Ruth Kent - May 4, 1982
Relocating to Auschwitz
When did they start sending Jews out of the ghetto?
Oh, oh, we had, they really had these selektions quite often. I would say two, three times a week they would come in select who they really wanted to. The sick and the, the young people and the older people they would take and, and we would never see them again and we didn't know where they were sent to. Um, so gradually they were always sending people out but not in uh, uh, masses to speak of um, towards the um, largest um, evacuation I think came beginning of 1944, that's when they started evacuating our ghetto. And we were sent out I believe either July or August, sort of with the last transport we were sent away. Um, some even said that even uh, President Rumkowski of the ghetto was shipped uh, with us and, and, and this was uh, uh, a very sad um, part. I think this was devastating, this was the, the worst um, memories that I really have of the war when we were told to uh, take whatever we can carry with us. I believe they said that they're, they said that we were going to um, go to a labor, to a labor camp to work and we would get more food. And they um, um, asked all of the Jews, remaining Jews at the time to get to the uh, stations. We had a train of some sort I don't know how the train got to this. But there was a train in fact it was a cattle train. And we all gathered in front of these trains and where you would um, normally put uh, like twenty-five cattles they managed to uh, put a hundred to a hundred twenty-five people, one on top of the other, there was no breathing spell. Again, we're together the whole family--my mother, my three brothers and my cousin ??? , we were all together. And uh, in this cattle car and a journey that probably would have taken uh, two, three hours, because we were going to Auschwitz. It's not very far, maybe seventy miles, eighty miles from Poland, I have no idea how far it is.
Did you know where you were going?
Uh, we were going to a camp.
But you never heard of Auschwitz?
No, no we didn't because we didn't get too many uh, news um, to a radio in the ghetto. We'd, we were just sort of told like an echo that the Russian front was coming closer. I don't even know if they were already in Warsaw, the Russians, I don't know, uh...
How long did the journey take though?
Um, probably two, three days and uh, there were no sanitary uh, conditions or anything. It was uh, crying, and pushing and, and, and screaming. My mother tried to get us together and, and keep us calm but it was impossible because if you had any bread, people would steal the piece of bread you had. People became like animals. We had no fresh air to breath. And after maybe a day or two I, I quite don't remember how long that journey took, we arrived and I call it Auschwitz now into a, um, a, a, cattle cars, pulled up into this area.
Let me ask you what, what did people do when they had to go to the bathroom?
They did uh, they did it in their pants. I mean, they really had to relieve themselves...
There was not--no, no facilities there?
No uh, I don't remember having any pails or anything but I was always very strong. I was--I never had to go anywhere. But I don't remember uh, people just did what they had to do where they did. They had no room of any sort because there were men, women and children together and it was standing room only and one body supported the other. What can I say? No, there were no sanitary conditions the, the smell...
Do remember, what...
The stench was...
What you felt like as a child with all of this?
I was a shock. I think we were in a shock, in a daze. We really, it, it all happened so quickly when they asked us to gather our belongings and come to these uh, to these station. Um, we had no time to think and to tell you the truth what we had left wasn't so good. So there was always the hope that I think that tomorrow is going to be better. What we had left in the ghetto was no picnic. I mean, so we were hoping that wherever we're going it, it can't be worse, it can't get much worse than we had in the ghetto because people were just dying at a tremendous rate. So um, no we didn't think that we're going to any bad place. We, we had no idea that it could be worse than what we had. We looked forward to it in many ways maybe we're hoping it's going to be better. As long they didn't separate my family, our family, we were hoping together maybe we'll go to a better area, maybe to a working camp of some sort.
When, when they opened the doors...
They opened the doors...
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