Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Anne Eisenberg - May 11, 1982

What?

A raincoat. How little did we realize how nice it's gonna be, because three days later the camps broke up and we were put on the go. They took us to a train, they put in a open train, they put in about a hundred and twenty girls in that train. You couldn't even fit, there was hardly any room even for sitting. More than--more for standing than anything else. We were like that for about a day and a half. And one--all of a sudden we see another train coming and other train stopped next to us. All of a sudden we see two planes following the train. Two bombs are--were dropped on the locomotives. But we also saw the Germans running without realizing what was going on. All of a sudden a, a man, his head was all bloodied, he stopped, ???, he opened the door for us to get out. But no sooner did he did so he dropped and, and he died. He was beaten actually to death. Not, not, not shot. Earlier before that. We ran to the fields then we found out that train was full of ammunition. Had the bomb missed a little bit none of us would be here again. I would say from then on we were walking forty to fifty kilometers a day. A meal consisted of three potatoes a day. I had a hollow wooden shoes. They made two holes in my ankles. My feet were swollen, the pus was running. I wanted to die. I just couldn't go on. Again, we had another girl who had nobody. We kind of adopted each other. Between her and my sister, they actually dragged me day by day. I said, I don't care if they beat me to death or whatever. I just could not go on. I never believed that the day will come that I'll be liberated until the day before that had happened. And I said to my sister, "Tomorrow we'll be liberated." She says, "Now I know," because up 'til then she gave me hope. 'Cause when I said I'm going to be liberated, she said, "Now we will be, the day will happen." They took us--a family was generous and gave us, gave the barn so we--they put us in that barn. That night the Germans were extra good to us. They gave us six potatoes. It was a real treat. With our tummies full, a little water, we were able to fall asleep until the following morning. We had no knowledge what was taking place and we heard all, a lot of commotion outside. One of the Russian men came by and some of the girls knew how to speak the Russian language. And he whispered, "Please be quiet because you never know what a fleeing Nazi might do to us yet." So late in the afternoon, they opened up the door for us and that's when we found ourselves free. The Germans used to see us stealing kell beets on the fields. They must have thought what animals we are. Because no sooner had we been liberated, that was our treat. We brought up a whole wagonful of ??? beets.

??? beets?

Kell beets. And...

Beets.

Beets. And if some of the girls didn't get sick before, they got sick then. Because I remember during those marches I had a diarrhea from one of those beets. And it was a horrible, horrible thing because you could not stop, because if you would stop, that was the end of you. So you had the diarrhea, and let it drip, was a mess. You kept on going because you weren't even human. During six weeks marching we were given a treat. Once we were taken to a lake. And at that point I didn't care who was around me. We stripped naked, we washed our clothes and we cleaned ourselves. And uh, [pause] it was, it was something to look back on. They, they took us to the Czecho...to Czechoslovakia near Brno. And that's where we got first aid treatment and that, the Red Cross took over from there. From then on our aim was to go back to ho...our hometown to actually see who was left alive. But we only found one brother. Our, our father was asked how many he's got and he told them he's got two sons next to him so he was told that's enough from that family. And they killed him right away. And then one of my brothers amputated a leg for him and then they killed him.