I know what you're question is. What happened to that girl, right? So the friend told us that she was sick. She was taken to the infirmary. And when she was there, she realized from the others, that she will never get back to work. Infirmary was not one to cure or to heal you. She knows she will never come back to work. And when her friend came to visit her, she says take this shoe to that girl who needs it so much. This is one story which is sort for children because, indeed, I wrote a book called Tell the Children, Letters to Miriam, who is my granddaughter. Let me tell you two other stories, okay? Now I am in Auschwitz on and on. And people leave and people die and people move from one barrack to another. And it is very very hard. I am infested with lice. I lost weight. The hair has grown, lice, lice, lice. When the Fall came, I had to buy more clothes again. I could get from those girls working with clothes and I'd have to give my food. I was very, very skinny, and I was working. I mean, it was pretty miserable. And it was freezing cold and now it was December. And if you think December, you know very well, since it was commemorated a few weeks ago, that Auschwitz was liberated in January. So this was middle of December and I thought there was no way to escape Auschwitz unless they take us to working camp because they need you to work. And indeed, very often civilians would came from a factory and choose 200 girls to take the factory to work. And whenever we went to stand in line, it was always too late. And then on that day, December 12th, 1944, we saw two people entering the camp and we all stayed in line because we know they are going to select 100 to 200 girls. And they count, that's right, 100, and say, I have enough, you go back, I don't need more. And I am the 5th of the 6th in the line. And I'm desperate to get out from Auschwitz, right, to a working camp. And I got this great idea. I screamed in German, [FOREIGN]. I am a draftsman, take me. And he took me. Okay, 201. And on that day, this is my first step to get out of Auschwitz and to survive, because a month later, yes, so they took me. They took me to a working camp in Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakia. What happened to the rest, you know very well, that the Russians came very, very close. And they took all the walking able people in a death march. They killed them, right. I wasn't there anymore. I was working. I wasn't eliminated because I was working five more months from December till the end of the war. So here I was now in a working camp. How much do I have? Ten minutes? Good [LAUGH]. So I can tell you these two stories. So now I was in a working camp. It is very important to know that working camp there were no selections, okay. In the beginning, I work like all the others in the factory. But one day, I heard my name, the girl from Auschwitz who's a draftsman. And they took me and put me in the, how do you say, what kind of office? To make drawings and sketches, whatever they needed, was the official, what is the name for it? Anyway, so I worked in an office together with a German engineer, together with other French POWs. The funny part was, that in this new camp which was a working camp, where we worked in a factory, there were also POWs working, French POWs. They had their camps a little bit close to ours. And you know, young boys, young girls. So they are ogling the girls and always choosing the girl and bringing her a little food and a little letter in French. Now who could read the French? I had eight years of French. So I read the letters, I answered. I said please send me needles, whatever, I need to sew this. And please send me toothpaste or if you send me a toothbrush. And one day I said, please send me also a toothbrush. And eight months into the camp I got a toothbrush. So I was letter writer. It's funny, another friend one day found another memoir and they write about me, how I was writing their letters to their friends. Anyway, so we survived, right? The work was factory work, not so bad. You know, we had by now, we didn't have to eat five from one bowl. Each one had a bowl. You could sit down to eat lunch. I mean, it was very, very different from Auschwitz, a little more humane. So we were there five months, and meanwhile the French were sending me me to letters saying how close the Russians are. Oh, they are four villages far away. They will be here any day, any day, any day. And indeed, on May 6th. You know when the war ended? May 8th. On May 6th, we get up in the morning and the guards have left. There are no guards. Okay, now we are free, but we are still closed, right, locked. So the guards left and the girls are happy. They all run to the kitchen, get potatoes, come back, make a big fire. Burn even the chairs to make fire and eat the potatoes. We go for salt, there is no salt. Bring sugar, bring marmalade too. Anyway, so this is what we do, right? And so something happened which I cannot remember. It was 70 years ago. That one must have said, let's go to the guards' quarters. Let's see what we can find there. We free girls ran to the guard's quarters. And everybody was looking for a pullover, for boots, for this, for that. And I find a notebook and a pen. And I was so happy because the whole year I didn't write anything, and I wanted to write. And I took the notebook and the pen and I went back to my bunk bed. By now, it was the working camp, and the bunk bed was only for two people, upper and lower, not ten in one space. I mean, it was a little bit more humane. And I took with me, right, and I started my journal. And I said today is May 6th, 1944. Freedom, how can you describe this with one word? And I continued writing my journal for 12 more days while we stayed in the camp free. We stayed free, I'm not in the camp. When we were open, the camp was open, and the Czech population was very, very nice to us. And says don't run home because the roads are impassable. There are no trains, there are no buses, and there are Russians all over. Don't, we will tell you when it is safe to go. We'll give you food. And they brought us food, right, and the French friends came also to eat and we had 18 days, and every day I wrote something that happened exactly the year before. And this is my journal of about 18 pages that I gave to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. It's very funny, a few months ago somebody wrote me who knows my story. I happened to be in Auschwitz in Washington at the Museum of Holocaust. And I couldn't help remembering you said that you donated your journal. I wanted to see the original. And she could see it, the original. Anyway, so I want to tell you only what I wrote in the journal in the day before the last day. So we stayed there and we got food and we ate and ate and ate and enjoyed ourselves and had music and walks around. And I wrote that tomorrow we are leaving the place. We are going home. Do we have a home? Is there anybody home for me? Will my parents be there? Probably not. Will by brothers be there, my older brother, my younger brother? And I start crying, you see it in the journal that I cry. Will my boyfriend be there? And indeed, it took me two weeks after the war to get home. It was very hard because the trains wouldn't run, and you had to walk a lot and ask for rides. The Russian soldiers took us on their Jeeps. It took me two weeks to get to my hometown. And indeed, there was no home. A Gypsy family lived in my home. And no, there were no parents, which I expected. And no, there were not the two brothers of mine, which I did not expect because they were pretty young. But my boyfriend was there waiting for me to come home, and this is the end of the story, thank you very much. [APPLAUSE] I made it, I made it! [APPLAUSE] I want to tell you, I would like you to come and see these pictures, right, the details. I would like you to browse my book because it has about 50 stories and they are very, very independent. For teenage it's written. And if you want to hug me, I am ready. Bye bye.
