Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Eva Cigler - March 17, 1982

Ukrainians

You said you worked next to the Ukrainians. Did you have any contact with them, any--were you able to talk to them? Did they ever try to do anything to help you?

No, they just beat the hell out of us.

They were cruel to you.

Yeah, very cruel. And they said, you Jews, the uh, Jews, Jews. Nothing else you heard them to say, just the Jews. They hated us. It doesn't matter we were prisoner, the same thing like they was, but they couldn't stand the...

Jews.

Jews. And uh, then when we finished that work in that barrack--in the camp there. We stayed in a camp 'til uh, December the 31st. There we was working uh, again with the clothing. That I don't know if came from Brezinka that clothing. We was putting like a brair .

A what?

Like a brair you know your hair?

A braid?

Yeah, a braid.

Mm-hm.

Uh, you cut it in small, uh...

Strips.

strips, and then you, uh...

Braid the material.

braid it. Yeah, braid the material. And then that braid when it was enough then the SS came and pick it up. And I don't know where they, uh...

You don't know what they did with the braid.

What they did with that. But that braid already start to be very uh, dusty and we was choking there. And uh, the other block they was doing a cleaner uh, work than we did. So we figured--again we didn't uh, learn yet, with that uh, shouldn't work in a different barrack. We was thinking, now we're going to take other chance. And three of us went to that barrack when they was doing uh, uh, not with material, with paper.

They were ???

Cutting up--no, we was cutting up some paper and put numbers on it. I don't know for what they was using it. And uh, we were there for three days. When the Zählappell came, they counted--they didn't counted enough, looks like. And something was fishy because that Zählappell shouldn't be ten o'clock it should be twelve o'clock. At ten o'clock they uh, blow the whistle, we have to go out. And sure enough again they find us. And that time we know the SS was coming and counting and they uh, when they was counting, three girls was more in that block...

Oh.

than, than the other block. And who was the three girls, we was the three sisters.


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