Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Nancy Fordonski - July 29, 1982

Transport to Łódź Ghetto

Can you describe the train ride?

We came on the train, it was, it was a cattle car--cattle train. We were all pushed in, on the wagons, just like you see when they're pushing cattle in a wagon. They didn't count. They were by the wagons, the first gendarme and the Jewish police from the, from the Zdunska Wola ghetto. We were pushed in, in the cars. They didn't count how many, just as many they could shove in. We were all on the train. The train start rolling. We didn't get any food. I don't think so that we were hungry or we were even thinking about food, but… But, but because today it's T'shabov and I happened to fast. So it just occurred to me that maybe we're thinking about a glass of water or whatever. But we didn't get anything to eat or to drink. They locked the doors behind us. And the train was starting to roll from Zdunska Wola to Łódź. I think there are approximately maybe fifty or sixty kilometers. But we were going back and forth. We could hear that the train was coming to an end and then it was going back the same way. This was for a few days and for a few nights. People were screaming, crying. We were afraid that we are going to die just of suffocation. So we're thinking if we scream out or we, we cry or we are loud, maybe somebody will have mercy of us, maybe they will open up a door just to let in some fresh air. But nobody bothered, nobody heard us. We were just going back and forth for a few days. And then one morning [long pause] we were sitting, where you had to make. We were just sitting and making on the--excuse me for the expression--under your--where you were staying because there was no place to sit.


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