Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Clara Dan - July 1, 1982

Gross Rosen

The artillery?

Yes, something. We knew that they are going to move us. So sure enough, they lined us up and from then on we went by feet. We went from Hundsfeld to Gross Rosen. Stayed in Gross Rosen for that... Whenever the Russians got close or closer we were taken. It was Gross Rosen, Mauthausen. This was done by, by foot and it was winter. It was cold and we begged this old lady to leave us alone. We want to die. We just can't take it.

This was the older woman who contacted...

Yes, yes, we stay there together the five of us. And I'll never forget it, one night I had a dream that my mother, I dreamt with my mother and my mother made the remark, I shouldn't worry, she is with us and we will make it, we will survive the camp. Just we have to be strong, both of us. And I woke up and I told my sister what a dream I had and my sister said I had always very strong faith. My belief was always very, very, very strong. And uh, I told my sister... I always had more feeling towards religion than my sister. My sister was uh, well I was a Zionist too, but she, she climbed more toward the leftist liberal part of Zionism. And me being the youngest somehow I was just, by my faith you couldn't, you couldn't do anything because this is what I believe in. And uh, we loved dearly, dearly our parents. And uh, I figured that I'm a good Jew and I just--it just can't happen to us. It just... We are the Chosen People and it just has to something. And from then on, my belief was so strong that we will make it. And uh, my sister started crying. It was somewhere outside on a, on a top of a mountain and the SS guys were in the tavern drinking and we were left outside. And uh, my sister was older, eight and a half years than I am. And uh, she kept begging ??? to please leave me here, let me die. I just can't go on. I haven't got the will, I just can't take it anymore. So this old lady bought her out that she's a few years older than she is and if she can make it, you will make it and we will be liberated and you'll come to my place and I nurse you back and... So anyway, we made it.


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