Sophie Rosenthal

Well, in order for us to cook, we had to use the stove, there was no gas or anything like that. Now, if the smoke would come out of the house that we were in, then they would know somebody is there. So they diverted it to another house. There weren’t that many bunkers, it’s not that you did it on the expense of somebody else. The only two ones that I knew were the ones that the house that we lived in.

“...[talking about her father] He was a very… a rare individual, very capable to just… build a bunker by itself and have the electricity coming from the German border, had this… smoke coming out to another house.

Interviewer: could you explain that? About the electricity?

Sophie: well, in order for us to cook, we had to use the stove, there was no gas or anything like that. Now, if the smoke would come out of the house that we were in, then they would know somebody is there. So they diverted it to another house. There weren’t that many bunkers, it’s not that you did it on the expense of somebody else. The only two ones that I knew were the ones that the house that we lived in.

Interviewer: and the electricity came from…?

Sophie: The electricity came from the German border, you know, the border of the ghetto, from the wire, barbed wires. That’s where it came from because they always had it [...]”

“[...] Somebody escaped on the train from Treblinka. And he came back. And word got around very quickly. Because they took out so many people, nobody ever returned. So, if you take people to work, they eventually come home. But they never came back. Somebody escaped on the train, came back to Warsaw. And they knew about it. That’s when they [...] building the bunker. Hide out as many people as you could. And you were afraid to have other people, because you didn’t know who was who. It must have been about at least 35-40 people in the bunker. And then another one in our house, too. On the other side. It was a very big house. Are you familiar with [...] high school? Where they have the big court? The house was all around. So there was another one, and we knew them, we knew the people, because it was in the same house.

Interviewer: And you had food and water?

Sophie: As little food as there was. Water, yes. Everything else we had. Everything else we had.

Interviewer: What do you remember about being in the bunker?

Sophie: [takes a deep breath] cold. damp. people being upset, people being nervous, other people screaming. There were too many people in too little space. Umm... trying, trying to be as quiet as you could, at that time. Making yourself (??) so you shouldn’t be in somebody else’s way. If you had a book you were lucky, if not you would just… vegetating there. I wasn’t really alive, I wasn’t alive. Not in the sense that you know life, not at all.

Interviewer: Were you afraid?

Sophie: of course. Of course, we were afraid. We were afraid every minute of the day. I remembering two days before they took us out, it was the second day of Passover [...]”

Interviewer: What do you remember about being in the bunker?

Sophie: [takes a deep breath] cold. damp. people being upset, people being nervous, other people screaming. There were too many people in too little space. Umm... trying, trying to be as quiet as you could, at that time. Making yourself (??) so you shouldn’t be in somebody else’s way. If you had a book you were lucky, if not you would just… vegetating there. I wasn’t really alive, I wasn’t alive. Not in the sense that you know life, not at all.