Marion Lazan

Name of Interviewee: Marion Lazan

Name of Interviewer: Ronit Wilder

Cassette Number: VT-2145

Date: January 27, 1999

Name of Typist: Cheryl Balshayi

Names:

Hoya

Hannover

Buchenwald

Houda

Westerbork

Bergen-Belsen

Troebitz

Bissum

Q: This is an interview with Mrs. Marion Lazan. You were born as Marion Blumenthal in Bremen, Germany, 1934. Can you tell me something about your background, your family?

A: My parents and two-year older brother, Albert, lived very comfortably with my grandparents in Hoya. Hoya is a very, very small town near Hannover. We lived with my grandparents. It was a three-story house - and the picture is in the book. There was a store, our shoe store, on the lower level, and the second story my grandparents lived and on the third story, my family lived. It was a very successful business until, of course, things changed in the early 30’s. I was born in Bremen only because the medical care in Hoya was a little bit more difficult. My mother had a difficult time with my brother, so she then, it was decided that I was born in Bremen, but we lived in Hoya until we were forced to leave there and we had to sell our business.

Q: What was your parents’ occupation?

A: My father was in a shoe business and also sold clothing, men’s clothing and socks and shirts and hats, but mainly shoes. It was a very comfortable life from what I was told because as I had said, mentioned to you earlier, that I was very young at that time.

Q: Do you know something about the origins of the family?

A: Not really. It’s just that ever since, from what I know, is we lived in that little town. My grandparents may have lived elsewhere prior to that, but I am not too familiar with that. My mother came from east Prussia. She was born in Stalloponen, which is in east Prussia, which is now Russia, of course. She is the eldest of five sisters. She wanted to get out of that little....she was born in Stalloponen, they lived in Tilsit, where they make the cheeses, and she was very anxious to get out of that little area and she then answered an ad in the paper for a job in one town, in Bracken, and there she worked with an uncle, but that wasn’t so comfortable for her. She then answered another ad and there was an ad that my father had put into the paper, that he needed help in the store. She answered that ad and then she came there and after only two weeks my father asked my mother to marry him. My father was eleven years older than my mother and he is the eldest of six children, but he was the only one who was really involved in the business.

Q: Were you a religious family?

A: Semi. Conservative. There was only one shul, one synagogue in Hoya. There were only about twelve, thirteen families, Jewish families in Hoya. It was just a town of a few thousand, it was quite small. There was one synagogue and my father was very, very involved in it. And of course it made it very difficult to keep “kasher” and to keep the “hagim” because there were so few people and there was very little cohesiveness and cooperation because from the twelve families, only very few cared enough for the religion.

Q: At home you spoke only German?

A: Correct. Only German, yes. I remember that my grandparents were very caring, very kind, very good. We were the only grandchildren, my brother and I, and that was very special to them. I really personally do not remember as much as you would like me to remember because I was so young. As you had said, I was born in ‘34. All of this happened from ‘34 to ‘38, when we then had to leave Hoya, forced to sell our home and our business for very little money.

Q: Before that your economic situation was okay?

A: Was excellent, excellent. When the Nuerenberg laws were formulated and enforced, it was at that time when the business was cut back quite a bit because all of our clientele, the majority of them, were not Jewish and they were not allowed to buy in a Jewish-owned store such as ours. So what my father did, he took his car and he took his wares, his merchandise out to the country, out to the land, and he had his customers. So they couldn’t come to him, so he went to them. He had a very good name, so he worked it out that way.

Q: Did you hear after that about those years I’m sure you can’t remember? Did your parents, your grandparents, feel themselves as Germans like all other Germans?

A: A hundred percent. No different. We had very, very dear friends in Hoya who, of course, turned against us because that was the thing to do.

Q: Non-Jews?

A: Non-Jews. These were non-Jews who were very, very good friends. And my father belonged to various organizations and clubs. There was one individual - I don’t want to mention his name - who came to our home, worked in the store, had very little family and he was taken in and he ate meals with us. As soon as the Nazis took over, he turned against us, as did many of the other non-Jews, but not all. And as I very often speak about my experiences to children and I always make a point of it, not to generalize. They were not all bad.

Q: Why don’t you want to mention his name? Not that it’s important to us, but I just wonder why you don’t want to mention it.

A: His name was Bruenn. We went back in 1995. It was the fiftieth anniversary of our liberation and at that time we went to the various camps that we were in and also went back to Hoya, which is adjacent to Bergen-Belsen, not too far from Hannover which is nearby. So it gave us a very good opportunity to go back and in fact we met this Bruenn and my aunt, my father’s sister, who is still alive. She lives in New York, she is ninety-two. When I told her about him she said she didn’t want to hear anything because he is a very disappointing and very upsetting experience for her at that time.

Q: There was any connection to Zionism at that time in your family?

A: No, not in my family. Our aim was to...well, as soon as we realized that it was wise to leave the country, our aim was to emigrate to America. We wanted to leave as soon as things began to happen with the Nazi regime, as soon as they took over. I also recall being told that my brother who was born in 1932, when he was laying in the carriage out in the front yard, already in ‘33 stones were thrown into his carriage. So things began to happen very quickly, one after the other, adverse things.

Q: When do you think you first became aware to the fact that you are a Jew, that you are different from other children around?

A: I think when we had to....when we were in Hannover. That I remember a little. I was four-and-a-half and actually...not quite. I was actually four. It was just before “Kristallnacht”, “Crystal Night”. Let me just go back a little bit. We did want to leave Hoya, but could not because my grandparents were ill and in their late seventies already and they couldn’t understand the urgency, the necessity of leaving and they didn’t want to leave their home.And we, in turn, would not leave them. So we waited until almost the very, very end, when they passed away within eleven days of each other, one of cancer, the other one of a heart attack. We then made our arrangements to emigrate to America and we then sold everything for a fraction of its worth and went on to Hannover. There we lived in an apartment, waiting for our papers to be in order, our visa, our affidavit, our quota number. We had our tickets.

Q: Did you have relatives in the States?

A: Yes we did. We had my father’s other sister, Clara. She had emigrated in 1936 with her husband and daughter. So she made it possible. She gave us the affidavit at that time.

Q: Although she was herself a newcomer there.

A: Yes, but nevertheless the arrangements were made, but there were still other papers that had to be put in order. And while we were in Hannover - we got there, I suppose it was in October, November of ‘38 - while we were there, “Kristallnacht” happened.

Q: That was already when you were waiting for the papers?

A: Correct.

Q: Did you go at that time to kindergarten?

A: No, nothing. There were no more schools for Jewish children anyway. There were no more public schools. I was told this, I don’t remember this myself. My brother and I were very sick with whooping cough in the apartment. They don’t have it today anymore. You get injections for it when you’re little. The night of “Kristallnacht” my father was taken away from the apartment. They came to the apartment and then the Brown Shirts, the Nazis and SS (they’re all the same) took my father to Buchenwald. They also opened a blanket, took all our valuables - silver, which we wanted to take with us, you know, sterling silver, and jewellery - whatever they felt was worth taking, put it all in a blanket, knotted it up, flung it over their shoulders and took it away.

Q: You remember that?

A: This is what I was told.

Q: You didn’t see them.

A: No, no. I probably did see them, but I just don’t remember with a hundred percent. And there were people in the apartment house by the name of Dannenberg who became good friends and they had told...my father had a little gun and he was told to throw that little gun into the river, because if they would see him with that, there would be major problems. Anyway, my father was taken away to Buchenwald and terrible stories were related to my mother and we did not know if we would ever see my father again.

Q: At that time you were only your parents, you and your brother?

A: Yes, that’s it. And my father was released from Buchenwald after only ten days there, only because our papers were in order. At that time the Germans did want us to leave, did want us to get out. So because our papers were in order he was released and we were of course very relieved when he came back to us. That was ‘38. In ‘39, early on in ‘39...soon thereafter, actually, we went on to Holland.

Q: Before we go to Holland, besides that you remember nothing more about your life at that time?

A: Not really. Only what was really told to me. I do remember this family Dannenberg, who were very good friends and later on were able to leave in time. I don’t know how they got to California, but they were in California and my family was in touch with them, sort of. I remember my mother telling me that she went outside during “Kristallnacht” when the destruction took place and everybody was outside and viewing the flames. The Hannover synagogue, I was told, was a very well-built stone structure and even that was burned and then they would use axes to destroy it even more, whatever they couldn’t burn down. And there was a non-Jewish man who was standing next to my mother and he said to her, “Now this they didn’t have to do.” It was such a magnificent architectural structure. So we have to understand that not all the non-Jewish Germans went along with it. Many of them, of course, did. There were not enough who argued against the Nazis. That’s about all I could...There was another incident that was told to me, if you’re interested in, going back when the Germans first took over in Hoya, when the stores were off-limits for gentiles, the Jewish-owned stores. There was a sign put in front of our door, that no non-Jews were allowed to buy there and the Brown Shirts were standing in front of our store. And my Tante Klara had taken a camera and innocently took a photo of them. Well, that upset them terribly. They took the photo and they smashed it and because my father was the owner of the store, he was also briefly taken to the police station. That was just an incident that I remember being told to me. Of course I don’t remember, I wasn’t there at the time.

Q: You remember yourself afraid at that time or you think you...?

A: Was I afraid at that time? I don’t remember fear. You have to remember I was always with my mother, so I always had the protection of my parents and particularly my mother. And I am sure that they tried to shield us from any of these incidents as much as they could, and that made a difference. There was never really...real fear first set in later on.

Q: For you maybe, as a little child maybe it was even an adventure to go from a very small town to a big town, big city like Hannover.

A: Yes, it probably was. We were moving on and we welcomed the move, I’m sure. As you said, it was a new experience, but we must have sensed that it was not a normal kind of move because there was much anxiety with my parents and then, of course, my grandparents, whom we loved so dearly, had died just prior to that, so there was a lot of turmoil and a lot of unrest I’m sure.

Q: Did you have other relatives around?

A: In Hoya?

Q: Or maybe somewhere else.

A: There was a Tante Nani, who never married. She was my grandmother’s sister, and she lived with us, but she couldn’t go with us, we couldn’t get papers for her, so we have no idea what happened to her. Then there was a Tante Rosie, my father’s sister, she was the youngest of the six, and she married a Dutch man and she had emigrated to Holland earlier on. And as I said, there was Tante Klara, who had left in 1936 with her family. There was one brother of my father’s who had drowned at the age of thirteen. Another sister, Hedwig, died of a brain tumour, I was told. Of course, that was even before I was born. Then there was another brother who had difficulties. He was never comfortable with himself and we never knew what happened to him. He sort of left the family.

Q: And from your mother’s side?

A: from my mother’s side, my mother being the eldest of five. Her name is Ruth.

Q: Did you know any one of them?

A: Yes, I do because very fortunately, out of the five, four survived. There was my mother, who is Ruth. She was born in 1908. The next one was Bianca, who left Germany for England. She just died a few years ago. Then there was Tante Annie. When they lived in East Prussia, we never really knew what happened. She did come to visit us in Hoya - I only know that because of a picture. She then was sent away. We never knew what really happened to her. Then there was Tante Ilse, who was married to Woodie Kaufmann, and she lived in Königsberg and she was in the partisans, she was in the woods. Her husband was shot after just a few months of marriage and a very brilliant man, a scientist. My Tante Ilse now lives in New York. After her liberation she went to England and from England she came to New York. I take care of her. Now she is not too well and I am responsible for her. Then there is Tante Ulla. She made aliyah from Germany in 1936 and she lives now in Kfar Shmaryahu - there is a facility. And she is really doing very, very well. And my mother, who is going to be ninety-one February 7th, is wonderful. She lives alone and is, thank G-d, healthy and well, takes only a little aspirin - ibuprofen, we call it, Advil - now and then. Otherwise no medicine. She is a beautiful looking lady and she is interested in music and in architecture and really amazing that she would come out as strong and as healthy in mind and body after having gone through all that and after seeing her children suffer, so she is a remarkable and very strong lady, and I’ll tell you more about her inner strength later. But there is no doubt that it was because of her strong constitution, her strong character, her strong will, that we, the children, survived. There is no doubt in my mind. She is remarkable and I am very proud of her. That takes care of my mother’s family, so the only one who really perished from her siblings is the one sister. And her parents, who always lived up, stayed up in Tilsit, in East Prussia - we had assumed that they were transported to Theresienstadt, for some reason that’s what we were told. And it was only recently, not too long ago, five, ten, maybe even fifteen years, which is not that long ago, somehow - and I don’t know who told us this - is that the people in the village where my grandparents lived were all taken into a barn on a farm and the barn was set on fire and that is how they perished. And this is something that we just recently found out. So that is a terrible hurt and we’ll put that along with all the other hurts.

Q: At the end of ‘38 you are with you family in Hannover, waiting to complete the papers that you needed to immigrate to the States. I assume personally you don’t remember anything about the “Kristallnacht”. In ‘39 do you remember something that happened to you?

A: ‘39. I do know that obviously we were...I don’t even know how we were transported, must have been a train, to Holland.

Q: Why to Holland?

A: Because we had an aunt living in Holland. Tante Rosie lived in Holland. And it was from there....

Q: The purpose was to wait in Holland for the papers?

A: Right, and then to emigrate from there to America.

Q: It was the beginning of ‘39?

A: Correct. ‘39 we went to Holland. Once we got to Holland, almost immediately the Dutch people, because so many who were fleeing from the Nazis came to Holland, they needed to find a place for us. I mean, there were thousands of us. There was no place, there were no accommodations for us. We certainly had no work there, or the adults had no work there. So my parents were assigned to take care of some hundred and twenty-five children in a little town called Houda. And these children were sent by their parents from various parts of Europe to escape from the Nazis. And my parents were then in charge of taking care of these children, and that was for about, I don’t know, five, six, seven months, maybe longer. Then it was decided by the Dutch to send us to Westerbork.

Q: But what was missing from the papers, because you said your father was released from Buchenwald because he had papers to go to the States.

A: Correct. Okay, what was missing mainly was the quota, the quota number. For some reason, we already had the quota number, but then it was set back. It was taken from us and it was set back. Constantly set back. And as it is well known, there really was no country that was very willing to allow us in, not even really America. And they did have a quota of certain numbers, yes, but beyond that it was very difficult. When finally our quota number was set, just a month before our planned departure - we were to leave in June - the Germans invaded Holland in May of 1940 and we were trapped, that was it . Our belongings were already on board ship or in their huge warehouses and my trousseau - I was four or five years - my trousseau - linen and silver and whatever for someday when I get married - was already, my parents took care of that and it was on the lifts in the warehouse or on the ship. Of course Rotterdam was bombed terribly and everything that we owned was destroyed. Then we were sent to Westerbork.

Q: But first, you went to Holland by yourselves, to your aunt there.

A: Not really to the aunt. May I backtrack a little bit? I do remember when we moved from Hoya to Hannover, which was a big move for my family, I was sent to (?) in Holland, to my aunt. I think it might have been near Leiden and that is where my aunt, Tante Rosie, lived with her husband, and I was sent there. For some reason I have very good memories from that, I do remember that. I may be blocking the unpleasant things out. That I do remember and I made some good friends there, even though I was only there for a few months and I was very little. I was four years old. I would imagine that after we left Hannover for Holland, that we were first with my aunt I never really researched into that area too much. And then we must have gone to Houda where my parents took care of these children. From there, as far as I know, we were sent to Westerbork and we were the very first, called the “Alten Campensassen”, in Westerbork. From Chanukah 1939. So there really wasn’t much leeway, much time.

Q So you were sent to Westerbork a long time before it became a concentration camp, when it was only to keep people that are not Dutch citizens.

A: Exactly. It was constructed by the Dutch to accommodate Jews who fled from the Nazis, from Europe, but mainly from Germany, I would think, because there was such a massive emigration out of Germany because they were the ones who were affected by it mostly. So we were one of the very, very, very first in Westerbork, and things were not all that terrible in that period. Adults were assigned to various duties. My father worked in a shoe repair shop, my mother worked in the kitchen and she...I remember she peeled potatoes, constantly peeled potatoes. Her poor hands were brown. And we children had a makeshift education. It was very, very minimal, but generally we lived a very dull, stagnant life. There wasn’t much doing for us.

Q: Even as a child?

A: There wasn’t much to do for us there in Westerbork.

Q: To hang around.

A: We hung around, yes. We made friends. But we weren’t threatened. We were not allowed to go free as much. We had to stay there.

Q: Yes, but it was big enough for you.

A: Oh yes, no problem. You have to understand that for me it was very gradual. I was very content there. And my parents didn’t make us feel anxious. They tried very hard all along to protect us against all the uncertainties of life. We lived in two small rooms, which was fine, and we ate in a communal dining room, a big dining room where we all ate. I remember we lived in Barrack No. 17. We had a little bathroom. There was not a shower. There was a little toilet and a little sink. And there was a little kitchen area, I think, with a little sink. Food, there was enough food. We did not go hungry. But we didn’t have candy or ice cream - none of these delicacies. And I remember craving sweets. There was saccharine and I helped myself to saccharine. I realized soon enough that that is not really, was not to my liking. We were comfortable there at the beginning. And then when the Germans took over the jurisdiction of Westerbork, we then became acquainted with that everpresent terrible, dreadful twelve-foot-high barbed wire. They were the ones who put that up.

Q: I just didn’t understand how for the first place you were taken to Westerbork. You said that your parents worked in an institute that took care of the childen...

A: In Houda.

Q: That came from Germany, Austria, I suppose, Czechia, that came to Holland to be out of the Nazi regime. They took the whole institute to Westerbork or only the staff.

A: No, only some. I don’t know what happened to all of the others. That’s a very interesting question. I really never questioned my mother about that. Many of the children from there went on to Westerbork. It is possible that they all were sent, but I’m not certain. I don’t know. Because Westerbork was a transit camp. That’s where they all were eventually sent.

Q: Do you remember friends from those children?

A: From Houda, no. From Westerbork, yes. Definitely.

Q: Where from?

A: Where were they from? Where were they originally from? Mostly from Germany because all I spoke was German and they spoke German and so I would assume that they were all from Germany. One family in particular I am still very, very close with - the Birnbaum family. They were with us in Westerbork, they were with us in Bergen-Belsen and even afterwards, and I will tell you more about them later. A wonderful, wonderful family. “Baruch HasShem”, they all survived, with six children and the parents. And they themselves, the parents, would do in Bergen-Belsen, when children lost their parents, they would take some of them in and just look after. You couldn’t do much for one another, but just looked after them the best that they could. And one, my friend Susie Birnbaum, who is now Susie Loira - she lives in Rehavia in Yerushalayim and I’ll go to her when I’m finished with this interview - we are very, very, very close and we were together even after the war in an “Aliyah and Hachshara” home.

Q: What is her name now in Israel?

A: Her name now is Susie Loira and she herself has a wonderful husband, Yehuda, and they have five wonderful children and they have beautiful grandchildren, but she is very, very dear to me. She is “yotset min haclal, be’emet” (truly exceptional). And her siblings, all of her brothers and sisters live here in “Medinat Yisrael”.

Q: For you as a child, Westerbork is not a trauma in the beginning, not at all, although I suppose that in Houda also, for you as a child, you were surrounded by children. Was there at the time something like kindergarten or beginning of school for you?

A: Not much in Houda, as far as I know. In the beginning in Westerbork, there was a little bit of an education. Very informal. There were adults who were teachers, trained teachers would gather children of various ages and would teach them.

Q: When did you learn to read and write?

A: Not until I was liberated, actually in ‘46, ‘45-’46.

Q: When you were already twelve years old.

A: When I was eleven years old. And that was in Dutch, not even my mother tongue, so my education was such a “balagan”. First in Dutch and while we were in Holland after the war and we were in this Youth Aliyah home with the Birnbaums - it was Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum who were in charge of this Youth Aliyah home - and that’s where I first started my education, in Dutch, a foreign language. And in the Home we learned Ivrit and religious studies from Herr Birnbaum in preparation to live in what was then still called Palestine. Illegal transport was planned for us. Do you want me to talk about that?

Q: After we finish.

A: But that was when I first had my education, not before.

Q: So the whole time at Westerbork...?

A: Was not much. Because I was still very young. Very, very little. I don’t recall much of an education there at all because soon thereafter the Germans took over and we children just played games, we made up our own games. I remember - I sort of forgot this. It just came back to me. - that when people came to Westerbork - people always came to Westerbork. They were picked up from their hiding places and Anna Frank among them. They brought cigars and we would collect the bands of cigars and sometimes we were given candies - “snoopjes” we called them in Dutch - and they were wrapped in silver foil, pretty, coloured silver foil. We would take the silver foil and we would smooth it with our fingernails and we would collect it and they were worth different....the shiniest and the one with the most colour was worth more than the plain coloured ones and we would trade it and we would keep it in a little...at that time we had a little notebook maybe and we would keep it between the pages and we would keep the cigar bands between the pages. And we made up our own...and it was okay. No problem. We didn’t need formal, expensive games. We were very content with what we had and we did not go hungry. And we were with our parents and that was important. That made a difference.

Q: But were you aware at the time to what’s going around you?

A: Not much, not much. Not until the “prickledrat”. “Prickledrat” in Dutch is barbed wire. Not until that was constructed around Westerbork and restrictions became more severe. And even then, it just was such a gradual change that it really.....I was never really in fear, I was never really that uncomfortable.

Q: At that time you still thought it’s temporary until you go to the States, being in Westerbork?

A: Until the Germans took over, there was still a slight chance because the Germans didn’t take over until 1940. So there was still a....but once that...finished. And my father always had a little dictionary, German-English dictionary, always with the hope of someday emigrating, and he wanted to be be prepared and so he always studied a little bit of English. So there was always that dream and always that hope.

Q: But you understood the difference between Westerbork before and after the Germans, besides the barbed wire?

A: I don’t remember all that much of a difference. Not that much, except for that barbed wire.

Q: Did you hear talking at home about the situation, what is going to be, things like that, or was it common at the time that “we won’t talk about stuff like that near the children”?

A: My parents did not talk about it too much when we were present. Westerbork became overcrowded because of a massive influx of people. That came about in ‘41, ‘42, ‘43. We then shared our quarters with another family. It left us with one room. Still no problem. But they came, people came with stories, things that we, we didn’t have radio, we didn’t know. But they came with stories and they told us that in some cases people were almost immediately sent out of Westerbork, immediately sent out.

Q: You heard the word “east” at that time?

A: Pretty much. In 1942 it began. From then on, almost every Tuesday morning it was, we knew that that was a terrible time. Tuesday morning groups who were assigned....there were lists that were called out or they were assigned to them. I don’t know how they were notified, but almost every Tuesday morning men and women and little children were marched, walked to a station platform and from there they were transported. We children were not as familiar, but we were told that they were transported to the east and to the concentration camps. We had an inkling, we had some knowledge what...the adults in particular had some knowledge what was happening.

Q: I suppose that for you, if you heard about concentration camps in the east, you thought it’s something like your camp.

A: Yes, yes, yes. When it was our turn to be sent out in February of 1944, we children welcomed that move. We were naive, we didn’t know. We liked the idea of “we’re getting out. It’s enough of this already. We’re getting out.” Adults suspected and somehow knew what was in store for us. I am sure. We were allowed, at that time, when it was our turn to be sent out, we were allowed to take one knapsack, a rucksack, a “tik” each and I think my mother even made the knapsack. How she made I don’t know. Or they were given to us. And whatever we could stuff into that knapsack we were allowed to take. That’s it.

Q: But I want to talk a little more about the time before you left. At first you said that it was only German that you talked and heard around. Do you remember when the first Dutch people came there?

A: Vaguely, yes, because they were distant relatives who came and somehow they knew that we were there and we somehow got together with them and I remember that they came to us because here we were. We had our own room at least. Many of them who came later were housed elsewhere. And they were Dutch. No one that we knew from Germany came anymore. That ones that came after us were “Hollands”. It is possible that they knew a little bit of German, and German and Dutch are very similar, so that we were able to make ourselves understood.

Q: But you remember yourself getting friendly with Dutch children?

A: Not Dutch children, just the few distant relatives, adults they were. I don’t remember any new Dutch children. Only the ones who we started out with. There was a Miriam and a Yehudit Stern, I remember. There was a Yehudit Nussbaum, I remember. There was another twins, Eunice and Renee Spanier, I remember, but this was all from before. And once the influx of the Dutch Jewish people, we pretty much stayed together. And as I said, I don’t have terrible memories of Westerbork.

Q: You were alone as children? You said that your parents worked, so I assume that during the day you were alone.

A: Pretty much alone. And also this primitive educational institution was set up. I don’t recall this exactly. Maybe it was in the communal dining room where we gathered and where we learned a little bit and where we were taught songs. There was someone who...Carlebach. I forgot what his first name was, but he sang beautifully. I found out later that he was a cousin of Shlomo Carlebach. He was there with us. So I remember learning some songs, but that was all done in German. I remember I needed some sort of surgery. Adenoids. I don’t know what it’s called in Ivrit. It’s like the tonsils. Had to removed and I remember that was a terrible incident. There was very little medication that they could give me against the pain. Anaesthesia they could give me. That was already later on. I don’t know why it was necessary to take them out, but they did. That was a very bad memory. I had a lot of discomfort, a lot of pain and a lot of fear. I didn’t know what was happening. My mother wasn’t with me. But other than that...

Q: When the camp began to be more and more crowded, didn’t you think as a child, “Oh, what do we need those people? Let them go to the east or wherever they are taken to?”

A: No. Not at all.

Q: Didn’t it disturb you?

A: No, did not disturb me. That is the way it went. As I said, it was just a gradual process and the people we shared our two little rooms with - she was Mrs. Hamburger, and her husband - we were lucky. It was just a couple. She was very good to me, very nice and we became friends. My father became very rigid. He was always very strict and very proper and very exact. I suppose as many Germans are. He was very strict with my brother and me.

Q: Even in Westerbork?

A: Yes. Every once in a while, when we would go to a neighbour’s house and they would give us a little treat and we would go home and we would tell my parents that we had gotten a little treat, my father would say, “Did you say thank you?” And we said we were sure we did. He said, “I didn’t hear you. Go back and say thank you.” I mean, he wasn’t even with us at that time. “Go back.” You had to say thank you again and again and again. Everything had to be just so with him and I suppose the nature of his life at that time, the ridicule that he had to withstand, the fact that he couldn’t take care of his family the way he wanted to and look after them and give them what he felt we should have made him bitter, made him angry, made him unsure of himself and made life very hard from within. And we don’t really fault him, but he made life very difficult for my mother as well. Everything had to be always just, just so with him.

Q: To ignore the conditions and try to live as you lived before?

A: I suppose that was the reason. It was some of his way of thinking. I think there must have been much anger in him and who could he leave it out on but his family. Not that he meant it to be that way, but....Well, I’m not going to go into that. He was always a very good provider and he was very proud, a very proud person and intelligent and a good businessman and he had hopes and dreams for his family and to think that there was never really any time. It was very soon after my parents were married that things began to happen in the negative and there was never really any time for him to provide for his family the way he had hoped and wanted to. So there must have been much anger and bitterness in him and uncertainty and not knowing what was going to be.

Q: Did that make you spend more time out of your room?

A: Perhaps. Perhaps. I remember also, at the beginning, we had some makeshift “beit knesset” for the “chagim” and it was Yom Kippur. This was early on ‘41, ‘40-’41. And my father was in “beit knesset” and my brother, who at that time was about eight years old, seven or eight years old, was at the “beit knesset” and then he left and he didn’t come back at all, or he came back much later and my father was very, very angry and really gave him....It was very hard to see that there was so much anger in my father.

Q: How old was your brother at that time?

A: He was born in 1932, so in 1940 he was eight years old, seven or eight years old. And I think too much was expected of him as a child, too. My brother, who is two years older than I am, has a much different attitude about speaking about the “Shoah” than I have. I don’t fault him and that is, I’m sure, because he is two years older and he preceived things differently, he saw things differently. And then of course in Bergen-Belsen he was with the men, he was with my father, I was with my mother. He is happily married, but won’t bring children into the world. (end of side)

About my brother. Despite the fact that he will not bring children into the world, for which I do not fault him at all, and he has also turned away from the religion, as I had said earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that the fact that his understanding and his feelings towards the “Shoah” and his attitude is so much different that mine is because he was in the men’s section and he saw things and perhaps even experienced things that I did not. I was so fortunate to have always been with my mother and in the women’s area. He has always been very protective of me, in Bergen-Belsen, in Westerbork, and he is a very, very good friend to me, to my husband, and a wonderful uncle to our children. But as I said, he has his reasons for his attitude and his way of thinking and in no way do I fault him for that. And he is very happily married and has been married now thirty-one years and he has been extremely successful. He is an accountant and he is now a consultant, business consultant in California. Self-educated and worked his way up from absolutely nothing, so I am very proud of him. He is quite a gentleman.

Q: I want to go back to 1940. Do you remember the time that the Germans invaded Holland? Did you hear about that in Westerbork?

A: I must have heard about it, but I don't recall that period specifically.

Q: You don't remember anything different at home?

A: No.

Q: Maybe your parents were under more pressure, something like that?

A: I am sure that they were. I’m sure because that was the end of the possibility of our emigrating and then shortly thereafter things began to happen in very rapid succession when the camp became overcrowded and people came in from the outside and they would tell us as to what had been going on. In a sense, I suppose, we lived a protected kind of life through those months prior to the German invasion and knew very little what was going on in the outside. Everything was provided for us. Not that it was great, but.....I personally don’t really differentiate too much from the time before the German jurisdiction and before.

Q: When it was more crowded in Westerbork, for you as children it was the more, the merrier, or you began to feel that it was not as it was?

A: I suppose there was discomfort, it was uncomfortable. We had to wait so much longer. There was a shower, a place to shower once a week, I think, and everything was a longer wait and gradually, eventually food was not as plentiful and it wasn’t as good. So I’m sure that we also felt a little different, but I don’t recall any real discomfort or any real hardship at that time.

Q: Not even with food, because you mentioned only that you didn’t have the luxuries?

A: I guess there was always enough food for us to eat, even at that time. I’m sure that later on, after we left in the early, early part - we left in February of ‘42, later on.

Q: ‘42 or ‘44?

A: Excuse me, ‘44. ‘44 we left. It was February ‘44. And I’m sure that afterwards, because there were people there I know of who stayed until the very end. They were older, the children were older and they were taken to work and they were strong enough and old enough and tall enough, so they were put onto work duty and they stayed on. Later on, too, things for them weren’t as comfortable, but at the time when we were there, I really do not recall it being as difficult. The difficulty was in store for us later on in Bergen-Belsen.

Q: You don’t remember yourself as miserable at that time, feel pity for yourself or something?

A: You see, such is my attitude. No. There was no pity. And you have to understand, too, that I was only four years old when things....

Q: At the beginning.

A: At the beginning, but it gradually became changed and I was so already accustomed to changes and I have to repeat over and over again, I was with my parents, I was with my mother, so alright, so I didn’t have my own room, so I didn’t have a comfortable bed and I didn’t have the toys and I have didn’t have the luxurious food or any of the things that we take...

Q: I think you didn’t remember that they exist.

A: Exactly. It just got progressively....and I figured this is the way life is, period, although we were told. I mean, I was getting older and I knew that there was something better out there than what we had in the camps, but personally, I didn’t dwell on the negative. That is my personality. I guess I’m very lucky. That’s the way it has always been. That’s the way it is today. I try to be as positive and as optimistic as I can possibly be and I am ceratin - my mother was like that - and I am certain that it is that attitude that helped to see us through. If one didn’t have a positive attitude and one would just sit back and give up and “I can’t take this anymore”, no matter how physically strong one is, if their mental attitude is a negative one, that is pretty much the end.

Q: In ‘42 when the Dutch children came with their parents to the camp, could you hear stories? Did you understand Dutch at that time?

A: A little bit. Very, very, very little. I don’t think that we really....we stayed with our German and we stayed within our circle of friends. There were very few Dutch people who came to us, and you have to understand that gradually we also became so engrossed in our own self well-being that we were just really...after awhile you were just concerned to make each day count, and of course, that became even more so later on in Bergen-Belsen. Just to take each day at a time and to survive that day.

Q: You don’t remember a difference between ‘41, ‘42, ‘43? For you it’s the same way?

A: No, for me it’s the same way. Not until we got on that train in February of 1944.

Q: Till February ‘44 you are not hungry? You have no problems? You have enough clothes to wear?

A: Not enough clothes, but we...

Q: Because I suppose you grew out of....

A: I was able to change. I never knew anything else. Even when we were in Houda, how much could I have had? Next to nothing. It was okay. I had my family, I had enough to eat.

Q: I suppose your father took care of shoes if you needed new shoes?

A: Well....When? In Germany, yes, but not later on, no. Later on we took with us our necessities. We had change of clothing. It was not a problem. We had change of clothing in Westerbork.

Q: Because you came at the age of five and you went out at the age of...

A: You grew. And what happened was, too, we passed clothing on among each other - hand-me-downs. It was fine. It was okay. I must say that I remember very little hardship in Westerbork, personally. I would think that it is due to my parents who protected us from that, as much as possible.

Q: Both your parents?

A: Yes, but the fact that my father had that strict personality was something else again. That doesn’t mean that he would expose us to the hardships of the war and to what might be forthcoming. It was just his way, in a sense, and then, of course, it became.....And he was somewhat religious.. He became even more observant as time went on and even in Bergen-Belsen he would lay tefillin in secret and in Bergen-Belsen he refused to eat that so-called soup that was given to us because it contained gristle, non-kosher meat. And although I know now that the rabbis there said it was perfectly alright to eat the food in order to survive, but there must have been people such as my father who did not feel comfortable eating the non-kosher stuff and felt maybe that if they became more religious, maybe “HaShem” would look after them a little bit more. It was a different “HaShem” up there, I don't know.

Q: Do you remember the holidays in Westerbork?

A: In Westerbork, vaguely. Oh yes. We did celebrate the “chagim”.

Q: Pesach, for instance?

A: I don’t remember. I remember a little bit about Chanukah, where we would make little things for one another. I mean, we couldn’t buy anything. But not too vividly, not too vividly. No. I would imagine that those years in Bergen-Belsen overshadowed all that happened before.

Q: What do you know now about what was going on in February ‘44 that brought you to Bergen-Belsen? First of all, how did you stay for so long in Westerbork?

A: There was always...every week when the list was called, there was always that fear that one’s name was on that list, and our’s just was not. Also, we had heard, somewhere along the way - I cannot tell you exactly when - that we should try to get to Bergen-Belsen because we could then possible be exchanged for a group of Templers - it’s a religious German sect who were somewhat imprisoned here - and if we could get to Bergen-Belsen there would be that possibility that we could be exchanged. My Tante Ulla, my aunt who at that time lived in Palestine, was notified. How we were able to get that information to her I cannot tell you, but she knew about it and she did her very, very best to get the proper papers so that we could go to Bergen-Belsen and not to Auschwitz or to Theresienstadt where we...We had heard in Westerbork that there were transports that went to the camps and would never come back. What was done to them there we really didn’t know, but we knew there were some terrible things happening.

Q: So it was your aunt here that took care of transferring you to...?

A: Yes, to Bergen-Belsen. And so when we were ready to go to Bergen-Belsen, my parents were relieved that it was Bergen-Belsen, with the thought that we might be exchanged, and of course we children, again we were going to move and oh, we were quite pleased that we were going to get out of Westerbork.

Q: And to go back to Germany?

A: Yes, but it was going to be a change for us. We didn’t know. There was no way for us to know, and even though the adults suspected danger and suspected, they did not instill that into us, and we, as children, as children are, naive, welcomed the change. So that was then. I remember there was a family called Ickenberg who lived across the road from us in the other barrack and they had a little baby - I think that baby may have even been born in Westerbork. He was also there from the very beginning and this little boy was about two or three years old and they, too, wanted to get to Bergen-Belsen, but there was no way because they had a baby. We suspect that they went on to Auschwitz.

Q: What was the name?

A: Ickenberg.

Q: I interviewed someone who had her baby in Westerbork, but she went after that to Theresienstadt, if I’m not mistaken.

A: You don’t remember the name?

Q: Not now, but it wasn’t Ikenberg.

A: That is the name that seems to...You have to understand that some of these things that I’m telling you now sort of just come back and It’s interesting how that happens. I mean, it’s.....but I guess that’s how one’s mind works. Certain circumstances.

Q: You remember yourself playing with that little child?

A: Little child. I remember being very fond and loving that baby. I always loved babies and there was one period where I thought I would be a baby nurse and kindergarten teacher and always be with children. I always liked them. And how heartbroken we were when they left. I don’t know why we knew or suspected that they were going somewhere to be eliminated, because we did hear about the camps in the east. We didn’t know specifics, but we did know. When we were told that we were to go to Bergen-Belsen there was somewhat of a relief. And of course we always had to wear that star. I brought the star, the same star that we wore. My mother saved it. My mother had such foresight, in her knapsack she would save the documents which are in this book, and then some of the pictures and the papers my aunt, my Tante Rosie, who was in hiding in Holland, saved and we were able to get. I do remember being sent out of Westerbork and arriving in Bergen-Belsen.

Q: At that time you were more than eight.

A: I was already nine, eight, nine years old. And it must have been a very traumatic happening, incident.

Q: Not only because you expected something else, but also because it was a terrible event.

A: Experience, because it was terrible experience. The way we were transported out of Westerbork. The way we were all bunched together, grouped together with our little bit of luggage, whatever we had, on that platform, and how we were all shoved into the cars, into the trains and it was cold. It was February and those winters in that part of Europe are very severe. And I don’t know how long we travelled to Bergen-Belsen, how long it took, but I remember arriving there at night. It was pitch black, it was raining, it was freezing cold. We didn’t have all that much, we didn’t have that much in Westerbork either. And arriving in Bergen-Belsen. We were packed like sardines on the platform there and I remember even African children, from Africa or from Yemen or I don’t know where they came from. I remember that their complexion was different from ours. And I had a little rag doll that I must have had with me always and I remember a little girl, a little African girl, only wanted that doll and I remember how I wouldn’t give it to her and how my brother helped protect me. I remember I wore a little sweater which someone had knit. It was short-sleeved, it was an off-white little sweater. I don’t remember having a coat or anything much to protect us against the cold.

Q: And you weren’t sick all that time in Westerbork? Besides the time that you had...?

A: My tonsils out? I really don’t remember. I remember I always had a little ear infection. I don’t remember much medication there either, but I don’t recall that. Not at all. I do, as I told you earlier, that we were quite sick with this whooping cough business and also I was told that in Houda we were ill with diphtheria and with other...but we always recovered. I don’t know how we came to Bergen-Belsen. We must have walked from the platform once we arrived in...Celle was the nearby station or where the train stopped. And then from there we worked our way over to Bergen-Belsen. When we arrived at the platform I also remember - that I remember vividly - are the SS with their boots, their black, shiny boots. They were almost as tall as I was tall. With their rifles over their shoulders and with their armbands, with those wicked-looking swastikas on it, and with the German shepherd dogs and they looked very, very vicious. To this day, there is a deep fear in me when I see a German shepherd dog. We ourselves have had pets. We’ve had an Old English sheepdog and it’s fine and our children here in Beit Shemesh have a dog and that’s fine, but when I see a German shepherd - and I am sure that they are very good animals - it’s the manner in which they were trained that brought in such fear.

We were at that point together as a family. We travelled together as a family, as far as I remember, and once we arrived in Bergen-Belsen my father and brother were separated from my mother and me. They were placed in the men’s section, I would assume, and we were in the women’s section. I think almost immediately.....there were the barracks there. We children, I for myself realized that my thinking that this was going to better and this was going to be exciting and it was going to be wonderful change from Westerbork, my thinking was very wrong. It was almost immediate. It was actually from the time that we boarded the train in Westerbork that I realized that things were going to get worse. How much worse, of course, we didn’t know. And when we got to the barracks, they were flimsy barracks. They were built, I learned later, for the Russian prisoners-of-war, of World War I, in 1914, and here they put us, crammed six hundred of us in each of those crude wooden, heatless barracks which were meant for one hundred when they were built back then. And there we saw the bare floors, there we saw the triple decker bunkbeds and the crudeness of the barracks.

Q: For you it was the first time to see this kind of Germans?

A: A hundred percent. You mean the SS, the Nazis really. That’s right. And even in Westerbork....I’m sure that my parents were commanded to do certain things, but we children, they pretty much left us alone at that time. But once we arrived in Bergen-Belsen, the stern language and that German command language, that “Berlinerdeustch” - it was a threatening, whenever they opened their mouths it was always threatening and it was always scolding and it was always yelling and it was always with the intention to set fear into us. They didn’t care that we were eight-, nine-, ten-year-olds, or even younger. They did it with such zest, and I can’t comprehend, I can’t understand how people, family men and women could be so crude and so cruel, and how can people do this to one another. And to think that these people go home to their families at night and to their own children, how could they separate this? Be so cruel one moment and then go home and be family.

Q: At that time, did your mother try to protect you or was she busy with herself?

A: Always. No. Always tried to protect.

Q: Because for her the trauma was also...

A: Terrible. For parents, for mothers, this had to be an enormously difficult time. To see their children suffer, to see their children hungry, because immediately our rations, our food rations that we were accustomed to having in Westerbork - it wasn’t great, but we never went hungry - and here immediately things were cut back, foods were cut back, everything was cut back. I mean, the sanitary situation. Toilets were at a tremendous distance, like blocks away. And the most primitive outhouses. There were long wooden benches, holes next to one another. Not toilet paper, no privacy. Hardly every any running water. I remember, across from these so-called benches there was a pipe and there were crude little faucets, but there wasn’t always water coming. Sometimes water came out and sometimes it didn’t. We never saw flowers, we never saw trees nor a blade of grass, nothing.

Q: In Westerbork you did?

A: Yes, oh yes. Maybe not immediately in the camp, but we could see outside. There was heather - we called it “Heidi” because it was a very lovely shade of lavender and in the spring it was very pretty and I remember lupine - which is not my favourite flower - a very tall flower. I have to say again, I don’t have bad memories of Westerbork. But Bergen-Belsen was a traumatic, terrible experience.

Q: In Bergen-Belsen you were in a separate camp inside the big camp, but you could see other camps around. I suppose that for the first time you saw what looked, how we call it, “muselmen”. What you didn’t see before.

A: That’s correct. And there were gypsies. But as I said, already on the platform they were coming in also and their complexion, there were blacks. So all these new impressions were overwhelming and I had never seen anyone but a white person. But you get accustomed to it. Of course I saw different people. And then in the next camp, I believe, they wore striped prison clothes. We were allowed to keep our clothes, whatever was left of our clothes, but we still had to wear always the star. That’s why it was called the “Sternlager”. It was also called “Austauschlager”, “Exchange Lager”. And there actually were people who were taken out from Bergen-Belsen into a separate section with the intention of being exchanged, and we were among them.

Q: And then part of them coming back.

A: And we were among them. That was the biggest, biggest disappointment of our time in Bergen-Belsen. Here we were already six weeks out of that hellhole into another area where we were treated a little bit better, and with the thought, and with the hope that we might actually come out of Bergen-Belsen permanently. And when the time actually came, the lists were read and ours were not among them and my father at that time actually had the courage to ask the “Kommandant” who was reading the list to please double-check and make sure, to see that perhaps Blumenthal was on there. The list was read and “B”, Blumenthal is the second letter of the alphabet - it didn’t, it wasn’t. And when my father did ask him, he received a terrible beating from that man and verbal discipline - he called him terrible names and told him to get back to where he belonged and this is it and that’s it, finished. And we had to go back to that other area of Bergen-Belsen. That was it. There was no chance again.

Q: In that camp were you together, families?

A: In that section? I think so, yes. All of a sudden, they treated us, you know, a little bit better, and we were sort of together. Maybe the men were still separate, but I believe we were treated a little bit better and we didn’t have to stand on “Appell”. That, every day, early, early morning we had to get out there, on this huge field, five in a row we had to stand, until everyone of us was accounted for. And the weather didn’t matter - in all kinds of weather, and we didn’t have protective clothing. In the severe heat of the summer and in the terrible winter weather - it was raining and it was windy and it was snowing, and frostbite was common. We had frostbite. Our fingers, our toes were frostbitten, and we would go back in the....when they finally release us to the barrack and we would treat our affected toes and fingers with the warmth of our own urine. It was a terrible existence, terrible existence. And then, of course, the lice. That set in.

Q: But were you, in that group and after that in the separated little camp, were there other children all the time?

A: I don’t recall, I really don’t remember.There must have been other children. I mean, there were whole families who were taken there. There must have been other children.

Q: So you were only with your brother at that time.

A: I was with my brother, yes. It was very exciting, first of all to get out of there and to have little bit different treatment, and the anticipation of being released. To us it was being released. There was a distant cousin of ours who was among those - Henny Crushler was her name. She was part of it. I don’t remember her first name. Crushler was her last name. I don’t remember her first name. It wasn’t Henny. It was something else, but it was Cruschler. And she was among the ones who was exchanged and came to Palestine. And then, of course, when we went back it was very terrible.

Q: And again you are not with your brother and father.

A: Again we were separated, again in the same, I guess it must have been the same...maybe a different barrack, but again in that same situation. Of course, this was in the spring of ‘44 and from then on things became worse and worse.

Q: But before you went to the separated camp, do you remember people there that you felt that they envied you?

A: Envious of us? Oh, for sure. It just stands to reason. Nothing I personally know. It stands to reason. Here we are leaving and we knew why we were leaving. They weren’t going to send us just anywhere. We knew that we were being set aside with the intentions of being exchanged and of course there had to be envy. It is interesting that you use the word “envy”. When I made the appointment for today’s interview there was a Gila - I don’t know what her last name is, but she works adjacent to Eli and I spoke to her and when she found out that I was in Bergen-Belsen - she too was in Bergen-Belsen - and we were sent out on the trains towards the end, how envious she was of us. She and her friend, why couldn’t they be on that? Not realizing that this was another terrible experience on the train. They stayed on in Bergen-Belsen and actually they were liberated before we were.

Q: What do you remember that you saw around you beside the striped clothes? In the other camps what could you see?

A: I seem to recall....Others came in after us. When they first came in....my father came with cigarettes for some reason. He must have realized that maybe - not that he was much of a smoker - that he could use it for bartering, for exchanging. And wouldn’t you know, he was right. That the people who came in the next camp, we could talk with each other through the barbed wire. When they were asked whether they wanted cigarettes in exchange for their ration for bread, they were very willing to take the cigarette and we got their bread. Of course, after awhile my father ran out of cigarettes and they realized the importance of having their own food, they had to hold onto that. And later on we saw how gradually, gradually people faded away. How they looked and how their clothing and their faces and the torment in their eyes and how sick people were and there was no medicine for them. And how ill and then many of them were quarantined. And how eventually people just died and bodies could just not be taken away fast enough. I remember personally tripping and falling over dead bodies. It got dark at night - there was no light in those barracks - and one minute a person was still alive, barely alive, and the next minute he was gone or dead, and that’s where he stayed until the next morning when they cleared the bodies away. All of this, I can talk about it because it doesn’t seem real to me. It is as though I am relating a nightmare, a bad dream, and I separate, I intentionally and I make it my business to separate myself from it ever having happened to me. And I have been told that I am in a state of denial, but so be it and that is the only way that I can sit here and talk to you about it. I know that there are many survivors who refuse to talk about it because it is all so vivid and it did happen and they were probably older than I am and it affected them differently. But I decided it needs to be talked about, it needs to be told to the children in particular. Their questions have to be answered because in a few years we won’t be here anymore to do this firsthand. That’s when they have to take over and they have to tell the story. I ask them to retell my story to all of their friends, to their children someday, to their grandchildren someday because they will have to be ones to bear witness. And I can do that only because I separate from this terrible period of our history having happened to me.

Q: Do you remember yourself hungry at that time?

A: I do remember myself hungry, but gradually our stomachs shrank so the hunger was not painful anymore. But thirst, towards the end always thirsty because we had the fever from the typhus and we had dysentery, you know, “shilshul”, and we were all dried out. We were dehydrated. That was the worst. Our stomachs shrank. I weighed sixteen kilo when we were liberated. It wasn’t a lot at the age of ten-and-a-half.

Q: You talked before about lice.

A: Lice. We learned that there was distinct difference between head lice and clothes lice. They look different. We were covered with them. They settled in the seams of the clothes. My pastime, I remember, was sitting on the bunkbed and squashing them between my thumbnails. I can still here that “click”. There was just no escaping from the constant filth and the hunger and the smell, the odour. I mean, never mind we couldn’t wash ourselves. We couldn’t even get to the bathroom, to that toilet, to that latrine on time. I never once, in the year and a half we were there, were we able to brush our teeth. The smell and then the dead flesh and then they had the chimneys, the bodies were burned - it was...

Q: You could say how terrible it was now, but did you feel that at that time? Could you pay attention when you were hungry? In such conditions could you pay attention to small details like the smell, for instance?

A: I remember the smell. Of course you do.

Q: But was it terrible to you at that time, or today you think it was terrible?

A: It was terrible at that time. At that time I was already old enough to know. Everything together was one bad experience, one bad feeling, and then individually, of course - I remember this. A few years ago I needed a little bit of surgery and they needed to cauterize, you know, to burn the skin. It was a growth that I had on my nose. I got so nauseous, I got so sick he had to stop and I had to tell him why. That we felt and remember. And the chimneys.

Q: Do you remember yourself talking to your mother at that time? What were you talking about?

A: We shared our feelings, but there was always...I have to tell you, over and over again, there was always this optimistic feeling within us, the hope that we would get out. And I, for myself, would imagine having the three B’s - a bed, a bath and bread. The imagination of someday having that again is what kept me going and I made up games for myself. I don’t know if I told you about the game of the four pebbles. I would search for four pebbles. It was a game of superstition. They had to be about the same size and shape and if I were to find those four pebbles it would mean, to me, that the four members of my family, my father, my mother, my brother and I, would all survive. It was a painful, torturous pastime. What if I didn’t find that third or fourth pebble? Would it mean that one or two of my family members would not pull through? But nevertheless, this game gave me something to hold on to, some distant hope. And I would play this game - it was my private game - over and over again. And sometimes I would cheat a little bit. I would put the pebbles that I would find in a safe spot so the next time I would search for them and I couldn’t find that third or fourth pebble, I would know where to go back and would pick it up. It was fine, it was my game, I made the rules, it worked. And it did work. We did all survive. It was six weeks later, after our liberation, that my father had to die. And another game that I played - as long as we’re talking about some of the pastime. I would pick up a piece of glass or a piece of a mirror and as miserable as the weather was there - that part of Germany had long winters - I knew the sun would always come out. And when the sun came out I would take my little piece of glass and the reflection of the sun that the sun would cast on this piece of glass, would cast a reflection onto the ground. That shadow became my pet. And this glass and that pet would always be with me. This little pet would never die. Little dog, little cat, it didn’t matter. It was my own. So we made up games, I anyway. And I have this book - “Four Perfect Pebbles”, which was written. It was published a few years ago. It was entitled “Four Perfect Pebbles” because of this game that I played. So I would like to think that it was really the imagination of some day getting out of there and some day having the things that I knew existed and I knew I must have had at an earlier time in my life - wanting those things again and imaging that I would have those things is what saw us through, saw me through.

Q: But you remembered how a bed with white sheets looks, or a normal bathroom? Did you have?

A: Barely. But we talked. My parents, my mother told me and we did communicate and oh, believe me, at that point I knew exactly that this was the pits. I mean, an abnormal state of life. And I realized that this was all due to the cruelty of the Nazis and we certainly knew about Hitler. And as fearful as we were, because from where we were in Bergen-Belsen we could also see the planes being shot down. They would be shot down. And we saw paratroopers bailing out and we saw bombs falling. We were not that far from Hannover where we used to live. There was no doubt that there was fear in us. There was fear in us - I’m not that much of a “starker” - but I would always muster up that extra measure of hope and optimism and my mother helped me to do that. But the important thing, as bad and as miserable and as cruel as the Nazis were, we must remember that they were not all bad. It is important for the children.

Q: But you didn’t know it at that time.

A: Yes, I did know it at that time because when we stood at “Appell” there was one...This is something that my brother.....Every once in awhile we could see one another because even though the men were on one side and the women on the other, at “Appell” time there times that we could see one another and there was one Nazi soldier, young soldier, who gave my brother an apple while we were standing on “Appell”. You very well know what would have happened to him if he had been caught, but out of the goodness of his heart he gave my brother an apple. So yes, I knew even at that time that among all groups are some who are good - not enough of them - and we must not generalize. And this is so important for children to know and for children to understand and this is such an important message for them to always be left with and for them to be taught.

Q: And after the big disappointment that you were taken again to the camp comes the fifth, I think, of April, ‘45?

A: The ninth of April.

Q: You are taken again.

A: Well, on the ninth of April....The death rate was so enormous, but not nearly fast enough to suit the Nazis, so they decided at that point to transport, to take three trains out of Bergen-Belsen.

Q: Yes, but I want to emphasize. On your train, what is happening to you?

A: We were sent, we were walked - I don’t know if I was even able to walk because I had a terrible thing happen to me Bergen-Belsen. My mother who worked in the kitchen managed to smuggle some potatoes and a little salt and she managed to somehow get a little empty can and using the little wooden pieces from our slats, from the beds, she somehow managed - don’t ask me how - to cook a little soup on the top bed of the bunk. I was on there with her, trying to cover up that set-up, and it took a long time, but the soup had already started boiling and cooking, the salt was already in it, when a guard entered our barrack for a surprise inspection. And as we were trying to cover things up, the soup spilled on my leg and belive me, we had been taught self-discipline and self-control the hard way. I knew, even at the age of ten-and-a-half, that if I were to cry out it would cost us our lives because we did something that was “verboten”, it was illegal. And so I just kept quiet and they never found out what we did. They left, we cleaned things up and there I was with my burnt leg and there was no medication, no nothing, nothing to keep it clean, and it was soon thereafter that we were sent out on this train. So I don’t think that I was able to walk. I think my father...at that point, as a family, we were sent out of Bergen-Belsen, I think my father carried me. The rest, my mother, my brother or whoever was able to, walked onto the platform and we were placed on that train. And that platform was full with people because at that time people came to Bergen-Belsen, others were shipped out of Bergen-Belsen. Those from the east came to the west, from the west to the east. We had no idea why this was done. We think now that there must have been some miscommunication from Berlin - we don’t know. They just didn’t know what to do with us and where to send us, but at that point it was decided to put us on this train. We had heard about Auschwitz, not realizing that Auschwitz was already liberated in January, so we thought surely, you know, this would be the end for us, and yet there were people there who envied our being on the train. How should they know? So on that platform were prisoners in their prison clothes who were dying right there on the tracks and it was a terrible state of affairs. And then we were squished into our trains. And although I belive that our train had some seats, but we were like sardines and no food, no water, no medicine. We now know they were going to send us to Theresienstadt. And that train went from Bergen-Belsen to that part of eastern Europe would have taken, under normal conditions maybe ten hours, but because the Germans always tried to evade the Allies and get around them and we stopped and it took us, two long weeks we were on this train. My mother remembered taking some sort of a vessel to collect water. We were always thirsty. And when the train would come to a stop, actually those who were able to and those who were strong enough were allowed to get out of the train and take a drink from a nearby stream or dig up roots to eat and perhaps at that time those who tried to escape, might have tried, unsuccessfully I’m sure. My mother took a little vessel - and who knows what we used this little pot for - to the locomotive and she took the drippings of the water from the locomotive which she gave to us. At the same time, when the train would come to a stop the bodies were taken off the train and buried along the tracks. Yes, I remember much of that. And my leg, I tried to keep it up because it felt best when it was elevated. It was pussy and the lice were crawling around and we couldn’t keep it clean. We were on our way out. It is really a miracle to think....when you think that any one of us could have survived and did survive. And at the same time our train was shot at by the Allies. They didn’t know who was on the train.

Q: You still kept being optimistic at that time?

A: I would like to think so. (end of side)

We found out later that it was April 23rd when finally the Germans stormed through our train and demanded what was left of our civilian clothing so that they would not be recognized by the Allies, by the Russians or whoever was coming to....And it was at that time that we realized that the war was coming to an end.

Q: But what did you eat during those two weeks?

A: Nothing, nothing. When the train came to a stop, outside, the roots, the plants, maybe. I don’t know. We weren’t hungry anymore. Water, water, we needed to drink. How we survived, I have no idea. There was no food, there was no food. I weighed sixteen kilos, so you can imagine. Maybe another hour or two we would not have been here anymore.

Q: Could you still talk to each other?

A: Yes, yes. I think so, I think so, yes. Weak, we were all exhausted. When we finally were liberated by the Russians and who took us...

Q: The train was left in the middle of, let’s say, nowhere.

A: In the middle of nowhere, correct. And then the Germans who were guarding us fled, Russians came in and communication was very difficult and I remember they wanted watches, watches, watches. And then we knew the war was coming to an end and somehow we were made to understand. Those people who were strong enough and able to, were able to walk to the nearby village, farm village of Troebitz. They came back and they came back with carts, and some of us who were not able to walk any longer were pulled or pushed onto the carts into the village. You have to remember twenty-five hundred of us were on this train. Five, six hundred died on the way and were buried on the way. And here was this little village of maybe seven hundred people and here we came. We looked like zombies, in rags. Here we came up on them. Some people fled, ran away, and others stayed to actually help us - help us with medication and help us to recover. And we took over their homes, we lived in their homes and the kitchens were stocked with good food. It was much too good for our starved bodies. We couldn’t tolerate that unfamiliar nourishment. People overate and ate the wrong things and they died from overeating. And the typhus.

Q: What happened in your family?

A: In my family my mother had typhus. I don’t think I had. I was brought to a nearby facility for the treatment of my leg and I remember that clinic - everywhere amputees. Right away they cut the leg and I was close to losing to my leg and I was lucky, lucky that they were willing to treat the wound and I responded to medication and as I regained my strength I also relearned to walk. In the meantime our heads were shaved, completely, because that was the only way we could rid ourselves of head lice. I remember my friend Susie - she ran away. She didn’t want her hair to be shaved. I couldn’t run anywhere. And my father was in some sort of clinic because he had very severe typhus and he died in this makeshift hospital. This was already six weeks after we were liberated and my brother, at the age of twelve, helped bury my father. And many who died beforehand were buried in mass graves, so we were lucky that there was a private grave for my father. About sixty-nine of them were private graves, those who died towards the end. And it’s amazing there is his grave with his name on a stone. The day he died, the date and the date he was born, the date he died. Put there by the Germans under the Russians. And then it was just a day or two after my father was buried that we left Troebitz. Nobody really knew that we were there. Again, people who were strong enough, they took bicycles. Everything was taken. We called it “organizing”. We “organized” and we helped ourselves to whatever. Couldn’t buy anything, so we had to take. And there was a couple who went to a nearby town, was able to tell the army there that we were in Trabitz and they came for us in trucks and took us to Holland and other people to wherever they, I guess they wanted to go or could go, but we chose to go to Holland. When we arrived in Holland, we were brought to the “Joodse Invalide”. It was a convalescent home in Amsterdam and there we stayed - my brother and I, Alf and I, were taken in by the Birnbaums, the family. And we gradually....and my mother found my aunt who was in hiding. She lived with her. Somehow they got together.

Q: But you didn’t even stay in Germany:?

A: No.

Q: The minute you could go out....

A: Yes. Six weeks we were in Troebitz.

Q: Yes, but recovering.

A: Recovering. And then we did not stay. We were sent out on a big truck, I remember. I remember when we left Troebitz we couldn’t find my brother. He was out “organizing”. He was getting food. He was responsible for his mother and his sister, so he was always scraping around for food. And when the truck was ready to go, he was nowhere. We finally saw him running and he had all the food in his rucksack, his knapsack, and we pulled him on the truck and as we pulled him up, the truck jerked and he lost this rucksack. That was such a painful experience for him because that was his only treasure, that was the only thing that he had to keep us going with. He didn’t know when the next meal was coming. Anyway, yes, we went straight to Holland. I remember we were in a cloister, a convent in Mastrecht. It was just on the border of Belgium, Holland and Germany. And we were there for awhile and there my mother, she needed a dentist terribly. They pulled seven, eight teeth of hers right then and there and I think she was there and her glasses had broken. She was given glasses there. And from there we were taken to Amsterdam and we were taken to “Joodse Invalide” and there we were with the Birnbaums. We have a wonderful film that was taken at that time that showed how soon after, just a few months after coming to Holland, after all this happened, how we revived, how we recuperated, and how we laughed again and how we felt good about ourselves and how we felt good about life in general. This film is a remarkable piece.

Q: But still you weren’t Dutch citizens.

A: No, no. Stateless refugees, immigrants, whatever. They had all kinds of names for us. We had no place to go.

Q: And then you thought you are coming to Israel?

A: Not yet. While we were there, an “Aliyah and Hachshara” group was formed and we....My mother couldn’t care for us. She had to recuperate herself, so she agreed and made it possible and encouraged us to be with the Birnbaums in this “Aliyah and Hachshara” home, which was at that time in Bissum, just south of Amsterdam. There we were with some twenty-two, twenty-three other children and many of these children survived alone without their parents. And it was in this home that we became acquainted with life in its normal state. And it was there that we started our education. There was, as you could see, no formal education whatsoever until that time, which was already 1946, and I was already eleven years old. And this was in Dutch. We didn’t know any Dutch. We had to learn in a Montessori school and we were taught very well. The older ones eventually went to the high school in Amsterdam where they learned already a little English. At the home where we were, which was very, very wonderful, we were very well taken care of and there we were taught Hebrew in preparation to come to Palestine. It was to be an illegal transport and my mother didn’t want us to be endangered again. She then made arrangements for us to come to America. As it turned out, the children in this home did not come here until 1950 or ‘51. It was already “Medinat Yisrael”. But we didn’t know that at that time. At that time only the children were to go. My mother wasn’t even allowed to go. She didn’t want us to be endangered. She made arrangements. And what was interesting - the tickets that we had in 1938? The Holland-America line still had a record of it and we were able to use to come in ‘48. So we arrived Erev Pesach - April 23rd, 1948, in New Jersey, exactly to the date three years later when we were liberated. We were liberated April 23rd, we came to America April 23rd, ‘48. And there, again, we came with nothing, nothing. Someone had to give us again an affidavit, somebody who was almost a stranger to us, a very, very, very distant relative. It wasn’t really a relative. We had cousins already in the States, but they didn’t want to assume the responsibility. I am personally very upset about that, very angry, but “Ma la’asot” (“What can we do?”)? So almost a stranger gave us an affidavit and saw to it that we came to America. And here again we had to start all over. HIAS - that’s the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society in America - found a home for us in the little town of Peoria, Illinois. Never heard of Illinois, never heard of Peoria. Strange land, strange language, no money, no nothing. We had food, but we started all over again. My brother and I, in addition to starting school, learning English, we both worked hard after school to help pay the rent and to get....the HIAS put us in a little apartment. There was really no room for us. We were with two other families and it was very soon thereafter that we pooled our monies and were able to get out and have our own little apartment. And we went to summer school and we took extra classes because I was put in the fourth grade. I was thirteen and I was already big - I put on a hundred pounds over there. We came to America and I tasted potato chips and I loved potato chips and mayonnaise, so my mother said, “You can have all you want.” I had a big bag of potato chips, a big jar of mayonnaise and that’s what I ate, so if you eat like that, you put on weight. So there I was, thirteen years old and I was put in the fourth grade with nine-year-olds. And I had to hurry up and learn so that I could graduate with the rest of the eighteen-year-olds, and I went to summer school. We worked very, very hard. And yes, I was able to graduate high school at the age of eighteen and I ranked eighth in a class of two hundred and sixty-seven students. And that’s only because of my stubborn will. It wasn’t easy, but I tell the children, too - never, ever to give up and if things are difficult at first, keep at it. Give that extra measure of hard work and then you’ll succeed. And then I met my husband in Peoria on Yom Kippur “in shul”, in this “beit knesset”. I was sixteen and he was nineteen. I really had no childhood We got married when I was eighteen. He is a wonderful, wonderful, very supportive, wonderful man and we have three wonderful children. All three are happily married. Seven grandchildren. And one of our children, our youngest, had made “aliyah” in 1994. They live in Beit Shemesh with their three children. Michael and Rachel and their children, Gavriel, Dahlia and Yoav. And when they gave their children those names in America we knew they weren’t going to stay there, so they are here. But I’ll tell you, when we were liberated and we came to Troebitz, I remember that spring of 1945. The weather was crisp and clear and beautiful and the trees and the grass were lush and green and the flowers were in bloom and the birds were singing, and it was such a wonderful feeling to be free at last. I always that remember that spring of ‘45. And I am very grateful that I survived healthy in mind and body and that we can perpetuate our hertiage with a wonderful family. And people just need to know about the “Shoah” and children have to know about it and it has to be taught. Only then can we guard against it happening again. It is very important. And all stories are important and as you said, none are the same. There are no two alike and they all should be heard. And they’re all important.

Q: Thank you very much.

A: I thank you very much.

A: The picture on the right is the one of my parents. It was taken early, soon after they were married in Berlin. My father Walter and my mother Ruth. And those were happier days. The one on the left is of our home in Hoya, our home town. On the lower floor, the bottom floor is the store, which was owned by my father and grandparents. The second floor is where my grandparents lived and the upper floor is where my family, my father, mother, brother and I lived. This is Hoya, near Hannover, in Germany.

A: This is a picture of my mother, my brother and myself. My brother, who was about three years old, and I was must a few months old in that picture.

A: This is a picture of my father, mother, my brother Al, Albert, and I in Westerbork, early on, in 1942 I believe it was. And even though we didn’t look too happy, it was, as far as I remember, not a difficult time at all. We had enough to eat and in my way of thinking we lived comfortably. I was satisfied and didn’t feel the hardship that of course my parents felt at that time.

A: This shows my father’s grave, the way we left it when we were taken out of Troebitz after our six weeks there and it was just a very, very primitive grave. My twelve-year-old brother helped bury my father. It is surrounded by just some brick, and my brother took a glass and took some flowers and put it there. I don’t know how we got a picture of this and how we got a camera, but we did manage to do that. Below it is a picture of my father’s grave as it looks now. If you would like to show that it would be very interesting.

A: This picture was taken in Bissum and this was our “Aliyah and Hachshara” home which was taken care of and organized by the Birnbaums. Yehoshua and Henny Birnbaum and their six children are right there on that picture. It was there that we really got to know life in its normal state, and it was a wonderful few years for my brother, Al, and for myself and we became very, very good friends with the children of this home. And many of these children, as I had said earlier, survived alone without their parents, and it was here that we received our education, where we started our education. We have wonderful memories of our years in Bossum, Holland where this “Aliyah and Hachshara” home was, and these are the children of the home. And to this day I am very friendly particularly with my dear, dear friend Susie, who is in the middle of the upper row. Susie Loira. As it turned out, the transport was in 1950 as opposed in 1947, the way we had originally thought, and “goral” was such that we went to America and these children went all to “Medinat Yisrael”.