Felicia Shloss - February 9, 1983
Moving in to the Ghetto
What kind of orders?
Like all Jews should come here, all Jews be on that in that place. All Jews should be um, go to the ghetto. They closed up the ghetto 1940; I believe it was in spring--in March. They put a wire all uh, we couldn't even cross the street we had to go with one opening or with uh, with a bridge that there were some uh, drunk uh, German soldiers and they were shooting whoever cross the street, they were shooting. So we did from house to house, we--they, they knocked out the walls even because they were big buildings--knocked out the walls and we were walking from backyard to another, from one backyard to another, in order to come to our destination.
They forced you out of your home to the Bałuty District? Is that what...
Yes, they took us out. No Jew was allowed to live in the nicest section. They took the old part of the city and they made a ghetto out of it.
Did your whole family go?
Uh, my uh, my mother--we supposed to be at uh, transferred with some--I don't know, what they supposed to come--not uh, probably wagon and horse, and my mother prepared us to take on the rucksack--I don't know what rucksack in English...
Bag.
A bag, yeah, backpack. And we got some valuable things together until the Germans will come and take us over there. And then the next morning we came there, the whole street was cut off, they took away the people and nobody knew where.
So you were separated from your parents?
Separated from my parents.
Did you expect ???
No, we didn't. Nobody did.
What do you remember about those--the last hours when you were putting things together?
Well, we knew that we were going to the ghetto, we gonna live there. We hoped and prayed that some of the people had hidden radios. And uh, every day the new news that uh, the uh, England declared war on Germany, that was hope for us to survive, to live through. That was the only uh, we lived with hope. Without hope we couldn't live.
Do you remember what--final conversations were with your parents?
There weren't any final conversations, because we didn't know that we will uh, will--won't see them again
But when you found out that they, they were ??? how did you feel about that?
Terrible, we were--we couldn't talk, we couldn't--we came to the street, it was cut off, it wasn't allowed. And if you asked too many questions, you know what they did? They, they were shooting at people. Were--Jewish policeman I believe at that time said, "Go home, go home, the streets don't exist anymore." We came home, we cried. My brother said, "I have to be now your protector"--my older brother, which he had uh, something in himself that he would do everything to, to keep us together. We were there.
You had a room?
Yeah, we had one room. My aunt was next room. That was good, because she was there before. My aunt came weeks before, and we were waiting for us to uh, how do you say it in German, Wiedersiedlung--they supposed to bring our parents. Wiedersiedlung. And...
Resettlement.
Resettlement, yeah.
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