- --Minneapolis now, and is an accountant.
- But he will relate to you, and he
- asked that you ask questions, and you can interrupt him
- if you'd like to ask questions.
- OK, thank you.
- I don't know where I should start.
- Whether you are interested in just my experiences,
- or I usually try to give some sort of introduction,
- how I feel what happened, and why it happened.
- I believe that the Holocaust was not just
- an incident that happened all of a sudden.
- It is my strong belief that it was building up,
- the anti-Jewish feelings and antisemitism,
- started out ever since the Jews were dispersed by the Romans.
- And I'm not going to dwell on that, but I just
- want to come to the point of the 1940--
- '39 war.
- We know about the Inquisition, where the Jews were persecuted
- because they were Jews.
- And not only Jews were persecuted at that time,
- also Lutherans were burned on stakes.
- And then we go on to Russia, where the Jews were persecuted
- just because they were Jews.
- And the Jews became sort of a political football-- whenever
- there was some trouble, that's an easy way to let
- some energy out, or hate.
- We know of the pogroms in Russia,
- when the tsar felt that he is not secure with himself,
- he let go, so you can do what you want.
- And they were burning and looting and killing.
- Well, I guess that the hate originated in churches.
- I don't want you to feel that I'm trying to offend anyone.
- I just want to express my feelings.
- Even as a boy, I could feel that I was accused of killing Jesus,
- and I was always the outcast.
- Whenever we wanted to go someplace, play football,
- we were always armed with pocketfuls of stones and rocks
- to defend ourselves, in case we were attacked.
- But that was not the major part that was so bad about it.
- It was that when individuals hate me because I am so or so,
- I am not Christian, it's not so bad.
- But when it became government policy,
- that's where the danger starts.
- And I believe that was when the Inquisition, the Spanish
- Inquisition, that was a government policy,
- that was also the tsar's policy--
- it became-- it gradually became the Polish policy.
- And of course, in Germany, we know what happened since 1933.
- And since I am here to talk about the Holocaust, about
- the war, of World War I--
- World War II, I'm sorry--
- I would like to just give you a preview of what I think
- why it happened in Germany.
- It could have happened in Poland, could have happened
- any other place.
- After World War I--
- incidentally, World War I, there were a lot of Jewish people
- that served in the German army, even as high ranking officers.
- But when Germany was defeated in World War I,
- the Versailles Treaty demanded quite a substantial amount
- to be paid back to France and England.
- And perhaps a few other countries,
- but mainly France and England.
- And as far as I remember, the beginning of propaganda
- against France, against the other Western countries,
- was that, look, we are starving, we are freezing to death,
- while continuously, trainloads of coal is going to France.
- And that probably created a lot of resentment,
- along with when the Weimar Republic was, until 1933,
- it was a democracy then.
- But along with democracy, there was about 50% unemployment--
- I'm not sure if I'm correct with the figures, could be 40, 45,
- was a lot of unemployment at that time.
- And in such situations, it's very easy to find scapegoats.
- Of course, they pointed at France, mostly,
- with all these cartoons, that the French are taking away
- everything the Germans had, including mostly coal.
- Because I believe, it's the coal mines in Belgium and France
- were flooded before the end of the war.
- But this is not exactly what I wanted to say.
- I just want to say that there are things that brought up,
- to the point where the Jews became the ultimate scapegoat.
- Adolf Hitler was active, I believe, since the early '20s.
- He was in prison and Landsberg-- was in prison,
- he wrote Mein Kampf in prison.
- And knowing history very well, there
- is always a good policy to blame somebody else for what's
- happening.
- I believe that there were only 500,000 Jews living in Germany,
- as against, I believe, 80 or 81 million.
- It's a small percentage.
- And yet, the Jews were responsible for everything that
- was happening, economically.
- They pointed out that the Jews are doing this and that,
- and they are rich, and they are feeding on the poor,
- and all that.
- It's easy.
- It's easy to believe when you are hungry,
- when you are unemployed--
- that created a situation where the party--
- there was a group of probably industrialists, and people
- that wanted to get rid of the Weimar Republic,
- they chose Hitler as a very outspoken person,
- as the one that could lead us to victory.
- And as a matter of fact, even after the elections,
- the Nazi party did not win, its Hindenburg that won.
- But there was, in March 1933--
- I believe it was March, I'm not sure--
- but it was 1933, that by force that Hitler forces,
- or his group, took over.
- And ever since, the main motto was
- that the Jews were responsible.
- And that led-- you'll excuse my English, you know,
- I'm not born in the United States, so--
- that gradually led to such hate for the Jews,
- that it became government policy.
- And as I mentioned before, whenever its government policy,
- that's the biggest danger.
- It began in 1938, maybe '37 or '38, where there was a decree
- in Germany that everybody that was not born in Germany,
- every Jew--
- I'm sorry-- was not born in Germany should be evacuated.
- And I remember that most of those evacuees
- were from Poland.
- And that was-- as a matter of fact, Polish--
- it was a little town here, Zbaszyn, I'm
- not sure it would be here--
- that was the point where all the Jews from Germany, Polish Jews
- were transferred.
- They were walking, or by cars--
- not cars, but carts with horses, buggies, you know,
- whatever way they could transport them
- through the border.
- And I remember at home, we were talking about it.
- Look, the Hitler government, the German government
- is expelling all the Jews, and somehow, we did not give it
- too much importance to it.
- So what?
- So they will live here, they're Polish Jews.
- But when the war began, everything
- became more and more clear that the Jews will become victims.
- I lived in Lodz-- that is the second largest city in Poland.
- That's an industrial city.
- And industrial city is mostly textile.
- And I would say, 90% of the textile factories were German,
- the Germans introduced the textile industry in Lodz
- about 200 years ago.
- And they actually developed Lodz's industrial city.
- So the city of Lodz had, as far as I
- can remember, about 70,000 to 80,000 German nationals
- in that city--
- out of 700,000.
- So there was quite an influence.
- And even before the war, there was a Freie Presse.
- There was a daily newspaper, and they openly
- wrote articles-- pro-Nazi, pro-Hitler, pro-German,
- even though the situation was so tense,
- it was leading to the war, that newspaper was openly
- printing pro-German articles, and
- against the Polish government.
- There was a democracy in Poland.
- I don't know if it's comparable to democracy that we have now,
- but the press was free.
- And I remember walking by--
- I always saw even displayed the swastikas, and the Freie
- Presse and everything.
- It didn't hit me very hard because I did not
- connect that with anything that might
- happen later-- concentration camps, or anything else.
- Of course, Dachau existed already.
- Dachau was built not for Jews, it
- was built for Germans who probably millions of Germans
- died in Dachau before the war, because they
- opposed the Nazi regime.
- But then, of course, it was convenient place--
- didn't have to build new concentration
- camps during the war.
- When the Germans entered Lodz-- and they tried not to destroy
- it--
- I remember just three artillery shells
- landed on the city of Lodz.
- And we were all running to see what happened.
- Was sort of excitement to be involved in the war.
- And I remember, I even tried to put on a uniform--
- I was 17 years old--
- tried to put on a uniform because there
- were some Polish officers they said,
- we have to fight for Poland.
- And I was taken in, of course, I felt some patriotism.
- And I put on a uniform along with some other youngsters.
- Sort of a game, a nice war game.
- When I came home, my father said, you must be crazy.
- What are you doing?
- You are not even of age to go to the war.
- You see what is happening, because the Polish army
- unfortunately--
- I don't know, maybe there are some Polish people
- here or not-- but I have to tell you the facts,
- Polish army did not last very long.
- About four weeks.
- It is because Polish army was strong in artillery,
- they were strong in hand-to-hand combat,
- but they didn't have too many tanks, or armored vehicles.
- So that's why the German army was just walking over Poland.
- Nothing to it.
- But when they entered Lodz, I remember
- the soldiers were distributing chocolate bars to kids,
- to other people.
- And then, we said what?
- They are writing so much about the German Nazis,
- it's not like that.
- Soldiers are nice people.
- It was sort of a conflict of, why
- do they write about one thing, when here, we
- see something else?
- We did not understand that the soldier is just a soldier.
- He is not an SS man, and he doesn't run the country.
- He doesn't run the policy.
- He doesn't create policy.
- He is probably just as much afraid, sometimes,
- as other people were.
- I don't know if I should tell you chronologically
- what happened to me.
- I think I will just tell you a few incidents,
- and maybe if you have some questions, I would like to--
- would be easier for me to collaborate,
- or to talk about it, or explain, if you have some questions.
- But I will start a few incidents that
- happened along the five years.
- Maybe you get the picture, along with other pictures
- that you got from other people, how it was.
- Unfortunately, some people still claim that did not happen.
- If it didn't happen, Germany wouldn't be divided in half
- now, if the war didn't happen.
- And of course, there are a lot of people,
- including the late President Eisenhower,
- that he came to Buchenwald and other concentration camps,
- and he, himself, saw all these piles of dead people.
- So this is one evidence that it did happen.
- And I am also evidence it did happen.
- Now, the first few months when the Germans were-- we
- were almost free.
- There was nothing, no restrictions.
- We could go wherever we wanted.
- I believe it was September, October, and then
- November started to be a little bit tight.
- I'm talking about me, as a Jew, as a Jewish person.
- There were no restrictions to the Polish people--
- where to go, and which streets to use and which not to use.
- But it must have been maybe six weeks after, or maybe
- four weeks after the German army entered Poland,
- and they occupied all the military barracks,
- the Polish barracks, and military places, or camps.
- And as you know, Poland did not have a very sophisticated
- highway system before the war.
- They had the main roads before, between Lodz, Krakow,
- and Warsaw, were highways in a sense,
- like we understand now highways.
- But most of them were dirt roads, with some--
- what do you call it-- cracked rocks covered and pressed in.
- How do you-- I beg your pardon?
- Cobblestones?
- No, cobblestone was good.
- That lasted more than asphalt. I mean, just roads,
- but all over the country.
- It was just--
- And the heavy machinery the Germans had, just were--
- there was a rainy season, they were all
- covered with inches of hardened mud.
- And the first experience that I had, that of the occupation.
- I mean, besides seeing German soldiers and talking to them.
- So was it suddenly a different kind
- of uniforms appeared, with a Volksdeutsche--
- Volksdeutsche is a person that is of German descent
- but lives in a different country.
- And the Volksdeutsche is a Polish citizen
- of German descent.
- I cannot say that all of them-- most of them suddenly had
- the swastika here on their lapels.
- They were-- suddenly they were elevated
- to somebody more important, or with more authority
- than anybody else.
- They could do anything they want.
- They could go in anywhere they wanted, because they
- had the swastika here.
- Well, I remember that I used to work in a company
- that used to sell some supplies, office supplies, and my boss
- saw him come in and he ran to the back.
- And I didn't know what was happening.
- I was 17 years old, and he comes in, [SPEAKING GERMAN],, there
- was a couple others.
- You come with me, you come with me.
- OK, we go out, there was a truck, there were two soldiers.
- And we were loaded on the top.
- Jumped up, or maybe there was a little where to step on.
- They took us to that camp.
- And our work-- and not only Jews, there
- were Jewish people and non-Jewish people, too.
- Just anybody that was able-bodied
- was taken to help to scrape that big, thick mud, like cement,
- off the trucks.
- And we worked all day the first day,
- then we slept in huge hangars, or maybe some warehouses.
- The next day, the same.
- And the third day, in the morning,
- I was so hungry that I almost couldn't see.
- And this is-- the reason I'm telling you
- that is that the fact that we worked
- is not as important, because that's a minor incident.
- But the next day--
- I mean, the same day in the evening, they took us together,
- and they asked who is not Jewish, step out.
- And they went home.
- And about 50% went home.
- And we stayed.
- So we worked the next day.
- And the third day in the morning,
- I was cleaning a truck--
- it was like a big, huge, oversized Dodge,
- during the war, if you remember.
- It was like a pickup--
- wasn't the most heaviest truck.
- And I was scraping it.
- And suddenly, I see the driver of that truck
- was maybe 40 or 45 years old.
- He was a regular Wehrmacht--
- Wehrmacht is regular army.
- He was not SS or anything else.
- And he took--
- I don't know how you call it, we call it canteen,
- that's where you get your food.
- Is there any other name for it?
- It's a container, container, sort of it
- fits sort of half shape.
- And he puts it down near the truck,
- and he slowly pushes it under the truck,
- with a piece of bread on top.
- Well, I didn't even think twice.
- I grabbed it, and I finished it.
- But I left it there.
- But then, under the truck, I saw that there is an officer
- standing with a little baton--
- baton?
- Or a little-- what you use for horses when you ride.
- I don't know all the words.
- Yeah, and he had the SS uniform.
- And this occurred to me-- it's just at the beginning--
- that he was afraid to show that he's helping me.
- The terror was so great, that the soldiers
- were afraid to show anything that
- is outside the official policy.
- This is just one incident.
- The other incident, very shortly after that,
- was that we were also caught in the street to--
- and that was already a common thing.
- We tried to avoid-- whenever we saw some trucks coming,
- we tried to hide.
- But no matter how often you try to hide,
- suddenly somebody comes, a civilian-- mostly civilians
- who told you to come.
- And then the soldiers took over.
- And by civilians, I mentioned before, the Volksdeutsche
- had swastikas, and we were taken not far from Lodz.
- There was an airfield-- that's a military airfield.
- We were taken there, and that's a little humoristic ending.
- But I just want to tell you that how
- we were gradually sort of educated into that horror.
- We were standing in front of a big hangar,
- and there is one German soldier--
- that was the Luftwaffe, by the way, it's the air force--
- he came out.
- And with a white apron, all bloody, up with a huge knife.
- And with another officer, or maybe
- he was just a sergeant, Unteroffizier, Unteroffizier.
- He said, OK, who's next?
- And we saw him bloody with the knife, everybody
- started to fall behind.
- Nobody wanted to be first.
- Who's next?
- Of course, he grabbed somebody by force, and had to go.
- Then after a few minutes, he comes back with more blood.
- OK, who is next?
- Well, we automatically we were so scared.
- I mean, everybody was scared.
- But finally, they grabbed me.
- And I said, well, that's my last few minutes.
- Then we went to the hangar, and then the next one,
- and the third one, I heard geese.
- And he told me to grab a goose, and hold the head
- and cut the head off.
- But the idea was to--
- what is fun?
- They just had fun with us.
- But he scared the hell out of us.
- Excuse my expression, but that's--
- I should say maybe something else.
- Well, these are the incidents that
- were not as bad, because after all, we
- went home to our own homes.
- As far as the food situation was not so easy.
- Everything-- everything disappeared.
- Suddenly everything was-- there was no bread.
- But the authorities delivered flour to bakeries,
- and we could buy bread.
- Anybody could buy bread.
- There was no rationing, yet.
- I'm still talking about 1939, a few months--
- September, October, November.
- And so on.
- And there was a line, always-- there
- was a line we had to wait almost all night.
- Some people came midnight, even though there was a curfew,
- we couldn't walk.
- But they risked it.
- And most of the time we started at 5 o'clock in the morning
- and waited in the line.
- And what the tragic part of it is,
- that even if I waited all night, or even
- if I waited from the morning, and by the time I came to this,
- there were a few German--
- these Volksdeutsche, and sometimes there
- were some special uniforms that I am not sure what they were.
- They were young people-- it was not the Hitlerjugend--
- but I think that they were inducted into the German army,
- but they had some, maybe a few days leave.
- Because he happened to be a friend of mine before the war.
- I happened to know him, we went to school together.
- But he had the uniform, and he recognized.
- I don't know if you would recognize here
- everybody that is Jewish, but the Polish people, they
- recognized the Jewish.
- Maybe because of our nose, or maybe our dark hair--
- although, not everybody had dark hair and blue eyes,
- and I tell you about that later.
- Well, he said-- and we were almost
- ready to get in, by pushing ourselves,
- get in and get the bread.
- He says, you come out, out, out.
- So at the end of the line.
- And that was continuously going on,
- and we many times we went home without any bread.
- Until my brother-- who was older,
- he's older than I am, two years--
- he knew where the bakery is.
- And that bakery happened to be a Jewish bakery,
- and they were still running it.
- They received the flour from the authorities, they baked it,
- they had to give it to whoever comes in.
- There was always somebody there watching them.
- Of course, that's for money, it was regular buying bread,
- but you had a long line.
- And you were eliminated when you came close to the bakery.
- So he went to another house, and over the roofs,
- and somehow, he got into the backyard, and he got in.
- And he grabbed two big loaves and he ran-- he came home.
- That lasted for quite a few days, those loaves.
- But these are the situations.
- Another situation was that we wanted to buy potatoes.
- And the price of potatoes was like 20, 25 times
- the regular sack of potatoes.
- We didn't have that money, because suddenly, we
- were cut off everything.
- All you could do is, if you had a watch,
- you could give a watch, or if you have a nice suit,
- we just traded.
- At one time-- and now I am jumping a couple of years,
- because I'm on that subject, I'm jumping
- a couple of years where I was in the Tschenstochau ghetto,
- before they closed the ghetto and made it
- as a concentration camp.
- The food situation was so bad that I was standing there
- with the Polish money--
- I had a bundle of money that we earned money
- by making envelopes.
- I hope that you don't mind that I keep jumping back and forth.
- Otherwise, it's impossible, because I remember suddenly
- about something else, and it is easier to talk that way.
- We were, the whole family, when we
- were deported from Lodz to Tschenstochau,
- we received only one room.
- We were eight people--
- one room.
- We somehow managed-- every corner we had four beds,
- and a table, that was all.
- And maybe a little wardrobe, you call it.
- We earned money by making envelopes by hand.
- We had-- I had a cousin that--
- my mother's brother had a printing, a printing--
- was printing off shop, he had printing machines.
- All the printing machines were immediately
- taken away by the Germans, as soon as they entered.
- Because they didn't want anybody to print
- any literature, or anything.
- But the cutting machines, cutting the paper,
- was not taken away.
- So we cut the envelopes, and that was for a German firm,
- for a German company.
- And we had contact with the German company that
- was-- they were selling to the army
- and to the other authorities and factories,
- they were selling supplies, office supplies.
- I had a younger brother, he was nine years old.
- And the law required that anybody under six
- does not have to wear that yellow star.
- And he was not so much developed, as you can see.
- I'm not developed, either.
- So he would not be suspected of being more than six years old.
- And he walked out of the ghetto, into the Polish area,
- where the factory-- where that company was, the store was.
- And he got the money, and he got the letter from my father
- that he should--
- they brought to our place in the ghetto,
- we used to call it bales of paper.
- They were that high, and maybe, oh, 36 inches by 48--
- big.
- I don't know if that's--
- we used to call it libra--
- libra is probably a Latin word.
- But at any rate, it was about 500,000 pounds
- of paper at the time.
- And then we used to take this and cut it
- into envelopes, shapes.
- And we used to make the envelopes
- by hand-- a sponge with the glue,
- we used to fold it, and make the envelopes.
- And well, we worked a whole week making,
- I believe, something like between 10,000 and 20,000
- envelopes a week, envelopes a week.
- Everybody was working.
- I worked at the railroad that that,
- time because we had to work.
- My brother and I, we had to work, mandatory work.
- And we received 3 kilogram of bread a week.
- But that wasn't enough to feed eight people-- just the 6
- kilogram.
- So we had to make the envelopes.
- Everybody was working all night and all day.
- And the tragic point that I want to make,
- that we received payment in Polish money.
- And I had a bundle of Polish money, something
- like 500 or 600 zlotys.
- That was a lot of money, in official terms.
- Because if you wanted to buy a ticket,
- a train ticket, cost you about 10 or 20 zlotys--
- so 500 is a lot of money.
- But not as far as food is concerned.
- You couldn't buy anything.
- And I went to the border line, you
- know, the ghetto ended at a certain street.
- On the other side-- on the other side you cannot go,
- because that's not ghetto territory.
- So the farmers used to bring potatoes and other foodstuffs,
- mostly potatoes, and they got as much as they wanted.
- Sort of like an auction--
- everybody wanted to get the potatoes, and give them.
- And it was in the morning, we didn't eat anything,
- my family was waiting at home, and I was supposed
- to bring anything-- potatoes.
- And I had a bundle of money, and I couldn't buy anything.
- It was 2 o'clock afternoon-- because whenever
- I grabbed the 25 kilo-- that's 50 pounds potatoes,
- there was somebody else that offered more money,
- or a golden ring, or something.
- When people are hungry, they do a lot of dirty things.
- And I probably was not that aggressive.
- I remember I came home without anything.
- And we were all hungry.
- Then a day or two days later, we received our bread ration.
- Somehow we pushed through.
- I will go back now to Lodz.
- Again, I see I'm doing it at a chronological sequence.
- But I just want to tell you a few incidents that
- happened to me.
- When this entire territory here--
- I'm not sure if I will have the right--
- something like this here.
- Because before the war, when the war began, maybe a few weeks
- before the war, Germany wanted a corridor through Poland,
- because they could have an access by land to Ostpreussen.
- That's East Prussia.
- And of course, Poland didn't agree.
- And that was the excuse to start the war.
- Was here, because they wanted to get through here.
- I am not sure whether it's here, or maybe a shorter cut--
- but then, after the German occupied Poland, part of it
- became the Third Reich.
- Was annexed to the Third Reich.
- And that included Lodz.
- That included this part.
- Now, this was called the--
- well, under gubernatorial territory,
- Generalgouvernement [INAUDIBLE].
- When they annexed this part to Germany,
- there was an order that as many Jews as possible
- should be evacuated from the Third Reich.
- That was Third Reich, already.
- And they planned a ghetto in Lodz--
- there was about 300,000 people population, Jewish population
- in that city was 300,000.
- And the total population was 700,000.
- And they planned a ghetto, which was the old part of the city,
- and they designated so many blocks, so many--
- quite a large territory.
- That this is the ghetto.
- And they notified in newspapers and notices in the streets,
- that these particular streets will
- have to evacuate into the ghetto on this and this date,
- and so on.
- And it was planned.
- It was planned.
- And the first few weeks, it was going by plan.
- So I remember my father said, well, our date is April 15th--
- there's nothing to worry.
- We can just gradually-- we found one room
- that we rented, or paid for it, I don't recall how we got that.
- Maybe through the authorities.
- Because at the same time, Polish people
- that lived in that territory had to move out by that time.
- So there were a lot evacuated, empty rooms or apartments.
- We got one room.
- And we started to put-- to take supplies to that room.
- I remember we had even something like 100 pounds of sugar,
- and flour, and everything, and potatoes.
- And we were continuously going and taking as much as possible,
- because we don't know how long the war will last.
- Nobody ever-- could ever dream that the end would be death.
- Or we thought, maybe we'll just live there, and wait
- till the end of the war.
- Well, April 15th was our date.
- And there was the main street, which is Piotrkowska,
- was supposed to be something also like an April 7th,
- but at the end of March--
- no, I'm sorry, it was the beginning of March,
- not according to the plan at all,
- there were the commandos came.
- That was the first taste that we had of the commandos--
- the commandos are probably those that
- were responsible for all these atrocities.
- And but of course, the commandos were
- the arm of the government, of the policy, of official policy.
- Well, they came, and they started to force people out
- before the time, before the planned time, of their homes.
- Just like they are.
- Get two minutes, out.
- And at that night, maybe 80 people
- were killed, shot, just like that.
- That never happened before.
- That was the first time when we really
- heard somebody being shot just for being Jewish.
- So March 1940?
- Yes, that was in March 1940.
- It was at the beginning of March.
- Because we were evacuated March the 10th--
- evacuated from Lodz.
- And then, suddenly, everybody was scared.
- I mean, if the Germans don't go by their plan,
- because normally the Germans, they had a plan,
- was going [GERMAN]--
- was going everything according to the plan.
- So everybody started to run.
- And we started to double our efforts
- to put supplies and food, and what have you,
- and something like coal.
- And but suddenly, then, the March 10th, our streets
- were full of these commandos.
- And I remember, I will never forget
- that there was an officer and a soldier came in--
- and we, go get--
- raus-- often--
- I forgot table, how is it in German?
- Money, silver, gold, everything on the table.
- So my mother and father started to take off-- my mother
- had a wedding ring, my father started to take off--
- but he didn't believe, evidently-- we
- had a very nice apartment.
- My father was an accountant, head accountant
- of a large firm.
- So we were sort of middle class, considered middle class.
- And because we had a few rooms, our apartment,
- most of the people lived in one or two rooms,
- so they must have thought that we have a lot of money.
- And as a matter of fact, we had, in our--
- we had small rucksack--
- that's what the backpack, is called?
- We prepared the necessities, a little bit food,
- a little bit of clothing and soap,
- and I don't know what you pack usually in this--
- but we had also silver coins, Polish money
- was 10 zlotys was 10 silver coins, as big as $1.
- And my father said, from experience from World War I,
- that silver money is always accepted.
- If you need to buy some potatoes or bread,
- they will always accept silver money, not paper money.
- So we had, I believe we had something like 50
- or 40 silver 10 zloty coins.
- Well, we had to take it out, and they found it,
- and we were beaten up.
- But the most-- the moment that I remember most is they
- didn't trust my mother.
- They asked her to take off everything,
- and to stand like this.
- So they thought perhaps she was hiding something.
- And that was the first time I saw
- that they do things without any shame,
- without regard of anything.
- I was young-- I didn't understand
- that much, but of course, now I, looking back,
- I understand a lot more.
- Well, we got a few minutes only to get out.
- And we had prepared-- we were prepared, actually,
- with this rucksack, and we had some bundles
- of bed covers, and bed spreads, or sheets, what have you.
- We had to leave that, because the reason we were packed
- is because they started to evacuate not
- according to the plan.
- That means that they could take us any time they want.
- And we were sure that we are going to ghetto.
- But then, we were taken to a--
- that was a factory, some kind of a textile factory
- that had trains, that they had rails,
- the railroad was coming in.
- We were sitting there for three days.
- And we were taken all the way to the Czechoslovakian border.
- We didn't have any food.
- Yeah, the only thing that we could take,
- they gave us a bread for each family, a loaf of bread,
- and also molasses.
- And I thought it was very good.
- But we became so thirsty, that I remember
- when we came close to Krakow--
- and I show it-- just we went from Lodz,
- to all the way to the Czechoslovakian border,
- not far.
- Yes, and that is not far from here that we were.
- Well, we were in Krakow, which is here.
- And somewhere after Krakow, we never stopped in big cities.
- We were asking, begging for water,
- and nobody gave us water.
- There were people-- the Polish people that were watching,
- they wanted to give us water, but the guards
- didn't let them come close to the train.
- And that was the worst thing, was water.
- We had something to eat, but we didn't have anything to drink.
- We were taken to that camp-- there was an old refinery.
- And we had to work in the refinery, forced--
- sort of forced labor.
- But it was not so bad, because we were still
- with the families together.
- Then, when we went to that town, it's called Nowy Sacz--
- we were free to go wherever we wanted.
- Was not yet-- the regime was not so bad yet,
- because it was not the Third Reich.
- As I said, all this territory was annexed to--
- not Kielce, but somewhere along this territory,
- was annexed, something like this.
- So was Third Reich.
- And we were somewhere here.
- So in these territories, there were no ghettos, yet.
- And it sort of was more free.
- We took-- we hired a farmer with a cart and horse,
- and we were going to Tschenstochau,
- because my mother was born in Tschenstochau.
- When we came to Tschenstochau, as we
- received one room for the whole family.
- And we were immediately taken to work,
- because the Germans worked through committees--
- they had always a Jewish committee
- in every town and every city.
- And they didn't have to do the dirty work anymore.
- They told the Jewish committee, and they had policemen--
- Jewish policemen.
- And the Jewish policemen, when the Jewish committee received
- an order to deliver 200 people to the railroad
- every morning, well, they just--
- the policemen went around, and said,
- you work for the railroad.
- And the first victims were, of course, those
- that were coming in--
- the strangers.
- Because if a policeman had a friend,
- Why should he take a friend's son to work?
- So we were always-- my brother and I-- were always
- the first ones to go.
- And then, they knew us already.
- They came at night--
- they needed once in a iron ore--
- it's not iron, it's like mine, iron mine.
- In Poland, the mines, iron mines,
- the iron ore mines are not like here in Minnesota.
- You had to go down the shafts quite deep.
- I believe in Germany, they have the same kind of mines.
- And they needed some people.
- And of course, my brother and I, we were always the first to go.
- But these were sort of short-term-- like a week,
- two weeks.
- And once, I remember they took us at night, and they--
- I was sent to a camp to build--
- there is a river, called Warta--
- that's the river here.
- And that river used to flood always.
- So they tried to build big banks, huge high banks--
- and we were doing the work.
- And I remember that I, and a friend of mine,
- we wanted to escape.
- There was no guards, nothing to it.
- We had to walk at night.
- And then, how do you get back?
- How do you get back into the ghetto?
- Where, as soon as you come to Tschenstochau,
- and you don't have a yellow star, then if they recognize
- you, you're in trouble.
- You go to Gestapo.
- And then, Auschwitz was already then.
- And they sent-- this is the time when
- anybody that broke the laws or the regulations
- were sent to Auschwitz and other camps.
- And somehow, we went--
- we came into Tschenstochau through a small--
- an area where there weren't many houses, not too much traffic.
- But this particular area, not far from Tschenstochau,
- there was a camp, a prisoners' of war camp.
- These were the Russian prisoners of war.
- And I will never forget that.
- We happened to go over a bridge, and there were trainloads--
- open boxcars.
- And there were thousands of dead prisoners of war
- that were going.
- Well, I don't know if it's thousands,
- but there were very many--
- people tend to exaggerate.
- Maybe I exaggerate, too, but there
- were a lot of dead people.
- They died of hunger.
- Because we were going by--
- it was a huge camp-- they were asking for water,
- just like we were asking once.
- But we were afraid to even come close,
- because if we would be caught, then
- we wind up in Auschwitz, too.
- And we succeeded to get back into Tschenstochau.
- Then, in August 22nd--
- this is the date that I observed this date
- as the death of my mother's, and my sister's
- and brother's death.
- Suddenly, there there was a decree that this--
- they evacuate all the people, gradually, by the streets.
- Everybody was evacuated.
- So that the city of Tschenstochau was empty, empty.
- And then, they created the so-called--
- we used to call it the small ghetto.
- They destroyed some houses around a certain area,
- and they erected barbed wires.
- Because there was no concentration camp or barracks
- already, so this served as the first concentration camp.
- But not until a few days later.
- We were taken at August 22nd, 1942,
- we were taken to the railroad station--
- to the railroad-- not necessarily station,
- there was the railroad tracks.
- And there were already trains waiting.
- And the way the SS man-- everything was SS,
- or maybe it wasn't SS.
- There was also SR--
- which, I don't really know the distinction.
- They had black uniforms with the same Sturmabteilung,
- and SS was Schutzstaffel
- They had both these dead--
- what is it?
- The bones, and-- the skulls, yeah, and crossbone.
- Well, my brother and I worked--
- we were so-called good working people.
- I worked in a--
- that was a textile factory.
- But I worked in that factory that we took out
- all the machines, textile machines and they
- brought from Germany different machinery.
- And we used to make the [NON-ENGLISH]..
- It became later an ammunition factory,
- but gradually it was built that way.
- The [NON-ENGLISH] were the ones that you put in--
- there was a big tank, and with fire underneath, you burn wood.
- But not completely.
- So that the gas was transformed into gas,
- and trucks were running.
- And it was--
- I think it was an excellent idea.
- But we worked in that.
- So we-- I worked in that factory,
- but we worked that many hours.
- And we went home.
- We went home, not as single people, but in groups.
- And there were Werkschutz, mostly Ukrainian--
- the head of every detachments of--
- Werkschutz means guards.
- And it was a German--
- either he was a corporal, or sergeant, or even a lieutenant.
- And we were escorted, with bayonets and rifles
- and all that, we were escorted from and to work.
- It was safer for us, too, because we
- didn't want to be caught and sent to Auschwitz.
- But on August 22nd, as I say, 1942--
- and my brother, by the way, my brother worked at the railroad.
- By the railroad is we had to put in these new rails
- and these railroad ties, and I know that by heart.
- I even knew how to put-- and they had a special measurement,
- then you had to put in the nails.
- And then, there were special tools
- to knock the rocks under the ties so it would level.
- It would be steady.
- And we were quite experts at that.
- Otherwise, we probably wouldn't survive.
- I believe so, strongly, that because I worked very hard.
- And I'll tell you also why I believe so.
- When I worked in that--
- my brother had a Kennkarte--
- Kennkarte is sort of an identification card--
- that I worked at the factory recognized
- by the German authorities.
- And so did my brother.
- So at the beginning, we went through, and he looked-- oh,
- yeah--
- [? I escaped. ?] I mean, I'm OK, because I'm working man.
- And so is my brother.
- But then one of them said, well, come back.
- See, are you two brothers?
- Well, we said, yes.
- So he sent my brother on one side,
- and I was going the other side.
- We didn't know what that means.
- But my brother went with my mother and sisters,
- smaller sisters, and a brother.
- And they were crying.
- They thought that they are taking me away.
- Because we were supposed to be evacuated
- to another place where we have work to do,
- everybody can work, and so on.
- I think that during war time, the Germans
- were the masters of--
- I don't know, I can't find that word-- of deception.
- They promised everyone that we will have a better place
- to live, and a good place to work.
- And that we have to work-- we must work.
- We accepted that we must work.
- And in the meanwhile, they were sent to Treblinka.
- Treblinka is one of the few camps that
- were only extermination camps.
- Like Auschwitz-- in Auschwitz, there were two.
- There were Birkenau, and the other one
- was for extermination.
- The other was still for working, and they
- were-- people were going to work, to factories.
- They were even sent to Germany from the other camp.
- But Treblinka was strictly a gas camp, gassing people.
- Well, it so happened that this group--
- my mother and my family--
- they went to the trains, and I was sent immediately--
- because I had the Kennkarte, so they said, well,
- those that work in this factory can go now.
- And we were taken on trucks.
- I believe it was trucks, or maybe we walked,
- I'm not sure which is which exactly,
- but these details are not important now.
- We went back to that factory, but never
- to go back to where we lived.
- And it so happened that--
- I must mention that, because it is important.
- We didn't have much clothes, but during the war,
- they used to make slacks, paper.
- It was very strong paper, woven paper, and probably
- covered with some sort of chemical that was very strong.
- You couldn't tear it, you couldn't cut it.
- Only when it became wet and fall apart.
- Well, we didn't realize that--
- I learned that later.
- And that's all I had, is this pair of--
- it was woven.
- It looked like jeans now.
- Looked like jeans, but it was paper.
- And a shirt.
- And I worked there.
- And of course, we never knew what happened.
- We knew that they blew up the ghetto.
- But we were only a short time until they
- built the barbed wires around just a number of blocks,
- enough to hold 5,000 people.
- All the rest of the people were already probably dead.
- Well, we were there about three or four weeks.
- And I remember, I continued working at these [NON-ENGLISH]..
- And my job was to make rings.
- There's a number of rings that had to be welded on.
- And since I started out with the long bar,
- and the end of the bar had to be bent so that they
- could go through these rollers.
- And I remember, I had just like a smith has to blow this fire
- and make it red.
- And then, I had something that I could bend it.
- So I had to roll these rings, and I found out
- that there are different diameters of rolling.
- And I did two at a time.
- Not that I wanted to say--
- I just did that, because I don't know, maybe
- because I wanted to show that I'm a good worker.
- And good workers had a better chance to survive.
- While I was doing that, there was one engineer,
- and his name was Fasold--
- Fasold.
- He was a heavy man, a little taller
- than I am, but a heavy set man.
- He used to come in the factory just
- to watch how people are working, and he had a big wrench.
- And if he didn't like anybody, he hit him over the head.
- He killed a few people, too.
- I'm not sure if I know exactly how many,
- but he was very dangerous.
- It was very dangerous.
- He opened somebody's head just like that, he didn't like.
- And I was so scared when I saw him coming.
- My meister-- meister is like a foreman,
- or maybe like a supervisor of that particular department--
- his name was [? Werbutz. ?] He was originally from Leipzig.
- The reason I know he was from Leipzig because after the war,
- he asked a lot of people to come and testify,
- he was one of a number of German meisters
- that were against that regime.
- But he couldn't-- I believe he couldn't help it.
- He saved my life in a way.
- That was shortly after that evacuation there-- it
- was in August, and I still had those paper slacks on me.
- But when I saw that Fasold, engineer Fasold,
- I was almost trembling.
- But I decided--
- I decided to use the same tactic that I
- used when we had to make these banks on the river, river
- banks, is that for some reason, the supervisors believed
- that we don't know how to work.
- Maybe it was true in 50% of the people, if they didn't work,
- they didn't know how to work.
- But I was young, I knew how to work.
- I worked before.
- I mean, beginning at the age of 17.
- And when they were walking back and forth, usually, people see,
- they're coming.
- They start to work fast.
- And they knew that this is just a fake.
- But what I did, is when I saw his coming,
- I turned my back to him, and I used to work real hard,
- and I felt when that supervisor's coming,
- he was a German, maybe an engineer, or something
- it was building.
- I used to stand on my--
- what is it, shuffle, you call it?
- What is it that you throw-- shovel, right?
- Yeah, and I used to sort of rest.
- And he never said a word to me.
- So I thought, maybe I'll use the same tactic now,
- with that engineer, Fasold.
- Because I was afraid he will hit me with a hammer or something.
- And I really worked two at a time,
- and evidently he liked it.
- Because I could feel, he was behind me talking
- to [? Werbutz-- ?] that's the meister,
- Fasold talking to [? Werbutz. ?] And I didn't even look
- sideways.
- I just worked one after the other, and then he walked away.
- Evidently he liked it, or maybe he just assumed that's OK.
- A couple of days later, the Gestapo was--
- the head of the Gestapo was Captain Degenhardt, Degenhardt.
- They came about--
- I don't know, we had two shifts, 12 hours each shift.
- And I remember, I was sleeping at the time,
- so it must have been after midnight.
- And suddenly, we were called to get out.
- And I had to crawl out.
- We were sleeping on straw, straw mattresses, or whatever.
- I was crawling out.
- And I grabbed my pants and put this on,
- and we had to stand in line.
- And then, everyone had to walk by.
- And there was Degenhardt, and evidently there
- must have been another one officer, SS officer-- maybe he
- was a doctor like Mengele, but this wasn't Mengele.
- There were a few that were watching us,
- sort of scrutinizing, is that the right word?
- Everyone had to walk by.
- And it so happened that there were older people there,
- too, and maybe some people that were not physically so fit.
- Because it was-- that was the first wave
- that we came into that factory.
- In the meanwhile, I mentioned I had these paper pants.
- For some reason, we had to stand sometimes an hour,
- or half an hour, that we used to call it appell,
- so that we could be counted, each department.
- And if it was raining, suddenly everything is open here.
- I was all the way open here.
- I started to use wires.
- And I put it with the wires, but the wires
- used to cut my skin, my flesh.
- Wasn't convenient.
- [LAUGHTER]
- And then, yeah, it wasn't.
- It wasn't, but I had no choice.
- And then, we had the shoes.
- And that was not only the shoes--
- even before, that was almost impossible to buy shoes
- with leather soles.
- That was before August 22nd.
- The shoes that you usually buy with leather
- tops and wooden soles, maybe an inch thick.
- And that was the--
- everybody had that.
- Everybody who didn't have money to buy something else.
- Or maybe some golden rings, or whatever.
- But it so happened that one of the shoe-- of the wooden,
- maybe it was the vein--
- split and fell off.
- So I was walking like this, and this.
- And when I walked by, they took me out,
- because I was sort of a cripple.
- I looked like a cripple.
- I worked all right, I was young.
- But I was a cripple, because I couldn't walk.
- The wires were rubbing on my skin, and the shoes were--
- and they took me out--
- I'm sorry.
- They took me out.
- I was already in the group was taken out,
- and that meister [? Werbutz ?] said, [SPEAKING GERMAN]----
- he's a good worker.
- I need him.
- And he took me out.
- And I realized that he saved my life,
- because the next thing they did, there was about 300 people,
- and among them was the father of a good friend of mine.
- One woman escaped-- well, this was inside the complex,
- then there was a gate which was outside the complex where there
- were houses, and the [NON-ENGLISH],, and the offices,
- and the Germans lived in these houses.
- She escaped.
- She ran away, because it was dark.
- And she was hiding--
- there was the attics in Poland, the attics
- have small windows that are open.
- I don't know, maybe for ventilation.
- I think it was for ventilation.
- And she could see what is happening.
- There was one, the Baumeister--
- Baumeister is the building supervisor.
- We used to call him [NON-ENGLISH]----
- he was probably from Bayern, because he spoke German that we
- couldn't understand.
- And if we didn't understand, he hit somebody.
- I'm glad I didn't work in his department.
- But those people that worked for him, he was good for them.
- But except when he was in rage.
- He had the task, he had the big sledgehammer,
- and as somebody came out, he hit with a sledgehammer.
- And I'm not exaggerating, because that was known.
- This woman survived, and she came back to us,
- because she was hiding.
- And the people were thrown on a truck,
- and then they were taken away.
- And if I would be--
- if this [? Werbutz ?] would not take me out,
- I would be dead now.
- This is one example.
- There was another example, also, I
- used to-- after that, we started to work on ammunition.
- We had already enough machines, we
- started to work on ammunition.
- And because as I said before, it was probably
- difficult for the German authorities
- to work in every detail, all the way down
- to each individual worker, so they made--
- they made people, Jewish people, Jewish inmates,
- responsible for a group of other people.
- Like they used to call them kapo--
- kapos, I believe, what's that, the Greek word for something?
- I think it's something like a kapo.
- He was responsible for 30 people.
- So how did they do it?
- We were standing in two, lines of twos.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN] He counted 30 people, you are the kapo.
- Means you're responsible for the rest of the people.
- And so on.
- So there were 10, 15 kapos, depending on the group,
- and everyone was responsible.
- But at the beginning, we didn't really
- realize what the responsibility is.
- Now, what is responsible, that everybody comes to work.
- We had to come to work.
- We were closed in.
- But there was a period of time between converting that from
- [NON-ENGLISH],, these big tanks that burned wood
- into ammunition-- we were sort of borrowed.
- By the way, these companies--
- the ammunition company, and then the other company--
- was owned, or I don't know how the arrangement was
- with the German government, but the name was HASAG, which means
- [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- And these are like Krupp, but they are probably
- smaller company.
- And they used to pay for us-- we never saw any money,
- but I don't know who got the money.
- They used to pay the German government for each hour
- for each man that worked.
- I found that out after the war, when
- we tried to get some claims.
- It's only one big concern that used to pay the people out
- was the--
- I believe it's Farben, GI Farben industry, something.
- Pardon me?
- IG.
- IG, yes.
- Well, you can understand I don't remember everything.
- But I remember-- yeah, these people
- received compensation from the company-- the company still
- exists.
- And if I'm not mistaken, they have some branches here
- in the United States now.
- So coming back to that period of time
- between transition of one product, to ammunition,
- we were borrowed by--
- we used to call Rakow--
- Rakow is the name of the place.
- It's a suburb of Tschenstochau.
- And was [NON-ENGLISH]---- that's [? heating, ?]
- that's ironworks.
- Means they are taking ore, making this pig iron,
- and from the pig iron, they are making big slabs.
- And we were making rails for the railroad.
- Means from A to Z, almost.
- From the beginning to a finished product.
- And at this time, at this point, when we enter there,
- there was--
- and there again, I don't understand what--
- I believe that was--
- he had a yellow uniform and black trousers,
- or these breeches.
- And I believe there was a group that was, I believe, Todt--
- these were the industrial whatever, army, or department.
- They had swastikas, they had guns, they had just like SS.
- But it's a different uniform.
- And he was the head of the guards.
- He counted-- every day, he counted us when we came in,
- and we went out.
- And we had to give a report.
- And after a few days, when he created the kapos--
- and I remember the kapo of my group, there were two brothers.
- And there were one standing beside the other.
- And he was right in front of me, that he
- said-- because I happened to be the number 15,
- but I was behind.
- So he was in front of me, he was a kapo.
- So he was responsible for us coming
- to the gates at 6 o'clock, or was it 5 or 6 o'clock,
- after work.
- And then we went 6 kilometers.
- I don't know what miles--
- it's 4 and 1/2 miles.
- We used to go back, and in the morning,
- we used to get up 5 o'clock in the morning.
- And then come back, and have one piece of bread.
- But the plant, or the ironworks, they provided soup for us.
- We could get the soup.
- But the soup was only given about five minutes
- before the appell time, or the--
- how do you call it?
- Roll call?
- Roll call, right.
- I always forget it.
- Yeah.
- And people were so hungry.
- We worked-- just to give you an example what kind of work we
- had--
- I happened to work at the place where the furnaces were
- blasting at 2,000 degrees--
- I don't know, Fahrenheit, or what.
- Well, we had those big slabs on hanging, of course,
- with rollers.
- And I had to-- with forks--
- and I had to grab it, and put them in the oven.
- Pull some strings that opened up.
- And I had to put it in to get it red.
- And then take it out, and give it to the next guy.
- Which took it over to the rollers.
- They were rolling it back and forth,
- until they had these rails for the railroad.
- But my job was to take this, open up--
- and the heat was blasted, the blast of heat
- was so great that normally, when the Polish people work,
- they work 15-minute shifts.
- 15 minutes, and then he went outside and get some fresh air.
- And then the other came in.
- One position, one position was worked by two men.
- And I had to work alone.
- And you can imagine how hard it was.
- Probably luckily that I was only 18 or 17 years old,
- or I wouldn't survive.
- But there was a silver lining on that.
- Because if somebody managed to steal a few potatoes,
- he couldn't eat the potatoes raw.
- So he had to come to me.
- He said, would you bake the potatoes?
- The sand was so hot, that if you put it on your finger,
- it was red, burnt.
- So it took only a few minutes, and I
- put in the sand which was around these furnaces.
- It took a few minutes, it was baked potato.
- I said, OK, you give me two, you get only one back.
- So I had a supply of food for a while.
- That's the silver lining.
- Now, one evening, some of us managed
- to get away from work a few minutes earlier
- to get the soup.
- Because when you work all day, it's hard-- you need to eat.
- And evidently, that person was too hungry--
- excuse me-- he was too hungry, because he came back
- a little bit late.
- And he saw that they are counting us already.
- And he was scared.
- I happened to see that person after the war--
- he lives in Israel now.
- And because he was scared that maybe he would be beaten up
- or what, he didn't come.
- And we were 29.
- So that officer, with that yellow, maybe orange shirt,
- orange shirt with swastika, and he came up,
- he says, I give you one minute to get that person.
- But what can you do one minute?
- He was running, he was shouting.
- If you are there, come.
- Well, says, the minute is up.
- And I will never forget that.
- He comes out-- evidently he gave that-- there was
- a sergeant, an older person.
- By the way, he must have been maybe 50 or 60 years old,
- but he was called to duty, and he probably--
- and he comes out, he says, is he here?
- No.
- OK.
- He calls two [NON-ENGLISH],, like the Werkschutz, the guards.
- Said, [GERMAN].
- They didn't have any--
- [GERMAN] means bring arms.
- They came out with rifles, on the [INAUDIBLE],, and--
- The only thing that I will remember that
- is, oh, a dying voice.
- Oh-- that's it.
- I remember, and his body was there for three days.
- Whenever we came by.
- So nobody ever missed that roll call.
- And that's the responsibility of a kapo.
- There were some kapos--
- I have to mention that, too--
- and especially, and I did not experience that,
- but my brother did, and some other friends,
- that they took it virtually as they are responsible,
- so they are also people of authority.
- And they did a lot of very nasty things to the other 29 people.
- Who was shot?
- Was it the kapo that was shot?
- Who was shot?
- The kapo, because he was responsible.
- He was just a working man like I was.
- But because he happened to be the 30th, or the 15th in front,
- so he is responsible.
- And because the other guy didn't come back on time--
- he came later, came later-- but he was hiding all night there.
- And the next day, he appeared.
- But it was too late already.
- And I happened to know that man, because I met him in Tel Aviv,
- in Israel.
- He probably will live with that guilt,
- or maybe not, I don't know.
- This is one experience that I will not forget.
- And well, then, one time--
- I'm going back to-- yeah, OK.
- When this was happening, while we were going to work,
- to these ironworks, they built also
- the barbed wires all around, a certain area of the old ghetto.
- That we used to call it the small ghetto.
- That was a concentration camp, because you couldn't get out,
- and there were guards all around.
- And we had to come to the gates every morning and go to work.
- And also, there were always--
- every factory used to send out their own guards.
- And we were just walking.
- When I came to that ghetto, and that is the only time--
- they allowed a sort of a Krankenstube.
- That's sort of a sick room.
- And if somebody was sick, we could get help.
- But if somebody was seriously sick,
- then we probably wouldn't be alive anymore.
- I remember that I had--
- when we used to come back-- now, I
- have to go back to when we used to go to the works,
- the iron works, when we used to come back, it was already dark.
- And then, we got our daily ration of bread.
- Of course, I remember the first time
- when I came back, I couldn't find anything,
- because I had a few shirts with me, I couldn't find anything.
- Everything was gone.
- Had probably stolen by some other fellows--
- not necessarily by guards or anything,
- they didn't want to touch it.
- So because of that stealing among each other,
- everybody ate the bread right away.
- Because nobody can steal it from your stomach.
- But that created situations where-- we had only one men's
- room, or one toilet.
- One toilet.
- And there was a long line-- we were on that,
- I would say, maybe 350 people, in this particular group.
- Because others worked on building, and building,
- and transporting machinery.
- I happened to be in a group that was
- borrowed by another company.
- And you can't imagine a line of people standing,
- and they had to relieve themselves, urinate.
- But some people just didn't want to wait,
- and they just urinated on the walls.
- And finally, we were almost sleeping in urine.
- It was terrible.
- There was nothing--
- And we were just like cattle, you know.
- As soon as we came from work, just inside.
- Go inside.
- And then, it was horrible.
- But then, it was a little better later when they built barracks.
- No, I'm sorry, that was even later than that.
- And I'll come to this.
- When they finished the barbed wire
- around that particular area in that city, we were taken back.
- And we received-- everyone received a room.
- Four people a room.
- Not normal apartment buildings, no, we got a room four people.
- We had to come to the appell every day.
- I still call it appell, that's the call roll.
- And go to work.
- And everyone had a different time, 6, 5 o'clock, 4 o'clock,
- depending how far we have to go.
- Until 1943.
- In 1943, there was--
- I don't know, you probably know about the ghetto, Warsaw ghetto
- uprising.
- And the special commandos starting to send out--
- I mean, special commandos came to almost every place,
- every bigger town that had these situations,
- these ghettos, to see if there isn't something going on.
- As a matter of fact, I was instructed
- by the Jewish underground--
- I don't know how you call it, partisans, or resistance--
- we had a very small resistance group.
- And I didn't know who belongs to that,
- except that I knew one person.
- And since we were going from that small ghetto, which
- I called, it's also with barbed wire,
- it's a concentration camp, in the area of the former ghetto--
- they said, today, you take a cartridge or two with you--
- cartridges.
- We made ammunitions in 792 ammunition,
- and we had to steal.
- And if they would catch us, you know what would happen--
- just like that.
- Just like one woman worked in [NON-ENGLISH]----
- they used to call it [NON-ENGLISH]..
- It is the department where they filled the cartridge cases
- with powder, and they put in the primer, or anything that
- is explosive was in a special area and was guarded.
- All the other machines were not guarded,
- because what-- you have this other machine
- punches, that's not important.
- But anything that had to do with powder,
- explosives, like the primers, it was guarded,
- inside and at the door.
- And there was a guard, and the bathrooms for the women--
- mostly women who worked, and they were checking machines--
- and they had very interesting machines,
- checking the cartridges.
- Was going around, and if something was wrong,
- it was just dropped into certain places.
- And she had an apron with pockets here.
- Evidently a cartridge fell into that.
- And when she was checked, they found--
- and the guard called the meister and he took out a gun.
- And within two minutes, she was dead.
- Just outside, in front of everybody.
- It was very serious.
- People were afraid to have.
- But when I was told to take home one or two cartridges,
- I was afraid not to take, because the underground,
- or the resistance group, they had guns, too.
- We didn't dare to resist any one of them.
- I didn't belong to that group.
- But I did what they told me to do.
- And one time, when we were standing
- to get out of the gates, somebody was going around--
- evidently, he had some connection
- with maybe some of the guards.
- Because you can probably get somebody to tell you,
- if you pay enough.
- And he told me, throw everything out.
- Throw everything out.
- Don't take anything.
- And we emptied.
- But then, they became-- the Germans became suspicious.
- So many cartridges found in all that place, among the grass.
- Probably we were watched very carefully.
- There was one particular-- one Jewish policeman that after--
- well, I come to that later, because it's no connection now.
- After the Warsaw ghetto uprising,
- they became suspicious.
- And they came-- sort of watched our ghetto, which is just--
- I still call it ghetto, but that's a concentration camp.
- And in order to continue that terror,
- so that we would be so horrified to do anything,
- they took out 600 people-- we were about 5,000 people-- they
- took out 600 people, just at random,
- you, you, you, come out.
- And I was among them.
- They took us to the trains, and we were
- supposed to go to Treblinka.
- I'm not sure if it was Treblinka, was that direction.
- I just show you where Treblinka was.
- Treblinka was outside Warsaw somewhere here.
- And we knew we were going this direction.
- That's somewhere where Treblinka was.
- So we pleaded with some people that
- was-- we were lucky that there were
- the boxcars had barbed wire.
- Evidently, it was because of the war-- it was sort of torn up,
- or what.
- We could break the barbed wire, and we tried to get out.
- There were six of us.
- And the other people that were there, they didn't let us.
- Because they said, with chalk, the guards used to write,
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]--
- means heads, like cattle.
- [GERMAN] is actually piece, but the meaning was so many heads.
- And they said, well, they know how many we are.
- If we'll be missing, if there will be some missing, then
- they will kill us.
- And we said, we are going to be dead anyway, so why not run?
- Well, at any rate, we had a fight with them,
- but we still got out.
- And there's a special way we were trained--
- I don't even know how it came about--
- that we were trained how to jump from a train.
- And we were told that if you want to jump from the train,
- as soon as you see the telegraph post, jump.
- Because if you wait, hesitate a second,
- you will jump into the post.
- And a lot were killed that way, too.
- There were a lot of incidents that people
- ran, or jumped from the trains.
- Well, we escaped.
- That was in February--
- February-- no, must have been--
- maybe it was February or March.
- I don't know.
- It must have been shortly after the Warsaw ghetto
- uprising, which was in March, or April, I don't remember.
- Well, at any rate, it was a winter, it was still cold.
- And we jumped out.
- And when we were walking through the woods, six of us,
- we were free, supposedly free.
- We were not in a concentration camp.
- We were not in any jail, or anything.
- And we walked.
- And then, we saw in a small village,
- we saw a poster that, for hiding a Jew, it is death penalty.
- For delivering a Jew, that's appealing
- to the Polish population, for delivering a Jew, to get 20--
- that means 20 pounds, 10 kilogram of sugar,
- and the clothes.
- Which meant a lot, because for a shirt, you could get a lot.
- Because everything was in short supply.
- And my God, that was a price for life, for a human life.
- And now, we didn't know what to do.
- We came into one farmer, and he says, for heaven's sake,
- just go away.
- I don't want to have anything to do with you,
- because I don't want to die.
- And we understood.
- He is honest, at least.
- I do would probably the same, if they would catch me.
- And there were a lot of people that were hanging.
- Not necessarily in this particular village,
- but in order to spread terror, these commandos,
- they usually picked up a few people
- in every small town and bigger town.
- In Lodz, there was a big-- the center of Lodz,
- there was a [NON-ENGLISH],, we used to call it--
- there were eight people hanging for weeks.
- Two weeks, they were blue, black--
- the bodies were black-- just to spread terror.
- So I'm not surprised that the farmers were afraid.
- But at least, when he was afraid-- here's some food,
- and just go away.
- Don't come back.
- And we used to sneak into the barn, and we used to sleep.
- And that was three nights like this.
- We came to one farmer, says, oh, yeah, come on in here.
- You will give you soup.
- And the meanwhile, he said something to his daughter,
- and she ran out the back yard.
- And we go, she's going to notify the police.
- And we better-- or we had--
- Finally, we realized that there is
- no way we can survive this way.
- There's nothing-- and we couldn't join the partisans,
- because this part of Poland, there was no partisans.
- There were no woods.
- There were a lot of woods here, forests.
- But nothing in here.
- It's mostly industrialized.
- Almost every few kilometers, you had another small town
- or village.
- There were no-- there was no--
- not enough security for partisans to be there.
- So we realized that we have to go back into that small ghetto
- that I call.
- And we had to--
- there was one that used to work for--
- that's the name of the company was Vulkan.
- Also there were-- they made also iron works, but smaller.
- They made these kind of cast iron, for some other,
- for the German industry.
- There was a specialized, they were
- considered professional, or trade people, good tradesmen.
- And he used to work there, so he knew exactly where
- they are passing by, since 5, 6 o'clock, It was already dark.
- So he used to stand there behind some one of the houses.
- And when they came, we used to jump out and pretend that we
- are relieving ourselves.
- So the guard said, yeah, get in, get in the line,
- get in the line.
- That's how we had to get back into the ghetto
- in order to survive.
- We couldn't survive outside.
- We were free, we escaped from the train, we couldn't survive.
- Well, then, shortly after that, we
- were all taken to the factory where we worked.
- They had barracks prepared, they brought the barracks
- from Germany, I believe, and they erected them.
- There was some of us erected them.
- And then, we never came back to where we used to live.
- And then, after a short while, we used to-- they prepared
- for us these striped--
- but we never wore them.
- Because for some reason, there were some delays,
- and we were liberated in January, January 1945.
- And just to illustrate how-- the policemen that
- worked with the Germans, Jewish policemen, because they
- couldn't handle all this.
- That was the art that the German had--
- they gave some privileges to some people,
- so that they could help them.
- And there are unfortunately-- there
- are a lot of them that were willing to do that.
- Even to the extent that they were beating us.
- And those that were really bad, they probably-- they
- didn't survive.
- And if somebody survived, I think
- he was taken care of after the war.
- As an example, we were--
- there was one that--
- I cannot say that I consider him a friend,
- but we were in a group.
- We were always talking together, we were sitting together,
- discussing things, if there was something to discuss.
- We even didn't dare to discuss politics, or anything,
- because there was no time.
- Either 12 hours work, then you have
- to stay in line-- stand in line for an hour
- to get some soup, food.
- And then, you get in, you're so tired,
- just sleep, and then get up again.
- And that was how it was, seven days.
- We had one day a year, we had free--
- I don't know when it was.
- Maybe it was some special holiday.
- So there was one that we would never suspect--
- he was going for one year, or two year college.
- And for us, for younger, like when
- I was 17-- the war began 17, I didn't even finish high school.
- I was going high school, was sort of small business college
- here.
- And I was supposed to finish that in one year.
- So he was sort of the educated one for us.
- And he spoke a nice German, too.
- Because he could-- in Poland, you
- could take any other language, foreign language.
- I took English.
- Maybe that's why I knew some English when I came here.
- And he, evidently, he took German.
- And when one time, we were counted, like the call roll,
- and evidently he didn't have where to go.
- There was a [NON-ENGLISH],, he was a sergeant.
- And he was sort of a little bit crippled.
- And for him, it was paradise, because he
- could do anything he wanted.
- I think that he was gay, too, because couple young boys, 15,
- 16, they suddenly they had these--
- that was the symbol of having some privileges.
- He had these high boots, you know, polished boots here.
- And he was kicking, and he was ordering around.
- Say, oh, my God, he probably is some sort of a special to that
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- [NON-ENGLISH],, was a sergeant, he was in charge of the guards.
- And the leader was a lieutenant, and I
- forgot his name, [? Lederer, ?] or something.
- Where he brought that fellow that I was talking about,
- he was sort of a college boy.
- He did not belong to our group, because at this time,
- I was in transport, group transport-- which
- means loading and unloading.
- Ammunition and what have you, unloading all machinery.
- And he brought them in, and the meister said,
- but he doesn't belong here.
- It's OK, let him stay here.
- We became suspicious.
- Because special treatment is not coming for nothing, you know.
- Nobody gets special treatment if he doesn't do anything for it.
- So because everybody started to shy away from him,
- he was no more useful for the authorities.
- Whoever he was working for.
- And one day, there was a hospital-- surprisingly
- as it may sound, because this was a forced labor camp.
- It was not a concentration camp as we know it, like Auschwitz,
- or Buchenwald, or Dachau.
- It was for the only purpose to work as much as you can.
- You cannot work anymore, than you are not [NON-ENGLISH]
- anymore, and go.
- And people were sick.
- And they were sick, and they had just some fever.
- Then it's OK.
- But if they were there more than a week--
- every week there was an inspection
- by some officers, or some special insignia.
- And I assume it would be some doctors there.
- Now, they used to go through--
- this, I know, because I had pneumonia.
- And the doctor wrote-- and that's
- how I learned the name of it, otitis.
- Otitis probably is inflammation, ear inflammation.
- I never had anything with the ears, but he plugged it up.
- And that's not the dangerous sickness,
- and I can still be a good worker.
- But pneumonia is something more serious.
- But somehow, I survived that.
- So what happened, if somebody was sick, or couldn't
- work anymore, they used to take them out every week
- and go to cemetery.
- And they used to pick up from our group, six
- people with shovels, and go with the truck
- and come back without those people.
- One time, that [NON-ENGLISH] took that college boy--
- I have to call him college boy to identify him--
- that he was an informer.
- And he took him, together with the sick people,
- and they dug a hole, and he told him to sit near--
- for some reason, some people in Europe
- believe that Jewish people are buried like this.
- Which is not true.
- He told them to get into the hole,
- and he plugged six bullets-- he shot him six times.
- And I think this is probably like--
- this is how every informer wound up.
- Whenever he was not needed anymore,
- or not bringing any information, he just got rid of him.
- They got rid of him.
- There's one more thing that I wanted to tell you about this,
- and I keep jumping back and forth.
- Maybe we can start a few questions,
- and then I can continue.
- Would you like to ask me a few questions?
- Anybody?
- How long were you in Tschenstochau?
- Well, I was liberated at Tschenstochau.
- And it was in January 15th, but I got out January 16th.
- And I came, as I said, in early '40s--
- 1940.
- All of that you ---
- Yes, during the whole war.
- But I went through all the periods
- of the gradual, gradual incarceration--
- Did you understand?
- Did you perceive yourself as a slave laborer, or a prisoner?
- No, slave.
- That was no prisoner.
- Prisoner for what?
- What crime did I commit?
- I was born Jewish, that was my crime.
- I didn't commit any crimes.
- We knew what was happening.
- We knew what was happening in other places.
- And we were fortunate.
- The reason we knew is that they were continuously bringing
- from other places people, because that factory needed--
- we had to work continuously to supply ammunition.
- And as a matter of fact, this was probably
- the only factory, or maybe more like this,
- they made ammunition, the cartridge cases,
- were made of steel.
- Then we covered it with shellac.
- They didn't have enough brass, evidently.
- When we were liberated, it was also
- a situation where it's sort of bizarre, I don't know.
- We knew that the war is going bad for the Germans,
- but we didn't know when--
- it takes only one second, politics.
- Because there was an uprising in Warsaw--
- so that was the uprising by the AKA--
- The Armia Krajowa, the Polish patriots.
- Was an uprising.
- And there was a lot of fighting in Warsaw.
- And they were hoping that the Russians will help them.
- They were just across, on the other side of Warsaw.
- But evidently, Stalin figured that these people
- that were fighting were very much anti-communist.
- So they just let them die and let them be taken prisoner.
- One of my good friends was a lieutenant.
- She is Jewish, but she--
- by the way, it was easy for women
- to say that they are not Jewish because there
- was no way of identification.
- She happened to speak Polish all the time.
- She never spoke Jewish.
- And she has blue eyes-- green eyes.
- That's why I said, it's not always that the looks are--
- that she was a lieutenant in that Polish army.
- So she was taken to Ravensbruck.
- And by the way, these people did not get any better treatment
- as Jewish prisoners of concentration camps.
- She was taken to Ravensbruck, and she
- had experimented-- she was experimented on,
- on tuberculosis.
- They injected tuberculosis, and until today, she
- has such a big--
- what's it-- I don't know how you call it--
- it's a big apple on it.
- She was a-- but she was taken not as a Jew,
- she was taken as a lieutenant of the uprising party,
- of the uprising army.
- And the Russians didn't do anything
- to help until it was all quieted down,
- then they started to move.
- And they started to move in November--
- I mean, in January 1945, was the big offensive.
- And I believe it took them two or three days to get--
- sort of a blitz, a counter blitz.
- They came to Tschenstochau.
- Tanks and everything.
- And here is the time-- the moment was so bizarre that they
- were taking out groups by the departments--
- with the machines.
- I was lucky that I was in the loading and unloading.
- So I had the right-- not the right, by design,
- I had to be to the last minute to load
- the machines and equipment.
- So they didn't touch our group.
- But other groups were taken to the trains,
- and they were taken to Germany.
- What happened Germany?
- Five-- [NON-ENGLISH],, Flossenburg, Buchenwald,
- all kinds of different places.
- I met some of them, only just a few that I met.
- I don't know how, if a lot of them survived or not.
- But chances were very slim.
- But the night of the 15th--
- the 15th-- the day, the 15th, we saw the German soldiers
- going the opposite direction.
- That means they are retreating.
- And we were happy-- well, now maybe the war is over.
- And then we suddenly-- we see, on trucks, troops
- going the other direction.
- So that's bad.
- It's very bad.
- But then, some planes started to bomb the plant.
- But maybe it was just a single plane--
- maybe they didn't have--
- we couldn't know what it is.
- So at noon, about noon, we were all
- gathered in one big place where we usually
- gather for the call roll.
- And they said to take with us all the belongings
- that we have.
- They are going to take us to the train.
- OK, then we waited.
- There were no trains available--
- no boxcars available.
- So we waited, and then after two or three hours,
- they said, OK, go back to the barracks.
- Don't [? go ?] up, stay in the barracks.
- Stay in the barracks.
- And we could hear artillery guns from away,
- I don't know how far, I couldn't judge.
- We knew that it's now the final day, day or two.
- And then, late afternoon, we saw that all the brass--
- I learned this word here, the brass,
- the high-ranking officers, and all the others-- they took--
- they didn't have cars, even.
- They took these buggies, beautiful buggies and horses,
- with their suitcases, and they were running out
- to some sort of maybe other places
- where they could be transported away from the front.
- And only the guards were left, mostly Ukrainian guards,
- and a few German guards.
- Among them was Stieglitz, that I said, that sergeant, and also
- the lieutenant, the head of the guards.
- He was a good person--
- he never hit anyone, he never beat anyone up.
- And sort of, we trusted him.
- I can't explain how it comes about that you trust one
- and you don't trust the other.
- If he doesn't beat you, and you know that he is not
- doing it in spite--
- You see, when somebody has power, authority,
- he can use the authority only what he has to do.
- But if somebody is abusing the power,
- he will beat you and kick you, and try
- to show that he's powerful, right?
- He was not that person.
- But still, he was the head of Werkschutz.
- So at 5 o'clock, 5 or 6 o'clock, was late.
- It was getting dark, and it's very dark.
- We were in the section where the barracks were all barbed wire,
- and there were two gates.
- One gate was always locked with heavy chains, and everything,
- we couldn't get out.
- And that was the gate-- was very close to the railroad.
- And the main gate was to the factory.
- So we were gathered, and there were maybe
- eight or 10 Ukrainian Werkshutzes and two or three
- German guards, including the lieutenant--
- the head of the guards.
- And he said, well, we have to get out to get to the trains.
- Let's start moving.
- And nobody moves.
- I can swear that we didn't talk to each other.
- It was so quiet.
- We didn't know what-- we didn't make any strategy,
- we didn't plan anything.
- But nobody moved.
- Just there.
- And because the first few seconds nobody moved,
- it spread like lightning.
- We don't move, we stay here.
- There were about 3,000 of us.
- Well, we were standing there.
- But they had machine guns, pointed
- like this, all the time.
- I think-- now, when I analyze after so many years,
- I think that they were more scared than we were.
- Come to think of it, they were more scared.
- But nobody wanted to face machine guns--
- you know, submachine guns they were pointed at you.
- Not at this point, when you hear artillery guns.
- And he used to tell us, well, we have to go--
- we have to leave.
- Open the other gates.
- Because everybody was sort of pushed into that corner
- where the other gate was.
- Which was the other end of the whole complex of the barracks.
- And to open the gate that leads to the train.
- And he said, he told us to open the gate.
- We said, it's locked.
- We can't.
- Bring the hammer, or whatever.
- Well, somebody brought it, you know, and we couldn't open it.
- And it was, of course, on purpose.
- Whoever was on purpose, could not.
- We can't open it.
- So he said, let's go the other way.
- Nobody moves.
- And there was a silence of--
- I don't know, probably wasn't 100 years silence,
- but it was probably more than five minutes silence.
- And nobody moves.
- Suddenly he says, [SPEAKING GERMAN]----
- children, don't be afraid.
- It will be much, but we are going to Germany,
- it will be much better for you than with the communists,
- with the Russians.
- And he started to plead with us to go with him.
- And it's just like a lightning struck-- when he said,
- [GERMAN], we started to run.
- But not to run to the trains, but to run
- to the place in the factory where
- everybody knew where to hide.
- And I knew a lot of places, because I worked almost
- every place in the factory.
- The first thing I did is I was hiding among the empty boxes,
- you know, that they loaded ammunition.
- And everybody.
- Well, but somehow, they managed to get through the gate
- and stop everybody.
- And they managed to get out most of the people,
- except for there was one group that they managed to load
- on trains, a train came by.
- And there was another group that my wife happened
- to be in that group, that they were taking 300 people,
- were taking also to the other train.
- And there was one person that happened to live in born in --
- He says, if you want to save yourself, just jump.
- There will be a little bridge.
- Jump from that bridge.
- And maybe 10 or 12 people jumped, including my wife,
- her sister, and they jumped.
- Nobody would look-- I believe that even if the guards would
- see, they wouldn't do anything.
- They wouldn't probably shoot.
- But we were still scared, a lot scared.
- But they survived this way.
- What happened to the 300 people and all the others,
- we don't know.
- We met some of these people later.
- So probably a nice percentage survived, because it
- was the end of the war.
- But the ones that we were hiding--
- oh, I don't know enough, maybe it
- was 400, 500 people, that we were hiding, different places.
- And then, of course, we could see,
- we could hear the tanks running through the city.
- We knew that it's the end.
- There are no Germans anymore, and no.
- And there was one person--
- he was a principal in a school, a Jewish prisoner,
- prisoner-- inmate, concentration camp inmate.
- He organized a group, he says, OK, now we are free.
- Let's go out.
- But the Polish resistance had already occupied
- the factory-- the plant.
- They had guards already.
- They were, most of them were firefighters.
- But of course, the firefighters were automatically
- resistance fighters.
- They had already rifles, everything,
- they were manning the gates.
- And they didn't let them out.
- They said, they pleaded with them, the war
- is going on outside.
- There is shooting in the streets.
- You'll be killed.
- And I remember, he said, because I also wanted to get out--
- he said, what do you mean?
- We were five years, we were in prison,
- or four years in prison by the Germans,
- now you want us to keep it?
- No, just open it.
- Of course, they opened the gates.
- And out of the 12, they found quite a few dead outside, not
- far from that plant.
- Because I believe that if I would
- be a Russian soldier, or even a German, anything that moves,
- you shoot it.
- It's just at night, fighting.
- So that's how we--
- I remember, we went into the houses where the Germans--
- we left all the complex where we used
- to be for two or three years.
- We left and we went to the outside--
- not outside the whole complex, but outside the factory,
- where the Germans officials or meisters used to live.
- And I got drunk because there was some vodka,
- and I got drunk.
- And I was sleeping off all the way to the morning.
- The morning, I got up-- already tanks, Russian tanks
- here and there.
- I want to tell you one thing that--
- I told you some atrocities of what
- some individual Germans did.
- And that's maybe 1,000th of a fraction of what I could tell
- you.
- But I must mention that, also--
- the director of HASAG was Lidt--
- his name, L-I-D-T. The reason I remember is because sometimes
- there were some announcements, and he was the [INAUDIBLE]..
- I remember, they brought--
- when they liquidated that small ghetto, and we were brought in,
- there were maybe 25 youngsters--
- 13, 14 years old.
- And according to Degenhardt, which
- was the captain of Gestapo, or SS, Gestapo,
- I really honestly don't know, he was in a uniform,
- was Gestapo uniform, I don't know.
- But he was the one responsible for the evacuation,
- for everything.
- He says, he wanted to take the 25 kids with him,
- because they are not at the age, they are not--
- he told him, he happened to be that Lidt
- was a member of the Reichstag, like congressman.
- And he said, [SPEAKING GERMAN]--
- I need these youngsters, I need these men, or [INAUDIBLE],,
- the [NON-ENGLISH].
- And he saved these boys.
- Many of them survived.
- And normally, they did not allow anyone
- that is 14 or 13 years old to survive.
- They were sent to Treblinka, or other places.
- But in all this mixing up, mix up some 25 got through.
- And then, the Gestapo came, or SS, they came,
- and they wanted to get them out.
- And he didn't let them.
- This is one incident that, at least, that--
- I don't know that you--
- I don't want you to accept it as I'm not defending anyone.
- I'm accusing.
- But I want to be honest with myself, is
- that not everyone was a Nazi.
- And I could feel it.
- I had demonstrated that before, with that soldier,
- and this is a man that defied the authority of SS
- and he said, no, I need these youngsters.
- At one time, when we were so hungry
- and they were-- of course, that was an everyday occurrence,
- but he happened to be there.
- There were two big--
- how do you call that?
- Big pots, huge pots, like--
- it looks more like garbage cans.
- That's what-- pardon me?
- Cauldron?
- Kettle?
- Yeah, kettle, but no, big, huge ones,
- they were cooking in that.
- We used to get the soup.
- Now, everybody wants to be the first.
- Because if they didn't have enough,
- you just didn't get anything.
- So it's natural that it was chaos,
- they were pushing each other.
- So he, that Lidt, that particular person,
- he was the director, he started to yell
- and to shout to stand in line.
- Nobody listened.
- If you're hungry, you don't care.
- He took out a gun, and any other person would shoot at people.
- He was shooting at the floor, at the-- well, at the ground.
- He didn't shoot anyone.
- He didn't shoot anyone.
- I don't know if that was true, but somebody
- said he committed suicide at the end of the war.
- There was another incident when I was loading--
- loading and unloading some machinery and equipment.
- And I was always watching-- that was a gate that usually opened,
- that led to the quarters where the guards were.
- And at this time, SS took over, already.
- The last six months, the SS took over the camp.
- Before, they were the Ukrainians,
- and then the SS took over.
- And they had a big, huge dog, nice German shepherd.
- And they used to-- they used to give him food.
- And they used to give him-- they had two or three pots of food.
- And he was eating, and probably he had enough.
- And I was looking at that food, and I worked so hard,
- and I was so hungry, I couldn't think
- of anything else but food.
- Finally, I decided-- we always carried, by the way,
- we always carry that can with us, a little can.
- Because when they give soup, can't take hot soup
- in your hands.
- So that was a must, otherwise you
- can't live very long without it.
- So I always carried it.
- And I was ready.
- And once I decided, what the heck, I'm going to die anyway.
- I don't want to starve dying.
- Let either the dog or SS man will stop me.
- And I grabbed this ready, and I jumped,
- and I emptied it, and came back.
- And nothing happened.
- And I had food.
- And you know what else?
- Meat, and barley, and meat, and such good food.
- Probably that lasts for about a month to keep me going.
- My God, was-- you didn't realize that you risk your life,
- but I had food.
- How many of your family survived?
- Pardon me?
- How many members of your family survived?
- We were eight.
- We are three now.
- Right.
- When did you realize that Treblinka and Auschwitz
- were serious death camps that they turned out to be?
- Well, Treblinka, there were always some people
- that managed to escape.
- I don't know how.
- But I can tell you another escape
- that I made-- there is Skarzysko-Kamienna,
- there's also a suburb somewhere from Warsaw
- that belonged to HASAG, too.
- And they used to make ammunition with some--
- they used to call it [NON-ENGLISH]..
- I'm not sure, that's an explosive that is yellow.
- Everybody looked yellow.
- It's-- what is it, TNT?
- Would it be, or maybe a different?
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- And when I was taken there--
- I remember I told you, there was a period of time when they used
- to order so many people, when I was in Tschenstochau
- before the ghetto, and I was taken to that camp,
- to Skarzysko.
- And I came there, and I saw people are yellow.
- I say, what's going on?
- That was in early 1941.
- It was still-- it was still as bad as it was.
- I mean, a lot of people were in concentration camps,
- but there were still ghettos that somehow if you managed
- to be within the ghetto, not to get out,
- you didn't face any danger.
- Except maybe hunger.
- And I got in there.
- And they said, I had to--
- I don't know, the cartridge cases were that high.
- I think it's 20mm--
- whatever that material was, it was very bad.
- Because people were yellow.
- And I started to look for places to escape,
- since I had some experience of escaping from the first camp,
- I found a place in the fence and I got out.
- And to my surprise, I didn't have any difficulty
- to get to a train and to get back.
- And I didn't need money.
- People didn't need money for it-- you just--
- I was under, over, I used to ride on one locomotive.
- Or where they have the open locomotive,
- and they have a little place in the back where the coal--
- used to just lay down on it until I came to destination.
- It was no problem to travel by train.
- You are hiding.
- I mean, up to a certain point, I think in 1940, or '41,
- it was not so bad.
- But later came all--
- no place where Jews officially could live,
- except concentration camps.
- So it was a little bit more difficult.
- Well, I don't know.
- I think I could--
- We've potentially run out of time.
- I'd like to thank Jacob for coming and relating
- his experiences with us.
- We do have time for more questions,
- but some of these people are in the class, some are not,
- and I know they have to drift off to other activities.
- And thank you very much.
- [APPLAUSE]
- Thank you.
Overview
- Interview Summary
- Jacob Freier describes his views on the origins of the Holocaust; being taken with others to clean trucks for two days; returning home (Łódź, Poland); being given soup surreptitiously by one of the SS officers; having to evacuate to the ghetto on various occasions; the shooting of 80 Jews in the ghetto; his middle class family being deported to a textile factory on the Czech border; later being taken to Chancelehow (phonetic spelling); being chosen with his brother to work in the mines; the death of his mother, sister, and brother on August 22, 1942; his work in the ghetto; his Kapo, who was responsible for him corning and going to work; meeting Jewish resistance forces; the brutality increasing after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; being selected for deportation to Treblinka; jumping from the train with others; hiding in barns; sneaking back into the ghetto; being liberated January 1945; and his escape from the Skarzysko ghetto.
- Interviewee
- Jacob Freier
- Date
-
interview:
1982 June
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 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
- Topical Term
- Escapes. Forced labor. Hanging--Poland. Hiding places--Poland. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Jewish ghettos--Poland. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Poland. Jews--Persecutions--Poland. Jews--Poland--Łódź. Kapos. Mass murder--Poland--Łódź. Massacres--Poland--Łódź. Miners. Shooting (Execution)--Poland. World War, 1939-1945--Conscript labor. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland. Men--Personal narratives.
- Personal Name
- Freier, Jacob.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
University of Wisconsin-River Falls
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Jacob Freier was conducted in June 1982 by the University of Wisconsin, River Falls in conjunction with a summer teacher's workshop taught at the school. The video contains a spoken testimony in front of an audience followed by a question and answer session filmed in the university's TV studio. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the testimony in October 1993.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:08:52
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512454
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