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Fanny Günzenberger presents the
following: My personal tragedy started in 1941, when they collected
Jews of
Polish origin in
Hungary. That
time, they took me and my parents, 5 brothers and sisters of mine and a great number of
relatives. No one remained alive except for me. I managed to
escape
from
Kamenetz-Podolsk before they
shot
all those enormous number of Jews. The way back was really horrible, I dared to walk only
during the night in the bottom of ditches. During the day I
hid in
a stack of hay or in a stall. I
ate what I found on
the fields and in the woods, edible plants,
carrots, and
potatoes. For me, the suffering in
Germany was not a surprise or a novelty. Finally, I managed to get back into
Hungary, however
I did not return to our village but worked for Jewish
families in
Ungvár. In 1943, when
Germans entered the country, they constructed the
ghetto
in
Ungvár soon,
and all Jews had to enter it. We still
lived
well in the
ghetto disregarding that they beat and interrogated richer Jews to
find out where they hid their valuables. Around 6 weeks later, we were entrained and we
arrived in
Auschwitz after a three-day-long miserable journey. Here they immediately
separated strong
people
suitable for hard
work from the elderly, the young and the weak. They took us into the
baths, seized our belongings, cut our hair, washed us, and let us stay nude in the cold room
for hours before they gave us some ragged
clothes. They led us into a
barrack where there
was empty place only on the ground. We spent all the time in
Auschwitz queuing
up for
roll calls. From the morning till noon there was a
roll
call, then there was the
roll
call before lunch, and another two hours waiting in the afternoon. In between, the
hut was cleaned and we were forced to stay in the open. There were frequent
selections causing always terrible anxiety as we already knew what they meant, why
flames were coming out of the chimneys of the
crematorium day and night. Only 10 days passed before they
selected me into a
transport for
work.
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They made me have
another bath and put me on a
train
heading to
Bergen-Belsen. We were glad that the two of us who knew each other still from
Hungary could
stay together, and that we got out of
Auschwitz that
meant constant anxiety. We did not have a better situation either in
Bergen-Belsen.
Food was extremely
scarce,
treatment was cruel.
People were beaten up all the time. We had to do some awfully
difficult
work carrying heavy loads. Every day a lot of us
died
here. Luckily, we did not stay here long either but set off soon for
Salzwedel. The
lager in
Salzwedel was small, altogether 1,300
women
were kept here. They treated us less cruelly as in
Bergen. Daily
food comprised of half litre of black
coffee
in the morning and the evening, some watery vegetable
soup at
noon and 200 grams of
bread. Sometimes we got 20 grams of
margarine, or
marmalade. We were awfully
starving. We had a lot of
work to
do even if it was not so difficult. Mostly we shovelled sand and pebbles for 12 hours a day.
Many
died of exhaustion. Everyone was as thin as a skeleton. When
Americans got closer they wanted to take us
away but had no time to do so as
Americans already
arrived into
the camp.