Tag #148128 - Interview #95750 (Maria Rolnikayte)

Shtutthof concentration camp was one of the oldest: it was built by Polish railwaymen as early as in 1938-1939. The camp reminded a market of slaves, because owners of farms used to come there. We had to strip to the skin and walk by employers showing our muscles. We were covered with abscesses because of terrible starvation. I said in German ‘Ich bin stark (I am still strong)’ and showed my muscles though there was nothing to be shown. A nearly blind old farmer looked at me and took me to his farm. There I worked about 4 months. I slept in the pigsty together with pigs. The owner locked us at night, we had no days off. But at the same time I was lucky to get there: it was possible to eat some potatoes from the pigs’ ration without the owner’s knowledge. He gave us a loaf of bread for a week and used to warn ‘If you work badly, I’ll send you not back to the camp, but directly to a crematorium.’

In November after harvesting we got back to the camp. We did not leave camp for work because of typhus epidemic. We got to know that there was fire in the gas chamber, therefore hitlerites poisoned the so-called soup (it was something like warm water, and it was a fortune to find a small slice of rotten cabbage in it) they fed us with. They did not give us enough water, therefore we ate dirty snow.