Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982
Evacuation of Ghetto
Uh-huh. Ah, ah, no, I think--but you said you had to report at a certain time some place. Was this for the deportation or are you talking about...
No, for deportation we were not uh, for the ghetto, from our house...
Oh, I see.
...from our own home before the ghetto.
Mm-hm.
Ghetto was actually set up for a central place for quick evacuation out of Chust to the concentration camps because the ghettos were not there to maintain us for any longer than, say, a few weeks time.
I understand.
They were just centralized enough--so many homes on one particular street, or the uh, closest uh, central area from where to transport us out. And from there they took us without warning--nobody told us what date they're going to take us. They rounded us all up and they said uh, "Gather up, you have so many hours, few hours. And uh, you're all going to a re...you're going to be relocated at some work areas--camps." Uh, they didn't call it camps, they called it uh, uh, relocating, relocation areas where you'll be living in one central area and you'll be working there and that's it.
What was it like? Was everyone evacuated at the same time from the ghetto?
Yes, uh, uh, okay uh, three days before we were taken, a big transport was taken out and that's--I assume it was the other ghetto--plus other uh, countryside uh, Jews that lived in the little villages or towns, hamlet, areas that were brought all down because they were brought down by farmers. Probably had to gi...give them their, their, their property and they brought them. Because they had to get there by--come hell or high water, okay? They just had to get there. And then three days later uh, I remember that because my mother's family were passing by--because like I said, we were on that, on the main uh, road where they would bring--take through all the people to go towards the railroad station. So all of them had to come through there.
You saw your mother's family.
So I saw my mother's father and her sister and some of my cousins--not all of them. And they were taken. Never knew where to. We were told we'll follow them in three days. Well, we did, but not to see them.
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