- 24, marker one.
- Marker.
- Mr. Kellen, tell me when and where you were born.
- I was born in Lodz, Poland, L-O-D-Z,
- the second biggest city in Poland,
- 100 miles south of Warsaw.
- And what year were you born?
- When were you born?
- I was born in 1915.
- Tell me a little bit about your childhood and life
- before World War II.
- Basically, I was born, like I said,
- in a big community, a population of 600,000.
- And just by historical events, one third of the city
- were Jewish.
- I attended 11 years in Hebrew day school,
- basically with the Polish language as the main language.
- However, we took up lots of Latin, French, and German
- as foreign languages.
- The system of learning was entirely different
- than the United States, because somehow my school teacher
- thought that learning by heart is very, very important.
- And therefore, our homework was not easy,
- because we had to learn every single day Polish poetry,
- and French poetry, and German poetry, and Hebrew poetry.
- While in school, I was very fortunate,
- because I had a beautiful bicycle,
- playing lots of football.
- And while I graduated high school,
- my father was able to send me to France to a city
- by the name Strasbourg, where I took up engineering.
- And maybe I was very, very lucky,
- because some of my friends in my class
- were not able to get better education.
- The community, while being young,
- was very active, especially young boys and young girls,
- because we just didn't feel comfortable to live in Poland
- due to the fact that the Polish population was not
- friendly to us.
- And we knew that we need a new homeland.
- Therefore, there was not persecutions to talk about
- in Poland.
- However, we thought that anti-Semitism in Poland
- was basically coming from the church, and also economical.
- Altogether, the Jewish-- the general population of Poland
- did amount to 30 million.
- And 10% was Jewish, in other word 3 million Jewish people.
- The main concentration was Warsaw and Lodz.
- I also was a Boy Scout.
- And myself didn't feel too much hatred
- from the Polish Christian people,
- because like I said a few minutes ago, I
- attended the Hebrew day school.
- And we wanted Jewish children.
- And to talk about the economical structure,
- I feel that, as much as I know, 10% of the Jewish population,
- if you can say it, did belong to the upper class,
- were assimilated.
- 40% were, I would say, well-to-do.
- But let's say middle class.
- But 50% of the Jewish population were very, very poor.
- And consequently, the Jewish Federation
- in my hometown, if I were to call,
- had about 300 employees because they
- had to care of a big Jewish hospital.
- A orphanage home alone in my hometown
- had at least about 4,000 children, a big cemetery.
- And they really kept busy, especially
- helping the poor people.
- Well, my name was Henry Katzenellenbogen which was
- changed when I came to America in 1946 to Kellen,
- because when I got my first papers, the judge in El Paso,
- Texas said that he cannot pronounce my name.
- And he did advise me to make it a little bit shorter.
- So consequently, from Katzenellenbogen my name
- is Kellen, K-E double L E-N.
- Tell me about the eve of World War II, what things were like,
- and what you remember of the very beginning.
- I graduated college in 1938 in France.
- My parents, since they were born in Lithuania--
- while I was in France, they moved back home.
- And we were living in a town by the name Klaipėda or Memel,
- where my father was always expert in textile fabrication.
- And we were running, at that time,
- a textile factory in Klaipėda Memel.
- While Hitler in all his speeches always kept on repeating,
- all I want is peace, what he meant by peace
- is a piece of Czechoslovakia, a piece of Austria,
- a piece of Lithuania.
- And eventually, he ended up with Pont,
- demanding a piece of a town Danzig, which did
- belong to Germany before 1914.
- While in January 1939, a piece of Lithuania
- was given back to the Germans, to Germany, we went back--
- we went to the capital, Kaunas or Kovno.
- And I got myself a job as a mechanical engineer
- in one of the factories.
- I was independent for a while.
- And the war broke out on September the 1st, 1939 when
- Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
- I want to emphasize that, while Poland had a powerful army,
- they did surrender in 19, 20 days.
- And this was naturally the beginning of the Holocaust,
- because the German army, while occupied Pont, started
- without having a program, what to do
- with the Jewish population.
- The Holocaust started in 1939 and kept
- on going until 1940 before concentration camps were
- established.
- What did you hear?
- What did you hear when the war started?
- Well, unfortunately, my sister, her husband, and their son
- Jerry were in Poland.
- And we were cut off for a long time
- without getting any news from them.
- But since my sister was a Lithuanian citizen, so I did
- manage to bring her from Poland, her and her son Jerry,
- to Lithuania.
- Unfortunately, her husband was staying behind,
- because he never got Lithuanian citizenship.
- She came.
- She came to Kaunas.
- Her husband, like I said, was left behind.
- And while he looked very much like a Christian--
- having blond hair, and blue eyes,
- and very white complexion-- somehow,
- he was on the train going from Lodz to Warsaw.
- I don't know no details how he was caught.
- And he was arrested.
- And he ended up in Warsaw in the well-known prison Pawiak.
- And he was shot over there.
- Also, we never had a picture, a photo of him, of his.
- And this is, as far as I know-- that a man who survived
- the Pawiak, and from all the books which I reading,
- that most of the Jews who were arrested ended up in prison,
- they were shot over there.
- In the meantime, in the spring of 1940,
- the German army managed to occupy Belgium, and Holland,
- and France.
- And Stalin, which was in charge of the Soviet Union,
- in order to prevent the German to occupy the Baltic countries,
- they marched in on June the 15th of 1941--
- excuse me, 1940.
- They occupied the Baltic countries.
- So over night Lithuania, and Latvia, and Estonia
- became part of the Soviet Union.
- Actually, to live under the communist regime
- is far away of being pleasant.
- However, we thought that maybe we
- are better off being under the communists than the Nazis,
- because there was no such a thing like a mass killing.
- Then, just shortly before the war, we--
- Mark.
- Marker two.
- So Henry, tell me about the changes
- just on the eve of when the Germans came in, and then
- what you saw and heard when they came.
- Well, we never expected that we would
- be attacked by the German army, because the Russian army was
- powerful.
- And we never knew what will happen.
- We felt protected somehow.
- The night of Saturday to Sunday the 21st of June,
- I went with my girlfriend to a nightclub.
- And we had a good time having dinner and dancing late.
- We came home about 2:00 AM.
- And then, by the time I got home, it was about 6:00
- in the morning.
- While the windows were open, I heard a noise.
- And I looked through the window.
- And I saw some smoke far away, which
- was the airport in Kaunas.
- And in the beginning, we were not suspicious
- if something was going on.
- I turned on immediately our radio, which was silent.
- It was about 6:00 in the morning.
- And then, since I heard some more explosions,
- I turned into Berlin radio.
- And sure enough, Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda
- minister, spoke in German.
- And he said that, while I am here on the radio,
- we are marching in to Russia.
- And in the name of God, we will be successful.
- We are going to destroy the system and the Jews.
- And then we knew that we are at war.
- We were living at that time on the outskirts of the city,
- a mostly Christian population.
- We didn't know exactly what is going on, because by the time
- we got some news on our local radio, it was almost noon.
- And the rumors were that the Red Army is already
- at least Prussia, what means in the German territories.
- However, I understood that the members of the Communist Party
- were already packing.
- And they were running to the railroad station.
- Monday, there were all kinds of rumors.
- About Tuesday afternoon, we saw--
- I saw already at the outskirts German motorcycles coming.
- Next day, which was a Wednesday, a car
- stopped in front of our house.
- And there were some four German officers,
- which asked us for permission to have breakfast in the garden.
- And we were sitting with them.
- And naturally, all my family spoke fluently German.
- They never asked us about our religion.
- However, I do recall that a soldier, which came with them,
- was standing nearby.
- And he had the buckle.
- All the soldiers do have a belt with a buckle.
- And on the buckle it said, [GERMAN],, which
- means in English, God with us.
- And I figured out, knowing exactly what was going on
- in Germany-- because while going to school in France,
- I was always in Berlin, at least one day,
- while waiting for changing trains.
- And I figured out that, if the slogan is God is with us,
- nothing will happen to us.
- Unfortunately, the slaughter of the Jewish population
- did not start immediately.
- However, the title came from the Lithuanian population.
- And I'm sorry to tell you that, while being in Lithuanian army,
- I never felt any hatred against the few Jewish soldiers
- who were my company.
- I even played chess with my Lieutenant [? Mikalauskas. ?]
- And why the Lithuanian populations--
- and I wouldn't say population, because naturally you cannot
- accuse the whole population.
- But why such a big percentage of Lithuanians started,
- especially in small towns and villages,
- bloodshed against Jews cannot be understood until now
- by anybody, because the Jews were living in Lithuania for 11
- centuries.
- And they were just part of the country.
- Two weeks later, naturally while the army was going deeper
- to Russia, the gestapo came in.
- And the first thing what did happen in the ghetto--
- going back to the ghetto.
- Before we went to the ghetto, naturally
- we were told to wear a star, and then
- the other star on the back.
- And by August 15 of 1941, we were locked up
- in the suburb of the city Vilijampole, or Slabodka.
- And we were behind the fence, which was 7 feet high--
- not a big problem how to escape, because this was not a wall,
- like in Warsaw ghetto.
- And this was on a Friday.
- And next day, there were already posters
- all over the ghetto saying in German and Lithuanian
- that the German authorities are demanding
- 500 men, college graduated and professional people,
- to be at a certain place to be sent to the city hall
- to do some paperwork with the guarantee
- that they will come back the very same night.
- We were supposed to be there Monday morning.
- My brother was college graduate that graduated, and so was me.
- And I do recall June the 18th of 1941, on Monday morning,
- my mother-- may she rest in peace-- told both of us to go,
- because there's nothing to it.
- And they guaranteed that we will be back.
- I cannot explain why I didn't go.
- My brother went.
- And this was the first of what we call the Intelligenzaktion,
- or Operation Intellectuals.
- My brother never came back.
- And while we were waiting for him at the gate,
- from 6 o'clock in the evening and the rest of the night,
- the rumors came that they will stay there over night.
- They will maybe come tomorrow.
- And then, since they were not coming tomorrow,
- maybe they were sent out someplace else.
- And after the war was over, I found out
- that, just a few hours later, they were
- taken to fortification seven.
- In they were all shot over there.
- And this was the same pattern in every ghetto,
- because the Germans thought that people who graduated colleges,
- maybe they had more brains.
- And in order to avoid in the future a resistance,
- they wanted to get rid of this kind of people.
- In the next days, or maybe a week later--
- as you probably know, in the ghetto,
- there was the big advantage being in the ghetto
- than in the concentration camps, because first of all
- the families were together.
- And we didn't have any Germans there at nighttime.
- The way the ghetto was established,
- we had what we called the Judenrat, which was--
- a head in our camp was Dr. Elkes, a well-known eye doctor.
- And they were just like a city hall,
- because they had different departments.
- The most important department was the labor department,
- who had to supply so many people every morning
- to go for different assignments, and then the police
- department, and sanitation department, and you mention.
- And after the Operation Intellectuals,
- three or four Germans came to the ghetto.
- And we were ordered to deliver everything of value--
- our rings, silver spoons and silver forks,
- whatever it was, radios, philatelistic stamps,
- and instruments.
- I do emphasize instruments, because I
- will tell you later on what did happen with the instruments.
- Then the next episode I do recall
- was sending daily the 5,000 men and women to build the runways
- for the German Air Force.
- And there's nothing wrong building a highway
- or building a runway.
- But it is absolutely beyond your comprehension
- what it means to be constantly hungry, without having
- proper clothes, and being beaten up and cursed by the guards.
- We got back to a very important event, which took place
- on October the 28th, 1941.
- This--
- Let's just wait, because we're just about to run out.
- What happened to your father?
- Was he saved?
- My father was killed before we went to the ghetto.
- Like I mentioned--
- Mark.
- Three marker.
- So you were getting ready to tell me about the big action.
- Yes.
- While we were building the air force--
- while we were building the runways for the German Air
- Force day and night, 5,000 people
- were on one shift, and 5,000 people on the night shift.
- We got back to the camp on October the 27th.
- And then there were very loud speakers, and also posters
- all over the camp that Helmut Rauca--
- who was in charge, at that time, of the camp--
- is demanding the entire population
- of the camp to be at a certain place in order to be counted.
- And the excuse was that he does not trust the Judenrat giving
- him the amount of inmates.
- In order to know how much better to give us, we must be counted.
- And regardless of age, children, old people, sick or well
- must be there.
- Anybody who would be on the premises would be shot.
- The doors must be open.
- And we were so naive that we did believe what we were told.
- And I do recall, on 6 o'clock in the morning, October the 28th,
- we were at the empty lot, which was the middle of the camp.
- And it was cold.
- October in Europe is cold in the morning.
- And by about 9 o'clock, I remember
- that Helmut Rauca, with two more sergeants, came.
- And the selection started.
- We were, at that time, 30,000 inmates.
- We were lined up with our families.
- I was standing with my mother's sister, and Jerry,
- and my girlfriend.
- And we didn't know in the beginning
- exactly what's going on.
- But while we were getting closer and closer to Rauca,
- we saw people being divided.
- Some went left, and some were right.
- And while I was in line, a friend of mine,
- who was a Jewish policeman--
- and I want you to know that, in our police force, which
- consisted out of 200 people, they
- were very, very fine intelligent men,
- not like in some other ghettos.
- And he says to me, look, I don't know, I don't know.
- But he said to me he doesn't know exactly what's going on.
- But try to pull always back.
- Don't go ahead.
- Pull back.
- And that's exactly what I did.
- And more or less, about 4:00 in the afternoon,
- all the people who went to the left were taken away.
- I never faced Rauca because, like I said,
- by now we do know that the orders were coming from Berlin
- from the headquarters.
- And on the 28th of October, 10,500 people went to the left.
- And next morning, the 29th, I was staying
- very close to the fence.
- And I saw, unfortunately, groups of 100 people going up
- the hill, which was in the direction of the Ninth Fort.
- And all day long, we just heard machine guns.
- And again, one boy, 10 years old,
- he was already in the ditch.
- It seems to be that he was not shot.
- And at night time, he came back to the ghetto.
- And he told us more details how the executions took place.
- So for future generation, it would be interesting
- that, while you saw only 100 people at a time going up
- in direction of the Ninth Fort, a group of 100 people
- were shot.
- In other words, in order not to create a panic,
- they couldn't take 10,000 at one time.
- They were going there.
- But while 100 were shot, another 100 were taken.
- And next day, we went back to the airport.
- And I do recall that my particular guard, a German Air
- Force soldier who was from Sudetenland, a Czech,
- asked us how come we didn't come to work yesterday.
- And when we told him, he said, well, I'm very sorry,
- but I really don't believe it.
- But I think that it was--
- we made a mistake.
- Something did happen. and by mistake, they took away.
- But I don't believe that civilized people
- like we are doing the killing.
- So just imagine.
- He didn't know.
- He, by himself, didn't believe what was happening.
- And then there's no way to tell you
- what happened in 1942 and '43.
- All we knew, since we were completely isolated
- in the camp, without getting any news--
- because there was no such a thing like mail,
- or telephone, or newspapers.
- But in order to find out more or less what's going on,
- when we saw the guards smiling, we
- knew that things are very good for them.
- But then, the end of '42 when the German army got
- as far as Stalingrad on the Volga, as you probably know,
- this was the beginning of the defeat of the German army.
- At the same time, the American and British Air Force
- started to bomb German cities.
- And I presume that the German guards were getting news
- that maybe their families or maybe their homes
- were destroyed.
- You saw their faces changing a little bit.
- So this is the only way we knew that something is not exactly
- they would like to have it.
- And beside this, there was no way-- go ahead.
- You mentioned before something about Lithuania with--
- following women going to the Ninth Fort
- who had baby carriages.
- I didn't mention it.
- No?
- I didn't.
- But I can mention it.
- Well, it's a very, very sad episode,
- because I was watching what was going on.
- And I saw 10,000 people.
- There is a lot of people.
- And we saw some older Lithuanian women following the march.
- And we didn't know exactly why.
- But about 5:00 in the afternoon, some women
- were coming back from the fort, which was only about half
- a mile away.
- And they did carry with them baby carriages.
- And how sad it is that, while the mothers and the children
- were shot at Ninth Fort-- and I presume
- that the Germans gave away the baby carriages to Lithuanians.
- But this is a very sad episode.
- By now, if somebody asked me, how
- didn't you-- did you write while in the ghetto a diary?
- And I said, well, I did not, because the situation was
- getting so hopeless that I knew that none of us would survive,
- because up to the big action, they were taking--
- when I said they, the Germans were
- taking almost weekly groups of 100 to 150 people
- to be deported.
- And we really didn't know exactly in what directions.
- Either they were going to Latvia, or Estonia,
- or to Poland.
- But it came to a point that we knew that none of us
- would survive.
- And beside this, if somebody would like to write a diary,
- we didn't have a pencil or pen or paper to write it.
- Let me get to--
- Let me ask you a couple of questions.
- Yes.
- Food in the ghetto, and trying to bring food in--
- can you tell me anything about that?
- Did you smuggle any food?
- It came to a point that our biggest enemy was not
- the German guards.
- Hunger and cold became so severe that, while working
- at the airport, we didn't have any chance
- to get any food, with exception.
- At midnight, we were getting a little bit
- warm soup, which if somebody would
- have seen the soup in America, you
- would think that this is not even
- good for a hungry dog or cat--
- once in a while, maybe a rotten carrot or a potato.
- Now, once the airport assignment came to an end,
- a smaller group was sent to different places.
- And there was a possibility, whatever we still had left--
- and it didn't really mean anything what it was,
- a pair of socks, or underwear, or a belt, or a suit.
- Lithuanian were coming to the places
- where we were working and exchanging for a little food.
- And the food which we were getting
- was not easy to smuggle in to the ghetto,
- because there were always--
- the guards were searching us.
- And we were very lucky when the guards were lenient
- and we could bring something.
- So I want you to tell me--
- describe the ghetto to me.
- Tell me about the workshops and a little bit--
- and talk to me about the period of quiet after the great action
- and before it started turning into a real concentration camp.
- Let's put it this way.
- A lot of things, which was happening in the ghetto,
- I really don't-- lots of details, I don't know.
- I really don't know, because I do
- recall that, before the German invasion,
- life was just as normal as it could be.
- Maybe the food wasn't as fancy as it is now
- in the United States.
- Maybe it's better, because people were not getting as sick
- as they are now.
- And complete freedom--
- I mean, absolutely nothing to be expected what was happening.
- And then-- I am not a psychiatrist,
- and not a philosopher.
- But you wouldn't believe what can happen
- to people affected by hunger.
- Hunger is not only causing a terrible pain in your stomach.
- But your brain don't functions.
- People, which we did associate, and being our friends
- before the war, they were not friends anymore,
- because everybody was looking for himself how to survive,
- how to get something to eat.
- We just became like wild angry animals in a zoo.
- And all we had in mind is dreaming
- how to fill up our stomach, because--
- it is really hard to describe.
- However, once you don't eat for weeks,
- your stomach is getting used to it.
- It shrinks, to a certain extent.
- Just a little piece of bread, which we were given--
- if you can call it bread--
- is enough to keep on going.
- And intellectual peoples older than I was--
- college professors, and schoolteachers,
- and lawyers, who maybe did realize
- exactly what is happening--
- knowing that the situation is hopeless, most of these people
- were committing suicide in the very first beginning.
- And I was only 24 years old.
- And I had the big responsibility,
- because I had to see to it that my mother, who
- was naturally 20 years older than I am,
- and my sister, and my nephew should survive.
- And I felt, well, if I will commit suicide,
- that won't stop their death.
- So I did the best I could.
- And I felt that, instead to stay in the ghetto
- or to work for the authority, the Judenrat, if I will go out,
- I have a better possibility to bring some food.
- So in order, this way, we can survive a little bit longer.
- But now there's quite many books written
- by people who were in the ghetto and who
- do know more details, what was happening, which I didn't know.
- And every day, doing my homework,
- I discover new things, which I was absolutely ignorant
- about this.
- Why don't you tell me about the Kinder Aktion?
- OK.
- What was happening?
- I did mention to you in the very first beginning
- that, while everything of value was given away by the Germans,
- including the instruments, if somebody is asking me daily,
- ever since you do a lecture--
- Guys, we're getting a fair amount of scratching noise.
- Sorry to interrupt.
- But I don't know if it was the--
- Maybe it's [INAUDIBLE].
- I don't hear it.
- It's [INAUDIBLE].
- All right, let's break.
- Let's cut.
- Mark five, mark.
- By September 1943, all the ghettos
- were already liquidated.
- Just by miracle, we got a new commanding officer who was sent
- from Berlin by the name Wilhelm Göcke who changed the name from
- ghetto to concentration camp.
- And concentration camp had a better future
- to survive the ghettos, because the concentration camp existed
- almost to the very end, before the Allies
- were getting very close.
- Wilhelm Göcke was a short SS man who knew exactly that,
- once the ghettos are being liquidated,
- the Germans who are in charge of the ghettos are being sent
- to the front to fight the Russian army.
- And having good connections in Berlin,
- he got a new assignment to change the name of the ghetto
- to concentration camps.
- I have to admit that things were getting a little bit better,
- because we were getting a little bit more food
- than being in the ghetto.
- I'm jumping to 1943, beginning of March.
- And one day, we got the message that Wilhelm Göcke wants
- to have a concert in the camp.
- Well, this we couldn't understand, because we
- didn't have the music.
- We didn't have the musicians.
- And we didn't have any instruments.
- And sure enough, some violins were brought from outside.
- And there was still maybe a few men who
- played music before the war.
- And one Sunday morning, we were told that the inmates who do
- feel like come to the concert are welcome.
- And my wife and myself went to listen.
- I even remember exactly what was played.
- Naturally, you couldn't compare this
- with the symphony orchestra, because there were only about
- 10 or 12 guys playing.
- The photos were taken by the Germans.
- And you can find those photos in encyclopedia,
- Holocaust encyclopedia.
- You can find them in the museums.
- And something was suspicious what
- is going on, because all of a sudden,
- we are being considered a human being
- with a little bit better--
- with a little bit more food and music.
- But what was happening?
- We could get very dormant again.
- Well, at that time, we still had about--
- out of 30,000, still about 5,000 inmates.
- And a week later--
- to be exact, on March the 27th, 1944--
- we knew, in the meantime, that the Russians are getting closer
- to us.
- Early in the morning, I was in the ghetto.
- It was about 6:00 in the morning.
- We saw some black Volkswagens coming with loudspeakers.
- And I do recall exactly the way.
- We heard the voices--
- [GERMAN], attention.
- Anybody who was on the street should go immediately
- to the housing.
- Otherwise, he will be shot.
- And then we saw German SS and gestapo
- with Ukrainian collaborators going from house to house.
- And there were some rumors already
- about a few months earlier that, in the nearby ghetto, Vilnius,
- they took away the children.
- But we didn't believe that this is possible,
- because the Germans are civilized.
- They wouldn't do any harm to children.
- And we didn't go to work this day.
- My mother, and my sister, and my nephew
- had a corner someplace in one house.
- And my wife and myself were living--
- if you can call living--
- in a two-story dilapidated building.
- And what was happening?
- We were looking through the window from this attic,
- my wife Julia-- may she rest in peace-- and myself.
- And this window was facing the very same empty lot
- which the big action took place in 1941, October the 28th.
- And we saw a truck with high walls, without a roof.
- And through the day, we saw something which myself,
- being today an old man who has more time to think about this,
- something which I cannot comprehend.
- Well, young German uniformed soldiers, if you can call them,
- with Ukrainians were dragging mothers
- with children to the truck.
- And it's really hard to describe what was going on,
- because we saw mothers who wouldn't
- let the children loose.
- And they were beaten.
- Some vicious doberman were--
- Six marker.
- You should have seen the hysterical crying from mothers.
- And then we saw--
- well, the mothers really kept the child very, very strong.
- They were shot on the spot and the children being
- turned over the board to this empty truck.
- Well, this is something which I will never forget and never
- forgive because the crime against civilization
- and humanity was committed these days,
- and this may be what gives me the strength
- to continue talking about this because I feel,
- if it happened once in a civilized country,
- it can happen anyplace.
- And this is maybe--
- and I wouldn't say maybe, but this
- is the reason why the museums are very important.
- There's, to my knowledge, about 15 museums in the United States
- but hundreds of educational centers.
- Tell me how old your nephew was at this point in time?
- He was eight and a half years old,
- and let me tell you what miracle happened, how he survived.
- Anybody who was in Europe, Germany, or France,
- and Switzerland, and Poland, Lithuania the European pillow
- is four times bigger than the American pillow.
- If you will take two pillows, it will cover the whole mattress.
- I was not staying together with my mother, and my sister,
- and her son because, wherever you could get a corner
- to stay overnight, you got it.
- So consequently.
- I wasn't there.
- I was with my wife in a different section
- of the ghetto.
- However, I saw what was going on.
- I couldn't see far away, my sister and her son
- next to the truck, because some others
- let the children go right away.
- So what was happening in their little room
- while Ukrainian soldiers came in,
- my sister was hiding Jerry under one of the pillows,
- and there were two pillows.
- And she told me that, while the soldier
- came with the open bayonet and did hit one of the pillows,
- it seems to be that the angel of death
- didn't want to take Jerry.
- And he was hidden under the other pillow.
- He was, like I said, seven and a half years old,
- but he looked like a two-year-old baby
- because he was like a skeleton without having
- food for three years.
- And after 5:00, when I saw everything got quiet
- and the trucks pulled out--
- and we really don't know exactly how many
- children were taken away.
- Some people do presume there were 600 or 700,
- but when I got--
- after the aktion was finished, immediately my wife and myself
- went to see what happened to Jerry,
- and we saw chalk, a circle made on the door of the house, which
- meant that they were already there
- and nobody should bother them anymore
- and basically how Jerry, by miracle, survived.
- Did you happen to witness the hospital burning early on?
- I saw it from far away.
- This was in the very first beginning in the small ghetto,
- but I saw it because we were in the big ghetto.
- As you probably know, there was a bridge
- going to the small ghetto, and we saw the small--
- this hospital burning.
- And we also saw the children, the nurses going up
- to the Ninth Fort.
- But I wasn't there.
- I only saw it from a distance of about.
- I would say 1/2 a mile or maybe a little bit less.
- OK.
- And I didn't understand about the baby
- carriages and the Ninth Fort.
- I didn't understand.
- Well, the 10,500 people who were selected to be shot next day--
- there were quite many mothers and quite many children
- who were in this group, and they stayed overnight.
- So there was ones that were selected.
- They didn't come back to the ghetto.
- They were taken to the small ghetto,
- which was already empty.
- And then the next morning--
- I wouldn't tell you exactly if it was 9:00 or 10:00
- in the morning, but some mothers had the babies in carriages.
- Today in America, most of the babies are being--
- they would've been on our back.
- But those days, they're in their carriages.
- And it seems to be that there's always a certain element which
- is hungry for everything.
- And I don't know if they knew that they would
- get some trophies or not, but they were following the 10,000
- people over there going up.
- And naturally, once the people got
- in behind the gate of the fortifications,
- I presume that the Germans took the people,
- but they didn't want the carriages.
- So the women who were following the people who were shot
- got the carriages, and they were coming back with empty ones.
- OK.
- And describe how you decided to escape.
- Or how did you escape?
- Well, after the Kinder Aktion, first of all, Jerry,
- who survived, physically was not existing anymore
- because if he would be on the street,
- he would have been taken away immediately.
- Until 1944, it looked like Germany
- is going to win the war.
- In the very first beginning, I said
- that it was not hard to escape because the fence was made out
- of barbed wires.
- However, with a good scissor or with pliers,
- you could cut it and get out, despite of the fact
- that there were guards outside.
- But it looked like, first of all, Germany's winning the war,
- and the local population were hostile.
- So let's say you will get out.
- Where would you go?
- They will catch you immediately.
- Everybody knew who we were, and not
- only because we had the start, which-- eventually we
- could take it off, but we looked like criminals.
- I didn't have warm water on my body
- to take a shower for three years,
- so just imagine the conditions.
- I forgot my name because nobody called me by name.
- They called me either, by the guards, Damn Jew, or --
- I didn't exist like a human anymore, so
- what would you escape?
- But by 1944, we were getting already
- messages that the Russians are getting very, very close.
- They were pushing the German army back.
- I got once a Lithuanian paper which on the front page
- were giving all the time news, what's going on in the front,
- and I have to admit that the German high command--
- every single day in Germany or in every occupied country
- had on the front page a report from the front,
- l it said in a nice way that we were retreating according
- to the plan, according to the plan,
- from one town to another one.
- And we knew that they are getting closer to us,
- and we felt that the chances of surviving are getting better.
- And just by lucky coincidence, lucky, lucky, coincidence,
- we found out that a very poor Lithuanian farmer,
- which also were living in a very dilapidated house which
- we would call maybe a farm in the United States--
- but this poor man had three children, and one horse,
- and one cow, and we got the message,
- if we would be able to escape from the camp,
- he would be willing to hide us.
- He also said that he can only have enough space for two,
- and we were three, my mother and my sister's son
- was still alive.
- And we got out.
- We got out.
- We tried at nighttime.
- We tried in the morning.
- But we got out.
- We got to his house, middle of the night.
- We found out that, since January, he
- was four more people, a doctor with his wife and two children,
- and we were in hiding with this Lithuanian farmer 90 days.
- It was not easy because, first of all,
- he was so poor that he didn't have anything
- to eat but himself, but they were sharing whatever they had.
- After we were there about a week or so, they took away the cows,
- so consequently, the children were not getting any milk.
- And there were three children, including Jerry,
- and we were in and out because there were certain days
- that he said, look, I have a feeling that tonight
- police will come.
- 29.
- Marker seven.
- The name of the farmer was Joseph Urbanoff, a very humble
- man, and I came to America in '46,
- thanks to President Truman, who, at that time,
- did issue 5,000 affidavits for Holocaust survivors,
- regardless of religion and nationality
- because the inmates of camps were not only Jews.
- And naturally, I came to the United States penniless.
- However, I didn't take my freedom for granted
- because I could walk on the street,
- and nobody was spitting in my face.
- And I did appreciate from the very first day until today
- the freedom of this wonderful country.
- And freedom is not a gift from heaven, by no means.
- We must fight for freedom every single day in order
- not to lose it.
- We were here about one year, and we started to send packages
- to Urbanoff, letters.
- We never heard from him until today.
- However, Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets
- until about three years ago as the country is now independent
- again.
- The capital is not anymore Kovno or Kaunas.
- It is Vilnius.
- Last November, a young Lithuanian man
- called me and said that he's in El Paso, sent by the Lithuanian
- government to learn the way we are
- electing a president in the United States.
- And we met, and we had lunch.
- And then he was with me at the museum.
- And I really didn't want him to feel bad,
- but I had to tell him something which he has to know,
- how his country misbehaved against us.
- At the same time, I told him that Urbanoff saved my life,
- and I took him to a garden which is in our museum.
- The garden is dedicated to the Righteous Gentiles.
- I don't think that you have in Washington at your Museum
- here a garden which is dedicated to the Righteous.
- There's one in Jerusalem at the National Holocaust Museum, Yad
- Vashem, and we have plaques of Righteous from every county
- and among them Urbanoff.
- And he was very proud about this,
- and I ask him for a favor.
- I said, look, by coincidence, I have a picture not of Urbanoff,
- but I do have a photo of his daughter, who was,
- at that time, 20 years old.
- Her name is Anna.
- And I say, before you go back home, here's her picture.
- Since you do work for the leading newspaper in Vilnius,
- have her photo printed, and let's do our best to find her.
- Well, a few months later I got from him
- the newspaper with the write-up in Lithuanian exactly revealing
- to our interview.
- Her picture was printed, but this is already May,
- almost six months.
- So far, I didn't hear from them or from her.
- Hopefully we'll find her because all the Righteous--
- and I met a few of them, and I talked to them.
- And they are older people, men and women, and I call them--
- you are a hero because it was not easy.
- It was not easy to hide a Jewish family for different reasons
- because even when the Germans were retreating from all
- over, after the D-Day of June the 6th,
- 1944, the French police, the German police were still
- searching wherever they could a family which was hiding
- a Jewish or one Jew in a family, the same thing
- on the eastern side of Europe.
- And anybody who was caught were executed together with us,
- especially in Eastern Europe.
- On the West, they were sent concentration camps.
- So these people deserve a lot of gratitude,
- and this gratitude cannot be expressed just saying "thank
- you" or--
- I was looking in dictionary how to say thank you to them.
- There isn't such a thing because they were really
- sacrificing their life, not only their life but their family's
- life.
- And these good people, as long I will be alive,
- will never be forgotten because they
- were such good, good people.
- And what else can we do?
- There would be less survivors if it wouldn't
- be these righteous Christians.
- Tell me what a malina was [INAUDIBLE]??
- Well, to my knowledge, a malina was a place of hiding.
- We were digging holes under the foundations
- of the house, or a attic, or whatever it is because while we
- were being deported--
- or, like I said before, when the rebels
- were coming from Vilnius, the children were being taken away.
- Some people managed to dig under the house
- a hole to hide the children, and this is basically
- the title of malina.
- And the pogroms that took place around the time
- just before the Germans came in--
- can you tell me what you know about those?
- Well, the pogroms-- basically, I know the Jewish history,
- and the persecution of Jewish people
- really started 2,000 years ago, since the Jews are being
- accused of crucifying Jesus.
- But if you will just take basically
- what was happening in the 12th century,
- the crusaders were persecuting Jews all over,
- and then came the Inquisition in 1490 in Spain.
- At that time, while Jews had the choice
- to convert to Christianity, they were not persecuted.
- If you didn't want it, some were killed,
- and some were allowed to get out from there.
- Going to pogroms, basically we are
- talking about what was happening in Russia under the tsar,
- and every time there were some problems, like for instance,
- in 1905, Russia lost the war against Japan.
- And here the tsar is mad, and naturally, he
- sent the Kazakhs to kill Jewish communities.
- But nothing can be compared with the Holocaust
- because we are dealing with highly sophisticated society.
- Germans were always considered on the European continent
- as the most civilized people, and I always
- stop to think that if this would happen someplace
- behind the mountains, in Greece, or in Albania, or in Africa,
- you would have a little excuse, but never in Germany.
- And I had quite many German friends.
- My hometown-- just for your information, Kovno
- was only about 40 miles from the German border.
- And quite many Germans were coming to Lithuania
- because, basically, Germany was an industrial country,
- and Lithuania was agriculture.
- And people were coming to spend their vacation because food
- was so much better and tastier than in Germany,
- and they were basically good people.
- How the Nazis managed successfully to poison
- with hatred people is--
- it will take maybe years and years from now
- to explain how it was done because it is not
- easy to take good people and transform them
- to bestia fera, which means in Latin wild animals,
- being able to kill people and, especially, to kill children.
- I had a chance after the war to take revenge,
- like the Turks after the genocide took place
- in 1915 in Turkey, where a million people were killed,
- and I had the chance, maybe, to kill some German Nazis.
- I couldn't do it for two reasons.
- First of all, I'm not a killer.
- If I were to have killed somebody, being now an old man,
- I would have sleepless nights because,
- how could I kill a human being?
- And then I never had the evidence that the Germans,
- right after the war, which were prisoners of war which I met--
- I never had evidence that they are
- the one who committed the crime against innocent people.
- So consequently, I'm glad that I never did it,
- and I can go away from this planet with a clean conscience.
- We're just about to run out, right Jim?
- I want to ask about the liquidation.
- Let's load one more roll.
- Mark, mark eight.
- Set.
- So the liquidation of the ghetto--
- can you tell me what happened and what you saw?
- I escaped 90 days before the final liquidation.
- I was liberated by the Russian army July the 31st on a Monday.
- We could hardly talk to each other because, while in hiding,
- we had to be very careful.
- We were in a little old warehouse
- under the hay, eight people.
- And we were told by some Russian officers
- to stay where we are, because it happens
- quite often that the Russians have
- to retreat because, all of a sudden, the Germans
- are pushing them back.
- So we were still staying at the farm for the next five days.
- And then, a few days later, we decided
- to go back to see what happened to the ghetto.
- When we got there, the gate was wide open.
- There was no housing.
- We entered the ghetto.
- And we saw foundations without housing,
- because you must know that there were not fancy apartments
- or skyscrapers.
- There were just little old housing,
- which most of the times, while we got in there three
- years earlier, didn't have any electricity and no water,
- and sometimes not even floors.
- And what we saw--
- and unfortunately, I didn't have a camera.
- And I don't know if anybody took pictures.
- But some people did not believe that, in the last minute,
- they were told that they are going to be evacuated.
- And they were hiding in the basement of the housing.
- And the Einsatzgruppen-- before the German army
- pulled out, the Einsatzgruppen, which
- was a special German unit who was doing the killing,
- they were burning the houses.
- And we saw house after house, bodies of papa, mama,
- and children brunt from smoke.
- And I went to the house where my mother and my sister were left.
- While being in hiding, we tried very, very hard
- to get them out.
- My wife went from the hiding twice back to the neighborhood.
- She didn't go into the ghetto, because otherwise she
- wouldn't be able to get out.
- But the very same people who helped us to get out,
- she tried to get out my mother and sister.
- Unfortunately, she wasn't able to do it.
- And then I found out that my mother and my sister
- were sent west.
- And they ended up in Stutthof.
- The men who were there were sent to Dachau.
- The tragic story of my life is that at least I
- do know that my father and my brother were shot,
- and hopefully didn't have too long to suffer
- before they expired.
- But I found out from women who were in Stutthof
- and did witness under what circumstances my mother
- and my sister died.
- And I think I'm a very strong man mentally that I can still
- take it, because I understand that there was suffering
- for weeks without food, without water, being affected
- by typhus before they died.
- And I tell this to my German [? friend ?]
- when I see him, quite often now, in El Paso.
- And he is speechless.
- He doesn't know what to tell me.
- Some women survived.
- Some stronger women survived in Stutthof.
- My sister and my mother did not.
- And I was still 13 months in Kovno,
- because the war was still going on.
- The war was over.
- Being an engineer, I got a very good position
- with the Russians.
- However, I wasn't-- under no circumstances--
- I would like to leave, at that time with the Soviet Union.
- And I was very, very lucky to get out from there.
- When I say lucky, because the borders were already closed.
- And somehow, along came out that anybody who was born in Poland
- can go to Poland.
- And from Poland, I smuggled myself to Germany.
- And lucky Henry Kellen ended up in El Paso, Texas
- and had a good years of his second time being
- born in the United States.
- And I appreciate this country, because like I
- said before, freedom has to be appreciate and not taken
- for granted, because it's a very, very wonderful commodity.
- Let me ask you a couple of others things.
- The instruments-- you told me they took your instruments.
- And you were going to tell me something else.
- I told you about the instruments,
- because in the very first beginning,
- they took everything away from us.
- I mean everything of value, including the instruments.
- And then, all of a sudden, when the [? Wilhelm-- ?]
- to the very end, when the camp was changed to a concentration
- camp, in order to give us another lie, all of a sudden
- they want a concert.
- And they brought the instruments back to the--
- yeah, this is a story, because we didn't have any instruments.
- OK.
- And the forts-- tell me about the forts
- as if I don't know about the forts.
- The history of the fort is naturally,
- for you being in America, something
- which you don't understand.
- Going back, Russia, which was bordering with Germany
- all along-- because Poland, and Lithuania, and all
- those countries did not exist for 200 years.
- They were all occupied by Russians.
- Poland was divided between Austria, Germany, and Russia.
- And somehow, the czar was always,
- from this experience, afraid of being attacked by the Germans.
- So all the borders were built with fortification,
- with forts, which was not like in America.
- You got in my town Fort Bliss, which
- is an open, beautiful space with barracks.
- They were like fortifications in case,
- if the Germans will attack, the Russian army
- will hide behind the walls of the fort facing
- the windows to the west.
- And while the Germans are attacking,
- they could shoot at them.
- And you can see the same thing in England
- in many, many places going back to history
- of many, many thousands of years.
- But while Lithuania was independent,
- everything was open.
- It was just you saw that there's some--
- Holland was underground.
- And when the Germans came, they took advantage of it.
- And this was the place of exterminations.
- But this is basically when I talked about you
- Nine Fort or Seven Fort.
- The whole city of Kaunas, which was
- only 40 miles from the German borders,
- were lots of fortification.
- This is the meaning of a European fort, not American.
- Just at the time-- can you tell me about your father again?
- Was that a pogrom, basically, that killed your father?
- No.
- This was not a pogrom.
- Pogrom, like I said, is a strictly Russian expression
- where the czar was getting mad because something
- was going wrong with the economy,
- or defeats in [INAUDIBLE].
- So he had the special units of--
- But the Lithuanian acts of violence--
- tell me about that.
- And tell me about your father.
- The telephone system in Europe was
- just the same like in America.
- And his sister was living in the city.
- And we were living in the suburbs, divided by a river.
- And when the Germans came, my mother,
- like any other housewife, has always some food
- in the kitchen.
- Not fresh vegetables, which you couldn't preserve.
- And not butter, because anything of perishable goods
- at that time was spoiling, because we didn't
- have such a thing 50, 60 years ago
- like Frigidaires or iceboxes.
- But like I said, we had a call from his sister asking him
- if he can bring some sugar, which my mother presumably
- had some.
- And he just took the sugar.
- And he was crossing the bridge.
- And he was stopped by two Lithuanian uniformed soldiers
- who were collaborating with the Germans.
- And they arrested him.
- And this was early.
- Then I never saw him again.
- And then I found out that he was in the group of the 3,000
- Jewish people who were massacred on the Seventh Fort,
- because they were taking advantage of all the forts.
- But they were suffering for three days.
- And two people who were let out, having some connections,
- they told us how it happened.
- And photos are available of this, too.
- Like I said, my brother, to my knowledge, was shot right away.
- I was shot while in the camp, right here.
- People ask me quite often if I have a number.
- The numbers were given mostly in Auschwitz.
- In ghettos, we were not getting numbers,
- because from the very first beginning when the ghettos were
- created with the intention of being liquidated as soon as
- possible, so--
- Mark nine.
- So you're going to tell me about how you got shot.
- After the airport was finished, we
- were getting different assignment every single day.
- My brother was physically a whole lot stronger
- than I. I was mostly mama's little boy, being the youngest
- one.
- And even if I would have been not hungry,
- I wouldn't be able to carry cement for 12 hours and loading
- trucks.
- Well, one day, since we were getting every day different
- assignments, a group of about 40 men
- were sent to a railroad track someplace.
- And there were about 27 carts loaded with pipes, steel pipes,
- for diameter for about, I would say, 40 or 50 inches.
- There were two Lithuanian guards who brought us over there.
- And while we were, there they told
- us to unload everything and have those pipes taken out
- from the open railroad cars, throw them on the ground.
- Somehow, because I always did my best to keep myself clean,
- shaved--
- by the way, believe it or not, the one razor blade,
- I used for three years.
- And somehow, I managed to have it.
- Today, a razor blade is good maybe for three or four shaves.
- He, the Lithuanian, told me--
- first of all, he asked who was in Lithuanian army, what
- gun did I have?
- And then he said, you are going to be
- charged of unloading the train.
- And they went away.
- And they was someplace drinking the whole morning.
- And when they came back, we did manage.
- The pipes were, like I told you, at least about 2 feet long
- and--
- long.
- I couldn't even describe.
- Just imagine, at least about--
- I really don't know-- long, very long, just the length of a car.
- We did manage, being very weak, to take out the pipes which
- were on the top.
- But on the bottom, only a crane could take them out.
- And when they came back at noon and they
- saw that the train is not unloaded, he got to me
- and started to curse me and says,
- well, why didn't you do what I told you?
- And I said that it is impossible.
- He did hit me with the rifle in the back of my head.
- This must be made out of steel, because I don't
- know how he didn't kill me.
- And then he was just in a distance,
- a little bit further than the gentleman here.
- And he pulled out the bullet.
- I bent down.
- The bullet somehow went over my head.
- And then he saw that I am still alive.
- And he didn't have another bullet.
- And he just hit me in my--
- right here, in this place.
- And this was wintertime.
- This was at noon.
- I was bleeding on the snow for five hours.
- And he was sure that I am dead.
- [TV CHATTER]
- In the meantime, they changed guards,
- and some other two guys came in.
- Mark 10.
- The guards changed at 4:00.
- Two other Lithuanians came in, and if it
- wouldn't be two friends of mine who were both engineers
- from Hungary.
- I was still able to be on my feet,
- in spite of the blood which I lost.
- And we marched back to the ghetto.
- It was about three or four miles walk.
- And there was a little hospital in the ghetto.
- In charge of this little hospital
- was and Dr. Kaplan, who survived.
- And you must understand that, at that time--
- and my hair were covering, naturally, my wound--
- she didn't even have a razor blade or a razor
- to shave off my hair.
- And she managed somehow to give me--
- I don't remember exactly how many stitches.
- But next day, I was running a very, very high temperature,
- no penicillin, no medication of any kind.
- She did manage to bandage my wound.
- And it is only a miracle.
- It's a miracle.
- You really have to believe that the all mighty wanted
- me to survive and be here with you to tell you this story.
- I survived without medication, without food.
- And if this wasn't bad enough, while constantly
- the number of inmates were getting smaller,
- the [? wall ?] was cutting the fences smaller,
- so consequently we wouldn't have a little bit more room
- for ourself.
- And while I was not going to work because I couldn't even
- walk, the order came out that we have
- to get out from this particular house, because in the meantime
- maybe thousands, or maybe 1,500, were deported.
- And I do remember that my wife--
- Julia, may she rest in peace--
- looked for another corner.
- And somehow, we found someplace where to stay.
- And I survived.
- So there's so many miracles, so many miracles.
- And I have a belief in my obligation to tell my story,
- because if it happened once, it can happen again.
- Thank you very much.
- You're welcome.
- OK.
- Let's cut.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Henry Kellen
- Interviewer
- Sandra Bradley
- Date
-
interview:
1997 May 27
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
4 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Sandra Bradley, a film production consultant for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, conducted the interview with Henry Kellen on May 27, 1997 in preparation for the exhibition "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in November 1997. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received a copy of the interview on July 11, 1998.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:41:41
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511023
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto collection
Contains oral history interviews with sixteen Holocaust survivors recorded in preparation for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition, "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto," which opened in Nov. 1997. Collection includes interviews with: Brigitte Altman, Miriam Gershwin, Eta Hecht, Henry Kellen, Tamar Lazerson, David Levine, Jacob Lewin, Esther Lurie, Ted Pais, Avraham Pnina, Abraham Rodstein, Ivar Segalowitz, Avraham Tory, Helen Yermus, Celia Yewlow, and Berel Zisman. The interviewees discuss their experiences of living in the ghetto in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania, during the Holocaust
Date: 1997 May-1997 July
Oral history interview with David Levine
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celia Yewlow
Oral History
Oral history interview with Brigitte Altman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ivar Segalowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eta Hecht
Oral History
Oral history interview with Abraham Rodstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Miriam Gershwin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ted Pais
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jacob Lewin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berel Zisman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Yermus
Oral History
Oral history interview with Avraham Tory
Oral History
Avraham Tory (né Golub), born in 1910 in the small town of Lazdijai, Lithuania, discusses hiding in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) when the war broke out on June 22, 1941; keeping a diary for three years; life in the Kovno ghetto and life in hiding for four and a half months; leaving Kovno to go to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania); escaping in February 1945 and going to Lublin, Poland; his escape route through Bucharest, Romania as well as Czechoslovakia and Hungary; crossing the Austrian border and subsequently going to Italy, where he became active in the illegal immigration movement; arriving in Tel Aviv on October 17, 1947; his early years in Palestine; and the sequence of events that led to the publication of the “Surviving the Holocaust: the Kovno Ghetto diary” (see https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/bib2956).
Oral history interview with Pnina Tory
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Lurie
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tamar Lazerson
Oral History