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The person in question has given us the following information We arrived in Auschwitz on 17th May 1944. We got out of the train and we were told to put down our baggage. Only a small bag of bread was left on us. We lined up and were taken to the main road. I was separated from my mother. I did not want to part with her, but we were told that the old people would be taken to the bath on trucks and we would meet them there. Of course they lied: I never saw my mother again. We went to the bath, our hair was cut and we received civilian clothes. Then, we were lined up again and we were taken to Camp C. About 10,000 people were crammed in there. We did not have to work but we were standing for “Zählappell” for 3-4 hours every day in rain, in cold, in wind. The provisions were very poor: for breakfast we got a little black coffee and some bread, for lunch we got some soup and for dinner some black coffee, some bread and margarine. Sometimes we got some jam or some cheese and we received sausage three times a week. I was put in a transport six weeks later. We were travelling for two days. In Auschwitz they gave us more than one kilo of bread, sausage, cheese and margarine for the journey. Wehrmacht soldiers escorted us and they encouraged us, saying we would get to a better place. That is how we got to Stutthof. The 1,500 of us were the first Jewish women there. At first they did not make us do any work, later they distributed us into transports of 500 people and took us to work. One part of the group of women was taken to Praust; as far as I know they made entrenchments there. I was sent to work in the fields in Rosenott, which was about 25 kilometres away from Stutthof. We lived in farmers’ houses there, who did not know at first that we were Jewesses, and they gave us very delicious food on the first day. Later they got to know that we were Jewish women, but we were not in really bad circumstances then either, only they locked us up in a barn at 8 o’clock so that we could not escape. There I was together with my sister and we had to do very hard work. My sister did not bear working so we were sent back to Stutthof after ten days. We were, of course, threatened, they said we sabotaged and we had to break stones without eating and drinking for one day as a punishment. When we got back to Stutthof it was not so bad anymore, because the Blockälteste was a woman from Charkov, with whom I could speak Russian, so she appointed me to be room supervisor. The provisions were not so bad, especially in the beginning. We received some bread twice a day, we got coffee and some jam in the morning and soup at noon. On Saturday evening we received sausage and margarine, and on Sunday evening we got cheese. The camp was clean and we could wash properly. Later other women came from Riga, who were infested with lice and unfortunately we got infested from them. This caused the spreading of a typhus fever epidemic and many people died then. My two sisters and me went to work in the dressmaker’s room of the Wehrmacht; later that building was also turned into a block. For some 3 or 4 weeks we entrained Wehrmacht soldiers because 3-4 soldiers got typhus fever in the epidemic and as a result the whole Wehrmacht was transported further. Then, we were set off too. They wanted to take us to Laubenburg, but the Russians were already approaching, so finally we got to Strelentin. It was a very small camp; only 300-400 people lived there. We did not have to work. There had been a transport before us, which worked at the railways. We stayed there for 2-3 weeks. On a Friday evening, it was on 9th March, we set off at about 6 o’clock in the evening and we were running during the whole night. At around dawn we arrived at a hayloft, where 1,200 people had stayed. A large number of people died there and many were suffering from typhus fever. We were very hungry, because we had not received anything to eat since noon on the day before. Finally an SS woman and an officer came in at around 10 o’clock in the morning and they put down a small package. We knew it was a time bomb, but we could not help ourselves. We asked when we would get something to eat. They said that they had begun to make us a nice soup and they would distribute it soon. At about 11 o’clock somebody looked out and saw that the guards were not there. Then, some of us dared to go out to the village and brought some food with them. About 70-80 people ran out like that, causing a big noise. Suddenly we saw that the first Russian tank had arrived. We were liberated. The Russians gave us things to drink and to eat, tinned food, etc.

Labour Service