Ruth C. (HVT-3793)

Biography

Ruth C. was born in Kraków, Poland in 1920, the older of two children. She recounts her family’s affluence; her sheltered childhood; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; confiscation of family valuables; learning to be a seamstress; eviction from their home; slave labor cleaning streets; ghettoization in March 1941; their Ukrainian maid trading their valuables for money and food; forced factory labor; her parents hiding her and her brother during a round-up; her parents’ deportation in October 1942; deportation to Płaszów; visiting her brother; public executions; pervasive fear of being killed by the Kommandant, Amon Goeth; fasting on Yom Kippur; transfer to Skarżysko-Kamienna; slave labor in Werke C of a HASAG munitions factory, then a privileged office position; transfer to Częstochowa; slave labor in another HASAG factory; train transfer to Buchenwald, then Bergen-Belsen; starvation and sickness resulting in many deaths; a fellow prisoner throwing her bread; transfer two months later to Burgau; caring for a sick prisoner; transfer to Türkheim; escaping on advice from a German guard; assistance from a villager; liberation by United States troops; reunion with her brother; illegal emigration to Palestine in 1946; brief incarceration by the British; and attending university. Ms. C notes continuing contact with her family’s Ukrainian maid; not sharing her experiences until a trip to Poland; and a recurring nightmare that stopped after her trip. She shows photographs and sings a song from Płaszów.

Unedited Testimony