Oral history interview with Henry Sarna
Transcript
- Yeah.
- OK.
- We're fine.
- We can go ahead and go.
- Oh, good.
- Please state your name, birth date, and place of birth.
- My name is Henry Sarna.
- The Jewish name is Chaim.
- Born 7-7-1922 in Bialystok, Poland.
- What memories do you have of your family before the war?
- Well, members of my family--
- I come of a family of four brothers, no sisters,
- and Mother and Father.
- My father worked as a bookkeeper.
- My mother took care of the house.
- And we went to school, didn't go to college, or high school.
- Was like a middle class family.
- We enjoyed life.
- We felt anti-Semitism in the city where I was born,
- but not really too hard because it was a 50/50 population.
- There was 120,000 people, which 60,000
- was Jewish and 60,000 non-Jews.
- It was a Jewish life in Bialystok, two yeshivas.
- What anti-Semitism did you encounter as a youth
- before the war?
- Well, I was young then.
- But to encounter anti-Semitism, I was beaten up once as a Jew
- from a couple of Polish boys, which I
- gave a little bit in them, too.
- I were not the type to give in so easy.
- Then when I was a little older I remember
- that I had to go to a school, to learn a trade school,
- to learn a trade.
- And we had to get up in the morning,
- stand up in the morning to get up
- with the rest of the students, and sing
- a song, a religious song, a Christian religious song.
- And being Jewish, you had no choice but you had to do it.
- And the teacher, the way he spoke about Poland,
- most of the time when we had a political hour,
- he spoke about Palestine and we have
- problems with the Jewish people because their birth
- rate is high.
- In a nice way, he didn't come out so straight.
- So the anti-Semitism was blooming even
- in a cultural and educational people,
- which knew a little bit more about Jewishness
- than a plain person.
- Were you or members of your family
- involved in Zionist Organizations.
- Yes, me myself, I was involved, the Zionist organization
- from Hashomer Hatzair, which is a little left-oriented.
- And I grew up in this organization,
- with this organization.
- Which I started to be a little guy,
- they called it [NON-ENGLISH],, went all the way up until
- the war.
- And my father was a member of Poale Zion.
- He was an active member because he believed in Zionism.
- I followed his footsteps.
- Our family did believe in Zionism, let's say it this way.
- Given the amount of anti-Semitism and the fear
- of Hitler, did you ever entertain
- the thoughts of going to settle in Palestine?
- The thoughts were in the family.
- But going was a different story.
- It wasn't so easy to pick yourself up and go.
- What were the difficulties?
- The difficulties was family ties, very much so.
- Because I guess I can remember, my family
- amounted to about maybe 70 or 75 people,
- which I had three uncles and two aunts and my mother.
- And they all were married and had families.
- And they spoke about migrating.
- But when you have a family, you're
- settled for so many hundreds of years,
- you really didn't think about it,
- that you should get up and go.
- Me myself, because I belonged to Hashomer Hatzair,
- I had different ideas about going to Israel.
- But circumstances didn't come up that I should
- get up and migrate to Israel.
- What were your thoughts or the thoughts of your family
- as Hitler was getting stronger in Germany,
- in the early '30s before the war broke out?
- The thought was that another anti-Semite came up to power.
- And we thought of this, first as he came up,
- this first is going to fall down.
- But it didn't happen.
- What memories do you have when the Germans first
- entered your town?
- How old were you?
- When the Germans entered my town, I was--
- it was September 1939.
- I was 17 years old, a little over 17.
- They marched in very much power with machine guns,
- which we never see machine guns, brand new motorcycles.
- They bombed the railway, a few more places with planes.
- It was a chaos.
- And as soon as they marched in, they
- took over the middle of the town.
- And in our house, I remember, we had a lot of cigarettes.
- And I'll tell you a tiny little story.
- When I went to the middle of the town
- to ask a German soldier he should give me bread
- because we were short on bread, short on food in 1939
- for the cigarettes, he says get away,
- you Jew, and took this the bag net and put in my rear end.
- And when I had to go to the hospital they called
- the hospital Świętego Rocha, it's
- a Polish name, the Holy Roch, the Dr. Fedorowicz
- which was the then doctor on duty said,
- I'm the first casualty from the German army in Bialystok.
- They fixed me up.
- And it hurted for a while.
- That was it.
- But I was surprised that the German army was so powerful
- when they marched in 1939.
- I understand that the Russians also invaded Bialystok.
- After a week, but the German army was a week in Bialystok.
- They hung, I think 7 or 10 people,
- which they wanted to go and get some sugar or something.
- And they wanted to show an example
- for the people, which was some of them were Jewish
- and some Polish.
- And everybody was scared to death right away.
- Because we knew that they meant business.
- So we stayed at home and waited for the Germans to go.
- Because we heard through the news
- that the Russian army eventually, any day,
- will march in.
- So the Russian army marched in November the 17th, 1939.
- It happened-- the war started--
- when did the war start, in September?
- So a month later, they marched in.
- And the Germans came back.
- The Germans, no.
- When the Russians marched in and the Germans marched out,
- this I'll never forget.
- At the middle of the town, they saluted each other.
- The Germans gave their salute, the military,
- the fascistic salute.
- And the Russians gave their Bolshevik salute.
- And it was funny to see that the fascism and communism on one
- street salute each other.
- Was in 1939.
- This was part of an agreement between the Nazis
- and the Russians.
- Nazis and the Russians, right.
- But in 1941, the Germans returned.
- In 1941, the Germans attacked Russia, 22 of June.
- And as soon as they attacked Russia,
- everything was destroyed around Bialystok.
- Because they attacked very fast.
- So me and two brothers of mine said to the family,
- the younger brother stayed home, that we have to run away.
- The father didn't want to go.
- Mother didn't want to go.
- So we picked ourselves up and we marched by foot.
- I understand that you thought of joining the resistance.
- What happened?
- This was later.
- When we couldn't go any farther, we
- went to a town, they call it Volkovysk, which is about,
- I would say, maybe 50 or 60 miles from Bialystok.
- And when the German army--
- they used to call it the [NON-ENGLISH],, a ring fight,
- which they took over Minsk before they took over
- Bialystok.
- They captured hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers.
- So we turned around.
- We saw we can't go any further.
- We came back home.
- When we came back home, all the trouble started.
- There was talk about a ghetto, no food.
- And we were ready to move.
- We moved.
- We lived out of the-- well, it was a mixed population,
- a mixed neighborhood.
- And when they told us we have to move into the ghetto,
- we had to find a place.
- Where we found a place, we had to carry everything
- on our shoulders, because there was no horse
- and buggy and no trucks.
- It took a couple of days.
- And they made the ghetto.
- And we stayed in the ghetto.
- Describe life in that ghetto.
- Life in that ghetto was miserable
- because they took you out to work, especially the young.
- They didn't pay you any at all, no money.
- They only gave you some food.
- Sometimes they gave you a little bit of soup.
- Sometimes they gave you a loaf of bread.
- And the places where you worked, they used to beat you up.
- You had to wear the Star of David.
- And you couldn't walk on the sidewalk.
- You had to walk on the street.
- If you would have been killed or a dog would have been killed,
- they paid the same penalty for killing a dog
- by truck or by car or a Jew.
- And they had another deal.
- If they catch you, they put you by the wall,
- and they take a little hammer, and hit
- you, not hard, hit you right in the center of your head.
- They used to call it the Judische
- Schande, the Jewish shame.
- What did you do in the ghetto?
- In the ghetto, the first job what I had is I
- worked because I was a auto mechanic.
- First job I had, I worked for the SS,
- not far from the railroad station.
- We'd start at 7 o'clock.
- We worked till we finished 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock night.
- No payment for it, except food.
- And we came late from work.
- When we came to the ghetto, my wife was very kosher.
- And my wife-- my mother, excuse me.
- My mother was very kosher.
- She didn't want to eat her food.
- She suffered a lot because she knew it wasn't kosher food.
- Did you see any executions by the SS firsthand?
- No.
- What I saw is, where I worked as a mechanic, when they send out
- trucks to check to get the cattle onto trucks
- and bring them to Bialystok and make
- salami and bologna and all kinds of stuff,
- sent it to the front line.
- Some of the trucks came back.
- They were all beaten up and shot up.
- Because they already mentioned that there was guerrillas,
- partisans in the forests.
- That was in 1941, fighting the Germans.
- In 1943, your family was removed from the ghetto.
- Do you remember the circumstances?
- Yeah, I remember it very well.
- My father was a volunteer fireman.
- So because he was a volunteer fireman,
- they let him for the last ones to be in the ghetto.
- And when everybody was gone, they told us we have to move,
- too.
- So they took us to a place which there was a Jewish high school,
- put us in a big place.
- And they told us we have to wait for transportation
- to send us to a labor camp.
- We stayed there, I think, two days and two nights
- without food.
- They didn't give us no food.
- It was raining.
- It was terrible.
- Shooting was going on.
- But we didn't know what was happening.
- There was shooting going on between the Jewish underground
- with the Germans, we don't know.
- The day came when they told us we have
- to go to the railroad station.
- When we came to the railroad station, they took the women
- and put them in different cars.
- And the men in the front of the train.
- At that time, when we started rolling,
- when we came to Treblinka, which was not far from Bialystok,
- they unhooked the cars from the women
- and pushed them back in Treblinka camp.
- And we kept on going, me and my father and three brothers.
- We went--
- Where was everyone taken?
- My mother was left in Treblinka.
- And we were taken to Majdanek Lublin.
- In Lublin, they gave us entlausung.
- And they gave us some clothes, there, clothes.
- And they told us they're going to send us to different camps.
- I was together with my father and the three brothers.
- And I said now is the time that each person
- from our family, each member of our family
- should go separate ways.
- Because who knows whether we're going to survive it.
- And my father said, may he rest in peace, he said,
- we're going to stick together.
- The family is going to stay together.
- And I picked myself up and asked for a mechanic.
- I said, I'm a mechanic.
- And they took me out from Lublin.
- And they sent me to Blizyn.
- What happened to my family is, as you know,
- it's written in my testament.
- You want me to say it, what was happening?
- When I was in Blizyn in 1944, there
- was rumors that the camp in Majdanek, in Lublin
- was destroyed.
- But we only heard rumors because we couldn't listen to the news.
- We didn't get no newspapers.
- So one day, because the camp in Blizyn was making boxes,
- wooden boxes for the military to carry ammunition.
- So they used to come from Lublin.
- Because they had a lot of forests in Lublin, logs
- for the boxes, large logs.
- In one log was written in Yiddish, burned out with a rod,
- hot rod, that this and this day the Germans came into the camp,
- closed the camp.
- Didn't let nobody out from the barracks.
- It was written on the log.
- And whoever wanted to get out was shot
- and whoever stayed in the barracks
- was put up gasoline around the barracks and burned to death.
- This I know, because I ask a lot of questions about my family
- after the war, if anybody heard that my father and the three
- brothers maybe went to another camp or something.
- And this what happen.
- They said they never heard.
- That means that my father and my three brothers
- died in Lublin in the camp.
- You were then taken to Auschwitz.
- Describe your first day there.
- Well, when we came to Auschwitz by
- train, and there was shooting going on, too when
- we were going with the train.
- They said that Polish guerrillas wanted to take over the train,
- but they couldn't do it because there were so many Germans
- with machine guns.
- When we came to Auschwitz, they entlassen us and they
- told us to go into the barrack.
- I was not long in Auschwitz.
- I was only 48 hours.
- And the next day, they told us to go out on appell.
- And we stayed in line.
- And we got a number tattooed on our arm.
- And when they asked me if I'm a mechanic, I'm a mechanic again.
- And they told me that not far from Auschwitz there is a labor
- camp by the name of [NON-ENGLISH],,
- in which they are constructing a refinery of synthetic coal,
- gasoline from coal.
- And they need mechanics.
- So as soon as I put up my hand, they took me.
- Of course, I went to Auschwitz.
- I went to the crematorium, which was visible.
- You could see that they used to put dead trees, not dead,
- they just put branches around the fence.
- Did you know what was happening at Auschwitz when you arrived?
- I know that we're going to be goners.
- We could smell the corpses burned, too.
- But the only chance which you had
- is to get away from Auschwitz.
- And I said I'm a mechanic.
- And they needed a mechanic in [NON-ENGLISH],, and I went.
- Even being in [NON-ENGLISH],, which is, I don't know,
- maybe 20 miles from Auschwitz or 30 miles,
- some days when the wind was blowing to the right direction,
- you could smell the smell of burning flesh and bones.
- And in this camp in [NON-ENGLISH],,
- which I worked as a mechanic, God forbid if you get sick.
- You shouldn't get sick.
- If you get sick, there used to come a special ambulance,
- take you away to Auschwitz.
- And you came in the crematorium and out through the chimney.
- And this is the way.
- We lived with that for almost a year.
- I worked with Russian POWs where to build the chutes.
- When the coal went in, from chutes
- used to go and crush it and then put it another process,
- another process.
- And then the synthetic gasoline supposed to come out.
- So Italian prisoners worked in the mines,
- which were the coal mines, which was almost at the same place.
- And Russian soldiers and us used to put the mechanical work
- together, the chutes, and all kind of stuff.
- As the Red Army approached camps such as Auschwitz,
- the Germans started marching off inmates of such camps
- toward the West, to camps in Germany.
- These, of course, were called death marches.
- You survived one of these infamous death marches.
- Please describe what the death march was like.
- Well, what happened is one day when we were in [NON-ENGLISH],,
- we saw three planes parked not far from camp.
- And a rumor was going on that the front is very close.
- And that was night.
- All of a sudden, next morning they woke us up very early.
- Appell, everybody should be on the place
- to check us, how many we are.
- And we have to evacuate the camp, they said.
- So I was lucky enough.
- I went into the kitchen and got some sugar, which helped me out
- to stay alive.
- And they started us to take us by foot.
- We walked by foot from the camp to Gleiwitz.
- And we had no food, just walk.
- These weak ones which couldn't walk, after all, no food,
- you didn't have enough strength, even if you're young.
- When they stepped off the march, they
- were shot right in front of us, on both sides of the highway.
- So we had no choice to keep on going.
- We went into a barn once at night to sleep over.
- They kept us under guard.
- We found some potatoes.
- We were lucky to find some potatoes.
- They helped out.
- And next morning when we got up, they
- told us we have to march again.
- So we started marching.
- A motorcycle came back and said the Russians are
- only 3 or 4 kilometers from us.
- So they told us turn around.
- Go that a-way.
- So we went that a-way, until we found a railroad station.
- They told us to get on the trains, open cattle trains.
- And they started us carrying, Austria, Germany, Austria,
- Czechoslovakia.
- And this train, I'll tell you one episode which
- is important to know, that the way the Germans
- were so sadistic, the soldiers.
- And going by train, they stopped once in a while the train.
- So some of our people, the Jewish people, the young guys
- figured they have a choice now to disappear, escape.
- The Germans didn't pay attention to them.
- So they jumped off the open car, went down, especially
- places when the train was on the lower part
- and it was like a little hill on top, a wild place, you know.
- And the person started walking up
- the hill, weak, with this uniform from the concentration
- camp.
- And the Germans stayed and waited
- until they let him come up all the way up to the top.
- Then they shot him and they rolled down.
- And this was going on steady, like a play.
- And we were scared to death to do anything.
- But I found once a way to escape.
- When we were in Czechoslovakia, and my friends from Bialystok,
- we were all together.
- And we said that we're going to jump tonight, jump the train.
- Because the train was going empty open, winter time 1944.
- Was very cold, no food.
- So the only way was to jump and maybe we
- can join the partisans, Czech underground.
- I spoke to a few guys from my home town.
- And they said we'll do it.
- I found myself--
- I pushed myself back to the wall of the car, the railroad car.
- And I fell asleep.
- When I got up and I started calling names,
- where is Josef, where is Moshe, where is Chaim,
- they had jumped.
- And I was all by myself.
- All my friends jumped.
- So I said who wants to jump?
- Who wants to run away?
- I had a Hungarian fellow, very tall guy.
- It's in the testament, very tall guy.
- He said I'll jump with you.
- So we had to watch the way you have to jump.
- Because you can't jump straight into the telephone
- pole because you're dead.
- And the train was going 40, 45 miles an hour.
- But we knew what we supposed to do.
- Between two cars was machine guns, one against each other.
- And then in the middle of the two cars,
- you could go off, stay on the little platform steel platform,
- and just watch that the Germans shouldn't see you and jump.
- And not to jump at the telephone pole.
- Anyways, this guy is a Hungarian Jew,
- must have weighed about 250 pounds, very strong fellow.
- He said I'll jump first because I'm older than you.
- He was in the 30s.
- But I told him I'm going to jump first.
- No, he says.
- I'm like your father.
- I'm going to jump first.
- And he said the Jewish saying [HEBREW]..
- We both jumped over.
- They didn't see us.
- And we stayed on the platform.
- He jumped first and they opened up machine gun on him.
- Then I jumped.
- And I jumped and I fell down.
- And I thought I'm dead because I was shot
- in the nose, shot in the head.
- When I came to my senses and washed myself off
- with the snow, I started looking for my buddy, the one that
- jumped.
- So I had to walk, maybe, I don't know, a couple hundred feet.
- I went over to him.
- He was still alive.
- But his guts was all out because they
- shot him right in the stomach.
- And he was a strong man.
- He says help me, help me.
- I said I can't help you.
- I'm a little guy.
- I'm hungry.
- I'll try to get some help if I can.
- So I helped him out.
- I lifted up his head.
- And I gave him some snow in his mouth, washed his face off,
- covered his guts.
- And I started walking back.
- Where the train was going this way,
- I was walking the opposite way.
- But I came close to a bridge.
- I saw a German soldier on the bridge.
- I said to myself, uh oh.
- I can't go.
- So what did I do?
- I went over the railroad tracks on the other side
- and started going straight ahead, at the fields.
- Maybe I'll find somebody who's going
- to help my friend that is wounded and help me out,
- at least give me a little bit of food
- because we hadn't been eating for days.
- Water we could have, from the snow.
- So I walked and I walked and I walked.
- And then I walked in-- in Europe,
- they have these crows which are gray and black and white.
- They're big.
- They're not in the States.
- A crow in Europe is maybe, I would say, about two feet long.
- I stepped on one because they were sleeping already.
- It was started getting night.
- And when they came up and started screaming, wah, wah,
- wah, I thought I stepped on a hand grenade.
- I thought I'm dead again.
- My heart fell out.
- I walked another couple--
- maybe a kilometer or two, went into a little village.
- And it started getting light.
- So I went into--
- they have the straw in Europe up on the attic,
- they put it away in the barn, out of the house.
- And it was a ladder.
- And I walked up and covered myself to sleep over at night.
- Because what am I going to go, it's night.
- I don't know where I am.
- But maybe 6 o'clock in the morning,
- I heard talks in Czech.
- The lady said you sweeped up the floor.
- And look at it, it's full of straw.
- Because when I walked up, some straw fell down.
- He said it might be a animal.
- I'm going to go up and check it.
- So he went up.
- And he pulled the straw away.
- And he saw a face, blood, you know,
- wounded to my head, my nose and hungry and cold.
- So he starts speaking in Czech [CZECH]..
- And I understand Czech, because Polish is--
- Polish, Russian, Czech is--
- you can communicate.
- So I told him I ran away from the Germans
- and please give me some food.
- And I won't stay here.
- I'll go away.
- I'm going to try to hide.
- So he goes over to the door.
- And said the same thing I said to him, he said to his wife.
- And his wife said no.
- Get him out.
- Because if the Germans will find him--
- excuse me-- they'll burn down the house with the barn,
- with us.
- So they pushed me out from the barn.
- It was already daylight.
- And I couldn't go nowhere.
- So I walked a little farther.
- And in Europe, they have--
- it looks like little homes.
- They put a straw and they put a big post in the middle.
- And they put a straw around it.
- And they keep it for winter time to take it for the horses.
- So I went in one of them.
- And I stayed there.
- And I wanted to get concentrated what I'm going to do.
- I stayed.
- And I watched.
- It was very quiet.
- And maybe a few feet away was another home, a bigger home.
- I figured maybe I'll go in there and I
- can steal some food or maybe somebody
- can help me with some food.
- Because I was almost starving, cold.
- When I went into that house in the kitchen, started
- looking into the cabinets if I can find some food,
- there was a Czech lady with a child on her hand.
- As soon as she saw me, she started screaming a murderer
- is in my house!
- A bandit is in my house!
- Help!
- Help!
- Because I looked like one because I was full of blood.
- She opened up the window.
- And Sturmabteilung from the brown uniforms
- came in, brown uniform with a black tie.
- And he said-- when she started screaming,
- I ran out through the door.
- And I started running.
- Because I didn't want to get caught from the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- SA.
- I ran, I don't know, maybe 100 feet.
- Deep snow, because it was a cold winter.
- So I didn't see his face.
- I just ran.
- All of a sudden, I hear [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Stop because I'm going to shoot.
- So he shot a few times with his revolver.
- [NON-ENGLISH], hand up.
- So I figured maybe I still have maybe a chance,
- maybe I'll be alive.
- I'll run.
- He'll shoot me.
- So he told me to turn back.
- And I came over to him.
- And he said where are you from.
- I told him I'm a Russian, I'm not a Jew,
- because I spoke Russian.
- And the train where I was on, I went down to make a little--
- what do you call it in English--
- a little doody.
- And the train went.
- And that was my excuse.
- So he says to me you come with me.
- And I said to him I'm not going anywhere.
- This is the end.
- I've been in camps and in ghettos.
- And I have enough of my life.
- You've got to finish it now.
- I'm not going with you.
- Shoot me right here.
- So when he heard my [? idea, ?] he says,
- I have no rights to shoot you.
- He was the officer.
- He said you'll come with me.
- We'll take you in the school, this little village school.
- And I have some guy which will take care of your wounds,
- give you some warm food, or hard drinks.
- I thought he was lying, because I could never believe a German.
- But I had no choice.
- He doesn't want to shoot me.
- So I went with him.
- He took me into the school.
- And they gave me some food.
- I'll never forget they gave me some bonbon candy, a piece
- of cheese, a piece of bread.
- And the guy went in to each military bag,
- you know, and looked in from the soldiers
- and found something, some food and gave me.
- I ate it up right away.
- I was in heaven.
- I was in [NON-ENGLISH],, still alive.
- And the other guy came over.
- And he fixed me up with some anesthetic
- and put bandages on my head.
- And he told me to wait, sit down and wait.
- It was nice and warm.
- And all of a sudden it was noon hour.
- Do you want to hear this story or not?
- It was noon hour.
- Noon hour, all the soldiers came in.
- The Sturmabteilung soldiers with a brown uniform.
- Watch the deserters, they shouldn't run away
- from the front line.
- But when they came in into the main place
- where there was the stage from the school,
- they stood up in line.
- They took off their uniform because it's lunch hour.
- And they brought the food from Prague,
- from the capital of Czechoslovakia,
- in a large container.
- So they stood up in line to get the food.
- And I was sitting and waiting.
- I don't know what's going to happen to me.
- In the meantime, I'm a little filled up.
- It's warm.
- I'm happy.
- After they were done over the food, when they served them,
- the guy that served, he asked me if I
- would like to have some food.
- I said yes.
- Jawohl.
- So he gave me the food.
- It was potatoes and meat and all kind
- of ingredients, vegetables.
- And he gave me a little top of this [NON-ENGLISH],,
- they call it.
- I put it in.
- And it didn't take long.
- I finished it up.
- They didn't even give me a spoon.
- I finished it up like a dog.
- So after I was done-- it was very spicy.
- After I was done with my food and the soldiers, the guy that
- gave the food to the soldiers, the cook,
- he asked the soldiers if they would like
- to have some more, seconds.
- One came over and he said he'd like to have seconds.
- Then it must have been left over, maybe a gallon,
- or a gallon and a half of food inside this container.
- So this cook was a funny guy.
- He wanted to see a little show.
- He says to me, you can have the food.
- But you'll have to put your head in inside the container
- with the spoon and eat it up.
- So the container must have been two feet high, but a foot wide,
- or maybe a foot and a half wide.
- Being skinny the way I was, I put my head
- in inside the container, tilted the container a little bit,
- and started eating the food.
- And believe it or not, I finished up
- maybe a gallon or a gallon and a half of food.
- They laughed like crazy.
- But you were still not a free man?
- You were imprisoned again.
- Imprisoned, caught and imprisoned,
- and they told me that someone is going to come and take me
- from here.
- So after they were done eating, they
- told me that there was a truck waiting for me.
- They put me on the truck with two machine gun soldiers,
- with a driver.
- I don't know how many miles I was from Prague because I can't
- tell, maybe 10 miles, 15 miles from the capital
- of Czechoslovakia.
- And they told me they're going to take me to Prague.
- So it took maybe an hour.
- I don't remember how long it took, winter time.
- And when I came into Prague, in the outskirts of Prague
- was already in the outskirts of the Sturmabteilung
- was already an officer waiting there for me.
- And he was a Vlasov, that was an army which sold us
- all to the Germans with the generals, the officers,
- a Russian army.
- And he was a lieutenant of the Russian army.
- He wore a SS uniform.
- Where were you imprisoned?
- There where I come to it.
- I'm going to come to it.
- When he took me in, took me out from the truck
- and asked me a few questions, he said to me,
- I'm going to take you to the Gestapo headquarters in Prague.
- When he took me to Gestapo headquarters in Prague,
- he made a show of me, too.
- He opened up the doors in every office.
- And they said, look at the Jude.
- He still wants to conquer the world.
- And I looked like a nobody, because I was
- full of blood and everything.
- Anyways, he took me into an officer
- from the Gestapo which was a civilian.
- And he knocked on the door and told him
- that this is the guy who says he's a Russian.
- But he said I pulled already his pants down.
- And I beat him up plenty good.
- He beat me up.
- I thought I'm going to die there in Gestapo, on the steps.
- But here he is.
- So the Gestapo man took me in and told me to sit down.
- He went out behind his desk.
- And it was a glass in front of it,
- took out a revolver from the drawer and put it next to me.
- And he asked me what would I like to have.
- I figured I'm the Gestapo headquarters.
- I'll be dead anyways.
- And I ate so much food, the German food was so spicy.
- So I said, I'd like to have a drink of water.
- So he came over to get me a drink of water.
- And I guess he thought if I'm a military man,
- I'll take the revolver and try to defend myself, run away.
- When he came back with the water,
- the revolver was laying there just the way it was.
- I drank the water.
- And he pushed a button.
- And another soldier came in.
- And he said take this Jude to the down below.
- So he knew right away I'm a Jew, because I didn't grab
- the revolver to defend myself.
- I wasn't trained for it.
- I didn't go to the army.
- So they took me down.
- It was way down.
- And I thought, especially going down
- in the basement of the Gestapo, they killed a lot of people.
- I thought this was the end.
- But it wasn't.
- When they brought me down below, the officer
- which was in charge, that soldier opened up the door.
- They opened up the door and they pushed me in.
- And he gave me a push with his foot on my rear end and I fell.
- I fell on people.
- And I heard the people hollering, oy vey oy.
- So I asked them.
- It was all completely dark.
- There was no windows then in this room.
- I asked them who are they.
- They said Jews.
- I said wonderful.
- At least I'll die between Jewish people.
- So next morning, they took us out.
- They put us on trucks.
- And they send us to [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Mala pevnost they call it in Czech.
- And when they took us into the mala pevnost,
- there where we went into prison.
- Now you can ask me a question.
- You were imprisoned at the small fortress of Terezin.
- Right.
- What was it like?
- It was hell.
- It was worse than a camp.
- At least in a camp when you finish your work,
- in a camp or a concentration camp or a labor camp,
- before you go to work used to get a little piece of bread
- and a little bit of coffee, ersatz coffee.
- And then when you came home, you had a little--
- some soup.
- But as soon as they took us in this camp, we were,
- I think, about 12 or 14 people.
- They took us in in one room, big room.
- Which I remember it was two big rings
- on one wall and a little window on top,
- which you had to climb up.
- One had to climb up on the top of the other
- in order to get some snow from the window.
- And we were in prison.
- Didn't know what they were going to do with us.
- It was the end of 1944 or the beginning of '45.
- I don't even know.
- We waited.
- And we waited like this for five days.
- They didn't give us no food and no water.
- The only thing what kept us alive, one of the people
- which were in this room had a spoon.
- So one was standing up on the other's shoulders.
- And every day they scraped a little bit of snow
- to keep us going.
- On the sixth day, they brought in a big barrel,
- a wooden barrel of water, ice cold water.
- And they said, you can drink.
- Now you can drink.
- Tomorrow you're going to get food.
- So I don't know.
- Like I said before when I spoke to you that either it was fate
- or it was mazel, but the people that did drink the water,
- their guts turned over.
- And they died in front of me.
- Because the cold water without food,
- I guess, had to do something.
- I'm not a doctor.
- I don't know about medicine.
- But about three or four of them died.
- In Polish, they say [POLISH] that
- means the guts is turned over upside down.
- I didn't drink the water.
- Very few people survive that small fortress.
- They took us out from this cell and they put us
- in another cell which was already a lot of Jewish people.
- There must have been over 300 in a large cell.
- And they didn't give us no food, no mattresses, no blankets.
- We had to lay on the cement.
- And in order to keep us warm, because it
- was a very cold winter--
- I mentioned already, in 1944, it was very cold--
- We were laying like herrings one to
- each other, next to each other, sideways,
- to lay to keep us warm, one body with the other body.
- And they used to give us a day, one day they used to give us
- a little bit of soup, maybe, like, a cup of soup,
- which was most of it water.
- Next day, they gave us a slice of bread.
- And this was a starvation diet.
- You lay until you die.
- And every day they used to take out corpses.
- The younger people had a little more in them.
- They could stay, maybe, a few days longer.
- The elderly died like flies.
- And water, you could have gotten as much as you wanted,
- just cold water.
- We stayed in this cell, I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks,
- until it got less and less and less and less.
- And they told us we'll have to go now to other cells.
- They took us from this cell to a bunkhouse,
- which was completely separated from the main body of the camp.
- Because in this camp was POWs from France, England.
- I think was some American, too.
- And they kept us.
- And they put us in in the bunkers.
- There was, I think, if I'm not mistaken, was 6 or 7 bunkers.
- You walked in, and each side was a bunker, separated.
- Was a little room.
- I would say, let's see, maybe 8 feet by 12, or 8 by 10,
- very tiny little room.
- The center in the room is a toilet.
- From this toilet, you had to wash yourself,
- you had to drink the water from the toilet.
- Because there was no spoon, no fork, no nothing.
- And you had to lay on the cement.
- And they kept us in this bunker day
- after day with the diet, which was a starvation
- diet, every day a little bit of soup and next day a little bit
- of bread.
- Until some of us really died off, quite a few.
- And one day they said they're going to make a selection.
- And the one that's going to be strong enough will go to work.
- They took us out in the appell place, a big giant place.
- And they told us to run.
- How could we run?
- We've been sitting dead almost for maybe two months already.
- And the SS man, was a lieutenant from the SS,
- said you have to run this way around.
- And the one that couldn't make it, which stopped or fell,
- told him to go to the left.
- And the one that did make it, he told them to go to the right.
- I was lucky enough that in the same place
- was a guy that I worked before at Langen, at the construction
- where they wanted to make the refinery from the coal,
- from the synthetic gasoline.
- And when I saw him, I already almost fell
- because I didn't have no strength.
- And I came over to him and I mentioned his name.
- I forgot already.
- He was a political prisoner, a German.
- And I said, do you remember me?
- I worked under you in this and this place.
- Please see that they should let me go to the healthy ones.
- Because I want to go to work.
- So he went over to the lieutenant from the SS
- and said I worked with this man.
- And he's a good mechanic.
- And he's a good worker.
- Maybe you can let him go to the healthy ones.
- He says let him go to the right.
- When were you liberated?
- I was liberated May the 8th, 1945 exactly.
- Can you tell us about the liberation?
- First of all, before the liberation,
- we knew that the liberation is close because they said that
- a typhus epidemic-- typhoid, what do you call it, typhoid,
- typhus--
- typhoid epidemic is in camp.
- I had it already in Blizyn, when I was in Blizyn.
- So you don't catch it twice.
- And the Germans moved out.
- Everything what was running camp was from the Czechs themselves.
- Because there was a lot of Czech prisoners, too.
- They cooked the food.
- They delivered the food.
- And there was a flax put out in the camp, a yellow flax,
- that it's epidemic in the camp.
- Don't go in.
- Thank God that they didn't march in, the Germans, to destroy us.
- But when Rabbi Cooper sent me to the ABC
- for an interview about the commandery,
- and the assistant producer told me,
- I didn't know until then that there
- was a lake, or water was coming through to this camp.
- And he said that they had already the gates
- to open up and flood the camp completely to destroy us.
- But it didn't happen.
- So we were alive again.
- And when we were liberated, the first thing
- I know when we were liberated is when I looked out
- through the window.
- I went from the bunker cell, because we
- had already a little food, they gave us
- more bread, to another cell.
- And we looked out through the window and see what's going on.
- So we saw that the German soldiers
- were going in a big, giant bus, military bus.
- And they wanted to go straight to Austria or Germany,
- to run away.
- And the guerilla Czech fighters opened up fire on them.
- That's what I saw through the window.
- And the bus was on fire.
- The soldiers jumped out from the bus.
- And they wanted to run away.
- And they was a fight.
- And some of them gave themselves up.
- Some of them got killed.
- And the next morning, we were sleeping in this cell.
- A guy came in which spoke Russian.
- And he says the Russian army are here.
- You want to see a Russian soldier that liberated you?
- Because he knew that we were Jews.
- So he says go into the other room.
- You'll see him.
- He's sleeping like a dead person.
- Because they chased the Germans first.
- So I'll never forget.
- I went in in the second room.
- And I saw a Russian soldier laying on the floor
- and sleeping.
- Then I knew that I was liberated.
- I understand that your name is listed on a monument
- to the dead.
- You are obviously very much alive.
- Can you tell us how this happened?
- Exactly the way it happened is when I was already
- in the States in Youngstown, Ohio,
- and there were talks that the German government will
- have to pay repatriation to the victims
- that we can get a pension from the German government.
- But I will have to show where I was liberated.
- My wife was liberated in Bergen-Belsen,
- so she sent a letter to Bergen-Belsen.
- They sent her a paper that she was liberated
- and they even showed the cell where she
- was liberated and everything.
- With her, everything was fine.
- But with me, because I was liberated in Czechoslovakia,
- and it was satellite of Russia, it
- wasn't so easy to get the paper.
- So I said to a lady which was in Youngstown, Ohio,
- she was in Czechoslovakia, I said, this is the situation.
- Please do me a favor and send out to the Red Cross
- or to Terezin, mala pevnost, that my name blah, blah, blah
- was liberated there.
- They should send me a paper that I was liberated from the camp.
- It took exactly a year.
- It came a letter back from the Red Cross of Czechoslovakia.
- That why does Henry Sarna ask for a paper
- that I was liberated in the Czech lazaret or camp when
- he has been dead already since May the 8th, 1945 and his name
- is inscribed on a monument which is in this camp in Terezin
- festung.
- So I took the paper.
- And they sent two copies.
- I sent the paper to Germany, the German authorities.
- And they right away agreed that I am entitled to get a pension.
- When did you come to the United States?
- And what has your life been like?
- Well, I came into the United States
- October 24, 1949 with General McRae, the ship, a transport,
- military transport.
- We stayed in New York a few hours.
- And my wife saw a cousin and the family,
- which they thought that she is dead, too.
- When she called them up, she said,
- I'm this and this and that.
- They fainted.
- They thought the whole family was destroyed.
- And then next morning we went on a train.
- Because when I signed up to go to the United States,
- when I came to the New York Harbor,
- they told me I cannot go to Richmond, Virginia,
- because I was assigned to Richmond,
- Virginia as a displaced person.
- They said I have to go to Youngstown, Ohio.
- I didn't know where Richmond, Virginia was.
- I didn't know where Youngstown, Ohio was.
- I said Youngstown, Ohio is good enough for me.
- What's the difference?
- So we came to Youngstown, Ohio.
- The Jewish Federation took care on us.
- They gave us a hotel to stay until they find
- a job or a place where to stay.
- And when I found a place where to stay, they found a job.
- I worked at a public still.
- It was hard in the beginning, very hard.
- Then I worked in an aluminum factory.
- They used to make awnings, sidings, and doors, windows,
- and doors.
- And I made good money.
- And I started coming to my senses
- and to start getting a little insurance, a little bit
- furniture, and eat better, and enjoy American life.
- I was thinking even about buying a car, a used car.
- But luck wasn't with us.
- Because our son Alan, may he rest in peace,
- he was seven years old then, he got sick.
- And then we found out that he had leukemia.
- And we took him to Cleveland Children's Hospital, then
- New York Memorial Hospital.
- And he passed away within six months.
- And he's buried in Youngstown, Ohio.
- Which you never forget it.
- Because he was born in Germany.
- We came as a family and tough luck.
- Mr. Sarna, I want to thank you very much for coming in today
- and sharing your experiences with us.
- My pleasure.
- Mr. Sarna, despite all the trouble and all the sorrow
- that you went through, your life took
- a change for the better when you came to California.
- It sure did.
- Of course, I didn't come to California right away.
- We stayed in Youngstown for 15 years.
- And I worked different jobs.
- I was a foreman, a building superintendent, supervisor.
- Then I got sick.
- Well, the sickness started with my son who passed away.
- And I tore out my stomach.
- I had ulcers even in camp and it developed very bad.
- And one time I started bleeding.
- And they took me to the hospital.
- And I had a heart attack.
- And then two months later, I had to go to the hospital again,
- had another heart attack.
- And I spoke to the doctor.
- And the doctor said the best thing
- for you would have been you should go to a warmer climate.
- So I had a cousin here in the valley.
- And I communicated with her.
- And she said sell the house.
- Our house in Youngstown, the sell--
- the house was $14,000.
- Sell the house.
- Quit your job.
- And come to us.
- So I came.
- And she had an apartment for me in the valley, San Fernando
- Valley.
- In the beginning, I went to work for the Jewish Federation, when
- they were on Vermont, as a mechanic.
- But we had a little bit of money from the house
- and a little bit of money from Germany.
- And we decided to go into business.
- So me and my wife bought a liquor store on Third Street
- here in Los Angeles.
- We stayed in the liquor store for six years
- and we did very well.
- But then I decided to move to Israel.
- And I sold the business, sold everything out.
- Went to Israel, stayed in Israel over a year, couldn't make it.
- Came back.
- Bought another store in West Covina, a Hallmark store.
- Had this store for 3 and 1/2 years.
- And we built another shopping center.
- Didn't work out too good.
- Didn't make too much money because we had a lot of help.
- It was a big store.
- We sold this store.
- And in a little over a year, we bought a store in the city
- again.
- It's five days a week store.
- It's a smoke shop, gift shop.
- And we did very well.
- We still keep our home in West Covina.
- Our two kids, Charles and Penny, which
- Charles was born in Germany and my daughter
- was born in the States in Youngstown, Ohio.
- We would like to see more naches from them.
- They should be married, but they are not.
- So Penny is in photography.
- Our son is helping us out in the business.
- And thank God, everything was in [? our-- ?]
- Of course, we can never forget what we went through
- with the Holocaust, with the families that was destroyed,
- the hell what we went through.
- And why?
- Only because we were from Jewish faith.
- But never forgive or forget.
- Life must go on.
- Mr. Sarna, yours is an interesting life.
- Thank you very much for sharing it with us.
- Thank you.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Mr. Henry Sarna
- Date
-
interview:
1985
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
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
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Sarna, Henry.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Simon Wiesenthal Center
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- H. Heller donated this collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on February 28, 1993 (per deed of gift). A collections release form was signed by the Media Projects Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center on March 8, 1995
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:09:22
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn513288
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