England Barrow-in-Furness Memories 938: Some Kind Of Darkness Eva Evans MBE I wanted to be a writer. But I never felt that I could write in English the way I could have done in German. So that was the end of that... Previous Location Next Location

979: Sitting Through That Bronia Snow Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Bronia Snow came to Britain in 1939 on a Nicholas Winton Kindertransport from Prague: My parents always discussed everything. But not a word was spoken about my going to England. So I found myself one fine day, my mother packing a suitcase, me packing a little rucksack full of my doll, my favourite book & so on. On a platform of the main railway station, & getting on a train, with no idea it was going to happen. The platform was full of not only parents with children, but German soldiers with fixed bayonets. I was scared stiff. I thought: since they want to kill us all, why do they let the children, the next generation go? So I thought they would attack us, I was really scared. The idea was: my mother had a brother in New York who was very comfortably off. We were all going there. My parents & brother were going to pick me up in London, they were just waiting for a document called an affidavit which never came in time. I would have been an American person, instead of which I became an English schoolgirl. When I first arrived, I was frightened, alone. I didn’t speak a word of English. My aunt & uncle lacked my parents' warmth. They lived a life of luxury, with servants. It was a completely different atmosphere. The children were with a governess in the nursery, the parents were golfing, playing bridge, you know the sort. I had one last letter from my father, from Theresienstadt, saying, “We’re not starving, we have potatoes to eat.” Then I had the final notification. I was in the sixth form, 1945. One day before school, as I was getting ready, I had a notification informing me that on such & such a date, transport number so & so, my parents & brother were taken to Auschwitz. The Germans kept detailed numbers, records of the people they were going to murder. Thoroughly ridiculous. They were sent to Auschwitz & no more was heard of them. So I go to school–I mean that was a big shock, because all through the war I had lived in hope of being reunited, we were a very close loving family. So that as closure, I knew I’d never see them again. So I go to school as usual, [laughs], our headmistress announces: “Girls, we are very fortunate to have with us today Miss Moose who has just come back from Bergen-Belsen & will tell us all about it.” So I sat through that, I didn’t want to have to climb over everybody’s legs, & make an exhibition of myself, so I sat & listened to it all. Didn’t do me any harm, made me even more grateful for what I had escaped. And the chances I had had, & I determined I would try & live the sort of life my parents would have wanted me to live, so they’d be proud of me, & make the best of my chances. I became top of my year, was the school hockey team champion. I became an English schoolgirl, I loved it. But when I was in the sixth form my headmistress called me into her room & said, “Bronia, we would have liked to have made you head girl, but your lack of tact is against you.” [Laughs]. I had no idea I was tactless. “But we will make you senior prefect, in charge of discipline instead,” I’d been such a naughty child & there was I in charge of discipline, it was an absolute hoot. What’s lacking in England is an education, the young aren’t being taught history. They’re in cloud cuckoo land, they think England will always be free & democratic, without them even bothering to vote. They don’t realise that if the good people don’t bother, the baddies take over. Just what happened in Germany. Hitler took over before people realised. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Bronia Snow's interview with Sheila Rabin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Bronia Snow Close Family Murdered Finding Out Kindertransport Nicholas Winton Kindertransport Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Lithuania Memel Memories 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing... Previous Location Next Location

England Harrow Memories 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... Previous Location Next Location

England Liverpool Memories 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman... Previous Location Next Location

1000 Memories is an independent Holocaust testimony archive preserving short edited moments once created for social media from the AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive. It is not affiliated with the 1000Memories startup (2010–2013) or Ancestry. 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves... Read Full Memory 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... Read Full Memory 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... Read Full Memory 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory 1000 Memories: Short Edited Holocaust Testimony 1000 Memories is an online archive of over 1,000 short testimony extracts from Holocaust survivors and refugees who experienced Nazi persecution as Jews and later found refuge in Britain, before, during, or after the Second World War. Here, in their own words, ordinary people recall the violence, oppression and prejudice they once experienced – as well as the moments of kindness, luck, bravery and heroism. They also describe what if felt like to start again in a new country. The memories were originally edited from transcripts of interviews conducted by the Refugee Voices Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees. The Refugee Voices interviews are filmed conversations between Holocaust survivors, oral historians and trained interviewers. Click each memory square to read the full long extract. Read More See All Memories 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory Memory Map Great Bravery: Click on each memory square to read some of the bravest actions remembered in the archive: 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 Stephen Nagy I contracted scarlet fever. You had to go to an isolation hospital for six weeks. The fascist Hungarians took over. So, I was stuck in hospital... Read Full Memory 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing... Read Full Memory 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross Harry Weinberger A very young lieutenant in charge of us told me that the British Army will fight to the last alien, to the last foreign soldier... Read Full Memory 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein One Arabic sentence helped a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations... Read Full Memory 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial... Read Full Memory 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised... Read Full Memory 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt Bea Green MBE I believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things worse than reality... Read Full Memory 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. It worked to our advantage... Read Full Memory 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape... Read Full Memory 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... Read Full Memory 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... Read Full Memory Agricultural Labour Algerian Internment Anschluss Arrested Arrow Cross Asked To Leave School Attempted Humiliation Auschwitz Australian Internment Bergen-Belsen Betrayed Boarder British Army British Citizen British Internment Buchenwald Business Seized Canadian Internment Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Converted To Christianity Dachau Deported Destruction Of Property Dismissed From Job Domestic Service Emigration To Shanghai Emigration to Czechoslovakia Encounter With Hitler Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Finding Out Food Forced Labour Forced Soviet Emigration Foster Family Ghetto Incarceration Guben HMT Dunera Helped By Non-Jews Hidden Child Hiding In Plain Sight Hiding Valuables Hitler Youth Homesick Hostel In Hiding Isle Of Man Internment All Experiences See More People Albert Lester Bea Green MBE Benno Stern Betty Bloom Bridget Newman Bronia Snow Charles Danson Dorothy Bohm Dr Charlotte Feldman Erna Klein Eva Evans MBE Eva Mendelsson Father Francis Wahle Frank Bright Fred Barschak George Donath Gerta Regensburger Gerti Baruch Hanna Hemingway Hannah Wurzburger Hans Danziger Harry Bibring BEM Harry Weinberger Helen Aronson BEM Hella Pick CBE Henry Wuga MBE Ida Skubiejska Ivor Perl BEM Izak Wiesenfeld Jack Cynamon Jacques Weisser BEM John Dobai John Goldsmith John Hajdu MBE Judith Steinberg Kurt Wick Laszlo Roman Lia Lesser Lili Pohlmann MBE Lilly Lampert Mala Tribich MBE Margot Harris Maria Ault Marianne Summerfield BEM Miriam Freedman Mirjam Finkelstein Rivka Reich Rose Lebor Rudolph Sabor Ruth Barnett MBE Ruth Edwards Ruth Jackson Ruth Rogoff Selma van de Perre Simon Jochnowitz Stella Shinder Stephen Nagy Susan Pollack OBE Tom Heinemann Trude Silman MBE Ursula Gilbert Walter Kammerling Willy Field 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz 925: Finding Something Good In Everything 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer 927: The Wonderful Thing 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia 931: Let Down Too Many Times 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross 933: Interned In Algeria 934: The Safest Place For Jews On Earth 935: Starting To Speak 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write 937: Eichmann Asking For Chopped Liver 938: Some Kind Of Darkness 939: How To Bake A Stuffed Pike 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock 941: Sharing The Sandwiches 942: Father's New Woman 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed 944: Cat Piddle In My Beer 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage 947: The End Of The Gallery 948: Not Remembering My Emotions 949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen 950: Liberation of Majdanek 951: Passover in Lviv 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück 954: Arriving In Auschwitz 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft 956: Getting To Grips With It 957: How To Hide In Vienna 958: Discovering I Was Jewish 959: The Invasion Of Hungary 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals 961: Having My Revenge 962: Speaking German With An English Accent 963: Experiencing Antisemitism 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi 967: Fitting In 968: How To Talk Without Crying 969: No One In My Situation 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation 971: Equalising What Happened 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks 974: How To Recover 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp 976: Coming To England Alone Aged 5 977: The Cruel Guardian 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers 979: Sitting Through That 980: Getting Streetwise 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 982: Not Dwelling On Things 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive 984: The Attack On Our School 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto 987: Father's Deportation 988: Getting Up From The Dust 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap 990: The Shock 991: My Ransacked School 992: Chickenpox 993: Jews Not Welcome 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon 995: Father's Shop 996: How To Hide In Berlin 997: My Mother & Father 998: Red Oaks Boarding School 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter 1000: Idzia Memories Algeria Australia Austria Belgium Canada China Czechoslovakia England France Germany Greece Hungary Isle of Man Italy Lithuania Netherlands Northern Ireland Palestine Poland Scotland Soviet Union Spain Sweden Switzerland USA Yugoslavia Countries 1000 Memories: Background Each memory on this site was originally created as a post for the AJR Refugee Voices social media accounts on Instagram , Facebook and X (Twitter) from 2019-2024. The social media project has ended and this site is its archive. The posts are preserved and stored here independently, as embedded links and full texts. They are arranged by person , experience , place and post order . They are searchable . This site is a work in progress, and the memories are being put up one-by-one in reverse order. Subscribe to keep updated. Read More

Germany Zwickau Memories 927: The Wonderful Thing Ruth Rogoff My father was a courier for getting people out of Germany & over the border into Czechoslovakia, illegally. One day he was betrayed... Previous Location Next Location

1000 Memories is an independent Holocaust testimony archive preserving short edited moments once created for social media from the AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive. It is not affiliated with the 1000Memories startup (2010–2013) or Ancestry. 1000 Memories: Edited Holocaust Testimony Archive Edited oral history extracts from Holocaust survivors and refugees who rebuilt their lives in Britain Adapted from interviews conducted by the AJR Refugee Voices Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees Explore testimonies 1000 Memories: Holocaust Testimony Archive Edited oral history extracts from Holocaust survivors and refugees who rebuilt their lives in Britain Adapted from interviews conducted by the Refugee Voices Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory 1000: Idzia Mala Tribich MBE Rumours started circulating that there's going to be a deportation. So people were in panic, trying to find ways of saving themselves... Read Full Memory 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... Read Full Memory 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... Read Full Memory 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory 1000 Memories: Holocaust Testimony Archive 1000 Memories is an online archive of over 1,000 short testimony extracts from Holocaust survivors and refugees who experienced Nazi persecution as Jews and later found refuge in Britain, before, during, or after the Second World War. Here, in their own words, ordinary people recall the violence, oppression and prejudice they once experienced – as well as the moments of kindness, luck, bravery and heroism. They also describe what if felt like to start again in a new country. The memories were originally edited from transcripts of interviews conducted by the Refugee Voices Archive of the Association of Jewish Refugees. The Refugee Voices interviews are filmed conversations between Holocaust survivors, oral historians and trained interviewers. Click each memory square to read the full long extract. Read More See All Memories 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory Memory Map Great Bravery: Click on each memory square to read some of the bravest actions remembered in the archive: 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer Betty Bloom The Gestapo were coming to arrest a Jewish baby in an orphanage. So my sister dressed up as a German officer and demanded this child... Read Full Memory 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 Stephen Nagy I contracted scarlet fever. You had to go to an isolation hospital for six weeks. The fascist Hungarians took over. So, I was stuck in hospital... Read Full Memory 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia Dorothy Bohm My sister was one when I left. 22 years later I saw her again. We had no language in common. No memories in common, no childhood. Nothing... Read Full Memory 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross Harry Weinberger A very young lieutenant in charge of us told me that the British Army will fight to the last alien, to the last foreign soldier... Read Full Memory 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein One Arabic sentence helped a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations... Read Full Memory 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial... Read Full Memory 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised... Read Full Memory 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt Bea Green MBE I believe trying to protect your children by not telling them everything is a terrible thing. Because it makes them imagine things worse than reality... Read Full Memory 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage Benno Stern My father, by a great stroke of fortune, was made stateless by Poland because he’d fled the country. It worked to our advantage... Read Full Memory 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape... Read Full Memory 957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because my parents went underground... Read Full Memory 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory 996: How To Hide In Berlin Hans Danziger My father had nerves of steel. Before the war, Jews were obliged to put ‘Israel’ in front of their names. My father refused... Read Full Memory Agricultural Labour Algerian Internment Anschluss Arrested Arrow Cross Asked To Leave School Attempted Humiliation Auschwitz Australian Internment Bergen-Belsen Betrayed Boarder British Army British Citizen British Internment Buchenwald Business Seized Canadian Internment Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Converted To Christianity Dachau Deported Destruction Of Property Dismissed From Job Domestic Service Emigration To Shanghai Emigration to Czechoslovakia Encounter With Hitler Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Finding Out Food Forced Labour Forced Soviet Emigration Foster Family Ghetto Incarceration Guben HMT Dunera Helped By Non-Jews Hidden Child Hiding In Plain Sight Hiding Valuables Hitler Youth Homesick Hostel In Hiding Isle Of Man Internment All Experiences See More People Albert Lester Bea Green MBE Benno Stern Betty Bloom Bridget Newman Bronia Snow Charles Danson Dorothy Bohm Dr Charlotte Feldman Erna Klein Eva Evans MBE Eva Mendelsson Father Francis Wahle Frank Bright Fred Barschak George Donath Gerta Regensburger Gerti Baruch Hanna Hemingway Hannah Wurzburger Hans Danziger Harry Bibring BEM Harry Weinberger Helen Aronson BEM Hella Pick CBE Henry Wuga MBE Ida Skubiejska Ivor Perl BEM Izak Wiesenfeld Jack Cynamon Jacques Weisser BEM John Dobai John Goldsmith John Hajdu MBE Judith Steinberg Kurt Wick Laszlo Roman Lia Lesser Lili Pohlmann MBE Lilly Lampert Mala Tribich MBE Margot Harris Maria Ault Marianne Summerfield BEM Miriam Freedman Mirjam Finkelstein Rivka Reich Rose Lebor Rudolph Sabor Ruth Barnett MBE Ruth Edwards Ruth Jackson Ruth Rogoff Selma van de Perre Simon Jochnowitz Stella Shinder Stephen Nagy Susan Pollack OBE Tom Heinemann Trude Silman MBE Ursula Gilbert Walter Kammerling Willy Field 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz 925: Finding Something Good In Everything 926: Dressing Up As A Gestapo Officer 927: The Wonderful Thing 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 930: Reunion After 22 Years In Siberia 931: Let Down Too Many Times 932: A Cigarette For An Iron Cross 933: Interned In Algeria 934: The Safest Place For Jews On Earth 935: Starting To Speak 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write 937: Eichmann Asking For Chopped Liver 938: Some Kind Of Darkness 939: How To Bake A Stuffed Pike 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock 941: Sharing The Sandwiches 942: Father's New Woman 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed 944: Cat Piddle In My Beer 945: Dad's Blood-Drenched Shirt 946: Being Stateless Is An Advantage 947: The End Of The Gallery 948: Not Remembering My Emotions 949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen 950: Liberation of Majdanek 951: Passover in Lviv 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück 954: Arriving In Auschwitz 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft 956: Getting To Grips With It 957: How To Hide In Vienna 958: Discovering I Was Jewish 959: The Invasion Of Hungary 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals 961: Having My Revenge 962: Speaking German With An English Accent 963: Experiencing Antisemitism 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone 965: Wounded Animals On The Farm 966: I Thought You Were A Nazi 967: Fitting In 968: How To Talk Without Crying 969: No One In My Situation 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation 971: Equalising What Happened 972: Discovering My Brother Was Alive 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks 974: How To Recover 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp 976: Coming To England Alone Aged 5 977: The Cruel Guardian 978: Hitler On The Loudspeakers 979: Sitting Through That 980: Getting Streetwise 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 982: Not Dwelling On Things 983: The Struggle To Stay Alive 984: The Attack On Our School 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat 986: The End of Łódź Ghetto 987: Father's Deportation 988: Getting Up From The Dust 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap 990: The Shock 991: My Ransacked School 992: Chickenpox 993: Jews Not Welcome 994: Grass Snakes At The Beacon 995: Father's Shop 996: How To Hide In Berlin 997: My Mother & Father 998: Red Oaks Boarding School 999: The Caretaker & His Daughter 1000: Idzia Memories Algeria Australia Austria Belgium Canada China Czechoslovakia England France Germany Greece Hungary Isle of Man Italy Lithuania Netherlands Northern Ireland Palestine Poland Scotland Soviet Union Spain Sweden Switzerland USA Yugoslavia Countries 1000 Memories: Background Each memory on this site was originally created as a post for the AJR Refugee Voices social media accounts on Instagram , Facebook and X (Twitter) from 2019-2024. The social media project has ended and this site is its archive. The posts are preserved and stored here independently, as embedded links and full texts. They are arranged by person , experience , place and post order . They are searchable . This site is a work in progress, and the memories are being put up one-by-one in reverse order. Subscribe to keep updated. Read More

953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close September 6, 1944: Selma van de Perre is imprisoned in Ravensbrück for her part in the Dutch resistance: They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers. Same green-grey colour material. They even wore hats. We were marched to the main camp & put in tents. Selma was there under a non-Jewish false identity & called herself Margarete van der Kuit. No one knew that she was Jewish. It was a lice colony. Within a few weeks everybody was full of lice. We were taken in fives to the shower, made to strip, give up all your clothes. Then the doctor’s investigation. I can’t remember if he had gloves on. But he didn’t wash his hands at least. I was given a very thin blue-grey striped prison dress. That was all. And some wooden shoes. No underwear or anything. But in the barracks they gave me my jumper back. We each had a hollow flannel which we hung at the end of our bunk with a toothbrush & toothpaste in. When we woke up, it had disappeared. Stolen by other women. We learned later on that was quite a normal thing to do. In Ravensbrück, Selma was forced to work as a Siemens slave labourer: You had to solder very fine wire together. At the start I was so nervous I fainted. One evening I couldn’t get up from the loo. My tummy was completely out of order. We were given what they called ‘soup’: water with a few grass sprits in it & that was it. No wonder I was ill. So an SS came & started beating me with his belt, with all these iron things on it. So I fainted again. These two girls had to pick me up & hold me up while he was counting. Then they took me to the hospital barrack for 4 days. Then I went back to Siemens. One day we were told to stand outside the barrack, & they told us that the old women over 50 didn’t have to work anymore, & were to be given better food etc. They were taken to the Jugend camp in Uckermark. We later heard that they were gassed & killed. In October it got very cold. Someone said to me 'There's a Jewish woman who works in the textile barrack. She wants bread for her children. She’ll give you some warm clothes.” So I saved up the week’s sliced bread & went to see her. She gave me a man's long johns. They kept me warm the whole time I was in Ravensbrück. Fantastic. There were so many nationalities there. Polish, Slovaks, Czech, Dutch, French. But no more Jews in the Siemens barracks. They'd all been deported to Auschwitz by then. By then we slept in the Siemens barracks. Better conditions: only two in a bed. Three tiers mind you. But no dogs & no big SS fellows screaming away. Selma was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross on 23 April 1945. We were told to stand outside the Siemens barrack. We thought we’d get the same treatment as the old people a few months beforehand. You couldn’t flee because there were Germans on the side of you with dogs. Then we passed Uckermark, luckily & got to the big camp. We were very pleased in a way, but still scared because what’s going to happen! Every day we thought we’d be taken out because we knew they were killing women. You could smell it. The crematorium was going all the time. One day my Czech friend said 'You’re going to be freed Marga: you've got a Red Cross parcel.' So, we said, “Well we hope so.” I gave her a piece of bread, biscuits, & some sausage. She had been very good to me. We then stood outside. That was morning. Nothing came for a while. In the afternoon suddenly a little sportscar came. Out jumped a young Swede. He told us Count Bernadotte was coming with white buses to drive us to Sweden. But the buses didn’t come. We stood there the whole night. Suddenly military trucks came. We were told to jump in. A friend & I fought for the seat next to the driver, ‘cause we wanted to see. The driver said, “We’ll stop in an hour’s time, then you can change.” So I went with my friend in the next truck. After an hour we stopped in a beautiful wood. We were given chocolate & sandwiches & drinks & so by the drivers who had it all ready for us. Beautiful flowers & beginning of the pale green that comes out in the spring. So wonderful to sit there in freedom. Suddenly there were shots. The drivers said, “Leave everything, come quickly back in the truck." So we went in & I wanted to sit next to the driver. But my friend fought with me again, so I had to let her sit, because my friend Dit pulled me back to the other truck. Lo & behold, the truck I should have sat in, was shot. The woman & the driver were shot—by the Allies. They thought they were German. And I was saved again. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Selma van de Perre Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Near Escape Ravensbrück Resistance Slave Labourer Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Hanna Hemingway Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock Hanna Hemingway There's a reel in here [points to her head]. I can’t get it out of my mind. It's there. I just wish somebody would erase it... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

Ivor Perl BEM Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 988: Getting Up From The Dust Ivor Perl BEM I was only 12 when I was taken to Auschwitz. I feel very, very hurt that I haven’t got many memories of my family... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

Poland Krakow Memories 950: Liberation of Majdanek Rose Lebor At liberation I was four. All the executions, the beatings that they had to watch. My mother could never bring herself to tell me... Previous Location Next Location