L7

L7

After breaking out of  Normandy at Avranches,  General Patton's Third  Army  moved  across   France  at  an  unbelievable  pace, performing a right hook  that nearly encircled  Hitler's forces opposing the invasion. Judith and Edith were moved to different camps at  least  once  a month. The constant  relocation  was encouraging in a way, but  things grew progressively  worse the nearer Edith and Judith were taken to Germany itself. Internment camps were abandoned for  work camps,  which were  evacuated in turn for what could only be called punishment camps.

Early in  1945 after  one  more  relocation, Edith  and  Judith reached their final destination,  an extermination  camp called Ohrdruf-Nord deep in the heart of Germany proper. In that place Jews were worked to death  constructing a railroad  center that would never be  finished. Along the way  currency, gold,  and jewelry (of which Judith and Edith had none) were sent to the SS headquarters of the  Economic  Adminstration. Watches, clocks, and pens were  sent  to  the troops  on  the Western,  Eastern, and Italian  fronts. Their civilian  clothing  was  given  to increasingly needy German families.

Judith saw things that pushed far beyond any boundaries of human evil she thought were possible to exist. Ohrdruf wasn't even the worst camp in the hellish constellation. Those were to be found further to the  east,  in Poland. Many men have  a taste  for sixteen year old female flesh. Judith learned to trade her body for scraps of extra food. The longer she could delay taking on the figure of  a skeleton, the more opportunities  he might have to trade her body for food, for both herself and Edith.

This became a huge problem during the terrifying and humiliating appells, or inspections, that followed roll call and lasted most of the day. The guards realized Judith and Edith  were wasting away at a slightly slower rate than  their companion prisoners. They were successful in  feigning weakness,  but it  was almost impossible to hide their extra weight, and suspicion was raised.

When the guns of Patton's tanks could be heard only forty miles away, the twelve thousand inmates of the camp were being loaded onto cattle cars. The prisoners were being rushed to transfer to Buchenwald. Edith Margolies slipped and revealed that she had a little extra food  hidden away. What happened after that Judith told no one but her father,  years after the war,  on his final day of life. Learning the manner  of the  passing of  his wife might have even been the thing that killed him.

Troops of the  89th  Infantry  Division of  the  US Third  Army captured Ohrdruf-Nord on April 4,  1945.