Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Anne Eisenberg - May 11, 1982

Are there any particular kind of situations which occur that make your memories, images... makes--occur. Do you remember images while involved in your daily tasks or special events or holidays or celebrations?

If I go through a building with a tall chimney, I find myself in Auschwitz. If I go through a railroad, I see a train. I feel like I'm just walking towards it. When it comes in, in time in April or in middle of May, I just feel like walking and it mainly it affects me when it rains, in the cold rain. I feel like I'm walking in the past and I could walk for miles and just feel numb. And believe me, that's how I feel even now by talking. I just feel like it would be...

Can you describe your nightmares?

I go back to my first horrible nightmare and my oldest s...son was a little baby. And I--all of a sudden went to somebody and I tell 'em I'm a German woman, the what right do they have to take my baby away. They apologize and they send me into a room where a lot of dead babies are. And my son had always big ears and I found them in a big pot between a lot of other babies and I recognize him from the, from the--his ears. And it never left me. Many times I feel I'm being killed. And I'm being pulled or I'm being pulled towards the crema...crematorium. A few weeks ago I dreamt that there was a machine chopping up the people. It's always those, those nearest, those, those dreams that will never leave me.

What are your feelings about discussing your experiences?

Numb. I don't think any of us are really good, make us excited or, or, or make us feel anything. I feel more dead than alive. I don't think that would really be anything that would get me very excited like my children getting married and what not. And yet [short pause] maybe I shouldn't say it, but I still lack something. Many times I feel the guilt that I outlived my parents. [short pause] That so many things that we feel guilty with [pause] it's, it's hard to even go on. I just feel I'm here for a reason. I put myself many times to--many people say how do you do it. I feel I owe it to the, to the past. I work for organizations because God has saved me for a reason. I have to go on. It was a time I wanted to commit suicide. I didn't succeed. Even that I feel I have a re...there is a reason for me to be living. And I just go about my daily thing. I work six days a week. I come home. I take care of, of things that I have to do. I'm a--belong to organizations. Like I say, I do not stop. And I don't know what makes me go or do things, but there is a certain drive that I keep going.