They took us to the showers. 100s of women in various stages of undress. The German soldiers stood around. So off came our nice warm winter coats, clothes, everything. I looked at the soldiers, they were joking with one another, they never even thought that we were women. It was the first realisation: when you see that they don’t look at you as women. We went into the next room where they cut your hair off, it all happens fast. You must have heard it before; in the next room they took the rest of the body hair off & into the showers. They gave us this soap that wouldn’t lather, it smelt. They made those in Auschwitz from human fat. But of course we didn’t know any of this.

You go under the shower, the shower was warm, it felt very good. As I stood there I nearly passed out, I thought, “Dear G-d, I have lost Judith.” I had just promised my mother that I would take care of her. Where is she? I had a feeling I was going. Everything went dark. I kept shouting: ‘Judith, Judith, where are you?’ & she touched me: “I am here.” She was standing next to me. I said: “Where?” All I could hear was this sound coming out. I looked at her, she had no hair on. I said: “Don’t ever leave me.” She said “You don’t have to worry.

I could see blood on the floor, rivulets of water, red. It was a huge big room & I thought, “Dear Lord, they are killing us here. What is all this blood?” Not far in front of me there was this woman menstruating, there was no sanitary towel, nothing, just like animals. They started shouting ‘Raus, Raus, Out, Out’. We went out. I was very cold. The last day of April, it was winter, there was no hair on you, nothing, they didn’t give you towels or underwear, just these grey clothes, a hole to put your head through, a slit for your arms. That is how they did it. It took them less than an hour to reduce us to a non-person.