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The camp commander declared loudly that we sang Russian songs and we are condemned to death... They drove in us in a barn. There was straw, because there were animals too. And they locked up the big door. The women from there began to cry, wail, scream and shout. I didn’t cry, I didn't feel sorry for myself, that I had to die so young - and undeservedly. There I heard for the first time the Jewish death-song. They used to sing that song if somebody died. Nobody died in my family until that, so I didn’t use to take part on funerals. Everybody was all in tears...They opened the gate in the dawn. It was dead silence, not a sound was heard. And the camp commander told us ‘Go out!’ What happened? There was a Hungrian soldier among the SS, who heard that we sang, and we sang in Hungarian. He went to the camp commander and told him that. He wasn’t forced to tell it, who cared if another 25 Jews died? We found out this from the camp commander, and moreover he told us that he knew this already in the evening. ‘You deserved the punishment!’ So it was a terrible experience. It was thanks to a Hungarian SS that we are alive.
Period
Interview
Anna Eva Gaspar