Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Ilya Martha Kessler - November 1, 1982

Children in Auschwitz

Is there anything that stands out in your mind from the camps that you remember more than anything else that... Any incident that happened or that you saw that...

I... One... Near us was a camp and there was young kids. That was uh... They took from Czechoslovakia, from, uh... I don't know, now I don't remember name. Anyway. And they was, we always was talking through the fence and they was such a nice little kids. And this was good, you see, then because a long time we didn't see two, three year old and ??? and everything. And one night we heard, what I said to you, in the trucks ??? And people, they keep the strong, and people wasn't exactly dead and start to sing something uh, you know, and uh, make jokes with each other and help with each other to, to live through because we hope we're going to come out. And then came the Kapo and said, "Don't cry... Uh, don't, don't sing." They taking the, the Czech Jews to the crematorium. Next day, we came home and the camp was empty.

Mm.

It was terrible. I mean, it was more anymore, just, your feelings... Don't go too far, don't go, because you're never going to get out from there. And to think that when I was there I said, "What I did? I don't do nothing, nothing. Why I? Because I was born Jewish?" So, all kind of...

Yeah.

...ugly things was there. And I was young. I, I couldn't realize everything like the older people.

Sure.


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