Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982

Finally I got to Sosnowiec--it's the biggest city, close one to Pilica where I was born. And there somebody said there is a Jewish Committee formed right from after the war, and everybody that comes here registers and they print out lists and everybody, you know, it's a way of reuniting the families that left, the, the survivors. So I'm sitting on a stairway, and so many people and every minute I hear--I knew a list is out and I go there and see, and I go back, and I'm sitting down. I don't see no one with my name. Finally somebody comes and they claps me on the back. She said, "Paula." I said, "Yeah. Oh, ???." She used to go with my sister--the one I was in uh, uh, to school. And she recognized me. She said, "What are you doing here?" She uh, she survived in a bunker with her sister. Her sister died in the bunker, but she pulled through. And she happened to know my sister well. She--I knew her too--she was going with my older sister, with this one, to school. And she said, "I was liberated January. I'm here since January." She said, "Why you"--said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I came from Czechoslovakia and I'm, I'm, I'm trying to find somebody." She said, "Where's Manya? Where's this one, and where's that one?" I said, "You tell me, I don't know." But I told her I was with Manya and we separated at the very end and I hope to find her here, or maybe my brother. In the meantime, I had this young--I had this younger sister, who's living--God bless her--she was in a different camp. And we--well I'll tell you about ??? my sister. So uh, she said, "You know what, you don't look too good. Why don't you come to me? We are, we are--there are a few from our city. I have here a room and I'm going to come here all the time and I will check it for you." She seen I was looking so pathetic, you know, still like a shadow. I, I could, every--she said, "When I got there, everybody else recognized me." Said, "You know what, I'm going to see that you go to a hospital. You need help, you need medical help." They're already liberated since January. They were from the bunkers, you know, in a bunker, they were hidden out in a bunker. So uh, but I just couldn't talk, I couldn't see. And then she puts me to sleep. There were already five people in a, in a mattress with a spring sticking out like this and she was so good, said "You're laying down, don't worry. We are five, going to be six." And that's how, that's how we spend there.