Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nancy Fordonski - July 29, 1982

Mm-hm. [pause] Okay, we're back in the Łódź ghetto and they're liquidating it. What was your action?

I--my sister and I we had uh, we were in a place. We had our little uh, room where, by the way, whenever it rained we had all the water in the room. Many times when I came home from work, and the rain came unexpected, the, the floor was already flooded. Or it start to rain in the middle of the night, when you put your foot out in the morning on the floor, you jumped into water. But this were the circumstances. But then came a announcement that uh, they were liquidating the ghetto and so many streets have to be vacant and we have to get more together. So the part--the place where we were living at has to be vacant. So we had to move on. And a few blocks further where my husband--still my boyfriend, my friend, was there with his mother. So my sister and I we have decided that we will move in to that same building where they lived. Because that place was still okay to stay.

Mm-hm.

There we were for a few days, trying to sch...to carry with us, to schlep everything what we could on our arms, some little food what we had, and some of the clothes. Because we still thought that maybe there we will still live 'til the war will end. So we had a room there and after being there for a few days, they were starting to make announcements again that they are liquidating the whole ghetto. And we have to come down and--to the--you know, it's a special, like uh, again, to the train, train station. That they will meet and they will put us on trains and they will send us away. And if they will find anybody, when the Germans--the SS will start to search the homes, when they will find anybody they will shot, they will shoot the people on the spot. But [pause] we thought that maybe the war will end before they will have a chance to liquidate the whole ghetto. We were trying still to stay on for a few days. And we were hiding. They were coming to the rooms and they were, they were searching for us, for people who was left. So one day, we had our hiding place here and there. One day my sister and myself we, we were thinking that the best hiding place will be right by the door. When the Germans come in, usually they look further. They don't look the first step they make into the room. They were looking in closets, they were looking in beds, under beds, and so on. So we were, we took some bedding and some stuff and we threw on a pile right by the door, right at the door. And the Germans didn't know, it was people already on the train or they are still somewhere. So we were under that pile of all that uh, clothing and bedding and there was a piece of sheet laying on the top. And when the SS--they were coming in into the room with big noises uh, like, "Verfluchte Juden!" "Are you still here?" "Get out!"