Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Sally Tuchklaper - March 2, 1983

How did you learn that the war was coming to an end?

We did not know anything. We did not have no radios or noth...anything. But we could see the changes what was going on when they start to ship out everything. They got already nervous, you know? And that we knew that something is going on, but we didn't know what. We didn't know what was gonna happen. We lived by day by day.

Can you describe the circumstances surrounding your liberation from this camp?

We heard, you know, a day afterward, if this would take, oh, about another day, we would be blown up. They were trying to blow up the whole--they were down there just two barracks, that's all. But they didn't have no time. We got, we got up in the morning and we saw the door was open and there were no guards, [pause] and that we knew something was wrong something, but we didn't see anything yet. [pause] So then a few hours later we were afraid to go out. I think the Russians came in and they told us we were free--that we were freed and that we could go out and take anything we want from them. But I'll tell you something that hurt me worse than anything else: I went out to the gate and I stand and I cried the whole day because I didn't have no place where to go. All my friends were running out, you know, picking up things and the only thing I did was I went in and I got a bread--a whole one bread for myself. But that time we didn't know what to do. We stayed a couple more days down there. But we were free and it was worse. This was May the 8th in the morning.

Was your sister still with you?

Yeah.