Henia Ronner

MOTHER – She was a good mother. I have good memories. I was the youngest at home, and everyone admired me ... it was not a poor home.

FATHER – He was 83 years old.... They carried him face down, then in the middle of the city there was a dentist – a young man – and they made him sit on his lap, and they killed him – not the dentist, just him. It was a spectacle.

FIRST BROTHER – My oldest brother was in Lvov, a big city, and he asked me to bring him to us but I couldn't. I went to the authorities and asked and begged to bring him. He was all alone. His family wasn't alive anymore. I couldn't bring him, and there he was. They killed him there in the ghetto of Lvov.

SECOND BROTHER – He ran away. He survived in Russia, and died in Israel.

FIRST SISTER – My sister was the mother of six children, and they took her to a camp, Belzec. There was Endzuchtung (the final solution) there. Not anymore, nobody. One little boy ran away from the train. He came back to our ghetto. I was alive. My husband, my boy and my girl were also alive then, and we were together. But he didn't survive.

THIRD BROTHER – My third brother ran away to the east but he didn't go too far, and he tried to come back. One man came to me who told me that, when the Germans came, they dug a hole and put him in it alive. He died.

SON – We survived together. My husband, he and I were hidden.

DAUGHTER – She stayed in the ghetto with my sister-in-law. We went to look for a place to hide for us, both children and her, because we felt something was wrong. A big danger. So a friend, a Christian friend, made us a bunker and we went to this bunker. They brought me my son from the ghetto. Then they tried to also bring my sister-in-law and daughter, but it was too late. The Christian woman was a good woman.

SELF PAST – It is unthinkable. I couldn't believe it. Now, I think, is this true, is it possible? This was the most cultured nation in Europe, the Germans. Is it possible, such a thing? I can't think about it quietly. I get nervous. I can't sleep. I have dreams. I live through what I lived through. It's not an easy life.

SELF HOLOCAUST – The man that was the Judenrat (head of Jewish bureau) didn't tell us that we were going next week to the ghetto. He wanted all the people to go to the ghetto. He wanted to please the Germans, a Jew. He's here (Jerusalem). He's guilty. I saw him, I met him. I don't want to talk to him because of this little boy, my sister's son, who escaped from the train and was hiding in this ghetto house. So he came with a big stick to take people to work, and he found him and beat him. So I asked him, "You have a heart. He's a child, the only one left of six children – his mother and father killed in the first week when the Germans came. And you have a heart to beat this boy?" So he said "Mrs. Ronner, after the war, if we both survive, we'll sit around a table, and then we can talk about it." And I answered, "YOU AND I SITTING AROUND A TABLE TOGETHER? IF I SURVIVE, I'LL NEVER, ON MY LIFE, SIT WITH YOU. I SWEAR TO G-D NO!" He is still here but I won't mention his name.

Emma Stahl

FATHER – My father died very young. He was only 42 years old. In 1919 there were hard times in Germany, and medical services were zero. My father started life as a peasant boy. We worked in the horse barn and learned how to make saddles. Later, he joined the civil service and worked in a prison where he taught saddlemaking.

BROTHER – There were just the two of us. I wanted to become a teacher but our chaplain said, "Fraulein Stahl, you'll make it on your own, but the boy needs to learn something. He went to a classical high school because we as Catholics thought he would decide to become a priest. When he finished high school, he said that he could not preach, and I understood that. He went into the labor service and then into the army. After that, he applied for a post office job and was accepted. He got starving wages so I sent him money and then he was able to get by quite well.

SELF PAST – Well, since I am waiting for something better, after all, I don't wish one day of my life back.

SELF WAR – I knew a young girl who wore these wonderful patent leather shoes. She showed them to us one day. The next day she was dead. I went to the south cemetery to look for her coffin. Yes – 800 to 900 coffins were standing there. They were not even closed, only a cover on them. No names, nothing. I had a close friend and once I said to him, "I am anxious about how the war will turn out. It will have a bitter end." He said that if I said that again he would report me. And he was a close friend. Then, you are quiet, you don't say anything anymore. No one does. Then they said that the whole city was burning. I went outside and everything was on fire. I ran through the fire, for about 500 meters maybe. I headed home. There were mines and bombs which were not diffused. Everything was dark. I don't know how I made it home in one hour. It was like this every day. No rest at night. Shortly after lying down to sleep, the sirens went off, and everybody rushed into the basement with just a few possessions. It was like this for years.

SELF PRESENT – The world, for me, is a madhouse, and one day it will vanish because you can't continue this way. On the one hand, peace movements – on the other, the arms race, the atomic bomb, and the population explosion.

SELF FUTURE – Bad. Yes. Because of the arms race. If people would turn toward peace, it would be different.

ABOUT JEWS – The Jews, the Jews. If you let them become big, they attract all the capital, all the money. If you allowed them to do everything their way, then they would have had all the money in their hands. Do you believe that the persecution of the Jews was without a reason? It was an implement of God too. You see, for example, when we applied for a job somewhere, it was with Jews. When a maid got a position in Nuremberg or elsewhere, she got it with Jews. The Jewish women did not do anything. When there was a "coffeeklatsch" (somebody just said it recently on the radio), there were only Jewish women. All the others had to work.

ABOUT NAZIS – It was the work of the devil. We recognized that the devil was loose, you know, to put the world on trial. You see, God is almighty. After 12 years, the ghost was gone. Thus, in my opinion – I don't know if you understand anything about it – but in the Catholic belief, they are possessed people, you know. And Hitler was possessed.