Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982

Were you ever in a Displaced Persons camp?

Yes, that where we married.

Which camp were you in?

Fohrenwald.

Where's that?

Fohrenwald, near Munich.

Husband: Thirty minutes from Munich.

Fohrenwald by Bavaria.

Spell that, would you? Fohren...

Fohrenwald? I don't know how to spell because...

Husband: It was a big camp, five thousand people...

This was a beautiful camp, I mean the space camp--there we were fed and we were given shelter and all this. Oh okay, Forenwold is with a "o"--it's German. Fohr...with "h"?

Husband: Fohrenwald.

With "h", yeah?

Husband: No, no. Fohren.

Fohren...but I, I know that. This is German, with a, with a--all with the umlats. This is German. Polish, no problem. Near Munich. Was a big uh, DP camp.

F-o-r-e-n-w-a-l-d.

Yeah.

How long were you at the Displaced Persons camp?

I'll tell you--it's a story this Displaced Person camp too. When I traveled after, after Czechoslovakia out, from place to place, finally I, I knew, where, where was I heading? Back to Poland. When I got into Katowice with one more girl that had survived in the um, out from the hospitals in Czech...in--from Czech...Czechoslovakia like I did--one inmate. I got to Poland, I wanted to go back. When I got into a train from Katowice into Sosnowiec in a train, I looked at one lady and I could swear that she was my sister--the older sister--the married one. And I wanted to talk to her, she was dressed--I could see it, only maybe she, she was a non-Jewish, not I could tell, and she wore her clothes. She wore her hat. My sister always wore her hat, she was a very pretty woman--young woman in a coat. I c...just couldn't stop--I said, "Sala, don't you want to talk me?" So finally we sat from Katowice to Sosnowiec in the train. I said, "Sala, don't you want to talk to me?" She looks at me. I said, "Oh, I thought you were my sister." She thought I'm ou...out of my mind. I, I thought she was my sister, but she thought I was out of my mind. I said, "You look so much like my sister." I said--she said, "Who was she?" I said, "Her name was Sala, she lived in, in Zawiercie, and you look very much like her." Even, I said, her hat--I remember her wearing the same hat. She looked at me, maybe she knew her, and she didn't say nothing.