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Well, and after that typhus raged. Terrible. That was truly the worst camp of all the ones I was in. There was typhus, and the Germans were a little afraid of an epidemic, and we, the healthy, were sent to Malchov. That's a small place outside Ravensbruck, that camp belonged to Ravensbruck. And there first the Allies liberated me, and then the Russians came in [the Russians liberated Ravensbruck on 29th/30th April 1945].
The Allies were astonished at how we looked, but they didn't take any closer interest. We were black, terribly. Full of dirt too, because towards the end we didn't live in huts but outside, under some trees. 'Good Lord, how black you are! What have you been doing?' And we asked for food; they had some tinned food, so they gave it to us, but no-one could eat it. An awful lot of my friends died when they ate it: because we threw ourselves on it, but we weren't in any fit state. I thought I could eat half the world, but one bite and you couldn't eat any more.
The Russians there in Malchov behaved terribly. They killed two of my friends. Raped and killed them. And I was stupid enough to go and look for my friends. I didn't realize. I was an idiot. And I went, I asked these Russkies [pejorative term for Russians] where they'd gone to. And they just waved their hands. They could have raped and shot me just the same.
We didn't even know that the war had ended. We just stood there, there was no camp any more, nothing, but we were afraid to go out. The Germans had ordered us to stand, so we stood. The Allies came through, the Russians came through, and still we didn't believe. Well, there wasn't any radio, there wasn't anything. It was only when some Greeks came along, these ragamuffins: 'Hitler kaput! Hitler kaput!' they said. They gestured something to us, that the war had ended, that we could go home.
The Allies were astonished at how we looked, but they didn't take any closer interest. We were black, terribly. Full of dirt too, because towards the end we didn't live in huts but outside, under some trees. 'Good Lord, how black you are! What have you been doing?' And we asked for food; they had some tinned food, so they gave it to us, but no-one could eat it. An awful lot of my friends died when they ate it: because we threw ourselves on it, but we weren't in any fit state. I thought I could eat half the world, but one bite and you couldn't eat any more.
The Russians there in Malchov behaved terribly. They killed two of my friends. Raped and killed them. And I was stupid enough to go and look for my friends. I didn't realize. I was an idiot. And I went, I asked these Russkies [pejorative term for Russians] where they'd gone to. And they just waved their hands. They could have raped and shot me just the same.
We didn't even know that the war had ended. We just stood there, there was no camp any more, nothing, but we were afraid to go out. The Germans had ordered us to stand, so we stood. The Allies came through, the Russians came through, and still we didn't believe. Well, there wasn't any radio, there wasn't anything. It was only when some Greeks came along, these ragamuffins: 'Hitler kaput! Hitler kaput!' they said. They gestured something to us, that the war had ended, that we could go home.
Period
Interview
Teofila Silberring