Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982

Liberation

Mm-hm.

...you know, just show us who we are, don't kill us. But they didn't bomb. A day later we didn't see any of the Gestapo or SS women or, or men coming around to—they would be daily there in the building in our locale—room. Uh, they opened—the doors were open. And a few of us just went out in the street, just, just literally out. Uh, we have no money, we have no nothing. There was a, a railroad there. We always were by railroads, it's funny. It's probably for shipping reasons. And there were a few cars and we went into those cars, uh, railroad cars—train. And they were passenger trains at one time and there was a, a, a mailing uh, box car and there were packages and letters and we opened letters and we found money. And we just take the money out—we looted—what we did is we looted a train that didn't get out. Weirdest thing I did, just a little above that railroad track there's like a little yellow—you go up and there's a street and there's a bakery. And I stand and there's a few women—civilian women, German women and an older man and a uniformed young German soldier—uniform soldier—the, the Wehrmacht—the regular army were lining up. Here I'm wearing this number and I—that look of concentration camp, and they're all looking at me. All of a sudden it hit me, they know I'm free and they're—because they looked like they're scared of me now.


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