The lager number of Golda Salamon

You can see here my [Golda Salamon’s] lager number, A 7986.

I needed this photo to be taken when I had to send my papers to Germany in order to receive compensation for that I had been deported.

And they wanted a photo with the number, but this one wasn’t good, because I’m not noticeable, I had to take another one and send that one.

I was deported from Maramarossziget to Birkenau. I spent about 5-6 months in Birkenau, I worked there too, but I got a number in Auschwitz, they tattooed me, and I kept on working there.

They didn't call us on our names, they called us only by our numbers. 7986. 'Neunundsiebsigsechsundachtsig' - that's how they called me by number.

Every morning at three, three and a half we had 'zahl apell', meaning that they counted us.

We had to get up, we were taken out, alike soldiers, we had line up in lines of five, and they counted us.

Then we got breakfast, a bitter tea and 25 decagram bread for a day.

A black bread, like a brick was cut in four, and that was the bread [portion] for four persons for one day.

This was given in the morning. Then they asked us who wanted to go to work.

I was the first to step out, so that I would leave the lager, so that I would not stay in that crowd, I wanted to go to fresh air, it didn't matter what I had to work.

Just to be outside, and not inside. Well, and [there] they brought us lunch, we would line up again by fives, I was always in front, because I was small, I wasn't as tall as the others.

They put in a rounded bowl some wish-wash, I couldn't call it otherwise, but you didn't get a spoon or something, you slurped a little, and the person behind told you don't eat too much, so that I get some for myself.

Dinner was a bitter tea, and bread, if you left some. It was a holiday when they cooked potatoes in their jackets, without cleaning them, and they would give 3-4 pieces of cooked potatoes.

It was a holiday to get some. Otherwise we got a very very bad food. The food was terribly bad. So that's how we were living in the lager.

We were taken from Auschwitz to other lager, I was in a lager in Bergen-Belsen, and in other one, and the last one was in Mauthausen.

I traveled enough in stock-cars when I was taken from one lager to the other.

It was full of snow, and the shoes froze to our legs, when it started to thaw.

Well, we bore that too, but not everybody did. They gathered there [to Mauthausen] all the heftlings [prisoners], they undermined the lager, it was supposed to explode on the 7th of May [1945].

They wanted to explode us, because they realized they were going to loose the war, and they didn't want it to become known what they did, the way they tortured people.

The mines had to be placed by Jewish boys. We had luck that the Americans came in on the 4th of May, and they destroyed the mines.

Many people would have died there, I don't know how many heftling, as they were called, there were both women and men.

I got so used to be led everywhere by guards with dogs, that when I was set free, I was looking back all the time to see if the guard was coming with the dog.

This became rooted in us. We couldn't believe anymore that we were free. It was very difficult.