There were 600 of us working in this factory, and I was the youngest there. So there in that
factory, because I was the youngest, I had 599 mothers. It was like, 'Are we going to survive?
If we survive, if we survive, who's going to tell the story? Who's going to believe us?
Who's going to carry on?' And so, it was always 'Someone needs to live to let the world know
what happened in this craziness and these dark days and this in this murder factory.'
And so I was the youngest, and so 599 women allowed me extra rest whenever they could,
because it was very hard to do so, and allowed me a little bit more food. And
when I say a little bit more food, if you hold on your hand and you make a fist,
each one gave a crumb, a crumb of their starving food to me.
But in turn, I had to make a promise that if I survived I would carry the message
of all of them, and for all that I saw and lived with.
And so,
so I made a promise that if I lived I would tell the story.
And so I came to this country as a teenager,
couldn't and wouldn't handle my past, couldn't deal with it,
and so I took all my memories
and put them in the bottom of my brain,
never to be taken out to be examined.
I remember my dad sitting down with me and
asking me, do I know what happened to his wife, my mother,
do I know what happened to my brothers, do I know what happened to the family. And I looked at him
and I said, we're going to talk about this once but we're never going to talk about this again.
And we didn't. Because I couldn't.
When the museum in Skokie was built, the little museum,
they started to put out newsletters asking for survivors to come forward and tell their stories.
I was part of that community, but they never knew
my story because I never told it.
And this is when my story was recorded, and this is where I became the survivor.
I remember I was being interviewed in Erna's home,
and I had a friend with me. And it was not a great interview, but it was an interview. And I walked
out to the car with my friend, and I sat down in the car, and this is where the floodgates opened.
This is where I became hysterical, this is where I became the survivor, and this is what I realized
I need to do what I need to do because I made a promise. And this is why I'm sitting here today.