Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Mala Weintraub Dorfman - September 15, 2005

Let's talk a little bit more about Skarzysko. How did you get from, from, uh...

From uh, Gorzyczki to Skarzysko? By train. By one, you know, they put us on a...

Cattle train. A cattle train?

...cattle, yeah.

What was it like in the cattle car?

It was horrible, it was horrible. It took us forever, forever. No food, no nothing.

No toilet.

No toilet. Nothing, nothing.

So, what did people do?

I don't know, I don't know what they did. I don't know. But it didn't take us that long to go from, from uh, Gorzyczki to Skarzysko. Didn't take us a long time. And when we got to Skarzysko there was no water, there was nothing. And when uh, Mrs. Hoffman came, I said to her there's no water to wash. Then how can... Then say we're going to get lice, they're going to shave our heads. She said-you know what she said to me-save your urine and wash it with it.

Hm.

That's exactly what I did and they never touched my hair. A lot of uh, a lot of kids, a lot of girls they had to shave their head.

Were people frantic in the train?

Sure they were, we all were. We were looking out and we couldn't even see where we were going. We didn't know where they were going to take us.

And it was packed.

Packed, sure. We didn't know where we were going at all.

Do you remember the smells?

Terrible. I don't... It was a terrible smell because everyone had nowhere where to go, so.

So, when the door opened...

And we saw a camp, we went out. We got out and uh, I remember we went into the barracks, and there was no water, nothing. They gave us some soup, I remember, like water. And everybody grabbed it because we didn't eat all the time, you know, when we were in the wagons.

What was the barracks like?

The barracks were clean, they were brand new.

Ah.

Brand new, they were, they were purchased, you know. I don't know how many were in the one. Must have thirty in one bed, or maybe more, I don't know.

So, you slept on a shelf-like.

Yeah, on the, yeah, they were... One, two, three of us, three in a, on top, one of top, then the middle and then on the bottom.

But you each had a layer to yourself.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

And did anyone...

I was lucky that I got in with the same people that I knew them from Kozienice in the same barrack, so we were not strangers.

And, and what were you thinking about your family? Were you wondering?

I had no idea, no idea what's going on with them.