Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982

The women that worked in the Canada and in the Brezinka were um, responsible for helping those who escaped.

Yes, and uh, we was one of them uh, who helped. Who escaped there was to bring--they find 'em and bring them back. And right away they put them in the—the whole uh, camp have to go out to stand in line, Zählappell again...

Mm-hm.

and then they bring 'em there and the music was going full blast.

What music?

Uh, the band. They put the band on.

There was a band there.

Yes, they was a band there. And they was marching. I remember a girl dressed up like a man and they said uh, he escaped from uh, Birkenau or Auschwitz and they find 'em in a movie house someplace.

You remember seeing that. Do you remember her name?

No, I don't remember the name, just the face. She was beat up already, was bleeding all over. But she had to march uh, there in the gas chamber and, uh.

She marched into the gas chamber?

Must be because uh, that's where they took her. Just, they said you have to see it just to remember none of you shouldn't escape, don't try it. But from Brezinka...

When was this, what was the date, do you remember?

This was the summer, about uh, summer time, I...

Nineteen forty-four.

Four--now I remember.

She escaped and they found her.

Yes. That's what they said, in the movie hut.

The woman who had escaped, I don't recall the date, and they had found her too and they were going to burn her alive. Was this the same one and she pulled out a blade...

What was that?

and she slit her wrist.

There was uh, a couple stories like this uh, they said who came from Belgium didn't want to go in the gas chamber and she had some blade she was cutting herself. This woman, could be uh, that's the one because she was all bloody and beat up and she could hardly walk, they was pulling her or somebody was holding her to, uh...

And they put her in the gas chamber or the crematorium?

I don't know if, that one we didn't see, but we know which place she was going because if--you have to go in that way to the gas chamber, because that way was the gas chamber too.

You saw her going in there.

I didn't see her going in there but I see when they was uh, marching her that direction.

You actually saw her.

Yes.