Oral History

Hana Mueller Bruml describes an encounter with a non-Jewish friend in Prague

In 1942, Hana was confined with other Jews to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she worked as a nurse. There, amid epidemics and poverty, residents held operas, debates, and poetry readings. In 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz. After a month there, she was sent to Sackisch, a Gross-Rosen subcamp, where she made airplane parts at forced labor. She was liberated in May 1945.


During that time things were getting worse in terms of um getting supplies, buying food, working, going places. I remember going on the street and meeting one of my school friends. Of course, by that time I had the star. And as we came closer to each other, we walked slower and slower, thinking, "Should I stop? Should I talk? Who was it worse for, her, is it worse for me? What should we go and do and stuff?" So...And so we slowly came together, looked at each other, winked at each other, and passed again. It, it was that sort of a situation. You had to think, "Wait a minute. Is today Saturday? Saturday, I cannot go this place. Friday, I cannot get that place." Because the restrictions were getting tighter and tighter. So it was a difficult time.


  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
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