1 MEMOIRIST: INTERVIEWER: LOCATION: DATE: <Begin Disk 1> THE WILLIAM BREMAN JEWISH HERITAGE MUSEUM CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS PROJECT (CHS) LOLA BORKOWSKA LANSKY ERNA MARTINO ATLANTA, GEORGIA UNDATED INTERVIEW BEGINS Erna: I am Ema Martino, and we re having an interview for Children of Holocaust Survivors in Atlanta, Georgia. Would you please give me your name? Lola: I m Lola Borkowska Lansky. Ema: Where do you live? Lola: I live in Atlanta, Georgia. Ema: Can you tell me when you were born? Lola: I was born on November 19, 1926 in the city of Lodz L-O-D-Z Poland [Polish: Łόdź]. 1 It was the industrial city of Lodz it was like a Manchester [England] the second largest Jewish community in Poland next to its capital, Warsaw. Erna: Tell me something about your family. How many people lived in your house, the names of your brothers and sisters, and so on. Lola: Well, I have a year-older brother, Louis, and a sister a year younger. I would say we were not very wealthy, but we were not very poor either. We were sort of middle-class, if you 1 Lodz was a large textile manufacturing city and Jewish cultural center about 75 miles from Warsaw. The Germans occupied it on September 8, 1939 and renamed it Litzmannstadt. Even before the ghetto was set up Jews were deported in waves and by March 1940 almost 70,000 Jews had already been forced out or fled the city voluntarily. On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established. By August 1944 the ghetto had been completely liquidated. Some Jews were sent to a temporarily re-opened Chelmno and murdered. Most were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
2 can classify it as such. I had some ties with a smaller community that may never be... or is possibly... not registered at all. My real mother died when I was about five or six years old. She died in 1931, and she was 54. She had tuberculosis. My father married my mother s sister, and she raised us. In this interview whenever I talk about my mother, I will mean my stepmother and my mother that raised me. They came from a small community it was about 27 kilometers from Lodz. My father was raised there, my mother was raised there, [and] both my maternal and paternal grandparents came from there. When my father came back from the army he served three years in the First World War he moved to the city of Lodz with my mother. This is how I was born there, and we lived there until the outbreak of World War II. Erna: What was the name of the community? Lola: It was called Ozorkow [Polish: Ozorków], 2 Parzeczew [Polish: Parzęczew.] Now my grandfather my maternal grandfather lived there for generations. That s all I had to do was say I am Shia s wnuczka Shia s granddaughter I had no idea who he was. Maybe it was my great-grandfather. My grandfather had a bakery and some tenants, and in the back not too far away was a Jewish mikveh 3 of course its Jewish and a very old synagogue, supposedly 500 years old when the war broke out. The Polish government paid for the upkeep of this synagogue because it was a historical site. So before Lodz or Ozorkow became cities, Parzeczew, according to my grandfather, had a headquarters for a famous rabbi that used to say it was more of a supply town [Maureen I listened to this several times and I really think this is what she said although it doesn t read well]. It wasn t a village and it wasn t a town there were maybe 50 families and they were very close with their Christian friends. Now why I m talking about that little town [is] because every summer when school was finished in the city of Lodz, my mother would be already packed ready to go home, and we used to spend our summers there, and I had 2 Ozorkow was a textile manufacturing community and before the wars Jews were prominent as owners and workers. In the 1930s the Jews were the target of much antisemitism as the Poles blamed them for the general economic situation, which was bad. When World War II broke out, some 5,000 Jews were confined in a ghetto were workshops were opened. Over 1,000 Jews worked outside the ghetto in a German factory. In 1941 many Jews from Ozorkow were sent to labor camps in Poznan, Poland and the surrounding area. Between May 21 and 23, 1942, about 2,000 Jews were deported to the Chelmno death camp and murdered. In August 1942 the remaining 1,800 Jews were sent to the Lodz ghetto to work. 3 A mikveh is a pool of water, gathered from rain or from a spring, which is used for ritual purification and ablutions.
3 very, very pleasant memories being there in this community. There was a big church in the middle of it, and a square around it, and streets going in all directions. Unfortunately, I didn t know one street led to Chelmno. 4 On the 30 th anniversary of the end of World War II, my husband and I went back to Poland and particularly wanted to go back to this small community. Erna: Let me ask you, what did your father do for a living? Lola: By profession he was a tailor a custom-made tailor but he worked at a textile factory Geyer s Factory it was a German factory. He was a pattern-maker and a designer. They used machines to cut out the work that was given out to tailors to be made up for the colonies. Erna: What kind of school did you go to? Lola: I went in Lodz. There were two schools there were many schools, but two Jewish schools. I imagine the Jewish committee arranged it... why there were two... one for boys and one for girls. I went to the girls school we were home Saturdays but we went to school on Sunday. You attended school six days in Poland. They were only for girls I think there were a few boys up until the third grade. My brother went to a boys school that also had only boys, and Saturday he would be home, and Sunday we would go to school. Normally the Christian community attended Saturday school and Sunday was the day off. Another thing that was different is they brought in Jewish teachers to teach us the Jewish history in Polish. I remember 4 Chelmno was the first death camp in Poland. It was opened in December 1941. It was an experiment to see if bringing the Jews to a site was more efficient that sending the Einsatzgruppen to find them, one community at a time. It was. The Jews were brought to the village of Chelmno to a manor house, where they were told to take off their clothes and leave their belongings. Then they were loaded onto trucks about 50 to 70 at a time. The trucks were specially modified so that the exhaust gas didn t go out the tailpipe but was directed up into the sealed cargo area where the Jews were loaded. As the truck drove from the village to the camp site where the mass graves were they Jews died of carbon monoxide poisoning or suffocation. When the truck arrived at the forest camp the bodies were unloaded, thrown into the mass graves and then the truck returned for more. It took about 20 minutes to make the one-way trip. Many of the Jews murdered there came from Lodz, which was about 60 miles away as well as many other small Jewish communities in the area. In March 1943 it was closed and the graves dug up, the bodies burned and the ashes returned to the pits. Then in April 1944 it was opened again briefly to receive and murder the last Jews from Lodz. Altogether, at least 125,000 Jews were murdered there although the number is probably higher.
4 my grandfather used to have a fit when I told him the bible in Polish that I learned in school. As far as the curriculum goes, it was quite advanced. We even had chemistry of course it was simplified according to the standards today, but nevertheless we had singing, music, cooking, geography and world history. I just finished my sixth grade and we went on vacation, but there were rumors about the war, so my mother and my father came back earlier to the city of Lodz. Lola: What was Sabbath and the holidays like where you were living? Lola: I have two versions of it. I can think back on my grandfather, who was a very orthodox Jew. Both of them [were orthodox], the paternal [grandfather] too, but I watched my maternal [grandfather] getting ready for the Sabbath, the joy in his eyes and going to the mikveh and preparing for the Sabbath. I still remember that, because he truly believed that. My father was already more reform. I didn t see that, but we had a kosher, Jewish home, so the holidays were very much observed. Sometimes if you had to do something on Saturday you would, but not on purpose. Erna: Did you have Jewish and non-jewish friends? Lola: Yes. I had friends from my school and the neighbors. There was a neighbor that was a Jewish friend as a matter of fact, we took her with us my mother invited her to come with us on vacation to the small town of Parzeczew. Erna: You mean a non-jewish girl? Lola: A non-jewish girl... she went with us for the whole summer. Erna: Was there a difference between your Jewish friends and your non-jewish friends in how they acted towards you or how you acted towards them? Lola: No, I really cannot say, because I was so involved in that stage of my life with school and studies and going on vacations back home that I really cannot tell you if there was a difference. I don t remember any. Erna: Describe how your life began to change with the coming of the Nazi movement. Lola: I started school September first, and I went to the seventh grade...
5 Erna: What year was this? Lola: 1939. All the radios were blasting in Polish: England and France declared war on Germany. The Germans attacked Poland. All able-bodied men should leave immediately for Warsaw, because they will put up a fight and defend the capital. Since my father belonged to the Jewish war veterans in Lodz he was 39 years old at this point he and his younger brother immediately left for Warsaw. My mother and three others were left in Lodz. Three days later my uncle my father s brother had a barber shop and a ladies beauty salon about two houses from us, and his store faced the streets of Grubna where we lived. We stood there on tables watching the German army march into Lodz. Erna: At that time you said you were just starting first grade in school, so how old... Lola: Seventh grade. I was twelve and a half not quite thirteen. I was twelve years old according to the American calendar. Erna: Did your relationship with your non-jewish neighbors change at this time, and if so, how? Lola: In Lodz, we were right away busy with ourselves. We didn t have too much time with our Polish-Christian neighbors. In a small town, which I like to go back to later, it was different you were more involved with them because right away there were restrictions. There were lines for bread, and the Poles would point out at you if you stood in a line that this is a Jew, and they wouldn t give you the bread. There were rations and limitations it just took a few weeks and it started. At this point I left with my brother and sister Lodz because my grandparents kept insisting that she send us home... home means to that little town. They were baking bread there and giving it out to the rations, so at least we wouldn t have to stay in a line. She didn t want to leave. She was waiting to see what happened to my father. Over there the Christians were very close with the Jewish population. My father had many, many Christian- Polish friends that served in the army with him, the mayor of the community, the captain from the police, and many, many others. Erna: What kind of orders were issued by the Nazis where you living? Lola: In Lodz?
6 Erna: Yes. Lola: We only stayed a very short time in Lodz at this point, because we left after probably four or five weeks. They said we should wear a white armband, and register for bread. People didn t move around like they do here. It s so hard for others to understand how they had such control over us. Normally even before the war I remember my father... if you moved from one place to another, you registered at the government that [so] many people live here, and this is where you reside, and this is where you re recording your residence. It would be easy for the Germans... You want bread? Register. Later it was used against us. They knew exactly how many people lived where. Erna: At that point in time, did you leave Lodz? Lola: Yes. Erna: And where did you go? Lola: We went to the little town of Parzeczew. Like I told you, it was a very old Jewish community. The cemetery dated back to the 1300 s and 1400 s way before Lodz was established. Erna: And what happened when you went back there? Lola: After about eight weeks... my father was gone six weeks [and] my mother waited for him in Lodz. He was wounded on the way, and he wound up in the Warsaw Ghetto. 5 He went to Warsaw Ghetto, he stayed through the whole battle, and then he came back. He walked back to Lodz. He was not the same man that he [was when he] left. He had gangrene in his leg, and after he recuperated, my mother and my father joined us in the little town. My father didn t know... we were given a little apartment in my grandfather s house, because there were four 5 The Jewish community in Warsaw was the largest in Poland, composing about 30% of the entire population of the city (about 337,000 Jews). Warsaw was badly damaged by the German onslaught at the start of the war in September 1939. Poland surrendered after three weeks and the Germans occupied Warsaw. In November 1939 the first anti-jewish decrees appeared, including the order that all Jews had to wear a blue Star of David on their person. More persecutions rained down that impoverished and separated the Jews of Warsaw from their neighbors and pogroms broke out. The Germans ordered the establishment of the ghetto in October 1940 and a Judenrat was set up with Adam Czerniakow as its head. The Jews of Warsaw were shoved into a small space in a poorer part of the city, which was then surrounded by a wall. Jews from the surrounding area were also pushed into the ghetto, the population at its peak was about 400,000 Jews. The conditions in the ghetto were harsh. There was not enough food, coal in the winter, shelter or basic necessities.
7 tenants besides the bakery, and the store, and all that. We stayed there, and we didn t know how he would be able to do something, to earn some money. He made... how do you say... Erna: Do you want to use a Polish word to describe it? Lola: No... well, my father made some hats. He sold custom-made hats for the managers, for the supervisors, for the people that needed to buy new hats, and instead of paying money they used to bring food. In the first part of the war, I remember, they used to take a Polish man and send him seven kilometers to the city of Orzokow to give the poultry to a shochet 6 where you killed according to Jewish law. Then after a month or so this man was caught, so after a few weeks I came to the house, and there was a chicken boiling. My mother didn t want to eat it because it wasn t kosher 7 and neither did my grandfather, so they asked me to taste the soup. My father, having a military background, was having a discussion with my grandfather that he ought to eat as long as we have the food, because we heard from so many different places we had relatives in the Warsaw ghetto, and they had no food to please eat, so we can keep or gain the strength we need for later. Erna: Did you have any idea or any warning of what was going to happen at that point in time? Lola: No. We heard that Lodz ghetto 8 is being organized, and there was also seven kilometers from that place, there was a city of Ozorkow with about five or six thousand Jews, and before the war they had a lot of textiles textiles and industrial and tailoring. They needed some tailors, [and] since we were the newest members in the city of Parzeczew, we were sent out to Ozorkow in 1940. This is how we came to Ozorkow. We were given a small room in somebody s place. 6 Hebrew: slaughterer. A shochet is a person who has been trained to slaughter animals in accordance with Jewish law. 7 Kosher/Kashrut is the set of Jewish dietary laws. Food that may be consumed according to halakhah (Jewish law) is termed kosher in English. Food that is not in accordance with Jewish law is called treif. The word kosher has become English vernacular, a colloquialism meaning proper, legitimate, genuine, fair, or acceptable. 8 On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established and Chaim Rumkowski, an engineer, was chosen to be the head of the Judenrat. Rumkowski is a controversial figure: some see him as a savior and others call him a willing German collaborator and toadie. 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, at least some of them would be saved. The living conditions in the ghetto, including food rations, were very poor because the ghetto was hermetically sealed. The mortality rate was very high. Waves of Jews from the surrounding area and Western Europe were pushed into the Lodz ghetto making the total number of Jews who passed through it at over 200,000.
8 The people of Parzeczew stayed there for another three quarters of a year, maybe a year, until they were made to move to one place in a little ghetto. Then one day we were asked to go to a pigs market where they were selling pigs, and they had six or seven people in jail for very minor offenses, like not wearing a Star of David 9 or coming from another town. They told us that morning to leave the apartment we lived in and not to take any luggage, and we were marched out to this square, and there was a hanging. They invited the Volksdeutsche, 10 which is the German population of Poland, to be the guests. They were having a good time a beer party because they were going to hang Jews. Now my aunt s brother was one of the victims that was hung [sic] that day. Her family still lived in Parzeczew, but they decided to liquidate the same day. It was all pre-planned we didn t know at the time to bring all their things to the city of Orzokow. Now the buses that brought the people from that small town... there was the mother and the father of that young man that was hung... they did see him hanging. There were brothers and sisters it was a large family they all [saw] Srulik hanging. I even have a picture of it. They were taken to a public school. After the hanging, we never returned to our homes, but we were marched to a school. There, for the first time must have been 1941 maybe we were asked to strip naked. I remember my father just looking but not really looking at us he was so uncomfortable because whole families went together. The doctors stamped A and B. My paternal grandparents were there with a grandchild they were in their 60 s healthy-looking, feeling good they were carrying a grandchild of about five years old. My aunt, my father s only sister was there this was her child they were given the letter B, she was given the letter A. When we found out that the younger people received A which meant that they will stay and work, and the B will be sent away. I must have lost that day about 20 of my family members quite a number of little cousins, since we were the oldest. My father had four brothers, and he was the oldest, so the other children were much younger than I. One aunt was taken away with two boys, five and seven [years-old]. Another aunt had a six-month old baby, and one had a girl of six. Her name was like mine Leah and she kept crying that she wants to go with us. She adored my father, and I always hear them somehow calling to our side, Please don t forget us. 9 In September 1941, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, issued a law requiring Jews over the age of six to wear a yellow Jewish star, or Magen David, on their outer garments. The star had the word Jude [German: Jew] written in Hebrew-style letters inside of it. The following year, Jews in lands under German control were also forced to wear the Star. 10 Volksdeutsche is a term the German government used beginning in the 20 th century to describe Germans living or born outside of Germany.
9 My grandmother waves, and I could see them when they re led away Please don t forget us. My aunt my father s sister wanted to go with her parents and her child. She begged the Nazis to please let her go, but because she begged, they wouldn t let her go. They pulled her hair, they knocked her down, and they wouldn t let her join her family. This is how she survived. Her husband and my uncles were already sent away to concentration camps, so there were only women and children. Now, they were sent away. After the war, we found out that they all went to Chelmno. If you see the movie Shoah, 11 this is where they went. We didn t know at the time. We were led to the Orzokow ghetto, and the ghetto was established for the first time. Now there was a lot of industry before the war in the city of Orzokow, so naturally there were established factories. We sort of felt that working means surviving, so as long as you work, you survive. My father went back to his tailoring, and he was very good at it. He made uniforms for the SS 12 custom-made uniforms. To school I didn t go, and there were no books in these small towns, so I naturally went with my father to work. To be on the safe side, I learned how to sew by hand, made buttonholes my brother, too so that means we are working, so we thought we are entitled to live. Now, I also was very young I was only 15, 14 not quite 15 and I had a young friend there he was a year older than me. He used to walk with me home. We used to hold hands. I experienced my first kiss. We gazed at the stars we wanted to live we didn t want to die. But this is as far as it went. And then we wind up in the Orzokow ghetto, and we stayed there until 1942. Erna: You stayed there as a family together? Lola: Yes. We were given a small space of course, it was horrible. So many families were divided. So many people were sent away to other places, and people just moved together they 11 Shoah is a 1985 French documentary about the Holocaust that consists of interviews and visits to Holocaust sites in Poland. Included in the film are testimonies from survivors, witnesses and German perpetrators. The title come from the Hebrew name for the Holocaust, HaShoah, which literally means the destruction. 12 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. After World War II, like the Nazi Party, it was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal and banned in Germany.
10 were all working. There was a case where they hid a child... under a coat... somebody imitated a [Maureen, I can t figure out what she is saying here 26:20-26:21] I really don t know too much about it, but I heard about it. This is how I stayed in the city of Orzokow until the liquidation. We were put on a train, and we were sent to the city of Lodz. 13 As bad as it was, I was thrilled to be there. I met my girlfriends from before the war my school-mates and really, the bad times in the Lodz ghetto were over not quite but over. What I mean... they used to really starve them to death and ship them out. I don t have too much information, but I know that when we came they started to give a little bit more food. It wasn t a lot. The only thing as a teenager you hoped you will not grow. Erna: How would you go from the Orzokow ghetto to the Lodz ghetto? Lola: There was a train. Before the war there was a train from Orzokow to Lodz. Now if you were in the growing stages, and you were hungry, it was terrible. Your organs, your lungs, your heart everything grew with you. I had a cousin who became very sick he grew very fast. I don t know if I would have grown some more maybe not. It was lucky for me I thought my brother was so tall, but he s short today, so maybe that s why we were able to survive. Erna: In the ghetto, did you know anything about the existence of death camps or what was going on in the outside world? Lola: No. We didn t. You know I have to talk about it. If they knew that workers... nobody wanted to go. There was always a demand from the Germans to have so many thousands of people ready to be shipped out. Naturally if you were sick, or they would take away your bread you were a candidate to go. The idea was not to go, because you didn t know what to expect. At least here you knew what you had, even though we were still starving, but you were together as a family. Depends the age you were in... I like to mention this because when I came to the Lodz ghetto, I was sent to a factory to sew on a machine. I taught myself, and I did it, but I was with older women, and they were reminiscing about before the war. They were
11 making Shabbos, 14 they were cooking, discussing recipes, and I was so hungry just listening to them that I told my father, I will die just listening to them. I liked other things books this was always my favorite thing to read. Even in the ghetto, I found a secret library. [I] used to light a candle when everybody else was asleep, so I could read a book. I remember one time my father found me, and he really scolded me very bad for doing that. He found out there was a school for young girls under the age of 16, and he registered me there. And it was just wonderful even though we were starving. We were young... we used to go the library, read books Darwin s Theory, for instance. We would read it, discuss it. We worked a little bit less than the general population. Then they used to bring a teacher a Jewish teacher that introduced us to Jewish poets Shalom Aleichem, 15 Peretz 16 I used to learn how to recite them in the Lodz ghetto. I felt better being in my own environment. As hungry as we were, we wanted to have a little normal life, what teenagers normally do. Erna: Was there any sort of cultural life? Lola: Yes. Even secretly, we arranged our own theater... those that were talented. In the Lodz ghetto, there were even weddings. They used to write songs many songs about the Lodz ghetto. When you re young, it s easier to be optimistic, but this was a very important characteristic to have. If you were not very optimistic, you didn t go very far. At this point, they needed workers and nobody wanted to go. They would take a group and send them away. Now this particular group they sent to Czestochowa [Polish: Czȩstochowa], 17 and they made them 14 Shabbat [Hebrew] or Shabbos [Yiddish] is the Jewish day of rest and is observed on Saturdays. Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day. Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday night and is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. It is closed the following evening with the recitation of the havdalah blessing. 15 Shalom Aleichem [Yiddish: peace be with you ] was the pen name of author and playwright Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, born in Russia in 1859. Sholem Aleichem wrote in Russian and Hebrew at first but only in Yiddish after 1883, which earned him a place as a prominent Yiddish author by 1890. As pogroms raged through Russia in 1905, Aleichem immigrated to New York City, New York but later joined his family in Geneva, Switzerland. The family moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in 1914. Sholem Aleichem died of tuberculosis and diabetes in 1916. The musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on his stories about Tevye the Milkman. 16 Isaac Leib Peretz (1852-1913), known as I.L. Peretz, was a Yiddish playwright and author. He was born in Russia but moved to Warsaw, Poland in 1889 and stayed there until his death. There are streets named after him in Poland and Israel, and a Peretz Square in Manhattan, New York. 17 Czestochowa (sometimes also spelled as Czenstochowa ), was occupied by the Germans on September 3, 1939 after which they killed randomly 300 to 500 civilians, including many Jews. A reign of terror was instituted against the Jews including pogroms in September and December 1939 in which the synagogues were destroyed and Jews murdered. In April 1941, a ghetto was created and the Jews were forced into it along with refugees from Lodz,
12 write letters back to the ghetto telling us that they have more food than in the ghetto, and they are actually working. So you didn t know who to believe. At this point, I know my husband s younger brother he was maybe 15, and a sister about 17 or 18 volunteered to go. His father died from starvation, and they were sent straight to the crematorium, but we didn t know at the time. It s after the war that he found out. So as you see, everything was done under a veil of secrecy. We did not know. Erna: Was there any sort of... was it just ceremonies? Lola: I myself was not involved in them, but I know there were religious services, and people tried to live as normally as they could. As a matter of fact, I think about three or four years ago, I went to a Lodz convention. Of all things I put down that I lived on Grubna 57. All of a sudden, I heard a man is looking for me. That s the first time that I found somebody that remembered me from before the war. A big city... you don t have the ties like you do in a small community. He happened to be our landlord s son. He was older than I, so maybe before the war he was 20, 21. And he remembered me very well. He remembered my father, my sister and my brother, and it was really nice meeting someone that you knew before the war. Erna: How was the Jewish leadership in the ghetto organized? Lola: I don t know too much about it because of my age, but I know there was everything. There were committees, and there was Rumkowski 18 in there who thought he was the king of the ghetto. They had all sorts of groups and things, and I m sure there was religious life. I know from my own experience that when it was getting [to be] 1944, I had trouble where I was Radomsko, Warsaw, Krakow, Plock and other cities. There were about 40,000 Jews in the ghetto. Many died of starvation and exposure in the harsh winter of 1941-42. On September 22, 1942 an Aktion deported about 7,000 Jews to the Treblinka death camp. Hundreds of others were murdered in the ghetto. Five more Aktions followed in late September and early November. Some 12,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka and up to 2,000 were killed in the ghetto including the residents of an old age home. During the Aktions, the able-bodied men were sent to temporary labor camps outside the city, some of them belonging to HASAG, a major ammunition manufacturer. On November 1, 1942 a small ghetto was set up for the remaining 5,185 legal Jews. In the second half of 1943, some 5,000 to 6,000 Jews were brought in from Lodz, Plaszow and Skarzysko-Kamienna to the HASAG factory sites to supplement the labor force. As the Russians approached in January 1945 the factory camps were evacuated with most prisoners being sent went in camps in Germany. The city was liberated by the Russians on January 17, 1945. 18 On December 10, 1939, a ghetto was established and Chaim Rumkowski, an engineer, was chosen to be the head of the Judenrat. Rumkowski is a controversial figure: some see him as a savior and others call him a willing German collaborator and toadie. 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, at least some of them would be saved.
13 working in the factory. A piece of thread got in my gums, and I had an infection. In order to fix it... there were dentists there... and that so many years ago, I sold a piece of bread of mine. I m just marveling that I did this without consulting anybody, but I felt that this piece of bread is not going to save me, and I need to fix my teeth so if I do survive I ll have them. I went to a dentist, so I m sure there were all kinds of services. He took out a nerve, and he performed a small surgery, and that was before we were shipped out from the ghetto. I m sure there were doctors, and there were dentists, and there were religious services, or schools, or something like that. Erna: After this, were you in a concentration camp? Lola: This is what happened. [Hans] Biebow 19 was the director from the Lodz ghetto. He went around in the streets, walked around, and talked to the Jewish people, Since the war is coming to an end, we are going to liquidate the ghetto. We like you. This is what my father told us he heard to put all your personal possessions in the middle of the room, even your pots and pans and bedding and put your name on it. Your personal things take with you. So you rationalize it s not like they re going to kill you. Why would they tell you to do these things? Naturally we packed up. My mother took the jewelry, divided it up between my sister and myself whatever she had so she wouldn t be the only one. You know, it goes in Europe... people believe more in jewelry... because money changed, the war broke out... at least with jewelry you knew that you can always get your money back, so every family had some... for generations, I m sure. This is how we went to the train. They said we re going to the Czechoslovakian border, and this is where we will work and wait until the war ends. Indeed, we were packed like sardines. When we passed a gate that said Arbeit Macht Frei 20 Work Makes Free we were in Auschwitz[-Birkenau] [Polish: Oświęcim]. 21 Even though we were in 19 Hans Biebow (1902-1947), from Bremen, Germany, was the head of the Nazi administration of the Lodz Ghetto. He was a cruel man who starved the Jewish population in the ghetto and assisted the Gestapo in deporting many Jews to be executed at Chelmno and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Biebow personally profited from the slave labor implemented in the ghetto and from seized Jewish property. After the German surrender in 1945, Biebow fled and went into hiding in Germany but was recognized by a ghetto survivor and extradited by the Allies from Bremen back to Lodz. After his trial in April, 1947, Biebow was found guilty and executed by hanging. 20 Arbeit Macht Frei is a German phrase meaning work makes [you] free. The slogan is known for having been placed over the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps, including most infamously Auschwitz I, where it was made by prisoners with metalwork skills and erected by order of the Nazis in June 1940. 21 Auschwitz was a complex of camps: the Main Camp (Auschwitz I), Auschwitz-Birkenau and Monowitz (Auschwitz III). Many smaller sub-camps were attached to the complex which drew their labor from the Main
14 a ghetto, we wore clothes, I learned how to knit I used to re-do sweaters, with many knots in the back but we were decently dressed. I had blonde, long hair. I was 16. When we got off, the old inmates were waiting for us, from the wagons, from the trains, pushing us, Raus! Raus! Raus! [German: Out! Out! Out!] Men on one side, women on the other! We had no idea where we were. We didn t know [whether] to go left or right. As a matter of fact, I was going on the right side of mine, and Mengele 22 stopped me, pointed this way. I looked around and saw my sister and my mother. My father and my brother were led away with the men. He stopped me. He asked in German, Wie alt bist du? I remember stretching... Erna: [Wie alt bist du means] how old are you? Lola: How old are you. I remember stretching myself, because I m not a very tall person, and I told him I m 17 years. So he pointed to my left his right to go there. I looked in the back and checked... my mother and my sister are following. We were led to a bathhouse. We had no idea where the others went. We were told to mark our places, to leave our hand luggage, so we will find our way back. We were told to take the shoes, and we were standing in a line. I remember seeing there about five big baskets of jewelry in front of a table, and we were told to throw everything in. Erna:...to take off your jewelry? Camp and Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Main Camp is where the museum is today and has the famous Arbeit Macht Frei gate. The Main Camp was established on the site of existing Polish army barracks just outside the town of Oswiecem (renamed Auschwitz by the Germans) and could hold about 10,000 prisoners. Later, when Hitler and Himmler wanted to expand the size of the camp they built Auschwitz-Birkenau about 2-1/2 miles away from the Main Camp. This is the camp with the big brick gate and the railroad tracks leading to the ramp and where the four gas chambers and crematoria came to be located. 22 Josef Mengele was born in 1911. He became a doctor and joined the SS. He was notorious for being one of the physicians who sorted newly-arrived prisoners on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, picking out those he wanted for his medical experiments especially twins thus earning him the nickname the Angel of Death. Many survivors recall being selected by Mengele, but caution should be used because Mengele only arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on May 24, 1943. He fled the camp before the Russians arrived and turned up in Gross-Rosen for a while and a few others camps until he assumed the guise of a Wehrmacht soldier and tried to flee west undetected. However, he was captured by the Americans, who did not know who he was or what he had done. He was released in June 1945 under the name Fritz Hollman. From July 1945 until May 1949 he worked on a farm in Bavaria and then fled to Argentina. He moved through several countries in South America, always being pursued to be brought to justice. He died in Brazil on February 7, 1979.
15 Lola: Take off your jewelry, throw it in. Then the next thing they took the shoes and they had a hole with water to dunk the shoes to make sure there s nothing hidden in there, and then they took the shoes away. We went to [the] barber. I could still sometimes think I could feel the clipper going straight across, cutting my hair. Then they checked your ears and your mouth [to see] if you didn t hid[e] anything. Then you were led to a bathhouse. There were soldiers walking around. On the way out, they had a warehouse of clothes. We were given an old dress a civilian dress without hair, without shoes, and a white cross was painted on my back. This is how I remember getting out of the bathhouse. I looked at my sister, and she had one breast exposed she only had a half a blouse. Luckily I got two blouses, so she took one of mine. When I saw my mother, I became hysterical I was laughing. She looked like my grandfather. My sister looked like my father. I had no mirrors I don t know how I looked, but I thought we are in a loony house. We are not the same people that we walked in. My mother became very agitated. She came over and she slapped me. She said, Be quiet. You re laughing. They re going to arrest us. This is how we walked out to our barracks. We were not the same people we came in. We had no idea what happened to the others. We were led to the barracks, two to a bed, or one to a bed I don t remember. Every few hours there were roll calls. That was in [Auschwitz-]Birkenau. We were not given numbers. I find out later... because they had no use for us, and they probably intended to kill us. I do remember sitting at the roll call, and when they put at each line each row a pot of soup and they said, Take a swallow, and pass it on. For three days I couldn t eat. I mean, how can you eat when so many people drink from the same pot? We had no spoon, no knife, no fork. They dehumanized us. This is precisely what they wanted. After three days, I made sure I took a big swallow when my turn came around, but I do remember vividly the roll calls. Constantly they were counting us. If anyone was sick out. This went on for about five, six weeks. Erna: When you say, out, what does that mean? Lola: They were led away. I had no idea I didn t know where the others went. After five, six weeks, they needed workers in Germany. So they decided our group of 500 women from Lodz that arrived there... probably looked a little bit more decent, maybe... healthier than the others... that they re going to send us out. Again we were led to a bathhouse. We were given underwear. I got a pair of shoes two sizes too big and I received a striped uniform a long
16 dress, like [for] winter-time. They had light ones and heavy ones. We were led to the railroad station and while sitting there and waiting for the train to take us we didn t know where at that point, but we knew we re leaving Auschwitz[-Birkenau] we saw chimneys, and we smelled something burning. So we inquired from the older inmates that had been in Auschwitz longer, What s going on here? What is this smell here? They told us, This is where they re burning your families. You can imagine what went on. It was Tisha B Av. 23 I had a girlfriend, her mother was taken away. She had no idea, but now she knew. We found out the secret, that they are burning those that were sent away were being killed. Still, it didn t make any sense, we couldn t understand it, but this is when we found out at least, when I found out. Erna: While you were at Auschwitz[-Birkenau] the five or six weeks, you didn t really know what was going on there? Lola: No, no. At this point my father, my brother we were separated. I was with my sister and my mother. I had no idea. Erna: During that time, you strictly stayed in your barracks and went outside for roll call. You didn t go to work? Lola: Nothing. We did see people working, doing all kinds of things, but not our group. No. Erna: What was the activity on any given day? Lola: Nothing. They used to wake us up six o clock in the morning, five o clock in the morning, roll calls, that s all... picking through... picking out people from the group. I have a feeling if we would not have been sent away, we probably would have been sent to the crematorium because in their eyes we were useless. We were not given a tattoo. 24 Since this was the case, they sent us out, we didn t have any tattoos. We were political prisoners. We were put on a train. I remember while we were going into Germany I saw a train going the other way, 23 Tisha B Av [Hebrew: the ninth of Av] is a Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of the First and Second temples in 586 BCE and 76 CE and subsequent exile of Jews from the Land of Israel. Tisha B Av is seen as the saddest holiday and most tragic day on the Jewish calendar, and it is a day for remembering calamities that have befallen the Jewish people since the destruction of the Temples. Observers of the holiday fast and abstain from any pleasurable activities. The month of Av on the Jewish calendar falls in July or August on the Western calendar. 24 Prisoners at the Auschwitz[-Birkenau] concentration camp complex were given tattoos with their camp serial number, which was also sewn onto their uniforms. Only prisoners selected for work were registered and given serial numbers; those that were sent directly to the gas chambers were not registered or given tattoos.
17 and I could see only the head with the striped uniform. He asked us who were are I didn t know if they were men or women you know, when you don t have your hair, you really can t tell. They were men, and we were women. And that s how we arrived in Ravensbruck [German: Ravensbrück]. 25 It was another concentration camp in Germany. There was no room for us. The 500 of us would huddle together. I guess with the approaching of fall... that s the only way I can determine what time of year it was... it must have been fall because it was chilly at night, and we used to huddle close to each other so we wouldn t freeze. After a few days they took us into the bathhouse. I understand there were crematoriums, too, but we were led to the real bathhouse, and we were led to barracks with gypsies gypsies who had German husbands in the army. It was very crowded there, and I remember at night a bunch of them attacked some of our girls. To this day, I don t know why. When we stood in line to get the little soup, they would do the same thing. Sometimes I didn t want to eat, and I didn t want to be beaten up. We stayed there a few weeks, and we were sent out again, led to the bathhouse, and put on the train. We were going to Leipzig somewhere we had no idea where. I do remember arriving at the station a railway station in Germany and I saw a German officer came to pick us up. He must have looked into the train, because I still remember his words, saying to those that brought us over there, Das sind keine Frauen. Sie sehen aus wie Affen. [Maureen: can you check German 47:58] These are not women. They look like monkeys. At this point I looked around, and I almost agreed with him. We certainly didn t look like women. I don t think we were monkeys, but we did not look like women. He had no choice they needed workers in Muhlhausen [German: Mühlhausen] 26 where there was an ammunition factory. They led us to 25 Ravensbruck was established in 1939 and approximately 120,000 women of 40 nationalities passed through it. The women were put to work in the textile and armaments industry. In 1943 the population of the camp tripled with the conditions deteriorated drastically. When the number of women exceeded the barracks capacity they were put in tents and slept on the bare ground. They died in droves every day. The infirmary was the source of women for experimentation by German doctors. At the end of the war the camp population was swelled by Jewish women who were marched out of camps to the east and driven there and dumped. In January 1945 preparations were made to start mass executions and many were murdered by injection of poisons or shooting. There was a small gas chamber installed in early 1945 in which about 5,000 to 6,000 women were murdered. In March 1945 thousands of women prisoners were matched out of Ravensbruck and sent to Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen where they were abandoned. On April 27 and 28, another 20,000 women prisoners were marched out in a northwesterly direction. On May 1, 1945 the Russian army liberated the last 2,000 prisoners left in the camp. 26 Muhlhausen was part of the Buchenwald group of sub-camps. The prisoners worked in the Geratbau GmbH, a subsidiary of the clockmaking firm Thiel, Ruhla, which manufactured timers and precision instruments, and the Junkers aircraft company, which produced detonators and precision instruments. At first, Polish workers were recruited and when they became scarcer, Jewish women were selected from Ravensbruck concentration camp. The
18 this complex. This was not a camp for Jews, but out of necessity, they used us because their men were in the army. They were making ammunition there. They led us in a big casino... no, first they did not have the SS but the Wehrmacht. 27 He greeted us very warmly. He gave us a loaf of bread we couldn t believe it a spoon, a knife and a fork was given to us, and a bowl, and we were led to the casino. I guess they had entertainment there and all that. After we ate, we were divided up in bungalows. I m sure the Germans used that when they were working in these factories. We all had a bed. We did not have hot water. There were about four or five rooms to a bungalow. There was a bathroom. We had very thin clothing, and in the morning we were led to the factories. In these factories, I ve noticed, on top of the roof there were trees probably 20 or 30 years old. You couldn t detect that these are factories. They were well hidden in the woods. There were German people working there, too, women in particular. There was one in particular. She took a liking to me and my sister. She would open a drawer and put a half a sandwich. She saw we were two young girls and put something in there extra for us to eat. My mother was with us, too. She was very clean, and she kept washing herself with the cold water, and she got pneumonia... had to put her in the hospital... there was a hospital there. Now he picked one of my friends to be the Jude? [Maureen, I can t figure out this term 50:33]. She was a fine, fine girl, a year older than I, 19... Erna: Jude? [Maureen, same term as above] means the oldest woman... Lola: To be in charge. She was as good as gold. He just picked her because she was a sixfooter, or maybe a little under she was very tall. He picked on her to be responsible, to see that all orders are carried out. After we were there a week or two, the Aufseherinnen 28 the German supervisors came. They escorted us to work and from work. Of course I missed many lunches, because by that point the Allied army, the English and the Americans, decided to come. women worked in 12 hour shifts and had to march to the factory from Camp B, where the barracks were. The hygienic conditions were catastrophic and although it was freezing cold the women had inadequate clothing. Some didn t even have shoes. In February 1945 the women were evacuated to Celle, Germany and driven on foot the 15 kilometers to Bergen-Belsen. Bergen-Belsen was liberated on April 15, 1945 at which time 80% of the women who had been sent there from Muhlhausen had died. 27 The Wehrmacht was the German military from 1935 to 1945. The German military were complicit in Nazi war crimes during the Holocaust. 28 The Aufseherinnen, [German: overseers or attendants] were female guards who served in Nazi concentration camps. The first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek camps from Ravensbruck in 1942. In 1943 there was a guard shortage, and Nazis began recruiting women to fill the guard positions. The singular term is Aufseherin.