1939: Erna Klein, born in Oels, is working as a nanny in Algiers.

During my stay in Algeria I was interned three times, because of my nationality.

The first time was immediately after the outbreak of war, I was sent to Sidi Bel Abbès, where the Foreign Legion was. I was the only woman interned there. A few men of German & Austrian nationality were there too. Quite a few Italians.

I was put into the hall, on a sack with straw & watched over by an Arab Tireurs soldier with a bayonet. I asked the French officer could I please have the key to lock myself in. He was kind enough to give me the key.

After a few days I caught gastroenteritis & the porters were so very, very kind, they asked the French officers could they give me a room in their flat & a bed, & look after me, & that was granted. After I got better I was sent back to Mostaganem.

The second time I was interned for three months high up in the Atlas mountains in a place, a very small place called Ben Chicao. An ancient orphanage. There were people from Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia.

I was given the infirmary to look after & looked after the sick people. There were mothers with babies there & I had to distribute the milk, to the babies. They kept pigs outside & a sow had lots of piglets & couldn’t feed them all so I had to bring them the leftover milk accompanied by a soldier carrying bayonet.

He wanted to be fresh. Fortunately, before in Mostaganem, a Spanish lady had taught me a smattering of Arabic. So when this Tireur was not very respectful one Arabic sentence I had learned helped me a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations. Therefore it’s a sentence I won’t forget.

I was in Ben Chicao when the Germans took over Paris. The Germans there heard the radio & knew & they celebrated & it was all very sad. There were a few Jewish girls as well. They did not live in Algeria. One of them was arrested because she was in the troupe of Mistinguette, a famous French dancer. They came from South America, their ship landed in Algiers & she was arrested. There were a few entertainers. We all slept in the same dormitory so as not to be with the Germans who were antisemitic. Then I was liberated again.

The last time, I was arrested & brought to a hotel in Oran by the American army with some Italians & Germans again of course but that was pretty wonderful. Because for years we had been cut off from France & there was scarcely anything to eat in Algeria except for grapes & melons & figs. But while we were interned by the Americans we had proper food, even chocolate! I showed them some letters I got from my parents from England. So they told me that I could go.

But I still had to go back to Mostaganem which was a very long way away from Oran & again I was arrested & had no money. But fortunately we were arrested in a hotel where we had to sleep three in a bed, I said ‘How am I going to go to Mostaganem?’ There was an Arab wholesaler of vegetables who had come with his lorry to buy his wholesale vegetables in Oran. He said ‘I’ll give you a lift back on my lorry.’

So I got back to where I had my home. There was a typhoid epidemic. I joined the Free French Army as a nurse. It was 1944. I felt I was alive & ought to do something for France. Had I been a man I would have gone into the Foreign Legion, but that wasn’t open to me.

Erna Klein

Memories

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