Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

Okay. Do you remember any starvation in the ghetto? You were there for two, about two years the ghetto was formed.

I can't remember any starvation. I can remember limitations, but not any starvations.

What kind of limitations?

Well, like we couldn't have uh, you know, candies and stuff like that. And other things because uh, we were actually on uh, limited time only. We were like a stand-by. You know, they needed a quota, how many people they needed for Auschwitz. And then they got to us. So uh, they didn't bother establishing really a, a hunger camp. It was just like a waiting period. So how the food was distributed and how my mother got it, I couldn't really tell you. I just can't recall being as hungry as I was in Auschwitz.

You didn't see dead bodies in the streets in the ghettos.

Yes, I did.

People rounded up, you saw dead bodies.

Yes, every Sunday.

On Sunday.

Yes.

But not people starving from hunger.

No, this I did not witness. No uh, I imagine maybe you interviewed some people from Łódź, from Litzmannstadt. Now that, that was a ghetto that was established and people stayed in that ghetto all through the war. But our ghetto was not established. It was just like a waiting period for us until we were uh, shipped to Auschwitz.

Two years was a long time for waiting period.

It was, it was. But I was awful young, like I'm telling you. And it was just uh, uh, I, I couldn't recall every, you know, incident because uh, it just didn't register because you couldn't believe that was going to happen.

Was there a different attitude in your parents, from your mother that you felt as time got closer to being transported to Auschwitz?

Well, we were preparing, I remember, like I said. Uh, she told my brother to put on uh, uh, a few suits so he can sell it for food and she sewed in five dollars into my belt. Either I had a dress or a skirt or whatever. And I remember when I came to Auschwitz and uh, they uh, shaved me and they took my clothes. I was trying to hang onto this belt, but they tore it out of my hand.