Time's Witnesses by Jakob Lothe

Author:Jakob Lothe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fledgling Press
Published: 2017-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

Yvonne Engelman

Born on 9 October 1931. Deported to the Berehovo ghetto in 1943, and from there to Auschwitz in the autumn of 1943. Sent on a death march to Peterswaldau in late 1944, and remained there until the end of the war. Lives in Sydney.

I come from Czechoslovakia, but not from a large town. I was born in a place called Dovhe, in a beautiful part of the country. I have wonderful memories of my childhood—until I was seven and half years old.

Ours was one of about 200 Jewish families in the village, which is located in the Carpathian mountains. We had no electricity, and only outdoor toilets. We were peasants, but there was also a sawmill. Life was hard and quite primitive compared to now. This part of the Carpathians has belonged to different nations. Before I was born, it was Austria-Hungary, then it became Czechoslovakia, and now it is part of the Ukraine. We went through great changes. I went to a Czech school, and I still speak Czech fluently. You never forget what you learn as a child.

I had a wonderful childhood. I was the only child, and I was spoilt—but spoilt with a lot of attention and love. I had many Jewish and non-Jewish friends, and I did not encounter anti-Semitism while I was growing up. Everybody respected each other; there was no hostility.

When the Germans and the Hungarians came, everything changed. We became ostracized, businesses were confiscated, and life became very difficult. This all happened because we were Jewish—we had done nothing to provoke the Germans. My father was taken to the police station at least twice a week. And we never knew whether he would return or not. I was very close to my dad. One day he came back and his front teeth had been knocked out. It was a very traumatic childhood after the war started.

In 1943 our family was sent to a ghetto which was in the town of Berehovo. The ghetto used to be a brick factory. All the Jews from the surrounding areas were brought here. The conditions were bad—both the hygiene and the food. We were in one big room, and we lived with great anxiety, not knowing what was going to happen the next day. The uncertainty was the worst thing. To this day I suffer from anxiety since I lived with anxiety for all those years.

When we had been in the ghetto a few months, the SS came. This was at the end of 1943, and there was no warning that they would come. They were doing selections. We were taken to the railway line. When we arrived at the railway, there were cattle trucks. We were marched into those trucks. They were so crammed that we could hardly stand. Then they locked the doors, and we were travelling. But nobody knew what our destination was or where we were going since we had no contact with the outside world. There was hardly air to breathe, and we were packed like sardines.

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