Thessaloniki, 2015
We left them there, in Tröbitz.
When we were in the camp, every Sunday when we were not working, when it was a day not like the other days, in order to see if there were any other Greek Jews in the neigbouring camps we used to sing the national anthem. Even now, when I hear the anthem, it makes me cry. I remember those days, and when we heard from the other side that they were also singing, what can I tell you… We felt such joy that there was life, brotherly life on the other side of the barbed wire.
[…]
When they [the British] came to liberate Bergen-Belsen, the Germans put us, they put us in a train and in the rear cars at the back, they put German soldiers. They transported us thinking that they would blow us up when we reached a bridge. The hardest part was that they transported us without any food, nothing, nothing at all and we were starving. They were taking us somewhere in Germany but we did not know where. A day later they started to move us. The second day the allied planes appeared. Do you know how close they were? We could almost see them, we could see the pilots. And my poor mother, my father with a piece of cloth from a shirt, we went out and we were waving it like this [she moves her arm as if waving a flag]. We could see the Americans; I think they were Americans or British. At some point, they bombed us so heavily and they came so low, that the Germans opened the train cars, because they… they opened the cars and there was a thicket of trees and we all disembarked, both we and the German soldiers, because if they bombed the trains should we be saved as well? I do not know why the Germans did that, they probably freed their own, they opened our cars as well, the two or three cars where we were. So we were all thrown into this thicket, we stayed for I am not sure how long, until it was finished, until the Americans with their planes had left. We boarded once again and… all of sudden the train stopped, and they were going to blow us up. So, my father and a couple of others said to the Germans “we will give you civilian clothes so you can take off your army clothes and change’’. We did not have much that we could do, so that they would not be found, because the Allies were coming and actually the Germans left one day, and the next day the Russians arrived and liberated us. Meanwhile, we all had typhoid fever, we were in very poor condition. The Russians arrived, they came, the officers came on horseback, barefoot, it was winter, and they were barefoot, they did not have…
And they were blond and tall the Russians, you know, handsome on their horses, and my father was saying ‘’let me see them’’ he said ‘’like angels’’. Indeed, each time I hear a Russian, you know how moved I am, you know how this is? We saw them as malach [angel in Hebrew] as we say. And then they… we disembarked and they took us to the nearest village. So, we found a village nearby, they took us there, it was called Trebitz this village that is south of Berlin, a village, but a German village, we were familiar with Greek villages, but this was different, so they brought them, they took the Germans out of one room, and we took it. But the bad thing was that we were very sick, and they could not… if we were in houses the Russians could not do anything.
So they put us in the square, they had put up tents, they had women doctors, they were officers and quite well built. They checked us for lice, they cut our hair, they sprayed us with disinfectant and took care of us. Yes, but they themselves had no food with them. How could they feed us as well? So, they took from the Germans a cow, a sheep, they slaughtered them and in the village square set up a large pot. It was not a bucket, what would you call it, a large pot, and they cooked there. The soldiers ate and we as well with them. But then many died of typhoid fever, even though they were looking after us with great care, but there were no medicines, they did not even have any for themselves, less so for us. So, there were no medicines, we were completely exhausted and many of the sick did not make it. Many died there.
But despite the effort made by the doctors, who were women, the Russian officers surely also made their best efforts too, but we had no medicines, no food, maybe boiled cow was not the right food, it was heavy, who knows, many died, very many. That is, they survived the camp, they survived all the hardship and when we were liberated and were to return home, unfortunately they died. They are gone. And we left them there, in Tröbitz.