IV: Es ist Samstag, der 20. Juli 2013, wir sind im Moment in Weiden in der Oberpfalz im Hotel Admira.
Mein Name ist Michael Aue von der Medienwerkstatt Franken
und wir führen jetzt ein Gespräch mit Ruth Kogut,
die in den USA heute lebt, die am 07.09.1928 in Polen als Tochter einer jüdischen Familie geboren wurde
und später in einem Dresdner Außenlager ah inhaftiert war.
So if we are talking now, it's not only about the time in the camp.
We are also interested a little bit ah where you are born, how you grown up,
about your family, ah sorry,
RK: And my..
IV: Sorry, can we start again?
RK: I was born in Lodz, my mother's family all my, all her sisters and brothers they were ten kids,
they all live in the same city, ah I started school, when I was five or six I don't remember {laughing}.
I remember that in 1939 I had the normal life, family life, very close to my grandfather,
very close and he had lots of grandchildren, I was his favorite {laughing}.
Ah I remember coming back 1939, we went away, always went away to the country for fresh air for the kids,
the kids should have not in the city, should be summertime in the country and people were talking about war,
coming war and everybody says: "No, it's not going to happen. It's absolut not gonna happen."
It happened, we came back in 1939 I was ten going on eleven, on my birthday,
which is September 7th, the Germans were there already {breathing}.
And my life changed for, for not for the better {laughing}, not for the better {laughing}.
Ah I think my father ran away, because I don't know why, all the men ran away from Lodz
which is, was the best city, because it was called Litzmannstadt and belonged to the German..
And he went to Warsaw and was, the Warsaw was bombed completely, most of the men, were, ran away to Russia.
My father said, "I am not going to Russia, I have a family home, that I am going back to Lodz."
So he came back to Lodz about, I don't know how many months later, we had to give all the radios away,
bring it to a certain, telephone, you are not allowed to have telephone.
My whole life changed completely, changed and we were told to leave our apartments, go to the ghetto,
find a place to live, luckily, {breathing} my mother had a sister living in that area
and she took us in, she took my, my grandparents in
and she took my father and me and my mother, she gave us the kitchen to live in.
My grandparents had the bedroom and my aunt and her family had the rest of the apartment.
{Coughing} And they told, everybody has to go to work, if you don't go to work, you don't get food.
We used to go to a place get food for whole month and live on it made su.., my mother made sure that we have enough for the month, we,
she made rations for every day, little bit, eat a little bit,
so we have enough for food.
My father, well I don't remember when he started working, but after a, yeah, I worked,
I was then, in 1941, I remember I was twelve, thirteen and I had to work and I worked in the Schwachstrom bei Maika.
I had to do Maika, you know that, how you do, I don't know how you call it.
Maika has layers and you have to, to separate layers, ah whatever
ah that, that ah, that resort closed.
They sent me to Sattler resort.
I was sitting on a horse sewing heavy leather, with a special two needles going in and out, I was, that closed,
now they have to find me another job, found me a job in a taylor shop,
taylor shop and I did not like taylor shop, because the people, they were talking nasty, they were not nice people,
low class people and every time I went home, I was crying: "I don't wanna work there, I don't wonna work there."
But my father worked in a Metall resort {breathing}, he was a Meister there.
Pepek's father, Pepek, you know Pepek Salomonovic?
And, and Misha, worked in the same place, his father was an engineer.
And we still live in the kitchen, I don't know where Pepek lived, but my father found a place above the kitchen
that was empty and he asked somebody could he use that place, he built two apartments,
one for Misha and his, his parents, and I lived next door.
So Misha was, ah Pepek was then five and I was, I was fifteen already {laughing}.
So we had a place to live, we went out of the kitchen, everything was ok
and life was to me, I was a young child, and I was,
I was with my parents and I was well taken care of,
I did not, didn't realize how bad it could get.
It was like a normal life in the ghetto, we couldn't get out from the ghetto,
we didn't wanna go out of the ghetto {breathing}.
Ah I worked, I was hungry, all the time I was hungry {breathing}.
And then 19.., everything was actually alive and the ghetto was ah more or less..., we had, we had the calls to go out for the Appell
and they took away lot of people from,
of to, to camps, but I had a cousin that, that,
I don't know what he was tracking for somebody and he knew exactly when they're coming,
so he told us to, to hide.
So we hid a few times and we were saved.
{Breathing} Then came closing of the ghetto, {breathing} and my mother, I lived by my mother's mantra,
she was always saying "tomorrow will be better."
And my whole life is {breathing} {crying} tomorrow will be better.
Always tomorrow will be better, that's my life, tomorrow will be better.
It was better, took a long while, got better, but this is my mantra,
that's how I lived: "Tomorrow will, will be better." {laughing} Thank you {breathing}.
And we were in Metall resort too and they kept the whole group, for,
we knew that we were going to, to a factory, work in a factory, they gave us overalls, navy blue, beautiful new overalls,
we put on the overalls and the group was with children, that younger than I am {coughing}.
Pepek was five, six, there was still a younger child there.
So we were lucky, we were, our husbands, brothers or whoever, we saw every day {breathing} under the, ah, the barbed wires.
Every morning I saw my father.
Ah, we had a, we had ah brand new barrack when we came from Lodz, brand new
and the shavings were still on the floor and we had showers and everybody from my city,
the whole group was still very clean, we used to go..., cold water, cold water.
What was, September? September.
Ah, we went and we showered, we cleaned up.
Ah the women still had their period, they used the shavings,
but and then they gave us something in coffee or whatever that, that stopped the menstruation.
IV: But you didn't know that at this time?
RK: No, we didn't, I just stopped, it stopped.
Ah we had a long, long barrack and everybody slept on the floor
and we, then they send us a group Hungarian peo.., women from, group from, they were longer in the concentration camp,
they had lice, they had lice.
And ah that spread all over the place.
So we had lice.
That way the funny thing is, we used to, four o' clock in the morning they, they had Appell, yes?
And we had to go, because they had to count, if any, anybody is missing, maybe somebody ran away {breathing}.
And we waited at four o'clock in the morning the stars was still out
and we waited for the Commandant to come and count us, count us.
Okay, so came maybe two hours later after we stood, cold, rain, whatever it was,
I, for me it was like a, I don't know what it was, I had my mother, I was fine.
I was absolutely fine.
And then, we went for breakfast. Breakfast, we had sli.., a big slice of bread, this thick, coffee {breathing}
and we, nobody worked in that, in that camp, that we just waited for the factory to be ready to go to the factory.
IV: And may I just interrrupt you?
This camp was still close to Lodz? Or..?
RK: No, no, because we were, Stutthof is on the Baltic Sea.
IV: Ah this was Stutthof, we are talking about?
RK: Stutthof, yeah.
IV: Maybe you can also tell how did you get there?
RK: By train.
IV: By train.
RK: Yeah, from, from, from, Birkenau.
We were in Birkenau the short while, just a short while.
They shaved my hair, they didn't shave my mother's, because there came an order, this group is not to have their hair shaved.
But I, I was first in the line, they shaved my hair.
That's so funny that you are asking me, because ah I didn't know how I look, when they took out, took me to the showers,
there was a window that was half, and I could see myself, but I didn't know how I look like,
so I had to wave my hand and I said: "Oh, what a nice bold hair" {laughing}.
Then we saw, we went out of the shower, we met our, my father and my father was crying,
he said: "Now, now I have a little boy." {laughing}
I guess he always wanted a little boy {laughing}.
Well, that was ah, then they took us, we stayed two weeks, because I told you, the
new barracks so they probably were not ready for us, so we stayed there.
But the funny thing is, that after we had our coffee, {breathing}
we were talking about what we gonna do after the war.
Okay, but, also we had to take of our clothing to, to kill the lice,
which was funny, because we talking about what we gonna eat after the war and how much food we gonna have
and new clothing that, my mother was always ah, a positive lady.
She wa.., everything was positive, tomorrow will be better.
That was the mantra she was telling me and that told, the whole group that was sitting near us. {breathing}
The problem was that some people were very hungry, more than others
and I think they probably ate some gras or whatever, so they had diarrhea.
We all slept on the floor, we had that long walk to come in, go to the showers, to the bathrooms.
But at night, we had to use that to sleep on, we had sick women, with diarrhea, going to the,
to the women's and messing up everybody with their diarrhea.
That was awful.
Then we have a Ukraine ah woman from Ukraine, that was a mad woman, she used to go with her belt with the buckle out
and hit everybody, she said: "Guilty or not guilty."
And hit everybody, just like that {laughing}, guilty, not guilty.
She, one day she caught me, I, I didn't see my father one day.
And I asked somebody: "Did you see my father? Is he okay?"
And she caught me talking to him, she took me to her room and she beat me up with that buckle,
because I dared to ask for my father {breathing}.
{Laughing} There was..., also for, for lunch we got the soup, a soup,
so with the soup, there was a problem, big problem we had with the soup.
We didn't know should we stay first in the line, maybe the soup will be too watery,
if you.., maybe in the middle will be just right {laughing}.
Maybe at the end will be nothing or very thick, that was the dilemma of the camp, okay?
Sometimes, there wa.., there was ah soup left over so that all the children come and get more soup,
but not through the door, you have to go through the window.
I said: "I'm not going through the window."
I said: "I cannot go through the door, I don't go through the window." {laughing}
And I was hungry, okay.
It was below me, I thought going through the window.
And I didn't, my mother was angry with me, because she felt I need that extra soup.
But she always, you know, we always managed to save one of, she had one bread
and we took one bread that we have extra to, to throw over the barbed wires to my father,
so he should have more.
But nobody caught us there, really, nobody.
Ah, I don't remember how long we stayed there, then we finally, finally we got to Dresden,
got to Dresden and they took us to En.., Entlausung place.
They really killed everything, everything, they gave us everything brand new, new clothes and we went to the factory.
Factory was really much better than the concentration camp.
We had bunk beds, but we had to share one, one bed, bunk bed, was very narrow,
two people, so my, my, my mother and I decided {coughing} she should take the day, day time, work day time
and I work night time, so we had the bed.
And we had Luftwaffe, Luftwaffe was taken care of us, not Nazi.
And we had one commander that used to, every morning he would come and say: "Good morning Damen und Herren." {laughing}
And was, was really, was decent, every, every Sunday we had an outing,
there was a little courtyard and I, I was able to see my father in the courtyard
and ah my father looked like a bum on the Bowery.
He had a beret and he had an old coat and he was wearing a manaszka
that, that, the thing where we had the soup in, and he was talking to me:
"You know, after the war," he said to me "I'm gonna buy a car."
A car?
Talking about a car {laughing}?
And after, after we left, I said to my mother: "Do you think my fa.., dad is okay?
Is he a little bit off?"
"No", she said, "he meant it.
He's going to buy a car."
And he really, he did buy a car after the war.
The first thing he did, was buy the Opel I told you about in the car. {Breathing}
So I consider my life ah tragic, but also very lucky.
I was with my parents, I remained with my parents and I still live with: "Tomorrow will be better."
So anything that bad happened to me, I said it's temporary and tomorrow will be better.
IV: But you should have been very strong, just to believe in this mantra and..
RK: {Breathing} Yes, and, and now I also, if something goes wrong, I said: "Well, tomorrow'll be better."
But it's, it's getting short and there will be no tomorrow, not too many tomorrows to be better.
But, was for me, {breathing} I was very lucky considering my Schicksal, it was fantastic.
I don't know, if it was God or my destiny or whatever.
IV: So, can you remember how long you did stay in Dresden?
RK: Which, did you, how long what?
IV: How long you've been staying in Dresden in the camp?
RK: I, I was ah, all together I was nine months between ah, ah between Auschwitz and Stutthof and Dresden.
Then when Dresden was bombed, terribly bombed
we, they took us to a little camp near by Pirna, was it Pirna?
I'm not, don't know, miserable camp, it was so bad, that again they gave us lice,
and not only lice, but lice in, in your.., that's different,
was awful, was, that was the worst thing, that we ever had and ah then we had to go again to Entlausung,
we worked a little bit, we went back to the factory a little bit and then, when the Russians came close,
the Germans were running away with us.
And they took us on the march, we marched, I think we stopped nearby Flossenbürg, probably.
And we slept on the ground, was I think was March, was still freezing.
Remember my, my eyebrows were icy, when I woke up, because we slept on the ground.
And I probably there was not, no room anymore in Flossenbürg, so they took us with, took us as far as ah Theresienstadt {breathing}
and many people died on the way.
So that's ah, that's I, anything else you would you like to know?
IV: So, what about your grandparents?
Just have you been..
RK: Oh, my grandparents, my fa.., my grandfather, I slept with him every night
and one night, I, I woke up and I see they are covering the mirrow
and I couldn't understand why they are covering the mirrow,
I didn't realize that Jewish people, when someone dies, they have to cover the mirrow,
I don't know why and I didn't know that.
So, I woke up middle of the night and then I saw that my grandfather died,
my grandmother died before that.
She died of hunger.
IV: And your grandfather was sick or also..?
RK: My grandfather he died in 1943, he died.
IV: And do you remember what kind of work did you do in Dresden in the factory?
You, your mother, your father?
RK: I used that, a machine, well the machine was going by itself.
We, we made ah those big ah, I don't know what you call them, bombs,
but they were not bombs for, for, no but this big on, on I, I was working on,
what, what do you call it?
I don't know what you call it, the machine..
IV: Granaten, vielleicht waren es Granaten?
RK: Yes, I was just watching it, when, I knew when to stop it, when to start and ah what part to do
and I worked, yes {breathing}. We had a woman there, there was.., in the group,
that was pregnant and she gave birth to a baby there.
And they let the baby live.
IV: And the baby survived?
RK: Yes, they, they went to Israel, they went to Israel.
IV: So and how, how the people ah treated you there in the camp?
So, there were femal, female officers or male ones, soldiers they?
RK: I, besides telling us to go out four o'clock in the morning, they didn't bother much,
ah just the woman, that, that was taking care of us in the barracks, she was miserable,
she was just a, just walking around, guilty or not guilty?
Winna, czy nie winna? {speaking Polish}
That's all what she was saying and hitting everybody with the buckle, with the buckle.
{Breathing} Then I met my husband there in a Dresd.., in Theresienstadt, I met my husband and he had Typhoid,
so I, I didn't know him, because he was from Warsaw and he was about six year older than I was.
And that was a big difference then, and I was age 16, he was already 22.
And when they, they closed Theresienstadt, they took us on a train and we.., supposedly we go to Israel.
We're going to Israel, okay, go to Israel, but to go to Israel, we had to go first to Italy,
stay in the camp in Italy, wait to go to Cyprus, Cyprus to go to Israel.
Well, we come to Austria and there is an order, "there is no room for you in Italy", going back to Germany,
put us in, in Schellenburg, no in ah, now I ah Landsberg, Landsberg {laughing},
Schellenberg was where the Hotel was.
Landsberg am Lech and..
IV: It was a kind of DP-camp or?
RK: Yeah, it's a DP-camp open, but free, you could co.., come and go,
but they kept us together and my mot.., my mother took care of my husband then,
because he was still very sick.
And he left early, he had family in the United States,
and he was writing to my mother, he was very close with my mother.
And she wrote a letter to him I think, we have to go to Israel, we have no place else to go.
He says: "No, don't go to Israel." He sent the letter back, "don't go to Israel, because it's bad there,
you cannot get a job, there're no apartments available.
I'll ask my", he said, "I'll ask my uncle, he'll sent papers for you."
That's what happened, he sent papers and we came and I married him {laughing}.
IV: What year?
RK: 1950..
IV: Maybe you tell just a little bit more, how you get to the States?
RK: 1950.
IV: 1950.
RK: I came on a, on the boat, called General Hahn and this so just so happened,
like my name Kogut means rooster, rooster, a rooster what is a "Hahn" in German, yes?
I came on a Hahn to marry a Hahn.
IV: {laughing} And your parents?
RK: My par.., yes, they were with me all the time.
And they died in 1990, nine months, nine months later, first my mother died, then nine months later my father died.
They couldn't live without each other.
But my mother kept everybody on the up {breathing}, everything was
"Tomorrow will be better, tomorrow will be better."
I used to ask her in, in Stutthof...
I said: "When the war is over, how many rols you gonna give me for breakfast?"
So she was say: "Well, I give you one."
I said: "One? I need four."
You know what, after the, after the war was over, I was never hungry anymore.
There was food, that was enough for me.
And some people ate too much and they got s.., very sick.
I stop eating: "Oh, there is enough food, wonderful, I don't need too much food."
But I was bargaining with her, that "no, I don't want one role,
I need at least four," I said to her. {breathing}
IV: Going back in the, your thoughts to this time, what do you think,
what was the most terrible, the hardest thing, you had to go through?
During this last two, three years?
RK: The hardest thing was really that little, that little camp that I went to,
because we put us to sleep in a silo, that we had to crawl into, and I thought that was the gas chamber.
And I thought we'll never crawl out of there and that was such a miserable place.
That was like the most miserable place I was ever in.
That was, I think, that was the hard, and, and I, I didn't, I took everything like for granted,
as has to be like this, has to be like this.
And since I was with my mother that was so wonderful.
I, I she, I knew she is gonna take care of me.
And my father I saw every day, every day or every Sunday in the, in the, in, in, in Dresden {breathing}.
IV: And did you know anything about ah the existence of gas chambers?
RK: Oh, yes, oh, I, we, we heard it in the ghetto and nobody believed it, ach,
because I think they sent us some people from, from a concentration camp, I don't know how.
They were behind some place, not in the ghetto, but some place behind and they were telling us stories
and we thought they were cra.., absolutely crazy.
And I couldn't, we couldn't believe it there is no such a thing,
there is no such a thing as concentration camp, not, not, in the ghetto nobody believed.
But then in 1939 nobody believed there is gonna be a war.
There was a war and my city wasn't bombed, because it was Litzmannstadt, it was German. {Breathing}
So that was really, the, the worst, the worst point and I was just lucky that I, we had a group
that they kept together with children, with wives and that was, that was very unusual, very unusual.
So, God was good to me or whatever was good to me, whatever God or,
or destiny or whatever you call it.
IV: And af.., after starting this new life in the US,
ah did you think a lot of those things of the five past year?
RK: No, I, I never, I never went, I, I wanted to I, I not that I wanted to forget,
but I didn't delve on it, I just didn't, I just, it's a new life.
I'm not gonna live with the past, I'm gonna live with the future.
But my husband, my husband was constantly thinking and,
and reading and everything back..
I said: "Don't do that, don't do it to yourself, you make yourself miserable.
Live with, with your future, not with the past.
No, no I, I didn't wanna go to the past, I wanted to go
and have ah forget, no that I wanted to forget,
or was ashamed to tell anybody I was in concen..,
I just figured I have a new life, I was 21 when I came to this country.
I wanted to have, have a brand new life.
Because my mother said: "Tomorrow'll be better."
And that was better.
So that's how I live, tomorrow will be better.
IV: That's a good mantra.
And I think ah it also fits with the United States.
RK: Yes.
IV: So I think that's..
RK: A wonderful country, absolutely the best country there is.
IV: So, you told me driving here with the car, your husband started to hold lectures
and talk about this and teach children about this, his past and what he..
RK: My, my, my husband, yes, yes, he was..
IV: Maybe you tell a little bit about him..?
RK: Ah, I'd, he was, I know that he went to school and the kids loved every story he tell them,
every and they would send him "Thank You" letters, wrote letters to him and he loved to talk about it.
He would really, lived with his past.
And also he, he painted, he was a painter, he liked to copy all the good artists,
we are, had, there was not one room, not, no room in my house that a painting wasn't hanging,
so he went through a lot, he, my husband went through a lot.
I was the lucky one.
He had a miserable life.
He was in the Warsaw ghetto, he was in the, helping the Uprising, he ran out from, from a train
train to Treblinka, which was, you didn't come out of that camp,
that was a death camp, he managed to run out fro.., you know through the old little window and ah...
yeah, he ran, he hadn't, he ran away.
And he went back to Warsaw.
My, is my ah interview a little too short?
IV: Everyone is telling the story he wants to tell.
RK: Ah just that I, I, I like to remember good, good stuff.
But I know that the camp that I, we had to go, because after the, after the bombing in Dresden,
that was the most horrible experience in my whole life.
That was absolutely, {breathing} I don't even wanna think about that silo that I have to crawl into,
that was and all the people filthy, filthy, miserable {breathing} what that was absolutely,
because they kept us nice, they kept us, because they wanted men to work in that Metallfabrik.
IV: There are things ah as a child or a young woman seeing also a lot of people dying every day,
I think that was a experience..
RK: Oh yes, yes they died, they died of different sicknesses I don't know, I told you about the women that had diarrhea
that died of the diarrhea that, that, that was, that was bad, that was...
But, you know, I just at, I always thought about the good points not, not the miserable parts.
IV: So, optimistic kind of.
RK: Mh, yeah.
IV: Optimistic..
RK: Well, my, my mother I take after my mother and she was optimistic, she was..
She was ah, constantly, constantly telling everybody, "Don't worry, tomorrow, tomorrow." {laughing}, it was always a tomorrow.
IV: And then ah you got children in the United States?
RK: Oh, yes, yes.
IV: Can you just tell a little bit?
RK: I have, I have, I have ah I have a son and a daughter and they gave me grandchildren,
I have ah {breathing} I, my daughter gave me a, son also, a grandson and a granddaughter
and they in turn gave me some great-grandchildren, so I have three great-grandchildren,
the oldest is seven, he is a boy, a little genius boy {laughing}, absolutely genius {laughing}.
And a little girl that's ah four and now my granddaughter has a little girl,
she is two, so I have three great-grandchildren and they, they doing, all doing well,
they absolutely doing well, they, they thrive in the United States.
Because if it wasn't for the war, I would still be with, with the Polish people that hated the Jews
constantly reminded us we should leave ah {breathing}..
IV: You, you really can remember this, how the Polish people treat you, maybe you just talk a little bit about this.
RK: That was unbelievable how they hated the Jews, they had signs on the wall,
we should leave {breathing}, we should leave, but there then they had signs:
"You Jews leave, but leave the beautiful Jewish women here." {laughing}
Signs, stupid signs, stupid signs, hateful.
Ah, we had public schools and before the war, public schools,
but they, they separated we, we went to a public school for Jewish children,
not Catholic children that mix with Jewish children.
And I think it was ah the priest, the church that taught them how to hate the Jews.
Because naturally the Jews killed Jesus and the Jews killed the Christian children,
because they needed blood for the Matze to make Matze with the blood.
And blo.., blood is hateful for the Jews that's when we, they make kosher meat,
they make sure that the blood runs out, that's why they make it kosher that the salt makes the blood run out.
So there was all and those, all the lies where done by I im.., I imagine.
I would say that done by priests, the church did that, taught them how to hate the Jew, I don't know,
Hitler managed to tell everybody to kill the Jew.
And the German people were very good to the Jewish people they, we, they were allowed to go to University,
they were well educated till Hitler came and Poland was not, you couldn't go to University,
you had to go out of, to Austria, to France, to Germany, if you wanted to be educated that's where you had to go.
Jew had no, no reason to be in University, they were ha.., hateful people,
they still are, they still are, they may be a little quiet about it,
but inwardly they really they hate, well everybody else hates, hates the Jews, so {laughing}.
But we managed to survive, we managed to survive.
IV: And in the United States today how do you feel?
RK: There is some, there is some people, I might, I don't know, but they, but they're not vocal about it,
so it's not, they keep it to themselves.
IV: And so you can feel fine?
RK: I had no problem being Jewish there at all, no, no.
Well I lived in a community on the ocean where we had Italian and Irish and Jewish
and ah all different nationalities, we lived in harmony.
Oh by the way, I forgot to tell you, that we had a storm in 1912 {means: 2012} called Sandy,
ah which broke my house, my house was destroyed by the storm, I lived right on top of the beach.
And my whole living room wall was brick and glass, the whole stretch and it, the wall,
the, the sea wall broke into my house and broke the whole, all the windows and all the walls to my living room,
but every, everything else and I was there, I was in the house while it happened.
Some people, my neighbours broke the kitchen window, came upstairs to the bedroom,
I was in the bedroom, I didn't think it was so terrible {laughing}.
And they took me out, they took me out from the house.
So I survived something else and it, it, before that my husband died, he had a car accident.
I was sick for three month after that car accident and he died, it was another "Tomorrow will be better".
And that's how I live, tomorrow will be better.
IV: Yeah, so, I hope you can say this mantra many years more, many more years, every day new.
RK: Thank you.
IV: Thank you for giving us the interview.
RK: Thank you.
IV: It was great meeting you, thank you.