Ruth Moser Borsos (1923–1999) was born in Frankfurt, Germany. She was 9 years old when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany. She experienced antisemitism in school and witnessed the effects of the Nazis' antisemitic policies. After Kristallnacht (the "Night of Broken Glass") in November 1938, Ruth immigrated to the Netherlands. There, she joined her father, who was divorced from her mother. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. In late 1943, Ruth was imprisoned in the Westerbork transit camp, where she had to perform forced labor. Her father acquired passports claiming that they had Paraguayan citizenship. In September 1944, Ruth and her father were sent to the Bergen-Belsen camp in Germany along with other people who held Paraguayan papers. As the war came to an end, they were transferred to another camp, where they were liberated in April 1945.
Every morning we were counted. Why we were counted I cannot tell you, but it had to be precise and if the numbers didn't come out, you had to be counted again. It if took one hour, if it took five hours, they didn't care. You had to be counted. Whether it was cold, whether it was raining, whether it was sunshine...you had to be counted. And during the same time that we were all standing out there they would run uh horse-drawn carriage where they threw the bodies of those people who were either shot or hanged or had died from hunger, from whatever, and they wanted to make sure that we see each morning these horse-drawn carriages drive by. And I remember one time, I looked out and I saw on the fence two bodies hanging on the fence. These people were hung there during the night. Just...they wanted...and shot...I mean they were no longer living but they let them hang there so that we could see it, what would happen to us if we maybe not obey.
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