Dora Maisler was a sample maker at the Triangle Company and worked on the eighth floor at the time of the fire. She was interviewed by Sigmund Arywitz orally in California. Below is a excerpt from that interview.
Q: Well, perhaps you better tell us right from the very beginning, what were you doing when you were first - became aware of the fire? Maisler: I was changing my skirt. Female Voice: Do you remember about what time of day it was? Maisler: Five o'clock. I didn't even lose time to open my drawer and take my pay. I left the pay there. [inaudible]. Q: So what happened? You were changing your skirt? 00:04:39 Maisler: I was changing my skirt and I saw the fire. And I wanted to help and he said no, so I was holding my skirt . . . . Q: Who said no? Maisler: The machinist. Q: Now, did you - went, you saw those buckets of water and you tried to put out . . . . Maisler: I was going to. He wouldn't let me. And I - and I was the [inaudible] and I was near to the door. So I got out all of them out. Q: What did the machinist say to you? Maisler: [Speaks a foreign phrase]. [Ganz sehr...?] Q: He talked to you in German. Maisler: In German. Yes. I imagine he must have been a German. 00:05:06 Q: So then you went to the door. Now, was that the - the door of the elevator? Maisler: The door of the elevator. Q: Well, how about the locked doors? Where were they? Maisler: Well, they were on the - in the back. With the - the stairs. The only time that we used to have the - the locked - the - the stairs doors open, was when we worked overtime. Q: So was there an elevator boy there or how - how does the elevator . . . ? Maisler: There were four elevators in the whole building: two freight and two front elevators. So going up to work they used to take us, up. But down, we never - we never had a chance to - everybody had to walk. Female Voice: You mean you had to walk down from the eighth floor every day? Maisler: No, no. We used to wait for the freight elevator in the back. Female Voice: Freight elevators. 00:05:51 Q: Oh, the two freight elevators. You couldn't use the front. Maisler: The freight elevators, yes. Q: And this was the front elevator that you went . . . ? Maisler: Yeah, I went down to the front elevator because I worked in the front. Q: So how did it happen that the elevator was there? Maisler: They didn't - they didn't even know that there was a fire. They were playing craps downstairs. And it was cold yet in the - in the room there. Q: And the elevator . . . . Maisler: So what I did is I - when they were really screaming and burning, so I held them out and I pushed everybody back and I - and I raised my - with my foot I broke the - the window. You know, there was a window in the door. And that was the time he came up. And by the time he made - he only made one trip because everybody, maybe a hundred of them, wanted to get in.
