Estera Stern Testimony (doc. 301/965)
Typescript, 1 page, 210 x 295 mm, Polish language
Estera Stern, born on November 27, 1927, in Sosnowiec; parents: Aron and Majtla née Skóra; before the war: a student.
I was taken to the camp from the Sosnowiec ghetto at Środula in February 1943. Thirty-three girls, including myself, were taken to the camp in Parschnitz (in the Sudeten). When we arrived there we were barracked in an old disused spinning factory. 250 other girls had been quartered there already. There were three large halls changed into three large rooms there. They were equipped with wooden bunk beds, cupboards and benches. At the beginning there were 300 of girls there altogether, and we occupied the room on the ground floor and another one on the second floor. After some time, a year after my arrival, we were joined by a transport of 600 Hungarian Jewish women from Auschwitz and by about 600 Polish Jewish women. They were given the room on the first floor, which had been empty before. At first our camp was surrounded with a fence only. Then, after a year, when the camp was taken over by the SS command, it was surrounded with barbed wire. The Lagerführerin was a German woman named Hawlik. At the beginning she treated us very decently and she took motherly care of us. But as it turned out later, her kindness was illusory and strictly calculated. She tried to convince us that as we were safe in the camp under her care, we should write home and tell our people to send us valuables and jewellery which, as she argued, would be safer in the camp than at home, from where our parents would be deported sooner or later. Most of the girls followed her advice. As it turned out later, she took advantage of our trust and confiscated everything. As we also learnt later, she was a member of the SS. Thus, after the camp had been taken over by the SS, Hawlik revealed her real face. She set specially trained dogs on us for the slightest offence. She robbed us of our rations, which shrank visibly because of that.
We worked in a textile factory in Tratenau.2Note 2: Tratenau - Trutnov (the Czech Lands).We had to cover 6 kilometres’ distance on foot to get to our work place. The way to work was a hell, especially in winter. We left at 5 o’clock in the morning, groping in the mountains, up to our knees in the snow. The girls often took off their heavy wooden shoes, which were a burden on such a way, and they preferred to walk barefooted. They had to pay for their carelessness with pneumonia, and sometimes with their life. The work in the spinning factory, where we operated the machines, required a lot of attention. A slightest mistake could end up in a disability. I worked in the hardest unit, the so-called Feinsal.2Note 2: Feinsal may mean a room (Ger.: Saal) in which they spinned fine (Ger.: fein) yarn.My work required special concentration. Our rations were very scanty. One of the reasons was that Hawlik, who stole our rations. Thus, before leaving for work, we were given ½ litre of soup which was supposed to be our dinner in the factory. Our breakfast consisted of 12 decagrams of bread and bitter coffee. For supper, on the other hand, each of us got three potatoes and a spoonful of sauce.
We became witnesses of horrid events two weeks before the arrival of the Red Army. Transports of Jews evacuated from various camps went past our camp on their way to Germany. They had a few days’ break at the camp, and that was followed by the selection. Those were emaciated hungry and miserable people. They were so changed that it happened that a sister failed to recognise her brother. Those unfit to physical effort were finished off at our camp in front of our very eyes. The German Aufseherinen found the spectacle funny: they looked and smiled.
The Red Armyliberated us on May 8 at 4 pm.
Recorded by H. Landau.