Clara Dan - July 1, 1982
Conditions in Auschwitz
Bunks.
bunks, okay? Everything was thrown out. And uh, they took us to... No, no, no. That was afterward. Uh, they counted and counted and counted and nothing happened. It was one minus and one plus. Then this Jewish girl I told you about in that C Lager, okay, she started walking up and down with ??? and telling the Hungarian that what happened. That there is some trouble. There is one minus here, one plus there. And whoever is found that is dead or the person. If nobody comes forward and tell them what happened, everybody will be thrown against the wire fences. You know the fences were electrically wired. And uh, didn't work. Then we had to kneel on our knees for hours and hours because they checked and rechecked both Lagers and raining. We were out for twenty-four hours and they didn't find. By this time, you know there were already women with weak nerves. You know, there is just so much you can take. Then uh, there were a couple of women who ran against the wiring and uh, and they got electrocuted. So by that time, you know, it was more or less from the same barracks. But we never talked to these girls personally after that to show. So we should stay together just the four of us, okay? And it turned out okay. Something must have happened. We don't know what. And we were in Bergen-Belsen. And that's, that's where I was liberated. And my sister had a typhoid fever and I had typhoid fever. And we were very sick. And ho belo who doesn't find us? These two girls with their mother found us. And that old lady nursed us back to health because they could never, never forget what happened.
You saved her life.
What how--it wasn't us, it was the two daughters really.
But you could have told. I mean, you knew. You could have told, I suppose.
And uh, my sister, when you asked me what I did in C Lager...
[telephone rings--interruption in interview]
Actually it was the two girls that saved their mother, not us, really. So they were the ones who found us...
And helped you out then.
...and nursed us back because both of us had typhoid fever. And uh, we didn't have food. And there they brought every single day, not once and not twice and stayed with us, to feed us. And uh, we pulled through. In fact, the lady lives in Florida now.
The mother?
The mother lives in Florida and the two girls, one uh, one is in Sweden, the other one is in Montreal became a very famous ???...
[telephone rings--interruption in interview]
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