Edith Kozlowski - August 19, 2010
Traveling to Bergen-Belsen I
Okay. What was that like?
We didn't know where we were going, they said somewhere else to work. But when we came to Bergen-Belsen--I don't know, it took two days to go--I don't know purposefully.
Again in wagons?
Yeah.
Open? Open?
No, not open, no. That was just to Blizyn.
Just to Blizyn.
A real train.
So like a cattle car?
No.
Like a regular train?
A train, a cattle train.
Yeah.
Uh, they had no crematoriums there. So when they let us off, all we saw is corpses. On the floor, we were walk--we were almost walking on the corpses. In fact, you saw people eat parts of human body, in Bergen-Belsen.
Husband: I think when I was came to pick you up, there's a corpse of bodies laying still there.
In Bergen-Belsen?
Husband: yeah, in Bergen-Belsen.
He means way after the war.
Okay. Is there anything else you want to say about Auschwitz?
Yeah--was that Auschwitz--no, that was Bergen...Blizyn no, no Bergen-Belsen. No that's all I did in Auschwitz.
Just the work detail?
Mm-hm.
So, New Years Eve 1944--they--is there an Appell and they--they just tell you that your gonna go?
No. In fact--I'm going back a month.
Okay.
November--oh I didn't tell you that my, cousin came in, and that means my--she was hurt in Plaszow in my Majdanek. That's why my auntie came herself.
Mm-hm.
And she came like a month later. We couldn't believe it, so they got united, the two of them. And she--they made an Appell that, their block leaves to work somewhere else, it was in November. So my auntie came running to our block and said you--they don't know where you live, let's go we'll be together. So the three of us went in the line...
Mm-hm.
To go wherever they went. When it came to us they cut it off. Not because of us, there were more people behind us...
Just...
It just so happened. So we went back, okay. So then, yeah, that we have to get out [pause] to the wagons, okay. We get in and we went, then as I said what we saw. And we came, there was just the filthy big room. And most of them were Hungarian girls, not most of them, Ninety-nine percent were Hungarian girls.
Mm-hm.
And just the three of us were there Polish, I don't know how we got in there. They separated us evidently from the other people. And you would sleep on the floor.
No bunks?
No, I don't know if there was even straw, if there was it was very little. And that's all you did, and you lied there a few days.
Yeah, there was, there was no work.
Yeah.
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