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They put us in barracks where the conditions were very primitive and there were way too many of us in each one. And there, after a fairly short time, starvation began. There was no work, unless someone got lucky and got something to do in the kitchen or the peeling room. I got lucky. I worked in the peeling room for some time. On top of that I had a friend whom I knew from Auschwitz, who worked in the kitchen, and she used to steal some salt from there. You could get anything for salt, salt was at the price of gold. So sometimes I would look after that salt of hers, because otherwise it would have gotten stolen [by prisoners]. They used to steal from one another.
When I worked in the peeling room, once I smuggled out one sliced potato, it was very dangerous. Or a piece of turnip, I would slice it and put in the sleeves because they used to check under the armpits. They never checked in elbows, so I could fasten a small slice there somehow, to bring it to my sister, since there was already great hunger everywhere. When you went through the search and you were caught, it was enough for them to beat you up badly, and you wouldn't be able to get up.
There were some prisoners that used to steal soup, and later you could trade that soup. Sometimes I got a pot of soup to trade, and if there were 30 portions out of it, I made, lets say, 32, thanks to which my sister and I had soup. You could exchange such a portion for a piece of margarine or a so-called 'Blutwurst' [blood sausage].
There was also a transport from some work camp, not from a death camp, and they still had some aspirations that they needed thread. So we made thread, pulled it out of a blanket and wound it onto a piece of paper and sold it. I learned to wind it so well that it looked as if made in a factory. And I would trade this thread for a piece of turnip for example, that's how we did business.
My sister during that time was literally fading away before my eyes. She was three and a half years older than me, but everyone said about her: 'your younger sister.' They thought she's much younger than me, while I was 20 and she was almost 24. But she looked 15, she was looking really bad. I came down with typhus at the camp, but managed to get better, but when she got sick, she was getting worse and worse every day.
During that time there was absolutely no more bread. However, after we got liberated we found entire barracks filled from top to bottom with moldy bread, because they weren't giving us bread and it went bad. Anyway, they hadn't given us bread for entire weeks, since January, February. For the last two, three months we were only getting brewed turnip, with nothing else, not even salt, just like that, half raw.
It was in these conditions that my sister came down with typhus. I remember, she was placed in a so-called 'rewir' [Polish, literally: territory - here hospital ward]. It was like a hospital, so a place where theoretically you could die in peace, but it wasn't quite like that. Two, three women were put in one bed, and full of lice. The lice were so huge that, literally, in my blanket there was a louse on every thread, on every spot. Those blankets literally walked by themselves.
It was in the last period of the war, I would go to see my sister, try to organize something, bring her something, save her. And then the English came, and liberated us. They were a bit late, say, if they had come a week earlier, there would have been a chance. I had a friend whose sister was also in the same state and she rescued her, but really at the last moment. But my sister was like a skeleton then and it was too late for everything. They freed us on 15th April and she died on 23rd April.
When I worked in the peeling room, once I smuggled out one sliced potato, it was very dangerous. Or a piece of turnip, I would slice it and put in the sleeves because they used to check under the armpits. They never checked in elbows, so I could fasten a small slice there somehow, to bring it to my sister, since there was already great hunger everywhere. When you went through the search and you were caught, it was enough for them to beat you up badly, and you wouldn't be able to get up.
There were some prisoners that used to steal soup, and later you could trade that soup. Sometimes I got a pot of soup to trade, and if there were 30 portions out of it, I made, lets say, 32, thanks to which my sister and I had soup. You could exchange such a portion for a piece of margarine or a so-called 'Blutwurst' [blood sausage].
There was also a transport from some work camp, not from a death camp, and they still had some aspirations that they needed thread. So we made thread, pulled it out of a blanket and wound it onto a piece of paper and sold it. I learned to wind it so well that it looked as if made in a factory. And I would trade this thread for a piece of turnip for example, that's how we did business.
My sister during that time was literally fading away before my eyes. She was three and a half years older than me, but everyone said about her: 'your younger sister.' They thought she's much younger than me, while I was 20 and she was almost 24. But she looked 15, she was looking really bad. I came down with typhus at the camp, but managed to get better, but when she got sick, she was getting worse and worse every day.
During that time there was absolutely no more bread. However, after we got liberated we found entire barracks filled from top to bottom with moldy bread, because they weren't giving us bread and it went bad. Anyway, they hadn't given us bread for entire weeks, since January, February. For the last two, three months we were only getting brewed turnip, with nothing else, not even salt, just like that, half raw.
It was in these conditions that my sister came down with typhus. I remember, she was placed in a so-called 'rewir' [Polish, literally: territory - here hospital ward]. It was like a hospital, so a place where theoretically you could die in peace, but it wasn't quite like that. Two, three women were put in one bed, and full of lice. The lice were so huge that, literally, in my blanket there was a louse on every thread, on every spot. Those blankets literally walked by themselves.
It was in the last period of the war, I would go to see my sister, try to organize something, bring her something, save her. And then the English came, and liberated us. They were a bit late, say, if they had come a week earlier, there would have been a chance. I had a friend whose sister was also in the same state and she rescued her, but really at the last moment. But my sister was like a skeleton then and it was too late for everything. They freed us on 15th April and she died on 23rd April.
Period
Location
Bergen-Belsen
Poland
Interview
Gizela Fudem
Tag(s)