Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984
Kindness of Foreign Prisoners
Yeah.
So I talked with them during the night shift. It was very good because we worked on with foreign prisoners. You know, they were, the Germans were really the only ones, women brought us to work and they were extremely mean. Women were, were worse than, than men most of the time. They were really mean. I mean the SS...
Yeah.
...women. And uh, otherwise we, she was very angry that, that I spoke a language, you know, what she couldn't understand. But I told him, "He doesn't, he doesn't speak German, what do you want me to do?" And uh, there was a, a Dutch man, he was always, he put some, some, you know, straw together and made us, you know, a place to sleep for--we had an hour, you know, kind of recess uh, during uh, the night. And uh, we were not allowed to go their showers, we are not allowed to, to get water from the Frenchmen. They used to bring us, you know, bottles of hot water from, from their showers because they, they were prisoners. We were, you know uh, a ???, you know, I mean Jewish who, who were--we had to be destroyed and, uh. They, they brought us water and we used to be able during the summer, you know, to get washed in the toilets there, you know, to wash a piece of our clothes. And it was hot air coming in the factory and we used to uh, to be able to dye it, you know. During, among all those strikes, you know, how they used to get in order to clean the machines. They were enormous machines, you know. They used to get a piece of clothing, you know, which was still a dress or a skirt or so on. They always used to give it to us. I remember it was on Riverport, was his name, he was from Bordeaux. He was--then it seemed to me he was old, he was fifty years old. And he made me a pair of uh, of knitting needles and gave my, gave me some, I don't know, some cotton what they had for the machines...
Yeah.
...and I, I knitted for my sister a pair of socks.
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