Ruth Elias

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Ruth Elias (born on October 6, 1922 in Mährisch-Ostrau as Ruth Huppert ; died on October 11, 2008 in Beit Yitzhak-Sha'ar Hefer, Israel) was a survivor of the Shoah . After the German annexation of Czechoslovakia , she was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and then to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943, where she survived Josef Mengele's experiments . She later went to Israel where she wrote her memoir. The title is in German "Hope kept me alive". Ruth Elias had lived in Israel since 1949.

Shalom , greeting of peace, and signature of Ruth Elias, title page of: Hope kept me alive. Munich, Zurich 1988.

Life

Ruth Elias was born in 1922 as the daughter of a wealthy sausage manufacturer in Mährisch-Ostrau. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 and 16 March 1939, she worked with her family for three years as a day laborer with forged documents at farmers denounced until April 4, 1942 and in the Theresienstadt concentration camp deported were. There she met her friend Gorni again and married him.

In the winter of 1943 Ruth found out that she was pregnant and shortly afterwards she was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. With a selection in June 1944, they "do not work a usable form" escaped the rejection as. Ruth Elias says that she succeeded in doing this by hiding behind two other, non-pregnant women. The affected concentration camp inmates should have walked naked between two SS men. She asked the other two women to stand in front of her. At the time, she was eight months pregnant. If she had been identified as pregnant, she suspected, this would have meant her death in the gas chambers . Due to the successful deception of the selector Mengele, instead of being sent to the gas chambers, she was sent to Hamburg as one of around 1000 women to do forced labor in order to clear the rubble of a bombed refinery there. She reports that the transport took place in cattle wagons. In Hamburg she was taken to the subcamp Hamburg-Dessauer Ufer (Hamburg-Veddel) of the Neuengamme concentration camp . There she was recognized as pregnant together with another pregnant woman, Berta Reich . Elias describes that the SS headquarters in Hamburg then ordered the deportation to the Ravensbrück concentration camp with a civilian train accompanied by SS men. She says that the two women came through Berlin during this trip and tried to escape by running up an escalator. But the prisoners' clothing and the screams of the SS men immediately betrayed them. At the top of the escalator, they were held by passers-by. In the Ravensbrück concentration camp both came to the infirmary and were later called together with about 20 other pregnant women. Ruth Elias then said to Berta Reich: "I say that we are sisters and that you are in pain so that I can stay with you." She did that too, whereupon the camp elder transferred both of them to the infirmary. The other women were taken away and are said to have been murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Ruth Elias goes on to describe that she and Berta Reich were revealed to be healthy after just one night in the infirmary of the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Then both were deported to Auschwitz with a midwife and an SS man. Both cut off the yellow Star of David and left only the red triangle (political prisoners) on their prisoner clothing. They were sent to the women's camp in Auschwitz. This meant hope to Ruth Elias. She said to Berta: "We will live!" In the women's camp they were the only ones who had ever come back from a transport from Auschwitz. They became a sensation, which is said to have drawn Mengele's attention to them. Ruth Elias goes on to report that Mengele had her called and got angry because he had overlooked her, and according to Elias said, “Where were you when I picked the people for the job?” Then he decided, “Give birth and then you will see. ”Elias goes on to report that he then came to the two women every day. He asked questions: “How do you feel?” And “What are you doing?” She goes on to describe that she was very afraid of the otherwise charming, attractive and very self-confident Mengele. She didn't utter a word and only answered his questions.

Ruth Elias finally goes into labor and gives birth to a “beautiful, very tall girl”. She reports that there was no cotton wool, no boiling water. She was lying in her own filth. A midwife got a sheet for the newborn. The morning after the birth, Mengele came and, according to Ruth Elias, said:

“This woman's breast has to be bandaged, she is not allowed to breastfeed the child. I want to find out how long a baby can live without food. "

- Josef Mengele : quoted after. Ruth Elias, Tel Aviv, 1979 in an interview with Claude Lanzmann

Ruth Elias further describes her memories of the following hours:

“So my breasts were bandaged and the baby next to me screamed with hunger while I was given soup. I took a small corner of the sheet, dipped a piece of bread in the soup and wrapped it in the sheet that I put in the child's mouth because he was hungry.

This went on for several days. I developed a high fever because my breasts were full of milk and I could not breastfeed the child. Mengele came daily to do his research: How long can a baby survive without food? Like I said, no diaper towels, it was awful. We were both lying in our own filth.

The baby got thinner and thinner, developed edema, a terrible sight. On the eighth day Mengele came and said: “Be ready with your child tomorrow morning at eight, I'll pick you up.” I knew that when he picks us up, he'll take us to the gas chamber. I didn't want to live anymore, I couldn't take it anymore. In a way, I was happy to escape this misery.

When the lights went out in the evening and it got dark, I knew this was my last night. My child couldn't cry anymore. It was terrible to hear his voice, which was just a sound. I started to cry because I knew that tomorrow I would die with my child. The lights went out and I started screaming because everything is even more terrible at night.

A doctor came and asked: “Why are you screaming like that?” I said: “I will die tomorrow.” “Oh, then you are the one who returned from Hamburg?” I replied: “Yes, I will be released tomorrow, Mengele will come to pick me up. "Then she said:" I will help you. "After half an hour she came back with a hypodermic needle and said:" Give this to your child! "I asked what it was and she said:" Morphine. ”I asked,“ How can I give this to my child? Should I murder my own child? ”She replied,“ I took the Hippocratic oath, you are young and I have to save your life. Your child will not survive, just look at it. But you are young and you must not die. Give this to your child! Because I'm not allowed to. ”I didn't want to. But she was talking to me. And the more she persuaded me, the less resistance I had. And so I did it, I gave my child the injection. She took the needle away and the child lay dying next to me. It might take an hour or two.

At daybreak the corpses were always collected in the infirmary. In Auschwitz there were tons of corpses every morning. They came and took my child with them too. They took it away. When Mengele arrived at eight o'clock, I was ready for the transport. He asked: “Where is the child?” I said: “It died tonight.” Mengele: “I want to see the corpse!” And with that he left. I was told he was looking for her but couldn't find the tiny body in the big pile. It was even for Dr. Mengele difficult.

When he came back, he said to me in German: “Have you had a pig, you will leave on the next transport!” Those were exactly his words, “Had a pig”. But "with the next transport you will go away". I wasn't happy. I couldn't be happy. I was broken and didn't want to live anymore. Or maybe. I didn't know what I wanted. I was so apathetic. Nothing could please me, nothing at all. "

- Ruth Elias : Tel Aviv, 1979 in an interview with Claude Lanzmann

Ruth Elias later looked for relatives in Czechoslovakia. She went to the agreed places, but found no one. All 13 of her father's siblings with the women and children were dead. There was only one aunt left, she lived in Palestine. Ruth Elias got deeply depressed because she felt alone. She didn't want to live anymore. She was helped in a clinic.

Ruth Elias had two sons with her husband Kurt Elias, whom she met in 1944 in the Taucha satellite camp and with whom she went from Prague to Israel in 1949.

documentation

Fonts

  • Hope kept me alive. My way from Theresienstadt and Auschwitz to Israel. Piper, Munich a. a. 1988, ISBN 3-492-03266-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b A visit to Ruth and Kurt Elias in Beth Jitzchak: When to speak, when to be silent , Deutschlandfunk Kultur 2007, January 12, 2018
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Claude Lanzmann : Auschwitz: Ruth Elias and the Hippocratic Oath , Youtube, arte.de, July 1, 2020
  3. ↑ Herskovits-Gutmann, Ruth: “Emigration not possible for the time being. the story of the Herskovits family from Hanover. "Göttingen, Wallenstein, 2002, p. 268 ( Google partial digitization )
  4. ↑ Ending the reunion , taz.de , taz. Am weekend, October 22, 1988, p. 8
  5. ↑ Heike Tauch: When to speak, when to be silent. A visit to Ruth and Kurt Elias in Beth Jitzchak. Radio feature, Deutschlandfunk 2007
personal data
SURNAME Elias, Ruth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Huppert, Ruth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Survivors of the Shoah
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Ostrava
DATE OF DEATH October 2008
Place of death Beit Yitzhak-Sha'ar Hefer, Israel