The Kluge factory - the former labour camp Oberaltstadt

This is a picture of the Kluge factory, the former labor camp Oberaltstadt in the Czech Republic, where we were detained during the last years of the war. It was taken by my sister Zosia, when she came to Poland in 1998.

Today it is called Horejsi Stare Mesto, near Trutnov in the Sudetten Mountains. At first it was a labor camp. We were taken to a flax factory, it was called Kluge.

The factory produced thread. The work hours were, for example, from 2.30am to 2.30pm. And then you had to clean the camp, scrub the floors, do all kinds of things, peel the turnips.

Turnips - the kind you give to cows, that's what we ate. We lived in horrible barracks, full of bugs. There were some 16 girls to a room. The rooms were small, double beds.

It was a camp only for Jews, but around us there were Russians and Frenchmen and English soldiers from Africa. There were Belgians, who, I think, volunteered for that labor.

They were not Jews, they were normal people, yes. I don't know where they were living, because we only saw them at the factory.

Photos from this interviewee