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BILL BENSON:
Good afternoon and welcome to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. My name is Bill Benson and I am the host of the Museum’s public program, First Person. Thank you for joining us. We are in our 10th year of the First Person program. Thanks for joining us today. We were scheduled to have Regina and her husband Sam Spiegel together on the stage today, but Sam has not been feeling well of late and it feels it’s best for him to not join us on the stage with Regina. So our first person today will be Regina Spiegel but Sam I am very happy to say is right with us in the front row. Sam, right off the start why don’t you just wave your hand and let everybody know you’re down here. And we will meet Regina shortly.
This 2009 season of First Person is made possible through the generosity of the Louis and Dora Smith Foundation to whom we are grateful for again sponsoring First Person. First Person is a series of weekly conversations with survivors of the Holocaust who share with us their first-hand accounts of their experience during the Holocaust. Each First Person guest serves as a volunteer here at this Museum.
We will have a First Person program each Wednesday through August, 26 we are also having First Person programs on Tuesdays until the end of July. The Museum’s website at www.ushmm.org provides a list of our upcoming First Person guests. This year we offer a new feature associated with the First Person program. Excerpts from our conversations with survivors are available as podcasts on the Museum’s website. Several for this year are already posted and we will have Regina’s up on the website sometime over the next few weeks.
The First Person podcasts join two other Museum podcast series: Voices on Antisemitism and Voices on Genocide Prevention. The podcasts are also be reached through iTunes.
As most of you know on June 10, a man came to this Museum and tragically took the life of Officer Steven Johns. Officer Johns, in giving his life, and his fellow officers, stopped the gunman before he could cause more horror and harm more people. We ask you to join us in a moment of silence in honor of Officer Johns and his family.
Our first person today, Regina Spiegel, will share her first person account of her experience during the Holocaust and as a survivor, for about 40 minutes or so. Depending upon time we hope to have a short question and answer period with you the audience. Before you are introduced to her I have several announcements for you and a couple of requests.
First, if possible we ask that if it is at all possible you stay seated with us throughout our one hour program. That way we minimize any disruptions for Regina as she speaks. Second, if we do have our question and answer time and you have a question please make your question as brief as you can. I will repeat the question so everyone in the room hears it, including Regina and then she’ll answer your question. If you have a cell phone or a pager that has not yet been turned off we would like you to do that now if you wouldn’t mind.
For those of you who may be holding passes to the Permanent Exhibition today, know that they are good for the entire afternoon so please know you can sit with us throughout our one hour program and then go to the Permanent Exhibition.
The Holocaust was a state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims; six million were murdered. Roma and Sinti, or Gypsies, people with mental and physical disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.
More than 60 years after the Holocaust, hatred, antisemitism, and genocide still threaten our world as we so dramatically saw here on June 10th. The life stories of Holocaust survivors transcend the decades and remind us of the constant need to be vigilant citizens and to stop injustice, prejudice, and hatred wherever and whenever it occurs. What you are about to hear from Regina Spiegel one person’s account of the Holocaust. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with Regina’s introduction.
But first let me tell you a bit about Sam. Sam was born in 1922 the eldest of 5 children in Kozienice, a town in east central Poland. His father owned a shoe factory and his mother cared for the children and the home. Regina Spiegel, who we see here, was born May 12, 1926 in Radom, Poland. Her father worked as a leather cutter for a large shoe manufacturer and her mother took care of their 6 children.
On September 1, 1939, German troops invaded Poland and Sam and Regina's towns were attacked. By 1940 Sam's family was forced to move into the Kozienice ghetto. Regina's family like all Jews in Radom was ordered into a newly created ghetto.
Regina's parents decided to smuggle her out of the ghetto by bribing one of the guards. She escaped to Pionki where her oldest sister Ruzia lived. Her other older sister Hanka, who is featured in this photograph, remained in the ghetto. Soon Regina was conscripted for forced labor in the town's munitions factory. It was at the munitions factory where Regina formed a close friendship with Sam who had been transported from the ghetto for forced labor in 1942.
Both Sam and Regina survived Auschwitz-Birkenau and several other sub-camps and the arrow on this map points to the location of Auschwitz. They were liberated, but independently, by the Soviet Army in 1945. They did not know where each other were at that point.
After the war, Sam and Regina were reunited and later married in the Foehrenwald displaced persons camp in Bavaria. And we see here a photograph from their wedding day.
Upon Regina and Sam’s arrival in Washington D.C. in late 1947 Sam found work as a sheet metal worker and over time built a successful business in the construction industry. Regina and Sam have continued to live in the Washington D.C. area since their arrival in 1947. They have 3 daughters and 9 grandchildren and the youngest just about to turn 7 years old. Both Sam and Regina are volunteers at the Museum. Regina speaks about her experience during the Holocaust frequently to a wide variety of groups including an annual talk to students at Georgetown Prep. She also spoke at my daughter’s high school when she was in high school. Last year Regina and Sam spoke in Bennington, Kansas to a group of 1,500 and as a result of that a group of people from Bennington, Kansas will visit the Museum here this next week.
With the exception of today you will find Regina here on Wednesdays at the Donor Desk. Sam’s volunteer work at the Museum has included translating Holocaust related documents from Polish to English. He has also spent a great deal of time working on the “Remember the Child who Perished” program which calls upon young Jews in their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs to honor children who died during the Holocaust. Sam searches for the names of children who perished , the name of the town from which they came and when and where they perished. Until recently, Regina and Sam participated every other year in the March of the Living, which took them to Auschwitz and Birkenau and other major camps as well as to Israel. They have been on 10 Marches of the Living and they were unable unfortunately to make the 2008 March of the Living but the hope to be able to go again in 2010. And with that I’d like to ask you to join me in welcoming our first person Mrs. Regina Spiegel.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, thank you so much for being here today and for being willing to be our first person and Sam thanks for making the journey to be here as well. Regina, Germany invaded Poland on September, 1 1939. You were just 13 years of age and living in Radom. Before we begin to talk about what happened once the Nazis took over, let’s start first with a little bit about you, your family and your community and what life was like before the war began.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Okay, I always liked to talk about my community and of course about my family. Radom was a fairly large town for Poland. The population was like about 250,000 of which 30,000 were Jews. So as you can see we had nice segment of the population. Before the war I guess as a young kid I didn’t realize too much but life was good. I went to school to public school. I also went to a Jewish day school where they taught me about a little bit about my religion, holidays, and I always say to a certain degree that school helped me through the Holocaust a lot. Because somehow I was really very very at that time, religious and it kind of helped me to understand a little bit that I didn’t see as much the bad things so much.
Anyhow, they used to call me the “Pollyanna” so that helped too. And my family, like Bill said, my father was working. We had very good, I thought, was a very good life. I mean probably the happiest life, the happiest days of my life were spent at home even though I probably, like anybody else, complained at certain times that things weren’t exactly right because we usually…like special in the wintertime you used to have to spend a lot of time in the house because it was really cold outside.
So, I am sure I complained like another kid but had wonderful…my sisters, my brothers, my parents. I always thought they were wonderful until actually that day when my mother forced me to leave the ghetto and I the reason I mention this because I want all the young kids- no matter how angry you are with your parents, never leave home without giving a hug or a kiss because you see I was so angry when they made me leave and things were very bad. But, no matter how bad they were you wanted to be with your family…so never saw them again. You know when I lived through and actually what Bill mentioned in March of the Living, I actually went, started the first time going, because I…they were going to that place where they took my parents, to Treblinka and the rest of my family that I thought maybe it will help ease the pain but as you well know probably that it doesn’t. So I always say don’t leave home without a hug. It [is] always good.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, that wonderful period before the war of course would change so dramatically once the Germans invaded, tell us what you remember about the Germans coming in and how things changed, in what ways so quickly?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
It was unbelievable to hear a war was going on. They marched in actually to our town, I will never forget it was a Friday, September the 8th. Like all young people we were ready to go back to school. Even like here in September we go back to school. The first order of business was Jewish children are not allowed to go to school you know all the people in the community wouldn’t believe it that they were really serious because they figured; impossible why shouldn’t kids go…wouldn’t be able to go to school?
They took the younger kids…I was already, I had finished 7th grade already so I was already big then. But, there were children, this was their first time that they were going to go to school and I remember actually my sisters took part in it. They took the children from our neighborhood and went with them into a cellar to teach them the ABCs so they shouldn’t fall back when school would start for them. But of course they needn’t have bothered because, I always say, children were actually their first victims. Kids were of absolute no use to them and of course anything of value you had to give up. In Europe, especially in Poland you had to…you wore fur coats and you wore it not so much for the beauty of it, that probably too, but for the warmth. You had to give up even those.
But, you know like jewelry, of course my mother was very resourceful. She gave up a lot because she couldn’t get away with not giving up. But, some she saved back so later on she was always able to barter with the Polish neighbors for some extra food because my father lost his job the first day of the War- no jobs. So this was started right away being horrible so like at that time like Bill said I was 13 years old. It became all of a sudden like I had to grow up fast because since I was the youngest one my responsibility was like to go if…to stay in line for the bread. I was the one sent out to go and get bread because sometimes with young kids you figure they won’t bother you so much. So all of a sudden you grew up. Here I depended…you know in Europe a 13 year old kid wasn’t like here. We were really still like children; very very young. Not as sophisticated as all of you.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, among the many things that you were forced to give up, it included radios; so you could have no knowledge about what was going on.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Absolutely, absolutely. Radios, those were the first to go and anything that made your life a little bit easier it was not allowed. If you got caught with it, look you could always manage to hide something, but if you got caught of it…and what we had a big problem because not only did they force you know you figured if you got caught so you going to get hurt but you were always afraid that they are going to hurt your family. Like the whole family was just like one thing you know. You always thought about it- if I do something bad then my whole family is going to suffer.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, it wouldn’t be long before your family was forced into a ghetto. Tell us what the ghetto was and what that was like.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
You’re sure you want to know? Matter of fact when I came and I saw here the exhibit, the children’s exhibit and I spoke to the curator and I said, “I wish I had known you before I wish you could have done something with my ghetto room.” She said, “I knew how your ghetto room looked, nobody would want to walk in.” So then I understood.
It was horrible. We actually lived in a place where it was like the middle of town. The ghetto was made like outside of town, it was probably before the war was more or less a Jewish neighborhood so they chased the people, non-Jews, out from that place and all of the Jews had to move into that place. What was the ghetto in Radom? They took this part and they put barbed wire around it and put guards around it and once you got in you the only way you could get out, unless you had special papers that you were allowed to go out for a special reason that the Germans probably needed you to work or whatever, but otherwise…and I often think about it. How in the world, within 3 days, my parents lived in that place…in Europe people didn’t move like every couple years. So they must have lived there all their lives, maybe their grandparents lived there. All of a sudden you had to leave everything behind and walk out and not only this but I remember the only thing my mother took was of course because as I said it was a very cold country. So she took the stuff that you cover up at night with. It’s probably like a big cover but we used to call it pierzyny. You know it was made of feathers, you know.
BILL BENSON:
Like a quilt?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yes, but heavier, very heavy because…to be warm. So she grabbed those and of course her silver candlesticks because god forbid to be in any home and not to have the candlesticks to be able to…because every Friday night that’s what you do is light the candles. I remember because my mother holding it and of course we got dressed in warm clothes, everything so not to have…so when the cold weather comes we will be ready.
Once we were in the ghetto but the problem was that hunger set in and sickness…because we were very, very short on food. Like I told you my mother was a, excuse me…to barter with her neighbors. All of a sudden she was separated from her neighbors so she couldn’t do that even. It became unbearable and I can understand now why my mother wanted me out of there but I didn’t look at it that way. I as a kid looked at it that, she’s had enough of me, she wants to get rid of me.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, tell us about the decision to send you out of the ghetto to Pionki and how that happened.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Well I had a sister who lived about 30 kilometers away from Radom. Unlike Radom, like I told you had a very large Jewish population, Pionki had a very maybe like 30 Jewish families in that town. My sister was a dentist and she worked there so she had contact with the farmers. Sometimes the farmer would come in, you know during the war farmers found themselves with some money because let’s face it, the made commodity what people were looking for was food and they are the ones that have that.
All of a sudden they found themselves with money. They would come because before the war farmers on a whole didn’t go so much to dentist, they cost money. But, when they came to my sister she told them, “Look, I will do your teeth for gratis. It won’t cost you anything.” [He] said, “You will, you’re serious?” “Yes. But you have to do a favor for me. I want my sister out of the Radom ghetto and you get her out.” And he actually did that because he said, “How am I going to do that?” She said, “You will find a way.” Because the ones that actually watched the ghettos were people either because it wasn’t Germans. They were people from Poland or people like from the Ukraine. These were the people that guarded our ghettos. He figured he is going to get teeth free so he did that.
Actually when I came to the gate and I still was wearing my armband because we had from the age of 10, we had to wear an armband with…in our town it was a white armband with the Star of David, a blue Star of David and I walked to the gate with this and the guard actually told me, “You take off this.” He was the one that chased me out of the ghetto because I was hoping that he would chase me back to my parents because I had no intentions of leaving but once I was forced to do that I was out, I figured I have to find a way to get…because my mother didn’t give me any money for the ticket. She figured I will find a way, and I did. In Poland, especially, this was still during the summertime. They had, I remember many years ago when the airlines advertised, when you fly your kid or your partner can fly free. Well, the trains had the same system. If you traveled with an adult you didn’t need a ticket so of course when I was forced to it I had to use a little bit my marbles so I walked in on the train and I saw a lady sitting there and I sat down next to her and I started talking to her. So when the conductor came by and he took the ticket from her he assumed that I was with her and that’s how I got [to] my sister’s in Pionki.
When I got to Pionki, I really…they didn’t have yet a ghetto. What they had, they were restricted. You had to stay in a certain place but they didn’t have the guards. So all of a sudden I was able to roam around the street. I felt like a free bird. I never realized that there was such a difference because in the ghetto it was horrible.
BILL BENSON:
Did you…so you were living with your sister in Pionki…were you able to communicate in any way with your parents and the rest of your family?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
No. No. The only way my sister was able…we didn’t have, I don’t know our cell phones didn’t work too well. I don’t know why. But that’s the only communication if my sister was able to get a hold of somebody she was the only one that was able. She was the type of person that they used to say about her, I will never forget, that you could throw her in a fire and she will get out of it, but this fire was a little bit too big for her, because she couldn’t make it. So that’s how I got to my sister’s, you know it was really…she did a lot for me let’s put it this way.
She even trained me that…you know when I was young I told you I was very religious. I wouldn’t touch any food that wasn’t kosher. I don’t know whether anybody knows about this but, you know if you are religious you…certain things you don’t eat and I was one of them. So she even tried to educate me that there might come a time when you might have to eat something. Actually, later on the rabbis did put out that in order to save a life you can eat, but they didn’t talk to me. My sister talked to me.
BILL BENSON:
What happened once you were in Pionki?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Once I was in Pionki, I told you I was roaming around the streets, and my sister had a very good friend. I don’t know his name, she never told me his name. He was actually the engineer of the factory. I never realized what the important little town was. It had one of the largest powder munition factories in Poland. That’s why I survived and a lot of other people survived because the Germans formed there a slave labor camp. So what happened…when I was roaming around the streets this guy must have noticed me. He said to my sister, “You know, I don’t think it is healthy for your sister to roam around the streets like this because she might get picked up.” He said, “I don’t know where they are taking them but they pick up people and they disappear. So get her into the camp.” So my sister marches with me to the camp and low and behold…to this day, I can’t figure them out. They were killing children, but in this particular camp at that time they had strict labor laws. Unless you were 16 they wouldn’t accept you. When we came back my sister told her friend and she said, “Don’t worry about it just give me her papers and I will fix it.”
So he did fix my papers and I did come the next time. They allowed me to come in. But the same man, I want you to know, to this day I wish my sister would have trusted me but, you know, she was afraid that if they catch me that I might…they ask me who did those papers, who forged these papers for you…I might spill it out. But apparently if he did it for me they did it for other people. He got caught and he actually was sent to Auschwitz from where he never came back because I would have loved to put his name on the wall here as a Righteous Gentile because he really helped me to survive. Otherwise I would have never made it. Then later on actually my sister and her husband went into that camp to work also.
Because what happened…you could see that it was getting pretty critical but my sister had a little boy who was at that time about a year and a half old. She had to arrange something. She did arrange to give him to a Polish family and she was able to go with me into that camp and of course the woman kept the baby for about 6 months and turned him into the Gestapo and told them where my sister was. I know a lot of people would say, “Oh how horrible!” You know what, they were afraid, even just taking in the baby for 6 months it was a big risk but you know what she told me…because I went to see her after the war, I said…why you know at that time I was still kind of youngish and I figured I didn’t know the bond between a mother and child that much. I said, “Why if you wanted to give up the baby, if you were afraid, why didn’t you just give up the baby and didn’t tell them where my sister was?” She said, “Oh this I couldn’t do it because your sister would have never forgiven me.” Which is probably true. But you know what she told me who she was afraid of?
She actually was afraid of her neighbors that they would turn her into the authorities, that she is harboring a Jewish child and you know why they said she told me, “They thought that your sister made me rich.” And I said, “My sister made you rich? How could she make you rich? She wasn’t rich. She was working. She had maybe a little bit more than the average person, but she wasn’t rich.” She said, “You and I know it but they didn’t know it. So they thought I was getting rich and that’s why I was afraid.”
So of course they came and they took my sister out and of course she was together with her baby and then I guess what happened when she saw how they shoveling them into the cattle trains, she knew maybe as an adult…because I was in one of these cattle trains and I survived no matter how bad it is, but a baby of two years will never make it. So she grabbed the baby and she tried to run away and of course she and the baby were shot. That was for me…and of course but my brother in law stayed there yet and he really was wonderful to me. He took a lot of care of me while I was in that camp.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, what were you forced to do at Pionki?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Pionki, well I actually what I did we loaded the powder into little wagons and they went someplace else where they did other stuff with it. To this day I never learned how to do these things. It was very hard work. As a matter of fact, I will never forget, at that time I already met my boyfriend and he came where I and another girl were working and when they saw that the way we were picking up these boxes of that powder, you know it was so heavy that when they tried they couldn’t even budge it. But, we picked it up and just put it on this how…it just goes to show you how your body gets trained to pick up things and to do that. So basically that’s what I did. Of course later on this was still when my sister was, because as I say she had a little bit of influence.
First of all, she lived in that town and she knew a lot of people so she got me a job before I started working so hard. I worked, I was washing the windows in one of the offices. So when I married my husband I said I would do anything, don’t make me wash windows. Because, I will tell you, I washed these windows every single day I couldn’t even tell you how many windows but the woman, the SS woman that was riding around, I will never forget her. She was wearing white gloves, that’s the only person I probably could pick out because…she stands in my…white gloves on a white horse. She was riding around to check my windows so she would take this white glove and put it on the window and she take a look and she look, “Regina, kuk mal” Otherwise she found a speck. It had to be perfect.
BILL BENSON:
And this is in a factory making gunpowder?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Oh yes, yeah. This was, you know, this was actually a very, very good job because I worked actually with…I was the only Jew working there with all the Polish people because Polish people had a job there. They worked like you worked in any factory.
BILL BENSON:
They got paid wages?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Oh of course. They used to come, so sometimes as a matter of fact, one even offered to take me to try to get me out of there. But, he didn’t…I didn’t trust him so I didn’t go. And by then I had met my boyfriend. I didn’t want to leave him.
BILL BENSON:
And you were in Pionki for awhile before Sam even got there.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yes, yes, a little bit. Not that much longer. When they took out my sister that’s when actually that’s when I met him. We were actually in that camp and actually there is another guy sitting here…hey…
BILL BENSON:
David Bayer, right here.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
David Bayer, he was in that same factory with me. Of course he had other jobs, but everybody worked there. It was a factory that probably I would say like about 6,000 people were there working. It’s mostly Jews and there were some, not too many, Poles that were doing the other work, you know, in the office maybe or something like this.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, as the Russians got closer the Germans shut down Pionki and shipped you all out of there. You would be sent to Auschwitz. Tell us about that.
REGINA SPIEGEL::
Well you see as you know we’ve gone on the March of the Living so we’ve traveled from let’s say like a place like Pionki or Radom to Auschwitz but at that time when they took us they never told us where we were going. But, they going to resettlement. This was a big word by the way during the Holocaust. They never told you where you are going. That we are going to take you a resettlement. Like they came to the…even when they took out the people from the ghettos you know what, people actually went on these cattle trains willingly. You know why? Because they said, “We’re gonna ship you east. You are complaining you are starving from hunger. We’ll ship you east. We have factories there. You’ll be working and you’ll be able to feed your families.” So people figured what’s there to lose? It can’t be worse than what we are now.
Of course it was worse because where they took them I don’t even refer to that as a camp even because it was strictly a death factory because they just brought thousands and thousands and thousands of people there, in and out. The trains came, they left it, emptied the trains and the trains came back empty. That’s what they about…close to over 800,000 Jewish men, and women, and children were killed there. Of course that’s how I lost most of my family so the same thing when they were sending us out they said, “We’re gonna resettle you too. You going to be working in another factory.”
So they put us on these cattle trains. They stuffed us in probably 100, over 100 and actually my boyfriend and I were on the same cattle train. It took us probably like about 3 days. As I say, what takes you now about 6 at the most, 6 hours by train to get to that place, because I have traveled it under normal circumstances. But they just kept you there, no facilities. When we got out of there it was like half of us were probably like almost like dead, really because when you came out and they started yelling, “Raus! Raus! Macht Schnell!”
You know, we understood a little bit German so we knew what they meant. We did get out but when they brought other transports that didn’t understand a word of German you know you, you really didn’t know what they wanted from you. When I got out they told you to strip naked and I clutched a couple pictures of mine because anytime we had an alarm to go out I always grabbed my pictures, whatever it was. Because, you know I had pictures of my family, of my little nephew, you saw a picture of me, this was already after the war picture. I don’t have a single picture because there I was standing…I will tell you, naked and these men, the SS, are standing around. You know, I was still like I left home. You were afraid because you didn’t know which part of your nakedness to cover with your two hands.
When the SS man saw me clutching those something, so he asked me, “What do you have there?” I said, “Nothing.” Because I figured what does he want with my pictures, I mean this is nothing of value. He said, “Lass Das right here.” You know leave it right here. And he hit me with a rifle and he actually was a nice guy because he could have just as soon shot me for it because you had to obey whatever they told you. Of course once we were stripped naked I remember they were starting to shovel it, push it. They separated men on one side, women on the other side. Sam could see a little bit better than I did because I was completely like out of my…I didn’t know because when you looked at the place it didn’t look like a factory. It didn’t look…you could see that it…as if you landed on another planet. It was unbelievable.
Sam yelled out to me. He said, “Regina, (except that he called me Regina in Polish was Regina) if we get out of here meet me in my hometown.” And guess what I told him? I don’t know what got into my head because it just…I said, “Why your hometown, why not mine?” I mean it was really ridiculous, you know. It was really, when I think back I just can’t believe it. It was just because you see I still had this in mind, my mother, my mother, you know. So I figured I’ve got to go home. I’ve got to go home to see my mother.
Then of course once they separated us they put on me a number. By then I wasn’t anymore Regina. I was 14641. If they called out your number and you didn’t answer you know they figured that you are rebelling. So, they could’ve killed you for that. It was unbelievable. Of course they gave us the striped uniform. I don’t have it with me, but if you went up to the Museum upstairs you can see it.
We did get a little blanket and a little thing for a little soup, you know one of those things. This was our all of a sudden this was our possession, a new possession what we had. They did give us a pair of shoes that when my kids, when it was a style to wear these wooden clogs you know and my kids had their shoes at the neighbors because they couldn’t bring them into the house because every time they would walk it reminded me of these things. And it used to tear on your feet but you had to wear something. It was better than nothing.
We were there for quite awhile. I don’t remember exactly. I am still looking, trying to look through some of the papers that the Museum had gotten to see because time didn’t mean anything there. Days went into nights one day, a week, two weeks. We never knew what day of the week it was. But actually, I wind up with a friend. We knew that we’re in trouble there so when we came out from the showers minus our hair because they shaved our heads…Whoever happened to stay next to you became like your body because we knew that in this place we need some help. That by ourselves we might not make it. So, happened that this girl that stood right next to me happened to be a girl from my boyfriend’s town. So you know, we formed a very, very good friendship and actually we looked out for one another and I think it to a certain degree it helped us.
BILL BENSON:
What labor were you forced to do?
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Labor? Actually that’s what I can’t understand to this day. I guess they didn’t know yet what they going to do with us because over there you couldn’t work. Maybe the type of work you did there, thank God I didn’t have to do because you worked around bodies. But with me what I used to do- one day you stood…I had a good training in Piokni. I was grateful that I could pick up these big stones, haul them from one side, bringing to another side and the next day guess what my job was? Take the same thing from there and put it back to the other side. This was my work. Basically, what they were trying to do I think was to keep us until they get an order to maybe they decided that they could still use us for work which they did. One time we were standing on an appell they called it an appell where the doctors…
BILL BENSON:
That was where you were forced to line up and…
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Exactly. Outside, you had to go out because if not first of all you could never stay in the barracks because whether it was raining or snowing, whatever it was, it didn’t matter. You had to be outside because they wanted to keep the barracks very, very clean. So we had to be always out and when we were out I guess on that particular day, when they checked us out…You know we used to say like pinch our cheeks to make us look a little bit healthier. They picked us. Apparently they picked me and my buddy and of course some other people but we were basically interested right to us. I will tell you, my buddy, at one time you know that place was surrounded by electric barbed wire. Not single, double. God forbid if you managed to pass one you had another one. There was no escape from there.
The guns constantly aimed at you. I guess really, you didn’t really have to do that much. I remember they were calling out 14641 and I turned around to my buddy and said, “Look nobody is answering.” She says to me, “Regina I think they mean you.” She already remembered my number. I didn’t even know here. I was so bewildered with the whole place that I didn’t even remember the number. That’s I had to yell out “Sie Yavohl.” Once, even if you didn’t to that, that’s when they took you out and you knew if they took you out you knew that this was the last way to go. I will tell you, when they took them out, whoever they took, they never turned to the SS asking you know like mercy or something because they knew there won’t be mercy from them. But, they turned actually around to us saying, “Remember us. Remember us.” Of course we at the time didn’t say, “We’ll forget. What are they talking about remembering that?” Because they knew what they were going. I feel like right now I am remembering them because by just even talking about it because they can’t talk for themselves. When I talk I talk almost like for them.
Anyhow, while we were standing one time on this appell somebody said, you know there were doctors checking us out or whatever, but to say that I saw Mengele I would never say that. I wouldn’t know if I feel over this guy. I wouldn’t know who he was. There were all of them you know, whoever checked you out. We were ready to and they took us out from there and they took us to another factory in Germany.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, our time is beginning to get a little short.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yeah, always. I talk too much.
BILL BENSON:
No. So they took you to another factory. Tell us a little bit about that and then cause you would end up going to several different labor camps.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Oh yes, I actually I went to this next factory was Baumlitz To tell you the truth, after the war I didn’t even remember the name of the factory because they never told us where we are going unless we happened to see a sign, Baumlitz, so we figured it out. In that factory we actually worked on what they call Panzer faust. I don’t know what it is…supposedly it was a piece of the, like atomic atoms or something, I am not versed in these things so I don’t know. But we actually just cleaned those things and they used to warn us if we don’t clean them really good because they may backfire. So sometimes we, if we could get away with it, we didn’t do such a good job because we’re hoping that maybe it is going to backfire. Supposedly if they threw it at a tank the tank would disintegrate. It was a very powerful weapon supposedly.
BILL BENSON:
And the Panzer faust, Panzer for the tanks…
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Exactly, and this we worked with people from Holland but we weren’t allowed to talk to them. They came from Holland to work because in Europe if you don’t get a job in one country you sometimes go to another country to work. But we worked there as slave labors. One time I saw I want to mention this because it was a very important part of our life. There was a piece of bread and an apple in a corner and I noticed it and I am thinking to myself, are they playing games with us? Because they liked to see how far they can push you, but then I was so hungry I figured, whatever happens happens. I grabbed this apple and that piece of bread and to this day I cant figure out how I managed to swallow everything in a couple of seconds because I am so afraid I am going to get caught.
The next day…and I felt guilty because my buddy didn’t get anything from me that day. But, the following day I see again something there. This man passes by me. He never said a word to me, but he winked his eye as if to say, “You got my message.” So every day in that factory we had a picnic, my buddy and I. We had a piece of bread, an apple or a pear. When I saw that apple…Poland had apples plentiful, always. I almost forgot what an apple looked like. It was wonderful because we attributed our survival, both of us, that this guy probably roams around the streets of Amsterdam or from wherever he was and he doesn’t even know that with a little bit of kindness he helped save two girls from starvation really.
Later on they took us to Bergen- Belsen and then the last one was Elsnig [inaudible] the last camp. Also munition, apparently they had words on us that we were very good munition workers. I don’t know if you gave me a gun I don’t know which side it shoots from. But I am just saying, they thought that we were good at it.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, obviously we are having to compress tremendous amount that happened. The factory that you were in where you made the Panzer faust, if I remember correctly, that factory was hidden underground with the children’s part on the surface to avoid bombing.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yes. I probably told you this personally when we spoke. A lots of times when you speak time is so limited that you can’t go into details. It was because one time the reason I know about it because one time when we came up on the top I couldn’t believe it. It looked…when you flew by with an airplane you probably thought that was a park for children to play. It was and underneath was this tremendous, tremendous huge factory doing these kind of weapons of destruction really. When I was liberated actually, my hands the flesh was eaten up from this stuff.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, tell us about your liberation. Before we go and do our formal close please tell us about your liberation and then of course I think everybody will want to know how you found Sam and whether or not you went to his town. So tell us about your liberation.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Liberation, you know when from the last camp they took us out. If I told you what the Germans, the SS told us, you wouldn’t believe it. But we don’t have time.
BILL BENSON:
But I think we do want to hear that.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yeah?
BILL BENSON:
Yes.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Do you know what, they thought we were really a bunch of idiots. They said, “You know, the Americans are not too far from here so we have to take out and send you someplace else because you know what Americans are going to do to you.” And we’re thinking to ourselves, don’t worry about us. Leave us to the Americans. We will deal with them. But of course we didn’t tell them and I don’t think it would have helped if we had told them. Can you imagine that they thought the way their thinking was, that we will probably be afraid to face the Americans. So anyhow, they put us in cattle trains and un-like every place else where they never bombed the railroad tracks, in Germany the railroad tracks were bombed and we happened to have to stop for repairs. I will never forget the day.
It was April 20, 1945. The reason I know it, not because I had a calendar, because we didn’t walk around with calendars. We knew whether it was summer or winter or fall or spring by the type of weather it was, but we didn’t know dates. But the Germans said today is Hitler’s birthday and we are going to give you an extra piece of bread. You know they always felt that they knew how hungry we were. So they always felt that they can do something with a piece of bread. But no sooner did they finish, the whole sky became like black. I guess the Allies decided it’s Hitler’s birthday maybe they ought to go and give him a birthday party. But they spotted our trains. We were like about on these trains about 5,000 women of which I think probably about 1,000 maybe got a little bit either wondered…or even I was a little bit on that. That’s why I talk so much. I think because a shrapnel hit me in the head.
When they passed by our trains I presume they didn’t know who was there. They dropped a couple bombs. I always say thank God they weren’t too accurate. Because had the been accurate I wouldn’t be here. But, when the train split open, I will tell you, the minute we had a chance we saw woods in the background, we ran into the words. Had we stopped and looked around we would have seen that the SS ran away too. They knew that the Germans, that the war was practically finished, but we didn’t. So we stayed in the woods. They never gave us that piece of bread. We didn’t…you know it was April 20 so we didn’t even have a little bit of water. You know sometimes from the snow you can get your lips wet. But you couldn’t so we figured we stay probably there like for 3 days and we figured if we don’t get out of the woods we will probably die in the woods.
So kind of inched ourselves out and lo and behold I see in the background like this tall soldiers but he didn’t wear a German uniform. I couldn’t recognize what kind of uniform it was, but it wasn’t German and this was good enough for me. I ran to him, turned out he was a Colonel in the Russian Army. Apparently they heard us in the woods but they didn’t know who it as they figured they are German snipers there because you know over 4,000 women in the woods make a little bit noise no matter how quiet they want to be, you can’t help it.
When we inched out he said, “You finally coming out. Go tell everybody else to come out. The war is over. You are free.” That’s when we realized we’re free, but most of our families were gone.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, I think our audience, I bet you’ll stay with us to hear the last part. That is what happened when you were to find Sam.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Okay, unlike the Americans…the Americans, when you were liberated they had right away for you a place where to go to sleep, something to eat. I always say Americans you never go hungry. But, Russians didn’t do that because, not because they didn’t want to. They didn’t have. I mean most of their rifles when I saw it I couldn’t believe it. It was on a string rather than a leather belt. It was unbelievable. So he would go in with us to German bakery and get us a bread, whatever then we got some water and that’s all we needed. I think that’s probably also saved our lives because a lot of people that started eating right away died after the war because their stomach’s were not used to eat anymore.
Anyhow, so we walked. I was in the middle someplace of Germany and no transportation. We walked day in and day out. Probably for several weeks until I finally come to a place in Poland. It was Katowice I think. Was it Katowice? I think so. It’s on the border. Anyhow somebody, I was just about to jump on a train, but I wished that somebody had a camera to take the pictures. I mean people were hanging outside and I was about to just jump on the train and on the other side of the tracks somebody recognized me who was with me in camp. Yells out to me, “Hey Regina! Your boyfriend is alive.” I said, “Where is he?” Of course, in his hometown. But then, little by little we did get together. But, I did go home first. I had to go home first to just assure myself that nobody…Because you couldn’t believe that nobody from your family survived.
BILL BENSON:
Regina, Sam had been liberated before you as I recall so he had already gotten back and had already got the town mill working as I recall and…
REGINA SPIEGEL:
Yes, yes. He was already so to speak in business. He actually…shall I tell them? He didn’t have time to come to Radom so he sent a horse and buggy for me to pick me up because he couldn’t leave the mill because the mill was working like 24 hours a day.
BILL BENSON:
The only one in town.
REGINA SPIEGEL:
The only one in town and they needed bread. But later on we had to leave because it’s a whole different story.
BILL BENSON:
I know everybody here wishes we had more time with you and I certainly know that we could spend the rest of the afternoon and only scratch the surface of what Regina would share with us, so thank you for what you were able to, Regina. Thank you all for being here. I am going to turn back to Regina in just a minute to close our program, but before I do that I would like to remind you that we will have a First Person program each Wednesday until the end of August [and] on Tuesdays until the end of July. So our next program will be next Tuesday, July 14 when our first person will be Mr. Frank Liebermann who was from Poland.
As Hitler and the Nazis consolidated their power in Germany and as antisemitism grew Frank’s father was no longer able to practice as a physician. Believing things would get far worse he eventually was able to obtain an affidavit from a relative in the United States that allowed the family to immigrate to the United States. First his father going and then later Frank and his mother would make it to the United States. If you can please come back for another First Person program this year, or if you are in Washington D.C. next year we hope you will join us then. I’d like to remind you that you can hear excerpts from our programs, including in a few weeks Regina’s, as a podcast or a full transcript of the proceedings, our discussion on the Museum’s website. Or you can go to iTunes for the podcast. It’s our tradition at First Person that our first person has the last word. With that I’s like to turn back to Regina to close today’s program.
REGINA SPIEGEL::
Thank you. What did I do after the war, of course we did get together and we got married and we had to leave Poland. It was not…we couldn’t live there and we managed to get back to Germany and from there I got in touch with my uncle and my uncle sent me papers to come to this country with whoever is with me. My uncle figured that if I survived, and I was the youngest one, he was sure that somebody else survived from my family. So on my papers was, and whoever is with me so of course I turned that on to my boyfriend. I said, “You marry me and you have a ticket to go to the United States.” Nobody refuses an offer like this.
Anyhow, this I have to make it a little bit lighter. After the war you know people used to ask me, did you take revenge? Of course I could have taken revenge, but what would I have become, just like they. And I sure didn’t like what they did to us. So why should I do to them something that it wasn’t in my…they trained us to be maybe killers but we were not killers.
What’s going on in the world always kind of worries me. You know like when I read what’s happening in Darfur I am reminded constantly of my family, what happened to us. You know how we were dragged out from our homes. Children were killed for no reason whatsoever. You know, no food. Husbands, wives separated. Their homes taken away and it sounds when I always say this people think that I am talking about Poland and it is, that’s what it was in Poland. But unfortunately, it is also happening this can be a picture of the life in Darfur. It’s true, we lived in the ghettos and you’re hungry all the time but it doesn’t make any difference. We were in a different place, doesn’t matter. The difference is that now it’s happening in Western Sudan. The reasons behind it is the same, just the same. We have to be aware of it and do something about it.
Like I always say, you know, not I but I like to quote probably he is the best known Holocaust survivor of any of us, Elie Wiesel who said that you need not to be because people think that just because you are a Holocaust survivor you can recognize genocide. He said you need not to be a Holocaust survivor to recognize the Holocaust, a genocide. Everybody, everybody can recognize genocide wherever it’s practiced and against whomever it’s directed. What most survivors had in common is an obsession not to betray the dead we left behind. They were killed once they must not be killed through forgetfulness.
We must remember the righteous people who did things right. Even like my sister’s friend, she tried. She wasn’t successful but at least you try. Of course, I am always grateful. I think most survivors of this wonderful Museum because it gives us such avenues. They like the Committee of Conscience to bear witness, even after we are no longer here. It will keep our memory with a purpose to keep the human conscience from shutting itself off, make you aware of it. When hatred focuses on any nationality, ethnic or religious group, anywhere in the world and I also want to tell you this; yes I know a lot of people think that we are very you know like for revenge, nothing of the kind.
Actually, we who survived Auschwitz or other concentration camps advocate hope not despair, generosity not bitterness, gratitude not violence. We must reject indifference as an option. Indifference always helps the aggressor, never its victims because we were part of the people that were forgotten during that war. I am hoping. I always I told you I was Pollyanna, called Pollyanna so I am hoping that maybe I’ll make somebody aware of all these things. I really thank you very much for spending the time with me and listening to me. Thank you very much.
