We made up a larger group of children. We were looked after by an elderly prisoner, a Belarussian Janeczka. She took us to the barrack and we stayed with her. We were hungry. Older prisoners who also stayed, smashed storage buildings, looking for food.
The brother brought two loaves of bread and he said he had got them from someone. We slept on it. The bread was dry, so he melted snow on the stoves which were in our barrack, where we stayed. We fired up the stove, probably someone older than us was looking after the fire. And this was our meal. And it was like that for about 10 days.
And some day, later on I learned that it was on 27th January that the front-line came. We could see soldiers running in white uniforms from afar. Our caretaker told us not to go away, because the front was there and we could get killed.
Soldiers came into our barrack. There was a tall officer, wearing some kind of cap and I remember his words. I don’t know if he spoke Polish or Russian, but we understood his words: Children, what are you doing here? He said that the Red Cross would arrive and would take care of us. We were free, but could not go anywhere, because we still could get killed. And then they brought a cauldron of tomato soup. It was the first cooked meal
I heard somewhere that a group of women that stayed in the camp was also leaving and they were coming back home. I decided that me and my brother would go as well. To leave the place as soon as possible. And on the next day we left carrying a piece of blanket with us. I did not know which direction to take and where to go so we followed these women. On the way, someone with a horse-cart gave us a lift. Then a military truck took us from the road and drive us to Krakow, to the Red Cross. We were free.
Today, when I stand in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial, I am frightened when I follow the news coming from the East about the war. The Russian army, that liberated us here, now wages war in Ukraine. Why? Why there is such politics?
My mother in the march went througs Neustad, Ravensbrueck. She came back very sick. My father perished in Flossenburg. We were alone.
Thank you.