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RG-50.030.0002 | 154 | All coming from Auschwitz? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 155 | I think so. I think they were coming from Auschwitz because the other ones were Hungarians. Can I tell you something interesting about -- by that time, we didn't have a doctor and they brought a bunch of women from the Warsaw uprising, gentile women. They were not with us, but they brought one of the doctors to us to work with us and one of the women somehow when there was another nurse and I and my mother and people were coming in with various ailments, there was one lady who was from Germany, had lost her husband and child. She was not Jewish. Her husband was Jewish, and she kind of started becoming administrator to the very end. She was the administrator of the hospital. As a matter of fact, we saw her in the United States. She survived. So, we would sleep -- it was so cold, but we would sleep, this Polish doctor, and Lisa and my mother and I would take one blanket and put it underneath us on the shavings and would cover ourselves with the three other blankets. It was much warmer. And the body head kept us going. It was getting cold. By that time, I think my mother started looking at some teeth. I mean, checking, also everything on the floor, we had no place to do but, one day we got notified and some people approached Mom and the other women and a few other ones that this is Yom Kippur and the Hungarians are going to have a service and we are invited. After dark come in one by one and come in, sneak in. So, one by one, it was very dark, and you know they closed the camp. Except for the towers, there was no one in camp. They would close it up, all the Germans would just disappear at darkness. And we all hide under the blankets. We wrapped ourselves in blankets and quietly walked into the tent. They lined up the shavings in such a way they were like benches. In the very front they made a out of the shavings covered with blanket. How they got a candle, I do not know, but they had a tiny little candle. There as a young girl and an elderly woman and they sang the whole out of memory. And they sung, and they warned us please do not cry, please do not wail, please do not make a sound. Don't sing, don't do anything, just be quiet, because the Germans would have shot all of us. I tell you, this was one, even the Polish woman, she was sitting there with the tears running down her eyes, this Polish doctor. We all sat, and until today I go to services and when I hear the chant, I see that scene because it was eerie. Can you imagine, by that time there must have been 1,500 women there, like ghosts sitting in the gray blankets listening to the service, and then again, they let us out one by one, two by two, please don't say anything. Don't talk when you walk, just sneak into your own tent. This was unbelievable, the faith, and as I said we all took chances by attending that service. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 156 | Since you were not particularly religious growing up, how did the part of that service make you feel? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 157 | Unbelievable because I knew -- let's put it this way. We had a record of one of the famous cantors home so I have heard I don't think I ever went to services, because this was such an Orthodox synagogue, so I couldn't go maybe when I was little kid they took me, Grandfather took me, but I never went. But I always heard this record, because my father liked that cantor and he had this record. And I used to play with the record player, so I was very much aware of that chant, and I knew it. I knew the melody, and I knew that this was something very, very important. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 158 | Was there a special sense of solidarity? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 159 | Solidarity, feeling of something, hope. To do something like this in such circumstances was unbelievable, especially after Auschwitz where we were so controlled and here we could attend this service. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 160 | About the camp, were you isolated from all these other groups? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 161 | Yes. Well, the way the camp was done was like I said, wa one long street and there were various sub camps on various sides. We were aware of several of them, and later on I was aware of more of them. One was called the stern camp and one was called the diamond camp, and those were the people from Holland and Belgium. The rumor --they lived with the families at that time. That's when the children came in. Rumor was that they paid a lot of money to the Germans to bribe them in terms of giving them diamonds and gold and money, so when they evacuated them, they promised that they'll be kept separate and they'll be kept with the families, and they'll not be destroyed. Eventually, they separated them. They sent the parents out and the children were kept and I'll tell you about the children camp a little bit later. They started bringing more and more people to our section, our compound. It's getting crowded. One day the tents blew off. There was a big storm and wind and just the tents collapsed. So, they put us somewhere temporary, and for a so called hospital they build a little tent in a corner and the rest of the people were in the barracks. And that's the first time I saw myself. Those barracks had windows. It was just a temporary measure until they could build some more places for us. I walked one day, and I saw this person walking without hair and wearing this crazy blue striped dress, and I knew that this original model, there's only one. No one else has this copy of that. And I couldn't believe that this was me, and I stood there and I looked at my reflection an I touched my face and I touched my hair. I couldn't believe -- I mean I was like a little baby, like you show a baby a picture and he says that's me. That's the way I was. I couldn't believe that's me. I looked at the dress and said no there's no other one, that's me. I'm the only one. It was a shocking experience to see yourself. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 162 | How long had it been since you had seen yourself? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 163 | This was after Yom Kippur, probably two months or so. It had to be in October because I don't know exactly when Yom Kippur took place, but this was shortly afterward when the tents were blown down. So, then one of the people who one of the tasks was one of my friend Alena who went to school with me, her mother was a pediatrician before the war. During the war, the beginning of a war, she was run over by a truck, so her face -- she was never a pretty women, but her face was damaged, crooked and stuff like this. Well, she became a doctor, and they sent another one, Doctor Annie. She was a woman born in Russian, went to medical school in Russia, married a French diplomat and she lived in Germany. She was Jewish, but she lived in Germany before Hitler, because he was a French diplomat. She was a socialite. She never practiced medicine, but this was our other doctor. By that time they moved us again. They build some barracks and they built a so-called hospital. We were moved like three times. So, this was when Schnabbles (ph) started coming in. We had one big room where the patients stayed in the bunk, and one corner we had the staff, and by that time they brought more nurses, must have been about SIX nurses, seven nurses and two doctors, my girlfriend Alena was a nurse. My mother was there. On the one window we had this out patient clinic and in the back was a little tiny room and it was a dental office. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 164 | Excuse me, this is completely separate from the barracks? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 165 | They had access to it. It was part of the camp, but this was a separate little building. That's when we started seeing the two I don't know what you call it, the German -- they were like medial corps men, or something. One was a decent guy, his name was Fisher. And he liked to grab the girls' boobs. So, we gave him a name of Fisher Tapper. Tapper in Jewish is to tap, to grab it, and he liked to grab whenever he could when no one else was looking. The other one was obnoxious. He was a young fellow and we called him the pig, so I don't know his name. And Doctor Schnabbles started coming in. He was an elderly man, according to rumors again, he was a nose and ear man. He was checking what patients and what cases we have. One of the first patients which he started doing something with, was a woman came on the transport, had a compound fracture of her tibia. The skin was broken, the bone was sticking out. It was a horror. They put some kind of a metal frame around it and she had to be operated on. So, he decided -- first of all, it was cool. He never would take off his coat. He did all his surgeries in his coat. He decided to set the leg. Well, he was not very successful. So, the pediatrician opened up her mouth and said, "Doctor, don't you think you should do this and that?" Well, that was the end of her. She was ugly as it is, he didn't like it with the scars and all on her face, but that put her in disfavor. We had two guys were watching, he tried to set the leg. He never did. The woman was crippled. She survived the war, I think, but she was in the hospital with us all the time. Tape #3 | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 166 | So, the first time he started setting that leg, it never took. Well, Schnabble was looking always for patients, what he could operate on. He was always checking what we have. At that time, our staff consisted of Lisa, who the director of the hospital. We had a scribe because they wanted reports. How many patients were admitted, what they were coming in for, what sicknesses we had and stuff like this. There must have been six or seven nurses, and then we had two orderly ladies. We even had like a little toilet in the back. Those two women had to take the stuff out, but we had like a little outhouse attached to the hospital. I don't remember what we had later, but that one I knew we had. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 167 | How many doctors were there? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 168 | At that time, they took the Polish woman away, there was my friend Alena, Doctor and Doctor Annie, the Russian woman, who didn't know much about medicine, but she was there. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 169 | How many of the nurses really had any medical training? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 170 | Very few. What I had was like a practical nurse whatever I picked up, so did my girlfriend Alena. There were one or two, there was one Dutch, she came and there was another one, a Belgium that really had training or not, but we did what we could do. Let's put it this way. It was more than the other people could do. And then I had a little dental office. We had also all kinds of patients and they were there forever. Some of them died, some of them we let out. Basically, a lot of surgical things. I remember there was one young girl who claimed she could never get up and we tried to get her up, and we could never get her up. Sometimes we climbed up and to get her out of the bed to straighten out that mess, and never knew what was wrong with her. One day she just died, so evidently there was something wrong with her. There was another young girl she had a groin abscess which was draining for weeks and months. I mean the woman with the leg, I remember once I wanted to wash my famous dress, I mean we had nothing. So, if you wanted to wash a dress you borrowed something from a patient and wore that for a day and washed the dress and the patient was lying naked. Conditions were pretty horrid, but as I said, they were still feeding us. We got the bread in the morning, and we, the personnel didn't have to stay and it was getting cold. We also had a young girl who was a mental patient, whether she was manic-depressant, I don't know. One day, Schnabble came in and decided to do some kind of a surgery, and we didn't have electricity so they brought carbide lights. She got frantic. Something was going on in the other room and the lights. This was a scene like . She went wild. We started chasing her. She was running and she was jumping over the patients. She was climbing the beds and they were the two, three story beds. And people, in that frenzy they are extremely strong, and they are extremely violent and they are very agile. Well, we finally got her and had some shots for her and put a straight jacket on her and got her some shots. She was petrified of Schnabble. One of the tents was still up and I spent with her about two or three days in the tent. My mother was petrified that she's going to kill me, but she kept calm. I mean, you could talk to her a little bit, you couldn't get the story out of her. After that outburst, that place where we give her the injection, that festered and eventually she died. She had an infection. When we knew Schnabble was coming, we used to put the straight jacket on her, because she was so petrified. When he walked in, we all had to stand at attention. We couldn't move. The only person who ever moved was one of the little orderlies. She was a little woman, blonde nose, no teeth. She was a young woman, bow legged, and she wanted to show him that she was working, so she would sweep the floor, including his feet. It was a riot, and he used to say, "The only one who works here is this one, the little one. She's the only one who's working." As I said, she would sweep over his books, and he liked her. He never did anything in any way to stop her. Well, one of the first opportunities he had to send Doctor out, they were sending out the transports. The transports, at that time, were going in and out, whether this was to a labor camp or something, so he sent her out, because he couldn't stand her, because she tried to correct him. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 171 | Alena's mother? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 172 | Alena's mother. So, they went out. They did survive the war. I think they wound up in and went back to Poland. Her mother died in Lodz or , and she survived and she was an artist, and she lived in Paris. I was in touch with her, and then she died of cancer. So, she was a young woman. But they survived the war. By that time, Mom had got some kind of ear infection, and I remember she was in such pain. She got some medication and she was cold. So, someone had a pair of prison underpants, stripes. I remember she put it on her head because this was the only warm thing she could put on her head. She was sitting in the bunk, lying on the bunk with the underpants on her head like a hat. At that time, somehow, Lisa, this was the administrator, and the other one that was the scribe, somehow they were trying to do a little , and get my mother out, because they needed a dentist and they were bringing this man dentist, he was Dutch, from another camp. I think at that time, Binko (ph) came around, I don't know what happened, but there was a lot of whispering going on and a lot of talking back and forth, but whether the German dentist --whatever happened, Mom got better and went back to practice. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 173 | Tell me about Binko? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 174 | Well, she was a dentist. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 175 | What was her full name? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 176 | Haddasa Binko (ph). She was a dentist. She came in couldn't find a job, was looking for a job. How she became the head doctor, don't ask me. She must have talked to the right people, Germans probably, and they appointed her the head doctor. That little barrack was getting too small for us so again they built another one. By that time we had a separate room for the staff. I think we were doing the outpatient in the same room. I finally beg hospital beds a small little room which was my mother's office. In the back, at that time, they brought in a group of women from Slovakia. I don't know if they were Jewish or not, with children. They had little children with them, and they built like an annex to our hospital, at the end of our hospital they were getting more firewood to warm up the place. They were getting some special soups, and they had some little possessions with them. They had pillows, they had some tea. Every once in a while we could get when the transport came in, they would bring us a box of junk, medical supplies and all kinds of odds and ends. I was in charge of all the medical supplies. Whenever I got any vitamins I would take it to the children, because I felt that this was very important for the mothers, so I became very friendly with them. Anything with baby powder, whatever they found and the Germans wouldn't use I started packages and so on. A little cough medicine for children, pediatrics, so I would take it to those women. Later on they helped me. Anyway, it was getting cold, it was getting very, very nasty. The weather was getting nasty. One day a young woman came with pain -- and you see by that time we had a couple of other doctors, I think. We tried to avoid telling Schnabble what was wrong with the patient. We didn't have the means to diagnose. We had no blood tests. We had no x- rays, it was just feel and think. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 177 | Were people coming in for all kinds of conditions? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 178 | Everything, and I can tell you, describe the conditions. There was one thing, dental condition, which I think it's called , where pieces of gums and lips would rot, decompose, and they would come in sometimes with a whole mouth missing, lips missing. I remember once three sisters came. One was completely gone. The other one had quite an advanced case. The third one had just started, and every once in a while we got vitamins. I mean we got all kinds of crazy things, which were odds and ends from various shipments, because the rest of the supplies -- oh yes, they used to give us once in a while paper bandages, and peroxide and some vitamins maybe and some aspirins. We did get some stuff, but it was little odds and ends like vitamin C. You had to use , the one who got the shot of vitamin C was the one who had the least advanced case of that cancer of the mouth, because we felt one or two shots may prevent that thing to spread further and maybe we could save. The oldest one, there was no way of saving. She was, for all practical -- maybe here in the United States with heavy doses of vitamins and heavy doses of medication, maybe one could save her, maybe, maybe not. But certainly you couldn't save her. This was what we had to do. There was another thing which later came up, much later. A patient would come in with a little blister and the blister would get bigger and bigger and bigger. Unless that blister was opened and drained very often half of the body was covered with the blister. What did this? I don't know, because I'll tell you later about the British doctors who were there and we used to tell them what to do with it, because they had no idea what to do with it. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 179 | How did you figure it out? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 180 | We found that when they came with the blister and when we pierced the blister and drained it, and had some dressing we put it on, maybe some antiseptic powder, whatever we had we tried, somehow we could close the blister if 1t wasn't too advanced case of it. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 181 | Did you have enough supplies? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 182 | No, I'll tell you about that later. Anyway, that one time this was one of the most horrid stories I ever saw. A young woman came in and the suspicion was that she had appendix inflamed. It just happened that Schnabble walked in and he heard what was going on. What do you have. See, we had to give them reports, and at one time this one medical guy used to stay the doctors have to stay at the stairs. When he comes in in the morning to pick up the reports, he doesn't want to get off the bicycle. You had to hand him that while he was on the run. He was awful, screaming, yelling. Anyway, Schnabble came in and found out that girl is complaining about appendix. He decided he is going to operate. Felt her around, I think he put rubber gloves on or whether his leather gloves, again, he wearing his coat. We set up the surgery in the dental office. He ordered his help, the Russian boys should bring some wood, so they brought some wood. It was raining. It was sleeting, so I started a fire in that little wooden stove. He assigned my mother to the anesthesia. She was his favorite anesthetist. The anesthesia consisted of a little mask, a little cage that goes and you drip ether drop by drop from the bottle. No other support, nothing. Annie was helping him, two guys were standing there, and I think he had one other girl, a nurse to assist, and I was the dirty nurse at that time. He opened her up, couldn't find her appendix. He saw something and he said, well, I don't know that looks suspicious, he was ready to cut this out. This was the bladder. It looks like a fish bladder. He poked around. He decided he can't find the appendix. He took all the intestines out. And the conditions are not sterile exactly. I mean the fire which was going there, it's full of soot and he can't find it. Put everything back together, took everything out again. He still can't find her appendix. At that time he barked to one of the guys, go bring Alenluf (ph). Alenluf was a Greek doctor, I don't know if he was the main compound or where he was, but he was in the men's camp, and I understand he was a very known surgeon. Well, a guy went on the bicycle and Doctor Alenluf was running after him. In the meantime, we kind of kept covered and kept the ether slow, not to have her in a deep sleep. I grab Alenluf's coat and put a pair of rubber gloves on him. That's what I manage because by now he's very impatient. Alenluf looked in and found the appendix which was not infected at all, and closed her up. She developed peritonitis. For three days that woman was in a coma screaming and he was coming in. He sent morphine. He sent painkillers. He also sent diet soup for her and white bread, but she couldn't eat anything. It lasted three days, and she died. But this was a horror. And you can't say anything, and he's pulling out all of her intestines out on the table and back into the cavity and back on the table and back in the cavity. It was a horror. And you have to stand there with a poker face and don't say a word, nothing. You can't react. And even this Doctor Alenluf, very gingerly worked and did whatever he had to do, and he didn't say you did wrong, nothing. He just did his job and that's it. This was one of the worst things which I witnessed. Now the funny thing happened with those slovak women. We had a bunch of syringes and we had various -- like I said, you asked about supplies, we would write that we need so and so many bandages and so many aspirins, we need so much -- they would cut it down in half, but they would bring us stuff. And we had some pain killers and we had something if someone had an attack of something. We also had babies. There were babies born. We had one woman once who knocked on the door in the middle of the night and said she's in labor, and our administrator went over, Doctor Annie went over to the tower and said, look we have a woman in labor. None of us is a midwife. So, they came in. The two guys, and they went from barrack to barrack and they found a midwife and the baby was delivered. I think Schnabble showed up so he called him Joseph Von Jordan, because there was a ditch over there and he said this is River Jordan. And the following day he sent a few diapers and something, there were a few of them, but the baby eventually died because the conditions were so bad that those infants could not survive. But, they didn't take away the babies. They didn't kill the babies. They didn't do any harm to them. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 183 | There were a number of babies in the camp? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 184 | Yes. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 185 | Were they family camps? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 186 | That was later that we got into. At that time there were just a few newborn, we had a few of them and those slovak women who had their children with them. Anyway, one day I needed my syringes to be sterilized and walked through and the Slovaks had a fire going, and I said, "Would you let me do the syringes here?" She said, "Oh, you're so busy. Why don't you let me do it. I'll watch it for you, and I'll do it." I said "Fine." I came back. She burnt every one of them. Now, this could be considered sabotage. I mean you know you had to really be so careful because here you are burning eight syringes. I was beside myself. I was afraid that Schnabble would come in and want to do something, give them an injection, whatever if he said something we had to do it. Well, I didn't know what to do. Finally I got this guy Fisher on the side and he was from Northern Poland originally, and we were afraid to speak in front of him because we were afraid he understand Polish and I told him. I told him what happened. I said, look I was busy and I took it to them and they burned it and they didn't pay attention. He started bringing, the same day he came in the afternoon, he brought one syringe. Whether he stole them, how he got them within a week I had the whole set of syringes back and he never denounced me. He never said anything to Schnabble, nothing. So, even in those conditions there were people who were a little compassionate. By that time things were getting bad, more transports. I believe this was the time they brought the commandant from Auschwitz and he was cruel. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 187 | What was his name? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 188 | I think Horss. And that she's the head and she was blonde and some others. I mean this nasty crew from Auschwitz came. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 189 | Do you know about what time, what year that was? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 190 | This was in '44, had to be around winter of '44, because it was getting cold when we lived in Auschwitz, when we had those surgeries. Also, when they were bringing the soups to the hospital, there were a bunch of wild women running around and trying to take the soups, the kettles, so we had to with sticks and stand guard, to escort the people who brought the soup, because they would just eat them and run with them. We needed them for the patients. The camp was getting bigger and bigger, and one day they said they were going to move all of our patients, and the whole camp first, on the other side of main street. This was originally a prisoner of war camp, and they had some permanent buildings which were hospital buildings, and they moved first the camp and then they moved the hospital. Our group was assigned to main building number one. It had an operating room. It had a dental office. It had some wards. We had like an outpatient room. So, the first order of business was that the operating room had white tile floors and walls. So, the first thing they did, they removed all the tiles, the ceramic tiles, because the commandant wanted that for his bathroom. I believe we had electricity. I can't even remember. They must have had electricity because my mother had this sterilizer that was an electric sterilizer or she had spirit or something to sterilize the instruments. The dental office was so beautifully equipped that when the Red Cross would come in an examine the camp, that's where they would take them, because there was all the equipment you wanted to have. No x-rays, but everything else. There was enough novocain that we were afraid if we used up the novocain, the war would never end. Then there must have been a room for the nurses, and then there was room where the doctors lived and Mom took me with her and I shared a bed with her because they wouldn't give me a bed. I was a nurse and they wouldn't give me a bed. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 191 | So, all along you were living in the hospital? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 192 | Right, right. And that room was Doctor Annie and a couple of other doctors, Lisa was the administrator, Theresa who was the scribe, then they sent in another dentist, the Russian dentist, Larissa. One day, the commandant children governor who was a Seventh Day Adventist, was German, they were arrested. She came down with typhus. This was much later, so she was put in with the doctors in that room. That was his orders that she should be kept in that room. We had one surgical ward where people had all kinds of wounds, surgical wounds. Sometimes we had to cut something, and we were getting very little supplies, and I took it upon myself -- because I was working always with Doctor Annie in the outpatient clinic. I very seldom worked the wards. I did very well with the outpatients in whatever had to be done. Whenever we got supplies I used to go in to change the dressings and you almost needed a gas mask for it. This was stinky, festering thing and we didn't have enough bandages. We didn't get them enough. We couldn't change them every day. Maybe once a week, once in ten days they would bring us the supplies and there was some peroxide and maybe some ointment, maybe some powder to dust on the wounds, and I used to get so many blessings when I used to change the dressings. This was the main hospital building. The next one was the nicest building. That's where the children were. By that time, they took away or send them out or whatever happened to the parents of the Dutch and Belgium children, so they formed an orphanage there, and the Slovak women lived there with their children, and then the few mothers as long as the babies were alive, they lived there. That's were Doctor lived. That place was heated. They gave them some food. They were getting the white soup for the children. They were getting the white bread, and I have a feeling they must have inoculated the children for typhus, because I was not aware of many of them having typhus fever. I know they were inoculating people because at one time Binko and I and another nurse went to one of the subcamps or whatever and those people had passports from Argentina, from Brazil from Australia. Whether they were real passports, whether they were false passports, we don't know because many of them were Polish Jews. But we went out there when the epidemic started and we were inoculating the whole group there. Then there were two other barracks where one was not so bad and then there was one which was worse condition and then there was one number 5 where I think there were 500 people dead and 100 dead every day. They would bring the people -- they would just bring them in blankets and leave them there. I mean, people who were in the different barracks would just bring them in the blankets, and if there was any hope for them, they were separated and put somewhere else, but those were people like in a hospice, they were just dying there. I was very friendly with the head nurse and she had she used to say to me after I had typhus fever come and I'll give you some bread because they didn't eat. She would get and she had a count of 500 so she got 500 pieces of bread according to the count. She said, they're not eating, and you may as well have another piece of bread and get some strength. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 193 | The dead people, they just dumped them outside? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 194 | That I'll tell you. When we first came in there was a little morgue not far from the hospital buildings. A little concrete structure. Well we started taking the people out. Everybody was taking them out. Well, after a while that place would not accommodate the bodies and they didn't have time to take them. It got to a point that it was like a tremendous field of dead bodies, and that's what the British finally saw. Families would walk by and look and who do I know there. If the blanket wasn't soiled, we would save the blankets for other people and if they were soiled we left them there. The pile was growing taller and bigger and bigger and taking more room and they had no -- they could not keep up with removing the bodies. Toward the end when there was this tremendous epidemic, they would give people extra soups, they were giving them all kinds of privileges. They would dig ditches and burn the bodies. They just could not keep up with it. When the British liberated the camp, the camp took the British General, whoever it was, showing the camp, and naturally they avoided that area. So, there was a bunch of noisy girls and he said, never mind, come here, come here. We didn't speak English, but they said you have to see this place. And the British were flabbergasted seeing that, and they made the German officers remove those bodies. They came so beautiful the first day. They came with their hair done, and their uniforms were so nice and clean and they had to handle those bodies, and the deeper they were going, the more decomposed those bodies were. Believe me, at the end of the day, they looked as raggedy as most of the prisoners. This was horrid. Anyway, the camp was getting bigger. There were transports coming in every few days, and they needed help with the transports. When the transports came in, the able bodies would get a shower and they would place them in camp, but there were some sick people coming in and they were checking who was sick and who is not, so they would need a doctor to ascertain whether the person could be saved. A few were nurses, and I felt so badly, the girls were going out every night one I said, "I'm going. I have to help them. I just can't let them work both nights." So, we went out. By the time we got there, most of the able bodies they were processed. There was this big room with all kinds of bundles. They made the people leave the bundles and there were sick people. Some of them were lame, but we managed to undress them and put their clothes in those little fish net bags and once they went through the thing, the steam would kill the vermin, and they could go on the other side and find their own clothes. There was one woman who was in a coma, and the Germans kept saying, "Throwing her out. She's half dead, she's dead." I kept on shoving her around that place behind some things because I felt by the time I finished, maybe she'll revive. Whether she was in a diabetic coma, what, a fairly young woman well dressed, and every time they saw me, they said "Come on take her out. Let's take her out. Let the guys take her out." So, I was hiding her behind bundles, behind anything. Unfortunately the end of the evening we couldn't do anything but slap her face. I tried to give her some water. Whatever we tried to do it couldn't revive her, so they took her out. That transport was so full of lice. We got so bitten by lice. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 195 | Where were most of these transports from? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 196 | They were from Hungary. I think Poland by that time was clean. They finished with those. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 197 | They weren't necessarily coming from Auschwitz? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 198 | No, no those people were coming with their own clothes and whatever the camp wore. They were not from Auschwitz. They were not from camps. They were wherever they lived in. Anyway, then it was getting almost light and they said all right we're finished with you. We can take you back to the barracks. And we said, "You know, you bathed everybody, you deloused them, and here we are crawling with insects. We are bitten all over the place and why don't you let us have a shower and delouse us, our clothes, otherwise we'll bring the whole stuff back to camp." They said that's a good idea and they even stoked the fires and we had a nice warm shower. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 199 | How often did you shower? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 200 | We never showered. The first time when they brought you to camp. This was the second one. Maybe once they took us out. I don't remember. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 201 | So, you never washed? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 202 | Well, we washed. Maybe once they took us to shower, maybe when we're changing camps, I think they marched us. This was a pleasure, this shower, and they took our clothes and they deloused them. Three weeks later I came with the typhus fever. I came back and I said boy I was bitten and this one doctor was with me and three weeks later, as I said, to the day, I came down with it. At first they didn't know what was wrong with me. So, by this time we didn't have Schnabble. We had a young doctor who was wounded at the Russian front. His arm was injured and he was working in camp. They heard that I might have typhus fever, so he and the dentist came to examine me, because they have never seen typhus before, and they figure out that I have it. By that time, the doctors in the room that I slept with they decided they don't want anyone with the typhus fever, so they kicked me out on the ward. But I had my own bed, and I was lying next to a girl who used to be a patient of mine. She had t.b. but I tried to keep her on calcitum. The theory was that calcium was good for t.b. and we had calcium, she would get it. Again, she was a young woman. You tried to help people who were not too far gone. We felt if we could help them, keep them going for a while, maybe they can keep on going. By that time, the epidemic started. The typhus epidemic. It was by the end of the war, this must have been February or March and by the end 90 percent of the people had typhus. My fever was building up about three weeks. It's like with pneumonia. It build up, if the patient can survive the crisis. Well, Mom would warm up water in the sterilizer and wash me and bring water and wet my lips. And those Slovak ladies made me a little pillow. I'll never forget it. This tiny little pillow. They collected some feathers because they thought I was so nice to them, and they brought me this. And I kept on saying "Get the train out of my head, get the train out of my head. I can't stand the train." And when they would bring the turnip soup into the room, it was wretched. I couldn't stand it. Finally one night, I must have reached the crisis, and called this woman next door and said "Get me my mother." So they woke up the night nurses, got my mother and she came running in and there was a doctor and again we had some supplies. We had something to support the heart, just a stimulator heart, and they gave me a shot of it, because I felt I don't know. I think I was dying. Then I got better. In the interim, I just want to bring out the difference between two doctors. I haven't seen those surgeries because I was so sick. This young German doctor performed some surgeries. Again, he wanted to learn. He did them in the operating room under sterile conditions and he always had this Greek doctor with him. Sometimes he would I mean people told me about it. Sometimes he would hesitate what to do and he would look at the Greek doctor and the Greek doctor would say, "Well, don't you think you should do this," but very diplomatically, and he never offered advice until the guy looked at him. He didn't know where he was going. So, they did perform some surgeries on those people. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 203 | So there was actually a somewhat serious effort to cure people? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 204 | I don't know if it was serious to cure people of if this was a way for him to learn. I mean they never had the chance to -- if he is a very known professor and he is a young doctor and maybe he should learn. And he and his pal, the dentist, used to sit in the dental office most of the day. He also had some massages done. First one masseuse and then the other friend of mine, the one who was the head of that very sick ward. She would come in because he needed physical therapy on his arm. The first time we had the inkling that things were going bad for Germans they were discussing it very quietly. The Russians are so and so many kilometers from Berlin and they were afraid of Russians. My mother overheard a conversation. Whether that was done to let us know, or they just forgot about her working because she ignored them, that's when we knew things were happening. By the time, close to the liberation, there was cholera there. There was a raging epidemic of typhus. There was all kinds of sickness and less supplies and less food. One day this other doctor, I think it was called up over lined us up -- we didn't have water, I don't think we had bread. He said times are very bad but you cannot abuse your patients, you have to take care of them. He was trying to give us a pep talk how to take care of our patients. How ridiculous. One day one of the guards -- I somehow suspected whether they were experimenting with our lives. One day a young woman came in and she had a turban, a very tightly wrapped turban around her head and she said she's itching. We took off the turban, her head was so covered with lice, like you see, you have a big ant hill and you kick it apart and you see the ants coming out. I'm talking about big ant hills. I mean, you couldn't see the hair. So, we cut it and put some disinfectant. We had some anti-lice things, burned the hair outside, the whole thing, and I was wondering if by any chance if they did not decide that this is a fast way of doing it. Because they were all inoculated. The Germans were all inoculated. After the war, I think some of them got typhus, when they were handling the bodies, but they were very well isolated and inoculated. Whether they tried this, I don't know because I don't know how anyone could have lived with that mess, and the way the turban was wrapped around her head, it was a young woman. It was -- I've never seen anything like it. I'm telling you you see a ant hill, a big one, and this is what is creepy. So, as I said, toward the end, there were so many sick people. So many people dying, and you couldn't do a thing for them. Yes, there was an effort to save them, every once in a while they had the surgeons that wanted to do something, but I don't think this was so much an effort to save them. I have a feeling that this was an opportunity for the doctors to learn. Schnabble was just learning whatever he wanted to do. I don't know what happened to him. He disappeared. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 205 | You mentioned a name "Kramer." Isn't Kramer someone who also came from Auschwitz and replaced Horss? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 206 | I don't know whether he replaced Horsss. I don't know. I think Horss was caught in Bergen-Belsen. I really don't know. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 207 | This Kramer then was head of the camp? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 208 | I know there was someone by the name of Kramer gave us a pep talk. I never seen Horss. I know of him, but I have never seen him. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 209 | Before we get to the end, I just want to ask you a couple questions. It sounds like you had contact with people, prisoners from a lot of different surroundings, is that true? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 210 | Yes. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 211 | Not so much from the other camps, but just with transports? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 212 | The transports were coming in and this woman became the main camp. They would break out the fences between some other camps and that became a huge, huge, huge camp. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 213 | So, then a lot of the subcamps got combined? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 214 | Right. The Dutch and the Belgium camp, that was combined with ours. The Indonesia, no. What happened to the prisoner of wars or whatever, we took over those parts of the building, I don't know what happened to them. I know the Russians were there. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 215 | When you were more integrated were the conditions and relationship also integrated or did certain people just stay with their own. | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 216 | I think they stayed more or less within their own barracks. They had to stay and they were allowed to come to the hospital, but otherwise, I don't think there were any social activities there at that time. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 217 | Did you develop strong relationships with the other people you were working with? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 218 | Some of them, yes. And there were a lot of strong relationship in terms of there was one of the nurses and she was very friendly with a couple of girls. She lived --she didn't live with us. She lived with a couple of girls. One of them was the head, a block elder, and she lived with them. They were like sisters. That was the thing. People were developing relationships and if they were like sisters, they could help each other. Some of the doctors, there were two, one of them died, so we were friendly later on, my mother and I, and we have seen her after the war and were together in Sweden. We maintained contact with those people because we were together and there were a lot of relationships like this. People would adopt each other. Those were ones who had the easiest way of surviving, because when one was very sick, the other one helped them. We had friends, two sisters, one is now in Brazil, one lives in California, and they were together, and one of them I don't remember which one, she was so sick that the older sister would chew a piece of bread, because the bread was hard and she would chew a piece of bread and shove it in the sister's mouth to make her so she could swallow it, and that's how they made it. So, there were all kinds of pieces of kindness. And when I was so sick that that girl who I used to take care of before, she was the one who basically, because the nurses wouldn't do much for me. They were busy. But she was conscious, she was not very sick. That's why they placed me there and she kept an eye on me. If I needed anything, the sicker I was getting, she would take a sip of water and put it in my lips or wet something and put it on my lips and she was in a way taking care of me. She didn't do physically anything, she was in bed, but she was kind of keeping an eye -- she was the one who alerted them that I was coming down with the crisis, so she did help me. Mom got typhus later. I mean all the doctors got sick. I mean everybody was sick. The sign was if you spilled your water like we had this French doctor, she had a bed above us, and the sign was that if you started taking water at night to bed and then spill it over head she had typhus. We knew that she had. There were certain symptoms. I could recognize someone with the typhus just looking at them. Later on, the British doctors, they had no idea what's wrong with a patient. I said the trembling, the lip trembling, people didn't even have the spots, there were certain symptoms you could just recognize they had typhus. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 219 | Certainly you've read stories and heard stories in camps about people that the need for survival -- | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 220 | There was stories about it that there were. I never witnessed it but there were stories about cannibals. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 221 | People would steal from each other? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 222 | Oh, yes. It was known. If someone was unconscious they put a piece of bread in front of them so they would steal it. This was, as I said, the will to survive. But it got so bad that they were walking to camp, they were walking to the hospital and they were just defecating. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 223 | This was another interesting thing I read in your testimony. When I read about Bergen- Belsen I guess towards the end it sounded as if, not from your testimony, but from elsewhere, that nobody really took care of anybody? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 224 | Basically, no. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 225 | The authorities of the camp really didn't make any provisions to feed, to clothe, to house? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 226 | Well, they were housed. There were barracks. Clothes, whatever they came with, and there were some people working. As I said, when the people came in with their own clothes, the good stuff was taken away. They had big warehouses when the war ended. The prisoners broke into those warehouses and everybody was carrying all kinds of clothing. One of the funniest thing this Russian dentist with his boyfriend and my mother didn't know what happened, she was just recuperating from typhus and this guy walked in in a top hat, tuxedo with tails and a white scarf around his neck. He was one of the Russians. They were the first ones to break into the warehouses and he thought he looked very snazzy in that outfit, this was after the war. But the war was a field of dead. There were people dying by the thousands every day and they would just dump them out and there was no way no matter what the Germans tried to do to bury them, and they would bring crews to the prisoners. They fed them extra, they forced them to work. There was tasks that they could not keep up. I think there were two graves when they finally cleaned out the camp, one I don't know how many thousands of people buried in those graves, mass graves. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 227 | What percentage of people do you think came through the hospital at one time or another? You were treating women, correct? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 228 | Yes. I don't know. I don't know. We had lines every day. As a matter of fact, after we were liberated they took everybody to Bergen, but in the meantime the British helped us clean up some of -- they whitewashed some of the buildings, and I stayed another month or so, maybe another few weeks. No, we liberated the 15th of April, the 8th of May I was still in the old place and they gave us new blankets and we were still admitting people and still taking care of it because the healthy ones they could process and take to Bergen, which was a military camp, and they placed them there. The sick ones, they had a whole procedure they had to -- and they were magnificent. They would take them in and they would bathe them on stretches and they would shower them and they cleaned their heads. And they were basically British soldiers and dress the wounds and place them in hospital barracks. This was a very slow process. In the meantime, people were coming in. They needed help now, and by that time we had some supplies. So, we were admitting some of them and we were treating some of them on an outpatient basis, but at least we had some bandages and supplies. We had some medications. If they had a headache, we could give them aspirin. I mean things like this, and they were still getting sick. They were still getting typhus. That thing was still raging, and the British soldiers were all inoculated and toward the end there was a rumor they were going to evacuate the camp, like they did in Auschwitz. There was a march. There was a group that went on trains, and I think the trains were bombed, and I think some of the Dutch Jews perished that way. Anyway, there was a rumor that the camp is mine and they are going to evacuate the camp and whoever can walk and the rest of the people will go, and the girls came over to me, the nurses that wanted to distribute some of the medicine what you have and the syringes and everything and they said, "Are you going to walk?" I said, "No, I'm not leaving Mom, and she can't walk. I'm staying no matter what happened." Well, that night we had bombs and they bombed this was Lindenberg, the Allies bombed a nearby town and a day or two later we saw all the Germans walking -- the British didn't come in yet, but they were walking with the white arm bands and for some reason I was sent out to either get the soup or get some supplies and I was passing the baths, the sauna and our favorite the guy, the pig, this German, he was burning paper in this sauna, in the furnace. They were very nice. They were still in charge, and they came in and they wore the arm bands, didn't discuss anything, but at the same time the day the British came in there was a cook, a German cook in one of the kitchens, and they were supposed to be working. He said, I have another few bullets and I'm going to shoot all the Jews. He killed a girl, wounded one, and the British were not in, the Germans were half way in and out. By that time we were guarded by Hungarians. The guards were all released, outside guards. And there was a group of Hungarians and they were guarding the camp with the guns. This was a German, and they felt, they swore that they are going to get themselves some Jews. One of the girls was brought in. She walked out, she said, "We are free. We are liberated." Bang, and she was gone. What has happened, when the British came in the 15th of April the tank went through, waved the flag, everybody say hooray and they went out and we are still prisoners until they finally came in and started checking. Well, it was in the afternoon, they just went in until they could organize themselves. Then they discovered the bodies so they called all the officers and the soldiers and they had to remove the bodies. Some of the girls were nuts. They were distributing the food in metal cans and they were rusting. One of the girls saved the rations which was pretty awful and rotten and become spoiled and she wanted one of the Germans to eat it. And the Germans were guarded by the British because otherwise the mob would have torn them apart. There was a language problem, but this one somehow managed to convey to the British soldier that she doesn't want to do any harm. She just wants that German to eat that food, and he made him eat it. The funny thing is, I went once to see this removal of the bodies. It was a frantic scene. The girls were screaming and yelling and hollering and they wanted to pull on the Germans. I went once to see it, but I just couldn't do it. I also went out, I think one day after they liberated us and I went out -- the gates between the compounds were open. The main street was open. That's where you saw this unbelievable mob of people walking with all kinds of clothing because they broke into the depots and whatever they could wear, the funniest outfits and funny things, and people were milling, looking for friends and that's how I went to the men's place, the men's camp to look for people from my town and people who I knew, and I found this one boy who had a very bad eye infection and got him doctors and got him to a hospital. He lost his eye but he survived. He's alive. He lives in California. Tape #4 | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 229 | We started talking about liberation. I wondering if the Germans were sensing what was happening and if there treatment of you changed, if you could feel their fear? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 230 | Well, once the bombing took place nearby, a couple of days before the British came in, and that's where the German headquarters surrendered and therefore the Germans were wearing the white armbands. They were ready for take over and by that time, except the crazy shooters, the ones we were in contact with, they were okay. Even the one that was screaming, he was always quiet. I saw him burn the papers and I don't remember why I went out, either to pick up some supplies because we still could not walk between the compounds on the main street, but for some reason I was sent for something, I think we were sent to the kitchen for soups. By that time they were not delivering and that's why I went with a group of girls, and that's when I saw him burning those papers frantically. They were packing and he didn't even see us. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 231 | They weren't trying to convince you how nice they were or anything like that? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 232 | No, I don't think so. I understand that the dentist somehow got some testimony of various prisoners. They never approached us. This was one person I would have given him a clean bill of health. He was arrested, but then he was released because he really didn't do anything ever. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 233 | Do you remember how you felt when the British arrived? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 234 | Unbelievable feeling of relief. Just went out to see them and we all went out to see them. First the people came in and said the British tank went in. I think I've seen the British tank. They were shooting, so we were afraid to walk around. The Germans were still shooting and the Hungarians were still watching. You couldn't go outside of the camp and after they finally took all the guns from those Germans, then you went out. That's when I went to the main, on the main street and I saw this unbelievable motley crew of people. Some of them were still dying. Some of them were hardly moving. There were bodies around, but whoever could move, they were moving. They were walking, and they were smiling. And unfortunately, there were so many people who died still after the liberation. It was incredible. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 235 | How did the British treat you? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 236 | The liberators treated us very nice. The first day they decided we are starving so they brought soup, and the soup was very rich, and we all ate the soup and all got deathly ill. Our bodies could not absorb this fat, so everybody got sick. We overate that soup. It was a thick, I remember, with a coat of fat on top. They were very anxious to help us. The British would as I aid the British soldiers as such they were beautiful towards the patients. The British officers they were just -- later on they were funny, we had to fight them, but in the beginning they were just very compassionate it. Then they realized that the food they were giving us we can not take this very rich food, so they started giving us like a diet food for a while until we could adjust. They were giving us those little K rations. They were giving us cigarettes and chewing gum and some lemonade and some cookies and were giving some tins of those cookies. I decided to smoke a cigarette. Mom said, I don't want you to smoke until after the war. The war was still on, so the 8th of May and I was sitting and the cannons and you could hear the war was over and there were announcements and stuff like this. I took a package of those -- I had a whole bunch of those little player cigarettes and I was smoking one after another. She said, I told you not to smoke. She was so sick, she said I told you not to smoke. I said, "Mom, the war is over. I'm smoking." This was like an act of rebellion. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 237 | How come you remained in the camp for a while after the British liberated you? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 238 | They needed some people to be still there because as I said, the transfer of the patients was such a slow one they needed us. It took them a while, maybe a week, ten days, two weeks. I don't know. And she was so sick, so I stayed. I couldn't move her. By the time we got to Bergen, they didn't have any more room, so there was this huge officers' casino and they converted this to a hospital. This was the end of everybody in Bergen. And they had this huge ballroom, it held about 170 beds. The place was gorgeous. It was a round building. They called it the round house. Out of the ballroom, there was a magnificent terrace. And Rhododendron blooming around, it was just gorgeous. There were a couple rooms where they had the casino, but they removed all the tables and they patients there. I think the paper I gave you was signed by this doctor who became the head of this thing. At that time our staff consisted of British doctors. They were volunteers, second or third year medical students. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 239 | Your hospital was transferred to the town of Bergen? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 240 | Well, there were a lot of buildings to the hospital, but this was the very, very end of it, because they were transferring people all the time, but this was the very end. There must have been about 250, 300 patients at that time. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 241 | Did they burn down or do anything with the old quarters? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 242 | I'll tell you that. So, we had rooms there. Mom started working a little bit there was a dental office there, but she had swollen legs. She was just working a few hours a day. They had the most beautifully equipped kitchen I have ever seen. I don't know if many fancy restaurants here have kitchens, fully electric, they could cook a few hundred eggs at the same time. They had frying pans they could turn upside down by touching a button. It was just unbelievable. There were naturally, a couple of elderly Germans running that kitchen for us. They claimed that they never knew anything about it. As I started telling you there was the British doctor who was the head. A few British nurses, we had British volunteer students at that time. A bunch of us, a few French nuns came from France and they brought in a bunch of German nurses, and there was one ward with people with t.b., diarrhea, as sick as they come. The British assigned our girls to that room, and the room that had 170 beds they were basically convalescing, and they gave the German nurses this. And we went on strike. The rationale was that since some of the very sick people cannot don't know what's going on and the Germans may harm them and we will be much more compassionate to them. Our argument was that we all went through typhus. We are all very weak, and there's no reason for us to be exposed at this point to t.b. and diarrhea and we should be assigned the convalescent, which was a much lighter load and let the Germans work there. So, we went on strike. We had a translator girl who spoke English and finally got through his head that this was the right thing to do. But he was very much afraid what will happen. We said we will supervise. We'll check, and the nurses were busting because they were all registered nurses. We were all a motley crew. We didn't have uniforms, I mean, like a butcher's apron. We had nothing, and we were watching what they were doing. Another thing I was very happy to do, they would send the women from the town from Bergen to clean the hospital and we had this was the ballroom, it had a gorgeous parquet floor and we made them wash the floor twice a day. They would come in the morning to clean, and they would come in the afternoon to clean, and God forbid that they left a dry spot. Wash it, the German word was . I couldn't speak German very well, but this was a funny feeling, you know, I was in charge. So, little by little our big ward would empty because they were getting better and getting out. The British, I started telling you about the British soldiers even before when they had this blister disease. Once, I remember one of the young fellows came and he was getting ready, he found a patient with a blister thing and he was getting ready for a serious surgery. I took him on the side, I said you are the doctor, I'm not, but we have had such experience with it, you don't have to do serious surgery, just make sure you lance it and drain it and then if you have -- they didn't have antibiotics but I think sulfur or whatever they had, something to dress the wound and she'll be okay, because she didn't have tremendous blisters. He did it. They were still students. A lot of them got sick. They left and we had a group of Belgium medical students, volunteers and they were not treated by the British very well. They used to mooch the cigarettes from us because we used to have all the cigarettes from the British. We were getting those packets every day. Somehow they resented that. Those guys, I think they were older, and they were just very good, trying to help the people and take care of them. The British burned Bergen-Belsen as they emptied it. They left one building standing and I don't know when there was a ceremony and we were invited, taken in by trucks. I think there is a picture at the Holocaust Museum of that ceremony. This was when they raised the words of General Glen Hughes who was the Second British Army. He said that now they can raise the British flag because this awful place doesn't exit any more and the ceremony was that they threw flame throwers burned the last barrack. Whether the administration building still stands, I don't know, but this was the last thing and they raised the British flag over it because they never raise a British flag over a place as horrid as Bergen-Belsen. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 243 | Did they burn it just for the horror of it, or did because they wanted to burn off the disease? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 244 | They wanted to burn off the disease. They were burning them as soon as they were empty. They were afraid. I mean the whole German population. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 245 | So, your life started becoming a bit more normal? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 246 | Right. We were there until July and they had a movie and the survivors could go to the movies during the day. The British soldiers it was there for the British soldiers at night, but I was working during the day, so I was invited by the Belgs -- the Belgs could go at night, so they would invite me to go to the movies. I was a young girl. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 247 | Do you remember what the first movie is you saw? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 248 | I think with Esther Williams. A funny thing happened. One day they said they are going to hand someone, some Nazi somewhere nearby. Let's go, let's go see it. So, I said to Mom, I'm going. Where are you going? I don't know, to Ludenberg. So one of the girls said oh we have a truck. There was one woman and three or four of us that went. There was no hanging. We couldn't get a way back. There was no way of getting back. Finally we found there was some camp under the Poles and four or five women invited us. They had some food. They gave us their beds and we stayed with them at night. They gave us food, and the following day we are trying to get in the worst way to go back to Bergen. We are standing on the corner and there is a mob of people looking for transport and we tried to get anything you can. At that time, there was who became the head of Bergen. He married Ms. Bimko. He knew my mother. They used to play cards together, whatever. He knew her. There was another guy, a British officer, who used to hang around, used to play bridge with a bunch of people in our hospital and he heard that I disappeared, that I went somewhere and there was no way of calling. There was no way of doing something. And they had a vague idea of where I went with those women, but where did we go, Ludenberg. They were all very concerned and I'm standing on the corner with those few women who is passing by but this British officer. His name was Eric, on a motorcycle. I started hollering, Eric. He said you know the whole world is looking for you. I said, well, we can't get back. No one wants to take us back. We can't communicate. We can't go back. So, he stopped the truck, on after another finally found out where they are going whether they can take us back. He said they'll take us back. So, we get on the truck and there are some soldiers in the back and they are driving and driving and they take us somewhere else and we said Where are you taking us?" As I said, we couldn't speak English. Finally they explained to us that at a certain time those soldiers have to be on the base otherwise they'll be AWOL, which I didn't know what the word means, but they explained that they had to be back. Once they will be taken back to their posts, then we'll be taken to Bergen. This was one of the high drinx after the war, what I did. Trying to be normal, being almost a normal teenager. I was 19, but still being a normal, all of a sudden an act of rebellion , get out do something adventurous, naughty. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 249 | Free? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 250 | Free, that's exactly what it was. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 251 | How did you get to Sweden? Why did you decided to go there? | question |
RG-50.030.0002 | 252 | Well, what has happened at that time, Swedish government invited "x" amount of people to go and they needed doctors and nurses and dentists to go along to take care of the patients, so we signed up. They took us to , and that was also funny. They had to clean us out, so they had two tents, one for the men and for one for the women and this friend of ours was a doctor got very friendly on the train going to and he came through and he said, "You know, the women were washing me." And they made the German men, wash the women. They wanted to punish the Germans in a way, I don't know. They didn't try to punish us. We just decided the hell with it. They're not meant to us. I mean, this was the thing, don't get shocked. Don't get shocked, they're not men. They're Germans, they're not even human beings. Let them wash us and that's all, because they really had to scrub us and they took us on a boat at night. They gave us army coats and we sat on the deck at night, wool blankets or something else. It was very lovely. They fed us. They put us first in a place called . It was a school, and they kept us in quarantine. They boys were hanging through the windows looking for us, looking for girls, making dates the moment they let us out. There were all kinds of dates, and then they took us to another camp in . They started assigning people to work, so we were assigned to Northern Sweden. This is, you see, talking about groups against groups. Even in camps they were fighting. After the liberation, there were incidents between the Poles and the Jews. In Sweden, the camp that we were assigned to, my mother knew a man who really liked her and he said, oh I know a dentist, we need a dentist here and there were 200 Jews and 400 Poles in the camp. They requested Mom by name. We didn't want to go to Northern Sweden, but we had to go because they were requesting her not just a dentist, they wanted her. By that time, there was a nurse, so I was signed up as her assistant. We got there and the Jews were going. What has happened? They were fighting. There was such incidents, such fighting, such name calling, that they took the Jews out and took them to another camp. The Poles were so nasty and so anti-semitic. So even there, after that happened, they were charming to us, I mean I was a Miss, but the Jews could not live in that camp with the Poles. So, even then, and this is July August in '45, they still didn't have enough. | answer |
RG-50.030.0002 | 253 | You decided to go onto Sweden rather than go back to Poland? | question |