I was in the concentration camp in Wilno from - - to 1943 as a political prisoner, having the number - -, and wearing a - - with the letter - - on it.

Transcription

1 Voices from Ravensbrück Interview no. 422 (English translation) Polish Documentary Institute, Lund Eslöv, 28 July 1946 Luba Melchior, Institute assistant taking the record Record of witness testimony no. 422 Witness: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Born: 15 May 1915 In: Wilno Occupation: Faith: Jewish Parents' names: Bencel and Małka Last place of residence in Poland: Wilno Current place of residence: Eslöv, Västergatan 42 Having been informed of the importance of truthful testimony, the consequences of false testimony and her responsibility to tell the truth, she has made the following statement: I was in the concentration camp in Wilno from - - to 1943 as a political prisoner, having the number - -, and wearing a - - with the letter - - on it. Then I was in: - Vaivara (Estonia) 3 days - Jewe (8 months), from 15 February October Fifigonie (1 month), from 15 October November Ereda (2 weeks), from 15 November December Goldfile (7 months), from 1 December June 1944 Asked whether I have any specific information from my time or work in the concentration camp about how the concentration camp was organised, the camp regimen, inmates' working conditions, treatment of prisoners, medical and pastoral care, hygienic conditions, and also specific events in all areas of camp life, I can state the following: Then I was in: - Lagedje (near Revel), 6 weeks from 1 June July Stutthof (2 weeks), from 15 July August 1944

2 - Hamburg-Oxenzoll (8 months), from 1 August March Bergen-Belsen (2 weeks), until 15 April 1945 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The testimony includes nine and a half pages of handwritten text, and describes: 1. Wilno: mass executions over graves in the Ponary ghetto Two quarters: one for those who work and one for the unproductive element; women and children taken from the ghetto to Ponary. Description of Ponary - escape - purges in the ghetto - hiding places - children getting food illegally from the peasants, underhanded poisoning of women and children in an elegant pension, then 2000 people executed in Ponary. Deportations - escape plans. 2. Vaivara camp 3. Jewe camp: work on construction of hospital, camp conditions, boy's arrival at the camp - epidemic 4. Fifigonie: work in the forest. Liquidation of the camp - throwing the sick into the sea - executions by shooting 5. Ereda 6. Goldfile: work in the forest in the winter. Prisoners treated badly - roll calls - Contact with the partisans - illegal building of a tunnel - arms smuggling 7. Lagedje: camp without barracks - work digging ditches - deportations 8. Stutthof: camp population, living conditions, food, selections 9. Hamburg-Oxenzoll: work - evacuation 10. Bergen-Belsen: road from the station to the camp was strewn with corpses. Corpses in the camp - no water The Germans entered Wilno in Two weeks after they arrived, a rumour spread that a German was killed in the Jewish quarter. Ten thousand people were taken right away, families, they were taken to Ponary, the place where people were executed. All of them were shot. Among them were my mother-inlaw and her sister-in-law. At Ponary there were pits that had been dug during the Russian occupation for storing petrol. On the square, men were separated from the women with children. They were put in groups of 10, ordered to undress and shot. When my mother-in-law was shot, her sister-in-law fell with her into the pit from the shock, still alive. People thought that she was dead and she was left there. Lime was poured over the pits and corpses. In the evening, her sister-in-law got out and ran away. She hid with some peasants. She came when the ghetto was created, her hands and legs were burned from the

3 lime. Lithuanians carried out the executions, in the presence of Germans, who took photographs as the action was taking place. On the square, before her death, my mother-in-law asked a Lithuanian who was standing next to her to tell her what had happened to the men who were caught on the street after the Germans' arrival (my husband was among them, too, as was my brother and uncle). She knew that they were taking her to her death - she gave him the gold she had so he would tell her, because she wanted to know the fate of her child before she died. He pointed to a high mountain and said that they were all buried there. Her sister-in-law, who survived, was witness to that conversation. A month later, a ghetto was created in Wilno. The ghetto had two quarters: as we later found out, these were the "Vernichtungs-ghetto", where the elderly and women with children were put - the second ghetto was for families that included men. I lived with my mother in the ghetto that had men in it. A week later, [I was] forced to go to the second ghetto, because I didn't have a husband. I had a child, a boy of ten, who was staying with peasants nearby. Under a heavy guard of Lithuanians, we - about 1000 families - were taken out [of the ghetto] - women and children. I went with my mother and three of my younger siblings. Along the way, I realised that they were taking us to Ponary. I knew the way. I walked with the group where my husband was all the way to Ponary, to where he was [later] executed. My husband looked awful. He was so badly beaten that I didn't recognise him. I only noticed that he started crying and waved when he saw me. When he saw that I was leading a group away, he told me to go back home, to my child, he knew that they were taking him to his death. I still wasn't sure where they were taking him, I asked one of the Lithuanians that were our escort (they were all drunk) to tell me - he told me to work. When I asked him to take me, too, he told me that for now women were not needed. I told my mother about where I thought they were taking us. My mother tried to calm me down, and told me that they might be taking us somewhere else. It was night, it was raining cats and dogs, the escort was so strong that escape was impossible. The only light was from torches. I was so weak that I tossed down all my things on the way. We finally got to Ponary. It was a forest, where there were lots of pits, surrounded by barbed wire. At the entrance, there was a sign that said "Totenlager". When we noticed that, there was complete silence, none of us made a sound. We entered quietly, calmly, like sheep. We were told to strip naked. We were taken in groups of ten to the grave. It was a terrible sight. Over the grave, mothers hugged their children and that was how they were shot, they fell into the grave in an embrace. I couldn't look at that, I couldn't stand the thought that I would be standing there and watching as my mother falls with her children into the grave. I began asking my mother to try to escape, that we wouldn't see when they shot us if we were running. My mother didn't want to. I finally decided to do it. I took my little five-year-old sister by the hand and began running, everyone began racing behind me, as if under a spell. They were stumbling and running, and the bullets were whistling through the air, people were falling every few moments. I managed to get out of the camp by going through the barbed wire fence, which was only one layer thick. Tree stumps cut my legs, as I ran, I pulled a tendon, my leg swelled up and I couldn't go any farther. I fell down, and I don't know what happened after that. When I

4 regained consciousness, I was in the Jewish hospital in the ghetto. They told me that peasants had found me in the forest, naked, with my dead little sister next to me, killed by a bullet. The peasants brought me to the ghetto. How did that happen? The ghetto was surrounded by Lithuanians who were in partisan groups; very many of the Lithuanians in the police belonged to underground organisations. They cooperated with us. The ghetto was one big underground organisation. The Lithuanians from Wilno cooperated with us. The people who carried out the executions were not from our area. I was in the hospital for six weeks. My son returned to me then. He couldn't stay longer in the countryside because people were being persecuted very much there, and there were searches of the peasants[' holdings]. A peasant family at whose house a Jew had been found was massacred, and their property burned. After I got out of the hospital, I went to my mother's flat. Friends were living there, I met my friend who worked at the "Białowaka" peat bog; it was a nearby camp. People employed there had work documents and thus were not subject to the purges in the ghetto. They had permission to come to the ghetto once a week. The actions in the ghetto, called "purges", took place frequently - twice a week. I arranged with my friend that she would take me and my child with her to work where she was living. She agreed; we took a few things with us, because the peasants could give us money for them. On the way, my friend told me that she had doubts as to whether they would let a child like mine in, because there weren't any children there, and she announced categorically that she wouldn't defend me, because she was afraid herself. Because I was guided by my child's instinct, this time I listened to him. When he heard what my friend's arguments, my son didn't want to go to Białowaka. We took off our stars and returned to the ghetto. Luckily no one stopped us on the way, because what we were doing was punishable by death. In the ghetto, I found out that an action was expected. It's true that there were hiding places where people had gone, but I hadn't yet figured this out, I was still completely unfamiliar with the way the ghetto worked. Some people I knew didn't want to take me in, because their hiding place was already full. I went into the street with my son - the ghetto was empty. In the distance, I could already hear Lithuanians looting and taking people away. Luckily, a young Lithuanian man, who was guarding a shop, shouted when he saw me and my son, asking why we weren't hiding when it was so dangerous, and he let us into the storeroom. It was completely dark and we couldn't see anything at all. After a little while, I heard whispering and noticed a ray of light. Then a stone was removed, and the hole led somewhere outside. I went in that direction. There I saw people hiding themselves in a cubbyhole and closing the door. After I pleaded with them for a long time, they let us into the the cubby-hole for firewood. It turned out that from there, a hole that was not visible, covered with a rock, opened into a courtyard that led to the Polish neighbourhood. The courtyard was in the ghetto. We hid in an attic of one of the flats there. We were in hiding for three days. I didn't have anything to eat or drink. The people with me gave my child a piece of bread. Through the hole, we could see when the action had ended. The skilled labourers, who had yellow identification cards, which saved them from the action, were outside the ghetto during the action, with their families. The members of their families had pink

5 documents. We saw that everyone was returning. That's when we came out of hiding. I returned to my friends' flat, but there was no one there, they had been killed during the action, and the flat had been destroyed. I went to town to look for friends. I didn't have a place to live, or any money, or connections. Luckily, I found a friend of my mother's. He took me in, gave me a room and tried to get his friend, who had a yellow card, to have me written in as his wife. And that's what happened. During the next action, I wasn't in the ghetto anymore, I left with the child as the family members of a skilled labourer. After the three-day-long action, we found that the ghetto's population had once again been reduced by half. There were lots of flats now, so I found a place for myself, too. I was often ill, it was cold, and I couldn't leave the ghetto, so I was suffering from hunger, too. I had a ten-year-old child. He was very energetic and often left for the village without my knowledge; there, he would try to find food. Every one of his trips was very dangerous. He couldn't leave legally, he would look for other ways. A Lithuanian church was next to the ghetto. Through the attic of one of the buildings next to it, one could lower oneself down to the church on a rope, and the road went from there. It took a long time. Lots of children from the ghetto did this. But there were lots who died this way, too. Those who were caught were shot, sometimes - out of mercy - they were just beaten terribly. In spring, I began working at the airport. My son would already stay at home then. One day, armed Lithuanians surrounded the airport and we were told to line up. We were told that we were leaving. People panicked, everyone ran away. The SS men shot a great deal - there were many casualties. The [Jewish] community commandant, Gens, showed up, and calmed us down, reassuring us that we were really going to Estonia, for labour. We didn't really believe this, having learned from past experience. A couple of months earlier, the German authorities had ordered that all the sick and old people, assuring us that they were just sending them to a nearby summer resort. Gens wanted to make sure this was true, and he was shown wonderfully outfitted pensions with medical staffs. They really were taken there, but what happened? They were all poisoned. A second case: after the nearby ghettos were liquidated, 3000 people were brought to Wilno. The authorities ordered 1000 healthy, strong men to be left, and the rest people - including children, were supposed to be taken to Kowno, to the ghetto. It turned out that they were taken to Ponary, to the execution site. We found out about this from several children who managed to escape from the place where people were killed. We didn't believe that we were being sent to a camp this time, either, but there was nothing we could do about it. And what was strange was that this time it turned out to be true. Three thousand people were taken and we were sent to Estonia. We travelled three days, and were given enough food. On the way, the only thing I was thinking about was how to jump out of the train, my only wish was to get to my son, who stayed in the ghetto. My friend and I decided to plead with the guard escorting us to open the door of the wagon, saying that it was impossibly stuffy. My friend was first to do it. When we were travelling through a sandy area, she jumped out. I didn't manage to then.

6 We arrived in Vaivara, in Estonia. When we got there, we found a camp had already been set up. We were there only three days. One hundred fifty men and 50 women were selected from among us. The youngest and strongest people - I was in this group. We were sent to JEWE. There, we worked building a hospital for Germans. There were Poles and Russians, too. We all worked together. I was put to work in the SS kitchen. The conditions in the camp were not bad at all. We were given adequate rations, the living conditions were tolerable. Estonians in German uniforms guarded the camp and supervised us as we worked. We were treated well. Four months later, my little boy showed up, ragged, dirty and tired. It turned out that he had managed to get onto the roof of the train that was taking the families from the ghetto to Vaivara. They hadn't wanted to take children, so he snuck on. He couldn't be in the camp officially, because children weren't accepted into the camp. With the knowledge of some Germans, I kept him with me. A short time later, he fell ill with typhus and recovered. But from that time on there was an epidemic. Only men were ill: 100 of the 150 men were ill. A sick ward was set up. The seriously ill were killed off by the [male] nurses. Up to that time, there was no mortality rate to speak of in the camp. After eight months, I was moved to the Fifigonie camp. My son was with me there. I used to clean for the Lagerführer [German: SS- man responsible for supervision of the camp], and my son worked with the men in the forest cutting trees. We were only in that camp for a month, because the Russians were approaching. The camp was liquidated, and we went 60 km on foot, it was a hard frost, people were collapsing. The weaker people were thrown into the sea, 25 men found death in the sea. Others were shot in the forest. The entire rewir [German, Revier: infirmary, hospital block] was shot. Our group had numbered 2000 people when we started off, and when we arrived, there were There were air raids on the way. None of us died as a result of the bombing. We walked for three days with no food or water. We had small children with us. We arrived at Ereda. Ereda was an assembly point for all the camps that had been liquidated. We were there two weeks. The conditions weren't bad. All Jews. The official rations were very mediocre, but working at our jobs we were in contact with the locals and managed [to get other food]. Fifty women and men were selected and we were sent to Goldfile. I got permission to take my son, because he was the only child in the camp. In the beginning, we worked in the forest, during the hardest frosts, in the biggest snowdrifts. My son worked with me. It was a bad camp. The Lagerführer was bad - a sadist - he beat people for any little thing until they bled - and sometimes he beat people to death. Roll calls were held 3 times a day, often there were roll calls at night. There were 2500 in that camp - Polish Jews from Lithuania. We were in contact with the Estonian partisans while we were in that camp. We were building an underground tunnel in the camp for us. The person in charge of that work was the head of the kitchen, a Jewish woman from Kowno. The tunnel was 25 km [sic!] long. There were fifty people involved in the conspiracy: 48 men and 2 women (me and the head of the kitchen). We were supposed to leave before the camp was liquidated. We had weapons, which the Estonians sold us for money or gold. My son went toward the village at night through the tunnel and brought back weapons. It seemed that it was safer. Sometimes the men would go for weapons. The liquidation began unexpectedly and that is why we weren't all able to use the tunnel. Only

7 three people escaped. I don't know what happened tot hem. Seven months later, Goldfile was liquidated and we were sent to Lagedje. There were no barracks in that camp. People were collected here from all the neighbouring camps. We slept in the fields. There was no food, we were surrounded by Russians. There were constant air raids, many people were killed during the bombing. There were 5000 of us. 12 km beyond the camp we dug ditches. People said that they were to be our graves. That time we couldn't save ourselves, whoever moved a metre too far would be shot. Suddenly, the order came for us all to be put on a ship for Germany. Camp authorities escorted us. We travelled without any food, we were at sea for 7 days. We arrived in Gdańsk in terrible condition! From there, we were transported to Stutthof. At Stutthof, we were separated from the men and children. I only saw my little boy through the barbed wire [fence]. Two weeks later, he told me they were sending him away with a group of children. They said that [they were being sent for] labour, but he didn't believe it. He just assured me that he wouldn't let himself be shot, he would run away so that we could meet when we were free again. Up to now, I haven't had any news from my good little boy. At Stutthof, there were 60,000 women of various nationalities. The living conditions were very bad, 5 people to a bed. The rations were minimal. There were 500 women to a block. The Lagerälteste [German: female prisoner who acted as camp director], a Russian woman, tortured us - sometimes she even beat people over the head with a stool. It was at Stutthof that I saw a "selection" for the first time. As soon as we arrived, our hair was cut off, and we had gynaecological exams in search of gold and jewellery, and people were selected. A selection was carried out every day. The people who were chosen were given lethal injections. Two weeks later, 500 of us women were chosen for labour. We were sent to Hamburg-Oxenzoll. The road was bombed, we were travelling by military train. There were many casualties among the soldiers, none of us died. In Oxenzoll, we found a new camp, [with] new barracks. The living conditions weren't bad, the rations weren't bad. Work - in a munitions factory. We worked double shifts, twelve hours a day. The Lagerführer was very bad. In late March, the order came for the camp's evacuation. We travelled by train with no food, we ate leaves during the journey. On the way, I saw transports of emaciated, exhausted Jews. On the roads and in the forests there were many corpses, very emaciated. Seven days later, we arrived at Bergen Belsen. We arrived during the day; the road from the station to the camp was strewn with heaps of corpses. The camp gave the impression of a dead field. We didn't see a single living soul. We only saw chimneys and striped clothing on the barbed wire. We thought they were taking us to our death. It turned out that we'd gotten lost, that there wasn't anyone in that camp. We were taken to another. In that camp, we saw only heaps of naked corpses. We were taken to a block, we slept one on top of another. The lice ate us, it was filthy. There were corpses lying in the blocks. I was lying next to a corpse for 7 days. I didn't tell anyone this because I knew that they'd take the blanket away from me and I wouldn't have anything to cover myself with. Corpses pulled corpses. The corpses were pulled with ropes. It was mostly those who were pulling the corpses who didn't return anymore. That's where they fell. I know that the men would

8 take the hearts out of the corpses and eat them. There was no cannibalism among the women. There was no water in the camp. There were corpses floating in some kind of water, in some kind of lake or pond, surrounded by barbed wire. People wanted to get to it, to drink. They weren't allowed to. Whoever did drink it swelled up within a couple of hours. The water was poisoned. The English liberated us on 15 April. xxxxxxxxxxxxx [Comments of the person taking the record:] The witness is not an intelligent person, [but] she is energetic, young - her testimony is lively. She tries to provide the information she knows. She doesn't remember dates, she only knows what period she was in a given camp. Recalling these events is very emotional for her, she would stop her testimony for a few minutes as she was crying. Her testimony is completely trustworthy. I provide here a few clarifications that emerged during further conversations with the witness: 1. I have determined the dates according to [my own] calculations. 2. On page one of the manuscript, the witness says: my mother-in-law's "sister [sic] returned from the execution site.["] From the account, it becomes clear that she stayed with peasants for a time and only came to the ghetto later, when it became dangerous there. 3. The Wilno ghetto had two quarters. One held the non-productive element, which was slated for annihilation - the second was for those who were fit to work, and their families. But the residents did not know about this. 4. The witness's husband was executed at Ponary early on during the occupation. After the city had been occupied, the Germans took groups of 1000 young Jews, first put them in prison and then executed them. 5. Page 7 of the manuscript: Ereda - the assembly point of the liquidated camps in Estonia. ( - ) Luba Melchior Institute assistant