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"I paid for these two eggs with a small gold ring that had a ruby in it that my mother sewed into my coat." | |||
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Charlene Schiff Born 1929 Horochow, Poland 
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Ingeniously, we dug out two holes in the fences, below the fences, so that a child could sneak out to the other side and, you know, take off the Star of David and try to act like a normal human being and see if we could obtain food. And now and then, children brought home some food back to the ghetto. I did it many times. It was very dangerous, because if one was caught one would pay with life. I mean, this was the order, to shoot, to kill the person, the perpetrator. I was very lucky, and now and then I would bring a slice of bread, I would bring a carrot, or a potato, or an egg, and these were very, very great achievements. My mother made me promise that I wouldn't do it anymore, but I disobeyed. | ||
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Charlene Schiff Born 1929 Horochow, Poland 
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There was one time when I snuck out of the ghetto and I, uh, was lucky to obtain two eggs, and I remember I was wearing a dress with little puffed sleeves, and I put an egg in each sleeve and tried to make my way back into the ghetto. I paid for these two eggs with a small gold ring that had a ruby in it that my mother sewed into my coat. I was quite proud of myself, and I just could picture my mother's and my sister's faces when they came home and we had two eggs to eat. Just before I was entering the hole, the camouflaged hole back into the ghetto, a Ukrainian guard spotted me, and, uh, he ran over and he started screaming at me, and he found the two eggs and he threw them on the sidewalk and made me kneel down and rubbed my face in them, and screamed at me to get right back where I belong and never to show my face again on the outside. I was petrified, and I didn't give away the hiding place, the hiding entrance, I marched back into the ghetto, or he threw me back into the ghetto and that was the end of that. I guess he was one of the kind ones because he could have killed me, or he should have killed me. When I told my par...my parents...my mother and my sister that evening about my experience, she just hugged me. | ||
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Judith Meisel Born 1929 Josvainiai (Josvani), Lithuania 
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And then we came to a place with barbed wire and it became the ghetto, which was known under several--the Kovno ghetto and--but we really knew it as Slobodka ghetto, the ghetto of Slobodka. And there we stayed and food became very, very scarce and...uh...uh...there was a...um...man by the name of Motke. And to these days, I wish I had any kind of connection with those people. I don't know what ever happened to them. Um...he taught...uh...he picked certain children who were blue-eyed, blond, and decided we didn't look Jewish, like people thought Jews should look, and...and he told us that if we are to survive we are to smuggle food into the ghetto. So people gave me some valuables and he opened up a...um...barbed wire...um...with his pliers he showed how to open up the barbed wire and escape through it from the ghetto and then tell us where we could go and get food. I can remember carrying butter and bread in my underwear to bring back to the ghetto and to going through the sentry and being afraid. | ||
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