Displaced Persons Camp

I don’t know if you know, but Majdanek was one of the first camps that was established near Lublin. It was a ‘Final Solution’ camp. They had all the crematoria & everything… The Americans did this unbelievable thing. They took us to a place called Bad Gastein, in Austria, right at the border with Italy. The American Army rented out all the hotels & put us in the hotel, which meant that we didn’t live under tents. We actually lived in - in rooms. Teachers came to teach us Hebrew, to prepare us to go to Palestine. We had food…not wonderful food, but we had food. We had heating. Marvellous. So the place was beautiful. I can’t tell you how lovely Bad Gastein is if you don’t know it. Absolutely beautiful. In the summer it’s high mountains but it’s green. The houses are magnificent. It’s a spa place. In the winter it got all magic—covered with snow. Icicles hanging everywhere, beautiful. After 4 years in the camp it must have just looked magnificent. The American Army would come into the town & see us, & give us things: chewing gum, tinned milk. They'd also give a little bit of money. My mother bought a little bit of material & made clothes for me. In fact she kept two of the coins, the dollars, in her wallet for a worse day. A day she really will need it. She never spent them. We—I’ve still got them.