Ioannina, 2014
They gassed them, of course, what else would they do with them?
When we arrived in Germany, they split us up. I was young, they put me in line with the young girls. My mum, my dad… no, my dad got to work, my two siblings were driven straight to the gas chambers, in Auschwitz… and they gassed them, of course, what else would they do with them? My dad was well-built, in his fifties but sturdy, in good health and he got to work, he worked as a cook and he helped his siblings, because one way or another you could get something in the kitchen and give it to others. But then they took him to another camp and there… they hit him with a shovel, in a… in a… He did manual labour, that is hoe, shovel… they gave him a blow on the head and killed him. That’s how my dad died, as the Greeks, the people from Ioannina, told me later. Because some people from Ioannina came back and I asked them “where’s my dad?”. He survived until very late, he died toward the end, very near the end…
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Close to the end, they took us to a concentration camp, didn’t I tell you that? To gas us, in Mauthausen. Over there… I stayed in three, four camps, from Birkenau they took us to Bergen-Belsen. We spent six months there and then they took us to another camp, it was called Kilinau [Gellenau], a small concentration camp, very small, recently built. And then they made us stand in line, they put us on the wagons, and we spent ten days in the wagons, without food, with absolutely nothing, they meant to kill us, they took us to Mauthausen to be gassed there. They made us stand in line for the gas chambers, but fortunately the Americans came just in time and liberated us. That’s how we were liberated. Suddenly, no Germans could be seen around. “Where are they? What’s going on?”. “We’re free”, someone said, “the Americans came and set us free”. The warehouses were opened and they gave us food, biscuits, candies, but those who ate died…
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I spent three, four months in recovery, they examined me there, in Germany, and put me in a good… those places the Germans used as infirmaries, and they gave us good food, and I slowly recovered. There were also Christians there, they were free labourers, they also came there, in the camp, and we met, and they pretended they were Jews. Arrangements were made, and we were brought to Greece by train. That is, from Germany, through Czechoslovakia… I forgot to tell you that the Americans, who liberated us, left and the Russians came, but they took good care of us, I can’t lie, very good care, good food, everything very good. And they put us on the wagons and… that is, those Christians made sure to get wagons, let’s say trains that we didn’t have to pay. We didn’t pay and so we came back to Greece for free. We passed through Hungary… Czechoslovakia first, then Hungary, Romania, here at our borders with Bulgaria and then Greece. We came to Thessaloniki, spent a few days in Thessaloniki, it was in a camp, but we were better off, in better hands, and then we came home.
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I didn’t find my home…it was occupied by Christians and… fortunately I had cousins here, they had a home of their own and took me in. Those living in my home lived there until the end, they stayed many years there, until I got tired and sold the house and so they were kicked out. I sold it then, what else could I do, since I wasn’t being paid rent or anything.
Citation: “Nina Matsa Negrin”, excerpts from her interview to Artemis Alcalay as part of the “Greek Jews Holocaust Survivors” project, 10 July 2016, https://greekjewsholocaustsurvivors.art/en/profile/nina_negrin/