wanted any contact with us, and nobody asked us about anything.
We were alienated. We felt that no one wanted us here. It was the
isolation of the prisoners in the Jewish cell that had hurt me most
of all in the Bialystok prison. The whole world was involved in a
battle, but the prisoners in our cell were not a part of it. Why did
no one make contact with us? I had asked that question in Bialy-
stok and I could get no answer. Now the same thing was happen-
ing to us in Stutthof. We were put in a separate block and found
ourselves in complete isolation.

A blokowa was appointed over us. It was Ania, a Jewish woman
from Bialystok who was overflowing with energy. I cannot explain
why the kapo gave her that job. But still, I was not too surprised,
because I knew that Ania would always find a cushy position for
herself. She treated us fairly, but at the same time, she always
managed to reserve a warm and comfortable place to sleep and a
plate of thick soup for herself and her darling Liza. Liza was ten
years younger than Ania. Even in the Bialystok Ghetto I could not
figure out why Ania displayed such maternal affection toward her.
Ania fed her and dressed her; she did all the hard work for her.
She was proud of Liza's beauty. Only in the camp was it possible to
find such affection among women.

There were two hundred women of varying ages in our block.
The oldest woman in our transport was eighty-eight years old,
and the youngest was seventeen. Among the older women there
were some who had absolutely no idea of what was happening or
of where they were. From the first day, fights started breaking out
over the silliest things: over a place in the food line, over a drink
of water, over a potato in the soup. I listened to the bickering, and
it was difficult for me to believe that these women had experi-
enced the liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto and the death of
their dear ones.

The fight for food took on a horrible form. In order to make
sure that they would have a supply of food, the women would
hide some bread under their pillows at night. Then the next
morning there would be fights over bread that women stole from
under each other's pillows. They cried in desperation, yelled, and
pounced at each other's eyes. Ania then decided to divide each

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