We were shocked as we watched both storm troopers and local residents burning books by Jewish authors. We couldn't believe that this was happening in Germany, a country known for its advanced culture and outstanding achievements in music, art, and science.
(I have to contrast that with what a professor once said about Germany - Germany has no culture - in the office the boss will definitely try to take advantage of his secretary. You have to pity the secretaries. Of their salary, they have to spend so much on lippenschtift and such. I'm not making this up. Of course, he's talking about a specific aspect of culture. If they hadn't any kultur at all, he wouldn't have dedicated his whole life to studying them.)
The Nazis also forced my mother to work in an electronics factory. Something hideous must have happened to her there. She was crying when she returned from her first day of work. She looked at me and said that she was tired and needed to rest. She went into the bedroom to lie down and said that she didn't want to be disturbed. When my father came home later, he was unable to wake her. It was then that we realized she'd taken an overdose of sleeping pills and committed suicide.
'This is your last opportunity to give us whatever you have. If you don't, and it's found on you, you'll be immediately shot.' I knew my father had taken both money and diamonds along, so I begged him to go to the rest room and flush it all down the toilet. He did so, because even throwing our money away was preferable to giving it to the Nazis.
(Man, who do you suppose got those diamonds. Are they still lying in the dust of Berlin station?)
There were four hundred young women at the camp and we were given nearly nothing to eat. We were starving and desperate. One day, a horse dropped dead in the yard behind our factory building. We were so famished that we cut ourselves pieces of the animal, which we ate raw.
(Horse sushi. When they got here, they opened Sizzler's)
This may sound strange, but in a way Kristallnacht was like a godsend because it warned us of things to come.
(I guess so. There was international outrage and the Nazis calmed down a bit. Most people who were able to, left. But, the whole world was already in an economic recession, so it was hard to emigrate)
To my amazement, I saw some parents actually push their own children away. I guess they knew they couldn't save them, so they tried to save themselves. It was hard for me to believe that a mother would run from her child, but evidently the fear of death can be overwhelming.
Our train ride ended at Theresienstadt. After being there only a week, I came down with scarlet fever. I was quarantined for six weeks, but no medication was available. After I began to recover, I did farm work in the fields with a group of other young people. We'd get up early in the morning and stand on line for roll call. On one occasion, the entire camp was made to stand for forty-eight hours for roll call. We weren't permitted to eat or sleep during those days.
(Two days I can understand. Was it Elie Wiesel or Vladek Spiegelman who said about being transported in the cattle car? It stopped at one place for weeks. For weeks!! Can you imagine people being trapped in that kind of space for weeks? No food, no bowel movement? It's a miracle anyone survived at all)
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