Edith Kozlowski - August 19, 2010
Auschwitz II
Do you know how he got them?
No.
You have no idea?
Never got in touch with him. I don't know if he made it or not. He was from Tomaszów, from a different city. That group that worked.
So, you were just digging--you were--you'd get up in the morning and Appell...
Roll call...
Appell?
Yeah...
Tell me a little bit about that?
Morning some black coffee and a piece of--small piece of bread, then some watery stuff in the evening.
Mm-hm.
Just digging ditches ???
Yeah.
Come back the evening.
Did you...
No, bathroom naturally. No shower, the place we had to walk to wash ourselves cold water. Stay in the line ???.
Did you know what was going on in the camp once you got there?
Yeah.
Did you see...
??? we smell ???...
The crematorium? Yeah, you could smell...
We didn't see but we smelled already, we knew. Rosh Hashanah was the worst.
Yeah.
We couldn't see each other. I walked with my auntie, I couldn't see her. That's how black it was from...
With the smoke.
Mm-hm. [long pause]. Yeah.
So how long were you in Auschwitz?
Just a little over half a year.
Half a year. Did you see, transports coming in--and, and being sent, cause that's....
No we couldn't.
That summer would have been when they took...
No.
The Hungarian Jews.
Yeah they did. Yeah uh, when--sometimes when they were taking us, we saw French women outside. Yeah, the French I saw but...no.
Daughter: Which summer?
Summer of '44.
He knows which summer, '44.
Did you see anybody shot in Auschwitz?
Not really.
No.
No, they didn't do it right there.
Daughter: Dad did.
Dad was not with me. That was a different story. Smaller camps.
So tell me some more--tell me how your sisters were faring, while you were there? Were you--you were all together still?
We were all together. In fact I'll never forget, they were giving you, not every day, a piece of salami. Which is, from uh, horses--meat.
Horse meat, yeah.
And were--I don't know how we heard it. And my youngest sister wouldn't eat it, so I was getting two pieces instead of one. I ate hers. [laughs]
[laughs]
Helen.
So, I'm assuming then--and they could be wrong, but you were in Auschwitz then till they liquidated it in--in January?
I wasn't there.
No you weren't there, you had left already.
I went to Bergen-Belsen.
Right. When did you leave Auschwitz?
New Years Eve.
New Years Eve.
Thirty-first of December.
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