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Oral history interview with Leslie Robicsek

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0087.112 | RG Number: RG-50.091.0112

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    Oral history interview with Leslie Robicsek
    Transcript
    Welcome.
    My name is Michael Greenwald.
    Today is August the 2nd, 1984.
    We're here at the studios of Channel 5
    here in Cleveland, Ohio to speak with Mr. Leslie Robicsek.
    Mr. Robicsek, my thanks for your coming today
    and for your participating in this particular program,
    sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women.
    Mr. Robicsek, just for purposes of our record this morning,
    would you state your full name and spell your last name?
    My name is Leslie Robicsek--
    R-O-B-I-C-S-E-K.
    Now, Mr. Robicsek, how old are you?
    I am 59.
    And where is it that you were born?
    In Romania.
    Oradea is the name of the city.
    All right.
    And currently, you live where?
    In Beachwood.
    In Beachwood, Ohio--
    Yes.
    --which is a suburb of Cleveland.
    Yes.
    All right.
    How long have you lived in Beachwood?
    In Beachwood, this is the fifth year.
    OK.
    And you're employed and in what capacity, sir?
    I have my own business.
    Which is what?
    Plastic injection molds and dies and some
    molding what we are doing there with plastics.
    And you say, it's your own business,
    meaning that you are the proprietor or the person who
    owns or operates and manages this particular business?
    Yes.
    OK.
    Now, currently married are you?
    Oh, yes.
    All right.
    And how long have you been married?
    And your wife's name, please.
    I am married 39 years ago.
    My wife is Magda.
    Any children?
    Yes.
    I have a son, 37 years old.
    And I have a daughter.
    And I have a grandson.
    And we've had opportunity to see them a little bit earlier
    today.
    And it's a very, very marvelous family
    that you were able to bring with you.
    Thank you.
    I know they've been a valuable support to you, have they not?
    Oh, yes, definitely.
    Would you have dreamed over 40 years ago
    that you'd be sitting in a studio
    today having an opportunity to address any number of people
    to tell them?
    Especially in the United States, that's a big thing.
    You like it, we'll announce it.
    No, I didn't dream.
    My dream was only a loaf of bread.
    That was my highest dream ever there.
    Just by way of beginning, we understand that you spent time
    in a concentration camp.
    And that camp was located where, which camp?
    They took us first in Auschwitz, in Birkenau,
    and from there, the outskirts of Auschwitz.
    Mr. Robicsek, let me ask a few questions, if I can.
    To the events which took place before
    you had opportunity to sustain this type of grief
    at the camps.
    You indicated that you were born in Romania.
    And you're going to pronounce the name of that city for me
    again.
    And perhaps for purposes of record keeping,
    you'll spell that for me, if you would, please.
    The city's name is Oradea--
    O-R-A-D-E-A.
    And where, approximately, is Oradea located?
    It is close to the border-- it's in Transylvania.
    It's close to the border between Hungary and Romania.
    And how many people were in your family?
    In my--
    Let's talk first about your immediate family.
    In my immediate family, there was--
    we were five altogether.
    Mother, father, and three children?
    Yes.
    And you were where in relation to which of the children--
    oldest, youngest?
    I was the youngest.
    All right.
    And you had brother, sister-- give us some insight, please.
    I have still a brother in Romania,
    who was in forced labor.
    He wasn't at the concentration camp.
    And that's why he was lucky enough.
    He defected from the forced labor and he survived.
    Oh, we'll get to that momentarily.
    And my sister who was older than me.
    She was 20 years old.
    She died in Bergen-Belsen.
    What kind of occupation did your father have?
    He was a kosher butcher.
    And was this an occupation-- just by way of preface,
    was this the kind of occupation that had been in your family
    for years?
    Yes.
    He had his own business.
    And approximately, way back, 300 years, they
    were butchers in the family.
    Would Dad talk to you about family history?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    And he was able to document some 300 years, is that right?
    One of my uncles, he had enough time and money
    to look after the roots.
    And he documented even more than 300 years.
    Now, was that 300 years in Romania?
    No.
    It started in Czechoslovakia.
    And what was your understanding as to the travels
    that your family had, how you were
    able to expand from Czechoslovakia, by way
    of example, to Romania?
    It happened how I found out from my parents,
    that three brothers, they were living near Prague.
    From there is the Robicsek name.
    This is a Czech name.
    And these three brothers came in Hungary, which
    was Austro-Hungarian that time.
    Even Czechoslovakia was Austro-Hungarian that time.
    And they were living near Debrecen
    in Hungary for these almost 300 years.
    From father to son, it was this business
    because the ancestors, the first what they could trace,
    they were butchers-- two brothers were butchers.
    Were you expected to join the family business?
    No.
    No, I hate blood.
    What type of training and education did you have
    and what kind of interest or field or occupation
    were you looking forward to?
    I had seven elementary classes.
    And then because we weren't rich people, I had to go to work.
    So I started in this field, in plastics, in 1937, '38.
    Well, that was a relatively new field at that time.
    It was very new.
    How was it that you became involved?
    We had a friend who had a factory, who had--
    who produced plastic parts, electronic.
    Do you remember your friend's name?
    It was Glick.
    Glick was the name, yes, the family name of it.
    Now, was this a friend of your father or your friend?
    Of my father, yes.
    He passed away in New York not long time ago.
    So apparently, he was a survivor.
    Yes, he was a survivor, not his family, alone he
    was a survivor.
    And that's how I picked it up.
    And I liked all my life to read.
    And this was our hobby in the family.
    It's a really Jewish hobby, I think so.
    We love to read.
    Was it also true with your brother and sister?
    That's right.
    And we-- I read a lot everything what can be read.
    And through this, I got a fairly good knowledge
    about the profession, about the world.
    Did you have formal training in the sense of--
    I was for four years apprentice boy.
    And after I came back from the concentration camp,
    I went through in a night course,
    where I picked up sub-engineering.
    So that's my-- the rest is books what I had learned in my life.
    How about your mother and father?
    Were they readers?
    Oh, yes.
    This was the-- even today in my family, we have this tradition.
    Everybody goes in bed with a book all the time.
    Any particular topic or particular area?
    Anything what you can read about it--
    science, geography, anything.
    Out of curiosity, do you read articles, or books, or novels
    pertaining to the Holocaust?
    I read a few, not too many.
    Not too many.
    There was a book in my city.
    It was a doctor who was a--
    what is-- who is make autopsy.
    Coroner.
    Coroner.
    He was a coroner before the concentration camp.
    And they took him to Auschwitz.
    And he was working near Mengele.
    OK, well let's, if we CAN save some of that
    to a little bit later point in the interview.
    He wrote this book.
    So that's what I--
    So that obviously gave you an interest.
    And what was the name of that book
    so we can have it for record purposes?
    I Was the Coroner with Mengele.
    That was the book.
    In Hungarian, he wrote the book.
    Now, with reference to your early childhood and your home
    life, as you indicated previously,
    you stated that reading was very much a Jewish hobby
    in your household.
    Tell us a little bit about your religious background
    in the sense of some of the ways that you practiced
    your religion, how closely you and your family
    were religiously, and how you celebrated some
    of the holidays, and what type of shul
    you might have belonged to, and so forth.
    My mother had a wig, so sheitel.
    My father was a kosher butcher.
    In that time, you couldn't be a kosher butcher
    if you weren't religious enough.
    My father was religious, but in modern way.
    We were Orthodox, but not very.
    We ate kosher in our place.
    And we kept all the holidays.
    I was a-- I had a very nice voice when I was a youngster.
    And I was singing in the temple with one
    of the most famous cantor in Romania.
    Who was that?
    Riff-- Emanuel Riff.
    He was something.
    Was this a large congregation?
    It was a large congregation.
    Oradea had 31,000 Jews from 120,000 citizens.
    It was one of the largest congregations.
    So approximately 25%, or a quarter of the population,
    was Jewish?
    That's right.
    Within the realm of the Jewish population
    of Oradea, were there, at that time,
    Conservative factions of Jews, at that time,
    Reform faction of Jews?
    They were.
    It was a so named Neolog temple there.
    And it was Orthodox.
    It was even the Vizhnitzer, the Rabbi Vizhnitzer, who
    was world famous, it was there.
    We were singing every Purim at his place,
    and seeing that Hasidic joy what it was there.
    So it was every type of--
    not religion because it's the same religion.
    Only the congregations were many different congregations.
    Tell me, in the days of your childhood,
    knowing that there are something like 25% of the city's
    population is Jewish, would it be fair of me
    to state that perhaps a good portion
    of the city's professional class of population--
    the lawyers, the doctors, professors, teachers,
    people of that type of occupation--
    were they, in many ways, Jewish in terms of percentages?
    Not only the intellectual part, but even
    the first steel mill started by Jewish-- was started by Jews.
    And I just read-- because I didn't know in that time--
    in Israel, they edited a book about my foster city
    and with pictures, with--
    even my parents' name is in it and my uncle's name.
    So the family is in it-- and from the beginning of the city.
    They were the most active part.
    It was played by the Jews to enflourish that city.
    Were there any universities in the city?
    There is now.
    But they were very highly technical schools--
    no university.
    Was this in an area of Romania or Transylvania
    that would be considered industrial?
    It's industrial and commercial.
    It was commercial-- not anymore, but it was very--
    In those days, we're talking about.
    --in those days, it was.
    They named them the little Paris because it was
    such a flourishing life there.
    And you, of course, were at that stage
    where you were able to sing with the famous rabbi and the--
    Oh, yes.
    --famous cantor.
    Oh, yes.
    It must have been a most pleasant and happy childhood.
    It was.
    And normal.
    Yes.
    And I take it, on some of the days, like the High Holidays,
    the city may as well have closed down.
    Oh, yes, absolutely.
    It wasn't any business there.
    That's for sure.
    As a child, do you remember any incidents of antisemitism?
    Once-- you see, we were living--
    we didn't have our own house.
    We were living in a house where there were 11 tenants.
    My mother's best friend were--
    one family, it was Romanian, the other family was Hungarian,
    and my mother Jewish.
    We were living one near other one.
    We never knew.
    At least in my childhood, I never
    knew that is a difference between us.
    In the school, yes, I found out a few times.
    All right.
    Let's first of all talk about your home life in one
    more respect.
    You indicated that all of the neighboring tenants that you
    had were themselves Jewish, be they from Hungary, Romania.
    They weren't Jews, not everybody.
    No, but many.
    Yeah, yeah, oh, yes.
    This was before the institution, of course, of ghetto.
    That's right.
    Was there not, Mr. Robicsek, however, a voluntary
    getting together of all of the Jews, more or less,
    to form their own little ghetto voluntarily?
    Yes, voluntary.
    OK.
    So while you were within the confines of that ghetto,
    I suppose, life seemed relatively safe to you.
    Yes.
    Now, you spoke a moment ago about an incident
    that happened in school.
    Yes.
    All right.
    Do you recall how old you were at the time?
    Oh, around eight years old.
    But I never forget it because it happened.
    Tell us about it.
    They were two kids in the same school.
    And they were twins.
    For instance, one of them, it was-- when I was in Romania,
    he was the minister of the heavy industry.
    So he went up in the communist ladder real fast.
    And they were not jokingly, but they told me
    that you are a dirty Jew.
    And I lost my--
    I am not a violent person.
    But this is the only thing when I lose my temper.
    So I lost my temper.
    And I beated up both of them.
    I was a hero because I beat two bigger guys than me.
    So that's why I never forget this.
    And there were things what showed to us that we are not
    the same like the others.
    Such as?
    In the school, you got a different grade,
    even if you were so good like nobody else--
    first of all, the Romanian kid, even if he was worse than you.
    So you have to prove yourself all the time and show not 100%,
    110% to stay in the level.
    So you always had to give more effort.
    And this was not only in that time,
    even after the Nazis were gone, in Communist country, also.
    And this distinction was based strictly on the fact
    that you're Jewish?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Now, during that period of time that you
    went through schooling, and you had these type of episodes,
    and so forth, did you have the thought,
    have the really conscientious thought
    that you're going to be able to succeed within that society?
    No.
    When I was a youngster already, I
    was involved in the Zionist movement.
    And that gave us a lot of pride.
    The us meaning who?
    The rest of the Jewish kids.
    We got together.
    We had our own club at the Zionist movement.
    And we were dreaming about Israel
    and building our future, in our mind, to go there.
    There was no question in your mind.
    No, it wasn't a question.
    How old were you at this point?
    I started around when I was seven years old.
    In the Zionist movement?
    From-- that's right.
    Do you recall your first involvement?
    First involvement was singing there, dancing there,
    and make--
    I was good in drafting, drawing.
    I made drawing about Herzl.
    That was-- and about Trumpeldor.
    And really, we were very active.
    We were going out in the woods together
    with the whole Kutzala--
    that's the name of it I was in.
    It was very nice, beautiful memories.
    How about your folks?
    Were they as strongly impressed with the Zionist movement
    as you were?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Now, did you go up through the ranks of the Zionist movement
    within your city?
    I went-- I wanted to be a halutz, to go out.
    But soon as-- I majored in that.
    I had-- and I was taken to the concentration camp.
    Now, you were how old when the Nazi movement first, shall we
    say, came to your attention?
    In my attention, it came first when they destroyed in 1930--
    '32 or '33.
    And you were how old at the time?
    At that time, I was--
    let's see, from '24 to '33--
    I was nine years old.
    I was singing in different synagogues with the cantor.
    And one of the synagogues was destroyed.
    It was a big convention of the students
    from all over Romania in that place.
    And the students, the rightist students and the Nazis
    started to come in with the Iron Guard.
    That was the name in Romania of the Nazi movement.
    And they rioted in the city.
    And where they start first?
    On the Jewish synagogue.
    So they destroyed the synagogue, where we supposed
    to sing on that Friday.
    That was my first shock what I got, big shot--
    shock what I got in my life being Jew.
    When this particular incident happened,
    you stated they destroyed the synagogue--
    by means of explosives, fire?
    No, they went in, and they burned everything,
    and they tear the Torahs.
    Were you witness to this?
    I was witness when we went next time to sing there.
    And it wasn't restored then, only a part of it only
    who can pray there.
    How about your family and their reaction?
    And what was said at home after this incident?
    We were very depressed.
    And naturally, that-- this was something
    which never happened before.
    Because the Romanian people are not very bloody people, not--
    we could get along with the Romanians before.
    Jew and non-Jew.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    In that regard, did your family have many non-Jewish friends
    that you socialized?
    Oh, yes.
    Yes, they are very--
    my father's best friend was a Romanian butcher
    who tried to save us from the ghetto.
    So the Romanians are good, peaceful people--
    most of it.
    Do you see this Nazi movement, then,
    as just something that happened in the times?
    Or is this something that is very
    akin to the personality, or the attitude,
    or the culture of the Romanian people?
    You see, we could make a distinction between two
    different--
    not nations because I can't talk about nations.
    Because a nation can't be bad.
    There are bad people and there are good people.
    Only the difference is in one of the nations,
    they are more bad than good.
    That's the difference-- looking with the Jew's eye.
    So we had Hungarians.
    Not the Romanians deported us, not the Romanians took us
    to the concentration camp.
    That part of Transylvania, where I was living,
    it was given back to Hitler--
    by Hitler to the Hungarians because they
    were behaving very good.
    They were good allies.
    So the Hungarians took us to the concentration camp.
    And we could make a distinction between the two nations.
    It was a big difference.
    Well, did you consider yourself as a citizen of Romania,
    or a citizen of Hungary, a citizen of Transylvania,
    or Jewish?
    I was always Jewish.
    I was always Jewish.
    My parents-- because in 1922, they came in this city.
    And they were living in Hungary.
    They were very culturally--
    they were very Hungarians.
    Jews, Hungarian Jews, but every Jew
    is assimilating to the country where they are living.
    So you pick any Jew, you will see
    that it has-- if it's Polish, it has a Polish thing.
    More specifically, I suppose, my question
    is whether in your family, as you were growing up
    and in your forming years, whether you experienced
    true national spirit, nationalism,
    where you felt proud about Hungarian progress,
    or Hungarian feats, or Romanian progress, or Romanian feats,
    whether there was that spirit of country?
    It was.
    It was.
    It was.
    Because our parents were very Hungarian--
    good Jews.
    We were Zionists, so we were good Jews.
    We were feeling with Palestine at that time.
    The fact that Hitler gave this country back to Hungary,
    did that sit well with your parents?
    Oh, no, we were ashamed that we speak that language.
    Did there come a time in, let's say, 1933,
    at the time of these events-- and we understand now
    how fast-breaking these events really were.
    And by way of specific example, when
    you illustrated the instance where the synagogue had
    been destroyed by the Nazi youth and the university students,
    did there come a time that you and your mother, father,
    brother, sister had conversation where, perhaps, the topic was
    are we going to leave?
    Or can we get out of here?
    Is there a means of escape?
    Do we need to escape?
    Questions which dealt with actual survival.
    It happened only when--
    my father was the most wonderful man in the world.
    Everybody's father is like that.
    But he was such a believer in people.
    He was such an innocent soul that he never
    would think that something can happen with those people
    with whom we were living together and good friends.
    We never hated anybody.
    And we tried to live a very nice life there.
    And even when we were in the ghetto,
    I mentioned before that his best friend was a Romanian man, who
    passed away since then.
    And soon as the Hungarians came in,
    the Romanians who could go--
    he was a fairly wealthy man.
    He went across the border.
    And he went to the Romanian.
    It was very close, the border, to us
    between Hungary and Romania, as soon as the Hungarians
    moved in--
    approximately 10 kilometer and there was Romania.
    So they pushed them back together.
    And he even send that people there
    through the border to tell us to do everything to go.
    And he will help us to get out from the ghetto.
    And my father's reaction was I don't
    believe anything can happen.
    And if it happens, what happens with the rest of the Jews?
    It happened with us.
    That was his philosophy.
    Was that yours?
    You were much younger at the time.
    You had more of a fighting spirit.
    I was younger.
    I respected my parents like they were my god, like a Jew can
    respect their parents.
    And they were saints in front of my eye.
    And what they said, I was together with them.
    I was alone at home and didn't mind it there.
    Mr. Robicsek, you described yourself
    earlier as an individual who physically beat up
    two individuals who called you a dirty Jew.
    Yes.
    Now, having witnessed what took place,
    you obviously had to have a great deal of turmoil
    in terms of your thoughts and what you intended to do.
    I was thinking with my parents.
    I don't know.
    I was in a--
    I don't know.
    I couldn't think clearly at that time.
    It happened so fast.
    It was later, I was thinking about it.
    And it was-- put it together so perfectly scientifically
    by the Nazis that even I put the question, why
    I didn't revolted?
    Why I didn't do something?
    But with anybody, you were talking there,
    everybody-- even the rabbi told us that everything will be OK.
    God will help us.
    And that's what we did for thousands of years.
    And that's what happened.
    It was too late to do something later.
    I was about to ask when it was that it first really hit
    you and really dawned upon you that, at this point,
    it's too late.
    We can't get out.
    We can't escape.
    And we can't fight.
    When I was in the box car, locked in
    with my parents, and all the other people there,
    and see the suffering there.
    So even up to the point where you
    were taken to the railroad station,
    you felt that there was still some basis for hope?
    Yes, yes.
    Tell us, in terms of what happened in your city,
    in Oradea--
    tell us about the institution of the ghetto.
    On May 5, in 1944, it started--
    in 1945, it started, the ghetto.
    Excuse me, you mean '35.
    No, '40-- '40--
    we were taken we were taken 1944 to Auschwitz.
    So then it was very simple.
    They came to our house with a paper
    that we have to pack together everything.
    It was in the newspapers also that all the Jews has to pack.
    They will go in a certain area of the city which
    will be fenced around.
    And they have to leave there till they give other orders
    what will happen with us.
    When you began reading about what
    was going to take place in your city, now, by that time,
    you had knowledge of what had gone on in other cities,
    had you not?
    Oh, yes.
    When did you first come to the conclusion
    that what was happening in these various cities
    had served to target the Jews as a primary victim
    of the Nazi regime?
    Even till they took us to the railroad station to take us
    to Auschwitz, even in the last moment, they were telling us,
    and everybody were telling-- nobody else gave us a different
    information--
    that we are going together with the family.
    And we will be together with the family.
    In Hungary, they will take us.
    And there, we will work or on the farm till the war is over.
    Well, that was what we knew.
    In the late '30s, history obviously
    has recorded any number of things which took place
    in both Eastern and Western Europe
    specifically pertaining to the Jews.
    And there were a number of incidents
    which had occurred in the late '30s which
    gained worldwide recognition and worldwide press coverage.
    Did you have that information available to you
    when it happened back in the late '30s?
    We had information.
    We had.
    But we didn't believe it.
    Ourself, we didn't believe it.
    We had some Polish Jews who defected from Poland
    and came even at our table because my father--
    we were poor, but we had meat enough.
    And every Shabbos, we had not only the family,
    but we had always a few poor bocher, a few poor people
    around the table.
    And even we had Polish bocher who told us that--
    get away from here.
    Is something wrong there.
    OK, he didn't defected from Auschwitz.
    He didn't know about Auschwitz.
    But it's something wrong because they
    are taking our people away.
    When was this?
    This was around-- oh, around '38, '39.
    Did you read about Kristallnacht?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Yeah.
    Did you discuss that with your family?
    And what was said?
    We discussed it.
    But we had that optimistic view that it never
    can happen with us.
    You felt that your Romanian or Hungarian brothers--
    The Romanians.
    We didn't trust the Hungarians because as soon
    as the Hungarians came in in 1941,
    they occupied that part of Transylvania,
    they started with the antisemitism
    The laws against the Jews started to come out.
    Prior to that time, just before the Hungarians came in,
    were there incidents of some of your liberties being
    taken away?
    No, not with the Romanians.
    Not with the Romanians.
    No.
    Were there incidents with reference
    to any confiscation of your property?
    No.
    Did life, by and large, continue as it always had?
    It continued.
    We read in the newspapers that the Iron
    Guard is getting active and doing riots here
    and riots there.
    But they weren't-- and it was far away from us.
    This is-- we were very, very optimistic.
    It's often been said that Hitler wanted
    to do what he did in terms of conquering the world,
    or in terms of marching his armies,
    because of a terrible fear that he
    had of the Russians and the Bolshevik movement.
    You've heard that.
    Yes.
    What was the nature of the Bolshevik
    movement within the Jewish community where you were?
    There were many Jews who defected to Russia
    from Romania.
    The Communist Party was illegal in Romania--
    By the way--
    --before the Nazis.
    --the Zionist Party, was that considered legal or illegal?
    Legal.
    It was legal.
    And they were-- the Zionist movement had a left movement
    also, the Hashomer Hatzair.
    And I knew a few people there.
    Because we knew who is Zionist and who defected.
    From Romania, they went through, because Romania
    has a long border with Russia.
    And they went in the other side.
    But they were treated very badly.
    Most of them died.
    And who survived later, they said
    that they were working in the mines there.
    But at the time, you didn't know this?
    At the time, no.
    Many Jews-- even if he wasn't feeling the leftist movement,
    feeling-- many Jews ran there to save themselves from the Nazis.
    Because from two evils, they thought
    that the other one is better.
    Now, you describe that it wasn't until the Hungarian army came
    through that, indeed, the truly repressive measures
    that we've associated with the Holocaust began to take place.
    Right.
    What was the type of measures that they instituted?
    And what were your early recollections
    as they were first put into place?
    And tell us as to describe, if you
    would, what discussions you might
    have had with both friends and confidants or family,
    if you would tell us that, please.
    First of all, the first thing what I am remembering,
    it was that they started to get in the Jewish businesses
    and forced the Jewish businesspeople, the owners,
    to get a Hungarian part-owner in to share the business.
    That's what the first thing what I was.
    And they started to bring in antisemite movie pictures,
    many.
    Did you see them?
    I saw one of them.
    Were you expecting it?
    I didn't expected what I saw there.
    Do you remember what else you saw that day beside that movie?
    Oh, I saw the reaction of the people there.
    In other words, was it a short newsreel?
    Or was it an actual?
    No, it was a movie.
    It was a movie.
    It was-- it's a worse like Dickens wrote about Shylock.
    It that type of person, who used the German people.
    And he was a crooked, the antisemite type of guy,
    whom the Nazis described that the Jews look like, all of them
    like that.
    The stereotype.
    That's right, the stereotype, who cheated everybody,
    and who went, even making people kill each other.
    So the hatred was so big in that small, little movie theater
    that we walked out.
    And we didn't think that we will see that in a movie.
    And they started to riot around the movie theater and things
    like that.
    The propaganda, it started very strongly against the Jews.
    How about newspapers?
    Do you have any recollection of any specific incident,
    or story, or headline?
    Yes.
    They were writing.
    Right there, as soon as the Hungarians came in,
    it took a very big turn.
    They fired the Jewish editors.
    And they took over.
    And it was an opposite newspaper.
    Now, this was approximately when, 1941?
    1940, '41, yes.
    Now, did they report in the press, or radio, what have you,
    incidents of Jewish businessmen or Jewish individuals--
    That's right.
    --who were put on trial?
    Not in the beginning.
    Later, yes, oh, yes.
    And always, they picked some stories against the Jews,
    showing the stereotype of the Jews,
    how they are cheating people.
    And I didn't know this type of Jew
    because my parents were very hard working, very honest, very
    respectable people.
    And everybody around me, I never saw it-- only in the--
    I realized that they are writings
    which are not the truth.
    Well, from this particular time, 1941--
    and you said previously that it was approximately May of '44
    when you were taken to the camp.
    Is that right?
    Tell us a little bit about what started to happen, bit by bit,
    from when you first started seeing these newspaper accounts
    or this movie theater incident.
    This became a way of life, did it not?
    It became a way of life.
    And then we had to put the yellow David star.
    And this started when?
    That was before they took us in in the ghetto.
    All right.
    With the dates, I won't be precise.
    We understand that.
    Because in the concentration camp, I got a brain typhoid.
    And I forgot many, many things which was--
    I have the flashes.
    And the dates are not the best part of my memory.
    The times, though, that you were of an age--
    you're in your teens, you're able to read fluently, see
    the newspaper, and see what is being stated about Jews.
    You could hear on the radio, could you not?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Same type of propaganda about the Jewish stereotype?
    And were signs everywhere where you went.
    Movie theaters?
    Oh, newspapers, special newspaper,
    antisemite newspapers.
    Did this have an effect upon, let's say,
    your father's business?
    Did he have to close down early?
    Yes.
    He had to close down.
    He had to--
    Entirely?
    He went to work for this Romanian butcher.
    Was he able to sell his store, sell his business?
    No.
    Nobody bought a kosher business in that time.
    What about your brother or sister?
    My brother was working.
    Do you recall where?
    And my sister was working.
    Do you recall where?
    My brother was working in a textile mill.
    And my sister made from leather goods gloves and things
    like that.
    Now, when Dad closed the business down and went
    to work for your Romanian friend,
    did this have any effect upon him being a provider.
    In other words, was he able to provide
    sufficiently for your family with enough of you working?
    Not very sufficiently.
    We had what to eat.
    And not too much.
    I grew up in a one-bedroom half-house.
    The house wasn't ours.
    The landlord was living in one half of the house.
    And we were living in the other half of the house.
    Now, when is it that the actual ghetto
    itself was instituted in your town?
    The actual-- it started at May 5, 1945.
    Of 1944?
    '45?
    '44, excuse me.
    All right.
    Now, between the time of the Hungarian occupation
    and the time of the ghetto creation
    itself, you obviously had three years--
    three and a half years of the war
    that you were able to read about and converse about.
    At what point did you think that the Nazi movement
    would lose or win?
    We were praying that the Western world,
    it will make a stop of this war, get in and--
    that was our greatest hope.
    We were listening to the Voice of America--
    no, the BBC.
    It was the English channel in that time
    and we were listening.
    Every evening, the family was around them.
    And we were waiting for a miracle.
    We were waiting that it won't happen.
    We didn't know what will happen.
    But we felt that this is not the right way because we
    weren't living this way before.
    So we thought that the war, it end up much faster
    than how much it's lasted.
    Well, there comes a point when a person has to say,
    I've been hoping and hoping.
    And all of my hopes are going unanswered.
    Yes.
    When did you reach that point?
    Only in the wagon, only in the boxcars.
    What was your understanding or impression
    with reference to America?
    It was a dream, a heaven.
    It was always--
    What were you told about America?
    In the family, we knew people who
    were very distant relatives, and friends' brothers and sisters,
    they were in America.
    And it was the greatest dream to be in America sometimes.
    Did there come a time that there was
    a conflict between the desire, perhaps, to achieve the dream
    and go to America and your previous discipline
    as a member of the Zionist movement
    and wanting to go to Israel?
    Wasn't there a conflict?
    It was a conflict after the war started.
    Because we had all our hopes in America.
    To build a Jewish state, we didn't think about
    that we have the power to it, to get out from there.
    Because everything was-- you couldn't get out from there.
    So we were looking up to United States,
    who will solve all our problems, winning the war.
    And then we can build Israel.
    Do you recall any specific incidents where close
    family members or close associates and friends
    of your family had some of the acts of repression
    that we previously spoke about from the Germans
    and from the Romanians or Hungarians--
    any incidents that you recall involving people who you know,
    and things that happened to them,
    and the effect that it had upon your family?
    Well, I had my--
    but it was late in--
    when the ghetto was on already.
    That would have been after--
    There were many incidents there, which--
    even the way he goes.
    Involving people you know?
    Well, my uncle, for instance, he was taken soon
    as the ghetto was on.
    They took him.
    He was a-- he wasn't a very rich man.
    He wasn't a rich man.
    You can't say that.
    But he was in the public life.
    He was a very active man.
    He was also a butcher, kosher butcher.
    And he was the life president of the chamber of commerce.
    And also, it's very interesting.
    He was a lifetime president of the Hungarian Party
    under the Romanians.
    And he was taken as soon as they moved in with the Gestapo.
    Because the Hungarians moved in and the Gestapo got--
    and the foster Jewish ghetto, they got a beer--
    a warehouse, where they transformed in
    torture camp-- chambers.
    And they took the wealthy Jews in there
    to beat out or torture out their wealth from them.
    And that's how they took my--
    Were you ever witness to any of this yourself?
    I was witnessing my uncle when he was taken out on a stretcher
    from there.
    And he was taken with the stretcher in the boxcars.
    And he went to his death.
    Do you attribute their doing this
    to your uncle because of his political background
    and his political activism or because he was Jewish?
    It couldn't be because he was promoting
    the Hungarian politics.
    And the Hungarians were in there.
    Because they thought that he has money.
    And he didn't.
    So they tortured him till he almost
    died because he couldn't tell where his money is because he
    never had money so much.
    He lived-- he had his own house.
    And he had his own business before they closed down.
    But he was in front of the eye of--
    and many people went in like that.
    They took them in and never came out.
    Just so we would clearly understand--
    did the events that you're describing
    in your area of Romania, which is the Transylvanian section
    of it, were the events that happened there different
    or the same as the events that may
    have occurred in other locales around the country
    to your knowledge?
    I don't think so it was too much difference.
    I don't think so.
    Were you hearing?
    I don't know.
    Because as soon as they took us in the ghetto,
    they took all the surrounding Jews around the city,
    from the small villages.
    Everybody was taken in there.
    And that's all what we knew.
    From there on, everything was happening
    with everybody the same.
    When the ghetto was instituted, did you
    see far more army or personnel, soldiers coming through?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    All right.
    Was this before or after the institution of the ghetto?
    It was before.
    Before, it was.
    Yeah.
    And the purpose of all of these soldier personnel
    and the military coming through your particular area, what
    were you told?
    What was your understanding as to why they were there?
    Oh, they are going to the Russian front.
    And it was understandable.
    Hungary was at war, and Germany also.
    So there were a lot of German soldiers
    and Hungarian soldiers.
    You're talking, then, about those soldiers or individuals
    who came through your town.
    And stationary there.
    They took a lot of--
    because they just so named liberated that part
    from Romania.
    So it was understandable that they came in with army
    and they stood there with army.
    In terms of your national leadership,
    in terms of the individuals who you understood
    to be the political leaders of your country,
    what, if anything, did you believe
    concerning whether they were antisemitic,
    or whether they were anti-Jewish,
    or whether they were pro-Nazi?
    Romania was a monarchy before the war.
    And Carol, who was the king, he left the country.
    He had a mistress who was a Jewish woman, with whom he
    had children also.
    And he died not long time ago, a few years ago
    in the Western world, somewhere in Switzerland or France.
    I don't know.
    Now, this man was a very--
    not because his mistress was a Jewish woman,
    but he never was an antisemite.
    You can say that almost all his friends were Jews.
    Now, his son, Mihai, who is still living in France,
    I think so--
    I don't in which part.
    Now, his son got involved with the Iron Guard.
    So we knew about it that he is not a Jew-lover.
    And that's when the Iron Guard, it
    got-- as soon as-- he took over as soon
    as his father left the country.
    And that's what we understood, that the top echelons
    of the country, they are antisemites.
    Well, we're now going to get into that portion
    of our interview concerning the events and the things that
    happened to you immediately as you went to the camp,
    and the institution of the ghetto, and so forth.
    I understand we have but a few seconds left on this tape.
    So this would probably be a good place
    to pause for a quick break.
    And then we'll come back shortly.
    OK.
    Good.
    Idle time.
    5, 4, 3, 2, 1, up.
    OK.
    Now, Mr. Robicsek, you indicated that it
    was approximately May of 1940 that the ghetto had
    been instituted in your town.
    1944.
    1944.
    What I'd like for you to do is to tell us
    how it occurred, what happened, the day that it happened,
    how you were moved, who you were with.
    Try and recollect for us in as much detail
    as you can what happened that day.
    We got-- we knew that the next day,
    they will come and take us to the ghetto.
    The ghetto was cutted off right the other side of the street
    where we were living.
    Remember the name of the street?
    The name of the street, it was Tompa Mihai.
    It was named after a famous Hungarian poet.
    That was the name of the city-- of the street.
    Out of curiosity, have you had opportunity either from before
    or since your experience during the war
    to have read that poet's works?
    Oh, I read.
    I knew from his work, yeah.
    He was a nationalistic, but never antisemite.
    Because in his time, they weren't--
    I don't know if they were antisemites,
    but I never read anything which was antisemite poet.
    So we knew that they will pick us
    up next morning, early morning.
    We were allow to take one sack of goods, only
    the absolutely necessary clothings, nothing else.
    At that time, they told us to take all our jewelry, and all
    our money, everything with us.
    So in early in the morning, two gendarmes--
    csendo, that was in Hungarian the name.
    Those were very famous, even in old times,
    that they were-- they would kill their mother if they
    would be ordered.
    They were raised specially for this type of work.
    They were keeping the peasants under their control
    before, in 10, 20, 50, 100 years before.
    And so these people were specially-trained people,
    very mean and very militaristic, who
    would do anything, which we found out later, to go
    after the order what they got.
    So two of them came.
    And they took us with a truck.
    And they put it out in our city--
    our street every Jew who was there.
    I want to ask you to freeze in your memory just for a moment
    the picture of those two gendarmes
    when they came to your home.
    Do you recollect what they looked like?
    Do you recollect how they appeared to you at the time?
    Tell us about the moment, the inevitable moment.
    The moment was one of the worst time in my life.
    We had a very happy little family.
    And that's-- perhaps that's when we realized that we never will
    be so peaceful again, how we were before that there.
    It was terrible.
    It was terrible to see those--
    it's like a verdict.
    These two very strong and armed people coming in and destroying
    our home.
    Fancy uniforms?
    They had a hat, a special hat.
    And they had a feather, a rooster feather,
    long rooster feather like that.
    They come knock on your door?
    Oh, they hit the door, not knocking.
    They hit the door.
    But we knew that they were coming.
    I understand that.
    And they knock at your door.
    Do you recall who opened the door for them?
    My mother.
    Do you see the scene that vividly today?
    Yeah.
    What happened next?
    They throw up-- they took our sacks.
    We had-- we were four people at home.
    My brother was at the forced labor.
    When did that take place?
    And everybody had one sack, every person
    can-- had one sackful with.
    And they throw them on the truck.
    And because the ghetto was very close,
    the other side of the street, we had to walk there.
    They jammed us in in one house, where there
    were at least 10 families.
    We were having a part of a room, where many other people were.
    We were sleeping on the floor.
    You indicated that your brother had already
    gone to forced labor.
    When did that take place?
    He was-- he is four years older than me.
    So when the Hungarians came in, they
    didn't Institute right away the Jewish law--
    the anti-Jewish law that a Jew can't
    serve in the army with the Christians, with the Hungarian.
    So he was in that age that he had to go to the army.
    So he was in the army when this anti-Jewish laws came out
    that they take all the Jews from the army out.
    And they will make a forced labor.
    They took all the arms from them.
    They got shovels and the tools with which they can dig
    trenches and things like that.
    And they were living a military life only--
    and they took away all the uniforms.
    We had to send civil clothes to my brother.
    Where is it that he was interned or kept?
    He was in Nagybánya.
    Now is Baia Mare.
    It was a city where they were all the forced labor Jews.
    It was the headquarters of the military.
    Did you keep in contact with your brother,
    have a chance to visit with him?
    Well, he was here three times already.
    No, no, I'm talking in those days when he was in the camp.
    Oh, in those days only through letters.
    So it had been a period of time then
    since you or any member of your family had seen him.
    Oh, yes, oh, yes.
    Now, you indicated that you're moved across the street.
    You're now in the ghetto.
    And there are some 10 or so families--
    at least it appeared that way--
    all living in the same type of house.
    Was this an apartment-type house?
    Or was it a--
    No, there weren't there any--
    in that area, in the ghetto, there
    were houses with many floors, many.
    In that city, many floors is four or five.
    Five was the highest.
    But this was like a ranch-type home.
    It was a home for one of the citizens there.
    It was confiscated.
    He was Jewish anyway.
    So even he couldn't live in his home.
    And they put it so many families per square meter.
    And that's it.
    Somewhere down the line, you had to ask,
    I wonder what happened to the fellow that owned this house.
    He was in another house.
    And you saw him?
    He was-- oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    Would he ask about his home?
    He was asking-- he came there to see his home
    and what situation is.
    Where was he living?
    He was living in another home two streets from there,
    jammed in with other people.
    Tell us about your day-to-day experiences
    as you survived the ghetto.
    It was a very--
    because the ghetto was very short,
    we found out later that the Hungarians
    were such good allies of Hitler that they sended
    the Jews, the Hungarian Jews, six months earlier than how
    they had the understanding with Hitler, with the Nazis.
    And that caused that Auschwitz and
    the other Vernichtungslagers, the other lager--
    concentration camps, who were built
    for destroying the people--
    Extermination camps.
    --extermination camps, they didn't have enough capacity.
    They worked over capacity.
    And perhaps, they were sending many
    more Jews to different working camps
    if weren't of sended in one--
    six months earlier.
    So they overdid the plan.
    And that caused much more destroying the people,
    much more.
    But in terms of your day-to-day experiences,
    how did you folks carry on?
    How was food provided?
    How were basic necessities provided?
    That happened--
    What would you do for entertainment?
    And how would you feed all of the people?
    It was very interesting.
    Even in the biggest misery of the human being,
    there is thing which is resembling
    to the regular life of the people, the regular happy life
    of the people.
    now what is the biggest thing what
    I remember, my mother, when he tasted first the treyfler,
    she got a piece of bacon.
    Because we didn't have--
    they didn't allow us to take in food.
    So we got what the Hungarians sended in.
    And we didn't have too much food.
    And they sent the bacon in.
    And we made our mother to taste the bacon.
    And she couldn't swallow him.
    She spit him out.
    And she never wanted to go close to that, like an enemy.
    And also, the life is--
    I was taken out the first week from there.
    So I was really--
    the daytime, I was only for a week in the ghetto.
    They took us out because I was in that age
    that I was almost close to be taken to the forced labor.
    They took us--
    You were how old at that time?
    I was 18 years old.
    And they took us out to a cadet--
    caserne, where the cadets, the army cadets were trained.
    We maintained the lawn there and clean the places.
    They took us out in the morning.
    And they took us back in the ghetto at night.
    Armed escort?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes, very heavily armed escort to cannot go again.
    What kind of soldiers, local people?
    Only these genders, only these very mean people
    were around us.
    You had to ask yourself, why is it that these gendarmes,
    who were the most feared and most ferocious of soldiers,
    why they weren't on the front line instead of in your ghetto?
    These were kept-- these people never went to the front.
    These were kept to make order in the country.
    So these were only to keep the order.
    You indicated that you were in the ghetto
    but for a short period of time.
    How long?
    We were taken to Auschwitz on June 4, 1944.
    So approximately?
    Approximately a month.
    30 days or less.
    And during that period of time, did you think, at that moment,
    that there was some opportunity, some hope for your escape,
    for your survival?
    Not without my parents and my sister.
    I never separated myself, even for escaping.
    Did you hear any episodes of individuals who escaped?
    Oh, yes.
    First of all, the first thing, before--
    when they sended out the acknowledgment
    that this and this day, you will be picked up,
    the Jews of the city, many suicides were--
    couple.
    We knew people who committed suicide.
    And that was the first shock--
    not so much shock that we have to go across the street,
    but that these people committed suicide.
    So it must be something that these people are knowing.
    When you use the expression going across the street,
    what do you mean, leaving the ghetto?
    No, going to the ghetto.
    Because we were living before in the same street.
    But the other side was closed.
    It started the fence there.
    So we knew people who committed suicide.
    And we knew people who defected, who went across the border
    and went to Romania.
    Did that thought enter your mind?
    Oh, many times.
    We were talking in the family.
    We were talking to my father and--
    What did he say?
    He said, what happens with the rest of the Jews
    will happen with us.
    And that was his only reaction when
    we were raising this question.
    At that time, were you in favor of making an effort to defect?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    But it was clear you would not leave without your parents.
    Not without my parents, no way.
    I take it, by that time, you were
    willing to accept your fate, whatever that might be.
    Yes.
    Now, you're doing work in the area where the cadets were.
    And you do this for a period of 30 days or less.
    Yes, less than 30.
    And then comes that fateful day that you
    have to go to the camps.
    Remember it very vividly today?
    Oh, yes.
    That can't be forget it.
    Did you know in advance that that day
    would, in fact, be the day that you would be taken?
    Yes, yes.
    How far along, how much advance notice were you given?
    Oh, approximately a week before.
    They started in transports, different days,
    different transports.
    So we knew, before us went other transports also.
    So we knew what time--
    we were notified.
    In every street, it was a responsible
    who was a part of the Jewish committee of the ghetto, who
    were in touch with the SS--
    because the SS took over--
    who were in touch with the SS, who
    gave all the orders through these street responsibles.
    And these are individuals who headed the committee?
    Yes.
    Were they respected individuals in the Jewish community?
    They were respected individuals, all very good people.
    At least we knew that way.
    Did you at all anticipate or suspect--
    or did people ever call to your attention
    that, perhaps, these respected individuals might well
    be collaborators?
    No.
    Never entered your mind?
    No, never.
    Never, because they had a whole lifetime there for generations
    in the same city.
    And they were-- and I believe that they
    weren't collaborators.
    Because they went in the same place where I went.
    Did they give you reason to hope?
    We always hoped.
    Did they give you reason to hope?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Can you think of any incident or any statement that
    might have been made by any of these committee men which
    gave you that relief?
    When there were these block meetings,
    there were people who raised the question.
    And then they had to answer them.
    And many times, they could say only one thing.
    Look, we know only this what we are told.
    Did you go to block meetings?
    Oh, yes, oh, yes.
    How often were they held?
    Approximately every week.
    Every week, yes.
    Because it was spoken about the whole organization-- the food,
    getting the food, and getting to the mikvah, to the bath,
    and things like that.
    It was organization meetings.
    At that time, were there any members of the Zionist movement
    who, at that time, had stated for any of these meetings--
    Yes, yes.
    --and perhaps escape, or revolt, or resistance is the route
    that the people should take?
    Not-- they didn't talk about revolt because you never
    knew who is there.
    So the people were afraid of.
    Because we felt that we are under surveillance always.
    But raised questions that why--
    why are we here?
    What will happen with us?
    I guess my question, really, is were those the individuals who
    would ask these very questions?
    They were, yes.
    OK.
    And these were people--
    so I would be clear--
    who were readily identified as being members of the Zionist
    movement?
    That's right.
    That's right.
    And when they asked these questions
    why, what kind of answers do you recall them being given?
    We were told, that's all what it was told.
    Because we didn't know anything concrete,
    anything to know about it.
    Well, at that time, what did you expect would happen?
    If you knew that there was going to be a resettlement,
    what did you expect?
    You see, I think so what I--
    I was thinking about this many times.
    But I think-- and you know, you are a Jew,
    that the family is the strongest thing in our life.
    Now, that's the place where you can get a Jew
    to collaborate with you-- not to collaborate, but to do
    what you want him to do.
    And that's what the Nazis found out.
    If they promised that they won't hurt the family,
    the family will be together.
    This was the greatest thing.
    If we would have know that we will be stripped apart
    right away, soon as we are stepping down from that train,
    I am sure we would have go to death, if that's the only help.
    But the family will be together.
    And this was the biggest thing what
    they did to hold us together.
    So your greatest strength was your greatest weakness?
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Definitely.
    40 years later, have you ever reconciled that?
    I am still saying the same thing,
    that my family is the greatest thing in my life.
    But I would think now differently,
    if it could happen, because I know a lot more than what
    I knew then.
    Now, the time comes for you and your family
    to board that transport, board that train.
    You indicated previously in our interview
    that that moment, that's when you
    knew that any chance of hope, escape,
    survival probably was lost when the doors were closed.
    Right?
    Yes.
    How long did it take you to get to Auschwitz?
    Four days.
    How far away was it?
    I don't know how many kilometers.
    But it was four days and four nights.
    So they stopped the train many times
    outside of different stations, the train stations, terminals.
    But they took us on the 4th of June, we arrived.
    Many people in your particular car?
    We were approximately 80 people in the same car.
    And how was it that you were transported?
    Were you able to sit or must you stand?
    Tell us about that experience.
    That was the first--
    I spoke since then many times with people,
    with a new generation.
    And they put it, the question, why didn't revolted?
    Which I put to myself also.
    What happened with us from the civil life,
    from a happy civil life, so fast it changed,
    that you were degraded to the animal level,
    from a civilized human individual,
    you were degraded from one day to another, even in the ghetto.
    We could control our thoughts.
    We were living a fairly normal life--
    not compared with the life before.
    But we could talk.
    Even I fell in love with a young girl,
    who was killed in that place.
    I had my wife, who is my wife today.
    She was there also.
    And we knew each other before when we--
    she was my girlfriend from childhood, really.
    And she was there.
    And we went at night out.
    And you even kiss, which was a big thing
    in that time, a young Jewish girl, an innocent Jewish girl.
    And we were talking about--
    not about the ghetto and not about what will happen with us,
    what was before.
    So we were living a fairly normal life.
    We were teenagers.
    But from one moment to another, when
    we stepped in front of that car, that train,
    and the door was open, and it was
    a garbage can near the door, and it was this gender,
    it was there.
    And we had to give all-- if we had some more jewelry with us,
    we had to drop in in that garbage can.
    It was like a barrel.
    And also, our-- we had our individual identification card
    with our photography on it, like everybody had in that time
    under--
    even the Christian Hungarians.
    And they took them, and they tear them apart,
    and they drop them into the garbage can.
    That's when we felt that we never come back here anymore.
    And then they pushed you in in that place.
    You had only bucket with water and one bucket for toilet.
    And the olders, people with wheelchair
    were pushed in there, small little kids, babies,
    mothers, mothers with--
    pregnant mothers, pregnant women,
    even they got birth in the way going there,
    people with mental illness.
    We had two cases when they got mad.
    So we had to--
    us, which were younger people, to jump on him or her
    and make--
    tie them together because it was--
    you can't-- from the normal life,
    with the closing of that door, you got in in the hell.
    It was-- to see your father and your mother who
    was a saint going to that bucket,
    you can't describe it what was there.
    People were dying, the sick people.
    And you didn't know what to do with them.
    And believe me, the Hungarian--
    perhaps this will find--
    sound very surprisingly.
    But OK, the Germans killed us.
    But they behaved-- perhaps this was a part of their psychiatry.
    They behaved more civilized, soon as they took over
    at the Poland's border from Hungarians,
    than the Hungarians.
    The Hungarians didn't give us water.
    The Hungarians didn't help us with anything what
    we were begging to give us.
    Within the confines of the particular car
    that you were riding, recognizing
    that there were 80 individuals, or approximately that number,
    in the car with you, do you recall
    if there were any individuals who, shall we say,
    took charge, people who you could ask?
    Yes.
    Was this by pre-assignment?
    Or did it just happen that way?
    Not pre-assignment because there wasn't any more pre-assignment
    soon as--
    they didn't choose who is going to this train,
    or boxcar, or the other one.
    So it would be strictly by chance?
    Strictly by chance.
    Do you recall the--
    My father took charge.
    He was a butcher.
    And he was a strong, very strong man.
    What did he tell the people?
    We have to survive.
    What can we do?
    She went from one place to another to help.
    And we went with him.
    He asked everybody who was a healthy man
    to help because we needed a lot of help there.
    And your father was the individual
    who would give orders to the rest of you?
    Yes.
    And you somehow managed those four days and four nights.
    Were you able to find place to sleep and so forth?
    What about stopping the train, getting some fresh air,
    allowing yourself to compose yourself somewhat,
    any opportunity given?
    Only they opened the door after we were in German hands.
    But you couldn't get out.
    So if I understand, from the time
    that you left the train station in your hometown
    to when you made it to the German border--
    yeah, would be the Polish border.
    The Polish border.
    How long did that take, approximately?
    That took approximately two days and two nights.
    In the two days and two nights, all they would do
    would be to open the door?
    Or they didn't even do that?
    They even didn't open the door, not the Hungarians.
    So the first 48 hours.
    No, only through the window, it was a window with wires
    to cannot even get out, only to get a little bit of air.
    That was the whole thing on the top
    here, a small little window.
    That was it for all 80 of you.
    And it was June.
    It was hot.
    The feeling of terror that must have
    gone through not just your mind, but all of those with you--
    All, everybody.
    --had to be totally remarkable.
    You can't imagine what was there.
    By this time though, the anger that you must have felt
    was overwhelming.
    Especially, I was worried about my parents.
    I know that wouldn't have been the first time,
    but it was one of many times that you had to ask, why me?
    That's-- oh, yes, even today.
    Why us?
    What answers did you give yourself then?
    I never will answer this question to myself
    because I don't know the answer.
    I was even going back to think all my-- many times,
    where my parents, and my sister, and all my relatives?
    Where were they?
    If I find one crooked man in the family, I would say,
    that crooked man, perhaps he was deserving what he got.
    Not what he got because nobody is deserving what we got--
    nobody, even the criminal.
    I couldn't find one man whom I can
    see that he was a crooked man or he
    was different than what the normal, honest life is
    asking from you in a society.
    Then can you answer the question?
    I can't.
    Did you know that you were going to Auschwitz?
    No.
    They told us we are going in Hungary on a farmland.
    And we will help there the peasants.
    The family will be together till it will get over the war.
    And then we will get back to the city, to our home.
    At that time, had you ever heard of Auschwitz?
    Not like Auschwitz.
    I heard about-- I told you that we had some bochers
    from Poland, two of them, who spoke about
    that they took people.
    They spoke about Treblinka in that time,
    that they took people.
    And they are talking about very, very ugly things is
    done with those people there.
    But we didn't believe them.
    Did they speak from personal knowledge of Treblinka?
    Jewish.
    No.
    No.
    They heard.
    So they heard.
    They never would have got out if they were.
    I believe that would have been certainly no sooner
    than the summer of '42.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    But Auschwitz itself, you had no knowledge.
    It was Oswiecim in Polish.
    And in German, they named them Auschwitz.
    We never knew.
    We arrived in Birkenau.
    And we never heard about it ever.
    Describe your arrival, please.
    When we got close to Birkenau, the first time
    I saw my mother crying.
    And I went to her.
    And I told her that don't cry, everything will be OK.
    Don't be afraid.
    It will be everything OK.
    She said, I am not worried about myself.
    I am worried about you and the rest of the people.
    She was a hero.
    When you arrived and the door of the car opened,
    what did you see?
    The first thing happened, and they came in, people
    with striped Haftling clothing, and a few SS.
    And they started to beat us to get down with sticks.
    And they came.
    That was the first thing.
    They opened the door.
    We even didn't know where we arrived.
    They opened the door.
    The train stopped, they opened the door.
    And they jumped down on the train.
    And they started to beat the people to get down--
    down, down, down.
    They started to throw out what we took with us what we had--
    almost nothing.
    So they throw them off.
    We wanted to hold them.
    And they were Jewish Haftlings.
    The Haftlings are the--
    who was the concentration camp and the Sonderkommando,
    we found out later.
    The name you're using--
    Haftlings?
    Haftling-- in German, it was the people who
    were in the concentration camp.
    Yes.
    But I'm just-- I want to make sure that we accurately
    record the term.
    Yeah, that's how they named us there.
    We were Haftlings later also.
    And the Sonderkommando was the Kommando
    who was doing the job of around the crematorium.
    Now, so these people, they were Jewish people.
    But they were the meanest--
    some of them-- the meanest.
    Later, we found out why these people are so mean,
    that these people were approximately six,
    seven years ago in the concentration camp.
    And these were a few survivors of millions
    of people, who kept themselves alive
    being mean because they lost everybody
    in front of their eye.
    The family was killed.
    And these people knew that within a month or two months,
    they will be destroyed because that was the policy, what
    I found out later, not then, that the policy was
    that-- to not be any survivor to tell the story.
    They destroyed always.
    They kept always fresh people to do the job.
    So these people there, I heard the first time
    when we hanged on the packages what
    we brought with us, that you don't need this anymore.
    You never will use them again.
    You won't get out alive from here.
    So that was the first when we found out that where we came.
    Plus when we stepped down, they formed a column of human.
    We saw-- I told you before that because they sended
    the transport so fast, they didn't have the capacity enough
    in the crematoriums to kill and burn the people.
    So what happened?
    The gas capacity was enough.
    But they couldn't burn them fast enough.
    So it was-- you could see.
    We arrived at the dawn.
    You could see at approximately, oh, 500 meters from there,
    far away, you could see the--
    they were burning people.
    It was a ditch made, a long ditch, where they had burning--
    I don't know it was because we never find out.
    But you could see that with long steel bars,
    they were pushing cadavers in.
    And you smell that special smell, which
    we smelled for a year there.
    Because I was a year in the concentration camp there.
    You smelled that smell, which the burning
    flesh of the people.
    So we found out right away, even if we
    didn't want to believe it.
    It was in front of our eyes.
    When you saw this, what effect did it
    have upon you and what you observed in others?
    Did you feel, at that time, that there's no sense in fighting?
    It's futile to make an effort to survive.
    You know what was going to happen to you.
    Get it over with quick.
    What I felt there, I felt that I was with my father.
    My sister and my mother was taken separated from us.
    We thought that this will be-- because the woman and the man
    is going in different way, in the different column.
    So I felt that sometimes, we will survive.
    I didn't-- I was in a shock.
    That's-- if I think back, I was in a shock,
    which I remember only Dr. Mengele standing in the front.
    It was the column going toward him, the SS around us.
    And they were directing.
    And he was a beautiful man, like how you look at him--
    a German, a German-type German, a blond, blue eyes,
    beautiful man.
    And we hardly could see his eyes because he hardly look up.
    He looked down.
    He had a horse riding stick.
    A rider's crop.
    Yes, in his hand.
    And he was hitting his boots.
    And he was whistling.
    I never forget, he was whistling a Wiener Waltz.
    And he was only doing this movements.
    He hardly looked up.
    So these movements sended my mother
    in the gas chamber and many, many other people.
    You're at the area of Birkenau where the train has
    pulled in and come to a rest.
    Yes, yes.
    Was there a built train station?
    It was a built train station.
    And it was many lines came in that area.
    So it looked like it was a--
    from many, many way, they could come in.
    They all funneled into there.
    Yeah, that's right.
    And then everyone was-- they were separated men from women.
    Yeah, and then left and right.
    Just so we have understanding-- the separation occurred
    as you left the train, as you were taken down from the train,
    your possessions were taken from you,
    you were then told to line up according to men and women.
    Yes, in two columns.
    And then everyone, ultimately, was funneled in--
    That's right.
    --to the camp entrance itself.
    Yes, to Mengele.
    To Mengele.
    Now, was this a routine at every day
    that you later came to found or just on this day?
    Now, this day, this what happened.
    Now, in every one month or one month
    and a half after I got to Auschwitz, Mengele came out.
    And it was a selection of the people.
    And we-- it was at the bathhouse,
    which had two doors, one entrance and one out.
    And it was a long, long building with showers.
    And there, we had to--
    outside, we had to take off our clothing, completely nude,
    and put our clothing on our hand,
    and go one by one, a line on one in front of Mengele, who
    was still with that stick in his hand, and not many times
    looking up.
    And he was deciding.
    He wanted to know how healthy we are for the work,
    if we have to be replaced.
    And those people-- I have the number from Auschwitz.
    So we were numbered.
    This was a working lager.
    This was approximately three kilometers from Birkenau.
    OK.
    Let me again just ask a few more questions
    pertaining to your actual arrival, the moment of arrival.
    At the time, when you got off the train and so forth,
    did you see any evidence of wealth?
    Let me explain what I mean by that.
    Did you see money, jewelry, loot?
    Did you see that other than from what
    was brought by the members of your particular caravan
    or train?
    I'm talking about out in the open.
    Out on the open, I didn't see.
    But I know that every train station where the train stopped
    from Oradea to Auschwitz till the Hungarians
    were there, every time they--
    the Hungarians never opened the door,
    but they came to the window.
    And they said that if somebody has something--
    gold or anything which is valuable--
    to give it to them because if they come up to the train
    and they find them, it will be shot there the person--
    the same thing the Germans did after they took over.
    So that was what the loot what I saw.
    I'm suggesting that when your train arrived,
    perhaps loot from previous transports or previous trains
    that had been there.
    Not there because they took them away,
    even from us, what they took.
    Because they took everything from us.
    As soon as they took us in in Birkenau.
    Now, on that first day, you go through the line,
    you recall Mengele.
    What happens after you obviously had made the cut?
    Tell us what happened.
    I stick to my father.
    So they chose us to live.
    So we went on the right side of Dr. Mengele.
    Do you think today that it had to do with the fact
    that your father was such a big and powerful-looking man?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes, definitely.
    Definitely.
    Because the sick-- my mother just got through a sickness.
    He had hemorrhage before--
    I think so all the excitement on what she been through,
    she was very weak when we got down.
    My sister, how I found out later, because I couldn't see--
    my sister was chosen to live.
    And she died three days before the liberation
    of Bergen-Belsen.
    But my mother was taken to there.
    Now, you and your father were given the opportunity
    to survive by Dr. Mengele.
    Where did you go?
    We were taken-- Birkenau was a faster horse race, or horse--
    they had some big stall--
    that's how you say-- for horses.
    Stables.
    Stables-- big, huge wooden constructions.
    In the center of the construction,
    it was the heating system, which was by wood.
    But it was like a square wall, which is approximately
    three-five foot high.
    And it ended up in a chimney in the center.
    So it went in the whole length of there.
    And it was built from wood completely.
    And it had-- holded together the roof by these pillars,
    put it together like a wooden building.
    So they jammed us in there so tight
    that people were even climbing up on those wooden beams
    to have a little bit more room because we
    were jammed together.
    We couldn't-- when we were sleeping there--
    I was there only two weeks.
    When we were sleeping there, if one had to turn,
    the other had to turn also because it
    was jammed so together.
    And people started to die there also.
    One-- the first death, which happened right near me,
    tied to me, it was an engineer from my foster city,
    who had the sugar diabetes.
    And they took away the insulin, everything from him.
    So he died there, pressed together with me.
    But I told you before that--
    how they could keep us there.
    And this question, it comes every time when I'm talking,
    when I'm thinking about-- and many times, I'm thinking about.
    We proved in Israel that we are not a coward nation.
    We are not more coward than anybody else in this world.
    Why could they keep us there?
    And you can't say that near every person, it was an SS.
    We were approximately 1,500 people in that one building.
    And perhaps they were 10 SS around there outside.
    But the only answer is that because they
    changed our environment from a normal life
    to the animals level, that's how you can handle people.
    That's when you can handle mass.
    I think so.
    The two weeks or so that you recall
    being in that particular building, which
    was the stable, what job assignment did you get?
    What orientation were you given?
    We went to pick up the food.
    All day long, we were standing on Appell,
    in formation, where the SS was walking between the rows
    and beating people when they didn't like a face
    or something, or somebody moved.
    So that was the job.
    There, it wasn't any work.
    But they asked for volunteers to pick up the--
    we didn't have any toilet there.
    It was a big wooden--
    Trough.
    --yes, something like that.
    And it was in a latrine.
    And you had to pick them out when it was full
    and take them, four people take them to a place where we--
    so we volunteered, the strongest, the youngest people,
    to take this, to have some movement.
    And after that, if you volunteered to this,
    you were allowed to go and pick up the food for three times
    a day what they gave you.
    So in order to be in a position to get food,
    you had to first be in a position
    to remove the waste at the latrines.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That was one of many incidents of psychological.
    Definitely.
    And also, one which is-- which was you didn't get any water.
    And the thirst were killing us.
    And that heat there--
    and in that small little breathing place,
    to not get water, and you got a favor, you had to fight for--
    to get to the latrine, to go out.
    They didn't let you out.
    The SS was standing there.
    At night, to go to the latrine, it was a--
    to get out from your place what you pressed for yourself,
    to get out from there, you were sure that you never
    will find that place again.
    And you never will find a place where to relax.
    So it was terrible.
    You can't imagine these small little things,
    which are normal in your normal life, everyday's life.
    What means then when you are not allowed to do it?
    What was the purpose of their keeping
    you in this one particular building
    for that two-week period?
    Oh, to break you down to the level of the animal
    because we were in the level of the animal.
    So all they did was, then, to have repeated lineups and roll
    calls.
    And beatings and anything what you can imagine
    or you can't imagine to break you down.
    So they were looking for survivors of the survivors.
    That's right.
    Now, having survived that, having gone those two weeks,
    what next happens?
    In the Appell, in the lineup, they were asking--
    every day, they were asking different professions.
    They were looking for tailors.
    They were looking for different-- every day,
    some other.
    And they came up with the profession
    of Werkzeugschlosser--
    and die-makers.
    And I told my father to get out together.
    We were standing in one line, my father, my uncle, his two sons,
    my cousins, and me.
    And I told them, let's go.
    Because this many times happened that they were
    asking different professions.
    And anything they were asking, if people
    were thinking that it will be different than this one
    stepped out.
    And they took so many people.
    And if you were lucky, they took you.
    And my poor father, perhaps he would be alive today.
    He pushed me out.
    He didn't-- he was so honest--
    not because was my father, but he was
    the most honest man in my life.
    He didn't want to lie.
    Even to the SS, he didn't want to lie.
    So he didn't step out with me.
    He pushed me out.
    And I couldn't get back.
    So that's how they took away from him.
    He stayed there.
    And I found out later, after the concentration camp,
    one guy came back to the foster city, who
    said that he was with my father, they
    took them to Melk, near Vienna.
    And he died there.
    He died there.
    They were in a stone mine.
    They removed a big mountain there.
    And he gave his shoes to a person--
    to this person because this person didn't have no shoe.
    And he had-- his feet was all bloody.
    And he gave his shoe to this man.
    And his foot got bloody.
    And he got a blood poisoning.
    And he died there.
    This would be an opportune time.
    Let's take a couple of minute break.
    OK.
    Thanks.
    Now, Mr. Robicsek, after spending that couple of weeks
    as you indicated, you then were moved or transported
    to another section of the Auschwitz camp.
    Just by means of background, can you briefly
    tell us what your understanding was as to how large Auschwitz
    was and how it had been comprised, how many units
    it had, things of that nature?
    We were moved-- first of all, we were numbered on our arms,
    you know.
    Do you remember your number?
    12,890, I really remember all the time.
    So as soon as we got the numbers,
    they loaded us on trucks.
    And they took us not far away, approximately 3 kilometers
    from Birkenau to the outskirts of Auschwitz,
    where they were around Auschwitz,
    they were in a large area.
    They were different sections of concentration camps.
    So they were separated with the command posts with everything,
    it was separated from each other.
    When you say command post--
    So this was a strictly-- command post, it was, you know--
    Guard towers.
    Guard towers, yes.
    And the commandant was for every day separate concentration
    camp who was taking care of that concentration camp.
    So we were strictly working force there.
    Because of my profession, I ended up
    in my profession in an ammunition plant
    not far away from there.
    We were taken by foot to the outside of the fences
    to the factory in the morning.
    And at night, we were taken back.
    Now, this was a munitions factory?
    This was an ammunition factory of the Krupp family.
    All right.
    The famous armament family.
    That's right.
    And this particular job, or occupation, if you will,
    that you survived with all stemmed from that day
    that your father gave you that push.
    Yes.
    Did you see your father after that?
    Never again.
    So the push to break rank was the last time that you saw him.
    It saved my life.
    And it didn't save his.
    How about your brother?
    You had indicated was already at a labor camp some years before.
    My brother was at labor camp.
    You had no idea at this time what happened to him.
    No.
    No.
    And by this time, you also had no idea as to your mother.
    I knew about my mother because I found out
    soon as I got in this camp, the other camp in Auschwitz,
    they were people there who were there a long time ago.
    They remembered her.
    Oh, yes.
    And your sister?
    Oh, my sister, I didn't know where she is.
    But I knew in which side my mother went because I saw her.
    And I found out what that side, it means death.
    First of all, what was the name of the camp
    you went to from Birkenau?
    That was Auschwitz.
    Well, did it have a particular name or identification
    or designation number?
    No name.
    No name.
    It was Arbeit macht Frei.
    It was written on the entrance.
    So the work is making you free.
    Did it have a barracks number?
    I was on 4, barrack number 4, in the basement.
    Who was working at Union Maschinewerke,
    that was the name of the factory.
    Union Machine Works, yes.
    Union Machine Works.
    Before the war that was a bicycle factory.
    But it was all changed.
    We were working approximately 2,000 people there in 3 shifts.
    Now, you did what in particular?
    I was at the gauge making department.
    We made gauges for to check all the parts what they made.
    All right.
    And this particular factory did it make all sorts of munitions
    or particular form of weapon?
    Only they had an anti-air gun.
    [NON-ENGLISH],, that was the name of the gun.
    It was an automatic gun.
    We made the head of the shell, which from speed, it
    exploded automatically.
    So you made the detonation device--
    Detonation head, only the head.
    Were you told at that time how important your efforts were
    toward the German war effort?
    Oh, as soon as they took us there,
    the commandant of the lager of the concentration camp--
    Do you remember his name?
    No.
    No.
    I don't remember.
    I remember his face, but not his name.
    Describe it.
    He was a German guy with a blond hair.
    He had a face--
    the area of his mouth showed the cruelness of him
    and how he was talking, you know.
    But if I would see today that face, not old, but how it was,
    I would recognize right away because I never can forget him.
    He spoke many times to us.
    And he spoke only threatening us with every word.
    If you do this, this happens.
    I think so the death was the easiest
    punishment in his words, ever.
    And you believed him?
    Oh, yes, because we found out that it was the truth.
    How long did you work in this munitions factory?
    I was working from the end of June till January 15, because--
    in '45, January 15.
    Because in 18, we were evacuated from there.
    The Russians came close.
    And next day, I think, so they took over.
    So approximately 6 to 7 months.
    Yes.
    And you did the same job each day?
    The same job, 12 hours a day.
    To move our story ahead just a little bit
    to ask you this one question, at somewhere down the line,
    as you're working, making valuable components
    for the war effort, for the German war effort,
    did you think in your mind or make efforts
    to work just a little less hard?
    To do it not quite as good as you had been doing?
    To find some way to slow down that war effort, realizing
    that the end of the war might also be
    the end of your imprisonment?
    First of all, I never worked hard.
    I only imitated to work hard.
    The second, approximately for three months,
    I was moved from this place to a place where
    they made all these little parts, which
    are the fingers of the automatic explosion.
    From the speed, those little fingers were moved out,
    changed the position, and make the explosion.
    These were index automats, some automatic machines,
    which were working fully automatically.
    But you had to set them up.
    So I was put there to rework three of these,
    to rehaul because they were all used up, to can put them back
    in line and use them.
    And I think so, that was 40 years ago,
    even today is not finished because I did everything
    what could be done.
    Still contributing to the German war effort.
    That's for sure.
    That's for sure.
    Marvelous.
    Tell me, on a day-to-day basis, what
    would be the routine that you would expect,
    the routine that took place in the course of a day
    as you worked in this particular factory,
    and how you would leave the barracks in the morning
    and return at night?
    If nobody defected in that day--
    And how many was that?
    We were 20,000 people there.
    At the factory?
    No, at the concentration camp, OK.
    If nobody defected, we could sleep all night
    long till in the morning the kapo came in
    and beat us out from the bed.
    That was the alarm to go out, first of all, Appell,
    to stay in line for counting, and then form the--
    drink the coffee.
    They had a coffee every morning, black coffee.
    Was it really coffee?
    No, it was made from something.
    We never found out what.
    But it was tasting a warm water, you know.
    And it has a taste of some coffee.
    And with that one, we had to march out.
    It was approximately 1.5 kilometers, the place
    where we went to work.
    And we started to work there.
    And during the course of the day were
    you allowed breaks for food or relieve yourself?
    Only when the food arrived.
    From the concentration camp came the food there,
    so when the food arrived approximately
    in the middle of the shift.
    Sometimes it was late.
    But as soon as arrived, then we had to stop and go in a line
    and get our one spoonful of food.
    Now, the particular area that you worked in,
    you were reasonably near other prisoners.
    Oh, yes.
    Did you talk?
    Were you allowed to talk?
    We weren't allowed.
    But we were talking.
    They were women there also.
    It's a very interesting situation, you know.
    You would think that there, which is the hell, there
    it stops the normal life, let's say,
    if you can name them normal.
    It was a market.
    It was a black market in the concentration camp.
    We were 3 kilometers from Birkenau.
    Now, Birkenau, you were asking me before about the loot.
    There was a place in Birkenau named
    Kanada, Kanada, because of all the goodies what it went there.
    That was the name, Kanada.
    And who was working there, they were the most luckiest people
    in our eyes, you know, because they were selecting
    the goods what went in there.
    The soap, from the soap to jewelry to anything to money,
    they were selecting-- that was their job--
    to clothing, which was usable for the German people.
    And the clothing, which wasn't usable, that was given to us.
    OK.
    And the food, what they gathered there, starting from chocolate
    to raisins to noodles to soap, because it
    was all mixed together, from that we got our meal.
    They named them [NON-ENGLISH],, a German type of food,
    which was a very thick, having everything in it.
    So you couldn't find what kind of taste it is, you know.
    Canned food, what they found, they put it together.
    Now these people had the food, first of all, which was life.
    And they had all the goods what they could steal from them.
    Now, there were women from Birkenau
    who had contact with the Kanada kommando.
    They got, let's say, scarves, which
    you could put 20 scarves, so very thin silk scarves,
    in your hat, under the inside of the hat, you know.
    And you could smuggle them in our concentration camp.
    Jewelry, anything, you name it, you wouldn't believe it
    how people smuggled in things.
    Bed sheets, and we went through every night-- before we went,
    you had to stay in line at the door.
    Every night, the rows after rows, they went through.
    And they looked for things which we smuggled in.
    So we smuggled them in.
    And at the attic of the block where
    we were living, soon as the night came,
    it was an open market up there.
    You could buy there anything what
    you can imagine in this world.
    It was amazing, you know.
    Now, in this 20,000 people where we were,
    there were kommandos who were taken in the city
    to dig sewer holes or to construct, to have
    the construction.
    And these people were taking these things
    to sell to the civilian people there.
    And they got cigarettes, which we didn't get.
    And they got alcohol, clean alcohol,
    which if you poured a little water in it, it was drinkable.
    Now, the concentration camp had their own elite guard,
    who was the responsible of the block,
    of the respective building.
    They had schreibers.
    They had young kids who were like--
    who were writing things, you know,
    what it has to be for all the bookkeeping and organization
    of that one block, you know.
    So it was an elite guard, and the kapos, the kapos who
    were the torturers, you know.
    And these people had such a good life there.
    They were many homosexuals in this.
    And they kept a lot of young kids
    for themselves, or vice versa, differently.
    And they had they needed only cigarettes and alcohol.
    And they bought these for food.
    So it was a complete organization like this,
    to get from Birkenau, to get the goods out in the city,
    and from the city to get in the Lager, the things
    that it was needed.
    But I don't have to tell you that if they catch somebody,
    many people were executed because of smuggling.
    Publicly executed in the sense that it was done in--
    Everything, the execution was always public,
    even if somebody defected, which was--
    the record was a Hungarian Jew, a young kid,
    who was approximately 17, 18 years old.
    He defected.
    And he was away.
    They couldn't find him for seven days.
    This was the record because in one day, two days,
    because where could he go?
    Nowhere.
    Because as soon as he cut himself out
    from this concentration camp, he went in another.
    So one was near the other one.
    So you couldn't defect.
    So this kid was.
    And then we saw five executions, five hangings,
    at the same time.
    You had to go out and watch them.
    Also, we saw an execution when they exploded the crematorium.
    I want to get into that momentarily.
    When you were in this camp, this Lager
    that you made reference to, and just again,
    so we understand the logistics of all of this,
    you said there were 20,000 people in your block.
    Yeah.
    And in your particular block, consisted
    of how many buildings?
    There were approximately 10 or 12 buildings.
    All right.
    Where is it that this black market
    that you described that had flourished?
    In the top of our building.
    In top of your particular--
    Block number 4.
    Was this also true and going on similarly
    as it was in your building in other?
    No, because in this building where those people
    who were working at the factory.
    And we had the only contact with these people
    from Birkenau who brought the things from Kanada in.
    At the time, did you consider it perhaps a sign
    of what your fate would be in this regard?
    Out of all the masses of humanity who were suffering,
    and that you saw day in and day out,
    here you were in the same building with access
    to the black market as you've described,
    what a stroke of luck.
    Did you see it that way at the time?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    And we did different-- we were seven young kids, the same age,
    from the same city.
    We found each other there.
    So we formed a society, let's say, or a club,
    if you could name them that way.
    We were hungry and young.
    We were hungry all the time.
    You were 18.
    18.
    And we got only a small increment
    of the food what we needed daily, you know.
    So we started to steal, to steal from the SS.
    We were the volunteers to bring in, in our building,
    to bring in every morning the coffee, so named coffee.
    And at night, because we weren't in the daytime
    there, at night the dinner--
    "dinner."
    So what we did, we went to the kitchen,
    which was in a separate place.
    And it was all SS around there.
    And we instead-- in the courtyard of the kitchen,
    it were mountains of cabbage and potato.
    Later on when it wasn't anymore from the Kanada,
    when the transports didn't arrive so often,
    they were giving us cabbage and potato and boiled together.
    So that was the main meal then.
    And we could steal from there.
    We emptied the coffee in the morning.
    And we piled up-- the potato it was
    a value which you can't imagine, and the cabbage, you know.
    And we arrived with the [NON-ENGLISH]..
    That's what was the name of it.
    We arrived-- it was a closed in because
    soup or coffee it was in it, we arrived with this one.
    And we gave it to the people because it was from our room,
    so nobody told anybody.
    Or we found out where they are storing the bread.
    And I made in the factory, like you see here,
    like a hook, which you can push in,
    you can see with the firefighters.
    It has a sharpened point.
    And it has a hook.
    So we broke the window from the kitchen--
    from the warehouse of the bread.
    And we pulled this through.
    And we pulled out.
    And the SS was--
    it was close to the entrance of the concentration
    camp, entrance.
    And we steal that.
    And the buildings had four entrances, like a cross.
    And from there was opening the rooms.
    And we were running in there.
    If somebody ran after us, which happened many times,
    we were running in different ways.
    So they never caught us.
    They never caught us.
    We were named the Schwartzebande because we
    made things which I wouldn't have the courage today to even
    think about it really.
    Would this happen on a frequent basis?
    Or are these isolated episodes?
    No, this was fairly good organized.
    The people were waiting for us when
    we got back that we are getting more than the coffee.
    Then it sounds to me as though in the course of this misery
    and your survival of that misery,
    you apparently made some friends, or got to have--
    Oh, yes.
    --very close acquaintances with individuals.
    Isn't that somewhat contrary to what
    you would expect in this kind of circumstances,
    not to get close to someone because you may not see them
    tomorrow?
    I think so that--
    we never thought about that.
    Then you must have thought at the time
    that you would survive.
    We had the same--
    I think--
    Somehow, some way--
    --that's why we survived because there
    were people who were closed in, and they had only one thing.
    Many people did that they went to the high electrical wire,
    you know.
    And they touched them.
    And they ended their life.
    But the human is a--
    I think so, it should live like a society.
    You can't pull out yourself only that you
    are the only individual in the bunch of the people.
    I don't think so.
    And that's the secret of survival.
    I think so that's the secret of the Jewish survival for 2,000
    years.
    The ability to remain--
    To help each other and to keep together.
    So you are your brother's keeper.
    Yes, definitely.
    Was that a unique or a new feeling that you had--
    No, we this all the time--
    --because of that.
    You had that all the time.
    I think so.
    Only there, it was deeper.
    Yeah.
    Do you remember some of these individuals quite well?
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, yes.
    I remember all my friends whom I lost.
    I--
    They're all lost?
    --came back alone.
    My last friend, I lost him Flossenbürg.
    How did you lose your friends from barrack 4, block 4?
    Three of them were selected because they were very weak.
    And they were taken to the gas, from Auschwitz.
    In the course-- go ahead.
    I'm sorry.
    I didn't mean to interrupt.
    And four of us, we were going on the deadly march, what it was
    starting on January 18, 1945.
    The death march?
    Yes.
    And I lost-- and the way we were helping each other,
    we were in the same row.
    I lost two of them there.
    And with one of--
    this was the younger brother of my best friend,
    whom I lost in this way also.
    And my best friend, who was with me from kindergarten,
    I never will have in my life a friend
    like that because you can be friendly with people,
    but a real friend with whom you grew up--
    we were even-- put the boys in the same place.
    We were learning the same profession.
    We were living in the same street
    all the time with our parents.
    And I lost him in Flossenbürg.
    That's where I lost him.
    You told me during the course of our break
    that one of your first loves was music and opera.
    Yes.
    You also indicated--
    It still is.
    It still is.
    And you indicated there were individuals
    who you became friendly with who shared that same--
    Oh, yes.
    Not only opera, you could see--
    we were in the basement of Block number 4.
    There we had from famous actor, who is still famous,
    one of them in Hungary.
    What's his name.
    His name is Egri Stefan, Stefan Egri.
    He is a producer also.
    He became famous in Hungary, you know.
    So he was there.
    And we had the actors who recited Shakespeare.
    We had a cultural gathering, deadly tired
    every night and hungry.
    And this was our food, the culture.
    It was really--
    And we heard stories there.
    They were artists and violin players.
    Famous people were there.
    Do you remember any of their names?
    I don't know the names.
    They were from different places.
    They were from Germany.
    Or they were from France.
    Or they were from different places.
    Now, obviously in the course of time,
    since they've come from all different areas of Europe
    and the continent, you had chance
    to compare your stories, what happened to you, what happened
    to the next fella, right?
    Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the treatment that
    was given to Jewish individuals who came by way of example
    from Western Europe versus the Jewish individuals who
    came from Eastern Europe, the Polish or the Russian
    or the Lithuanian or the Ukrainian,
    versus the Belgium or the French or the Danish?
    Auschwitz was known for receiving all peoples
    from all different areas.
    We know one thing.
    When we went to Birkenau, it was full with Gypsies,
    German Gypsies.
    In one night, they destroyed all of them to make place for us.
    A few kapos remained who were very cruel.
    I remember one kapo, which had a cut through his face,
    almost half of his head.
    And this was the cruelest man I ever met in my life.
    But no more Gypsies, from one day to another.
    Then when they took us to Auschwitz,
    3 kilometers from Birkenau, there were many Christian
    Ukrainians, Germans, who were all political or sex offenders
    or murderers for different-- they had different color
    triangle, who were the top echelon of--
    the Jews were the lowest grade people.
    Now, these people had a fairly normal life there,
    the Christians, because they could get packages from home.
    They could get even visitors from home.
    They took them to a special place.
    They even had their own whorehouse.
    The German SS and they had their own opera singers
    with the musicians, who played every time we went in
    and we went out, marches, you know.
    Now, these were the most famous musicians putted together.
    And they had, in the beginning, till the--
    most of the people were Christians
    because in the beginning, we were not the whole population.
    Most of the people, approximately 40%
    were only Jews in that concentration camp,
    in that working concentration camp,
    and mostly Polish people were and Germans.
    So they had their own opera house, not with the scenery.
    But with the orchestra, you know,
    and with the most famous singers in the world,
    from France, from Germany, from-- they
    were highly talented people.
    So we weren't allowed to go in there.
    All these privileges were only for the Christian people there.
    Now, when there were more Jews in this concentration
    camp than Christians because they took out the Christians
    from there.
    And they made totally Jewish.
    They maintained we could stand at the back of the so
    named barrack where the opera or the orchestra was playing.
    And I went in a few times.
    The SS was standing in the front, or sitting in the front.
    And we had a little alley there at the back
    that we were allowed to go in there to listen.
    And there, I heard the most dramatic aria from Tosca
    what I ever heard in my life.
    You can imagine in white clothing,
    the musicians totally bald.
    The hair was cut off, women also without hair.
    The most beautiful music in the world.
    The aria, the aria from--
    the latter aria, you know, what he sings that he wants to live
    and he doesn't want to die, you know.
    And this singer was from France, from the France opera.
    I never forget that.
    And in front of you, they are the SS, your murderers,
    you know.
    But it must have inspired you.
    Oh, it was.
    It was.
    And it has that kind of an effect
    that even 40 years later--
    Yes.
    --it's an incident that you'll always bring up and remember.
    I'm of the impression that you've
    had a number of signs throughout the course
    of your visit at Auschwitz.
    And maybe now, when you look back on it,
    you can see them as, in fact, what they
    were-- signs, an aria of an opera
    from an individual preaching the ability to survive and live.
    Tell me, you mentioned this orchestra
    and how it would take you to work every day
    and get you back.
    And Auschwitz is famous for their orchestra.
    Do you have any contact with either the orchestra that
    was found in the area of the extermination
    camp, any individuals you might have spoken
    to who participated or know?
    No, never.
    Because as soon as the Russians came close in 1945, January 18,
    from one moment to another, they gathered us.
    And you have to go.
    And we were marching away.
    You couldn't find who was who there anymore.
    Only your closest friends were to make it.
    Calling your attention to the winter season, on Christmas,
    let's say, of 1944, by that particular time,
    had you known what was happening to the German war movement?
    Had you heard rumors as to how close
    or how far the Russians or the Allies might have been?
    Yes.
    We knew everything because, how I said before,
    they took kommandos out in the city.
    And they could smuggle in parts of the newspaper what
    came in the city.
    And we knew, not day by day, but we were--
    in that black market up there, that
    was all the news, everything what you needed, you know.
    And there were people who were watching
    the SS in which area is going everywhere around the block
    everywhere.
    And in one minute they could make
    them clean that you couldn't see anything that it was there.
    It was amazing how well was organized underground there.
    Is that not a proof of your respect for how formidable
    the German soldier was or the SS soldier who was your captor?
    Did you have that kind of respect for him?
    I don't mean respect in the human sense,
    but his ability as a captor, his ability to keep you imprisoned
    and to make you work and perform.
    I don't know if we had some respect.
    But I remember another feeling.
    all.
    Our thought was to survive and to work against there
    because that was our way out, to work
    against this whole big organization.
    So anything what we could do to, how much
    it was in our power, which you can't talk power there,
    only real power, even that, that I want to survive.
    Even that was working against the Nazis
    because that they made me to want to survive.
    Did that come in a particular incident of some sort?