Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Sylvia Feld - July 28, 1982

This was where?

SF: In Auschwitz.

Can you describe your--how you got to Auschwitz for me?

SF: They put us on, on the wagons and the wagons was jammed with people. One was standing next, next to each other. We could barely breathe. And uh, took us,--I don't remember or two days or three days, I don't remember how long because was no food was no air was like b...being not alive. So finally they opened the doors from the, from the train. In the front of us was standing German army with guns and waiting for us. Then we went down there they told us to go to a, to a narrow uh, narrow uh, inn like to uh, to get uh, washed, the coldest like washroom. We went there, we washed up and after that we went out then they start shaving our hair. And uh, I was at that time with my younger sister and I looked at her and I start screaming, "Where is my sister?" And she said, "Here I am! Here I am!" I didn't even recognize her. We, we looked like, like, uh...

NF: Animals.

SF: Animals. We didn't look human. They told us to march, after this they told us to march on a big open field. We marched there we had all kinds of belongings we had to leave everything to take off all the clothes. We've held still ashamed of ourselves in front of the German army but we had to do whatever they told us. We sat down on the ground and wait for some soup. I don't remember or they gave us the soup or they didn't because we were waiting all day long for it. And finally we had to stand up and Germans overlooked us--are we capable of going to work or are we ready for the crematoriums? And it was whispering around between us that a little bit further we can see it's like burning fires in crematoriums and, and, and, and this, this is uh, like another world but nobody believed that this is human and this ever could be the truth. And they tried to put uh, line by line for people to put the numbers on, on the left arm. We were sitting on the ground and waiting then they were gonna put on the numbers. But the night approached and uh, they stopped doing it and this is where we over night on the ground and the next morning, early morning they send up, send us out again from Auschwitz to other concentration camps.