Page 96 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Zofia Lubińska-Rosset - "Okruchy Pamięci".

After a short stop, the women and children travelled on.
Mom, aunt Reginka and I ended up in the most severe women's
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concentration camp in Ravensbrück .
We left the wagons surrounded by armed SS men and women,
with dogs on leashes and whips in hands. Amid the furious barking
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of dogs, we were urged by screams "los, los, schneller” to a large
tent inside the camp, swarming with a multilingual crowd. All pris-
oners sat on bare ground, and it was the end of October. The only
places available for newcomers were against the walls of the tent.
These were obviously the worst places, as they were the coldest,
and at any moment one could lose the rest of their belongings,
because it was easy for thieves to reach from the outside, grab what
they could and disappear. Such thefts were very common. After a
few days our heads were shaved, we were given a change of clothes
and given camp numbers. I, a not yet 11-year-old girl then, became
a political prisoner, marked with a red triangle, with the number
79393. My Mom, registered directly before me, was assigned the
camp number 79392. We stayed in that tent for several days and
then were transferred to block 23, called the Gipsy block. One side
was occupied by Gypsies, on the other side there was a mix of
different nationalities. It was also terribly crowded, multi-story
bunks covered with straw mattresses were already mostly occu-
pied, with 3-4 persons crowding each bed. It was bitterly cold, and
the only cover for my Mom and me was an old, dirty blanket. Life
was "made interesting" by the rollcalls that took place at various
times of the day, often at night, lasting several hours, regardless the
weather conditions. The women grouped in lines in front of the
block were forbidden to move or talk. The standing prisoners were
guarded by aufseherins with dogs, provided with whips, which
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The German concentration camp KZ Ravensbrück, intended almost exclusively for
women, operated until April 30 , 1945, over 130.000 women passed through it, includ-
th
ing hundreds of women from the Lodz ghetto.
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Los, schneller (German) – go, faster
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Aufseherin (German) - female guard
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