Tag #107373 - Interview #78266 (Gizela Fudem)

In Auschwitz they shaved our heads, took away our clothing and put us in such barracks where there were maybe 100 people. Precisely, it was in Birkenau [18]. For some time I got lucky and worked as a cleaner for the camp officers, I would take things to wash, clean up, sweep floors, things like that. But later we worked physically, and then I was barely alive. They made us dig a new river bed for the Vistula River, and that was the worst time.

In Birkenau we stuck together, my sister and I with three more friends we knew from Plaszow. Up until the moment of one transport from Auschwitz, out of which nobody survived, because everyone died in Stutthof. We were all sent to this transport, but my sister and I were saved by our uncle. But those friends went. I remember we were standing on the square, ready to leave. But we managed to get in touch with that uncle on the other side of the fence; he was our neighbor through the fence. He was the second husband of my aunt Bela, Mom's sister, he had recognized us earlier, as soon as we arrived at Auschwitz. We managed to let him know we are in that transport, and he quickly took our tattoo numbers. And almost at the last moment one of those camp officers came, she walked along the row and called out those numbers. We came forward, she checked whether the numbers were right and then said, 'Disappear.' And she told us which way we should go and we went back to the camp, which was almost empty and stayed there for a few more months, until the end of December 1944.