Anna Eva Gaspar's deportation certificate

Anna Eva Gaspar's deportation certificate

This is a document. My husband Andras Gaspar, Andris obtained it, he insisted so much, he was very 'descurcaret' [resourceful in Romanian]. He inquired at the French Red-Cross organization and managed to obtain the address [in Germany]. And then - he knew French, German, English, Ialian - he got an answer in November 1970. Cocatrix was the big chief there, he managed the documents for the deportees.

And with this document I supported my fellow sufferers who didn't have such a document. Since I had it, I stated they were with me. Maybe this wasn't a fair thing to do, but I did it. We had to go to the notary public, and that document included the camps I was in, and I also wrote this should be considered an official document for them as well.

This certificate was also issued to me. My first husband was Sandor Taub. It included my husband's name, Taub geboren Schwarz Anna Eva, my birth date and Alsoszopor. The rest was 'nicht angefuhrt', not recorded. My religion wasn't included, neither, not even 'jude.' It is written 'politisch', that is I appeared as politic detainee, so it seems they included me in the group arriving then and they recorded some of my data. That was it. My number is: 48993. This is the second number I had. Because I also had one in Auschwitz, but this Stutthof. 'Keine weiteren Informationen', there are no more information aboutme.

At early spring [it was early 1945] they moved us to a relocation camp, to Stutthof [the settlement in matter is situated in Northern Poland, 34 km from Danzig]. 'Hof' means village. That was a dirty, messy, terrible relocation camp. There we suffered from hunger and we became lousy again, because the barracks were covered with lice. So it was a terrible place. There they sent people to the gas-chamber too, and we could feel the terrible smell. The people became rotten in front of the Revier, so there were terrible circumstances...The way out was to go to work, because there I got the minimal food. There were people who suffered from hunger. I didn't. I wasn't a big eater during my life. Even now I eat a very small quantity. I didn't suffer from hunger. I couldn't say that I had enough even once, but we got the minimal food. But those who lived in relocation camps like Stutthof or Auschwitz, didn't get that. Not to mention that they did nothing all the day, they just waited the counting. One of the guards shouted 'Apell! - Counting!' Then we stood there for more hours and they counted us. They counted us from the front and from the back also. So it was a kind of psychological offensive against us. They did nothing, just counted us. And they counted us how many times the guard wanted. Four times? Five times? Three times? In rain? In snow? And they took a look at everybody, and if they found a pimple on you, they sent you to the gas-chamber. This is not a joke. If a guard saw that somebody couldn't stay longer he told 'You can go!' And you went. Willy-nilly. There was woman, who said, that she couldn't get up. Simply she couldn't get up. And then the guard always went in, to see if everybody came out. And if the guard found her lying, they took her to the hospital, and we didn't see her anymore. I tried to do everything so that to be always in ahead, and to remain healthy. I knew that those who were at the back, will perish. Ninety per cent of the people who remained in the relocation camps perished there. In the labor camp we got medicines also. We found out, that if we were in labor camp we could survive. Those who were healthy, didn't die in the labor camp. Who was sick, remained in the relocation camp and perished there. I didn't spend a long time there - they always needed workers somewhere - and I talked over with my group, that we would apply for the different works. And they took those who were more skillful. Then we succeeded to go away, because if you remained in the relocation camp, you perished there. You simply died of it.

The spring came and we got some news that the Russians were not far from us. We went through villages, where the people got us pieces of bread and many of them told 'Don't give up, just a little time and the war would be over!' We didn't work already, they squeezed us in a former labor camp where were terrible conditions. After a short time we went forward, and once we heard that we had the Russians at ours heels. Then we had to flee. We fled from the Russians, the SS soldiers drove us. We went on foot. We slept where we could, in bushes and under trees. If we got food it was alright, if we didn't get... There were estates, where they let us in and gave us a hot meal. There were humane people too, although the Polish are blessed bad people, in my opinion at least. They let us in to the yard, usually in the barn. I got some dried and cut beet. They used to cultivate beet on that territory. The Polish people like very much the sugar-beet and the cattle-turnip as well, they use to cube and dry it. And I found a such kind of nest in a corner. It was so delicious! It was crunchy and sweet.

They drove us like the cattle. That was a dread. They shot those who couldn't walk, who fell behind. Nobody wanted to remain in the last row, everybody made an effort to advance, so we pursued ourselves to remain alive. For example they shot Szidi near a kilometer stone, when she sat down to fasten her shoestrings... We couldn't fall behind. There were some Polish people from the other relocation camps (from Stutthof for example), who joined us, and certainly they spoke the Polish language. And they fled away. I don't know what happened with them. The SS soldiers found out this, because they counted us every morning and evening. And in the evening a few people were missing. The SS soldiers told us, that they will shoot ten people for every runaway. Finally they didn't shoot ten people, just the weaker ones. The SS soldier went between the rows, he looked in everybody's eyes, and you couldn't know if you would be the next or somebody else. They selected mostly the old people, and they shot them in the back on the spot. There, in front of us... The group became smaller and smaller, we remained approximately two hundred people...There was a guard for every ten row, and our group (the six women from the same village) was there also. One of us, Manci, was killed. Two of us carried her, arm-in arm. And when I could't carry her because I was exhausted, the guard came and told us 'Leave her!' And the gun was in his hand... and Manci's sibling was there too... It was terrible. We, the other five women, came home. Five of us survived.

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