Ruth Elias: Self

Quotes 

• Ruth Elias : I tell you something. People in misery - are - acting like animals. That is the instinct. And, one of the instincts, in me, was food. To hold yourself up is only possible when you will be eating.

• Ruth Elias : I can tell you that when women came together and started to talk, we were cooking. You know. We were cooking - with our mouth. Because, you had nothing to cook. But, you started to talk about how to cook this and how to cook that. And you were talking about food; because, this was the main problem. To survive. To eat. To have strengths.

• Ruth Elias : First of all, your personality breaks. First of all. Yes and the disappointment in living. And then all these thoughts, "What I'm living for?" "Why I'm living for?" And the moment your losing the will of life.

  Self - Interviewer : On the whole.

  Ruth Elias : Yes. People are dying. If they are 40, if they are 20, or if they are 70. If you have not any prospective in front of you, you can't go on. When your spirit dies, you die. And this was what happened. Why so many died.

• Ruth Elias : She had a cover and I got a cover. So, we made in the evenings our bed. A cover without any mattresses on the wood. With the second cover, we both of us covered ourselves up. And with our very thin clothes, we put on the cover and on we went with our bodies, one to the other, because it was Winter. It was January and February and March, in Auschwitz. And it was not heated. It was *awfully* cold. Without stockings. Without underwear. In these very thin clothes. Without food.

• Ruth Elias : It very often happened that the drunk SS in the evenings came into Block Number 6. First of all, they were woke up the music orchestra. The music had to play. In came the SS with the bicycles. And then they started to climb up and to look for women, for nice women, to take them out. And the girls had to sleep with them. I was living in the third floor. And when we saw the SS coming, so we just went to the wall, because, we didn't want them to see us. We were all afraid of it. The girls were screaming. It was terrible. It was terrible. So, we lived.

• Ruth Elias : How can I get out of Auschwitz?

• Ruth Elias : It was Summer '43, he was privileged to get a little room for us and we could live together... And that was a very big privilege, but, we didn't live only he and me, but, two couples, we are living together, in this same room. So, of course, we had very strict arrangements during the day, every one of us was working and he was allowed to enter or not to enter the room during the day, yes. So, that I started to have some - some married life with my husband, what we didn't have before then. It was - we met sometimes somewhere in a very dark corner; but, that was all. And it was just Summer. And, one day I saw I'm pregnant.

• Ruth Elias : We had to get rid of our clothes. And Mengele was there. And some other SS people. And I saw from far that women, all naked, are going between two SS and there Mengele stands making right, left, right, left. And with his hand he waved. I didn't know this, either life, death, life, death. It's very easy.

• Ruth Elias : I was not glad. I had no joy. I was broken. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to leave. I didn't know what I wanted. I was, I think so, apathetic. Nothing was for me. No joy in the world.

• Ruth Elias : I told her, I'm going tomorrow, Mengele's coming to fetch me. And she told, I must do something for you. She came back, half an hour later. with an injection needle. And she told me, give this to your child. I asked her, what is it? And she told me, morphium. I told her, "Look, how can I give this to my child? How can I be the murderer of my child?" She told me, "I've made an Oath to Hippocrates and I must save lives. You are young. And I must save your life. The child can't live. Look at it shine. Look how its looking. But, you're young and I must save you. And you will give this to your child because I can't." I didn't wanted to. But, she started to talk to me - into me. And the more she talked, the less I had any - I didn't have...

  Self - Interviewer : Resistance.

  Ruth Elias : Resistance. Until I made it. I gived the injection to my child. She took the injection needle away and the child started to die, near me. I took, perhaps one hour, perhaps two hours, I don't know.

• Ruth Elias : The pains went stronger and stronger. And I gave birth this night to a beautiful girl. Very big.

• Ruth Elias : In the morning, Mengele came - and told this woman you have to put a bandage over her breasts. She mustn't feed the baby. I want to see how long can a baby live without food. And my breasts were bound. And the baby was near me crying. It was hungry. And I got the soup and I took off a little piece of the linen and took a little piece of bread, put it into the soup, put it into the linen into the mouth of my child. Because, it was hungry. And this went on for several days. I got high temperature running. Because I was swollen with milk and I couldn't breastfeed my baby. Every day Mengele came - to see - and to make his research: how long can a baby live without food.

• Ruth Elias : He came each day. A very charming man. And he talked several words with us. About - I don't know which things, but, how you feeling, what you doing, and so on.

  Self - Interviewer : How was he? I heard he was a handsome man.

  Ruth Elias : He was attractive. Very charming. *Very* good manners.

  Self - Interviewer : He was tall? He was small?

  Ruth Elias : Oh, he was - middle size. He was not tall. He was not small. But, he made a very good impression. And in his uniform and he was very self conscious. He was very secure.

  Self - Interviewer : He was young?

  Ruth Elias : He was young.

  Self - Interviewer : Young.

  Ruth Elias : Yes. And, of course, we heard Mengele and we where afraid. We were very afraid of him. My tongue was somehow stiff and I only answered on his questions. He came every day.

• Ruth Elias : I came to Czechoslovakia and I started to look and I started to go where ever we decided to meet after the war. Not a single soul. Not a single soul. And I started to be desperate and I started to look and not a single soul. And I started to alone, alone, alone, alone. Until, so alone, I went into a depression. And I had to be transported to a sanitarium. And I didn't wanted to live. This broke me.

  Self - Interviewer : Everybody died.

  Ruth Elias : Everybody. *Nobody* from my father's 13 sisters - sisters and brothers with their children, with their wives. Only one aunt, she lived in Palestine, survived. The whole family went and - I - was - alone.

• Ruth Elias : I could never talk about it in the beginning. People didn't understand us. And we closed ourselves up; because, nobody could understand. And plenty of people committed suicide; because, there were no doctors and nobody could understand them.

• Ruth Elias : Why was the Holocaust? Why six million had to leave? To give their lives? Because no country in the whole world gave us a hand to help.

• Ruth Elias : Because nobody gave us a hand, a help, therefore six million had to go, it was very easy in the UN to raise the hand to vote for Israel. Should they have helped us, not the six million to be here, but, we have now our home. Our Israel. And for this Israel, I will fight. We will fight. And my children will fight. Because we need to have a land where we can live as Jews - and nobody tells us, "Bloody Jew."