D Ruth Dräger : Yes, and then afterwards the five, I think, five, uh, these, uh, soldier wagons came afterwards and they had us , in September that was when I came back again, September that was. Came back again on wagons. There was my grandma, my two aunts, and me. We were in a wagon, in a, uh, uh, raiding party carrier, and my aunt and my mother, they had already been home the day before. And then there was Marie-Luisen-Straße, there was such a big, there is such a school, we arrived there on Sunday morning. A Linde Apel : Mhm D Ruth Dräger : Yes. And then we were distributed, and then my grandfather came and took us home. My grandfather had to divorce my grandmother, otherwise she would have gone to Auschwitz, and, yes. However, all of us, uh, all six of us first slept under the table, during the night from Sunday to Monday. And on Monday it continued in such a way that we then found somewhere, uh, and that, that is, that we found accommodation somewhere, because we had no apartment. That lasted, I think, nearly a month there, then we got the house from the Jewish Congregation on Kielortallee. A Linde Apel : Mh. Mh. D Ruth Dräger : There had been SS men there. And there they [threw] the furniture, there were several additional Jews who also came to Kielort-, um, Kielortallee. And, uh, they threw the furniture out of the, uh, rooms from upstairs. Hehe. Into, what’s it called, onto the, onto the ground. But outside it was, ne, already. We had such a U-shaped house, and they simply threw out the furniture of the SS people. And then the Jews moved in. But several of them, ne. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : That was afterwards a real, such a, half-, where the half-Jews are. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : Yes. And down there was still the synagogue, second floor and downstairs ground floor. That used to be a, a Jewish retirement home. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : Well, an old folks’ residential home, let’s say, ne. They had their apartments, but it was for older people, ne. Before, before the war. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : Yes, and then, I don’t know.... A Linde Apel : You lived there for quite a long time, ne, in the, in Kielortallee. D Ruth Dräger : Yes, I lived there from ’45 to ’78. A Linde Apel : Mh. D Ruth Dräger : I lived there until 1978. In ’78 I moved in here. The Jewish Congregation sold the houses. Abridged from the manuscript: tape change A Linde Apel : When you were back in Hamburg did you consider, uh, leaving Germany? D Ruth Dräger : Nope. Not at all. I was only 17 then. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : In my eighteenth year, uh, age. Not at all. We were glad to be back. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : Well, we all always lived together. Also my mother and my aunts, they have all, we have all always worked together-uh, lived together in one apartment. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : All of us. Until we eventually separated afterwards, right, my mother then lived with my aunt then in Alsterchaussee and with my sisters, and I stayed then with my grandparents. Abridged from the manuscript: About childhood in Hamburg, persecution as a Jew, life in Theresienstadt D Ruth Dräger : Yes. But we were glad to be back home. A Linde Apel : Yes. Mh, I believe so. D Ruth Dräger : The first night we all slept under the bed, under the table. We were then, my grandfather, yes, we were there six heads of us, oh. He only had one room. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : Afterwards, by police force, he, they also, uh, the people with whom he lived as a subtenant, they had to give up another room. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : They didn’t want that. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : But they had to. A Linde Apel : Ja. D Ruth Dräger : Right, and they had a cat, so the toilet door had to stay open all the time. I’m just noticing that now. I always have my toilet door open, too. But she literally went to the toilet. A Linde Apel : To an actual toilet, a real one? D Ruth Dräger : She really went to the actual toilet. A Linde Apel : Great! D Ruth Dräger : Yes. So that, that also surprised me, ne. A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : But afterward they had to, ... A Linde Apel : Mhm. D Ruth Dräger : … they had to give up their best, um, room and then we had two rooms. A Linde Apel : That was probably quite different to be back in Hamburg and suddenly be able to walk around without a star and to go where... D Ruth Dräger : Yes. Yes. Yes. A Linde Apel : …you wanted to. D Ruth Dräger : Yes. That was first, at first quite strange. Free, I recognized everything. I thought, you are going to come back again. That was somehow, uh, I don’t know myself what I thought. Afterwards, when I went with Mrs. Guth to Karolinenstraße to my home, to Laufgraben, we went to all of these places. I went everywhere with Mrs. Guth. I thought, I can’t believe you’re coming back here. In Theresienstadt, I sometimes thought, it’s always on my mind at night: How will you ever get out of here? Yes, do we have to stay here forever? That’s the way it is, those were my thoughts throughout. After all, you do think about things, don’t you? A Linde Apel : Yes, of course. D Ruth Dräger : That’s quite normal. A Linde Apel : That is normal. D Ruth Dräger : And then how we came back home with five, uh, automobiles.