Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Brenda Reiss - June 23, 1983

Getting Help in Camps

Did you ever have any help at all from anyone on the outside?

No, no.

When you were walking nobody...

No, nothing. No, no, no, nothing. We were in the barracks we saw some, you know, potatoes where we took it. We don't know nothing. When I went on, on, on clothing then I know we were stealing something. When I worked in a factory I got my fingers cut. The German woman--I went here to that German woman downstairs and she said to me, "Maybe we can help me." She said, "For you there's nothing."

What did you do then? How did you work with your...

I went home, I went home--I went to the, you know, to the Lager and she said, the German woman here, here a lady got--I went to the ravine and they cut me. I was one day, she said, she counted next day she said it's too many people. I went now right to work because I was afraid they could take me to crematorium next day.

Yeah.

Because I going to be on the list, they take me to crematorium but I am sick. I went to work. I got such anxi...you cannot even remember what I--every minute. You need to got to the toilet, I got--I received twice a day. You, you cannot even imagine. You can--I went to the ??? in Breslau, the old Germans were learning on us how to hit, how--because that school, that school especially for the SS ladies.

In--this was in the Breslau?

In Breslau, yeah. ??? means ???. The special was that you go to learn you went there and you learn how to hit, how to punish and how to do everything. You don't got an idea what they did. Always with the head, always the head. What you did it and how you did, and where you went was wrong and how you went and what you did was wrong. Your whole life was wrong, and today's wrong too. I'm not supposed to be alive. Really. ??? You die anyways. No reason for all.


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