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That day they said, ‘Ladies, freedom is here, the Americans are coming!’ At that, we climbed out with great difficulty, and got up. This was 4th May 1945. There was a balustrade there, we stood and watched, you didn’t want to believe your eyes.
They got out, and came up, but the Americans were already coming, the commanders. It was uncomfortable that whenever you said something to them [the American soldiers], they backed off. It was the first camp these Americans had liberated, they’d never seen women prisoners before, and we looked horrifying without hair, and so thin. It turned out, they were backing off because we stunk so horribly.
They disinfected us; we had to raise our arms, and they sprayed something on our heads, then gave us blankets, in which we could wrap ourselves up well. They said, ‘Put out your right hand, and stand in line.’ We held out our shaking hands, because we thought finally, they were going to give us food – we were horribly hungry, the hunger hurt badly.
We opened our hands, and then we thought we’d die. They gave us a toothbrush. First some of us had to brush our teeth, so we didn’t smell so bad. We cursed them, but we did it and came back. Again they said open your right hand. Well, now comes the food! We got four different kinds of pills.
First we had to take the white one, then wait a while and take the colored ones. The white was a stomach relaxant, and the others were vitamins. We didn’t know that word: vitamin. We swallowed the pills. Again the soldier comes back. I knew English pretty well, though I didn’t know how to cuss, but a few of us did.
They told these American soldiers a few things that made them dizzy; true, that they had to laugh afterwards. Again we held out our hands, and we got a half-liter mug and in it a half-liter of milk. Now finally, but we just stood there waiting, for when the decent food, something to bite into, would be coming. We didn’t get anything. The ladies, you know what they did then: they almost beat them up.
I’d like to say one more interesting thing, maybe it will be more understandable to see why I believe in miracles. They put us in the former SS-barrack, where there were pillows and hay – up to now, we hadn’t had anything, and these were luxurious beds for us. I went and occupied a lower bunk. I heard crying in the one above me, I look up, well there’s a very pretty young girl lying there, and crying.
I climbed up next to her, caressed her, and consoled her: ‘Don’t cry, we’ve been liberated, the war is over, now everything will be good, don’t cry!’ She cuddles next to me, and whispers, ‘Mommy, oh good that you’re alive, it was terrible without you, I’m so happy you’re here next to me.’ She thought that I was her mother. I stroked her and felt she was burning with fever.
I stayed by her side for about twenty minutes, then got down and told one of the soldiers that we needed a doctor. They had quite a lot of doctors with them, one came. He said it was typhus. I had two very uncomfortable days, when I struggled with myself, about whether to tell him that I’d laid down beside her for almost half an hour.
Then again, I would be suspicious if I caught it later. It had been said that the following week we were going home, and they wouldn’t let me then. My god, what do I do? I was in despair. I decided that I would wait for two or three days, and if I didn’t get a fever, then everything would be okay. Despite that I lay there with her for half an hour, I didn’t get the fever, didn’t have any problems, so this I consider a God-given miracle.
By then we were getting a little more solid food, we were put in with the prisoners of war, and could move about freely. It was fantastic the way the Russian prisoners acted around us. They had much greater experience than we did, they went off, they said, to devour something – this meant, they went to the village for this or that. They always shared with us, those who couldn’t move, they were very-very good, and there wasn’t a big language problem between us, which counted a lot.
We learned that we were going home by boat. And really, we traveled in an enormous ship. They transported the Romanians home by ship as well. There was a ship going in front of us that was sweeping the mines out of the Danube.
The Danube was full of mines, so that from Mauthausen – which isn’t very far, and the Danube runs down that way to Bratislava – it took us three days and two nights to get home by ship. On 22nd May we arrived in Bratislava. When we saw Bratislava castle, of course some of us were already sobbing, we were standing out in the pouring rain.
There wasn’t a bridge, nor a dock. Our last apartment had been there at the beginning of Zuckermandel, which was considered a kind of ghetto [during the war]. The ship stopped exactly in front of that house, the one that they’d taken me away from. It stopped, and the words fell out of my mouth, ‘Well, they’ve got something honorable in them. They took me away from here, and they’re delivering me back to my home.’
So that’s how I got home. I wanted to get off, of course, but the captain said, ‘Please wait here, I’m going to talk to the Russian Commandantura [Military Commander] to get permission to debark, because you were liberated by the Americans.’ We were very sorry that the poor captain had lost his mind.
They got out, and came up, but the Americans were already coming, the commanders. It was uncomfortable that whenever you said something to them [the American soldiers], they backed off. It was the first camp these Americans had liberated, they’d never seen women prisoners before, and we looked horrifying without hair, and so thin. It turned out, they were backing off because we stunk so horribly.
They disinfected us; we had to raise our arms, and they sprayed something on our heads, then gave us blankets, in which we could wrap ourselves up well. They said, ‘Put out your right hand, and stand in line.’ We held out our shaking hands, because we thought finally, they were going to give us food – we were horribly hungry, the hunger hurt badly.
We opened our hands, and then we thought we’d die. They gave us a toothbrush. First some of us had to brush our teeth, so we didn’t smell so bad. We cursed them, but we did it and came back. Again they said open your right hand. Well, now comes the food! We got four different kinds of pills.
First we had to take the white one, then wait a while and take the colored ones. The white was a stomach relaxant, and the others were vitamins. We didn’t know that word: vitamin. We swallowed the pills. Again the soldier comes back. I knew English pretty well, though I didn’t know how to cuss, but a few of us did.
They told these American soldiers a few things that made them dizzy; true, that they had to laugh afterwards. Again we held out our hands, and we got a half-liter mug and in it a half-liter of milk. Now finally, but we just stood there waiting, for when the decent food, something to bite into, would be coming. We didn’t get anything. The ladies, you know what they did then: they almost beat them up.
I’d like to say one more interesting thing, maybe it will be more understandable to see why I believe in miracles. They put us in the former SS-barrack, where there were pillows and hay – up to now, we hadn’t had anything, and these were luxurious beds for us. I went and occupied a lower bunk. I heard crying in the one above me, I look up, well there’s a very pretty young girl lying there, and crying.
I climbed up next to her, caressed her, and consoled her: ‘Don’t cry, we’ve been liberated, the war is over, now everything will be good, don’t cry!’ She cuddles next to me, and whispers, ‘Mommy, oh good that you’re alive, it was terrible without you, I’m so happy you’re here next to me.’ She thought that I was her mother. I stroked her and felt she was burning with fever.
I stayed by her side for about twenty minutes, then got down and told one of the soldiers that we needed a doctor. They had quite a lot of doctors with them, one came. He said it was typhus. I had two very uncomfortable days, when I struggled with myself, about whether to tell him that I’d laid down beside her for almost half an hour.
Then again, I would be suspicious if I caught it later. It had been said that the following week we were going home, and they wouldn’t let me then. My god, what do I do? I was in despair. I decided that I would wait for two or three days, and if I didn’t get a fever, then everything would be okay. Despite that I lay there with her for half an hour, I didn’t get the fever, didn’t have any problems, so this I consider a God-given miracle.
By then we were getting a little more solid food, we were put in with the prisoners of war, and could move about freely. It was fantastic the way the Russian prisoners acted around us. They had much greater experience than we did, they went off, they said, to devour something – this meant, they went to the village for this or that. They always shared with us, those who couldn’t move, they were very-very good, and there wasn’t a big language problem between us, which counted a lot.
We learned that we were going home by boat. And really, we traveled in an enormous ship. They transported the Romanians home by ship as well. There was a ship going in front of us that was sweeping the mines out of the Danube.
The Danube was full of mines, so that from Mauthausen – which isn’t very far, and the Danube runs down that way to Bratislava – it took us three days and two nights to get home by ship. On 22nd May we arrived in Bratislava. When we saw Bratislava castle, of course some of us were already sobbing, we were standing out in the pouring rain.
There wasn’t a bridge, nor a dock. Our last apartment had been there at the beginning of Zuckermandel, which was considered a kind of ghetto [during the war]. The ship stopped exactly in front of that house, the one that they’d taken me away from. It stopped, and the words fell out of my mouth, ‘Well, they’ve got something honorable in them. They took me away from here, and they’re delivering me back to my home.’
So that’s how I got home. I wanted to get off, of course, but the captain said, ‘Please wait here, I’m going to talk to the Russian Commandantura [Military Commander] to get permission to debark, because you were liberated by the Americans.’ We were very sorry that the poor captain had lost his mind.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova