I really don’t know now, I already thought about what the next station was. But I think we went directly to Ravensbrück, to Mecklenburg, Fürstenberg. I don’t remember a stop in between. There, they unloaded us, lorries were waiting, everything was dark, because there was a black-out. No light, nowhere. My God, up onto the lorries. „Out, quick, quick, quick!“ Double-quick in there, and up onto the lorry. I was young, but there were older women with us, too. But nobody got help, and the overseer set a dog on us, too. That was simply horrible. All of a sudden, you couln’t start thinking, I simply couldn’t think. Then we drove off, everything was shut down. And then we arrived at Ravensbrück. And there we immediately drove into the camp. Jesus, such a huge yard, we were standing there, stood there for a long time. I don’t know how long, until they let us in. Well, and then the delousing, and we were looked at for crab lice. And we were shorn there, and the hair was cut, because everybody was full of lice anyway. Well, and then off into the bath. Again, we had to walk in in single file. It was all closed off, so you couldn’t get out. The SS men, every five or ten meters there was one, and they eyed up each one of us as we passed in. Well, we were very much afraid of the men. They also struck out. And luckily, I got through fine, behind me, in front of me, everywhere they struck out. But I always was lucky. And into the bath. Well, and there again we were so frightened, hoping the gas wouldn’t come. We didn’t know, will there be gas or water. We didn’t know anything. How we dried off afterwards, I don’t remember. Anyway, we took some clothes afterwards, everything was in a heap. Clothes! Can you imagine what kind of clothes it was, all stripey stuff, and the underwear accordingly. And then we were distributed, simply: These over there, those over there. And I was put in with the availables. That was an extra barracks, where the availables were. But I didn’t understand that at first, either, what it meant, being „available“. But I found out soon enough. They could call you up at any time, and use you for any kind of work. It didn’t matter what, cleaning the yard, cleaning the camp streets. When the word was out: „Himmler is coming!“, we had to pick every particle off the street, and the overseer with her dog was behind us all the time. Or carrying coals for days on end. For these kinds of jobs they called you up. We often had a day in between when we were inside, when there was nothing to do. and then they said you could enrol for Siemens.

And always beating and always being beat, and always being beat. Walking there and back twice, we always had to sing marching songs. The whips were always at hand, and always beside you. Terrible. And standing for the roll call, that was terrible, too. In the morning, from five o’clock onwards, until seven o’clock, at noon another hour or two standing up, and in the evening two, three hours as a matter of course. When you got home, you spooned up your soup, and then you had to run and stand. And that really was the worst punishment there was there, the standing. And on Sundays, we had to march in the morning, round and round, so you didn’t get any rest. Well, and then the overseers, male and female, but most of them were women, they had their fun with it. They could really hit you hard. We were always under pressure.

You could have sabotaged! You could have! We did talk about it. At my side, there was a Polish woman, and the second one, I think they were sisters in law. She was so handsome, the one who always sat beside me. They always told me to make mistakes. „Put in some mistakes! So they can’t do anything with it.“ I was too much of a coward, I didn’t dare. But they did. And they went to the hole, and never came back. I wanted to live! I had the child, I just wanted to live! And they risked so much, so much, unitl it was completely over.

They risked a lot. And one of them, her mother was there, too. There were scenes, well, it was, it was terrible. Well, and really, the lots were always checked, and then you had your number in there. They knew exactly who tried to sabotage.

Interviewer: Yes, exactly.

Well, it wasn’t worth it! Then they got beaten so much because of it. My God! That was why I was so frightened! My God, I was so frightened!

I have seen some women, when they brought them back. How they lay there. No! Completely bruised at the back around the kidneys. Terrible!

Nobody can imagine that. When you’re frighened day and night. Nobody can imagine that. That’s very, very hard. And because you can’t ever defend yourself, not at all. You just have to say „Yes“ when you’re asked, no matter whether it’s true or not. You’re zero, and that sometimes hurts. You get used to it. After half a year, you already really know you’re nothing at all, that you’re really below everything. They have humiliated you so much, they treated you in such a way that you told yourself you’re not human any more. Let’s really say, an animal was much better.

It really was sad times.