Dora Niederman was born in a village in the mountains of Slovakia. She was a teenager when the Nazis deported the Jews of her region to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944. She was later sent to Stutthof concentration camp and then to work on a German farm. Dora was liberated by the Russians in the spring of 1945.
PR Dora, may I begin by asking your name and when and where you were born?
DN I was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia, in the Carpathian mountains. I was born October 15, 1927.
PR It was a very small village.
DN A small village. Maybe four, five hundred people living in the village.
PR And it was Christians and Jews.
DN Christians and Jews. We got along very nicely. We had no problems until 1939 when Hitler make anti-Semitism against the Jewish people and then Hungarian police came in and started telling the non-Jewish people, that Jews no good. They really brought in the anti-Semitism. The non-Jewish people were afraid for [of] Germans and Hungarians. We had a teacher. He was a very nice teacher. Hungarians came in and they said he was a spy and they shot him, and left him in river and he was laying there in our river. He was laying there maybe two or three weeks in the river. He was all blown up. Parents came to pick up and they wouldn't let his parents pick him up: this is what is going to happen to you if you help the Jewish people.
PR They ruled by terror.
DN People were terrified. They were not so anti-Semitic. They were friends. They were afraid. What will happen to them or their children?
PR Hungary was an ally of the Germans and was not occupied until March 1944.
DN That's right, and then really started the terrible anti-Semitism. They had put so much fear in the people, that people themselves were feared. That will happen to them like what happened to teacher.
PR The Jewish people of Hungary were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. But for four years, the war had been going on and the destruction of the Jewish people had been going on. Did you know about it?
DN No, maybe I was too young. Maybe the older people knew but I was too young. I don't remember them saying anything about it. Nobody telling us. We were a small town. Between hills. There was nobody to tell us. Maybe in the bigger cities people know. We didn't know nothing about it till the Hungarians came in 1944 and they start to beat. I remember they took my stepfather out and for two days he not come home. You know we were very orthodox people. He had beard. He had peahs. When he came home he was all beaten up. Shaved beard. Peahs off. Didn't know who the man was when walked in house. His voice we recognized. By his voice. For no reason
PR The Hungarian police were collaborators...
DN Of the Nazis. And my mother said, she spoke good, very good Hungarian she learned because of the First World War and she spoke to a Hungarian and he told her, Don't think that these are same Hungarians or Germans here as during the First World War.
PR It was a different breed.
DN It's a different breed. Different people. So don't welcome us. You Jews don't welcome us. Because you'll be sorry you're welcoming us.
PR When the Germans arrive, it's Passover.
DN Yeah, it our Passover holiday. Last day of Passover they came in. We were all sleeping and they woke us up in the middle of the night and they made us get up. And just leave the house just like we were. Night gowns. They finally let us put dress on and our shoes. And took us to the ghettoes. And everybody opened the door for the Jewish people and whatever they had to share. And we stayed maybe month in ghetto. With no food. No clothes. Didn't let us take anything with us. And then one night they came in the ghettoes. They had surrounded the Jewish section. They had put us all in same neighborhood. And then they came one night and they gathered everybody and they took us in horse and buggy and put us on trains. Must have put cows.
PR Cattle cars.
DN Fifty people on one train. We didn't know. They say, We're going to a place they going to put us to work. With no food. No water. With little bitty windows to look out. The windows were with iron so if we wanted to push, we couldn't through windows. And three days over mountains.
PR To Poland.
DN To Poland. We could look out. That's all. We couldn't sleep, couldn't sit, couldn't use the bathroom. It was undescribable. When we got into Auschwitz, we didn't know at first where we got in. There was Gestapo with the guns. With dogs. And they start making a selection. The older people on one side. Other people on one side. And I was only twelve years old, not quite twelve years old. And I was there with my aunt, my daddy's sister and I wanted to go with them. And a German soldier came over there and yanked me: You have to go to work. No, I don't. She said, No, you go to work. Maybe you can help us. The aunt and the children. You go to work. So I went to the other side. I didn't know anything about gassing or killed or anything. We didn't know nothing. And they took them to one side, we to other side. And as we were walking down the street to go into the camp, because we were outside when we came in, and people had striped clothes. They gave everybody those kind of clothes.
PR Prisoners.
DN And they start hollering at us to give them food. And we thought they were crazy. They taking us to a crazy house. I mean, what's going on here? We didn't know where they taking us. Where they taking our parents? Our children? When we got into the camp we realized we were the same people like the ones that were asking us to throw food.
PR They knew people were going to the gas.
DN They knew. They know our parents were going.
PR In the selection old and very young were sent directly to the gas chambers, and those who were young and had the possibility of working...
DN They took to the left. And then the other ones to the right. Parents. The children. They took them to the right side.
PR This was the last time you saw your aunt?
DN This was the last time I saw my family. We got in there. And next morning we walked around. Gave us clothes, a bed, one of those things to sleep in. We smelled horrible smell. Like ashes. Like tar. Even today, I smell tar and it makes me sick. They told us, See right there? There are your parents. There. All burning. Won't be nothing left of them, and we couldn't believe that.
PR Could you see that?
DN The chimney burn all days, twenty-four hours a day. You could see and smell the smoke all day. They told us, There are the chimneys where our parents, sisters, and brothers... My whole family, and it was horrible. You couldn't do nothing because Auschwitz was wired. Electric wiring. All around electric wiring. Lot of people throw themselves on the wires. I saw two girls throw themselves on the wires. And got instantly burned. And they took them off and they were dead.
PR They committed suicide.
DN Suicide. It's very hard. It's a hard thing to see, to live through, but you were young and with other young people. I met girls. I met six other girls. And we stayed together the whole time.
PR They were from your village?
DN From village. And we stayed together. We tried to give courage. One other. Every morning got up for appel (roll call). They count us and recount us. Ninety percent of the time you were naked. No hair. That's another thing. When we got in to Auschwitz, they took us to a bath and gave us stripped clothes. They shaved all our hair off. All your hair. We didn't recognize each other. We were calling each other's names. I went in, young, with long hair. I come out with no hair on my head. So we finally found each other. We were eight girls from same village. And we stayed through the whole time. When we were in Auschwitz, we could hear the Allies coming to bomb. Every day. Every day. They were bombing. Dropping bombs. Dropping bombs. And every night we used to hold each other and pray, Please God, throw a bomb on us. Please let us not be suffering no more. But it never happened. We could see the planes flying during the day when we were outside, but they never dropped a bomb on us. We had twenty girls sleeping in one bed. And when one turned, all turned. Like herrings pressed together. In the morning, we got up and they gave us a little water to wash face. No bath. Then we went outside in the appell.
PR Roll call.
DN Outside they kept us two or three hours. We were all naked. Again roll call. No clothes. Told us to leave clothes inside. Mengele came.
PR Mengele being the SS doctor.
DN Always Mengele. He stayed two or three hours. If he didn't like the way we stand or whatever, start all over again. We didn't work at Auschwitz. We went back into barracks. By then they have soup. Water really, not soup. That was our lunch. Again came out for roll call. Stay in line until five, six o'clock in evening.
PR What did Mengele look like?
DN He was a short man, chubby, round face. Always had that stick in his hand.
PR A baton.
DN Wherever he went, he went with that. At night there was a roll call. We got peelings from soup. We were lucky if we got peeling. If not, we got water. We couldn't go out. We have to go bed. Sometimes the girls make songs up and sing to amuse ourselves. And Mengele, every morning Mengele. Every morning and every night, he came. As close to me as you are. He had a little stick. He went this way or this way. And he always counted. I was at Auschwitz-Birkenau for three months. He came in and we were all naked. I had a rash. He took me out and sent me to hospital. They had a hospital in that same place but further down. So I got separated from girls. And I really didn't know what to do. I was there for two days. A nurse came over to me. She says, Here's the bucket. Dump it and bring the bucket back. I went outside. It was evening time. I left buckets. I didn't dump them. I went to the barracks where my friends were. It was after appel already and they didn't count people no more. In the middle of night they came in. They told us that they going to evacuate us to another camp. I had luck that night. I went with them [the eight girls] to another camp. And the other camp was called Stutthoff.
PR You once told me, It was not time for me to die.
DN It was not. That true. Otherwise I would be in hospital. Something told me go, and I just went, and that night they took us to Stutthoff.
PR The Nazi concentration camp on the Baltic Sea.
DN We were two or three days on train. Don't remember. we arrived at Stutthoff. Same thing: SS with the guns. Where we going to run away? We didn't know where we were. Still they brought dogs. The brought us in the camp in big, big building and left us there. No food, no water. We had to survive. Don't know how we survived. Stayed three or four days. They bring in wagons also Jews from Vilna
PR From Lithuania.
DN Jews. We started asking them to give us food. They thought the same thing: that we're nuts. We had stripped clothes. They did not put them in the same place. They took them further down in the camp. Had to go to baths. They didn't burn them right away. Let them live for a couple weeks. So one Sunday morning we all got up. They had camp fixed up beautifully: flowers, water. Gave us food. We didn't know what happened. We thought we were liberated. Told us to take a bath. We couldn't believe it. Water. Food, not much but before we didn't see any. Table to sit down. Later the Red Cross came. They [Germans] told them how beautiful they treated us. They fix the camp for them [Red Cross] to show how nicely they treat us. Stayed there and from there they took us back to camp where Lithuanian Jews were. They put us through baths. Took all clothes. Give us fresh clothes. There were the Vilna families. We talked to them. They were there maybe two week and one morning we got up and they disappeared. The Lithuanian Jews. Except a couple of young people. We asked them. They said the Germans came at night and took our parents.
PR Gassed them.
DN We smelled already. We knew. Same smell like in Auschwitz. We knew all parents were gassed. Some of us didn't tell those girls. We knew how hard it was on us. But eventually they found out themselves. We didn't have to tell them. In fact, one girl is living in New Orleans who was in Stutthoff with me. And then there was the time they were taking people to another camp. We had a friend of ours. She was going out with one of Germans. She was very beautiful. She tried to save her life. She had two sisters. He told her to tell her sisters, Go to window and hide in barracks. Tomorrow come again for selection.' Tomorrow they will not tear apart families but today they will. Leave window open. Jump through window. Hide. Eight girls plus her sisters and some others stayed in bathroom until selection over. Those girls hid and next morning Germans came and announced, Everything's fine. We make selection.' They did not separate us. Mothers. Daughters. Cousins. Sisters. They took us on trains somewhere in Poland or Germany. It was close to Danzig. And we got there, and there was a lot of farmers looking for workers, and they start counting five. We started screaming. Two of the girls we didn't know. We said we were ten sisters. And we wanted to stay together. We started crying. They told us not going to separate families. This man walks over and says, I'll take them.
PR The German farmer.
DN German farmer. Ten people. I'll take ten. So he took us home. He really was the nicest man. He brought us our life back. We stayed two, three months. He fed us good. We slept in barn. Horses on bottom. We slept on top. Two big beds. Five and five. Locked us in. Afraid we going to run somehow away. Every morning we woke up, and went down and had breakfast. Always fixed us nice food. Beautiful breakfast. We went to work in the fields. About three months we stayed. We build ourselves up with food and dress. He was the nicest person you ever be with.
PR In this time of evil there were some good people.
DN He was very good to us. And he had a sister living a few miles away. The sister had five Jewish girls. Every Sunday she brought them to us. On Sunday there was no work. It was a holiday, like a reunion. He really treated us nice. Thanks to him we survived and are living today. Because of that.
PR But the SS came back.
DN SS come back and told him we had to come back. It was winter. The fields were frozen. The Russians were getting nearer. So they didn't want to leave us there. So he came upstairs. He brought us bread. Each of us three big rolls of bread. He said, Take this with you. I know you will be hungry so have some. And he give us raw carrots and he start crying, I'm sorry. I tried everything in the world. I even told them I'll pay money if they let you all stay. They said, No, they have to come back. He told us his wife was Jewish. She died at birth. He had a three year old boy. He told us his wife was Jewish. He cried. He said, I'm sorry. I know where you going back. We got back to Stutthoff. Horrible. Hunger, lice. Everything you want to imagine, they had there. From there they took us. The war was getting closer and closer. They kept taking us to camps deeper in Poland, deeper in Poland. And the Russians were getting closer. We got to a town, I don't know where in Poland, and we ran away from group. We knocked on some man's door. He let us in. We spoke good Ukranian. We told him we were Ukranian girls from concentration camp. Would he help us? War was close. He took us in. He kept us. We prayed the Christian prayers every Sunday. He didn't want us to go to church. He didn't want neighbors to know he was hiding somebody. He brought us food. We stayed upstairs. In pots we did our business. At night we dump pots outside. All day long we stayed upstairs. Very quietly for our safety. We stayed there. I got very sick. I had typhus. Very, very sick. One of my friends, she saved my life. She is in Israel. I never seen her since war.
PR How did she save you?
DN Fever. I couldn't eat. She fed me, bathed me, changed linens. And she helped me. The rest helped. She was more stronger than rest. We were all weak. We could see the war and hear the war. It was getting nearer and near and then the Russians came in. They weren't pleasant. They were horrible. The man had double wall to hide people there. He hid us. The Russians came in and raping everybody. They were first line [troops], first line that came in. They were horrible people and then there was one man, he came in and spoke Jewish [Yiddish] and he asked us are we Jewish? We said yes. He said, He'd appreciate it very much if we not stay there. I know what y'all went through. We went down and told the [Polish] people we're Jewish and thanked them so much for being so nice to us and taking us in.
PR The Polish farmer knew?
DN He said to us that he knew we were Jewish because of the stripped clothes. We didn't realize that only Jews, or prisoners from Auschwitz, had stripped clothes. He knew right away that we were Jewish. He wouldn't tell us. He was afraid somebody might take us and do something. He let us stay there.
PR How many girls from the village survived?
DN Eight of us survived. After the war was over, we went to Praga, near Warsaw. They set up a camp and feed us a little bit. Gave us breakfast, lunch, supper. We were there two months. Then they told us they take us home. Where we come from? Took us on trains. We got into Budapest I jumped off train. I spoke little Hungarian, not much. There is JOINT, Jewish organization. And I went there and registered. They gave you a little money, bed. Found one of my step-sisters was there. They had already an apartment. They were three girls. Three step-sisters. She told me come visit them. I can live with them for couple days. Going down the street to see where they live, in middle of street, I saw this man coming. He was my brother but I didn't recognize him. And he didn't recognize me either. He was going to their house. He was faster and I was going slower. And when I got in the house there was my brother sitting. We were both crying. We passed each other on the street. That's what Germans did to us. I had no hair. Must have weighed fifty pounds. He was still so skinny, too. Stayed with step-sister. The middle sister went home. We decide to find if somebody's living in village where we lived. We got home. The house was destroyed. No windows, no doors. The people was very nice to us. They say they'll fix the house and help us. We didn't want to stay. This is no life. We had life before. We went to another little town. Two children came back. An aunt. Neighbors watched their house. Nothing was missing at all. We slept the night with them. Next day we told them goodbye. In Budapest we met up with other girls who said they were going to Israel, Palestine. One of the girls was my step-daddy's sister's niece. And we stayed together even today. She's in New York. We call each other often. We like cousins really.
PR You went to Italy.
DN Augsburg through mountains. Came through the mountains to Italy. We arrived Italy stayed in camp. The British would not let us go to Israel. We stayed in a Displaced Person' camp. We in another little town. Decided to other town. We went. That's when I met husband.
PR Isaac.
DN Two years later. We got married. Sept 3, 1948. We stayed five years in Italy. We tried to get to Israel. We left Bari on a ship. The British took it. We could not go. Not able to go to Israel. Then [President] Truman opened quota for us. We arrived in New Orleans May 17, 1950. For many years I didn't discuss the past. None of us did. It was painful for us to talk about it. Don't want to bring back memories. I can't watch movies about the Holocaust. I wake up screaming.
PR Then there came a time when you decided to speak out.
DN When [David] Duke kept on hollering on TV, Not such a thing as the Holocaust. It's a hoax. It's not true. So all of us who live here in New Orleans, most of survivors, come out and talk about it. We were there. We suffered for being Jewish and being Holocaust survivor. He doesn't know. He wants to become a big shot, become senator, or whatever. David Duke.
PR You and I have traveled to Louisiana schools speaking to students.
DN I want them to learn not be anti-Semitic, to realize every person is equal. I want to tell them another thing: remember they have parents. I was too young. I lost my parents. When they go home at night, to tell their parents, We love you. Let them know you love them. Most important thing in the world is for your children to love you. And tell them how much you love them. It's very, very important.
PR Can the Holocaust happen again?
DN All over the world there is killing, killing, killing. It's terrible. People should live together as people.