Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984
Working with Women Prisoners
Sure.
And uh, at least the longest you were at work, you know, they, they couldn't torture you because they needed you to do...
Yeah.
...to do the work. And uh, in Reichenbach there was a, a foreman who was in this part, in, in, in this certain, I don't know, section, who was Austrian. And he was much nicer. We worked with, with women who were also prisoners, I don't know, they had some black market uh, sold something, got something on the black market and they got two years. And they went from jail and they worked in the same, in the same section. So when we came in, they, they had been working all over the place, they moved them, you know, to the, to the left side and we worked in the right side. But they hated Hitler, you know, as much as we did, because some of them really were in, they called him uh, dark, dark uh, dark dungeon or something like this, the ones who were politically, you know, made themselves...
Yeah.
...being caught. But one of them was supposed to serve I don't know how many months and in January she had to be transported to Auschwitz and she said, "Hitler will never get me there. It will be over be"--and it was over before she got to Auschwitz. So when we came in, they started to sing, and they sang a song uh, "Es geht alles für ??? es geht alles vorbei everything, everything goes a...uh, I mean everyth...es geht alles ??? everything goes away, everything passes by, after this December comes another May." You know, so it was very meaningful...
Sure.
...and they kept on singing and smiled at us. And they shared their milk, they, they were given milk everyday because we worked with very dangerous, I mean, I don't know how you call this, metal, you know, what you, you uh, glue the uh, the wires, you know, for the uh, and the fumes were very uh, very into...
Uh-huh, toxic.
...toxic.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn