Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lola Greenspan - April 25, 1983

Moving into the Ghetto

Mm-hm.

She don't have nothing but him, nothing. She got the boy--a six year boy, she got a boy--a, a baby--she pregnant.

Mm-hm.

And she said, "I been not..." Now--and later they bombard...bombard...uh, maked the fire in the houses, how you gonna say in English?

Yeah.

Um, bombardier the houses and is a lot of houses were damaged...

Yeah, yeah.

...see? They killed them with the houses, everything. And she's--she afraid to be in the house and she coming to my mother's house with the baby--she pregnant.

Mm-hm.

And later is were a ghetto. ??? Polish ??? ghetto. And I don't know wha...this time I went in the house, yeah '39. I went 1940 I went in the camp. And in this time 1930, 1930 yes I went in the house. No my mother she went in the house too and my sister went by my mother--she lived together with my mother. In '39 nobody's going from the house away. The mother, ??? daugh...and the sisters--all the sisters, all kids together. And later on the German make move the Jewish people from this section all the Jewish in that place, someplace far away like a ghetto. Nobody can go in the street, the streets were closed. The dark you have to make light in the house, you have to make uh, dark in the house and cover the windows. You sit in the house, no go out. When you go out sh...shoot police going in the street. And she live someplace so far--all these Jewish people my mother she were in a neighborhood with nice people--very religious people together and all the peoples go away and is closing in the ghetto. And this time in the, in the--okay I want to stay in the same place, in the same place. Later, 1940 is coming the police tooked to the camps people.

Mm-hm.

And the police is coming this--in this house. We--I went with my mother in the ghetto. They tooked out my sister, they tooked out--before me, later my sister--youngs...youngster. And--no ???--yeah they tooked out my sister from the house, from my--this house and she--and I gotted sent away.

Mm-hm.

He said to me--the police said, "Come on young girl, you, you make. Come on."

Mm-hm.

And then I'm goin...and my mother said, "She--where's she going? Why she have to going?" "Don't worry," he said. And my mother she, she take...he taked me and I went out. He tooked me in the ghetto--the other one ghetto--this was Sosnowiec ghetto. Sosnowiec ghetto like Durchgangslager in German. Big. And I sit over three months in jail, four months. Later--and a month later I see coming more people, more people and later I see my sister.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you have much food there? What was the living conditions like?

No, we don't got food. Just they bring us--just no a piece--one slice bread for one, two weeks and soup from the water. You cook soup from the peeled potato, he make us a soup.

Yeah.

That's all.

Yeah.

And we no got meat.


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