Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Luba Elbaum - January 20, 1982

Work in Budzyn

Now what kind of work did you do?

I personal--we--me they put in like this cloak, like I mean for the--when you go to work, how, they put on sa...they put me in, in the rooms to scrub the floors, to clean. They have managers. The German were managers. The German women were managers. And we would be, like I mean, to work for them. If you want, if you don't want. If you have to go work for the Ukrainian too, you know, like I mean uh, scrub them--the rooms and, and put them, and I mean--and they were--they try and toss us down and don't let us up, you know. We have to work for them. So sometimes when we came in like in the morning they were not in the room already. So we have to scrub the floor, make clean, make sure. And they have a kitchen too. They have a kitchen, like to go later some women went in the kitchen to work. That was the first year. Some went in the room to work and some outside and some inside, and it was not too many women, maybe one hundred, two hundred. There were many mens.

Okay what did you have to eat then?

And then for us, and then for us in the morning we had black coffee. Everybody have to have like a, a dish. We have--we all have a dish here, like a little bit. If you have the dish, you have a little bit coffee in the morning. When we came home twelve o'clock give us a soup. They cook over there a soup. The first was a little bit sauerkraut soup. They give everybody a little bit, you know how much, a spoon. There was a kitchen, a kitchen we used to work in the kitchen, sometimes we used to work in the kitchen and everybody at lunch time came and they took a sip in the soup--in Poland--in the soup. And then when we came home in the night, they tooked five--I remember it was a kilo. The first they give us twenty, twenty gram bread a day. It was a piece of bread, you know, the night. Everybody having a bread a piece. They give us again a soup. So sometimes was potatoes and sometimes was water and sometimes was a piece of meat, you know, like horsemeat. What they have over there. You know, what they give to them over there. There was not in Poland. So who cou...who couldn't survive because a lot of people used to work like outside. Because the first years they didn't have no Krematoriums. So the men went out and they said to, to make like, holes. So sometimes the Polish people brought you a bread, you know, you know them there. They bring a bread. So sometimes they give us--the German people when we just start to work when we wash up, clean up you have a little bit soup more sometimes. If the German don't see they give us a little bit of soup. If you work in a kitchen they give us sometimes a little bit of soup.


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