Tag #136237 - Interview #78490 (Katalin Kallos Havas)

In Auschwitz the Germans waited for us with dogs. They forced us off the cars, then they split us up: men and women were put in separate groups. There was no possibility to say goodbye to your family. Everything was driven by the element of surprise, leaving us no time for anything, neither to think, nor to say anything. They took us, the ones left alive, to the wash-room, the real wash-room. They stripped us naked, then took us to a room where they shaved all our hair off to protect us against lice. Slovak Jewish girls did this. I asked the girl who cut my hair when I would see my mother again. She pointed out the window and said, ‘Do you see that smoke? That’s your mother coming out.’ They were terribly angry with us because we were still sleeping under silk quilts while they were satisfying the needs of the German soldiers on the front, and then they were brought to build Auschwitz. They had already been in the camp for four years, so we found out immediately from them, what was to come.