Tatooing: Alice Kern

"The tattooing happened on a hot afternoon, September 1944. They asked for artists and after some girls volunteered for this unknown artistic job we all went outside. After passing some long tables we entered a room where the girls were waiting with the tattoo needles.

"I was scared as when I had to face a doctor at home. When the girl took my left arm and saw me turning pale, she said with a smile, "This will not hurt. Much to my surprise it did not hurt, at least physically. The pain was that from then on I was a number: Neunund siebzig-nul-drei (A-7903).

"We were also assured that because we were entered in a book we would be saved and not killed. How naive we were to believe this, but anything, even a lie, was better than facing the possibility that we might be killed. One had to cling to every hope."

--From Alice Kern's, Holocaust Survivor, book: Tapestry of Hope, pages 100-101