Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

All right, I'd like you to uh, please if you can recall for me when you were sent away and were their others being sent away in the cattle cars before you.

I, I, I can't remember uh, anybody else, because after us uh, we, we were sent, all of us were sent out.

At once.

Yes.

How many people were living in the ghetto?

I can't tell you that, I really can't, because we were getting transports every, every so often from small towns they were coming in.

Where did they live?

Well uh, that's a good question. They lived one on top of the other. It was no such thing as having two rooms.

Who moved you into the ghetto?

Oh, we had to do it ourselves.

What did you take with you?

Uh, the most important things. Not any furniture or you know, anything that uh, would bring us pleasure of. It was just the necessary things to--that we needed for daily living.

Were you allowed to go back and bring things back in?

Oh no, once the ghetto was closed, that was it. And uh, after the ghetto was closed, it didn't take long. They uh, um, moved us out.

Uh, how did you find out that you had to move into the ghetto?

I guess uh, it was uh, notified by the Jewish uh, com...uh, committee.

The Judenrat.

The Judenrat. And that--that's why the Germans right away had formed this uh, Jewish committee. I remember going there with my mother, pleaing for my father's release, and it was uh, of no use because uh, it was, there was nobody to talk to. And uh, it was just horrible because we couldn't believe that our own people would turn against us. But it wasn't uh, so much of uh, their doing, yet I blame them, because I have to blame somebody. Because I couldn't actually say, "Well, if you disobey, get killed instead of turn others in." Because I wouldn't, you know, tell them, well, "Your life is not important. It's just my father's life is important." It was actually their life, if you hear their story. It was their life against others. So they had to fulfill their orders. But uh, to me now, I don't see that as reason.

Are any of the members of that Judenrat living today?

Uh, this uh, Romick's brother is living somewhere, but I don't know where. I heard in New York that he was somewhere. But his brother was uh, in my estimation, was not the nicest guy. And that was my father's cousin.

You never actually saw them beating any Jews.

Oh yes. Like I said, every Sunday, we saw it.