Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Zwi Steiger - March 27, 1982

Learning Fate of Family II

So you really didn't know at that time, in December of '44.

No.

You just knew that they had been taken to a ghetto in Ungvar and they were transported to a camp in Poland.

To a camp to Poland.

How did you know they were transported to a camp at Poland?

Because, you know, people were saying that--the local population was saying that they were taken to Poland, to Germany.

And at that time you simply thought for resettlement.

For resettlement or for uh, for working, for working in a, in uh, some factories, mines, similar thing, farm settlements that, uh...

From all the travels that you had experienced up until that point, and any rumors or other things that you'd seen up 'til that point, did you have any feeling at that time that uh, your, your parents would survive?

Yeah, it was, it was very difficult because uh, you could uh, you know that there are losses during the war, that there were--the Allies were bombing Germany, that uh, shells are flying when the cities are taken over. But the extent of it--I--in retrospect, now, I was always afraid that they--I may lose uh, family during the war.

But not from the process of...

No. From--just from elimination of people or annihilation of people. You know, it--the soldiers pass, you know, he will take a shot at somebody, always happen. But this--the extent of it uh, I don't think anybody was aware, unless he was like people who experienced--who survived extermination in Kamenets-Podolski that maybe they realized.


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