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.

Breaking The Rules by Ruth Wind