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My mother and I were together the whole time. When we arrived there, she was only 40, and so they left us together. I tried to survive in all sorts of ways. I ate everything they gave us. Soup, if you could call it that. They made it from turnips, beets or potato peels, and there was even sand in it. But if you want to survive, you don't care. I terribly wanted to live, I wanted to survive and so I also forced my mother to eat as well. But she didn't try very hard. At the end, she weighted only about 40 kilos! It was truly terrible in the camps. Terrible.
The German women that were guarding us were horrible. I tried to speak as little German as possible, so as to not draw unnecessary attention to myself. But it also happened that once as I was working a German woman looked at my hands and said to me: 'You've wearing nail polish? Where did you get it?' But I of course wasn't wearing any nail polish, my nails were simply shiny. So that's also what I told her. She beat my hands and fingers. Or it also happened, and fairly often, that they'd unwrap their food in front of us, and would parade in front of us and show us how they're eating fresh bread and other things. It was horrible, because we didn't have a bite to eat, and were very starved.
But alas, we prisoners also didn't get along very well with each other. The older women, who'd been there from 1942, were already these sort of block leaders, and for example issued food rations. So the ones that wanted to push their way to the front, or asked for more food, would be beaten, even with the ladle they were using to dole out the food. As I've already said, the food there was terrible, and in short supply. I know that for Christmas we got a piece of bread, and I also know that I found it terribly delicious there. Well, and for New Year's we got a meatball.
The German women that were guarding us were horrible. I tried to speak as little German as possible, so as to not draw unnecessary attention to myself. But it also happened that once as I was working a German woman looked at my hands and said to me: 'You've wearing nail polish? Where did you get it?' But I of course wasn't wearing any nail polish, my nails were simply shiny. So that's also what I told her. She beat my hands and fingers. Or it also happened, and fairly often, that they'd unwrap their food in front of us, and would parade in front of us and show us how they're eating fresh bread and other things. It was horrible, because we didn't have a bite to eat, and were very starved.
But alas, we prisoners also didn't get along very well with each other. The older women, who'd been there from 1942, were already these sort of block leaders, and for example issued food rations. So the ones that wanted to push their way to the front, or asked for more food, would be beaten, even with the ladle they were using to dole out the food. As I've already said, the food there was terrible, and in short supply. I know that for Christmas we got a piece of bread, and I also know that I found it terribly delicious there. Well, and for New Year's we got a meatball.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Magda Frkalova