Edith Roth - March 28, 1982
Helping Ill Sisters in Camp
Did people have dysentery there, diarrhea and things like that?
Very sick. My sister was so sick one time she was laying-I had to hide her because if you were sick, they just took you and killed you, nobody was, nobody had a doctor to get you well, they, you were afraid, you were scared to death to be sick because if you were sick, they never saw you again. So my sister had diarrhea and was very sick and uh, I was hiding her and, and [pause] tried to, you know for the, for a miracle she got well after three days, so okay...
How did you hide her?
I was hiding her in a, in a, there was a, like horses drink from, you know?
A trough?
Yeah, and I had some kind of a shmatte, I put it in there and I told her to lay here, not to make a move, to lay here because we can't call a doctor or say that we need an aspirin or something.
What did she do if she had diarrhea?
She had diarrhea.
She just stayed there?
She, she just stayed there and then I, I think there was some kind of an outhouse or something that she was running to, but she can tell you this too. I think that I, I stole bread and I brought her. I stole some food, some kind to bring her.
Did she make the Appell?
She made the Appell. I always picked her up and brought her to made her standing there. She was falling off every single minute, and she was falling off all the time because my sister was more of a, kind of a weakling than I was for some reason. I had a stronger personality..
Were you ever punished?
My sister, my younger sister, we even had a younger, I'm the middle one, her, we always, we made a pact between the three of us that whatever happens to one will happen to the three and there's no way we're going to do it differently because if we're going to have to die, we'll do it together and if we're going to have to live, we'll do it together. So every time they came to, select you out so to speak, okay, if they happened to see one more child or one more older people or one more, they always took him for some reason first and, so we put red paper on her cheek and we found a pair of shoes that had high heels and whatever happened, she was always first to go. And um, we just decided because you have to remember by that time, life wasn't, you know, you really didn't care, because I was really annoyed many times and people said, "Aren't you glad you survived?" Sure today, you know, I have a family thank God, a nice one. But those days, you know, when your parents are dead and everything, you really didn't care. We didn't fight so much to be alive, we uh, made a pact, whatever happens will happen to the three of us, it's not going to be cut again. And our luck was that um, they always separated sisters who looked alike, and our luck was we didn't look alike at all, my youngest is red headed, my older sister has black hair and I had in between, reddish brown, so they couldn't tell whether we were sisters or not.
Were you in the same barracks?
At all times...
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