Oral history interview with Aaron Schwarz
Transcript
- Good afternoon.
- I'm Bernard Weinstein, director of the Kean College Oral
- Testimonies project on the Holocaust.
- I'm Susanna Rich.
- We welcome Mr. Aaron Schwarz.
- I would like to bring you some way how systematically
- the Germans picked up everybody from the most
- remote areas in town and the villages, picked up every Jew.
- How they could do this?
- A lot of people are wondering how it is possible.
- Now here is a-- when the Germans moved in, everybody said,
- well, this is a highly educated people.
- There's nothing to worry.
- But this is the problem, how a highly educated country--
- nation, I would say--
- could become such terrible murders in such a scale that
- a human brain cannot comprehend that.
- The way they did this, the way it was planned,
- it is impossible for one who did not
- go through it to believe, or to visualize how
- this is possible to be done.
- Now, the way they picked up people
- from the most remote areas and the villages is they--
- first of all, every sheriff in the areas in the villages
- had a note from the Gestapo.
- They had to bring over all the Jews to the ghetto.
- And they cannot stay in this area at all.
- The Jews must be delivered to the ghetto.
- And of course, they were responsible.
- They did it.
- Now, being in the ghetto-- of course, it's a long story,
- which I am not--
- I'm going to cut it short.
- I'm going to go where my ghetto finished.
- And I went to Debica, a town, a small ghetto there.
- And we remained only about 200 people.
- 200 young men became legal, so-called legal,
- because we were working on government jobs.
- And I was one of them there and working on the railroad.
- And the area there is called Debica.
- And this is near Kraków area.
- And so we were working there for almost a year and a half.
- And when a job finished-- there were several groups.
- One group was working on the railroad track
- cleaning the grass and picking up where the transports were
- going to the front lines.
- It was military.
- And then they are going back from the front lines.
- And they were stopping in this town
- there, because they had to let through other trains.
- And so the trains did not have hygienic tanks or bathrooms.
- Everything was on the tracks.
- While they were staying there, an army
- was going there day and night.
- And we had to clean that.
- And this was one of a group.
- We were working on that.
- And one group was working as helpers to masons.
- We were building a big switch tower.
- One group was unloading and loading
- railroad tracks, which were-- they
- were expanding the railroad station, because they
- needed more tracks.
- There were two lines only.
- They needed more.
- And so I'm working on that, next to the tracks there.
- And the transports with the Jewish people
- were coming every day--
- such a terrible thing to see and to hear, how
- the cries inside from children.
- This was the cattle trains.
- And it was before Rosh Hashanah.
- It was already cold outside.
- And inside, the heat was so tremendous
- that it penetrated through the boards.
- And the train was gray was frost.
- Inside, the heat was so tremendous
- that the people were dying, and not a drop of water.
- Were you able to see inside the trains?
- No, but it wasn't a train like this.
- And I could imagine how this looked there.
- And they were handing out some pitchers, some glasses,
- and water, water, and water.
- So I'm just working next to a railroad, to the train.
- Incidentally, the trains were stopped in a town like this,
- and they would railroad the site in order
- to let through the main transports,
- the military transport, to let through first.
- So those trains, on all counts, they were railroading the site.
- And we stayed until all the tracks were cleared.
- And so I couldn't stand.
- I couldn't go through the knowing, the thirst,
- the heat there for a little water.
- So I grabbed a pitcher from one's hand.
- And I went across.
- A little further, there was a hydrant.
- And I filled it with water.
- And an SS saw me.
- And he took me over, come over, and takes out the revolver,
- and takes me.
- There was a little shack behind the station
- where we had kept our tools.
- And next to the shack was a pile of old leaves and garbage.
- That pile was saturated with blood, with Jewish blood.
- Every day, people were jumping out from the trains.
- They caught them, bringed them over there,
- and shot them there behind the station.
- And this was every day.
- Some casualties were laying on that pile.
- And so he takes me over there, and takes out the revolver.
- And he says, come on.
- And he's going to shoot me.
- And I start shouting.
- When you have the revolver before your head,
- you don't talk with your mouth.
- You talk with your heart, with your lungs.
- And I said, please ask, I got an order, an order.
- An order for them is a holy thing.
- And I said, I got an order.
- I got an order from the train leader
- that I should give them the water.
- Please, before you shoot me, ask.
- And I was yelling with my heart.
- And he stopped for a second.
- And it looked to me that he was putting
- that revolver in his folder and was trying to go back.
- That train started to move away.
- And my luck is he left me alone.
- He left me alive.
- And so this is there.
- And of course, we were going out every morning to that work.
- We were counted, so many, so many.
- There was one entrance, one exit.
- And there was an SS standing always there
- and watching how many go out, how many come in.
- And so one evening, the problem was there
- that, if a group finished their work, they took that group--
- a group, I mean about 25, 30.
- They finished their work.
- They took their group, and they arrested them.
- And the Gestapo-- and the Gestapo
- was next to that ghetto where we were living.
- And they arrested them.
- And they took them during the day.
- And in the evening, they took them.
- And they, one by one, were let out and shot
- on that pile of garbage.
- And of course, knowing what happened yesterday to a group,
- we were not waiting any longer.
- And I, at this same time with my brother, planned to escape.
- And I planned to escape the same day.
- But two boys escaped earlier than me,
- than my plans were to escape.
- They escaped right in the morning.
- How did they escape?
- They took their shovels.
- And they took a foreman, also a Jewish guy.
- He also escaped.
- And they were going over the tracks for work.
- It looked like they're going for work.
- But actually, they went to escape
- with their shovels and wagons.
- And so when they escaped, suddenly the SS
- surrounded us, the whole group, and picked up 15 people
- to be shot.
- And this was number two, shot twice.
- And I am in this group with my brother and with my cousin.
- And I also planned-- as I said, I
- planned to escape on this same day.
- So I had this revolver with me.
- And that revolver, I kept for a purpose.
- When I will be in the forest, or going
- through the forest, some Polish hoodlums,
- knowing that Jews are on the run--
- they have with them gold, and silver, and money.
- This is all we could take, if you had it,
- because you couldn't carry anything else.
- So they were marked and taken off.
- Even a good suit was removed from him and taken away.
- So I said, this is what I am not going to allow.
- And I made all efforts to buy that revolver.
- And you couldn't buy that.
- This wasn't a easy thing.
- Anybody who sold you a revolver, and if I
- would have been caught, let's say, with that revolver,
- and they start torturing you, you
- don't care what happens to the other guy.
- He was telling the truth.
- And so nobody would sell you a revolver.
- But I had a Polish officer from the army.
- He knew me from before the war.
- And I was going out, working, and I got in touch with him.
- And I asked him about that.
- And he brought me that beautiful gun.
- This was an automatic, eight shotgun with 20 bullets.
- And I paid him a lot of money.
- Whatever I could scrape up, I gave him, in order to get that.
- Finally, at that time planning to go away,
- I took a loaf of bread.
- And I made a small hole inside and dug out the soft.
- And I took that revolver.
- And I shoved it in there.
- And I closed it up so nicely that nobody would know
- that there is anything in that.
- And I kept it-- we always kept them in the-- the bread
- with you.
- Otherwise, they were stolen in the barracks.
- People were stealing each one's bread, each one's things.
- But when they arrested me, I had that revolver with me.
- And my cousin, of course, what was going on in that basement
- where we were arresting, I just cannot begin to tell you.
- There were cries, and beating the head on the wall.
- It's impossible to tell you.
- So my cousin, he was a tall guy, maybe 6 foot 6" guy like this.
- He said, I am going first.
- And I planned with my brother to be the first at the door.
- They will open the door.
- When the guard, the SS opens the door, I'll shoot him.
- And I told my brother, you grab the gun.
- Let's try to escape.
- At least we tried.
- And so my cousin says, I am going first.
- He heard the cries.
- I don't want to hear any more.
- So finally, I told him--
- I said, what are you so in rush?
- Let me go first.
- I said, let me go first.
- I'm going with my brother.
- And I couldn't tell anybody that I have a revolver, because I
- was still thinking, in case we get out alive,
- they did not have any right to know that I had a revolver,
- because having a revolver was a sign that I am going to escape.
- And going to escape, that's what will happen.
- That's what happened.
- They took me to-- they take 15.
- And when I escape, they will take another 15.
- And they always were very perfect.
- They didn't take 14--
- 15.
- They shot them.
- And so everybody was watching, guarded the guy,
- so shouldn't escape from work.
- I didn't want to tell them that I have the revolver.
- And so finally, it was getting so dark outside.
- And a voice came from the ghetto there, a young man.
- There was a little opening, like a cinder block opening,
- in that basement.
- And he says, you are free.
- You are going to go out free.
- What they did there is they took some gold and diamond rings.
- And each Gestapo got a diamond ring and a bracelet.
- And they almost paid them to let us out.
- And the German soldier, the guy who we were working for him,
- he was a German.
- He was a civil.
- And he was responsible for that work.
- And he came over to the Gestapo himself.
- And he says, [NON-ENGLISH].
- He says, friends of mine, let them go.
- You pick me up my best workers.
- And I need to work.
- I need the job done.
- And whenever we will have the job done,
- I will bring them over to you.
- And then you have a right, you can shoot them.
- I'll bring them over to you.
- And so I heard this saying.
- So finally, all this helped a little bit.
- And then it was getting dark.
- They were trying to take us out one by one.
- We had to undress completely.
- And they searched you.
- And then there's a problem.
- I had the revolver.
- What do I do with the revolver now, with the bullets?
- If they would catch me with that revolver, I'm cooked.
- So there was a bucket with water.
- It was soiled from the last night,
- what the people left there.
- I threw it in, in that bucket there, and that's it.
- Nobody would know that.
- And then, when I go out, I was dressed
- in about three pants and maybe six pairs of underwear.
- And I start to undress.
- So one SS says to the other, this guy
- wanted to escape today, this guy.
- I said, this is not true.
- I keep this on, because they are stealing in the barracks.
- I must.
- I must.
- I can't leave in the barracks.
- They steal anybody's things.
- And so he took this as a good excuse.
- And he let me go.
- And after we finished the cleaning there--
- [COUGHS] after we finished the cleaning, all the searches,
- the SS has three guys go in there
- and clean out that bunker, the basement.
- This was a part of a basement closed in with the cinder
- blocks with an iron door.
- And there were the arrested.
- And they were staying there to be shot.
- And so, from the last night when they shot a group,
- they left all the jackets.
- And everything, they left there.
- So we had to clean this out.
- So I go in there first.
- And I put my hand in that bucket,
- and picked up that revolver with the bullets,
- and go into the bathroom, and flushed the water,
- and cleaned it out, and put it in my pocket.
- And I was happy having that revolver.
- But somebody noticed me with that revolver.
- And when going back into the ghetto,
- the ghetto leader was Jewish.
- So he took me, my brother, and my cousin
- and arrested me in the ghetto.
- They took away that revolver, and the bullets,
- and everything.
- And then I was afraid that he will have
- to give this up to the Gestapo.
- And if he will give it up to the Gestapo,
- we are again dead people.
- And so my cousin again started to cry and to raise heck.
- Finally, and then one guy from the so-called Judenrat--
- this was the community.
- There was a president, a vice president.
- And this vice president came in there.
- And he said, look, if Aaron will promise me
- that he will never escape, you can let him out,
- because he knew me from before the war.
- His wife was a house doctor, our doctor.
- And they knew me very well from before, from where I come out,
- and my whole family.
- So he said, if I'll promise him that I won't escape,
- they will let us out.
- Sure, I won't escape.
- And they let us out.
- And they took the revolver.
- What happened to it?
- I don't know if they gave it, or they didn't give it.
- They let us out.
- But I was under surveillance every day, and every morning,
- and watching if I don't plan any escape.
- The reason when the work finished
- that they shot you is they were always afraid
- that we had a contact with the underground.
- In order to make sure that there is not
- any plans in the ghetto, anything,
- that we had any contact with the underground,
- they wiped you out completely.
- And that's it.
- There is no problem of worrying that if we
- had any contact with the underground.
- What was going on in your mind during all this time?
- Did you think you really had nothing to lose?
- Were you praying?
- No.
- We wanted to live so much that it's impossible to describe
- how life was less precious.
- Every day, people-- when I see here in the United States,
- this one commits suicide, this one is planning suicide,
- I can't begin to think of how precious
- life was to live a day in the concentration camp.
- I think-- pardon me.
- That's OK.
- I think it is because, when you have this freedom,
- you are not--
- you don't think of it, how valuable this is.
- But when you lose this freedom, you see what you have had
- and what you lost.
- And so we were illegal.
- Being alive was illegal.
- And so we struggled day by day by night
- to stay alive another day, because we were hoping maybe
- that the war will end.
- Maybe it will change, maybe.
- But it never-- it took five years.
- So you just lost all the hope.
- And the most who broke down most of it is those young men,
- yeshiva [NON-ENGLISH],, those who were sitting before the war
- in the shuls.
- They were learning Torah.
- They were not geared for this type of life of work.
- I was in the Polish army.
- I was a saper.
- We were taught to build bridges and to explode them.
- And building the bridges wasn't just with a machine
- putting piles in the ground-- by hand.
- We had a 20 kilo hammer.
- We were hammering those piles in the ground.
- And I knew how to handle a hammer and a shovel.
- That's why they kept me working all over.
- When this SS saw how I shovel, how I work,
- he always picked me up for work.
- And so this is the way, in the beginning,
- it was there in Debica in that town.
- This was as I said.
- Now, later on--
- Can we come back a little bit?
- Yeah, go head.
- Can we go back to your early years before the war?
- Yes.
- Tell us about your town.
- Tell us about where you came from.
- Of course, when the-- now, going back to this
- time when the war started, I was in the army.
- And I was captured by the Germans.
- I was shot through my leg here.
- And we were going to the Ukraines, going back, and back,
- and back.
- And then the army, the Germans caught up with us
- and surrounded us.
- And we had to give up the weapons.
- They were loading us on trains going to Germany, to the--
- how is it called?
- The POW, is it called?
- Mm-hmm.
- There.
- And so, at that time, it was about in the evening.
- Instead to go into giving up the my rifle,
- I went with this rifle.
- There was a little brook there.
- And I went with a rifle, put that barrel
- of the rifle in that water.
- And I jumped through that brook.
- And I started to go home.
- So I went in, into a Ukrainian house.
- I was military dressed.
- And I told them, look, give me a pair of pants.
- And give me a shirt.
- And I'll give you this healthy big pair of pants, and suit,
- and everything, and my shoes.
- And he gave me.
- He gave me a pair of pants.
- They were not just plain patches.
- But it was patches, not a pin, not pins.
- But he gave me and I got dressed like that.
- And I went home.
- Slowly, I was going.
- There was a lot of people going back, which were evacuated,
- were running.
- And then, when the Germans caught up with them,
- they started to go back.
- And so I was going there, back.
- And we came back there.
- Then I came back to my home, my hometown.
- We were still about a year in our houses.
- How we survived?
- Everything was taken away.
- You just were alive in the house.
- So you have to eat.
- We were a family.
- And so I was going out and smuggling from a small town
- to a bigger town.
- If I took 10 kilo sugar on a bicycle,
- and I brought it into town, to the larger town,
- to the larger ghetto there, I could make quite a few dollars
- to live again today.
- How many people were in your family?
- Who was with you?
- We were six children, six children and parents,
- eight people together.
- And so later on, when the ghetto was created,
- we were thrown out from our houses.
- And we were going into the ghetto in Radomysl.
- This was a small town there.
- And they were a small ghetto.
- And we had to be about three or four families
- in one room, some of us sleeping in the hallways,
- in the backyards.
- Wherever there was a piece of place in the backyard,
- we were sleeping, because there was no room in the house.
- There was one room, and there were three families.
- Each one had about six people.
- And so it was a small oven.
- And you couldn't-- a little bit of potatoes soup to cook was
- a big deal, because you couldn't get to it,
- because the other people were before you.
- So this is the way this ghetto life was.
- And of course, any day we were expecting this, what happened.
- And one afternoon, we knew that tomorrow there's
- going to be what's called a slaughter or displacing.
- They picked up all the Jews, and the kids, and the women,
- and the older people, loaded them on wagons,
- and were going with horse and buggy
- to a larger town where the train was, because this town
- where I was, there were no train connections.
- And this town was left Judenfrei, as I told you.
- And a night before, I picked up my whole family,
- and we went to the forest.
- The forest was a mile away.
- And there, we were staying over night.
- Staying in the forest, this was a terrible thing there.
- When you heard a dog barking in the village,
- oh, the Germans are coming, oh, they are looking.
- And this is how this life was there.
- How long do you stay there?
- We were there only two days and two nights.
- I had a bicycle.
- And I paid a guy.
- I took a guy, a Gentile, and I paid him.
- I gave him my bicycle.
- I said, go over to town, to Radomysl there, and take a look
- if there are some Jews left.
- He came back.
- There are no Jews.
- So I asked him to go to Debica.
- This was about 20 American miles.
- And he went there.
- And he says, there is a small ghetto left.
- And there was a small ghetto left.
- So we came over to--
- so we started one night to walk to that ghetto.
- And we came over.
- Nobody could let you in.
- First of all, there was an order, anybody who is illegal.
- The illegals were-- who had a stamp,
- a signature from the Gestapo that he
- is employed here and there and there, he stayed legal.
- The rest of it, there are no illegal people.
- And we came in.
- We were illegal.
- Nobody let you in, not in that barrack, any place.
- And on the street was dangerous to be,
- because if an SS comes in and he's sees
- here are people coming in illegal, we were dead.
- So finally, my father--
- may he rest in peace-- and my mother
- had a gold watch before the war.
- Every bride and every groom had to have
- a gold chain and a watch.
- And my mother had a gold chain, which she turned
- around a couple of times.
- And I took this chain and this watch, my mother's watch.
- And I went over to the so-called Judenrat.
- This is a German word for the community.
- And I say, look, we came here from the forest.
- I have no money, but I have these two gold chains and gold
- watches.
- Please, take it, and give me some kind
- of a-- you had to have a identification card in a room
- where you can go in.
- And they took it from me.
- And he make me legal.
- And this was--
- I couldn't tell you how much this was worth
- for us to be legal, at least another six months to live.
- And it didn't take longer than six months.
- After six months, everybody had to leave.
- The only thing left is about 200 young men.
- How many people were in your family at this time,
- or were with you?
- We were still eight people together.
- I had three sisters.
- And we were three brothers, including me, and parents.
- And of course, I used to tell them,
- please let's not stay in one place.
- Everybody must go on his own.
- Maybe it will be possible to survive.
- Incidentally, we did survive.
- My brother, the youngest brother, he was about 19.
- He came with me to Plaszów.
- I am still jumping to Plaszów.
- And one morning, he was at a group
- where they were going out to the train loading,
- unloading material what was coming
- to get to that concentration camp,
- because they were building this train.
- There were three barracks when I came in over there.
- And of course, it was hell, the SS
- was with big dalmatian dogs and German shepherds going around.
- And any time a dog bit a guy, that dog next time,
- when that dog saw you from a half a mile,
- he ran after and bit you again.
- That's how this was.
- And so it was terrible there.
- And he was going out to work.
- And one day, he comes back.
- He says, you know, Aaron, we unloaded a train.
- And I could jump in, into one of the wagons there,
- and go back to the ghetto to town of Kraków.
- This was about 60 miles, like from here to New York.
- Anyway, and I said, you didn't do that?
- Of course, I said, don't you see?
- Nobody is going to get out alive here.
- You see those machine guns?
- You see what they're doing here, how the dogs are tearing apart
- every day, and so many shootings, so many are killed?
- Nobody's going to get out alive.
- Next day, he did it.
- He did it.
- He went out.
- And he went back quite awhile and far with the train.
- And then, later, he went out into a town called Bochnia.
- And there, a group was going out for work.
- And he joined that group and went out from that ghetto
- there.
- And apparently, he was trying to get away from the group going
- further to Tarnów, because there was still my parents were
- there.
- And he was caught there.
- And he was shot there.
- This was my youngest brother.
- So my oldest brother was hiding in the area
- where we were growing up.
- And he, with a cousin, were hiding in the forest.
- And then they had a peasant, a farmer, who helped them out.
- When it was so cold, he let them go in into the stable
- and sleep there where the cows were.
- They were warm.
- And this was a very important thing.
- They had to sleep all night.
- And so six months before the war ended--
- imagine, he has suffered for four years there.
- And six months before the war ended,
- a robbery was there in that village.
- And so the police came to look to one, which they suspected
- that he was one of the robbers.
- And he says, you come to me to look for robbers?
- There, Jews are hiding.
- They are the robbers.
- And so they went over there, and they caught them early morning,
- and they shot both my cousin and my brother.
- And of course, after the war, I exhumed two bodies.
- I took them over to Tarnów.
- Now, going back again until this Debica.
- Debica was-- there was hell when I was there.
- I was there.
- And I was always in front.
- How?
- Whenever they were shooting people,
- I was called to bury the people, because if they would catch
- a guy who was before the war sitting in the shul
- and learning Torah, and he couldn't handle
- that shovel, when the SS saw him,
- how he handled that shovel, he didn't come home back.
- He didn't come back into the ghetto.
- So they picked up only people who could work, who could dig,
- and things like that.
- And so I was there.
- And so this time, some people were coming back
- from the forests.
- And we were illegal.
- There were about 200 people, men.
- And the older people who were hiding out
- couldn't stay any longer in the forest-- coming back,
- knowing that there's a little place where they can maybe--
- maybe they can stay alive.
- So they came in.
- So the Gestapo gathered them all in one room.
- It was called a little hospital there.
- And they let them stay there.
- They stayed there until they all came back--
- women, children.
- And one night-- and this was between Hanukkah and Christmas.
- Snow was so high there.
- And not the sun, but the- oh, what's next to the sun?
- The moon?
- The moon.
- The moon was shining so beautiful with so much light.
- And they were leading out those people to be shot.
- There were about 75 people gathered in that room
- to be shot.
- One was a friend of mine from before the war.
- I used to go out with his daughters and his--
- and of course, he didn't have the children anymore with him,
- but he and his wife.
- And I said-- his name was Goldklank.
- I said, Mr. Goldklank, what are you doing here?
- Go out.
- You see there is no future.
- Some of these days, they are going to shoot you.
- He says, I haven't got where to go.
- He says, I was in the forest.
- I was dying for a drop of water.
- I couldn't get it.
- The flies, the fleas, and the lice were eating me up.
- I don't have-- I can't go any place.
- I'd rather be shot.
- And so he was shot there with his wife.
- Going further, when he was loaded-- we
- had a wagon and a horse special for that purpose.
- Loading on the wagon, from under the corpses, he got out there.
- And he got down from the wagon himself still alive.
- He was shot through the neck, and he was still alive.
- So he was sitting in the side, seeing how we are digging
- and making the grave.
- And he saw the SS coming there.
- He had about 500 zlotys.
- This was one banknote.
- He says, take it.
- He said, they should take it.
- Take it.
- It was all with blood from his fingers.
- And he gave it to me.
- He says, take it, Aaron, instead they should take it.
- And so they came.
- And they shot him twice.
- [COUGHS] Ooh.
- You see?
- This is--
- And between those people, there was a rebbetzin.
- As a matter of fact, the rabbi, the husband survived.
- And he still lives in Borough Park.
- Now, Purim, I was there visiting him.
- And there, he was.
- And his wife was a beautiful woman, young, maybe 28 years
- old, with a little girl about six
- years, a little blonde girl, so beautiful.
- And they were leading them out to be shot.
- And this little girl was shivering like a leaf.
- And she was crying, [NON-ENGLISH],,
- with such a terrible voice.
- And this little girl says, mommy, don't cry.
- This is our destination.
- So when I speak of that, it just cuts my heart.
- Now, having grandchildren like that, when I talk about this,
- when I remind myself about this little girl--
- how she went, how she said to her mother, don't cry,
- this is our destination.
- And so a shot was fired.
- And this little girl fell.
- And then they asked her to turn around, because the SS never
- were shooting from close range.
- They were another shooting in front,
- because the victim was falling always to the front.
- And they were splashed with blood.
- So from close range, they never shoot from the front.
- They asked the victim to turn around.
- So the word turn around in German is [GERMAN]..
- In my house, that word is never said, turn around.
- In my house, this wasn't, because when
- you heard this word turn around in German,
- you just knew that a life is being taken away.
- And so she wouldn't turn around and was crying, [NON-ENGLISH]..
- And finally, he shot her from the front.
- And apparently, the bullet did not go through in a place
- where it should be effective right away.
- And so she was moaning so terribly, maybe for 15 minutes.
- For 15 minutes, she was moaning so terribly.
- And this Gestapo, he wouldn't spare another bullet
- to finish her.
- Finally, she didn't die.
- She was still moaning.
- So he put her-- rolled with her the boots.
- And there's a Polish policeman, which was watching him
- in the back says to him to--
- the Gestapo says to him, take a look.
- So he had a electric light.
- He cut the bra opened.
- And he put his light.
- And he looks in.
- And he says, well, the bullet has done it's job.
- It's only a matter of a little time.
- And he wouldn't shoot her again.
- She was about, for a half an hour, terribly moaning.
- And this is how sadistic they were,
- how life was in their eyes.
- A Jew was just worse than an animal.
- If they would have only treat us like they treated the dog,
- it would have been heaven.
- And so this is the way we were in Debica
- going through such stages.
- A group was going out there for work every day, every morning.
- And when this man, the--
- it was called the Arbeitsleiter.
- This means the chief who was in charge of that job.
- He had his people there working--
- of course, never a penny, or something.
- And he was taking these people there every morning for work.
- And one day, he loaded--
- the SS, not let the guy who were in charge of the work--
- loaded about 30 guys on a truck, which is--
- there were a truck and another one.
- What's it called?
- A hanger.
- A hanger is the correct word?
- Yes.
- He took about 30 guys with shovels there on that hanger.
- And they were going a little further out of town
- to do a job.
- So he goes so fast with that truck.
- When he came around a corner, he made a turn.
- And that hanger turned over and mangled all of them,
- all of them-- broken legs, broken hands, broken, broken.
- No one could get up anymore from the 31 people.
- So one goes through to the other one.
- He says, ha, [GERMAN].
- The other one says, a pile of dreck.
- He says that, you understand.
- He says, what did I do now?
- He says, a pile of garbage.
- And this is how they thought of this, a couple Jews
- there in Poland.
- Now, you cannot describe exactly everything day by day.
- But it was terrible.
- If you had a wife, let's say, you couldn't live together
- with your wife.
- There were about 20 girls.
- They were working in the kitchen.
- One had a wife.
- And she came in during the day to see the husband after they--
- not during the day, after they worked, after work,
- about the 7 o'clock.
- He says, please go out, you are--
- in Jewish, I can't describe it.
- But you are putting me in grief.
- Go out.
- Because it was very dangerous.
- If a Gestapo saw a woman go in to the men department,
- they were shooting.
- They shot the men.
- They shot the women.
- And this was Debica.
- And then, one morning, it was end of Pesach.
- Going out, everybody had prepared some matzahs,
- because-- how did we prepare the matzahs?
- Everybody, after the ghetto was getting smaller and smaller,
- they got in some bed spreads, and covers,
- and some material, what is left from the other houses, what
- the Germans left there.
- And they slowly took it out to the people outside.
- And they changed for a half a bread,
- or for a little bit of flour.
- And everybody had about, I'd say, 3 or 4 pounds of flour.
- And there was a bakery.
- There used to be a bakery in that part of the ghetto.
- So the oven was there.
- So we got together one evening.
- And everybody had a little bit of that flour.
- And we would made matzahs a night
- before, because the next day was end of Pesach,
- in the morning going out.
- And at the gate, the SS came in, surrounded that little ghetto.
- The Ukrainians was there.
- The Ukrainians, they were in black uniforms.
- They were terrible, worse than the SS.
- And that's why they were staying there,
- because they were shooting.
- They were called-- in Prussia, when a group was supposed to be
- shot, the Ukrainians belonged to a group which was called
- [NON-ENGLISH] Kommando.
- And the minute they were ready to shoot that group,
- all they do is they called up.
- And the [NON-ENGLISH] Kommando came over,
- and surrounded this group, and took them over there
- in Plaszów.
- And there was a special place between the rocks
- and such valleys there.
- And they were shooting.
- Now, end of Pesach-- going back to end of Pesach,
- we were surrounded.
- And we were going out to work.
- Some of the IC were--
- we started to go back.
- And everybody had something with them to sell, to go out.
- People took a-- they were feather beds, for instance.
- They took this material from the feathers,
- opened, and put the feathers in a corner.
- Incidentally, if you were three miles away,
- you knew that there is a ghetto, because the wind blew
- those feathers all over the world, all
- over the town, all over the gates.
- Everybody had them.
- And so they took the feathers out of that bed spread
- and took it with them to change either for a piece of bread,
- or something to eat.
- And so I see they're going back.
- And everybody's throwing out whatever he had in the pockets,
- because he didn't want to be caught with something
- having in the pocket.
- And we go back.
- And we were standing.
- And they counted us.
- And they were-- a boy, he was working on the Gestapo there.
- He was cleaning the--
- he was polishing their shoes, making the fire,
- taking out the ashes, a young boy from the ghetto.
- And he was there with them maybe a year.
- And at that morning, they bringed him in.
- They didn't let him alive, because he knew too much.
- They shot him right after he crossed the gate.
- They shot it.
- And so we saw what's going on.
- They right away asked, who is a tailor?
- I was a tailor.
- Incidentally, I am a tailor from the home.
- And who is a tailor?
- Who tailors?
- And who is upholstery man?
- And who is seamstress, and everything?
- They separated us, and they loaded us on trucks.
- We were going to Kraków.
- It took about six hours to come to Kraków.
- And this was end of Pesach.
- And in Kraków with my brother and my cousin, being there--
- it was bedlam.
- Terrible things were going on.
- As I said before, there were three barracks, open.
- The wiring was not yet erected, because it
- was started on a cemetery.
- So how did the work started?
- Girls, about hundreds of them, were
- sitting alongside with hammers and making gravel.
- We were splitting the big tombstones with a heavy hammer
- and bringing over to them in smaller pieces.
- And they were sitting and, from the smaller pieces,
- breaking this into gravel because of the road.
- They need road.
- So hundreds of girls were sitting.
- And the sun was so sharp.
- They were burned, so burned from the sun.
- Girls are never to the sun so far.
- And this was the girls' work.
- And we had to break up the tombstones and deliver to them
- the stones.
- And then there was a group taking away the gravel
- and spreading, making a road there.
- The road was on the cemetery.
- And then, further, they took a mountain.
- There was a mountain.
- There were tombstones of old, 50, 60 years, of famous people.
- And this mountain was removed.
- And the reason for it is every time they opened a grave,
- there were the jaw bones and the teeth.
- And there are gold teeth.
- In Europe, everybody had gold teeth.
- There were no white teeth like they do now.
- So the teeth were always left.
- So every day, I have picked up a pail from the cemeteries, maybe
- 20 kilos--
- not pounds, kilos, that is more than a pound--
- and brought it to the Gestapo over there.
- This was just the best gold, 22 carat gold.
- Did you actually have to take it from the bodies?
- There were no bodies.
- The jaw, the jaw and the skull.
- The skeleton.
- The skeleton.
- So you had to collect it?
- Oh, of course.
- This was the idea.
- This was the idea.
- Buckets are full of teeth every day, gold teeth.
- And we removed an area maybe of 3 acres.
- It was hilly there.
- And then they removed the ground into the lower parts.
- We had erected such little push lorries, little tracks,
- and push wagons.
- And we were loading this by hand, and the dirt.
- And we were moving the whole mountains.
- And the reason for it--
- not as much they wanted to have a straight, flat place, because
- of the teeth.
- They knew that there is gold.
- Everyone had gold teeth in Europe.
- There is no-- and even those--
- oh, how is [NON-ENGLISH]?
- The graves.
- Grave.
- Even those graves, which were not old--
- when you opened them, you could still
- see the colors, the prayer shawl.
- And the body was already falling apart.
- But the teeth were there in the jaw.
- And we got them out.
- And this was our job.
- And so they were loading this dirt over there
- for the little--
- the heads, the skulls were rolling down that hill.
- They were along this dirt.
- We were straightening out the ground.
- So all the skulls were rolling down there, and the bones,
- and the finger bones, and everything.
- And everything was there alive.
- Wintertime, when we needed sand to put on the ropes--
- they had trouble, because it was slippery--
- you could find finger bones, and skulls,
- and jaw bones on the roads, because this
- was picked up with the sand and spread on the thing.
- Now, this is the work we went through there.
- They gave us this work.
- And they got them the gold.
- This experience with the bodies is so tragic.
- How were you and your co-workers experiencing
- exhuming these graves?
- My dear folks, there is no--
- you were so hardened.
- There were no feelings for anything,
- no feeling for a body, no feeling for a man.
- You see a child being shot, you have no feelings.
- You were just like an animal hardened like a stone.
- Now, when I remind myself of the cries, what the kids--
- or incidentally, I will come to that.
- There were no feeling.
- Everybody was numb, numb.
- That is the word-- numb, no feeling for the next person.
- That's how it was.
- And then, at that time, the Kraków ghetto was cleared.
- First of all, a lot of people were escaping with the trains,
- going away.
- They were caught, slowly brought in into the concentration camp,
- and shot.
- And some of them smuggled some children into that Plaszów
- ghetto, in the Plaszów camp.
- They thought maybe they can hide it there for a while.
- Maybe they will be able to get it out later.
- Incidentally, one family, a friend of ours,
- had a child there.
- And they smuggled this child back out.
- And men who delivered milk to the SS
- every morning-- they were big cans.
- Maybe you remember those cans, old-fashioned cans.
- He put that child in a can and went out with it.
- And that child grew up to be a surgeon in New York Hospital.
- He goes around with a yarmulke, a very [INAUDIBLE] man.
- And he is one of the best surgeons in New York Hospital.
- So this is only one thing.
- And so later on, this was going on, building roads
- and breaking these tombstones and straightening the ground
- in order to get out the gold from the jaws.
- And later on, they found out that there are children here.
- So what did they do?
- They gave an order to put all the children in one barrack.
- And they took two little girls, and they
- should be the nannies for those childrens.
- So we thought, maybe they will keep those childrens
- in that barrack there.
- And then let them have something to eat, some
- milk they delivered, the SS.
- And so one morning, they have put
- outside microphones on each barrack around
- and played loud Bach's music.
- And they loaded, and they took two trucks.
- And they were loading those children on the trucks.
- Their mothers were tearing their hair out from far away.
- They couldn't get to it.
- There was no way of getting to it.
- They were crying and tearing their hair out.
- And those children-- the cries of those children,
- I can hear them now.
- I can hear them always now.
- I'll never, never forget them--
- Mommy, Mommy, with their little hands up, and such terrible
- cries that it was just cutting your heart.
- But at that time, incidentally, at that time, you were numb.
- You didn't feel a thing.
- And so they loaded.
- There were about over 180 children
- from two years, a half a year, up to about six, seven years.
- And so they loaded those children straight--
- they were straight to Auschwitz, Birkenau,
- where the chimneys where there, where they were gassed.
- Did you know where they were going?
- We knew that they are not going for life.
- We knew.
- We didn't know, at that time, that they are
- going to be gassed right away.
- But we found out later they were all gassed right away.
- We have to stop for a few minutes--
- Yeah.
- --to change the tape.
- Let's continue.
- This hour later on, meanwhile a group
- was building the concentration camp, spreading out.
- Annexing a lot of land from the farmers there.
- They made it into about over 50 acres of land
- there in Plaszow near Krakow.
- They took away from the farmers' land.
- And this gate, this barbed wire what
- we got in from the train, what they unloaded
- on the train, this material, this post boards building
- barracks.
- And all this was spread out there
- in that concentration camp.
- Now I'm talking about Plaszow.
- That's why I spent a lot of--
- most when I came out from Debica when they picked us up
- out of Debica, I am in Plaszow now.
- And so they were dividing people in groups.
- And of course, we were not so fluent yet in German
- at that time.
- We didn't speak well German.
- So a German, he was from Bavaria,
- had such a heavy accent.
- They divided a group of about 20 people.
- He says, you are going to be called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- Nobody thought of it that you will have to repeat that.
- Was this the commandant who did this?
- The German SS, the foreman.
- He divided us into groups when we came over to Plaszow.
- And he says, your group is going to be called
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- And he said it with such a deep, deep Bavarian accent that you
- just--
- impossible.
- You didn't even think of it that he will have to repeat it.
- Maybe five minutes later, he says, what group do you belong?
- Nobody knew.
- Nobody could repeat that.
- And this was actually Arbeitsgemneischaft Berlin.
- And if he would have told us the way I'm saying it,
- we would have understood.
- But he had such a deep Bavarian accent.
- And everybody's scared to do death.
- Because we didn't know if we are going to live
- or we are going to die or something like that.
- And so the beatings over the head with such a big whip.
- And that whip was inside there was a steel wire.
- And that steel wire wrapped you around
- until it cut your eyes out.
- Everybody went out with such swollen eyes.
- And so everybody knew what group you belong already after that.
- And so I belonged to a what's called Baracken Bau.
- And Baracken Bau was a group were building barracks.
- Bau means building.
- Baracken you know.
- And this group were working always outside.
- There were groups were going into tailoring shops.
- And there were groups who were going into shoe making shops.
- And there were groups where they made furniture.
- And this all was German industries.
- They were supposed to be for the army some of it.
- But some was of their own.
- For instance, they were gathering from whole Poland
- all the thin pots and pans and the big--
- in Poland, everybody had what's called to give a bath a child.
- What is it called?
- Basin?
- It's a basin.
- But it was from galvanized sheet metal.
- Sheet metal, yes.
- Big one.
- There were big ones for what they were doing the laundry.
- Everybody had that.
- This was a must in the home.
- So they gathered all those from whole Poland
- and from other nationalities.
- And they brought it in into that concentration camp there.
- And there was a established--
- they made pots--
- Enamel.
- Enamel.
- Enamel pots and pans.
- And he was making little shovels for the army.
- But the pots and pans, the enamel pots and pans, this
- was his private job.
- And he was sending out trains, loads and loads to Germany.
- Is that Oscar Schindler by any chance?
- Is that Oscar Schindler?
- Oscar Schindler.
- You've heard of him.
- And you're familiar?
- Go ahead, please.
- That's the guy.
- But he was the good guy.
- He and whoever let him work in his part of the --
- survived and he didn't shoot.
- But he didn't take in anybody.
- And people who went in there to work
- have had it better than the ones who worked here.
- I was with tourists always because I was outside.
- Winter, the freezing, the rain.
- You came in at that barrack in the evening wet, frozen,
- because you worked all day outside.
- There's no way of getting in.
- And very cold.
- There's no heat.
- And so when you laid down on that shelf, the cold shelf
- there, and you thought, is that possible?
- You thought like this.
- You dreamed, just daydream.
- Is that possible that people can come and take children and just
- shoot them like that?
- Maybe it's a dream.
- I said to myself, let me wake up.
- Let me wake up.
- This is just a daydream.
- But unfortunately, it wasn't a dream.
- It was the truth.
- And so this was the way it started off.
- And then one group was outside working.
- They were working for about two years outside.
- They had their race track.
- And they needed people there to attend to horses,
- and to clean the track, and to take the grass, and level
- everything.
- So they had about over 30 young men, old, young and tall.
- And they picked them up.
- And they were living there in the barrack
- outside on that in Krakow.
- And again, knowing that in case they
- had any connection with the underground,
- one morning they brought them into Plaszow.
- This was in '43.
- They brought them in into this concentration camp
- and straight up on the place.
- And the [INAUDIBLE] commanders surrounded them.
- And they were straight left to be shot.
- And how terrible it was for the guy looking like me.
- Each one had to pick up a small bundle of--
- when we were building barracks, pieces of board,
- chips were falling in the side.
- We were having a pipe.
- Everybody had to pick up a bundle of this piece of board
- and taking over there to be burnt together before shooting.
- And before shooting, he had to take off his shoes.
- They still had some pants and shoes,
- because they were outside working.
- Tie up his shoes together.
- And the pants, make in a bundle, put in the side.
- And going in into that, there was like a valley, rocks.
- There was a very rocky place there.
- And there, they surrounded-- this [INAUDIBLE] commander
- with machine guns gunned them down.
- I remember a girl who worked as the chef in that concentration
- camp-- from that concentration camp.
- His name was Goth.
- Amon Goth.
- Goth, you've heard of that name?
- Yes.
- You see, not a lie.
- And this girl was there for quite a year.
- She was making the bed, and then taking care of him,
- and everything, and cooking and everything.
- And she had a brother that in that group.
- And she found out about.
- She cried terribly to that chef that she has a brother.
- So the chef goes and give her a note,
- she should run over there and tell
- them to release her brother.
- They got over and they took that note and they shot her.
- That's how this work worked there.
- This is how they have felt for the worker what they kept there.
- They only kept always people because it wasn't their interest
- to have that camp and to--
- it's called German to [? lyse. ?]
- That means to create, to work, to make for the army,
- for the things.
- This is what they--
- this was in their interest to have it going.
- But they had a order every four or six weeks--
- maybe a little longer--
- to pick up a group and to send to Birkenau to be gassed.
- So whom did they take?
- Everybody was going from work.
- There was a committee.
- And everybody had to undress.
- And if you had a little boil here or there,
- you go to the left already.
- You go to the people who were going to be sent away.
- And there was young girls who were some of them already
- in their 30s.
- And when saw what's going on, they
- were pinching their cheeks so to get in some red,
- so that they would look a little better.
- Everybody was just pale not knowing what's going to happen.
- And so they picked up a lot of it.
- Every few months, they were having these selections.
- And I remember one time, a man was picked up.
- And he had hidden one child.
- This is one child in that camp.
- He somehow knew that there was a man who
- was in charge for the barrack.
- And he was responsible that no children be hidden there.
- He was responsible.
- But somehow, he had some connections with that man.
- And that one little girl, about maybe six years old,
- was hidden in that barrack there.
- And the minute she heard that somebody is in the concentration
- camp coming in that area, she ran out on the highest perch
- there and covered herself with all the racks
- and laying there so quiet like nothing there.
- And so this is the way she was there.
- And then the man who brought in a little soup and the things--
- this girl was so pale , because she never had to go out
- to the sun, never see her outside.
- And he brought in a little soup always.
- They picked him up in this group,
- only because he was losing his hair.
- He wasn't old, but he was starting to lose his hair.
- They took him to be shot.
- And they picked him up there in that group.
- And he was crying.
- Not that he is going to be shot.
- He was crying that I won't see anymore my little girl.
- He was crying so terribly--
- can't imagine-- that he will never see his girl anymore.
- And so they shot him.
- They loaded him on trains and on trucks
- and straight to Auschwitz.
- What happened to that girl, I don't know.
- Because I also left later Plaszow.
- I went away to Mielec to that [INAUDIBLE].
- And I don't know what happened to that girl.
- But never heard of it anymore.
- And so now I was taken.
- Did I tell you number two I was taken to be shot?
- One at the train when I was handing some water.
- And one when three escaped and they took us to be shot.
- And then in Plaszow, they picked up from the group 15 people
- to be shot, because somebody escaped.
- Who was the somebody?
- They picked up some people who were--
- how can I say--
- they were no more Jews.
- They were then converted into Catholic.
- But for them, you are a Jew.
- If you are converted or not, they
- picked up people whom they picked up
- from the third or fourth generation who they were Jewish.
- And so a guy like this were to escape.
- Because he was converted before the war into a Catholic.
- He had some friends somewhere in the village.
- But he could escape.
- I couldn't escape, because I didn't have anywhere to go.
- And I go in this group working.
- They picked up-- one escaped.
- And they picked up 15 to be shot.
- And I was in the group of the 15 again.
- Again, back in the 15.
- My luck was that I got with one German, one SS, buddy buddy.
- How did I get buddy buddy with a guy like this?
- Let me tell you that.
- One, I was working night shift building barracks.
- It's not Christmas, New Year's they
- had a big party at that concentration camp there.
- They had music playing, and dancing,
- and drinking champagne, the SS.
- The SS and the Ukraines altogether.
- Big party for everybody.
- Not for Jews.
- There were Jewish singers.
- There was Jewish music.
- They were from Krakow, good music
- which used to be in the radio.
- The Roosevelts, I think.
- Roosevelts orchestra.
- Beautiful.
- They were playing them the music.
- And in the middle of the night, the light conked out.
- No light.
- And it was about one o'clock in the morning.
- In this they didn't have--
- they were screwing fuses.
- Not the circuit breakers, like now the modern one.
- The old fashioned one.
- The old fashioned screw.
- And what they do?
- They couldn't go into the town.
- Nobody is open in town now at one o'clock in the morning.
- No light.
- So the Jewish leader--
- he was shot too--
- came out.
- And he says, I used to be a handyman.
- I used to whenever they moved a desk in the office,
- they called me in to rewire, wiring, things like that.
- So they knew me.
- So this Jewish leader came out where I was working.
- He says, can you do something?
- The light went up there in that hall and they have no light.
- And I went in there.
- And I took a cork from a champagne bottle.
- And I made a little heavier.
- Put some-- it was paper over.
- And put some fine wire around it in a cross.
- And screw it in.
- And the light went on.
- Oh, this was something he couldn't forget.
- He was in charge of this party.
- He said, this [NON-ENGLISH]--
- that swine can do everything for me, for me.
- You know what it means.
- That swine can do everything.
- All right.
- And at that time when they picked me up to be shot,
- this SS saved me.
- He took me out.
- He says, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- That they need me.
- And this saved me.
- Otherwise, would have been the last one from so many families.
- And he saved me.
- This is number three.
- But how you feel when you know that the end is over,
- that you were strong and healthy, and you had dreams?
- And suddenly, you know in a couple hours later,
- you are going to be laying there.
- It's a terrible feeling.
- I don't wish that a dog should go through that feeling.
- And I went through it three times.
- Do you ever dream about it?
- Pardon?
- Do you ever dream about it?
- Oh, yes.
- I have dreams that I'm being shot and that I'm being shot.
- And I'm being shot and then I fly like--
- slowly, I'm going down on the floor.
- And then I said, oh, I'm still alive.
- I didn't move, because there are cases when they shot you.
- And you fell down and you were still alive.
- You didn't move.
- They went away, you could get up.
- There were a few cases like that where a shot through the neck.
- And so I am shot.
- And I feel that I'm still alive.
- So I lay quiet.
- I dream of that.
- I lay quiet.
- When he will leave, I'll be able to get up.
- That's dreams.
- And my wife and I, we always have dreams.
- Those dreams are-- as I said, when you were with friends
- and you start talking with friends,
- it's always you come up on the subject.
- And when you sleep, you dream.
- And when you can't sleep, you just
- have it like a moving picture in front of you going through.
- This is a terrible thing.
- And you can't get this over.
- Especially those incidents like shooting this child.
- A child in ghetto ask her mother.
- And I remember this little girl.
- And she looked like-- maybe you saw in television--
- Jessica who fell into that--
- A girl in Texas.
- A little girl like this just similar like her.
- A little blonde girl says, mommy, is that true
- that you will be able to go to work and I will have to die?
- A four-year-old girl.
- The children were so conscious.
- They knew that they have no chance to live.
- They knew what was going on.
- And they knew everything.
- You could take--
- I once took a little boy before knowing
- that tomorrow is going to be--
- the SS is going to surround everybody
- and in taking away who knows where.
- I took a little boy--
- kids didn't having chance--
- a little boy.
- Well, who was this little boy?
- The father and mother hid him while they were going out
- with the first transports.
- And this little boy was hidden in the basement.
- And later when it became still some way of living,
- this little boy came out there he was hanging around there.
- And I knew the family.
- So once there was another--
- we knew that tomorrow is going to be a terrible, terrible day.
- They're going to surround us.
- Incidentally, everybody had to pay, it was called,
- slaughter money.
- In the beginning-- did you hear of that?
- You heard of that.
- In the beginning, you had to give up gold,
- silver earrings, whatever you had.
- And the way it was said we are going to be able to stay,
- they're not going to put us in trains,
- they're not going to displace us if we give up
- all the gold and silver.
- People were taking over wherever they
- had a piece of gold, anything.
- Giving up their-- and they gathered
- a tremendous amount of gold.
- They took it and they did their job.
- The second time, the same thing.
- So people know they.
- The called it in Jewish shehita You understand Jewish?
- Shehita means slaughter money, to be slaughtered.
- You pay them to be slaughtered.
- That's what we were calling that.
- And that's what's going on to the last minute.
- All right, so now we are in Plaszow.
- And this thing was going on there incidentally.
- Everybody was so anxious to live.
- Life are so precious, you could go out hungry.
- It's hard to describe how hungry you would be.
- But you still wanted to be alive to see the end of it,
- to maybe we will survive.
- Maybe somebody else survive and things like that.
- And so I told you before how my brother was shot.
- He escaped in the train.
- And he was going out.
- And I was still working at Baracken Bau.
- Baracken Bau was the worst job, the worst.
- But unfortunately, I was the good man.
- I knew how to work and I knew what was going on.
- And they wouldn't let me-- the German wouldn't let me out
- of there.
- Incidentally, the German, he was a rotten fuhrer.
- I called him after the war.
- He was a guy who was shooting right and left people, women,
- girls.
- Whatever came out there, he was shooting.
- He was beating everybody so terribly.
- One morning, he goes out, he says,
- everybody gets 25 on the behind.
- And when he said 25 on the behind, it is just 25.
- It's no question about.
- And so they everybody got 25.
- All the group who was working.
- And I was between them.
- And I said, I also get 25?
- I am working.
- I am responsible for this work.
- Don't you see those barracks, what we built here?
- I am the one working.
- He says, when everybody gets it, you are getting it too.
- So of course, you have to put down
- your pants on the bare behind.
- 25 is just like an operation.
- You take a knife and with that steel whip, 25.
- And every time that end whipped you around here,
- you had a cut, a cut, a cut all over.
- And you just couldn't talk him out of it.
- He says, when everybody got it, you are Jewish.
- You have to get it.
- So I got it.
- And then later, every time, no matter what was going on,
- he hit you with that whip.
- Once I said, please, don't hit me anymore.
- I am so beaten up that I can't bend down.
- I can't work when I am so sore.
- I am so terribly sore.
- I can't-- when my pants touched me in the back,
- I just saw terrible things.
- He says, if you can't work, I have to shoot you.
- Those are the words.
- Was this Goth who did this himself?
- No, no.
- This was another.
- His name was Willie Schteip.
- Not too many knows him.
- I knew him, because he was my foreman.
- He was responsible for the work.
- And I called him after the war.
- I'm going to come to it.
- And this guy was there my foreman.
- And you can imagine the treatment I got from him.
- Once knowing I told you before that people
- escaping with trains, girls who tried somehow to get papers,
- that they are Gentile, that they are not Jewish.
- They were places where you could work out
- with the signature of Frank, the governor of Krakow signature.
- And of course, the Jewish girls had brown hair .
- And the Polish, the Gentile girls were mostly blond.
- So the Jewish girls were making themselves blond.
- And they found out about that.
- Whenever they saw a young girl dressed,
- nice lips, nice made up, blonde, they right away suspected her
- that she is Jewish.
- They were picking them up one by one from the trains.
- So one morning going back to that unloading--
- to that them leveling the ground and then taking out the teeth,
- they bring in two girls caught on the trains.
- Such beautiful girls, maybe 19, 20 years old.
- So beautiful made up.
- Their lips like roses.
- They had to undress and were sitting like that
- and waiting to be shot in the camp, in the concentration camp.
- While we were working on the ground there,
- they were waiting to be shot.
- And that SS didn't come right away.
- It took them an hour until he came and he shot them.
- Such beautiful two girls caught in the train.
- Just caught in the train.
- And they shot them.
- They didn't even bury them.
- They put them on the lower place.
- And when we were scraping out the ground,
- ground was falling on them.
- So it was covering them up.
- This is [INAUDIBLE].
- Once came in a whole truck load with people.
- They supposed to have papers to go to the United States
- before the war.
- Did you hear of that?
- And they were all shot there.
- Shall I go on and tell you?
- Please.
- You must tell it.
- A truck comes in, was full of people.
- They had their suitcases.
- They told them that whoever had papers or registered
- to go to the United States should come out
- on this and this place there.
- It was called appelplatz where they are supposed to meet.
- And everybody who had--
- incidentally, I was in concentration camp, otherwise,
- I would have been there too.
- Because I had already papers to go before the war
- to the United States.
- And so they went out with their best suitcases with whatever
- belongings they had.
- And they loaded them onto trucks and brought them into Plaszow.
- And they were gunned down.
- Right away, that [? sheso ?] commanders surrounded them.
- They took them over there to that place there and shot them.
- This is how they talked you--
- how they cheated you in into--
- without having any problems, telling you
- you're going to the United States.
- We're going to be taking you to the ship.
- And so they all came out, whoever
- had any register papers that he is registered
- to go the the United States.
- He was on that truck and he was shot, all there in Plaszow.
- Plaszow was a terrible place there.
- Thousands and thousands of people lost their lives there.
- And so I was there from the beginning of '42 till '44.
- You said that you had papers to come to the United States.
- When did you get them and how were you able to hold on
- to them?
- Before the war.
- Way, way before the war.
- I had already a number.
- And I had to wait for my number to come up.
- Because the American Council has given me already a number.
- And whenever my-- no, how did I say?
- I can't describe that in English.
- Well, anyway, I was supposed to be called in
- to travel to the United States.
- But because the war broke out, and I
- was called in German [GERMAN].
- That means army-- not skilled, but I was--
- Trained.
- No, trained, that was in the army.
- But I was one of the-- in the reserve
- to be called to the army.
- So the Polish government wouldn't let me
- out when they started to talk about the war.
- First, they took in Czechoslovakia and Austria,
- the Anschluss.
- Austria, then Czechoslovakia.
- And then they wanted to take past of Poland.
- Denmark-- not Denmark, Danzig.
- How is it in English?
- Well, yeah, it's now Gdansk.
- Gdansk, Polish.
- Then Danzig, yeah.
- And so they didn't they wouldn't let me out.
- And so this is good that I was in that camp, otherwise
- I would have been in that truck too, because I had papers.
- I had the papers.
- Matter of fact, I had pictures and the stamp
- from this from the American Council.
- Did they let you keep the papers or did
- you have to hide the papers?
- At that time in the beginning, we had the papers.
- I had them hidden.
- Of course, hidden.
- But later on, I destroyed them.
- I destroyed them.
- Everything was destroyed.
- I was just picked up to the concentration camp
- like you see me now.
- What led you to the army in the first place?
- Where you drafted?
- In Poland, you when you were 18 years old, there was a law.
- Conscription law.
- Law, you had to go to the draft.
- And they measured you in and weigh you and everything.
- And I was taken in right way to the army.
- And I was 18 months in the regular army
- and in the Polish army.
- And then later when the war broke out,
- I was the first to be called in.
- And so this was there.
- So going back to Plaszow.
- You want to hear some more from?
- Plaszow?
- I'll tell you some more things what
- was going on there unless you--
- Please.
- No, go ahead.
- About in '42-- no, '43--
- I'm very bad on dates, but it is in '43.
- Don't ask me what month.
- One came out in a word that they are looking for people to go
- to Mielec to a flugzenwerk.
- This is a place where they are building airplanes, an airplane
- factory.
- And when I heard about that, I was born there in this area.
- So I was trying to get to that area there,
- because I always was thinking in case the war comes to an end,
- I'll still have that road to make from there to Auschwitz
- or somewhere else.
- So maybe at that time I can jump out.
- And this is what my plans were.
- And so I went voluntarily from that concentration camp
- to Mielec.
- In Mielec, oh, did I suffer there.
- Here in Plaszow, I was already an old timer.
- I knew every corner and everything, what to do,
- how to do.
- And also the facilities were better.
- You had a big, big oven where you
- could take all your belongings and put it in one bundle,
- and bring it over to that oven.
- And they put it in for 200 degree steam.
- And they steam it out.
- So they took out the livestock from there.
- And this is where you could keep yourself at least a little bit
- from the lice to eat you.
- When I came there to Mielec, this wasn't there anymore.
- They were laying there on their so-called shelves
- and a little straw, maybe it was maybe five years old.
- So rotten, so black, and so in pieces.
- It wasn't any more straw.
- And I came over there.
- They took away everything without a cover, without--
- they took away your toothbrush.
- So I go over there.
- I thought maybe they told me that I'm
- going to get their covers.
- They're going to get everything.
- We came over, no cover.
- I go over to the--
- it was called-- it was already again before
- like before Rosh Hashanah became cold in Poland,
- Rosh Hashanah is already cold, very cold.
- And I came over.
- And I went over to the leader, to the concentration camp
- leader.
- And I said, look, I am freezing.
- I have nothing to cover.
- I came like this.
- Maybe you can give me some kind of a cover?
- He said, we don't have any covers.
- But go in that hospital.
- There's a little [? hug ?] called [NON-ENGLISH].
- They put you in there for a couple of days.
- If you were a little longer than three, four days,
- you were taken out and shot.
- Go in there and maybe somebody died,
- they will take you the blanket and you will have a blanket.
- I go in in the morning before going to work.
- And I go around and I look, I look.
- And I see somebody who is probably 90% dead.
- And I try to pull that blanket.
- I see he is still alive.
- But my heart didn't let me do that.
- I didn't do that.
- And so I went to work.
- Going back to work, I was watching this guy.
- I knew that he's going to die anyway.
- And I came from work and I go in that barrack there,
- in the [NON-ENGLISH].
- And I look over there, somebody pulled over this blanket
- from him.
- He was still alive and somebody pulled it over.
- And so this is the way the life was there.
- The lice were eating you up alive.
- So one morning, the sun was shining in the day.
- I worked night shift.
- During the day, instead of sleep,
- I go out outside and take off my pants and my gatkes
- and my everything.
- And take two bricks and make a little fire behind the barrack.
- And took my--
- I used to eat soap.
- And put in my shirt and my I gatkes there.
- And I start to boil it there.
- Made a little fire and I boil it there.
- Before I know, from the towers, the security saw some smoke.
- Some people were getting a potato out of all of the kitchen
- and cooking it.
- This was terrible.
- This was right away a bullet in the head.
- And so they saw that this is what somebody is doing.
- They saw a little smoke going out.
- And before I turned around and I was standing
- completely, completely naked.
- And the chef of them from the concentration camp runs over.
- Behind the barrack was a revolving door like this.
- What are you doing here?
- I said, I only want to keep myself clean.
- Those are the words.
- And in German, it sounds like this.
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- And so he looked what I am cooking there.
- He let me live, let me alive.
- And I cook out my gatkes there a little bit.
- A half hour later, they were dry already.
- Sun was shining and I put them on.
- I had a day without biting.
- But when I laid down on that perch
- there, the bed bugs, and the fleas, and the lice,
- they ate you up alive.
- So this was this was Mielec.
- And I worked in daytime and nighttime.
- Again, in the beginning, they took me over
- to an airplane body.
- And on the bottom, it had, it was called in German a [GERMAN].
- A part from the bottom opened down.
- And it had there little steps to get in into the plane.
- And so they showed me just this [GERMAN].
- And I'm supposed to erect this there.
- never
- Had the slightest idea how to do it.
- So I took one and I cut off a little more than is necessary.
- It was a big space.
- This couldn't be, because the minute the air goes in,
- it would have ripped apart the whole plane.
- And I was beat.
- I was beat and kicked and beat.
- One day, the second day, the third day.
- Once I said to myself, I'm going to tell them.
- I said, you don't have to beat me, in German.
- You don't have to beat me.
- Just show me once how you wanted to have it done.
- And I'll do it just the way you want it.
- He sent me over a guy, a Polack.
- There were Polish people coming in the morning,
- going home in the evening.
- Also worked for in the flugtenwerk.
- He sent me over a guy.
- And that guy was working with me.
- Showed me how to erect this, to put this on.
- And from that time on, I was the best.
- They didn't beat me anymore.
- And that's how you went to this path.
- And then one morning, we heard the planes
- were coming in and loading bombs and going out.
- Coming in and going out.
- It was a whole night.
- So we knew that something is going on fronts.
- Because they were never busy.
- And so they wake us up we had to carry the big, big bombs
- there to bring them over to the planes
- and to load it in the planes.
- And special groups were working there.
- And so we knew that the war is to an end, was coming to an end.
- And one morning, I go out in the morning.
- And there is a call, everybody has to be ready in half an hour.
- The trains are ready.
- We are going we are going to be shift from here,
- the whole concentration camp.
- And we incidentally, we first dismantled
- a lot of the big machinery.
- We loaded them on trains.
- They were going to that near Krakow, that little salt
- mine on the ground.
- They were supposed to be erect, a hall of work.
- And so-- I'll take a drink.
- And so in half an hour, everybody has to be ready.
- Has to be ready to go.
- Good.
- I had a friend with me.
- And my plan was to jump out the train.
- Because at that time, we were not any more responsible
- for each other.
- Before, one escaped, they took 15 to be shot.
- Later on, this law has changed.
- The SS was responsible for us.
- They didn't shoot anymore.
- If one escape, they didn't shoot anymore.
- And this was in the last half a year before the war ended.
- So I knew about that.
- So in the train with my friend, we came in and took the train.
- Imagine the heat and everything.
- And I was standing at this little window there.
- And I had the little pliers, cutting pliers,
- which I used at the factory there that I had with me.
- And the minute I came in, I cut the wires off on the bottom.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- And I said to my friend, look, I'm
- going to stay here at this window.
- And we will come to a certain spot where I know where I am.
- I'm going to jump out and you jump out also.
- And then we come together there.
- This was in the evening.
- Supposed to be in the middle of the night.
- But I said, stay here.
- No, I was staying at the window.
- And then how long can you stay?
- And we got tired.
- We got sleepy.
- And I said to him, why don't you stay at the window
- and watch until we come to that certain spot?
- And then we'll jump out.
- And I'll lay down.
- You just go down like this, because there's
- no space to lay down.
- So I laid down.
- And I fell asleep sitting.
- And he fell asleep.
- And we passed by this pathway we were supposed to jump out.
- And I woke up, it was--
- hell, the day was already on.
- Oh my god, what I missed.
- I thought I'm going to die.
- I said, this was the only solution
- where I could get out of that concentration camp.
- And this was all--
- the end is coming.
- And now if somebody escapes, here's a chance to survive.
- So [NON-ENGLISH].
- It was too bad.
- We lost that opportunity.
- And so we went to Wieliczka.
- Wieliczka was a town there where we
- supposed to work on the ground.
- This was a salt mine town.
- And then we're there.
- Instead we put all this machinery
- on the ground, a big hole.
- Instead to go for work, since the Russians were approaching so
- rapidly, one morning, an alarm.
- We have to be in the train.
- We are going to be loaded to Germany.
- So where am I going?
- And in the morning, early morning-- first of all,
- you couldn't pick up a piece of newspaper.
- That was a bullet to the head.
- No paper, even if you were going to the latrine.
- You couldn't have a piece of paper.
- This was a terrible--
- you are a politician, politics.
- One morning, I go out in the morning.
- The wind blew in a headline-- a Polish paper, just the headline
- that the Russians are there in Mielec where we were working.
- Oh my god, the Russians are there already.
- And here I am I'm going to be loaded
- in trains going to Germany.
- I just couldn't stomach that.
- And so it didn't take too long.
- Everybody went to a--
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- How is that?
- Revival.
- No, no, no.
- Checked out.
- To give out everything you have, toothbrush, the spoon.
- You went through that--
- A search.
- A search.
- You went through that search.
- And I had something which I--
- this was a pair of small vellum.
- Phylacteries.
- Phylactery.
- Very small.
- I found them in--
- I'll tell you about that too.
- And I kept this with me always.
- Every morning, if I had the chance,
- I put them on and made the prayer.
- And when we were going to be searched,
- I took this little bag that was the phylactery.
- And I threw it over to this group who was already searched.
- It was all involved a bullet in the head.
- But you took a chance, anything.
- A piece of paper you picked was a bullet in the head.
- Whatever we were doing, it was just dangerous.
- So living was a danger.
- And I went through the search.
- And we were going to the trains.
- How we were going to the trains?
- Everybody had to hold-- there were five.
- And everybody had to hold each other.
- You came to the train, you must have been five.
- If you were four, where is the fifth one?
- It was dangerous.
- We were holding each other.
- And these four were responsible for the fifth one.
- And so we were coming to the train in fifth.
- And they and they opened the train.
- And that train was the train what
- they were transporting these people to the gas chambers
- to Treblinka, to Belzec.
- And of course, no sanitary things
- was going on in the train.
- Everything wherever you were standing.
- And after this finished, it was cleaned up a little bit.
- They put some chlorine powder on the floor.
- And the trains were standing all day.
- It was so hot, that chlorine powder from the heat
- went up in the air.
- When they opened that train, that hit you in the nose.
- And you could get sick right away with chlorine powder.
- And I went in there, hot.
- And I went in into a striped suit.
- But I was always conscious having a pair
- of pants under and a shirt.
- it's called a civil pair of pants, not with stripes.
- And went into the train again.
- I had this little pliers of mine going through them.
- I threw it through.
- And I also threw through my pants.
- Because you couldn't have that.
- And they didn't see you throwing it?
- No, no.
- About 500 or 800 people.
- So it's not so easy.
- And I go in and I took--
- we were loaded into the trains coming into five
- into the trains, loaded into trains.
- The smell, the heat.
- And I took off-- it was hot--
- I took of first this jacket.
- Took off my striped pants.
- And I go to that window again.
- Quietly cut down the wires on the [? balcony. ?]
- And I said, I'm not going to go to Germany,
- even if I have to be killed right here.
- I don't want to suffer anymore.
- I'll take a chance.
- Either I'm going to survive or I'm going to be shot.
- I don't want to go to Germany.
- And the minute the train started to move,
- the SS stepped up on the step to get on the train,
- on that cattle wagon.
- There were about 12 cattle wagons.
- And I jumped out.
- And next track, Polish people were working on the track.
- So I jumped out there.
- And I fell down.
- And I lift with me up a railroad tie, a wooden tie.
- And I was sure that a bullet is coming any second.
- I was shivering like this.
- I picked up the tie and I was slowly going to the left.
- The Polish people saw me.
- But at that time, they were already a little bit--
- they didn't know what's going to be
- when the Russians will come in.
- They thought that the Russians will come in.
- The Jews will have all the rights.
- But unfortunately, it wasn't like that.
- Anyway, they didn't say a word.
- They saw me.
- I picked up the tie and I was slowly going--
- the train was going to the right.
- And I was slowly going with the tie to the left.
- Then I went, there was a gate, because this
- was in the salt mines.
- There was a gate.
- Threw away that tie, that wooden tie, railroad tie.
- And I tried to jump through that gate.
- I couldn't-- by no means I could lift myself out.
- I was so shaky.
- I went through that gate.
- And I go through--
- go out of that gate.
- And I went in into a high-- it was
- high corn was growing there a little further after.
- I go into that corn and lay and sit down.
- I say, I'm going to rest a little bit.
- And I start to look what do I have with me.
- And I had with me those phylacteries, those vellum.
- I said, what do I do now?
- I kept them from so many concentration camps.
- I skipped so many--
- I went through Mielec.
- I went through Rymanow, [? Schevne. ?]
- And I kept him the way I did the first time.
- And now I am maybe I'm going to be free.
- Maybe I will survive.
- I should throw this away?
- No.
- I said, if I will keep this with me,
- no matter what's going to be.
- Because I know I knew that when they wanted to find out
- if they catch me and they want to find out if I'm Jewish,
- even if I wouldn't have any sign,
- they had a way of finding out, what they did.
- Let me tell you further.
- Jewish people were circumcised.
- No Gentile was circumcised in Poland.
- No.
- They're all Catholics.
- No circumcision.
- And so they know how to check.
- So I said, if they catch me, they
- will find out if I'm Jewish.
- I'm not going to throw it away.
- And I kept it with me.
- And I was going with this, started to go in the direction
- where the Russian front is.
- And this was about 60 European miles.
- And 60 European miles.
- A mile had about six American miles.
- It was a further way of going.
- And I was starting to go.
- And you got hungry.
- And I tried to get it into a little house there.
- I didn't look for big rich houses, the poorest house.
- I went in out of the highway.
- And I went in there in that house.
- And there was an old [? goike ?] there cooking.
- And I said, I tell her whole story that the Germans picked me
- up with my horse and buggy.
- And I left them with the buggy.
- And I going back.
- I have a wife there.
- A whole story.
- And she and she gave me some--
- a piece of bread and some milk.
- This was like manna, manna from the skies.
- And I was going further.
- I'll make it short.
- I see it has to be an end to it.
- I was going further.
- And it was fields.
- I was afraid to go with the road.
- And then there were three bridges to cross.
- This was the most horrible thing.
- How could I cross a bridge?
- There was a bridge, not as big as the Verrazzano,
- but half of the size.
- Half the size.
- And on each bridge, on each side of the bridge,
- there was a gestapo, an SS working there, standing there,
- and watching.
- Because they were afraid that somebody
- would blow up the bridge.
- Because they were already withdrawing.
- The Germans, the big tanks were going back
- in big trucks transport.
- And how do I cross a bridge?
- I couldn't go into the water.
- The water was deep.
- I didn't know that water.
- So I go down from the road.
- A little further away, it was grown in bushes.
- And I sit there thinking, how will I be
- able to go through that bridge?
- And this was about 1:00 during the day.
- A women, an old [? goike ?] leads a cow
- to pasture with a goat.
- And because of those little-- of those trains,
- of those trucks going in the opposite direction,
- there were no highways to divide, same thing.
- And this goat was so scarred.
- Was so pulling herself back, almost got choked.
- I jumped out.
- I said, lady, I'll help you.
- I'll help you.
- Give me the goat.
- I'll help you go to that bridge.
- I see you are going to the bridge.
- She says, yes.
- She gave me the goat.
- And I was going to--
- she was leading the cow and I was leading the goat.
- And the SS were standing.
- I was going through.
- And I said to myself, oh my god, this wasn't a goat.
- This was an angel.
- This was an angel let me through that bridge.
- And so I went through further.
- But I got so--
- my feet were like pieces of wood.
- I couldn't move them anymore.
- I wasn't used to walk that far.
- So I went down into the fields and I was trying
- to rest until the next morning.
- I went in, there were big piles of hay,
- and corn, wheat cut and bind in piles.
- So I pulled out a bundle from the bottom.
- And I pulled myself in, pushed myself in under that
- the pile of corn.
- And I was sleeping there untill the next day.
- Excuse me, Aaron.
- I'm going to have to stop the tape now.
- Today I would like to bring to your attention what
- happened in Europe for the small children who
- played on the sidewalks through all Europe, jumped rope.
- A decree was issued in Germany, in Berlin,
- that those children have no right to grow up.
- And they were picked up from the towns,
- from the most remote areas, wherever
- there was a Jewish family, and those children
- were all destroyed.
- Some went with their parents, some were hidden by parents
- and later came out or they were given out
- when they were hidden by some Gentile people
- and they couldn't keep them.
- They were given back to the ghettos
- where they were destroyed.
- Now, when I came to Plaszow the first day,
- they did put me in a group where we were digging a huge grave.
- And the Krakow ghetto was at that time cleared.
- And they brought in trucks with children from infant
- to 12 years old and they were all killed.
- And one group was digging further,
- about 100 feet long grave and about 50 feet wide.
- The children were digging?
- No, the group where I belonged.
- And the children, when they brought them in,
- they were shot right into that grave.
- And of course one group was bringing with wheelbarrows
- some chlorine powder and putting on
- because it was such a tremendous amount of bodies
- in those graves and they were afraid
- that this might start smelling out.
- So one group was wheeling with a wheelbarrow some powder,
- chlorine powder, and spreading with a shovel over,
- one group was digging further, and one group
- was just covering up the ones which they [? shoot. ?]
- A little girl, a beautiful blonde girl,
- sat down in the grave dressed in an Eskimo white fur coat,
- was all bloody, and asked for a little bit of water, and asked,
- "Water, water."
- But as you know, the heart was so like a stone, numb,
- you wouldn't dare go and give that child a little water.
- And this child swallowed so much blood
- because it was shot through the neck,
- and then it started to vomit so terribly.
- And then it laid down and it says, "Mother, turn me around,
- turn me around."
- Her mother was still alive?
- Pardon?
- The mother was still alive?
- No, no.
- This child didn't know what happened to it.
- It was half shot, half dead.
- It was after it was shot.
- And this child sat down in the grave between all the corpses
- and asked for water because it swallowed so much blood
- and asked for water.
- It was still alive.
- There was no mothers there, just children
- brought from the Krakow ghetto.
- And of course you wouldn't dare move with water
- because you would be in.
- As a matter of fact, there were cases
- where the Germans, the original group who
- was digging and burying those corpses,
- they shot them when they finished the work.
- They were shot because they didn't want
- any witnesses to remain alive.
- So thee were cases like this, and we were all shivering.
- We didn't know what is going to happen to us.
- So this could this little girl laid down and asked
- to be turned around.
- What happened to it, I don't know.
- It was probably covered alive with a chlorine powder
- and covered later alive.
- And I'm sure because they didn't give another shot to that girl
- because they were too busy going and shooting.
- And so things like this you just cannot forget.
- It is 45 years after the war and this is embedded in your mind.
- And you no matter what you are thinking of,
- this thing doesn't go out from your mind.
- You must remember that.
- And so this is the way this highly educated nation became
- such tremendous, such horrible, murderous criminals
- without any human feeling, without any feeling
- for a child, for a crying child.
- And it's impossible to comprehend.
- The crime was so horrendous in such a magnitude that a human
- brain cannot comprehend that.
- And this is where the SS, they were the ones who the more they
- were shooting and the more they were,
- let's say, fast on the draw, they
- advanced in the concentration camps.
- Did you ever witness any situation
- where there was some mercy shown by the Germans
- or some feeling or some compassion?
- No.
- No.
- No, I did not.
- I did not because, as a matter of fact, as you know by now,
- I have mentioned the last time that a German, one SS,
- I got with him so buddy buddy, and he's
- the one who took me out once from a group
- to be shot because he needed me.
- And he took me out.
- And I ask him, "Tell me, are you married?
- Do you have a wife?"
- He says, "Yes, I have a wife."
- and I said to him, "Do you have children?"
- "Yes, I have children, too."
- So I ask him, "How can you shoot children here like that?"
- And he said, "I have [GERMAN],, an order."
- And he says, "If I would get an order to shoot my mother,
- I would shoot her."
- And that was the end of our discussion with the German.
- And so I'm going further with was this type of life.
- And of course, you were at a tension always, so numb.
- A child, a human being, were laying or something,
- you didn't even bother to look at him if he's alive or dead.
- This is the way the situation brought you
- to it, the conditions.
- And then I was once in another camp
- where other things happened.
- For instance, for a small thing, they
- took out an older man who was maybe in the 50s or so,
- and they took him out to be shot right in the first thing
- in the morning.
- And the son was standing in the lines.
- And I don't know how he could do it,
- but he gripped the gentleman by the hand, "This is my father,"
- he said, "This is my father."
- And that boy was hung by the hands
- tied in the back, hung by the hands
- for a whole day on that tree.
- It was a terrible, terrible thing to [INAUDIBLE]..
- We went to work and he was terribly moaning on that tree.
- The situation to look at him was just impossible.
- The mucus was coming out from his nose and mouth.
- A whole day hanging by the hands from the back.
- Finally, we all prayed, we all hoped
- that they're going to shoot him, that it's going
- to be the end of his suffering.
- And they let him hang a whole day
- just because he gripped the German by the hand,
- he said, this is my father, not to shoot him.
- How old was the boy?
- Well, he was probably 20, 19, 20 years old.
- This is lost in the camp where there were no younger ones.
- They were, let's say, from 18 to 28, 25.
- This is the groups what they left for work, if they
- left for work, some of then.
- So when they brought children in,
- they killed them immediately.
- Immediately.
- The children were crying terribly, and they knew.
- They the children knew what is happening
- and what is going to happen to them.
- They were crying and I still hear the cries today.
- I still hear them, how they'd cry,
- and their hands up and "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy."
- And this is not just a story where you can forget.
- This is not a thing you can forget.
- No matter if you live to 80, you will still remember this.
- And so this is the way, how sadistic they were.
- They didn't have any feeling for a human being or for a child.
- As I told you, he said that he has [GERMAN],,
- he has an order to shoot, and that is what he was doing.
- Then once, they brought in a woman with a child.
- They caught her somewhere outside of Krakow,
- either on a train or so.
- They brought her in and she said she is not Jewish.
- She was crossing herself, she says, "I am not Jewish,"
- and she was praying and kneeling and praying.
- And this SS didn't move a finger.
- He went over, and this little girl
- was holding on to the mother, it was crying,
- and he took her over to that valley
- there where they were shooting people, and they shot her.
- And she was crying and saying, "I am not Jewish."
- And in German, [GERMAN].
- And they proved that she is Jewish and that's it,
- and that's their way of destroying.
- As a matter of fact, those who were outside, they were first.
- They destroyed them faster than those
- who were inside in the concentration camp
- because they were still afraid that the people who
- were outside of the camp have some kind of contact
- with the underground, with the partisans.
- And they were very, very much afraid of that,
- and that's why they never let somebody
- who worked outside went out to work every day.
- They were the first thing to be shot.
- And so this is the way you have to understand.
- The conditions, what they created through five years,
- were not human conditions.
- People ask me, how could you live?
- And I said, you couldn't live.
- That's why millions perished, because they couldn't live.
- All this time, I am survived from 46 people, the closest
- family, uncles and cousins.
- And then in my brothers and sisters,
- I'm the only one by a split second.
- I jumped out the train.
- And this is only one of who survived from the 46 people.
- And you couldn't live.
- You could not go through and live because you just
- were conditioned to be shot, and everybody
- knew that they are not going to live.
- Today we have buried a group, tomorrow, who knows?
- We may be the ones.
- Could you go back to talk to us about your family?
- Before the war-- is that what you want me to?
- Before the war, I grew up, I went away to Krakow.
- Krakow was a large, huge town, big town.
- The reason I went there is because I
- was raised in a small town about 60 miles away from Krakow.
- And in Krakow, you had better opportunities
- to create some kind of a living.
- Of course, a job to get was impossible.
- I was going around and looking for a job for, I think,
- two weeks.
- And I was a tailor.
- I was a specialist in putting up this collar
- on shirts, a shirtmaker.
- I was a specialist, and there were not too many of them.
- Still, I couldn't get the job.
- And so once, I went into a factory
- and I applied for a job.
- What year was this?
- I'm sorry.
- This was in '39.
- Before the war.
- Before the.
- War That's what I'm talking about, before the war.
- And I go into the factory and they say, no, there's
- no opening here.
- They can't have anybody.
- And this was noontime.
- A girl goes out who was working there, and I talked to her,
- I got acquainted with her.
- And I asked her what she is doing here
- and how long she's here.
- And she told me the whole story that she's not
- making too much money, she's not too happy.
- I said, how would you like if I would buy a couple machines--
- I had a few hundred dollars with me--
- and can you supply me with a contractor
- from the big factories, cut stuff, and we will produce it?
- She says it's a good idea, she's going to inquire.
- And it didn't take her too long, took her a day,
- and she came back to me.
- She says, yes, she would like to quit that factory
- and she is going to supply me as much work
- as I need if I will have the machinery.
- And so I started off a factory for myself before the war,
- and it was going good.
- I'm not going to go in how much I make and how long it took.
- But it took about a year when then the war conditions
- started, when they start talking about war.
- When Czechoslovakia, when Austria, the Anschluss,
- and then Czechoslovakia was dismantled,
- and then they wanted a part of Poland.
- And so there's no more business.
- The stores didn't sell anything and the factories stopped,
- and there was no work.
- So I went back home and I left her the machines,
- and I said look, make yourself, if you can,
- a living here by private things.
- And here are the machines and everything,
- and I went back, and let me know when it will open.
- And it didn't take too long, and I was called into the army.
- And we went, of course.
- In the army, I left everything, and I'm going to go further.
- The first day when the war broke out-- that was Friday morning--
- a bomb fell into that building where my machines were,
- in my factory.
- But this is the way it is because they were aiming
- for the railroad station and this was
- close to the railroad station.
- So this is where my factory went.
- What did your father do for a living?
- My father was a dealer with meadowland.
- We were living close by a big range, a huge range where there
- were thousands and thousands of caddle, and meadowlands,
- and hay was an article.
- Now, my father rented, let's say,
- 50 or 150 acres of those meadows and was selling parcels
- to farmers.
- A farmer came and he wanted, let's say, 1 acre of this hay,
- and he had cut it himself and he dried it and he removed it.
- And it was a good business, especially when
- somebody wanted a better one, they always paid better
- and they even brought a fat chicken
- to have a better parcel off of this land.
- And this was good.
- Besides
- That, we had a dairy taking the milk from this big ranch.
- And we were producing kosher cheese and butter
- and then supplying to the bigger towns around.
- And this was a part of our business.
- Now going to the hay, not all the hay
- was sold while it was still green.
- We were cutting it.
- They were cutting it and piling in big, big, huge stacks,
- stocks, huge pile--
- Shafts.
- Yeah.
- I know what you mean.
- Yeah.
- And this is the way we were keeping them till spring.
- In spring, the armies around there
- in the small towns like Tarnow and [PLACE NAME],,
- there were infantry.
- All horses, and they needed hay.
- And we were selling this hay to the army.
- And this is the way we were doing the business.
- But when the war broke out, no more--
- the Jew was afraid to go out because some
- of the people, the Gentile people, some
- of them were very anti-Semitic and they
- were right away objecting that the Jew going out [INAUDIBLE]..
- What did being Jewish mean to you then in those days?
- Of course, it is--
- we had our rights.
- The government wasn't the worst in Poland before the war.
- Especially Joseph Pilsudski-- maybe you heard of him.
- He was good to the Jews.
- The Jews had their right.
- The Jews led doing a lot of business and good business.
- And when the war broke out, of course, when the Germans--
- I'm going to get closer when the Germans move in into Poland.
- And the Jews had--
- the business, the stores in the towns were all Jewish.
- There were no-- there were very few Gentile stores.
- All they're Jewish.
- And they-- the biggest stores, they used to take a German--
- he was called a Volksdeutsche.
- He was a Gentile.
- I mean, he was a Polack.
- But he right away became a German
- because he was living maybe close to the borders.
- And they put in a guy that is in a store in all the--
- whatever it was, the money, everything
- was going for the Germans.
- So people saw what's going on.
- They started to give out to the Gentiles
- outside to farmers, some material.
- They were thinking that maybe the war will end,
- we will be able to get out and start off again.
- So this was one big problem when the Polish people
- saw that no Jews are being left alive.
- So they didn't want to have any witnesses that they
- have Jewish goods there.
- For instance, I came back from the first German Polish war.
- I had two aunts in the town Dębica I went in there.
- I hired two horses and a big hay wagon.
- And I went and I picked up all the--
- one was in peace goods business, one was in the other one.
- And I picked up all this material
- and brought it over to our place there.
- And I put it into a Gentile who was
- supposed to have been our best friend, supposed
- to be our best friend.
- And we were hiding it there in order to get after the war
- when we will be alive.
- And we didn't know that it's going to happen to the Jews.
- So the war will end and we'll have something to start off.
- This Gentile who were our friend,
- and I unload to him for thousands and thousands
- of dollars of goods to him.
- My brother who was hiding there in the forest
- went out to him at night for a piece of bread.
- And he said, if you will come once more on this backyard,
- I will tie you up and I'm going to deliver you to the SS,
- to the police.
- That happened.
- Things like this happened.
- So of course, he didn't want to go anymore
- to a place like this.
- Now for instance, there was a big shoe store we called Bata.
- This was one of the biggest factories and biggest shoe
- stores.
- He has given out--
- he had thousands of thousands of dollars of shoes.
- And he was trying to do smart.
- He took all left shoes and gave them out to one farmer like,
- let's say, in Philadelphia and to another farmer,
- the right shoes like Atlantic City.
- That's so far that one wouldn't know from the other one.
- Do you think that they didn't find out
- whether I choose [INAUDIBLE] they had an exchange of shoes.
- They had-- you give me you give me a pair of right,
- I'll give you a pair of left.
- This is how it went.
- And these people, not only one, but in the thousands
- and thousands of Jewish goods was given out to the Gentiles
- because out thinking that the war will end because this way,
- the German took away.
- This way that the war will end, they
- will be able to start off again.
- And these people who had the Jewish properties
- were interested in that no witness should be alive.
- And they were helping destroy the people.
- Were these people friends formally?
- Before the war?
- Of course.
- We had, as I said, we had a dairy farm.
- And these people came-- they were poor people.
- They came to us for a glass of milk.
- They had a little baby that need a glass of milk.
- And my mother, may she rest in peace, always gave him.
- Gave him yoghurt, gave him milk, gave him--
- they didn't have any.
- They were poor.
- But later on, they just turn from here like that.
- When you took out the property and gave it to them,
- they were interested that no Jew will be alive.
- And they was helping.
- They really hope because the Germans not always
- could recognize who is Jewish and who is not Jewish.
- But they did it.
- They pointed out.
- Were there any exceptions to this in the early stage?
- If somebody survived, is only a stranger from somewhere
- where he wasn't living in this area,
- and he had a lot of money to pay him.
- And only, let's say, one of 10,000, of 10,000 people.
- I had the two sisters.
- I had three sisters, but one was married.
- I had two sisters.
- The youngest was about 18 years old.
- And I tried to send her-- there was
- a time where Polish girls were going to Germany for work.
- They were sending Polish-- they picked up Polish girls,
- and they were sending them to work
- to Germany on farms in Germany.
- And I was trying to get my youngest sister a birth
- certificate that her name is a Polish name, born there
- and belong to this church and everything.
- Couldn't get it.
- For no money, I went to a priest.
- I went to a house of a father.
- He's a priest.
- And I ask for that.
- And I asked to make me out a birth certificate like this
- so that she could go away to work.
- Couldn't get it.
- And this girl-- go ahead.
- Yeah, I'm sorry.
- Were the priests helpful or were they also informants?
- If they would have been at least neutral,
- thousands and thousands of people would have survived.
- They were not neutral.
- They were-- the anti-Semitism was so terrible.
- And they were in this church.
- In the church, they were preached
- about the Jews killed Jesus and the Jews are still--
- today-- today, my friends went to Poland.
- Still say that he was having a cab driver.
- He says that to the Jews--
- he is still teaching his children
- that the Jews has killed children for matzah.
- They need the blood for the matzah today.
- And this is what was--
- this was born in the Polacks.
- And they were so anti-Sematic, especially when
- they had the right of the hand that a Jew wasn't
- worth anything but to be shot.
- I had heard that there were some priests who
- were helpful and then were subsequently shot.
- Is that true?
- Do you know of anything--
- I didn't get.
- Well, there's some stories that there
- were some priests, some religious,
- who were helpful to Jews and then were
- subsequently destroyed.
- Well, it was-- it happened.
- It happened.
- They were somewhere, let's say, as I said, one of 1,000.
- It happens in a few.
- You can see not so much in Poland
- as it is in other like in Czechoslovakia
- or in Hungary in those towns.
- And of course, those terms Hitler was only one year.
- In Poland, it was five years.
- And five years, to survive, it was impossible.
- We went to the forest.
- How long can you stay in the forest summer and winter?
- Winter is 25 below, the snow and everything.
- You had to go out somewhere and to sleep over
- somewhere in a barn to put yourself somewhere in the hay
- and sleep.
- You couldn't stay in the forest.
- And it was impossible five years to survive.
- And those, if there were a few who survived, that some help.
- Of course, they were going out with weapon
- for bread and things like that.
- And in the beginning, a lot of people went through the forest,
- in the beginning, thinking that this will blow over,
- that it will eventually finish, the war will end.
- And it's going to be maybe still alive.
- So hundreds and hundreds of people,
- when the they get this way liquidated,
- they went into the forest.