Judy Schreiber - February 1, 2013
Summary
Let me uh, go back just the uh, for the, on the historical end of it.
Okay.
Uh, for me to get a, a, a perspective.
Sure.
So, you're living um, in Prague?
Yes.
And you're about, alm... about three years old?
A little, yeah, three maybe a couple months past three.
A little--okay. And then the Nazis came to Prague?
Right.
And they took your family to, straight to Theresienstadt or first to a ghetto? Or...
No.
No.
We did not go to a ghetto uh, but I remember prior to going to Theresienstadt that there was a lot of anxiety in the house. I remember my mother crying a lot, and I remember a Friday night after Shabbos started.
Mm-hm.
And in, at least in my mind, that's the beginning of the disruption, something occurred.
Okay.
And, the next thing I remember is that we had to leave and I had to have a star on my coat.
Uh-huh.
And we went to a train station and we took a train from somewhere in Prague to Terezin.
A train to Terezin.
Yeah.
And this was, would have been what year?
This would have been, I was born like uh, two days before '39 so uh, so that would have been '38, '39, '41.
'41.
Sometime in '41, cause' I would have been three then.
Okay. And then so, your mom, your dad, you...
Yes.
Are, are taken by train?
By train and I, I remember we, we schlepped bags and stuff with us and later my dad told me that one of their neighbors offered to keep me.
Hm.
Uh, we lived in like an apartment building and uh, they didn't know, I don't, I don't know how much they knew at that point.
Mm-hm.
About what was really happening.
Mm-hm.
Uh, war wise.
Mm-hm.
They knew that they were being uh, they knew that they were being identified as Jews and sent somewhere else, and we had to wear stars. But I don't think there was any thought about death camps...
Mm-hm.
Or anything like that.
Mm-hm.
But, there was a, a enough anxiety so that my, I remember my mom telling me, and my dad, that they offered to keep me and they thought about it, and they said no uh, Jindriska will come with us. And so, that's how I went.
Okay, so you came, all three of you, your mom, dad, you come to Theresienstadt, you have a, a yellow star, you go by train.
Yes.
Alright, a passenger type train or, uh...
You know what, I, I don't remember that.
Okay. So you arrive at Terezin--Theresienstadt, and you remember this big, like this cavernous hall way and the bee stinging...
There were tons of people.
Tons of people. And you remember feeling uh, very, the bee stung you, it hurt, it, you were crying it was, uh...
Yeah.
It was a terrible uh, scene.
It was a frightening experience.
Frightening, right.
Very frightened, yeah.
Okay. And then you remember being in the barracks for a short while.
I remember being in the barracks and it was all women in the barracks, cause' my dad was not there.
Mm-hm.
And uh, I just have vague kinds of memories about uh, things like soap. There was no soap and my, I just remember, or maybe it's a later memory that I've incorporated. My, my mother talking about the lack of soap, there was no soap, there was no soap, it was a big deal, there was no soap.
Mm-hm. She was very upset.
Yeah uh, right uh, now as an adult when I think back to it, I think soap probably uh, the word soap, you know, it's a loaded word that probably represents a thousand things that weren't there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I just, I remember soap.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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