Judy Schreiber - February 1, 2013
Arriving in Theresienstadt
I do have one memory of arriving there. We were taken into these uh, huge room barracks, and I remember being terrified and scared because I think my mother was terrified and scared, and I always absorbed all the uh, always absorbed all the emotion going on around me. Didn't understand it necessarily, but absorbed it. I know I got bitten by a bee on my lip in that, in that it was like a cavernous huge room with hundreds and hundreds of people it seemed to me, shoved in there. It was right after we arrived, cause' we I, I just remember going up there and a bee bit me on the lip, and I never forgot that. It was like, it was very traumatic uh, and it hurt.
Hm.
So uh, that I remember about my arrival there.
Mm-hm.
Uh, we were separated originally, cause' I just remember being with my mom, but at some point down the road and I have no concept about time frames or anything. But eventually, when my dad, I think, became valuable in some fashion to the Nazis, he, he made, he was a basket weaver and he made this basket that was able to catch fish and close them in...
Hm.
A large amount of them at a time. And there were two rivers there, and he was always uh, anyway, the point is we ended up moving into a court yard that was above where, where the walls of Theresienstadt and up at the top there, there were orchards of some sort, fruit trees or things, which I'll explain later. But anyway, down below at the bottom into the wall there was literally a pig sty, it used to be some kind of a farming thing there. And they gave my dad the pig sty, which was uh, I mean, the way I remember it, the size of a little bathroom. Uh, but anyway, that's, we lived in that, my dad renamed it and I don't remember how to say it in Czechoslovakian, but uh, he renamed it the golden pig hotel.
[laughs]
And that's where we lived under the brick walls of the um, um, well, at Theresienstadt was uh, it was walled in.
Mm-hm.
Uh, and uh, at least where we lived up above, there, there were fruit trees and things growing. Uh, one of the reasons that I specifically remember that, is because I have uh, a memory, I have more than one memory, but it's of my dad climbing up the uh, climbing up the walls of Terezin with a rope tied around his middle. I would stand below and he would give me one end of the rope and he would go up there and steal fruit. And my job was to yank the rope if I thought I heard somebody coming.
Uh-huh.
And that was above where we lived, I'm sure that was uh, you know uh, not allowed areas to go to, but uh, he was uh, he was a capable young man when he was in the camp. And I believe, that because of him my mother and I and he survived. I don't know if there was another family unit in that camp that survived.
Really?
As far as I know, we were the only mother, dad, and child that stayed in the same camp.
Mm-hm.
The whole time and survived as a unit.
Why did they keep the, your family unit as a unit? Why did they keep them together as far as you know?
As far as I know, my understanding is, and this I'm pretty much repeating what's been told me by my dad. He acted as though he couldn't basically read or write. He acted uh, as though he was a uh, totally uneducated man um, that could provide certain services. One of the things that he did that impressed one of the um, big Nazis in the camp was to build this fish catching...
Hm.
Apparatus. And it impressed this guy so much because it gave them fresh fish...
Ah.
For them to eat. Uh, it was an adva...so he, and my dad also made baskets and so, since there was, at least the way my dad describes it, there was no one else that did those specific things there. Uh, so he became the fish catcher for the Nazis, in that he caught fish in this contraption and they eventually made two or three of them and it kept them uh, it, it kept them in food.
Hm.
Uh, that's one thing, the other thing was we lived, not together for a, a period of time. I, I don't have real good concepts about the time thing, but at some point uh, he told me he found this thing and he uh, this pig sty in this courtyard and he requested could he, um. Move my mother and myself in there. And I don't know at what, what point that was or, or, you know, exactly how that came about, but it was granted to him.
Hm.
And that's where, that's where I remember living. I remember the barracks initially.
Mm-hm.
And then I just remember segueing into living in this in, in a wall, in a brick wall with this little pig sty sticking out, it was like a tiny little building built into the wall and that's where we lived.
You're living near a brick wall?
In a brick wall, it's in that painting.
Uh-huh.
See, see the wall behind that?
Yes.
Well, that's where we lived, that little thing used to be a pig sty and that's...
Uh-huh.
He cleaned that out and there was enough room for like uh, I, I don't remember what my parents slept on, but I remember sleeping in a little section on the floor.
Mm-hm.
Was just a regular floor.
Hm.
And that's where we lived 'til the end of the war.
What you say uh, it was about the size of this room?
No, no, no, no, no, no it was about the size of a uh, uh, let's say in today's, well you can see uh, in the painting uh, I would say the size of a uh, I don't know, two small bathrooms put together.
Uh-huh, wow.
You know, something like that.
I see, okay.
Uh, and, and that's where, that's where we lived.
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