Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?
Conditions in Budy
They were attacking each other.
Yes, because we all knew we're going to die.
How did you know that?
Well uh, when we came in there uh, those uh, who were sti...still there to take care, like in every circle they had some Jewish girls to uh, organize and to command, you know, you stay here or stay here.
Kapo.
Well, it wasn't called Kapo, it was a stubenvisor.
Stuben...
And uh, they were telling us uh, you're probab...you're probably going to be gassed tomorrow. And just the knowing was so tremendous even though we were so sick, we so deteriorated that uh, we didn't care. We wanted it. But instead uh, a few German uh, men I remember seeing from the uh, uh, uh, windows uh, the windows were o...of course with iron uh, sticks. And uh, uh, they came and they called us out and I--they asked us to run, believe it or not. How I ran, I don't know. But I ran a few feet and uh, they picked me and a few other girls to go to the hospital for ten days. And if I shouldn't make it within ten days, then I go to the uh, gas chamber. Well, I went to the hospital when I uh, lay down and a--if you want to call it--nurse came up to me and she said, "I would advise you to get out as soon as possible. They will not give you ten days." EL This was a Jewish nurse.
Yes. Uh, it wasn't really a nurse, it was just you know, but it must have been a very kind person. She said, "I would advise you to get out before the ten days, because they did not put you here for ten days for recovery. They put you here because evidently they must have gotten a message to go easy on or they didn't have enough room in the gas chamber."
Did you see new transports of people coming in all the time?
Oh yes, we've seen truckloads near the fence going to the gas chamber and Jews were uh, hollering Shma Israel and you know. And uh, and one night one German prisoner--we had German prisoners too, women.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn