Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982

Conditions in Ghetto

Did you take uh, food with you?

No, you didn't uh. I don't know uh, how was the food? Uh, maybe we took some potatoes or some dry uh, or some--a little flour something, must be. I don't remember so much. But I'm sure we took because otherwise uh, they--I don't know if they give us something or we could buy it, because we had a little money and some uh, people was passing by that time uh, in a ghetto. I think they were selling some cheese and milk you know, you could buy there.

Well, did they have like a soup kitchen where you could go and get...

Yes.

food from?

Yes, they had a soup kitchen.

And you stood in line.

I stood in line and uh, get the food. And sometime you could go out and make a little fire. If you have a couple potatoes, you could cook it uh, by yourself. But uh, sometime they watched. They didn't want the fire should uh, be too many fire, too many cooking uh, so uh. They--you eat, but they was uh, you didn't get to...

Did they give you breakfast lunch and dinner?

I don't think was uh, lunch. Uh you know, I don't even remember what kinda junk I was eating. I know I was something, but I don't uh, remember really what kinda food. I'm sure they didn't give us a piece of steak [laughs] or something, yeah. It could be some you know, potato soup or something they put in into, uh. Just we shouldn't die from hunger because they want looks like to give it to the German after that.

What was um, what was the place like that you lived in?

In the ghetto?

Was it a separate room? Yes.

No, it was everything open. We s...even, it was uh, six, eight of us. So uh, my father, my mother, one kid's here, one kid's there next to each other, just like in a barrack. And then the next uh, place there was other family and other family, just all families together.

You were one right next to the other.

Yes. And sometime you know, you couldn't put in a piece of curtain to, uh...

A partition.

a partition to cover up yourself. Because they said no partitions should go, everything should be open.


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