Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Rose Green - May 21, 2008

What was the, what was the cattle car like?

There were lots of us there and stinking, dirty, no food. We had some food--we brought some food from--in, in our, in our packs and uh, no butter. And there was a pan; you go to bathroom there in the pan.

So no privacy.

No privacy. We, we were standing around, you know, person wanted to go--it's terrible. Unbelievably--hygiene--in, in the camp--in the working camp, when we were in the working camp we didn't have any hygiene. There was no towels, no soap. My sister-in-law was with me in the, in, in the working camp and there was a little pan like a, like a bigger plate, like a bigger plate and she uh, would warm up a little water for me so I could wash my face, because she stayed home for awhile because she uh, there wasn't enough work somehow. The trains didn't go through and they didn't get enough material, so my partner was working and hers--she used to work, it was out for awhile. And she, she stayed in the camp and she worked around the camp, cleaning and whatever. And uh, but the hygiene was awful. That was the worst thing.

Was there lice?

Oh, are you kidding? Are you kidding? Yeah, my God. That was, that was uh, when we had Sun...Sunday we didn't go to work, so that was the entertainment. We was picking lice from our clothes. I bet you heard that one.

Sometimes.

Yeah. And it was so cold in the room in the winter. We had a pan there for, for going to bathroom, you know, by the window and uh, in the morning it was one big block of ice. And we had a very, very thin, thin blanket, so we were cold. So, I never took off my clothes, I never took off my coat. I slept in my clothes, I slept in coat and put that little blanket on me--somehow kept a little warm.