Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Simon Kalmas - May 25, 1982

Sanitary Conditions

This--describe--before we get into what happened after your liberation--describe generally the conditions of the camps, you know, the sanitary conditions, the food...

After the liberation, or...

No, before.

Camps?

Yeah.

The sanitary conditions in the places that I was--not Auschwitz--outside Auschwitz--cannot complain about sanitary conditions, until we got to Buchenwald. Buchenwald was a different story. But in the camp, the ???, and the coal mine camp there that I was there, sanitary conditions were good, if I may say so. Because as soon you got back from work, you got to go and take a shower and you got soap, you got a towel and you had to change from, from work clothes, you know, to camp clothes. So sanitary was good. I cannot say there wasn't. Also they had medical facilities--whatever the facility was available to them. Bandages was toilet paper--that was the bandages. But in general, as cleanliness--clean, this was the only camp that I been at that you could say, you know, it's clean, it's clean. Of course, we had to do it ourselves. Because we never had a free day or a free hour or after a meal or. You came from work, you have to go take a shower, and after you took the shower you had to run in and get your uh, dish of soup--whatever it was there, a piece of bread and a piece of butter.


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