Jewish prisoner no. 13088 after
shaving of her hair in Auschwitz |
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Jewish prisoner no. 2731, after
shaving of her hair in Auschwitz |
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Jewish prisoner no. 13140, after shaving of her hair in Auschwitz
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Hair
"I remember that we stood naked in the sauna, in
line to have our hair removed, and I wondered—what are all these men doing here?
We couldn’t recognize each other anymore.
I approached one of the Jewish guards and asked him if he would have a word with
someone so they wouldn’t cut off my pigtails, and he said that if I’d have a
head, then hair would grow, and if I wouldn’t have a head, then I wouldn’t need
hair anyway."
Dita (Kurschner) Segal
From Dita (Kurschner) Segal’s Testimony, 2006
In the second chamber an army of teenage girls
sheared the newcomers’ body hair with scissors and razors. Some left their
clients cut and bruised, others tugged while cutting our hair. The girl who
attended me was by no means an expert hairdresser, but she plainly wanted me to
look presentable. She did not seem to remember how mercilessly her hair had been
shorn. I smiled and whispered “Bog zaplac – May God reward you.” It came
naturally, expressing all my appreciation of a human being who had appeared at
the bottom of the pit and shone a bight light in the darkness.
Pearl Benisch
From: Pearl Benisch, To Vanquish the Dragon, Jerusalem–New York: Feldheim, 1991
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