Oral history interview with Sadi Nahmias
Transcript
- My name is Nikki [PERSONAL NAME],,
- and today is June 15, 1983.
- I am here to interview Rabbi Sadi
- Nahmias, who is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
- The interview is taking place at the Sephardic Jewish Center
- of Miami Beach.
- I am doing this under the auspices
- of the Southeastern Florida Holocaust Memorial
- Center, Incorporated.
- The purpose of this interview is to add
- to the oral history of the Nazi Holocaust,
- so that, through this living memorial,
- future generations will know what happened.
- With this knowledge, hopefully we
- can prevent any such occurrence in the future.
- Rabbi Nahmias, if you would begin
- by telling us where you were born
- and what you remember about the early days of your childhood.
- Yes.
- My name is Rabbi Sadi Isac Nahmias.
- I was born in Greece, in 1908, and raised
- in a very religious family.
- And I study in the commercial Jewish school.
- And we had a life, very, very peaceful, a Jewish life,
- among our family, because our ancestors
- came from Spain during the Inquisition
- and settled in the Ottoman Empire.
- And after 1912, this part of Turkey become Greece,
- so we become Greek citizens with my family, together.
- To make story short--
- until 1940, our lives were just wonderful.
- At that time, when I was 16, 17 years old,
- I started to learn the Sephardic liturgy
- with professors from Turkey.
- And my parents pushed me to go to become a cantor
- and later on to be a rabbi.
- But in my town, in Salonika, where I was born,
- there were too many rabbinim, too many hazzanim,
- too many cantors.
- They did not need people to get paid.
- They want only volunteers.
- So I have to go with my father, in my father's business.
- My father's business was wholesale produce, in Salonika,
- since generation-- from my great-grandfather,
- they were wholesalers of produce.
- In Salonika?
- In Salonika, yes.
- So I used to help my father during the weekdays.
- And on Saturday I used to go to the synagogue
- to enjoy my people, because, as I told you,
- there were too many hazzanim and too many rabbinim,
- and they didn't need extra help with pay.
- So we had to be both.
- As a matter of fact, 90% of the rabbis in Greece, in Salonika,
- they were merchants only, not only rabbis.
- They were merchants.
- They used to sell sugar, kosher sugar,
- to sell wine, kosher wine, to sell matzahs
- during the Passover, to sell eggs-- to sell anything
- they could sell, to make a living,
- because the community could not bear
- them to have a nice living.
- So everybody used to be a hazzan or a rabbi and also a merchant.
- So this is the way we did our lives in Salonika.
- Tell me what you remember about holidays in your parents' home?
- The holidays were the most wonderful days in our lives.
- It was unbelievable, the way we kept the holidays.
- Tell me a little--
- --is no more-- it will be no more in this world of today--
- impossible.
- The holidays were kept with such dignity--
- the Passover, the Sukkot, the Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur.
- I had to go with my father, all the holidays, in the synagogue.
- Every Saturday, we can never miss.
- Only if I was sick, real sick, I could stay home; if not,
- we had to go to the synagogue.
- It was an enjoyment, in the synagogue, in Salonika.
- We had 82 synagogues--
- a population of 120,000, at that time--
- seminaries, rabbinical schools-- the best in Europe.
- So when you first started school,
- was that a Jewish school, too?
- A Jewish school, yes.
- Oh, so you were you--
- Commercial school called school of [NON-ENGLISH]..
- [NON-ENGLISH]---- it was the name of the school.
- So does that mean you learned Hebrew, there, as well as--
- Hebrew and we had French,
- You had secular subj--
- Greek.
- Secular subjects, as well as religious subjects?
- Yes.
- Absolutely.
- They taught us over there all the holidays and--
- different language, of course.
- Greek was mandatory, French, Spanish, and families
- who want the children to learn German,
- they had to learn German.
- Others want English, they have to learn English.
- Italian.
- This was the schools--
- not public schools.
- Private.
- Private schools.
- They were doing a terrific job with our young generation,
- because we learned over there everything.
- It was a really good school.
- Do you remember if there were any Jewish organizations
- or what the Jewish organizations?
- Many, many, many.
- What do you remember?
- We remember-- I was a member of Maccabi,
- a member of Theodor Herzl, a member of the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- a member of Trumpeldor, a member also of this Jewish hero--
- I cannot remember-- [NON-ENGLISH]..
- We were all members of these organizations.
- We was a-- was a wonderful, wonderful people,
- to teach us everything.
- And we had also the help--
- the financial help of the YMCA.
- Because we could not afford to buy the athletic equipment
- that we needed.
- And the YMCA--
- The Christian Y.
- --Christian, yes-- men's--
- Helped you?
- --YMCA, Christian--
- Young Men's Christian Association.
- --Association-- yes-- they used to help us
- by giving us all the equipment we need for the Maccabi.
- The sporting [CROSS TALK].
- Sporting equipment.
- And we had a band of 60 musicians, all young kids--
- All Jewish children?
- --all Jewish-- young kids.
- And of course, there was no tuition-- was no membership,
- the everything free.
- And we become athletes.
- As a matter of fact, I became an athlete at that time.
- Also [LAUGHS] when I was 18 years of age, in 1920,
- I was the heavyweight boxing champion of Greece--
- of north Greece.
- All these were with the help of the YMCA--
- of those teachers in the YMCA.
- So we had a life, a Jewish life, that today
- in no part of the world you can find this kind of life.
- Were your parents Zionists, also?
- Yes.
- Do you remember if there was a kehilla?
- Kehilla?
- A kehilla, in the community?
- Kehilla is a synagogue.
- Well, the community organization,
- I mean, specifically.
- The community of Salonika was the richest community
- in Europe.
- As a matter of fact, when from Vienna or Yugoslavia or Romania
- or Bulgaria they need a rabbi, they
- had to apply in Salonika, to the Jewish community,
- to provide them a rabbi--
- or a cantor.
- Always.
- It was the center of the religious studies in Europe.
- As a matter of fact, they used to call Salonika not in Hebrew
- [SPEAKING HEBREW]--
- it means "from Zion, that I will come."
- It is [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- That means "from, Salonika they have to learn,
- all the European people, the Torah and the religion."
- And the fact that it was a Sephardic community,
- that was not--
- It was complete Sephardic.
- Yes.
- We had no Ashkenazi community over there.
- I have to be honest.
- It was a very small Ashkenazi community
- of maybe 20, 25 people.
- They had a small shul, a very small shul,
- in a Jewish quarter.
- One day, the gabbai, the president
- of this small community, went to my father and told him,
- can your son, the little boy, come to us
- to read the sefer Torah this coming Saturday?
- My father said, why not?
- So, for the first time in my life,
- I went to this small Ashkenazi synagogue.
- I saw things that I never saw in my life.
- Like?
- We used to show the sefer Torah before a reading.
- They do not--
- After.
- They do after.
- I was amazed-- something [LAUGHS] that I was not used.
- I start to read a sefer Torah in our melody,
- and the Ashkenazi people were looking each other.
- What kind of music is this?
- They like it-- not that they didn't like.
- They liked very much.
- But they never heard the Oriental melody
- that we are us, because our melody is
- a mixture of Turkish, Byzantine, and flamenco music,
- all combined together.
- The Ashkenazi music is European-- it's occidental.
- And these gentlemen-- they were very nice people--
- they were amazed.
- They wanted me to go every Saturday.
- My father told them, no, he has to go to our synagogue to help.
- I was helper.
- I was a boy, 16- 17-years-old boy,
- and I was helping all the rabbinim and the all cantors
- to give to the synagogue a little bit of joy,
- because of my voice.
- But no pay-- absolutely nothing!
- Just the honors.
- Would you sing a little melody for us?
- No, I don't sing outside of the synagogue.
- Now, the only honors was that they used to give to my mother
- the best seat in the synagogue and to my father
- the best honors.
- This was my joy, to see my mother and father happy.
- That's all.
- Pay?
- Absolutely nothing.
- This was our life--
- a wonderful life.
- As a matter of fact, my wife's father--
- my wife's father was our neighbor.
- He was the [YIDDISH].
- [YIDDISH],, in Yiddish, is "gabbai."
- Oh.
- In Sephardic, it's [SEPHARDIC].
- In Yiddish, it's [YIDDISH]---- of a wonderful synagogue.
- That was-- all the rabbinim were in this synagogue.
- The all rabbinim were in this synagogue.
- And my wife's father was the [YIDDISH],, the rabbi.
- On Shabbat morning-- because we were next-door neighbor--
- he used to come to my house, to wake me up,
- 5 o'clock in the morning in wintertime--
- Why so early?
- --because he want me to go with him-- walking.
- He was very religious-- walking, until his synagogue,
- to help the rabbinim, to hear my voice, and to enjoy.
- I didn't want to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning.
- But I had so much respect for my wife's father
- that I couldn't refuse him.
- So I used to go with him, every Saturday,
- to enjoy the rabbinim in his synagogue.
- From there, I used to go walking to my synagogue.
- You were tired before you started [LAUGHS] the services!
- No, it was a joy.
- It was a life--
- He never took it bad.
- --a life-- no.
- It was a life of religious enjoyment
- that unfortunately, my darling, it will not
- no more be in this world.
- It's finished.
- Do you have brothers and sisters?
- No.
- I am the only son.
- The only son.
- Tell me, Rabbi, when were you first aware
- that there was a Hitler and there was trouble for the Jews?
- In 1939.
- 1938, 1939, we start to read in the papers
- that in Danzig, in Poland, was some trouble over there.
- But we said among ourselves, Danzig, Poland--
- so far away.
- We've got nothing to do with the Germans.
- After all, all the commerce, the business, in Salonika
- was done with Germany--
- all The import-export, with Germany--
- for years, for years and years.
- So we said among us, we've got no fear.
- What's done over there is Danzig, in Poland--
- nothing to do with us.
- Just, we have to relax to see what will happen.
- This was 1938.
- 1939, things start to be a little bit shaky, in Salonika.
- All of a sudden, in 1940--
- October 10, 1940--
- I was with my father in my father business,
- 4 o'clock in morning, 5 o'clock in the morning.
- We had the farmers who used to bring the merchandise
- to sell for them and to take back. commission.
- All of a sudden, we saw the little boys
- with the newspaper boys--
- Greece, with Italy, in war.
- If I were to say in Greek, [SPEAKING GREEK]
- That means "War between Greece and Italy."
- We were amazed.
- We never believed that the Italians will attack us.
- Two hours after, they started to bomb Salonika, the Italians.
- And they call then-president, dictator, Metaxas,
- one question-- surrender, or we will take Greece.
- We will invade Greece.
- And Metaxas says, N-O, no.
- Right away, the newspaper came out and says,
- all the classes from 1920 till 1935, they
- have to go to mobilize in a secret place, to get dressed
- and to go to war right away.
- I was in this category.
- I left everything in the middle--
- How old were you, at that point?
- I was born in 1908--
- And that was 1939?
- --and this was 1939--
- 1940.
- 1940.
- So you were 22 years old.
- 22 years old.
- I left everything in the middle.
- I pay all the farmers the accounts,
- and I told my father and mother goodbye,
- and I have to go to war.
- But God was with me.
- We left Salonika, walking, till one secret place.
- "We"-- you mean all the young men.
- All the young men-- to a secret place, that nobody should know.
- And there they were dressed, give
- the ammunitions and the machine guns and everything,
- to go in the north Greece where is the frontier between Greece
- and Italy--
- is a frontier between Albania, Greece, and Italy.
- I was a fat boy, at that time, very fat boy.
- And they could not give to me a uniform,
- because I was a fat boy.
- With me, with another 11 boys, fat boys.
- And they call us.
- The fat boys have to go back in Salonika,
- to order for their uniforms.
- So we went back in Salonika to headquarters.
- And a tailor came.
- He took measure for us.
- It will take three to four or five days until they will
- give us the fatty uniforms.
- Meantime, all the soldiers left for the frontier.
- And for 10 or 12 people, they could not make a transport.
- So they ask, who of you are bookkeepers,
- who knows real bookkeeping?
- I raised my hand.
- I was a real bookkeeper.
- So we went for examination.
- I was number one.
- And they gave me a post.
- They give me a job in Salonika, to take care of shipping--
- shipping meat to the front lines,
- shipping bread to the front lines.
- This was my job, over there--
- 1940.
- This was 1940.
- Let's go back a little bit.
- What was the important industries in the town?
- What did most of the Jews do, to earn a living?
- Commerce.
- Business.
- Merchants.
- Doctors, merchants, engineers.
- that's all.
- They were not farmers.
- No one Jews I knew were farmer.
- Were there factories?
- Factories?
- Plenty of factories, yes.
- What kind of factories?
- Different factories.
- Different factories.
- I can't remember.
- Different factories.
- Do you remember any antisemitism,
- as you were growing up?
- Always there was antisemitism in Greece.
- Well, tell me--
- Since was a child-- a child--
- a baby.
- Always, they used to call us "dirty Jews," always.
- Wherever you went, in Greece, it was antisemitism.
- As a matter of fact, it was in 1932,
- we had a neighborhood built by an American Jew--
- an American Christian-- Mr. Campbell.
- Mr. Campbell.
- Yes.
- He was a Christian.
- He built a neighborhood in Salonika
- for all the poor people--
- around 2,000 families, a big, big neighborhood.
- And they used to call "Campbell neighborhood."
- All of a sudden, one night, those like Ku Klux
- Klans here in America, they were the three A--
- Three E-- Es--
- Three Es.
- And what does it stand for?
- This stand for Enosis--
- Union of the White Supremacy Greeks.
- They went over there.
- They burned up every single house--
- every single house.
- Then, it was a very rich Jew in America, Baron de Hirsch.
- Still the family's still here.
- The father, or the grandfather, he
- built the biggest hospital in Salonika.
- And at that time, he built a very big neighborhood
- they used to call the neighborhood of Baron de
- Hirsch, for these families that were burned up
- by the antisemites in Campbell neighborhood.
- So, in Greece, it was always--
- till today, till today--
- I had a friend of mine who came, two weeks ago, here.
- He told me, it's terrible.
- Terrible.
- Do you remember a particular incident of antisemitism,
- as a child--
- Not one, not two, not three-- dozens.
- Dozens of incidents, dozens of harassment,
- dozens of insults, all over.
- It was people, since I remember from my childhood--
- always antisemites, every one of them.
- Did your father do business with the gentiles?
- Of course.
- The farmers were all gentile, but they loved us,
- because we were, from many generations back,
- from father to father to sons, giving the business.
- How many generations were you in Salonika?
- Since 1452.
- Directly, you can go back--
- They came in Salonika since 1452, my forefathers.
- I don't remember how many generations.
- They came from Spain, during the Inquisition,
- as I told you before, to the Ottoman Empire.
- Salonika belonged to the Ottoman Empire.
- So, from generations and generations.
- So you saw yourself as a Greek.
- I became a Greek in 1912.
- I was born 1908; I was a Turk.
- In 1912, I became a Greek, automatically,
- because Salonika was in Greece but no more Turkey.
- Did the government supervise anything that went on
- in the Jewish community?
- "Supervise"?
- What do you mean by "supervise"?
- Well, the synagogue-- anything that went on among the Jews.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- They led you--
- Nothing, nothing.
- As a matter of fact, every synagogue in Salonika,
- they were, once a year to give to the community an inventory.
- During the year, we had donations of $100,
- for instance.
- We had expenses, $130.
- The community used to give to the synagogue $30.
- If on the other hand, we had an income of $1,000
- and we spent $800, this $200 used to stay in the treasury,
- toward making renovations, to do something nice
- for the synagogue.
- So it was no trouble with the synagogue.
- Always, they were covered by the Jewish community
- for any expenses, any deficits, any losses--
- always, for years and years and generations.
- But the government left you alone.
- Of course.
- Oh.
- All right.
- Well, now, let's pick up--
- just a minute.
- Let's pick up when you were working in the office.
- The reason the Jewish committee was rich
- is because all the Jewish people--
- we were 120,000 families--
- we used to give taxes to the community.
- For instance, if you want to marry your son,
- you should go to the community to take the license.
- The government won't give you a license-- the city hall.
- Only the community will give a license.
- So how much Mr. So-and-so owe to the community?
- 500 drachma.
- Drachmas was the Greek money.
- You haven't got money to pay?
- Is no license for your son to get married.
- So he has to pay.
- Now, if somebody pass away, the same story.
- They had to pay whatever taxes they were--
- To bury him.
- To bury him, yes.
- This is the way the community could afford to sustain--
- Itself.
- --hundreds of hundreds of people--
- and the poor families, to give in wintertime, food--
- to give them coal, to give them clothes.
- So it was a well-organized community.
- The most good-organized community in Europe.
- All right, well, let's continue when
- you were working in the office.
- You said-- when you were not taken to the work camp--
- to the army.
- Yes.
- I left the office of my father, and I
- went to the headquarters--
- get dressed.
- And for six months during the war, I was in the office,
- working in the office.
- Later on, when Italy was losing the war,
- they call Hitler to help the Italians to conquer the Greeks.
- So we left-- all the officers, every soldier,
- should leave the office and go to the front line--
- and me too, together with them.
- We went--
- This was on December or January 1941.
- We were in the mountains, fighting with the Italians.
- The Greek soldiers were just near Rome,
- near Tirana, in the Albanian frontier, going into Italy,
- when Mussolini saw things so bad that the Greeks were
- ready to enter Italy.
- He called Hitler, and he sent those Stukas.
- I don't know if you Americans heard what means "Stukas."
- Those German airplanes who do, who go down like this.
- Stukas.
- Stukas.
- And they made us kneel.
- We were all dispersed, all the Greek soldiers.
- We left every ammunition, every single machine gun,
- in the fields, and we ran away in the mountains.
- This was the end of the Greek army.
- And at this time, what was happening to the community
- back in Salonika?
- Exactly.
- Were there problems?
- There started problems now.
- When we were dispersed in the mountains,
- it took us about a week or two weeks to come,
- walking, from the mountains, to avoid the German SS
- troops in the highways-- because the highways were
- full of German soldiers.
- Through the mountains, we went back in Salonika.
- We found there everything bombed--
- every single synagogue destroyed.
- Everything was very, very-- in the city,
- every-- too many buildings were destroyed.
- This was done by the Germans?
- By the Germans and the Italians.
- So we came back in Salonika in beginning of 1941.
- And we saw the Germans in the city--
- masters of the city.
- Now, a couple of things.
- Were you married, at that point?
- Yes.
- Tell me when you were married?
- I was married in 19--
- 19-- just a minute.
- 19-- what year--
- 1933.
- 1933.
- My first wife.
- With my first wife.
- And was she an old-timer from Salonika?
- Her family--
- The same thing.
- Same thing which--
- And did you have children?
- No.
- No children.
- No children.
- No children.
- So was there a ghetto, in Salonika?
- Just a minute.
- I will come to ghetto in a few minutes.
- I came back, through the mountains, in Salonika.
- I find everything taken by the Germans.
- Our families were not molested, in the beginning.
- Nothing happened.
- They continued their business?
- They continued business-- or, kind of business.
- Everything was taken by the Germans.
- My father's business was destroyed, completely.
- So how did you live?
- How do we live?
- Black market.
- On black market.
- They did not molest us as far as--
- Physically.
- Physically.
- But, for one year, little by little,
- they put us down, financially and morally.
- And 1942 was the worst year for us,
- because they ordered all the Jews living
- in the fancy quarters to go to a part of the city that
- make a ghetto.
- Was that a Jewish neighborhood, originally?
- No, no.
- No, it wasn't?
- No.
- No, no.
- They-- Salonika, a fancy parts, good neighborhoods,
- it was mixed up with the Greeks.
- I see.
- But they told us to leave this neighborhood
- and to go, everyone, in one part of the city
- and to have a Magen David, a yellow Magen
- David in our jacket.
- Where did you get the Magen David from?
- Do you remember?
- The community gave to us.
- The community gave--
- The general give to the community, give to us.
- This was 1942, end of 1942--
- end of 1942.
- We had a chief rabbi from Austria.
- Do you remember his name?
- Yes-- from Austria, the Jewish community hired in two years
- before the destruction, to be our spiritual leader,
- because he could speak Greek.
- Our real chief rabbi, a man of God, could not speak Greek.
- And when the Jewish soldiers went to be a soldier,
- they have to say the Greek oath.
- So the rabbis should be there and talk to them in Greek.
- This rabbi could not speak Greek--
- What did he speak?
- Spanish.
- Oh.
- And Hebrew--
- And Ladino?
- Did you speak?
- Ladino, yes, Ladino, speak Ladino.
- And Hebrew, of course.
- And the Greek government did not like him,
- because he could not speak Greek.
- So the Jewish community was forced to hire a rabbi--
- Ashkenazi rabbi, not Sephardi rabbi--
- from Austria.
- But he spoke--
- His name was Rabbi Koretz.
- The first name, I don't remember--
- Rabbi Koretz, with his wife.
- He came in Salonika in 1939, I think so.
- And the only thing he used to do is
- to go every time that Jewish soldiers had
- to go to the headquarters, to go with them and to talk in Greek.
- This rabbi sold us.
- He went to be together with the Gestapo,
- with the promise-- they gave to him a promise that they
- will not send him in concentration camp.
- They will send him in part family camps.
- Theresienstadt?
- No, it was not Theresienstadt.
- It was in that camps.
- I don't remember the name.
- I will, later on, maybe I will remember.
- It was in Austria, in Austria, a camp with the families.
- They did not kill them, because there were also
- the Spanish Jews who were Spanish citizens they
- sent in this camp.
- And they promised to the Rabbi Koretz they will send him with
- his family in this camp-- not in Poland--
- not in Auschwitz--
- Those are death camps.
- --if he could cooperate with the Gestapo.
- He did it.
- He sold us.
- He called all the Jewish population in the synagogue,
- to make speeches, telling us, just don't worry.
- My children, you will go in Poland.
- They will give you a piece of land.
- You will be farmers.
- They will give you houses over there, small houses.
- According the family, according your children,
- they will get small or big house over there.
- You will take without you your money.
- Take as many clothing, new clothing, heavy clothing
- as you can, because it's cold over there, and your gold,
- your jewelry, your diamonds, and everything with you.
- You go over there for a period of time-- maybe six months,
- maybe one year-- until the end of the war.
- After, they will bring you back in Salonika and your houses,
- and-- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- Most of us believed him, unfortunately.
- Just a moment, before you tell me a little bit about it.
- Do you remember what life was like in the ghetto itself?
- A miserable life, because you could not go out at nighttime.
- In daytime, they left you to go shopping around
- in the neighborhood.
- At nighttime, you could not go to see
- your parents or your friends or your in-laws or whatever it is.
- You could not walk at nighttime with the Star of David.
- Sometimes my second wife was smart enough
- to take the Magen David out and to go wherever she wants to go.
- I did the same thing, myself.
- But if, by chance, you was caught oh, my, oh, my, oh, my.
- It was a terrible thing.
- Now, at that time--
- I have a little story to tell you, a very important story.
- Just, it was in 1942.
- End of 1942, my parents had a very big warehouse
- of dry fruits--
- walnuts, almonds--
- Hazel.
- --those hazelnuts-- very big warehouse.
- We used to sell this stuff in wintertime.
- All of a sudden, one morning, the Gestapo--
- two Gestapo, with two Greeks--
- those antisemites-- they went to the Gestapo
- and tell, the Nahmias family, they
- have a big warehouse of dry fruits
- that the German needed very badly.
- Those [NON-ENGLISH]---- they call this raisins,
- those golden raisins--
- The white raisins.
- --the golden raisin-- they loved.
- The dates, they loved.
- So two Greeks from the wholesale market went to the Gestapo
- and told them, the family Nahmias,
- they have a big warehouse with those fruits.
- One morning, I was with my father at my desk.
- All of a sudden, we saw two Germans, two colossal boys,
- with a black--
- was a nickel, a color of nickel [NON-ENGLISH],, here,
- the Gestapo--
- and says, who is Nahmias, here?
- I says, I am.
- My father, when they saw coming in, was become white.
- He was trembling, the poor man.
- He was a very, very shy person.
- Says, what do you want?
- Do you have a warehouse of nuts?
- Yes, we have.
- We couldn't say, I don't have.
- Yes, we have.
- So we have a trade in.
- You will give us all your dry foods
- that we give you, tomorrow, biscuits
- to sell in the open market--
- biscuits.
- I mean, it was a German--
- like a pancake, dry pancakes--
- A cracker?
- It was sort of a dry pancake they
- used to give to the soldiers.
- We will give to you the equivalent of this dry fruits
- in biscuits, to sell in the open market-- not black market;
- open market--
- to get your money.
- I told the Dolmetscher--
- I mean, the Greek who was interpreting us,
- we don't know how to sell crackers and biscuits.
- Our job business is to sell the fruits.
- If you talk too much, he says, you will go in jail right now.
- And the German took his gun in his hand.
- Says, what you want for it?
- It took me two days to deliver to them all the dry fruits.
- It was a fortune.
- And they give me a piece of paper,
- to go the next day to the German headquarters
- and to start to load the biscuits.
- Then, the same evening, 12 o'clock at night,
- they came to my house.
- I was living with my father and mother and my first wife.
- Knock on the door--
- two Gestapo-- said, you're Nahmias?
- Yes.
- Come on.
- What do you want?
- Come on.
- They put me in jail, with the criminals.
- Did they tell you why?
- Nothing.
- No explanation.
- They put me in jail, with the criminals.
- So after two days, we put some two big lawyers, Greek lawyers.
- They told me, do you want your liberty
- or you want your-- you want your liberty, to stay in jail?
- What do you want?
- I says, I want my liberty.
- My father said, the hell with the fruits and everything.
- I want my son.
- So-- OK!
- I went home.
- Was the end of '42, beginning of '43,
- when the big tragedy start to come.
- What did the children do, who had been going to school?
- Were there schools in the ghetto?
- Schools in the ghetto?
- Nothing!
- OK.
- It was a life of misery, a life of subduing us like animals.
- We could do nothing--
- just waiting, eating-- eating--
- I mean, spending our money, the money that we would sell--
- spending our money, until we see what will
- happen-- the end of the war.
- All of a sudden, one good morning,
- we heard the newspaper asking all the young men from 17,
- 18 years of age until 30, 35 years to go to the--
- we had a big, big place in downtown,
- where 1,000 people could be assembled,
- to have a reunion over there-- a meeting.
- So, we went over there.
- They started to make to us--
- like, to count as monkeys, to have exercise in the dirt,
- down there, to--
- going around like monkeys in the dust,
- just laughing of all the Jews, going around,
- around, like animals.
- Then we started to understand that things
- were going to be very, very bad for us--
- very bad.
- They took part of the youngsters, 20, 22,
- 25 years old, to work in different German--
- Camps?
- --German camps in Salonika.
- What kind of work did they do?
- Do you know?
- Transporting materials and-- just, like porters--
- like slaves.
- I have to spend a fortune, to give to some lawyers, to--
- Keep you out?
- --to keep me out of this sham.
- Things start to come very bad for the Jewish people,
- in end of 1942.
- Now, let's go back to the rabbi who told you that--
- who suggested that you listen to the Nazis.
- Yes.
- This was.
- What did you talk about, yourselves,
- when he told you this?
- Right away, we understood it was a traitor.
- You did.
- Yes.
- But you could do nothing to him, because he
- was protected by the Germans.
- We couldn't do nothing to him, absolutely nothing.
- He was protected by the Gestapo.
- And we were so afraid, so scared, we didn't know
- what will happen the next day.
- Every day, one new law.
- Every day, orders-- counter orders.
- They get us crazy.
- Now, at that time, we start to find out how could we
- buy food in the black market.
- How could you find nothing, except black market?
- Anything you want to buy--
- bread-- for the Jews, I'm talking.
- Anything you want to buy, you have to go to the black market.
- What did you do about medicine?
- Everything, black market.
- Everything.
- We start to spend our money, because we could not
- live without the food, without what we need.
- And when Koretz, the rabbi, told us to buy heavy clothing,
- we went to the merchants and we bought the best heavy clothing
- for all of us.
- Because we will be in Poland, in a very cold climate.
- We bought the best things in the world, those fancy shoes
- and fancy coats, everything heavy,
- thinking that we will need it over there.
- And this was for the Germans.
- Because when the orders start to come, beginning of 1943--
- January, February, March and April-- those four months--
- they start to take, from different sections of the city,
- in the morning--
- 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock 4 o'clock in the morning,
- to close all the neighborhood and take all the Jews
- to the railway station--
- start to send in Poland.
- Then, it was the most terrible days, the most ominous days
- of our lives, that we saw that everything was the end of us.
- My farmers came to my house and brought
- me villager clothings and false identities, false--
- Greek names-- to take all my family in the mountains.
- My mother didn't want to be.
- Why?
- Was she afraid?
- She was afraid for me.
- If they caught me, she said, I am an old lady now.
- I don't care anymore.
- But, for you--
- Say, Mama, those farmers are from my grandfather
- and my great-grandfather.
- We know them so well.
- This was like family.
- Don't worry, Mama.
- No, I don't want it.
- So the Greeks, the poor boys, left the house, crying.
- I says, we give to them whatever we could save--
- two or three big suitcases-- trunks--
- of things of the house I give to them,
- and they take to the village, to the mountains.
- And when our turn come--
- Do you remember your date?
- Yes, absolutely.
- They took us from our homes on the end of March--
- end of March 1943.
- They took us to a place--
- to a neighborhood adjacent to the railroad station.
- They called the neighborhood of Baron de Hirsch-Meyer, Baron
- de Hirsch-Meyer, the neighborhood
- that he built for the poor, years, years ago.
- And they used to call the neighborhood of Baron de
- Hirsch-Meyer.
- They took us over there.
- And after a few days, as a matter of fact,
- my mother was with fever.
- I had to put her in a pushcart--
- To take her?
- --and take her to the railroad station.
- Over there, we wait--
- who can remember?
- 3 days?
- 4 days?
- 6 days?
- 8 days?
- 10 days?
- What did you do for food?
- Where did you stay-- outdoors, in the open?
- No!
- No, everything closed, over there.
- We had to buy food with black market.
- They used to bring--
- So they sent you to other homes and other houses?
- You said you moved-- you went to--
- This was the houses, the empty houses--
- I see.
- --they first shipped to Poland.
- I see.
- Jews who lived there.
- The whole neighborhood was empty.
- They brought another contingent of people to this house.
- Take their place.
- When they used to ship this one another contingent
- from Salonika.
- He took this shipping from January, February, March,
- and April, as far as we are concerned.
- After us, we don't know how many shipments they made.
- Her family, my family, all our families were shipped,
- April 7, 1943.
- We were shipped all together in those cattle cars.
- What was it like?
- Cattle cars-- what's like?
- God forbid.
- What was the trip like--
- Not even to your enemy, you should not
- wish to be in those cattle cars.
- Those cattle cars can hold regularly 20, 30 people.
- We were 100 in each cattle car.
- No place to move.
- You have to stay like this.
- So my mother was with fever.
- I could sleep in the floor, but I did not sleep.
- I was, I mean, standing and leaving to my mother
- a little bit more room for her, because she was with fever.
- And every 10 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, 15 hours, they
- tell you to stop.
- And--
- When our time, our turn, come to be shipped,
- they ask us everything we had in our fingers--
- rings, the ladies, the [INAUDIBLE]----
- Earrings.
- --earrings, bracelets, money-- everything-- everything,
- they used to put in bags, those Gestapo people.
- Because, they told us, you won't need no money over there.
- That was before you got onto the train?
- Before we got in, they took us the money, the paper money.
- When we went to the trains, they took us all the jewelry.
- When we ask why you took us the paper money,
- they gave us Polish money.
- We give drachmas, Greek money, and they give us counter--
- I mean, counter value in Polish money.
- We ask, why you take our Polish money?
- You won't need nothing over there, they told us.
- We didn't understand the meaning of this word.
- You won't need nothing over there.
- Who could understand what was waiting for us over there?
- Nobody.
- Rabbi, all of this time, did the Germans set up
- a Judenrat in Salonika?
- A what?
- A Judenrat, a government of the Jews--
- that the Jews ran the community.
- No.
- They didn't.
- No.
- In some communities, they did.
- No, no, no, no, it was everything upside down.
- Everything was a nightmare.
- But there was nobody else, beside the rabbi
- who worked for the Germans--
- or were there other people--
- One rabbi, this only the--
- That's the only--
- And another one, tailor by the name--
- I don't remember his name now.
- He was also a traitor, this tailor.
- Don't recall his name now.
- He went to the Germans to say, Mr. So-and-so is a rich man.
- He has gold and silver and whatever it is.
- And you catch him and take his money.
- Mr. So-and-so-- he was pointing out the rich Jews
- to the Gestapo, and they took everything.
- The big problem was that they put us in those cattle cars
- without thinking if we were human beings--
- worse than animals.
- They could put 100 cows in the cattle car.
- They didn't care about.
- But they put us over there, sick people--
- sometimes we heard that people died in the cattle cars.
- Was there water?
- And this-- or this water?
- Nothing!
- Nothing!
- So what did you do?
- They-- I remember very well, we took those soldier
- canteen, soldiers things, with us
- and to drink just one sip at a time.
- And when someone died in the cattle car,
- we used to tell the Germans, once the car used to stop,
- we had two or three or four dead people.
- Raus, they says.
- Take them out.
- Take them out.
- This was our families.
- I don't remember if my second wife's family was with us
- in the same cattle car.
- I don't remember, but we were just like sardines in a box.
- How long did that trip take?
- 11 days.
- 11 days there, 11 days-- between 10 and 11 days.
- To be honest, no one can tell you exactly how many days.
- It was the biggest nightmare in the world,
- because the day was night, the night was day--
- we could never know what was happening to us--
- looking the misery, looking sick people,
- crying into the cattle car-- how could you
- imagine if it was seven days, eight days, or 10 days
- were, and approximate between nine and 10 days.
- What kind of-- did you have any food?
- What we took with us!
- That's all.
- That's all we have.
- The Germans, during these 10 days,
- they absolutely did nothing to us--
- nothing.
- And the need of everyone, it was done into the cattle cars.
- It was a nightmare that nobody can describe.
- In no books in the world can this be described.
- It's impossible-- impossible.
- Now, waiting and waiting.
- Now, what will happen?
- Now, where we are going?
- All of a sudden, one night--
- it was a night--
- it was in the morning hours--
- nobody can tell-- the car stopped.
- And we saw, like, demons, like devils, soldiers,
- German soldiers, with those dogs, those German shepherds,
- and some boys with their jackets with the-- with the--
- Stripes?
- --the stripes.
- We could not understand what was these boys, going like demons.
- Excuse me.
- You didn't have a clue of where you were going?
- Absolutely nothing!
- OK--
- Only the rabbi told us we are going in Poland.
- They give you your house over there.
- You will go farming.
- You will plant your own vegetables.
- And you will buy your own food from the markets over there.
- They gave us, the Germans, [NON-ENGLISH]---- "zlotys,"
- [NON-ENGLISH]--
- I don't remember.
- "Zlotys."
- "Zlotys."
- That's Russian, isn't it?
- No, "zlotys" is Polish.
- Oh, Polish.
- Yes.
- The zloty.
- They gave us the zlotys, so you will
- go to the market to buy whatever you want,
- and you will plant your own vegetables,
- and-- blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- So when the wagon stopped--
- You believed--
- --we saw four chimneys, burning.
- We could not even understand what
- means those four chimneys--
- four big flames.
- It was night.
- Yes, it was night when we came already.
- Yes.
- It was nighttime.
- It was not daytime-- yes, nighttime.
- So my first wife was with my sister-in-law.
- She had four babies, four little--
- three girls and one boy, age four, six, seven, eight years
- of age.
- I told my wife, you take two boys, or two--
- two children with you, and let Mary--
- her sister-- take another two.
- Don't leave her with four children together.
- I send my wife, my first wife, to the crematorium myself.
- I didn't know that any woman with babies,
- with children, has to go to the crematorium.
- I didn't know that.
- So with my own--
- and I sent my first wife to the crematorium.
- So she took two--
- two-- my sister, one boy, one girl, and my sister-in-law
- took another two, and we went down.
- All of a sudden, a German doctor come in.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- Dangerous.
- Oh, dangerous, of course.
- So they separated us from our parents--
- all the youngsters in one side, our parents, our uncles,
- our aunties--
- everybody, in other side.
- We said, among us, listen, boys--
- finally the Germans start to be humane.
- They want to send the older--
- with trucks or whatever thing, walking, what they were to go.
- And we are the youngsters-- we go walking.
- Because we saw big trucks over there-- empty trucks.
- And we imagined that these trucks
- were for the old people and babies and infants.
- So many infants, so many babies.
- They could not walk.
- So we thought they will go with the trucks,
- and we will go walking.
- Right?
- So they took all of us, the youngsters, in one side.
- And we start to walk and to walk.
- And we left our parents in the other side.
- What happened to them, the story knows, everybody--
- this is the Holocaust.
- They were taken to the trucks, straight to the gas chamber,
- straight to the crematorium.
- We didn't know nothing at the time, in is moment.
- The only we know--
- we saw the anti trucks, and our parents and relatives
- and friends in one side, waiting for to be loaded
- into the trucks and to go in our little house
- they will give to us to be farmers, to have a family life.
- We went in the camp--
- start to be a daytime.
- There was a gentleman by the name Savator [PERSONAL NAME]..
- This was-- from Salonika, but he was born in Austria.
- The wife was born in Austria.
- And he used to speak very well German.
- They caught him one of the first to take him over there,
- to be the Dolmetscher, the interpreter.
- The wife was friend of my friend-- of my now-family,
- from her and her sister-- they were friends.
- [NON-ENGLISH],, the husband, was friend of mine.
- So the wife went with the women--
- with the young women--
- and the husband, [NON-ENGLISH],, for the man.
- Then he become an interpreter.
- The moment we enter Auschwitz--
- we enter Auschwitz-- they put us in a big, big hangar, a big,
- big--
- A barrack?
- --barrack.
- They told us to get completely undressed-- naked.
- And [NON-ENGLISH] brothers, what I will tell you now,
- I want you to be men--
- to don't lose your courage, because I will tell you
- something that's going on here.
- Do you see these four flames, over there?
- This is crematoriums.
- We--
- Did you know what the word meant?
- To be honest, we didn't know what
- the word "crematorium" means.
- We didn't know what "crematorium" means.
- I says, [NON-ENGLISH],, what are you talking about?
- These four big flames is in Birkenau, where you was before.
- The trains were in Birkenau.
- This is the station where the train goes.
- Birkenau, Auschwitz is Miami, Miami Beach--
- or Miami City, Miami Beach.
- Let's say, Miami City is Birkenau;
- Miami Beach is Auschwitz.
- So, in Birkenau, these four crematoriums,
- they burn up your parents, your children.
- We told among us, [NON-ENGLISH],, mind's gone.
- He's crazy.
- I remember very well talking him, [NON-ENGLISH],,
- are you in your right mind, how you're talking with sense?
- Sadi, he says, I'm telling you this true story.
- This is the end of everything.
- Your parents, our parents-- everything is gone.
- They are be cremated.
- They will be killed over there.
- Nobody could believe him.
- Still we thought that [NON-ENGLISH] was crazy.
- If [NON-ENGLISH] lost his mind, they was telling stories--
- Who told him?
- Huh?
- Who told him?
- The Germans!
- He was there, three months before.
- He saw everything.
- He knew everything.
- And still we thought that [NON-ENGLISH] was out of his
- mind, that this is--
- we told ourselves, in 20th century,
- how can we conceive that people, so-called civilized Germans,
- so-called civilized Germans, will
- kill babies and infants and ladies and men
- and old people in the gas chambers, in the crematorium?
- How can be?
- That's impossible!
- [NON-ENGLISH],, you must be wrong.
- I am telling you the truth, boys.
- I want you to be--
- from now on, to live for yourselves.
- "Sauve qui peut" means, in French, "sauve qui peut,"
- "save who can be saved."
- Try yourself to be alive.
- Whatever you can do, try to be alive.
- In French here, "sauve qui peut."
- Whoever can be saved, try your best.
- It's the end of the world.
- Don't ask me no questions.
- I don't know nothing yet.
- The only thing I can tell you is, all our parents are gone.
- It's finished.
- Now what you will do in the camps, God knows only.
- Try your best to be alive.
- As much as you can, try your best.
- Still, we thought that [NON-ENGLISH] was crazy.
- They took us, all naked, with the machine,
- like they trimmed the--
- how you call this-- the sheeps, they trimmed, the machines--
- they trim us completely, the--
- Shaved.
- --shaved completely.
- And they send us to the showers--
- showers, cold-water showers.
- OK, fine.
- And they gave us a bunch of clothing.
- It was one pant, one shirt, one jacket with the stripes.
- Shoes?
- Shoes, a pair of wooden shoes, and one--
- and one hat, a kind of a--
- Cap?
- --cap, just a cap.
- And-- to the camp.
- We start the life in the Nazi concentration camps.
- What did you do there?
- What kind of work did you do?
- In the beginning, we were in Auschwitz for about two weeks
- or three weeks or one month.
- Nobody can tell you exactly, because the [INAUDIBLE] messed
- up at that moment, and no one can tell you
- how long we were in Auschwitz.
- They ask us what kind of trade we're in, what kind of skills
- we had.
- Some people says, I am a barber.
- Some others say I'm a tischler.
- A tischler means [INAUDIBLE]--
- Carpenter.
- --carpenter.
- Or the shoemaker or whatever it is.
- They were taking notes.
- And one good morning, they told us,
- you will be shipped to Buna concentration camp--
- Buna-- B-U-N-A. To Buna.
- There is the concentration of all the buildings
- that the Germans are building over there to manufacture bombs
- and whatever they need for the war.
- It's around 1,000 big buildings.
- They have to be built by those [NON-ENGLISH],, those prisoners,
- in Buna.
- So they select the most healthy boys.
- As a matter of fact, my first brother-in-law, one,
- he was not so strong.
- They left him over there.
- My brother-in-law, another one, he was almost sick,
- the poor man.
- They left him over there.
- And so many friends of ours, they were left in Auschwitz.
- And they shipped us in Buna.
- But before you tell me about that,
- do you remember what the food was like?
- Yes.
- In Auschwitz--
- Mhm?
- In Auschwitz were those rutabaga.
- "Rutabaga"--
- It's a vegetable, yeah.
- But here in America, those little turnips are small ones.
- Over there is like a watermelon--
- the size of watermelon, those rutabaga.
- Those rutabaga turnips boiled, with margarine,
- this was the main meal.
- In the morning, a slice of bread--
- like there are some bread-- one slice,
- with a teeny piece of margarine--
- teeny piece of margarine.
- This was-- and a coffee-- and it was not coffee, anyway,
- it was ersatz, was--
- was some--
- Chicory?
- --herbs.
- Oh, yes.
- --and this coffee, they used to put the medication to--
- to not be a man anymore-- with all the respect I have for you.
- That's interesting.
- I didn't know they did it to the men as well.
- Yes.
- I knew the women--
- Had medication that we lost completely--
- Any desire.
- --any desire, sex desire, completely.
- We saw each other like piece of wood.
- As a matter of fact, the Germans used to have,
- in Buna, two big barracks, very well kept.
- And every week--
- I think every Saturday or every Sunday--
- I don't remember-- two or three trucks
- of ladies used to come over there, for the German officers.
- We used to see these ladies, like if we
- saw a piece of wood--
- absolutely nothing.
- We were just-- it's a word for that.
- It's an English word for that--
- just robots with no desire, with no nothing.
- The only desire for us were how to find a piece of bread,
- how to find a piece of potato--
- whatever it is, to sustain us.
- This was our only desire.
- Now, this is the food they gave us in the morning
- and in the evening--
- in the morning, piece of bread, I repeat, with a piece
- of margarine.
- In the evening-- not lunch.
- In the evening, this bowl of soup.
- Once a week, they used to give few boiled potatoes--
- small ones, potatoes.
- Few, on Sunday.
- This was the meals in Auschwitz.
- Did you do any kind of work, in Auschwitz?
- In Auschwitz, not yet.
- In Auschwitz, they were the kind of camp--
- they were selecting different groups
- to send in different camps--
- was a concentration of people coming from Europe.
- From there, they were asking, what's your trade?
- Carpenter.
- Your trade?
- Shoemaker.
- Your trade?
- They were separating and sending all over the country, in--
- they used to send in Ravensbruck,
- in [PLACE NAME],, in Malchow, in Breslau, in Lublin,
- in Golleschau, in many camps, they
- used to send contingents of prisoners,
- according what they need in each camp.
- Were they cruel?
- Did they punish you?
- Do you remember, did they beat any of the people?
- [LAUGHS] The beating is something
- that nobody can believe it.
- Nobody can believe.
- I will tell you one kind of beating.
- In the bottom of the pot, that the soup was there,
- in the bottom always was pieces of turnip.
- Everybody was waiting to be the last one to go for the soup,
- to take the bottom.
- And when two or three or four used to hide themself
- in the washrooms, to be the last ones,
- the Blockalteste-- you know what's Blockalteste?
- Chief of the block-- in German, means "Blockalteste."
- The chief of the block.
- Was this a kapo?
- A kapo.
- Yes, the kapo.
- They used to call him "Kapo."
- Now, Kapo was the kapo of a part of prisoners.
- Blockalteste was the chief of the whole block--
- 800 people.
- Kapo is the kapo for 10, 15, or 20, or 30 persons--
- is the kapo.
- Blockalteste of the whole block.
- When they used to call, to see that three or four were hiding,
- this was the punishment-- to give us two pieces of concrete
- in our hands and through kneebl, you know.
- Kneel.
- Kneel, with the piece of concrete, one, twice--
- ein, zwei, drei, vier, funf--
- how many times you could.
- Many of them, they used to fall down.
- And they used to come and then, with a piece of [INAUDIBLE]----
- with a piece of rubber, piece of rubber,
- and to give them and to beat them.
- It's so unbelievable.
- The beating was unbelievable.
- OK, this was Auschwitz, for two or three weeks.
- From there--
- Just a minute.
- Before we leave-- did you get a number, in Auschwitz?
- Yes.
- Do you remember when that happened?
- Immediately?
- The second day, the second day.
- The first day, they sent us to the showers.
- I don't remember if it's before the shower
- or after the shower--
- before the shower-- we went over there with our list like that.
- And we wait in line, until they put a number.
- What did you think they were doing?
- There was no name, over there.
- Was no Albert or Robert or Isaac or yourself or whatever it is.
- This is the name that you have.
- On the morning, on the morning when
- they used to make the Appell--
- "Appell" means--
- The appell, appell, the roll call.
- On the [SPEAKING GERMAN] And you'll say "Jawohl"
- or "Heil Hitler."
- And if you didn't?
- [LAUGHS] Don't ask.
- Don't ask.
- Don't ask.
- It was another trouble.
- Many of our boys did not understand German at all--
- at all.
- And they did not answer.
- So, one day, I was stupid enough to answer for him--
- for one of my next neighbor.
- Oh, they beat me so hard.
- Who are you, they told me, to answer for him?
- I says, [SPEAKING GERMAN] German.
- It was worse.
- It was terrible.
- Do you remember if any people got sick--
- if there was any kind of medical care in Auschwitz?
- Oh, sure-- [LAUGHS] medical care.
- [LAUGHS] I will tell you the medical care
- in Buna, because I was in Auschwitz just two or three
- weeks.
- Or is there something else want to tell me about Auschwitz,
- before we go on to Buna?
- No, because my life was not in Auschwitz.
- It was in Buna--
- it was in Lublin, and Golleschau.
- All right.
- Well--
- Rothenburg, Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald.
- I will take [INAUDIBLE].
- Now, in Auschwitz, I was just, as I told you before,
- one week, two weeks, or three weeks.
- I don't remember.
- I can't tell you.
- The only I remember is that, one morning,
- we went down to the faucets to wash ourselves.
- You have to take all your blouse--
- Shirt.
- --shirt-- shirt, yes-- and to go to-- it
- was 100 faucets in one way, 100 in the other way--
- to wash ourselves.
- The only time they give to you, two or three minutes.
- Was there soap?
- Was there a towel?
- No-- just water.
- Soap-- don't mention the name of soap!
- Doesn't exist, soap, just water.
- And I went to one faucet, sort of to wash myself.
- One boy-- he was a Polish boy who was before us over there--
- wants to wash himself before me.
- He grabbed from my pants-- he put me out.
- And he says in Polish such words that can't repeat to you.
- I can't put in this tape--
- the most dirty words in Polish.
- Did you know him?
- No!
- The only thing is because he grabbed
- me and he gave me one punch.
- So I was very, very strong.
- As I told you, I was the heavyweight champion of Greece.
- I took him with my hands.
- It was a football match, it will be killed.
- I gave him plenty.
- They took us both to the Blockalteste.
- I thought Blockalteste with somebody who could translate.
- He told me this and this and this and this.
- And you did very well to him.
- It's very nice.
- And then they start the fights, among us.
- The all Polish boys were there, who were a year already
- or two years over there.
- And we're the newcomers.
- We didn't know nothing.
- And they didn't believe we are Jews.
- This was the big trouble.
- Because you couldn't speak--
- Yiddish.
- --Yiddish.
- You are not Jews.
- You are Franks.
- You are Turks.
- I says, can you speak Hebrew?
- No!
- Yiddish!
- I don't speak Yiddish.
- I speak Hebrew.
- I can read the sefer Torah by memory, in front of you.
- Can you read sefer Torah?
- No, you, you're no Jew.
- You are not Jewish.
- So they hate us very, very bad.
- It was terrible.
- I don't want to go into this, because it's real--
- real-- it's a shame.
- Forget about.
- So-- go ahead.
- Ask me.
- What I was going to ask you-- were there any people
- who tried to observe any kind of Yiddishkeit, in the camp?
- "Yiddishkeit"-- what do you mean by that?
- Anything-- any kind of observance.
- Yes.
- Did--
- I was the one, in the morning, to ask my boys, my friends,
- to stay with me, just for five minutes,
- and to say two prayers--
- two or three-- as much as I could memorize.
- And the only place we could get together was in the washrooms--
- in the men's room.
- Because if we went outside, 10 people or 5 or 10 people,
- praying, the machine guns the Poles will kill us like ants.
- Was no question about.
- So I told the boys, in the portion of our Torah,
- of our Bible, in Yitro, the portion of Yitro,
- in the end of this portion it says [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]..
- It means "in any place that you will mention my name,
- i WILL come to you and bless you."
- And so this is the place we came back to be.
- That's all.
- Rabbi, you're crazy!
- How can we play into the men's room?
- And where you want to pray--
- outside?
- They will kill us!
- This was in the morning--
- three or four minutes.
- In the evening, three or four minutes, I prayed--
- begged them to be with me, for a few minutes.
- Some were completely disabused-- completely, they lost faith.
- They lost everything.
- We don't want.
- They used to try.
- And they start to call me the "crazy rabbi."
- You are crazy.
- Why are you wasting your time?
- You see these wires, over there, the way electrified?
- One day, you or me, everybody's dead.
- Well, we die here
- I said, boys, I don't know why I have here in my heart something
- that tells me that I will not die here.
- I will survive.
- And one day I will be free man.
- One day I will eat steaks and broiled fish, in my country.
- They thought I start to lose my mind, because I used to tell
- them, don't lose your faith.
- Don't go, in the morning, to the black market in the camp
- to sell your piece of bread and piece of margarine
- for a little tobacco.
- Is that what they did?
- Yes.
- Go in the morning to the Polish--
- Christian Polish boys.
- They were, over there, many Christian Polish boys.
- They were saboteurs of the Hitler regime--
- They were political prisoners.
- Political prisoners.
- And their family send them, every week, one package.
- They were free to send a package.
- In this package, they put some makhorka.
- Makhorka is poison.
- Makhorka is not tobacco.
- It's not the leaves of tobacco.
- It's the--
- Stem?
- The--
- The stem.
- The stems.
- And they used to sell, to cut this with a knife,
- and to take a piece of [? cement ?] paper--
- not cigar paper, [? cement ?] paper--
- to roll this makhorka, and to sell
- this for the bread and butter they have to eat,
- to sustain themselves.
- These boys used to go in the black market
- to give to the Polish people the bread and take this makhorka
- and come to me.
- I says, no.
- I will not do that.
- My boys, you are wrong.
- You are giving your little piece of bread for poison.
- It's not cigarette.
- It's not tobacco.
- It's poison.
- How long-- listen.
- The Americans will come to the war.
- The Turkish people will come to the war.
- Tomorrow, in one week, in two weeks, everything will be gone.
- Don't worry.
- It's not a question of two weeks or one week or one month.
- This is not a question of weeks and months.
- It's a question of year--
- maybe two, maybe three or god knows.
- Sustain yourselves.
- Don't sell your bread for this poison.
- They didn't listen to me.
- The most strong boys--
- two months, three months, four months, six months--
- they start to become skeletons.
- And unfortunately, as my wife told you,
- weeks before, the selection on Sundays--
- the Sunday, a day of rest, after going
- to work in the morning, 2 o'clock in the morning,
- coming back in the afternoon, 3 o'clock,
- we have to go for selection to see which one was still
- able to continue to produce.
- This was in Auschwitz?
- No.
- This was he Auschwitz--
- all of it.
- All of it.
- All right, tell me about your particular experience
- when you left Auschwitz.
- Yes.
- Now, when they told me--
- with me, many other boys--
- that we will leave for Buna, some people,
- they fooled them, telling that was a place over there
- for those who had malaria.
- Which malaria was this.
- And those who wish to go to a place--
- it was like a sanatorium--
- they will take care of them.
- They will cure them from the malaria
- and send them back in the camps, full of good health.
- Many of our people start to rise themselves.
- I swear my good God, how many times I told you,
- don't do that!
- Don't be foolish!
- It can be here sanatorium for you.
- Go kill-- they kill people here.
- They give you a sanatorium.
- Are you crazy?
- No, we'll go over there.
- They never come back.
- That's the end of the story.
- They left Buna or the Auschwitz or any camp,
- they never come back.
- They went straight to the crematorium,
- because the Germans had a fear from malaria--
- a fear.
- Two things they had fear-- malaria and [NON-ENGLISH]----
- skin disease.
- They were so afraid of skin disease and from malaria.
- All those with malaria, straight to the crematorium,
- without even second question.
- Now, one day, they told us we leave to Buna.
- OK.
- We took our belongings.
- You know what was our belongings?
- Nothing, [LAUGHS] with us.
- And [INAUDIBLE],, we went to Buna.
- We passed by Warszawa.
- We pass by Lublin.
- And we passed by different, other camps,
- other cities-- not camps-- other cities from Polish cities.
- We don't remember their names anymore.
- And all of a sudden, we find ourself in a big camp.
- In the entrance to the camp was "Arbeit Macht Frei."
- "Arbeit Macht Frei."
- So we entered this camp--
- Buna camp.
- We were, some friends of mine were there already.
- Sadi, what-- why they send you here?
- I don't know, I says.
- They send me here.
- We'll see what will be.
- This is the-- it's not the tough one.
- The next one I will tell you is the real tough one.
- This one, Buna, it was--
- What did you do there?
- I become, over there, number one, a Tischler--
- Carpenter?
- --carpenter I become over there a boxer.
- I become over there a singer.
- And where did you box, and where did you sing?
- Singing-- [LAUGHS] these come, the story, one after the other.
- The carpenter-- when they ask, who is carpenter, I says, I am.
- I didn't have any idea about carpenter.
- But I says, I will learn.
- I learn.
- I did my portion of work as a carpenter.
- But when they ask for entertainment--
- boxing-- the Germans want boxing,
- who can give, every Sunday, entertainment
- to the German officers.
- So I raise my hand.
- Her brother-in-law was with me.
- Her first husband was in another block--
- Block eight-- it was a block I don't remember--
- 21.
- We were in block 18, with her brother-in-law--
- Jimmy.
- I says, Sadi, are you crazy?
- How do you know which one you will fight?
- Those crazy Polish people, those giants, they can kill you.
- I said, I am looking for the piece of bread I will trade
- for the piece of cheese, and maybe they will give--
- they promise us to give us three or four cubes of sugar
- and a piece of [NON-ENGLISH]--
- garlic.
- It was a fortune.
- Who could get a piece of garlic and three or four
- cubes of sugar and a piece of cheese is a fortune,
- over there!
- Nobody can have this-- nobody!
- So, with the idea that I will have this food,
- I said I am a heavyweight boxer.
- All right.
- So, to make story short--
- on Sunday, they give us gloves, and they gave us
- all the equipment, and we have to go to the German quarters,
- where the officer were.
- They make a ring over there.
- And all the Germans--
- officers and soldiers, but not together.
- The soldiers were waiting one part
- and the officers in another part,
- according the ranks of the officers.
- They were sitting and enjoying themselves.
- There, they want to see blood.
- There, they want to see blood--
- nothing else.
- Rules and regulations of boxing, they didn't exist.
- The only thing they want to see-- the winner
- has to go to a German kitchen and take the bread, the cheese,
- and the sugar, and the garlic.
- This was the main thing, for the main,
- the person who will fight--
- the food.
- So, many times, all the times, thank god, I was the winner.
- Because--
- Who did you fight-- other Jews?
- No!
- Poles?
- No!
- Poles.
- One time only, they asked me to fight with a Moroccan Jew.
- The poor man, he was a lightweight champion.
- I was heavyweight champion.
- How can you fight with a lightweight?
- It's impossible.
- I said, you will finish [INAUDIBLE]..
- I say, listen--
- I will try to--
- to-- to don't hurt you.
- But in the seventh round, eighth round,
- you have to fall down, because they
- will find out that we are fooling up,
- and we will go outside.
- I don't want to hurt you.
- It's a shame.
- You can't fight with me; I can't fight with you.
- So we did this.
- After, we-- whatever they gave to me, I gave half to him.
- But with the other fighters, with the Polish--
- Christian Polish-- they were eating from their house--
- The packages that they received.
- --the packages-- what do you want?
- Ham, eggs, bread, butter.
- If they get everything, they will run like giants.
- They were full-- full of health, and we were starving.
- So her brother-in-law told me, when you find things hard,
- try the Greek boxing.
- And what's the Greek boxing?
- [LAUGHS]
- Illegal boxing.
- Illegal boxing.
- And what is that?
- I am ashamed to tell you.
- To give a punch wherever you should not give a punch.
- You understand.
- If you do this in America, you go in jail--
- for years, you go in jail.
- It's not a joke.
- And then suppose, when someone start to do this in the ring,
- the--
- The referee--
- --referee says, once, twice--
- the third times, you are out.
- Over there was no referee-- was no nothing.
- A referee was a German, I tell you who didn't even
- understand what means boxing.
- They only want to see blood.
- That's all.
- So her brother-in-law told me, Greek boxing, and put him down.
- It's what I did, many times.
- So I had to feed--
- to take all this food and give to my--
- Share it--
- --friends-- to her brother-in-law,
- to her first husband, to my cousins, to all my friends--
- a piece of everything.
- I used to cut the bread pieces and give to everyone
- a little piece, to sustain them.
- And one evening--
- This is the boxing.
- About the singing, now.
- This was in Buna, not in Auschwitz.
- One evening, some boys told me, why don't you--
- we sit in the back of the building--
- of the barrack in building-- the barrack,
- in the grass over there, and sing
- us a little bit of Turkish song, just to remind our old days
- in our country.
- Says, OK, let's go.
- But with one condition-- one of us
- has to watch in the other corner.
- If the Gestapo comes, oh, it's terrible!
- So, this what happen.
- I start to sing, over there.
- And the Blockalteste, the German Blockalteste, was coming by.
- That boy, our boy, did not see him.
- It was from God.
- He didn't see him.
- And the Blockalteste come slowly toward us
- and saw me singing in Turkish.
- Come here!
- He says to me-- come here.
- I was so afraid.
- I was so afraid.
- I started to tremble, because it was not
- permitted to sing, over there in the camp.
- Said, come here, come here, Greco.
- Was Greek.
- Greco.
- Come here, Greco.
- So he was walking, and he was walking behind me.
- And my boys-- oh, poor Sadi.
- He will leave now, and they will beat him so bad.
- OK?
- So I walk [INAUDIBLE].
- We went to his office.
- [GERMAN]-- "Sit down."
- From where are you?
- From Salonika.
- How, you're Greek?
- Jawohl.
- How do you know how to sing in Turkish?
- My Mutter, I says, my Mutter taught me how-- it's true.
- It's not-- my mother taught me how to sing in Turkish--
- my Mutter.
- Oh-ho-ho!
- Listen for him German.
- I used to understand very well German.
- You will come to my office, when will be no SS around.
- I was living in Istanbul for 15 years.
- Ich liebe Turkish music.
- I love Turkish music.
- You will sing for me Turkish music,
- and I will give you bread and cheese.
- And whatever I can sell, I give to you.
- I thought he was fooling me, because they used to do that,
- after they start to punch you, your nose, and--
- until you got full of blood.
- And I says, Jawohl, Jawohl.
- Jawohl, Mein Herr.
- Jawohl, Mein Herr.
- And I went to go out, into--
- Sitzen.
- Sitzen.
- He opened his [NON-ENGLISH].
- An armoire?
- The cupboard.
- No.
- Where you keep your clothes.
- The closet.
- He opened the closet.
- A piece of bread like this, a piece of cheese--
- I thought I will [LAUGHS]--
- I will pass out, to see a piece of bread.
- It was true!
- Still, it was coming to me.
- I was going back.
- I was afraid.
- I thought it was a joke.
- He says, in German, don't be afraid.
- I don't remember, in German.
- Don't be afraid.
- Come here, come here.
- Come here.
- Come here, Greco.
- He gave me the bread, and he gave me a piece of cheese.
- And I will call you when I want you to come to sing for me.
- I went out.
- My boys were waiting for to see me in blood.
- And they saw me with--
- Bread and cheese.
- [LAUGHS]
- [LAUGHS] They could not believe.
- Nobody could believe that this man was so
- many years in Turkey, and he liked me.
- All right.
- It was maybe six, seven, eight months.
- And he used to call me, when the German was not--
- How often?
- Two or three times a week, when Austrian soldiers
- were in guard.
- It was very easy for them.
- Those Austrian soldiers were very nice.
- When German SS soldiers were in guard,
- that was out of question to call me--
- out of the question.
- So, with this kind of food that I ate, for so many months
- I sustained--
- You sustained yourself.
- --myself and I sustained my friends and whoever--
- her brother-in-law was my manager.
- In the boxing, every Sunday, he was my manager.
- So he used to clean me up.
- He used to be with me, and I used
- to give to him as much as I could
- and give to my brother in laws and my friends
- and my cousins and [INAUDIBLE] to give to everybody.
- This was the life in Buna.
- But-- but-- all of a sudden, this Blockalteste
- was dismissed.
- One day, we don't see him anymore.
- What happened to him, we don't know.
- Finish, the singing.
- The Americans and the Russians start to--
- Come close.
- --advance the entertainment stops.
- No more entertainment.
- So we start to starve-- starve!
- We want to eat.
- What we can do?
- So we become thieves.
- So we tried to find out when the trucks of the general kitchen
- will come to unload potatoes or cabbages or beets--
- beets-- or whatever it is they will unload, to go and to steal
- as many pieces we could.
- Until one day, they caught me with a piece of cabbage
- in my shirt.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- "Damned Jew."
- Right?
- The "damned Jew," the next day, has to go to the main office,
- with three or four other thieves like me.
- We were four, six people stealing,
- but they caught me only.
- That one day, they run.
- They caught me only.
- But the other people, they caught them, too.
- And they want to hang us.
- One German officer told the jury,
- this is the Greco, the boxer.
- Is-- he's the boxer!
- He's the singer, the Greco singer.
- So they did not hang me.
- They send me in Golleschau.
- They hanged the others?
- I don't know.
- Oh.
- I didn't see.
- They took me out in a truck--
- right away, the truck, they send me in Golleschau.
- And what is Golleschau?
- I didn't went back to my block.
- I didn't see nobody of my friends.
- From the Kothau, from the jury, from the--
- from the court, they put me in the dock.
- They were without nothing, they send me in Golleschau.
- Golleschau, Nikki, is the frontier of Poland with Russia.
- They called "the Siberian town of Poland."
- This is the name they gave.
- And this is the only place in Poland
- they have the biggest cement mines and cement Fabriks.
- "Fabriks" means--
- "Factory."
- --"factories."
- Tremendous, tremendous factories of cement.
- And the cement mines, the biggest in Poland.
- So it took us three, four, five, six hours--
- I don't know-- ride.
- I saw-- I saw Lublin.
- I saw many, many towns.
- Finally, I came in Golleschau.
- One boy over there-- you remember [PERSONAL NAME]??
- This man used to be, in Salonika, a supervisor
- in mines of asbestos.
- Asbestos.
- Asbestos is-- chalk--
- I mean, asbestos is the white stuff they put--
- Asbestos.
- So he knew how to conduct the team of workers in the mines.
- When he saw me, and immediately says, why they send you here?
- The moment they allowed the Turks into Golleschau,
- this friend of mine--
- was not friend.
- I mean, from Salonika, he was not my friend,
- but one acquaintance from Salonika-- says,
- why they send you here, from Buna?
- Because I stole one cabbage from the German kitchen.
- Oh my god, Nahmias, this is the worst camp of all.
- This is Straflager.
- Straflager means--
- "Punishment."
- --Straflater.
- Isn't it, no?
- --the "death camp."
- Straflager, "death camp."
- This is the worst of all the camps.
- Why, I don't know, they send me here.
- OK.
- The next day, they put me in Steinbruch Drei.
- "Steinbruch," in German, means--
- the cement mine number 3.
- "Stein" is "stone."
- Steinbruch number Drei-- number 3.
- And I was with this man.
- He was the kapo of this Steinbruch Drei.
- So, the next morning, we went--
- 2 o'clock in the morning, they have Aufstehen--
- to get up-- 2 o'clock in the morning.
- It was in wintertime--
- snow and cold--
- 30, 40 degrees below zero.
- Did you have a jacket?
- One-- one jacket-- that's all.
- You didn't have an overcoat?
- You see, it's nothing!
- Nothing.
- So, 2 o'clock in the morning, Aufstehen--
- went to clean ourselves.
- 2:30, they give us the piece of bread and the whatever it is.
- And these 40 people in the Kommando, out of the Lager--
- "Heil Hitler"-- [GERMAN] We went to the coal mines,
- one hour and a half walking, to go from the Nazi camp
- to the coal-- to the cement mines.
- And all over you walk, it was snow.
- I asked someone.
- They told me, only in the month of August is no snowing.
- 11 months of the year, there's snow.
- And in the snow goes troikas.
- You know what's troikas?
- Those with the-- with the dogs--
- troikas.
- Oh, yes, the carriages.
- Yes.
- It's no horses.
- It's nothing, in this town of Golleschau.
- Is cement mines and nothing else.
- So we went there.
- Believe me, Mickey, I never saw in my life such terrible job--
- work-- for 14 hours, putting those dynamites
- in the mountains and having those big rocks
- of cement coming down.
- Take the big hammers and making pieces and filling up
- the wagons and coming, the [NON-ENGLISH] coming,
- the big machine, to take the [NON-ENGLISH] and take
- to the cement fabrik.
- And--
- How long could you stay in this job?
- God only knows.
- It was on Yom Kippur.
- It was Yom Kippur--
- I was there 19--
- 1944.
- Yom Kippur.
- '45-- yes.
- 19-- January--
- 1943, Yom Kippur.
- Yes.
- 19-- no, no, no, 1944, Yom Kippur.
- Because we were liberated on 19--
- on January-- on April 19-- yes.
- This was before 1944--
- 1943.
- Yes.
- On Yom Kippur.
- One boy told us, today is Yom Kippur.
- I says, how can be Yom Kippur today?
- How do you know?
- I know.
- OK.
- I told the boys, listen, don't take the piece of bread
- this morning.
- Put in a piece of paper--
- paper.
- Cement paper is not the paper--
- and put in your shirts.
- And let's go.
- Under the wagons will we pray, few pieces
- of Yom Kippur, as much as I can remember-- memorize.
- And that's what-- well, we had three or four hours of fasting,
- that's when we eat.
- So we went to the cement mines, this morning.
- We worked very hard to fill up the first [NON-ENGLISH] wagons.
- And until the machine will come to pick up--
- The next batch.
- --and the next, we had about half an hour,
- three quarter of an hour, of time.
- So I told them come down of the mine,
- and stay to pray over there.
- So I start to pray as much as I could remember to memorize.
- All of a sudden, someone went to tell to the Gestapo
- that the Greeks are making a sabotage.
- They are talking-- talking, instead of working, nor by--
- the sabotage.
- And the SS come in and saw me reading.
- You had a siddur?
- No, just because we--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Just praying.
- He saw me talking.
- But he didn't know that it was praying.
- He thought that I was talking to the boys.
- I am the one who is doing the sabotage, not
- letting the boys working--
- start to cut-- to cut the rocks of cement.
- So he came to me.
- He gave me a few slaps and took my number.
- I said to myself, if it's only the slaps he give to me
- and the number, I'm all right.
- But it was not this.
- When we came back in the evening, at the camp,
- I heard in the loudspeaker [SPEAKING GERMAN]..
- I says, Jawohl Come here.
- Machen Sabotage?
- How can you explain to them I was praying?
- How he will understand me?
- How he will believe me?
- How can I explain to him in German
- that I was praying because it's Yom Kippur?
- But you can say dangerous things.
- I says, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- He put me my pants down.
- And a piece of--
- a wooden stool.
- I went over, and he started to give to me.
- How many, I don't remember, because I pass out.
- They put me a bag of cold water on my head, to revive me.
- And when I was almost at dead, they left me in one corner.
- So this was on Yom Kippur this time.
- We had, in this camp, the worst days of my life.
- One morning, someone told me, you start to swole.
- To swole, over there, was the end of your life.
- It's finished.
- I had a friend of mine who was a dentist.
- He was a dentist for the Germans.
- I says, Alberto, my boys told me that I have to swole.
- Come on.
- They are crazy, your boys.
- You haven't got nothing!
- Come on-- I'll give you some potatoes.
- He gave me a few potatoes.
- And he says, don't worry.
- Just be patient.
- You see, every day, those white airplanes?
- They are American airplanes.
- They look like aluminum planes.
- They are Americans.
- They are coming every day.
- The liberation is near.
- Sadi, he said, be patient.
- Don't lose your faith.
- When you want something, come to me.
- I'll give you a few potatoes, as much as I can.
- I will do.
- But don't lose your courage, because this
- was the end of everything.
- If you lose your faith and your courage, you are done.
- It's finished.
- I want you to be-- to pray for me-- pray for you, pray for me,
- as much as you can.
- You see those planes?
- Their days are coming.
- They are very near.
- Those Americans will come someday--
- when, we don't know.
- All right.
- So we were there, having a very, very hard time.
- This was the worst days of my life.
- The work-- unbelievable!
- 14 hours in the coal mines.
- After, we went back to the camp, soaking wet.
- They used to take us to the cement factory on front
- of the big ovens--
- tremendous big ovens-- and to stay--
- to take our jacket and our pants and to stay naked
- and to put the jacket and the pants on front of the fire,
- to get dry.
- They give us 5 to 10 minutes to get dry
- and to go back to the camps.
- This was the worst days of my life, as I told you before.
- I never believed that such a terrible thing was done
- in this Golleschau Nazi camp--
- with 30, 40 degrees below zero, cold, over there.
- And one good day--
- it was on January the 10th, 1945--
- January 1945-- one morning, they told us, get whatever you can--
- whatever you can.
- And we are getting out of the camp right now.
- Because, a day before, we start to hear
- bombing and bombs and bombs, day and night, day and night.
- The sky was full of white airplanes, aluminum airplanes,
- American airplanes.
- The sky, believe me, was like vultures-- all those planes,
- throwing bombs all over--
- not to us.
- They knew, those American pilots, where we were.
- They never threw bombs where we were-- only
- in the German positions.
- And they told, one day, that we should
- leave the camp right away--
- whatever we could steal, whatever we could find,
- to take with us and to start walking from Golleschau
- to Flossenburg.
- Flossenburg is a German town, border of Germany and Poland.
- How long did it take you to walk?
- These walking days, Mickey, I swear my good God, nobody can
- tell exactly how many days--
- no one.
- It was a nightmare, day and night, walking and walking
- walking, five men in the line--
- in the snow-- it is still snow, without wooden shoes.
- Anyone who fell, I'm not supposed
- to lift him to help him to get up.
- The German--
- We had Germans in the left side and the right side,
- with the German shepherd.
- And one shot, here, raus out of the rank.
- We were walking by five.
- This thing that nobody can believe--
- so many days and nights, walking in the snow,
- seeing in your left and your right bodies and bodies
- and bodies.
- And how many bodies?
- Hundreds and thousands and thousands.
- How could you stay in your feet?
- How could you have the will of walking,
- over there-- was impossible.
- And looking in the sky, bombs and bombs, all over.
- Death by the thousands.
- And this dentist, out there--
- "Melo" was his name--
- M-E-L-O-- telling me, Sadi, pray.
- "Shema Yisrael."
- Pray!
- Please!
- Please, pray!
- "Shema Yisrael!"
- "Shema Yisrael!"
- Other-- I can't even talk anymore.
- I am dying.
- I can't talk anymore.
- For food, whatever we could find in the fields.
- Raw potatoes-- I mean, rotten potatoes, rotten cabbage--
- whatever you could find.
- For water, snow.
- Just snow-- nothing else.
- 10 days, 11, 12, 15, 17, 20 days, we can tell you nothing.
- The only we remember-- one day, we came to a city.
- There's a big factory--
- was without roof.
- And inside was-- iron tables.
- That used to be a factory--
- they let us sleep, finally, in those iron tables full of snow.
- We fell on those tables.
- We felt we had a good sleep--
- a night of sleep, in those iron tables with snow in our backs--
- no-- no-- no covers, no nothing, just snow.
- And in the morning, Aufstehen, right away,
- because the Russians--
- the Americans were coming.
- And they were taking us in Germany.
- If they left us in Poland, today it
- will be maybe 1 million young Jews alive--
- 1 million, maybe more, not less, if the Germans
- had left us in Poland.
- But they drag us with them together
- in Germany, walking so many days, without food,
- in the wintertime in January 1945.
- How strong can you be, to keep you alive?
- It's impossible even to recount this.
- People would not believe that.
- Why they drag us with them?
- Story maybe one day will tell the world,
- why they drag us with them together,
- with the German shepherds.
- They went with the motorcycles, themselves.
- They didn't care about us.
- Only they-- all they care is, anyone who fell down,
- one shot and out--
- out-- Raus, Raus, Raus-- by me, by hundred thousands.
- So we went in Flossenburg.
- There, they put us in open cars they used to fill with stones.
- How you call these cars they fill with stones?
- They're open cars?
- Open cars they used to carry stones.
- Coal?
- Or just stone?
- Stone.
- Stone.
- They told us to get in these cars.
- Believe me, like-- like sardines in a box, one
- on top of the other, fast in the car because we couldn't
- walk anymore.
- We were dead bodies.
- We find this car.
- We get in, and the cars start to go and go and go and go and go
- and--
- aus and aus and aus.
- All of a sudden, they stop in one station--
- railroad station.
- And the Germans--
- Gestapo-- used to come in.
- Where's your dead?
- How many dead, inside?
- We used to count--
- four, five, six, seven--
- Raus-- we should take the dead bodies out of the wagon.
- And finally, we came--
- it was in Mauthausen, so?
- Or Dachau-- I don't remember.
- I think it was in Dachau.
- Yes, in Dachau.
- We arrive in Dachau.
- In my car, in the car I was, was a [NON-ENGLISH] with me,
- another Sephardic boy--
- three-- and nine Ashkenazi boys.
- From 100, we were 9 or 10 people alive.
- They took us in the camp.
- And with respect to you, we were dirty in our pants.
- We took to the showers.
- We don't remember what happened.
- Only, only we remember the beating they gave to us.
- We start to come to ourselves, to--
- You mean, for no reason, they began to beat--
- For no reason.
- Because they used to talk to us, and we couldn't
- answer because we were--
- Exhausted?
- --exhausted.
- We were three-quarters dead.
- And they thought that we didn't want to answer.
- And they start to beat us with a piece of--
- piece of-- they used to have this--
- The rubber?
- --the rubber.
- I guess, from the beating, we came to our senses.
- We find ourselves dirty.
- Louses by millions, on top of our body.
- So they put us again in the showers, and they clean up,
- and they gave us clean--
- clean shirts again.
- And we start to be in Dachau for a period of time.
- I can't tell you how many days.
- I don't know.
- The only I know is, one day, they took us to the bathrooms,
- naked.
- And a German doctor came over there
- and start to examine each and every one of us.
- And one helper had a bowl with a red ink.
- And the German doctor used to tell to this man,
- to the man next to him, Ein.
- They used to put here number 1.
- Zwei?
- Somebody else, Zwei, and someone else, Drei.
- Couldn't understand why they put these numbers in our--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- --we could not understand why.
- But someone told us, number 1 is those
- who are a little bit still healthy to work in the fields.
- Because the Americans were throwing bombs,
- and all airfields were in bad shape-- to clean up the fields.
- Number 2 is to work in the camp, in the barracks,
- to prepare whatever it is.
- Number 3, to the crematorium in Dachau,
- because they were good for nothing.
- So I asked-- I thought the way to make number 3.
- I knew that number 3 in my forefront.
- So I took a piece of rock, and I took him out.
- And when I passed by the German, [SPEAKING GERMAN]??
- What you did?
- [GERMAN]
- Oh, he gave me such punches-- my goodness, punches.
- I didn't care, because the doctor was gone already.
- And it was no way to put me another number.
- They send me-- they send me in the barracks, in the camps,
- to work inside.
- The next day, they asked someone--
- they will give a double portion of soup,
- if he was willing to go to clean the bodies of dead people.
- I volunteer, just for a double portion of soup.
- They send us to big, big barracks over there.
- We find hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies.
- In the barracks?
- In the barracks.
- Piled--
- Men?
- --men, all men.
- Piles of dead bodies.
- Dressed?
- No-- naked.
- All naked.
- So we then, with a hose, we start to clean up.
- Because the smell in the camp was horrible.
- It's not that because that one--
- No!
- The smell in the camp was horrible!
- And they gave us the double soup,
- to clean all those bodies.
- The trucks came in, after.
- They put the bodies into the crematorium.
- I had also [NON-ENGLISH] to clean the bodies.
- The [NON-ENGLISH] job also I did in the camps for a few days,
- to take a double soup.
- From there, they send us in Buchenwald.
- And how did you go?
- Did you walk, or--
- No.
- In Buchenwald, we went by-- by--
- by those trucks, in Buchenwald.
- And this is the days that we are completely lost.
- We only-- I can tell you, just in a few words--
- from Buchenwald, they send us in Plattling.
- It's a small town in Munich, called--
- How do you spell it?
- --"Plattling"-- P-L-A-T-T-L-I-N-G--
- "Plattling"--
- in a school.
- They put there in school.
- School was empty-- no-- no-- no children--
- was empty.
- They put us in this school, waiting
- to see what would happen.
- Because the American bombers were coming every day, day
- and night.
- They made the place just upside down.
- And they took us every day to the fields,
- to clean up the debris.
- And there was, in Buchenwald--
- in Plattling-- we were in this school.
- A German asked me to wash his clothes.
- It was a big bowl.
- I put a fire down there.
- I put the clothes, and I put some potatoes inside
- with the clothes.
- [LAUGHS]
- [LAUGHS]
- What did it taste like?
- Do you remember?
- I don't remember.
- And we sat in the sun with my friends over there.
- We start to take out, a lot of big louses
- and to put a louse on a piece of paper,
- to see which louse will go faster.
- That was amusement.
- [LAUGHS] There, the bombing starts so bad--
- American airplanes-- so terrible.
- We heard a Kommando, a German officer who came to the camp--
- to the school, outside--
- and he says, tomorrow morning--
- or the same day--
- I don't remember-- same day--
- everybody is to get out of the school.
- Mickey, I was a skeleton.
- I couldn't walk.
- I couldn't even talk.
- I was almost dead.
- It was a Jew French doctor, taking care
- of the sick boys over there.
- I went to him and talk with him in French.
- I cannot walk.
- I cannot go with them.
- What can I do?
- I will not be able to walk half a mile.
- I will drop dead.
- What can I do?
- Says, [NON-ENGLISH],, he says, my god, listen to me.
- You see this barrack over there?
- Yes.
- It's full of dead people--
- full.
- Have you the courage, the guts, to go in there
- and to stay with the dead bodies until the German leaves?
- It's the only way you have to be alive.
- Says, Doctor, I will do it.
- One boy was with me.
- You remember Tifon, Salomon Tifon Salomon, he says,
- have you the guts?
- Whatever you will do, Sadi, I will do the same thing
- like you.
- I want to live.
- I don't want to die.
- So we went to this big, big hangar, a big barrack.
- I saw there how many?
- 300, 400, 500 dead bodies.
- Can't tell you.
- Believe me, things that people cannot believe,
- because is unbelievable.
- I went in a pile of these dead--
- I pushed myself inside and my friend.
- And we stood there, waiting and waiting
- and waiting and waiting.
- All of a sudden, we heard the German--
- [TAPPING STEADILY] just like that-- coming, the Gestapo.
- I says, Salomon, they come.
- Watch yourself.
- They used to come inside these barracks with a cane.
- In the end of the cane, a needle--
- A baren?
- --to punch the feet of the dead, to see if they were alive
- or not.
- I said, Salomon, when they come to you or to me,
- and they punch our feet, don't move.
- For the love of God, don't move, because we are dead-- finished.
- So we did it.
- We did it.
- We succeed to don't even--
- to say nothing.
- You mean they did poke--
- Yeah.
- Sure, they poke me and my friend.
- We didn't say nothing.
- And we wait over there--
- can you tell me-- one hour?
- 10 minutes?
- One day?
- Three hours?
- I can tell you nothing.
- The only is, we saw the place was so quiet.
- You couldn't hear nothing, just the "cri-cri-cri" of the--
- of the-- in the-- was a river, over there--
- those frogs, the frogs, in the river.
- Said, Sarmon, let's get out, to see what's going on.
- We get out.
- In the door, we saw in the lager, in the big--
- Camp.
- --nobody.
- Was a cemetery-- just nobody.
- Salomon, it's the time now to get out from here,
- to see what we can do now.
- Let's go to the kitchen first.
- Went to the kitchen.
- We find peels of potatoes--
- peels.
- We start to grab the peels and to eat, just like sugar--
- like-- like-- like--
- [LAUGHS] like it last from reticule,
- just peels of potato-- raw peels of potato.
- We find a place where to wash-- some water, over there.
- We drank water.
- The water was contaminated.
- Anyway, this water was, for me, after I was very sick.
- So it was one big hole of one bomb.
- We went out of the school.
- We saw a river--
- horses, going in and out of the river.
- God, I says, I find water, to wash myself
- and to drink water from the river--
- dirty water.
- And we stood there in the grass, for about--
- nobody knows-- one hour, two hours, three hours--
- I don't know.
- All of a sudden, the ground started to shake,
- like an earthquake.
- I said, Salomon, this is exactly what we need now--
- an earthquake.
- This is exactly what we need, like a hole in our heads.
- What's going on?
- We don't know.
- The whole earth was moving.
- All of a sudden, we saw tanks coming, with the American star.
- Oh, my, "Shema Yisrael."
- Oh, god, [LAUGHS] it's a miracle, Salomon.
- It's impossible.
- This is Americans!
- You see the stars?
- These are American tanks!
- We get up.
- We start to make like this.
- And one tank stopped.
- I saw General-- oh, my god--
- the American general--
- oh, my-- this general, Patton, with a baguette,
- conducting the tanks.
- One tank stopped.
- And he said, we--
- "Shema Yisrael!"
- One in the tank, the conductor, was a Jew.
- He came down.
- You say "Shema Yisrael"?
- Ja, ja, "Shema Yisrael!"
- We Jew, you--
- Oh, my goodness!
- He took us both.
- And I fell in mine--
- in the-- [LAUGHS]
- Tank?
- --the tank.
- And I stayed to [? have that. ?] I can't tell you.
- This was terrible.
- This soldier, Jewish soldier, took us with a tank
- in the hospital.
- They clean up us, the louse, with full, millions of louse.
- And they gave us some medication.
- I don't remember the kind of medication they gave us.
- And they put me in the scale.
- He says, 78.
- In Greece, Mickey, didn't exist no pounds.
- It was kilos.
- Kilos.
- So when I heard "78"--
- "soixante-dix-huit," in French-- "78"--
- --I couldn't understand "78."
- I told a man who was next to me--
- he was a French man--
- I says, thank god, I was 110 kilos.
- I'm 78 now.
- Well, not too bad.
- I said--
- You are crazy, he said!
- Rabbi, you're crazy!
- This is not kilos.
- This is pounds.
- Pounds, in Greece, was the English pound that we don't--
- pounds, English pounds-- the golden--
- Money.
- --English pound.
- That's what we know.
- Well, what's pound?
- It's 2 pounds, 1 kilo.
- I start to make figures in my head.
- God Almighty-- I was 110 kilos--
- 220 pounds-- to 78 pounds.
- I'm through.
- I'm finished-- a skeleton.
- And I went to the man who took care of us.
- He told us that he will take to give us an apartment, a very
- nice apartment, from SS, or from a German, Nazi German, who
- left the town.
- What was the name of this town?
- Do you remember?
- Plattling.
- Oh, That was still in Plattling.
- Yes.
- He left this town, a German Nazi,
- and he left his apartment just like a palace.
- And this Jew-- I mean, American Jew--
- give to four boys of us this apartment--
- was like a palace.
- Everything was luxury.
- They put us over there.
- In the evening, four American boys came with a basket.
- They brought us bread, cheese, butter,
- and fruits and chocolates, and--
- who remembers-- plenty of food.
- And they had a mandolin with them.
- They started to play mandolin music, to enjoy us.
- And they used to come, every evening,
- to bring us a basket of food and sweets
- and chocolates and music.
- And the fourth or fifth day, I went to the bathtub
- with my friends.
- I collapsed there.
- I collapsed there.
- I remember, I collapsed.
- My friend went right away to the next door neighbor,
- who was a German doctor--
- who was in concentration camps, himself.
- He was against the Nazi regime.
- He said, Doctor, please!
- Bitte, bitte!
- My friend-- the doctor came with his wife, who was a doctoress,
- and his two daughters were nurses.
- They came inside the apartment.
- They saw me in the bathtub.
- I passed out.
- I was just collapsed.
- They took me right away-- put me in bed.
- And the doctor, he diagnoses that I had something terrible.
- He called the American doctor.
- They were talking.
- I heard "cholera"-- "typhus"--
- Which was it?
- The doctor, the two doctor, were talking about me.
- Yes.
- Which--
- He has cholera--
- And--
- --and typhus.
- Both!
- Both.
- I could understand "cholera" and "typhus."
- This, I know very well what means.
- But I was so weak.
- I was so-- just--
- a body, a dead body.
- I didn't say nothing.
- The only-- I remember, the German doctor
- told to the American doctor, he needs transfusion.
- How you call these big bottles?
- (WHISPERING) Glucose.
- Glucose.
- And the German says, I can find glucose here.
- The American doctor says, I'll be back in one hour.
- He took a jeep.
- He went to a sanatorium--
- I don't know where.
- And he came back with these big bottles.
- When I saw this big bottle--
- I never saw, in my life, in Greece,
- these kind of big bottles--
- I thought was a injection--
- I passed out, from fear.
- Says, my god, what is this?
- And the doctor explained to me-- the German doctor used to talk
- French--
- that this was glucose to give me--
- Strength.
- --nutrition-- strength.
- All right.
- They start to treat me for cholera and for typhus.
- Two months, I was in bed.
- I became 72 pounds.
- After those American nurses--
- god bless them-- if they are still alive,
- god bless them-- day and night.
- They took care of me like a prince--
- like a king.
- Oh, they took you to the American hospital?
- No-- in this house.
- Oh, in the house.
- They couldn't transfer me no place because I was just dying.
- Oh, so the nurses came--
- Yes, the nurses.
- The doctor-- General Dr. Wyatt, the doctor himself--
- the two daughters of the doctor, they were nurses.
- on me-- on me, taking care day and night, until, after a few--
- two or three weeks-- they start to feed me like a baby,
- I remember, just like this.
- Little bits.
- And one day, only one nurse was watching
- me, one American nurse.
- I told, Miss, please, you, me, the mirror--
- to me-- see me mirror.
- No.
- No mirror.
- Doctor not permit-- doctor permits no mirror.
- Says, please, mirror, to see my face.
- No.
- She says no.
- OK.
- I wait for a while, until she went to the ladies room.
- And I get up from my bed.
- I grabbed her purse.
- I took the mirror.
- I saw my face.
- I dropped the mirror down there.
- I was crazy.
- I just looked like a monkey.
- My face just like a monkey-- just a monkey.
- And when the doctor come in, I says to the doctor, in French,
- I will not go in my country with this kind of face.
- I will not go.
- Just kill, Micky, give me a--
- whatever it is.
- I don't want to live like this.
- He said, my boy, you will not be like this.
- We'll take care of you-- will take a few weeks.
- You'll be all right.
- Just don't worry.
- Don't worry.
- You'll see.
- You'll be all right.
- And thank god, I am here with you, talking to you, now.
- [LAUGHS]
- A few days after, they took us with the American bombers.
- They took us back in Greece.
- This was the end of the Nazi camps.
- Before we talk about what it was like when you went back,
- tell me, what do you feel about the Jewish police
- that you came in contact with?
- The Jewish police?
- The Jewish police in the camps--
- the kapos.
- Was he Jewish?
- Was not Jewish.
- There were no Jewish police, anyplace that you were?
- No, the kapos were, were Polish--
- In some places, they were Jews.
- No, no, no, the kapo in my camp, the kapos were all Polish--
- (WHISPERING) Or German.
- --or German-- most of them, Polish-- in my camp.
- I'm talking, in my camp.
- I don't what is going on in other camps.
- So that you never had any contact--
- No.
- Were Polish, they were against the German regime.
- They were saboteurs.
- Mhm?
- But they were tough.
- They were terrible, bad people.
- The point that I'm trying--
- Criminals!
- They were criminals!
- --that, when you were in the camps,
- there weren't any Jews who had a little bit of power--
- Not in my camp.
- OK.
- All right.
- OK.
- Not in my camp.
- What do you--
- Only-- excuse me-- I told you, in Golleschau,
- this Jewish man who was the foreman--
- not the kapo; the foreman--
- of the--
- Workers.
- --boys what were working in the mine, because he knew
- the business, the job of extracting stones and making
- this to unload in the [PLACE NAME]..
- He knew the job.
- They make him a foreman, not a kapo.
- While you were in any of the camps,
- besides some of the religious services
- that you told us about, were there anything else
- that went on?
- Were there any educational service, any cultural--
- do you remember any--
- Darling, are you kidding?
- [LAUGHS]
- Are you kidding?
- Are you asking you a question that people,
- when they ask these kind of questions,
- they cannot understand what means Nazi concentration camps,
- without insulting nobody?
- When I came here in Miami Beach, in 1951,
- one Jewish leader here asked my wife and me, my baby,
- to his house for a coffee.
- I came here as a rabbi.
- He called us for a coffee in his house.
- All of a sudden, he asked me, Rabbi how
- was the kosher food in the camps?
- I said, Mr. Dan--
- Mr. Dan, it was glatt, glatt kosher!
- [LAUGHS]
- No, no, no, no, it's true!
- It was glatt kosher--
- can't be more kosher than this.
- How can you have a rutabaga boiled with water--
- can be more kosher than this?
- This is the only food we ate!
- Boiled rutabaga, sometimes margarine-- sometimes--
- but many times with water.
- This is glatt kosher food.
- This is the question that the Jewish leader here
- asked me in 1951.
- [?
- What did you say? ?]
- Well, I mean a Jewish man who become rich
- during the black market in America.
- Well, what I'm trying to get at is, when the work was all done,
- at the end of the day, I'm sure for the most
- part you went to sleep.
- But was there-- what did you talk about,
- at night, with the other prisoners?
- Talk about?
- We didn't have the strength even to open our mouths.
- The moment they used to tell go to sleep,
- you know how many hours' sleep we had?
- Few.
- Four, five hours-- the most, six hours--
- Mhm?
- --to wake up, 2 o'clock in the morning,
- and in Golleschau, with 20 degrees below zero,
- without food, starving, and you will had the time and the will
- to talk to your friends, what's going on in politics?
- [LAUGHS]
- The only thing we had in our minds--
- when America will come to war?
- When America will start to liberate us?
- So you did talk about that.
- America.
- That's the only talk we had-- when
- America will start to be to getting in and to liberate us.
- That's the only thing we knew, over there.
- Because was not news, over there.
- We can't-- we could get no news at all.
- The only news is the bombing from
- those white airplanes-- aluminum airplanes, the American ones.
- That's all we knew, over there.
- But to have time to talk among us--
- God, forgive me-- we--
- the only thing we had in mind was
- how to steal a piece of cabbage, how
- to steal a raw potato, to feed ourselves--
- is the only thing--
- nothing else.
- Did you know about any underground organization
- in any of the ghettos?
- In my-- Mickey, whatever I told you today
- is in the camp I was-- in the camps I was.
- What was done in other camps, I don't know nothing, absolutely
- nothing.
- I know was underground, in other camps.
- But not for this.
- I don't know.
- But the only thing I--
- I remember, in Buna, and in Auschwitz, some Jewish boy
- wants to escape.
- They caught them, with dogs, and they hanged them,
- in Auschwitz and in Buna--
- most in Buna, I remember, most in Buna.
- And we had to pass by, all the prisoners, to the gate,
- to see--
- Watch them.
- --those hanged over there, and a blackout over there--
- those who wants to escape.
- This is the end, for them.
- How-- first of all, those want to escape,
- they were Polish boy Jews.
- They knew the-- the--
- The area.
- --the out of there.
- We, the Greek Jews, we didn't know what means even
- to go outside of the camp.
- They will catch us at-- they will catch us, right away.
- But those boys, they knew how to escape.
- But they could not escape, because those dogs
- were terrible dogs.
- So you didn't know anybody who escaped.
- No, as far in my camp, nobody.
- Rabbi, what do you think gave you the will
- to live through all of this?
- It's a good question, Mickey.
- It's a good question.
- First and most of all, my tremendous faith in God.
- Second, a flame-- one thing that I can express myself,
- in my heart, they should tell me day and night,
- that I will survive--
- that I will be a free man, one day.
- And one day I will walk without the Gestapo behind me
- with a machine gun.
- That one day I will not be pursued by the dogs--
- by the German shepherds.
- This is something that nobody can express--
- the feeling that I knew in my heart, that I will survive.
- How, I don't know.
- Anything happened to me--
- my boxing, my singing, my faith in God, my stealing--
- everything was a little bit of factor
- to help me sustain myself to an end.
- Tell me, now, when it was that you came back to Salonika
- and what you found there.
- When we came back in Salonika, we
- didn't find just ruined walls--
- no family, no survivors of my family, no one--
- of my wife's family, just one sister.
- She was with her in camp--
- and one sister who was in Athens.
- She hide herself in Athens.
- She was alive.
- That's for my wife.
- For me, absolutely no one of my own mishpacha,
- the brother-in-laws only.
- Two brother-in-laws, they were with me in the camps.
- This was your first wife's husbands.
- My first wife brothers.
- Brothers!
- Excuse me.
- That's the only thing we came back--
- two brother-in-laws and myself.
- What did you do, when you came back?
- What I--
- --your livelihood.
- I went back to my father's business.
- Because all the synagogues in Salonika
- were destroyed by dynamite--
- all the synagogue, without exception--
- just one synagogue was left, because the Gestapo made this
- synagogue a warehouse-- no, the Blue Cross--
- the Red Cross--
- Do you remember the name?
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Do you remember the name of the synagogue?
- Yes-- the Synagogue of the Monasteriotes,
- the Jews from Monastir.
- The Jews from Monastir erected this synagogue.
- It was all the most beautiful synagogue
- in Salonika, made completely, bottom to top, with Italian--
- Marble?
- --marble-- the most beautiful.
- They were taken by the Red Cross for a warehouse.
- When I came back in Salonika, in August 1945,
- the community came to me and says,
- Rabbi, we need to open the synagogue for the holidays.
- Holidays would be next month, in September.
- So the synagogue is in the hands of the Red Cross.
- So the commission-- we went to Red Cross--
- we ask them the key.
- They gave the key to us.
- We went-- opened the synagogue.
- It was empty inside--
- empty-- no benches, no seats, no sefarim, no nothing--
- no pocket, no nothing--
- just a warehouse.
- We call the Joint Distribution Committee in Athens
- and told them the synagogue is-- we open up.
- We haven't got nothing to set the place
- for Yom Kippur, Rosh Ha-shana.
- They send us, right away, books, taleisim, yarmulkes, sefarim,
- and benches.
- Everything we will need, they send us by train right away.
- Was that the first connection you had with the Joint?
- Yes, the first connection.
- They told us, the Joint in Athens will help us.
- We called by phone.
- They send us everything--
- God bless them-- everything.
- A Greek told us that the big menorah in the temple,
- a menorah from Switzerland-- it cost a fortune--
- was taken by the Greeks to a big church.
- I went over there, as a rabbi, with the committee
- and asked the archbishop of the Greeks
- to give us back the menorah.
- They gave us back the menorah, right away.
- What happened to all the sifrei Torah?
- They--
- That were in all the-- were they destroyed?
- They were all--
- They were destroyed-- destroyed, everything destroyed.
- The only sefer Torahs, they were in the hands
- of those secondhand people, those who call--
- how you call these people--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Flea market.
- One day, someone told me, in a flea market in Salonika
- a merchant has been--
- A Greek man came to the community and told us that,
- in the flea market, he saw those sefer--
- those holy books that we use-- the Jews--
- on the synagogues.
- They were lying on the floor, to be sold as paper.
- So we went there, and we told the gentleman
- that this is our property, and we
- are willing to compensate you.
- He asked plenty.
- We give to him anything you want.
- We took a taxicab and put the sefarim inside and back
- to the synagogue.
- And this was almost at two week before Rosh Hashanah.
- And on Yom Kippur, the mayor of the city, the archbishop
- of Salonika, and all the dignitaries of the government
- came to us on Yom Kippur night--
- Kol Nidre night.
- Kol Nidre night.
- All the dignitaries-- generals and officers and everybody--
- came to the synagogue, to be with us in the first Kol Nidre
- night after the Holocaust.
- And I sang the prayer for the government
- in Hebrew and in Greek.
- And the archbishop called me next to him and--
- Blessed--
- --gave me his blessings.
- And of course, everybody was crying, over there--
- the first High Holy days that we made in Salonika.
- Anything else?
- How did the community reorganize--
- the Jewish community?
- Reorganize-- they reorganize, because they
- want to send all the Jewish boys in Israel.
- As many as they could send in Israel, they did.
- They sent plenty of boys in Israel.
- But the trouble was that the girls who came back
- was the half amount of the boys.
- In other words, in 10 boys, five girls to come in.
- So was not enough for Jewish girls to get married,
- and they used to take goyish girls to get married.
- So there was a great deal of intermarriage--
- A great deal of conversions.
- I converted so many, myself.
- And from the marry age, they sent in Israel all of them
- right away.
- They could not do anything else, because there was no girls.
- When my present wife--
- Where did you meet her?
- When did you--
- I was in Salonika in August.
- She came in December.
- I was in the community, one night.
- I had a meeting over there with the board.
- All of a sudden, I saw her with two girls.
- She took with her.
- In her report, she told you that she
- took with her two girls, two girls, to take care of them.
- I saw her in the community.
- I says, Marie, when you're coming?
- And she came, told me, I think so, yesterday-- the day before.
- She came to the Russian zone.
- I was lucky, to come to the American zone.
- She was not so lucky, to come with the Russians.
- They had a very tough time-- a very, very rough time.
- So she came.
- And we met.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- One of the girls, she--
- One girl who was with my wife went to the community
- for help, because to put down her name,
- that she has to be helped, to give her food
- and whatever it is.
- And she-- my wife, present wife--
- went with her to the community, to help
- her to inscribe herself in the list of those who need help.
- So I saw her over there.
- We were neighbors.
- Yes.
- We were neighbors with her family.
- We knew each other.
- And I told my present wife, listen,
- I don't want to tell you to get married right away.
- I will give you one year, 12 months,
- to wait for your husband.
- We will get engaged.
- I'll give you my word-- if, in 12 months, David
- your husband come back, I will let you go with him.
- If he doesn't come back, so we'll get married.
- A year went by, like just--
- like it was one month.
- She went in France to see her brother-in-law.
- She came back, it was more than a year.
- It was only 14 months.
- All of a sudden, one day, one young man
- came from the Russian zone--
- I think so-- David.
- And she saw him in the community and asking
- about her late husband.
- What are you talking about?
- Your future-- I mean, your future husband, the rabbi,
- saw him.
- He was dead already, over there.
- And that night, I went home.
- I saw her crying.
- What's the matter?
- Why didn't you tell me, in the beginning,
- that David, my late husband, was dead?
- I said, how-- why should I tell you this,
- because you will think that I want to grab you before--
- because was no Jewish girls coming from the Nazi camps.
- All boys were coming-- no girls.
- I don't want you to believe that I want to grab you.
- I give you one year.
- Now it's 16 months already.
- You want to wait one or two more months?
- She said, yes.
- I want to go to Paris to see my brother-in-law
- and to get the get.
- "Get" means the--
- Gets the divorce.
- --the divorce.
- All right.
- She went in France.
- And the brother-in-law did not want
- to give a get to her, because he wants her for himself.
- Well, that's Jewish law.
- But she decided-- but she decided
- to be married with a man from the camps, who
- understand our life, who know what means Nazi concentration
- camps.
- So when she came back in Salonika,
- we went to the rabbinate.
- I told them, she must have a divorce,
- because the man won't want to give her a divorce.
- It was done.
- And we get married on November 11 of 1947.
- And when did you leave--
- Two years after we came back.
- The 9th.
- November 9, 1947, [LAUGHS] two years
- after we came back from Nazi camps.
- Yes.
- And when did you leave for America?
- When what?
- When did you leave, to come to America?
- 1951, when the beloved--
- your beloved President Harry Truman of blessed memory--
- God bless his soul in paradise, every moment of the day--
- he gave the law, the law of the coming here without quotas.
- So, as displaced persons, when we heard in Salonika
- that a law was done in the American embassy,
- that all those displaced persons can
- come to America without quota, so we
- decided to come to this country--
- most of all because our son was born cerebral palsy.
- And they told me, the only place you can send your son
- is Switzerland or America.
- Switzerland, was no way to go in, in Switzerland.
- But in America--
- God bless Truman-- he gave us the possibility
- to come in this country and to save our son.
- That's what we did.
- We came here first in New York.
- We went one day in New York.
- From New York, they send us in Saint Paul, Minnesota,
- because there was a lady, Mrs. Cohen,
- who was responsible for us--
- is the one who signed our quotas, our affidavits,
- that she would be, for us, responsible, that we never go
- to have to ask the government--
- The community chose--
- --for relief.
- We tried to find her in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
- We could never find her-- just to thank her,
- what she did for us.
- In Saint Paul, Minnesota, they need a rabbi--
- a cantor-- not a rabbi, a cantor.
- So they heard from the community that a cantor
- came from Salonika.
- But there was a Sepharad cantor.
- And he doesn't understand [LAUGHS]
- what the difference was between Sepharad and Ashkenazi
- And one day, we were sitting in the apartment.
- And all of a sudden, they knock the door.
- She went downstairs.
- And a young man, Mr. Newman, was standing there-- a rabbi,
- with a beard.
- He came upstairs.
- He says, can you read sefer Torah?
- I says, yes.
- He says, you are a hazzan?
- Yes.
- Can you watch [NON-ENGLISH]?
- I say, why not?
- Can you read for us sefer Torah?
- I said, yes.
- I opened there the book and start to read our way.
- Oh, my god, he says, that's very, very nice.
- You read [NON-ENGLISH].
- It's very, very nice, but it's not our way.
- So what do you want to do now?
- Nothing, I says.
- You come tomorrow to our office.
- We'll talk about it.
- The next morning-- I couldn't speak English at all--
- nothing--
- a Greek man, a florist, in Saint Paul--
- I call him.
- I says, in Greek, do me a favor-- come
- with me in the community, to be my interpreter.
- He came before me the man, who is married,
- me and my little baby-- was two years old,
- I think so-- two years old.
- We went to the community.
- And they told me, we will send you
- in Cincinnati for three years, to learn the Yiddisher way
- how to sing.
- Your wife and the baby will stay here in Saint Paul.
- We'll take care of them.
- We'll give them house and--
- and-- and every week money to sustain them.
- Says, don't worry about it.
- I said to the Greek man, tell them, I lost my family once.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I don't want to lose another family now.
- I refuse.
- The Greek man told me, you must be crazy-- in Greek.
- You must be crazy!
- You know what means $15,000, in 1951?
- $15,000 a year is a fortune!
- It's not 1983-- 1951.
- $15,000, and a house to live.
- They will pay your utility bills.
- They give you a car, a Cadillac, to drive.
- What do you want better than this?
- I says, Mr. [GREEK]--
- was his name--
- I don't want to lose my second family.
- It's finished.
- I don't want it!
- He said, you're crazy.
- But thank God-- was a-- was a reform rabbi,
- Rabbi Plaut in Saint Paul.
- Bless his heart.
- Which?
- He's now in Montréal--
- Rabbi Plaut.
- Gunther Plaut?
- Eh?
- Gunther Plaut.
- Gunther Plaut, yes.
- I know him.
- Oh, what a rabbi.
- We'll talk about that later.
- Gunther Plaut.
- I was in Saint Paul.
- He's in Canada now, in Montréal.
- In Toronto.
- In Toronto, yes.
- I was in a Hanukkah party in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
- They took me over there to change my mood,
- because I was depressed.
- And a lady told me, do you speak French?
- Is a rabbi here you speak French?
- Yes.
- The rabbi came to me--
- Gunther Plaut, my name is Rabbi Nahmias--
- in French-- nice to meet you.
- What's problem?
- I says, I can't live here because no Sephardim here.
- So, you come tomorrow morning to my office.
- I will try.
- I will see what I can do.
- The next morning, I took a taxicab.
- I went to his temple.
- When I saw the temple, I thought it was a church.
- Terrific-- what a building!
- What a place!
- I can't believe!
- And he was the one who called the Jewish Family
- Service in Saint Paul and told them,
- you have to ship this man where Sephardim are.
- And I was shipped.
- And then where did you go?
- To Florida?
- No.
- To Portland, Oregon.
- And how long were you there?
- One year.
- And then?
- And then I came here.
- And your congregation here is--
- Was no congregation, at the the time.
- And what did you do, when you first came?
- We start to build the congregation.
- We struggled.
- We struggled so bad--
- so bad-- you can't believe it.
- Sometimes, I told my wife, let's go back in Greece.
- We went to the Jewish Family Service,
- and we asked to back in Greece-- to go back in Greece.
- We asked this, as a favor, to send us back in Greece.
- And the man told me--
- Mr. Newman-- you must be patient, my dear friend.
- God will be with you.
- This is a land of opportunity.
- Don't lose this opportunity.
- Don't go back in Greece.
- Stay here.
- You will suffer, in the beginning, but someday
- you'll be someone--
- someday.
- And you'll be all right.
- He was right.
- I trust him.
- I trust him.
- I went back home.
- I says, OK, I will stay in America.
- And here I am now, talking to you.
- Well, that's wonderful.
- I'm glad we've come to an end that's
- pleasant, after telling us some of the things that happened.
- And the only thing I say, when I come in this country,
- I kiss the ground, and I said, God bless America.
- Rabbi, I didn't ask you-- you told me,
- early on, that left some things for some
- of the non-Jewish friends.
- You gave them a couple of trunks.
- Did you ever get it back?
- Yes.
- They kept it for you.
- Yes.
- Three books-- the book of Rosh Hashanah,
- the book of Yom Kippur, and the book of [NON-ENGLISH]----
- that means "Passover"--
- Sukkot--
- --and Sukkot and Shavuos--
- Shavuos.
- These three books, they were in the trunk,
- that they could not understand what was these books.
- They gave to me back.
- I told the farmers, if you gave to me
- all the trunks full of merchandise,
- they won't mean nothing to me.
- These three books is my life.
- And they are still here.
- Oh.
- Still here.
- You'll have to--
- I worship with these books, still, after 30 years.
- Rabbi, is there an occasion-- something
- that happened during the years that you didn't tell me about?
- Is there something that perhaps you
- forgot to tell me that you'd like to have you [CROSS TALK]
- I told you everything, as far as I can remember.
- What do you think we've learned, from all of this?
- Do you think that this can happen again?
- Unfortunately, yes.
- These years burned up my heart.
- But unfortunately, if we don't succeed to do something,
- to be strong this time, to fight, this will happen again.
- I don't know when, but it can happen again.
- We must help Israel.
- We must be strong.
- We must be very, very strong to fight, to survive,
- and to be alive, in Israel, in America, and all over.
- Always, we will have enemies.
- Theodorus said, one day, in his book, whatever is not Jew
- is anti-Jewish.
- And he was right.
- Was there antisemitism when you came back to Salonika,
- after the war?
- Absolutely!
- Was the same thing.
- Plenty!
- Antisemitism still there now.
- They were sorry.
- No.
- A friend of mine went in Greece, three months ago.
- She and her husband wants to leave right away, back,
- because it was the time when Arafat was in Athens,
- and the Greeks were in the streets, telling, death
- to the Jews!
- Death to the Jews-- in Athens, and in Salonika.
- Can you think of something positive to finish all of this
- with?
- I mean, we've shared some of the terrible things that happened.
- My Darling, Mickey, I told you as far as I can remember.
- One thing I will tell you.
- Even if we had the best memory in our life, as a human being,
- the best memory, still no one of us
- of the deportees of the Holocaust
- can remember everything.
- It is impossible.
- It's a nightmare, that sometimes is almost 40 years.
- This was 1943.
- 1983 it's 40 years.
- We went through so many troubles, so many nightmares,
- so many struggles, since we came in this country.
- And after all, we are not anymore 39 or 29 or 31.
- It's not a joke.
- Still today, after 40 years, we--
- my wife and me-- we have nightmares of Nazi camps.
- Sometimes I wake up in the night.
- I says, Marie, oy, my God, I was there all night.
- In a very, very bad nightmare.
- I was in camps.
- I was this and this and this and--
- After 40 years, for the love of God-- it's not 40 days;
- it's 40 years--
- still, we are haunted by nightmares.
- And according to a American doctor, when he told me,
- in 1945, in Plattling--
- I was having very bad nightmares--
- he told me, my boy, you will have these nightmares as
- long as you live.
- They will be with you as long as you live.
- So, we have to live with these nightmares.
- We can do nothing--
- But be strong?
- --but be strong--
- --as Jews--
- --and thanking almighty God that we are in this blessed country.
- We are in America.
- We don't know what's going on in Europe.
- Antisemitism all over.
- In France is one, in Greece, all over--
- same lousy story--
- South America, what's going in Brazil--
- In Argentina--
- --in Argentina-- what you going worse than this?
- I saw Eichmann twice, in Auschwitz.
- I saw Eichmann twice in Auschwitz.
- What was he doing?
- He came for--
- Visit?
- --a visit.
- But who could believe that this was the big butcher that
- were-- killed thousands and thousands-- millions, maybe?
- We should be strong as long as we live.
- That's all.
- Have faith in Israel.
- And to be-- to never-- to never say--
- to be ashamed to say "I am a Jew."
- This is my number in my arm.
- This is my honor and my dignity.
- Sometime-- once a man told me, why don't you
- take out, with skin surgery?
- I says, this is my honor.
- This is my--
- I am proud of this.
- I am proud.
- This is my pride, to have this number here,
- and to say that I am a Jew.
- I went through the Holocaust, I am a survivor, and I thank God,
- and I thank this wonderful country of America.
- Thank you very much, Rabbi Nahmias.
- This has been, Mickey Tiker, interviewing Sadi--
- Rabbi Sadi Nahmias about his experiences
- as a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
- This interview will be included as a valuable contribution
- to the oral history library of the Southeastern Florida
- Holocaust Memorial Center.
- Thank you again.
- You're welcome, very, very much.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Sadi Nahmias
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Sadi Nahmias and Mary Nahmias
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes (90 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Personal Name
- Nahmias, Sadi--Interviews.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Sadi Nahmias and Mary Nahmias on January 8, 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:16:50
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510122
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Oral history interviews with Sadi Nahmias and Mary Nahmias
Oral history interview with Mary Nahmias
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