Rosa Blum, 78, visited Oklahoma State University this week to speak with students about her experiences in Auschwitz. She told an audience of about 500. The event was arranged by the OSU Women’s Program.

Blum, who was born in Romania in 1928, was 14 when she, along with 100,000 Jews, was taken to a wilderness 60 miles away.

She lived in pitched tents with her parents, grandparents, five brothers and sister in the mountain area, where “life became very, very difficult,” Blum said.

Soon after, her family was told to gather pots and pans for cooking for another relocation. Later, they found out that wasn’t the case.

“We didn’t need them for cooking,” Blum said. “We used the pots and pans for our waste.”

Blum was later taken to Auschwitz, where she spent two years.

“It happened to be a very beautiful day, maybe the most beautiful I’ve ever seen,” Blum said. “It was so surreal and so beautiful.

“Who would have thought that a couple blocks down the road there was a crematorium and gas chamber and everything else? Nobody would have ever dreamed anything like that existed.”

When Blum’s family got off the train, it was the last time she saw her mother. Blum was one of 400 youths taken with the working group, while the other 6,000 were sent to the crematorium.

As a worker, Blum’s long hair was cut with clippers and her belongings were taken away. She was given a dress and wooden shoes to wear.

Blum came down with infantitis, a rash that put her in the camp’s hospital. After five days, the sick people were forced into carts. Blum went with them, carrying her shoes along the way.

“You’re going to death,” she was told. “You don’t need them.”

When the sick people were gathered in a room to be sent to the crematorium, Blum managed to hide under a bed the entire night. The next morning, a nurse found her and took care of her for two weeks before helping her return to the camp.

The biggest lesson she learned from the two years at the concentration camps was the need for individuals to judge situations on their own and not rely on what they are told.

“You’re the one who has to make decisions for yourself,” she said. “This is something I wish I would have known.

“Life is a beautiful thing, but you have to make your own judgment. Don’t take somebody else’s word.”