![]() They were liberated by the Americans and after the war she returned to Czechoslovakia and discoverd that none of her family members survived. It was during the rehearsals for this program that Ruth met her current husband, Kurt Elias. In early 1945 the Lagerfuehrer discovers that she can sing and orders her to organize a variety program in order to take the Germans' minds off the constant Allied bombing. At this camp she manages to consistently steal bread for herself and the other women. She injected the baby and Mengele sent her on the next transport to forced labor near Leipzig. A woman doctor brought her a needle filled with morphine and told her to inject the baby with it, thinking that if the baby died Elias would be allowed to live. Her baby cried and became weaker for several days until Mengele came and told her that the next day he would come for both of them. Once her baby girl is born he orders that her breasts be bound to prevent her from breastfeeding, so that he can see how long a baby can live without food. Elias describes Mengele as an attractive and polite man, of whom she was very frightened. The two pregnant women come to the attention of Mengele. She and another pregnant woman were then sent back to Auschwitz but they manage to remove the yellow triangles from their clothing and pose as Czech political prisoners upon their return to the camp. ![]() When it was discovered that she was pregnant she was sent to Ravensbrueck. She was sent to Hamburg to work cleaning debris at a bombed oil refinery. She was transported from the Familienlager to the Frauenlager, and when she was eight months pregnant managed to survive a selection by Mengele by hiding behind other girls. She talks about the orchestra in Block 6. In March 1944 an entire transport of people was removed from the Familienlager and gassed. They learned from other prisoners that people were being killed at Auschwitz but they didn't want to believe it. She and her husband were in the Czech Familienlager. She describes the rail journey, arrival at Auschwitz, the work and the food. She and her husband were deported to Auschwitz in December 1943. She tried to have an abortion but it had recently been officially forbidden by the Germans. She says that she was able to live with her husband and another couple and in the summer of 1943 she became pregnant. She demonstrates for Lanzmann one of the songs they used to sing, and accompanies herself on the accordian. She and the others sang in the kitchen as they worked.įILM ID 3115 - Camera Roll #10 - 04:00:14 to 04:11:15 She was hungry all the time and decided to leave nursing to become a cook so that she could be near food. She received a card from her father saying that her mother had been shot before his eyes. Lanzmann asks her about the experience of the elderly in Theresienstadt. She became a trainee nurse and her husband joined the Ghettowache. ![]() The rest of her family went on the transport and she never saw them again. Her father insisted that she go, so she married her boyfriend in order to stay. Seven days after arrival her entire family was summoned for a transport but she became ill and could not go. On 4 April 1942 they were caught and sent to Theresienstadt, where she was housed in a large room in the Hamburger Kaserne with many other women.įILM ID 3113 - Camera Rolls #3-4 - 02:00:13 to 02:10:53 Her father avoided being sent to Nisko and they lived in hiding in the countryside. The foreman of her father's factory immediately seized it from him and the family lost their flat. She describes the Germans entering Czechoslovakia in 1939. Ruth Elias tells of her early life growing up in Czechoslovakia. She speaks of these experiences and of her solidarity with other women prisoners.įILM ID 3112 - Camera Rolls #1-2 - 01:00:13 to 01:14:46 She managed to hide her condition in Auschwitz but was eventually discovered and she and her baby were experimented upon by Mengele. ![]() Ruth Elias was a Czech Jew who was sent with her family to Theresienstadt, where she became pregnant. ![]()
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