Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

Can you describe the Kapos?

Yes, one particular one.

You remember her name?

It was Olga. And uh, I'll tell...

A Jewish Kapo?

Oh God, yes. She was uh, the Lagerführer, which she was over the whole camp. And when she walked, you better hide because, you know, she was walking constantly with a stick, beating everybody. It was no exception. To say uh, ??? was nothing unusual because uh, you know, it was just the Polacks were no good, whether they were Jewish or not, they were no good. It was discrimination between our own Jewish people in the camp.

You felt discrimination.

Yes. Because uh, uh, they had more power. They were longer there, they had seniority or whatever.

She was from...

Uh, Slovakia, yeah. And then on the other hand I had uh, living with me in the same barrack um, a mother and a daughter from Hungary. They were dolls. They were to me like my own mother. If I cried, they came up to me, "Don't cry, things will be all right." And I was wondering why my mother couldn't be with me because this mother's with her daughter. But at that time they had different rulings when they first started Auschwitz. They were allowed to take their kids, or whatever. So uh, I wouldn't generalize. There was no such thing as Polish or Hungarian or Czechoslovakian. They were all human beings under horrible circumstances.

You remember this Olga, she as particularly cruel. Did you ever...

Yes.

want to find her after the war?

No. Uh, I guess she did not survive either because one girl from my hometown uh, which uh, was a Kapo in Auschwitz uh, she was prosecuted in France, and from what I hear, she's still in prison.

Did you find that the Polish Kapos were nicer to the Poles and the Czech Kapos were nicer to the Czech Jews? And the German Kapos were nicer to their own people?

No. There were, uh... As far as that goes uh, like I stated, it was no uh, uh, way of telling who was who at the time. In Auschwitz it was just a number. It wasn't uh, uh, that, you know, you could call anybody by their name. It was just a number.