Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982

But we were, we didn't know where we were. Then we started off circling around to get out of the forest. It took us 'til twelve o'clock. We didn't know, we were going in circles, in circles, we just couldn't get it out 'til twelve o'clock to about seven. Until finally one said, "I think I see--ah-ha--beyond that water I think I seen a sign." So we followed, you know, uh, followed to that sign and see what it is. When we closer, we seen we can read it. It's not German, it's not Polish, it was Czech...Czech...Czechoslovakian. So one girl--she's an Hungarian from the border, Czechoslovakian Hungarian--said we are in Czechoslovakia. So we all like wild animals ran on them gardens where the fresh onions barely began to bloom. We pulled them out and before long people from all over came to take us, volunteers from the Red...they had volunteered into the Red Cross took us all away into a building uh, to um, a school building where help came from all over. And one said, "Just don't try to eat. Don't eat this what you took from the garden." And we had medical help and they started off to feed us like infants--newborn infants. I weighed three--thirty-three kilo, it's sixty-six pounds. Um, if we wouldn't have that help uh, you know, that medical help and keep us away from the food, we would all die because we would have take anything. I remember they were giving us tea. I said, "Would I have tea?" But she said, "Take it." And I took it. I couldn't bring it to my mouth, they had to feed us like babies because we weren't strong enough to hold the spoon. And one girl said she remembers--I don't remember that part--when I was laying down, when they brought over uh, you know--and we had--the doctor prescribed every time--every day a little bit more. They gave us uh, you know, like farina with milk, and not too much. Just like a newborn infant, that's how--and gradually, and they had--every day we were examined.