Helen Lang - February 23, 1982
Conditions in Praust
And they were digging trenches...
Yes.
...tank trenches?
They were digging the, the ground, I don't know for what. That's what they were doing.
The guard--were the guards SS men?
There was a guard--of course.
Were there any women who were guards in the camp?
After that came two women. You see, when I was pumping the water, all of a sudden two women arriving--Germans--that they're going to take care of us. They needed them, I don't know for what. There were men uh, guards, you know, they go--went out with the girls and they came back with the girls. But two women--all of a sudden we see two women. So the people from, the people from the kitchen that washed the dishes, we were a few there, you know, a few of us. But I still had my red band; I didn't want to take it off. You know, they should see that, you know, they shouldn't send me out to work. So a few girls were standing there and that German woman--one of them--came out and she says, "I need a girl." And she looks around and she says, "You." She picked me. She says, "I want you should come." So she picked me. I says, "Oh my gosh, I don't have to pump the water no more." So she took me in to her uh, place. She, she was maybe a forty-five year old women. She says, "Look, I want you to take care of me." She says, "You're going to be like my mother. You take care of me." I could have been her daughter. She says, "You're going to watch out for me. You're going to bring in the meals for me and you're going to, uh..." So that's what I did. I cleaned up her place. In the morning I went in maybe at four o'clock to make fire, you know. I'm talking about already when it's, you know, because she needed warm water. I should wash her. I washed her from top to bottom, her legs everything.
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