Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Freda Magnus - July 22, 1982

Mother Gets Taken by Germans

They threw the sick people out of the windows?

Out of the windows in Łódź. And the children from the windows.

And who was doing the throwing out?

The Germans. Sure, the Germans.

Was it the soldiers?

The soldiers, yeah, soldiers was throwing out the people to the windows and, and grabbing children from the mother's hand--beating them up. The mothers was crying, you know, you can imagine when somebody comes and takes away a child. And all the time--then to my house they came twice--they came several times but one time they picked my mother--they came up, "All Juden raus! All Juden raus!" every second day, you know, for selection. So, my mother already, you know, she was a very delicate woman--she was very afraid, you know, shivering. So I said to my mother, "Don't go out, they will take you away. I want to hide you." She didn't let me us--she said she's going down. So she went down and she was selected to, to take her to go to the dead camp. Not ??? to the dead place and I knew about that so when they select them on the wagons, you know, like on the trash wagons what they take here and they took them away, far away to where there was a hospital and then they were waiting for taking them to send them to, to the camps or who knows where. And I--like I told you, I was very devoted to my parents--when I heard that my mother got picked and she will not come back, you know, I went after, you know, to the hospital, I saved my mother there. I wanted there to be two. But I took with me a few dollars, you know, and there was a curfew this time for whenever they made selections to take out they made curfew--people couldn't walk on the street but already in the ghettos there was--the Jews was knocking down the walls that you could walk from one--from not one street to the other without having--walking on the main streets, you know, and hiding between the houses. So, finally--how far--you can't imagine how far this was. So I walked there and finally came to the destination where I knew they--my mother is there and there was a Jewish, also policeman watching people sort of walk in and walk out so I came, I say--a policeman said to me, "Young lady, you go away from there because if you go in you will be sent away just like your mother." I said, "I don't care. If my mother's going then I go with her." And--but I was lucky. My mother didn't go in into the building, she was standing by the street--by the um, line--how do you call this?

Fence.


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