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When we reached the other bank of Dnestr, we were already in Transnistria. We were in a suburb of Mohilev-Podolsk [11]; it was a place with small shattered houses, and all looked and smelled like water closets. There were so many people trying to find a spot to rest! We were exhausted, and we just sat quietly near a wall until morning. In the morning the gendarmes told us, 'Everybody must be ready to leave!' A woman, who had probably come there some days before, told us, 'Good people, if you can, hide and don't go with this convoy!' There was a young couple of Jews, a bit younger than my parents and with no children, who had come with us, in the same wagon. When they heard the woman, they immediately set out to leave the building; my sister ran after them, and I after my sister. When we reached the main street, I turned around and saw that my parents weren't behind me, so I went back. I found them in the convoy, surrounded by gendarmes who screamed at people to move.
There were thousands and thousands of people in that convoy, the entire main street was full of people. My mother started to cry, my father cried out, 'Where's my daughter?!'; but my sister had disappeared with that Jewish family. The sentinels guarded the convoy, they were mostly Romanian, but I remember there was a German one as well. And my mother started to cry and plead, in German and Romanian, that she had lost a child, that all she wanted was to find her baby. Nobody looked at her, but she didn't stop crying. At one point, a young sentinel, a Romanian soldier, stopped, looked at us and said: 'Come with me!' We got out of the convoy, and set out for the small street where I last saw the couple of Jews with my sister. We didn't go very far, there were too many people, but we saw the woman coming towards us with my sister Erika. The soldier saw we found the girl, but he was a good soul, he said, as if he hadn't seen anything, 'Go find the girl, and when you do, come back.' That was our great luck, and that is why we survived, because we could stay in the city of Mohilev-Podolsk.
There were thousands and thousands of people in that convoy, the entire main street was full of people. My mother started to cry, my father cried out, 'Where's my daughter?!'; but my sister had disappeared with that Jewish family. The sentinels guarded the convoy, they were mostly Romanian, but I remember there was a German one as well. And my mother started to cry and plead, in German and Romanian, that she had lost a child, that all she wanted was to find her baby. Nobody looked at her, but she didn't stop crying. At one point, a young sentinel, a Romanian soldier, stopped, looked at us and said: 'Come with me!' We got out of the convoy, and set out for the small street where I last saw the couple of Jews with my sister. We didn't go very far, there were too many people, but we saw the woman coming towards us with my sister Erika. The soldier saw we found the girl, but he was a good soul, he said, as if he hadn't seen anything, 'Go find the girl, and when you do, come back.' That was our great luck, and that is why we survived, because we could stay in the city of Mohilev-Podolsk.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Mohilev-Podolsk
Ukraine
Interview
Melitta Seiler