Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Being Taken Care of by Cousins
So I waited, they took me right away. They were older. They were already settled, they had already--they were coordinated. They had recuperated partly. They were better off, and they were boys. So they took care of me for a while. They said, "Why go back to Poland? Stay here. Wherever we go, you coming." I said, "I, I don't know. I just want to travel, I just want to go. I want to find somebody." I said, "They don't know I survived. Maybe my brother's living, maybe another sister's living." I didn't know about this one sister--the youngest one too. Then I stayed with them. They said, "But you're not in a position," he said, "to do. Here you have--where you going to eat, where you going to live?" He said, "We will teach you." They went into the German, they got what they wanted. That time they were running away, the Germans. And I found another cousin, a first cousin. So after awhile we seen it's there, it's uh, it's not for very long. And they heard about there where the American--this was the Russian occu...uh, where the Russians had occupied--they said, "Where the American are and the British there are in Poland Displaced Persons camps and from there maybe we'll emigrate to Israel or maybe to United States or whatever." And they made--we had to smuggle because you were not allowed to go like this. We had no documents. It was, it was hectic then too. But if they found you--they caught me smuggling, uh, not smuggling, smuggling through. They caught me. They didn't shoot me, they just pulled me back. So we tried again. I didn't know, but the cousins were older. So finally I, I hurt my leg and I had an infection. Like it was going with this cuts and this one. He said, "You know what, let me take off your boot." I said, "If you take off the boot I can never put it back in." I see, it hurted me so bad. So finally we got there, he said, "Here not far is a camp Fohrenwald"--no, they, they got to Munich. In Munich was like a place where everybody gathered. It was like a hotel. Everybody from all the corners of survivors gathered there. And from there they spread. Wherever somebody had, from there they were spreaded to the, to the DP camps. So from there, a young man while I was laying in bed--a young man he deserted the Polish army. He introduced himself, he name is ??? and he said, "Let me take care of you." Uh, not far from here, he said, "There is a uh, a camp called Fohrenwald. They have doctors and hospitals and they'll take care of your leg." When I got there, they gave us a room, you know, with inmates uh, and he said, uh, "This girl I sick. She needs medical help. She has an infection here." They took me right away. They gave me a room--assigned me to a room and they called right away an ambulance and took me to a hospital. And the God truth, they were talking about amputating the leg. I have to tell you something, they will never do it. ??? I heard what they were shushing, and I figured if that should happen after all this, I, I'm not going to let them do it. But that was the first time I heard of penicillin. They started off treating with penicillin. Before long I was well. I mean, they were, uh...
Husband: ???
They were talking about--they cured me.
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