- This is Coby Rothstein interviewing Mr. Sigmund
- Turner.
- This is July 7, 1981.
- We're in Readville, Massachusetts.
- First of all, Mr. Turner, these are
- a set of questions that relate to pre-war conditions.
- Describe those people who comprise your household
- before the war.
- Who was actually in your home?
- My family consists of three older sisters,
- and I was the youngest, the only son.
- I'm born on October the 10th, 1918, in Kustrin, Germany.
- In 1924, we moved to Kraków, Poland,
- where my parents on my mother's side lived.
- And my father opened up a shoe store.
- And, actually, I was raised in Kraków, Poland.
- Your father was raised in Kraków?
- I was raised.
- You were brought up.
- Yeah, I was brought over there.
- As a matter of fact, if you look here--
- At the picture on the wall?
- This is the picture of my three sisters, and myself,
- and this is my father right here.
- I see.
- And as far as my memories is coming back,
- he was a comfortable middle-class citizen.
- We had several shoe stores at the time,
- with manufacturing of men's shoes as our speciality.
- My grandfather was already retired then.
- And he was in the shoe manufacturing business.
- And his business, he left over for his two sons.
- So this was the background.
- What was the-- religious wise, what sort of upbringing
- was there?
- I bet your pardon?
- Religious wise, what was the religious--
- Religious wise--
- --in the home?
- We was, I will say, not Hasidic, not my grandfather,
- nor my father.
- Very much-- very much progressive.
- But very strict as far as kashrut,
- and the attendance, and stuff like this.
- It was traditional.
- It was--
- Very traditional.
- Holidays were observed?
- Everything, everything.
- Everything was-- our business was closed on Saturdays
- and stuff like this.
- Even when-- Kraków is one of the big cities in Poland,
- used to be the capital of Poland until the 18th century.
- We was living and our business was in the center of Kraków,
- in a big--
- big marketplace, what they call it, Rynek Glówny.
- And I lived-- we lived over there.
- We had the businesses right here.
- We was the only one whose business
- was closed on the Saturdays.
- On Shabbat, on Saturdays.
- What-- do you recall any--
- what sort of relationship there existed between your family
- and non-Jews?
- Oh, yes.
- Since we lived in the center of town--
- We'll just pause for a second.
- OK.
- Since we was living in center of town,
- naturally, my neighbors, and the majority of the people living
- over there, were Gentiles.
- And I was actually brought up in a Gentile neighborhood or mixed
- neighborhood.
- The majority was Gentile.
- And I-- our trade--
- our customers was all Gentile.
- We was catering to the Gentile-- trade.
- And as far as anti-Semitism concerned,
- naturally, we was exposed to it more or less.
- Everyone knew that the shop--
- I beg your pardon?
- Everyone knew that this shop was owned by Jews?
- I beg your pardon?
- They knew that the owners were Jewish, though.
- Oh, naturally-- naturally.
- They knew.
- As a matter of fact, especially in the winter time,
- when the days are shorter, they was waiting Saturday afternoon
- for the--
- the stars to come.
- And was calling, ringing our bell--
- Mr. Turner, come out.
- We saw the star.
- You can come down and open the store.
- But they-- in Kraków, in general,
- not before, I will say 1935, until the General Pilsudski was
- alive, we didn't feel too much of anti-Semitism.
- You didn't?
- No.
- But right after his death, when the government changed
- and the anti-Semitic segment of the government took over,
- and they start announcing boycott of Jewish stores
- and stuff like this.
- Especially for us in the center of the town, where the Endeks,
- this was the anti-Semitic--
- the anti-Semitic organization of students of the university.
- They was going around, and making all kinds of noise,
- and even prosecuting people and stuff like this.
- I, personally, had the experience standing
- in front of our house, I was beaten up-- beaten up,
- I believe in 1936 or '7 was it.
- By this youth of gangs?
- No, no, by the students, by the university students.
- What prompted that?
- How did that happen?
- No, no, they just walked by.
- You see, a Pole will detect a Jew miles away.
- Even my-- I had payots then.
- I didn't look-- in America, nobody will even
- believe that I am Jewish.
- But they right away, they recognized.
- And they-- I had a black eye.
- I believe I was bleeding from nose and stuff like this.
- But this was sporadic.
- Nothing-- nothing-- the organization was quite weak.
- And pretty soon, they had to do with their own problems.
- And the war started in 1939.
- We didn't--
- What effect did that particular incident have on you, though?
- No, we--
- Having lived among them very peacefully for so long.
- I will tell you something.
- As far as I know, we was brought up always in Poland not
- to go to certain parts of town or be careful
- if you're going to the countrysides,
- especially in the mountains-- the mountaineers,
- big anti-Semitic.
- And even we was Boy Scouts--
- the Jewish Boy Scouts--
- I belonged to the Shomer HaDati, what is Bnei Akiva today.
- And we had the camps in the mountains and stuff like that.
- We didn't worry then because we was in a bunch.
- But as far as go singularly, that wasn't to accept it.
- As the war became closer, what sort of--
- As the war became closer--
- --what sort of options--
- I beg your pardon?
- What sort of options did your family have?
- What to do about--
- The options was-- we didn't have any options to start with.
- The prime reason for it, my mother
- had in Kraków three brothers and a sister,
- everyone married, with family.
- My grandmother was living with us.
- We had three big businesses, quite sizable,
- with permanent year-round people employed.
- And we had quite a sizable manufacturing.
- Financially, we was fine.
- But nobody-- but nobody would leave a place like this.
- Where you got born with all the family, everybody know you.
- And especially where you had a mother to consider,
- and brothers, and stuff like this.
- This was out of the question.
- No one talked about leaving probably.
- No.
- No.
- By stretch of magic, my cousin, what you met right here,
- she is born in Hamburg.
- This is the brother of my father,
- the younger brother of my father, five years younger.
- He was in Hamburg.
- In 1935, by coincidence, he won a ticket--
- a free ticket to Israel, with his family,
- from the Jewish organization.
- He paid for the ticket because they had to export and import
- eggs and butter over there.
- But he went to Israel.
- But in Hamburg was a different situation.
- So he liquidated in '35--
- not officially.
- Yes.
- He smuggled the money to my father.
- My father helped him to Switzerland.
- With the money, he went to Israel.
- And they are alive.
- They escaped.
- But as far in Poland is concerned, to go--
- if somebody was established, like, for instance,
- if you was-- right--
- Established financially, established
- socially, and family, everything together, the idea of gone
- was only possible going with the whole family.
- One part of the family to leave, impossible.
- Especially my-- both-- older sister was then married.
- They had already children.
- This was not a matter of just picking up the basket
- and leaving--
- impossible.
- How old were you when the war first broke out?
- When the war started--
- How did you hear--
- --I was 21.
- How did you hear about it?
- Oh, the 1st of September--
- as a matter of fact, it was very--
- I remember the last few days before the start of the war,
- it was very, very a tension, a big tension.
- Was the ultimatum-- Hitler gave the ultimatum to Poland
- about the corridor and stuff like this.
- And everything was very nervous.
- We had the Jewish paper over there, in Polish--
- in Polish language-- Nowy Dziennik, a very popular paper.
- And it was the Polish newspaper and the radio.
- So on Sunday, the 1st of September, at probably 4:00--
- 4:00 or 5:00, the first bombing started.
- And what I remember was that this was intentionally
- made by the Germans.
- They plant spies, and they organized chaos.
- How they did it, they put a rumor
- that the Germans are going first to get rid of all the men, not
- the women, but the men.
- So all the men start wandering.
- Where?
- To the East, towards the Vistula River, towards Russia.
- And my three uncles, all my cousins, my father,
- my two brother-in-laws, we got together.
- And Sunday morning, early, we decided we're going too.
- We start walking.
- We make-- we maked about 130 kilometers in a few days.
- And in meantime, Poland--
- and it took us about a week time.
- We was on the way.
- And what this-- the idea was that there
- was hundreds of thousands people on the road.
- And the Poles couldn't organize a defense
- because the people was blocking--
- the people was riding by buses, was walking,
- was riding by horses and buggies,
- all kinds of transportation.
- But this was a planned--
- a planned diversion by this German
- spies to block the roads.
- And as they was blocking the road,
- they bombed the main stations, the rail stations.
- So we came up to Tarnów.
- And my older brother-in-law had a sister over there.
- And the whole family came to their house.
- And then it was a few days and the Germans came to Tarnów.
- When they came to Tarnów, we returned to Kraków.
- What immediate effect did it have
- on your household, the fact that the war broke out,
- as far as the shop was concerned ad the home?
- No, I will tell you.
- This was the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in 1939.
- We had a quite large apartment, of eight rooms.
- And we had a minyan over there, the whole family.
- And as we was saying our prayers,
- the German came, officers--
- Mr. Turner, may we have the keys to the factory
- and to the shops.
- And this was this-- it's all over.
- Then they called up my father, that he shall come back.
- Because he was established so many years.
- And they give us a commissar, a Ukrainian young boy, who was--
- who was getting the money.
- He was having a hand on the--
- Financial aspects.
- --merchandise.
- And finally, after a couple of months, I was not yet--
- I was not more in Kraków then.
- I had to escape because I had a fight with this commissar.
- And he was threatening me, to kill me.
- So my parents was afraid, and they sent me away,
- beyond the German line, beyond the Vistula, to the--
- the Russian occupied the Eastern part of Poland.
- They sent me to smuggle myself over.
- And I went to Lemberg, to Lwów.
- What was it-- just before you go on, what instigated that fight?
- I beg your pardon?
- What instigated that fight with that--
- Oh, he was a bastard.
- He was a bastard.
- He was insulting my father, and me,
- and my sisters, my mother, and everybody.
- So, naturally, I couldn't stand it.
- So I had a fight with him.
- So this resulted, I escaped.
- And this was in November of '39.
- I escaped to Lemberg.
- And over there-- and my parents gave me
- some money, some gold pieces, and some dollars,
- and some zlotys.
- And I came to Lemberg.
- And I found a whole group of Polish--
- of Kraków boys, with whom I was brought up.
- And we rented a room.
- And I start working in a restaurant as a bookkeeper.
- Meantime-- in meantime, I had to register myself
- to the Russian army.
- And they took me as a good specimen.
- And they gave me right away an assignment,
- five years to the Black Sea float, to the Navy.
- Naturally, I didn't want to go.
- So a friend of mine gave me the idea to go to the Polytechnic,
- like MIT here, in Lemberg.
- The secretary of this university was the brother
- of the Jewish deputy in Poland, Dr. Sommerfeld, his younger
- brother, a Zionist.
- And since I finished a Hebrew gymnasium in Kraków,
- I entered his office, and I started talking Hebrew to him,
- to send away the two secretaries, which he did,
- and I explained my situation.
- So he said, don't worry about it.
- The Russian got a law that so long you
- are a member of any university, they
- will not touch you, except when the war will be.
- If Russia is in war, it's a different story.
- So I applied to the engineering over there in Lemberg.
- And he put it through in one night.
- And I was working in this--
- nights in this coffee house, as a bookkeeper,
- in order to-- because the trouble was with food then.
- But working in this nightclub, in a restaurant,
- I had all the food in the world.
- And during the day, I was going to these-- to the lectures.
- And this was until June 1941, when
- the war between Russia and Germany
- started, the 21st of June.
- And I was making my balance, nights, when
- I was listening to the radio.
- All of a sudden, the music stopped--
- Hello, hello, [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]----
- Stalin.
- And right away, we heard Lemberg, Lwów, it was another--
- at least a city the size of Kraków.
- It was a half a million people or more.
- Anyways, we was in war with Germany.
- So since I had the papers, the Red papers, I shall--
- the next six hours, get myself right away
- in contact with the Army--
- or the Navy-- but I was not in a hurry to do it.
- So I hide myself.
- As a matter of fact, a Ukrainian waiter from the same bodega,
- the same nightclub where I was working in, they had--
- the Ukrainians was in contact with the Germans.
- And they had-- and he told me exactly seven days will take--
- and the Germans will be here in Lemberg.
- But you don't go.
- You come-- he was a bachelor, maybe 70 years old.
- 70?
- 70.
- He said you come to my house.
- I own a house on the outskirts, in the suburbs.
- And I will hide you.
- And when the Germans will come, I will get you back to work.
- You will go with me.
- And this was--
- That's what happened?
- Yeah.
- How long were you--
- I was seven days--
- seven days hidden in the south.
- And then he was traveling with me daily.
- Because the first week was terrible.
- They was killing the Jews in the street in Lemberg--
- the Ukrainians, not the Germans--
- the Ukrainians.
- How is that he was so different?
- What made him so different?
- How did you trust him, this particular fellow?
- This fellow was an old timer, like I say, about 70 years old.
- The old timers, Ukrainian, they was brought up
- under Austrian government.
- And they was very much--
- very much on the--
- they was never-- never anti-Semitic.
- As a matter of fact, they was pro Jews--
- pro Jews.
- But the young generation, they was--
- the terrible thing.
- Later, they was working for the Germans,
- killing Jews in the concentration camp--
- the young generation, not the old ones.
- Anyways, as I start going back to work,
- and being aware that Kraków is under German,
- and I am here under German, so I manage to smuggle myself back
- to Kraków.
- But again, then, by this time, they
- liquidated the businesses of my father.
- They took everything to Germany--
- merchandise, machinery, and everything.
- And they took away--
- they took away our apartment.
- And the Jews had to leave the center of town,
- to the outskirts.
- Is that where they were building a ghetto or--
- No, before-- before the ghetto.
- The first phase was to move the Jews
- from the permanent settling, the apartment, to one
- or two rooms in the outskirts.
- Meantime, they start build the ghetto.
- And whoever had the Kennkarte, a Arbeitskarte,
- was allowed to come to the ghetto.
- He was necessary.
- If not, they didn't allow them.
- They make-- they gather all the people
- that they didn't want to have in the ghetto,
- and they send them away.
- We didn't know where.
- Anyways, my problem was-- when I returned to Kraków,
- my problem was that too many people knew that I was away.
- And I was afraid.
- So I was hidden.
- In Kraków.
- In the outskirts of Kraków.
- I was hidden by my parents, by Goyim,
- not to live with them together.
- And this took about four months, until my parents got
- the permits to go to ghetto--
- to the ghetto.
- And when we came all together, then I
- was not worrying anymore.
- Because the Goyim what knew me, that I ran away from Kraków
- to Lemberg.
- This is the one--
- because I was brought up with the Goyim.
- And they knew that I was away.
- Where were you hiding for those four months?
- Where were you, in a house?
- They rented a room for me.
- And you were in that room?
- Yes.
- You stayed there for four months.
- Yes, as a matter of fact, my wife was my girlfriend then.
- I was going steady with her.
- And she was coming to see me only nights-- evenings.
- So we walked a little around the house.
- During the day, I didn't dare to stick my nose out
- in the street.
- Anyways, we came to the ghetto, and that was--
- this was 1942.
- Can you describe the ghetto, what it looked like,
- the formation, what it was--
- They took a part of Kraków--
- actually, Kraków had two parts, the main city,
- and the Vistula, the river, divided the other part,
- Podgorze, from the main city.
- And in Podgorze, they took a few streets,
- a few blocks of houses, mostly occupied before the war
- by the Jews.
- But they built a wall, a high wall,
- around it, with one, two, three entrances from the outside.
- The streetcar was still going through the ghetto.
- But the Jews were not allowed to use it.
- They're not allowed to go in and out.
- Right.
- No, the streetcar-- we couldn't use the streetcar.
- But the streetcar was going through it.
- The Goyim was going through the ghetto in the streets
- of [PLACE NAME].
- And everybody, like I said before, who had the Kennkarte--
- this means a paper that he is employable,
- was allowed to come to the ghetto.
- Naturally, each one who had a three, four room apartment
- had to take three, four families in his apartment.
- So they crammed us together good.
- Housing was very tight.
- Very tight.
- As a matter of fact, in one room,
- I was with my father and mother, plus my sister,
- with her husband, and a child, in one room.
- One room-- everyone slept in that same room?
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, yes, cooked, and slept, everything.
- What there any medical attention there?
- Food?
- Yes.
- The food was rationed, very tight.
- But was a black marketeering going on,
- where the Germans and the Polish police had their fingers in it.
- And the Jews was selling gold, and diamonds, and dollars
- in exchange for food.
- Was there schooling there, any religious activities at all?
- Yes.
- There wasn't any official synagogue.
- But people prayed privately, in private homes?
- Privately, yeah.
- But there was a hospital, or they made a temporary hospital.
- And later on, naturally, they destroyed everything.
- As far as our living in the ghetto, was very chaotic.
- Because we was-- beside the walls,
- they had those round up by the police,
- by the Ukrainian militia in the black uniforms,
- and the Lithuanian militia, and the Polish policja--
- Polish-- what they call it?
- The policja-- policja--
- what they call it--
- the cops, the Polish cops.
- The kapos.
- Cops-- cops-- the policemen, no kapos.
- No, kapos was Jews--
- but policemen.
- But our biggest trouble was with the Poles,
- even bigger than with the Germans.
- Because the German, when you didn't put your armband,
- and you was walking the streets of Kraków,
- the German would never recognize you
- that you are Jewish or not Jewish.
- Roaming the street and they was bringing hundreds and hundreds
- of Jews to the Germans.
- The Polish were.
- Yeah.
- Do you remember any smuggling at all--
- in the ghetto, itself, was there any smuggling going on?
- Yes.
- Behind the wall of the ghetto.
- Yes, there was-- very little, but there was.
- There was-- like for instance, the mafia here--
- was certain individuals, who had the contacts with the police.
- And the police was looking through their fingers.
- And he had connections outside for smugglers to bring him
- certain articles, like bread, or meat, or whatever this is.
- And he was making a tremendous profit on it.
- And mainly the underworld, the Jewish underworld,
- who meantime, got the position as policeman
- in the ghetto, all the underground.
- Was there any resistance that you can remember in the ghetto?
- Any resistance at all?
- Yes.
- As a matter of fact, I was partly involved in it.
- There was the Akiba--
- Akiba, by Shimshon Draenger.
- In Lohamei HaGeta'ot, there's a big picture
- of Shimshon Draenger.
- He organized us.
- He was my school friend.
- We went through the schooling together.
- And there was Liebeskind, Shimshon Draenger,
- and the brother of my brother-in-law, Benek Wexner.
- They was the leaders of the underground.
- And they decided not to go to the ghetto at all.
- They went on the [NON-ENGLISH].
- But from time to time, they came.
- They organized us in the ghetto.
- How did they get in?
- They was jumping out of the streetcar
- when the streetcar was passing the ghetto.
- And naturally, they threw the bomb on the--
- in the center of town, there was a big coffee house,
- a famous coffee house.
- I forgot the name of it.
- And this is in the ghetto?
- No.
- In the center of town.
- In town.
- And this coffee house was designed for the high officers
- of the German army.
- So they threw a bomb through the window,
- and they killed maybe 20 or 30 them.
- And they all got killed.
- They round them up, and they run away to the--
- to the outskirts of Kraków.
- And the Poles gave them away.
- Each and every one was killed.
- Yeah.
- As far as in the ghetto itself, was there
- resistance going on that you can recall?
- We start organizing something.
- But they start to bring Jews--
- liquidating other ghettos to our ghetto.
- All of a sudden, from 30,000 we was close to 80,000,
- without a special place to live.
- And they start to segregate people, all
- the younger children, and sent away, one after another.
- And, finally-- this was in '42, in October, they made--
- the [NON-ENGLISH]---- what this means, the Aussiedlung.
- They decided from the 80,000, to send away about 50,
- to leave only 30, and to cut the ghetto in half.
- And naturally, all of my--
- no-- two of my uncles, with their wife and their children,
- they was taken in this--
- in this Aussiedlung.
- The oldest one, with his wife, was shot
- on the place in the ghetto.
- And I looked at the--
- You saw this?
- Oh, yeah.
- And--
- Shot for what reason?
- Was this--
- No reason.
- Did he try to escape?
- No, there was not a reason.
- This is the way they worked.
- And we was cramped from our side--
- they liquidated the side we was, with my parents,
- and my grandmother, and my sister, and my brother-in-law,
- and their kid.
- And we was-- we went to the other side.
- And they start-- they start--
- on the end of '42, they start building outside
- of the ghetto, about 6 kilometers, the concentration
- camp, Plaszów.
- So they took a group of people for establishing this camp.
- And on March the 13, '43, they liquidated the ghetto.
- And out of the 30,000, they allowed only 10,000
- up to the larger.
- The rest was sent away.
- My grandmother was shot then.
- She was 88 years old.
- Where were the-- were the rest of them sent, where to?
- Do you know?
- We didn't know where.
- We didn't know where, no idea--
- just sent away.
- There was-- there was nobody giving us the information.
- Nobody came back telling us about where--
- we heard the rumors that they sending them away
- to Ukraine or someplace else, but nobody knew for sure--
- at least, I didn't know.
- You said you were in--
- you were in a concentration camp.
- Is that--
- Yes, this was the first concentration camp.
- Plaszów.
- The Plaszów lager.
- The one that was outside the ghetto.
- I was over there until October 15, 1944.
- When the Russian front near it, they
- liquidated this concentration camp, and they sent me--
- they send--
- Who was in that camp with you?
- Were your parents with you in that concentration camp?
- I beg your pardon?
- Who was in the camp with you?
- Were you sent away--
- I was, my father, and my mother, and my sister,
- and my brother-in-law, my girlfriend.
- I married her in the concentration camp.
- In the camp?
- In the camp.
- We married on June the 20th, 1943.
- To get into the camp, before you got in,
- was there some sort of selection at all?
- How did they choose who was going to go in and who was not?
- Now, with me was a peculiar stuff.
- When they liquidated all the other ghettos in '42, they
- established-- in Kraków, in the ghetto, they established a--
- they took a couple big houses, and they established--
- they established a place where they brought
- all the electrical appliances.
- And they needed somebody to be in charge of it,
- to repair it, and then send it to Germany.
- My wife, my present wife, was one-- fiancee then--
- was working then for the same outfit, the SS,
- in the Schneiderei.
- Tailoring.
- Tailoring, fixing up dresses coming from other ghetto,
- and this they were sending.
- So the Sturmbannführer liked her very much,
- and ask her, in the beginning, did
- she know anybody what she could recommend
- to head this electrical appliances department.
- I was working pick and shovels then, on the Luft--
- on the airstrip.
- And it was miserable.
- It was wintertime.
- And there wasn't any--
- I was strong, fine, but without food, the snow and the rain,
- it was a quite an uncomfortable situation.
- So she recommended me.
- And he told me to get 20 best electricians
- in Kraków, master electrician, and I
- will be in charge of them.
- You've never done that sort of work before.
- Hmm?
- You've never done any sort of--
- I never knew any more than changing a bulb.
- And this is-- then, when they liquidated the ghetto,
- was still the whole halls of the house is full of material
- to be repaired.
- So they cleaned up the ghetto from people,
- and they ask, after a week, all the people who
- was working in ghetto, to come back under police protect--
- not protection.
- But the Germans was going with us back and forth
- to work, to the ghetto.
- And we had quite not bad over there.
- Because we had the contact with the Poles.
- Because the ghetto was empty.
- And the condition was much better
- than working pick and shovel.
- And then I was granted to have a wedding, on Sunday,
- the 20th of June, by the SS.
- And they brought my parents.
- They brought a rabbi.
- They brought her sister, brother-in-law, and the mother,
- my sister, my brother-in-law.
- And he give half a day off to all the 300 people
- working over there to attend this wedding.
- How do you explain that?
- I mean this generosity.
- Very simple.
- He was an invalid without a hand, a young boy.
- This German commander?
- Yes, yes.
- He was crazy.
- He was shooting on the sight without any reasons.
- He had a very soft heart as far as my wife is concerned.
- He never believed that my wife is not German.
- She said she specially went to camp because of me.
- So you can't ever figure them out.
- How?
- But this was the idea.
- So you actually had a wedding ceremony.
- I had a ceremony, a [NON-ENGLISH],,
- like it should be.
- With a rabbi.
- A rabbi and everything.
- And this was in the concentration camp
- or in the ghetto?
- No, in the ghetto.
- In the ghetto still.
- In the ghetto, in the empty ghetto.
- That's incredible.
- Yeah-- not incredible.
- There are people alive who was attending this wedding.
- Yeah.
- Anyways, for the honeymoon, she went to the--
- after the wedding, we went upstairs, back to the camp.
- So I went to the men lager, and she was--
- she went to the women lager.
- Great.
- That's all.
- Great honeymoon.
- And then they sent her away in September, to Auschwitz--
- In '44, September.
- And I was in Plaszów until October the 15th.
- And since September, I didn't know about her, anything.
- What happened in Plaszów, though,
- when you arrived in the concentration camp, itself?
- What do you mean?
- What did they do with you?
- What sort of--
- Oh, they-- everybody got an assignment to work.
- We was working.
- As what?
- I was working in Entlausung room.
- What is that?
- In a bathhouse, where the people was coming to get
- rid of the lice.
- So when they brought in a transport from,
- let's say, from Hungary, came 5,000 women.
- I had to undress them, take away their--
- they gave me, everyone, the clothing.
- And I got to give them their lager clothing.
- You were in charge of that?
- I was not in charge.
- I was employed with it.
- There was quite a few people employed.
- How long did that last for?
- This lasted-- I I'm telling you, from 43rd March,
- I was until October '44.
- And they sended me away, and my father.
- My father was working in a [GERMAN]..
- They had work-- workplaces.
- They was making shoes over there, Schuhmacherei.
- They was making dresses over there, the coat, sweaters.
- There was electrical.
- Was building motor, rebuilding motor, all kinds.
- There was a Schlosserie, all kinds of stuff.
- Your father was employed as what?
- As a shoe cutter.
- A shoe cutter.
- Yeah.
- And your mother, what was she doing?
- She was in the--
- I believe she was in the sweater--
- she was knitting-- knitting by hand for the Germans.
- Anybody else?
- My sister was over there.
- What was she doing?
- One moment, I will ask my wife.
- She will-- Jusiu!
- Stop it.
- So she was a Schneiderei also?
- Yeah, yeah.
- In tailoring.
- Yeah, yeah, and my wife was Schneiderei.
- Everybody was doing something.
- What sort of relationship existed between the family, you
- and your family?
- Yes, we was getting together, evenings,
- after the evening appell on the appellplatz.
- You know what it is?
- No.
- OK.
- Every evening and every morning, before work and after work--
- Counting.
- Counting on the appellplatz, regardless of the weather.
- After this, we had a couple hours
- what we could eat, wash ourselves, and get together.
- It was-- we could go to the women's side,
- and they could come to our side.
- How close was it guarded, that camp?
- Hmm?
- How close was it guarded?
- Oh, they electrically-- electric wiring around the camp.
- And inside the camp was the Jewish kapo, the Jewish police.
- What sort of-- how did you relate to that?
- That was-- one of the factors why we get married,
- because, as I told you before, the kapos,
- they was mostly the underground people.
- And they was after every young girl who was not married.
- And that was one of the factors for them
- decided to make the wedding.
- So she will get rid of the kapos over there.
- But we had over there quite a few animals.
- Any interaction between you and kapos?
- No.
- No, no.
- No incidents at all?
- Huh?
- No incidents, any incidents?
- No, I didn't have any incidents.
- Or your family, any members of your family?
- I beg your pardon?
- Any members of your family?
- No, no.
- As a matter of fact, let's put it this way, nobody wanted--
- nobody wanted to have any bitter relation with the police.
- Because they could finish you if they want to like this.
- Without any reason or excuse?
- No, they don't have a reason.
- No.
- Can you describe just what a typical day
- was like in the concentration camp for you?
- Was getting up very early.
- I believe the appell--
- the counting in the morning was probably about 6:00
- in the morning.
- Then we-- everybody go to his assignment.
- And lunchtime, we was getting the soup.
- It was coming, the big--
- the big--
- Pots?
- Yeah, yeah.
- But the food was terrible-- terrible, terrible--
- terrible food.
- Was that the first meal of the day,
- or was there something in the morning?
- What?
- Was it the first meal of the day?
- I believe in the morning we had only a coffee.
- That's all we had.
- And once a day, we-- in the evening, we got the bread.
- On every barrack-- the barrack--
- the barrack had a man in charge of the bread.
- And as we come evenings, he was giving everybody
- 400 grams of bread.
- And this bread, you had to divide by yourself
- to have for morning and the whole day,
- and a soup, that's all we was getting.
- And the soup was mostly--
- looks like spinach, but it was maked out of--
- out of leaves or something.
- Who knows what was it.
- I don't know.
- I really don't know.
- We was so hungry that we ate anything.
- The same food every day, the bland-- the same--
- Mostly, every day the same food.
- Mostly, the same food.
- Nothing like meat or anything.
- Even sugar was maybe 2--
- 5 gram of sugar a week or something like this.
- Margarine, a little drop of margin for a week--
- starvation diet.
- So our stomach, naturally, shrinked.
- And we was very hungry.
- But there was some black marketeering
- in the barracks going on.
- Whoever had the money, so he could
- buy a piece of bread or something,
- like the cigarettes or whatever.
- But most of the people were starving.
- I will say 99% of the people were starving.
- And we was working.
- Depending on the type of assignment
- you had, you was watched by the--
- by a Jewish kapo.
- And from time to time, they came and they
- made a unexpected visit, the SS, unexpected visit.
- And there was a lot of shooting going on, without any reason,
- just on sight.
- What-- who made up the camp mostly?
- Mostly Jews or non-Jews as well?
- Then they built a Polish lager to.
- They build a gypsy lager too.
- And they build a whore house for the Germans
- and for the Lithuanians.
- And they took the Polish women to it, right joining us.
- And then, in 1944, in the beginning,
- they brought in from Germany Germans from--
- from the penitentiary, the lifers.
- And they assigned them to be kapos.
- And they was all professional killers, each and every one--
- professional killers.
- So we had some--
- [BACKGROUND TALKING]
- There's a paper boy.
- Anyways--
- What--
- [BACKGROUND TALKING]
- Was there a relationship to non-Jews in the camp at all?
- We didn't have any contact.
- Not at all?
- No.
- No Polish or gypsies, or--
- No, no, no-- no contact whatsoever.
- No contact-- they were strictly-- strictly separated.
- Did you encounter any--
- were there any forms of resistance in the camp at all?
- No.
- None that you can remember?
- Were the attempts to escape at all?
- The attempts to escape was only in the beginning.
- Like I said, the 13th of March, '43,
- when they transferred us from the ghetto
- to the camp, a few of the people escaped.
- Between them, my sister--
- my older sister with a child.
- Had escaped?
- Escaped, yeah.
- What happened to her?
- I beg your pardon?
- What happened to her?
- I helped her to go through the--
- through the canals, what you call--
- Tunnel?
- What?
- Tunnels?
- Not tunnels, sewer pipes.
- Sewer system.
- Sewer system, she went out of the ghetto.
- And my cousin, who is now in New York, a engineer,
- a civil engineer, I brought them down by the first occasion,
- when they returned to the ghetto to work.
- After the ghetto was empty, after five or six days,
- they called us back.
- So I took them in my group.
- And as he come to the ghetto, I gave him
- a carbide lamp, and a piece of bread,
- and he escaped through a-- through a sewage system.
- Is there any reason you didn't escape as well at that time?
- Yes, yes.
- First of all, I had parents over there in the camp.
- They didn't.
- My sister had a three-year-old baby,
- and she knew that no way she can--
- Pass.
- --pass.
- So this was this.
- I wouldn't leave my parents and run away.
- But like I say, my oldest uncle, who was shot with the mother,
- this was his son.
- So he didn't have any parents anymore.
- So he did escape.
- And there was-- then there's--
- even before we went to the camp, there was--
- one boy escaped from our group, when we was--
- when I was then working for the SS.
- And naturally, what they did, they
- picked up another boy, the same guy who
- gave me the permission of the wedding, gathered this all 300.
- And picked up on that boy and shot him
- on sight in front of us, just as retaliation
- because the other one escaped.
- Well, there wasn't any talk of--
- Mass escape, no.
- Or resisting-- I mean, as time went on, people--
- you didn't know what will happen.
- You don't understand it.
- Toby, you got to understand that the Germans,
- with the final solution, they worked point by point.
- First of all, they took away all the leaders and destroyed them.
- Secondary, they took away your personal life.
- You didn't have a apartment.
- You didn't have your bed.
- You didn't have your belongings.
- They degraded you to this point, that by the time--
- And with the-- with all they were shooting and destroying,
- what you saw, you got so psyched up and so hardened inside.
- There was completely no resistance possible.
- They took away from you the will of living--
- no, the will of resisting.
- Never the will of living, because that's an instinct.
- Nobody wants to die, no matter how bad he is off.
- But as far as the resisting is concerned,
- if you put somebody in a situation
- like this, where his hair, he doesn't have the hair.
- You haven't got what to dress.
- You haven't got what to eat.
- Haven't got no home.
- He haven't got nothing, just the bare life left.
- What's the point?
- Where are you going to run?
- Between the Poles-- if you knew that they are just waiting
- for you, you shall--
- they shall get the 5 kilos of sugar for delivering you.
- There's was no difference between our Jews and the Jews
- in Eastern Poland, where they had the White Ruthenia, where
- they had some minorities.
- And they had a lot of forests around them.
- They could escape.
- They could escape.
- We didn't have anything.
- We was in the industrial part of Poland.
- There was nothing, no place to escape for us, no place.
- And, like I said, finally, nobody
- wants to die, except, yes, like Shimshon Draenger.
- He knew he is going to die.
- But he said, fine, if I'm going to die, let them die too.
- But how many idealists was it like this?
- Takes a character to build up.
- Yeah.
- So this was this story.
- Now in the concentration camp, again,
- was there some sort of cultural activity at all,
- or religious activity in the concentration camps?
- Nonexistent?
- Privately, in the homes?
- No homes-- what kind of homes?
- You had a barrack of 2,000-3,000 people.
- Each and every one was three stage--
- three stage-- this one beds.
- How can you do anything?
- No private sabbath observances.
- No privacy whatsoever, nothing--
- nothing, nothing.
- Yes, when a holiday came, Passover, or Yom Kippur,
- or something like this, whoever remembered something--
- we didn't have any Siddurim, we didn't have anything.
- Was this-- Plaszów, was this the only camp you were in?
- Oh, no.
- What happened after that?
- How did you get out of that?
- I didn't get out of it.
- They send me over.
- When the Russian came near, like I said, October 15, 1944,
- they send me to Nieder Silesia, to the industrial part
- of Germany, to a factory.
- Who else was sent with you?
- My father went with me and my brother-in-law went with me.
- And your mother?
- No.
- We was divided.
- The men lager was sent separately,
- and the women were sent separately.
- Anyways, we went-- first of all, we went to Gross-Rosen.
- That was the most terrible camp I ever was.
- And where was that located?
- By Breslau.
- In Germany.
- How were you sent there?
- In the--
- A transport, or?
- Transport.
- In a train?
- Without food, I drove without anything--
- without water until they brought a stove to a Vernichtungs camp,
- Gross-Rosen.
- What is that, Vernichtung?
- Vernichtung, this means where they finished up the people.
- And over there, we went through segregation.
- They asked we registered what speciality we are.
- And I happened to be the lucky to go with my father
- to a factory of ammunition.
- But before-- after this, after the registration--
- There was a selection when you came into the camp?
- Yeah.
- After this, they put us to a big--
- we was a transport of maybe 5,000.
- My brother-in-law was separated from us and about 2,000
- to a big room.
- No, first of all, we went to a bath.
- This was October 17, 1944, raining and snowing,
- cold showers, and without clothes, they
- have us run for a couple of miles to another location,
- where they brought us to a room.
- And everybody was sitting one between the legs
- of the other one, a few thousand of us.
- And we were standing for two days like this,
- sitting like this without food.
- And then we came.
- And they called up the numbers for the transport.
- And they sent it out.
- We was only five days over there all together in Gross-Rosen.
- And what I saw of this beyond the description.
- Well, they had specially over there
- what they call the Strafkommando.
- The Strafkommando, there was people segregated to die--
- Jewish or not Jewish, who knows?
- They was not allowed to walk.
- They had to run all the time, all the time.
- And they had the-- a big stone--
- what they calling-- the how stone--
- what they call it?
- The quarries, the big quarries.
- And they was carrying the big blocks and running.
- And the SS was--
- Hitting them?
- Huh?
- Hitting them as they were--
- Hitting, hitting.
- Whoever fell down was finishing up by shooting.
- It was a terrible.
- And it was the same stoves going on, burning the--
- and the smell like Auschwitz had--
- they burned.
- And there was-- he was mighty glad after [INAUDIBLE]..
- Where were you at the time or your father?
- Where or what were you doing then?
- We was sitting over there and watching through the window
- the Strafkommando.
- We was waiting for our transport.
- We didn't know where we going.
- All of a sudden, they came and they called the numbers.
- Everybody got a number.
- And they called us.
- And they sent us to a factory at Langenbielau, a ammunition
- factory.
- And then for a change, we got the old army barracks
- with rooms for eight people, with toilets and everything.
- All of a sudden, we got in a better situation,
- even with going daily to work.
- Our work was 12 hours a day, from 7:00
- in the morning to 7:00 at night, six days a week.
- And we had to go two hours through the forest
- to the factory.
- Walking?
- Walking.
- Guarded?
- Oh, guarded, Yeah.
- And it was then a big wintertime.
- It was December, January, February, very strong winter.
- We didn't have any clothing whatsoever.
- So I remember, my father put around me a sack of cement.
- You know the cement sacks?
- Empty, underneath my blouse, and he put one.
- And they took away our shoes, gave us the wooden Holland--
- the Holland--
- Clogs?
- --clogs, yeah.
- And this is the way, without socks, without nothing.
- And this is the way we was walking through the snow.
- How big a group was this?
- How many men were there?
- Oh, we was walking a couple hundred.
- Now, these barracks were outside of Gross-Rosen or where?
- No, no, this was Langenbielau.
- How far was that away from Gross-Rosen?
- Oh, this was about, I would say, 100 miles or something.
- So you had another transport?
- But you didn't find it.
- Oh, yes.
- They put us on--
- not on the trains, but they took us by trucks.
- Or so.
- Trucks.
- And was quite good, warm, over there inside.
- And they gave us a little better to eat.
- [CROSS TALK]
- And was running the machinery over there.
- All guarded-- was that guarded as well heavily?
- All guarded, yeah.
- And the foremens was old Germans retired.
- They called back the retired people
- because the young one was in front already.
- And the condition was not bad.
- As a matter of fact, my father was then 58.
- And they didn't-- they was so friendly that they didn't let
- him work heavy.
- They gave him a little hand brush.
- And he was cleaning the tables from the assembly,
- was sitting all day, and just minding
- the stove, the cold stove.
- So he had a easy job.
- As a matter of fact, one of the older Germans was--
- since my father was--
- had a stomach trouble, was bringing every day
- a thermos bottle of milk and Farina.
- And he put it in a garbage can so nobody can--
- See.
- --see.
- And this was for my father.
- So these were retired Germans who
- were watching you rather than--
- Oh, yes, 80s, 80-year-old.
- Not SS guards.
- Ohm no, oh, no.
- The SS was for something else.
- But they was the foremen.
- They was the leaders of the--
- they was professionals machinists and stuff like this.
- What work were you doing?
- I was doing machine work over there.
- They was running late, apparently.
- They trained you for this?
- Yes, they found out that I am mechanically-inclined
- all of a sudden.
- And I was running a third late.
- Yep.
- And, the food how was the food in the--
- The food was a good soup.
- That's all we was getting in the morning as we came we was
- getting a piece of bread and coffee, Lunchtime,
- we was getting a soup, a soup-- a batter soup, like a--
- I will say, inside was [GERMAN]----
- how do you calling this-- and barley soup,
- or stuff like this.
- And then few thinks, when we came home,
- we had another coffee, I believe, yeah.
- Evening in the bread portion, evenings.
- Yeah.
- This all.
- How long did this last for, this--
- how long did it last?
- This lasted until March the 10th '45.
- What happened then?
- Then the front got nearer.
- And all of a sudden, they announced that they going to--
- all the sick people and the older people
- got to be transferred to a special lager.
- So they put my father on the list
- because he was one of the oldest.
- I didn't want to part with my father.
- So I volunteered and I went with him.
- I took out another man from the list.
- And I went with him.
- And then they brought us about maybe 50 kilometers
- to a old mill.
- And this was in Dernau, [NON-ENGLISH]..
- And as we came, we opened the doors, and over there, we saw,
- this is the finished.
- This is the finish.
- Why?
- Because all of a sudden, millions of this one--
- louses fell on us.
- We was quite clean over there, working with the Germans.
- We had a latrine.
- We had--
- Was this--
- --showers and everything.
- As we came over there, no work whatsoever.
- Close the door and rot.
- What was this, a camp also?
- This was the finish camp.
- What was the name of it?
- Dernau.
- A concentration camp?
- Yes, a little camp.
- Well, say, a little camp was maybe
- 15,000 people when we came.
- But daily was dying over there, I
- will say, maybe hundreds of people, a few hundred every day
- from the parasites.
- They were dying?
- Huh?
- People were brought there to die actually?
- There's nothing, no work?
- No work whatsoever.
- And my father died over there that 14 of April '45.
- And I was liberated over there the 8th of May.
- No-- there was no food in that place?
- Yes.
- The food was very bad, just bread and a little soup.
- But the thing what was killing us was the sanitary conditions
- was killing us.
- You couldn't-- we was all full of it.
- So you were actually there about a month or two, two months?
- Yeah, I came in--
- March there.
- --March, yeah.
- And your father died a month later?
- My father lasted only a month and four days.
- And I was about finish when the Russian liberated me
- in the last second.
- From the people that came with you on that transport,
- do you know-- how many people do you think survived, all
- those that came with you?
- Where?
- To that-- to this place.
- Oh, we came over there, there was on this list was 250.
- And maybe 10 or 15, I don't know even so much.
- Yeah.
- And you were liberated by the Russian troops?
- Yes.
- So was your brother-- where was your brother?
- Brother-in-law?
- We was separated in Gross-Rosen.
- He went to Mauthausen.
- Were you real sick at that time?
- Or how ill were you--
- Oh, yes.
- --when the Russians came in?
- I was only about 80 pounds.
- And naturally, I was full of blisters, full of blisters.
- And I was quite sick.
- What happened?
- And did they treat you when they came in?
- What happened when the troops came in?
- I will tell you.
- The 8th of May, the day of liberation,
- we got up in the morning.
- And we didn't see any guard anymore at the door.
- So we opened the door and start walking, whoever could walk,
- toward the nearest town, little town, Dernau.
- Dernau was kept in--
- what they call it?
- So was it in the town of Dernau?
- Was that a name of a town?
- No, this is a village.
- A village.
- A village.
- And the town was Gluszyca in Polish.
- OK.
- I forgot what was the name of the little town.
- I went to the town.
- I went to the town.
- You had enough strength to walk there?
- With a stick, I was walking.
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- And as I came to the town, I knocked at the door.
- And a older German let me in.
- And they was afraid that the Russian will--
- this one-- will beat them up.
- And they will-- what do you call it?
- The women, they will--
- Rape them?
- --rape the women.
- So he thought, when he take me in,
- and I was in the uniform, everything,
- he will be more secure.
- Oh, I see.
- And he gave me gave me a room.
- And naturally, I couldn't eat.
- He put on the table food.
- But I couldn't eat because my stomach
- was completely shrinked.
- You walked out of that camp yourself
- or with some other people?
- By yourself?
- Some-- everybody was walking.
- But people went different directions as they came out?
- In the direction of the town.
- Yeah.
- Forgot the name.
- We'll look it up.
- I have a map.
- We'll look it up.
- I been over there because I put on my thing,
- on the grave of my father.
- I been over there in 1965.
- I especially went over there, pick up the name in Polish.
- In Polish is Gluszyca today.
- The name today belong to Poland.
- But it was a German name, forgot it.
- Anyways, he put food on the table.
- But I couldn't eat.
- And he had a older woman, the wife.
- And she cooked me up a little milk with manna--
- what they call this--
- like--
- Rice?
- --Farina, like Farina.
- He said, you start slowly on this.
- Now, did they question you when you came in where
- you came from, what happened?
- I was dressed from concentration camp,
- without the hair and that.
- No questions, then.
- No, they knew about this.
- Anyways, the next day, I went out
- in the street in a truck, a Russian truck.
- The Russian was all drunk.
- We was free-- that was the 9th of May.
- They was all under influence, each and every one.
- Well, a big truck run me over in the middle of the street.
- Ran you over?
- Yes.
- And I woke up in a hospital, all broken up
- in pieces after maybe 10 days.
- What kind of hospital was it?
- They made a temporary hospital out of a high school.
- Who was running it, Americans, German, Russians?
- They were all German, the Germans.
- Germans.
- And a couple Jewish doctors also was there.
- And this is in the same town now?
- The hospital was in the same town?
- Yes, in this town, yeah.
- And I was over there until July in the hospital.
- I lost my speech.
- I lost my touch in my right hand, everything broken up here
- and here, my nose, my foot.
- They must have tell somebody.
- Anyways, when I felt a little better
- and I was still on a wheelchair, I
- went to the office of the hospital.
- And I start requesting they should
- let me go back to Kraków.
- I like to see who is alive.
- Who was alive from your family.
- So finally, they couldn't get rid of me.
- I was so persistent.
- So they brought me to the rail station
- and put me on the railroad train.
- And I came to Kraków.
- You went back.
- All in bandages.
- As I came to Kraków, again, they helped me
- from the main railroad station to the Jewish committee.
- They had already a Jewish committee there.
- Kraków was liberated a half a year
- before because the Russians came from the east.
- And I was in the west.
- So I went to the Jewish committee to the--
- was many refugees laying and sitting on the big--
- Platform.
- --platform.
- And I was sitting.
- And they gave me something to eat.
- And all of a sudden, two girlfriends
- from before the war, neighbors, came to look.
- And I called them in.
- And they took me home.
- And I found over there my younger sister just returned
- from a camp.
- And we found a letter from the sister
- who escaped from the ghetto.
- She was in Hungary, in Budapest.
- She survived.
- She wrote a letter.
- She survived as well?
- Yes.
- And she gave the address in Budapest.
- So my sister took me with a Red Cross Hungarian train
- to Budapest.
- And over there, I came to my sister.
- And I start making progress.
- I got rid of the wheelchair.
- And I start mumbling and stuff like this.
- But I couldn't say Kaddish the whole first year after my year.
- You could not talk for an entire year?
- No, no.
- I lost my speech.
- Because the--
- I had a blood clot here.
- From what, when they ran?
- Yes, yes.
- From the fall-- from the truck that hit you?
- Yes, yes.
- Yeah.
- Now, how did you hear about your wife surviving?
- How did you meet her?
- In Budapest was a Jewish committee too.
- And on the committee, there was no any mail
- then in Europe, no post offices, no post.
- So every survivor who came from some hospital or camp
- brought a list.
- So in October of '45, I found my wife on the list,
- that she is in Bergen-Belsen sick of a head
- typhus, black typhus.
- And I sent a friend of mine.
- I already was so well that I went in business
- with my late brother-in-law.
- In Budapest?
- In Budapest, export and import business.
- And I make quite a bit of money too.
- And I sent a friend with some money because I still
- couldn't--
- wasn't well enough for such a travel from Budapest
- to Northern Germany.
- So I sent him.
- He went and he gave them my address.
- And she came to Budapest.
- So he brought her.
- No, he didn't.
- He escaped with the money.
- Took away the money.
- But she came back?
- He gave her only the address.
- Just the address?
- I see.
- Anyways.
- How long were you in Budapest?
- I was until January '46.
- And then?
- Then we escaped from Budapest to Munich.
- First, I sent my wife and my two brother-in-laws to Munich.
- And I, and the two sisters, and the child
- was in Budapest as they left my wife with all the money
- in Munich.
- And they return for the wives and for me.
- And then we went--
- we liquidated everything, we went all to Munich.
- In Munich, I was--
- until '49, until I came to this country.
- What were you doing in Munich then?
- I was working part-time for the Jewish committee.
- And mostly, I was not doing anything.
- So you were waiting for papers to clear or something?
- Right.
- I was waiting for my quota to United States.
- Had you applied to any other country to go to?
- No.
- Any reason?
- No.
- No reason.
- I had here two uncles.
- And I wrote a letter to my cousin
- who is in Israel in [PLACE NAME] since 1928.
- And I asked him, how about me?
- I got-- I'm out, [HEBREW].
- I don't know where should to go, to go to Israel
- or to go to America.
- So he sent me sick people, we got plenty--
- and poor people.
- You don't have money.
- You are sick.
- You got-- my son was born in '46 in Munich.
- So he said, what can you do here without money,
- without health in Israel?
- So I decided to go here.
- I see.
- So that made up your mind for you.
- Right.
- But actually, we was thinking--
- I was thinking, I always was--
- in back of my mind, the idea to go to Israel.
- But in view of the facts of the situation over there
- in 1946, '47, where there was millions--
- no millions, hundreds of thousands of refugees coming.
- And the Yishuv didn't have enough food to feed them.
- I couldn't contribute anything because I was still very sick.
- I didn't have any money to talk about it to start something.
- So I decided to go here, having two brothers of my father here.
- They sent me the papers.
- And I came here.
- What sort of feelings did you have about your experiences
- after you were liberated?
- First of all, my main idea was will I ever
- be able to have a hold of a loaf of bread?
- It was the number one feeling.
- Then my other feeling is who is alive out of my family?
- Then she-- the whole idea of future was very bleak to me.
- The whole life didn't make too much sense.
- First of all, after the terrible experiences
- with the Poles in Kraków, with the Poles what
- I grew up with them and lived all my life, practically,
- with them, I knew that returning to Kraków
- doesn't make any sense to me.
- To live?
- Tak.
- And now, where to go?
- Israel.
- By the first opportunity to open up,
- they open up the post office, I sent, like I said,
- the letter to my cousin.
- And his answer made a lot of sense to me the way he wrote.
- Don't misunderstand me, he said, any time you're coming,
- every piece of bread I got, I will share with you.
- But the way I know you, with you background,
- you intention to come here is to help Israel.
- You are not talking about monetary things.
- So I am telling you very plainly,
- we got more people to feed than we got food, more sick people
- than doctors and medicine.
- So I regrettable had to cross this all out of my mind.
- Going to United States was--
- yes, uncles, they was well-situated, everything fine,
- everything well.
- But they was very--
- you're tired.
- Was-- I didn't know the language.
- I didn't have any profession.
- I wasn't so healthy.
- My wife wasn't so healthy.
- We had a baby of two years--
- two and a half years in 1949.
- And when we came here, we didn't have--
- meantime, all the money I maked in Budapest,
- I ate up in Munich waiting for the visa.
- I wasn't living in any camps.
- I was living privately.
- So that was very unanswered.
- And I was 31 years old when I came to this country.
- And I found the conditions very, very much strange to me,
- especially when you don't know the language
- and you don't have the profession.
- For me, all of a sudden, to go to a factory
- or my wife to a factory and start learning
- a trade in this age was quite a experience.
- Naturally, my nerves was shattered.
- My wife's nerve was shattered.
- I had a nervous breakdown several times.
- And until today, my nerves, naturally,
- are given from time to time big trouble, both of us.
- How did you relate to other people here in this country?
- I beg your pardon?
- How did you relate to other people
- and they to you, survivors and non-survivors?
- How was your experience when you came?
- You're talking about American people?
- I had some good experiences, some bad experiences,
- like everyone of the newcomers.
- But we had a hard life, a hard beginning.
- Right away, my other son was born in '51.
- We had two children.
- We had to give the older one to a nursery.
- My wife had to work nights.
- And I wasn't making any money to talk about it.
- And before I start making any money,
- I broke my back in a factory.
- And I was laid down for 14 months, strapped
- to a wooden plank in two hospitals.
- Again, I couldn't--
- This is something that happened on the job or what?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Naturally, I had my back injured through this accident.
- We managed.
- We managed.
- We had boarders in our apartment.
- And my wife, like I said, work night, stitching.
- I was working in a factory or learning the machining trade.
- And after I-- my back came a little now--
- after I broke my back and I started working,
- I went in business.
- I bought a old, dilapidated supermarket,
- together with some friend of mine.
- And I wasn't too successful over there
- because right away, Stop & Shop bought across the street
- a whole block.
- And they kicked me out of the business.
- So I went back to the factory.
- And on and off, we struggled through.
- But thanks god, we survived.
- We brought up our children.
- And I send them to a private school, to Maimonides.
- And then they went to Latin school.
- They went to Hebrew Teacher College.
- And finally, both finish colleges.
- And one make a master degree.
- And then when they already was so far--
- was my older son was making my master degree,
- and the younger one was in the second year in college,
- I decided--
- they went out of the house.
- He was-- he had our house.
- I decided to then to make a switch to go to Israel.
- And we went in '71.
- We made Aliyah, sold everything, and we went to Israel.
- And we lived, like I said, in Kiryat Yam for over a year--
- for 14 months, to be exact.
- Then I found out the truth.
- Before, we went twice for visiting Israel.
- But the life as a visitor for three weeks' span
- as a tourist--
- Quite different.
- --is quite different to come [HEBREW] over there.
- And I paid for it since still, I believe that maybe some days,
- I go return to Israel.
- What kinds of feelings did you have after the war
- about being Jewish?
- As far as what--
- I will tell you--
- --how religious were you--
- I will tell you--
- --beforehand and how religious were you afterwards?
- Yes, yes.
- As a matter of fact, this is one question I want to elaborate.
- When my son was born in December '46,
- my older sister, the one from Budapest,
- was living with me in the same apartment in Munich.
- And she had quite a bad experience being--
- living with my late brother-in-law in Budapest
- as Goyim.
- He was arrested several times by the Nazis and stuff like this.
- And she said, once I will get pregnant and I will have a boy,
- I will never circumcise.
- Well, thanks god, she had a girl.
- But I had a boy.
- And still, my mind then in '46 was shall I circumcise or not?
- But this experience what I had made a lot of sense to me then,
- made a lot of sense not to put my children to any possibility
- ever to be worried about being Jewish.
- But I was walking the streets in Munich.
- And across me came a old man.
- He stopped me and asked me, are you the Zigy Turner
- from Kraków?
- I said, yes.
- Don't you recognize me?
- No.
- I'm [PERSONAL NAME] from Kraków, the friend of your father.
- Then I recognized him.
- He came from Siberia.
- And I would never recognize him, like a 90-year-old man.
- He was only 60.
- And he changed my mind.
- He showed me.
- And he convinced me that--
- What did you talk about?
- Hmm?
- What did you talk about with him?
- How did you bring it up?
- Oh, I told him.
- I told him, my wife and my son still was in the clinic.
- They wasn't home.
- And I-- so he showed me.
- And he convinced me that my thinking is not realistic.
- So we make the [INAUDIBLE].
- And I don't regret it.
- In what way wasn't it realistic, in that you cannot hide
- your Jewishness no matter what you do?
- What?
- In what way did he make sense to you in what he said?
- What?
- How did he convince you?
- Will be hard for me at this moment
- to recall how did he convince me.
- First of all, he was a pious man--
- not a Hasid, but a very fluent and very well-versed,
- convincing man, who showed me that my way of thinking
- is not right.
- I can't recall exactly how.
- We had a lengthy discussion about it.
- What was your wife's attitude?
- Hmm?
- Your wife's attitude about how to bring up the children?
- She went along all right.
- As a matter of fact, we both agreed to put them
- through Maimonides yeshiva.
- But at the time, the experiences did not
- force you or make you any more religious
- than you were before or less?
- Less.
- Less religious.
- Then I just didn't--
- Didn't want to have anything to do with Jewishness.
- No, no, for quite a few years, for quite a few years.
- Yeah.
- Then slowly, I came back.
- And I am very proud to say that today I
- am attending daily services.
- And I am conducting service on Shabbos.
- But I'm not a Hasid.
- I smoke on Shabbos.
- I drive on Shabbos.
- Did you join any survivors' organizations
- here when you came?
- Well, yeah, we had a--
- yeah, the New Americans.
- Are you still a member?
- Yeah, I am.
- I'm not a officer, never want to be.
- Did you apply for any reparations after the war?
- I beg your pardon?
- Did you apply for any reparations
- from the German government?
- Yeah, yeah.
- We got the reparations.
- We got reparation, yeah.
- Do you have any questions about why or why
- not at all-- about doing that?
- Were there any questions of that at any point?
- No, no.
- I will tell you something-- in my opinion,
- the way we understand, whatever we can get from them,
- even this is no way to measure repaying for something,
- but just to get out of them is a mitzvah, plain as this.
- But did you speak mostly English in this-- to your children
- here in this country?
- What languages did you speak at home?
- Here?
- I-- mostly English.
- English?
- Yeah.
- Was anything--
- But with my wife, I'm talking Polish.
- Did you communicate anything at all from your experiences
- to your children at all, at any time?
- No.
- About the Holocaust?
- No.
- As a matter of it, every time, we try to avoid this issue.
- You and your wife?
- Yes.
- Was that ever brought up by them at all?
- Sometimes, yeah.
- Is there any reason why you made that decision?
- I don't-- I never wanted to go into any details with this
- because--
- I really don't know why.
- As children, I didn't wanted them
- to have any kind of bad feelings about it.
- When they grew up, they didn't show too much interest either,
- when they grew up.
- Apparently, they got some smothering from somebody else,
- from books or whatever it is.
- As far as I'm personal experiences, we don't--
- they don't talk about it.
- You'd rather not share your experiences with them?
- You don't think of them--
- I decided a while ago to put everything on tapes in writing.
- And after this, I'm taping my experiences as my entire life.
- But like I said before, I'm trying to leave a complete
- in-look in my family's life in the pre-war times, in my youth,
- my grammar school, and stuff like this,
- in the whole what goes with it that will take me quite a while
- to get this--
- all details together.
- And this is the way I want to have this--
- leave it.
- Some days, if they will be interested, just put a tape
- and listen.
- What sort of feelings do you have
- about this country, America, [INAUDIBLE]??
- And do you think something like that can ever happen here?
- I don't understand the question.
- What sort of feelings do you have
- about living in this country?
- And do you think that something like the Holocaust
- could happen again?
- Oh, I don't believe it's possible.
- I don't believe that's possible for the simple reason there's
- too many minorities here.
- You don't have the idea of Polacken and Jews
- or German and Jews.
- You got here everybody.
- I don't believe this is ever possible to have a Holocaust
- right here.
- I don't.
- It can be a rough time for the Jews, yes.
- I believe this eminent, eminent.
- As hard as the economical situation may
- be or by the smallest depression where, let's say,
- like today's government, the rich will get richer
- and the poor will get poorer, finally the Jews
- will pay for it.
- This is my philosophy.
- The history shows always the same.
- How do you feel that--
- in what way has the Holocaust experience
- affected the course of your life?
- Completely.
- First of all, my studies were interrupted,
- my family destroyed, everything what my grandfather and father
- built went down the drain.
- Your life now, I mean, what--
- how has it affected your life?
- I'm uprooted.
- No matter how well I may be here--
- and I can't kick.
- Thanks god I'm now now retired completely.
- I'm living quite a comfortable life.
- And nothing is too expensive or nothing is too--
- nothing is to cook about it financially.
- But still, I still feel myself deeply
- uprooted from the environment I am brought up, but never
- from the world I am brought up.
- I never can return to it.
- Exactly like you take the White Russian in Paris--
- the revolution kicked them out of Russia, right?
- They may be successful.
- And they may be this and this.
- But they are on foreign soil.
- They are-- the family is disrupted.
- One or two left are the family.
- And even if you got the family still living, one in New York,
- one is here--
- no communication, not like we used to live together.
- Have you tried to transmit anything
- to your children because of your experiences?
- For instance?
- There's manners of survival, how to--
- protection.
- No.
- I will tell you.
- I don't-- I privately don't believe this is necessary.
- I don't believe.
- Secondary, both of my sons--
- both of my son make their own choice.
- They married out of the faith.
- My older daughter-in-law is converted to Judaism.
- The younger one didn't.
- This was their choice, nothing I could do about it.
- How did you feel about that?
- Naturally, I'm badly hurt.
- But nothing I can do more about it.
- Still love my children.
- I'm not going to break up the ties because of this.
- But I believed, as far as our family
- is concerned, my parent--
- this is the end of the line.
- This is the way I feel it.
- Is there anything else at all that you'd
- like to add that we didn't cover at all?
- Is there anything that you'd like
- to add that wasn't covered that we didn't talk about?
- I will tell you, Coby.
- We-- I try not to go in any detail because to make--
- to put it in details my personal life or my war experience,
- there are so many details that will take months for me
- to put it on tape.
- Even I thought we covered mostly all the most important thing
- what I can think about it.
- If you got any question, please do answer--
- or ask me.
- Well, I don't have particularly.
- We more or less covered the material.
- Just if there was something outstanding in your own mind
- that you would like to.
- I will tell you something.
- No, I think-- we'll leave it with this.
- I don't-- like I said, is no sense for me to take any
- specific period and to go into it in telling you all
- the details.
- Maybe would be for somebody interesting.
- But I really don't know what shall I--
- what details to tell you about it-- the
- living in lagers, the living in ghetto, or living in America?
- I don't know.
- I really don't know.
- Maybe at some later point we can--
- I beg your pardon?
- Maybe at some later point, we can concentrate
- on that, or in your--
- Yes.
- As a matter of fact, I expect shortly,
- maybe within a few days, a letter from Israel.
- I sent to my cousin two names I found out
- that Tel Aviv got now a computer where all the survivors are
- registered.
- I sent them two names to look it up
- on the computer, names of two people, whom
- I saved their life--
- one of them a little boy and one whose two little daughters
- I found in the empty ghetto on the Aliyah--
- on the-- what do you call them--
- on the roof, hidden, when the ghetto was--
- Liquidated.
- What?
- Liquidated.
- Liquidated.
- And I helped them to safety.
- And they survived the war.
- And I will--
- I lost contact with that people.
- They're living in Israel?
- I don't know where they live.
- I don't know.
- One live-- one supposed to live in Newark.
- I look for them, this little boy what
- I smuggled with my going on the 13th of March
- '43, going from being transported from the ghetto
- to the camp in Plaszów, we transported all the tools,
- the electrical tools.
- So we transported this in big coffers are they--
- what they calling-- how they calling this-- a reef, reef,
- big.
- You know the reefs, what--
- underwater?
- Bamboo?
- What?
- Bamboos?
- Big, big--
- Rafts.
- --rafts.
- Rafts.
- We transported it.
- So I transported this boy because he
- didn't have any right as a boy, a little boy, he brought to me.
- He lost his parents.
- So I put him in one of the rafts.
- And I brought him up to the camp.
- Then he survived.
- I know he survived.
- His name is Albert Ungar.
- He was only a boy of 12 then.
- You know where he lives or where he went?
- I know-- I don't know.
- This is why I expect my cousin in Israel
- shall send me the addresses to two persons.
- So there are many, many instances like this.
- Talking about details, I can go on and on telling you
- details of people what we smuggled,
- let's say, from the German part of Poland
- to the Russian part of Poland, how
- we smuggle, how we will drop.
- I had the passport then with me as a student of Northeastern
- University in Boston.
- I paid for a year to come here to study before the war.
- And I didn't come because my father got sick.
- I postponed it.
- But I had a passport with a visa.
- So when I was over there in Lemberg, right in--
- this was '39, they told me, they opened up a office of HIAS
- in Vilna.
- And whoever comes with a American passport with visa,
- they transporting the whole--
- all the people through Vladivostok.
- They got a agreement with the Russian.
- So as a matter of fact, I went over there to Vilna.
- I smuggled myself.
- And Vilna was then Lithuanian.
- The Lithuanian cut out Vilna from Poland.
- And I came over there only two days later
- to find the rabbi from my mother,
- is Rabbi Cohen with her-- with his wife.
- He was already registered.
- He got-- he had a visa to go.
- And he went then through Vladivostok.
- Then after so many years, I met him in Boston.
- He was a principal of my children at school.
- He recognized me.
- And I was arrested on the border.
- And they took away the passport.
- And they took away all my money and everything.
- They put me-- they sentenced me of 25 years to Siberia.
- I escaped.
- Mices-- you're talking about details.
- I was shot.
- They shot my leg.
- Mices.
- I can start telling you details from today
- till tomorrow if you go by calendar, year by year.
- Day by day.
- Or day by day.
- But I think that it's irrelevant.
- We will eagerly be waiting for your--
- I beg your pardon?
- We will eagerly be waiting for your book
- to come out in manuscripts.
- No, some days, I promise you.
- How did you feel about answering these questions?
- No problem.
- No problem.
- I hope I didn't give you a rough time here.
- Not really.
- I want to thank you very much for sharing your experiences--
- My pleasure.
- --with us.
- I'm very grateful to you.
- My pleasure.
- My-- a real pleasure.
- Thank you.
- And I wish you shall sit down and have a cup of coffee.
- OK?
Overview
- Interviewee
- Sigmund Turner
- Date
-
interview:
1981 July 07
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes (60 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. Holocaust survivors--United States. Jewish families--Poland. Jewish ghettos--Poland--Kraków. Forced labor. Escapes--Poland. Deportation. Factories. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. Displaced persons. Emigration and immigration--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Psychological aspects.
- Geographic Name
- Krakow ( Poland) Tarnów (Poland) L’viv (Ukraine) Budapest (Hungary) Munich (Germany)
- Personal Name
- Turner, Sigmund.
- Corporate Name
- Płaszów (Concentration camp) Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
One Generation After
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Sigmund Turner was conducted on July 7, 1981 by One Generation After, a Boston based group of children of Holocaust survivors, for the One Generation After oral history project. The tapes of the interview were received by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on January 7, 1990.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:10:06
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510166
Additional Resources
Transcripts (2)
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Oral history interview with Janina Greenwood
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irene Woods Hofstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gizi Mark
Oral History
Oral history interview with Charlotte Koopman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Netty Schwarz Vanderpol
Oral History
Oral history interview with Kip Winston
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sidney Wolrich
Oral History
Oral history interview with Denise Schorr
Oral History
Oral history interview with Beatrice Simkovich
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Stern
Oral History
Oral history interview with Franya Russak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Carl [Karl] Schlesinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eva Schlesinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Clara Rev
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Riemer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marie Rosenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Cecelia Perera
Oral History
Cecilia Perera, born in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia and Herzegovina), discusses the relations between Jews and non-Jews in Sarajevo before the war; being one of seven children of a religious family; the Italian occupation; living with her husband and 14-year-old son at the time of the occupation; her husband’s olive oil factory; the fate of her family members during the war; going with her family to Italy (November 1943 until 1947); living in Bari and then Torino; immigrating to the United States after her son received a scholarship to Massachusetts Institute of Technology; working as a seamstress; her sister who survived Bergen-Belsen; and two of her siblings who live in Israel.
Oral history interview with Hugo Princz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Szlomo Reff
Oral History
Oral history interview with Zezette Larson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Natanson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Stella Penzer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berko Kolodner
Oral History
Berko Kolodner, born in 1893 in Krynki, Poland, discusses his five brothers and three sisters; his father who had a leather factory; his religious upbringing; being sent to Bialystok, Poland for high school; his desire to attend university, but not being allowed to because he was Jewish; serving in the Russian army during WWI; his family being poor after the war; moving to Switzerland, where he earned his medical degree at the University of Bern in 1925; working as a physician in Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania); the Germans bombing and invading Vilna; being sent to the Vilna ghetto; the terrible conditions in the ghetto; his medical practice in the ghetto; his wife, who was also in Vilna; his family in Krynki being deported to Treblinka; Jacob Gens, a ghetto leader, who tried to hold the people together in the ghetto but was eventually killed; the liquidation of the ghetto; his wife being sent to Auschwitz and killed; being sent to several camps in Estonia, including Vaivara, Kuremäe, Lagedi, and Goldfields; the conditions in those camps; being taken by boat to Germany and then Stutthof, where he worked on roofs; being in Buchenwald for two weeks, where he felt like he was dying but people gave him a little more food; the overwhelming hunger at that time; being sent to Colditz in Saxony, Germany; being sent on a starvation march to Theresienstadt; working as a doctor in Theresienstadt, but having no medications to treat people; being liberated by the Russians; one friend from Vilna, Dr. Brijetski who wrote a book about their experiences and eventually moved to Israel; believing he survived by a miracle; being very sick at liberation and spending several months in the hospital in Prague, Czech Republic with a serious staph infection; recovering; working in a monastery, St. Ottilien Archabbey, near Munich for three years; working as a physician the monastery, which was partially transformed into a hospital; meeting his wife there; his positive interactions with the Americans; going to the Netherlands in 1950; immigrating to the United States; the difficulty he has experienced adjusting to life in the US; and not receiving reparations from Germany.
Oral history interview with Ralph Kornberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Krakowski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ben Jacobs
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rita Kesselman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judith Kochavi
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mania Kohn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frieda Grayzel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rachel Helfgot
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ed Herman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Fischer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hala Goldstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mayer Goldstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Steve Collins
Oral History
Oral history interview with Yael Danieli
Oral History
Oral history interview with Barbara Farkas
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jacob Birnbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eugenia Boroff
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lonia Albeck
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mira Birnbaum
Oral History