Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Luba Elbaum - January 20, 1982

Transfer to Bergen-Belsen

What does that mean?

KL. This was konzentra...KL. They put us on the clothes like they're wearing here in the jails. We have this clothes on. Before I left Oswiecim. And there came the German, and that's what--the name from the, the name from the, from the concentration camp was KL. And that's what they make us, KL. We don't have no names. We had häftling--the name häftling. The name häftling. This and this is häftling.

How long were you in Auschwitz?

In Auschwitz I was already the last. And our transport went away and I went with the other transport and we were Blocksperre ???. Just Blocksperre was no work. When I came the last in '44 there was no work for us because we came the last from Płaszów. There over there they were working. But we came the last. They give us--once a day we ha...can go to the bathroom. Once a day they give us some kind soup over there. I was not staying too long in Auschwitz. Maybe about two months in Auschwitz. Just maybe six weeks. And then from Auschwitz, in '44 we went to Bergen-Belsen.

Bergen-Belsen.

Bergen-Belsen. Was big, big transports because the uh, the Russian was close. They, they took this time--they took out big, big transport. This time when who was working for years already in, in Auschwitz, everybody went together to Bergen-Belsen. And we came to Bergen-Belsen, was no Krematorium. Was no place to live. We maked--we took the tents. We lived in the tents. They make tents and we lived in the tents. And then they, and then they give us once a day they gave us a soup, like from, I don't know from what but everybody was sick from the soup. We lived in tents. We had no bathrooms, nothing. We went outside--we have to make we have went outside. There was just like...

[interruption in interview]


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