大象传媒

WORKING FOR SIEMENS
So a few days later I was called out and I was taken to an interview in front of a German civilian, who was the chief of a branch of Siemens, who were employing only prisoners from that camp, which, by the way, was called Ravensbr眉ck, and he interviewed me and immediately afterwards said, 鈥淲ell, from tomorrow on you are going to work in the office of my branch.鈥� And this was the moment that saved my life, because this branch was outside the camp and I became a member of the Siemens workers, who marched out of the camp every morning into that Siemens factory and marched back in the evening, always under the surveillance of many, many Gestapo men, who were armed. The whole factory of Siemens was run by the Gestapo but the actual work was supervised by Siemens civilians. So there of course the life was much more pleasant because first of all I worked in much cleaner surroundings, the sanitation was a bit better because we had to be much cleaner because we were working with some German civilians 鈥� foremen and directors and things like that. So I worked there for quite a long time. Always walking there and back. Any weather in any season - always in the same clothes.
I forgot to mention that the first day of my arrival, when I had to stand in the roll call and they were counting us, the first evening, in my dress without underwear and the clogs, there came a terrible thunderstorm and it just happened when roll call was on and it usually took a whole hour and we had to stand rigid there a whole hour by the time all these thousands were counted. And, of course, in the years there were more and more thousands. My number was 2,700 and in the end it was near the 100,000. I was standing there and the rain was coming down. Not rain, it was just like the heavens burst over us. And that feeling there, when I was standing there completely in the open, not being able to move and wet through, was also one of my moments of desperation when I would have wanted just to cry and to cry and to just fall over and be dead and not go on. But then I thought well everybody else is in the same boat and that鈥檚 it.
My foreman was called Mr Nitschke, who turned out to be a very nice man, who, until I got to know him, was very careful to ever have any contact because they were not allowed to have any contact with the prisoners except giving orders and supervising what we were doing. I could immediately tell he was a nice man by his eyes. He had very good eyes. So slowly I got to know him better and we used to talk in the corners of wherever it was and nobody looked and he would ask me where I came from and talked about private things. He turned out to be terribly sorry for us all and mainly for me as he was talking to me privately. And he asked me one day, 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 you like me to send a message to your family?鈥� And, of course, I was terribly happy and I immediately accepted, only I didn鈥檛 want to get him into trouble because he would have been shot was he found out. So I did write letters and he really sent them on and my family received them. And they replied. They sent letters to him. And not only letters but also I asked for some medicine, which they sent to him and he brought it to me. All sorts of little things. Sort of - essentials. He did all that and of course it was a terrible risk for him. By then we worked out a way when and how he could give it to me. So I kept this up to the very end with him. And he really helped me also to eventually have a possibility to escape because I asked my family to send me civilian clothes. He brought me that and I kept it all hidden. Eventually, when I did escape, I used the clothes to be able to get away unnoticed. I told him who I was and I promised him as soon as the war is over and I come home I am going to ask my father to give him a lot of money and send him a lot of materials and everything and help him because he was just a foreman who didn鈥檛 have a lot of money and so on. Of course I really meant it because by then we were already very well informed, again through him, he gave me every day information how far the allies by then already, the Russians and not only the Russians but the Americans were already in the war and things started to look better and better. So we were full of hopes. The only thing we were afraid that if it comes to the end of the war and they鈥檙e going to open the huge gates and everything, that these thousands and thousands of crazy, hungry women are going to just trample each other to death to try to get out. But it never came to that naturally.
I had constant nightmares in Ravensbr眉ck that I was back in prison waiting to be called for more interrogations. Here at least we were out in the fresh air and there were so many of us, some of whom had become very close friends of mine. We kept our spirits high by feeding each other鈥檚 intellects. You think you are at the lowest ebb of life but there always is an even lower one and it is in human nature that you come to appreciate the one you are in because of it.

LIFE FOR THE FAMILY
My mother was of Jewish origin and she became Protestant when she got married to my father. Under Hitler鈥檚 laws, people who were of the Jewish race, no matter what religion they actually belong to were Jewish and therefore my brother and my sister and I were so-called Mischlinge, which meant of mixed race, half Jewish and half not Jewish. Mother naturally was supposed to be Jewish and, I can鈥檛 remember exactly when it all started, at first Jewish people who were married to non-Jewish people were not persecuted. But as time went on and most of the Jewish people had been deported they started to find out where there are Jewish people married to non-Jewish people and started to deport them as well. And of course we all were terribly worried about that and one couldn鈥檛 find out from anywhere how one could get out of it and what one could do against it.
I always said I would not survive it if my mother would be deported and I would do all I can to prevent it. So unfortunately I never was there to see it because while I was still in prison my mother got the order that she has to report to a certain place where a whole Jewish transport was taken to Terezin (Thereseienstadt). That is where it was very well known that it was the centre where they first sent all the Jews and from there they were sent on to Poland or wherever to the extermination camps. All that was only known after the war really. But one knew while it was happening that it is a terrible thing and nobody knew whether one would ever see them again. So while I was in prison this happened and I even got to know about it because at certain occasions when we had to clean certain places in prison and so on I spoke to other prisoners who knew from newcomers and who gave them the news and they gave me the news. You can imagine what it felt like and I was so unhappy. I was crying day and night and nobody knew why I was crying and I couldn鈥檛 tell anybody. And I was there in prison and I just thought I鈥檇 get crazy that I knew now my poor mother, who was much older than I am, she will never be able to survive this terrible hardship. So it was a terrible thing for me. It was very fortunate though that my mother, even though she was married to a non-Jew and had children who were not Jewish, was able to stay in that camp in Terezin within Czechoslovakia and fortunately survived the whole thing, and at the end of the war was sent back to Brno with the few who were left in Terezin. Everybody else was sent further away and then perished wherever it was. Like your father鈥檚 parents.
And now my father stayed at home and carried on his work at the mill but as he had been married to a Jewish person they put a so-called Treuh盲nder, German supervisor, into the factory who would supervise everything. But fortunately they could go on working and living there as everybody else. Now my sister, Litzi, took over the running of the house as mother was gone and was very young and fortunately well brought up. But had all the responsibility of running a big household. And in addition the heavy load of having her mother and her sister in prison was probably worse for her than for us who were there. She actually could send some food parcels to my mother, to Terezin, which kept my mother really alive, and also food parcels to me once a month, which didn鈥檛 arrive regularly, which arrived once every 5 or 6 months, but which was a very big help to me. Part of the food was perished in it but certain things were still edible and helped me a lot because we hadn鈥檛 had any vitamins. Nothing at all. We always only had bread. A sort of bread, which wasn鈥檛 made the normal way, and coffee and parsnip - I cannot even stand the smell of it. So that was our only food for us. Actually more the water and the skins of it and potato peels, not actual potatoes, and that always cooked and that was our food. So you can imagine what our health was like. Anyway, I don鈥檛 want to go into detail about that. So my sister, Litzi, had all this terrible worry to keep us going with parcels and things. And, fortunately, mother always got them and I occasionally got them as well. And she looked after the house and everything up to the last minute, up to the end of the war.
My brother, Ernest, who was working in the factory with my father in the mill, a few months before the end of the war, he was sent away as well because by then as all Jews had been sent away, exterminated and whatever, they started to pick on the half-Jews. First, they sent them to a camp, which was the first camp from where people were supposed to be sent further. So he was sent to that first camp, which was called Postoloprty, the last bit of it, a very rude Czech word, and he immediately got pneumonia there and was very lucky and was sent back. Which was very unusual. And probably only sent back in order to get better again but by the time he was better it was the end of the war so he was very lucky.

THOUGHTS OF ESCAPE
All of us in Ravensbr眉ck thought of escape. But after a few tried it and never made it, because, as you by now know from all the films, it was impossible with all the electronic devices and everything. The few we knew who tried it, died in the process. So we gave up the idea to escape from the camp. But to take up where I finished before when we knew that things were getting better and better for the allies, we had hope again that we shall very soon be possibly liberated. So we worked towards that thought and what we should do when it will happen. And, as I said, I in the meantime had arranged for some clothes to be sent to me, civilian clothes to be sent to me, and I had two friends, two girls, both Czech girls, and both worked with me at Siemens. By the way, by then, which was at the end of 鈥�44, I think, all the Siemens workers, prisoner workers, had left the camp and they built some blocks, these long huts, next to the factory, which was outside the camp, which became a new compound, prison compound, on its own but which only was populated by the Siemens prisoners. Naturally, again, supervised by Gestapo women. But it was a camp of its own which, as I said in the beginning of my tale, was the reason why I am still alive. Which really saved my life.
By then in the main camp they started to have these furnaces where they started to burn people. Not only burn people, first gas them and then burn them. We, Siemens workers, only went back to the camp for very special occasions, if we were ill, so we tried very hard not to be ill, meaning if we fell ill, unless it was something really terrible, we always tried to hide it. And of course naturally we always had to go to work even if you were ill. I did get ill, while I was still in the big camp, I had rheumatic fever and I was in the hospital block, where when you really were severely ill you stayed for a few days and got a little bit of medicine. And I was there probably for a week. I can鈥檛 remember. And I was lying with two others in one cot, like the sardines, with the head and feet at opposite ends. And I had a very high temperature. But when I got over the worst I was immediately put back to work, which shows how strong nature is. If somebody in our present civilised world has got rheumatic fever it鈥檚 a terrible thing to have and you are in hospital for a long time and for a long time at home under medication. And there nothing much was done about it and fortunately I was young enough and I got well again. So that鈥檚 just by the way.
So we only went back to the big camp for reasons like that, otherwise we all tried never to leave our little compound where we felt much safer than near the furnaces, which we saw the smoke coming out of all the time. By then there were already nearly 100,000 prisoners because the Russians were approaching from the East, and our camp was just a little bit north of Berlin, so the eastern side of Germany. At the time, Auschwitz, the extermination camp which was in Poland, was evacuated, and those few people were transported into our camp. So there were more, and more, and more inmates. So we were glad, we were in our little Siemens camp out there.

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