swb1192

We felt that the Jewish people never truly worked - they only owned property and stores so the general feeling was, "Good - they finally have to work and do hard labor."

I was a child at the time, so I wanted to live since I was so young. My mother tried killing herself during the war and even asked me if I wanted to join her. I told her that I did not want to die, but she went upstairs and turned on the gas. I was crying downstairs so loudly that another woman came by and asked what was wrong. I told her that my mother was killing herself and she was able to get help so my mother could be saved.

It's hard to believe, but the average German really didn't know what happened to the Jews. We only knew that the Jewish people had to work in the fields after they were picked up from their homes.

On the fences of the concentration camps, there were the words: "Arbeit macht frei" -- "Work Frees You".

We didn't find out until after the war what happened to the Jews. We thought they were simply working. But afterwards, once they opened the doors to the camps we found out they were starving and being killed. It made me feel very guilty and even to this day when I meet a Jewish person I feel compelled to tell them I'm sorry for what happened to Jewish people. I might not have had anything to do with it, but I still feel guilty.

Eventually, yes. But I was afraid of her and even had a hard time sleeping at times, because I didn't know if she was going to kill me and herself.

I was a classical dancer and we would perform for American troops around this time, and afterwards we would hope to be asked out to dinner by one of the men since we still didn't have any food to eat. That's actually how I met my husband!