SONIA GARFINKEL NOTHMAN

4/5/92 WEST BLOOMFIELD, MICHIGAN

 

            They took us away.  One day they gave an order that all young people should come to the square, we didn’t know.  They are going to send us away, they usually grabbed people on the streets, and they send away and after a while, they send them home.  In the morning, I left with my little sister, and my big sister, and my brother and we went.  It was nothing because I knew I am going to be back home.  We didn’t even say goodbye to my parents, a mistake, no one, and we came to this square and there was no place to run, you could not run away.  There were so many SS men, trucks and dogs, German Shepherds, and there was no way to run away.  You could not run away, and they took us away, we stayed there for a few hours until they let everything settle.  They sent us on the open trucks, it was noon, I do not remember, maybe afternoon.  They took us away and we lived on the outskirts of the city, and I passed by my house, and I saw in the window my mother she picks up her hands like this, she saw us.  That was the last time I saw my mother and father; I never saw them again.

 

           My father used to go very early to the synagogue, so the Germans wouldn’t see him.  When he came home the young kids were still in bed, and he told us that he saw this family shot in front this family shot.  They used to come at night for nothing; you didn’t have to do anything.  They took them out and shot them.  He run home but he was very religious, and he thought by praying more, maybe God would listen to us; God would not abandon us.  It didn’t work this way, you see.  So, he went every day and one day he came home and was on the streets and somebody run into our house and said that two Germans are holding my father, and are trying to cut his beard, my father had a small little beard.  I was so furious I could not sit there, to me they can do but not to my father.  I want to run out, I want to run out I was so mad but, I don’t remember either my mother or my sister hold me back.  Because I was running on the street without a yellow star, and I went on a train without a yellow star and they said they wouldn’t do it.  They hold me back.  They cut his beard and he came home.

 

            I remember one boy tried to run away, my age maybe a few years older, and they let the dogs on him, German Shepherds.  Those dogs were so trained, if they said Jude, means Jew, they jumped on you and ripped you apart, they tore him apart, and the blood.  We feared them. 

 

          I was in Skarzysko B, and C when too many left.  I am lucky; I am alive because we worked in a mill.  The mill they used to bring potatoes, thousands, and thousands of potatoes, they went through certain machines, and they made flakes.  Those machines chopped up those flakes and they put them in the soup.  The soup is what they give us to eat, was water, and you put in those flakes, and it got thick, and this is what we ate.  This is what they sent away to all the camps.  That is why I think that I am alive, because I could take a potato, of course nobody could see.  We worked with Polish people; you see some were nicer than others.  They knew first they took us and then it is them.  I don’t remember ever smiling in camp, ever, after they took us, we knew our parents they took our parents, and we didn’t know how they died.  We were young kids.  The strong survived.  Those who worked for ammunition, they couldn’t survive to long.  When they brought us, the first camp was Skarzysko in Poland, the big boss of the Germans came, and they picked people.  An older guy picked me, not only me but around twenty of us.  I did not know what to do; I knew that if I did not bring my brother potatoes he would not survive.  So Helen, my sister, talked to the boss, he was a Polish German; he was a German that was born in Poland.  He helped us to bring him things.  He was an older Polish gentleman that was in charge of the mill where I worked.  He helped me; he lost his family too.  He overlooked lots of things.  People used to go from our camp to Skarzysko A and told me my brother was there.  He watched for us to come; he knew we were coming.  Camp A was very big, thousands and thousands of people there.  Our camp was a smaller camp and people that were from ammunitions went from our camp there to work.  I used to steal flakes; and even triple paper sacks to put them in we would stuff them in the sacks.  We used to conceal the paper sacks on your back, under your coat or whatever you wear, so nobody should see it.  At night, we used to sleep in our papers.  We used to tear the papers and wind around your feet with a piece of string and walk in them, because we didn’t have shoes.  There were certain things what you could exchange, I would bring flakes, and they would give me old shoes, or anything, anything.  Many times, I know it is hard to believe, but we would envy those who were dead, we used to envy those who were already dead.  Those that were finished with the suffering, they had nobody left, because we knew by then that the parents were gone. 

 

            We marched days and nights, days, and nights.  Those who couldn’t, they got right away their verdict.  There was a guard in the front, the back and on the sides, if you fell down, he shot you and we proceed, we walked further than.  We walked, we held each other, we kept one hand on the shoulder all the time, and we kept changing because after a while you could not walk without food, without water.  So many people died on the death march, so many people.  Those who were young and strong did survive, but those who fell down they shoot them.  There were guards all around, so many people died.  We didn’t eat; we didn’t drink, so we didn’t go to the bathroom.

 

            I am a volunteer at the Holocaust Museum here, and hate doesn’t bring nothing good.  It doesn’t serve any purpose in hating, and to help each other you can accomplish much more, than hating.  I hope it is going to be a lesson for the world, this what happened, so many died.  In everyday life you forget, you are busy, but it brings me back the memories.  It is unbelievable, even if I would sit here for hours, for days, for weeks, I cannot tell you, it’s unbelievable, you wouldn’t believe...I hope it will not be repeated again, I hope deeply.  I hope the whole world learned a lesson.  I don’t mean just Jews, I mean anybody, anybody, any human being.  We are brought in this world to help each other to live, and it works the opposite.  But to us people who did survive, everybody helps each other, everybody, because we know the bad and the good.  When we were young, we didn’t know.  I remember the camps we tried to help each other.  So many of my friends were so young, they worked so hard, and they didn’t survive, most of them.  It’s a shame for the world; they let this happen.