Hana Lomová (Löwenbein) Moran

That was the moment they were in transport, it was the last one? From Sereď to Auschwitz, from Sereď to Auschwitz. They were in Sereď one day and then they drove them to other trains, you know the wagons. They continued on to Auschwitz. And your mom and dad went to Auschwitz, still together? They were still together in that wagon. And. When they got there they divided the men and women. And that was the last time they saw each other? One week later, they saw each other again. Mom was already shaved, you know. And she had the one, the coat, the coat dress, luckily, so big, that was good. And they saw each other through the wire and my mother told me, and I, I'll never forget that. Pirečko, think only of good things, it will be fine. Just think of good things. And that's what Mom lived. Do you understand? She told me that whatever happened next. You know, two weeks after she reached Auschwitz, she was on a transport to Germany, where they were going to those barracks and worked in an aircraft factory from which no aircraft had ever flown. There she stood, riveted wings, you know she stood, twelve, fourteen hours a day, they didn't eat much. But all the time she went, you know the women were marching, in the streets, and the people in Freiberg were standing there on the street, on the sidewalks, looking at the women. And my mom said, I was just looking at those German kids because I wanted you to be a blonde, a blue-eyed blonde. The poor father had blue eyes and mother was dark, you know, a very pretty woman, dark, dark, so brown, brown. And the face, the dark eyes, she was pretty. And she said I want to have a blonde kid and she knew it was going to be a girl. That's if my mom made a point, it was like that. And so, and you know how she says it, it was her mantra, it was hers, except that Šmajsrajel prayed every day, that Hebrew prayer. And then she said I want to have a girl, her name would be Hanka. Her name will be Hanka. She already had the name, everything was arranged. She fixed it, you know it, with the power over us.

So, you know, the Russians were coming on one side, the Americans on the other, and the Germans already knew they wouldn't have a great future. And so on the fourteenth, the commander came to the barracks and said to all women, "Prepare for going, we leave." My mother and thirty women were pushed into one, and with me, they were pushed into one, into one truck. What I was wearing was a shirt and a cap that the prisoners made for me. At that time before that lady started screaming, until I was born. So, by the way, I donated that blouse and that cap to U.S The Holocaust Museum, in Washington, it is there. And so, in that car, you know, they were supposed to take them to the woods, but already, Mom says, we've heard the gunfire, the front was so close that the truck turned with them and came back to the station in Freiberg. And they loaded the thirty women into one wagon, the same women. And my mother said that when the other women saw it, they started screaming because they were happy to know that the Russians were so close. Well, now the journey has begun. And that train journey lasted from April 14, forty-five, to April 29, forty-five. Other trains joined in, because the Americans had already bombed those, those, railroads. And on April 21, the train stopped in a town called Horní Bříza, in the Czech Republic near Plzeň. And there, he had to stop because the rails had been bombed before, you know. And people heard, especially the gentleman who took care of the station, heard that I was crying. And they, because my mother didn't have much milk and had me in her, in her, whatever she was wearing. And in the meantime, a boy was born on April 28, I told you there were three mothers, and one Polish mother was giving birth on the train. Well, when the commander of the railway heard the cry, he went to the train commander and told him that if they allowed him to feed the prisoners, the prisoners, he would feed the soldiers.