Kitty Williams Survivor Testimony (Part IV)

Williams. Kitty, you were telling me that this friend of yours that you were, had this bond with, she was lost at Auschwitz.

Yes.

Then what happened when you went to the barracks where your sister was?

I tried to take care of her as much as I could. I don't know if I said it on the tape before that even though she's 12 years older than I am, I became the mother and she became the child and I tried to look after her and I remember and in fact she mentions it the fact that that I fought for her and I tried to get her water. There would be a water tank that would come maybe once a day and there would be thousands of people and I who had been never been a very aggressive person but for her, I would do anything to get her water and I remember that one time I came back she tells me my face all blooded because some kapo hit me because I was trying to get the water and I spilled most of the water and the blood didn't bother me but the fact that I didn't have very much water for her that bothered me and she was still you know just giving birth recently and losing the baby. She was in in very sad shape both physically and mentally but having each other was the greatest thing that could happen and so naturally you know I wanted to save her and she was too weak to really to fight for herself but we, not just me alone but, she was always loved but she's a lovely person and she had many friends and we all sort of banded together to to give her some support amongst impossible situation and I know that all together I stayed in Auschwitz until October October 20th is when I was I was transported from Auschwitz. So it had to be what I'm talking about nine weeks maybe from from June that we were together and and I she was getting I felt somewhat better and so this one day we were told that you know to form a line and we were taken again to the baths which we occasionally we would be taken to.

The Germans are pretty fanatic on hygiene and so we were always disinfected and so we heard-there were rumors that this is going to be a transfer that we're going to be transferred from from Auschwitz and as we were of course we were examined many times and that the final examination by that time it was like real late at night we were examined this German officer noticed a female officer noticed that my sister had milk dripping from her breast and she kicked her out of the line she had to and I wanted to go with her. I couldn't I and I was just devastated people who who know me and and I have had contact with since they said that I cried for days. We were separated and and it was it was the most horrible thing that could have happened to me I think I would have given my life and being separated she was to me also like like a mother you know she was practically raised me and it just I don't think during the entire time in camp that I ever got over it and I you know as it turned out she had a horrible story that that she was near death several times she if she suffered so much and I was rather the fortunate one because we were taken to a camp in Germany it's a work camp it was a work camp and we were treated reasonably well.

While you were still in Auschwitz did you have a job or did you work?

No no actually only the privileged work that you had to have an in or you know somebody to be in the kitchen or you know where you could get a little food or work at the hospital or clean latrines I mean that was a privileged job because you probably would get an exteration and I was never privileged I was beaten several times going to the latrines or various times but I was I never worked.

Can you tell me something about having been beaten while you were in Auschwitz?

Well just usually you know whip here and there it was just wasn't something, happens every day you know it's whoever happens to be in somebody's way a kapo's way they were very very brutal I don't recall ever having a kind really a kind word from any of the kapos. They were very I think they were bitter and they did the job I and now looking back on it you know they wanted to survive and that was that's how they survived.

How did they take you then from Auschwitz to the labor camp that you went to?

We went by wagons but it wasn't nearly as crowded as it was before. I remember stopping at several German towns a stations well you know train station and looking out and seeing people, normal people and I couldn't believe it that life goes on that people are well-dressed to women and hats and handbags and you know the the way people look and they're waiting for train and low children it was it was unbelievable to me and I don't recall how long it took us on the train but and and I have as I said before I have some memory loss yeah but I I do remember that it was like heaven when we arrived and I remember that I looked there were windows in the barracks and there were actual bunks and I think there were only two of us to do that bunk and there were it was there were rooms I mean maybe we had 30 people in a room but there were rooms with regular windows and I remember opening the window and seeing my reflection and and saw myself my har- my hair it was like stuff started to grow a little and I thought its the most horrible sight I've ever seen anyway but but the things that we take for granted were unbelievable it was like a miracle.

On the train ride from Auschwitz to this camp did that take very long?

You know I don't recall. Probably a week or more see we were clear in West Germany so we'd have to take a long time but you know this is one thing I don't seem to have much of a recollection except seeing these well dressed people at the train station.

Did the people that you saw, the civilians when you were in Germany, did they see you did they see the people on these trains?

I don't think that they realize we're fairly far away on the tracks they were on the platform waiting for their train and I don't think that they had any clue as to who we were.

Do you recall whether you had food on this train?

I think we were treated fairly decent I don't recall any really starving or anything like that I mean I think we had we have adequate.

When you arrived were you were you still with any friends that you had made in Auschwitz?

Yes they were friends actually quite a few of them were from the town where my sister lived and where I went to school and actually one of my roommates became now my sister-in-law. My brother married her and her sister there's several from from my town or the town I went to school.

What kind of work were you doing when you

We had two shifts, at night, and each twelve hours long. And we were working in a bomb factory but actually they weren't making bombs what we were doing is we were pounding out the dud I guess what you would call it the the shell the with hammers and chisel because evidently you know they they were defected or something and in another place of course they were mixed again and and filled but in the department that I was in we were chiseling out these bombs or maybe they were they weren't that huge I think have to be like is it granite, grain- somebody, it wasn't- it was fairly large but it was the general idea that they didn't see they needed by then the Germans needed you know they were short on resources or the war was was starting to hurt them and with our free labor we were creating we were lengthening the war actually by making you know using up the bombs the defecting defected bombs and making new ones.

Did you have any idea of the progress of the war at this time?

We had rumors here and there some of the like when the Allies landed in Europe and of course we wanted to believe but I remember and again now you will and I know that that I am jumping but I remember seeing a bombing in Auschwitz and I remember everybody had to go in the barracks but I remember staying outside wishing there were a lot of other people that I wasn't alone wishing that the bombs would just drop on us that why don't they drop it on us but in in the towns name where we were relocated called Allendorf or Allendorf in English.

How do you spell that?

A-L-L-E-N-D-O-R-F and I remember given milk that you know it was again something like pocket miracle but later things I read about it is they did it to keep us alive because we needed it as a all the fumes that we were breathing in that was a that helped us. I know that most of the people started to get real yellowed complexion and skin I was really really fortunate because I was I did not stay very long in the factory. I don't recall this, it really, I think it must have been days but again we had at this camp we only had German you know supervisors we had no kapos and but they would pick for each barrack they would pick a person who spoke fluent German and it would make make them they call it block eldest it means the elder of the of the group and they were the spokespeople and I just don't recall how many maybe a few weeks maybe that I worked in the factory and we had sort of a selection we had a big courtyard where we used to have again counted and and give work assignment so forth and there was a German called obviously a German female officer who picked out a few people to dig ditches and because of my as you can see round face which I still had and light complexion for some reason they seem to pick the light complected woman out and I was assigned to dig ditches and that lasted a very short time I remember being extremely tired and I still looking back you know what purpose it was what we were doing but it was in this complex of of the factory which and I don't want to get ahead of myself I revisited in 1991 and while we were in the camp wooded area and we walked probably a good hour to get to work each day with the German guards and we walked through a little town but when we entered our factory we had the impression that we were underground and we walked in and it was just like a city we walked in this door in a like in a hillside and from then on everything was underground and all the years I marveled the Germans because from the air you could only see trees growing it looked like a forest and much to my surprise when I went back it it wasn't that way at all it's a regular town with flat roofs that they built on purpose with trees growing on top of the roof to disguise the factories because that was a famous factory during the war and you know it for the planes looking down they only saw a forest but then I like I said I worked outdoors which helped a lot because I got fresh air and then I had a particular like I said officer in the German, woman who sort of took a shine to me you might say and she asked me if I know how to knit and I did and she said she told me that she will have me make her a bathing suit.

The woman was she was not obese but close to it and it would have been a job but I never did finish the bathing suit she didn't seem to care she every day she said me and we had a bathroom facilities in this forest where we were it's you know like any even in America sort of the same type like log cabin type and but little did I did we know at the time that we weren't the only prisoners around there were it was I find out later that it like it was 17,000 prisoners a lot of Russian a lot of prisoner of war and women, men every sort of it was a really a concentration of prisoners who labored for the Germans and so while I was in this well it was the outer part of the restroom where where I I remember spend my days knitting and ripping so I can knit some more and she the woman would did not really care what I did she used to bring me sandwiches. I mean I look back on it I really don't know you know I was very naive I am sure there was no no it's a puzzle why she picked me some people say because I look more like a German you know with blond hair. Whatever the reason but I know that I was sort of the envy of the camp. And then I would I could even go outdoors it you know I could walk around a little and so I see other prisoners men who were walking around most of the time you know we didn't understand each other they were all for- spoke foreign language and I remember they you know they were they were because they were not Jews they were more free to go about and and and I remember them bringing me food, delicacies like like a coffee cake and I would go back and I would share with my roommates you know and everybody would get just a sliver but like it was every Christmas time something fabulous that somebody but one of the one of them brought me and they gave me their pictures I had two of them and for whatever language we could communicate in you know we exchanged addresses and and things like that that I remember bringing to this country and I probably still have it somewhere all faded out and everything but however I never met any of them later but but as I said my Allendorf life was really pretty bearable for me I was very very fortunate.

A lot of things I don't remember. I know there was only one woman who died in the camp so that I think speaks pretty well for for our life there and she died of natural death and and I went when we went back in '91 visited we visited her grave and there were people told me that I was one that was digging the grave they always picked me for things because I was always sort of hefty and and it looked like I had you know I had more energy and I I don't recall that at all that I helped carry the body I have absolutely memory of it and she was put in a Jewish cemetery they also buried all the other prisoners a lot of Russian prisoner of war buried in the same cemetery. And I can't say that I was ever you know really mistreated in in this camp. Maybe some people you know don't agree with me but but it it when I tell some of some of my sisters it sound to me like today I'm like I was on vacation on a beautiful resort or something. I mean like we had plays entertainment for the Germans with many talent between us. I wasn't one of them, but but we you know it was almost like living like a human being so maybe I don't make a very good story it doesn't make a very good story but yet I'm sure that if the war had lasted uh some of the people would have survived the war the ones in the factory and and you know actually what we did is we helped the Germans by providing free labor.

Could you tell that the war was starting to come to an end during this period?

There were always some some um you know some some rumors um especially the people who who spoke German and yet some of the guards would occasionally give them a hint about about how the war is is coming um and so you know we were always hoping and praying and that it's that soon it's going to to end and finally on a, must have been in March that we were called out on the courtyard. And we had a really a very kind older man whose picture I have and who I may show you who was the uh the camp superintendent or whatever you would call it in English and uh he called us together and told us that we're going to take our belongings on our back and we're going to march uh because the enemy was coming and you know we're going to escape further into Germany away from you know from the frontlines. But first it was pretty well organized. Yes we started to march but I don't know what location I was in this long line of people and we marched through towns and forest and and pretty soon he called again and and by then we knew that people were escaping because I didn't really have the nerve and we there was about oh quite a few of- Well the room that we were in and I don't recall maybe 20 or so people uh that became very close friends and we were going to stay together and this old man doesn't seem very old now but at the time to me he was an old man he he was not an SS and he he told us through interpreters you know that the allies are very close.

Of course we heard bombing and guns you know weapons and everything all along so we knew that you know we weren't very far and he said that that he is letting us go wherever we like to go and just play it safe and surrender to the to the Americans so we were in the fields and forest and begging for food for two or three days until we we camped out in a well it was like a shed in a field and and I remember we had believe it or not we have underwear by then and then we had of course our dresses there was a piece cut off in the back with our and and our number sewn in there so we could not have escaped with those clothes without being noticed. But anyway we I remember it was a Sunday and it was April 1st which is my my father's birthday.

This was 1945?

1945 and we were in this shed and the road is quite a little ways and we see the Americans and I remember carrying up our slips and and holding it up and there were some jeeps coming toward us and it so happened there was a young man from New York who spoke Yiddish and they were just all around so worried and they took us they they got us vehicles took us to the nearest town where they confiscated so to speak a German home and then put us up there and I don't know where the people went but I know and they had to bring us food they are very resentful of course and you know the Americans didn't really feel like if we were very safe because there was a lot of hostility and you know they begrudgingly well you can imagine we took their bedrooms we took over their whole house and but I remember that they were in a shed or in an outbuilding they were cooking small potatoes for their hogs for their. Anyway I remember when I the sight of that and remember I started eating it it like like gorged myself not just me all of us you know that that was unbelievable because by that time we were on the road for probably a good 10 days all together and and food was pretty scarce and I remember pulling up grass and eat it you know our travels so I wasn't missing