Erzsebet Rosenberg

This is a picture of my elder sister, Bozsi [Erzsebet Rosenberg], taken in Beregszasz in 1936.

My parents had six children: three boys and three girls. My eldest brother, Moric, was 24 years older than I. Gyula followed, then Berta was born in 1904, Jozsef in 1908 and Erzsebet in 1911.

On 30th April 1944, they took us away, and on 2nd May, we arrived in Birkenau.

They told us they were taking us to work, and the old people would go to special treatment. They didn't say where, just that it was in Germany. They didn't tell us anything, just treated us like animals.

In the boxcars, everybody went together, but when we arrived, and got off the train in Auschwitz, they separated the women from the men. The trip took two or three days.

The train stopped along the way, but we couldn't get out. We just stayed in the boxcars the whole time, the little window was barb-wired, and we peeked out of there.

Some died along the way, they threw them out. My parents, Moric, Erzsebet and I were together.

Erzsebet's condition was weaker than mine. They often took her to the hospital, where she got a little better, but soon broke down again, and they took her in again.

Once they whispered behind me that yesterday there was a big selection at the hospital, and my sister was one of the selected. That night I escaped to the hospital, and found my sister: she was alive.

We got an order not to sleep two on a bed. But there was no heating, it was cold. My sister lay down next to me. We put the blankets together, and then an SS woman came in, and saw my older sister laying there.

How did she know that it was her who had come over and not me? She pulled my sister down. Grabbed the wide whip from her waist, and started thrashing her back.

'You obey orders! You aren't allowed to sleep there!' She beat my sister's back bloody. Everybody swooned, they couldn't stand to look.

The poor thing survived that too, and we survived it, but it's impossible to forget. A week later, further transport arrived.

Then they ordered us: two to one bed. A week earlier that was exactly what they had beaten her back bloody for.