Helen Jutkevicz - November 10, 1982
Life in the Ghetto
Once you moved, what kinds of changes were there in your daily life?
Oh, is was a big change, you know? You not can work. Is was a Sperre--you under Sperre you can go from this hour to this hour, you know? You not can go where you want. You have just this places around where you can go. So not was work till later maybe in --42 or --43 I start when the ghetto is closed I start to work.
What did your parents do during that--those initial days in the ghetto? What were they...
Nothing. My father in '42 died and then a brother died in '43.
And um, then can you describe what a typical day for you was like uh, when you first moved there.
No what was--we not have a room. We went to a family and we lived together with the family. Then her husband came back from the war and they start to have a family so we have to move, move house and we became a room.
You mean go to another room within the ghetto.
Yes.
Your family remained together.
Yes, all together.
What type of work did the boys do?
The boys?
Mm-hm, your brothers.
One brother was--he was working at the cemetery and he was died--he died. And then the younger brother he was maybe nine, ten years--he lives now in Montreal--he start to work in a--by machines, a ??? machines that we have in our family something, you know? And if he took it--I--is was--how is to say--was a placard. Of all children he was not working he have to come here and here in the place and then they deport him and he was afraid that he may be--working through a cousin, he was a head of this workshop and he took him in and was working.
Did your immediate family then meet up with other relatives in the same situation?
Oh yes, oh yes. Everybody in the ghetto was this bad really.
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