Surviving Auschwitz you had to have guts.
he is announcing that all the jewish
people are going to be sent away
everybody is entitled to bring one bag
or suitcase or whatever they have of
course we had no suitcases because we
never traveled
so we sold up some burlap bags for one
per person
because that’s all we were entitled to
bring so the next day
we are told that we need to go to the
farmers market which is the center of
town
and they’re going to take all the
information for there was also a note
saying
any anybody that has any valuables money
or jewelry
to bring it with them and they’re going
to keep it for us and give them back
give it back to us when we come back you
know what bs means right
so my father said to me and my two older
sisters by the way i had two older
sisters and an older brother
and three younger sisters and a younger
brother my father says to my two sisters
and me
come with me i put a few pieces of
jewelry together
i want to hide it and i want you to know
where it is when you come back after the
war
so my father already had an idea that
maybe
he knew what was going on me i didn’t
have any idea what was going on in the
world okay so
we hid it in a corner between the
ceiling and the wall
so i am wearing this chain on my neck
this was from my father’s pocket watch
i wear this every day seven days a week
12 months a year
the minute i get out of it this is the
first thing that goes on my neck
this way i feel he’s with me all the
time okay
so we go to the center of town where
they told us to come
and they take our names put us on
oxendian wagons and
they must have put in 30 or more people
in each one we were squeezed
so tightly i could have walked it faster
that’s how slowly this oxen wagon was
going
so so we get to usharot and they put us
at the train station
they put up some pens big tents and they
put many people in each tent
and this is the end of april 1944 little
by little they’re shipping people away
and the reason they put us there so we
should be ready to be shipped away in
the trains
so finally it came our turn we go on the
train
and it’s a cattle train it’s not a
passenger train no
seats no windows just a sled maybe four
inches by 12 inches on each side of the
train
and so they squeezed in 70 80 people in
everything you couldn’t even move around
that’s how horrible it was
we’re going and going people are passing
out people are dying people are
complaining you have no
no imagination the train was took two
and a half days to go
from usher to uh poland or auschwitz
poland or
krakow poland and the train did not stop
once there was no water in the train
there was no place where you could
relieve yourself so
the train opens and a man in a striped
uniform comes on the train to help us
with our luggage and we are in auschwitz
poland so this man came on the train and
he
he comes to me he asks me how old i am i
said i am
14 years old he says tell him you’re 18.
i had no idea what he was talking about
okay and then he goes around
to see other young kids that he could
tell them to lie about their age
so um we go up the train walk for a
couple of minutes and then
we are stopped five in a row and there’s
three ss soldiers
uh separating us and i believe one of
them was mandala
okay my mother and my three younger
sisters and brothers went to a different
line
my father and my brother goes to this
line and then he asks
tells my two sisters to go to this line
and he says to me how old are you
i said i am 18. he let me go with my two
sisters
otherwise i would have gone with my
mother and my three sisters and brothers
the gas chamber i never saw them again
okay so a lot of people were saved this
way too we were told to lie about their
age because
they did not bring us here to have a
good time they brought us there for
slave labor
so here we are waiting for further
orders finally they match us into our
building
i should say and it’s a big room and
they told us to take our clothes off put
it on the on the side there
and then they shaved all our hair not
only the head everywhere so
all our clothes that we came with and
all the clothes that we brought with us
everything went to
germany for their families anyway so um
i got a dress and no underwear no
nothing no shoes clogs one dress and
pair of clothes wooden clothes and the
dress was down to the floor
so after this all done they marched us
into our auschwitz
barracks okay there were three camps a b
and c
so there was a check camp a hungarian
camp and a gypsy can
so we were in the hungarian camp anyway
so here we are we go to sleep
and we ended up on the top bunk there
must have been 10 12 women on the top of
tom
bank and we get up the next morning and
they’re serving us coffee black coffee
for breakfast uh
every 10 12 people get a bucket of
coffee
it tasted like black soot that was our
breakfast so after this is done we go
i go outside i told my sisters i want to
see where we are and what’s going on
i go outside and i see all these
electric fences 12 foot high electric
fences
and i see people holding on to the
fences because people didn’t
a lot of people didn’t know this was
electric they would put their hands on
there
20 seconds later they were dead you see
blood coming out of their nose
and they were gone okay so
so especially a lot of the people that
just came in the day before like we did
we didn’t know it was elected
i mean i’m just walking and looking i’m
not touching anything
okay i see dead bodies around me like on
the bottom of the electric fences
the body is holding on because they held
on so closely
didn’t let go even dead
because from the electricity you have no
imagination
how horrible that looked i mean it’s
unbelievable to even like to explain it
okay and there so i’m walking and i’m
looking around to see where i am and i
see all kinds of
people on the ground on here or there
it it’s unexplainable how horrible that
place looked
at that time so um and
while i’m walking all of a sudden
somebody calls my name
rosie rosie that was my jewish name it
was my father
my father and my brother were selected
to go to a factory to work
and they were there temporarily because
this was an all-woman scam
okay and my father he had like a
two-inch beard
uh always wore a suit a hat and a tie
well dressed
by the way he was a tailor he had the
tailor shop in the middle of town he was
the best sailor in our town by the way
my father is he don’t you recognize no
shaven
no beard no glasses no suit no you know
in a striped uniform you have to look
twice he said don’t you recognize my
father
we hugged them we kissed and the first
thing he said where is your mother
i said and at that time i really didn’t
know because this was the first morning
we were there
i said i’m here with my two older
sisters helen and judy
okay and we are in better 26.
and my father told me he’s here with my
brother they were already selected to go
to a factory
to work they’re gonna be there just two
days because this was an old woman’s
camp
okay so uh we talked and we talked and
then
then my father said to me he’s giving me
advice
and he’s telling me whatever you do make
sure you stay together because you have
a much better chance of surviving
okay so uh we humbly kissed and we made
up to meet the next morning
and i brought my two sisters with me and
my father brought my mother
and my his my brother with him we were
talking
and and he repeated the same thing
whatever you do stay stay stay alive so
you can tell the world what they’re
doing
and then stay together because you have
a much better chance of surviving
and we made that to me the next morning
but they never showed up because they
were there temporarily they were shipped
away
i never saw my father my brother again
okay because i never saw my mother and
three sisters and brothers either so
they left
and so here we are in auschwitz birkenau
after being there 10-12 days
i think we must have each lost 10-15
pounds because food
the food’s unbelievable it’s not edible
they come to alberta
we have to line up five in a row and
they’re selecting people to go to
factories to work so they
they don’t select me because i’m skin
and bone by that time okay
and so they select my two sisters to go
to a factory to work but me they put in
a different line
all the younger kids the skin and bone
people the people that are not
eligible to go to a factory to work they
put them in a different line
and that line all goes to gas streamers
okay
so of course when you’re there people
tell you what you need to do if they
don’t select you to go to a factory to
work with only
adult people try and get out of the line
make sure nobody sees you
because if they catch you they’re going
to shoot you on the spot so we went out
for three four times to get selected to
work each time they would put me in the
gas chamber line
so after going through selections three
four times he decided to
not to go because as i said there’s a
thousand women in the barrack
so you’re not forced to go out to get
selected we decided just to hope
that the war would end and we would get
be liberated okay this
so so this must probably be in may of
i was very sick after being there
probably a couple of weeks
i couldn’t even stand on my feet and
then after
being in auschwitz-birkenau for four
months
they came to alberta they needed three
hundred women to go to freudian thailand
in uh in the sudeten in germany so i
said to my sisters
go out front and keep a place in line
for me and i’ll see how i can steal
myself out of this barrel
so the buttock has a door in the front
and a door in the back okay
so my sister’s gonna get selected and as
i’m watching what’s going on in the back
but this lady who was sitting in the
back i didn’t know who she was so i was
afraid if i go she won’t let me out
but anyway then i see one of the
survivors who was helping in the food
department she goes out and i knew her
and she lets her out so i quickly chase
to the back of the bear
and then the woman who was guarding the
back door okay because we’re not
supposed to go out through the back
she says where are you going you’re
supposed to go to the front to get
selected to work excuse me so i said my
mother just walked up i want to go with
her
how this came to my brain to say that i
don’t know
so anyway she let me out my sisters held
the place in line for me in the front
this is how i got out of auschwitz you
had to have a lot of guts and and you
have to do what you have to do
okay so so here we are we are four
months in auschwitz-birkenau
camp c so they sent us to camp in
fryingtown okay
we were 300 women i was assigned to work
on
masks things to wear today can you
believe that
who would ever think that you’d have to
wear a mask again right i
had to sit in a high chair pick up a
mess put it on my face put it on
12 hours every day so here we are we’re
working and they’re always telling us if
we don’t do good jobs they’re going to
send us back to our shoes but hello
so of course we tried our best so this
is going on for eight months or so
we had two buildings in our place and
two story buildings three hundred women
and they would always walk us to the
factory they would come and get us
and walk us to the factory okay so uh
nobody’s coming and it’s about mr benmez
sevens or six i’m really not sure what
day it was but it was almost on the end
of the war and so we are not supposed to
leave the building and i said to my
sisters
i’m going outside i want to see what’s
going on and everybody said you can’t go
you’re not supposed to leave the
building
i said i don’t care what it is i want to
go out i go out and i see the gate
the gate wide open and there’s nobody
there so i was screaming to all the
women i said the gate is open
everybody’s gone and there’s planes
going over us
and we can hear the russian language it
was unbelievable
so i figured if i go to meet the russian
soldiers
the way i am with here probably the same
lengths as i have now
regular clothes they would think i’m
german they would shoot me so
i decided to take a piece of the dress
of the of my dress up and i found the
stick
and i put it on the stick and i went
like this in front of the russians
which means freedom okay so i went into
the feed
back in the back of the building where
the corn feels well
the russians were there and they hugged
me and kissed me and they came and
liberated us
the russians were very good to us okay
so finally
we all came back to normal so we decided
to go on the train
so we were going to the train station it
took three days or four days to get on
the train
because there’s so many people coming
and going and in those days
trains did not run like today remember
that
so it took us about four weeks to get
home from my village we had maybe
600 people that lived in my village when
i came home
i think maybe there were 12 or 15 people
and when we came home we went to the
house my house
okay it was not livable the roof was
gone
uh the ss soldiers kept their horses in
our house
so um oh it was completely empty
all the jewish homes are completely
empty because all that
a lot of the uh non-jewish people
actually moved into the jewish homes our
home
the esses had kept their horses in there
so uh
the first thing we did we went in the
house it was empty and then of course
we found the stool someplace and we
found the little shoe polish box with
the jewelry
and then we divided the jewelry between
the three of us and i ended up with this
chain
which i said before i wear this every
day right after i get out of my bed it
goes on my neck
this way i i think this is how i’m
surviving by knowing my father is with
me
okay hardly anybody came home so i
we stayed another couple of weeks and
then we went to the train station which
is not in my
village but it’s in the moon it’s the
same place where we were
taken away to ourselves from the same
train station okay
we did have a train station in my
village but somehow it never worked good
so
we couldn’t use it so we went there and
we were waiting at the train station for
three days to get on the train because
in those days trains didn’t run to uh
and my sister judy says i’m going back
to serena
one of the boys uh came back from the
war one of the jewish boys
came back he got his house back and he
asked me
he wants to marry me okay and he says
my sister judy said i’ve been here three
days i’m not staying another day
so my sister judy left back home to my
hometown
and she got married i never saw my
sister judy again
because i stayed on the train station
another uh six or eight hours
and i got on a train finally so uh
i went to prague i stayed with my sister
my my sister helen she was living in
people’s
apartment okay so
sir we were there for 10 days and my
sister helen said
there’s a gentleman by the name of
savannah montefiore who is looking for a
thousand holocaust survivor children
under age 16 to take to england for
rehabilitation
okay so my sister helen said it would be
a good idea
if i sign you up for this program i said
i think i would love to do that
okay so she signed me up i stayed in
prague
till february 2012 1940
six i was in the last transport because
my sister lived in prague and i said
there’s no rush for me to go
so they found 732 kids and there were
hustles all over england scotland island
wherever
okay wherever they could find places so
i was in scotland for about
eight months in the hospital and the
hospital was emptying out because a lot
of kids are finding relatives in america
australia and new zealand you know we’re
all orphans remember
none of us had parents our relatives
left so we were in scotland for eight
months after eight months
the hustle was emptying out so tubal was
left uh
and so we went to bedford which was not
far from london
60 kilometers in london and there was a
hostel there it was mostly all boys
okay and then they introduced us to
those boys we were 12 of us from
scotland okay
12 so uh they introduced us and there
was this young man standing in the back
i said that’s the man i’m going to marry
and guess what i did
see this i’m not going to hold this
straight okay
uh so i met him of course he already had
a girlfriend you know
all these boys in the hostel the
non-jewish girls came from the town they
like
it was bedford england they like the
jewish boy they know what’s good
okay so
of course i took me a while but after a
while i got him
he started dating in 1948 we got engaged
in 1950 we got married
so and then my husband is corresponding
with relatives in the united states and
they’re offering us papers to come to
america
so we came to the united states in 1951
to new york
and family max’s family met us
they were wonderful people and i’m still
so thankful that they did this for us
okay so we came to new york we lived in
new york for five years and then after
five years
we decided to come to san diego this is
a wonderful place to be by the way
okay uh we have four children we have
nine grandchildren
one great grandchild and we are so
thankful to this country for letting us
come
to make a life up for ourselves okay
there is no other country like america
here everybody has the opportunity to
become what they want
all they have to do is go after it okay
remember that