Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Bert Dan - November 17, 1982

Labor Camp Drills

And the two hundred people were divided up into, into uh, fifty each. So there were four different groups of fifty. And we slept in sep...in different rooms. All fifty in one, fifty in the next room, and so on. And all of a sudden they--some soldiers ran in during the night and they told us that, that "The American and the Russians are coming in!" and, "Everybody out!" and, "Don't take anything out of here!" and "Out!" and they gave us one minute to get out. You didn't even have a chance to put on your, your trousers or anything. Dressed the way we were, we ran out and uh, went out, we got down, they made us run around and uh, run in the back and forth and front and then by the time they said "It's all over, it was just a, a test. So now you can go back in your rooms." By the time we got back there all the belongings, whatever we had was in the middle of the room in one pile. You know what I mean?

Mm-hm.

Everything was empty, they put in one pile and they gave us exactly two minutes to clean out the room and go back to bed. Go out and slept on, slept on the floor. And uh, things like this, no one go into details. I just wanted to bring out the most important parts of it, but this was going on and on and on, almost on daily basis. And it got to the point where you got used to it that you didn't care anymore really, you know. We, we became almost like, like animals, trained animals who did everything, whatever they were told to do, you know. And, and uh, we didn't care anymore. So...


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