Sonia Nothman - January 4, 1983
Conditions in Skarżysko V
Did you have trouble getting to see your brother getting in to...
No. During the day, no. Night. Oh night, yeah. During the day, no. We were arranged so that one--if my brother works through the day, I stay with him during the day, my sister went to him at night. Because we changed shifts. Before we used to work together. But when we brought my brother and so on. One was always with my brother, we watched him. Not that he needed watching, but we cooked something for him and we see that he could eat, you know.
Do you recall the names of any of the uh, the Germans who were in charge of the camp you were at?
Oh of course, Herring, ???, Krauser, oh plenty, plenty. They shot one, they shot him. Going home he was um, with a Polish woman. He was ??? So somebody shot him. They don't know. They say the partisans, or what. Nobody know. I remember um, it was 1942, maybe 1943. We didn't have work by us in the mills. So our master--his name is ???--was, he was a Volksdeutschee. He sent us to the ammunitions factory for a couple months until the potatoes will come. And he uh, ??? or Herring, I don't even recall, by whom I worked. Ammunition. They sent us to transport. Before...Men used to work by this. So they took us two girls to pick up a crate ammunition. Even foremen couldn't pick this up. I worked there for two months. Oh, he wouldn't call us...But we couldn't. Before the war they told us they took on rollers, special wagons or what, they all this. But then they got labor for nothing. The men used to work. But when we didn't have work, they sent us there. So they took us two girls to crates. And we worked, I don't know, six weeks, I don't know even two months. I don't think you could survive two months of this. So that's why I know I worked uh, I think Herring was it. This ammunition. Used to be like two inches, four inches--in Polish, centimeter. The shells all kind. They used to put them in a crate--shell, this is very heavy. And we used to carry this. Picked this up, put this on the table and people used to check it. Wear these certain glasses, this is good or not.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn