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6-Fear, Hunger & Hope

Was there ever a time in the camp where you lost all hope?

I remember I was once asked to talk at Stanford University at the course Psychology. It was called, "Surviving Under Extreme Circumstances." How do you survive? Lots of people ask me how I survived. And I tell them that surviving entails, first, endurance. Under the same conditions, people endure more or less the same, but some can live one day longer or two days longer if maybe they are religious, they believe in God, maybe some people are waiting at home, maybe they are used to hardship, but not for long. But, in the camp, there was a chance. I could have been beaten to death, I could have been shot, I could have been selected. I could not control those things. So it's not only how strong I was, but how lucky I was. And I was lucky. I was also strong. But I was lucky.

Did you pray in the camps?

Never.

Did you lose your religious views?

The basic elements of our life was to have enough food, enough drink, and enough sleep. The baths. The needs were so basic that this is what went in you head. "We are hungry, it hurts." And often we saw—I just remember one instance, because, see, people talk about dignity, and I just feel that you cannot talk about dignity when your life is threatened. There are basic things to live. I remember one instance when we went for a shower, and we got only a pajama top, all of us. Here we stayed in a column, girls with all their bottoms, nude. Men working here and there. I remember that I talked to my friend. "Do you think that ever in our lives we will have some more sense of dignity? I mean, will we ever be ashamed?" But it was very far from us. Very often we were so hungry, so thirsty, so exhausted by the physical aspects.

I remember once I was beaten very hard, I was afraid he would kill me, but I couldn't care anymore because I was too distraught. Other times, a stupid girl told me, "Why don't you run away?" I ran away when I worked in a certain factory. So they were all lucky situations. I don't think I had enlightened ideas, I don't think Sometimes I thought, "If I ever die here, will anyone in my family know where and how I died?" Because I could have died, sure, it was very easy to die.

I did not pray. I was not very observant, even before. I didn't think that praying would help me, and I didn't think that God could help me. He didn't. Because he could help everyone. He should have helped everyone.

How did other people deal with religion in the camps?

It's a good question because everybody lots of people insisted on the religious aspect but it's mainly between men, and not women. I never saw the women—when the holiday when it came or the holy day, I did see them praying. Boys always prayed at home. They always mention boys who were so Hasidic, and so religious. I didn't see that. I really didn't see people concerned with that aspect. I think it was suffering much more basic, much more like an animal would live. Right? Because we knew that animals lived much better. They took much better care of their own dogs than they took care of us. It was a sub-human existence. We did not mean anything.

I have to tell you one or two little stories. I had a cousin. People ask me, "How old were you then?" And I tell them, "I was 22." But I want you to understand, I was an old girl there because with me were girls of 18, 19, 20. At 22 at that time you could have been married and have a baby. Right? So I had this cousin Maghda, who had married a year earlier and in the ghetto she gave birth to a baby. She arrived to Auschwitz with the baby in her arm, her young husband, and her old mother. They arrived a few days after us. And as they walk in, one Jew, this guys from the sonderkommando—it's very interesting that the same family twice benefited from this because in the back was the father, and two brothers. So this sonderkommando came to the husband of Maghda and told him, "Tell your wife to give the baby to the mother." She says, "Why?" "Because they will kill them both." And the guy almost fainted. He came and said, "Maghda, give the baby to your mother." She said, "No, I want to take care of the baby. I was to nurse the baby." He started screaming. He gets hysterical. And finally, gave the baby to the mother. And what happened? Maghda survived. The husband did not survive. Mother and baby did not survive.

Behind them, how lucky can one be, is the father with two brothers. One is twelve years old, not even tall. And then maybe the same guy or another one, told the guy, "How old is he?" "He is twelve. "Tell them you're sixteen and tell them you are a carpenter." He arrived, and he has learned it, "I am 16 and I am a carpenter." And they let him live. So what I'm saying, not only luck, but those Jewish men tried to save people. And they saved many, this way telling them what to do. I was not helped. At least my older brother should have lived.

Hunger

How did you fight the hunger?

How I fought the hunger? There is no way to fight the hunger. It was a feeling which took over. Like a pain, like if something hurts, you cannot think, and you cannot read, and you cannot do anything else. We ate almost everything. I have to tell you, sometimes I am not talking for myself because I don't think I went through anything special. I think that the same things happened to this group that arrived in the big Hungarian transport. Everybody, it was always, we were always in the hundreds, in the thousands. I think everybody suffered the same. I cannot really pinpoint something special. I never thought I'm special. I was luckier than others because I was healthy, and I am still healthy. And I came out without scars.

How did you manage to avoid selection?

I didn't avoid it. When there were selections, I somehow, must have been a little bit stronger than the others. On some occasions, someone beat me almost to death, but didn't take me away. In other times—you didn't read the book—there is a story where I worked in a factory and I didn't do my quota. I was called by the number. I was to wait until they came back from the other barracks to pick me up. And then one old-timer said I was crazy to wait. He said, "Why don't you run away?" I ran away. But I was lucky not that he didn't catch me, but that he didn't come with the numbers. Because by the number, he would have found me.

Transferred to Weisswasser

How did you get from Auschwitz to Weisswasser?

It was a train, a couple hours, it was no big deal. I don't remember details from it. They put us on a train, two hundred girls, and we arrived. The distance was small. From Poland to Czechoslovakia. I tell you, it is very important that I left Auschwitz in the middle of December. If I would have stayed in Auschwitz, I could have been part of the death camp, where all the able-bodied people were taken in the freezing cold from one camp to another to another. Sometimes struggling in open trains, shooting people if they rested or sat down. I was lucky to escape.

Can you tell us the story of when you were badly beaten?

In those seven months in Auschwitz, I worked in many teams. It must have been still summer, and I was in a team which worked outside the hospital. It was the hospital they built for the SS people. We had a supervisor, and we were raking the grass, and the supervisor had to go somewhere. Probably I was older, I must have been sometimes a more mature person. So he said, "Why don't you take care of the girls while I'm gone. Make sure they work when somebody comes." So here I am in the middle of a group of 20-30 girls, and I scream, "Work hard, somebody's coming, work hard, work hard!" When the officer past and he went away, "OK, now you can rest and relax." And this went on and off and on and off. And I didn't realize that one officer saw me from the window of the hospital and knew what I was doing. And he came out, angry at me. He started screaming at me. "Your girls don't work. This one was sitting, she was doing this, go and beat her up!" I didn't move. He screams at me. He takes me, and pushes my hand and when my hand reaches the face of that girl, it was like a caress. He got angrier and he said, "This is how you beat? I'll show you how to do it." He takes off the gloves, and starts to slap me, right and left and right and left. I almost staggered. "Now you know how to do it. Go beat her." By then I didn't care. I was sure he would send me away. I just didn't care. So he did it again, once. And then he left me. Was I lucky? I was lucky.

Can you describe the smoke from the crematorium?

It is funny how there were tons of flames and tons of flames, and then smoke all over. When those came from Poland, from the ghettos, all four were burning. I remember many, many years later, when I was writing letters to my granddaughter, I passed a factory where there were two chimney's. It was a beautiful day, sunny, and then I saw this tongue of fire, and clouds. I came home, and I said, "Dear Miriam"—this is my granddaughter—"today I passed a factory. I saw those two chimneys, I have to tell you about the chimneys in Auschwitz." And this is how I wrote the whole story about Auschwitz. About the time in Auschwitz. About the starvation, about the beatings, about the despair.

There was a girl with me at the the time, much younger than me. It's funny, she was from the same city as Gloria [Gloria Hollander Lyon]. She got so attached to me. She much have been 17. Probably I was stronger than she was. She would do anything, even steal for me and bring food, just so I would stay with her. Then one day there was a selection. The girl by then had some underarm infections, those glands get easily infected. She walked a little hesitantly. She was selected. She cried and screamed and ran after me. She was selected. And one night, I dreamed of her, and I couldn't remember her name. I was so upset, but finally I remembered her name.

What were the jobs that you did in Weisswasser?

When we arrived to that factory, they asked who has high school, meaning the more intelligent girls. And all those with high school, there were not too many, were put to work with little appliances. Some electrical appliances, I don't know exactly what. We had to do soldering, and checking, it was called "quality control." All those who didn't go to school, they were put in menial, physical work. Underneath the factory, we called it schlosser which means steel work, and all kinds of heavy work. We worked at tables. I told you, the same tables also worked French guys, and this was sort of, not heavy work. Until I started to do drawings.

What kind of drawings?

I don't know. I had to copy graphics. I was good in lettering. I had worked enough in the movie house with that, so this was how I knew how to do it. I can tell you this—my German engineer, I told you he was quite nice, often he asked me questions, and often he brought me some food. Then, we were liberated. We lived for about that days in that Czech village. One day walking with girls and boys, they were singing and dancing, everyone was free and well-fed, I see him working at the ditch with other prisoners, Germans. I pass by, and he tells me, "Then it was you. Now it is we." Anyway, I felt a little, how should I say, I owe him something. I said, "Will you come tomorrow morning to our place, we live here an here, we have a few girls, a few Frenchmen, come for breakfast." He came, and I tried to behave, but the other girls started to tell him all that the Germans did to the Jewish people. Poor guy. He ran away. He just couldn't take it anymore. But he wanted us to take him with us to Hungary or to Romania. Well, he wanted to say that innocent people suffered. Sure, all the French people suffered. Even when they were not perpetrators and collaborators, just standby.

Telling Her Story

We only have about 5 minutes left.

I am going to tell you this, just because it is a nice anecdote. You know what I'm doing now. Since I moved to California, I'm doing this lecturing. I have many, many lectures. I am very happy that I can do it. I'm very happy I'm healthy and I'm strong. This year I have already 28 programs in schools and churches, in jails, in universities. I try to tell my children that I hope I will be able to do this until I am 101 years old. And they ask, "Why 101?" I say, "Well, did you see the movie Titanic?" Do you remember when the shipwreck of the Titanic was found and an old lady, 101, her name was Rose, she came forward and said, "Well, I know how it was. I can tell you." Suddenly, here she was. On the tv, and the newspapers, Rose telling how it was on the Titanic. And everyone was getting interested into Titanic. If I am 101, dead or alive, maybe I'm still lecturing indeed. Maybe I am sick in the hospital. Maybe I am dead in the morgue. People pass by and say, "Look, this lady has a number. What does it mean?" And they don't know what it means. One guy would say, "Well this lady is old enough, maybe she was a hippie. With a butterfly or a flower." And then one guy would say, "You know something, I recall. I remember an event which was in the middle of the 20th century where people were stamped like cattle. Where they were exterminated like rats. Where millions and millions of Jews were killed. It was called the Holocaust. Let's go study it again." And maybe they will write to the newspaper, and everyone will start reading again about the Holocaust and learning the lessons from the Holocaust.

I can tell you another story. You put it wherever you want. One day I had this lecture at Hayward College. The funny part is that a Jewish teacher invited me. And she was saying after Dora gives her lecture, the art professor will come and tell you about a play, cabaret, that they are setting up, and we think it is about the same period during the Nazis that it was done. It turned out that the group was not prepared for my lecture, and didn't know too much about the Holocaust. So I tell them the lecture, and almost ready when one women, middle-aged, enters and leans against the wall. I just assumed that she would present the play. I say I have five more minutes, one question. Nobody.

I said, "Ok, I am going to answer the question you don't ask me today. How do I feel toward German people?" I said, "I have to tell you an anecdote." I was a doctor. I worked at a hospital in New York. One day, a German, elderly lady was admitted into the hospital. She was very sick, she had some neurological disease. Very similar to polio. And she didn't speak English. Then they asked for a translator, and I said that I could translate. I went to her, and I talked to her, and I translated to the doctors, and everyday I visited her. She got very sick, and then started to improve. And finally, 2 or 3 weeks later, she comes and says goodbye, she goes home and she's ok.

I tell her, "I would like very much to show your case to the medical students. Could you come back in 2 weeks. I have a grand round and we'll present the case." "Sure." Two weeks later, I have the group of doctors, students, they present the case. The case was called guillabaret, if you have ever heard of it. Now, we bring in the patient. And suddenly, here, struts in, is a 70ish, German, ruddy-looking, peasant women, trotting like the fraulein in Sound of Music. And it hit me. And suddenly I realized that the old lady, what did she do 40 years ago? I told my colleague, "Look at her! Was she one of them?" Anyway, my colleague said it didn't matter. It mattered for me. So what I wanted to say is I always considered her a human being when she was a patient. But when you see a 70 or 80 year old German, you cannot deny your feeling, your suspicion, that he was a perpetrator, a collaborator, or standby. But when you talk about the younger generation of German people, I am sorry for them, they live with the most difficult legacy. Germany has been very good to Israel, to survivors. Even today, Germany has their problems because there are so many foreign people that they accept. Ok, thank you very much. Now comes that lady. She is crying, she comes and says, "I am German. I am second generation. You talked about me and you talk to me. And I'm so grateful to you, how you spoke about the young Germans. I feel relieved. All my life, I had this guilty feeling. Look, my grandfather was a Nazi officer. She took out a picture from her pocket book. The swastika was raised. I couldn't get over it, but now you relieved me of my sense of guilt." My story. Thank you very much.