Charlotte Firestone - March 11, 1982
Conditions in Stutthof
Use the toilet.
Right. Use the toilet.
In the morning you...
We went there.
Did you have to line up outside?
Yeah. Appell.
After Appell. If you wanted to use the toilet in the morning...
We had to run in the toilet, even before...
You didn't--was there a long line?
Yeah. Oh Yeah.
Did the Germans let you use it?
The German wasn't in there.
They weren't there.
No.
Okay.
And as soon as the, as soon as, as soon as we had Appell, we had to stay in the line and Emma Macha was there and she, she was reading how many had to go--this one goes there, then run the da...you know and then it so happened that, that they brought down another 500 woman, so that, that um, lager was a thousand people, thousand women already. In a few days or weeks, maybe later, days later, we had already thousand--isn't that called...We uh, so we had to go out already, so we had to go before Appell to the washroom, but the kids, the women were so--there were young kids, they were so cold and they didn't want to go down, or they, they couldn't control their--so they, I remember the girls were crying that she was making number two and it dripped down on them and they didn't have clothes to change and that--save that clothes, we had to go in early in the morning to work. It was a terrible situation, but the death toll-- some didn't care, you know and they--so we went out--
Did that, did that breed d...disease, too?
Really not. Really not. The disease came when the girls went up and they went out to work and us, we were standing under sun, the dress was short sleeved and no socks, nothing. You know this dress was short and we had on wooden shoes and the sun was burning and to protect us from the sun, we were cutting the leaves and putting on, you know. Those leaves had bugs and you know, putting on in the sun was on it and the bugs went into the skin and the skin start to rot.
Did that happen to you?
It didn't. And I'm going to tell you, I ran out and I got stuck having sun and I look...
[interruption in interview]
...and she threw it in, but she cannot be cleaning her and washing her, but there was a girl, she was the biggest enemy--it was, if she knew that there are two sisters that was terrible, so she said, "I knew it's my town and she is so reliable. Let me make her for a--let--Frau Oberaufseher, you make her for a Stubälteste." That room has to be cleaned, because that was Stubälteste's job was to wake them up. Standing them up for a bath.
But she didn't tell you she was your sist...she was your sister?
No. God forbid.
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