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We, the young ones, were sent to a labor camp. There were women, some very young ones, some with children, who were immediately sent to Auschwitz. But we didn’t know about it then. So in February 1942 I was already at the Oberaltstadt camp [46].
Today it is called Horejsi Stare Mesto, near Trutnov [a city approx. 100 km northeast of Prague, near the Polish-Czech border] in the Sudeten Mountains. At first it was a labor camp. We were taken to a flax factory, it was called Kluge.
The factory produced thread. The work hours were, for example, from 2.30am to 2.30pm. And then you had to clean the camp, scrub the floors, do all kinds of things, peel the turnips. Turnips – the kind you give to cows, that’s what we ate. We lived in horrible barracks, full of bugs. There were some 16 girls to a room. The rooms were small, double beds.
There were only girls at the camp. I became good friends with some of them. For example there was this Lunia Kronental, I think. She was from Bedzin. She gave me her picture as a keepsake with the inscription: ‘Eni, I want us to be able to recollect these times soon, or maybe forget – which would you prefer?
To my friend from factory times. Lunia.’ Lunia survived the war. After the war she lived on those conquered lands [so-called regained territories, which used to belong to Germany before WWII, incorporated into Poland after the war]. She got married to a simple tailor, she later went to Canada with him. That’s where she died.
It was a camp only for Jews, but around us [probably in surrounding camps] there were Russians and Frenchmen and English soldiers from Africa [most probably POWs from the African front]. There were Belgians, who, I think, volunteered for that labor. They were not Jews, they were normal people. I don’t know where they [other, non-Jewish workers in the factory] were living, because we only saw them at the factory.
English soldiers would, from time to time, throw cigarettes to us and out of gratitude I’d throw them pictures of myself and my family, so they wouldn’t think we were some criminals, but that normal people had been rounded up at that camp.
Those English and French soldiers showed great solidarity with us. Once this Zosia’s head was shaved, because they found out that she had been writing a letter to some Frenchman or Englishman. And as a sign of solidarity they all shaved their heads.
We were allowed to write letters once a month at the camp, we could also receive letters. Estusia used to write to me, all the letters were in German. We had arranged a kind of code, so we could tell each other things.
I found out that a ghetto had been created in Sosnowiec in the following months, after I had been sent to camp. The ghetto was in Srodula, between Sosnowiec and Bedzin. [Editor’s note: Srodula was incorporated into Sosnowiec in 1914.] My family was moved into the ghetto.
I remember that I kept writing about how horrible the camp was and my Estusia would write me back saying that I should be glad and should not complain, but she didn’t tell me about Auschwitz. Fewer and fewer letters came to the girls at camp. Only when a transport from Auschwitz arrived, did we find out what was happening. That was in late 1943.
I was thinking that as long as the Germans needed our work they would keep us there. So I started thinking about getting my mother and sisters to the camp. There were a thousand of us at the camp and all of the others looked at me like at some idiot.
I went to the ‘spiennmajster’ [German: Spinnmeister], the technical manager at the factory, and I asked him for a requisition [allotment of work] for my mother and sisters. I said that I would put my hands into the machine if he didn’t give it to me, because I couldn’t live there without my mother and sisters. And he wrote such a requisition for me, I sent it to Mother.
This ‘Lagerführer’ [camp commander] of ours once went to bring some more girls to the camp. I asked her then to bring my mother and both my sisters. I gave her a tablecloth which I had from home. She accepted the tablecloth, went there and brought Zosia.
She told me she couldn’t run a kindergarten or a retirement home at the camp. Zosia was 13 then. That was the best age. Of course, Zosia for many years felt offended that I greeted her: ‘What, only you?!’ – that I wasn’t happy enough. But she later forgave me.
Meanwhile Mother kept walking around Sosnowiec begging to be taken to the camp. Finally, someone got bored with her and put her on some transport. They managed to reach me before the final deportations from the ghetto in Srodula. All the other family members: Uncle Tobiasz and Aunt Mania, Estusia, Uncle Chaim and his wife, Aunt Cesia, they were all taken to Auschwitz and they all died.
I was at the camp with my mother and sisters until the end of the war. And we all survived. My sisters worked very hard at that camp. Even the little one, Jadzia, she had to push these heavy carts with the cotton spools, she cleaned the toilets.
Mother worked on the machine for some time and later this ‘Lagerführer’ allowed her to work in the kitchen. It was easier, because she didn’t have to go to the factory and there was one more plate of soup.
Today it is called Horejsi Stare Mesto, near Trutnov [a city approx. 100 km northeast of Prague, near the Polish-Czech border] in the Sudeten Mountains. At first it was a labor camp. We were taken to a flax factory, it was called Kluge.
The factory produced thread. The work hours were, for example, from 2.30am to 2.30pm. And then you had to clean the camp, scrub the floors, do all kinds of things, peel the turnips. Turnips – the kind you give to cows, that’s what we ate. We lived in horrible barracks, full of bugs. There were some 16 girls to a room. The rooms were small, double beds.
There were only girls at the camp. I became good friends with some of them. For example there was this Lunia Kronental, I think. She was from Bedzin. She gave me her picture as a keepsake with the inscription: ‘Eni, I want us to be able to recollect these times soon, or maybe forget – which would you prefer?
To my friend from factory times. Lunia.’ Lunia survived the war. After the war she lived on those conquered lands [so-called regained territories, which used to belong to Germany before WWII, incorporated into Poland after the war]. She got married to a simple tailor, she later went to Canada with him. That’s where she died.
It was a camp only for Jews, but around us [probably in surrounding camps] there were Russians and Frenchmen and English soldiers from Africa [most probably POWs from the African front]. There were Belgians, who, I think, volunteered for that labor. They were not Jews, they were normal people. I don’t know where they [other, non-Jewish workers in the factory] were living, because we only saw them at the factory.
English soldiers would, from time to time, throw cigarettes to us and out of gratitude I’d throw them pictures of myself and my family, so they wouldn’t think we were some criminals, but that normal people had been rounded up at that camp.
Those English and French soldiers showed great solidarity with us. Once this Zosia’s head was shaved, because they found out that she had been writing a letter to some Frenchman or Englishman. And as a sign of solidarity they all shaved their heads.
We were allowed to write letters once a month at the camp, we could also receive letters. Estusia used to write to me, all the letters were in German. We had arranged a kind of code, so we could tell each other things.
I found out that a ghetto had been created in Sosnowiec in the following months, after I had been sent to camp. The ghetto was in Srodula, between Sosnowiec and Bedzin. [Editor’s note: Srodula was incorporated into Sosnowiec in 1914.] My family was moved into the ghetto.
I remember that I kept writing about how horrible the camp was and my Estusia would write me back saying that I should be glad and should not complain, but she didn’t tell me about Auschwitz. Fewer and fewer letters came to the girls at camp. Only when a transport from Auschwitz arrived, did we find out what was happening. That was in late 1943.
I was thinking that as long as the Germans needed our work they would keep us there. So I started thinking about getting my mother and sisters to the camp. There were a thousand of us at the camp and all of the others looked at me like at some idiot.
I went to the ‘spiennmajster’ [German: Spinnmeister], the technical manager at the factory, and I asked him for a requisition [allotment of work] for my mother and sisters. I said that I would put my hands into the machine if he didn’t give it to me, because I couldn’t live there without my mother and sisters. And he wrote such a requisition for me, I sent it to Mother.
This ‘Lagerführer’ [camp commander] of ours once went to bring some more girls to the camp. I asked her then to bring my mother and both my sisters. I gave her a tablecloth which I had from home. She accepted the tablecloth, went there and brought Zosia.
She told me she couldn’t run a kindergarten or a retirement home at the camp. Zosia was 13 then. That was the best age. Of course, Zosia for many years felt offended that I greeted her: ‘What, only you?!’ – that I wasn’t happy enough. But she later forgave me.
Meanwhile Mother kept walking around Sosnowiec begging to be taken to the camp. Finally, someone got bored with her and put her on some transport. They managed to reach me before the final deportations from the ghetto in Srodula. All the other family members: Uncle Tobiasz and Aunt Mania, Estusia, Uncle Chaim and his wife, Aunt Cesia, they were all taken to Auschwitz and they all died.
I was at the camp with my mother and sisters until the end of the war. And we all survived. My sisters worked very hard at that camp. Even the little one, Jadzia, she had to push these heavy carts with the cotton spools, she cleaned the toilets.
Mother worked on the machine for some time and later this ‘Lagerführer’ allowed her to work in the kitchen. It was easier, because she didn’t have to go to the factory and there was one more plate of soup.
Period
Interview
Wygodzka Irena