- My name is Alli Bock Itzkowitz.
- I was born in Troitsk, Uralskaya Gubernia.
- This is deep, deep Russia.
- But when I was one year old, my parents moved to Lithuania.
- And we lived in Memel, Memelgebiet.
- That was German-occupied territory that they lost it,
- and it belonged to Lithuania.
- I went to school there.
- It was a democratic country.
- We were very free to do whatever we want to.
- My daddy was in the wholesale jewelry business,
- and we were doing very well.
- I had lots of German friends till 1938.
- We heard talk about Hitler all the time on the radio.
- We had lots of people from Germany that came and stayed
- in our house.
- Well, they had already the war broke out, and they--
- we kept them there for a week or two till they got papers,
- and they went to Australia, or South Africa, or America,
- wherever they went.
- And we never believed that that would happen to us.
- But in 1938, more Germans used to come to our house
- and tell my father to leave.
- So he moved his wholesale business to Kovno, Lithuania.
- That was the capital of Lithuania, Kovno.
- Well, we had a beautiful house there.
- We had a good life there.
- And my mother didn't want to leave.
- She said she's going to stay there
- because she couldn't believe that anything what we heard
- could happen to us.
- But in the last minute, when we saw that it was the end, so
- we forced her, really, in the train to come to Lithuania.
- Well, in Lithuania there was a lots of people that came.
- It was hard to find a place to live.
- But since one of my sisters was married and lived there,
- we found an apartment.
- It wasn't the same thing like it was in Memel,
- but it was a place to live.
- How did the family and the people
- feel while this was happening?
- Well, there was mixed feelings.
- See, some went to different places.
- Some went to little towns.
- They nearly got destroyed because they left everything.
- And they couldn't find new jobs and new places.
- You know, my daddy was in the wholesale business,
- in the wholesale jewelry.
- So he traveled.
- He still had some towns to go to and make business.
- But other people that had factory or something,
- they had money, yes, but they couldn't find a new position.
- It wasn't that easy to start all over again.
- But a year later, the Russians came in.
- They marched in with the tanks overnight.
- So we were happy to see them because we were afraid,
- if they wouldn't come then the Germans would come in.
- So we kind of felt protected.
- But then they gave us trouble.
- They took the business away from my father right away.
- They came, they put seals on our door,
- and they told him it belongs to the people, not to us anymore.
- But he had a profession.
- He was a jewelry man.
- So he went back on the bench to make rings, make repairs.
- But some other people were lost.
- But they didn't complain that they didn't
- make a living or something.
- They had hope.
- So until the Russians, they came overnight and took the rich
- people away and sent them to Siberia, too, so you weren't--
- you didn't know which way was the best way.
- So you didn't know who to trust.
- Well, we knew that the Russians are going to do it.
- You know, because you heard so many things.
- But you don't believe what you hear,
- so you always had a doubt.
- But they did come at nights with trucks and give them 10 minutes
- to pack up everything.
- And those people went to Siberia,
- but their life was safe.
- I mean, unless they froze to death or hunger to death.
- But nobody took a gun to their head and shoot them.
- But a year later, the war broke out, and the Germans came in.
- Well, then we're really in trouble.
- We started to run.
- And we thought we could get to the Russian border
- and go over to the Russian side.
- What did you expect when the Germans came in?
- Why did you run?
- Well, we knew-- we heard on the radio
- what they're going to do to us.
- Everybody knew that they had built concentration camps.
- We didn't believe whatever was said.
- You know, nobody in his right mind could think--
- because they believed in Germany, a disciplined country,
- that they would do what they do.
- But anyhow, we were afraid because I
- was a child when I heard on the radio that, in 1945,
- you only going to see the Jew in the museum.
- Alli, do you remember how the fear affected the family?
- Could you tell us how the family was affected?
- Well, the only one that I think was strong in our family
- was my mother, that held it together.
- I think my father, really, he hoped.
- He was an optimist.
- And he didn't admit it, but I think somehow, at some point,
- I have seen him where he was just fallen apart.
- Can you tell us about that?
- It happened one night.
- We were running away.
- And we came to a point in Lithuania
- where the people told us we couldn't
- go because, on the border, we wouldn't get through.
- And the Germans were bombing the whole highway to the border.
- There was bombs falling all the time.
- We lived with a Jewish family that he knew from before.
- And they told all the Jewish people--
- the Germans said all the Jewish people
- have to go in a synagogue and stay there.
- They give us bread and water.
- For some reason they let us go.
- They didn't shoot us.
- So we went on the road back to home.
- Well, there was no place, so we slept in the woods.
- We slept on stones.
- And all of a sudden, my father started to shiver--
- we all laid on top of him--
- started screaming and hollering.
- There was nothing wrong with him.
- He just felt like he's dying.
- So we laid on top of him.
- He was cold.
- And we rubbed his forehead.
- We did everything we could.
- Well, in the morning he kept on going again.
- And we came back to Kovno.
- It was a hard road because the Germans were shooting at us.
- And there was nobody to guide us, to tell us where to go
- or how to get back in.
- When your father was trembling and falling apart
- and all of you were--
- Laid on top of him--
- --lay on top of him--
- The whole family, yeah.
- That must have been a terrible thing, to see your daddy.
- Well, at that time, we were all so afraid.
- And I couldn't really tell you--
- and we were dead inside.
- See, there were so many emotions going on.
- What do you mean when you say you were dead inside?
- Can you tell us more?
- We were just numb, numb.
- You know?
- With numb, you didn't feel any hunger.
- You didn't have any feeling.
- We were just going like sheeps.
- Everything was dead in us.
- Who was in your family at this time?
- Well, at this time it was my older sister,
- with her husband and her child, and it was my middle sister,
- and it was Harry.
- My mother didn't go with us.
- She stayed because she said she doesn't have the strength
- to make that trip to the border.
- She said she's going to stay home and take
- care of our belongings.
- So she stayed in Kovno?
- She stayed all by herself.
- She was a very strong woman.
- She didn't give in.
- But she said, you all go.
- When you got back to Kovno, was she still there?
- She was still in the house.
- She was the strongest one then.
- But then we had to go to the--
- the Germans came.
- We had to go to the ghetto.
- Which ghetto?
- In Kovno ghetto.
- That was Kovno ghetto.
- And we had some friends that found an apartment for us.
- You know, they lived about--
- in one room, in one kitchen, lived a whole family.
- We were lucky.
- We had two rooms and a kitchen that we
- shared with the different people that lived there.
- But you see, then you had to leave everything.
- You brought something, and it was a chaos.
- Tell us about that chaos in the ghetto?
- See, one was trying to get a wagon
- to bring some things over.
- And the Lithuanians stole things from you,
- and you didn't say anything.
- You were glad you could get some of it over.
- But it wasn't so bad till they put us all in,
- and they built a fence around us, the Germans.
- Do you remember when that was?
- That was in 1941.
- By '42, they fenced us all in.
- And then--
- Why was that so bad?
- Tell us why that was [CROSS TALK]..
- Well, that's what I want to tell you.
- We had-- every Monday and Tuesday,
- they surrounded one section and took the people out.
- You never knew when they're going to-- you
- had no way of knowing anything.
- We woke up in the morning, and the section--
- they picked younger people, older people.
- You didn't know which side was the right side
- or the good side, where to live was the right place.
- They had different places that the people
- disappeared overnight.
- They took them out.
- We lived close by the fence.
- And I remember that I heard at night like it was a fog.
- And I heard a sound.
- And we didn't know what it was, and you couldn't see anything
- through the windows.
- So we all climbed in my mother's bed on top of her
- because she was the one that is going to protect us.
- Well, we found out later that that was the night when
- they brought some French Jews.
- And they put them to the ninth fort,
- where they killed them all.
- In the morning we heard tick tick
- tick tick tick tick tick tick, but we didn't know what it was.
- They killed all those French Jews.
- They told them they're bringing to the ghetto,
- and they put out a fog so we wouldn't see anything.
- The Germans put out a fog.
- Whatever it was, you couldn't see anything.
- Then I remember this.
- They came in, and they ask for 10,000 people.
- Well, the Jewish committee wouldn't give him
- 10,000 people.
- So they surrounded us, and they picked people.
- And we stayed in a big lot, all the people.
- And there were Germans then, and left, right, left, right.
- So we stayed, and we figured out that that side is bad.
- The left side is bad because they picked older people
- and younger people.
- The right side is better because they pick the strong people.
- And we had to go five in a row.
- And we stayed there all day long.
- And I remember, first we were afraid of my sister
- because she had a little child.
- We saw her going to the left side.
- Then we went also.
- They told us how to stand because so my parents would
- look younger.
- So we went five in a row.
- My sister, Harry, me, and my parents from both sides,
- they let us go to the good side.
- Well, the other sides, we heard again
- in the morning, tick tick tick tick tick tick.
- They took them out, and they killed him on the ninth fort.
- So your sister went to the bad side?
- No, we all went to the-- the whole family
- went to the good side.
- OK.
- But for my older sister, her in-laws,
- they were two older people.
- They went to the bad side.
- Do you remember what that was like, when you saw that happen,
- the in-laws go to the bad side?
- Well, you were so scared, it was-- you were so scared,
- you were so afraid, you was--
- you couldn't even think right anymore.
- You were still thinking this is the good side,
- this is the bad side.
- But that was just a reaction.
- Everything was dead in you.
- Because in fact, my father went through.
- And after he got through, he had a boil on his leg.
- And he never felt it the whole day.
- But the minute he was on the good side, all of a sudden
- he couldn't move his leg anymore.
- It wouldn't move.
- So you were numb except for the fear?
- Tremendous fear.
- And those faces, and those SS, and their commanders,
- how strong they were.
- They were just like dynamite, steel in their eyes.
- I looked at the eyes from that German.
- It was like blue steel, cold, no feelings.
- I mean, there was no emotion, no feelings.
- So they looked strong, and you felt very weakened.
- We felt like we were just like, well, in a cage.
- We had no control over anything.
- They could do whatever they wanted with us.
- And then I remember, when they had a--
- they took all the kids away from the parents.
- And we were in hiding.
- We were hiding because we didn't know who they're going to take.
- So we found out the next day, we had a place
- in the cellar where we hid.
- Was this very long after?
- Well, they always give you about six months.
- Then something else came up.
- Well, when they took the kids away from the mothers,
- and the mothers were screaming, so they
- had dogs that tore the mother apart.
- And I knew one woman that--
- I worked in the washeteria there.
- And one woman hid her baby in a basket.
- And we put clothes on top of there, you know,
- sheets and clean clothes on top of the baby
- so that they wouldn't see or hear anything.
- Well, they came all over the next day, checking.
- But they didn't find that baby.
- But they took 90% of the children
- away, and the old people.
- And where did they take them?
- They put them in wagons.
- But we found out later where they took them.
- They said that they drained the blood from the kids
- and gave it to the soldiers that needed it.
- How did you find this out?
- Well, we found out lots of stories
- when we came to the concentration camp.
- We found out what happened to lots of our people
- that were taken before and never came back.
- They wrote some on the walls.
- They wrote their names down.
- They have never seen before.
- So then [SIGHS] the war came closer.
- And the Germans liquidated the ghettos.
- But before they did this, what was
- daily life like in the ghetto?
- Well, we went to labor camps.
- You know, to the airport.
- I went to the washeteria to wash their clothes.
- Some ironed their clothes.
- Some mended their outfits.
- You know, they give us different things to do.
- What was your father doing?
- That is interesting.
- He was going to work, too, like we did.
- You know, with a shovel.
- He wasn't doing jewelry in the ghetto.
- He was just doing what--
- to do work.
- But they were more for the younger people.
- They wanted us to work.
- And how did you get food?
- Well, that is another story.
- They gave us a ration.
- But that wasn't much to live on.
- So I went to work.
- So when I went to work, I wore the yellow star
- that we all had to wear.
- I took off the star.
- They didn't know I was Jewish.
- And if I didn't go on the roads where they could really see me,
- I went on side roads.
- And I sold different things that my father
- had, some watches, some tablecloths,
- different things we didn't have any use for.
- I sold it, and I brought whatever they gave me,
- bread or butter or what, and I brought it in the ghetto.
- It wasn't easy to bring in because sometimes they
- caught you, and they took it away from you.
- But that was our daily life.
- I don't say that I wasn't afraid.
- But there was a big family, and we wanted to eat.
- Alli, why did you take the star off?
- Tell us about that.
- They wouldn't know that I was Jewish.
- So you were being rebellious?
- Well, you see-- well, no.
- With the star, I couldn't go no place.
- They would have arrested me or shot me.
- And in fact, if they caught me, I
- would have been in trouble without it, without the star.
- But I just had little streets, put the scarf on, took it--
- and just went like I'm a Lithuanian.
- Were you numb at those times also?
- Very numb.
- Numb, terribly numb.
- But somebody had to do it.
- My older sister did it.
- Well, she had a husband and a child.
- And I did it.
- My middle sister started doing it, but she couldn't do it.
- She was too much afraid.
- And then you had to carry all this.
- Sometimes I carried 30 or 40 pounds of potatoes
- on my shoulders.
- I took potatoes, carrots, whatever they gave me.
- Did you feel good when you were able to do that for the family?
- Did that help you?
- Well, I can't really tell you what I felt. But I just could
- not go to work and see that--
- I could do it not doing it, but I was afraid
- because I was risking my life every time I was doing it.
- And there was plenty of people that were arrested and beaten.
- And they told us that too.
- And I did some crazy things sometimes.
- Such as?
- Well, like one time I came into the fence where they let us in.
- There was a Jewish man, and he said, Alli, he said,
- you can't bring anything in because they're
- watching that fence real good.
- And a big shot from the German was there.
- But I had a dozen eggs, and I wanted a dozen eggs.
- So I put it right on the side.
- And then when he checked me over, I didn't have anything.
- I reached back with my hand and got the dozen eggs
- and went through.
- It was a dozen eggs, and I risked my life
- for a dozen eggs.
- I don't know why you do the things.
- It just comes like this to you.
- And I was risking my life many times.
- But everybody else that went and got food did the same thing.
- But sometimes it was easy, and sometimes it was very hard.
- Maybe you were strong like your mother in a way.
- [SIGHS] Well, I don't know.
- She was strong in other ways because, I tell you why.
- When the Germans came, and they surrounded the ghetto
- and we went to the hiding place, the first thing,
- she put us all in that hiding place.
- She was the last one to go in.
- She brought water.
- She brought dried bread.
- She brought a candle.
- She always thought about those things.
- Well, I don't think I could do it.
- I couldn't think it.
- I was numb.
- You were a child.
- She was an adult.
- Yeah.
- I couldn't think about it.
- Yeah.
- But you weren't laying down shivering.
- You were out there helping the family.
- Well, I was risking my life, even when I
- was in the concentration camp.
- Well, life in the ghetto, it wasn't that bad.
- But in the concentration camp, I don't really
- think I was worried about them killing me.
- Alli, let's go back to something.
- You talked about the liquidation of the ghetto.
- Yes.
- Would you tell us your memories and experience?
- Yes.
- Well that was-- we went first in hiding.
- We thought we can hide, and the Russians
- are going to come in and free us.
- But the Germans said, ahead of time,
- that before they leave they're going to burn that ghetto down.
- Well, when we went to the hiding places,
- the hiding places could just have so many people.
- But everybody came in.
- So you couldn't breathe anymore.
- There was no oxygen left.
- Where were the hiding places?
- Well, in different buildings, underground.
- You know, the cellar.
- It wasn't-- they could have just found it anyhow,
- but there were so many of them so they wouldn't.
- But you see, we couldn't breathe anymore.
- And then we didn't have enough food to last.
- So finally, we decided to crawl out of it.
- And we crawled out of it because it was impossible.
- I couldn't even breathe.
- So the Germans then took the people that came out,
- that we were the-- we was--
- I think the last transport was our transport
- that they put in the trains.
- But after we left, I found out later,
- they did burn the ghetto down.
- And my cousin and his wife burned alive
- because when you ran out of the hiding place, they shoot you.
- They did shoot the people.
- So you had a choice of not being able to breathe, or--
- You couldn't breathe.
- There were too many people.
- And you can't tell nobody to leave.
- They made it just for so many people in there.
- Maybe one hiding place was for 60 people,
- and there were 200 people inside.
- There was no oxygen. It wouldn't do no good either
- because they burned the ghetto down,
- and they shot you so anyways.
- But when-- and first thing, we were all very hungry.
- So when we came, they took us with train,
- and they took us to Stutthof.
- Well, there were men and women in the train.
- You know, they put us in like cattle.
- But when we came to Stutthof they said--
- Tell us about that train ride.
- Do you remember it?
- The train ride, that is the first time
- that I have to admit I knew that we have no rights at all.
- Because in our wagon that we were in,
- there was the leader from the Kovno ghetto,
- Dr. Elkes, a very brilliant man.
- And he controlled that ghetto.
- And he made deals with the Germans.
- You know, he tried to anyhow.
- And he asked the German a question.
- And when the German didn't want to answer,
- he hit him with the end of the gun.
- And when he came back, he said to me, Alli, it is lost.
- We have nothing anymore.
- Because he told them, I'm doctor Elkes from the Judenrat,
- and he gave him his title.
- And he just, "damn Jew," and hit him with something.
- So he knew right then, he had no say about anything.
- And they had bread and water in the train.
- There was no air.
- And there was a little window that they opened up.
- And then they took us with a little--
- they came to Stutthof, and they said--
- they told men separated, women separated.
- You know, it sounds like everyone
- that you believed in that was strong
- became nothing, the doctor, your father.
- Well, I saw how they treated him.
- Well, my father got back to his humor.
- He always had hope.
- See, he was an optimist.
- He believed it's going to get better.
- My mother knew the-- saw the end.
- She saw it but what she believed in the Germans much more
- than my father did.
- See, because she believed in them,
- she thought they would never do it.
- Going back to the train ride, was your family in that train
- together?
- My mother, my father, Harry, and me, yes.
- Were in the train.
- Yeah.
- Because my older sister, she had a child,
- and we knew what happened to children.
- So she was in a hiding place with her child, in Lithuania.
- Overnight she went out with the child.
- And she was hidden someplace in a little town, Yurburg.
- There was a lot of Jewish people that went in the same place.
- So your older sister did not make that trip with you
- on the train.
- No, she didn't.
- Do you remember the last meeting with her,
- or the last time you saw her?
- The last time I know because she took the child away.
- Can you tell us about that last time you saw her?
- Well, she had a five-year-old child.
- And there are some more women with children that we--
- they all had to pay plenty money of it.
- It cost lots of money, because the people to take him there,
- you know, that they risked their life to.
- And I thought for sure that she's going to make it.
- That's what we thought, that they are hidden
- and they're going to make it.
- But they didn't because they made a big mistake.
- When they were hiding and at night they went out,
- they found two German soldiers.
- So they thought they're going to capture them.
- And when the Russians are going to come in,
- they're going to hand them over to the Russians.
- Well, those two German soldiers got free at night.
- They freed themselves and went out and pointed out to them.
- And the Germans came.
- And they put a bomb inside that hiding place.
- That killed my sister automatically.
- And then the rest of the people, they took out
- and they shot them.
- How did you find out about this?
- Well, my brother-in-law went--
- was on the way to meet my sister.
- He could never make it.
- So when he made it, they told him,
- the Lithuanian told him what happened,
- the people, because he was looking for his child.
- So they told him what happened.
- Did you learn of this before you left the ghetto?
- No.
- I didn't know anything about it.
- And that I'll tell you later, that I went back
- and I found it all out.
- OK.
- Take us back to the train ride, and you now
- arrived at the camps.
- Yes.
- And they separated men, separate women.
- And then we walked and walked.
- And then they had some little wagons where you take coals.
- And they put us in those little wagons.
- They're just coal wagons.
- You see, that's when I realized there
- must be a gas chamber there.
- It was like little wagons, like a train ride
- with little wagons.
- And they took us to Stutthof.
- And there was thousands of people on a big, big lot.
- And we saw fences around.
- And there we saw some people with a striped clothes that
- was Hungarian, shaved heads.
- They looked like children.
- They were very young and very little.
- And all they ask us is for a prayer book.
- They wanted prayer books.
- And then they put us all in.
- Then they opened the gates, and they put us
- in the concentration camps.
- How many people was there?
- Many people.
- They gave us these little bunks to sleep on.
- Do you remember when this was?
- Well, that was in 1943.
- I was freed in '44.
- Yeah.
- Tell us what life was like in the bunk
- and in the concentration camp.
- There was no life.
- It felt more like death than life.
- But what I saw, pyramids of shoes.
- I have never seen that in my life, pyramids of shoes.
- They're like buildings.
- And I started asking, what are those millions of shoes
- doing there.
- I didn't realize that at that time, that that
- was from the shoes from the people they killed,
- pyramids after pyramids.
- Well, we were not long, then they start separating people
- to go to labor camps.
- So they took my mother away from me.
- And--
- Do you remember when that happened?
- Can you tell us about that?
- Well, that happened about six, seven weeks
- after we got into Stutthof.
- They took 1,000 women in a group.
- We had to line up, and they separated
- 1,000 women, another 1,000.
- And the other one that were older
- or that didn't look to them that they could do the job,
- they put it on the left side again.
- And then they took me away from my mother.
- My sister had a different number,
- so they took me away from her either.
- So they had-- we had numbers.
- They give us numbers.
- It wasn't tattooed on our hand, but we all had numbers.
- So then we went to Poland.
- Do you remember the last time you saw your mother?
- Yes.
- I remember the night that we knew what would happen.
- It didn't happen that night.
- And I was afraid.
- I slept with her in the same bunk.
- And she was crying to me.
- I was crying all night.
- We were crying.
- And she said, I raised four kids,
- and I don't have anything anymore.
- They're going to take you away from me too.
- We were both laying in tears.
- And I have never had that feeling I had that night.
- And I thought, God Almighty, if there is a god,
- and you see all those troubles, why don't you do anything?
- I would rather be killed with her
- than leave her there by herself.
- First they took her husband and her child, Harry.
- Then they took Rosa away from me.
- Now they took me away from me.
- But that woman fought still, because I heard later
- that every time when she was there
- and they tried to get the people to put in the gas chamber,
- she hid in the ceiling till the last time.
- They caught her, and they gassed her in the gas chamber.
- Did you say goodbye to your mother that night
- the way you wanted to?
- No.
- I could never say that.
- I could never say that.
- And then I saw her through the fence.
- She was holding her hand and looking at me
- and looking at my sister.
- Is there anything that you wished
- you could have said to her or done
- that you didn't do that night?
- No.
- I just wanted to tear everything apart.
- When they took her away from me, I went back,
- and I felt like tearing everything apart inside.
- The girls had to hold me back.
- I felt like I had the strength of an ox,
- and I just wanted the ox.
- And I want to tear everything.
- I was-- there was something in me
- that I felt like I had to take those beds down or do something
- or I would explode.
- There was many women that probably had that same feeling
- one time or another.
- They tried to calm me down.
- And then when I--
- I didn't have no feelings at all, when I came--
- after I lost my mother, I said you can
- do with me whatever you want.
- So you felt like giving up at that point?
- Yeah.
- I said do with me whatever you want because the labor camp,
- there was so much fear.
- And there were some Germans that talked to me in Germans.
- And they told me, I don't hate you because you're a Jew.
- I hate you because that is my command.
- See, I spoke German.
- They used to speak German to me when nobody saw,
- because they were afraid.
- And the food they gave us was not enough,
- so I tried to get by by going on the underground, the cables
- that they laid.
- And I got some Polish people, even German people
- that lived there.
- They helped us.
- Polish?
- Yeah.
- You knew you weren't going to see your mother again.
- You were angry.
- You were furious.
- Oh, terribly, terribly angry.
- And then you felt like you didn't care anymore.
- And then what happened to how you felt?
- Well, that-- then I think everything was dead in me.
- But in fact, there was sometimes airplanes coming over our head.
- I don't know if they were English or American.
- And the Germans used to tell us to turn off the light
- or lay down because they're going to throw bombs.
- It didn't bother me.
- I stayed and watched them.
- I said, well, go ahead.
- Finish it once and for all because how long--
- you had no hope at all.
- They took all the hope away from you.
- You just knew it was a matter of time.
- Are you going to die, or are they
- going to send you back to Stutthof
- and put you in the gas chamber?
- You had a strong spirit.
- But that's what I tell you, what happened.
- When the Russians-- no, when the Germans came at night,
- and they told us we had to pack up, I had a dream.
- I don't know if it means anything.
- But I think that is the night my sister died.
- I woke up in the middle of the night.
- And my sister had bread and onions.
- And she gave it to me and to my brother.
- And I said, Rosa, don't give it away because that is your food.
- That's all what you have.
- She said, well, no.
- You take it and Harry take it.
- I think that was the night that she died.
- Why?
- Because I never dreamt.
- We were so tired that we fell asleep.
- We had no-- no dreams at all at night.
- And all of a sudden she came to me.
- And I got up, and I screamed, and I said my sister died.
- And I had a piece of onion in my hand.
- When was this?
- While we were in the labor camps.
- In the labor camp.
- This is before Stutthof?
- No, from Stutthof they sent us to the labor camps in Poland.
- OK.
- You know, to lay the cables.
- Right.
- Do you remember which camp you were in?
- Well, the camp really didn't have a name.
- It was between Torunik in Poland.
- So you were still with your brother?
- No, no.
- The brother was separated from me.
- The brother was with my father.
- I was by myself.
- And that same morning--
- Going back to that dream--
- Yeah.
- It sounds like you dreamt somebody still cared about you
- and was taking care of you.
- Somebody gave you food.
- Yeah.
- I found that onion in my hand, and I started screaming.
- And two hours later, they woke us up that we're marching.
- Why were you-- tell us about the screaming.
- Do you remember that?
- What was happening to you?
- Well, when I found--
- when I had that dream, and I haven't dreamed about her,
- I said I know she was trying to give me a sign because I saw me
- and Harry walking and her disappearing slowly.
- I say my sister died.
- She just went away from me.
- So you lost somebody else.
- Yes.
- Another loss.
- But then I did have feelings, what I thought I didn't have.
- Sure.
- Every once in a while, the feelings would come out.
- Every once in awhile, yes.
- But in many ways, I was numb because one German hit
- somebody.
- And instead, she took her hand away, and I left my hand.
- And my fingers got this black and blue and this swollen.
- And everybody screamed next to me.
- And I didn't feel anything.
- And then I looked at my hand.
- It was this swollen, and it was blue.
- And I didn't feel.
- I said, what is it?
- Don't I feel anything anymore?
- I didn't feel it.
- Why were you hit.
- What happened that you got hit?
- He hit that girl because she wasn't going fast enough or she
- wasn't--
- there was no reason why they hit you.
- I was lucky they didn't hit me.
- So I had my hand out, so it came right here.
- And I didn't feel anything.
- It was all dead in me.
- But I knew that I had feelings because when they woke us up
- two hours later, and they told us to get ready,
- we're marching.
- And we marched.
- But you see, we had no radio.
- We don't know what is going on.
- All we saw is about 100 airplanes on top of us.
- So when we saw the airplanes, we figured
- that must be all Russian or English or Americans.
- So I figured they're running away.
- You know, it sounds to me like you
- struggled with am I dead or alive while all this was
- going on.
- And part of the time you felt dead,
- and every once in a while you realized you weren't dead.
- That's what it is.
- Because I'll tell you why.
- When they started coming, and we went through the woods,
- so the Germans wanted to hide.
- Guess who ran before them.
- Me.
- All of a sudden I wanted to live because I saw freedom coming.
- And I ran so fast, you wouldn't believe how fast I ran.
- And the Germans ran too, but they
- didn't care anymore because then they
- knew that they're in trouble.
- So finally they put us from place to place.
- We saw Germans on horses.
- And we could see--
- but you walked for three or four days without food.
- And I don't know how the sick people walked because everybody
- wanted to walk.
- Everybody wanted to live till finally they put us in a camp,
- where Polish workers used to be.
- And they moved them out.
- So when we got up in the morning,
- there was no more Germans.
- We found them later.
- They shot themselves, the SS.
- But I was liberated by the Russians.
- When?
- In 1944.
- Remember what month?
- April.
- April?
- Yeah.
- The Russians liberated us.
- You know, Alli, you told us earlier,
- when you saw the pyramids of shoes, you couldn't believe it.
- No.
- Didn't know what it was.
- No.
- Were there other things that you saw
- that you couldn't believe, you couldn't understand,
- besides those shoes?
- Well, those shoes were so--
- you see, you walk in and you see the little places
- where you sleep.
- But those shoes were just like pyramids.
- Well, I didn't see anything else because it
- was all electric wired.
- You heard millions of stories, millions
- of people telling you things.
- What were some of those stories you heard?
- Well, we found-- we went looking for names.
- So we found those names from the first 500 people
- that they took away from the ghetto.
- They took them to labor.
- They never showed up.
- So we found their names.
- When we talked to people, each one
- had different stories to tell.
- See, we went to the bathrooms.
- I never saw the gas chambers.
- But they told us there's gas chambers in Stutthof.
- I found out later that my mother was gassed there.
- So I don't know if the same chambers
- that they took us to take a shower were gas chambers too.
- So when you went to take a shower--
- Well, I didn't-- well, I didn't realize it at that time
- because we just came in.
- That, I didn't realize it, that that was a shower.
- They took the soap away from us, everything.
- So they gave us their soap because they
- looked on the soap, if you have diamond inside
- or whatever it is.
- They looked for everything.
- They took your clothes away.
- They give you their concentration camp clothes.
- OK.
- You know, one of the things that I'm not clear about
- is what happened to your father.
- When did you see he was [CROSS TALK]??
- Well, my father was separated from us.
- And he went to Dachau with my brother.
- Well, he was liberated by the Americans.
- He wasn't liberated by the Russians.
- But he told me how he survived.
- He was a jewelry man.
- And he used to sit with a candlelight and a little nail
- file and do jewelry for them from the golden teeth
- from the Jewish people that they took out.
- I never saw those golden teeth.
- But the Germans took them, and they brought them to my father.
- And he made rings for them.
- So this way-- and he told them, if you keep my son alive,
- I'm going to work for you.
- If you take my son away, you might as well kill me.
- So they really protected my brother.
- And they gave him extra food.
- So whatever he got, they gave some to my husband,
- and he gave to Harry because Harry was a young boy.
- He wanted to eat.
- When did your father tell you this?
- Well, when I came in 19--
- you see, I was liberated by the Russians.
- And they put me to work too, so it
- wasn't so easy to come to the American zone.
- But when I came in '47, my father lived in Munich.
- And he-- see, and that's what I want to tell you.
- I didn't know about my sister, so I went back to Lithuania.
- And there I found out that they killed my sister and her child
- in that bunker where they were hiding.
- I didn't know all those things.
- Well, I found out from my father.
- But when I went to Kovno, there were some people that I met.
- And they told me that Harry and my father is alive,
- and my husband is alive.
- When did you get married?
- In the ghetto, just before they separated us--
- 1944.
- And who did you marry?
- Julius Itzkowitz.
- Did you know him from before?
- Did you just meet him in the ghetto?
- No, I met him in the ghetto.
- Lots of my friends that I knew from before, I
- never seen them again in the ghetto.
- Some of them ran away over the border to Russia.
- And some of them, when they took out 500 well-dressed men,
- and they didn't read it right.
- They thought well-educated men, so they took all the--
- So you were married in the ghetto
- before you went to the camp?
- Yes.
- Can you tell us about the wedding and your courtship
- and what that was like?
- Well, I met my husband.
- He worked with the Jewish police.
- So he came at night--
- the Jewish police in the ghetto.
- So he came to check if I had the papers
- that I went to work because they checked if you went to work.
- So I met him.
- And he had our location to check every day.
- So we started talking.
- And one of his friends I knew from way before.
- So every time when he came, he stayed 10 minutes, 30 minutes,
- longer than he's supposed to.
- So then when I worked--
- where I worked in the washeteria,
- he watched the washeterias, you see,
- if you didn't take any goods out that didn't belong to you.
- So I used to talk there, over there.
- And that went on, maybe for a year.
- So before we were--
- we had our plans to go in a hiding place,
- just like my sister.
- So I wouldn't go with him in a hiding place
- unless I was married.
- So the thing is, my middle sister
- and me married the same day.
- You just go to a rabbi, and he makes the brokhe.
- There's not much ceremony.
- Were you happy?
- Afraid of everything.
- How can you be?
- You don't know what tomorrow-- you live in fear.
- You live in fear.
- Maybe some people don't feel it like I did.
- But I was always afraid.
- I went to get food, and I went in the concentration camp
- to get through this aisles to get food,
- but I was always afraid.
- Because first thing I was afraid,
- you don't know what the German-- they can make experiments out
- of you if they catch you.
- How do you know how many people did
- they hang for going after food?
- Not about women, but they did hang men.
- So we always lived-- sometimes people said they were hungry.
- I had more fear than hunger.
- So when you were relating to your husband-to-be--
- Yes.
- --there was a lot of fear, rather
- than being relaxed and happy.
- There was not the normal love--
- No, there was no relaxation.
- There was--
- Can you tell us more about the emotions between you
- and your husband-to-be during this period?
- Because when we in America think of a young couple being
- together before they get married, it's wonderful.
- And you didn't have that.
- Well, I was in love with my husband
- because I wouldn't have married him.
- And I'm sure he was in love with me.
- But there was just not too many moments that I wasn't afraid.
- I was always afraid.
- What did you used to talk about with him when
- you had this time together?
- If there's going to be a world, if we're going to live.
- We knew-- my husband used to say,
- somebody is going to make it.
- You don't know how or who.
- He always had hope.
- But then something happened again, like the day--
- I was just-- before I got married,
- three four weeks, they took my husband's parents away,
- and they took the children away.
- See, there are so many mixed emotions.
- Can you tell us a little bit more
- about the decisions or the thoughts
- that went through your mind that caused you to get married then?
- Well, we figured that if we go in a hiding place,
- you see, then we go together.
- And we hoped for life.
- That was the reason that my sister got married.
- She thought she's going to take her husband
- and I'm going to take my husband.
- My husband-- my daddy was the one
- that had the money to pay for it, for the hiding places.
- Because you had to pay for people.
- And the whole family was ready to go.
- In fact, that was a time when we were ready to leave the ghetto.
- That was just before the liquidated the ghetto.
- And we were supposed to go out in the middle of the night.
- And we were staying over homes that were closer to the fence
- so we could go out when they tell us when to go.
- And my father had to give them, you know, gold pieces for it.
- Well, we were all ready, and the place is set.
- And all of a sudden we heard tick tick tick tick tick
- tick tick tick tick tick tick.
- The group that went before us, they sold us out.
- There was a group--
- I don't know how many people.
- They let them go through the fence,
- and then they were standing on a hill and killing them all.
- So the Jewish police came right back and said, lay down.
- Don't leave the house.
- Stay there till the morning because they sold us out.
- Who sold you out?
- Well, that was the Germans that said
- that they would open the fence and let us go out
- for so many gold pieces.
- And the people, they probably had them set up,
- every half an hour a different group,
- because they thought this German will let us go through.
- Well, the group just ahead of us got killed.
- So they knew that we'd been sold out.
- We gave them the gold pieces.
- But a little bit farther from where
- the fence was, they were sending,
- Germans with machine guns, and killing everybody.
- Did you see that?
- No, but I-- one girl that got killed was a friend of mine.
- And her mother was with me in the same camp.
- And she told me.
- She said you were all lucky.
- What happened to your sister who got married on the same day?
- She died in a concentration camp.
- She had typhus.
- With you?
- That's what they-- that is the one that I dreamed about.
- She died.
- Well, she had a different number,
- that they put her in a different labor camp.
- And what happened to her husband?
- Her husband was with my papa.
- But he couldn't take it.
- He died.
- He was not strong enough.
- Alli, do you still have dreams that bother you,
- that you wake up upset?
- Well, the only thing that bothers me
- is my sister's little boy.
- That comes back to me all the time.
- Can you tell us about that?
- Because you see, they shot him.
- And he was a four-year-old child.
- But when I see--
- what was he guilty of?
- How does it come back to you?
- When I see children, it comes back to me.
- He was a wonderful child.
- He was the only grandchild my mother had.
- That bothers me, bothers me a lot.
- Do you get numb still?
- Sometimes I do.
- Yes.
- Sometimes I get emotional.
- And sometimes I get mad.
- Did you know this four-year-old?
- Did you see him?
- Oh, god, yes.
- He lived with us.
- He played with us.
- Tell us about him.
- Tell us what kind of kid he was.
- Well, my sister lived in the ghetto not far from us.
- Even before, when we lived in Kovno, we didn't live far.
- And he was a little boy, just a little boy
- that used to tell me--
- he spoke Russian--
- Alli, come hide.
- The Russians are shooting.
- That's when the war brought out, the Nemec,
- the German are shooting.
- And that kid was so smart.
- When he saw Germans, he hid under the pillow.
- Did you ever pick him up and hold him?
- Oh, god, yes.
- Tell us about that.
- Well, I saw-- the last I remember,
- when he was standing there with his coat on,
- his little hat on, when they left.
- And he told us all goodbye.
- And it nearly broke our heart.
- And that's the last we saw of him--
- blue-eyed, blonde hair, beautiful child.
- Did you wish that you, yourself, could have done more for him?
- Well, no.
- Because I'll tell you why, because I saw--
- he didn't know what was milk in the ghetto.
- And I tried to get him milk.
- I tried to get him the eggs.
- I tried everything in the world that that child wouldn't--
- would have all the things.
- No.
- No, for this child, anybody.
- When we were running, and there was a bomb fall,
- everybody grabbed that child and laid on top of it.
- So he was really special.
- He was special, yes.
- He was the only grandson my mother had, only nephew I had.
- And that child was so quiet, like he knew what was going on.
- He never cried.
- He never complained.
- He never said anything.
- He was really precious to you.
- Yes.
- And that, for a long time it didn't bother me,
- but it started bothering me lots.
- Well, I feel sorry for my sister too.
- I don't say I don't because they died young.
- They both died young.
- My sister was in Switzerland.
- She didn't have to come back.
- But she said she wants to live with the family
- or die with the family.
- So she came back on the last train.
- She came back from Switzerland?
- Yes, Rosa was in Switzerland.
- No, she came back to the--
- to Memel so she can get my mama out of the house.
- My mama didn't want to leave the house.
- What was she doing in Switzerland?
- Well, we sent her on purpose there so she
- wouldn't have to come back.
- With her husband and her child?
- No.
- Then she wasn't married.
- She was a young girl then.
- The oldest one was married.
- Luba was married.
- How did she get selected to be sent to Switzerland
- rather than the others?
- Well, the older one was married.
- You see?
- And Rosa was the middle one.
- And she just happened to be-- at that time
- she liked to go on vacation, and we had
- connections with Switzerland.
- So she just happened to be there.
- So my father wanted her to stay there
- because we saw what was coming.
- When was this?
- In 1939, even before we left Memel.
- But she wouldn't stay.
- She came back home.
- See, the people that sent their kids out to make a new life
- did better than the one that kept them all together.
- We stayed all together.
- You mean the family stayed all together,
- and that was a mistake.
- That was a mistake, yeah.
- That was a mistake.
- Well, you didn't know at that time that that is a mistake.
- So we stayed all together.
- There's lots of family they send one-- my older sister
- could have married and gone to Israel.
- My mother said, no.
- She lives where we live.
- She stays where we stay.
- See, we stayed together.
- How do you know?
- Because my mother believed in the Germans.
- She thought that could never happen.
- So the child was Luba's son?
- My older sister, yeah, Luba's son.
- The child was Luba's son.
- And how old was--
- what year was Luba born in?
- Well, Luba was eight years older than me.
- So it had to be in 1913.
- And then there was Rosa?
- Rosa, 1915, two years.
- And then you?
- And then came Harry.
- And then Harry after you.
- Yeah.
- When you were liberated by the Russians, how did you feel?
- Well, that was a joke too.
- They liberated us, and they they told us
- where to march to the Ciechocinek,
- that this is a point where all the displaced persons come
- together.
- I asked them for food, they didn't have any food.
- He says, well, go into some houses or some warehouses
- and get you some food.
- So we had to walk for two, three days, again sick,
- well, till we came to--
- Place, you see?
- Then we go together.
- And we hoped for life.
- That was the reason that my sister
- got married-- she thought, she's going to take her husband,
- and I'm going to take my husband.
- My husband-- my daddy was the one
- that had the money to pay for it, for the hiding places.
- Because you had to pay for people.
- And the whole family was ready to go.
- In fact, that was a time when we were ready to leave the ghetto.
- That was just before they liquidated the ghetto.
- And we were supposed to go out in the middle of the night.
- And we were staying over homes that were closer to the fence,
- so we could go out when they tell us when to go.
- And my father had to give them, you know, gold pieces for it.
- Well, we were already on the places set, and all
- of a sudden, we heard tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,
- tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
- The group that went before us, they sold us out.
- There was a group--
- I don't know how many people--
- they let them go through the fence,
- and then they were standing on a hill and killing them all.
- So the Jewish police came right back for it
- and said, lay down, don't leave the house,
- stay there till the morning.
- Because they sold us out.
- Who sold you out?
- Well, that was the Germans that said
- that they would open the fence and let us go out
- for so many gold pieces.
- And the people, they probably had
- them set up every half an hour, a different group.
- Because they thought this German will let us go through.
- Well, the group just ahead of us got killed.
- So they knew that we'd been sold out.
- We give them the gold pieces, but a little bit farther
- from where the fence, where they were sending Germans
- with machine guns and killing everybody.
- Did you see that?
- No, but I had one girl that got killed, was a friend of mine.
- And her mother was with me in the same camp.
- And she told me.
- She said, you were all lucky.
- What happened to your sister who got married on the same day?
- She died in a concentration camp.
- She had typhus.
- With you?
- That is the one that I dreamed about.
- She died-- she-- well, she had a different number,
- though, they put in a different labor camp.
- What happened to her husband?
- Her husband was with my papa, but he couldn't take it.
- He died.
- He was not strong enough.
- Alli, do you still have dreams that bother you,
- that you wake up upset?
- Well, the only thing that bothers me
- is my sister's little boy.
- That comes back to me all the time.
- Can you tell us about that?
- Because you see, they shot him.
- And he was a four-year-old child.
- But when I see--
- what was he guilty of?
- How does it come back to you?
- When I see children, it comes back to me.
- He was a wonderful child.
- It was the only grandchild my mother had.
- That bothers me.
- Bothers me a lot.
- Do you get numb still?
- Sometimes I do, yes.
- Sometimes I get emotional.
- And sometimes I get mad.
- Did you know this four-year-old?
- Did you see him?
- Oh, God, yes.
- He lived with us.
- He played with us.
- Tell us about him.
- Tell us what kind of kid he was.
- Well, my sister lived in the ghetto not far from us--
- even before when we lived in Kovno, we didn't live far.
- And he was a little boy, just a little boy.
- That used to tell me--
- he spoke Russian--
- Alli come hide, the Russians are shooting.
- That when the war broke out-- the [NON-ENGLISH],,
- the Germans are shooting.
- And that kid was so smart.
- When he saw Germans, he hid under the pillow.
- Did you ever pick him up and hold him?
- Oh, God, yes.
- Tell us about that.
- Well, I saw him-- the last I remember--
- when he was standing there with his coat
- on, his little hat on, when they left.
- He told us all goodbye, and it nearly broke our heart.
- And that's the last we saw of him.
- Blue-eyed, blond hair, beautiful child.
- Did you wish that you, yourself, could have done more for him?
- Well, no, because I tell you why.
- Because I saw-- he didn't know what was milk in the ghetto.
- And I tried to get him milk.
- I tried to get him the eggs.
- I tried everything in the world that that child wouldn't--
- would have all the things.
- No, no, for this child, anybody-- when we were running,
- and there was a bomb fall, everybody grabbed that child
- and laid on top of it.
- So he was really special.
- He was special, yes.
- He was the only grandchild my mother had,
- the only nephew I had.
- And that child was so quiet, like he knew what was going on.
- He never cried, he never complained,
- he never said anything.
- He was really precious to you?
- Yes.
- And that, for a long time, it didn't bother me.
- But it started bothering me.
- Well, I feel sorry for my sister, too.
- I don't say I don't, because they died young.
- They both died young.
- My sister was in Switzerland-- she didn't have to come back.
- But she said, she wants to live with the family
- or die with the family.
- So she came back on the last train.
- She came back from Switzerland?
- Yes, Rosa was in Switzerland.
- No, she came back to Memel so she can get my mama out
- of the house.
- My mama didn't want to leave the house.
- What was she doing in Switzerland?
- Well, we sent her on purpose there so she
- wouldn't have to come back.
- With her husband and her child?
- No, then, she wasn't married, she was a young girl then.
- The oldest one was married, Luba was married.
- How did she get selected to be sent to Switzerland,
- rather than the others?
- Well, the older one was married, you see.
- And Rosa was the middle one.
- And she just happened to be at that time--
- she liked to go on vacation, and we had
- connections with Switzerland.
- So she just happened to be there.
- So my father wanted her to stay there.
- Because we saw what was coming.
- When was this?
- In 1939.
- Even before we left Memel.
- But she wouldn't stay.
- She came back home.
- See, the people that send their kids out to make a new life
- did better than the one that kept them all together.
- We stayed all together.
- You mean, the family stayed all together,
- and that was a mistake.
- That was a mistake, yeah.
- That was a mistake.
- Well, you didn't know at that time that that was a mistake.
- So we stayed all together.
- There's lots of family-- they send one--
- my older sister could have married and go to Israel.
- My mother said, no, she lives where we live.
- She stays where we stay.
- See, we stayed together.
- How do you know?
- Because my mother believed in the Germans.
- She thought that could never happen.
- So the child was Luba's son?
- My older sister, yeah, Luba's son-- that was Luba's son.
- And how old was--
- what year was Luba born in?
- Well, Luba was eight years older than me.
- So it had to be in 1913.
- And then, there was Rosa?
- Rosa 1915, two years.
- And then you?
- And then came Harry.
- Harry, Harry after you.
- Yeah.
- When you were liberated by the Russians, how did you feel?
- Well, that was a joke, too.
- They liberated us, and they told us
- where to march to the Ciechocinek,
- that this is a point where all the displaced persons come
- together.
- I asked them for food, they didn't have any food.
- He said, well, go into some houses, or some warehouses,
- and get you some food.
- So we had to walk for two or three days, again, sick,
- well, till we came to Ciechocinek.
- That used to be a resort in Poland.
- Well, over there, we found big, big hotels.
- And they cooked 24 hours food for us.
- And we used to get a big pail, and go and get
- the food-- very good food.
- And everybody got sick, because we didn't eat for so long.
- And then we started eating the food.
- But we had to get our own mattresses,
- we had to get everything ourselves.
- They just told the hotels were open,
- you know, because the people that run the hotels ran away.
- But they gave us good food.
- And then, they, the Russians, asked
- us to come and work for them.
- See, because what the Russians did
- is they made points where they got all the milk for the cows,
- and then, they made butter and cheese, and whatever.
- Then, they had the girls working and taking care of it.
- That was us.
- And then, when the Russians came by with the cows,
- and the horses, whatever they took away from the Germans,
- they stopped off in our places.
- Well, they had a--
- it was such a mix up.
- We had meat in barrels that rot-- we
- didn't know what to do with it.
- See, they took everything from Germany,
- they took it back to Russia.
- Well, at the end, I said, well, how long can I go on?
- I just took the train, and I went to Wilno.
- Wilno, that is close to Kovno.
- Over there, that I found out that my brother-in-law
- was still alive.
- So I went to Kovno and I stayed with him.
- Till I decided to come.
- How did you feel about being liberated?
- Well, first thing, I could breathe easy.
- You weren't afraid anymore?
- No.
- You could breathe easy.
- But then, you had to look for a future again,
- the problems never stopped.
- You ate for three, four weeks, till you felt better.
- But then you say, where do I go from here?
- I don't want the Russians to take me to Russia.
- Because they have wagons there.
- And the Russians told us stories that there are no Jewish people
- alive--
- we the only one alive.
- They invited me to come and live in Russia with them.
- You see, they didn't make it easy on us,
- either, the Russians.
- So you have to start thinking again.
- And it took a long time till I said, no, I'm
- not going to stay-- there's no future for me here.
- I have to run away from them.
- I have to get out of here.
- So we were five girls, and we ran away.
- Alli, take us back to the camps.
- Yes.
- In terms of when the camps started to break up,
- here the Germans had been making your life unbearable,
- and you saw the end was coming.
- Yeah.
- What was that like?
- What did you see?
- How did you feel when the Germans started to--
- It was this way.
- When they started taking us, they said, we had to walk.
- They put us in different places.
- And I could see that they don't know what to do with us.
- I could see, when they put us by Taronik, by that lake,
- I had the feeling maybe they want to put us in the water,
- drown us all.
- They didn't know what to do with us.
- Because every five minutes, another German came on a horse
- and told him, go this way, this way.
- But they didn't let us know how insecure they were.
- And you cannot go and ask them what is--
- in fact I did ask the German.
- I said, what are you going to do with us?
- He said, well, as long as we go over the bridge,
- they're not going to bomb it.
- And that's right, they didn't bomb the bridge
- till we went over.
- The minute we went over, they must have watched us,
- those airplanes.
- They exploded that bridge-- we saw the pieces falling.
- During this time, did they still have the cold, steel-blue eyes?
- Yes, till the last minute.
- In fact, I told the girls when we went to sleep at night,
- I said, I bet they're going to run away from us.
- She said, Alli, where they going to go?
- I said, we better watch them.
- Because as long as we had them, we had protection.
- How much hate did you have for them,
- or did the numbness not allow you to feel that?
- The numbness didn't allow me to feel.
- Because I feel a hate from you now, I think.
- Oh, God, yes.
- I have it now.
- Can you tell us about that?
- There was minutes that I hated them.
- But there was other minutes that I was dead inside.
- And I still have that feeling, like I'm all empty.
- That they drained everything that I had to give out of me.
- And there is minutes of hate.
- Can you tell us about the hate?
- Well, what made me upset is I lived in Munich after World War
- II.
- And the Germans still feel that they are superior race.
- After everything they lost, they felt
- that they were still better than the rest of us.
- And that I hate.
- And the way they built everything up in no time
- at all--
- even the Americans helped them.
- They helped them a lot.
- When I first came in Munich in 1947, and in two or three
- years, all those places that were destroyed,
- they already fixed them.
- I don't know where they got the money from.
- I know they got it from Jewish people,
- from the one what they took away and they hid.
- Alli, I've heard you talk a lot about numbness and hating.
- Yes.
- You've talked less about being able to love.
- Well, some-- I know that I loved my mother a lot.
- My mother.
- I love my whole family.
- And that little boy.
- Yes.
- And I had a very good husband.
- He was worth loving.
- And I'm a very possessive mother when it comes to my kids.
- You really protect them?
- Oh, yeah, too much.
- I can't help that.
- Like my little-- my youngest son said, mother,
- you have to let go sometimes.
- I said, no, you're mine.
- You belong to me.
- He's married now.
- But I still--
- Are you afraid for them at all?
- Yes, I worry about--
- I'm concerned about them sometimes.
- Because they see life different than I see.
- They're more secure than I am.
- They're much more secure than I am.
- Something left me with insecurity from all that.
- I was a very secure person.
- But it left its marks.
- It leaves its marks.
- Did you ever feel that you didn't love the boys
- as much as you wanted to?
- No, no, no.
- So that was not damaged?
- No, no, in fact, I never talked to my children
- about the concentration camp.
- I never mentioned anything.
- Never.
- Well, I didn't want them to feel the pain that I felt.
- I wanted to protect them.
- I never-- like, they asked me something,
- why didn't you tell me this?
- I say, well, after my sister lost her little boy,
- and I had the first one, a little boy, Stanley,
- we never mentioned anything to them.
- Not my husband, not me.
- Have you cried a lot?
- No?
- I wish sometimes I could cry.
- It is like a stone is here laying there.
- It won't let me cry.
- Well, sometimes when I watch at night's cable,
- and I see some old, old Jewish movies, even
- from the concentration camp.
- And I hear the music, it tears me apart.
- Because what did they do with that?
- What happened to it?
- But you kind of have to be alone in order to cry?
- Yes.
- It's difficult for you to cry with someone else?
- No.
- I don't think I ever cried in the ghetto
- and the concentration camp.
- Did you cry when your mother was--
- when you saw her that last time, and you knew you weren't--
- That one night, that was the time that we both cried.
- And we both know that it's-- we never going to see each other
- for some reason.
- I cried because I was afraid, too,
- but I cried like my mother said, from four children,
- I'm going to be left alone.
- I couldn't see what happened to that woman.
- That was the Rock of Gibraltar to me, all my life.
- Is never lost control.
- Have you been a Rock of Gibraltar to your children,
- do you think?
- That's what the doctor called me.
- When I used to go for a checkup, he
- said, here comes the Rock of Gibraltar again.
- They used to tell me that the doctor, when I first came here,
- and they say, are you sure you were in a concentration camp?
- I say, yes.
- They say, we can't believe it.
- But time changed it.
- What do you mean?
- Well, all of a sudden, my nerves just collapsed.
- When and how?
- Well, I didn't know I had high blood pressure
- until I went to the doctor.
- And he said, it's not what it used to be.
- I say, well, I'm getting older.
- Or maybe he felt I was too strong to give in.
- I didn't want to give in.
- Didn't want to give in to the emotions?
- Uh-huh, yes.
- In one way or another, it made me strong.
- It made me a fighter.
- I am a fighter, because I could have never lived
- through what I lived through if I wasn't a fighter.
- I didn't know it at that time.
- You don't know lots of things till something happened,
- and then, you realize the feelings you had.
- Is there anything that happened that you did not
- handle in a strong way, emotionally,
- besides the thing with your mother?
- I really don't know.
- I did the best I could at that moment.
- See, your feelings change, you feel one way one moment,
- and then you feel another way.
- I never examined my feelings.
- I just went by instinct.
- How did you find your husband, and Harry, and your father?
- Well, that's when I went to Wilno, that is in Lithuania,
- and that I went to the train.
- And the woman came up to me and she recognized me.
- And she's the one that told me about Luba, and about Rosa,
- and about Luba's child.
- Because I was sure, when I came back to Lithuania,
- that I'm going to find Luba and the child.
- But she told me that my husband, and Harry, and papa
- lived in Munich.
- So right away, I said, I got to get out of Lithuania.
- I made some false papers.
- See, everything you did was very risky.
- Because people told you stories-- if they catch you,
- they're going to put you in chains, send you to Siberia.
- How do I know if it is like this or not?
- I said, well, I'm the only one, what do I have to lose?
- I have nothing to fear anymore.
- I don't have nobody--
- as long as I had somebody--
- I was afraid of Rosa, I was afraid of my mother.
- But there, I was by myself.
- I say, I'm not afraid.
- I'm going to go.
- And I made false papers.
- How did you do that?
- Well, there's Jewish organizations that
- help you make those papers.
- And then, they lead you that way through the borders.
- You see, because I had to go from Lithuania to Poland,
- from Poland I had to go from Czechoslovakia.
- And from Czechoslovakia, I had to go to Germany.
- When I came over to the German, then it's already free ride.
- And that's the way I came to papa and Julius.
- How did you find them in Munich?
- Well, I went to the Munich committee--
- they had a committee.
- And there were some of his friends.
- In fact, some took off from work--
- and he was home that day.
- He worked, he had to dig, or something.
- So he took me with a streetcar to my husband.
- And then, all of a sudden, somebody started running.
- Alli's here, Alli's here-- that was my father.
- Because on the street, somebody told him, Mr. Bock, go back,
- your daughter is here.
- Because he had-- he was with papa.
- And Julius was in Munich.
- And they were in Feldafing.
- So they came.
- So I made it.
- Can you describe the first meeting
- that you had with your father and your husband,
- and what that was like?
- Well, I saw my husband, and he was very emotional.
- I wasn't.
- I really wasn't.
- But when I saw my father--
- and I was one from three daughters left--
- that was a scene I never forget.
- Tell us.
- I say, papa, you got so little.
- He shrunk from tsuris, he said.
- Yeah, he was a tall, strong man, and all of a sudden
- he was short, and like this.
- Well, he--
- Paint us a picture of what you saw, what you did,
- what that was like, so we are there when you saw--
- I felt very sorry for my father, because he always
- was the head of the household.
- He always was the boss.
- And all of a sudden, here, he lives as papa in a camp there,
- he has nobody to cook him proper meals, what he's used
- to be served three times a day.
- My husband, I don't know his background that much.
- And he was younger, so it didn't show as
- much, as it showed on my papa.
- And then, when I saw him, I couldn't believe
- what happened to that man.
- It wasn't the same--
- he was a husky, big man.
- Well, he was skinny, then.
- We were all skinny-- not me, forget it.
- Not me.
- I wasn't, because I picked up right away after I was freed.
- And he was just emotional as he can be.
- And sure, you know, you talk about his other two
- kids didn't make it, his wife didn't make it, you know.
- I mean, there was a lot of emotion involved.
- Lots of emotion involved.
- But I started right away, I started cooking for him,
- and doing this for him.
- So but when it came the Jewish holidays,
- it just tore him apart.
- Tell us about that.
- Well, we were invited, and he didn't feel good no place.
- Because he doesn't like to eat, he said, in somebody's house.
- He likes to be the head of his own house.
- So he sits there and cries all the time.
- Because he remembers how he used to be the head of the house.
- So what did I used to do?
- I used-- my cooking was terrible.
- I didn't know how to cook.
- How did you feel when you saw him crying, helplessly?
- Now, how do you think I felt?
- I think like I had an explosion in my heart.
- You weren't numb?
- No.
- But I still didn't cry like him.
- He could just sit and cry like a lake.
- He just cried, he couldn't stop it.
- You say, you had an explosion in your heart.
- Yes.
- Tell me more about that.
- What that--
- There were so million feelings in it-- millions of feelings.
- How do you tell each one of those feelings?
- Millions, not one.
- I didn't know, should I go with my father,
- or should I be here with my husband?
- Because papa lived in Feldafing.
- I didn't know what to do.
- What do you do?
- And he came-- every day, he came in, and stayed with me,
- and then he went back.
- At least, he had one daughter, he says.
- Was he working?
- No, he was doing nothing.
- What do you do?
- The Germans offered-- not the Germans,
- Jewish people offered him lots of money
- if he would be an appraiser in diamonds.
- He said, well, I don't want to do anything with diamonds.
- I couldn't save my family, I'm not
- going to do anything with jewelry anymore.
- That's the last I did it.
- It sounds like you were torn between being
- a wife and a husband--
- a wife and a daughter?
- Yeah.
- Tell us about that.
- But my father was a good man.
- He didn't demand much.
- He was-- he wanted me to cook him kreplach soup three times
- a day.
- He ate three times a day, kreplach soup.
- My husband said, I'm getting sick of it.
- I said, that's what he wants.
- He said, how many times?
- He said, well, he wants to make up for lost time.
- See, he wanted what he wanted, my daddy.
- But he was not a demanding man.
- And he came every day, and then he--
- I told him to live in Munich.
- No, he goes to back to Harry.
- See, he was with Harry all the time.
- He was Harry's protector.
- What was Harry doing?
- Nothing.
- Running around wild.
- What was Harry doing?
- Nobody was doing anything at that time.
- They were waiting for papers to come to the United States.
- But he was a very good man, my papa.
- Oh, he was so good.
- Anything you did, or anything you wanted to say,
- it was all right with him.
- The Germans walked up to him, I never forget it, and he said,
- Mr. Bach-- because they realized what a good man he was-- they
- said Mr. Bock, can you ever forgive us?
- And he said, well, don't ask me for forgiveness.
- Ask God to forgive you.
- He said, because I forgive you.
- You didn't know what you were doing.
- He forgive them.
- He didn't--
- How about you?
- No.
- Never.
- Why not?
- No.
- How they did experiment with people,
- and what they did to people--
- it wasn't one German that did it, it was many that did it.
- You cannot say, this Hitler was bad.
- How about the rest of them?
- How about the rest of them?
- Where were they?
- With their steel, cold eyes full of hate?
- I'm not talking about-- how about the rest of them?
- How the whole SS, even the Wehrmacht,
- why didn't they do anything for us?
- They saw how we suffered.
- Was there one of them that lifted a finger for us?
- They took kids and put them in-- threw them against the wall
- and see how their brain exploded.
- Did you see any of that?
- No, I didn't see it.
- But there were people that did see it.
- I saw that when people ask when they're sick,
- and they kicked them in the legs.
- I saw lots of things that they did.
- And it wasn't necessary to do.
- So when it comes to those Germans,
- you are steel, and hard, and angry, yourself?
- Yes, I am.
- I always will be.
- They hanged people and told them--
- they had a jewelry man that they hanged,
- they found a weapon on him.
- So they told the mother and the daughter
- to come and see their son.
- And what did they come, so they hanged him,
- and we all had to go and watch that.
- And then, they took them to that same fort and killed them.
- They enjoyed what they did.
- How do you explain that?
- How do you forgive this?
- And you don't think if you let them, they would do it again?
- They would do it again, if the leader tells them to do it.
- So you want to forget and forgive?
- It is not one, or two, or 10 people.
- I know there are some people that had nothing to do with it,
- but just a few.
- Maybe some women and children.
- But I don't think they changed that much.
- You cannot tell somebody to take a gun and shoot unless you have
- it in you to shoot.
- So they were not human beings?
- You didn't feel like a human being,
- but they also were not human.
- No, I wasn't human being.
- They made animals out of us.
- They treated us worse than animals.
- We were Guinea pigs for them.
- They can do anything they want to with us.
- And there was nobody to help you or to protect you.
- So you lost everything.
- You saw all of a sudden that you're nothing, you're nobody,
- you don't have a say so.
- You have no control over anything.
- They had electric wires around that you couldn't even
- go close to it or you would get electrocuted.
- If they didn't feel like giving you to eat,
- they don't give you to eat.
- If they poison the food that they give you to eat,
- you would eat it anyhow, because you were starved.
- Was there anything that you could do
- to make life easy for yourself?
- Or was it totally out of your control?
- Totally out of my control.
- Nothing I could have done.
- You were totally helpless.
- Totally, 100% helpless.
- And the world knew, and nobody lifted a finger to help us.
- Because we heard in the radio what
- is going to happen a day ahead of time.
- Because we did have, in the ghetto, underground radios.
- And nobody lifted a finger to help us.
- We heard that they're going to take
- 10,000 people from that ghetto.
- That's what we started building hiding places.
- Not that it was any good, but you still tried to.
- So we knew, and the world knew, because it was an English radio
- that gave the information.
- You don't think United States knew?
- They knew it.
- Nobody did anything.
- Nobody said, hey, we give you your prisoners back.
- Give us so many people back.
- There was no exchange.
- There was nothing.
- You were powerless.
- You're a fool if you thought that you had-- we hoped,
- because that is the human nature.
- But there was no hope.
- If it would have taken six more months,
- they would have killed every one of us.
- He said in 1945, you're going to see a Jew in the museum--
- and he was right.
- He would have done it, too.
- Maybe there were some soldiers on the front that
- thought difference, but the people that I saw,
- just the look can scare you.
- So in your experience there, you didn't-- yourself,
- did not experience kindness, sympathy,
- humanity from any of these guards?
- No.
- I didn't expect it, either.
- Just looked in their eyes--
- there was no feeling.
- There was nothing.
- Like the German told you, I don't hate you
- because you're a Jew, I hate you because that is my command.
- And he would-- if he would have had that command
- to shoot us all, and put us in that [PLACE NAME] river,
- he would have done every one of us like this.
- He just was waiting for the command.
- No, there was no hope at all.
- Even the Lithuanians that we believed our friends,
- the minute they heard that the Germans are coming in,
- they was the first one to round us up, and hand us over
- to the Germans.
- Here are the Jews.
- They were not our friends.
- I don't see them-- maybe there was a few.
- But they never showed up, the few.
- Did you have any Lithuanian friends?
- Well, really, the friends that we had
- were not so much in Lithuania, and I had friends in Germany.
- Because I lived in Memel, and that was German friends.
- And they told us right away, please go away from here,
- because we can't help you.
- Just leave.
- That's just as far as it went.
- Well, because if they catch you hiding a Jew,
- they shoot you, too.
- See, they were afraid to do anything.
- There were some people that knew Lithuanian
- that some Jewish people was in hiding places.
- But I didn't know any of those people.
- Alli, because of some of these difficulties,
- has it affected your ability to make friends now,
- and to trust friends?
- No.
- No, I believe in people.
- I trust in people.
- No, no.
- But sometimes, I do have doubts.
- But I think that happens to every one of us.
- Sure.
- Sometimes I do have doubts.
- No, I don't think so.
- But I don't think I would be friends,
- if I would live in Germany today,
- and I had to make friends with German,
- I have some German friends here, too.
- Some that came from Germany.
- But if I would live in Germany, I
- don't think I could make friends with them.
- But you do have German friends here?
- Yes.
- And I know that they were young and they really
- didn't know too much.
- But those men that were in the SS, oh, they were bad.
- Some did it out of fear.
- They have fear for their own skin, and they did it.
- What happened to your husband?
- Well, in the concentration camp, from all this fear-- you see,
- he didn't talk about it.
- He acted like a hero.
- But apparently, it affected his heart.
- His heart muscle wouldn't close completely--
- from being expanded from fear.
- They say, that happened to people that are in jail,
- or on death row, that the heart doesn't close completely.
- So he had heart problems when he came here,
- and he died because it was heart failure.
- When was this?
- He died about 12 years ago.
- See, all this left him with a bad heart.
- Can you tell us what your life has been
- like since these experiences?
- And how you've done, and how you've coped?
- Well, I think it was a normal life, you know what I mean?
- I don't think it was--
- I helped my husband in the business.
- And I think I'm a pretty happy person, basically.
- And I raised two children.
- And as long as I had my husband, I think, I was all right.
- But by myself, it's not so easy.
- You know, better or worse, but we made it.
- And I think I had a good marriage, because I
- had a very kind husband.
- So in spite of all of this, you were
- able to go ahead, and be a family person?
- Yes, very much so.
- Very much so.
- But this terrible experience, you
- kept private from your children?
- Yes, yes.
- I never talked about it like I talked today about it.
- I kept it all inside of me.
- I don't know if it's good or bad.
- Do you talk about it now to them?
- Now, I talk-- now, I even in the store
- when somebody comes, and they want
- to know about the Holocaust or they say something,
- I correct them.
- In fact, I even argue with them.
- And you didn't use to do this?
- No.
- I even argue with them.
- What do you argue about?
- Well, there was a woman here--
- I think she is--
- I don't know where she came from, Iran or somebody.
- She didn't like United States.
- She said, she's underpaid, and this, and this.
- I said, honey, who sent you here?
- Who wanted you here?
- I said, because you better be-- you be glad that you are here.
- I said, because I came from a concentration camp.
- And I'm glad to be here.
- I said, if you're not glad, you can go back where you came
- from, if you criticize the United States, and you don't--
- They were good to me, I said.
- You're very protective of the United States.
- For some reason.
- And they all laughed, they said, why are you getting upset?
- I said, the nerve of that woman.
- Who wants her here?
- And all of a sudden, she was paid
- as a security guard of a singer's, they
- didn't pay her enough, or something.
- Well and then, I said to myself, why am I
- arguing with that lady?
- What's the matter with me?
- One of the things that I hear is that, since the camps,
- you have been very protective of those things and people
- that you love.
- Yes.
- Very protective.
- Yes.
- You form a shield.
- But I tell you one thing, the concentration camp
- leaves something to people, different things to people,
- in different ways.
- Some people get tough from it.
- And I think I got tougher from it.
- Because I don't think I would have been that tough,
- but they made me tough.
- They forced me to be tough to survive.
- Because I wasn't brought up to be tough.
- Did you see weak ones not make it?
- Did you see that yourself?
- Yes, I saw that-- it's like my middle sister.
- She gave up the minute she came into the concentration camp.
- She didn't want to-- she told me right away,
- I'm treated like an animal.
- Nobody cares what happens.
- And I don't want to live.
- And I tried to reach her, but I couldn't reach her anymore.
- She was going away from me slowly.
- How did you try to reach her?
- I used to pinch her.
- I used to hit her, Rosa.
- She was in a different world.
- I couldn't get her no more.
- And I saw what happened in front of my eyes.
- See, I love that lady, I would have given my life for her.
- I couldn't reach her no more.
- No way.
- She gave up.
- She started talking-- she blames the world,
- nobody does anything for-- nobody cares.
- She said, I wasn't born to live like an animal.
- She couldn't wash her-- you know, we washed ourselves
- with coffee, whatever we found.
- She said, there was no restroom for us,
- we just went like wild animals.
- She said, this life, I don't want.
- She just sold every piece of bread
- that she had for three puffs of cigarettes.
- And I saw lots like her.
- There were, too.
- So you had to be a fighter, otherwise you didn't make it.
- I saw lots of our friends.
- I thought they lost their mind the way they behaved.
- They just gave up.
- They couldn't even exist for nothing.
- Did you ever feel like giving up?
- Or you never had?
- Uh-uh-- no way.
- No way.
- And she told me then, she said, I
- don't know who's going to come out alive, she said.
- But you are.
- I used to try to reach her, but there was no way I could--
- I used to pinch her, I used to hit her.
- She was just giving up, like something was taken out of her.
- Why do you feel you survived?
- Why?
- I don't know.
- I was just lucky.
- I was lucky, and I was strong like an ox.
- I never was sick.
- And you were tough.
- I must have been tough.
- Sure you were.
- I didn't feel anything.
- I had no-- if I said, I didn't feel anything,
- I don't feel no cold, I don't feel no heat.
- Everything was dead.
- I didn't feel anything.
- I just kept on going.
- That's the only thing I knew.
- A couple of years ago, you attended the gathering
- in Washington, correct?
- And did you go to the gathering in Israel?
- No, I didn't go.
- How did you feel at the gathering in Washington?
- Well, I saw some emotional people there.
- I didn't cry, but they all cried around me.
- And I said, my goodness gracious, men or women,
- they were crying.
- But I felt like I belonged there.
- That's my people.
- You talk about love, I loved every one of them there.
- I loved every speech that was made.
- Because that was mine.
- My people like that one lady said, my brothers and sisters,
- I never seen that lady in my life.
- I asked a lady next to me, I say, where are you from?
- She said, from Israel.
- I say, you came all the way from Israel?
- I was surprised.
- She said, where my brothers and sisters are,
- I'm not going to come?
- She said, they're my people.
- She had so much feelings.
- She hugged and kissed everybody.
- I heard some language that I hadn't heard for 45--
- it did me good.
- What kind of language?
- There was Russian, and Polish, and Lithuanian mixed in--
- 50,000 languages were mixed in there.
- You felt very much alive, then?
- I feel that I belonged-- even if it was sad.
- I saw men cry, and I looked at them.
- You weren't numb?
- Then, no.
- That was-- I felt like I was at home.
- I felt at home.
- I met some people from the old country
- that they remember more than I do.
- Were there many people from Memel there?
- No, Memel, there's only one person from Memel
- here, that is Hilda Green.
- That's the only one from Memel.
- She was in the same camp as me.
- She lost her mother and sister there.
- At the gathering, were there other people from Memel?
- No, not, but I met some that I worked in the ghetto with.
- And that was so funny, that woman comes up,
- and she-- and I had my name, Alli Bock Itzkowitz.
- She doesn't read the name-- she comes up,
- do you know Alke from Memel?
- And I'm standing there.
- I said, yes.
- She said, I used to work with her.
- I said, I'm Alli.
- She said, no, you're not Alli, you're Alke.
- Because I didn't even remember that they called me that.
- And she remembers it, remembers it.
- I couldn't remember that.
- Did you remember her?
- Well, after we started talking, I remembered her.
- And how did you feel talking to her?
- Well, I felt wonderful.
- Even my son felt wonderful.
- She lives in Canada.
- But yes, I felt-- and I felt good in Philadelphia.
- But you see, that brings you back feelings
- that you hardly feel anymore.
- It brought me back, like I lived 200 years ago.
- It brought me back home.
- I didn't even know I had those feelings.
- I didn't even know most of the people.
- Sure, it brought back feelings.
- You look wonderful as you talk about it.
- You look excited.
- Well, that is some feelings that I didn't even
- know I had anymore.
- I didn't even know I had the feelings
- till I went to Washington.
- It brought something back that I had a long time ago.
- Those feelings were dead in me for a long time.
- It brought it back.
- But that was real feelings.
- So you see, you don't feel it anymore, because you really--
- but I went back home, even.
- I went by the house we used to live-- it was all dead in me.
- I did go back.
- When?
- After I ran away from the Russians, I
- and went to Lithuania.
- It was all strange to me, dead in me.
- I couldn't find no tears, no feelings, no nothing.
- I knew I lived there and everything, but it--
- I don't know, like it was a different time.
- You've talked about the numbness and the deadness.
- Has that been a problem for you in your adult life
- after the camps?
- Has that gotten in the way at all?
- No.
- No.
- Well, it did get in the way that I think--
- I do-- if I want to admit it or not,
- I do have some fears in me.
- Fears-- I don't know for what, but I still have it.
- Like for instance, I don't like--
- I'm afraid of an airplane.
- Why should I be afraid to--
- but it left some kind of fear in me.
- Can you tell us about the fear of the airplane?
- What it's like, when it happens?
- Well, I just-- I fly, and I was holding
- everybody's hand in the airplane,
- because there is no stop sign.
- If something goes wrong, that's the end of it.
- I don't like that feeling.
- I just don't like that feeling.
- I want to stay with both feet on the ground.
- You want to be in control.
- Yes.
- Because when you give up control,
- or when you gave up control, you were an animal.
- Yes.
- See, I think that is left from the concentration camp.
- Because I never knew fear before.
- Any other fears besides the airplane?
- There's different things that I fear.
- And for instance, they're going to tell me
- it's going to be ice in the road.
- And I have to go to work--
- I didn't have to go--
- right away, I'm afraid of the bad roads.
- Well, the ice is not yet on the road, why do I fear it?
- But that is something I can't control.
- And I think it has to do--
- so that's what-- I blame it on it.
- It might be wrong.
- You know, everybody has some fears.
- Well, I didn't know that.
- You didn't know that everybody has some fears?
- Well, maybe they are based on something
- more than what I have the fear of.
- Everybody thinks, you know, like you're
- afraid to die, afraid to be sick.
- But I have such funny fears.
- And it's really nothing after you think about it.
- It adds up to nothing.
- The whole world flies, nobody stops flying.
- Well, I drove on ice and snow, why should it bother me?
- Got stuck, rolled, everything.
- You know, we have about 10 minutes left,
- and I would kind of like to wrap things up.
- And as we've talked, I've been impressed
- with what I think is a sense that I get from you--
- I don't hear a lot of guilt. You did the best you could,
- you were strong.
- No, I have no guilt. No guilt whatsoever.
- If I did something wrong, well then, I didn't know any better.
- Then I didn't know any better.
- But otherwise, no, I never have guilt. Well, sure,
- I did some things wrong, I know I did things wrong.
- Everybody lives through a lifetime, does things wrong.
- But at that time when it happened,
- I didn't know any better.
- What can you have for guilt when you go into a concentration
- camp, or you go into a ghetto?
- I didn't hurt anybody, or take anything away from anybody.
- You know, like some people in the concentration
- camp started stealing from somebody else the bread.
- Well, I never could do this.
- Alli, do you feel like you've been damaged by this?
- A little bit, yes.
- Can you tell us how you were damaged?
- Well, that is the insecurity that I have in me.
- And I think that has to do with all the fears
- that I had in the concentration camp.
- That's what brought it out.
- Like I have a high blood pressure.
- I think it has to do with being afraid so many times.
- Well, there are some people that don't fear that much as I felt
- it in the concentration camp.
- Because I was a young girl, and you
- heard many, many different stories.
- And some of them were true, some of them not, you don't know.
- I wasn't there.
- I know that I had some girlfriends,
- and the Germans took them to the front.
- There was lots of them that we never saw again.
- Nobody knows what they did with them.
- And I was the same age than they were.
- My mother used to hide me and protect me,
- because she had that in her mind that can happen.
- I didn't.
- See, I never thought that way.
- Because I was the youngest one, so every time
- when the German came, they said, get Alli out of the way.
- And I never knew why.
- And then, I found out later that they picked up about 500 girls,
- they never been seen again.
- And they will say so, because nobody was there to prove it.
- How do you enjoy spending your time these days?
- What do you like to do?
- Well, I like the work I'm doing.
- Because I meet lots of people and talk lots of people.
- If I would have to stay home, I wouldn't like it.
- But you enjoy meeting people?
- Yes, I enjoy.
- Yeah.
- And I'm getting very tired, you know what I mean?
- Because I have to stand on my feet.
- And it's not easy for me.
- But I like it better than stay at home.
- Because my kids live their life.
- I don't want to bother them.
- And most of my friends, if they married,
- they have different interests.
- I don't like to be the fifth wheel on the wagon.
- But you're a sociable woman?
- Yeah, because I love people.
- I like to be with people.
- Are you a moody person?
- No, no.
- No.
- I'm very even tempered.
- How do you think you might have been different if this had not
- happened to you?
- Well, I would have had--
- you see, my whole family, there's lots of them
- that aren't here anymore.
- I would have had two sisters, I would
- have have nephews and nieces-- and thank God,
- I have a brother here.
- But it would have been a very different life for me.
- It's good when you have a sister, somebody to talk to.
- So when you cry for that four-year-old, in a sense,
- he represents all of the nephews and nieces that you don't have.
- That's right.
- That's right.
- See, but we went through not as much
- as the people that came from Poland.
- Because Lithuania, they didn't have so much time.
- See, because Hitler came in 1941,
- and we stayed in the ghetto a long time, until we
- came to the concentration camp.
- So really, I wasn't that long in a concentration camp.
- It was enough to make your life miserable.
- Do you have grandchildren?
- No, but one on the way.
- Wonderful.
- One is on the way.
- And how are you anticipating that?
- Well, I love it.
- I've been waiting for it a long time.
- Well, my oldest son married somebody that
- has already three children.
- But this will be your first grandchild.
- That's going to be my first grandchild.
- I would guess he's going to be very spoiled by you.
- Oh, you know that.
- Alli, if you could tell the world something in closing
- about your experience, and about what they should learn
- from this, what would you say?
- Well, everything I have heard, everything said.
- But I tell you one thing, nobody should follow Hitler's example.
- Because he destroyed his nation just as much as
- he destroyed us.
- He destroyed his land.
- It is Russian-occupied territory, and over that side,
- everything is dead.
- So he really didn't--
- because we're going to keep on living.
- So he didn't accomplish anything.
- And hate never got anyplace.
- Anybody.
- Do you think something like this could happen again?
- I'm afraid, yes.
- Our time is winding down, and I have been very impressed
- with your spirit.
- Well, I'm not a good speaker.
- I'm just giving you the facts, you know,
- and there's so many details that I left out.
- But we don't have enough time if I
- want to go through all of them.
- But I think your spirit has shown through,
- and it's been remarkable.
- Well, I told you, I'm a survivor.
- OK.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Alli Itzkowitz
- Interviewer
- James Pennebaker
Alan Griffin - Date
-
interview:
1985 December 15
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 videocassettes (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Personal Name
- Itzkowitz, Alli.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Dallas Holocaust Museum, Center for Education and Tolerance
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- James Pennebaker and Alan Griffin of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies conducted the interview with Alli Itzkowitz on December 15, 1985. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History branch received the tapes of the interview from the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies on July 17, 1991. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the interview by transfer from the Oral History branch in February 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:09:01
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn506601
Additional Resources
Transcripts (2)
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- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies
Contains interviews with 31 Holocaust survivors in the Dallas, TX area
Date: 1985-1992
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Oral history interview with Marie Fauss
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Marie Fauss (née Lucet Marie Selek), born August 25, 1925 at Pont-à-Mousson, France, describes her Catholic mother and Jewish father; visiting the synagogue with her father when she was four years old; her education; beginning college when she was 12 years old; her father reading Mein Kampf and warning her of Hitler’s intentions; her family’s Jewish and Catholic friends; her father deciding she should attend Catholic church; the invasion of Poland; the scarcity of coal; being out of college in July 1940; being warned by an Italian of the impending invasion; her fear of the Germans; fleeing with an Italian family south on minor roads; seeing an exodus of people moving south as they arrive in Nancy, France; being in Nancy during a bombardment; the German restrictions during the occupation; the taking of a census; the round ups and deportations; rumors about concentration camps; taking in other refugees; collaborators; becoming silent and withdrawn; being required to take German at school; being interrogated six times and having their house searched by the Germans; being beaten by interrogators; her belief that the mayor betrayed her to the Germans; being told to report to the town square to be sent to a work camp; being taken to a farm that produced food for a concentration camp in Lorraine; being taken out of the camp after three months with the help of her father; contracting tuberculosis; the arrival of American troops in September 1944; the Germans burning the college and hospital; how the war affected her; and getting married in 1945.
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Helen Neuberg (née Chaja Miemacher), born December 12, 1926 in Ostrowice, Poland (possibly Ostrowiec in powiat sokołowski), describes her Orthodox family; growing up Jewish and her interactions with Gentiles; the German invasion; the restrictions placed on Jews; people being killed for breaking the curfew; her experiences in the ghetto; hiding during the deportation of her family, all of whom perished in Treblinka; witnessing acts of brutality and cruelty; obtaining false papers; moving to Warsaw, Poland; finding work as a waitress in Stuttgart, Germany, where she lived in fear of discovery; being aided by a Jewish American solider after the war, who assisted her in finding relatives in North America; meeting her husband, who was a survivor of concentration camps, in a displaced persons camp; and immigrating to the United States with her child and husband.
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