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At night we marched, and during the day they herded us into these large shelters, they were probably some sort of open hay stores. When the evacuation started, we had only some light shoes that we'd found in those piles in 'Canada.' My mother was a very practical woman, she cut apart a sheet and we wrapped our feet in the strips of cloth. That saved our feet from getting frostbitten. When we had the daily rest, we laid down on the rags, and dried them with our own bodies. Then we'd wrap them around our feet again. Those women that had high boots, or other shoes, got frostbitten feet. We arrived at Ravensbrück [22]. That was another calamity.
We arrived at Ravensbrück in February, and it was still freezing. Due to the fact that the camp's capacity had long been exhausted, they built something like a circus tent in the courtyard. They put beds in it, and herded us in. The way they gave out food was that they'd herd us outside, and as we went back in one by one, they gave us our share. It was very dangerous, because a person could lose his place on a bed. My mother stayed inside, I got one portion, a miserable one too, and that's what we lived on. The hunger there was severe. The biggest calamity wasn't that we didn't have anything to eat, but that the thaw began. It warmed up, and the whole base on which the tent stood began sinking. When something fell from the bed, what little you had, a comb or spoon, it was lost. The Ravensbrück command didn't know how to deal with the masses of people that were there. They divided them up into external camps, which however weren't concentration camps, but work camps. That's how we ended up in Malchow [23]. There the hunger was absolute. They still needed laborers for work in the forest, and so I applied, hoping that we'd get some sort of soup. But again, that same water with three little carrots like normal. Of course it was dirty there, and you couldn't wash. That was at the end of March or in April, and you could already feel the German Reich decomposing.
Then, they wanted to take us from Malchow to Terezin [24], but they didn't manage it, because the front was already there. By then we weren't accompanied by the SS, but by soldiers. We arrived in an area that some of them were from. Well, and then they saw that there was nothing anywhere, no food or anything; from hunger we were opening potato cellars and eating raw potatoes, and that kept us going. They said: 'You know what, do what you want!' And left us there. It wasn't anything dramatic. Suddenly we were free. Dirty, hungry, and wanting to live. You've got to know, that that year the spring was beautiful. The sun was shining, by the roads there were fruit trees blooming. That buoyed a person.
We met two former prisoners of war, Canadians, and they told us that in such and such a direction there was a town, and in the school there were Poles, and that maybe they'd take us in there. We found lodging there, I think it was the town of Neichen. There were seven of us. My mother, I, then Manci from Martin, two Austrian women, both named Liesl, plus Malka from Bratislava. Those Poles weren't from a concentration camp, but had been working in Germany. They gave us this corner, and that's where we lived. It was under the American Army, close to the Elbe, so we also saw that change, when the Americans left and the Russians arrived. We walked around the village, asking for flour and eggs. Those people were neither good nor bad, they didn't hurt us in any way, but gave us something. We didn't want to end up in the large collection centers, but made our own way.
My sister had a different fate from us, because she was in Budapest. She then returned to Slovakia illegally. She lived under an Aryan identity, but in the end they caught her and deported her to Terezin. In Terezin she took care of children. That meeting was quite dramatic, because we left Neichen slowly. The Russians took us part of the way, they allowed us to sit on a car and took us a ways. We walked a ways. We ended up in a place from where they were transporting concentration camp inmates to Prague, and so we arrived in Prague. I think so, I've got a gap there. In some fashion we found ourselves at the station in Brno, but from where, whether we'd come from Prague, that I don't remember anymore. We were still looking for a way to get to Bratislava. In Brno they told us: 'Wait, a train from Terezin is supposed to arrive, it's going to Budapest, so it has to go through Bratislava!' We waited there. The train arrived, it was only these cattle wagons. Suddenly the doors flew open, and someone was shouting: 'Mom, mom!' My sister was on that train. Then she remained with us, and that's how we got home.
We arrived at Ravensbrück in February, and it was still freezing. Due to the fact that the camp's capacity had long been exhausted, they built something like a circus tent in the courtyard. They put beds in it, and herded us in. The way they gave out food was that they'd herd us outside, and as we went back in one by one, they gave us our share. It was very dangerous, because a person could lose his place on a bed. My mother stayed inside, I got one portion, a miserable one too, and that's what we lived on. The hunger there was severe. The biggest calamity wasn't that we didn't have anything to eat, but that the thaw began. It warmed up, and the whole base on which the tent stood began sinking. When something fell from the bed, what little you had, a comb or spoon, it was lost. The Ravensbrück command didn't know how to deal with the masses of people that were there. They divided them up into external camps, which however weren't concentration camps, but work camps. That's how we ended up in Malchow [23]. There the hunger was absolute. They still needed laborers for work in the forest, and so I applied, hoping that we'd get some sort of soup. But again, that same water with three little carrots like normal. Of course it was dirty there, and you couldn't wash. That was at the end of March or in April, and you could already feel the German Reich decomposing.
Then, they wanted to take us from Malchow to Terezin [24], but they didn't manage it, because the front was already there. By then we weren't accompanied by the SS, but by soldiers. We arrived in an area that some of them were from. Well, and then they saw that there was nothing anywhere, no food or anything; from hunger we were opening potato cellars and eating raw potatoes, and that kept us going. They said: 'You know what, do what you want!' And left us there. It wasn't anything dramatic. Suddenly we were free. Dirty, hungry, and wanting to live. You've got to know, that that year the spring was beautiful. The sun was shining, by the roads there were fruit trees blooming. That buoyed a person.
We met two former prisoners of war, Canadians, and they told us that in such and such a direction there was a town, and in the school there were Poles, and that maybe they'd take us in there. We found lodging there, I think it was the town of Neichen. There were seven of us. My mother, I, then Manci from Martin, two Austrian women, both named Liesl, plus Malka from Bratislava. Those Poles weren't from a concentration camp, but had been working in Germany. They gave us this corner, and that's where we lived. It was under the American Army, close to the Elbe, so we also saw that change, when the Americans left and the Russians arrived. We walked around the village, asking for flour and eggs. Those people were neither good nor bad, they didn't hurt us in any way, but gave us something. We didn't want to end up in the large collection centers, but made our own way.
My sister had a different fate from us, because she was in Budapest. She then returned to Slovakia illegally. She lived under an Aryan identity, but in the end they caught her and deported her to Terezin. In Terezin she took care of children. That meeting was quite dramatic, because we left Neichen slowly. The Russians took us part of the way, they allowed us to sit on a car and took us a ways. We walked a ways. We ended up in a place from where they were transporting concentration camp inmates to Prague, and so we arrived in Prague. I think so, I've got a gap there. In some fashion we found ourselves at the station in Brno, but from where, whether we'd come from Prague, that I don't remember anymore. We were still looking for a way to get to Bratislava. In Brno they told us: 'Wait, a train from Terezin is supposed to arrive, it's going to Budapest, so it has to go through Bratislava!' We waited there. The train arrived, it was only these cattle wagons. Suddenly the doors flew open, and someone was shouting: 'Mom, mom!' My sister was on that train. Then she remained with us, and that's how we got home.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
gertrúda milchová