As soon as I spoke these words to a table full of other Holocaust survivors at a luncheon in the s, I immediately came over very ill and began intensely shaking. I ended up being violently sick and was taken out to a first aid tent. I was born in a small mountain village called Bhutz in Czechoslovakia which is now modern-day Ukraine on April 30, As the second eldest of five children in an Orthodox Jewish family, our life was simple and we were happy.
Then the Nazis invaded around and everything started to change β especially for the or so Jewish families in the village. Then in , the Nazis came to our village and rounded up all the young men. I was at home and I just recall Dad being pulled out and marched off. I never saw him again.
Over the next two years, Nazis came back to our village a couple of times to round up more Jewish people. My whole family was rounded up and taken to a nearby ghetto, which was in a big field. I think we stayed there for about a week, then they herded us into big railway trucks with no ventilation, sanitation or food β there were just buckets on the floor. My siblings and I huddled around our mother while children cried around us.
Everything was intense and frightening. They separated us so it was me with my older brother β Chaskel β to a line on the left, and my mother , two younger sisters and baby brother to the right. That would be the last time I ever saw them. As Chaskel and I were pushed further down through the fences, we were then divided into men and women, so I lost sight of him then too.
Once we got into the compound, the first thing they did was shave our heads, take our clothes away and make us shower. When we came out, they gave us striped pyjama uniforms. We were then taken to cell blocks with rows and rows of bunks β no covers or pillows though. I was relieved to see my friend Zeldie from a nearby village in my block β Block 8 β too, as well as my aunt and some cousins.
