Magda Beer - July 5, 1983
Life Under German Occupation III
No, no, I--they were in the basement there already or did you go with them?
No, no they wasn't...
They weren't... A:...in the basement when I escaped.
Woman: They were in their own apartment.
They were in your mother's apartment?
Yes, yes, my son and my mother.
Woman: Her mother was about 65 years old, no?
Uh, my mother? I don't know...
Woman: Approximate.
Yeah, about.
This was the apartment you went back to in February after the war?
Yes, yes my mother's apartment.
And then from there you had to go--did you know you had to go to the ghetto or did you want to find your mother-in-law? What--how did you go from your mother's apartment?
Okay now, I was in, in the, the factory, okay and all my friends and the girls they were taken to, to Buchenwald, okay?
Mm-hm.
I had the little carriage and I went to the ghetto with the old people, the old people and I went--I was old too because I had a babushka and, and the man told me that put the child on the Red Cross car and you will go with the others. I say to myself I don't give away my son to no one. Anyways, I take the uh, uh, the carriage and I went to the other group where the, the old people was waiting to taking them to the ghetto.
With your mother?
Yes, and when I went to the ghetto the first ??? your mother on this and this street and I went there my mother was so happy that I find her. Because my mother's apartment was in ghetto. They already take away all the people. And after I heard that my mother-in-law's apartment was the ghetto. You know it was exactly the corner. And then we were there and it was one room for us--for the family, you know, there was over twenty people.
Mm-hm, and then you went down in the basement?
Yes, yes.
When the shelling started?
Yes.
That's why you went down in the basement?
Yes, yes.
I understand.
Maybe a little bit mixed up, you know, just ask me.
Well I think I've got it straight now.
[interruption in interview]
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