983: The Struggle To Stay Alive Helen Aronson BEM Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Helen Aronson was taken to the Łódź Ghetto in 1941 aged 14: We were taken to a disused prison. People were crying & hungry, not knowing anything. In the morning, Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Jewish Council of Elders of Łódź Ghetto, came to see us. He said: I will try & find accommodation for you but the main thing is to get a ration card & work, work, work. I'll do my best. So the parents of the children started to cry. They said: Mr Rumkowski, what has happened to our children? He said: don't worry about your children because my very good friend, Mordechai Chmura, who I worked with before the war in various orphanages, he volunteered & went with all the children from Pabianice & I know he will look after them. So when my mother heard that, she came to him & said, I’m Mordechai's wife. These are my two children. He said: I'll try & help you as much as I can. I must admit that he did because his power was like the Queen of England. Whatever he instructed you got. The whole thing was to be able to get a little bit more food. So my brother got a job in offices, liaisons between the ghetto & the Germans. Everything made in the ghetto went through these offices & things that came to the ghetto. He spoke fluent German. My mother worked in a canteen which was giving rations every week to people. I was sent to a orphanage in Marysin, near Łódź, a area which is a little bit green & wooden houses, summery things. There I was to look after orphanage children. They were not much older than I was & they all had to work. We made straw mattresses. I used to tell them stories, these kids, about Hansel & Gretel, that when they arrived at the orphanage, it would be made of bread [laughs]. But at that time I was not well, I suffered with various cysts on my body through the change of everything. I was in hospital having something opened when the Germans decided to close the orphanage & evacuate all the children. [Gets upset] I know that when they were loaded on those vans, they were calling my name, something I can’t forget. Also they decided to send old people, so my mother went. My brother had a document saying that his family are not to be sent. But it didn't mean anything. But my mother went from one street to another, to another, escaping them. Then I was delivering lunch to my brother where he worked in the centre of the ghetto. Suddenly out of the blue, lorries arrive, taking anyone at random. I'm in the middle. People started running, I started running, I didn't know where. I ran into a big building. So much screaming & dogs. So I run into this building, I don't know where it was, & run upstairs into an empty room & hide inside the bed with the cover over me. I’m hearing screaming. I hear them enter this room. They're standing near this bed I'm hiding in. And they go. Then I lie in this bed for I don't know how long. Then I looked out very timidly & see it’s dark. I thought: I'd better go home. Meanwhile my brother realised that I’m in great danger. He decided to look for me. He goes to Radogoszcz, the station they collect people, he can’t find me anywhere. He goes home, says: Helen’s been taken. Well, you can imagine my mother, the neighbours, the crying. Then I arrived [laughs]. I don't know, I don't know. It just happened that way, like people say. I gave a talk once at the Barbican. A woman stood up & said, oh, aren't you—what did she say—sorry, or something, or: don't you feel guilty that you are alive & so many people died? For a moment I didn't know what to say. Then I said: maybe I am alive for a purpose because if I wouldn't be here to tell you all this, you wouldn't know. But that’s what I mean. Every hour it was something: the fight of being alive & food [laughs]. My brother had typhoid, I looked after him, he was in hospital. Then they decided to confiscate the whole hospital & he was there. Every day, every minute: a struggle to live but then the [sighs]—how can I say. It’s something within you that you just want to see from one day to another. To survive. The struggle of daily life, staying alive. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Helen Aronson BEM's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Helen Aronson BEM Ghetto Incarceration Near Escape Reunited Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

954: Arriving In Auschwitz Judith Steinberg Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Judith Steinberg was deported from Paks, Hungary, to Auschwitz in June 1944: We were put in a big school hall, we were all sitting on the floor with a rucksack. They said we are going to go to work. We looked at each other, ‘Where are we going to work? What is going to happen to us?’ Nobody knew. We were just sent there. 3 days, 3 nights. The wagon wasn’t an ordinary train, it was to transport animals. There were German guards outside the school, nobody can escape. They said, ‘If one of you escapes, we shoot 10, straight away!’ We were like sardines. Over 2000 people in the hall. They said, ‘Just take your things, you are going to work.’ We collected some photographs, bits of valuable, watch, my father’s pocket watch & bits & pieces. But there was hardly any food. We were all starving but we didn’t know where we were going. We were still in our normal clothes. When we went through the city main street, some people were crying, some were looking out of curiosity, wondering where they were taking the Jews. The Germans just said, ‘Get on, move on!’ ‘Schnell, schnell!’ or ‘Tempo!’, that was their favourite expression. So we were pushed in these wagons. 3 days & 3 nights. When we arrived in Auschwitz, two babies were dead, in my wagon. I was with my mother and four brothers. I believe that my father & oldest brother died in Mauthausen. I lost the voice in the wagon, I was very thirsty. One elderly man & two babies died & we lost our voice. We could hardly speak when we opened, it was hot, no air, no food. We wanted water. The thirst. We had to sleep standing, leaning over the one next to you. There was no room to move. They opened the door & we just looked at each other. ‘God, where is it?’ We looked at those bonfires & the people behind. Like an asylum, not a normal place. What are they doing here? They said, ‘Just get out!’ We cried for water. The German soldier said, ‘No water, you'll get some later on. You go over there’. There was a barrack & in front there was Dr Mengele, he was in charge for selection. They called him the ‘Lagerdoktor’, the doctor of the camp. We were hanging on to my mother, my four little brothers & my sister. When he saw us, he said, ‘Just leave your mother, you go that way, leave your mother, see her later.’ To my sister, he said, ‘You two go the other side, you'll see your mother later. Let them come with me, the children, your younger brothers.’ He spoke German, my mother spoke German, I speak German. I understood what he was talking about. So, that was, that was the last time I saw my mother. We were sent into a barrack, our clothes were ripped off, our hair was shaved off. A German woman called an ‘Aufseherin’ said: ‘You come to this B1 Lager, B2 Lager.’ ‘Lager’ are camp, they called it ‘Lager’, ‘And you go to C ‘Lager’. I was taken away with my sister, we couldn’t recognise each other because we had no hair. We stood naked for two hours. They threw some old rubbishy clothes at us. We were bewildered, we just don’t know, what’s this all about? We look at each other. What’s next? When will we see our mother, when we meet later? When the light came we could look through the window. This terrible smell of burning. The sky was red from all this smoke. A horrible smell. We didn’t know what it was. A woman said, ‘Don’t ask questions!’ I said, ‘When can we see my mother?’ She said, ‘I can’t guarantee you are going to see her.’ That was the answer. And I wouldn’t believe her. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Judith Steinberg's interview with Dr Rosalyn Livshin for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2005 • Learn More → Judith Steinberg Auschwitz Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Encounter With Nazi Officials Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Poland Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Tom Heinemann Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 947: The End Of The Gallery Tom Heinemann My grandmother ran the gallery very successfully. Then she got arrested on some trumped up currency charges & put into prison... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

957: How To Hide In Vienna Father Francis Wahle Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Father Francis Wahle came to Britain from Vienna on a Kindertransport. His mother and father, an ex-judge, remained in Vienna: At school, letter-writing was timetabled: once a week. But from 1942 onwards there were no letters in reply because on May 1, 1942, my parents went underground. The Gestapo came to get them. Both Francis's parents had converted to Catholicism before he was born but Nazis still considered the family Jewish. My father happened to be out of the flat. My mother was there. She got her handbag & simply walked down the stairs as they were coming up to get her, muttered something about a hell of a to do in the house today, & just left. They'd obviously made provisions beforehand in distributing their belongings as far as they could & having arranged the place to meet in a case like this. From then on, they were non-persons. They couldn't use their identities. No home, no place to actually spend a night in; couldn't spend it in the open because the winter is too hard in Vienna, & secondly, because if you were found in the open, what excuse is there? They had no ration cards, no money, no earning. They experimented a little bit. My mother came up with the idea of spinning a yarn that she was a married woman, married to a policeman, but having an affair with my father who was living outside Vienna but coming in to visit her regularly once a week, & they needed a place where they could spend the night together. And for heaven's sake were they not reported to the police because her husband being a policeman that would wreck her marriage. That story was spun perfectly for the Viennese mentality; sentimental, romantic. With this yarn, they went from landlady to landlady. The more the landlady was a Nazi, the better; it's safer. My mother wasn't shy. She started private tuition in people's homes. It didn't matter whether she knew the subject, provided she was one lesson ahead of the child. And it meant that she was warm during the day. Occasionally she was given rations- either fed or given some ration, so they had something. Also, in restaurants there were one or two watery soups & things like that which you could get without ration. They'd go to those places where the Gestapo also ate because that was the safest place. Once you got yourself established as part of the furniture, they would never dream of having a razzia in that restaurant. It was their base. So, they would meet also in places which had two exits, like churches. If they saw somebody suspicious coming in at one, they would, not hurriedly but just gradually, move to the other exit. Then, identity. My mother's name, Brunner, is very nondistinctive. So she never even changed her maiden name. My father knew that if anybody recognised him from his acquaintances & called him by his name, he would react, so he had to have a name which sounded like Wahle, so Taler, Maler, something "a, e". You could get travel cards for trams & buses. He'd give a name & address which was actually taken from the telephone book. My father suddenly realised—the penny dropped—that as he was now hunted, he was an outlaw. Although he was a judge who had to keep the law & make certain other people kept the law, he was no longer a judge. He was able to tell lies, cheat, because this is an illegitimate government. My mother did some smuggling, all sorts of things. They once spent the night in a brothel. The police raided it, they were taken into custody & released the following day. My mother said, "Give me back my money & jewellery". Far more suspicious if she hadn't brazened it out. They loved it when there was an air raid because then they could get to the shelters where there was no control & they were safe. But for three solid years, watching your back the whole time. It's amazing that they survived. It's a miracle. They had some very narrow squeaks. Their tremendous bravery: not giving in, not saying we can't fight against this huge organisation. My mother said: "they're not as efficient as they portray themselves to be & we've got no other option. We've just got to go and... fight for the children as much as anything. Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Father Francis Wahle's interview with Dr Jana Buresova for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, November 2019 • Learn More → Father Francis Wahle Converted To Christianity Encounter With Nazi Officials False Identity Hiding In Plain Sight In Hiding Near Escape Nerves of Steel Resistance Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Austria Text adapted & edited by Susanna Kleeman See Locations Facebook & Instagram Posts

Scotland Carnoustie Memories 968: How To Talk Without Crying Ida Skubiejska Everybody was killed in Auschwitz: my parents, my sister, all my uncles, aunts & cousins. Absolutely everybody except my other sister & my cousin... Previous Location Next Location

Algeria Sidi Bel Abbès Memories 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... Previous Location Next Location

Germany Ravensbrück Memories 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... 953: Slave Labour In Ravensbrück Selma van de Perre They transported us to Ravensbrück. Terrible. Screaming, shouting, dogs & whips. The dogs had the same clothes as the soldiers... Previous Location Next Location

Germany Bergen-Belsen Memories 928: Goodness Kindness & Helpfulness Susan Pollack OBE I never exchanged a word with anyone. I was on my own, withdrawn within myself. If you'd been found talking to someone, you'd have been shot... 949: Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Susan Pollack OBE We were not human beings anymore. We were reduced to being animals - maybe more. That’s how it was. We were just – no feelings... 970: Mother's Death At Our Liberation Mirjam Finkelstein By January 1945 there were rumours. People got quite excited. There was a wooden table, we had to walk past the camp doctor... Previous Location Next Location

Greece Thessaloniki 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... Previous Location Next Location

Canada Toronto Memories 974: How To Recover Susan Pollack OBE It took a long time for me to strengthen my own needs. I made a friend & she made a very big, deep impression on me. A shared nightmare... Previous Location Next Location

Hungary Budakalász Memories 959: The Invasion Of Hungary George Donath It was a Sunday. We went to my grandparents for lunch as usual. All of a sudden we see these black Mercedes drawing up in front... Previous Location Next Location