Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Natalie Zamczyk - January 30, 1984

But later was worse. They started with uh, they started with uh, assembling the ghetto, the, and closing the ghetto. First they came for fur coats, you know. We were closed for two days 'til everybody gave 'em fur coat, even the children uh, fur boots or something, you know. Everything you have to give, otherwise you would be shot. After that they started the first, the first was... Oh yeah, in '41 later on the end of the--not in, not '41--yeah, yeah, my parents were taken in '42, yeah, yeah, yeah. They, in end of the '40, no, beginning of '41, I think, I don't remember exactly. They, you know, in '42 I left. The others was in '42, in '42, you know. We entered Be...ghetto in '41 in the end, I think. In '42 we had identification cards. Okay.

Yeah.

And those identification card they, they again put--this was in ghetto already--they put the announcement that everybody has to get a special stamp on their card, green some stamp. When he don't get the green stamp, he's going to be evacuated. Where, they didn't say. But they'll be evacuated, they thought that we are sent some other place or something. So, of course, my husband went and his bro...with his brother, his brother didn't get the stamp. And my sister went also, and she didn't get the stamps for parents and even for herself. She told them I'm working for a German companies and the German, you know, and they didn't get her. They told her, you come next week, you get it. And my husband got because he was as a mech...mechanic, you know, so he was a working person. So he got it for me and for my child. And when he came back home and I said to him you got, my parents didn't get and my sister didn't get and your brother didn't got. So my sister-in-law, she was very terrified and she said to my husband, you have to go with my husband tomorrow. And, and I said, what about my sister. So he said, I go with your sister next week. He went and he got for his brother. And what happened that the next day, on June the first, is mean on June first, but this was night before.

Yeah.

June first at night they were coming to ghetto and taking the people, you know. Nobody expect that it's going to, they said, next week you have to come for the stamps, you know.

Yeah.

They were tricking.

Yeah.

And the same night they came and they uh, uh, were taking the people. They, not, they didn't take the people, they only checked the card and, and every card what they didn't have the stamp, said you have to come to tomorrow, we'll let you know tomorrow. You are going to be evacuated.