Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982

Life at Nuremberg Factory

Mm-hm.

...and the other side is for a, uh, the Blockältester, the, the woman in charge and her assistant--to whatever our needs would be, okay. Uh, if we needed to go to the bathroom, we had to stand by the door and ask permission. Uh, it just went on, you know, from day to day. In two of those floors, there were, there were tools there. Like dyes and too...machinery. But no--but on the bottom just uh, like the basement, there was another huge room there as we came down to the right. There were about three hundred and sixty women from Poland. How long they were there, I don't know, but they worked in the factory.

Jewish women.

Yes, we were always--were Jewish.

Right.

We were never among non-Jews. Jews were not mixed. I have no idea how long they were there. But they uh, we were given a treat one night that we could--the group from upstairs if we wanted to go down to visit, we could. And I happened to be going down with a few of the girls to visit this group. I--we knew the names, where they're from, but I don't know if ever cared about how long they were there or uh, what's the story. There uh, was the factory almost off of their door--machinery--but nobody was ever allowed any step beyond this.

What did you do there?

There um, I remember going--being taken down there to move things around. I don't think I did anything in particular. I don't remember doing, what...whatever I did, it was--I think there were supply place because I remember we do packaging things too. And there would be trucks or some carrier coming up that big door and we would put it on there. Whether some of the girls made certain things and we packaged it, and--you know, it was like uh, what do you call it? Uh...

Conveyor belt.

No--well there was something on conveyor belts. You know the car companies work, that work in, in uh, sy...

Assembly.

Assemblies. Uh, one group does one thing, the other does another, and the other does a third. I remember being at that huge door very often, bringing--pushing things on a, on a cart and bringing it up there and going back and getting some more stuff. Whether I was just bringing this back and forth, and other girls were doing something else, it's almost a total blank to me.


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