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Oral history interview with Helen Neuberg

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1991.A.0112.15 | RG Number: RG-50.045.0015

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    Oral history interview with Helen Neuberg
    Transcript
    OK, before we begin, could you tell us your name
    and where you're from and your maiden name
    and some background?
    OK.
    I was born in Poland, Ostrowiec, Poland.
    My name was Chaya Mitzmacher.
    And I was 14 years old when the war broke out.
    And I was with my family.
    We were seven children.
    I had three sisters and three brothers.
    Together was seven children.
    And I had two sets of grandparents
    and I had a lot of aunts and uncles,
    because my mother came from a family from 11 children.
    And my father was only three, but he was the only one there.
    And so it was a very happy family,
    and my father inherited the business
    from his father, which it was a family business.
    And his father had it from his father.
    And I don't recall how many generations,
    but it was a very good business.
    We had textile and ready-to-wear.
    And my father and mother were very happy people,
    and we had a very nice life for Poland.
    You know, it was middle class and we lived very well.
    I went to school.
    I never had to worry about anything
    and I never had to go to work.
    Tell us a little bit about your life
    when you were young, say five or six years old.
    When I was a little girl--
    like I told you, I come from a large family--
    I felt like I was loved and I played,
    and I was never frightened for anything.
    And we come from an orthodox family,
    so religion was very important.
    And we used to get together, all the family, all the time.
    And I know I had a lot of friends and a lot of relatives
    and I was very happy.
    Was all of your family from the same town?
    All the family was--
    I don't know where they were from, but they lived there.
    My mother-- pardon me?
    Which town was it again?
    Ostrowiec, Poland.
    It wasn't far away from Warsaw.
    And like I told you, I had two sets of grandparents.
    And one grandfather was dead by the time I remember.
    So the grandmother was living with us.
    And then the other set of my father's father and mother
    had a house.
    And then I remember--
    I don't remember how old I was, but I
    was quite young, because this was
    the first dead person I saw--
    my grandmother died, and there was this funeral
    and everything.
    And then my grandfather had this big house,
    so he did not want to move in to us, so we moved into his house.
    And we all lived together, and a very happy family.
    We had this business.
    I had my oldest brother, and I had one sister who already
    was married way before the war, and they
    worked in that business, too.
    So it was a family business until the war broke out.
    What was it like growing up Jewish?
    Pardon me?
    What was it like growing up Jewish?
    It was a way of life.
    We were never deprived about Christmas.
    I mean, we lived in a Gentile city.
    And Saturday in Europe, they had six-day school.
    Saturday, school was on.
    The Jewish kids did not attend school Saturday.
    So we used to go to the Gentile friends
    to get the lesson, whatever they were teaching,
    so we could do homework.
    And I used to go to their houses all the time.
    And I knew that I'm not supposed to eat there or anything,
    and I did what I was told.
    I wasn't deprived.
    It didn't hurt me and I never missed--
    if I wanted to see a Christmas tree, I went to a friend.
    And I never felt bad that we don't celebrate Christmas
    and that we don't have a Christmas tree.
    I attended a Jewish school after school.
    And it's a matter of fact that they had, in the school,
    they had their religious teacher for the Jewish children
    and they had a priest for the Catholic children,
    for the Gentiles.
    And we went to our hour of religion
    and they went to theirs.
    And of course, it wasn't easy to grow up with some Gentiles,
    because they were always making fun.
    But it didn't bother me.
    I don't remember being bothered by that
    because I was very secure and I had a nice family.
    And I guess we took it for granted that the antisemites--
    or my father must have taken it for granted.
    If not, he would have not stayed there, because he had a brother
    and he had a sister.
    There only were three children, and they were living in Canada.
    Because see, in Poland, the Jewish people
    did not want to go to the army because they
    had to eat non-kosher.
    And so they used to punish themselves
    to be underweight and stuff like this
    so the army wouldn't take them.
    But since my father already was in the army,
    and he remained there in that business, I guess.
    And his brother, who went to Canada,
    did not want to go to the army, so he went to Toronto, Canada.
    Do you remember when your father went into the army?
    No.
    No.
    About how old were you?
    How old I was when my father was in the army?
    He probably wasn't married yet.
    You know, you have to be 21, I guess, to the army.
    Or maybe he was married and I wasn't even born
    because I was number five child, see?
    I was the fifth child.
    I don't remember, but my father and my grandfather
    used to be in the First World War with the Kazakhs.
    He used to tell us stories about that all the time.
    My grandfather was a very strong man because I know he used to--
    he had all his teeth.
    In Europe, we used to drink tea with lumps of sugar,
    and he used to take a piece of sugar,
    and we used to make fun that grandfather so healthy.
    And he was alive until the Germans came in,
    and he just was old-fashioned.
    And when they came to confiscate all those things,
    he just resented it, and they killed him.
    Can you remember what it was like just
    before the Germans came, just before the war started?
    Just before the Germans came, I mean,
    people were talking about Hitler a lot.
    But they didn't know what he is doing.
    Just the war broke out in '39, right?
    And how old were you at the end of 1939?
    When the war broke out, I was 14 years old.
    Yeah, 14.
    OK.
    And they were talking.
    But you know, when you're that young, what do you care?
    I mean, all I know, when the day when the war broke out,
    I saw some policemen.
    There were policemen.
    There were soldiers who took out just a plain gun,
    and when they saw those aeroplanes,
    the German aeroplanes flying our little city,
    they were shooting with a gun.
    This much I remember.
    And then they were laughing, like my father was laughing,
    look at the Poles.
    They don't even have anything to fight with.
    And I was happy that I wouldn't have to go to school.
    I remember that, that all my friends,
    oh, we won't have to go to school.
    You know what I mean?
    And then when the war broke out, it
    didn't take long for the Germans to come to my city,
    I mean to Poland.
    It just took them a few days, I believe, to conquer all Poland.
    Poland was the first country.
    The war broke out with Poland, Germany and Poland, correct?
    And Poland was the first country that they
    conquered, and maybe in a week.
    And when the Germans came in to our city, I mean,
    of course my father and everybody,
    I guess they were nervous, but I didn't pay any attention.
    Because like I told you, my father
    thought that the Germans are better than the Poles.
    Tell us a little bit about that.
    He used to say that they were very nice, civilized people,
    and he knew them from the army, and they were nice.
    And a lot of other people used to say,
    you must not pray for a new king.
    But the old one is it could get worse, but you know.
    And then when the Germans came in--
    like they came in today and we were watching
    all the tanks and everything.
    They were parking everything in the city.
    And the following day, they would have--
    see, there were no television to say the news.
    So they used to put these, like they
    do in Europe, posters in all the Jewish neighborhoods
    right away.
    And they said they put a curfew.
    You could get out so many hours a day.
    I don't remember what the hours was.
    And anybody who's not going to obey is going to be killed.
    And people didn't take them serious and they were killed.
    And we saw that something is very wrong immediately.
    We were still living in the houses
    and we still had the business, and of course every day
    was a different order.
    Like today you can't go in this hour,
    and the next day you can't go out of the city.
    There were different orders every single day.
    And all our clientele were all Gentiles.
    We used to give a lot of merchandise
    to pay out for payments.
    And I had brothers who used to go and collect,
    and they no longer could go because they were afraid.
    So I remember at one time, I looked like Gentile
    because I had blonde hair and braces
    and I was riding a bicycle.
    And I used to go to some Gentiles,
    and they would give me food to take home and some money.
    And I did this for a nice few weeks,
    until this was stopped, too.
    My parents were afraid for me to go.
    But every day they had a different order, not to do this
    or not to do this, until it got very bad.
    This was in '39, and then the war went on steady.
    In Poland, the war was finished, but we
    had all kinds of different orders
    because they knew what they wanted to do with everybody.
    They had a system, but we didn't know that.
    So we still did some business and everything.
    And the people who didn't have a business-- like my mother's
    sisters, they were workers.
    They really didn't have enough food or enough nothing,
    because they confiscated a lot.
    And then, little by little, they came
    in to the Jewish businesses to confiscate the business.
    And they did come in to our house
    to take all the merchandise out.
    That's why my grandfather did not let them,
    and so they killed him.
    Do you remember that?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    He was not a young man, my grandfather,
    but like I told you, he was very healthy.
    He could have lived till 100.
    He was maybe-- he wasn't old like they're old now,
    maybe in the 70s.
    And they killed him, and there was a funeral and everything.
    It was still a funeral and the cemetery, I remember.
    Then they took all the merchandise out,
    and things got bad.
    They got from worse to worse.
    Then there was one order that Jewish people cannot wear fur
    coats.
    Whoever has a fur coat has to deliver it here and here
    in a special office, all the fur coats.
    And if we're going to catch you, we're going to kill you.
    So you had to give this up.
    And little by little, you gave everything up until they came--
    they chased out from other cities into our city.
    It was a Jewish committee, like a Jewish community center.
    We had this in every city.
    And when the Jewish people, they were chased out--
    like from Mike Jacobs, from his town.
    He was from Konin.
    They came to our city.
    And so naturally, the Jewish people used to receive them.
    And we had nothing, but whatever we had, we shared.
    And we went to help them and everything.
    And then when they accumulated enough people,
    that's when they did this.
    But it took from 19--
    I don't remember which month.
    The war broke out like maybe in September, I think.
    Do you all know when?
    Something like that because it was the Jewish holidays,
    I remember.
    And then '40 and '41 is when they chased every--
    and then we still existed and we were with the family.
    I was with the family, my brothers.
    And they used to do--
    the Germans would--
    Since all the German men were in the army and the ladies,
    he wanted to treat them well.
    They shouldn't have to do domestic work.
    They used to grab children in the street,
    in every city in Poland, and would send them
    to Germany for domestic work.
    I never went out.
    But they used to grab and they would send them.
    Mainly they didn't look for so many Jewish people,
    but they took the Poles.
    Oh, something else I forgot to tell you.
    And when they invaded my hometown, what they did
    is they took all the polish intelligentsia,
    like the lawyers and the doctors and all this,
    and they made the--
    what do you do before you hang people?
    Gallows?
    Yeah.
    You know, to hang them.
    And they wanted all the Jewish people to come out.
    This was maybe one week after they invaded the hometown.
    They took all the Jewish people, we should stay and watch them.
    And they put them maybe--
    I don't remember how many, 40 people or 30 some-odd people--
    they hung them, the Poles, and we should see that.
    When they grabbed these people to Germany--
    I don't think they grabbed them as Jews.
    The Poles they did, but they didn't want Jewish people
    there.
    They had enough, their own, you know.
    So that's what they did, until one day,
    there was this poster, that tomorrow,
    4 o'clock in the morning, you should all
    be in this and this place, and carry whatever you can,
    and dress up, and that's it.
    They never said where we're going.
    Do you remember about when this was?
    When this was?
    This was also like--
    it wasn't winter yet, so it must have been in the fall.
    And this was in 1941?
    '41.
    OK.
    Mike remembers better dates.
    Like I told you, none of my members
    were missing, even though one of my brothers,
    they grabbed him to work one day and they beat him up.
    But they let him go.
    But they all were still alive.
    After me, I had another brother and another little sister.
    They all were alive, and we all went out together
    that one morning on the square to be sent
    someplace that nobody knew where.
    And I walked with my father and with my mother
    and with my sisters.
    Like I told you, it was like a lot of excitement and pressure.
    And when we walked out, whatever we could carry.
    So what my father did, my father called the children.
    And we had some possessions.
    I understood this better later when I grew up.
    Like when my father knew that there was going to be a war,
    he used to sell merchandise and buy
    some gold coins or some jewelry, diamonds and stuff.
    And before we were chased out, he
    told the children-- he put it all in a bottle
    and he put it in the basement.
    He dig the hole and put it in the basement.
    And he said, whoever is going to survive
    whatever, that's where it is, the rest of the possession.
    And so we knew that.
    And then, like I told you, we walked out.
    And when we walked out, there were these Nazis.
    They really were SS.
    And they wore these white gloves with canes, little canes.
    And they just say, you go here.
    You go here.
    You go this.
    Like this, you see?
    And so it was terrible because the square was not that big
    and there were lots of people.
    And of course, people didn't know
    how long this is going to take, so they
    used to hide in basements and attics,
    and a lot went out in the square.
    And we stayed in one place, and we saw all these people
    pushed into these wagons.
    And religious ladies wore these wigs,
    because a religious person has to wear
    a wig, an orthodox person.
    So they wear, and they were all taken off.
    And the screaming from the children
    was unbelievable, unbelievable.
    I saw children laying that mothers didn't know what to do,
    little infants and these little pillows, tied down
    to the pillow and was laying in the street,
    just like that, crying.
    And it was just like a horror, screams and yelling something
    terrible, because it was dark when we walked out,
    and it was in the fall.
    It must have been 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning
    and it lasted till maybe 10, 11 o'clock at night, all this.
    And they kept on sending one wagon after the other, one
    wagon after the other.
    And where I stayed there, then another Nazi came.
    And he said he needed 11 girls to work.
    OK.
    Believe me, I didn't push myself.
    I didn't know.
    I stood there.
    So there was so many.
    And so they counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and I was the 11th.
    You go here.
    You go there.
    I mean, you didn't know where you were going.
    And I remained again, and these others
    went, because evidently, they had too many
    and they didn't want so many.
    So they said, you go here and you go there.
    And I still remained there.
    And then after the whole day, this blood in the street
    and the belongings from people and everything,
    it was just terrible.
    I mean just terrible.
    And it was, all of a sudden, very quiet
    because there was nobody there except this group
    that we remained.
    Did you see your parents and your family go away?
    No.
    No.
    I was staying in a place where I just saw people pushed in
    and it was very hard for me to see because they probably
    had different places where they put different people.
    I didn't.
    I saw my brother, one brother, staying near me.
    And this brother had a child who was maybe two years old.
    And I was happy to see him.
    And all of a sudden, he says, I'm
    going to look for my wife and child.
    And I never saw him anymore.
    He went to look for his wife.
    He wanted, you know.
    And I have never seen him.
    And then I didn't see anybody from my family anymore.
    And after that evening, when it was dark already,
    and like I told you, all these toupees
    laying in the street and a lot of blood
    because they would kill a lot, probably who resisted.
    And they took us, marching to this community center.
    It was called the Jewish comitat.
    They took us in there.
    When they took us in there, everybody was crying so bad,
    and it was just a terrible experience, the worst.
    Like all of a sudden, you have a family and everything
    and you live by yourself.
    And then you see--
    I don't remember how many people remain,
    but it didn't take long.
    And people knew about it, the people who hid in the basements
    or in the attics.
    And there were more people.
    They came there for some reason.
    Now, you also know that before that, there
    were Jewish policemen.
    The Germans did it.
    They made sure that there was a Jewish comitat, which
    it was like a community center.
    And when they needed somebody to kill or to do this,
    they said to them, you have to give me so many people to work,
    so many people to kill.
    And they had to take care of it.
    And not that they worked for the Germans.
    They didn't.
    But they had no other choice.
    So there were a lot of Jewish policemen
    that they helped, also.
    When they chased us out, they helped.
    And then when we went to this comitat that night,
    the following morning, you see the policemen
    who remained there and a few people who remained.
    They had to clean out all the houses, all the possessions,
    to bring it to a place, to the Germans.
    So when I got myself in this Jewish community center,
    I met one man, who was my father's friend,
    and he knew me since I was a little girl.
    And he was a policeman.
    And he said to me that I'm going to help you do something,
    he said.
    I know you have to go.
    It would be advisable.
    A lot of people made passports, false passports,
    like Swiss passports.
    They were phony, but they for money.
    So this father's friend said that he
    was going to help me do something, and I said fine.
    But in the meantime, the following day,
    they grabbed us to work, see, to clean up all these possessions
    and stuff.
    Like I told you, we had in my hometown factories from iron
    and from coal, and that's where they took us to work also.
    In the morning, they took us to work.
    In the evening, they brought us back in this comitat,
    and there were Germans watching it, and also Jewish policemen.
    And I don't remember how long this lasts,
    but I remember one day that I was sick.
    I had a toothache.
    I had such a toothache that I just couldn't go to work.
    So I went to my father's friend.
    He was a policeman.
    I said, what should I do?
    My tooth is killing me and I need to go to a dentist.
    And what they did--
    I needed some fillings, and they pulled out a tooth
    from one side and a tooth from the other side,
    because they would not do fillings for us.
    They just pulled it out.
    At the time, believe me, I didn't care, but later on I
    did, because you take good teeth and you pull out.
    Well anyway, I stood there in this comitat--
    it wasn't a ghetto.
    They called it a Jewish comitat.
    That's what they called it.
    I don't know how long it lasted.
    More people came to it from the basements,
    from what I told you.
    They didn't know how long it's going to take.
    How long can you lay in a basement?
    Two days, three days?
    You have to get out.
    So when they get out, they were lucky that--
    a lot of them went out and they were shot from Germans.
    And a lot of them, if the Jewish policemen saw them,
    they make-believe they take him to work,
    see, and they took him to this comitat.
    And then we stayed there for a while,
    and from there, again, they cleaned out.
    And again, I remained there.
    During these days, did you think you were going to die?
    What were you feeling?
    Well, my feeling was that I guess I had no feelings.
    I was crying.
    I was very, very angry that I lost all my family.
    I didn't know I'm going to die, but I
    knew that they're going to take me also.
    Yeah.
    See, the reason I knew where they
    took him is because when they took those transports,
    two of them jumped down a train and they came to that.
    And when they came, they told us how they got there.
    They didn't know the name of the place,
    but they said that's a place where
    they tell people to get undressed
    and they tell them to take showers,
    and then they put them into the gas chambers.
    That was the first time we heard something like that, I mean,
    that I heard something like that.
    Maybe the older people knew about it, but I didn't.
    And then I just could not believe it.
    I didn't want to believe it, I guess.
    I says, no.
    My parents did not go there.
    And then more people came and they told us stories.
    It was horrible.
    Well, but it didn't take long what they were going
    to do with these few people.
    Maybe there was 200, I don't remember how many.
    As I told you, there were factories.
    They were going to put us in a ghetto there near the factory,
    just to go to work and live there.
    And then it would be very bad because they gave us
    very little food, some soup and something,
    that you couldn't survive.
    So this father's friend came, and he
    said that he knows other people who did it,
    and he's going to help me.
    And I told him that I have some money.
    I didn't know how much money there was in this,
    but my father hid.
    But I was the only one there left.
    So he took me, like make-believe I'm taking you to work.
    A policeman was allowed to take me to work, that's all.
    He wasn't allowed to take me any other place.
    But we had work to do to clean out this possessions
    from the people.
    So he make-believe he took me to work.
    And I went down.
    It didn't take me long because it was still fresh.
    I saw my father's glasses and everything.
    And I just was hysterical.
    I picked up this little bottle and I broke it,
    and I just stick it in my, you know.
    And I gave it to my father's friend.
    And he bought for me a birth certificate
    from a Catholic girl who lived in my hometown in Ostrowiec.
    And what they did is you buy this,
    and he had to pay off some people who
    work in a church for the stamp, you see, to put a stamp
    and put my picture.
    And when I had this birth certificate,
    I made an identification card.
    And my name was changed.
    My father's name, and everything.
    There was another two girls who did that.
    And he arranged for us--
    What was your name changed to?
    Zosia Kasprzyk
    OK.
    I had to remember that all the time,
    and my father's name, my mother's name.
    I still have that birth certificate.
    But what happened is when you stayed there
    in this little ghetto, in this comitat,
    Germans watched, and also policemen, Jewish policemen.
    And this man made arrangements with other Polish
    for us three girls.
    I knew the other ones, but one was a little younger
    and one was a little older than me--
    that we three of us had these birth certificates
    and we were going to live with some Gentile people in Warsaw.
    And he was going to arrange this for us.
    Now, to live in a hometown, you see, we only
    had Poles and Jews.
    And the Polish people, as much Gentile one
    looked, but they knew a way that there was--
    I don't know how much you could recognize Jewish people
    in this country, but somehow when you grow up here,
    you grow up with all kinds of different nationalities,
    and every day it was just Jews and Poles.
    And we dressed differently and we were just
    acting differently, too.
    And they had to take us out from that little comitat
    to go to Warsaw.
    He made all the arrangements, and we
    had to pay so much a month by these Gentiles to stay there
    and to give us their some meals and to wait.
    And who knew how long it's going to take?
    We didn't know how long it's going to take.
    And one night, when there was closer already
    to take us to these factories and stay there--
    that was called like a ghetto there, to make the ghetto--
    he knew-- because he was a policeman, he had news.
    And he knew this is close to that time.
    So that's when the time should come, before we go there,
    because from there, nobody could go away no more.
    From this comitat it was easier.
    So he made the arrangements.
    And one day, he took us out from this ghetto.
    We already had all the papers.
    And we did not wear no more that Jewish band
    that we had to wear.
    And we're sitting in a train going from Ostrowiec to Warsaw.
    And there were the two girls with us,
    and then we saw another one that we didn't know about it.
    We knew she was Jewish, too.
    And there was all Gentiles going in this train,
    and we were so frightened.
    I mean, every minute, I thought, oh, somebody's
    going to kill me.
    And we finally got to Warsaw.
    Some Gentile waited for us, picked us up, and took us.
    It wasn't really in Warsaw.
    In Warsaw, the Poles were very, what do you call, blackmailers.
    When they saw a face that they looked like Jewish, even
    though they weren't Jewish, they said, hey.
    If you have money, you have something.
    If not, we're going to take you there, too.
    It was called Skarzysko Street.
    This was the Germans to say, you're Jewish,
    and that's all you had to do.
    Well, it was like maybe 50 miles, in a little city,
    away from Warsaw.
    It was a very nice place.
    And we went to this house and we stayed there in a basement,
    and she gave us to eat.
    And we were all dressed, like in case somebody
    comes that we just came for something,
    that she doesn't know who we were.
    So she didn't want to be jeopardized because they
    were not allowed to hide Jews.
    But whoever wanted could have done something.
    Anyway, we stayed there for, I don't know,
    a nice few months, but a few months.
    Do you remember about when this was?
    Was this still in '41 or was this probably about '42?
    No, no, no.
    Like past '41.
    Maybe in the middle of '41.
    Because I came to in May.
    In May I already was in Germany.
    So '41.
    October, November, December.
    Maybe in January of '41.
    And then maybe before January, because we came--
    it was before, maybe in November.
    OK, that's fine.
    And the Warsaw ghetto, there was a ghetto in Warsaw.
    And we saw the ghetto, but from the outside.
    We stayed with those Gentile people.
    And then this lady was afraid to keep three of them,
    so we separated.
    I was sent to a lady in Warsaw.
    I remember her name was Barecka She was a single woman.
    She had no husband.
    And I stayed there, also dressed up with a coat
    in case I have to run.
    And when I stayed there with her,
    I had lost already these two other friends.
    And this man who took us there, she
    said that this man made the arrangements,
    but I didn't see this man anymore.
    And I told her that I have only money for one more
    month to pay, because we used to pay her money for that.
    And there was terrible in the streets.
    I mean, the blackmail was so bad,
    anybody who looked suspicious, you know.
    This woman, this Polish woman, told me, she says,
    I know you don't have any more money.
    She says, I can keep you, but I want to tell you,
    I'm going to help you what to do.
    If you want to listen to me, maybe you'll survive.
    And I says, what should I do?
    Are you going to keep me without money?
    She says, no.
    I was ready to jump out the window there
    because there was such a horror on the streets,
    looking for Jews everywhere.
    So she said that she already did this to other Jewish people.
    Like I told you before, there were two kinds
    of people the Germans needed for domestic work
    to take him to Germany.
    There were one who they grabbed in the street
    and they couldn't care less who they are.
    The second was offices, voluntarily.
    If you want to come to Germany to work,
    we're going to give you a job.
    We're going to pay you good.
    You come with us.
    So she suggested that I go to an office like that,
    since I have my birth certificate
    and my identification card, and I should never say nothing else
    but that's who I am, and go as a volunteer to Germany to work.
    And that, she says, is your best bet to survive.
    I mean, she did tell me that.
    And I says, me by myself, what if somebody recognizes me?
    Well, what she did is she took me there to that office.
    And I went into that office and I told her,
    I might never walk out, because in this office,
    there were Germans.
    There were also Polish people working.
    And I wasn't as much afraid for the Germans,
    that they're going to recognize me,
    as I was afraid for the Poles.
    And they were very polite.
    They tell you to sit down.
    They gave you a catalog, where you want to go
    and what you want to do.
    And I couldn't care less what I'm going to do
    and where I'm going to go.
    And I didn't want to look suspicious, too nervous.
    And she gave me some tips, and she waited for me outside.
    And I says, well, if you see I'm not coming out,
    I says, don't wait too long.
    I might never come out.
    Lucky enough, I mean, they asked me the questions.
    I just said the questions.
    I had my papers in order.
    And they say, you want to go to Stuttgart?
    I says, fine, as a maid.
    And they told me when to come to a special place, where they
    take all these people and they group them there,
    and when they have enough they send them
    to Germany for domestic work.
    So I came out and I told this to this lady, to Mrs. Barecka,
    and she was happy that I'm still alive.
    And I went back to her house and she no longer
    wanted to keep me there.
    She told me to go to this place.
    And I was afraid to go to this place because this place--
    well, I'll explain you again.
    See, people who they grabbed in the streets, the Polish people,
    they couldn't help it.
    They could have come from the finest families,
    but if they were grabbed, they went.
    But people who go as a volunteer from a nice family,
    young kids, parents would not allow to let them go.
    So they had to be very low class of kids
    who the parents didn't care, prostitutes or who knows?
    They went for a good time.
    And this lady told me this herself.
    It makes sense.
    Like from a good family, which father
    would let their 14- or 15-year-old daughter go away
    to the Germans?
    This is the enemy, the Germans, correct?
    If they grabbed them, it's a different story,
    but this was voluntarily.
    So they accumulated people like this, voluntarily,
    and sometimes you had to stay there a week
    until they had enough people.
    Well, I took a few things, what I had, the belongings,
    and I went to this place.
    And when I got in there, I saw some
    faces that I recognized that they were Jewish,
    but we wouldn't dare to talk to each other.
    We tried to keep away from each other.
    I mean, when they looked at me and I looked at them,
    we knew who we were, but we sure were afraid.
    And of course, the real Polish people, who went voluntarily,
    they took--
    what do you call it?
    Like to go home, to go see, to go out--
    a pass.
    They took a pass.
    They could go out for the day and come back.
    They were voluntarily.
    I had no place where to go, and so I was staying there,
    and it was kind of suspicious.
    Some Polish girls said, hey, come out.
    Don't you want to go about the town?
    I wanted to go about the town.
    I was afraid.
    So I says, well, no.
    I just want to wait here, and stuff like that.
    Then I went and I called up this woman,
    and I told her that everybody is leaving
    and they're coming back.
    I says, it would be nice if you could come to see me,
    not to look so suspicious that nobody comes there.
    I don't think she came.
    She didn't come.
    I stayed there, and we waited for everybody to get there.
    And the day we left, we went by trains.
    We were all standing, lined out.
    And from that line, there were lots of people.
    I can't recall how many.
    When you looked at the faces, you
    could have seen-- there were Germans looking
    through everything-- you could have see who was Jewish,
    because they all got scared.
    And two of them they picked out.
    We didn't know at the time.
    They didn't say who they were, but we
    knew that there were two Jewish people they took out.
    They looked very Jewish and very suspicious probably.
    So they took them out from the lines.
    And we couldn't wait to get into that train.
    And when we went into the train, I went to the bathroom,
    and I was so scared for all these Polish people.
    I wasn't so scared for the Germans
    because the Germans couldn't recognize--
    if I would wear nothing here, I looked like a German.
    But in the train, I saw a few people
    who looked really very Jewish.
    And we would not talk to each other.
    There were four people.
    They went out from the bathroom.
    They went to the bathroom.
    Most of the time we spent in the bathroom
    because we were afraid.
    We got to Germany, to Stuttgart.
    And when you come, even voluntarily,
    you have to go through an office.
    It's like when they give out work,
    what do you call these offices?
    Where you go here-- an employment.
    OK, they employment offices.
    And they gave out the people for positions.
    Probably the restaurants or whoever
    wanted a maid made an application there.
    And when they got us they told us where to go.
    So they sent me Fellbach.
    It wasn't far from Stuttgart.
    It was just maybe 20 minutes, a suburb of Stuttgart.
    They sent me there, which, when I got there,
    it was a restaurant in the house.
    There was already one Polish maid there,
    which I wasn't so happy about it.
    But when I got there, they gave me a room
    to share with this Polish girl.
    I mean, they gave us to eat and everything.
    And we worked.
    The work was like 6 o'clock in the morning.
    They knocked on the door and we got up and worked maybe
    till 10 o'clock at night.
    And this was as Polish girls.
    Had nothing to do with being Jewish.
    And us Polish girls, that was the only people, the Polish
    and also Russians, because the Russians were still
    in the war with the Germans.
    The Russians had to wear "O-S-T," "ost."
    And the polish had to wear a big P. All the other people-- they
    had people from all over Europe, wherever they invaded,
    and nobody else had to wear anything,
    except the Poles and the Russians.
    And naturally, I was afraid to wear the P because why should I
    wear a P?
    If I go someplace, the landsman should see me to say hi.
    So I mean, the punishment was not that severe,
    if you didn't wear a P. If a cop saw you and he knew who
    you were, you paid some money.
    They paid us for that work, but very little.
    And they gave us three meals a day.
    We worked very hard.
    During this time, did you think much about--
    During this time I was very depressed.
    First of all, when I got to Germany,
    I did not know German good.
    I understood some words.
    Some are similar to Jewish, but not that much.
    So first of all, when they called me Sofia,
    I didn't respond because I had forgotten my name.
    So she had to call me a few times and she got angry.
    I says, I don't hear so good.
    I mean, you always have to look for an excuse to give.
    And then I got used to it, Sofia, and all
    the mother's name, the father's name, which they didn't
    have to ask me all the time, but you
    had to do it in the offices.
    And this lady, the husband was a Nazi.
    He went to the meetings.
    He had three daughters.
    Two of them were Hitler-Jugend.
    They were young.
    One didn't go to meetings.
    I don't think she belonged to the party.
    She was by the register.
    But he had meetings and everything, and I worked there.
    And we had like a half a day off to clean the room
    and to wash our hair and stuff like that.
    But what was the hardest for me there--
    I didn't mind the work and I really
    didn't come for a good time, to go out.
    But this Polish girl who was there
    was not very nice, because like I told you,
    she just went for a good time.
    And she used to run around at night,
    and she would want me to go.
    And I told her, I can't go because I
    have to get up 6 o'clock in the morning
    and it's just too much for me.
    I says, I don't know how you could make it.
    And I was afraid for this girl more than for anybody else,
    because she wasn't nice and I was afraid.
    At night when I was asleep, I shouldn't talk Jewish,
    that she should know.
    I mean, maybe she was suspicious, but maybe not.
    We used to kneel by the bed every night
    and just do the prayers.
    And I went with her to church, which she needed church
    like, you know.
    But I went with her to church.
    I went whenever we had a chance.
    And one day-- and I worked there, and everything was nice.
    I cried a lot.
    I cried a lot.
    So she used to say to me, Sofia, why are you crying?
    I says, because I miss my parents.
    See, on this birth certificate, it
    was like my mother was still alive but my father was dead.
    And that's why I want to help my mother,
    so I want to go to work to be able to send some money.
    That's why I want to go.
    They asked me, what's the reason you want to go to Germany?
    So I told them, I can't get a job here.
    Everything is bombed.
    And I need some money for my mother.
    So they knew I had a mother.
    They knew I didn't have a father.
    When I cried, they used to ask me, why are you crying?
    I says, well, I miss my mother.
    So they say, Sofia, don't worry.
    When you work a year, we'll send you for a furlough.
    OK.
    But then I cried and it helped me.
    I cried a lot.
    I remember that.
    But one day, this girl was really running around.
    And she says to me, you don't want to stay here.
    She says, let's run away from here.
    I mean, she was really a tough girl,
    that she didn't come to survive.
    She came for a good time.
    And she got tired of it, of the work.
    So she wanted to escape.
    Now, when a Polish person escaped back to Poland,
    they were punished.
    They couldn't escape because they made a contract
    and they had to stay there.
    They signed.
    So she wasn't afraid and she wanted me to go with her.
    So I told her like this.
    I says, you know what?
    Why don't you go first?
    And then you'll see if you pass the border-- she was going
    to smuggle down the border.
    She said, I have a brother who's going to wait for me
    and we'll make it.
    I says, you go first, and then let me know and then I'll come.
    I'll come later.
    She said, I don't have enough money.
    And I was afraid to be so nice to want to give them.
    I said, I'll help you.
    I'll give you some money and you'll give it back to me
    when I'll see you.
    I just wanted to get rid of her so bad.
    And the boss knew that we were both from Poland,
    and she trusted me with all the keys.
    She knew that I was kind of different,
    because she saw me, that I didn't run around or anything.
    During the war, they had also ration, these little coupons,
    for meat and for other things.
    When people came in the restaurant to eat,
    they had to give the coupons for so much meat.
    So this was valuable.
    And she used to let me take care of this,
    to put it in the books.
    And she trusted me.
    I knew she trusted me.
    So then one day-- it was already maybe a year later,
    or maybe nine months later--
    when this girl decided she's going to run.
    She had enough.
    And she ran away.
    At 6 o'clock, when they knocked on the door,
    I answered, and I was ready.
    And she says to me, where is Steffi?
    I says, I don't know where Steffi is.
    I says, she goes out every night,
    and I don't know where she is.
    Oh, yeah, you know.
    You know where Steffi is.
    I says, no, I don't know where Steffi is.
    I says, I'm here.
    That's it.
    That's all I care.
    I says, I don't know where she is.
    She says, I'm going to call the police.
    You know where she is.
    I says, no, I don't know where she is.
    Well, what she did is, you see, Oberschlesien
    used to belong to Poland, and then the Germans had it.
    And all these people from Oberschlesien became Nazis.
    They called them Volksdeutsche.
    I don't know whether you heard this.
    They became Germans.
    And there were a lot of them in Stuttgart, especially.
    She called a guy.
    He was not a gestapo.
    He was a Volksdeutsche, and he was like a policeman.
    And he came to talk to me.
    So I says to him-- his name was Cebula, I remember.
    Cebula in polish is an onion, because they all were Poles
    but they became Germans.
    And I says to him, Mr. Cebula, I'm sorry.
    I don't know where she is.
    I work.
    You ask this lady, I says.
    I came to work, and that's all I'm interested,
    is I want to work.
    You always had to say you want to work and you had to work,
    because that's the only survival.
    And that's all I care, and that's it.
    I don't know where she is.
    OK.
    He didn't do nothing to me.
    He left me alone.
    I didn't hear anything, except maybe three or four days later,
    the boss came, this Nazi came.
    And he said that she's in jail.
    She ran away and the police took her in jail.
    I didn't know how true it was, but I was very happy.
    OK.
    Then she was looking for another maid
    because it's a hotel in a restaurant
    and she needed another maid.
    So I said to her, don't get so many Polish people.
    I says, take a Russian.
    Take from France.
    They had some France.
    They had from everywhere.
    Well anyway, she took another girl that was from France.
    And she was very nice, this French girl.
    I don't know whether she was Jewish or not.
    It was very hard for me to tell, but she looked very nice
    and she behaved.
    And she was working with me, and everything went fine.
    This Mr. Cebula used to come there and drink with his boss
    and have dinner.
    And he always says to me, Sofia, how are you?
    He always-- fine, fine.
    One day, Mr. Cebula--
    you see, also, the Polish people in Germany,
    they had a choice, like I had to wear a P. This Cebula came
    and he says to me, you have a choice
    to become a German, a Volksdeutsche, like he is.
    And for this, he said, you get better treatment, more money.
    And I says, I'll think about it.
    In the meantime, I worked and I behaved.
    And one day, when I kept on crying so much, the lady,
    the boss lady--
    very few people got a furlough to go home.
    Believe me, you had to be outstandingly good.
    She came to me to say that she wants
    to give me a furlough for a week to go home to see my mother.
    And I got cramps in my stomach because I
    didn't want to go nowhere.
    I had nothing nowhere.
    And I didn't know to say-- when you cried all the time and all
    of a sudden you say you don't want to go,
    you look suspicious.
    I had one friend in there, in that Fellbach,
    who I forgot to mention--
    Fellbach, what's that?
    Fellbach, that was a little city where
    I worked, away from Stuttgart.
    But while I was there all this time working, when we were off,
    we used to go to another restaurant.
    The reason I went to this restaurant
    is because I saw a girl there who
    I knew that she looked very Jewish, and the way she talked
    and everything.
    But we were afraid to tell each other that we're Jewish.
    What if she's not?
    Then our life is in jeopardy.
    So I went there.
    It took me all this time while I was working with this Gentile
    girl to go and just look at her, and we just
    said some words to each other.
    And one day, we told each other that we're Jewish,
    because we were so sure.
    So whenever we wanted to cry together,
    we used to get together for a few minutes.
    She would come to my restaurant when she was off
    and I would go to hers.
    And that day, when this Cebula came
    to tell me that I should become a German,
    so I says to him, Mr. Cebula, you are what you are.
    You can't become a German.
    I'm Polish.
    My mother was Polish.
    What do you mean your mother?
    You give me your address and I'm going to ask your mother.
    And you can't not give him the address.
    You know, you have to give him.
    But at that time he still left me alone.
    But now, because this lady came to tell me to go for a furlough
    and I was unhappy about that, too, so I went to my friend
    and I cried to her.
    I says, look.
    I can't say I don't want to go.
    What should I do?
    What should I do?
    She says, you know what?
    Don't work so good.
    Maybe she'll get mad and she won't want to send you.
    So I figured that would be a good idea.
    So 6 o'clock, what it used to take me
    an hour would take me two hours, would take me three hours.
    I used to goof off and stuff.
    I never stole anything, but I used to goof off.
    And it came to a point that she was very mad.
    And she says, what's the matter with you?
    Are you sick or something wrong?
    She says, I want to send you for a furlough.
    I'm so nice to you.
    And here you don't want to do the work anymore?
    I says, well, I'm doing the work.
    I guess I must be tired.
    She says, if you're going to keep
    on doing that, you can't go.
    You can't go home.
    And it came to a point that one day, I came and she
    told me to do something.
    And I guess I must have been very nervous and stuff
    and I didn't want to do it.
    Oh, she wanted to take away my day off.
    And I says, I have to clean my house.
    I have to wash my hair.
    I have to wash my clothes.
    I need it off.
    She says, no, you're not going to have a day off
    because you're not working good.
    You could forget about your furlough.
    And she slugged me.
    She hit me.
    So when she hit me, I just hit her back.
    I just felt like she was a very heavy set woman.
    She had two very big-- and I slapped her like this.
    And when I did that, she called this Mr. Cebula on me
    and he came.
    Before he asked me anything, he hit me, too.
    And I got up for my rights and I stood up for my rights.
    And I said, Mr. Cebula--
    I talked to him in Polish.
    I says, why would she want to hit me?
    First of all, I came here as a volunteer.
    I'm working like a dog.
    It was very nice of her.
    I says, you ask her.
    She gives me the keys from everything.
    She gives me the stamps if I ever stole anything.
    And I says, I'm very conscientious.
    I says, and she wanted to take away the day
    and I couldn't wash my clothes and she hits me.
    He says, she could hit you but you must not hit her back.
    I says, why not?
    I says, why shouldn't I?
    Why should she hit me, for nothing?
    Well anyway, what he did is he threw me in jail.
    He threw me in jail.
    And I remember I wore my uniform,
    and it was the first time I saw a jail.
    And I lay down on the floor and I went to sleep,
    because I was so tired that I couldn't care less.
    And I went to sleep and I stayed in jail,
    I don't remember, maybe three days.
    And I said, he came.
    The same Cebula came to visit.
    And he said, are you ready to go to work?
    I says, no, I'm not going to go to work to her no more.
    I want another job.
    Now, you couldn't change your job, as a Polish person even.
    You had to go through the unemployment office.
    I says, if you're going to give me another job,
    I'm going to go to work.
    Well anyway, he locked me back in, in jail.
    And then, believe it or not, I remember
    there was a little trial.
    There was a trial.
    They took me to trial--
    why I did this, why I hit her.
    OK, and so I went.
    I remember there was a little court,
    and the Germans were sitting there,
    and they asked me questions.
    I was frightened, still frightened
    for everybody at this point.
    But I kept on saying all my things.
    I says, I came here as a volunteer and I want to work
    and I'm working very hard, and this lady was nice.
    I says, she wanted to send me.
    And I don't know why it took me longer to work,
    and she wanted to take away my day off.
    I just had to do my clothes and stuff,
    and she hit me and I hit her back.
    They gave me 42 days.
    It's called an [GERMAN].
    It's like a delinquent camp.
    Not for Jews.
    It was for delinquents, you know,
    any kind who was a delinquent.
    I was a delinquent because what I--
    Just hit her back.
    I just felt like she was a very heavy-set woman.
    She had two very big-- and I stopped her like this.
    And when I did that, she called, this Mr. Cebula on me.
    And he came.
    Before he asked me anything, he hit me too.
    And I got up for my rights, and I stood up for my rights,
    and I said, Mr. Cebula--
    I talked to him in Polish.
    I says, why would she want to hit me?
    First of all, I came here as a volunteer.
    I'm working like a dog.
    It was very nice of her.
    I says, you ask her.
    She gives me the keys from everything.
    She gives me the stamps, if I ever stoled anything.
    And I says, I'm very conscientious,
    I says, and she wanted to take away the day,
    and I couldn't wash my clothes, and she hits me?
    He says, she could hit you, but you must not hit them back.
    I says, why not?
    I says, why shouldn't I?
    Why should she hit me for nothing?
    Well, anyway, what he did is he threw me in jail.
    He threw me in jail.
    And I-- I remember, I wore my uniform,
    and it was the first time I saw a jail.
    And I lay down on the floor, and I went to sleep,
    because I was so tired that I couldn't care less.
    And I went to sleep.
    And I stayed in jail.
    I don't remember-- maybe three days.
    And I said--
    He came.
    The same Cebula came to visit.
    And he said, are you ready to go to work?
    I says, no, I'm not going to go to work to her no more.
    I want another job.
    Now you couldn't change your job, as a Polish person even.
    You had to go through the unemployment office.
    I says, if you're going to give me another job,
    I'm going to go to work.
    Well, anyway, he locked me back in, in jail.
    And then, believe it or not, I remember
    there was a little trial.
    There was a trial.
    They took me to a trial.
    Why I did this, why I hit her, OK?
    And so I went.
    I remember there was a little court.
    And the Germans were sitting there.
    And they asked me questions.
    I was frightened, stiff frightened for everybody
    at this point.
    But I kept on saying all my things.
    I says, I came here as a volunteer, and I want to work,
    and I'm working very hard.
    And this lady was nice.
    I says, I-- she wanted to send me.
    And I don't know why it took me longer to work,
    and she wanted to take away my day off.
    And I just didn't--
    had to do my clothes and stuff.
    And she hit me, and I hit her back.
    They gave me 42 days.
    It's called an Arbeitserziehungslager.
    It's like a delinquent camp, not for Jews.
    It was for delinquent, any kind who was a delinquent.
    I was a delinquent because what I did, and they send me.
    And it was in Rudersberg, in a little city,
    where, when I got there, there were woman SS, OK?
    And like it had nothing to do with Jewish.
    All Poles, and French, and Russian, whoever didn't behave
    went to a Arbeitserziehungslager,
    to a delinquent camp.
    What we did there, we unloaded wood.
    It was a factory from something, and we unloaded.
    But what was so bad about it is that the woman Nazis
    was screaming at us and yelling at us at work, after work.
    After work, we had to stay like a punishing, like this,
    with your hands up, and you--
    you couldn't stay near a wall.
    You had to stay--
    and that's pretty tiresome.
    And we couldn't have no pencils, nothing.
    And there was a lot of gentiles that I was afraid for,
    believe it or not.
    But at this time, they were busy with their own lives,
    and they-- you know what I mean.
    And every day I used to go to the bathroom,
    and I would fold, to know how many days,
    because we had no calendars.
    We had nothing.
    To fold the 42 days that I had to be there.
    When was this?
    This was around--
    I remember it was Christmastime, because we had a Christmas
    dinner.
    And the gentiles gave us--
    you had to have special meal, this thin that you share.
    It's called an oplatek.
    I don't know how to say it in English.
    And I know it was Christmastime because the--
    In 1942, probably.
    This was not-- this was closer to '43.
    No, this was '43.
    This was, yeah, '43.
    This was when the Americans-- when did
    the Americans started to bomb?
    I'm not sure.
    '43, I think.
    '44.
    Anyway, my friend, this one that I
    told you lived there, who was also Jewish, but nobody knew,
    came to visit me to that camp, and she brought me some stuff.
    And I stayed there.
    And when the time was up to go, they
    put me again in the same jail.
    I stayed there a day.
    The same guy came.
    And he told me, are you ready to go back to the same place?
    No, I says.
    You could throw me again there.
    I am not going to the same people, because I was nice,
    and she hit me, and I'm not going to go there no more.
    Well, he changed my job to another place.
    I went to these other people.
    Needless to say, he was a Nazi too, wore the swastika,
    and went to meetings, and has kids.
    And I worked.
    And to tell you the truth, I was really very afraid.
    I mean, I didn't want things like this happen anymore.
    And I worked there very hard.
    And she had there a Russian girl working,
    and she had one from France working.
    And I worked.
    That was a bigger place.
    She had three people working.
    And we worked.
    And one day-- and we were cleaning vegetables.
    I had already--
    I had nothing from my home, but I had a little apron.
    We used to have uniforms to go to school in Europe, special.
    It was a black with a white collar.
    I don't know what happened that I had this uniform.
    And one day, while we're sitting and cleaning vegetables,
    the boss and his wife was there too, I came down there.
    And I wore this.
    And he said to me, you look so Jewish with this.
    And he was laughing, like this uniform.
    But the gentiles wore this uniform too.
    So I thought then that I'm going to die.
    I ran into the bathroom.
    After a few minutes sitting there I ran into the bathroom,
    and I was shaking.
    And my face was so white, like this color.
    And I looked in the mirror, and I
    knew I had to go back out fast.
    So I just went, like to get the color back.
    And I came back, and I worked.
    And I never wore this uniform again.
    And he never mentioned it anymore.
    However, he used to drink a lot.
    He would, after work, he would talk politics with me-- not
    so much politics, as he would say, hey, he says,
    look at these American Jews.
    He says, now the American Jews are coming, he says.
    We already got rid of all the Jews from Europe, thank god.
    Now, he says, the American Jews are coming.
    These are verfluchte, you know, like the dirty American Jews.
    They're coming now.
    But we'll take care of them too.
    Don't worry.
    He says, look, we, he said, had to work so hard,
    and the Jewish people had everything here.
    So I listened to him.
    And I say, look, we had the same thing, I said.
    We had the same thing in Poland.
    I mean, he was discussing with me, because all he did
    was drinking wine all day long, and he was pretty well-to-do.
    He had all the people working for him.
    And I worked there and worked there.
    Did you think it would ever end?
    Well, I knew that I-- no.
    Did you live day to day?
    I lived day to day.
    I didn't think that it's going to end to our favor,
    that we're going to survive.
    I did not think I'm going to survive.
    You thought you were going to die.
    That's right.
    I was waiting every day, like somebody to come and say, hey,
    you Jewish, and let's go.
    I mean, that's how I got up in the morning,
    and this is how I really went through.
    OK.
    Wait.
    So this this guy, this Cebula, I don't know
    what kind of conscience he had.
    I don't think anybody had any conscience there.
    In the meantime, I'm working.
    In the meantime-- at this point it must have been already--
    because I remember the--
    the big aeroplanes from the United States.
    The United States went into war.
    It must have been already later at this time.
    Must have been '44.
    And I worked, you know.
    And after work, I didn't go.
    There was lots of--
    I didn't wear the P. Only one time a policeman saw me,
    and he knew where I worked, and I told him, oh, I
    forgot to put it on.
    He didn't even take any money.
    But I didn't go out for fun so much, but I went around.
    If I wanted to go in the street to walk around,
    and this I wasn't afraid, because if I didn't wear the P,
    nobody knew who I was, OK?
    As far as the Polish, they didn't know.
    So I looked German.
    The Germans looked like French.
    There were so many of them, different nationalities
    from different countries.
    [SIGHS]
    And then, when this started, when
    the Americans came and they started to bomb,
    that was another experience.
    This Cebula came every day.
    When I used to wash the dishes, he
    would come there for a drink.
    He would come in.
    And still want to do that, see?
    And I never told him that I don't want to,
    because I was afraid for that.
    So there was so many bombs thrown,
    and every time that the Americans
    came with these aeroplanes, they had a bunker.
    What do you call this?
    Where you run down in a basement?
    Bomb shelter?
    Bomb shelter.
    We all went down together as kids.
    The Hitlerjugend and all him.
    And I was sitting there over all these bombs throwing.
    I was only hoping that the bomb would fall in, that all of us
    will die in the same time.
    That was my biggest hope whenever
    I went down to that shelter.
    But unfortunately, we [INAUDIBLE]..
    And this was in Stuttgart, Fellbach.
    And in Stuttgart they were throwing a lot of bombs
    there, the airport and at the--
    Stuttgart was a big city.
    And they kept on coming.
    Like at least once a week this happened.
    And then in between, another--
    every time the bombs were falling,
    and in different cities, sometimes--
    and Stuttgart wasn't so bad yet, but in different cities,
    in Berlin and other.
    And then, in the meantime, I'm still working there.
    Everything is still normal.
    This Cebula comes again, but I mean really, I mean,
    he means business now.
    I have to give him my mother's address.
    And he definitely wants me to become
    a Volksdeutsche, a German, to have better privileges,
    and to make more money, and how can you
    tell one that you don't want better privileges, you
    don't want to make more money?
    It would be suspicious, right?
    So I figured at this point, what can I do?
    I'll give him-- I gave him that fake whatever
    I had on this birth certificate and on the identification card.
    I gave it to him, and I went to my friend that same night.
    And that was the first time I stoled a bottle of wine
    from the place where I worked.
    And we both got drunk.
    And I said to her, I came to say goodbye, because she knew him,
    and she knew what kind of people these are, if they take--
    all they have to do is check it.
    Of course, they didn't have computers,
    and this helped a lot.
    [LAUGHS] They had computers to burn the people,
    but they didn't have computers to find out.
    And I says, I came to say goodbye,
    because look what happened.
    He took my address.
    He's going to find out I'm Jewish, and that's it.
    She said, oh, there is going to be another miracle.
    Don't worry.
    Don't worry.
    Until you're dead, you're not dead.
    Until you die, you're not dead, right?
    And that's the hope she gave me.
    And the miracle was that there was really
    a big Angriff, that a lot of American aeroplanes came.
    And they were bombing Stuttgart, the airport.
    And it took-- we were in the shelters a long time,
    like day and night.
    It was terrible.
    And when we got out from the shelters,
    it was like a disaster.
    I mean, it didn't hurt us any, but not far.
    Not far from our neighbors.
    There were some roofs, some pieces
    came off and stuff from the impact, whatever.
    The Germans don't know anything.
    We built, and we go to work.
    See, we work, everything in order.
    About in the middle of the day, like lunchtime, my boss
    comes over to me, and he says, sit down.
    So I thought, oh, here we go.
    I says, what is it?
    He says, I want to tell you something.
    You remember that Cebula who was so nice to you,
    who wanted you to become a--
    he got killed.
    So help me god, he got killed in this Angriff
    that there was this.
    He got killed.
    So I was sitting down and crying so bitterly,
    not for sadness from him, but for happiness that he got
    killed.
    I was really crying.
    And he thought that I'm really--
    and those are the things that they come to you that I
    don't know how, but you just--
    I guess if you have to survive.
    And then, OK, I didn't know already
    about this, which I was relaxed.
    I didn't worry so much.
    I'm still working.
    But then it went on again and again
    that they were out of work, that a lot of them had to close.
    So they took us to farmers, OK?
    They took us to farmers because I guess
    the farmers needed the work.
    And I mean I'm telling you the fast.
    This was already, like, close, the Americans
    to come in, hopefully.
    And I went to a farm.
    I never worked in a farm all my life.
    It was a big farm.
    You had to feed the chickens.
    There was other people working also.
    You had to feed the chickens, and the cows, and everything
    to prepare.
    And then, in between, you went, and you went to the field
    to clean the leaves.
    OK, I did this for a while.
    And one evening, a bunch of soldiers, Germans,
    came into the farm, and we had to feed them,
    make food for them.
    And at this point, I knew German pretty good.
    I mean, you know.
    So while we have to help and give them food,
    they came, and they were talking among themselves,
    and they were talking also to their boss,
    that they lost all this--
    in the army, when you lose the--
    groups, that it's very bad.
    That there was a big--
    they bombed out this and that and the other,
    and it's very, very bad OK.
    So I was happy.
    I figured maybe they're going to lose the war.
    I knew one thing is going to help me.
    If they're going to lose the war, I'll survive.
    If they're going to win the war, I won't survive.
    And they left, and that went on again.
    We had to feed them.
    They came back.
    And then we went up, again, about our business.
    And one morning they took us there to the--
    to clean the leaves.
    In what year did Roosevelt die?
    It was '44, I think.
    '44.
    It had to be '44.
    Because I'm going there with these
    rakes on my shoulder to work with the two more women.
    And there was the woman who watched over us were Germans,
    but they didn't clean the leaves.
    They just watched us.
    And while we go there, while I'm raking the leaves,
    I hear them talk that Roosevelt died,
    and we're going to win the war.
    That's what one said to the other.
    Roosevelt died.
    Did you hear the news?
    Roosevelt died.
    And you know, we're going to be in London.
    We're going to be in New York, and they
    going to speak from here.
    Our Führer, Hitler, is going to talk from here.
    By the way, while I was working during all this time,
    I listened to the radio.
    I mean, there was--
    they didn't hide the radio from me.
    I forgot to mention that, that Hitler had a lot of speeches
    all the time to give to his people and the support.
    And he kept on saying.
    At one point I heard it myself--
    I don't know what year this was; it was way
    before these bombs came--
    that he was in Moscow.
    But Hitler never-- the Germans never wore in Moscow.
    He said he was speaking from Moscow,
    and he intends to speak from New York,
    and he intends to speak from London.
    They were never in London either.
    And I remember other things, that they had,
    like Hitler used to have speeches
    in a car in certain places where the people dropped
    all the work, and they went to listen to him outside.
    And of course, I could have go too.
    It was right in the front there of every city.
    And he gave them big support speeches.
    Could you tell us how--
    you're on the farm now.
    Tell us how it ended?
    When did--
    OK, from the farm, that when they said that Roosevelt died,
    that they're going to win the war,
    I was very happy at this point.
    And then again, some German soldiers came.
    They were already lost, really.
    And they said that that's very, very [GERMAN]..
    That's very bad.
    And we still worked there for maybe--
    I know that in May is when the Russians came in.
    And then they left, and the English came in.
    So when I was still on the farm, when there was, again,
    the bombs bombing, we went to the shelters and everything,
    like I told you, I was very--
    I only prayed that we're all going to die together.
    But it never happened, I guess.
    And then one day they started to bomb.
    We were there for a long time.
    When we came out, there was a lot of white flags on roofs.
    And they said that the war is finished.
    However, in some places, these Hitlerjugend, the youth,
    the German youth, you know, they had blocked off, for the--
    first, the Russians came.
    For whoever came to invade the cities,
    they had blocked, made--
    they blocked it up that they shouldn't
    be able to pass with the tanks and stuff, OK?
    So I remember that I went there too
    with a lot of German people, with children on their arms
    and everything, to tell these youngsters, take away this.
    Enough is enough.
    And you have to take this away.
    Some of them were fighting and some of them not.
    And they took it away.
    And then I couldn't wait to go and take a white sheet,
    and put it, like the war is finished,
    as far as we were told.
    And then, while we were there, there were leaflets flying down
    from aeroplanes for all these people from all over Europe,
    who they knew that we work there,
    that we should be patient, we shouldn't run no place.
    We should stay put.
    That they're going to take care of us and everything.
    Well, at this point.
    I didn't want to stay no more on the farm.
    So I want to tell you, me and another two people
    from there, from this where the farm was--
    I don't even know how many miles it was.
    But we put everything in a little wagon,
    and we went back to this-- where I worked in this restaurant,
    OK?
    We went back there.
    And we walked.
    It was a long, long walk.
    I don't know how long it took us, but we walked back there.
    And when we came there, this boss where I worked,
    he let me in there.
    He let me in.
    But at this point, I did not go in to work.
    I just went in to wait and see what's going to happen.
    So yeah, while I was working during the war,
    I always said that when the war is going to finish,
    I have to kill at least two people.
    I mean, at least two.
    I made up my mind to kill two people.
    I don't care who they are.
    I says, I have to kill two Germans.
    And then, when I got back to this place in Fellbach,
    to this--
    his name was Zaltzman, I went back there.
    And he let me in with a few possessions.
    I went out just to watch the soldiers come.
    At this point I think they were English.
    They were not Russian.
    They were English.
    And they were very nice.
    And they gave us cigarettes.
    At that time, I put my P, that I'm Polish.
    And they gave us cigarettes, and chocolate,
    and all kinds of stuff.
    And instead to-- instead to go and kill two people,
    wouldn't you think that I took the cigarettes,
    and the chocolate, and I went back
    to that bus, these kids, the Hitlerjugend,
    and I gave it to them.
    I gave them cigarettes and chocolate.
    And they didn't know that I--
    still, I mean, it was just a big mixed up.
    It was in the beginning.
    Then, naturally-- I don't remember
    how long the English stayed.
    They went out and the Americans came.
    And when the Americans came, I mean,
    they came in-- you could see they came in to stay.
    They came in, and they invaded a lot of stuff,
    and they helped all these Auslanders
    from different countries.
    And I'm with my friend.
    We both don't want to work no more, see.
    She stays still where she used to work, and we knew.
    And we both walk in the street one day.
    And we talked Polish to each other.
    And while we talked Polish, an American soldier went by.
    And he heard us talk Polish, and he understood,
    and he answered us.
    And he says, oh, where are you from?
    He says, I was born in Poland, and I went to the United States
    when I was 12 or 13 years old.
    And he says to us, is there any Jewish people here?
    The minute he said that, I want to tell you,
    I really was afraid still to say I'm Jewish.
    I wasn't going to say anything.
    But when he said that, I says, I'm Jewish.
    I'm Jewish.
    He says, you're Jewish?
    You wear a cross?
    You're Jewish.
    I says, you don't have to believe me.
    I says, I'm Jewish, and this girl is Jewish too.
    And we just survived this and this.
    And he says, can you write me something in Jewish?
    He didn't believe us.
    And we said, yes, and we wrote our names in Yiddish,
    in Jewish.
    And then he took our address and everything,
    and he told us that this was in Fellbach.
    He says, in Stuttgart, there was--
    that before the war, there was a big congregation,
    but then they confiscated the congregation,
    and they made a club out of it.
    But in this club, he says, there's
    people who came back from concentration camps
    with striped--
    there's a few there.
    If you want to go, he says, you go and see it.
    But we were still afraid.
    So we don't do nothing.
    And we still stay there.
    And he took our address where we stay, and he brought us food.
    And he was very, very nice.
    He was looking for relatives because his mother probably
    told him, hey, you go there, I have relatives.
    He was looking.
    That's why he asked us about Jewish people.
    And then we stayed-- in another few days--
    we didn't make an attempt to go to this club
    where the people from the concentration camp came.
    And we walked in there with two crosses.
    She wore a cross, and I wore a cross.
    And there were this American chaplain, a Jewish,
    and a few broken, mentally, spiritually, emotionally,
    laying there like vegetables with the striped deals.
    And they Jewish, and they survived.
    And they told us some horror things.
    And we tell this chaplain our little story fast,
    why we Jewish, and what we did.
    He blessed us, and took off the crosses,
    and he gave us mezuzahs.
    And he blessed us.
    And what this mezuzah is-- and we made sure.
    We asked him, are the Americans going to stay here?
    Do the Germans have a chance?
    And this, he says, don't worry.
    He even spoke Jewish, but the Jewish and the German
    were so mixed up that we couldn't speak Jewish.
    We understood.
    And with this mezuzah, we went back to--
    she went with me to my boss to tell him,
    and when we came in, and we said, Mr. Zaltzman,
    sit down for a minute.
    I want to tell you something, well, all this time I
    worked for you, right?
    I'm Jewish, but I had false papers.
    And he sat down, and he says, I'm so happy.
    I'm so happy.
    He was not happy.
    He would have cut me up in pieces
    had he know I'm Jewish, OK?
    But he couldn't get over how we fooled him.
    I says, you think for nothing, I says, I behaved like that,
    and I was so nice?
    And this other place, I says, that they
    wanted to send me home for a furlough,
    I had no place where to go.
    Would I come to you to work, I says, if I wouldn't be Jewish,
    you think?
    No way.
    And he was a big Nazi.
    And he couldn't get over what--
    and we didn't live there anymore.
    There was a DP camp in Stuttgart on Reichsburger Strasse.
    It was a DP camp, we found out.
    I couldn't stay there anymore.
    I mean, he didn't throw me out, but I--
    we went there to the DP camp.
    And then I went with her to her boss
    to give her moral support, that she said the same thing.
    And I mean, they said they were happy.
    They were not happy, believe me.
    And that was already in 1945.
    I know it was in May when they came in.
    What was the first thing you wanted to do
    when you got your freedom?
    When I got my freedom, what I wanted to do,
    I did not want to peel potatoes and wash dishes.
    I just wanted to go, and see, and search if--
    I knew my family is dead.
    But all I was interested is to find somebody from my family
    alive.
    This was my first thing, in which I was going to do that,
    OK?
    So this is-- if you want to listen to some more,
    or I could quit now.
    Tell us-- tell us--
    I was going to tell, you my second chapter
    is that we were in the DP camp.
    And when we went to see these people in this club
    from the concentration camp, my friend, my girlfriend,
    there was another man who, he wasn't so emotionally broken
    up.
    He came also to see, to find somebody.
    And he took a liking to her.
    And he liked her.
    | he was also in the DP camp.
    And he knew he had a brother someplace, OK,
    and he was looking for him.
    He knew a brother survived.
    I knew nothing.
    And at this time, at this point, people came from everywhere.
    They were from the concentration camp, from other places.
    They just looking for each other, terribly, you know.
    And so me, I didn't know where to go to look.
    But I-- since I had this Polish certificate and everything,
    I was going to go back to Poland to see--
    to my hometown.
    Is it really true?
    Is everything gone?
    I was going-- on my way there.
    How did I want to go there?
    My girlfriend did not want to travel.
    She was near Russia there, and she
    knew her family is not alive anymore.
    So she didn't want to-- she was not a good traveler.
    Her friend that we both met knew that he has a brother,
    and he didn't know where he was in Poland, in Germany.
    They were missing each other.
    So he was looking for a brother.
    So he suggested to me, if you look for somebody, let's go.
    I'll go with you, and we're going to both go.
    I says, fine.
    So it was right--
    maybe it was two months or six weeks right
    after this liberation.
    We were in Stuttgart.
    And I was going to go to Poland, OK, with my friend,
    because he thought his brother was there.
    Now we go as far as Munich, and we sit down at Munich
    to wait for a train to go to Berlin, for Berlin to Warsaw.
    And we're sitting in Munich, where there was also a DP camp.
    Feldafing was the name of the DP camp.
    We went through this camp first before we took the train.
    And he didn't find any of his brother.
    And I asked various people from my hometown.
    There was not many survived from my hometown, but a few.
    And they said that my family, they all dead.
    The minute they saw me, they said, they all dead.
    They knew.
    They knew what year and everything.
    But I still wanted to go back to Poland.
    So we go down to that station, and we wait for a train.
    And while I'm sitting near my friend,
    across the street is another man.
    But this, I have to--
    I was on a train--
    on a bus in Munich before I took that train.
    And I'm sitting in the bus.
    And there is this lady gets up.
    She says, oh, you're my daughter.
    She ripped her blouse, and she saw that she had a birthmark.
    See, five years later, you get, like, mature.
    When you're 12, 13, 14, then--
    So she recognized.
    This is how people recognize each other.
    And some of them found each other.
    It was a terrible experience for me to see.
    And then I'm sitting there, waiting for this train
    to come from Munich.
    And across the street, a man is sitting.
    And my friend looks at him.
    He says, oh, I know this man.
    I know this man.
    And he leaves me sitting.
    And he goes over to this man.
    And two minutes later he comes back with this man.
    This man came from Poland.
    And he was from his hometown.
    They went together to school.
    And he says, I advise you not to go to Poland,
    because the Polish people, any Jew who comes for possessions,
    they kill them, OK?
    And this man, later, I married him, was my husband.
    He came, and he told us not to go.
    And we went to Feldafing to look through the camp again.
    And we didn't find anybody else.
    And he, while he was in Munich, my friend,
    he heard that this brother is looking for him in Stuttgart.
    He's looking for him.
    So naturally, we went back to Stuttgart.
    And my friend-- his friend who he met--
    went with us there too, because he told him that there
    is this displaced person camp.
    There's a lot of people from his hometown.
    So that's how I met my husband.
    And he was in the DP camp.
    And my friend-- we went back to my friend.
    And my friend liked him.
    We knew each other maybe--
    this was in-- we met in May, in June, and July, August,
    September, October, and November.
    And in October, we made an engagement party,
    the four of us.
    We got engaged.
    And we made a wedding for November.
    In November we got married.
    And we took this--
    the places where we were not allowed
    to go in as Polish girl, we wanted our wedding
    to be there and everything.
    Now the Burgermeister, you know, the mayor
    from the city, at this time was not a Nazi anymore.
    The Nazi was gone.
    But they took a man who was not in the party for a mayor.
    And we went to this, and in Stuttgart, to this mayor,
    and we told him where we worked and everything,
    and he gave us a little better privileges there.
    So he gave us stuff to arrange for the wedding in the hall,
    where the Nazis used to meet, where nobody else but the Nazi
    were allowed to go into those beautiful halls.
    And that's where we wanted.
    And then my boss where I worked, I used to see him.
    He says, if I could be of any help to you, I'll be of help.
    I says, thank you very much.
    We going to get married.
    And everything went so fast that we got married,
    and we made a wedding.
    And we had this boss, my boss, and the other.
    I did not ask who.
    I worked first.
    But we had a table from Germans, and a table from Polish people,
    and then the DPs.
    You see, anybody who came to Stuttgart we met,
    because we were there during the war.
    So we used to help them.
    And we all stayed together with the bunches
    of people who were, like, a year younger,
    but they were like babies.
    And we got married.
    After you were married, how long did you live there?
    OK, after I was married, I want to tell you
    that while this soldier, this American soldier who saw us,
    before he went back to the United States,
    he came to say goodbye to us, and he brought
    us cigarettes and stuff.
    And he says, what can I do for you when
    I'll get to the United States?
    And I made a joke.
    And I says, what you could do for me
    is, I know I have relatives.
    I don't know where they live--
    nothing.
    All I know is their names, because my father
    used to show me letters, and pictures, and this and that.
    So I gave him--
    I didn't even know in which cities, all the correct names.
    I gave him my name, where I was born,
    and my grandfather's name, and my father's name.
    And I says anybody who is going to be interested on me
    is going to get in touch.
    And when he went back to the United States,
    I want you to know, he was living in Brooklyn.
    There used to be a Jewish Forverts.
    I don't know whether you're familiar.
    It was a Jewish-- a very strong, big, Jewish paper.
    And of course The New York Times.
    He put me in this Jewish Forverts.
    And then he put me in The New York Time.
    And he also put me in the Canadian,
    because I told him I have relatives in Canada.
    And at this time, in 1947, Canada could not--
    the DPs could not go to Canada.
    So we had to come to the United States.
    So what happened is an uncle of mine from Toronto
    found me in the Jewish paper.
    And he had a son who was my cousin and lived in New York.
    And he called him up to tell him that some from the relatives
    survived, and we have to do something about it.
    So they all got together.
    And before I knew it, I got papers.
    But that time, when this soldier left, I wasn't married, see.
    I was single, and you know.
    So they send me papers on my maiden name, just for me.
    I mean, I didn't have any letters, nothing.
    But I had to go, be prepared to go with the first boat
    to the United States.
    And then, when I got these-- in the meantime, when
    I got these papers, in the meantime,
    I already was married.
    In the meantime, I already was pregnant.
    [LAUGHS] It was fast.
    And so this-- we went to the united--
    the united service for DPs, for the--
    Joint Distribution.
    And I showed them the papers, and that I'm married,
    in the meantime.
    So they said fine.
    They add my husband's name and everything,
    and they said he could go with me too.
    But they asked my relatives to pay for the fare.
    And then they send them again that I'm pregnant.
    But the pregnancy was nothing, because I
    was going to go while I was pregnant,
    and the baby should be born the United States.
    So the first transport left--
    I think it was supposed to leave in January '47 or '46.
    I don't remember when the first transport-- but I
    went to Bremerhaven with my husband.
    I was in my sixth month at this point.
    And they did not let me go, because there was a war ship.
    And they had no nurses, no doctors, no nothing.
    If anything would happen to me, it would be my responsibility.
    And they wanted my husband to sign,
    and he didn't want to sign.
    So we went back from Bremerhaven to Stuttgart,
    and we stayed there, and we had a place
    where to stay from-- the mayor gave us a place.
    And we waited.
    The baby should be born.
    And when the baby is three months old, we could go.
    So in the meantime, the Joint sent more papers
    to my relatives to say I already have a baby.
    Well, all this went by fine.
    I had a healthy baby.
    And I finally went to the United States.
    And when I got to the United States,
    the soldier was there waiting with my relatives.
    He got in touch.
    He put his name, and he put his telephone number,
    and my relatives got in touch with him.
    And he came.
    And he told them that he saw me.
    He met me in the street and everything.
    He was a very nice guy, this man.
    I fixed him up later, and he got married.
    I fixed him up.
    [LAUGHS]
    And I was with my cousins in New York.
    I came to New York.
    And they were very nice, very nice people.
    And I came with a husband and a child.
    And I couldn't stay there.
    I mean, they didn't tell me to go, but how long can you stay?
    They were living in two bedrooms themself,
    and they had two children, and she was pregnant.
    In that time, it was very hard to find apartments,
    because in the war time they didn't build any.
    So we found, in the Lower East Side, an apartment,
    that it was all condemned to be thrown down.
    But they opened it up for those refugees.
    Helen, how much have you shared of this with your children,
    and what kind of impact do you think?
    Oh, some with my children.
    My children had terrible experience.
    [CRYING] My children know, but they
    have terrible experience because my husband was
    a very angry man.
    [CRYING] He's a very smart man, and very intellectual,
    but very angry.
    I mean, angry.
    And my kids suffered a lot, and one still suffers.
    One escaped the suffering because he was not--
    he was stronger, so he didn't--
    it didn't affect him that much.
    But my oldest son it affected terrible.
    And my youngest is on drugs.
    A very smart little kid who my husband told him he
    could do anything he wants to do.
    He went to private school, to yeshiva.
    And he traveled.
    He had his bar mitzvah in Israel.
    He was kosher, and he's a bum.
    He's 28.
    And my husband is a weak man.
    He couldn't take all that.
    Very successful.
    He made a lot of money.
    And the money didn't go into his head, but he's very weak,
    and he just didn't feel good about himself.
    He was very angry, and he knew he failed with his kids,
    and he knew it was his fault.
    And I never told him that, but he knew, and he never
    would communicate.
    He would never talk about anything.
    He just-- either you do what you're told or forget it.
    A very domineering, and very--
    Do you think that was because of the concentration camp
    experience?
    You can't blame everything on the concentration camp.
    I mean, if a person is very nice, and he's communicative,
    he could only come out nicer.
    I think he was the eighth child from his parents,
    and his father was a very domineering person,
    and this was his nature.
    And of course, the war made him a little angry,
    because he was studying to be a engineer.
    And he is lucky.
    He's the luckiest man because all his brothers and sisters
    were in Israel except for two in Poland,
    because they were communists.
    He has an interesting family.
    And he wanted to go to Israel.
    And he wrote one brother.
    And one brother never answered him.
    So he got to the concentration camp.
    It made him some angry, but he had a lot of anger in him
    before.
    And he didn't physically abuse my kids,
    but mentally he abused them, because he didn't feel good
    about himself.
    So they never did anything good no matter how good they try.
    When you don't do never good, you give up.
    I mean, how much can you do?
    How do you think--
    let's focus back on you for just a second here.
    In looking back at your whole childhood,
    and the whole experience during the Holocaust years,
    how has that affected you in the way
    that you approach life now, say, in Dallas?
    I mean, at times I was nervous.
    I think I got to be a better person because, like I told
    you, it doesn't come to me what I have,
    and not that I don't deserve it.
    I do.
    But I don't feel guilty, because I did the best to my knowledge,
    and I didn't kill anybody.
    I didn't kill my parents.
    And I don't have any guilt feelings.
    However, I mean, when you come with that experience in a young
    age, and you cannot--
    I mean, I did not have my experience to be educated.
    I just educated myself from reading by myself, from life.
    Some people go through books, and I went through life.
    Are you angry or bitter now about all this?
    No, no.
    I was never a bitter person.
    Like I told you.
    No.
    When you're bitter, you're just going to suffer yourself.
    Nobody owes me anything.
    I don't expect anything from-- when I do something,
    it's because I want to do.
    I choose to do.
    But nobody owes me back.
    That's what I want to do and I choose to do.
    I mean, you can't expect, because you
    don't expect from my husband-- look, I lived with my husband
    for 26 years.
    He didn't have to do what he did.
    And so am I going to be angry at him?
    It was his loss, not mine.
    And it's still his loss, because he's still running.
    Do you think, as you look back on the whole--
    your whole upbringing in those years,
    was there any meaning to it for you?
    How do you explain it to yourself?
    How I explained?
    Like I told you before, there had
    to be a meaning, because for me to survive, to be able to talk
    about my parents, and about my family,
    and to give some charity for them, or say,
    like, a prayer for them, is the meaning.
    And maybe it was meant for me to live.
    Like I told you, I still have--
    I enjoy life.
    I'm healthy.
    And thank god I feel young enough
    to have a bar mitzvah son, grandson.
    My other grandson is going to be bar mitzvah.
    I have one son who is doing very, very well,
    and hopefully my younger one is going
    to straighten out, which he would have if my husband would
    have take charge.
    But my husband is a weak man.
    He just gave up a beautiful business and everything,
    and he just lives in Israel, and he has enough to live good,
    and so he doesn't want to have a part.
    You see, money and stuff was not his bag.
    He had other values.
    He had good values.
    But of course, when a person doesn't
    feel about himself good, and when he gets older,
    he feels worse.
    But when you don't express your feelings,
    and you don't talk about it, it gets worse.
    OK.
    Do you have any last comments about all of this?
    Or do you have any questions?
    It's very hard to condense five years of this horror in an hour
    or--
    what time is it?
    An hour and a half.
    An hour.
    An hour and a half.
    What time is it?
    It's almost 3:00.
    It's almost 3 o'clock.
    Yeah, I have to pick up some-- and it's hard,
    but I did the best.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    What would you-- what would you want
    someone who was watching, listening to you now,
    to remember most of what you shared,
    in just a minute or two.
    What was most important for this for you?
    They should remember that their heritage is important.
    They should stand up for what they believe in.
    And they shouldn't let themselves do what we did.
    They should fight for their rights.
    And that history shouldn't repeat itself.
    That it was a terrible thing.
    You could only help by not escaping.
    If I'm going to say, I'm not Jewish,
    and I'm going to bury my head so I don't see,
    that's not going to help.
    You could be Jewish.
    You could be a better American when
    you believe in your heritage, and you help your fellow Jew,
    and you help everybody.
    OK.
    Want to thank you.
    OK, well, that ought to do it.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    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.
    Interviewee
    Helen Neuberg
    Interviewer
    James Pennebaker
    Alan Griffin
    Date
    interview:  1985 October 26

    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
    Neuberg, Helen, 1926-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    James Pennebaker and Alan Griffin of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies conducted the interview with Helen Neuberg on October 26, 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 January 8, 1991. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the interview by transfer from the Oral History branch in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:09:03
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