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Testimony Excerpts :: Peter S.
A German child survivor describes a selection at Ravensbrück
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Excerpts copyright © Yale University Library, 1996.
Peter S. was born in Nuremberg, Germany in March 1936, into a family
which had lived in Germany from the 1600s. A brother was born in 1939.
In December 1941, the family was deported to the Riga ghetto, but was
saved due to their father's skill as a professional auto mechanic. Eventually
separated from his father, who perished in Buchenwald, Peter was sent
to the women's section of Ravensbrück along with his mother and brother.
"...surrounded by a stone wall, barracks, a lot of kids... this was
not only a concentration camp for Jews. Ravensbrück was a general
prison. There were people who were criminals. And you could tell who was
who because everybody had to wear a color code [points to left lapel],
black, red, yellow for Jews. I don't know what the Gypsies had, but there
were a lot of Gypsies there. They were probably more mistreated there
than anybody else. This was the place where they did the medical experiments
on the Gypsies.
...There were machine guns all around and you always had to be sort
of aware of that. ...The women were used as field hands and it was truly
slavery. ...They would march off, and I remember her [his mother] and
all the other women sneaking in carrots or something--whatever they would
be able to sneak in--under their dresses... They were wearing prison garb,
striped dresses. ...Food was not that good...although there was bread
and I remember some terrible soup."
Peter S. developed infections all over his body, and a large abscess
on his neck required medical treatment in the infirmary. Shortly after,
there was a selection.
"We had to go in a line in front
of an officer and I remember him wearing a grey coat, and some others
there. And we were walking left to right and walking by him, and because
of this operation, my mother took all, everything she had and wrapped
the other side so it would look just as big as this side. We walked by,
and the people who were put on the other side were people who were obviously
infirm. There was a one-legged girl who I remember being carried away
and crying bitterly. And everybody assumed that this was her end. And
everybody who was older was also put to that side and they disappeared.
...And afterwards... as we were walking away... the women were sort
of yelling in relief and joy, and we as kids were quiet and subdued. In
many ways, we were more aware.... The possibility of death was always
there..."
In the beginning of 1945, Peter S., his brother and mother was transported
to Bergen Belsen. "That truly was an unbelievable cesspool, in terms of
the number of people dying, the lack of care... in any sense of the word.
...Death was there all the time. You saw people die. You moved their bodies.
It was just there."
Liberated by the British when he was nine years old, Peter S. describes
many prisoners dying because they were given too much food by the well-meaning
liberators. He and his brother were among the youngest German children
to have survived in concentration camps.
Peter S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2337). Fortunoff Video Archive
for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
The length of the complete testimony is 1 hour, 24 minutes. A catalog
record is available for this testimony in Orbis, the Yale University
Library online public access catalog. Please see the Catalog
and research guide section of this site for more information.
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