Malka Sternberg - January 31, 2008
Fate of Mother
So, we're, we're now--you've left Wales...
Yes.
...and I assume you were very concerned about the fate of your mother.
Yes. I still got a little bit of, of letters. I remember getting one letter after months and months and I opened it and the headmaster was teaching us at the time--I guess he was giving us a French lesson at the time or something. He said, "What are you looking at at the bottom?" I said, "I got a letter from my mother." He said, "Tear it up." I had to tear it up. Shows you the type of person he was.
What was the school?
Aryeh House School it was called. It was England's foremost Jewish boarding school. That's, that's, that's his system of it--symbol of it.
And he told you to tear the letter up.
Yes and he waited until I tore it up. The children came on the break and sellotaped the paper, you know, stick it together again.
But she was still--well, I assume by 1943 there were no letters...
No, not 1943. Nineteen forty-two we came out.
Forty-two...
Yes.
...and she must have died in 1942 you think?
No, '44 she was still seen in Treblinka. Forty-two she was sent to, to Theresienstadt. I don't know which one for '42.
Because Treblinka was destroyed in--at the end of 1942.
No, not Treblinka.
But there was a revolt.
Yes a revolt but it was still there and they were still killing people all the time.
Okay.
I don't know whether--what year it was. Revolt was there but they didn't, they didn't close down Treblinka after the revolt.
So she wasn't sent to Auschwitz, she was sent...
No, she was sent to Treblinka--not much better.
No, it's worse as a fact.
Theresienstadt was the better one but...
Theresienstadt was the, the so-called model.
Yes, but uh, they sent her away. Nobody stayed there for long...
No.
...they were sent to other camps from there.
And you--and she was seen in Tre...Treblinka in 1944?
Somebody told my uncle in America that they saw her in Treblinka 1944.
And when is the last you heard from her?
Eh, '42. End of '42 when I was in that boarding school. No, I think '43 I ca...I was still in the boarding school but then letters I didn't have after '42.
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