Doris Mirman's Timeline
1941 – Every Jewish family had to give up their oldest child. Doris was taken away from her family in the fall. She was merely a fourteen years old. They were living in a ghetto at the time. She was taken from Poland to Lithuania to Zezhmary labor camp, by truck. She worked deep in the forest, working from dark morning until dark evening, cutting and stacking wood from enormous trees. She thinks she stayed in that camp short of a year, though time was not something she was easily able to keep in confinement.
1942 – Doris was moved to Koszedary labor camp. She dug deep ditches there, and the soil was cut into bricks and used as fuel and sent to Germany. Her mother, father and brother were then brought to this labor camp because the ghetto was liquidated. It is then that she found out her grandmother was killed in the ghetto. At the camp, her brother was 8 or 9, living with other children. Men lived in separate quarters from women. In place of beds, they had slabs of wood to sleep on. She was with her mother. At one point, she recalls the Germans coming with dogs and loudspeakers. Men, women and children were brutally separated. The mothers were forced to put their children in a group. Everyone was told not to move or they would be shot. A few were. The children were taken away and killed. Doris never saw her little brother again. 1943 – Doris, her mother, and her father were moved to the Kovno ghetto. Her father worked, but she did not. The ghetto was then liquidated. People were moved to a huge field that was part of an airport. The next day, people were placed on trains, men separated from women. Men were sent to Dachau in Germany, and women were sent to Stuthoff concentration camp, in Poland. This was the only concentration camp she was in. She was sent to a big, big barn where she was told to undress, and all her belongings were taken from her. She was taken to a shower, which everyone was sure was the end of their lives. They were all surprised to survive. They were internally searched. Doris and her mother were given concentration camp uniforms, a bowl and a spoon, and then they were sent to a barrack. Three times a day they were forced to stand in line without moving. She thinks she was there less than a year. During one roll call, Doris and her mother were separated. She later found out her mother was sent to Dachau. 1944 – Doris was moved to many different labor camps, the first one being in Prussia. She worked in fields, picking kohlrabi. She slept in tents with 9 other girls. Winter was brutal, filled with snow and shivering temperatues. Her hair would freeze to the ground. She had no shoes, and only a man’s coat to keep her warm. 1945 – It was January, and the war was coming to an end. The Germans were losing the war. Doris was sent on a 3-day march with no food or water. People ate the snow to survive. During the march, the group came upon a huge kettle of porridge. People were starving, so many of them ate the porridge. These people later died because the porridge was spoiled. The Germans wanted to get rid of their prisoners. This was the main goal of the march. The German guards starting falling away from the group, realizing they had lost the war. They told their prisoners to get on their way - to just leave. On January 20th, 1945, Doris left the group with a friend. This was the first day of her liberation. She later found out that her mother died in March of 1945 on a death march. Her father died in Dachau, also March of 1945, of dysentery. |
The children were taken away and killed. Doris never saw her little brother again... "