We needed to show that we still had strength left, to, whether it
was to work or to live another day. I recall some women, um, were
beginning as their hair grows back, they were beginning to get
gray hair, and they would go and take a little piece of coal from
one of the pot-bellied stoves that was in a barrack. And they
would use this coal to color their hair with so that they would
look a, a little younger. I mean one grayed at the age of maybe
eighteen or nineteen under those conditions. And they would
run...we would run in front of whoever it was that was doing the
selections to show that we could survive one other day. If one
had a scar, a pimple, if one didn't run fast enough, if one
didn't look right for whatever reason to the particular person
that was doing the selection--they would stand there with a
stick, to the right or to the left, as you ran by them. One never
knew if they were in the good line or the bad line. One line
would go to the gas chambers, the other line would go back to the
camp and to the barracks to live another day.