Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982
Description of New Camp
Mm-hm.
...like probably as big as a gym.
Mm-hm.
Huge building. Uh, on one side there was a like a factory--another building. Uh, some were wooden and some were brick and wood. There was another building that was uh, like a uh, kitchen. And there were two long wooden barracks and that's where we stayed--the girls stayed. We were split up and what was interesting, there was one barrack uh, at one end of the camp and there was a gate, splitting us up and there were--we were--And the, the sec...it's all like in one big yard but there's a split between us for security reason probably and there was a watch there.
Mm-hm.
In the beginning of the camp, that ca...that barrack was being watched probably another guard. And whenever we'd have to go either to work or out, they would open this gate and they would combine us. We would get our meals the same way. Go to that kitchen and bring it. And we had there--we were already in, like individual um, cubicles of, of that long barrack we were divided up like a room. We had...
One woman per room?
No, no, no. We were uh, let's see, uh, have to be two, four, six, eight, ten, fourteen. Between sixteen and twenty of us.
Per cubicle.
Per room. There was a long table, like a picnic table...
Mm-hm.
...with two benches in the center of the room. One light over it. Uh, a little um, a coal stove--a little coal stove in the room for heat.
Mm-hm.
And uh, double bunk beds, like doubles.
How many of those beds were there?
Uh, okay uh, some were pushed together, that's why I was mentally counting. There was a, a single bunk against one wall because you had two windows on both end of it, so only one set of bunks could go there. And there was double, two doubles at each wall. That's, that's, uh...
Were those wooden beds the same?
Wood.
No mattresses or anything?
There was like uh, what they call that--a straw, a pink straw mattress.
On each one.
On each one.
In other words the conditions seemed much better than...
Oh it was heaven. When we, we were brought there...
Were there sheets, or...
No, no, no, let's not push our luck. I mean, this was good. We were given a blanket each. Uh, we had, we had no gas chamber, and no Krematorium.
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