A Survivor's Account: Manya Moskowicz. M Mo
THE TRANSITION
"The skeletal figures descended the white buses with uncertainty, and in bewilderment looked around at the throng of civilized human beings awaiting their arrival. The white buses, belonging to the Swedish Red Cross, kept arriving on barges at the shores of Sweden. The head of the Swedish Red Cross, Folke Bernadotte, while negotiating with Himmler, head of the Gestapo, the release of Scandinavian POWs, also managed to persuade Himmler to release some inmates from the Ravensbruck camp. Sweden had remained neutral throughout World War II, and became a haven for many refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. At the end of April 1945, only days before the war ended, it opened its doors to us, inmates from the Ravensbrueck slave labor camp and its subcamps. The mission, called “Bernadotte's expedition,” was not well known, because of the need for secrecy. It took place while Germany was still at war. Those white buses carried loads of emaciated people rescued from Nazi concentration camps. With uncertainty we followed the Red Cross workers, clutching the few filthy possessions we had salvaged while leaving the camps, or some remnants of the Red Cross packages given to us on the bus. As we were taken to the showers, we followed with suspicion, hesitating to enter, not trusting anyone. After the showers, delousing, and disinfecting, I was given clean clothing donated by the local people. It felt good to get rid of the filthy rags infested with lice. I was put up in a school for temporary shelter. The first few days we spent mostly sleeping or just lying on our mattresses, exhausted from the ordeals during the years in the camps, but there was always someone looking out the window trying to be convinced that we were no longer in camp. After a few days, in the middle of the night the students came running up the stairs, shouting: ”The war is over. The war is over. ” In disbelief we joined them, hugging, kissing, and dancing, and rejoicing with the news that the war was finally over. I had hope now to be able to find some members of my family. Malmo, the city where I had arrived, became overcrowded with newcomers, so I was transferred to nearby Lund. I was again put up in a school, this time, converted into a hospital, where I spent the next four month, to recover from spots on my lungs, acquired in one of the camps while working in a factory that produced soot (carbon). We had nurses in attendance, and were visited often by doctors. Our diet was strictly watched until our stomachs could get adjusted to regular food. The doctors even advised the public not to give us any food packages. The Swedish people were very generous, considering that almost everything was strictly rationed, most of the food staples as well as clothing. A woman, for example, could receive only one dress, one pair of shoes, two pairs of stockings a year. And no bra. I still remember the two dresses I received; one had little flowers on a white background, the other had a combination of orange and white with a black thread running through forming little squares. I also received a rain coat, charcoal, with gray and white little checks, which I wore as a regular coat. It fit perfectly, the only drawback, it had a rubberized backing. So when it was cold I was freezing, and when it was warm I was sweating. But a girl has to make sacrifices to look good. One day we heard a rumor that in one of the camps the Swedish flag had disappeared from the flagpole. The staff was walking around puzzled. Who could have stolen the flag? The crime was soon solved when shortly after on the clothes line blue and yellow bras began to appear. I was eager to rejoin the human race again, and to appear normal. I used better hygiene, started grooming my hair and the donated clothing seemed like the latest fashions. Even my reflection in the mirror became more amiable. After the afternoon rest I was allowed to go out into the schoolyard. We paraded around like models, our bodies erect, not with slouched shoulders like in the camps. We posed for photos taken by the service personnel, the nurses, or any one with a camera. But there were among us a few girls who still walked around in the hospital robes, wearing felt slippers, and wrapped in their blankets. The transition to normal clothing from the lice infested camp garments was an easy task, but the nightmares and the memories of the camps still linger on" (Moszkowicz). |
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A portion of this clip is from the Ravensbruck trials. General Westropp sentences those responsible for the Ravensbruck women's camp. (Clip taken from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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This is a poem written by Zofia Abramowics, a prisoner at Ravensbruck.
The Fragrance of Lindens The fragrance of lindens has awakened my heart, Frozen and faded from the grayness. The fragrance of lindens has infused my heart, Indifferent in its exile.* Once again it so beats and pounds Invoking the image of my country cottage And again the memory lives Of how things were in distant years. My tiny house veiled by an orchard Along the banks of a silvery lake Pear trees chat in muted counsel And the fragrance of lindens by morning . . . by night Into water’s depths sinks a scarlet sun While a wave rocks a small craft Fragrances flow, sweet and honeyed I hear the whisper of your heart. And when darkness ignites the stars Shadows trail in mist, above the meadow An aroma, as of a censer, flows from afar These are the lindens, the blossoming lindens. ("Zofia Abramowicz." Thestoryonline.org). |
Fiorello’s Sister: Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s Story
Edited by Rochelle G. Saidel
By Gemma La Guardia Gluck
"Back in the 1980s, a number of Holocaust scholars and “people who should know better” told historian Rochelle Saidel that Ravensbrück, a women’s concentration camp located about 60 miles north of Berlin, was used for political prisoners and that “there wasn’t a Jewish story there.” Saidel proved them wrong by writing what many consider to be the definitive book on the estimated 20,000 Jewish prisoners that passed through the camp.
Among them was one prisoner, the camp’s most famous survivor, whose story struck a particular chord with Saidel: Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of legendary New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Now, with Saidel’s help, Gluck’s memoir — first published in 1961 — is being re-released by Syracuse University Press under the title “Fiorello’s Sister: Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s Story.”
Born in New York to an Italian Jewish mother and a “lapsed Catholic” father, Gluck and her famous brother grew up in the United States. During their childhood, though, they joined their parents on trips back to Trieste, Italy, where their mother’s family had deep Jewish roots. In 1900, with the children grown into young adults, the family moved back to Italy. Fiorello returned to New York to attend law school, after which he ran for a number of elected offices. Gemma stayed in Europe with her mother and taught English in Trieste, where she ended up marrying one of her students and, eventually, getting caught in the maw of World War II.
Gluck was 64 when she was released from Ravensbrück in the spring of 1945. Saidel is 65.
“I think that is part of why I feel a great affinity for her now,” said Saidel in an interview with the Forward. “At my age, I can’t stand for a very long time in a museum and look at a painting without my leg hurting. And then you read that they’re standing there for five hours in an appel,” she said, referring to the concentration camp roll call.
During her eight months in Ravensbrück, Gluck endured a diet of turnips cooked in potato peelings. She promised herself that if she survived, she would tell the world about the camp. So Gluck resolved to observe life in Ravensbrück as best she could. She remembered the stench of the crematory, and prisoners who looked like “walking skeletons.” She remembered the babies who suffocated because they were crammed five or six to a crib, and she remembered the Polish woman housed on the “Rabbit Block” who had limbs amputated by Nazi doctors in “experiments.”
Although the Nazis considered Gluck to be Jewish, she did not think of herself as a Jew — despite the fact that her maternal grandmother was a member of the Luzzattos, a prominent Italian Jewish family active in the Italian unification effort and the rabbinical college in Padua. In her memoir, Gluck mentions a woman in Ravensbrück who begged to take off the yellow patch labeling her as a Jew, arguing that she may have been married to a Jew but she herself was not Jewish. Gluck was angered by the inmate’s plea, declaring in her memoir, “I have been married for thirty-six years to such a good Jewish husband, I am proud to wear their sign.”
In April 1945, Gluck was reunited with her daughter and grandson, who were also imprisoned at Ravensbrück. There, she had lost 44 pounds in less than a year. Her toddler grandson looked so weak, she thought, “Where am I going to bury this baby?”
The three were released in Berlin, just prior to its liberation by the Russians. Gluck writes in her memoir that the Soviets were “violating girls and women of all ages.” A year later, she read a newspaper article that revealed the fate of her husband, Herman, a Hungarian Jew who had perished in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Despite the fact that she was the sister of a powerful American politician, it would be another year before Gluck, her daughter and grandson made it to New York. They arrived in May 1947, four months before her beloved Fiorello died of cancer. She spent the rest of her life in a low-income public housing project in Queens, built by the LaGuardia Administration. Gluck died in 1962, about a year after her memoir was first published" (Ravensbruck's Famous Survivor).
Edited by Rochelle G. Saidel
By Gemma La Guardia Gluck
"Back in the 1980s, a number of Holocaust scholars and “people who should know better” told historian Rochelle Saidel that Ravensbrück, a women’s concentration camp located about 60 miles north of Berlin, was used for political prisoners and that “there wasn’t a Jewish story there.” Saidel proved them wrong by writing what many consider to be the definitive book on the estimated 20,000 Jewish prisoners that passed through the camp.
Among them was one prisoner, the camp’s most famous survivor, whose story struck a particular chord with Saidel: Gemma La Guardia Gluck, sister of legendary New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Now, with Saidel’s help, Gluck’s memoir — first published in 1961 — is being re-released by Syracuse University Press under the title “Fiorello’s Sister: Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s Story.”
Born in New York to an Italian Jewish mother and a “lapsed Catholic” father, Gluck and her famous brother grew up in the United States. During their childhood, though, they joined their parents on trips back to Trieste, Italy, where their mother’s family had deep Jewish roots. In 1900, with the children grown into young adults, the family moved back to Italy. Fiorello returned to New York to attend law school, after which he ran for a number of elected offices. Gemma stayed in Europe with her mother and taught English in Trieste, where she ended up marrying one of her students and, eventually, getting caught in the maw of World War II.
Gluck was 64 when she was released from Ravensbrück in the spring of 1945. Saidel is 65.
“I think that is part of why I feel a great affinity for her now,” said Saidel in an interview with the Forward. “At my age, I can’t stand for a very long time in a museum and look at a painting without my leg hurting. And then you read that they’re standing there for five hours in an appel,” she said, referring to the concentration camp roll call.
During her eight months in Ravensbrück, Gluck endured a diet of turnips cooked in potato peelings. She promised herself that if she survived, she would tell the world about the camp. So Gluck resolved to observe life in Ravensbrück as best she could. She remembered the stench of the crematory, and prisoners who looked like “walking skeletons.” She remembered the babies who suffocated because they were crammed five or six to a crib, and she remembered the Polish woman housed on the “Rabbit Block” who had limbs amputated by Nazi doctors in “experiments.”
Although the Nazis considered Gluck to be Jewish, she did not think of herself as a Jew — despite the fact that her maternal grandmother was a member of the Luzzattos, a prominent Italian Jewish family active in the Italian unification effort and the rabbinical college in Padua. In her memoir, Gluck mentions a woman in Ravensbrück who begged to take off the yellow patch labeling her as a Jew, arguing that she may have been married to a Jew but she herself was not Jewish. Gluck was angered by the inmate’s plea, declaring in her memoir, “I have been married for thirty-six years to such a good Jewish husband, I am proud to wear their sign.”
In April 1945, Gluck was reunited with her daughter and grandson, who were also imprisoned at Ravensbrück. There, she had lost 44 pounds in less than a year. Her toddler grandson looked so weak, she thought, “Where am I going to bury this baby?”
The three were released in Berlin, just prior to its liberation by the Russians. Gluck writes in her memoir that the Soviets were “violating girls and women of all ages.” A year later, she read a newspaper article that revealed the fate of her husband, Herman, a Hungarian Jew who had perished in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Despite the fact that she was the sister of a powerful American politician, it would be another year before Gluck, her daughter and grandson made it to New York. They arrived in May 1947, four months before her beloved Fiorello died of cancer. She spent the rest of her life in a low-income public housing project in Queens, built by the LaGuardia Administration. Gluck died in 1962, about a year after her memoir was first published" (Ravensbruck's Famous Survivor).
A Transcript from a Nuremberg trial, where a woman's injured leg is examined:
Here the lateral soleus muscle which gives the calf its graceful curve. Follow the leg, here's the medial, here's the lateral. The lateral gives, the lateral...the graceful, normal curve. Now, the neurological examination. Will you please try to do this. The patient is unable to totally flex the foot, to elevate the foot upwards. Try to do it on the other side, if you will. Just show that you understand please. Like this. Up. Now, try to do it here. Okay. Dorsiflexion is completely gone. I offer this X ray as prosecution exhibit number 215. The, uh, most remarkable finding in, findings in Miss, Miss [Jadwiga] Dzido's case is, at first, marked atrophy of the right leg, including thigh, leg, and foot. Would you, please stand up, and will you gradually turn around? Very slowly turn around. You can compare here the two legs, and you notice the marked atrophy. You see the femur of this bone, of this leg, as compared to the other. ...without tendinous insertion. You can see this tendon here, strong tendon is absent on this side. ...show blueish discoloration, including, uh, indicating interference with circulation of the leg, probably due to loss of blood vessels. |
(Transcript and Photo taken from USHMM)
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A transcript from an interview with Blanka Rothschild, a Ravensbruck survivor."There was no sanitation. We did not have latrines. There were holes with wooden--there was a wooden board with two holes, and since many of us were sick from whatever they gave us to eat, it was a constant walk to the latrines, to the holes. It was tremendous degradation of, of human beings. It was, the human spirit suffered more than the physical spirit. Uh, the bodies didn't listen to us, didn't obey us. Uh, we had--as I mentioned before, we lost our menstruation, very thank...gratefully because we couldn't have taken care of this. It was the avitaminosis--the lack of food and vitamins. We slept two, three to a wooden, uh, bunk. The tiers in Ravensbrueck were packed with human beings. There was stench in the air, horrible stench, between the latrines and the bodies. The one who was in charge had a special little room and special privileges and special food. We, the Jews, never got close to it. The Germans who...and the Ukrainians were in charge" (USHMM).
The video can be found at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005199&MediaId=2481
The video can be found at: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10005199&MediaId=2481
A poem written by a Ravensbruck prisoner (Remembering Ravensbruck).
UNTITLED
Onward my beauty, to work! Get moving! Quick!
The woman thus addressed cowers
And throws an anxious glance
For such words are often followed by a slap or a fist.
Who is she? She is still young and has fine features,
But the hard camp life has seen her beauty dwindle
And caused her youth to wilt
I Imagine her before: a young woman, elegant, loved.
Today, she is nothing but a number
And the star on her sleeve
Exposes her to the dumb hate of the guard.
Barefoot in the dust, her stomach empty,
She has been working since daybreak,
And she thinks of how she will soon
Go with the work gang into the block,
The revolting, overfilled block
Full of swearing and beatings
Where there is no pity and everyone suffers.
Oh sure, she will be able to sleep,
To sleep and forget.
Yes, but tomorrow the merciless siren
Will wake her with a start
And with the new day, the misery too
Begins all over again.
PAGE 28Teacher’s Guide
Remembering Ravensbrück: Women and the Holocaust
Will she die in this accursed camp,
Without seeing her loved ones again?
This thought sets her heart overflowing,
And unending sadness!
My comrade! My sister!
Give me your hand, lift up your head – look,
There, where the sun is rising,
Do you not see the red glow of the morning light?
A great people is fighting there, and some are dying
So that others may be set free!
Bend down to the earth, listen,
Can you not hear the dull rumble?
The people was a child:
The pain, the suffering has made it a man.
Soon, like these waves in the ground
That sweep aside everything in their path,
The people will rise up and sweep away the hate,
Then with its strong healthy arms
It will build the new society
Where everyone can live in peace.
My sister! My comrade!
Don’t abandon hope!
(Felicie Mertens, Ravensbrück, October 1942, Block 3. Written for Fanny Jaquemotte,
Rachelle and Regina, who were taken in a shipment to Auschwitz).
UNTITLED
Onward my beauty, to work! Get moving! Quick!
The woman thus addressed cowers
And throws an anxious glance
For such words are often followed by a slap or a fist.
Who is she? She is still young and has fine features,
But the hard camp life has seen her beauty dwindle
And caused her youth to wilt
I Imagine her before: a young woman, elegant, loved.
Today, she is nothing but a number
And the star on her sleeve
Exposes her to the dumb hate of the guard.
Barefoot in the dust, her stomach empty,
She has been working since daybreak,
And she thinks of how she will soon
Go with the work gang into the block,
The revolting, overfilled block
Full of swearing and beatings
Where there is no pity and everyone suffers.
Oh sure, she will be able to sleep,
To sleep and forget.
Yes, but tomorrow the merciless siren
Will wake her with a start
And with the new day, the misery too
Begins all over again.
PAGE 28Teacher’s Guide
Remembering Ravensbrück: Women and the Holocaust
Will she die in this accursed camp,
Without seeing her loved ones again?
This thought sets her heart overflowing,
And unending sadness!
My comrade! My sister!
Give me your hand, lift up your head – look,
There, where the sun is rising,
Do you not see the red glow of the morning light?
A great people is fighting there, and some are dying
So that others may be set free!
Bend down to the earth, listen,
Can you not hear the dull rumble?
The people was a child:
The pain, the suffering has made it a man.
Soon, like these waves in the ground
That sweep aside everything in their path,
The people will rise up and sweep away the hate,
Then with its strong healthy arms
It will build the new society
Where everyone can live in peace.
My sister! My comrade!
Don’t abandon hope!
(Felicie Mertens, Ravensbrück, October 1942, Block 3. Written for Fanny Jaquemotte,
Rachelle and Regina, who were taken in a shipment to Auschwitz).
"Anna W. was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and spent her early childhood traveling with her parents and five siblings as part of a Gypsy theater troupe. In 1938, they were forced to settle in Leipzig, and were prevented from traveling or attending school.
"In early 1942, we were taken to a camp near Leipzig and... told... we were to be resettled in Poland. ...We were lucky we were put on a passenger car instead of a cattle car. ...The children were excited about the train ride. ...We had heard nothing of Auschwitz before. ...We were the first transport to arrive at the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. ...All the barracks were empty, there was no fence yet. It was muddy. We sank into the dirt to our knees... but each day more and more arrived. ...They had barracks for 500 people and forced 1000 inside. ...All my relatives, they all died there. Not one of them survived except for my cousin's family. ...We had to give up our clothes and shower. Then they shaved us...the parents were with us. That was terrible. Father, mother had to undress, too. That was the most terrible. The humiliation. There was a children's nursery. What could that mean [at Auschwitz-Birkenau], a nursery?
In March of 1944 I was put on a transport to Ravensbrück. My siblings all died. Within six months, nothing was left. [From] Ravensbrück... we were taken to ammunition factories at Schlieben near Buchenwald. ...We worked the nightshift.... That was terrible for us adolescents [because] those who fell asleep and didn't meet the production quota were sent back to Auschwitz. ...They didn't go to the camp but immediately to the gas chambers. ...I was transferred to Buna works near Leipzig but didn't meet the production rate. ...I was to be sent to Auschwitz but I traded places with a woman who wanted to be with relatives at Auschwitz. ...I would have gone to Auschwitz. ...Nobody knew that they were to be gassed when they returned to Auschwitz, that the Gypsy camp was gone [those living in the Gypsy Lager at Auschwitz were all gassed on August 2 and 3, 1944] -- so we traded places. ... [she] was taken directly to the crematorium. ...I got on the other transport, went to Bergen Belsen...[which] was basically worse than Auschwitz. ...There people died like flies. I got sick with pleurisy and pneumonia...[but] was put not in an infirmary but in prison barracks. ...Nobody cared for me...until the British came and liberated the camp...and took me to a hospital where I stayed for eight months. I returned to Bergen Belsen and lived in the liberated camp for two more years [since] I had nobody left..."
Anna W. recounts the experience that had an irreversible impact on her life.
"Ich bin selbst sterilisiert worden, aber in Ravensbrück.
Q: In Ravensbrück. Wie alt warst Du damals?
Sechzehn.
Q: Und hast Du gewusst was...
Noch nicht ganz sechzehn.
Q: Hast Du gewusst was für eine...
Nein, das habe ich nicht gewusst. Die haben gesagt die untersuchen nur, aber die Schmerzen danach, das hat man dann schon gemerkt.
Q: Das natürlich hat sehr, sehr...
Da waren mehrere junge Mädchen von, wie alt waren die, zwölf Jahre, zwölf, fünfzehn-, sechzehnjährige.
Q: Und Friedel auch?
Nein.
Q: Nein, der nicht. Weil ich weiss, sie haben auch mit den Jungen gemacht...
Auch ja, kenn sogar welche wo sie es gemacht haben.
Q: Ja, ich glaube der Ranko B., nicht?
Ja.
Q: Der hat davon gesprochen. Das ist etwas Schreckliches, nicht, für eine Frau.
Sehr. Da hab ich ja jetzt drunter zu leiden. Ich hätt ja 'ne Familie haben können, ich hätt ja schon Enkelkinder haben können die zwanzig Jahre jetzt alt werden, meine Enkelkinder, ne..."
[translated:]
"I was sterilized myself, but in Ravensbrück.
Q: In Ravensbrück. How old were you back then?
Sixteen.
Q: And did you know what...
Not quite sixteen.
Q: Did you know what kind of...
No, I did not know that. They said they were just examining, but the pain afterwards, so then you realized.
Q: That was of course very, very...
There were several young girls, of, how old were they, twelve years, twelve, fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds.
Q: And Friedel [her husband], too?
No.
Q: No, not him. Because I know that they also did this to the boys...
Yes, I even know some where they did it.
Q: Yes, I think Ranko B., no?
Yes.
Q: He spoke about it. This is something very terrible, for a woman, no?
Very much, yes. For now I have to suffer from it. Since I could have had a family, could have, I could have had grandchildren who would be twenty years by now, my grandchildren, right..."
Anna W. has lived in Germany after the war. Her husband was active in the Gypsies' political efforts to gain recognition of their suffering by the post-war German government. When, in the early 1980's, he built the first memorial for Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau without having obtained permission, he was arrested by the Polish authorities. Anna W. never had children." (Yale University Library).
"In early 1942, we were taken to a camp near Leipzig and... told... we were to be resettled in Poland. ...We were lucky we were put on a passenger car instead of a cattle car. ...The children were excited about the train ride. ...We had heard nothing of Auschwitz before. ...We were the first transport to arrive at the Gypsy camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau. ...All the barracks were empty, there was no fence yet. It was muddy. We sank into the dirt to our knees... but each day more and more arrived. ...They had barracks for 500 people and forced 1000 inside. ...All my relatives, they all died there. Not one of them survived except for my cousin's family. ...We had to give up our clothes and shower. Then they shaved us...the parents were with us. That was terrible. Father, mother had to undress, too. That was the most terrible. The humiliation. There was a children's nursery. What could that mean [at Auschwitz-Birkenau], a nursery?
In March of 1944 I was put on a transport to Ravensbrück. My siblings all died. Within six months, nothing was left. [From] Ravensbrück... we were taken to ammunition factories at Schlieben near Buchenwald. ...We worked the nightshift.... That was terrible for us adolescents [because] those who fell asleep and didn't meet the production quota were sent back to Auschwitz. ...They didn't go to the camp but immediately to the gas chambers. ...I was transferred to Buna works near Leipzig but didn't meet the production rate. ...I was to be sent to Auschwitz but I traded places with a woman who wanted to be with relatives at Auschwitz. ...I would have gone to Auschwitz. ...Nobody knew that they were to be gassed when they returned to Auschwitz, that the Gypsy camp was gone [those living in the Gypsy Lager at Auschwitz were all gassed on August 2 and 3, 1944] -- so we traded places. ... [she] was taken directly to the crematorium. ...I got on the other transport, went to Bergen Belsen...[which] was basically worse than Auschwitz. ...There people died like flies. I got sick with pleurisy and pneumonia...[but] was put not in an infirmary but in prison barracks. ...Nobody cared for me...until the British came and liberated the camp...and took me to a hospital where I stayed for eight months. I returned to Bergen Belsen and lived in the liberated camp for two more years [since] I had nobody left..."
Anna W. recounts the experience that had an irreversible impact on her life.
"Ich bin selbst sterilisiert worden, aber in Ravensbrück.
Q: In Ravensbrück. Wie alt warst Du damals?
Sechzehn.
Q: Und hast Du gewusst was...
Noch nicht ganz sechzehn.
Q: Hast Du gewusst was für eine...
Nein, das habe ich nicht gewusst. Die haben gesagt die untersuchen nur, aber die Schmerzen danach, das hat man dann schon gemerkt.
Q: Das natürlich hat sehr, sehr...
Da waren mehrere junge Mädchen von, wie alt waren die, zwölf Jahre, zwölf, fünfzehn-, sechzehnjährige.
Q: Und Friedel auch?
Nein.
Q: Nein, der nicht. Weil ich weiss, sie haben auch mit den Jungen gemacht...
Auch ja, kenn sogar welche wo sie es gemacht haben.
Q: Ja, ich glaube der Ranko B., nicht?
Ja.
Q: Der hat davon gesprochen. Das ist etwas Schreckliches, nicht, für eine Frau.
Sehr. Da hab ich ja jetzt drunter zu leiden. Ich hätt ja 'ne Familie haben können, ich hätt ja schon Enkelkinder haben können die zwanzig Jahre jetzt alt werden, meine Enkelkinder, ne..."
[translated:]
"I was sterilized myself, but in Ravensbrück.
Q: In Ravensbrück. How old were you back then?
Sixteen.
Q: And did you know what...
Not quite sixteen.
Q: Did you know what kind of...
No, I did not know that. They said they were just examining, but the pain afterwards, so then you realized.
Q: That was of course very, very...
There were several young girls, of, how old were they, twelve years, twelve, fifteen-, sixteen-year-olds.
Q: And Friedel [her husband], too?
No.
Q: No, not him. Because I know that they also did this to the boys...
Yes, I even know some where they did it.
Q: Yes, I think Ranko B., no?
Yes.
Q: He spoke about it. This is something very terrible, for a woman, no?
Very much, yes. For now I have to suffer from it. Since I could have had a family, could have, I could have had grandchildren who would be twenty years by now, my grandchildren, right..."
Anna W. has lived in Germany after the war. Her husband was active in the Gypsies' political efforts to gain recognition of their suffering by the post-war German government. When, in the early 1980's, he built the first memorial for Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau without having obtained permission, he was arrested by the Polish authorities. Anna W. never had children." (Yale University Library).