Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Cyla Wiener - July 13, 1992

Tell me a little more, back to the Ghetto, for a second, the Ghetto, the Kraków Ghetto.

The Kraków ghetto?

Was there a barbed wire fence around it?

Yeah, but my son. It was a terrible, they have, you know, they were, every few months they were coming, they were taking people out, you know, out of...

You remember when they, you remember when they had an Aktion, when they shot people?

Aktion, you know, the Aktion, they shot people, it was just terrible, what was going on, really.

Did the Jewish, did the Jewish council have soup kitchens and old age home and orphanages and things like that?

Yeah, they took all, they, they took orphanage, the whole orphanage. Once we had an orphanage, you know, and we had a Jewish hospital, hospital too, you know, and they, they couldn't do much, you know. They tried, the doctors, really, they were nice bunch of doctors in, in ghetto, you know, but, one doctor I know very well, a friend of mine was killed, you know. She tried to help somebody and she was killed by a German officer, you know. And she...it was just terrible.

Was there typhus too?

Yeah, typhus.

Is it difficult to talk about? The ghetto?

Not very easy to talk about, really, you know. It was just terrible what was going on in Kraków ghetto.

When you were in the ghetto, did you hear aboutBelzec?

Belzec?

Belzec, the concentration camp?

Bel...Bel...No, we didn't hear.

You didn't know about it?

Not, we didn't hear...you know.

It was all a secret?

Special, that's, that's right.

Did you hear later?

Later on. Later, I remember Belzec or Auschwitz, we didn't hear Auschwitz, about Auschwitz, we didn't, we didn't realize something like this was part Auschwitz, okay other concentration camp, we didn't know that something...maybe some people knew about but not we, you know. In '42, '43, they took one of my brothers to Auschwitz, you know. One of my brothers, they took to Auschwitz, this I know. And a lot of my friends they took to Auschwitz, you know.