Statement

written with Valerie Straussová, née Kantorová, born 25. 6. 1907, former prisoner of the Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Schlesiersee concentration camps, currently residing in Prague XII., on Horní stromka 5.

I, the undersigned Valerie Straussová, née Kantorová, born 25. 6. 1907 in Vienna, daughter of Evžen and Emilie Kantorovi, citizen of Czechoslovakia, residing in Prague XII, on Horní stromka 5, am giving, after my return on July 13th, 1945, from various concentration camps, this true and faithful account of my experiences. I swear on my honor that I have neither invented nor exaggerated the statement that I am about to give.

On February 12th, 1942, I was transported to the ghetto in Theresienstadt, where I remained until October 4th, 1944. In Theresienstadt, I worked in a haberdasher's workshop, as a cleaning lady in the SS command, as a typist in the hospital, and I spent two months doing forest work in Křivoklát. My husband worked in Theresienstadt as a musician in a coffeehouse. On September 28th, 1944, he left Theresienstadt on a transport. We were told that the men were going one hour away from Theresienstadt to work in Germany. A week later, as his wife, I was placed on a transport and I left thinking that I would be reunited with him. All of the women pushed their way onto the train and each of us was happy to have been selected. Many children also went with us. When we approached Dresden, we prepared to disembark. How great was our disappointment when we rode through Dresden without stopping and saw that we were going east. Instead of riding for an hour, we rode for twenty-four until we reached the Auschwitz train station. Here, we had to get off the train without our luggage and the selection process took place right in front of the train: women with children and the elderly on the right, us childless women on the left. At the time, we still didn’t know what being sent to the right meant (the gas chamber). We were taken to the washrooms, where everything we had on was taken away, our heads were shaved, we were led to the showers, and clothed in old rags. And then the familiar, nerve-wrenching life in the concentration camp began. After 5 days, we went through another selection and were taken to the train. We were given better clothing and sent to work in Germany. We rode until we reached the Schlesiersee train station in northeast Silesia, not far from the Polish border. From the station we walked for about 2 hours. They put us up in two farms, 1,000 women in each building. They housed us in two large barns for storing hay. The next morning, we were given shovels and spades and we dug 3 ½ meters deep anti-tank trenches. It was extremely hard work for us women and there was very little food, and so we quickly lost a lot of weight. At the end of October, one of the girls bumped into my leg with a wheelbarrow. I had a small scrape that I didn’t think was serious. Several days later, my leg started hurting, swelled up, and developed a small phlegmon. It gradually got worse and the doctor had to operate on me in the barn. After the incision, my high fever came down, but I couldn’t stand on my leg, and so for three weeks I crawled around on all fours. As soon as I got better, I was sent to perform domestic labor. I peeled potatoes. I would get up at 4 in the morning and peeled potatoes until the evening. Two days later, I developed a fever of 40 degrees, shooting pain on the right side of my chest, and I started coughing. The doctor diagnosed me with pneumonia. Since wrapping my chest would have been impossible in the cold barn and there was no medicine in the camp, I was left to my own fate. I was not allowed to lie down, and so I sat, leaning against the icy wall of the stable wearing only my clothes (coats and shoes were taken away from the sick and given to the healthy). I was covered with a camp-issued blanket. Ten days later, my pneumonia disappeared as if by a miracle, but the injury on my leg got worse and started to fester. Around January 10th, the sick were moved into quickly built wooden barracks. Before we moved, we had to hand over everything we wore and wash ourselves so that we wouldn’t bring lice, which we were completely infested with, into the new building. We entered the building completely naked and they promised to disinfect our clothes and give them back to us. Washing, however, didn’t rid us of lice.

Our situation was much improved in the barracks. We slept in bunk beds on straw mattresses, two to a bed and covered by a single blanket. We were so cold. On January 22nd, we heard that the battlefront was only 20 km away from us. There were rumors that we would be evacuated. Sick women were to remain in the camp. We were happy and hoped that the Russians would liberate us soon. But we rejoiced too soon. At about 7 o’clock in the evening, a German commander entered and ordered everyone to evacuate, including the seriously ill. The situation was desperate, because all of us were lying in bed completely naked. We started to panic and each of us tried to find something to wear. I begged our superior for some clothes, but it was all in vain. At the last minute, one of the nurses gave me a summer dress that I threw over my naked body. I wound strips ripped from a blanket around my legs, even though this was sabotage, and I managed to snag 2 blankets. I tied one around my waist like a skirt, and wrapped the other around my shoulders. I was given a pair of clogs. Many women were barefoot and their feet became frostbitten. When we walked out into the courtyard we could barely stand up. It was freezing and there was a lot of snow. For our journey, they gave us a loaf of bread that was supposed to last us three days. Then they filled us into lines of 5 and the march began. I wasn’t able to walk because I had been sick in bed for almost 10 weeks, but the Schupo kept forcing me and threatening to shoot me. And so we marched all night until the afternoon of the next day. On the way, many of us died or froze to death. At 3 o’clock the next day we came to a forest that was about 4 km before Ostweide. The commander ordered all of the sick to sit down. A vehicle would be coming from Ostweide to pick them up soon. The healthy continued marching. I sat down on the edge of the forest by a ditch and was happy that I didn’t have to keep going. I believed that the vehicle would arrive, although others claimed that something else would happen. There were about 40 of us here, in addition to the doctor, who took down our names. There were also 2 corpses. About 60 m from the edge of the forest, the Schupo were digging a hole. I thought that it was for our 2 corpses. When it got dark and we had given up all hope that the vehicle would come, 2 Schupo came up to us, grabbed about six women and forced them toward the hole, shouting arbeiten – arbeiten. The women screamed and wanted to escape, but then we heard shots and then silence. Now we knew for sure that there was no vehicle and what truly awaited us. After a while, the Schupo came for the next 6 victims. I was part of the 3rd group. I was reconciled with my fate and was absolutely calm. A Schupo came up to me, grabbed me by the shoulder, and shouted: Komm. I said to him: Just a moment, I’ll just give my bread and blanket to the doctor to hand out to the others since I won’t be needing them anymore. He answered, seeing that I was totally calm: You may. And so I went up to the doctor and thanked her for her work and for treating me and gave her the rest of my bread and the blanket. I then walked peacefully with my murderer up to the hole. About 13 corpses lay in it. He made several women sit down on the mound of earth dug from the hole, and ordered me and two other women to turn our backs to him. First, he shot the women by the hole and then it was our turn. I stood in the middle. It was a beautiful moonlit night. I gazed up at the moon and thought to myself: what a pity that I have to die and nobody will ever know what happened here. It was at this moment that I finally understood how beautiful it is to be alive, even after all that we’d been through. And then a shot rang out and the woman to my right fell to the ground. And then a second shot and I felt a sharp pain on the left side of my neck. I collapsed onto the ground, but never lost consciousness. It felt strange to not be dead yet, but waiting for death. I soon realized that the shot had not been fatal. I felt the blood flowing from my wound and I quickly placed a hand on my neck. It all happened within an instant. In the meantime, the woman on my left side was shot. I began to be afraid that I would be buried alive. I heard the conversation between two of the Schupo who had shot us and were now standing right behind me. They had a very interesting conversation. One wanted to throw us into the hole right away, and the second said that they needed to wait until all of us were dead, and then the doctor would strip us and throw us into the hole. The seriously ill ones, who were brought here on wheelbarrows, those we’ll beat to death with our rifle butts, said one of the Schupo. When their conversation was over, they walked away from the hole to bring more victims from the edge of the forest. Without thinking, I turned over and crawled away into the forest on all fours. I thought to myself that it’s better if they shoot me again if they find me than to be buried alive. The night was clear and we were in a forest with tall trees, and so there was nowhere for me to hide. I crawled a couple meters away from the hole and hid behind a tree. Now, I began to be upset. I saw the Schupo force more women toward the hole. I heard shots and realized that they didn’t know I was missing and weren’t even looking for me. I heard them finish their

task, strip the women, throw them into the hole, and fill up the hole. I don’t know what happened to the doctor. Then I must have fallen asleep, because I didn’t see them walk away from the hole. I woke up and saw from a distance the Schupo walking down the road with a wheelbarrow likely loaded with clothes taken from the people who were shot. I knew that I was saved. I started walking away. I went around the hole and crossed the main road that goes from Schlesiersee to Ostweide. In the afternoon, I observed German tanks riding away from the forest on the other side of the road. I thought that the frontline must be there and that I would meet up with the Russians any minute. And so I headed out on this road. After walking for about 10 minutes, I saw a large haystack on the side of the road. I crawled inside of it and soon fell asleep. I was exhausted. We had marched the whole previous night, my leg was badly hurting, and to top it off my new neck wound, which hurt a little the first day. I slept until the morning and then headed out again. I walked through beautiful forests, along tank tracks, and didn’t meet a soul. I was terribly tired, but I was afraid to sit down in the snow. I didn’t want to fall asleep and freeze to death. As the evening approached, I chanced upon a crumbling barn for hay, where I spent the night. In the morning, I walked on and around noon I finally entered a small village, utterly exhausted. I went into the first house and asked if they would allow me to rest here. I was delighted to hear that I was in Poland. They gave me food and the next day the mayor took care of me. We burned my clothes, which were soaked with blood, and they gave me warm clothing, a dress, and blankets. I was given a room in a house that the Germans had abandoned. Polish girls lit the fire in my room and brought me food. The village didn’t have a doctor. Every day, a nurse came to check up on me and changed the bandages on my leg and neck. I was in great pain and couldn’t sleep at night. Five days after my arrival in the village, i.e. a week after I was injured, the Russians came to the village and I was finally truly liberated. A week later, a Polish nurse took me to the hospital in Wolstein. Fourteen days after I was shot was the first time I received medical assistance. I felt much better in the hospital, I quickly recuperated, and my wounds healed up. On March 18th, the Russians picked me up from the hospital and took me to Schwiebus, where I helped out in the hospital. I remained in the service of a Russian unit that rode out to assist the Russian Army in combat. After my military service, I was discharged from duty and taken to the repatriation committee in Prague in July.

Once in Prague, I found out that neither my husband, nor my parents, and neither my sister nor her husband, had returned. Only my brother came back. Before I left for Theresienstadt, I worked in an insurance office, and I plan on working there again.

I know the exact location where the 40 women were executed, and I am willing to show it to the relevant authorities.

Valerie Straussová

In Prague on July 23rd, 1945

Statement accepted by:

Berta Gerzonová 

Signature of witnesses:

Marta Fischerová

Dita Saxlová

On behalf of the Documentation campaign:

Scheck

On behalf of the archive:

Tresssler