Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Erna Blitzer Gorman - July 12, 1989

How old were you at this point?

I don't know.

Six?

How probably a little ol -- it must have been in the middle of '42 or the beginning of '42. It must have been that so I would - seven, eight almost between.

Did you bring anything with you?

No.

You had nothing?

We had nothing. We had nothing.

So he locked you in the barn?

Yeah, so all of us had, the farmer and his wife went down and they pushed in like two huge bales of hay for the entrance like it was like an entrance to the cavity and they had these two bales of hay that they would push in and then all of the sudden there were just the four of us (pause) in the cavity.

What did you do?

I don't know. I don't remember what we did. I remember because it such a long time all of this so my memories, I can't remember...don't forget that we were there at the minimum, two years so um, I can't recall daily basis, I remember being hungry all the time but that was nothing new because I was hungry all these couple years whatever before, you know, constantly but I remember the children playing because we came in at night and then the next day I ran to the crack and I wanted to see the children and I couldn't go out.

Did you talk to each other?

I don't have any recollection of this you know. I remember that we whispered. First of all don't forget that the children did not know that we, in the beginning we whispered then after a while we didn't even do that. The children didn't know, so you had to be totally quiet and I knew it. I see my mother going with her finger all the time Shhh!You know, and so maybe I did talk in the beginning or whisper at any rate and I remember running very often to the crack at the later year I didn't after awhile. Maybe it was a year later whatever, there was no sense to it anymore. I couldn't get out anyhow.

Did your father ever go down to the bottom?

You know I, I, he did at night, in the beginning I see that when the farmer would come, he would come at night and bring us whatever he could. He used to bring these buckets that you feed horses so otherwise there were three buckets and I can still see them, and one of them was bashed in and um, and one had a little water and one was for elimination purposes and one had whatever food he was to give us and at that time my father would go down the ladder and he would smoke downstairs and he would pace back and forth but I see him do this only for a very short time. After that, we never went down and I wondered how is possible, I asked my sister how is it possible that we never went down and she said we never did. So she did confirm what I had, you know sometimes you can you know. But anyhow, So I see him going down in the beginning but not after a while. But, so the farmer would come at night and change the buc - you know - take the bucket out and especially that we eliminated in.