Sai

media type="file" key="Interview.mp3" width="240" height="20" interviewed my dad, kaali dass. He was a survivor of a car crash.

Elizabeth De Jong My name is Elisabeth De Jong and I was born in Amsterdam, Holland. I was part of a Jewish family of six with three siblings and two deaf parents. When I was growing up I can remember life was good for us. We had a close family and had good relationships with the community. Then I got married in 1936. We still lived in Holland, which at the time we thought was a safe country. Holland was a small neutral country on the border of Germany. Many Jews from Germany started fleeing to Holland once Hitler started to gain power. Then all of the Dutch government started fleeing to Great Britain fearing their own safety. Very soon Hitler was in control of Holland and it was not good for the Jews. Many anti-Jewish laws were put in place and we all had to wear a yellow star to identify ourselves as Jewish. Then all Jews were forced to move to the city of Amsterdam. We had to abandon our seaside home and were only allowed to take two suitcases per person. Once we left we had just settled in Amsterdam for two days and some friendly Dutch police came and told us it would be best to go into hiding. The Dutch police recommended some people who would help us hide and stayed with them for a few weeks. But, we then had to go to another person's house which was much bigger and would also be able to hold my deaf parents. Living in there attic was risky for both the hosts and us since we weren't even supposed to be there to start with. It got even worse once there was not enough food for everyone and food stamps were rationed. Our hosts had to feed six people with two ration cards. We able to get extra food stamps because of fake ids, but were later discovered and all of us were arrested by the Gestapo. Luckily we met up with my brother and sister-in-law at the police station. They later deported us and had to do hard labor. After that all the women were separated from the men but i was also separated form my mother, who I never saw again. Then one day when we were being experimented on we had to suddenly go on the death march to Ravensbruck and were there until the Soviet army liberated us on April 1945. After Lillian got better after her illness we went to Amsterdam and ended up meeting some family members who survived the camps. A few years later Lillian, my brother, and my husband died from the illnesses from the camps. I had nobody left after this but i did get married to my third husband. He is the one who told me to share my stories and tell the world about what happened to the people in the experimentation camp.