Helena Maršíková

“Within a month, they gathered all the Jews from all the villages and towns and sent them to a ghetto in Mukačevo. Me and my dad went on 2 April 1944. My grandma could no longer walk; imagine an older person being faced with something like this… She could not stand on her legs anymore so we squeezed her into a single-horse cart which drove those immobile people. We went to Iršava and then took a train to Mukačevo where they established the ghetto. There was some matting out of which they built some tents. Those old people who could not walk were laid on the ground with matting above them so that it would not rain on them. But they were lying on the ground. We could have taken some warm blankets from home; we had some of those duvets with us so I covered my grandma. I was seventeen and I was terribly squeamish. But I went to my grandma’s every morning, cleaning the toilet bowls of about ten or fifteen old people. I even rinsed them. I turned away not to look at them because I was terribly disgusted by it all. Later when I brought them the rinsed bowls back, all those women wept and said: ‘God sees this, you will be happy and live a long life because you are terribly kind.’ I do not know, perhaps this is why I have lived so long. What do you think?”

“Seventeen thousand two hundred and seventy six. A as ‘Arbeits’. They assigned me that one, meaning that I was selected for labour. It was the worst day in my whole life because I had no strength left. As we had not eaten or drunk anything in the train for such a long time, I could no longer stand on my legs. I fell down several times and those girls… You know, there was little tenderness, they wouldn’t pick me up, and instead they would kick me. They told me what would happen if I did not get up: ‘They will take you away in a moment. You have suffered so much, fought so much and you will let them take you away?’ I saw those carts loaded with young girls’ corpses, beautiful ones, with long legs and hands spread out, being taken to the crematorium. As they were kicking me, I got up and one of the kinder girls gave me a bit of support. What also saved me was my surname Drumerová – being at the beginning of the alphabet. Had I been at the end of the alphabet, I would not have made it through. When it was my turn, I just threw my hand in, not even looking, nor feeling any pain. Then we could have gone away. As soon as I got that number, somebody pushed me and I could just lie on the ground, I did not need to keep standing anymore.”

"We were all sitting close together thinking...We could sit somehow, but how will the ten of us sleep here? We tried to figure it out, but there was always some older girl who organized everything. And as I was sitting there and thinking, some girl, wearing civil clothes passed by me and pulled my leg saying: ´Look at me again.´ I looked at her and she said: ´You have a sister here right? ´ I was already asking for my sister before the disrobing and bathing. I also asked the girls who cut our hair, I asked everyone. I told them: ´I have a sister here somewhere.´ But they told me: ´What are you talking about? You can’t have a sister here, she can’t be here anymore. You should look for her in heaven. ´ That’s what they told me. Not the Germans, the striped ones. They thought it’s so funny that I’m looking for my sister there. But now this girl told me: ´You have a sister here. I will bring her over. She’ll come here in a minute.´ She recognized me by looking into my eyes. There were ten same looking women there, but she knew it from the look in the eyes. She really brought her in. My sister was wearing red kerchief. She worked in the Canada group. I don’t know why they called it Canada. The group was cleaning up the clothes from people who went to the gas chambers. Her hair was also cut short. She wore that red kerchief and come civil like clothes. She was kind of slimmer too. When we saw each other - we haven’t seen each other for eight years - I was begging her: ´Take me with you, please.´ I kept asking everyone there to take me with them, but nobody wanted me. She said: ´No, you won’t go with me. I’m going to stay here. Nobody can get out of here alive, but you might get on a transport train and survive, you might live. But not here though. You wouldn’t survive here. We all will die in here. We are not going to get out of here.´ But she did survive after all. Although she thought she won’t."

"As we approached Birkenau, I read the sign through the tiny window inside the carrier. Some time ago we received postcards from Birkenau already. They let us read the cards. But they were faked. They told the people at the camp what to write down there. For example, they wrote cards to one of the Czech transports from which all of the people including the children went straight to the gas chambers. They wrote them about the ´Family camp´ awaiting them. They even wrote some date on it, but when they sent the cards, the people were death already. I couldn’t write to Roztoky village so I wrote at least do my sister Lenka to Budapest. I remembered he address. From her I knew that Birkenau is the concentration camp, because I got a card from her from Birkenau. I was hoping to find her there. "

"We were working, but as I said, it was rather boring and most of all, we were starving. The German used to tell me: ´You ought to make five thousand every day.´ Then some Italian came and wrote down three thousand, no more than that. Sometimes even a Russian came and wrote down only one thousand. I didn’t know who shall I listen to anymore. But I was working slowly on purpose, no hurry. I was sitting the whole time. There was an electric drill and I used it to make holes into the iron. Sometimes my gimlet broke so I told to my boss about that. He wasn´t yelling at me and just said: ´Again?!´ I stood there and waited for him to give me new one. I knew how to attach the new one myself. But as I said already - cold, hunger, lack of sleep... The Germans were not nice to us from the beginning to the end. They must have already known that they will not win the war. In the factory where I was working, there were some Germans working too, but disabled ones who were sent here from the front. They spoke honestly: ´Hitler caput´. Or they would say: ´You’re going to be OK, but we all will go to Siberia.´ It was realy weird atmosphere. Every evening, there was the roll-call at the hall. The Germans were counting us and were always telling us to be good and hardworking. But they also used to tell us: ´Don’t forget, we’ll always have plenty of time to take you to Dachau camp. There is the crematory. We’ll take you to the gas chambers. You’re not going to survive.´ They used to tell us this almost every day. But we were not afraid anymore; we didn’t take it seriously anymore. But they just kept terrifying us that they will always have time to take us to the gas chamber."

“My dad consoled me, saying that the end of the war was near and that I had to hold on. It is like in this book which begins with onion… No supplies remained from what we had brought from home. There we got only a small piece of bread. Poor daddy gave his to me and only ate an onion. He still had some in his pocket from Roztoka, because he used to bring it to that seamstress to whom I went. And when onion is being cut, tears are flowing – especially when eaten without bread. This stayed inside me throughout my whole life: whenever I eat an onion, I see my dad crying his eyes out.”

"I saw him. I will never forget that. I don’t know in which group he was or where exactly he was standing, but our eyes met. We looked into each other’s eyes, so deeply, I knew it’s him and he knew it’s me. It was almost like he wanted to tell me something. But we had to go then, so that was the very last time I saw him. I never saw him after that anymore. But we look to each other with such passion. I was so grateful I could see him once again, for the last time, I’m grateful we could say goodbye."

"The group of people that were killed all of them was about three times bigger than the other groups. So for those people who survived, it’s not their credit, it’s rather a coincidence or their destiny. It was the instant decision that helped them survived, because someone made an instant decision about them. I used to have a cousin from Roztoka there. She was about ten years older than me, but she wasn’t even thirty yet. I hoped very much I could be with her, but she was with a small nephew. She held his hand. And that was exactly the instant decision too. It was like she was a mom holding her five years old boy. They went toward the huge camp and I never saw her anymore."