Edith Kozlowski - August 19, 2010
Clearing the Ghetto
Okay.
And later on, maybe a couple--a few days before the uh, deportation. I got the third sister in. That's how we...
You got all three...
Saved. That's how we, we were saved.
You got all three of you in there. Wow. Can you tell me a little bit about...
One...
Oh, I'm sorry.
One night--one day they didn't let us go home. They were building a couple barracks. We figured it's for us.
Mm-hm.
And one day they said, tonight you're staying here. So there were bunk beds and we had to be there the whole camp. At night time we heard screamings and shootings and... They...
Were they clearing the ghetto?
Szyna, Marvin.
Husband: What? What did you say?
I'm losing words now...
Husband: Szyna
Yeah, Szyna, yeah.
Husband: The railroads...
The railroads were right by us...
Okay.
And they were evidently packing the people--no, we were not in the ghetto. We were away from the ghetto.
Mm-hm. They were taking the people from the ghetto?
Those took--we didn't know it.
Yeah.
But we figured something is happening there. This took a couple nights, I think. Was yours first?
Husband: Ours was first.
Yeah, the small ghetto was cleared first.
Yeah, this took a couple nights. And then a couple weeks later it happened with our people, in the big ghetto.
This would be August 1942, I think.
Yeah. They kept us--we didn't go home since then.
Mm-hm.
But, like a couple days after our deportation, they took all of us with SS men, and dogs. To our homes, we should show them where we lived, to show us that there is nobody and nothing left.
Okay.
And we went back to our--to AVL. From there we went to Blizyn.
Blizyn.
Husband: Excuse me. Did you know where you guys went?
Yeah, I mean did you know at the time?
Husband: Because mine went to Treblinka.
So did mine. I didn't know at the time, yeah. We found out later, right, Treblinka.
Treblinka.
They went to Treblinka.
So--so after the ghettos were cleared and you were in, in the camp, in--just outside the ghetto, for a couple...
No. Uh, when did we go to Blizyn.
Yeah.
Together was forty-two, and forty-three we went to Blizyn. I know because in forty- five I went to Auschwitz, I don't remember months.
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