Protocol Nr. 1774

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Name: G. S.
Gender: female
Place of birth: Bilke
Date of birth: 1925
Place of residence: Bilke
Occupation: seamstress
Ghetto: Beregszász
Camps: Auschwitz, Krakkó, Bunzlau, Grünberg, Bergen - Belsen


The person in question has given us the following information About 300 Jewish families lived in Bilke. We had a paint shop and when, in 1941, the Hungarians came in, the shop was taken away from us; from that time on we could only trade on the black market. Owing to a tragic accident I lost my father in 1943; my six siblings and I were left alone with my mother. At dawn of the 10th of April, gendarmes entered the Jewish homes and they gave us some minutes to pack up. Then, they took us to the brickyard of Ilosva. We supplied ourselves with food and we had kind-hearted Christian acquaintances who brought food for us. We spent one week there, then we were taken to the ghetto in Beregszász. There we were also accommodated in the brickyard. The men went to work: they carried bricks. The ghetto was guarded by military gendarmes and the SS only came in once a day, but even then they assaulted us very much, men and women alike. A soup kitchen supplied us with food. About 3,500 of us were taken away with the second transport. They took us to the train station on 22nd May. The gendarmes and the SS people were equally rough to us on the way; there were older people with us, who could not move as fast as we did and they were beaten up. We were entrained. 75-80 people were put in a cattle car with a bucket of water. We started towards Kassa escorted by Hungarian gendarmes. The water we used up very quickly and we asked for more, but in vain: they gave us no more. The cattle cars were opened at Kassa, where we were handed over to the SS; they allowed us to get some water and we continued our journey towards Auschwitz. The journey was three days long. We arrived in Auschwitz early at dawn. They separated us at the train station: my mother and my four little siblings were put on the left side, while two of my brothers were made to stand among the men on the right side. I alone was put among the able-bodied women. We were taken to the bath, our hair was cut, our clothes and shoes were taken away and we were given different ones. Then they took us to a block, where I spent 3 days. I was crying for my mother very much, and the Slovak girls told me to look at the crematorium, my mother was burning there. Three days later we were taken from Auschwitz to Krakow. In Krakow we carried stones. We lived in a camp, where there were about 30,000 prisoners of different origin. We were enclosed by an electric fence. The camp was built in the mountains. We worked 8 hours a day. SS people watched over us and they hurried us very much. If somebody stopped for a second she was beaten up. The Polish provided us with food; they gave us very little, we were very often cold and we starved all the time. We worked for 3 months in Krakow, then in mid August we were taken back to Auschwitz. They tattooed us and put us into block No. 10 in the Czech camp. That was a labour camp. I was there for 6 weeks; we were lining up for roll call 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon. We wore light clothes, we were often cold and we starved. From Krakow they took us to Bunzlau with a transport of 500 people on 20th August. We worked outdoors: we carried stones or unloaded potatoes from freight cars. SS men and women watched over us. All of us were from Máramarossziget and we worked like the men. They were very satisfied with us, so they did not harm us at all. Bunzlau was a very nice holiday resort and the camp was also located at a nice place. We lived in nice, clean barracks, which were divided into small rooms. 50 of us stayed in one room. Once we went to work for a German civilian and we received a lot of food from him, which completed our provisions for a long time. The SS guards were all elderly people and they treated us nicely. We worked there for 4 months. From the group of 500 people 50 were taken to Grünberg in mid December; they told us that the 50 of us could work the best and the hardest. We worked in an ammunition factory, where we cleaned bullets. There was a reveille at 3 o’clock in the morning, then we had to line up and we went to work already at dawn. It took us two hours to march from the camp to the factory and we had to start working at 5 o’clock. In the factory we got black coffee for breakfast, three quarters of a litre of soup for lunch and a thick vegetable dish in the evening. The food was enough and it was good, but the 12 hours long workday was hard and tiresome. 500 people lived there in two blocks. The camp was dirty, it was difficult to get water and there was no possibility to wash. In the beginning of March they took us from Grünberg to Bergen-Belsen. The old SS guards escorted us. It was cold and we marched in thick snow. The SS obtained clothes from the inhabitants but we could not get shoes, so we wrapped our feet in rags. The guards got hold of cattle on the way and they slaughtered it for us. 500 men were marching in the front and 500 women followed them. These old SS people did not harm anybody, but 50 of the men died from weakness. The women endured the march better. We arrived in Bergen-Belsen at the end of a two-week-long march. We were put in block No. 206. The camp was filthy and full of lice. I got typhus fever and diarrhoea; I was lying on the floor and nobody cared for me. When somebody died, her body was thrown out to the courtyard. The courtyard was full of corpses; it often rained and the corpses were lying there in the mud. There was no bread; we were starving. We were in such a condition that death was threatening all of us. I was practically beside myself when the English liberated us on 15th April 1945. I regained my consciousness only in Bergen, in a nice, clean room. Some weeks later I was taken from the Bergen hospital to Celle. We stayed there for two months. I learned in Bergen that from the 1,000 people who lived in block No. 206, only 200 survived. On 23rd July the Czech and Slovak people were collected and we were taken on trucks to Pilsen; then, we were taken home through Prague. I spent three weeks in Prague, where I had a very good time. The Red Cross supplied me with everything. Then, I continued my journey to Budapest. For some days I was accommodated in the home of DEGOB in Aréna Street. Later I will go home to Bilke and I will spend some weeks there, to see whether one of my brothers will come home. Then, I would like to go to Palestine.
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