Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Eva Wimmer - January 1, 1985

Arrival in Denmark and Transfer to Sweden

So, they--the first thing what they did in Denmark they told us to take off all the clothes. They, they let us shower and gave us towels and they gave us from top to the bottom, I wouldn't say the most expensive, I wouldn't say the least expensive, but it was a half-decent piece of clothing. Like from shoes and socks and whatever up to a dress because we didn't need more. It was summertime. But each and one of us got a dress. A dress and underwear and a bra and everything. A bra, this is the first time during, during the war we got a bra. So, it was like unbelievable, a miracle, but it happened. We saw it. For a change, we took a normal shower with a normal towel. I will never forget--it was a white, big towel. So we--when we got clean, they, they send us for medical uh, examination. The ones who were fairly decent health they uh, sended us right away. They knew that they would send us to work. The others--there were tuberculosis, and many--there were many, many illnesses in a lot of us, even our group, the 500. Well, they were sent to hospitals, to sanatoriums, to, to, to places where they got help. Not too many, but quite a few died from, from this, uh, one bus, I forgot to mention this, while we were driving from Germany from Ravensbrück to Denmark, one bus got bumped and everybody in the bus lost their life. So, unfortunately, on the way to survive, on the way to our destiny, some of them lost their lives. Unfortunately, it was one bus. I don't recall what happened, how this happened, but it did. One bus was, was bumped. It was commotion. We heard but, you know, we didn't stop. Our driver took off, but then when we arrived, we knew that some girls are missing. A tragedy happened. So, when we uh, we were not too long in Denmark until we got [clearing throat], excuse me, clean, they send us with the boat and I have a picture. This, this only thing what I have. They took us all on one boat, the 500 girls, and they shipped us to Sweden. It wasn't a long ride. From Denmark to Sweden it's very short. And while we were sitting on the boat, and it was open, we look up. A plane is--it's like a helicopter would come now. We saw even the pilot. It came so close down to us and he took a picture. We thought he will kill us. We thought it's a bomb or whatever, but he took pictures of us. And it was in a magazine in Sweden. And when we bought the magazine I took this page out and this is how I have the picture from, from this, I can even show you if you would be interested.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

All right.

This, this I have and if they would want uh, to make a, a duplicate or whatever, I could, I could definitely give them. You can see me in the picture.

[laughs]

Yes, it's amazing. I could never believe that this, this really happened.


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