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Four or five of us from Marosvasarhely, we always tried to stay together. During selections, when they saw that someone could hardly stand [on her feet], then the person behind her held her, so that the slaughterer wouldn’t notice [Editor’s note: Bella Steinmetz refers to Mengele] that she was collapsing, because in this case he called her out immediately and sent her into the gas. He had a good eyesight, he noticed everything. It also happened that the slaughterer asked: ‘Who is your sister?’ If someone was attached [to somebody], he asked right away: ‘Is she your sister? Or cousin?’ so one realized that they shouldn’t tell this, because they would be separated. So we said no. ‘Yet why do you care for her?’ We exchanged glances: aunt, acquaintance. In short we told all kind of lies in order to keep together those four or five persons. It wasn’t much use to us, but we managed somehow to stick together when we started to work. The wife of the poor Marton Izsak [Editor’s note: Centropa made an interview with him as well], who died recently, so his wife was with us too. When we started working, we were laughing on our misery, that ‘Tell me, what sort of relative are you for me? The grand-mother of the wife of my aunt’s nephew?’ Thus we were given to lying, so that she would be neither relative, but to still keep us together.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Bella Steinmetz