1944
Sara Atzmon, her brothers and sisters and her parents are sent to forced labor in Heidenreichstein in Lower Austria. The 11-year old works from morning to night. She receives a slice of bread per day.
On 11 August 1944 her father breaks down, weakened by hard labor and starvation, and dies with Sara standing next to him, an experience she cannot escape from all her life. Her brother Eliezer builds a coffin for his father.
Sara: „That was the last time I cried. After the death of my father, I was unable to cry for 60 years.“
1944
Later, the Gottdieners work in a parachute factory. At the end of November the family is transported by cattlecars back to Strasshof. There they spent three days naked in a disinfection camp. For the winter Sara is issued one red child's shoe and one black woman's heeled shoe. She now has to wear these uneven shoes for half a year and suffers terrible agony.
Again, the family is loaded into cattlecars. This time the transport takes them to Bergen-Belsen.
Sara: „In these shoes I marched into the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on 2 December. I thought we had experienced the worst suffering. But now we had landed in hell.“
