- This is April the 13th, 1983, about 10:00 AM in the morning.
- And it's the American Gathering of the Holocaust Survivors.
- And the gentlemen who's being interviewed at this time
- is Mr. Irving Kider.
- Kider, D.
- K-I-D-E-R.
- Right.
- Mr. Kider, where were you born?
- I was born Ostrog nad Volyn.
- That's Ostrog Volyn.
- And what country is that?
- This is Ukraine.
- It belongs now to the Russians.
- What was the date of your birth?
- My date of birth was 3/13/14, yeah, 3/13/14.
- 1914 you were born?
- Yeah.
- OK.
- And Mr. Kider, how big a city was Ostrog?
- It was about 9,000 Jewish people.
- 9,000 Jewish people.
- It was a population of 15,000, 16,000.
- But 9,000 was Jewish people.
- And was there an active Jewish community?
- Very active.
- And what sort of activities-- a synagogue?
- Synagogues and it was organizations,
- halutz organizations.
- It was all kinds of organizations, Betarim
- and Revisionists, and all kinds of Zionist organizations
- was registered.
- Did you have an opportunity to go
- to school when you were there?
- Sure.
- Yeah, I went to school.
- What kind of school did you go to?
- I went to the Polish school, and graduate seven class,
- just like here high school.
- And did you learn a trade?
- You see, I came from not a rich family.
- Yes.
- And my father was a tailor.
- We was seven brothers, six brothers, one sister.
- My mother had made maybe 12, about seven were alive.
- And my father was only one man, was
- supposed to support our family.
- And he was a sick man too.
- But he managed to raise us kids in a nice way,
- and send them the best, what he could do it.
- But we couldn't afford it to go to the schools
- more than seven classes, because he couldn't afford to pay.
- So when I got, when I was 13 years old,
- they took me to a place where I learned
- a trade, sheet metal work.
- Following that, about two, three years, and I learned the trade.
- I didn't get paid anything until I learned the trade.
- And just when I finished learning the trade,
- my father died.
- He was very tired.
- And I was left, and two more, two more brothers and a sister.
- In the [INAUDIBLE],, so the sister
- and the brother, the little brother, the baby brother,
- they give away to an orphans home.
- To a--
- Orphans home.
- Yeah, to the children's home.
- And at that time, it was Poland.
- And this one was supported by the American Joint
- Distribution.
- They used to get the money from America.
- [CRYING]
- I cannot remind myself of the times.
- [CRYING]
- From just when I could make a regular living,
- and started to work, the other brothers got married.
- And when I started to work, and I
- need to make to start to work in the trade,
- and now start to make money, the father died.
- So I worked, and I supported her, the mother,
- with we had one more brother.
- Because the sister and the little brother
- was in the orphanage home.
- So I had to support them.
- And then I lived with this brother.
- And he was a fireman.
- You know a fireman?
- Yes.
- He was a fireman.
- But this was in Poland.
- But he wasn't a fireman by the Polish people yet.
- He was a clerk in a store.
- And then the Russians came in 1939.
- Then he became a fireman by the Russians.
- And he was working there.
- And I worked in sheet metal work.
- This was in 1939, when the Russians came in to us.
- Did they leave you alone?
- The Russians?
- Yes.
- Yeah, the Russians didn't bother me at all.
- So then I lived with my brother together.
- And when the Russians came in, my trade
- wasn't so good anymore.
- The sheet metal, because I used to climb the roofs
- and fix roofs and make metal.
- But when the Russians came in, there
- was no metal, no material.
- So it was no good.
- So I went to school to learn to be a driver.
- So I went in a bigger city already, Rovno.
- They sent me to Rovno, the Russians.
- And tell me to sign a paper, and I went to school
- for six months.
- I learned to drive three kinds of cars--
- one car, a plain car, a regular car.
- And one a big truck, up of gas, a big truck, and one truck what
- burns wood.
- Wood.
- So I went there for six months.
- And after the six months, I gave it a test.
- When I gave it a test, so they send me,
- you have to go where we're sending you.
- I said, why were you sending me?
- They said, because that's why you signed the paper, when
- we gave you the paper.
- They didn't tell me that's where they're going to send me.
- But then they send me away, where [NON-ENGLISH] street,
- in that neighborhood, to take out the wood from the woods,
- to the train with a truck.
- So I signed that.
- So I went there.
- So I went there.
- So I never forget.
- And while I was coming there, the war started in 1939.
- And this was already about 1940 when I went over there
- to this place to work.
- So I went in a little town, Podbuz.
- So I'm Jewish.
- So I looked for Jewish people.
- So they're telling me, everybody, the Polish people
- there, there is no Jewish people no more.
- The Germans-- because this territory
- is supposed to take the Russians to belong.
- But the Germans came in first, because Hitler
- had a pact with the Russians.
- There's so much that she's going to want
- to take of Poland, and so much the Russians and the Ukraine.
- And this was still Galicia, where I went there.
- So it was supposed to the Russians.
- But the Germans came in first.
- So when they came in first, so the first thing they took,
- they took out the Jewish.
- He says, they'll see their deal.
- So they are the Jewish people.
- They took out all the Jewish people,
- and they killed them over there.
- But there was only one old man left here in this town,
- he said.
- So I went to that old man.
- And he gave me a room where to be there,
- because I was a stranger, and I didn't know.
- So I stayed there.
- And he told me what happened when the--
- and that went out in my head.
- Because when I was working there, I was working.
- I was working by the Russians.
- It was this way.
- They always shortened everything.
- And while I was working there, if you remember
- the Russians had a war with Finland at that time.
- So they didn't have no gas to give
- for the private industries.
- So when I worked there, there was no gas.
- So I came in there to the Communist Party and told them,
- what am I doing here?
- I've nothing to do, I have no work because no gas.
- So they let me to go back home and look for a job
- there in my own town.
- Till this everything turned on, the war came on, just the war.
- When I came back to my home, I was maybe a day.
- And they announced already in the radio
- that the war broke out.
- So the Russians mobilized me right away.
- I should take a truck with ammunition,
- and in pull out from there.
- Because when the war broke out, in 1941, the 22nd of June.
- On the 25th, the 26th, the Germans
- was already in our town.
- They was so fast they came.
- And when I took the truck, I went to back,
- so I went in there in [INAUDIBLE],,
- and I was stuck with the truck.
- So I couldn't.
- So I left the truck.
- And I tried to go home, back to [INAUDIBLE],, near my city.
- To go, so there was Russian soldiers.
- But they saw the Germans, and they took off
- the clothing, everything.
- And they was afraid to [INAUDIBLE] us.
- And I took my Jewish passport, because it
- was written in Jewish, so I throw it away,
- and I didn't want to--
- and I went back into my city.
- And there was my sister.
- Yeah.
- But when I went back with my truck, I passed by the fire,
- by the fire place where my brother was working.
- And he's outside already standing by this truck,
- with all the people.
- And they say they're escaping back to Russia.
- They're running back up here.
- [CRYING]
- He says to me, he was he was a blond boy, like a Polack.
- He didn't look like a Jew.
- He looked blond, blond hair and a red face.
- He looked like a Polack.
- And while I stayed with him and talked to him, he says,
- I forgot my passport at home.
- And by the Russians, you have to carry a passport always
- in the pocket, otherwise they arrest you.
- And he says, I'm going away with the passport.
- I said, you told him?
- He says, he gave me a paper that said I forgot the passport.
- Then we kissed by each other.
- And he goes away.
- And I go away.
- I never saw him since then.
- [CRYING]
- I never saw, and he went away [? to this.
- ?] I came back in the house at home.
- And then the Germans was already next day.
- Next day, was the Germans already.
- So they came in and told us to go out and clean the streets
- from the dead, you know, the things to clean up, every Jew.
- So began to clean it.
- And we worked.
- They say we have to work.
- What can you do?
- But there was already no food coming in the city.
- And there was no eat more, you cannot buy nothing no more.
- So what can you do?
- You cannot escape.
- No more nowhere.
- The Germans are already far away.
- I had another brother, but he escaped.
- So the Germans caught him there and he had a chance
- to return back to the city, return him back,
- and that's why he couldn't escape no more.
- So I was left by the Germans.
- We were working.
- While we're working, this was maybe even not a month,
- they came in 22nd of June.
- And the fourth day, the eighth month is July, right?
- August.
- They're already August.
- The 8th, the 4th and the 8th, this
- was the 4th day in the 8th month.
- We're sitting in the morning, Sunday by breakfast.
- And all of a sudden, came in the Germans
- with the tanks in the streets all of them.
- We heard a noise, a big noise.
- Out, out, out, on the street.
- Out, out, out.
- Don't take anything.
- Just out.
- So they chase us out.
- And they blocked up all the little streets
- what goes to the main streets.
- And all in the center street, the whole street,
- the center street in a city, like
- let's say New York, Broadway.
- They blocked up all the little streets with the tanks
- with the soldiers.
- And they chased you out only in one line in the middle street.
- You shouldn't be able to escape.
- If you escape, the tanks with the Germans [INAUDIBLE]..
- Everybody, everybody, the kids, the wives.
- I had a grandmother of 93 years old,
- and everybody standing in the line,
- a line all along the city, a line three or four in our line,
- but all along.
- And you cannot escape nowhere if you want to.
- In the meantime, we see the Ukrainians
- with shovels, carrying shovels.
- And they were going away.
- We're standing, staying facing the walk.
- And they going down there.
- And somebody says, see they going,
- they're going to make the graves.
- They're going to bury us.
- But you couldn't help it.
- There was nowhere to escape.
- We're already in the line, and the streets are blocked up.
- If you just give a move, you were shot.
- So you had to wait.
- And then when they took out all the Jews,
- they took all the Jewish people, then
- they started to march to the woods.
- My house was in a new city.
- We had to cross a bridge.
- And then there was the woods.
- And by the woods was sand.
- So when we marched then, the Ukrainian with the shovels
- shoveled out a row, 300, 400 foot long, deep.
- And they took us down there.
- When they took us down there, everybody there.
- And this German says, no, we're not
- going to kill you, the people they say.
- We're just we're going to send you for work.
- But we know already they're fooling us.
- But you could not--
- we came there.
- Was all around tanks with the SS, and you cannot go nowhere.
- Nowhere, that's it.
- You're stuck.
- Excuse me, pregnant woman, they want to go on the toilet,
- you have to go by just there.
- You cannot go nowhere.
- People want to eat, drink.
- This was such a hot day and nowhere,
- you have to stay there.
- Then the Germans came out and say like this,
- he says, we're going to send you to work, people.
- He said to they just want to screw you up to say,
- and they say like this.
- Sheet metal workers separate.
- Carpenters should go out separate and aside.
- Tailors separate.
- Businessmen separate.
- In the meantime, we had a couple Jewish people
- in the business, big business.
- And there was a Ukrainian.
- But he was in the same business, and they
- used to compete all the time.
- And he became the chief police for the city by the Germans.
- The Germans made this Ukrainian, so he picked him out.
- He didn't have to ask even the Germans, pick out these people.
- There was a few brothers, picked them out and took them away
- to the woods somewhere.
- We didn't even see where they killed them there,
- took them away right away.
- They were competitors?
- They were competitors with this--
- Ukrainian.
- The Ukrainian competitor.
- He was competing all the years.
- They had the same business.
- So he took our advantage.
- And he took them away and killed them somewhere.
- In the meantime, everybody was in groups--
- shoemakers separate, everybody.
- And they said we're going to go to work.
- And then they took people to the hospitals,
- where the sick Jewish people was in the hospitals,
- with blankets.
- They had to go there to the city,
- and to bring them down to the woods,
- to us, in blankets sick, in the blanket.
- Bring them there to the grave.
- In the meantime, while we were standing in the sun, and nobody
- knows what's going to happen.
- A German says, who is sick is going to go home,
- and who is healthy is going to go to work.
- So people, healthy people, made themselves sick.
- Some people tie their neck.
- Some people start to limp, some people.
- They didn't know what to do.
- So what happened, soon they made a big,
- maybe a couple hundred or 500 people, they sick.
- So he came and took them right away and shot them first.
- I had a brother standing with me, he was a cripple.
- And he asked me, what do you think shall I do?
- I'm really sick.
- I'm a cripple.
- You see people making up.
- I said, what can I do?
- I cannot tell you anything.
- I should tell you to go.
- I cannot tell you.
- If you want to go, you go.
- If you don't want, you don't go.
- If you really are crippled, [INAUDIBLE] maybe you'll
- be alive.
- I don't know.
- That's what they say.
- But who knows this is true.
- And he moved away from me.
- And that's finished.
- I never see him no more.
- I had another brother, the other one was really sick.
- So he was.
- I saw him and he went to the sick there.
- I couldn't even talk to him because he was far away.
- And I saw him no more.
- Then I had an uncle's and a sister-in-laws and nephew's
- kids, all were there.
- And I was still standing there.
- And they killed and killed.
- They stand him up in a row.
- In one line, just in front of this, to face this grave.
- And from the back, like this.
- They wasn't even killed, and they fell in the grave.
- And then they covered them up.
- And the blood was coming out from them.
- They wasn't even killed over there.
- And maybe about 3 o'clock, the commander from the city
- says, stop killing.
- Take them all back.
- Because we have to clean the city.
- We need some more workers.
- So they stopped this killing.
- And they took us back to the city.
- And where we came in--
- in the home was nothing left.
- Everything was gone, the clothing, the dishes, the food.
- The Ukrainians robbed everything out.
- They took away everything.
- Nothing was left.
- Even the pillows, even everything what was there they
- take away.
- Nothing.
- What can you do?
- Nothing to eat.
- Well, you have to suffer [INAUDIBLE]..
- [CRYING]
- All right.
- This was once.
- Just one try to help the other one, a neighbor this.
- Maybe you have something.
- Maybe you have something.
- Nobody had anything, but whatever
- you can scrap together, this was going on like this a month,
- one month.
- We had a mill, a mill what they cuts wood.
- In the meantime she makes flour too, from the grain, flour.
- And there was a fence around this mill.
- So this was a Sunday, just the first, the 9th.
- I remember the date.
- The Germans came in, in the house, the SS.
- And they say, your people, you have
- to go to work there in the mill.
- There is some work to do.
- So we figure, if we work the mill, I know the mill.
- But maybe still there has to be work.
- There's a lot of work.
- Because you have to move the wood.
- You know, the trees or the cutting, you have to move,
- the work.
- You have to go to work.
- So I take my sister.
- And we going away to this place.
- I came there.
- I saw a lot of people there, a lot of people.
- And they didn't chase you.
- The thing is this.
- You went there because they didn't came in
- and chase you out from the house.
- They just came in and says to you,
- go ahead, and work over there.
- There's to be work done.
- So you didn't want to--
- the Germans says, we went.
- We went there.
- So as soon we came there, the whole city, whoever
- hide himself, he didn't go there, they wasn't there.
- Soon when we were there, they closed up
- the whole thing all around, and came in with tanks, with SS
- all around the fence outside.
- And they come in again, and they say, all single girls separate.
- All single boys separate.
- Man and wife without children separate.
- Men and wife with kids, separate.
- And again, they say they're going to send them to work.
- They took away a daughter from her mother.
- The mother says goodbye.
- I'll see you later.
- And she says they're going to work.
- They thought they're going to work.
- What they really did is they put them in the trucks,
- and eight miles from our city, eight miles,
- they digged a grave, and from the trucks
- they shot them and throw them in a the grave.
- But nobody knew about it.
- I find out this later.
- So how did I became alive?
- There came in a truck, and took 50 people at the time out.
- Then came another truck, another 50, 50 boys.
- Another truck, 50 girls.
- Then another 50 couples.
- And they moved them out.
- And the people thought that they go to work.
- But they took him out outside eight miles in a little town,
- [NON-ENGLISH],, the name of the town,
- and they killed him over there, in the trucks.
- Now it was already about 12 o'clock, 12:00 or 1 o'clock.
- It was already late.
- [SIDE CONVERSATION]
- Just go head, Mr. Kider.
- Yeah.
- It's about 12 o'clock, came [NON-ENGLISH]..
- He owned a factory where they made butter for the Germans.
- And he comes down there, and he says,
- you're taking away all the Jewish people.
- He says, all of them?
- He says, I need people to work there,
- because he wouldn't have butter tomorrow.
- So he says, what do you need?
- He says, he needs sheet metal workers.
- So he asked him.
- What do you need?
- He points to me that he wants me out there to work.
- So I went out.
- I had a brother.
- He was a tailor.
- But I says to him, he's a sheet metal worker.
- And I took him out with me.
- And then I took out another friend, a sheet metal worker.
- And all of us, we made up our mind,
- let's say we got the wives.
- And let's take out a couple of girls.
- So everybody says this is the wife, this is the wife.
- And they took them, and let them out.
- So and the rest, yeah, when they took
- the 50 people at that time, the girls,
- I told my sister lay me near me, didn't let me go.
- The last 50 girls, they came to you,
- and they take away from my hand.
- And they throw her in the truck.
- Your sister?
- My sister.
- [CRYING]
- She was a teacher.
- [CRYING]
- And then the rest, what they took me
- out a couple, what we went out, they let us go back home.
- We came home again, nothing you could find.
- Again, the Ukrainians took away everything [INAUDIBLE]..
- And then it was less now people.
- Only left is the people where they hide themselves.
- They didn't go there.
- Altogether, was maybe a couple hundred people.
- And they did this in other towns too around us,
- there were other little towns.
- So when they saw there was no people,
- so they started to look around, where to find people.
- So they used to come in nighttime from towns,
- and together maybe come together,
- or again about a couple thousand people in the city.
- And after that the Germans made us a ghetto.
- There was a big shul there.
- Our city was a very religious city, [INAUDIBLE] city.
- A matter of fact, I went to Israel.
- So I punched a computer there for my city.
- So they gave me the old history.
- How many times the Jewish was killed there
- with pogroms, everything.
- Tell me everything.
- I got it home.
- And we went home.
- So were a couple that made us a ghetto.
- So we were in the ghetto.
- In the ghetto, and they put a wire around
- and you couldn't get out.
- But we had to go to work.
- And so they took us out to work, the Germans.
- But they used to beat us.
- So one day I decided, it's not for me.
- They're going to kill me there.
- Yeah, and by the way, in the time when we was there,
- the first acts, the first when I told you,
- it says businessmen separate.
- A lot of businessmen was afraid they're going to be killed.
- They said they're mechanics.
- We are just mechanics.
- But when we were in the ghetto, the Germans
- called for mechanics.
- They was building by a station, where a train goes, a building.
- They need sheet metal workers and they need bricklayers.
- They need carpenters.
- So they send into the kehilla, to the Jewish people,
- to give them the people to work there, right?
- So they just picked up the names what
- was the businessmen's names.
- And they didn't know what to do, how to do it.
- So then they came in to me.
- And says, they don't know how to do it.
- You have to go.
- I says, I'm not going to go because they
- kill you there on the job.
- You work there, and they're beating you out.
- So I didn't want to go.
- I says, I didn't tell him to put in his name as a mechanic,
- I said.
- He put it in.
- They're calling him.
- Let him go.
- I said, I don't want to go there.
- One went away.
- The next day he escaped and come back
- with one eye, one eye they took him out there, a bricklayer.
- So I says, then we were already in the ghetto.
- And I didn't want to go.
- Every time I hide myself.
- I wouldn't go there.
- They're looking for me, the Jewish police.
- They're looking that I should go there,
- because they needed the mechanics, a mechanic,
- but they don't know mechanics.
- So I hide myself and this way we live in the ghetto.
- I'll never forget.
- The farmers, the Ukrainians, used to bring some food,
- to sell you.
- To give him a shirt, give him a suit,
- to sell you some, through the gate, through the fence.
- So they came a woman.
- She had a kid and, she want to a little milk.
- And the Ukrainians used to watch this,
- and the Germans not to buy anything, not to.
- So as soon she gave the milk to the lady inside
- in the gate, the Ukrainian or the German,
- they shot that woman.
- She was laying with the milk like [INAUDIBLE]..
- But they gave me a permit I should go out
- to work every day, the Germans, to the streets.
- And then they find out I'm a sheet metal worker.
- And when there the roofs was shot, there was a gymnasium,
- where the people used to go gymnasium,
- a school was shot the roof.
- And the Germans lived there.
- So it was leaking in when it was rain.
- So they asked me I should break down the roof.
- So you should see people, what I knew, rich people,
- I was with the poor people.
- They was with the rich.
- Begged me I should take him with me to help me
- work, because I need some help.
- So everybody jumped on me to take me, take me, take me.
- They never knew even how to hammer a nail,
- because it was very rich and famous people.
- So whoever I could, I took with me there to work.
- One day the houses are a big church, a church.
- In that church is on a hill, on a big hill built.
- But the church is very high, like
- in New York, the empire state building, so high.
- And when they shot it, you know where they shot, the holes,
- and came in the water there.
- And the priest wanted somebody to--
- even I was afraid to go up there so high.
- But he came and says, I'll go and I'll tie it.
- Instead of working with the Germans,
- I better build up in the high there, and do whatever I can.
- So I took my brother, and took somebody else with me.
- And this priest, went away the Germans and look a permit.
- So every day they let me out from the ghetto
- to work in that church.
- So every day, the Ukrainians, because I'm
- fixing them the church, every night
- they're going to bring me food, something.
- And I go back to the ghetto, I'll
- bring it for the people with me something.
- And this is the way it was going on until one day in 1942.
- This was the 10th month on a Sunday, I'll never forget.
- Get up in the morning, all the things, all in the ghetto,
- all on the ghetto is signs rein from Juden.
- I mean this is the finish for the Jews.
- In Germany, it says rein from Juden.
- That means to clean up the Jewish.
- Today, is the end of the Jews.
- Then I run to the kehilla.
- A kehilla from Jewish people, that
- means a committee from the Jewish people, in a shul,
- communities to come together.
- I think I'll go over there and see what's going on here.
- In the meantime when I went there,
- already I saw already people killed in the streets,
- laying people killed in the streets.
- I see this is a no good number.
- While we in the ghetto, they ask us every time for flour.
- They have to ask what you should give it to the Germans.
- Everything they can have something.
- So everybody who has something, everybody who has something
- have to give away.
- First we give clothing.
- We give away their clothing.
- But one day the German, the head German in the city
- he says, he wants a pair of boots, nice boots.
- But he wants the Jewish people to find some leather somewhere,
- and make him a pair of boots.
- So by us there was one shoemaker left.
- And they find somebody who had a businessman from leather, still
- find somewhere something hiding a piece of leather
- for the boots.
- So we went to the shoemaker there,
- with the committee from the Jewish,
- the head from the committee.
- It was a druggist.
- He was a [NON-ENGLISH].
- He was an intelligent man, a very educated man.
- He was the head.
- So he takes the shoemaker with him
- and he goes up to this German there, take
- the measure from the shoes.
- Then he'll make him up a shoe, a pair of boots.
- So he made him a pair of boots.
- And he made him the boots.
- And when he put on the boots, they was a little tight.
- So he said that he did it--
- he special did it.
- He made him tie the shoes.
- So he wants 10 people for tomorrow to be shot
- and including the head from the committee with the kehilla,
- even including, and the shoemaker including,
- and eight more people he wants for tomorrow to be shot
- because the shoes doesn't fit.
- And they have no leather, no other leather in order
- to make it.
- So what happened?
- They come in.
- Who should we send out, eight people?
- Nobody wants to go, right?
- Everybody thinks maybe they're going
- to live because there was one rabbi left.
- They used to say that we're going to live.
- We're going to live.
- Every day he said we're going to live.
- So everybody just hoped.
- So they says they're going to-- according up the siddur,
- and they say according to the alphabet, and pick the names.
- The people didn't want it either.
- So they made a meeting and they decided there was a crazy home,
- with crazy people.
- They decided they're going to take eight crazy people,
- and give them away.
- So the crazy people, they find out about it.
- And when they came to take them, there was nobody.
- They escaped.
- They find out and they escaped.
- But there was a rabbi, a blind rabbi, a blind rabbi.
- And they says, let's go there and take this blind rabbi
- and give it to them.
- And with what?
- They took a horse and wagon, [NON-ENGLISH],,
- this was an empty wagon just bought with a horse,
- and they put this rabbi in.
- And they're taking him to the--
- before they take him there, he says,
- I want to tell you something.
- I know where you're taking me.
- You're taking me that I should be killed.
- The rabbi had a feeling.
- But I'm not going to be killed.
- I have a feeling they want to kill all of us.
- And when he came there there, the commander
- or the German, had now are an order
- from higher somewhere that this in this day, everybody
- is going to be killed.
- So he tell them take him back.
- So they brought him back, this rabbi.
- And we were going on, living in the ghetto.
- I had not too bad because I worked with this church.
- I came up there.
- If I do something, I don't do something,
- I spend a day there, not to be in the evening I
- got some food from the Gentiles, bring it in the ghetto,
- something for other people.
- They pushed me in a place, there was maybe
- 8, 10 families in one house.
- And this house of ours was by the hand in--
- in the city holding by the hand, where a pasture is.
- But that day when I told you that one day I get up.
- This was the 10th month in 1942.
- And I see all tanks all around.
- I see, it's no good.
- And I went to the kehilla.
- And I couldn't make it there, because I
- saw there is killed already.
- He is killed already.
- I see people crying and yelling.
- So I see it's no good, so I went back.
- By me in the house, we had wooden floors.
- But in the bottom, it was no basement.
- It was empty.
- Just the ground was out, but empty.
- So I cut out the boards, and we made a little ladder
- down in case anything we should run down there and hide.
- And on top was standing the bed.
- All right.
- As we go there, this was just before the last killing.
- The Germans went in the houses, and they looked on everything.
- Yeah, when they left, and they started to chase out everybody,
- everybody.
- And when they chased them out, they
- chased them out right where I lived
- is a pasture with cows going to pasture.
- There on the pasture, chased out the rest
- of the Jews, everybody, chased them out there.
- They hold them there three days.
- And this was just before the holidays, raining, pouring,
- and these people staying there.
- I was hiding inside.
- We were 20 people there inside.
- And I used to come out and take a look in the evening outside
- in the pasture.
- And the people still there.
- And they told the people they said,
- if you want to live to all the people,
- then make up a committee of five Jewish people.
- And everybody should write it down,
- where you hide the gold, where all this false everything,
- and give it to this five Jewish people.
- And the Germans are going with them house to house.
- And wherever was written they're hiding, they go in
- and they pack in.
- And ours was a big, big Jewish shul.
- So they took everything.
- They told the committee, five Jewish people,
- because they promised if they will take together everything,
- they will allow them home.
- They let them live.
- But this wasn't so.
- He took the five people all around,
- and they cleaned out everything, where everybody gave him
- where he hide it.
- Something they took out, and the Germans took it away.
- And in the last minute, one German says--
- the commander says to them, these five people
- must be shot right here.
- Because they're not going to be shot.
- All will want to know how we fooled the Jewish people,
- they took out from them everything.
- So they took the five people took them
- with the face to the wall to the shul.
- And they say, eins, zwei, drei and shoot.
- So one escaped.
- One started to run.
- He is an Israel.
- He lives in Israel.
- He wrote a whole book, because he wrote every day
- the diary from our city.
- I got a book at home, everything from the city.
- Everything, what every day what happened in the ghetto,
- everything he write it.
- He lives in Israel, in Holon.
- So they took away everything, the other four shot.
- And he escaped.
- He escaped in between the houses, empty and nobody
- there no more.
- And he hide himself, and then he went away
- to a farmer what his father used to do business.
- And the farmer hide him in a stable where the horses.
- He gave him food.
- And he was living there.
- And while they was killing everything, we were there
- and this I find out later when he told me,
- when I met him in Israel.
- He told me the whole thing, when he was one of the five.
- When the Germans-- and we were laying there
- in the floor, about 30 people.
- One day, this was on a Thursday.
- Came in the Germans in the house.
- And they said this furniture should
- be taken away, the whole furniture in the house
- tomorrow.
- They took it out even the furniture
- when the people were--
- So we knew already if they take away
- the furniture, the bed from there,
- they see already there is a hole there.
- So we went in to hide.
- So this night we all decided that we cannot stay there no
- more.
- We have to go out.
- We're going to be shot, shot.
- But we have to go on.
- And that's it.
- So we went out.
- The other people, he took away, the gold, whatever.
- Soon he took away everything.
- He gave an order to take him up to the woods again,
- and they killed him all of them.
- And this night I escaped.
- I escaped, and I was escaped with another lady and a boy,
- and there was a lot of people.
- But we three kept together.
- Can you imagine?
- I was so thirsty, that we went through by a edge from a river
- there.
- There was a river.
- So I took off my shoe.
- And I bent down and took with a shoe water,
- and we should drink.
- Because it was so thirsty we couldn't take it anymore.
- And we just went out to go somewhere to the woods.
- We didn't even know where to go.
- But we went to the woods.
- And over the woods is not too big woods,
- because this was the Polish side.
- Because the Polish side till 1939,
- and we came there in the woods.
- On the way, I see two people running to me across.
- I didn't know who was running to us.
- Take a look, two Jewish people.
- They says, this is bad.
- They don't want to give us food.
- And they want to take us to the Germans
- because the Germans give them for every Jew they
- bring them, a pound of sugar or a pound of salt.
- Because there was no salt and no sugar.
- So every Ukrainian was looking for a Jew to catch,
- someone a Jew to bring him to the Germans,
- for a pounds of sugar or a pound of salt.
- And so we went in the woods.
- When I went in the woods, I found that I
- had a couple of people there.
- A couple Jewish people that says, we escaped.
- And they digged out a hole in the ground.
- And they took the tree, and they covered up there,
- and with straw and covered up with ground, with dirt.
- And they just went in with two steps inside.
- So we were there.
- So we were there.
- And winter time was bad.
- Because not the cold in the woods,
- but the bad winter when it's snow.
- You're starting out on foot.
- You can see that there is something.
- But we couldn't help it.
- There was nowhere to go no more.
- There was about 25 maybe 25 or 30 people.
- There was a family with kids.
- And one day they came to look.
- And according to this sled, they find it.
- That time, this morning, I went to a farmer there.
- I had a farmer and he gave me a soup every morning.
- He made me a soup.
- So I brought him for us three, what
- we were there in this little-- we couldn't stand up there.
- We can't sit, not sit, not stand up
- because it was too hard to dig there.
- And the soup as well.
- I was went for the soup there.
- Was running a little girl.
- She was 14 years old.
- She's today already a grandmother in Israel.
- And this what it was.
- Itzhak, They used to call me Itzhak.
- Where you're going?
- Forget, don't go back to there, because they find every grave
- there, where everybody is hiding,
- and they take out everybody, the Ukrainian and the Germans,
- she said.
- She says, finished.
- They took them away they find them.
- Who escaped, escaped.
- And they took them away.
- So they took away these people from there.
- So we were left a few people.
- But we were left a few people.
- So we saw already that it's no good over there.
- So we started to we have to go in the Russian side.
- The Russian woods is bigger woods.
- The woods go for hundreds of miles and miles.
- So one day, we decided, yeah, the meantime everything
- went through the winter.
- Till there came the summer already in the woods.
- I froze up my toes over here.
- And was already some, well, it come in the summer,
- and we're still in the woods.
- Then the Germans promised the Ukrainian
- that they will make them a country.
- And then they changed their mind.
- And said they're going to keep it
- for themselves, this country.
- So the Ukrainians became mad.
- Ammunition, they had plenty ammunition.
- And they started, became partisans themselves,
- to kill the Jew, the German, the Russians, everybody
- to clean up.
- So in the summer, it was already about May, almost June.
- The Ukrainians was already in the woods.
- We have to hide already for the Ukrainians.
- We couldn't do nothing.
- All of a sudden, we see we are in the woods
- there, in that big woods.
- But all around, we hear the noise that's the Ukrainian.
- And we cannot get out, because we get out,
- we did not eat for two weeks.
- We had the potatoes we used to peel up.
- So we took together all the skin from the potatoes.
- And we eat to survive.
- And we stayed there, until it was already a good summer.
- Well, one day we heard it's quiet.
- That means they must go away somewhere.
- They didn't know that we're there in the woods.
- And they went away.
- So I took-- me and this girl, that I tell you
- she's in Israel, a grandmother, she had a brother.
- That brother, and me, and another friend,
- a sheet metal worker.
- And we say, we now we go out somewhere
- and we get some food from the Gentiles.
- Maybe we'll bring something to eat.
- And when we went out we was walking down to the house.
- There was a farmer's one house, and the the other houses
- are very far away, a couple of acres.
- So we went away there.
- They build a house.
- A woman build a house.
- She burned down.
- So they build a house.
- And she had the metal to put up on the roof.
- But she didn't have [INAUDIBLE] to work the metal.
- So when I escaped from my home, I didn't took anything with me,
- but I took a hammer and a shear and pliers.
- This I took always.
- I figured this can help me, because when
- you have something, a tool, and you
- have to make something for a farmer, he'll give you food.
- So I decided to take with me always.
- Now, so one day we go out for food.
- And we walk in, and this woman says,
- if you know how to do this roof to put up, she said,
- I'll give you everything you want food.
- And this was a Friday night.
- We worked there till Wednesday, Thursday.
- We put up the roof, three people.
- And then I took flour.
- He took some fats, and one took some potatoes.
- And we going to the woods.
- We want to go to the woods.
- There was such a shooting that we couldn't go in the woods.
- So we decided we'd go tomorrow morning.
- We'd go back to the Gentile there, and we sleep over.
- And tomorrow morning we go back there
- because we had maybe about 20, 25 people there, Jewish people.
- And we know they haven't got a lot of food.
- They didn't eat so long.
- In the morning I took [INAUDIBLE],,
- and there we go to the woods.
- While we were walking in the woods, the woods,
- to bring the food, there was a wagon passed by in the road.
- But we saw there was people in the back of the wagon.
- And they saw us walking.
- And they went into the woods.
- But we continued to go.
- They stopped in the woods.
- And this was the Ukrainian, the Ukrainian partisans.
- They stopped.
- And they saw when we thought this was a nice sunny day.
- And the grain was already so high.
- Soon, we came in the road.
- They started to yell.
- Stay.
- Stay.
- And they shout stay, we know that there
- were Ukrainian because the Germans call it sty, sty.
- And they say stay.
- So we know it's Ukrainian.
- We're going to be killed.
- So we started to run.
- So the two, I couldn't run good because my toe
- was frozen from the winter.
- So the two boys in front of me run.
- And they flatten out this grain, you know, and with the grain,
- the grain is flattened out.
- But I saw I cannot go after them so fast.
- So this was, let's say, I give you an example.
- This was the road, the road.
- And in here was the places with the grain,
- with other things in there.
- When I came in after them with the grain,
- I took apart the grain like this, like this.
- Maybe a couple of feet there you know.
- And I bended down with my knees in the grain,
- like this in my knees and I was laying there.
- In the meantime, I hear a shot.
- A shot, they caught both boys.
- They took them out.
- And they're beating them, and beating them, and beating them.
- They should show where the rest of the Jewish people are.
- And they took them away there in the woods.
- And I was laying there.
- And I heard.
- But I couldn't move.
- Because if I move up, they will see me.
- I was two foot away from them, but they couldn't see me.
- The grain was so high and I was laying down.
- Then I heard a shot, and came out 10 guys, the Ukrainians.
- And they say, we have to flatten out the whole thing.
- Because that third one is somewhere they're laying.
- They flatten out the whole thing.
- They went up with two foot from me,
- and they flatten out all the way down.
- They find the other two, but I was near the front
- over there laying.
- They couldn't find me.
- And then they came back out.
- And the one guy says, let's flatten out the rest.
- And the other one says, no, this is enough.
- We ruin already for the farmer the whole thing, enough.
- And a guy, they says one guy, you
- stay here all day and watch.
- He's going to pick up himself somewhere.
- He's somewhere hiding.
- And I heard everything.
- So I was laying there till 11 o'clock at night.
- 11 o'clock at night, see already dark, good dark, summer time.
- Because the night was late where for dark.
- Then I pick up.
- I said, we had a farmer.
- A farmer what he used to help us.
- We used to pay him and he used to help us.
- So we used to tell him, whoever is going to be missing,
- we're going to tell him who is missing.
- So I figure I'll go into the farmer nighttime.
- And I came there, the farmer walks me and kisses me.
- And he says, are you alive?
- I saw you.
- He says, I was the one going with the horses.
- They came in and they mobilized me.
- I should take them with the horse and buggy
- in the woods, the Ukrainian.
- He says, so I saw the old story what's going on.
- But I didn't believe you are alive.
- So whoever was alive at that time,
- we went over to the Russian side, and the Russian woods,
- and we were there.
- Yeah, in the meantime, when we were there in the woods,
- before this happened, there was two women and two kids,
- three years old kids.
- So one day, all these people that
- was even cousins to the woman, they
- made a meeting between them.
- They couldn't save their wives and their kids.
- And the kids are crying.
- If they're crying, somebody will hear.
- So they're going to kill everybody.
- So they decided they will send the woman,
- and the kids out from the woods.
- Let them go for their own to survive.
- So a good thing they send them out.
- Because when they send them out, they went to live in the grain,
- in the grain.
- They begged food by the farmers, and they
- lived in the grain, [INAUDIBLE] This
- was today, they went another woman, and what happened?
- This whole business, they killed.
- And we went there whatever was left,
- everybody went over to the other side, on the Russian side.
- But it wasn't so easy because here in [PLACE NAME],,
- I had a farmer there.
- He helped me a little.
- The woman, I used to lay in the grain barrel from [INAUDIBLE]..
- And she used to bring some food and put it by the grain.
- And I used to go there and pull it in the food.
- By night, I lay there in the grain.
- And I hear something is moving around something.
- Then I hear something that's talking Jewish.
- So I move according-- at nighttime
- you can hear very well because the echo.
- I move.
- I find out two Jewish people, two Jewish men from my city,
- hiding in the grain.
- When I saw them, what happened?
- I said, how come you're here?
- He says, we didn't want to there,
- because all the Gentiles were hunting us in the woods, and we
- we're going to be killed.
- So we figured we'll be safer here.
- In the meantime, they say you know, let's go to the city.
- We're going to go over to the Russian side.
- In the other woods, maybe this is going to be better.
- And one says he's going to go home.
- There is the house living a Gentile.
- He'll tell him he'll give him the house,
- maybe he'll save him, let him hide himself in the house.
- Yeah, he went there.
- But the Gentile buried him right away.
- He called the Germans and they killed him.
- And one went away somewhere.
- I don't know where he is.
- And I wanted to go over myself to the Russian side there.
- And I couldn't go on because, soon I
- go in near the city, the dogs barking
- so high that you couldn't go.
- For two, three days I tried to be there, to sneak over there.
- And I couldn't go over there.
- So I went back to that lady that I was there.
- And she helped me with the food a little.
- And we had one Jew.
- He looked like a Gentile.
- And he had a passport, he is a Gentile.
- And one day he passed by there.
- And the lady says to me, you know, Pesse passed by.
- So you told him, I'm here?
- She says, no.
- I says, tell him, why didn't you tell him I'm here?
- Then she was waiting for him.
- When he passed by, and she says to him Itzhak is there by me.
- He's in the grain.
- He says, so he came in the evening.
- And he took me over on the other side in the Russian side.
- And then we were already again 25 Jews together.
- Then we went in the woods there.
- It was this.
- I told you, my sheet metal tools saved all these people,
- all these 20 people.
- We went over to the Russian side over there.
- This was summer.
- Now there we took already over the woman with the kids
- over there already too.
- By the way, we picked them up by the grain,
- and we put them over there.
- And there the boys wanted to make a meeting again.
- The woman shouldn't be with us with the kids.
- When they made a meeting, I said, I don't vote for that.
- I think maybe with them, maybe if they live,
- maybe we're going to live.
- I says, let them live.
- If we have to die, we're all going to die, I says.
- So they listened to me and they kept the woman
- with the two kids.
- And they lived through the war.
- One is in America here.
- And one is in Canada, the mother with the kid.
- They both married.
- They had both children, big children these kids.
- So we're over there with the Russians.
- Irving, when you went over to the Russian side,
- was that occupied by the Russian army,
- or was it still German soldiers there?
- Soldiers all over, always Germany, always German.
- But it was in Russia, but German troops.
- Germans, German occupation.
- Germans, Germans, because they looked for us all the time
- in the woods.
- But when we came over there in the woods,
- and we didn't know what to do.
- But we went there to beg them for food.
- They helped us.
- They give us food.
- And it was still summer, so we used to go out in the nighttime
- and dig out potatoes from the potatoes.
- And we ate potatoes.
- So we were by the Russians.
- Now, till this we were over there.
- So we survived food there.
- Water, we used to take puddles of water in the street,
- and take water and threw a handkerchief,
- we used to distill the water and drink it.
- Because we couldn't be so dry.
- And this is how we survived.
- Then came later on when the Germans took
- the prisoners from the Russians, they beat them.
- They didn't give them food and everything.
- So then they decided they're going to escape.
- So they're going to escape, and they're going
- to organize a partisan by them.
- If he wouldn't do this, the Germans,
- they wouldn't be a partisan.
- When he do this, I remember he took 80,000 soldiers in Kyiv
- and he took them to Poland to work.
- So when he came there, there was only 20 left.
- He killed him all away, he killed them all out.
- So they started to escape.
- So one prisoner, they escaped in the woods.
- So when they came into the woods,
- nighttime they used to organize.
- Daytime they went in the city, and they sneak around
- and see where the Germans are.
- And they used to see some people what
- they watching, like police watching a warehouse
- or watching something a place.
- They went out at nighttime with bare hands,
- they choked him to death, and they took away the ammunition.
- So, somebody got one rifle.
- Next night they went away and killed
- another couple of Germans, they got a couple of rifles.
- And this already they started to organize the partisans.
- And when they organized already, they came to the woods.
- When they came to the woods, they find us, 25 people,
- two women with two kids, and people.
- And in the woods, we was in a hill always.
- Because we fear if we have to run,
- downhill is better to run than uphill.
- And then one day, this was winter time,
- there was already organized a big, big partisan group,
- a couple thousand people, the Russians partisans.
- They came in and saw us.
- And they says, and this was that time exactly when they
- fought in the Warsaw ghetto.
- And they says to us, I never forget.
- You're saving yourself the life?
- Why don't you out and fight like the people
- in Warsaw fighting there?
- Because they knew everything what's going on.
- I says, we haven't got what.
- He says, we didn't have it what either.
- We went out.
- We choked a couple Germans.
- And we got one rifle.
- Then we killed somebody.
- We got-- and this way we organized.
- Later on, the Russians used to drop already
- up some ammunition in the woods, but when
- they were organized already.
- By the meantime, they came there.
- They find us.
- So they said, we're going to take in a couple at a time
- from us.
- They're going to send them to make--
- so they send a couple away to burn down a mill in my city.
- And they burned down the mill during the night.
- And they came back.
- They saw the fire there burning.
- So they took him in.
- Now people left there, and they wouldn't take us in.
- So came the winter.
- And it was such a snow, cold, so cold the snow.
- They digged the trenches for themselves
- to hide, the partisans.
- They put in the straw and top, with the [INAUDIBLE]
- on the ground and the trees, but still cold inside.
- So I told you, I'm a sheet metal worker.
- So I said to the commandeer, I says, I can help.
- He I says, what?
- I'll make you an oven, this guy says,
- in this ground, an oven with a pipe out, wood,
- there's plenty in the woods.
- And you feel so warm and good.
- So I says, but I need metal.
- So they went to the [INAUDIBLE],, inside the village.
- And they ripped off our roof with metal.
- They brought in the village.
- And I organized a couple of guys they should help me.
- And I made him the first oven, an oven with a door,
- to put in the wood and with a pipe through this.
- And the commandeer says, what about they
- all came there, so every 10 people made a dig, so they
- want me to make them a oven.
- I said, all right.
- So for that, they let us stay with them.
- And they brought food every day.
- They brought even whiskey, because they
- stoles the magazines, and everybody was happy again.
- They brought a cow.
- They killed a cow.
- They gave meat for everybody.
- They do everything.
- But they was happy because I gave him, as a matter of fact,
- I just was an Israel to see my friends what we went
- through the war in the woods.
- And my son went with me there.
- So they're telling him, he saved everybody's life with the ovens
- he made it.
- And he says, I still remember my finger.
- And he tell me, hold me, and he hit me in my finger.
- He says, I still remember the guy.
- He's in Israel.
- So they let us be with them.
- So we were already in the woods with the Russians.
- And the kombat, what I made him the ovens,
- they let us stay with them.
- And they bought food for us and everything.
- And we stayed with them.
- And every time they took in somebody from us
- to them to help them, and they gave him a rifle,
- and he became a partisan.
- And we lived in the woods.
- But we feel free man already, you know.
- We feel more safe.
- What year was this, Irving?
- What year?
- This was in '43.
- '43?
- This was in '43, yeah.
- And I had a relative, a boy 14 years old.
- So the Russians, they liked him because he was
- a handy boy, and very lively.
- And they took him as a partisan, 14 years old.
- So they took him in.
- They gave him a machine gun.
- He teached him and everything, and he was good.
- But one day, they gave him a rifle.
- And they went to make a zadanie.
- That means they have to make some kind of wait
- during the night, somewhere to blow up a train or something.
- So he went with them.
- On the way back they stopped by the farmers to eat something.
- So they went into the house.
- They went in the house and he put his rifle away on the side.
- But the Russians, this rifle you're not supposed to let it
- go.
- And you have to hold it with you always.
- He put it down, and the rifle fall down, and shoot out.
- And hit somebody in the house in the family,
- and killed somebody.
- So the commandeer took him out outside
- and killed him right away there in the place.
- And that was-- did we notice nothing?
- When every time they took in from our people
- to being a partisan, we had a little bridge
- there on our place where we used to pass by.
- We used to say always a little note
- you'll put on when you go past there,
- somewhere what you're doing.
- Put in a little note.
- We'll know what's going on with you.
- So they used to leave us a little note.
- We used to pick it up and see that then we
- know the story of what happened to this boy.
- And we were living like this with the rest
- until this was while we were in the woods, in the woods,
- and we used to go out and steal food and beg
- food and everything.
- We are on the Russian side.
- And this was in the summer.
- In the summer, a beautiful day, nighttime we
- stole the potatoes.
- And in the morning we baked them.
- And we divided everybody a big one, a small one.
- Nobody should have less or more.
- We used to make a soup.
- We didn't have no spoons nothing.
- We used to give a sip, and give it
- this one, like this all around.
- Nobody should cheat each other.
- And this is way we have to live.
- And this day, and then one day, we're baking the potatoes,
- and we undressed altogether in the woods.
- In 1943, when the Germans started to go back already,
- the Russians chased them back.
- And they had to pass by the woods.
- So the partisans put a bomb somewhere on the road.
- And when they passed by with the truck,
- the truck blew up with the Germans.
- So the rest of the Germans started to run into the woods
- and they looked for the partisans.
- So they find us, because we were sitting there.
- While we were sitting there and eating a potato, we hard,
- [? sty, ?] [? sty, ?] [? sty. ?] [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Shooting, and we peeked up, and there was an open field,
- and there was the woods.
- I run in the woods.
- Always with the woods, because when they shoot in the woods
- it's hard to hit because the trees.
- And a few people went out in the outset in the woods.
- There was a dump with water or something.
- And there the things where they're biting the blood.
- How you call them?
- Mosquitoes?
- No, the leeches, no in the water.
- Oh, leeches.
- Leeches, leeches.
- So two sisters went out with her husband to go there,
- and they was faster than me, and he couldn't go.
- So the Germans shot him.
- They shot him and they went in, in the water they were sitting
- there with the leeches all day.
- They said the blood was sucking out from them.
- They couldn't take it.
- But they had to stay there.
- And they was alive.
- And the next day--
- yeah, and this woman what I told you, she was there with a kid,
- one woman with a kid, was at that time out of the field too.
- But she didn't have what to do.
- So she put a kid down, and she laid on top of the kid
- and the Germans passed by.
- They thought she's dead.
- And she's in America today, and the daughter is married.
- So I can never forget.
- She saved the kid and she's alive.
- So and this woman, next day she buried her husband with her,
- there in the sand.
- She moved away the sand, and she buried her husband.
- She's in Israel, the woman.
- And now she's old, and she became paralyzed.
- She's in a hospital.
- She with a sister.
- And this was, he was an educated man, an accountant.
- He was a fine man.
- And he was shot.
- Later, she brought him home to bury him from the woods.
- After the war, after.
- And then every time we find somebody else
- in the woods, a Jew walking around somewhere.
- So come with us.
- So we were together already.
- But finally, we was there with the Russians,
- with the partisans.
- Without them, we wouldn't be through
- because they helped us a lot.
- But this was they took in a few people to them,
- and they gave us food, and they gave clothing.
- They went and robbed everything, and they brought it
- in the woods.
- And we had it.
- Only because I did for them.
- I forgot to tell you before something.
- There was a lady on the Polish side, when she was there.
- A woman, she was pregnant.
- And she gave birth in the snow in a stable.
- There was, I was there and a couple of people were there.
- I says, we have to go in, into the farmer
- and ask what can you do.
- We never saw.
- What can we do?
- He says when the baby comes out he says,
- you have to cut the cord.
- You have to cut.
- So I had my rusted shears from the sheet metal.
- I cut that cord.
- But the baby froze to death.
- They had to bury the baby there in the woods.
- [CRYING]
- Everything comes up.
- Everything with what you saw it, what you remember.
- And then by the end, already the Russians
- was pushing the Germans in, and while we were in the woods.
- So because the Germans couldn't go through no more the woods.
- Because they put bombs and mines and this.
- And the partisan-- with not the partisans, the Russians
- will never win.
- The Germans couldn't deliver to the front no more anything,
- only by aeroplanes.
- And by aeroplanes, they shot them down too.
- But in this, the partisans helped them.
- So when the front moved, then we saw,
- we find one day we find out that we are near the front, where
- the Russian trenches are.
- We're in the woods.
- But outside the woods, the trenches where
- the Russians are already, and the soldiers
- fighting the Germans.
- So one day, a soldier saw us all there in the woods there.
- And he told his commandeer, the Russians.
- And this commandeer was a Jew too.
- He told him.
- There is people, the Jewish there.
- So he came over, and this was a little town, Krasnostav.
- That's the name of this Russian town.
- And he says, you can go out.
- You can go in, in this town.
- And any house you see people living, just
- go in and live there with them.
- He says, they should feed you and give you everything.
- So we went out.
- We were 25 people at that time.
- And we went in the houses.
- The next day he comes in and he says to us,
- you're going to have a trial tomorrow.
- We have a trial.
- What happened is this.
- When the Germans came in there, they took out the Jewish people
- and they killed them.
- But there was a Gentile, a Ukrainian,
- and he says to the Germans, he knows
- where three Jewish people hide.
- They should give him a rifle, and he's going to bring them.
- So he went there.
- He knew where they were hiding.
- They're hiding somewhere.
- So he went there.
- He throwed one down in a fence, and he
- was hanging off the fence.
- And one he shot it, and one he beat to the Germans
- he brought him, and they killed him there.
- So somebody reported to the Russians.
- So they said they're going to make a trial,
- and they want us to be in that trial to see what they do.
- They didn't call him, he killed the Jewish people.
- They just say he killed Russian citizens.
- In other words, they didn't mention Jewish.
- They said Russian citizens.
- And there is a hall, like here the convention hall.
- The Russians have in every town there was
- a big hall for meetings.
- So they went and they chased out from their all the houses
- the kids and the people, the families,
- they should be there for this trial.
- Everybody has to go out there.
- And here, they should have a lesson
- that they're not going ignore us.
- This is what they did.
- And they chased out.
- And the guy admitted everything what he did.
- And when he admitted, the prosecutor
- said he's going to be hanged.
- They built in the middle of the town in the main city
- where we have to go through a lot of cars,
- they built a clear--
- A scaffold?
- A scaffold to hang him, hang there.
- When we finished, they says to us,
- we have to go out there, stay for it.
- They want us to see that because he lost
- his wife to the commandeer.
- He was Jewish.
- He lost his wife and kids too.
- So he want us to stay there and see.
- So we ran out there.
- He was standing on a little chair and the rope on his neck.
- And the prosecutor had a speech and they put a sign on him
- that he helped the Germans to kill the Russian citizens.
- And that's what happened to him that everybody
- should remember this.
- And then he took out his this and he aimed,
- and he remained there a couple of weeks
- there because everybody who passed by the trucks
- should read the sign and should look at that's
- what the Russians did.
- And from then, we moved into Zhytomyr.
- Till this time took from 1943 all year till 1944 in January.
- When we came into Zhytomyr, a city of Zhytomyr.
- And we came in there in the woods.
- And there was written in the street, whoever comes out
- from the woods should go and register for recruiting, to go
- in the army.
- You don't want to go out when you come out [INAUDIBLE]
- go in the army, because the war was still going on in Poland,
- you know, later on.
- So I came out in Zhytomyr.
- So I went in, the Russians there was Jewish people there,
- a good feeling.
- The people, the government is no good,
- but the people itself they share with you everything,
- the people.
- They were good.
- So we came into Zhytomyr, and we started to look on.
- If somebody says they had--
- some of them had permission to hire you,
- and to hold you there to work for him.
- But you cannot go in the army.
- They won't take you in the army.
- So you find a place, but he fooled us.
- Because he would have taken us to the army anyway.
- So we had to leave them, and go look for another place.
- So we find a place where [INAUDIBLE] for an army place.
- Army place, we came into the general.
- And he was Jewish, and told him we're from the woods
- and they are Jews.
- He was wonderful.
- He says, I'll call up this, the recruit place
- and ask them if they're going to take you, he says.
- In two weeks, if they're not taking you,
- they're not going to take you, he says.
- Because I'll tell them I have work for you.
- Me, I was nobody because my friend is no mechanic.
- I was a mechanic they had work for me right away.
- So here, I says he's going to be my helper.
- So I took him my helper.
- He is in Israel.
- And he give us a place.
- But they still say they may take us away.
- So some other good Jew in the army,
- Russian in Rovno, another city, 30 people
- he didn't want them to go in the army.
- So he sent them in this place where we were there.
- That's there they're going to make sure that they're not
- going to going to work there.
- So when they came this Jew general says to us, me
- and my friend, we should go with them,
- and say we forget that we were there once.
- Just we should go in there with them together
- and say we just came with this whole bunch, with a group.
- The other kitah is no more, he says.
- And our Aaron Balman is no more.
- But this is a new group in Rovno.
- We came in with them.
- We went through everything again,
- and he had assurance that we can stay there and work.
- So we worked there.
- this was that we were free already.
- But the Russians, you don't make a living
- with what they're paying you.
- They give you so much food and this.
- So there was a lot of houses burned down.
- We were 25 people together.
- And nobody is what to wear, and the Russians
- don't help you by coming out like in America or somewhere.
- There was no organizations like this.
- So what they do?
- I send them to bring some metal, what burned down the houses
- with the metal there.
- And I made up things from this metal.
- And some days there are market where they're selling.
- I send them out and they sold it.
- And we had food for everybody.
- We lived in one room there.
- And then we heard that who lived in the site in 1939
- in the Polish Ukraine when it was Poland can register,
- go out to Poland.
- So I took a chance and I went to Rovno.
- And there was the main office.
- And I registered myself, and I register everybody.
- And I find out the day when the transport goes out.
- We all picked up in the jobs.
- We didn't tell the Russians.
- They're still looking for us.
- Because if I go in there, I never want to go there.
- Because they still have the name.
- You cannot go there.
- They remember all their lives.
- So we picked up ourselves and went into Rovno.
- So like this, I came into Rovno to the main guy,
- what he has a transfer station to send out
- the transports, his office.
- I know Friday goes a transport.
- And they say, there is not going to go no more transport.
- Only this one, the last transport for a while.
- And I want to get out, because we escaped from there.
- They catch us, they put us to Siberia.
- So I go into him and I say, listen, what can I do for you?
- I am sheet metal worker.
- I can do for you eight days I'll work for you,
- I says, if you do me in two minutes what
- I'll ask you to do.
- He says, what do you want me to do?
- I said, I'll wait for you all week.
- But you do me on Friday with this transport,
- I want to go out with many people,
- with this group that I got with me.
- He says, I need a pail, of washing, a pail.
- And I need a pail of water what you're carrying.
- And my wife lives in this hotel in Rovno, he says.
- If you bring up this and this, I says, I'm going to make it.
- But I didn't have to make it.
- Because the Ukrainian robbed the people with the stores,
- they had a lot of things like this selling in the market.
- So I went out and bought a pail and brought him this,
- and I went into this place with wife.
- And I gave it.
- I said her husband send it to give it to you.
- She called him up.
- And I came up to him and he gave me the paper on Friday.
- I took all the 30 people.
- We went into the train.
- We went out to Poland.
- And to Hel, Poland.
- The city is Hel.
- And from there, we went to Lublin.
- And there was a house already.
- At that time I saw already the people coming
- from the concentration camps.
- They were sick and this.
- This is 1945 already?
- This is 1945, yeah.
- 1945 in March I left Russia.
- 1945, yeah.
- When did you leave Poland?
- When did you leave Poland?
- Poland was this.
- I came to Poland.
- So I had to look for--
- I didn't want to get out from Poland.
- I wanted to get out but I didn't know how to do it.
- But my friend what is in Israel, he
- was a big Zionist home in that time.
- When he came out with me to Poland,
- he find right away the organization for the Zionist.
- They took him out to work with them, the Haganah.
- And then there are organizations where they send out people out
- from Poland, [NON-ENGLISH] So I came to Poland,
- and they sent me out from there with another couple of people
- from my town.
- They send me out.
- From there we went to Czechoslovakia.
- And with Czechoslovakia, we went to Hungaria.
- And Hungaria, we was about six months there.
- From Hungaria, we went to Austria.
- And in Austria this was in June, almost the end of June, 1945.
- What zone were you in, in Austria?
- What zone in Austria.
- I was--
- Was it Russian zone or American?
- The Russians, the Russians.
- The Russian zone.
- The Russian zone.
- We had to prepare.
- We came into Russia.
- And every border that you passed, we used to pass,
- we had to give the Russians a watch.
- Every man, everyone has to give him
- a watch, a lady's watch or our men's watch.
- During the night, the soldiers let you through.
- Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to get through.
- So we went.
- And this was in the Russian side.
- And there we was a couple of days.
- And from Italy, came already at that time was
- the [NON-ENGLISH].
- These Jewish soldiers came from there with trucks
- during the night.
- And they packed us in the trucks and took us
- to Italia, to Italy.
- In Italy, they took us away right away they know somewhere
- where it's warm.
- And there I was about 2 and 1/2 years.
- And I came to America from Italy.
- So I wanted to go to Israel, not to America.
- But the thing is this.
- There were so many people wanted to go to Israel.
- Everybody wants to go to Israel.
- Escape from Europe, but not everybody, they couldn't take.
- In the meantime I find here family in America, an aunt,
- my aunt, my mother's sister.
- So I let them know that I'm the only one alive.
- She sent me the papers.
- And I by this lady with a kid that I told you in the woods,
- I helped her from there, I helped
- them get out from Poland and all over till Italy.
- And from Italy I helped them even
- to pay for their ticket to come to America.
- Did you work in Italy?
- Did you work there?
- I worked in the magazine, where they're giving out
- the food for the people.
- There was an Englishman, what he took care
- of in England, English manager.
- So a lot of people was making [NON-ENGLISH]..
- You know?
- But I didn't want to do that.
- I'm not so handy to this, to do it.
- I was afraid always maybe I'll be killed
- and nobody knows where my body is.
- So I looked for a job there, and I worked.
- I had to put up some people in the camp in Italy,
- with this who wanted dry food, he cooked for himself.
- Or not, you get to the kitchen, or else you
- can go to the kitchen, one kitchen.
- And they cook.
- So I worked in that magazine, and give up the food.
- And you met your wife in the United States?
- Yeah, yeah.
- She's from Czechoslovakia.
- And you have a family?
- I have two kids, also they're healthy and very good kids.
- Yeah.
- My son was here yesterday, maybe today too.
- My son is a lawyer.
- He works in Washington here.
- Oh well, that's nice.
- For the government he works.
- Yeah.
- And I have a daughter.
- She's a lawyer too.
- She's in New York.
- Very nice.
- She's in New York.
- She works in a corporation.
- She's a corporation lawyer.
- But my son is the urban development.
- He works for the housing, housing and urban development,
- Yeah, HUD.
- Yes, HUD.
- Yeah, he works there.
- It's very nice your son came with you too.
- Yeah, he was here.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, he was here yesterday too.
- He was yesterday by the shuls.
- He came to your shul.
- He's staying by the [NON-ENGLISH]..
- He is single.
- He's not married.
- He's alone.
- He's still single.
- And the girl is still single.
- They don't want to rush to marry.
- I don't know why.
- Same with me.
- I have three not married.
- They're working here today.
- Right.
- My daughters and my sons.
- I have two lawyer sons who are lawyers too.
- Yeah.
- My daughter's a lawyer and my son is a lawyer.
- Irving, is there anything else that you
- would like to talk about?
- I have nothing whatever, what I came here today--
- You told us quite a story.
- When I came to America, I had a very hard time in America.
- This is different story.
- But I came to America, was no job.
- Where did you come, to New York?
- I came to Coney Island in New York, Coney Island.
- My aunt.
- When I was in Italy I had when I worked,
- I had a couple of dollars saved up.
- So I figured I go to America, I'll
- buy a couple presents for the family what I go stay there.
- So I bought her a present.
- And my cousin got married at that time.
- So I bought her a present, a tablecloth.
- So whatever I got, I had $100, how much, I spend it
- for them the presents.
- When I came here, I figured the family will help me.
- But this was not so.
- When I came here, I saw there was no jobs.
- And if I worked a job $1 an hour they paid.
- What year was this was in 1948.
- I came here in 1948 on 11, February.
- And then I worked.
- I find a job, another job, and then I paid my aunt $15
- a week to stay in the house.
- She just gave me a little army cut in the middle of the living
- room.
- And that was my room to sleep.
- There no room there.
- Because they didn't have no room.
- And no help, nobody gave me any money.
- Yeah, once came to me an aunt from the Bronx, my father's
- sister.
- I figured now she's going to help me something, a sister.
- She's in American so many years.
- So she says just to talk to me in the [INAUDIBLE]..
- Because there was a lot of sisters
- and other brothers, big families.
- In Europe was very big families.
- So she was here.
- I tell her all the stories.
- And then she makes money up like this, rolls up, and goes to me
- and puts me there in my pocket like this.
- I can never forget it.
- So I figure now maybe I got some money already.
- So I go outside on the side.
- I think I'll take a take at look how much she gave me.
- Four single dollars.
- So this is not finished.
- So the cousin got married.
- I brought you a tablecloth for $25 in Italy.
- She gave me a present $5.
- So I had $9.
- And then another cousin gave me a present $3.
- So I had $12.
- That's all.
- So in one day, in a Saturday or Sunday in Coney Island
- is a boardwalk.
- So we go for a walk with my cousin, what
- she gave me the $3.
- And she goes in.
- She says she has to pay a bill, the telephone.
- And she goes in and comes out and says,
- I forgot my checkbook.
- I haven't got the checkbook with me.
- Irving, do you have any money?
- I said, I got $12.
- I can give you the $12, if you want it.
- She says, that's what I need.
- So I took the $12 and gave her.
- She never gave me back.
- I never asked her for it back, and I never got it back.
- And then when, little by little, I worked and saved up money.
- Did you work with sheet metal?
- Sheet metal, yeah.
- I worked.
- When I saved up already, $100, my aunt says to me.
- You don't go around in in New York money in pocket.
- You have to give it to us.
- And whenever you need money, we'll give you.
- I said, no, no.
- She's rest in peace, she's dead already.
- I said, what are you kids doing with the money
- where they're working?
- She says, they're saving in a bank.
- I said, why can't I save in a bank?
- Why do I have to give it to you?
- I'll give it to you, and I'll ask you for a couple dollars?
- So she didn't want to talk to me no more.
- So I went.
- And an old friend was here, a sheet metal.
- He used to be my boss in Europe.
- So he got married.
- He was a single boy.
- He got married for a girl when he was here, before the war.
- So I went into him.
- And he took me to a bank and made me a book,
- helped me make, because I didn't speak English yet,
- and made me a book.
- And I put in there $100 at that time.
- And I saved.
- And then, little by little, I worked.
- And I took a job for Saturday to work
- in a restaurant and Sunday.
- And all week I worked sheet metal work.
- And when I learned the trade, the roofs, make roofs a little,
- so I worked all the week.
- And on Saturday and Sunday I stayed in Coney Island
- to make roofs.
- And I started to save up some money.
- I knew I have to get married.
- Nobody will help me.
- And I started to save up.
- So I saved up.
- I saved up to buy a ring for my wife and to make a wedding,
- to buy the furniture.
- And then I saved up a couple of dollars and I bought a house.
- And I started to work and I worked.
- And then I came in.
- I went in, in the union.
- The union took me in.
- So the union I made more money than with private.
- And I started making--
- the boss liked me.
- They always paid me over the scale.
- Always they got me over the scale.
- And the union wages was high wages,
- but they paid me more always because they
- know I made a good day's work.
- And this is the way I worked up.
- And I saved and I saved.
- And then when the kids became bigger,
- they finished high school, they want
- to go to college, that's a lot of money.
- So my wife went to work.
- So she helped me.
- So we both together, we sent them to good colleges,
- and we send them to law school.
- And they became lawyers.
- It's a real story, a very successful ending
- to that tragic beginnings.
- Yeah.
- Things were hard.
- OK.
- Thank you very much.
- You're very welcome.
- I'm sorry I was crying, because I couldn't help it.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Irving Kider
- Date
-
interview:
1983 April 13
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes (60 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Kider, Irving, 1917-
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors conducted the interview with Irving Kider on April 13, 1983, in Washington, D.C., during the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Conference. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Dept. received the tapes of the interview in 1989. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes by transfer in February 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:13:53
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Also in American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors oral history collection
Contains oral history interviews with 157 Holocaust survivors recorded during the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in Washington, D.C., in Apr. 1983. The interviews contain information about persecution, life in the ghettos and concentration camps, and concentration camp liberation during World War II.
Date: 1983 April 11-2083 April 13
Oral history interview with Bella Adler
Oral History
Oral history interview with Suzanne Agasee
Oral History
Suzanne Agasee, born in Paris, France on January 12, 1939, describes police coming to her home when she was two and taking her parents, leaving her grandmother, two brothers, and herself behind; a Jewish woman from an underground organization coming the next day to hide them; her grandmother being caught, deported, and dying in a gas chamber; being sent with her brothers to live with Catholic families; being taken to a Jewish orphanage after the war and living there for three years; searching for living relatives; she and her brothers becoming wards of the Jewish Congress and being sent to Canada to live with an uncle; being an atheist for years; marring a Jewish man; and deciding with her husband that having a strong Jewish identity was important in raising their two daughters.
Oral history interview with Janet Applefield
Oral History
Janet Applefield, born Gustava Singer in June 1935 in Kraków, Poland, discusses her family; being sent with her mother to Wadowice, Poland when the war began; her father joining them and moving to Vynnyky, Ukraine, where they lived for several months; her family returning to the Nowy Targ ghetto; leaving the ghetto with her parents and going to Niepolomice, Poland; how her parents decided to give her away to a half Polish, half German woman; her parents deportation the next day; staying with a cousin under the name Christina Antoskevitch; her cousin’s arrest by Nazis during a raid; not know what had happened to her cousin; a soldier refusing to help her; how a Polish woman took care of her for several weeks and then sent her to her family’s farm; staying on the farm; returning to another cousin after the war; being treated in a home in Zakopane, Poland for jaundice; reuniting with her father; immigrating with her father to the United States on March 25, 1947; and marrying and having three children.
Oral history interview with Idel Barth
Oral History
Oral history interview with William Basem
Oral History
Oral history interview with Adam Beer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jack Begleiter
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irene Berger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mira Berger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dan Berkovits
Oral History
Oral history interview with Philip Bialowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Paul Blank
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Blitzer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Morton Blumenstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frieda Braksmajer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alice Braun
Oral History
Oral history interview with Menucha Cale
Oral History
Oral history interview with Werner Cohen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Janet Davidson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jolan Deitch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lillian Eckstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mariene Einhorn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Einhorn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Max Eisen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ida Ender
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Fabian
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Farkas
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leo Fettman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Josef Feuereisen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rena Finder
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frances Finkelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Finkelstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Curt Fondell
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Zimm
Oral History
Oral history interview with Luba Frederick
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sylvia Freilich
Oral History
Oral history interview with Izrail Frenkel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Szyja Frenkel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Friedman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Fruhman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Georgia Gabor
Oral History
Oral history interview with Moshe Gimlan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anita Graber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ann Grauman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eva Greenspan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mark Grunseid
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fay Guttman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gucia Haut
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Heller
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marcus Heller
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ellen Hersh
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celia Hershkowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fany Hoffman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Molly Ingster
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Itzcowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sol Zimm
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rose Jacoby
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Kahan
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Kanner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Moshe Kantorowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henia Karp
Oral History
Oral history interview with Katalin Karpati
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Karplen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Arnold Kerr
Oral History
Oral history interview with Cecilie Klein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Klein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hilda Kober
Oral History
Oral history interview with Emmy Kolodny
Oral History
Oral history interview with Joseph Korzenik
Oral History
Oral history interview with Adrienne Krausz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Josef Kreitenberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mary Kress
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sonia Krul
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lewis Lax
Oral History
Oral history interview with Elizabeth Lefkovits
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rachel Lefkovits
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rosie Leibman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ida Lender
Oral History
Oral history interview with Charles Lipshitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ilse Loeb
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Lubochinski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rose Luftig
Oral History
Oral history interview with George Lynn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sylvia Malcmacher
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judith Mandel
Oral History
Oral history interview with John Marek
Oral History
Oral history interview with Tobie Markowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Marton
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sara Marton
Oral History
Oral history interview with Paulette Meltzer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sonia Meyers
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bernard Milch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lusia Milch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sonja Milner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Seymour Moncarz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Felicia Neufeld
Oral History
The interview describes Ms. Neufeld's childhood in Berlin, Germany, her father's escape to Paris, France where she joined him and they lived until 1942, her father's arrest, and her move to a series of French orphanges. Ms. Neufeld describes an incident in which she was taken by the director of an orphange to see her mother, who had been transported to a prison in Paris from Berlin, where she had been hidden. Ms. Neufeld discusses the disappearance of the director of the orphange, escaping to northern France with other children from the orphange, and remembers air fights and struggling to survive in the countryside. Ms. Neuberg describes her life after the war, being sent for by relatives in the United States, and learning that both her parents perished in Auschwitz.
Oral history interview with Edie Newman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leslie Niederman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Susan Niederman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judith Novak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Olivek
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mayer Pasternak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sonia Pasternak
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jill Pauly
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lee Potasinski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lily Redner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Edith Riemer
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dora Riss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Noah Roitman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sol Rolnitzky
Oral History
Oral history interview with Barbara Rona
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Ronay
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celia Rosenfeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Rothstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Aliza Rubin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Meyer Rubinstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hadassa Rublevich
Oral History
Oral history interview with Charlotte Rudner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frieda Salomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gloria Salomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Theodore Schwarcz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hilda Schwartz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Barbara Seligman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irene Shapiro
Oral History
Oral history interview with Meyer Shnurman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Gabriele Silten
Oral History
Oral history interview with Claudia Sissons
Oral History
Oral history interview with Isadore Small
Oral History
Oral history interview with Klara Snyder
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Sochaczewski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ruth Sold
Oral History
Oral history interview with Goldie Speiser
Oral History
Oral history interview with Meier Stessel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Felice Stokes
Oral History
Oral history interview with Norman Swoy
Oral History
Oral history interview with Simon Taitz
Oral History
Simon Taitz, born in Königsberg, Germany, describes having a successful watchmaking business in the suburbs of Kaunas, Lithuania; hiding with a Gentile family after the German invasion; being in a motorcycle club before the war began and how it was taken by the partisans; being forced to do labor; being mistreated by the Germans; being sent to the ghetto; working in the nearby airport; being sent one day to another work place and writing a song (he sings it during the interview); witnessing the reactions of the parents during and after the roundup of Jewish children; the separation of the men and women in a camp and writing a song about a woman who saw the men dancing and was punished (he sings it and the interviewee reads the translation); his song about the daily life in the camp (he sings it and the interviewee reads the translation); more details about life in the ghetto; writing a song about the choices people made during the war; the journey on cattle cars to Dachau; being sent originally to Stutthof; being transferred to Dachau, where he was separated from his mother and never saw her again; details on his childhood (losing his father when he was very young and having two siblings); helping to save other Jews in the camp by giving them jobs in his watchmaking repair shop in Kaufering; and more details on daily life in the camps.
Oral history interview with Halina Zimm
Oral History
Oral history interview with Solomon Teichman
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Tenenbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Matthew Tovian
Oral History
Oral history interview with Max Trompeter
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fela Unikel
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Wakshlag
Oral History
Oral history interview with Dobka Waldhorn
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sidney Wapner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Martin Water
Oral History
Oral history interview with Celine Weber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eva Weinberger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alice Weinstock
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Weinstock
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rose Weisfeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sam Weisfeld
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sol Wieder
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Wisznia
Oral History