Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map
• Video

Ruth Kent - August 7, 1984

Is that the first place, Stutthof?

I don't remember but it was almost at the end. No, there was the, uh...

Do you remember any of the others when you were put in labor camp?

They were not labor camps uh, I remember them so vaguely. They were just smaller camps and they were scattered in the um, northern part of Poland very close to the bor...German border. But I don't remember any names or anything. They were smaller places.

You were working there?

No. No, I was never working. I was always busy cleaning my one dress that I had. And I was just busy cleaning that dress. I did not work.

But you were with your, your sister?

I was still with her and I was sent--we were sent together to Stutthof and some people in Stutthof were working but uh, again, I was not in the part where they were sending the people out to work. Stutthof was a um, a camp, it was a smaller camp than Auschwitz but it was so difficult to be there again. Um, I saw so many people dying, in fact, friends uh, were dying uh, I don't know if they had uh, that typhus whatever they had and all at once we had again a selection and they picked me and my sister to go to work supposedly. And the last minute, they took my cap off, they took her and they didn't take me again. And again, I was left alone, totally alone. And then after they took her away from me, I took many risks. Uh, the camp next to us was going to work. So, I was uh, taking the food from the people who were very sick and going to the camp there and giving them the food and getting clothes in return, so I will give the clothes to the sick people. They were too sick to eat, so I would take their food rations and go to this working camp there and I was nearly caught there too, I was risking my life. And I would get the clothes and put on the, these sick people. And I remember one incident at night, I opened the windows, it was wintertime, and they were burning up with fevers, so I opened the window and I took the icicles from the window and gave them uh, to drink like 'cause they couldn't get the water and I remember once the search light were almost on me when I opened this uh, window but I had to get these icicles because these two girls, they were twins, I knew their parents, their parents also owned a bakery, so I took the icicles and gave them both uh, inst...I couldn't get the water. So, I would help them and this way--they were just too sick to eat.

Did they survive?

I don't think so. I don't think so. They could never go on the marches because in Stutthof I um, I didn't work again and I, I, I was the only girl my, that, I was the youngest actually in our barracks and the uh, the woman in charge of it must have been a Ukrainian woman. She took a liking to me, so I would get a little extra soup. And um, soon this ended and the Germans were coming closer to our camp. And uh, they evacuated our camp and we started walking.