Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Alice Lang Rosen - August 5, 1991

Being Taken by the Gestapo

Uh, you said they came to get you, when they, when they took you...

The Gestapo came.

It was the Gestapo. What did, what did they look like, where they in uniform?

Uniforms, the high boots...

Black uniforms?

Yes. The bayonets in their hands. There was a whole handful of them just shoving us around and everyone was scared...

Was it just your family?

No, they--well they picked us up, loaded us on the truck and they kept driving and they kept stopping until the truck was full. They stopped at different uh, homes, you know, they picked up other families too, I remember that.

When they came to get they--you hadn't been displaced from your home.

No, they came right to the home.

So, you hadn't moved at all.

No, no, no.

Um, you must have been terrified.

Yes, I think it was. I don't--I think uh, terrified because I think the adults were terrified and of course it transferred over, you know, to me.

Do you remember what--the details of that? Did somebody hold you, were you...

Yeah, my, my mother of course, yes, my grandmother, which was my mother's parents. My, my, you know, ??? their last name was ???. They were always with us.

And your father had come back from Dachau.

Yes and he was with us too. All of us were taken together.

When he came back from Dachau, did he look different? Did you...

I don't remember him looking any different.

Where did they take you on the, uh...

Um, after the truck was full, we uh, the truck drove us to a concentration camp and there was the first concentration camp and it was Gurs.

So you went directly...

Went straight to Gurs.

...from Germany to France?

Yes, right. Yes, went straight to Gurs. And I think it's like borderline Spain, French, French already.

Mm-hm.

Yes. Uh-huh.


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