Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982
Conditions in the Ghetto II
Did your whole family go there with you? Your aunts and uncles who were in your little town, you were together?
Yeah, oh yeah. They took us ???
Did you stay together in the ghetto or were you able to...
Yeah, yeah. They... Everything was sleeping in there, it's outside, was, everything was, everybody was there. So, my father could stay... One would come stay there. Because he was helping there for the sick people. And he couldn't stay one more and my father said no because the whole, the whole family.
How did that happen, the transport? Um, did they just come and take you one day, or how?
Yeah, they said, today this city goes and today this city goes and today that store, so you have to go and stay in line because that was in a place, you, you didn't... You're not going to have nowhere you could run if you wanted, one or two, not more.
Was there much resistance in the ghetto?
Nothing...
Uh--huh.
...nothing, nothing. People did what they said. Nothing. Couple people who run away, they catch them, they ??? they beat them, so the people was afraid. My mother spoke uh, at ??? I mean, they was, they was already more than thirty year old and two grandchildren. They all went to Budapest, they got papers. They all came back. Nobody catched them. So, people did it and how I said my aunt and my uncle they went to Budapest and they didn't catch them. They call it ahead and they, they said there is a whole, so we came to the bigger city. And they start to work, what they waitresses all kind of ??? and nobody uh, saw them. They had little paper and that's all. They... So, who has uh, guts to go, so they could just... My father didn't want to go.
When you were in ghetto was there a Judenrat that organized things or what?
I don't know nothing.
Okay.
Nothing, nothing and I didn't fear nothing, I didn't know nothing. People was like sheep. Maybe was a couple, I don't know. I don't remember. Nobody said nothing to fight or nothing.
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