Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982

So girls tried to escape many times. I did--I attempted too, my sister attempted too. But what happened with us, uh, since we didn't want to part, said, "Whoever runs away probably won't--isn't going to go too far, wait for the other." I went away and I stuck probably foolishly in a leave, not too far of a distance waiting for my sister. They didn't see me. But somebody else run away too. They saw her--they seen her, and she ran--she didn't have any sister, so she was running. They didn't see her, they came after her, they found me. Don't ask. When--by the time they took me back to the--luckily didn't shoot me. But they beat me with the other side of that uh, rifle. That my ears--I thought my ears are off, my eyes off. I was like a whole cluster of blood--a whole mess of blood. My, my sister, she couldn't attem...she tried to attempt to--attempted to run away but she couldn't make it. And she didn't know what happened. After this we were afraid to run away. Some did and some was caught, some was shot. And some uh, made it. One time, another time, there was probably a group of four girls attempted that same trick and she happened to be--like, you see, each camp had a Judenältesten from the crowd, from the camp.

Had a what?

A Judenältesten, from our own girls.

Husband: Like a sergeant in the army. He is responsible for a certain amount of people.

Okay.

Yeah, but this was in the first camp, like I said Neustadt--her and one was in the office and one was like um, a nurse, you know, if you had a slight cut in there. So those three girls tried probably--good, close friends--tried to run away and they were all caught. What they did, they asked us to sit down on the field, make a circle to pass in the center and kill them--shot them to death. We're talking about this yesterday with this ???, I remember the picture. Three beautiful, beautiful young girls, probably nineteen, twenty, maybe twenty-one, maybe eighteen. Beautiful, three capable girls and, and we had to watch 'em. And we had to make a circle--make a whole ceremony on the fields and, and, and how they shoot 'em.