Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982
Transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau
Um, was your family all together in one cattle car?
Yes.
Was it hard to stay together?
I tell, we was sleeping on each other and sitting on each other because there wasn't too much place to move around. And they put us a pail there and if you have to go, you--everybody used that pail. And was--when it was full, then they throw out uh, from the train.
The train was still moving?
Moving, yeah, so it was hitting you know, came back the most of them what was going out.
It must have been a very frightening experience for all of you.
Yeah, terrible.
Can you remember what it was like?
Like a nightmare. I still uh, could hear my--I mean in my mind how the train was going and how the screaming was going around there because it was kids-- young one, babies, old men. There was moaning and screaming what's going to be, and they hungry, another one have to go, other one couldn't sleep. So this was a nightmare in that uh, train.
Did you have water?
Uh, not much.
You took water with you or they gave you water?
They must put it in the train. A pail of water. I don't know how many people was in that, in that uh, place. 'Bout...
Did anybody--go ahead.
'bout fifty.
Fifty people.
Or, or forty, something like that.
Did anybody know where you were going?
Nobody, nobody have the faintest idea where. They said uh, you gonna go, they gonna take you out someplace to work. And you're gonna go, be together. So that's what uh, we know about it uh, where we was going.
It sounds like your father didn't believe that.
No, because uh, he knows what was going on, where we were uh, going and uh, he was afraid you know, it's going to be the end of us.
How many days were you on the train?
I, I think uh, two days, two days or one and a half days. I don't know, it seems more than that, but uh, I think 'bout two, two days.
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