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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: kate none bernath |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0023 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0023_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504450 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: 1927-08-27 |
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birth_year: 1927.0 |
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place_of_birth: szikszo |
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country: hungary |
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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: gg |
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accession: 1990.366.1 |
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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: kate none bernath |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0023 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0023_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504450 |
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gender: f |
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birth_date: 1927-08-27 |
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birth_year: 1927.0 |
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place_of_birth: szikszo |
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country: hungary |
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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: gg |
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accession: 1990.366.1 |
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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">KATE BERNATH March 22, 1990</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Will you tell me your name please?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Kate Bernath.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where were you born and when?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born August 27, 1927 in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Sziksz6</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Tell me about your family and and your life in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Szikszo</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: Uh, I come from a family of three children.</sentence><sentence id="14">I had two brothers and I was the youngest, a girl, and my father was a businessman and we were sort of middle-class Jews in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> and, uh, I look back on my childhood as quite happy and, uh, even though there were a lot of dark clouds on the <span class="DLF">sky</span>, we children were always protected and and, uh, shielded sort of and, uh, had quite a happy life.</sentence><sentence id="15">| we thought so anyway.</sentence><sentence id="16">Until the... it really began to get bad and we started to hear all the the different rumors about, uh, what's happening all around us but we thought that maybe some people are exaggerating it and, uh, it would never happen to us.</sentence><sentence id="17">We are loyal Hungarian citizens and, uh, nobody would harm us.</sentence><sentence id="18">Our father, grandfathers fought for the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> and, uh, and, uh, it's really just scaring us with these things.</sentence><sentence id="19">But then in, uh, April, March actually, 1944, when the Germans came in, we had to put on the yellow star and Jews were not allowed to leave leave their <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> actually and, uh, we were not allowed to travel, have <span class="BUILDING">businesses</span> or go to <span class="BUILDING">school</span> or do anything.</sentence><sentence id="20">I mean we knew that it is happening.</sentence><sentence id="21">It is happening.</sentence><sentence id="22">And, uh, within a few weeks we were all rounded up and sent to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> in, uh, the nearest bigger <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> named <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.720996" long="21.257748">Kassa</span>" where we were in, uh, very bad circumstances already.</sentence><sentence id="23">No money was allowed to brought with, only certain amount and we had to leave all our possessions at <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="24">Just everybody was allowed, uh, uh, backpack of some little clothes and and no food and no money and then we didn't, no, no future.</sentence><sentence id="25">Didn't know what's going to happen to us.</sentence><sentence id="26">As and surely enough, uh, we were, uh, there four weeks maybe in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> when the Germans took us out from the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Before we get to that, were you seeing a young man in the middle of all this?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Oh yes.</sentence><sentence id="44">I, I was, uh, quite, uh, popular (laughter) and, and, uh, seeing we were ri...as I said we had a very social life and, and, and very happy life ina way.</sentence><sentence id="45">When we were not, we " <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ko8ice</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="46">couldn't go to, we couldn't go to, uh, the movies so we entertained ourselves at <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="47">I mean we tried to make the best of a bad situation and, uh, this certain young man was, uh, more attentive than others and (laughter) we sort of became semi-officially engaged.</sentence><sentence id="48">Uh, he had to go off to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camp</span>, but, uh, we promised each other that if we both come back, we going to get married someday.</sentence><sentence id="49">But that was, uh, a very iffy situation of course because you really didn't know what was going on, but but when you're young you don't really think that way.</sentence><sentence id="50">Imean you don't really think you're going to die.</sentence><sentence id="51">You may say it, but, but it doesn't feel like, you know, you don't feel it.</sentence><sentence id="52">You don't realize it what the word really means.</sentence><sentence id="53">So we (pause) going back to back going back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.720996" long="21.257748">Kassa</span>, one, one, uh, day the Germans brought in these, uh, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> and we were rounded up, I think eighty of us in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, old and young and and sick and, uh, crying and and, uh, even whatever little we had they took away from us.</sentence><sentence id="54">No food.</sentence><sentence id="55">And the <span class="DLF">doors</span> were locked on us and was, everybody was looking out under little <span class="DLF">windows</span> in the cracks which way we're heading, because nobody told us anything.</sentence><sentence id="56">I mean we, everything was rumored but no...nobody said you're going here or you're going there and we thought we're going to work.</sentence><sentence id="57">Everybody said, oh, you're going to work so it's not the worst thing.</sentence><sentence id="58">We're going to work but, uh, my father sort of, uh, he was, uh, we called him a pessimist. (</sentence><sentence id="59">laughter) He he felt that he knew what that that it's going to be terrible and, uh, he said that we're heading for the, out of the <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence><sentence id="60">I mean because if we were going to work, they would have bring us to the other direction.</sentence><sentence id="61">The <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> would go to the other direction.</sentence><sentence id="62">And, uh, sure enough, in three days time--it took us, wait a minute, three days--yes, three days to arrive to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="85">Q: Tell me about that trip.</sentence><sentence id="86">What was the trip like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="89">A: Well, you hardly could sit down in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> and, uh, and, uh, I don't even remember having any food.</sentence><sentence id="90">We must have some food with us but, uh, I don't really recall recall it.</sentence><sentence id="91">And, uh, some people were sick, really out of their mind, old people, senile people and they were crying and yelling all night long and if somebody had to go to the <span class="INT_SPACE">bathroom</span>, then then there was a little, uh, little <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">pail</span> there, and everybody, men and women together, everybody, uh, seeing that you're going to the <span class="INT_SPACE">bathroom</span>.</sentence><sentence id="92">It's, it was just so humiliating, humiliating and, and, uh, horrible.</sentence><sentence id="93">So all they can do is cry or pray or or or try to soothe each other and, and sitting down on the <span class="INT_SPACE">floor</span> and and mothers with their children and, uh, resting in their heads in their lap and it was just an awful trip.</sentence><sentence id="94">And, uh, little did we know that at least we were together.</sentence><sentence id="95">As soon as we arrived to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, uh, they were waiting for us.</sentence><sentence id="96">We didn't know what <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> was or where we were and was all of a sudden they opened the <span class="DLF">doors</span> and these these, uh, men with, uh, striped uniforms started to drag us out and the Germans, uh, patrolling with their German Shepherds and and yelling, " ; , schnell, schnell."</sentence><sentence id="97">Everything has to be done "schnell" all the time.</sentence><sentence id="98">And as soon as we got off, even our backsack what we could carry with us, uh, we tried to get it.</sentence><sentence id="99">They threw, they threw it all out on the side and we didn't need it anymore actually, but we didn't know that.</sentence><sentence id="100">And, uh, and men and women were separated right away.</sentence><sentence id="101">Separate <span class="DLF">lines</span>.</sentence><sentence id="102">And, uh, when we were going in the <span class="DLF">lines</span>, uh, this this, uh, German officer in a uniform, he was just telling which way to go for everybody, left or right. [</sentence><sentence id="103">remember him asking my mother how old she was and she said, "Vierzig" [GER: forty] That's all she was.</sentence><sentence id="104">And he sent her to the other side.(Crying) But at that point we thought we going to see each other yet.</sentence><sentence id="105">I mean we had no idea of, of, uh, what was waiting for us.</sentence><sentence id="106">And then they told us that you're going to see them later, that you're going to see them at night.</sentence><sentence id="107">They're taking the young people to work and, uh, at night or or on the weekend you're going to be together.</sentence><sentence id="108">Uh, first they asked for the twins, if we had any twins between us.</sentence><sentence id="109">I remember some who were twins and they took them out and then they were asking for other occupations, uh, to step aside.</sentence><sentence id="110">They wanted.</sentence><sentence id="111">The rest of us were marched to the <span class="INT_SPACE">bath</span>, to, to take a <span class="INT_SPACE">shower</span>, to a <span class="INT_SPACE">bath</span>.</sentence><sentence id="112">We had to take all our clothes off and put them nicely in a pile when we come out to find them, and they brought us into this huge <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> where the showers were overhead and they locked the <span class="DLF">doors</span> on us and, uh, and, uh, hot steaming water came out.</sentence><sentence id="113">Little did we know that our parents got the same showers with the gas on.</sentence><sentence id="114">Uh, when we came out from the <span class="INT_SPACE">showers</span> we came out on the other <span class="DLF">door</span> so we never got our clothes back, our shoes or anything.</sentence><sentence id="115">Even the last pin from my hair was taken out and, uh, we got a a dress, a grey cotton dress.</sentence><sentence id="116">No underwear.</sentence><sentence id="117">I got a pair of shoes which was three sizes too big on my feet, wooden shoes.</sentence><sentence id="118">And we were marched into a <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> where there were these, uh, so-called <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bleachers</span> (ph) what we were sleeping, uh, lay ourself, uh, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bunks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="119">Twelve of us on one, so if one turned around, all twelve had to turn.</sentence><sentence id="120">Uh, one bow!</sentence><sentence id="121">of, uh, soup without a spoon or cup or anything for the twelve of us, so each took one sip and and handed to the others.</sentence><sentence id="122">And, uh, these, uh, Jewish girls, uh, were Czechoslovak, from <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, were our Blockiltesters.</sentence><sentence id="123">They were the overseers.</sentence><sentence id="124">And they were telling us, tried to orient us of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> routine, what, how, what was waiting for us and they told us that, uh, you'll never see your parents again.</sentence><sentence id="125">You might as well forget about it because they are already in the, marched into the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span>.</sentence><sentence id="126">We just couldn't believe them you know in our wildest <span class="NPIP">dream</span> that that something like this could happen.</sentence><sentence id="127">We thought they were just, uh, being tude to us.</sentence><sentence id="128">They they wanted to punish us for, for not being here the same way like they were for so many years already.</sentence><sentence id="129">And, uh, we just shrugged it off.</sentence><sentence id="130">We we, but in the meantime they told us if there will be a selection, just volunteer, volunteer for anything.</sentence><sentence id="131">Go out of here.</sentence><sentence id="132">This is a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">death camp</span>, and, and, uh, the farther you get away from it the better it is.</sentence><sentence id="133">So happens after three days we were shipped, uh, the, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transports</span> were coming in day and night from <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="134">Actually I was in the first <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transport</span> to leave <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, and, uh, day and night they were bringing in people and even the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span> couldn't work fast enough for it, so they had to make <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>.</sentence><sentence id="135">We had to make room for the newcomers.</sentence><sentence id="136">We were sent to, uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Cracow</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">P_aszow</span> the Lager was called.</sentence><sentence id="137">It was the most horrible <span class="NPIP">place on earth</span>.</sentence><sentence id="138">I think it was worse than <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, even though it had no <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>.</sentence><sentence id="139">But we worked very, very hard there.</sentence><sentence id="140">Four o'clock in the morning we had to get up to for Zahlappells, uh, counting of the rolls, and stay there for hours under the stars in our one piece of clothes and it was freezing cold.</sentence><sentence id="141">This was in May, but it was in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountains</span>, and we had no clothes on and we had no food and and everybody was cold.</sentence><sentence id="142">And, uh, staying there after after the Zahlappell we were marched out to work.</sentence><sentence id="143">The <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was situated on a, on a <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountainside</span> and our work was to carry these big wooden planks up on the steep <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountain</span>, that we we stood like three girls or five girls on there, one of these big wooden plank and carried it on our shoulders up on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountains</span>.</sentence><sentence id="144">And, uh, German...of course like I said everything had to be done "schnell" and, uh, and, uh, they were coming with the German Shepherds to chase us to go fast.</sentence><sentence id="145">Now when you have a three size too big pair of shoes on your feet and the mud, and it's muddy and and go up on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountainside</span>, it's, it's terribly hard, and we were doing this work all day long.</sentence><sentence id="146">And by the time we came back <span class="BUILDING">home</span> on the other side of the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountain</span>, uh, sometimes the food ran out already.</sentence><sentence id="147">Uh, the last people didn't get any or or else we got some soup with, uh, some barley, barley soup.</sentence><sentence id="148">That was our mainstay for three months, every single day.</sentence><sentence id="149">Barley soup.</sentence><sentence id="150">And, uh, lot of, uh, after a while we were issued some clothes because it was, like I said it was very cold there in them.</sentence><sentence id="151">We had some sweaters and, and coats and by the time we realized it, it was full of lice, this clothes.</sentence><sentence id="152">So, so whenever we could escape a little, hide from the work, our pastime was to kill the lice, the, the; it was, uh, we suffered a lot there from, from, uh, from the other people.</sentence><sentence id="153">From the other camp-mates who were, who were not, uh, not good to us because they felt that we were, uh, spoiled or, or we just coming from, from our, our, uh, <span class="BUILDING">homes</span> and they were already suffering for years and years and they thought we're not even Jewish, Jewish, uh, prisoners because you don't speak the language.</sentence><sentence id="154">We don't belong.</sentence><sentence id="155">But nevertheless, uh, we settled down sort of a routine until until the partisans began to really raid on the, make a lot of raids around the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> and, and the front was coming closer I suppose, so, so one day we were evacuated from there.</sentence><sentence id="156">And we were sent, we were sent back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="157">Of course we didn't know we're going there and this is, uh, uh, maybe a three-hour trip <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> betwe...between <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Cracow</span>, the distance should be three hours.</sentence><sentence id="158">It took us three days to get back in the hottest summer, August Sth I remember.</sentence><sentence id="159">Hundred and thirty us of us in one <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>.</sentence><sentence id="160">It was so hot that I remember one night I, I must have dozed off and I, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> stopped so I woke up and it was raining and water was coming down on my head.</sentence><sentence id="161">I thought to myself I must be losing my mind because I know that we started out with a covered <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>.</sentence><sentence id="162">How can it be raining?</sentence><sentence id="163">Until I found out that the humidity in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> was so high that it was coming down in drops from the <span class="DLF">ceiling</span>.</sentence><sentence id="164">We had absolutely no water, no food, no <span class="DLF">air</span>.</sentence><sentence id="165">After three days when we finally arrived in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> and they opened the <span class="DLF">wagon doors</span>, we give thank God, thanks to God that we are in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> and we're perhaps going to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span>, and this will be the end of our journey. (</sentence><sentence id="166">Pause) Uh, but we didn't go to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span>.</sentence><sentence id="167">We went back to another lag...uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="168">I think it was the C Lager they called it.</sentence><sentence id="169">And, uh, our, we were full of lice I told you, so our hair was shaved.</sentence><sentence id="170">Before they didn't have time because usually when a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transport</span> arrives, the women are all shaved.</sentence><sentence id="171">Their hair is shaved off but when I first came there, it did...it didn't, they were such, in such a rush that they didn't, they didn't do it to us but when we fir...came back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, they shaved our heads which was good because we were full of lice, like Itold you.</sentence><sentence id="172">And, uh, they tattooed me.</sentence><sentence id="173">This was just another...we really didn't care at that point.</sentence><sentence id="174">We didn't think that that we, we, we really ex...ceased to be human beings.</sentence><sentence id="175">We were just a number already but who care...mean it was beyond us already.</sentence><sentence id="176">And, uh, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> I didn't work.</sentence><sentence id="177">It was just a transport Lager alread...an an an experimenting Lager.</sentence><sentence id="178">We...we didn't have to work.</sentence><sentence id="179">But, of course, the food was very, uh, skimpy and, uh, and also we had to stay in li...in, uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Zahlappell</span> for hours long in the cold nights, so much so that I remember we used to, a group of us used to huddle together and keep each other warm.</sentence><sentence id="180">And, uh, I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="181">The rest of our times just, uh, went by, uh, without doing anything.</sentence><sentence id="182">Just...just waiting, and...and... and...and uh (pause) they kept saying, uh, there were constantly selections.</sentence><sentence id="183">Selections from us, but we didn't, uh, know where the selections were going.</sentence><sentence id="184">So everybody was trying to avoid it.</sentence><sentence id="185">But nevertheless these, uh, inmates who were there a longer time kept telling us, "Just try to get out from here.</sentence><sentence id="186">Because it's, uh...here it's, uh, the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span> is always working.</sentence><sentence id="187">Uh, if...if you go away, maybe you'll be lucky and, uh, survive."</sentence><sentence id="188">So one day, when there was a selection in our <span class="DLF">block</span>, uh, I was together with a cousin of mine.</sentence><sentence id="189">We decided that, uh, "Let's...let's go for the selection."</sentence><sentence id="190">They needed five hundred girls for this selection; and, uh, I was the four hundred and ninety-ninth and she was the fifth...fifth...five hundred[th] to be selected.</sentence><sentence id="191">And there was two more girls with us--also cousins--who were cut off, and they remained in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="192">They never came back alive.</sentence><sentence id="193">We were...we were, uh, really lucky ones.</sentence><sentence id="194">We were sent to, uh, a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> to work in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Augsburg</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="195">Uh, I believe the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> belonged to Messerschmitt.</sentence><sentence id="196">That's what I was told.</sentence><sentence id="197">It was, uh, situated on <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ulmerstrasse</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Augsburg</span>; and it was not a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span> in the regular sense, becau...we were locked up.</sentence><sentence id="198">I mean, we were not allowed to leave the <span class="BUILDING">buildings</span>; but, uh, we were living in the <span class="BUILDING">factory building</span>.</sentence><sentence id="199">It was a huge L-shaped <span class="BUILDING">building</span> and we were living in one on one side of it with the Ger...with our German guards and, uh, we were working in the other side of the <span class="BUILDING">building</span>, so we never left the <span class="BUILDING">building</span>.</sentence><sentence id="200">We went through the <span class="INT_SPACE">basement</span>, up to the other <span class="NPIP">side</span> to work and, uh, our food was a little better than if we were not working.</sentence><sentence id="201">And our guards were not hitting us like they were in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Cracow</span> with the, with the leather--uh, I don't know what you call them--and there were plenty of beatings there and and so we were, uh, handled more humanely.</sentence><sentence id="202">Nevertheless, uh, we were hungry constantly but, uh, there was five hundred of us.</sentence><sentence id="203">Five hundred Hungarian girls and, uh, we were working hard for the Germans.</sentence><sentence id="204">The German civilians worked in the same <span class="NPIP">place</span> but not together with us.</sentence><sentence id="205">Separate, separate departments.</sentence><sentence id="206">Uh, had a lot of air raids in those days in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="207">The Americans came constantly.</sentence><sentence id="208">Every night we could set our clock by it that what time the air raid is going to be and we were happy about it.</sentence><sentence id="209">We were glad.</sentence><sentence id="210">We were wishing they would bomb the <span class="NPIP">place</span> down and, uh, with us together (laughter) whatever but, uh, the Germans didn't--we had to go to the <span class="BUILDING">air shelters</span> every night because the Germans wouldn't leave us up there.</sentence><sentence id="211">They were afraid we, we might signal the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span>.</sentence><sentence id="212">One day there was a bomb fell on our <span class="DLF">courtyard</span> and it never exploded.</sentence><sentence id="213">The German workers said that it's because the Jews are here.</sentence><sentence id="214">They, they already felt that they lost the war.</sentence><sentence id="215">Actually the Germans felt it.</sentence><sentence id="216">They knew it.</sentence><sentence id="217">But of course everybody was afraid.</sentence><sentence id="218">They were afraid.</sentence><sentence id="219">We were afraid.</sentence><sentence id="220">They wouldn't talk to us, uh, but, uh, they they they knew that, uh, it's getting out of hand.</sentence><sentence id="221">Don't forget this was toward the end of the war and, uh, we tried we tried to do our work so we should sabotage a few of their <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span> but I don't know if it succeeded or not (laughter) but uh...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="361">Q: How did you do that?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="363">A: Well we were we were I was working in the they called it where our job was to, to these parts we were dipping into these chemicals so they shouldn't oxidize because when they put them in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">planes</span> they're, you know, rusty, they're not treated, uh, good enough so we tried to manipulate a little that it shouldn't be so good but I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="364">It was just a hope that maybe we did some good.</sentence><sentence id="365">And, uh, I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="366">Our, uh, German the, the Hauptscharfihrer (ph) who was, uh, the after a while he became very mean and we, we heard rumors that his son was killed at the <span class="REGION">Russian front</span> and he took his frustrations out on the Jews of course and, uh, but we were, we were--uh, in the midst of all our troubles we were trying to cheer each other up.</sentence><sentence id="367">If one was feeling very low, we, we tried to tell them, we, we dreamed about things what we were going to do when we got liberated.</sentence><sentence id="368">We were all...we never thought for a minute, I never thought for a minute that I'm really going to die.</sentence><sentence id="369">I, it just did not sink in.</sentence><sentence id="370">I mean with all these horrors around me I, I always thought that we were dreaming of, of things--when I got <span class="BUILDING">home</span> I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and I just want to see this, this war end and just live for the day when we see the Germans defeated.</sentence><sentence id="371">And that kept us alive.</sentence><sentence id="372">Never to lose hope.</sentence><sentence id="373">If you lost hope that was the end of it.</sentence><sentence id="374">It was so easy in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="375">All you had to do is reach out for the <span class="DLF">barbed wires</span>.</sentence><sentence id="376">They were electrified.</sentence><sentence id="377">We will not do them the favor.</sentence><sentence id="378">We said if they want to kill us, they'll have to kill us.</sentence><sentence id="379">We are not going to die (laughter) becau...because it's, it's, uh, if we knew that our parents would be alive or, or we said we, we, we fight.</sentence><sentence id="380">We can do it.</sentence><sentence id="381">We, we, we are going to stay alive.</sentence><sentence id="382">But of course it, it became more and more heated the the war.</sentence><sentence id="383">It it, uh, to us, uh, middle of, beginning of April we had to leave <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Augsburg</span> because the bombings were unbearable and, uh, I suppose the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> shut down for whatever reasons.</sentence><sentence id="384">They, they put us back into the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> and, and, uh, we were headed for wherever <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> would take us and we were taken actually to several <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> where they had no <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> for us.</sentence><sentence id="385">And finally we wound up, uh, a <span class="NPIP">place</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Miihldorf</span>.</sentence><sentence id="386">At this time we belonged to, we were under <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.269612" long="11.468478">Dachau</span> jurisdiction I suppose.</sentence><sentence id="387">Uh, this, this belonged to the camps <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.269612" long="11.468478">Dachau</span> already and, uh, we stayed in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Miihlidorf</span>.</sentence><sentence id="388">When we arrived there we saw people there who were in much worse shape than we were.</sentence><sentence id="389">I mean they really looked, uh, walking corpses.</sentence><sentence id="390">And, uh, we had to go out to work, uh, mostly these <span class="NPIP">bombed out places</span>.</sentence><sentence id="391">They took us to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Miihldorf</span> I suppose and, uh, cleaning, uh, bricks of the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> that were bombed out and uh ...the middle of the <span class="REGION">area</span> was such a bombing... that my ...cousin was laying next.</sentence><sentence id="392">We were laying on, uh, on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>, uh, during the attack, next to a <span class="ENV_FEATURES">tree</span> and and we couldn't see each other from from the smoke.</sentence><sentence id="393">But, uh, nevertheless, we didn't care about the bombs.</sentence><sentence id="394">I mean we were happy that there were bombings.</sentence><sentence id="395">One, uh, I just you, just didn't think about, uh, living or dying or whatever may come or, or you were a fanatic just to see the Germans defeated.</sentence><sentence id="396">That's all we lived for.</sentence><sentence id="397">And we knew it full well it, it will be done but the question was will we see it.</sentence><sentence id="398">With all our <span class="NPIP">dreams</span> and our deep-down each and every one of us knew that they're going to kill us in the last minute.</sentence><sentence id="399">They're not going to let us live to, to come and testify.</sentence><sentence id="400">It was just by accident.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="440">Q: What happened to you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="442">A: What happened to me?</sentence><sentence id="443">This <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Miihldorf</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Mihldorf</span> was evacuated.</sentence><sentence id="444">About six thousand people altogether I suppose.</sentence><sentence id="445">I'm really not good at, uh, these things because I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="446">I was just shoved here and I was shoved there.</sentence><sentence id="447">Nobody told me anything and, uh, and, uh, we were in, as I said put into <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> again and, uh, supposedly, I heard rumors we were heading to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Innsbruck</span> which was, uh, exterminating pla...uh, Lager again to to finish us all off.</sentence><sentence id="448">But, uh, the Ger...the the front was over more, all around us, the fightings and, uh, there were more important things for the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">locomotives</span> than to transport us.</sentence><sentence id="449">So we were stranded for days here and days there.</sentence><sentence id="450">I mean the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> didn't move.</sentence><sentence id="451">We were just left, uh, left there on the <span class="DLF">tracks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="452">And, uh, one day, one day somebody noticed that all our guards left.</sentence><sentence id="453">And, uh, somebody, I don't know how, some man or broke out of their their <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> and opened all the <span class="DLF">wagon doors</span> and they said, "Uh, we have no guards.</sentence><sentence id="454">The war is over.</sentence><sentence id="455">You're free."</sentence><sentence id="456">Let's go wherever.</sentence><sentence id="457">So where should we go.</sentence><sentence id="458">You know, we were a group of, uh, girls together who were all the time sticking it out and, uh, finally we saw everybody is running away from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>.</sentence><sentence id="459">We started to walk.</sentence><sentence id="460">This was, uh, <span class="DLF">fields</span> there and, uh, finally we came to a <span class="BUILDING">farmhouse</span>.</sentence><sentence id="461">Uh, came to this <span class="BUILDING">farmhouse</span>.</sentence><sentence id="462">Uh, somebody who spoke German told the German man there that we are from a neighboring, uh, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span> and we were left on our own, and we were very hungry.</sentence><sentence id="463">Could he please give us something to eat?</sentence><sentence id="464">So he said to go up to, for us to go in the back and, uh, he's going to try to find us something to eat.</sentence><sentence id="465">A little later he came back and brought some, some food and no sooner we started to eat, this SS soldier came with his machine gun pointed at us and tells to the German guy that uh Juden so and uh Raus, Raus, everybody.</sentence><sentence id="466">Raus.</sentence><sentence id="467">They brought these these, uh, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="468">They rounded up all six thousand people back to the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>, but it was beating and shooting and and, uh, it was just a terrible, uh, situation.</sentence><sentence id="469">On top of all there was a big thunderstorm and, and, uh, we were pulled back and and bleeding and, and, uh, wounded and pushed back into the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>.</sentence><sentence id="470">No sooner we were back in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">American fighter planes</span> came and started to bomb all around us.</sentence><sentence id="471">So much so that there were a lot of, lot of casualties at that point and, uh, and, uh, in the middle of the night finally the wag...the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> started to move again.</sentence><sentence id="472">We, we were going to, to, uh, we were on our way.</sentence><sentence id="473">People were crying and, and, uh, it was a hopeless situation.</sentence><sentence id="474">After a couple of days one night when we were standing on the <span class="DLF">tracks</span>, the, somebody opened the <span class="DLF">door</span> and asked if we had any wounded or dead in our <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>, because they are from the Swiss Red Cross and we were liberated.</sentence><sentence id="475">We were near the <span class="DLF">Swiss borders</span>.</sentence><sentence id="476">We couldn't believe it.</sentence><sentence id="477">We were so, so we didn't care anymore and, uh, and, uh, the girls started to shout they're not moving out of this <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span> anymore.</sentence><sentence id="478">Come what may, we're staying there.</sentence><sentence id="479">And, uh, so we stayed the night and in the morning we saw the American soldiers coming by with the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span> and, and, uh, and they started to bring us some food and, and, and, uh, then we knew that that the war was over and this was May Ist, 19467 and, uh, from then on and, uh, from then on, uh, they took us into a neighboring, uh, <span class="NPIP">place</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="47.950617" long="11.301876">Feldafing</span> which was, uh, it originally a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Hitlerjugend camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="480">It was a beautiful <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="481">It was on the <span class="BUILDING">Starnbergsee</span>.</sentence><sentence id="482">It's a big <span class="ENV_FEATURES">lake</span>.</sentence><sentence id="483">And, uh, they they disinfected us.</sentence><sentence id="484">They took us, took away all our clothes whatever we had.</sentence><sentence id="485">They gave us, they didn't have any clothes for us, so they gave us pajamas, whatever they could find and, uh, fed us and, uh, from then on it was, uh, much easier.</sentence><sentence id="486">But of course, uh, we didn't know what happened to our families and, and, uh, anybody around us and it's just, uh, you couldn't think.</sentence><sentence id="487">You couldn't, uh, do anything and it, it took many, many months before we became human again.</sentence><sentence id="488">It's, uh, (pause) I, I of course I skipped a lot of things over, over a lot of things which, uh, which was, which was worse than the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> itself, all the dehumanizing, all the suffering, the not- knowing what happened to, to our loved ones, whether we're going to see them again or not, and our properties, without we're left without everything and anybody and and it was just a horrible horrible experience.</sentence><sentence id="489">But uh....</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="541">Q: Did you go, did you go back <span class="BUILDING">home</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="543">A: Yes, I went back <span class="BUILDING">home</span> after after a good while because the transportation was very bad.</sentence><sentence id="544">I mean there was none.</sentence><sentence id="545">There was none, and we just had no way of, uh, turning.</sentence><sentence id="546">There was no papers, no money, no, no <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transportation</span>.</sentence><sentence id="547">So I remained in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> for, uh, three, four months I believe after the liberation.</sentence><sentence id="548">No, well in September, September when we heard there were some <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> going already back to <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="549">I went back to <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> and I found * 1945.</sentence><sentence id="550">the brother who was already <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="551">He was, survived the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span>.</sentence><sentence id="552">My other brother who was with him was killed in the last days of the war.</sentence><sentence id="553">And, uh, he was on one of these marches uh--they were, they were together all the time and and, uh, and this younger brother of mine became sick so he was taken to another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and my older brother thinking that he was going to go that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> to be with my younger brother again, he went on this march and he never came out from there, in the last days, yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="567">Q: Did you meet up with your fiance again?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="569">A: Yes.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="571">Q: Tell us about it?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="573">A: Well, he was, uh, waiting with open arms (laughter) and he was waiting with open arms, but, uh, we were not ready to get married.</sentence><sentence id="574">I was, uh, there was no, uh, nothing and nobody and we really had to get ba...back to normal life to get adjusted.</sentence><sentence id="575">We, we didn't know what, uh, was happening to us.</sentence><sentence id="576">And, uh, but after a few months back in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> we, we felt that this is not the, we could not live here any longer.</sentence><sentence id="577">All the feelings what was in us made it impossible to, to readjust to life in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span>.</sentence><sentence id="578">With all the hatred and all the non-caring what we received from our Hungarian friends and neighbors, we just did not see life possible there anymore.</sentence><sentence id="579">So we decided to try to get back to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> and there, from there as displaced people we were going to be able emigrate either to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>, uh, <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span> or <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="580">He had relatives in <span class="COUNTRY">America</span> who wanted him to come here and, uh, so we went back.</sentence><sentence id="581">We became engaged in <span class="COUNTRY">Hungary</span> and, uh, started out on our journey and, uh, finally we got married in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Leipheim</span> .</sentence><sentence id="582">This was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">DP camp</span>, and on the way we got of course a lot of help from Jewish organizations, mainly from Joint, United Jewish Appeal and, and, uh, UNRRA kept these <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> open.</sentence><sentence id="583">Of course the life was very harsh in these <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">DP camps</span>, but, uh, I suppose, uh, we had our freedom.</sentence><sentence id="584">Our freedom to go nowheres because actually nobody wanted us until finally the Congress passed an act in 1948 or 9 and we were allowed to come to <span class="COUNTRY">America</span>.</sentence><sentence id="585">And we're ever grateful because we found that, uh, we had a good life, uh, with all our memories and all the, even even more so because we appreciate it more, whatever we got and, uh, whatever we achieved, uh, we are, we are allowed to achieve, we're very thankful for it and we see the contrast, how people are.</sentence><sentence id="586">It was really unbelievable to us that, that it could happen that, uh, that, uh, of course the German people paid for, for their mistakes and everybody does for the mass hysteria what swept through Europe.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: But you, you have been happy now?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="606">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="607">We are, uh, I mean happy.</sentence><sentence id="608">Of course, we miss our families terribly and we, we never forget about them.</sentence><sentence id="609">We always talk about them.</sentence><sentence id="610">It's became part of our lives.</sentence><sentence id="611">No matter how much we don't want to, whenever I get together with my friends or relatives, the subject comes up.</sentence><sentence id="612">We always wind up in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camps</span>.</sentence><sentence id="613">But, uh, we somehow we learned to live with it.</sentence><sentence id="614">I suppose it's, uh, some...uh, sometimes you don't believe it yourself that, uh, you really went through all this and you are, you, you still are a human being.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="624">Q: Is there anything you want to add?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="626">A: Uh, what I want to add is that, uh, people should be vigilant all the time not to, not to think that, uh, this really doesn't matter.</sentence><sentence id="627">All these all these, uh, hate mongrels what come up in the world and and people, if they're not personally marked they think that it's nothing.</sentence><sentence id="628">It will pass by.</sentence><sentence id="629">It will blow away.</sentence><sentence id="630">But, but if you let it go out of hand, then this, this can happen.</sentence><sentence id="631">Also I want to add that never lose hope.</sentence><sentence id="632">Until there is life there is always hope.</sentence><sentence id="633">If I, if | wouldn't give two cents for my life.</sentence><sentence id="634">I, like I said, I always felt that no matter how much, uh, front we're going to put up, they, they at the end they're going to kill us.</sentence><sentence id="635">And and but we did not give up hope.</sentence><sentence id="636">We didn't go around--I'm going to lay down and die.</sentence><sentence id="637">At the end, uh, some of us survived.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="650">Q: Thank you very much.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="652">A: Thank you.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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