't remember what it was really and we would get something to drink and some soup and a piece of bread.</sentence><sentence id="264">Then, one day they marched the women out as usual and then instead of leaving us in the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, the rest of us, the children and the somewhat elderly, people not well enough to march out, they rounded us and they started marching us to one particular <span class="REGION">wooded area</span> and when we got there we noticed that there were a few men digging a sort of a deep <span class="DLF">hole</span> and then they told us all to line up and I noticed that they had machine guns lined up across from us and they opened fire on us.</sentence><sentence id="265">Then all we did was sort of topple into that <span class="DLF">hole</span> into that <span class="DLF">grave</span>.</sentence><sentence id="266">Those of us who weren't hit, fell anyhow because there were so many bodies milling about and I fell in there, and I must have lost consciousness for a while because when I woke up I started moving and I was sort of on top of bodies and there were other people on top of me and I felt some stickiness and I looked and it was blood.</sentence><sentence id="267">I wasn't sure if I was alive or dead, but I sort of sat up.</sentence><sentence id="268">By then there was nobody around, and I sort of climbed out.</sentence><sentence id="269">It was easy enough to climb out because it was on even <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="270">I climbed out and I sort of ran into the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">woods</span> and I sat down in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">bushes</span>.</sentence><sentence id="271">There was very thick <span class="ENV_FEATURES">woods</span> and bushes, a real <span class="ENV_FEATURES">undergrowth</span>, and I sat down there because it was daylight and I figured I couldn't go out into the clearing.</sentence><sentence id="272">Then I heard a man with a dog coming, one of those big -- and suddenly I looked and there was the man and that huge German shepherd walking towards me and I thought, that's it.</sentence><sentence id="273">I thought that was the end.</sentence><sentence id="274">The German shepherd stuck his head in under the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">branches</span>.</sentence><sentence id="275">Went like this and stuck his head out and continued with the man.</sentence><sentence id="276">To this day I don't understand what happened.</sentence><sentence id="277">I really don't understand because those dogs were really trained to hunt people, and I don't understand what happened, but they passed and I stayed there.</sentence><sentence id="278">I stayed there until it was dark and then I came back to the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> to where I stayed with my stepmother and everybody wanted to know what happened because everyone realized what had happened, that something had happened, but they didn't know exactly what, and that particular <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>, you know, most of the people in it were missing and there were a few other <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> where probably some survivors had also gone back, but you didn't run back between <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> once you were into your <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>, so everybody asked me what happened.</sentence><sentence id="279">Then it was decided, there was one other little girl who had come back.</sentence><sentence id="280">I didn't even notice her, you know, I didn't even know where she was from, and it was decided that the two of us the next day when the women marched out to the <span class="DLF">fields</span> that we would stay under the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">beds</span> and we weren't going to move until they came back at night, and that's what we did.</sentence><sentence id="281">So, in the morning when everybody left the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, by then it was just the working women in the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, we too, stayed in the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> and we stayed under the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span>.</sentence><sentence id="282">I don't think we stayed there too long because shortly afterwards they rounded everybody up at sunset, you know, after they came back from the <span class="DLF">fields</span> and they started marching the whole group.</sentence><sentence id="283">All the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> were rounded up and there were a few children and the children were sort of hidden between women, large skirts covered the children, and I guess they didn't look too closely at the legs to notice that sometimes --.</sentence></p></dialogue> 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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="312">Q: Were you under the skirts?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="314">A: Well sort of.</sentence><sentence id="315">The skirts were sort of wrapped slightly around us, and they marched us to the <span class="DLF">railroad tracks</span> and they shoved us onto <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> and the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> left.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="318">Q: Can we go back for a moment?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="320">A: Sure.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="321">Q: Were you wounded?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="322">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="323">I had a wound -- at that particular time I had one wound in the back, one bullet wound in the back.</sentence><sentence id="324">Later on I got other wounds.</sentence><sentence id="325">I have about one, two -- I have seven wounds, seven bullet wounds.</sentence><sentence id="326">That was only one in the back that sort of grazed my back.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="332">Q: <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Sideways</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="334">A: Must have been sideways, I don't know.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="336">Q: When you walked into the situation and you saw the guns, was there any time for something to go through your head or --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="338">A: There was no time.</sentence><sentence id="339">There was no time and there were people sort of falling all over you.</sentence><sentence id="340">People were yelling and trying to run and you know how it is when people try to run and they don't know in which direction because no matter <span class="NPIP">where</span> they looked they were either standing with rifles or there were machine guns set up, so there was no <span class="NPIP">place</span> to run really.</sentence><sentence id="341">No, I don't remember realizing what was happening.</sentence><sentence id="342">All I knew was that I was tumbling into the <span class="DLF">pit</span> with everybody else.</sentence><sentence id="343">I didn't really realize what else I could do.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="350">Q: When you touched this blood --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="352">A: I didn't know if it was mine or if it was somebody elses.</sentence><sentence id="353">When you are hit by a bullet it doesn't hurt right away, but when it gets cold it gets stiff and it hurts, so my back was bothering me and obviously when they were trying to take my shirt off when I got back to the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, it was sticking to my back.</sentence><sentence id="354">So, I must have had some kind of a bullet wound in the back because I remember it stinging by then I had learned not to yell or cry about anything.</sentence><sentence id="355">You learn very fast that there's no point in complaining, really.</sentence><sentence id="356">So, I think I had one of the <span class="DLF">wounds</span> there, it happened to me in the back.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="362">Q: Did you explain when the women asked you, did you explain what you saw?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="364">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="365">I don't think anybody believed me about the dog.</sentence><sentence id="366">I don't think they believed me.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="367">They looked at me in such a peculiar way and one of the women said well I know they have a dog, and I know they walk around with that dog, so there was a dog and I could not have invented him because I don't think I was familiar with German shepherds and I described the dogs.</sentence><sentence id="368">Except I described him but he had green eyes.</sentence><sentence id="369">How can he have green eyes?</sentence><sentence id="370">I saw green eyes.</sentence><sentence id="371">I don't think a dog has green eyes, really, but I described you know adequately so they that they thought maybe I did see a dog but they couldn't believe that the dog walked right past me and didn't start barking or tearing me a apart.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="372">That was the point, because I think that's what they were trained for.</sentence><sentence id="373">That was sort of a bizarre episode, that I just stopped talking about it.</sentence><sentence id="374">I decided I'm not going to -- but it stuck with me really, it really did stick with me that bizarre episode with the dog.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="375">Q: Were you very hungry in this <span class="NPIP">place</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="376">A: I very often was very hungry, but what I remember most is thirst, always being thirsty and never having enough to drink.</sentence><sentence id="377">I think at one point I sort of lost my appetite for food except when you know you have a grumbling stomach, but I didn't know really.</sentence><sentence id="378">I was scared.</sentence><sentence id="379">I was always full of fear and hunger doesn't always assert itself when you're full of fear.</sentence><sentence id="380">Yes, I remember times that I was hungry, but not so much hungry as full of fear and very thirsty always.</sentence><sentence id="381">There was never enough to drink.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="388">Q: Did the women -- I don't know if you remember, did they share their food with you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="390">A: You mean after this?</sentence><sentence id="391">Oh, yes.</sentence><sentence id="392">They did.</sentence><sentence id="393">They would always bring back a piece of bread or something.</sentence><sentence id="394">They couldn't bring back soup or something because they would have seen them, but they always managed to put a piece of bread in their pocket to bring back a piece of bread for us or something that could be carried unobtrusively.</sentence><sentence id="395">You know, they couldn't opening carry something because it would have given it away.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="402">Q: When were you fed, at night?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="404">A: Yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="406">Q: Was there some soup?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="408">A: There was some soup or potatoes or something like that or cabbage.</sentence><sentence id="409">There was very often cabbage and potatoes cooked together in sort of a soupy stuff which they handed out and a piece of bread.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="412">Q: Did the women there also give you some of what they were given?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="414">A: Oh, you mean when we were still in the <span class="DLF">open</span>?</sentence><sentence id="415">When we were still in the <span class="DLF">open</span> they gave us some too.</sentence><sentence id="416">After that supposedly there weren't supposed to be any children or any idle mouths to feed so from then on, no.</sentence><sentence id="417">But before that carnage, I don't know how else to call it, they did give us some food too, maybe not as much as the women, but we didn't need as much really.</sentence><sentence id="418">Mostly what I remember is cabbage and potatoes, you know, cooked with some water.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="424">Q: But in spite of your fear, you were thinking very clearly where to go and what do to?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="426">A: Oh, yes, definitely.</sentence><sentence id="427">I had to get out of that <span class="DLF">pit</span>, that I knew.</sentence><sentence id="428">I had to wait until it was dark because I didn't feel too comfortable being out in the daylight uncovered.</sentence><sentence id="429">By then I had already learned that I couldn't be anywhere where I was seen.</sentence><sentence id="430">I did have the instinct to go back to the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> where I had been with my stepmother.</sentence><sentence id="431">That I did.</sentence><sentence id="432">I always had sort of a very good sense of direction, even in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>, how to navigate my way and I learned very quickly how to navigate my way through the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="433">Q: Was your stepmother there in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="434">A: Yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="436">Q: She had gone out and your aunt?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="438">A: My aunt was killed with the two girls on that afternoon.</sentence><sentence id="439">She and my two cousins were killed on that afternoon, and I survived.</sentence><sentence id="440">Don't ask my why.</sentence><sentence id="441">It's a lottery definitely, yes, it really is.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="446">Q: Okay, so now they take you out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> for transport.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="448">A: We went sort of shoved into a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">railroad cars</span> and what I remember -- that's a terrible thing.</sentence><sentence id="449">I really want to forget that because it was very crowded.</sentence><sentence id="450">I don't know how many <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cars</span> they had and how many people.</sentence><sentence id="451">I don't even know where they got all those people.</sentence><sentence id="452">I didn't think there was that many people.</sentence><sentence id="453">It was very crowded and they really shoved us in.</sentence><sentence id="454">It was very hot and it stank and it was night, you know, and I was absolutely petrified.</sentence><sentence id="455">I was petrified then.</sentence><sentence id="456">When the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> stopped and they let us out, there were like search lights and again I could hear the Germans.</sentence><sentence id="457">I could hear German spoken and dogs barking, lots of dogs barking, and they kept on pushing us, quick, quick 3 they kept on really pushing us to this <span class="NPIP">side</span> and to that <span class="NPIP">side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="458">I was so petrified that I don't remember the route that we took from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span>.</sentence><sentence id="459">All I know is that we ended up in another <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> somewhere, but I do remember <span class="BUILDING">towers</span> with guards just a little bit off the ground.</sentence><sentence id="460">The <span class="BUILDING">towers</span> just high enough for them to be able to see what was going on and the <span class="DLF">entrance</span> to the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> and everywhere else.</sentence><sentence id="461">We ended up in that <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>.</sentence><sentence id="462">That other little girl was there too, and my stepmother and her mother.</sentence><sentence id="463">And then there was a third little girl in the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> whom I didn't know and her mother and plus assorted other women.</sentence><sentence id="464">This was the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">women's camp</span>, and again every morning they would open up the <span class="DLF">gates</span> to get the women out into the <span class="DLF">fields</span>, out in the <span class="DLF">working fields</span>, and we three children were taken to a big <span class="BUILDING">shed</span> which had a lot of carriages or not carriages but <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carts</span> really, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">farming carts</span> and such and we three girls were told to stay there and not to move from there the whole day until the women came back into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> and we did usually.</sentence><sentence id="465">I don't know for sure, but my guess is that all three of these women, my step mother and the two others were sort of the favorites of the guards very quickly became the favorite because they got privileges and I think the guard who usually patrolled that particular <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> knew that there were three children in there, but they didn't harm us.</sentence><sentence id="466">We just sort of got used to the routine.</sentence><sentence id="467">At night they would bring us into the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>.</sentence><sentence id="468">The women usually brought some food back for us.</sentence><sentence id="469">They went somewhere else to eat.</sentence><sentence id="470">I don't know where.</sentence><sentence id="471">I never saw the <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="472">And very early in the morning before they marched out the three of us would just sort of go in the shade, there was <span class="DLF">path</span> along the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> was here and there was a <span class="DLF">path</span> here and we would go along the <span class="DLF">path</span> to the <span class="BUILDING">shed</span>, and we had to just run across another <span class="DLF">path</span> and into the <span class="BUILDING">shed</span> and we felt safe.</sentence><sentence id="473">One morning the guard appeared at the <span class="DLF">door</span> and told the women to walk out, and she took one of the little girls by the hand and said you come with me and he told the two of us, me and the other girl, you stay here, don't come with me.</sentence><sentence id="474">By then we didn't want to stay in the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>, we thought maybe he was trying to save her and leave us there.</sentence><sentence id="475">So, we kept on following him and he kept on saying go back, go back.</sentence><sentence id="476">He was getting angry with us so we sort of crept after him along the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> and he walked out with that little girl to that <span class="DLF">path</span> that was between the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> and the <span class="BUILDING">shed</span> and there was a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cot</span> and a body was lying on that <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cot</span>.</sentence><sentence id="477">It was the other little girl's mother and he took out a gun and he shot the mother and he shot the little girl.</sentence><sentence id="478">So, the two of us really very quickly ran back to the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span>.</sentence><sentence id="479">We realized -- we didn't know what had happened, but that night when the women came back, one of the women was the sister of the woman who had been killed with her little girl and she was crying.</sentence><sentence id="480">She had red eyes, and when she walked out the others were saying that her sister had small pox or something and they didn't want the whole <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> or something contagious.</sentence><sentence id="481">I think it was small pox, because I remember noticing that the little girl had some pimples, so I figured it must be something like that, so they killed both of them to make sure that the rest of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> didn't get infected.</sentence><sentence id="482">Why I don't know, you wonder why.</sentence><sentence id="483">But, from then on, it became even more threatening to be there, you know.</sentence><sentence id="484">We had sort of gotten used to a little bit to the routine but it became very threatening.</sentence><sentence id="485">And I was sort of turning more and more inward and to myself.</sentence><sentence id="486">I spoke very little.</sentence><sentence id="487">I never complained.</sentence><sentence id="488">From then on I was just sort of living full of fear.</sentence><sentence id="489">I remember waking up a couple of nights and seeing there was a candle and they had put a blanket over the <span class="DLF">door</span> so that it wouldn't show through and they were digging the <span class="DLF">hole</span>, the women under one of the <span class="DLF">walls</span>.</sentence><sentence id="490">And my step mother walked over very angrily told me turn to the <span class="DLF">wall</span> and don't look.</sentence><sentence id="491">You haven't seen anything.</sentence><sentence id="492">That's all she had to say to me, believe me, I didn't see a thing.</sentence><sentence id="493">What I realized later on was they were digging a <span class="DLF">hole</span> to go out from under the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> and since we were surrounded by <span class="DLF">fields</span> there too, came a night when they woke us up, the two little girls, and the two mothers, my step mother and she and we all made our way under the <span class="DLF">holes</span> and we were out in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> and we started running and we walked all night long.</sentence><sentence id="494">So, from then on, the routine was, we walked at night and we slept during the day in the <span class="REGION">wooded area</span>.</sentence><sentence id="495">Food was not often.</sentence><sentence id="496">Sometimes we would pick up apples so it must have been June, the late summer, it must have been the late summer because I remember also a lot of stubble on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span> where we walked which meant they must have cut the <span class="DLF">crops</span> already.</sentence><sentence id="497">Sometimes we would steal something if something was to be stolen and once I remember a peasant, a woman caught us while we were sleeping and the two women started talking to her and asking her for food and they offered her a ring.</sentence><sentence id="498">One of the women had a ring and they offered her a ring and then she didn't come back and we were sure she was going to go and get the Germans or somebody and we were ready to leave and then she came back with some bread and cold boiled potatoes.</sentence><sentence id="499">They never tasted so good, so we did get some food.</sentence><sentence id="500">This whole trek was taking place because my step mother had a brother who was in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and she was obviously trying to join him so I don't remember chronologically how long that journey took, but eventually we did meet up with that group in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>, which was a very motley group.</sentence><sentence id="501">What I remember best was that her brother was very angry that she had a child in tow and it didn't pay to have children around and he tried various 0 means to detach me of the group and dispose of me, but by then I had become very watchful and very clever about avoiding him.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="556">Q: You mean literally trying to kill you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="558">A: Oh, yes, oh he would have definitely disposed of me.</sentence><sentence id="559">I knew it.</sentence><sentence id="560">I knew it, so I tried never to be left alone with him anywhere and with a group I knew I was a little safer because he couldn't very well start shooting into the group.</sentence><sentence id="561">That became my life for a while living in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> it was full of escaped Jews from various camps.</sentence><sentence id="562">Incidently later I thought that this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span> before they installed the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span> because the spot was right.</sentence><sentence id="563">Reading in books and I didn't know it until there was a gathering of Holocaust survivors here in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Washington</span>, quite a few years ago, ten years ago, longer than that and there was all kinds of books which Jim picked up, my husband, and reading up on it sure enough <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span> was to begin with a women's work camp, and then they installed the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>, so we must have left the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> escaped it just before it became really locked up and they started disposing of everybody.</sentence><sentence id="564">So, we must have just come out, because the <span class="REGION">area</span> was right, and it was a fairly large <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">women's camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="565">I remember that the gatherings of women there.</sentence><sentence id="566">It was a large <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> so it must have been <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span>.</sentence><sentence id="567">It wasn't just another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> like the first one we were at.</sentence><sentence id="568">So, there we were in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and during the summer it was perfectly okay, and there was quite a motley crew in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>.</sentence><sentence id="569">They were escaped people from the Russian Army deserters, there were Poles in it, women, children, lots of young women all of them carrying around guns, and armed, which was very strange.</sentence><sentence id="570">I don't know where they got their guns really and several children.</sentence><sentence id="571">We lived in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and at night they went to raid the <span class="DLF">farms</span> and they brought food back, so we did have some food in those <span class="NPIP">places</span> really.</sentence><sentence id="572">Never enough, never enough food and water was always a problem because the Germans were very often hunting us and if they had any suspicion if there was a group in the <span class="REGION">area</span> they would poison the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">waters</span>.</sentence><sentence id="573">So, it was very-- we were told not to drink anyway.</sentence><sentence id="574">You had to be very cautious where you got your water.</sentence><sentence id="575">The winter was very rough and they just kept on hunting the groups.</sentence><sentence id="576">You know you never knew when you were going to be denounced by some people in the <span class="REGION">area</span> who had been robbed of food or such, and then set upon by the Germans, or the Poles more like it.</sentence><sentence id="577">There were more Poles than Germans at this point who were doing the hunting.</sentence><sentence id="578">They were the Poles who were in uniforms, in those black uniforms.</sentence><sentence id="579">On one of those hunts they kept on driving us like you would hear shots.</sentence><sentence id="580">You would run in a certain <span class="REGION">area</span> and they drove us out in a <span class="DLF">clearing</span> and when we got out ina <span class="DLF">clearing</span> we realized that they had machine guns set up on three sides of the <span class="DLF">clearing</span>.</sentence><sentence id="581">Then they just opened fire and everybody war running back and forth and back and forth and on that particular hunt my step mother was hit and died.</sentence><sentence id="582">I saw her die.</sentence><sentence id="583">I literally saw her die.</sentence><sentence id="584">For some reason | escaped again.</sentence><sentence id="585">There weren't too many left of us.</sentence><sentence id="586">Again, we retreated towards the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and we stayed put until it was dark, completely dark.</sentence><sentence id="587">Usually their favorite time of hunting was towards the end of the day.</sentence><sentence id="588">Then we sort of congregated together.</sentence><sentence id="589">We couldn't drink because they poisoned the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">water</span>.</sentence><sentence id="590">That's when I was really wounded because I had several bullet wounds from that and so did the other little girl.</sentence><sentence id="591">The other little girl was with us still.</sentence><sentence id="592">I don't remember any other children left 1 except her and me.</sentence><sentence id="593">Then they decided, the people who were left, that they had to -- we couldn't stay in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> the way we were.</sentence><sentence id="594">We were going to die, so they took both children to different <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> and all I remember is that they brought out a peasant, mine was Polish speaking, I don't know what the other one was because I don't know where they took her because some of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> were Ukrainian speaking <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> and some of them were Polish speaking <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span>.</sentence><sentence id="595">They told him that he had to take me in and take care of me and if anything happened to me they would lock him and his family in <span class="BUILDING">house</span> and burn the whole <span class="BUILDING">house</span> down.</sentence><sentence id="596">And they did that.</sentence><sentence id="597">They used to do that, so he knew they weren't bluffing.</sentence><sentence id="598">So, he carried me <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and they put me on top of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bread oven</span>.</sentence><sentence id="599">They would have a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bread oven</span> and then around the corner on top there was a little knish like and you could climb into the knish and it was warm.</sentence><sentence id="600">And I must have been very sick because I remember very little.</sentence><sentence id="601">I remember waking up and them feeding me some water.</sentence><sentence id="602">I must have run a very high fever and then they told me at night they would put me there and then they said they couldn't keep me there during the day because they had two boys or three boys even and the neighbors would sometime come in, although not often.</sentence><sentence id="603">There was very little traffic between the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> and their <span class="BUILDING">house</span> was sort of at the edge of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>.</sentence><sentence id="604">I guess that's one of the reasons they picked that <span class="BUILDING">house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="605">So, they told me he was going to dig a <span class="DLF">hole</span> in the <span class="INT_SPACE">storage room</span>.</sentence><sentence id="606">He was going to lift a couple of planks and dig a <span class="DLF">hole</span> and I would have to be there during the day and then at night they would come and get me and put me on top of that <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">oven</span> to warm me up again.</sentence><sentence id="607">That whole winter I remember that constant going back and forth between that little <span class="DLF">hole</span> where I was just sort of reclining.</sentence><sentence id="608">It was just barely big enough to recline in and at night being taken out.</sentence><sentence id="609">I was completely stiff, and put on top of that <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">oven</span> to thaw out.</sentence><sentence id="610">It was pretty cold that <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="611">I couldn't make any noise either.</sentence><sentence id="612">I wasn't supposed to make noise because if anybody came around the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> they might hear if any noises were coming out of there, so I kept very quiet.</sentence><sentence id="613">I was sick a lot of the time.</sentence><sentence id="614">I probably was delirious.</sentence><sentence id="615">I don't know, but quiet, in a quiet way.</sentence><sentence id="616">Then, the spring came and the peasants said to me you know during the spring the neighbors come and go and everybody is out in the <span class="DLF">field</span> and if they know you are here they could easily tell that to somebody.</sentence><sentence id="617">So, they talked it over it with me.</sentence><sentence id="618">They were good people, you know.</sentence><sentence id="619">They really were good people because they really sort of nursed me and they said what I should do is he was going to bring me part way to the next <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> and then I should walk to the next <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>.</sentence><sentence id="620">They were going to provide me with some shoes and clothes.</sentence><sentence id="621">I didn't have any shoes or clothes by then.</sentence><sentence id="622">I don't know what happened.</sentence><sentence id="623">I suppose they must have cut off my shoe because I had -- and I was going to have some shoes from the boys and they would give me some clothes.</sentence><sentence id="624">His wife was making me some clothes, and I was going to tell them that I came from that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>, from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Polish village</span> and I needed to hire myself out because my family was too poor and could they take me in as a cow hand.</sentence><sentence id="625">That's what happened.</sentence><sentence id="626">I walked to the next <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>, and they hired me as a cow hand.</sentence><sentence id="627">So, from then, what I remember is spending a lot of time in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> with the herd, driving the herd in the morning and staying in the <span class="DLF">field</span> and I was told very precisely which <span class="DLF">fields</span> they were to graze when because they didn't want them to just ruin the <span class="DLF">field</span> so you had to drive your cattle to one <span class="DLF">field</span>, let it graze a certain amount of time and when the sun was at a certain point you drove your cattle to another <span class="DLF">field</span> and come back at night and they attempted to teach me 2 how to milk the cows which I wasn't too successful at the beginning, but I learned eventually, and assorted chores around the <span class="DLF">farm</span>, which I did and I stayed on that <span class="DLF">farm</span> in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ukrainian speaking village</span> until the war was over.</sentence><sentence id="628">I remember the Russians coming and being in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>.</sentence><sentence id="629">Actually the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> were just as happy to get rid of them.</sentence><sentence id="630">By then the Germans never put food there because they were somewhere else already so you hardly ever saw any Germans.</sentence><sentence id="631">Nobody was doing any hunting there.</sentence><sentence id="632">They were such remote <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span>.</sentence><sentence id="633">There was no electricity, no <span class="DLF">sewers</span>, no water, nothing like that there, so they didn't bother.</sentence><sentence id="634">The safety lay in that they were so remote, those <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span>.</sentence><sentence id="635">I remember the Russians coming through, the Russians soldiers being stationed right outside the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> and some of the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span>.</sentence><sentence id="636">I remember the guns going and I was told that that's when they had the siege of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>.</sentence><sentence id="637">You could here the guns, all through the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> almost.</sentence><sentence id="638">They were those big that the Russians drove in.</sentence><sentence id="639">When they were all gone, that peasant came back and said now you can come back and live with us.</sentence><sentence id="640">So, I went back to the first <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> and they were pretty much decided that they were going to keep me.</sentence><sentence id="641">They had boys and she wanted a girl.</sentence><sentence id="642">She wanted to teach a girl how to sew.</sentence><sentence id="643">She needed somebody to help her how to make all the clothes and to spin, and actually I had learned how to spin in the other <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> during the winter.</sentence><sentence id="644">I remember one winter when I was taught how to spin and how to sew also and how to weave.</sentence><sentence id="645">They were completely self sufficient in those <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span>.</sentence><sentence id="646">They made all their clothes, all their food, everything.</sentence><sentence id="647">So, I was with this Polish family and for all I knew that's where I was going to stay for the rest of my life.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="738">Q: I want to go back to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> just before the escape.</sentence><sentence id="739">You had said that you were not so close with your step mother, but clearly she seemed to have wanted to take you with her.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="742">A: I'm not sure really.</sentence><sentence id="743">She was very young.</sentence><sentence id="744">I think that one of the reasons she took me with her was because the women in that <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> chose the women with the children to escape.</sentence><sentence id="745">I think that was her ticket out, really.</sentence><sentence id="746">I'm not sure she would have been one of the ones who would have been chosen to escape if it hadn't been that she had a child with her.</sentence><sentence id="747">So, in a way, you know, we were mutually what's the word, necessary to each other.</sentence><sentence id="748">So, that's why probably she took me with her.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="756">Q: But she also knew that her brother was in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="758">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="759">I don't know how she knew it.</sentence><sentence id="760">I don't know how she knew it.</sentence><sentence id="761">I have no idea how the information came to her but she knew he was there and we definitely had a <span class="NPIP">destination</span> when we were going.</sentence><sentence id="762">We weren't just ambling around the <span class="REGION">countryside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="763">They tried to walk in a certain <span class="NPIP">direction</span>.</sentence><sentence id="764">Of course they didn't have maps or anything like that, but my guess was they knew their general direction which they wanted to walk.</sentence><sentence id="765">And my guess is they might have missed the group a couple of times and then finally met up with the group.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="774">Q: Now, you said her brother wanted to kill you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="778">A: Yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="780">Q: But there were other children in the group also.</sentence><sentence id="781">Do you think he didn't want any children there at all or was there something about your presence with his sister?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="784">A: I think it was my presence because I was a burden to him and his sister.</sentence><sentence id="785">You know, ina group like that you never knew how long you were going to stay with a group and those groups were forming and reforming all the time.</sentence><sentence id="786">You might leave one group.</sentence><sentence id="787">There were many of those groups roaming around the <span class="REGION">countryside</span> and the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and he didn't know how long he was going to stay with the group and he obviously was going to take his sister and why did he need a child at that point.</sentence><sentence id="788">I remember them as being very young, both of them.</sentence><sentence id="789">So, I don't bear grudges.</sentence><sentence id="790">I understand it.</sentence><sentence id="791">A child was a burden.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="800">Q: Was this a resistance group as far as you could tell?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="802">A Yes, indeed, some of them were resistance because I remember they would go off on missions at night to <span class="DLF">mines</span> somewhere and to blow up certain point so they were a resistance, definitely.</sentence><sentence id="803">They were part of the resistance group.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="806">Q: Did you have any particular job in this group, any kind of responsibility as a child?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="808">A: I don't think I had a responsibility, but I seemed to acquired a peculiar what do you call it, a peculiar calling.</sentence><sentence id="809">I seem to have an extra sense of when we were going to have the Germans descend on us in a hunt and I seemed to dream about my mother the night before.</sentence><sentence id="810">I have talked about it to some people.</sentence><sentence id="811">It's a ridiculous thing to say that I had a premonition or something but some people interpret it as I probably I had extra good hearing and I could hear maybe hooves of horses or <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">vehicles</span> rolling somewhere and I could feel it because we all slept on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span> obviously.</sentence><sentence id="812">That probably would trigger a dream where I was in danger and I would always wake up yelling and if I woke up yelling, everybody packed <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="813">So, I sort of became the mascot in a way.</sentence><sentence id="814">You know people who are in danger, whose lives are in danger are extremely superstitious and anything that helps them stay alive they will clutch at.</sentence><sentence id="815">That wasn't as far fetched as other things when you're trying to stay alive and you really don't know where your next salvation will come with.</sentence><sentence id="816">4 Tape #2</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="826">Q: Esthy, you were explaining about this <span class="NPIP">dream</span> and your prophetic --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="828">A: Powers.</sentence><sentence id="829">I don't really remember it that accurately, but I think the first time when I woke up, the dream, when I woke up I was yelling because I was frightened and I think the dream was, my mother, whom I knew was dead was chasing me and I didn't want her to catch me, and I was running.</sentence><sentence id="830">You know how you run in your <span class="NPIP">dream</span> and you're sort of slowed down, and then I realized that I had a scarf, so I took the scarf and I let it float behind me like a sail and I was sort of jumping from stone to stone and floating away while my mother was trying to catch me.</sentence><sentence id="831">I was running faster and faster and I felt myself falling, and that's when I would wake up yelling.</sentence><sentence id="832">That happened to me the first time in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> as far as I can recall.</sentence><sentence id="833">Of course someone was near me trying to put a hand on my mount to prevent me from yelling, and then everything around the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was talked about and known.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="840">Q: Wait one second.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="842">A: So, they must have discussed it and they asked me what my <span class="NPIP">dream</span> was.</sentence><sentence id="843">Somebody came up to ask me.</sentence><sentence id="844">There was always a leader in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, you know, somebody was always a person whom they looked up to this was a man and he came to ask me what I had dreamt and I told him and he sort of listened and didn't say anything and then the next time it happened the woman woke me up, but this time she wasn't trying to stifle my yells.</sentence><sentence id="845">She just woke me up and I stopped screaming and she went and got the man and he came back and he asked me, and I told him it was the same dream.</sentence><sentence id="846">So, he left, and very shortly after the order was given to break <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="847">Usually an order would come and everyone would start packing up their immediate belongings and we started moving.</sentence><sentence id="848">And from then on, ovariotomy I had the dream, we packed <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and we moved, so I figured it must have something to do with my dream.</sentence><sentence id="849">Somebody once asked me whether I wasn't tempted to just sort of give false signals.</sentence><sentence id="850">And I said absolutely not, believe me.</sentence><sentence id="851">I wasn't about to test anybody to give false signals because it could have been disastrous and then where would I have been.</sentence><sentence id="852">I had to depend on the good will of others to survive and this was no way of doing it, so you didn't give false signals.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="864">Q: Did this give you a different <span class="NPIP">place</span> in the group?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="866">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="867">I felt safer.</sentence><sentence id="868">I felt much safer.</sentence><sentence id="869">I felt for instance very often at night we went on long marches when we were changing <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> and from then on there was always somebody if I was lagging too far behind, somebody would pick me up for a while, sort of carry me around for awhile, carry me on, and then let me down.</sentence><sentence id="870">Very often before I was afraid I was going to be left behind and from then on I sort of sensed that I wasn't going to be left behind.</sentence><sentence id="871">I was going to be carried along if I faltered and if I stayed too far behind, which happened some times.</sentence><sentence id="872">It wasn't intentional, but I was sometimes so exhausted and my feet hurt that I just couldn't walk anymore and I would fall behind, so it was sort of a 5 helping hand that would come along and sometimes even two people would relay themselves and carry me for a little while.</sentence><sentence id="873">So, my status definitely did change from then on.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="882">Q: What you didn't describe was how they connected your <span class="NPIP">dream</span> with a raid?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="884">A: Well, the next day there was a raid.</sentence><sentence id="885">There was a raid after the first dream, and so the next time they obviously talked to each other and they decided to pack up <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and sure enough there had been a raid on that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> because they sent back somebody and they found that the water had been poisoned.</sentence><sentence id="886">They got to test the water from time to time on a dog or an animal they would test it.</sentence><sentence id="887">There was no other way of testing the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">water</span>.</sentence><sentence id="888">They decided there must have been a raid too because the water was poisoned.</sentence><sentence id="889">So, from then on I became the lightening rod.</sentence><sentence id="890">Is that the word for it?</sentence><sentence id="891">If I had the dream they would pack up <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and go.</sentence><sentence id="892">As I mentioned that before when I checked with somebody the explanation that makes the most sense to me is that I must have had very good hearing, which I did.</sentence><sentence id="893">I had excellent hearing and eyesight too, that I must have heard some vibrations on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="894">Horses hooves or <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carriages</span> being rolled along and that might have set me off that there was danger coming.</sentence><sentence id="895">When you live with danger, even when you're very young, you often develop an extra sense about when danger is coming and where it's coming from.</sentence><sentence id="896">You really do, so that must have been my sense.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="910">Q: What about clothes in this group.</sentence><sentence id="911">What were you wearing?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="914">A: Rags, whatever you could to keep warm.</sentence><sentence id="915">Feet were usually -- shoes didn't last very long or if they got wet they got too hard and you couldn't wear them so whatever you had you would wrap around your feet particularly if you had to march around at night because you were going through all kinds of terrain, like <span class="DLF">fields</span> that had been harvested and where the stalks are very hard to the soles of the feet.</sentence><sentence id="916">Or pebbles or things like that, so you did the best you could.</sentence><sentence id="917">You stole clothes.</sentence><sentence id="918">Very often they steal food, they stole clothes too.</sentence><sentence id="919">It was very hard to keep warm during the winter.</sentence><sentence id="920">During the summer you didn't care really what you wore, but during the winter it was very hard to keep warm.</sentence><sentence id="921">I don't remember ever washing now that I think of it.</sentence><sentence id="922">We must have washed sometimes, but I don't remember that.</sentence><sentence id="923">I guess it wasn't very important.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="934">Q: Do you remember getting thinner and thinner?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="936">A: I don't remember noticing.</sentence><sentence id="937">Probably I did.</sentence><sentence id="938">Probably I was never very fat, but I don't remember noticing that I got thinner.</sentence><sentence id="939">No, I never really looked at myself.</sentence><sentence id="940">You never looked at yourself naked, well maybe I really thought of it I would have looked at the arms, but you tried to keep warm, you know, you try to keep bundled up.</sentence><sentence id="941">You don't notice whether you're getting thinner or not.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="948">Q: Was there lice because people weren't clean?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="950">A: Yes, oh yes, absolutely lice.</sentence><sentence id="951">I'm sure we were all covered with lice.</sentence><sentence id="952">I remember having lice when I came to <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>.</sentence><sentence id="953">They had to shave my head.</sentence><sentence id="954">They shaved my head completely because I had lice.</sentence><sentence id="955">I have a funny story to tell you about my shaved head but</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="962">maybe I will do that later so that we do it chronologically.</sentence><sentence id="963">Any other questions about that, about the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="966">Q: When you were caught and they were machine gunning you and you were shot, where were you shot?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="968">A: Ihave four wounds on my left leg, two bullets.</sentence><sentence id="969">One entered at a peculiar angle.</sentence><sentence id="970">One went through the leg and came out the back.</sentence><sentence id="971">One bullet went into my right breast and came out under my arm and that one must have touched a little bit long because I was spitting blood for a long time, so it must have touched the lung slightly.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="976">Q: But you were nonetheless able to run and escape this and they didn't chase you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="978">A: No, because they were further away behind the machine guns.</sentence><sentence id="979">So they weren't chasing because they would have been caught in the machine guns.</sentence><sentence id="980">They weren't chasing.</sentence><sentence id="981">They were just sitting behind the machine guns really.</sentence><sentence id="982">They weren't chasing you.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="988">Q: Nobody had anything to help you with the wounds?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="990">A: No, no.</sentence><sentence id="991">As a matter of fact, I think they probably must have just put some rags on my legs and my other ones so there wouldn't be a trail of blood when they carried me to the edge of the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">forest</span> and they had the farmer pick me up.</sentence><sentence id="992">They must have bandaged it up with rags because it would have been too dangerous to have a trail of blood I suppose.</sentence><sentence id="993">When you get hit with bullets, you don't feel, unless it hits a bone or something like that, it takes a while for the wound to stiffen up and hurt really.</sentence><sentence id="994">At the beginning it doesn't hurt.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1000">Q: Do you have any idea about how many people were in the group prior to this machine gunning episode and then how many after?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1002">A: It's difficult for me to tell because the group was -- there were people coming and going all the time, new arrivals, people who departed and went <span class="NPIP">outside</span>, and I really didn't have any sense of counting either.</sentence><sentence id="1003">It was a large <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1004">There were lots of people, but how many I couldn't tell, no.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1008">Q: But obviously afterwards there were enough people that this farmer would take very seriously this threat?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1010">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="1011">Well, they never knew because usually they would only send two or three people on any raid or on any mission.</sentence><sentence id="1012">You know, they wouldn't send too many people ever so he had no idea how many survivors there were there.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1018">Q: Were you frightened with this farmer at first?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1020">A: I was too sick to be frightened.</sentence><sentence id="1021">By then I was really sick.</sentence><sentence id="1022">I must have gone into delirious state because I remember very little.</sentence><sentence id="1023">I just remember them feeding me something to drink or a little bit of food, some soup, some potato soup or something.</sentence><sentence id="1024">I couldn't even eat.</sentence><sentence id="1025">I don't remember being frightened because I was beyond that.</sentence><sentence id="1026">I thought I was truly dying.</sentence><sentence id="1027">No.</sentence><sentence id="1028">I wasn't frightened by the peasants.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1038">Q: How long were you with this particular family before you went --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1040">A: Throughout the winter.</sentence><sentence id="1041">I was there through the winter until that following spring when it became dangerous, when they were going to go out into the <span class="DLF">fields</span> and when the neighbors were going to start dropping in and the boys were going to be in and out, it became too dangerous for me to stay there, so one evening, one night, he took me halfway and then he told me to stay in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> until day and during the day to walk the rest of the way to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> and then --.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1044">Q: But you felt kindness from these people?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1046">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="1047">I didn't feel that they meant me harm, and I had developed a sense already who meant me harm, but they didn't, so I felt comfortable with them.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1050">Q: And the boys?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1052">A: They were wild.</sentence><sentence id="1053">They were wild, the boys, but when I left the boys had never seen me, remember.</sentence><sentence id="1054">I was hidden during the day and I slept at night <span class="NPIP">outside</span> and before day break he would come and put me back in the <span class="DLF">hole</span> so those boys never saw me until I actually came back from the other <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> after the war was over.</sentence><sentence id="1055">They never saw me the boys, but I could hear them, you know, and they were wild boys.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1060">Q: Now was it common for young children to go from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> this way?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1062">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="1063">Sometimes you would have a <span class="DLF">farm</span> which was particularly impoverished where they couldn't feed all the people that they had in their family and it was quite common for the youngsters to go an hire themselves out as cow herdsmen, whatever you want to call it, and for the older ones to hire themselves out as laborers, so that was not at all uncommon, no.</sentence><sentence id="1064">Nobody thought twice about it.</sentence><sentence id="1065">They told me what name, by what name I was called, and they told me the end name, which I have forgotten since, that I was to tell the people who hired me that I came from that <span class="DLF">farm</span>, which was their name so it would have been if they wanted to inquire it would have been -- but they never did anyhow because the two <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">villages</span> the Ukrainians never talked to the Polish and the Polish never talked to the Ukrainians, so we were pretty safe that nobody was going to go in to inquire.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1072">Q: Did they give you a picture or anything to take with you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1074">A: No, no, they didn't give me a picture.</sentence><sentence id="1075">I just went and but he used to drop in from time to time to come and see me so they knew that I had somebody to whom I was attached and it was obviously a peasant.</sentence><sentence id="1076">You know, it was obviously a Polish peasant so they never thought twice about it.</sentence><sentence id="1077">Then when the war was over, he came back for me and he said he wanted, would I like to come back and live with his family and I said, "oh" and he said well, mother and I -- I think that's how he called her -- mother and I talked about it and we have the sons but we need a girl.</sentence><sentence id="1078">Would you like to be the girl and I said sure, so I went back with him.</sentence><sentence id="1079">She taught me how to sew.</sentence><sentence id="1080">She liked very much my sewing.</sentence><sentence id="1081">I was a good seamstress, so they were quite pleased with that.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1090">Q: Were you pleased to go there?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1092">A: Oh, yes, I was very interested in what was going on in the <span class="DLF">farm</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1093">I was fascinated by the seasonal business of the sewing and then the crops were growing and the planting of potatoes and the vegetables and taking care of the livestock and things like that.</sentence><sentence id="1094">I thought it was very fascinating.</sentence><sentence id="1095">I was fascinated also by the fact that they did everything themselves.</sentence><sentence id="1096">Like they made their clothes and they built everything and when it came to the fall they would all slaughter together.</sentence><sentence id="1097">They came to help if they slaughtered a pig or a calf and then what they did with the meat and how they kept if for the winter.</sentence><sentence id="1098">I thought it was very fascinating, so I stayed there and I thought that was going to be my life.</sentence><sentence id="1099">I was still going to be -- obviously my job was going to do a lot of sewing and weaving because I seemed to have a knack for that.</sentence><sentence id="1100">That was going to be my worth.</sentence><sentence id="1101">It beat the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> let me tell you, so I had no complaints about that, plus the <span class="NPIP">outdoors</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1102">I always loved the <span class="NPIP">outdoors</span>, being out in the open, so that pleased me very much, too.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1114">Q: In the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ukrainian village</span> were you still worried because the war was going on but by then did you have a sense that you were pretty safe?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1116">A: I was worried.</sentence><sentence id="1117">I wasn't sure.</sentence><sentence id="1118">I was worried, and life was hard in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ukrainian village</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1119">They were violent people.</sentence><sentence id="1120">I never had a chance to see what it was like in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Polish village</span> before because I was always hidden but in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ukrainian village</span> they were very, very violent like for instance the <span class="DLF">farm</span> I was on there was a mother and a son and the son when he got drunk he beat up his mother and he would beat up anybody and I learned how to run very fast because I made myself scarce.</sentence><sentence id="1121">They beat up each other and they would get drunk periodically so it was violent.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1128">Q: Were you ever beaten?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1130">A: No.</sentence><sentence id="1131">He never caught me.</sentence><sentence id="1132">When he was sober he was okay, and I was out in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> most of the time and I always did what I was told to do so there wasn't really any reason but when he was drunk he could have easily beaten me up, but I was always very scarce.</sentence><sentence id="1133">9 I could tell already when he was working himself up to a state of drunkenness where he was going to beat somebody.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1138">Q: Did people talk about the war?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1140">A: Hardly ever.</sentence><sentence id="1141">Mostly they talked about the daily work and what they were doing, and then while I was there on that <span class="DLF">farm</span> he got married and that was an enormous event because at Polish wedding, literally it is a Polish wedding.</sentence><sentence id="1142">It takes place a whole week of festivities when there's a Polish wedding.</sentence><sentence id="1143">That was a lot of fun because everybody gets into the act.</sentence><sentence id="1144">So, I was -- but he beat his wife too.</sentence><sentence id="1145">It didn't take too long before he beat his wife.</sentence><sentence id="1146">So, that was sort of interesting and that was a big event and ovariotomy a wedding takes places it's a big event in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1154">Q: How was your food intake at this point?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1156">A: Late like the peasants did.</sentence><sentence id="1157">We all ate together.</sentence><sentence id="1158">In the morning there would be mashed potatoes and if we were lucky there would be a little bit of bacon that would have been fried and mixed into the mashed potatoes.</sentence><sentence id="1159">IF there was a little bit of butter milk.</sentence><sentence id="1160">The butter we never had because that was taken maybe once of twice a year and they took butter and eggs you know.</sentence><sentence id="1161">They exchanged it, they bought it with other <span class="BUILDING">homes</span> for necessities like <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">plows</span> and things like that, or seed.</sentence><sentence id="1162">It was a very simple diet, but I don't remember being terrifically hungry.</sentence><sentence id="1163">Bread was baked once a week and the bread was stored.</sentence><sentence id="1164">There was always meat from the slaughter that took place in the fall, and it was hung in that <span class="INT_SPACE">storage room</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1165">Bacon and sausages, blood sausages.</sentence><sentence id="1166">A lot of blood sausages, I liked it too, actually.</sentence><sentence id="1167">During the summer there was alot of vegetables.</sentence><sentence id="1168">Cabbage, the potatoes were delicious.</sentence><sentence id="1169">Let's see what else, there was a white cheese which they made in the cloth from he butter milk which was very good, which mixed with potatoes.</sentence><sentence id="1170">Everything was mixed with potatoes.</sentence><sentence id="1171">Every once in a while a chicken died.</sentence><sentence id="1172">I killed one once unintentionally.</sentence><sentence id="1173">You had the chicken for the eggs so you often didn't kill the chickens but when a chicken wanted to sit on the eggs, the farmers lady would say to me just don't get in cold water for a little while, it will stop sitting on the eggs.</sentence><sentence id="1174">Well I dunked it a little too much and the poor chicken just you know got too much of a dunking so we cooked the chicken of course.</sentence><sentence id="1175">Somebody asked me once, didn't you kill another one.</sentence><sentence id="1176">I don't think that would have went over too well if I had killed another chicken.</sentence><sentence id="1177">So, every once in a while there was some foul.</sentence><sentence id="1178">A lot of meat from the pig.</sentence><sentence id="1179">They mostly killed pigs.</sentence><sentence id="1180">They didn't kill calves because they needed them for the dairy products.</sentence><sentence id="1181">I don't remember any lambs at all on that <span class="DLF">farm</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1182">There must have been <span class="DLF">farms</span> that had lambs, but not in that particular <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1183">It was mostly cattle, cows and poultry.</sentence><sentence id="1184">Hens, and geese and such.</sentence><sentence id="1185">They would make a goose for Christmas.</sentence><sentence id="1186">They would do that.</sentence><sentence id="1187">The food was skimpy but enough to keep you healthy.</sentence><sentence id="1188">I think people now a days would approve of a diet like that.</sentence><sentence id="1189">They grew a lot of fruit in that part of <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1190">There were apple <span class="ENV_FEATURES">trees</span> and pear <span class="ENV_FEATURES">trees</span>, small ones, the fruit was never large, but it was quite good, and cherries, yes, that's the main fruits that they had.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1228">Q: You weren't thirsty anymore?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1230">A: No, water, there was plenty of water there and everybody drank water.</sentence><sentence id="1231">You drank something called , | believe, which was made from cabbage which had a slightly fermented tasted almost like apple cider only it was much sourer than apple cider.</sentence><sentence id="1232">Lots of cabbage.</sentence><sentence id="1233">We had lots of beats, lots of beats, lots of cabbage.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1238">Q: Did you play at all?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1240">A: No.</sentence><sentence id="1241">How could you play?</sentence><sentence id="1242">No, there was no time.</sentence><sentence id="1243">Except I could sit.</sentence><sentence id="1244">I could sit in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> when I was watching the herds and the playing consisted of watching what was going on in a stream or birds, watching birds.</sentence><sentence id="1245">I loved to watch the birds.</sentence><sentence id="1246">Playing, there was nothing to play with really.</sentence><sentence id="1247">What would one play with.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1256">Q: Were there other children?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1258">A: No.</sentence><sentence id="1259">Because all the herds were kept separately and they would never graze together because each one of them had their plots and they would graze separately.</sentence><sentence id="1260">They would not graze together.</sentence><sentence id="1261">There were children in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span>, but and sometimes they ran in a pack but I don't ever remember playing with them.</sentence><sentence id="1262">I think part of the reason might have been that they thought I was Polish and they were Ukrainian, so that was already it created a distance.</sentence><sentence id="1263">They did not like each other, so they pretty much let me alone.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1270">Q: Did you think about particular thing when you were sitting there watching the herd, about what had happened to you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1272">A: I kept on wondering about some of the people where they were.</sentence><sentence id="1273">That, I kept on wondering, where are these people now.</sentence><sentence id="1274">That's mainly what I was thinking about.</sentence><sentence id="1275">Very often I was also very tired.</sentence><sentence id="1276">You know you get up very early.</sentence><sentence id="1277">You get up before the sun's up to get the herd out and when you come back and you have to do other chores, by the time you are -- during the day I was always tired.</sentence><sentence id="1278">It took me a while to wake up.</sentence><sentence id="1279">I would be out there, and it was cold also, and the June there was a slight frost even in the summer, on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">grass</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1280">I spent a great deal of energy and thought on how to keep warm because I always seemed to be freezing in the morning.</sentence><sentence id="1281">I never had the right clothes for that, and I never had the right shoes.</sentence><sentence id="1282">So, I would always try to figure out how to keep warm, really.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1294">Q: Did you remain having dreams about your mother or did they stop after the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">woods</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1296">A: They stopped after that.</sentence><sentence id="1297">They did stop after that, yes.</sentence><sentence id="1298">I don't remember after that.</sentence><sentence id="1299">From time to time I had them later on.</sentence><sentence id="1300">Usually when I was in danger.</sentence><sentence id="1301">When I felt myself in danger, I would have that dream, it would come back but usually it was because I was in danger in one way or another.</sentence><sentence id="1302">Strange.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1312">Q: So, then he brings you back to the <span class="DLF">farm</span> and you think this is going to be --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1314">A: That's right.</sentence><sentence id="1315">Then I got to know the boys who were very rowdy and I was sort of very sedate.</sentence><sentence id="1316">And the mother used to always protect me.</sentence><sentence id="1317">If they chased me too much I would always go and hide behind her and she would make a game of that.</sentence><sentence id="1318">She like that.</sentence><sentence id="1319">She liked having a girl.</sentence><sentence id="1320">And I thought that was going to be my life and it wasn't so bad, really.</sentence><sentence id="1321">So, I was there, and one day I came in and there was a couple, a man and a woman and the peasant said to me that they were people who had come they wanted to take me away and I said why.</sentence><sentence id="1322">So, they started explaining to me that they were Jewish people and they thought that they wanted to pick up all the Jewish children who were hidden in the <span class="REGION">countryside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1323">They I remember they mentioned money that they would give some money and the peasant got angry and he said we don't want money.</sentence><sentence id="1324">We want to keep her.</sentence><sentence id="1325">By then I had been baptized and I had been given a little bit of catechism whatever you could get orally because I couldn't read or write, nor could they for that matter, probably.</sentence><sentence id="1326">Everybody got it the same way.</sentence><sentence id="1327">I was going to <span class="BUILDING">church</span> with them on Sundays, and I did not want to go back to the Jews.</sentence><sentence id="1328">I felt I really was catholic and for some reason I felt like the Jews were really the ones who killed Christ, so I wasn't going to get mixed up with the Jews.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1344">Q: And you had no recollection of coming from Jews?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1346">A: No.</sentence><sentence id="1347">I probably came from a non practicing <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and that is why I have no recollection of anything.</sentence><sentence id="1348">So, I don't remember how it ended but they left those people and the next thing I know we were working in the <span class="DLF">fields</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1349">By then you know the spring was really advancing and we were working in the <span class="DLF">fields</span> and I liked to feed the chickens so I was always sent back to the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> and I would feed the chickens.</sentence><sentence id="1350">I started feeding the chickens an I hear a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> drove up and here that man and that woman and she jumps down and she grabs me and she pushes me into the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cart</span> and off they ride with me.</sentence><sentence id="1351">I look back and the last picture I see is the peasants running after them shaking their fists and they drove off with me.</sentence><sentence id="1352">So, I was pretty miserable.</sentence><sentence id="1353">I really felt miserable and they drove me to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> somewhere.</sentence><sentence id="1354">I don't remember much about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> except for some reason, I don't know why, but when I see in those westerns, those make shift <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">towns</span>, I'm always reminded of that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1355">But anyhow, they drove me to that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> and that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> was a collection center for children and I stayed with a family for a while in one of the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> consisting of a man who had lost his wife and married his wife's sister and his daughter and his wife absolutely doted on his daughter.</sentence><sentence id="1356">Every day she had a tutor coming in to tutor them in English because they were going to go to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1357">They were waiting for papers to go to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1358">And she was taking such good care of that girl and I kept on thinking wistfully God I wish I had someone to take care of me like that.</sentence><sentence id="1359">I felt really disoriented in that period.</sentence><sentence id="1360">I felt very homesick for the <span class="DLF">farm</span>, and I felt very uprooted and I felt sick.</sentence><sentence id="1361">I just felt sick.</sentence><sentence id="1362">So, I don't remember too well that whole period except the next thing I remember, the next memory I have is being Bratislava, but I don't remember how we got there, you see.</sentence><sentence id="1363">I have no recollection of how we got from 2 that <span class="NPIP">place</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1364">But in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span> was a stop off place and I got very sick there.</sentence><sentence id="1365">I don't know what I had.</sentence><sentence id="1366">I must have had the measles or something, but I was very ill and most of those children left except for one girl whom you saw I have a picture of.</sentence><sentence id="1367">I don't know how long I was sick, but then other children started arriving and then we all were again a large enough group for us to continue and by small stages -- then I remember being on <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">busses</span>, and they got us out from <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1368">I think they probably must have gotten us through <span class="REGION">East Germany</span> and the <span class="REGION">West Germany</span> and then to <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1369">In <span class="COUNTRY">France</span> we ended up in a <span class="BUILDING">home</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbizon</span> which is very close to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Fountain Bleu</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1370">It was a beautiful <span class="NPIP">spot</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1371">It was truly beautiful.</sentence><sentence id="1372">That's where I got my first orange.</sentence><sentence id="1373">That's where I got my first taste of chocolate, and that's where they taught me to eat with a knife and fork -- not a knife, a fork.</sentence><sentence id="1374">We started with a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">fork</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1375">I don't think I ate with a knife for a while.</sentence><sentence id="1376">That's where they started teaching us things.</sentence><sentence id="1377">We were like savages really.</sentence><sentence id="1378">That's when I had my head shaved because I was full of life.</sentence><sentence id="1379">I was also ill, I was quite ill.</sentence><sentence id="1380">I couldn't eat properly, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1381">My stomach wouldn't digest regular food.</sentence><sentence id="1382">I became very friendly -- it was so strange because the director of the camp was a man by the name of Eric Schott and he drove by and there was a group of us playing and he opened the <span class="DLF">door</span> and he motioned for me to come into the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> and he did.</sentence><sentence id="1383">And he took me to the <span class="BUILDING">home</span> where they lived which was on the <span class="DLF">grounds</span>, but it was very extensive grounds there, so he drove me to their <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and they gave me upstairs I met his wife and his son.</sentence><sentence id="1384">He had a son, and they gave me what you call in French , which is in the middle of the afternoon and they gave me little sandwiches with cheese and a piece of chocolate and some milk.</sentence><sentence id="1385">I thought that was absolutely delicious.</sentence><sentence id="1386">So, that was a wonderful <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1387">I have very good memories.</sentence><sentence id="1388">Once he asked me if I wanted to go and see what the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">sea</span> was like and I said sure.</sentence><sentence id="1389">I hadn't seen the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">sea</span> in a long time.</sentence><sentence id="1390">I remembered it from the <span class="NPIP">place</span> we had, but he took his son and me to <span class="REGION">Brittany</span> for vacation for a whole week's vacation and it was absolutely wonderful.</sentence><sentence id="1391">It was for the first time I started eating certain fish which I had never had and shrimp and things like that.</sentence><sentence id="1392">I had never tasted anything like it before.</sentence><sentence id="1393">That's when I rejoined civilized life, really.</sentence><sentence id="1394">The older children in that group then left for <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> except for two, that little girl who stayed with me in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1395">She found an aunt and uncle in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> and she went to live with them, and I visited very often with them, and then when all the children had left, the director and his wife and their son moved to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> and I moved with them.</sentence><sentence id="1396">That's when I really started <span class="BUILDING">school</span> in earnest.</sentence><sentence id="1397">I had started <span class="BUILDING">school</span> already in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbizon</span>, but it was a <span class="BUILDING">one room school</span> with different grades.</sentence><sentence id="1398">When we moved to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>, I really started regular <span class="BUILDING">school</span> and it was very hard at the beginning because I didn't speak the language yet and I had to learn to read and write at the age of 11 and the French are very strict where they place you.</sentence><sentence id="1399">So, they immediately decided that I had to go into a <span class="BUILDING">class</span> with younger kids which wasn't very good for my morale.</sentence><sentence id="1400">The first day that we had you know the spelling test, the teacher put my spelling on the board as an example of what not to do.</sentence><sentence id="1401">Twenty- three spelling mistakes, so I decided I had to learn fast, which I did, I did.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1459">Q: Esthy, when they kidnapped you, were you screaming?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1461">A: Yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1465">Q: Did they talk to you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1467">A: They were just holding me.</sentence><sentence id="1468">They said I had to come back.</sentence><sentence id="1469">I had to come back.</sentence><sentence id="1470">I belonged to the Jews and I had to come back amongst the Jews.</sentence><sentence id="1471">Oh, yes, I was screaming indeed.</sentence><sentence id="1472">I was fighting.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1479">Q: Did you decide I have no power here, I will just take what coming as you did all the other things?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1481">A: Thad no choice.</sentence><sentence id="1482">I really had no choice.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1485">Q: Did you think about running away?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1487">A: Where was I going to run?</sentence><sentence id="1488">Where would you run, you know, at that point.</sentence><sentence id="1489">If somebody fed you you stayed put because if you run who was going to feed you.</sentence><sentence id="1490">So, I wasn't going to run because I didn't know exactly -- I could have never found my way back to the <span class="DLF">farm</span>, never.</sentence><sentence id="1491">I knew that.</sentence><sentence id="1492">I was not going to be caught.</sentence><sentence id="1493">I knew how violent the peasants can be, and I wasn't going to be caught somewhere like that.</sentence><sentence id="1494">So, running away wasn't an option really.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1503">Q: What point did you stop fighting or feel as if okay --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1505">A: Well, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbizon</span> I sort of began to have a glimpse of another life.</sentence><sentence id="1506">When we went away to <span class="REGION">Brittany</span> which I found absolutely beautiful, I particularly liked 1 remember.</sentence><sentence id="1507">I have pictures with their son from with Rene, who was the son of the Schotts.</sentence><sentence id="1508">And, I began to have a glimpse of another life and then when I started <span class="BUILDING">school</span> I very quickly learned how to read and write.</sentence><sentence id="1509">When you're ready you learn it very quickly.</sentence><sentence id="1510">You don't need several years like you have it here to learn how to read and write when you're really of a certain age and you're really motivated.</sentence><sentence id="1511">So, I learned how to read and write very quickly and I learned French very quickly and I started reading a lot and that opened up to me a whole new world once I started reading.</sentence><sentence id="1512">I knew now that maybe it wasn't so bad what happened to me, and I absolutely loved <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1513">I found <span class="COUNTRY">France</span> beautiful.</sentence><sentence id="1514">Everywhere I looked -- the city of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> I just couldn't get enough.</sentence><sentence id="1515">I used to just wander around by myself everywhere and it was safe at the time to wander around anywhere you wanted in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1516">I thought that that was the most glorious <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> that I had ever seen which it was.</sentence><sentence id="1517">I was pretty happy by then and I was adjusting very well, and I was learning lots of things.</sentence><sentence id="1518">I was going through <span class="BUILDING">school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1519">I became very good at writing.</sentence><sentence id="1520">I was writing poetry in French.</sentence><sentence id="1521">I always found teachers who were always helpful and always pushing me along.</sentence><sentence id="1522">I enjoyed that.</sentence><sentence id="1523">It became very challenging to me and very stimulating not to disappoint them, you know, that the French are very big on competitions and regional tests and this and that, and I became a regular at the various competitions in writing and such because all of them wanted to send me because obviously I had a gift in that <span class="REGION">area</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1524">So, I began to really enjoy it.</sentence><sentence id="1525">I had to work very hard, 4 because the French school system at the time was very difficult to get through.</sentence><sentence id="1526">It was very challenging and I had a lot of work to do and a lot of catching up to do.</sentence><sentence id="1527">It was ridiculous, I remember doing calculous and they discovered my <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">multiplication table</span> or my additions.</sentence><sentence id="1528">And we didn't have little <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">calculators</span> at the time and you really had to be able to calculate and I couldn't.</sentence><sentence id="1529">So, somebody would always step in to coach me so I would have several weeks of coaching in addition to the regular <span class="BUILDING">school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1530">They were sending me for competition in essays and they discovered that I didn't know the rules of grammar in French.</sentence><sentence id="1531">I had skipped the grade where there were rules of grammar so I had a tutor assigned to me from <span class="BUILDING">school</span> for a couple of weekends to teach me what the rules of grammar were.</sentence><sentence id="1532">You needed to know the rules of grammar when you off to a writing competition.</sentence><sentence id="1533">So, I was very busy and I was very caught up in that life, and I really enjoyed it very much.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1563">Q: You felt close to both Mr. and Mrs. Schotts?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1565">A: I felt very close to Mr. Schott.</sentence><sentence id="1566">Mrs. Schott, no.</sentence><sentence id="1567">Mrs. Schott was a bit of a basket case and a difficult woman, although I couldn't blame her after she lost her son.</sentence><sentence id="1568">Honey died when he was --I was -- how old was I when he died?</sentence><sentence id="1569">13 or 14, and he must have been 17 years old and he died of cancer, a young boy.</sentence><sentence id="1570">So, that was a very terrible blow to them.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1577">Q: Were you close to him?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1579">A: I was very close to him, yes.</sentence><sentence id="1580">He was very protective of me, and I was delighted to have a big brother who was protective of me, so I felt very close to him.</sentence><sentence id="1581">I felt very close to Mr.Schott, in fact, I named my son after him.</sentence><sentence id="1582">My son is named Eric after Eric Schott.</sentence><sentence id="1583">And I got to know his family in <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>, and I became very close with his family.</sentence><sentence id="1584">He had a brother and a sister-in-law and a nephew who lived in <span class="COUNTRY">England</span> and I became very close to them.</sentence><sentence id="1585">In fact, I still see them.</sentence><sentence id="1586">Unfortunately he died, and his nephew died a couple years ago, but we spent some time before he died together because they were very important people in my life.</sentence><sentence id="1587">I made friends in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> and I was doing lots of things.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1598">Q: So you put your life together?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1600">A: Yes, I did.</sentence><sentence id="1601">I really did.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1604">Q: Did you consider yourself a member of the Schott family?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1606">A: Up to the time when he died.</sentence><sentence id="1607">After that I didn't.</sentence><sentence id="1608">After that I had a whole series of <span class="NPIP">places</span> I lived.</sentence><sentence id="1609">She wanted to remarry and after all to have a young girl on her hands was not the best thing for her.</sentence><sentence id="1610">So, I went to live with a friend of theirs who was my tutor.</sentence><sentence id="1611">Eric Schott was my tutor first, and they appointed an assistant to him in case something happened to him, and when he died, I went to live with that other family by the name of Katts, and they were a terrible family to live with.</sentence><sentence id="1612">They really were.</sentence><sentence id="1613">Actually, I don't 5 think he particularly picked on me.</sentence><sentence id="1614">They had two sons and he was equally cruel to his two sons, so it was not a good <span class="NPIP">place</span> to live.</sentence><sentence id="1615">I stayed with them until I reached the age of 18 at which point in the <span class="BUILDING">French court</span>, you can be declared mature of age if two witnesses will testify to your character and your maturity, which is exactly what happened.</sentence><sentence id="1616">So, I became essentially 21 at the age of 18.</sentence><sentence id="1617">From then on I could do as I pleased and I went to live with a family of two doctors who had been at that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbizon</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1618">They were taking care of the children.</sentence><sentence id="1619">They weren't married, the two.</sentence><sentence id="1620">They lived together.</sentence><sentence id="1621">She had a little girl.</sentence><sentence id="1622">Her husband had been deported during the war and killed and I lived with them until I married Jim.</sentence><sentence id="1623">I met Jim in the summer of 1954 in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>, as a matter of fact.</sentence><sentence id="1624">He was stationed at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Heidelberg</span>, and I was visiting with this family became they had gone back to live in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> because he was a doctor and he couldn't practice in <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1625">The French medical association is very reactionary and very tight and they wouldn't allow him to practice so, since he took his medical degree in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> he went back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Mannheim</span> where his family was a doctor and he opened up a very thriving practice, so she had to join him there and I lived with the daughter in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> and during vacation time when we didn't have <span class="BUILDING">school</span> we would go to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Mannheim</span> and stay with them and then come back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span> when <span class="BUILDING">school</span> resumed.</sentence><sentence id="1626">One of the trips in "54 I met Jim, who was in the United States Army, and I went back to <span class="COUNTRY">France</span> and he went back to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span> but two years later, he came back and we got married.</sentence><sentence id="1627">So, we were married in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1650">Q: You corresponded during this period?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1652">A: Not really.</sentence><sentence id="1653">Jim is not really a letter writing.</sentence><sentence id="1654">I know he can hear me.</sentence><sentence id="1655"><span class="BUILDING">Telegrams</span> mostly.</sentence><sentence id="1656">He sent me telegrams, and also I must say my English wasn't very good, so it was hard to correspond when your English is not very good.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1662">Q: So, did you take these people's name?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1664">A: Lehman, yes, I took their name, that's right.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1666">Q: So you were married --?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1668">A: In <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1669">We were married in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paris</span>, but then when we came here, his parents wanted a wedding too, so we had a second wedding for his parents, too.</sentence><sentence id="1670">And I didn't know anybody and it was very funny because whenever I was introduced to somebody and we would turn around to somebody else I would hear, is she Jewish?</sentence><sentence id="1671">At one point I said to Jim why don't you make a sign and put it on my back, I'm Jewish.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1676">Q: Were you taught anything about Judaism after the war in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbizon</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
|
<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1678">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="1679">Yes, as a matter of fact, I was in a very peculiar way.</sentence><sentence id="1680">You see, in order for me to catch up with the French school system I had to go into a <span class="BUILDING">private school</span> for a while to catch up.</sentence><sentence id="1681">And it so happened that I was sent one year to a very special <span class="BUILDING">private school</span> which was not Jewish and one year I was sent to a <span class="BUILDING">private school</span> which was Jewish, and 6 the only way they would keep me there is if I would learn how to read and write Hebrew right away, which I did.</sentence><sentence id="1682">We had religious instruction and we read the Bible every day in addition to the regular curriculum, so I learned about Judaism there, as much as you can learn in a couple of years, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1683">I learned how to read and write.</sentence><sentence id="1684">I learned even how to read , which I cannot do any more, but if I had to, I probably would again, I would learn it, if my future life depended on it, I would probably learn it again.</sentence><sentence id="1685">So, I did learn a little bit about Judaism.</sentence><sentence id="1686">It didn't take.</sentence><sentence id="1687">It really didn't take.</sentence><sentence id="1688">I think that the first time I really felt Jewish was after the Six Day War.</sentence><sentence id="1689">That's when I really felt Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="1690">I don't quite understand why except that maybe I saw the Jews stand up and fight and that did it for me.</sentence><sentence id="1691">They were defending themselves and they were defending their <span class="REGION">land</span>, and for the first time I felt Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="1692">So, I feel perfectly Jewish now, but I didn't for a long time.</sentence><sentence id="1693">I really didn't.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1710">Q: What does that mean, do you think, feeling Jewish?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1712">A: Feeling that I'm proud to be part of that breed.</sentence><sentence id="1713">Feeling that in spite of all the trials that we have gone through we are a very strong and resilient people, not feeling that I'm ashamed of being a Jew.</sentence><sentence id="1714">That's what it means essentially to me.</sentence><sentence id="1715">I can't say that I'm really religious.</sentence><sentence id="1716">It's just that I feel very Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="1717">I really do at this point.</sentence><sentence id="1718">I feel that I'm part of this minority, and I'm going to stay that way and I'm going to tell my children about it and I hope my children stay part of the minority.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1726">Q: Is there a piece of the child in you feeling angry about what Jews did or didn't do during this period of time?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1728">A: I think, yes, there was a certain amount of anger in me.</sentence><sentence id="1729">There was the anger of our marching off like that.</sentence><sentence id="1730">I was very angry about the, but I have come to understand that we really didn't have a choice.</sentence><sentence id="1731">We were trapped and we really didn't have a choice.</sentence><sentence id="1732">But I did feel angry for a long time, you're right.</sentence><sentence id="1733">And I think that's probably why I didn't feel Jewish because I didn't want to be Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="1734">I was angry about it.</sentence><sentence id="1735">But the Sixth Day War showed me that if there was a way, the Jews can fight, you know, and they will fight.</sentence><sentence id="1736">That made a big difference to me really.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1746">Q: You're identity is something that you've created in a way that most people don't.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1748">A: Don't most people create an identity for themselves?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1750">Q: Yes, but you have a history that is lost to you.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1752">A: That's true.</sentence><sentence id="1753">Well, I had no choice really.</sentence><sentence id="1754">I had to create an identity.</sentence><sentence id="1755">You're right.</sentence><sentence id="1756">I did create an identity for myself.</sentence><sentence id="1757">I didn't realize it was that unusual though.</sentence><sentence id="1758">I thought most people created their identities, no?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1766">Q: But your history is one of so much oppression and so much terror as a child that you 7 couldn't be a child.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1768">A: No, I guess I was always adult.</sentence><sentence id="1769">I guess I was always adult.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1772">Q: What was it like for you to raise children?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1774">A: It wasn't easy.</sentence><sentence id="1775">You know the best way of understanding another person is to put yourself in their shoes and I am very good at putting myself in the shoes of adults.</sentence><sentence id="1776">I couldn't put myself in the shoes of children.</sentence><sentence id="1777">As a consequence I was probably very over protective of my children.</sentence><sentence id="1778">I was always trying to keep them safe, which doesn't work.</sentence><sentence id="1779">I have come to certainly realize that.</sentence><sentence id="1780">You can't keep anybody safe, but part of the reason was that I didn't remember what it was as a child.</sentence><sentence id="1781">I couldn't venture out as a child because it was too dangerous, so consequently I probably tried to keep my children from straying somewhere where there might be danger.</sentence><sentence id="1782">And I know that I had peculiar fears like if they had a rash it used to drive me crazy until I realized that it had to do with that little girl that that was shot because she had pimples.</sentence><sentence id="1783">I associated pimples always with being sick and if you're sick you're going to get shot.</sentence><sentence id="1784">So, my kids never had a rash I can tell you that.</sentence><sentence id="1785">I drove them crazy but they didn't have a rash.</sentence><sentence id="1786">You know, it's things like that that I probably overdid as a mother.</sentence><sentence id="1787">But for a long time my children didn't know my past, which is again, I'm told, I didn't realize but I'm told that this is not usual with survivors of the Holocaust.</sentence><sentence id="1788">I remember the first time my daughter came back from <span class="BUILDING">religious school</span> and they were talking about the Holocaust and she asked me point blank are you a Holocaust survivor, and I said yes, and she got very upset.</sentence><sentence id="1789">By then I think she must have been 10 or 11 years old which is an advanced age and she never had a glimmer that I might be a Holocaust survivor.</sentence><sentence id="1790">So, you know, it's --.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1808">Q: Did you then tell her?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1810">A: Some, but then I wasn't able to talk about it all so I was very reticent and that probably created more anxiety than if I had told her.</sentence><sentence id="1811">Our son never questioned me about it.</sentence><sentence id="1812">He's the kind of a child probably that I was.</sentence><sentence id="1813">He absorbed things by observing.</sentence><sentence id="1814">He doesn't ask that many questions so he just absorbed and watched and didn't ask too many questions.</sentence><sentence id="1815">My daughter is a real questioner.</sentence><sentence id="1816">She likes to ask questions.</sentence><sentence id="1817">Some of the answers I gave weren't entirely satisfactory.</sentence><sentence id="1818">Part of the reason was I wasn't able to talk about it then, yet.</sentence><sentence id="1819">It didn't come until much later when I was able to talk about it.</sentence><sentence id="1820">I just sort of decided this was my past life, another life.</sentence><sentence id="1821">I was living in a different life and I was going to pretend I'm just as normal as everybody else.</sentence><sentence id="1822">So, that's really the mission I took on.</sentence><sentence id="1823">I was going to lead a normal life.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1838">Q: Did you imitate other mothers that you saw?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1840">A: Oh, yes.</sentence><sentence id="1841">And also, I had an instinct.</sentence><sentence id="1842">I have a protective instinct to begin with so I would never do any harm to a child, so I'm very protective of children.</sentence><sentence id="1843">So, that's -- and I read so 8 I understood some of the things that were going on, and I did let go of the children, I must say.</sentence><sentence id="1844">Maybe not as fast or as soon as they wanted it to happen, but it happened.</sentence><sentence id="1845">No, I understood suffering so I was always trying to nurture and avoid suffering, but I suppose that I must have brought certain hang ups with me that other mother's didn't have, I suppose.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1852">Q: Maybe we should bring the pictures over here.</sentence><sentence id="1853">Why don't you explain.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1856">A: This picture was taken, it doesn't show my finger, is that okay?</sentence><sentence id="1857">This picture was taken in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span> in 1946, and I am the girl in the middle next to the white bunny and the little boy who leans on my right arm we call him the Englishman because nobody could understand what language he was talking, which he spoke in.</sentence><sentence id="1858">We all had a smattering of different languages, but nobody understood his.</sentence><sentence id="1859">So, that was the Englishman leaning on me.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1864">Q: So you're second to the left there in the first row?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1866">A: I'm second to the left.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1868">Q: Do you remember the other people?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1870">A: No, I just don't remember them, except for that little boy.</sentence><sentence id="1871">He was always next tome.</sentence><sentence id="1872">He was always leaning against me, but he didn't speak.</sentence><sentence id="1873">He never spoke.</sentence><sentence id="1874">I never heard him speak.</sentence><sentence id="1875">This picture also was taken in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span> and that's the whole group.</sentence><sentence id="1876">You can see it's a pretty large group.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1884">Q: Where are you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1886">A: There I go.</sentence><sentence id="1887">That's the one, that's me.</sentence><sentence id="1888">Around time, that was taken around the same time I would say.</sentence><sentence id="1889">Same hat, same coat, I didn't have any more than that.</sentence><sentence id="1890">Maybe somebody who knows <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span> will recognize the monuments, but I don't remember it.</sentence><sentence id="1891">I know it was <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, and I think it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span>, although we were also in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Prague</span>, but I think it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Bratislava</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1892">This picture I'm the one holding on to two hands.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1900">Q: So you're this person?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1902">A: That's me, that was taken later.</sentence><sentence id="1903">That was taken in <span class="COUNTRY">France</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1904">By then you can tell my hair had grown back a little bit.</sentence><sentence id="1905">I had my head shaved when I came to <span class="COUNTRY">France</span> and by then it was growing back a little bit.</sentence><sentence id="1906">I forgot to tell you a story.</sentence><sentence id="1907">Mrs. Roosevelt came to visit the <span class="BUILDING">home</span> and I was designated to learn by heart The Raven and to recite The Raven to her, which I did.</sentence><sentence id="1908">When I was finished she patted me on the head and said, "What a cute little boy."</sentence><sentence id="1909">So that was my first meeting with Mrs. Roosevelt.</sentence><sentence id="1910">I met Mrs. Roosevelt later on because my husband and I started a Reformed Democratic Club when we lived in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">New York</span> and she came to be our speaker and Jim and I went to pick her up.</sentence><sentence id="1911">I told her the 9 story when I first met her and she looked at me and said, "My you have changed."</sentence><sentence id="1912">So, those were my encounters with Mrs. Roosevelt.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1924">Q: Thank you so much Esthy.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1926">A: Thank you.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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