THE WILLIAM BREMAN JEWISH HERITAGE MUSEUM CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS PROJECT (CHS) INTERVIEW BEGINS

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1 THE WILLIAM BREMAN JEWISH HERITAGE MUSEUM CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS PROJECT (CHS) MEMOIRISTS: DORA STORCH MARTY STORCH INTERVIEWER: ARTHUR KURTZ LOCATION: ATLANTA, GEORGIA DATE: 1985 <Begin Tape 1> INTERVIEW BEGINS My name is Arthur Kurtz. We are doing an oral history for the Atlanta Children of Holocaust Survivors [Project] on Dora Storch. Would you please state your full name please? Dora Storch. What is your address? 2698 Ridge Valley Road [Atlanta, Georgia]. What is your date of birth? December 7, How old were you at the time of the liberation? What do you mean liberation? When the war ended [in 1945]. At the end? At the end, I went back to my hometown. Then we went to Germany. How old were you then? How old I was then... the liberation? Twenty-one. Did you have a profession that you were thinking about before the war started? I never had a profession. I didn t have a chance to get one. Do you think of one that you would have done if... 1

2 I don t actually know. I really don t know because maybe [we] don t think about those things. We just went to school and that s it. What is your present occupation? Housewife. In Lodz. 1 Where were you born? Which is in... happy children. Poland. Did you grow up in the city or was it in a rural area? Yes, I grew up, and went to school, and had nice friends, and a nice family. We were Tell me about your family. Give me the names of the people. We were four children. My oldest sister was married at the time, and my younger one was married, and I was the youngest. My brother was not married. My younger sister had a little boy. 2 He was six years old at the time. He was very, very smart a bright little child. The way... we went over to Auschwitz-Birkenau. 3 From the ghetto, we went to Auschwitz- Birkenau. That little child... my sister did not want to give him up, so they pulled the child away from her. She didn t want [to be separated from the child] otherwise she would have gone 1 Lodz [Polish: Łódź] was a large textile manufacturing city and Jewish cultural center about 75 miles from Warsaw, Poland. Lodz was approximately 230 kilometers (143 miles) east of the German border. Jews were an integral part of the textile industry of Lodz. Jews owned many plants and factories in Lodz, including one of the largest in Europe. On the eve of World War II, Lodz had a population of 665,000, of whom 34 percent (223,000) were Jews. Lodz also had a sizable German population, amounting to 10 percent of the total. The Germans occupied Lodz on September 8, 1939 and renamed it Litzmannstadt. 2 Rakhel s married last name was Hubel. Her son s name was Shmuel. They lived in Lotch, Poland before the war. Her husband s name is unknown. 3 Auschwitz-Birkenau was a network of camps built and operated by Germany just outside the Polish town of Oswiecem (renamed Auschwitz by the Germans) in Polish areas annexed by Germany during World War II. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at a minimum 1.3 million people (approximately 1.1 million of which were Jews) to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex between 1940 and Camp authorities murdered 1.1 million of these prisoners. 2

3 with us, with my sister and myself. We didn t know at the time, the reason for them to pull the child. She was a beautiful, beautiful woman. I had two gorgeous sisters. I had two beautiful, beautiful sisters. As a matter of fact, no one knows how beautiful they were really. She did not want [to be separated from the child]. She hold her arm so to the child. They didn t know what to do with her. They put her on the other side with the child. That s it. That s what they took her to the crematorium. 4 This occurred where? That was in Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Auschwitz-Birkenau. Yes. My father was with us also there. Right away, they took him to the other side. Tell me a little more about your family, what was their social status at the time of the war? Were you well to do? Yes, we were. I would say we were very comfortable. We were comfortable. We were a happy family, a loving family. Your father made a nice living? Yes, he made a very nice living. As a matter of fact, he helped neighbors. He helped people. Sometimes on the weekends if somebody was, for Shabbos, kind of shortchanged or 4 An initial selection process took place upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Selection (German: Selektion) is the term the Nazi regime used to describe the process of choosing victims for the gas chambers in the extermination camps by separating them from those considered fit to work. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, selections took place on three railroad unloading platforms, or ramps. The selection procedure carried out on the ramps was as follows: families were divided after leaving the train cars and all the people were lined up in two columns. The men and older boys were in one column, and the women and children of both sexes in the other. Next, the people were led to the camp doctors and other camp functionaries conducting selection. They judged the people standing before them on sight and, sometimes eliciting a brief declaration as to their age and occupation, decided whether they would live or die. Age was one of the principal criteria for selection. As a rule, all children below 16 years of age (from 1944, below 14) and the elderly were sent to die. As a statistical average, about 20% of the people in transports were chosen for labor. They were led into the camp and registered as prisoners. The remainder was killed in the gas chambers. 3

4 whatever, he was always the one to help. He really was very happy to do those things. Yes. We just were a happy family. What did your father do for a living? He was I don t know how you can explain this actually in English like a contractor, but he was on his own. He worked liked in the... we had some apartments. He had people who to worked for him like [unintelligible; 4:53] things like that. He made a very good living. What kind of educational background did you have before the war started? I just went to grammar school and that s about it. How about religiously? Were you very religious? We were pretty religious, yes. We were very religious. As a matter of fact, my father, every morning... He was... We had a kosher home and a religious home. Every morning, he wouldn t leave the house without saying his prayers or going to shul [Yiddish: synagogue] every morning and on Saturday. [We were] just religious, pretty religious. I wouldn t say hypocritical religious, just normal. Really very nice. Yes. Before we move on, give me your sisters names, and your brother s name, and your parent s names so we can get a record of that. My mother s name was Shaindla, my father s [name was] Avraham, my older sister s [name was] Miriam, and [the middle sister s name was] Ruchel [Yiddish] or Rakhel, and [my brother s name was] Peretz. What were your contacts with non-jews like before the war? 4

5 Before the war, people who worked for my father were a lot of non-jewish people. Antisemitism was then there pretty much also. 5 As a matter of fact, there s a short story. The first night of the demonstrations, someone who worked for my father came to work. My father said to him, You go. I don t want you to work anymore for me. He went, Yesterday, you were... You said... Away with the Jews! Today, you come to work to a Jew. [The employee] says, You re my boss. He says, I said, Away with the Jews, but not with my boss. This is true. You were aware of antisemitism already? Yes. It was pretty much... Did you have any contact personally with non-jews? No, not at all, unless they came when my father had to make the payroll. He pays them, but that s all. Otherwise... Jewish. How about at school? No, we were just the Jewish crowd. Jewish girls were around. Friends I have were You went to a Jewish school? Yes. Dora, tell me what your first memories are of the war. How old were you? I ll tell you my first memories. It just strikes me right... the day when my mother passed away. My mother died in [In] 1939 the war broke out. 6 In 1940, in April, my 5 The antisemitic atmosphere increased in Poland during the 1930 s. At the universities, Jews experienced discrimination and exclusion. Unofficial quotas restricting Jewish enrollment to around 10 percent was introduced at some universities. Jewish students often endured harassment. Most were required to sit in segregated areas of the classroom known as ghetto benches [Polish: getto ławkowe]. There was physical violence as well. Right-wing students frequently assaulted their Jewish classmates. In Lodz, organized attacks wounded and killed Jews in April 1933, May 1934 and in September An economic boycott of Jewish businesses was in full force by At Wealthy Jews were arrested in 1938 and guards were placed outside Jewish shops to prevent non-jewish customers from entering them. 6 World War II officially began in Europe when Germany invaded Poland on September 1,

6 mother died. The reason [was] because my father, at the time like everybody I m sure whatever they possessed, their jewelry, all kind expensive things... He built like a double wall in it and we get somebody there to help him do it, to bring the materials and everything. At the time he got through building it, the Gestapo came. 7 They took him and they told him to give everything back what he had taken. They beat him up and they brought him home. We... and of course, he just opened up the whole thing. [He] told them, Go ahead. Take what you want, and the whole... not just ours, but our relatives, and the families, everybody accumulated what they possess. They put it in... like a vault but it was with cement just like a wall. Then again, they took him. That went on for a few days. My mother, the only thing what she said, she said, Children, I don t know if I m going to live through that. I just can t do it. That was in April and it was Pesach. 8 We, of course, didn t have the Pesach like she was used to it. The first seder, after she went to sleep and I can see her right now, beautiful with the beautiful gown, she was laying in a bed all of a sudden she jumped up. She said, I don t feel good. Just like this. That was Friday night. We were without a mother which to us was, at the time... I just... I was unconscious. I didn t know. I just didn t believe and I didn t want to believe what happened. The doctor came and he told me... I don t know... This was... This was in I mean in 1940, in April. Is this in the ghetto? 7 An abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei, which means Secret State Police. It was established in 1934 and placed under Heinrich Himmler. With virtually unlimited powers, it was highly feared. The Gestapo acted to oppress and persecute Jews and other opponents of the Nazis, including rounding up Jews throughout Europe for deportation to extermination camps. 8 Pesach [Hebrew: Passover] is an eight-day holiday that celebrates the anniversary of Israel s liberation from Egyptian bondage. Unleavened bread, matzah, is eaten in memory of the unleavened bread prepared by the Israelite during their hasty flight from Egypt, when they had not time to wait for the dough to rise. On the first two nights of Passover, the seder, the central event of the holiday is celebrated. The seder service is one of the most colorful and joyous occasions in Jewish life. In 1940, Pesach lasted from April 23 until April 29. 6

7 Yes, in the ghetto, definitely. In your home? In the ghetto. Where we used to live, yes. Your home was in the... No. [This was] in the ghetto. We moved. You moved there. Yes. Let s go back. Going to the ghetto: When did that occur? That was in... when they opened and made the ghetto, we were there. 9 I had a job which [was a] very good kind. I don t know. You would call it prestigious job... in the Fleishzentrum [German: meat center]. 10 What? In the Fleishzentrum. Like a meat company. We gave rations to the people on the rations cards. I was registering the cards. I was sitting... registering the cards. People came in. They... sometimes I walked with my books and they wouldn t let me through. I couldn t... so they picked me up and [carried me] through the crowd. They were waiting for me, to get a piece of meat for a whole month, for a week. People stayed there since four o clock in the morning and then it was out. We just didn t have any more and they had to go home with nothing. This was in the ghetto? 9 On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established. It was to be established on 4.13 square kilometers (almost 1.6 square miles) in the northern neighborhoods of Baluty, Stare Miastro (Old Town), and Marysin. The ghetto was publically announced in February Jews were to move in by April 19 and Poles and ethnic Germans were to move out of the neighborhoods by the end of April. In March and April 1940, the Germans encircled the ghetto with a barbed wire and wooden fence. On April 30, the gates closed on its 163,777 residents. 10 In the Lodz ghetto, a system of food cards was introduced. They were used to divide food supplied to the ghetto by the German authorities. Ghetto inhabitants stood in line for hours on end to receive their meager food rations. Distribution of different foods took place in different locations throughout the ghetto. Bread and other food were distributed only once every few days and families were forced to make do with what was distributed until the next food distribution. This policy required careful rationing among families. 7

8 In the ghetto, yes. A piece of meat. We had... usually we get a little piece of salami or a piece of meat and I put it away to bring it home for my father. One [time]... but I was eating... We were not supposed to take it out from the place, but I made at home little hamburgers from coffee grinds. We had coffee grinds, and we pasted some together, and we made little hamburgers. I took it with me. I ate that and the piece of meat or the salami, I took it home for my father. One time, it was really... [the crowd] saw me eating. They were screaming that I was eating the meat. I showed it to one [and said], Look, what I m eating. Look what I... Then they just... They couldn t say anything. This was in which ghetto? In the Lodz ghetto... Then we had... We just lived with the day. [The Germans] came, they took this one, they took that one... We had to go downstairs. We lived in this first floor and everybody had to go downstairs. They packed people on the trucks and the rest go back. Every day, we didn t know what would happen to us. It was... We had a pretty miserable life. Let s back up a little bit to when the German s came in. Before you went into the ghetto or the ghetto was formed, what were the things that went through your family s mind? Were there options that you considered? We just survived. Especially my family said, Oh, that won t last long. Oh, this and this... We could do that. Everybody took it so easy in the beginning. Then in time we have seen people come [from] France. 11 They were in such a bad shape, and we, but we moved in first, we were in, in a little small, very small apartment, four families. One French woman was there with her legs swollen. Her whole body was swollen. They didn t live long because they 11 Dora is likely referring to the over 41,000 Jews who were also consolidated in the Lodz ghetto from the fall of 1941: 2,900 came from the Kujawy region; 18,000 to 18,500 came from localities near Lodz; and 19,954 arrived from Prague, Vienna, Luxembourg, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Emden, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne. 8

9 took it just too hard. 12 With us, we were just like cats. You throw them down, they get on the ground, and they stay on their feet. That was with us, especially with the Polish Jews. They brought Jews from France to the Lodz ghetto? Yes, a lot of them. They came and they were in bad, bad shape. They were hungry and swollen... just their whole bodies were swollen. just followed. What were you told by the Germans before you went to the ghetto? Nothing. They just did their own thing and that s it. That s what we have to do. We Did your whole family go together? That s right, yes. Tell me about the daily routine in the ghetto. We just went to work. I had my job. We got home and we just were sitting. That s all. [We] just talk about all kinds of things: what would happen and when the whole thing be over, what s going to happen. We just... particular... had a different thing, because we couldn t just get over it the loss of our mother. That s what hurt us very badly, and especially my father. He was very, very depressed. We were very close family, very close. We just couldn t believe it, that what happened. Every day, every chance I had, I went to the cemetery. 13 Then I went one time to the cemetery with a friend of mine. She said she wants to go with me. She went 12 West European Jews, in particular, found adjusting to the ghetto s economic realities difficult. About half never found jobs. West European Jews were also overrepresented among the tens of thousands who died in the ghetto from starvation and disease. About 50 percent of the deaths between October 1941 and May 1942 were West European Jews. 13 Established in 1892, the Lodz Jewish Cemetery (also known as the New Jewish Cemetery and commonly referred to as the cemetery at Marysin ) was once the largest Jewish cemetery in Poland and one of the largest in the world. It was enclosed in the western portion of the ghetto. The cemetery remained in use during the ghetto s existence and largely survived the war. A second, smaller cemetery was also enclosed in the eastern portion of the ghetto. The Old Jewish Cemetery had been established in 1811 but few people were buried there after the New Jewish Cemetery had been established. During the war, some of the headstones were pulled down and, by the 1960 s, it had been entirely covered over by developers. 9

10 with me. It start pouring and thundering. She was under a tree and [lightning] struck. At the time, was just unbelievable. She was struck by lightning? Yes. That s something! Could you go to the cemetery whenever you wanted to? Yes, because it was in the... Inside the ghetto? Yes. At least it was one thing we had the cemetery. Because then we... everyday, some of the people were dying. 14 Your whole family stayed together during the time in the ghetto? Yes. When were you separated? They took my brother away first. That was a short time after my mother died. My brother, he says he just wanted to go away or he was going to Russia like... Everybody was running. People didn t know where, but they were just running. They took him. Then they took him back. They informed us that he s in the ghetto in the hospital. When we went to see him, there was nothing to see much. He must have weighed at the time maybe fifty pounds and he was tall... They didn t let us near him. We just watched him die. How long a period of time was it from when they took him away to Conditions in the Lodz ghetto declined rapidly. In the first months of the ghetto s existence, daily food rations equaled about 1,800 calories per person. By mid-1942, they had decreased to 600 calories. Most Jews subsisted on a daily bowl of watery cabbage or potato soup, a piece of bread, and a small evening snack of radish greens of potato peels. Paltry heating rations meant most residents did not have heating or hot water for bathing and laundry. The poor conditions contributed to outbreaks of typhus and dysentery. In 1942, the annual death toll in the ghetto peaked at 18,000. Overall, 45,327 people died in the ghetto. 10

11 That must have been about three months later they brought him back. I don t know why, but they just brought him back. You don t know where he was taken to in that three months? No, they took him to... No. Like they said they took him to work. When they brought him back... He was just... No... He says he s going to Russia with some friends, and he s going to help us, he s going to send for us. But they must have caught him on the way. When they sent him back, he just was... He just didn t know what he was talking about. He had lungs with the... Tuberculosis? 15 Yes. He had tuberculosis, so they didn t want us near him. How about your sisters? My oldest sister was with me all the time. She didn t want to let go of me. You were the baby? I was the baby. My older sister was like a mother to us when my mother passed away and we were pretty close. Then when they say, This is it, the ghetto... They got rid of all the people from the ghetto, so we were hiding. 16 We were hiding with my sister and that little boy and her husband, they took him before so we all went together. Finally, they came, they found our hiding place, and they got us all. They took us to a... That was when they took us to 15 Tuberculosis (commonly known simply as TB ) is a potentially fatal contagious disease that mainly affects the lungs. 16 Between January 1, 1943 and March 31, 1943, German SS and police authorities deported approximately 105,000 Jews from Lodz to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first major deportation from Lodz took place from December 21, 1941 through May 15, A total of 57,064 people were sent to Chelmno. A major deportation Aktion took place on September 1-2 and 5-12, ,682 children, elderly and infirm Jews were sent to their deaths at Chelmno. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis decided to destroy the Lodz ghetto. By then, Lodz was the last remaining ghetto in Poland, with a population of approximately 75,000 Jews in May In June and July 1944 the Germans resumed deportations. By August 1944 the ghetto had been completely liquidated. Some Jews were sent to a temporarily reopened Chelmno and murdered. Most were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some Jews were kept to clean out the ghetto and when the Russians liberated the city in January 1945 only about 900 Jews were still alive. Another 10,000 to 20,000 survived in concentration camps. 11

12 Auschwitz-Birkenau. When we went on the... trains, it was very, very, very bad. We were all packed... When was this? That was when they got rid of the ghetto, when they liquidated the ghetto. We went to Auschwitz-Birkenau. I remember when they opened the doors, we saw a lot of the SS people. 17 They [sorted us and said,] This way, the other way... That was is in Auschwitz-Birkenau? That was in Auschwitz-Birkenau. You stayed together the whole time in the ghetto? Yes, we were together. They took my father away. They took my sister and myself and went opposite side. The other sister with the child... they want to separate them to take the child and my sister with us, and she didn t want to let go of the child. She screamed and she hollered. She didn t want to let go of the child. They just didn t know what to do with her. They took her away from... the... This is the oldest sister? The younger one. With the oldest sister I was all the time, to the last thing. We got to Liberation.... to the liberation, yes. 17 The SS or Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. It began at the end of 1920 as a small, permanent guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz made up of Nazi Party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. Later, in 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and renamed the Schutz-Staffel. Under Himmler s leadership, it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich. Under Himmler s command, it was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II. 12

13 Let s talk a little more about the ghetto. I have a couple more questions about the ghetto. Do you know if there was resistance in the ghetto? Not in our ghetto. I don t know, it was not like in [the Warsaw] ghetto. 18 In our ghetto, it was not much... It was a smaller place, much smaller, and everybody just mind their own business. It was hard. Everybody has plenty trouble, problems on themselves. It was not as much... not obvious. Were there newspapers or any communications, art? We went to... As young kids, we had our organizations, we had our shows, we had... just like young adults. We had a good time. 19 There was a little bit of normal life in the ghetto? No. Yes, a little bit, but in the back of our mind, something else was... back. 20 Did any people leave the ghetto to work? Yes, a lot of people. They left to work and they brought them back. They came 18 The first mass deportations from the Warsaw, Poland ghetto began in July In just ten days, nearly 65,000 Jews were deported. They were told they were being resettled to the east to work but instead they were transported to Treblinka death camp where they were murdered. A second major wave of deportation started in January By this time, most of the Jews knew what had happened to those deported before them and they did not go voluntarily to the trains, but instead hid in bunkers and a number of armed Jews opened fire on SS guards leading a deportation column. This resistance surprised the Germans who could no longer move through the ghetto without resistance or fill the trains quickly and efficiently and the deportations were discontinued until April 19, This time the entire ghetto was to be liquidated. Stiff resistance met the Germans and again they temporarily withdrew, but returned in full force with 850 soldiers, tanks and armored cars. The Germans literally destroyed the ghetto building-by-building, block-by-block, burning and demolishing the ghetto one street at a time. The resistance continued for three weeks until May 8, Despite grim living conditions, the Lodz ghetto sustained a variety of cultural activities. Religious observance continued until September Poets, writers and musicians presented works in soup kitchens and at a cultural hall. The cultural events enabled individuals to forget their isolation, hunger, and despair for a time. 20 Approximately 13,00 people were sent to 160 forced labor camps from Lodz, primarily in Poznan, building the autobahn [German highway system]. The Germans also often captured men for forced labor or the Judenrat would supply workers. Forced labor involved backbreaking work such as street cleaning, repairing the roads, draining swampy fields, or digging trenches and canals. 13

14 What kind of work did they do the ones that they took out of the ghetto to work on a daily basis? They [took them] to different kind of factories. We had a lot of factories in the ghetto, a lot of things. We had like clothing [factories]. We had straw factories. It was a lot of people working in the ghetto itself. 21 Did you have doctors? Yes, we had doctors. 22 As a matter of fact, we had a doctor where we lived. My neighbor was a doctor. By the time when my mother died... When she said she doesn t feel good, we went to get the doctor. By the time he came to the house, she was already gone. Yes, we had doctors. It was like life went on, but not the way we want it. We were [living] the way we were ordered. Was there leadership in the ghetto that you knew of? We had leaders. We had [Chaim] Rumkowski. 23 We had... what s his other name? [We had] a committee. 24 We had [unintelligible; 24:05; sounds like Proshke ]. We had... It was... How was it organized? There was a leader In October 1940, authorities began to develop workshops in the ghetto. By July 1942, there were 74 ghetto workshops. Some 90 percent of all production was for the Wehrmacht [German army]. German department stores placed most of the remaining orders. Over 53,000 workers labored 10 to 14 hours a day in poorly ventilated, overcrowded workshops. 22 Until the September 1942 deportations, health services in the ghetto functioned relatively normally with seven hospitals and multiple pharmacies, clinics and emergency rooms. 23 Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski ( ) was a Polish Jew, engineer and wartime businessman appointed by Nazi Germany as the head of the Judenrat in the Lodz Ghetto during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. Rumkowski is a controversial figure: some see him as a savior and others call him a willing German collaborator. Rumkowski voluntarily surrendered tens of thousands of Jews to certain death on the German s demand, including women and children, based on his belief that if the Jews cooperated with the Germans and if Jewish labor became indispensable, at least some of them would be saved. 24 To assist in managing the large communities within ghettos, German authorities installed a hierarchy of Jewish administrative units under their control. The Judenrat or Ältestenrat was a Council of Jewish leaders established in the various ghettos and Jewish communities of Nazi-occupied Europe. They were installed to manage the communities and provide the Germans with forced laborers. 14

15 Yes, there was a leader.... and a committee? Yes, sure. They have meetings and they have all this... Usually the SS people told them whatever they want [them] to do. They told them and they just communicated with us. They did what the Germans ordered? Yes. We had our own police. They were miserable... I won t express myself what they were, but they were police. 25 They were nacht [German: not]... the Germans to... Did the leadership do anything for the ghetto? If there were problems, did they get They tried, but I don t think they did much. They couldn t do much. They were not in such a [level of] power where they could do it by themselves. They couldn t do much. 26 You don t feel it affected your life very much, the organization of the ghetto? No, we didn t... Mostly we didn t get along with it because we thought they were on the German s side, but we just... They did their job. Were the Jews transported from your ghetto to the death camps? Were you aware of that at the time that there were Jews taken there? We didn t know exactly. There were rumors, but we didn t know until we ourselves experienced the whole thing. I was there. I was in the... where the... what you call the burning A Judischer Ordnungsdienst [German: Jewish Ghetto Police; also known as the OD] was established by the Germans to keep order in occupied areas and often were responsible for rounding up Jews selected for forced labor or deportation. They were often referred them to as the Jewish Police. 26 Forced to implement Nazi policy, the Jewish councils remain a controversial and delicate subject. Jewish council chairmen had to decide whether to comply or refuse to comply with German demands to, for example, list names of Jews for deportation. Some Jewish council officials advocated compliance, believing that cooperation would ensure the survival of at least a portion of the population. The members of the Jewish councils faced impossible moral dilemmas. Often forgotten in the debates over the culpability of the Jewish councils and the Jewish police are the efforts of many Jewish council members and officials in their employ to provide a variety of social, economic, and cultural services under the brutal and difficult conditions in the ghettos. 15

16 The crematorium? The crematorium. I was there. I was in Birkenau. 27 They took us there... like we were taking a bath. They shaved us completely. I had really beautiful, gorgeous, blond beautiful hair. I was young. The SS man, when he shaved my head, and I looked up at him, and my... I didn t cry. I smiled, but my tears came down my face. I smiled and I said, Ach, G-d. I m gonna outlive you. 28 This I ll never forget. I passed out. I fainted. They took me outside. My sister ran after me, so when I was outside... and the rest probably went to the crematoriums. I don t know. It was just a miracle. They sent me to the barracks. I was on the ground. We were laying on a cement floor. 29 This was in Auschwitz-Birkenau? Right. I still have problems in my spine, in my back since then. I was laying on the floor, on the cement floor. Every morning, at three o clock in the morning, we had to go out, [even] in the wintertime. They gave us clothes. Heavy people, a heavy woman, they had a [very small] size, maybe 5. The small, little ones had bigger clothes, on purpose. When we went out, my sister was holding my hand because if I would go about a few feet away from her, she wouldn t recognize me. We d [wrap] papers around our legs to keep us warm because we were standing outside for the Appel [German: roll call], to count us in numbers You stayed in the ghetto in Lodz until what year? 27 Auschwitz II (also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau or simply Birkenau) had the largest total prisoner population in the camp complex. It was divided into more than a dozen sections for women, men, Roma (Gypsies), and a family camp for Jewish families deported from the Theresienstadt ghetto. Auschwitz-Birkenau also contained the facilities for a killing center, which continued gassing operations until November SS guards supervised registration processes like hair being shaved, however another prisoner would have performed the actual job of shaving the new arrivals. 29 It is likely Dora is referring to the process of being registered as a prisoner upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Part of the process involved showering before being shaved, deloused and given new clothing. It is very unlikely she would have been allowed outside for fainting and escaped the gas chambers. 16

17 I just have a couple more questions about the experience in the ghetto. If you got sick, you said you had doctors. Yes. You could get enough food? I wouldn t say enough food. We didn t have... My family particularly... they had a little more food because of my father. People didn t have enough food. Not at all. Because they get the rations for a whole month. People couldn t control themselves, so they ate the whole thing in a week or two. Then the rest two weeks they were starving. They didn t have enough. They got the bread or whatever you get... You didn t get enough unless [you had] a big family. They had... each person had a certain amount so maybe you can accumulate. If it was one person, [they] had nothing left. The ghetto, I wouldn t say was... unless you had additional things. Were there babies born in the ghetto? Yes, sure, but they took them away. They took them away. We had a hospital in the ghetto. They took on the truck... I ll never forget. It must have been on the fifth floor the maternity ward so from the windows they threw the babies on the truck. 30 Marty: On Lagiewnicka [Street]. I seen it. That s exactly right, yes. What s that? He said the street where it was. They took them? None of the babies were allowed to live? 30 Some 2,306 children were born in the Lodz ghetto during its existence. The incident Dora is referring to occurred on September 1, 1942, as part of a major Aktion. Three Jewish hospitals in the ghetto Lagiewnicka, Drenowska and Wesola Streets were surrounded and brutally emptied by the Germans. The children s hospital on Lagiewnicka Street was four stories tall and the Germans, rather than walking up and down the stairs with the children, just threw them out the window to the street below. 17

18 No. Then when they had all people together, they came in a... like a house project, apartment house, and they told everybody Out, everybody, so everybody had to go out. They went into the apartments, and they looked up, if somebody was hiding. They took everybody down. They had great big trucks... [they would select] this one; that one... One time they came. They didn t like redheads. All the redheads [were sent] on the truck. Children were the worst off. But it was a generation... Those children... I wouldn t say they were smiling. It was just something... like sent from G-d, just unbelievable, intelligent, mature... A six year old child would say, Mutti [German: mother], listen, go ahead. I know they want you to live. They don t want me. [It was] just unbelievable how small they were, just like a special generation. They know everything what went on. It was hard, but the worst off were the children. They took all the kids. First thing, whoever came with children, they just threw them on the trucks and took them away. This was all in the ghetto? Yes, that was in the ghetto, and that went on every week, twice a week. They took each time more, and more, and more. In the morning, we get up, I went to this one [and said], Oh, she s gone. That one gone... It was just less and less. Now your sister still had her child with her in the ghetto, is that right? Yes, my sister still had a child in the ghetto. That s right. She was able to avoid being picked up? Yes, that s right. We were hiding him so they couldn t find him. They were... When we were outside with so many people, we put him under the clothes or in the back of us so they wouldn t see him. [When] they took enough people out, they said, Okay, now everybody back. We just went back to the apartment. We were holding him right between us. 18

19 Dora, do you know if there were any religious ceremonies in the ghetto? Yes. One time... They had synagogues. We had the most gorgeous, famous synagogue in the ghetto, which they burned. 31 Right then they set a fire in the synagogue. Anyway, we had very religious people rabbis. Where we were living, we could see through the window. It was like a little park. They make a great big grave and they put all those people with the beards... in the ground up till here <Dora is motioning of camera most likely to the neck area> and with the... What you call those? The very sharp... Swords? Swords, yes. They just cut them, and cut them, and cut them. Then they burned them. That was through the window, what we could see that. Yes, I ve seen this. The religious people... Oh, G-d. They were [just as bad off] as the children. They did all kinds of things to them. Then we had the hangings. We all had to go and to see. They were hanging people, for what they say something or didn t agree with them, so they hanged them. We had to go pass by and watch them. 32 Every day, it seems like... concentration camp. Yes. That was [the German s] pleasure in the ghetto. We re talking about the How were your religious beliefs affected by the ghetto experience? Right now, I ll tell you... When I said... If something like that could happen to such a beautiful people rabbis, parents... It couldn t be anything [more] beautiful than that 31 There were three well-known synagogues in Lodz. The orthodox synagogue, the Alte Shul [Polish: Old Town] or the Stara [Polish: old] synagogue, was a tall, very beautiful wooden structure that opened in The Great Synagogue [Polish: Wielka Synagoga; often referred to as The Temple ) was a reform synagogue that opened in At the time, it was the largest structure in the heart of the city. A third synagogue, the Vilker Shul, was opened in All three were completely burned and demolished after the German occupation of Lodz. 32 It is unclear when the incidents Dora refers to occurred but upon occupying Lodz on September 8, 1939, the Germans unleashed three months of sustained anti-jewish violence. Hangings and killings occurred frequently in the ghetto as well. 19

20 our parents and very religious people... If something like this could happen to them, [I wondered,] Where is G-d? Where was God? We just... I don t know. In my mind, I said... [if] it wouldn t be for my children... Otherwise I just don t care. Because our parents... To us... We believed in our parents. We worshipped our parents. It s so many... it s rich... I knew rabbis who lived not far from us also. [I thought,] If something like this could happen to such a people... So what? Where are we? What could be? I don t know. We were kosher. 33 We were religious and everything. Now I just... I believe in G-d, I m doing things for my children, but deep in my heart, I said, No. Where were you? Why couldn t you... I don t know some kind perform a miracle or something to kill those bastards that they could do such and so much harm to young kids and to such a beautiful people? Were you aware of any help from non-jews from outside the ghetto? Not much at all. I don t think. There were a few hidden [Jews], but it s just No, not that I know of. Maybe I don t remember because a lot of things, I really don t remember. Maybe I don t want it because I just want to bury it with me. It s just too much to live with it. that you went to? You ve talked about concentration camps. What s the name of camps you were in or 33 Kosher/Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws that dictate how food is prepared or served and which kinds of foods or animals can be eaten. 34 Rescuing or helping Jews was extremely difficult and dangerous. In an attempt to discourage Poles from helping the Jews and to destroy any efforts of the resistance, the Germans applied a ruthless retaliation policy, which included the death penalty for the entire family or household of anyone who concealed a Jew. It is estimated that the Germans may have killed tens of thousands of Poles for aiding Jews. Poles who helped Jews "in any way (including simply selling goods or food to Jews) risked execution or imprisonment in labor and concentration camps. In addition to the terror instilled by the Germans, antisemitism and conflicting political loyalties among Poland s ethnically diverse population made the fear of denunciation too great for many Poles to risk helping Jews. The inadequacy of food rations further limited the ability of many Poles to provide assistance. Nonetheless, Poles constitute the largest national group within the Righteous Among the Nations recognized by Yad Vashem. As of January 1, 2016, Yad Vashem has recognized 6,620 Poles. There is no official number of how many Polish Jews were hidden by their Christian countrymen during wartime, although estimates are that between 30,000 to 35,000 Jews (or one percent of Polish Jews) were saved with the help of non-jewish Poles. 20

21 I was in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was in Bergen-Belsen. I was in Torgau [and] Elsnig. 35 I think that was the main [camp where] we were. I worked in the... underground We walked every single day eight miles both ways. At night we worked. One week, we worked in the day. When we worked at night, we were not allowed to take a bath or to do anything, nothing, just to work in those... to grenades... a great big... It was so heavy and twice it fell on my leg. Was this rocks? No, grenades, bombs. That s what I worked. They took me on stretchers back. My sister and somebody else had to carry me for so many miles back to the camp because I couldn t walk. It fell on my leg. My face was yellow, all of us, because we worked with the... ammunition. My face was yellow, my eyes were red the whites were red and my hair were red. I didn t have much hair I had a crew cut but it was red, and my whole body, my skin was yellow Torgau is a town in eastern Germany near Leipzig. Elsnig is a town located about 8 kilometers (5 miles) to the north of Torgau Labor camps were established in both towns in the fall of The camps were relatively small subcamps of Buchenwald. They were established to house female prisoners used for munitions production. The prisoners worked for the Westfälisch-Anhaltische Sprengstoff-Actien-Gesellschaft (WASAG) and its chemical plant in Elsnig. Dora seems to have been housed in Elsnig but worked in Torgau. Elsnig was relatively small and surrounded by electrified barbwire. It consisted of several wooden barracks, a wash barracks, kitchen and infirmary. The first prisoners arrived on October 10, They were 750 Polish Jewish women from Bergen-Belsen who had previously been in Polish ghettos and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Twelve SS men and 26 female overseers guarded the prisoners. An electrified barbed-wire fence also surrounded the camp at Torgau. The buildings consisted of a brick building, some barracks and a few support buildings, which included an infirmary, kitchen barracks, tailor and a wash building. Twenty-five female overseers who had worked in local industries and had been sent to Ravensbruck for a short training course watched the prisoners. Some survivors describe foreman who would scream and beat the prisoners. 36 From March 1945, as a result of the lack of supplies and the approach of the Allied troops, work ceased in Torgau. Some of the women were then used to drag boxes of dynamite into underground bunkers in the forests around Torgau. 37 In Torgau, the women worked in two shifts producing bombs and grenades and cleaning unexploded ordnance. This was a dangerous activity in and of itself but the chemicals used to wash the inside of the bombs damaged the women s lungs and skin. The women who worked in the chemical factory in Elsnig produced explosive materials used in bombs and grenades. The women were exposed to poisonous and acidic substances, with no protective clothing provided. On contact, the TNT (trinitrotoluene) the women produced caused irritated the skin, turning it a bright yellow-orange color. 21

22 Were you part of a transport? Let s talk about Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the first camp you came to. Were you or your family part of a transport to the camp? No, not with the families. You and your sister? Just me and my sister. That s all. Let s back up then. Your brother died in the ghetto. Then your older sister and you... That s all that was left my sister and myself. Your father died... In Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everybody, all of them were gone in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everybody came to Auschwitz-Birkenau at the same time? Yes. Your sisters? Not my brother. My brother died in the ghetto. Your brother died in the ghetto, but your two sisters, and you, and your father were part of the same transport to Auschwitz? That s right. You were separated there from your father? Yes, from my father, my sister, and her little child. She went with her [son]? Yes, she went with her child. Were you aware this... That was when the liquidation of the ghetto... 22

23 That s when the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto occurred? When I left, yes, it was the liquidation of the ghetto. That was in Which month? Do you have any idea? It was in the beginning. I think in February. When you came to Auschwitz-Birkenau, were you aware of a selection process going on when you arrived? You get to an extent where you just don t know. Not that this... My mind was [only focused on the idea that], I want my father and my sister at my side. That s what I wanted. I couldn t get it, so that s what was bothering me. Then I just went like... They pushed me up. [They said,] Go. I just didn t care for much [else]. I couldn t concentrate anymore because I knew that my father was gone, my sister. I knew something would happen to them because they didn t went with us. Did you ever find out what happened to your father? No. There s no way. I assumed what happened to them, but I didn t have anybody who would tell me what happened to them and where he was. I just used my own judgment. How about your sister that went with her child? Also, the same way. She went with my father. I m sure she went to the crematorium with her child. If she would give up the child, [if] she would let him go, she would be with us because my sister and myself they pushed us right on other side and said we go to work. What do you remember about your first days in Auschwitz-Birkenau? Which camp? 23

24 At Auschwitz-Birkenau. We just lived like animals. That s all. We waited for the little soup what they gave us. We had beatings. You couldn t move and they just... It was just very bad. Then they needed people to work, so they tried to select people. We went through a big selection. They sent us to Bergen-Belsen. Over there, we did nothing. We just relax. [We had] very little to eat, almost as nothing a piece of bread and a soup a day. That s all we had for about three weeks. After three weeks, we graduated already. They sent us to a real concentration camp. 38 Bergen-Belsen was a little brake for you? Yes, [unintelligible; 42:28] in German, like you go here just to nosh [Yiddish: eat]... <unintelligible conversation with Marty>... Yes, pretty much. Why were you sent to Bergen-Belsen before Torgau? Before it, because I was skinny. I was a skinny kid always, so when we were there... just to relax. I don t know. Not to gain weight. It was... that s what we called that camp. You stayed with your sister? Yes. Then from Bergen-Belsen you were shipped to... Torgau [and] Elsnig. Over there, I stayed with my sister all the time. We... worked. Sometimes when my sister had a break, she went to the kitchen to peel potatoes. She was so lucky to bring back a potato to the camp. We had a fire in the middle. She put in a potato. When the SS [guard] came in... all the... one who took care of us... the... Marty: The Stubenalteste [German: house or block elders]. 38 A transport of 250 women from Auschwitz-Birkenau arrived at Torgau on November 18, Some of them were so weak they were fed bread, margarine, jam, sausage and twice daily soup for two weeks just to get them to the point where they could work. The accommodations were relatively clean and the women were allowed to sing and organize cultural activities. When the women began to work, the food diminished in quantity. They were given only soup while they worked and bread once a week. 24

25 The Stubenalteste. Yes, but [English speakers] don t understand Stubenalteste. It s like a... Marty: Foreman. Like a foreman, but they were just girls. I m telling you, I wish I would find one now. I wish I would find her, believe me. She would be... a foreman. When they came in... When they came in, she noticed, she smelled... garlic, and she beat us. I m telling you, she really... a Jewish girl! Were there any attempts at resistance in the camps? We had armed barbed wires around the camp. It was just 750 women. We hadn t seen any men. We didn t even know that men exist. Every morning when we got up, we see another body clinging to the wires. Sometimes I just looked at that, I said, Oh, my G-d, I wish I could do that. I wouldn t have my sister with me, maybe I would do it. She always begged me, We going to outlive them. We re going to live through. We going to... A lot of people... Anyway, we did work. At night, they took us to work. A lot of them, they were crying. [German guards] were with machine guns. They were escorting us to and from work. One was... [some guards] spoke a little Polish. He had a piece of bread. Every night when we walked, he just give to somebody else a piece of bread, additional slice of bread. Some of them [were] really very nice. These were guards? Guards with machine guns. They escorted us to the work. We worked underground. There was one guard at least that... 25