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Oral history interview with Eddy Wynschenk

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.382 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0382

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    Oral history interview with Eddy Wynschenk
    Transcript

    There is no transcript available for this track

    There is no transcript available for this track

    OK, Eddy, why don you start out by telling us,
    have you ever talked about this before?
    No.
    I do talk a lot, for the last 18 years,
    about what happened to me between 1940 and 1945,
    as a non-professional speaker who doesn't accept any fees--
    I emphasize that.
    But I never, except with my wife and two children,
    never talked publicly about what happened from our liberation
    till, say, today.
    And I feel I have to talk about it.
    I don't know if I can succeed, because it makes me--
    it is kind of reliving again.
    But I feel there is a continuation of the Holocaust.
    The Holocaust will always be in me if I like it or not.
    It will always affect my life and is affecting my life.
    And why don't you start out by saying how
    you think it affects your life.
    During the interview, it will come out
    how it affects my life--
    emotionally, physically, where the anger comes from,
    the pain comes from.
    Because when I was liberated, I never
    realized till many, many years ago--
    I lived for 32 years--
    actually, yes, in 1940, when the Germans occupied
    my country, then Holland, till 1972,
    I lived in a state of shock, but I never realized.
    All my feelings were gone.
    I could not feel, actually, real enjoyment,
    couldn't feel any pain.
    I was numb.
    I was told I was in the freezer for 32 years.
    I've been slowly but surely in a process of defrosting.
    I can talk about what happened in the camps.
    And I will try to talk about what happened after the camps.
    Yeah.
    What started this defrosting process?
    That started in 1972 in a way.
    You mentioned something about your 12-year-old son
    helped start this.
    Yeah.
    Now we jump to 1972, OK?
    Well, we could either do that or we could go back and start.
    I'd rather start from the beginning.
    OK, let's do that.
    But whatever is better for you.
    No, that's fine.
    Let's go ahead and--
    Is he taping now?
    Yeah, he is.
    Oh, I'm sorry.
    No, it's OK.
    Go ahead-- so why don't you start
    talking about what happened at liberation.
    I was liberated-- by the way, I was born in Amsterdam, Holland.
    My whole family was murdered.
    I was liberated by the United States Army 104th Infantry
    Division, nicknamed the Timberwolves.
    But when I was liberated, I didn't know who liberated me.
    I only saw American soldiers.
    I was, from April 1943 till April 1945, exactly two years,
    at five different camps as a teenager.
    I was never a teenager.
    I don't know what it is to be a teenager.
    Because from 1940, when the Germans
    invaded my country, then Holland, I was 12 years old.
    And I never had a normal childhood.
    I don't say that to have sympathy,
    but that is the facts, part of my life.
    It also said by professional people, that survivors
    who were in the teens--
    and not many teenagers survived--
    in their life, generally speaking,
    have a much harder life than people who were already adults
    when they went in the camp.
    Because the growing years, from child to adult,
    I never experienced.
    But I was 17 years old in age, but I
    was a very old man on account of my experience
    in the concentration camps.
    I was one year in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And that, by itself, was enough.
    I was 70 pounds, 7-0.
    I was a cripple.
    I am a cripple.
    All my ten toes are cut off.
    Again, what I'm talking about is not for sympathy or pity.
    It is facts, it's history.
    Also, during this interview, there's
    a possibility that people don't like to hear it or don't agree.
    But as long as I tell the truth, if people can't handle it,
    it is not my baby.
    I also feel very strong that I have
    to do the interview as a message to people and particularly
    to the younger generation, born after World War II.
    50% of the population of our country are born after 1940.
    So I was liberated in the concentration camp Dora,
    near Nordhausen, where the V-1 and V-2 rocket
    factories were underground.
    That was actually a subcamp of Buchenwald.
    Near every big concentration camp in the area,
    you had little subcamps.
    Go on.
    Oh, OK.
    So you were in a displaced persons--
    No, no, I was liberated from a concentration camp.
    The American soldiers opened the gates
    and experienced hell and death they never were trained for.
    What did you observe about the American soldiers
    and how they reacted?
    I mean, I was completely numb.
    I said before, I was numb, in a state of shock, from 1940
    until '72.
    I didn't have any cause for celebration
    because my whole family was murdered.
    I didn't feel any enjoyment nor emotion.
    I was dead inside, no feelings.
    And now the American soldiers.
    On April 11, one American tank in the concentration
    camp with three members of the United States Army.
    And I was fortunate, with the other survivors, in 1986,
    they had a reunion, my liberators,
    in South Sydney in the airport Hilton.
    And it was the first time after 41 years,
    that we could say thank you.
    And the people who liberated me, the first tank, the only tank,
    were still alive.
    And they remembered.
    Then we cried and laughed together.
    It goes without saying.
    Then, the next day, on April 12, Americans
    came, all American soldiers.
    I remember I learned English in high school.
    I was only a couple of years in high school.
    And most people, the few people who were in the camp--
    we were all, by the way, skeletons--
    the American soldiers, the first thing
    they did, the goodness from their heart,
    the giving, they gave us all military food,
    the canned goods, the canned food.
    But our system couldn't handle it.
    But they never experienced so much inhumanity.
    Skeletons.
    There are many who survived who died on account of the food.
    But Americans are not to blame.
    Later, they realized we had to stop it.
    Because it's something foreign for them.
    They were trained to fight the soldiers,
    there were not prepared for what they
    saw when they opened the gates.
    But I was too ill to eat.
    But I do remember that the Americans had Lucky Strike
    cigarettes.
    And everybody want to have cigarettes.
    And I was the only one who could speak a little bit of English.
    So the American soldiers gave me cartons of cigarettes
    to give to the other fellows.
    And when I did light the first cigarette, I fainted.
    I remember I fainted.
    Because I couldn't handle it.
    The American soldiers-- you asked me-- they
    were very angry.
    They were in a rage.
    They wanted to give all the inmates who could walk weapons
    to go after the Germans.
    Some of the inmates who could walk went to villages
    and killed Germans.
    One could say, hey, that's crude.
    Innocent people.
    But around every concentration camp, all camps in the area,
    were villages.
    And they knew.
    Like I said, it's inhuman.
    You can't kill people.
    But it was again a kind of revenge.
    I couldn't participate.
    Maybe otherwise I probably would have.
    What made you unable?
    You were physically unable?
    Not physically-- I couldn't walk.
    I didn't have any toes.
    OK, so it was physical.
    Physical, yes.
    The American soldiers told the inmates, when go in the village
    and you see some of the murderers,
    they changed clothes.
    They had civilian clothes.
    So some inmates went in the villages
    and recognized the murderers.
    So the American soldiers said, don't touch them,
    bring them in.
    And they brought him in.
    And what they did was, just after the liberation,
    a short amount of liberation, they told the ex-inmates,
    OK, beat them up.
    And finally the Americans shot them to death.
    No trial, nothing.
    But they saw there was no time for trial.
    And then the commander--
    I think it was the ex-governor of New York, Carey, C-A-R-E-Y,
    many years ago, he was governor of New York.
    And I think he was in charge.
    He said, stop.
    We were not allowed to get out.
    Then we went to Buchenwald, the main camp.
    Now, you want me to continue to talk?
    Mm-hmm.
    I never saw a doctor.
    I can't remember.
    I'm talking at liberation.
    I can't remember ever seeing a doctor.
    Because the war was still continuing.
    It was April 11.
    Many of my liberators were killed afterwards,
    between the 11th of April and the 8th
    of May, the end of the war.
    The war wasn't over.
    So we went to Buchenwald, but it was liberated,
    I think, also April the 11th.
    Now, in the camp, you were always bald.
    And before the liberation, I was very, very ill.
    My toes were cut off.
    And I had other illnesses apparently.
    I don't remember what it was.
    And I never had my hair shaved, the head shaved.
    So my hair was growing.
    And it was not allowed.
    And I remember-- now I go back to before the liberation--
    the barber was a Belgian inmate.
    He said, hey, Dutchman, come down, because you know,
    the haircut.
    I said, I'm too ill.
    But then they'll beat the hell out of you.
    I said, I don't care.
    I'm too ill.
    I could not physically--
    and I could care less.
    So when I was liberated, as a young child,
    I had a lot of wavy hair.
    I was always proud of my hair, I remember.
    What I have now is still mine, of course, but not as much.
    So when I was liberated, I had a little bit of hair
    in a little wave.
    So when we arrived in Buchenwald,
    they put us in barracks.
    This is after liberation, I'm talking about.
    And then they had German soldiers, POWs.
    They had to take care of us.
    And they were very--
    of course they lost the war, thank God--
    but they had a kind of fear.
    But I never realized it till many years after the war,
    but I remember, very well, one of the first things I did--
    by that time, I only spoke German.
    Now I can't, and I don't want to.
    Then.
    So I ordered them around the way they ordered me around.
    I said, bring me a comb and some soap,
    whatever you can find of water.
    I want to wash my head and I want to comb my hair.
    And I want to see a mirror.
    This is the first time I saw myself.
    So they brought it to me.
    And I hold up the mirror.
    And I never forget.
    There are things I never forget.
    And I told them--
    let me clean it up-- you idiot, higher, higher, the mirror,
    I can't see it.
    Are you kind of a nut?
    But other language.
    The same words they used to me, I used to them.
    One can say, why do you lower yourself on their level?
    No, but for two years, I only heard--
    the nice expression was, you dirty Jew, you Jewish pig,
    you are not human, the little ants
    are better than you are We were not human beings.
    We were human garbage in the camp.
    So and I understand it's very hard for people
    to comprehend, to understand, what it was all about
    if one always lived in peace and freedom
    and slept in their own bed.
    I understand.
    But they have to try to have some kind of compassion
    with people like myself.
    And I'm not the only one been through.
    And then I remember they put us on a plane.
    I went back to Holland, to the southern part of Holland.
    It was May 14.
    I have a tremendous memory of dates.
    Now, May 14, a special meaning that date.
    On May 14, 1940, the war between Germany and Holland was over.
    Holland was completely occupied.
    On May 14, 1943, My father and mother
    were murdered by the Germans in the extermination camp Sobibor.
    How ironic I arrived back in Holland May 14, 1945.
    I hope I make sense to you.
    Yeah, it does.
    We went by plane.
    And I remember I was--
    I don't like to fly.
    But it was a military plane.
    We were on stretchers.
    And we went to the southern part of Holland
    that was liberated in 1944.
    They were already liberated.
    The rest of Holland was liberated May the 5th.
    Anyway, when we arrived in Holland, I never saw.
    Because again, and I repeat myself many times
    during the interview, I know that already,
    about any kind of shock, no feelings, no expectations.
    I remember there were people from the Red Cross,
    and ambulances.
    And they brought us to-- there was nobody to say, I remember--
    welcome home.
    Nobody.
    Later I think I realized why.
    But it was many years later.
    Then I didn't--
    I only remembered what happened, and no reasoning, nothing,
    and no feelings.
    I hope it makes sense to you.
    I'm not sure.
    Do you mean that you just felt it--
    Many years later.
    You didn't feel it.
    Then, no, I didn't feel anything.
    But when you finally did realize why you thought
    it happened, why was it?
    Oh, a lot of anger came out.
    But it's much later in my life.
    But what I'm telling you, I'm now back actually May 14,
    when I arrived in Holland, 1945.
    Right.
    Do I confuse you?
    No.
    Please tell me.
    Because again, I never talked about it before.
    Yeah.
    No, I understand.
    And nobody was there at all.
    No.
    And I'm actually visualizing what happened to me, even
    though I didn't see myself.
    And I'm sorry, what did you say?
    There was nobody there, no.
    Ambulances.
    Then they brought us to a--
    I talk about "us," not only Jewish people
    were liberated, underground fighters, people from Holland
    who were real, very ill.
    I think others went by train, but I'm talking only
    what happened to me.
    They brought us to an emergency hospital.
    It was a school used as in hospital.
    I never forget when they put me in a bed--
    and I couldn't walk.
    I was on a stretcher.
    I was a real bed, real pillows, pillowcases, real sheets.
    I remember, all of us, we only talked German.
    And I-- I'll just talk to the nurse.
    And I told her, in German, schwester--
    something like that.
    That means nurse.
    And then she said, you are in Holland.
    Don't you know how to say it in Holland?
    Because apparently, in the camps, you're so brainwashed,
    or a robot, whatever.
    I don't know if I ever talked Dutch in the camps.
    I can't remember that part.
    In the camps in Germany and in Poland, I'm talking about.
    I also was in camps in Holland.
    But anyway, again, the only people who visited us were,
    every day, two nuns came.
    And they knitted for me a pair of slippers.
    They never talked about religion.
    They were real good human beings.
    But I realized later why they did it.
    Apparently they want to give something from themselves.
    They knew-- not from me, maybe from the doctors--
    I didn't have any toes.
    I was the youngest in the big room, maybe 40, 50 guys.
    And I was the baby.
    And I also remember the nurses always tucked me in.
    They tucked me in in the night and gave me a kiss on the cheek
    because I was a child.
    I was 17 years old.
    And I remember the other inmates were jealous, gave me
    a bad time.
    But by the way, I never knew--
    maybe, thinking back, I had three sisters.
    One was married, had a baby--
    and a husband, of course-- and was murdered,
    and two other sisters, but I was the youngest.
    And the other, I think, two sisters who were not
    married always spoiled me.
    So maybe the sisters who spoiled me in my mind were,
    in my unconsciousness, were my sisters
    when I was a little child, before the war, who spoiled me.
    Does that make sense to you?
    Yeah.
    Yeah, it does.
    And then something happened.
    They brought in, in the big room,
    kind of a big room, a classroom, actually,
    but they had changed it to put beds in, whatever--
    oh yeah, we got German cigarettes.
    But German POWs who were working downstairs, we heard,
    were smoking Camel and Lucky Strike.
    So the adults-- not myself--
    from us raised hell.
    Oof did they raise hell.
    (GRUMBLING) The bastards, I mean,
    they-- and we have the Germans.
    That was right they changed and stopped.
    They got the Germans and we got the good ones.
    I didn't raise hell, but I remember that it happened.
    There's so much anger then.
    But I never realized till many years
    later what they did to us, the Germans, that is.
    I mention Germans, not Nazis, because I only
    know about Germans.
    The people who did it to my family and me
    never showed the ID of a member of the Nazi party, whatever
    it were.
    The Germans-- I want to emphasize that, the Germans
    during World War II.
    Then, one day, they brought in a young man, maybe my age.
    His whole body was open.
    And we found out he was a Dutch young man who volunteered
    to fight the Russians.
    And he was kind of dying.
    And we could care less if he raised hell.
    Get that traitor off the room here.
    And he was always crying and whatever.
    He was a volunteer and fought the Allies, the Russians,
    whatever.
    So we didn't want to have a part of him.
    Later we found out he died, and we enjoyed it very much.
    Sounds inhuman, but he was one of our enemies,
    regardless of his age, because he went voluntarily.
    Yeah, he was a real volunteer.
    Yeah.
    Why?
    [GRUMBLING IN WONDER] But the insensitivity started there.
    Why to put such a person in the same room with all--
    Jews and non-Jew alike, physically handicapped, we
    were all physically handicapped.
    You don't put such a person together with us.
    Do I make sense to you?
    Yes, it makes sense to me.
    But again, of course, the doctors and the nurses
    didn't realize what we went through.
    Now, then, one day, a young lady came.
    And she was a Jewish young girl.
    Apparently she was maybe my age, a couple of years younger,
    in hiding with her parents.
    And she made me--
    and I saved this.
    It is now 45 years old.
    "Netherlands Buchenwald," with the flag from the Netherlands.
    And she wrote on the back, "please remember me,"
    and her name, "Ruth Winter," as the climate, winter,
    and her address.
    And I saw her, I think, once.
    I didn't know how she knew about me.
    I don't know.
    Oh, it was announced on the radio.
    I'm sorry.
    It was announced on the radio when survivors came back
    in Holland, and names.
    And we heard our own names being announced.
    Maybe that's how she knew.
    I don't know.
    And I will never throw it away.
    It's very touching.
    People who visited us were people from the neighborhood.
    And one day, a lady came from the Dutch Red Cross.
    I can laugh about it now.
    What she brought us was pencils and paper, (FACETIOUSLY)
    just what we needed.
    Pencils and paper-- insensitive.
    Besides the two nuns, nobody of any--
    no rabbi ever showed up, no priests, nobody.
    Only the two nuns came and stood for a couple of minutes,
    every bed, how are you doing?
    And then, for me, they made the slippers.
    And I needed slippers because I couldn't walk on shoes.
    I couldn't walk at all then.
    But here is maybe my anger slowly coming out.
    And that's all right.
    I let it come out.
    Why not?
    It was here long enough.
    Then, one day-- my mother had sisters,
    and everybody was murdered except one sister, who
    was married with a non-Jew.
    He was a principal of a high school.
    By the way, during the war, he was not
    allowed to stay principal.
    They kicked him out because even though he was non-Jewish,
    his wife was Jewish.
    They had one daughter.
    And one day, she came with a girlfriend--
    how they knew that I survived, I never asked, I don't know--
    to visit me.
    But thinking back about it and looking back to that time,
    I don't think I had any feelings.
    Oh, they were sweet.
    They came, I think, by bike.
    Or they got some transportation.
    I don't know.
    Tremendous distance from Amsterdam
    to the southern part of Holland.
    It was very sweet, but I didn't feel anything.
    I hope it makes sense to you.
    But nothing-- no hugging, no kissing, no holding hands,
    no tears, not from my side.
    It was dead, completely dead.
    It's hard maybe to understand or to comprehend that a person can
    be completely without feelings.
    I think probably it is hard for a lot of people
    to comprehend it.
    But I do comprehend it.
    Yeah, and I was told, many, many years later,
    it was a part of my survival in your unconscious.
    Unconsciousness, you block everything out.
    So completely in the freezer.
    And a big fence around me.
    But anyway, then I had my 18th birthday in that hospital.
    Before you move on, did you ever see your family again,
    your mother's sister and her daughter?
    Oh yeah.
    You did.
    OK.
    Oh yeah.
    As I said before, people did not visit.
    It still amazes me.
    Some of the fellows could walk.
    By the way, we did not have any clothes.
    We still had our inmate outfits, mind you.
    So they went-- they were allowed, in daytime,
    to go walk around in that city.
    The city is-- ever heard about the big Phillips Corporation?
    P-h-i-l-i-p-s.
    It is a giant nowadays.
    In that city, Eindhoven--
    you want me to spell it?
    Yeah, go ahead.
    E-i-n-d-h-o-v-e-n.
    And they were allowed to walk.
    And when they saw people walking in the pajama kind of outfit,
    they gave them presents and everything.
    Oh, yeah, the population was fantastic.
    And they brought it for us too.
    But people-- officially, nobody visited us.
    But anyway, then I left.
    I couldn't walk, or hardly walk.
    I had to learn to walk again.
    Because when you have toes--
    I think, I don't even remember anymore--
    I presume you go that way when you walk.
    But I walk on my heels.
    There's a foot.
    So I had to learn to walk.
    And you still walk that way, right?
    Oh, yes, to keep a balance.
    Does that cause other physical problems, like with your back?
    No, my feet.
    And the older I get, the worse it gets.
    But if you ask me later about it,
    I'm more than happy to tell you.
    I don't want to be rude, but otherwise I lose it.
    And again, I never talked about it before.
    So it is not that easy to keep the story straight.
    OK, I'm sorry.
    No, no, no, that's OK.
    My feet didn't want to heal.
    But they were amputated, my toes.
    But there was still junk coming out.
    But I learned how to put bandages on.
    We had doctors who looked at it.
    Yeah, once they found a little--
    because my toes were amputated with a pair of scissors, not
    a regular amputation.
    And I was conscious.
    It was in the camp, of course.
    So they took a pair of scissors, cut it off.
    Apparently there was still bones left.
    So once I remember a bone was growing out,
    out of the amputation.
    And then the doctors looked at it and pulled it out.
    Yeah, that happened once.
    So then I had to learn to walk as a little child.
    Thank God for the beautiful nuns.
    They made me the slippers.
    Otherwise I couldn't-- no shoes, of course.
    So I walked, in a way, held by nurses,
    on slippers, on my heels.
    I was scared to death to put my foot down.
    I walked that way.
    Now I walk that way.
    I went in an ambulance, and I went to my aunt and uncle
    and their daughter to live.
    Now, let me first tell you, the people meant well.
    But I was 18 years old.
    Under the law, in Holland then, you're a minor till you're 21.
    In age, I was 18, but experience of life, maybe I was 150 or 200
    or 500, I don't know.
    So they thought, here is Eddy back, and he's 18 years old.
    And we'll treat him as any other 18-year-old,
    as their own daughter.
    But that didn't work out.
    Let me explain what I mean.
    Here we go, the insensitivity of people.
    They're not bad people, let me emphasize it.
    And my aunt was a sick woman.
    She had diabetes.
    They treated me the same as, say, their daughter.
    You know, you're 18 years old.
    You have to be home by that time and whatever.
    And they meant well.
    But here, who came back from death and hell,
    I don't want to be boxed in.
    I want to breathe.
    But they didn't realize that they cut off my breathing.
    Not to hurt me, but didn't know.
    They saw an 18-year-old kid.
    I didn't stay there long because they couldn't handle me.
    But while I stayed there, they never asked--
    they did ask me, did you see any one of the family, aunts,
    or uncles, whatever?
    I said no.
    They never asked me--
    actually, in the hospital, nobody asked me.
    And that was the beginning of my anger building up
    that came out after '72, pain, and anger, and rage.
    No-- my own family, my aunt or uncle, they never asked,
    Eddy, do you mind to talk about it?
    Maybe I would have said, no, I don't
    know want to talk about it.
    Oh, OK.
    You mean, do they do you want to talk about it, not do you mind.
    Whatever.
    It just confused me.
    I'm sorry.
    No, no, they didn't ask me, Eddy, do you mind,
    we'd like to know more.
    Do you think you can talk about it?
    Will you tell us what happened to you?
    They didn't want to know.
    No, no, no, no, no.
    It was never asked.
    Later I realized, on account of my counseling that I have, why.
    And it angers me tremendously.
    Maybe I don't make sense to you.
    They did not ask me any questions.
    They didn't ask me, what happened to you, whatever.
    They didn't even ask me, how come you don't have any toes?
    They knew I didn't have any toes.
    They knew that.
    OK.
    Then, I didn't realize it.
    I wish they would have asked me, not only them but other people.
    I would maybe be a different person now.
    Thank God now, if you take the Vietnam veterans--
    thank God, they deserve it--
    the delayed stress syndrome, they get treatment,
    and they recognize psychiatry, whatever.
    I never heard about psychiatry or go to a doctor.
    So everything stayed frozen.
    Now, on account that I was a handicapped person,
    I went to the disability department
    to ask for a disability payment.
    Now, let me make it clear.
    I never in my life asked for money
    because I think people owed me money
    or they owe it to me on account that I'm a survivor.
    No way, I'm too proud for that.
    But I thought, I was a Dutchman then, right,
    I was a kid when it happened to me.
    When I came back, I was still a kid.
    My uncle by the way was appointed by the court
    as official guardian.
    My aunt and uncle told me, your father left money behind.
    Well, I didn't know.
    You have to pay us, every week, 20 guilders--
    say $20, but you have an exchange, of course.
    But you don't work, of course, because you're sick.
    We take that from the money.
    And when you're 21 years old--
    we wrote everything down, and we're honest people.
    Don't misunderstand.
    I hope I make myself clear.
    So they charged me $20 a week as a boarder.
    And they took it from the money they had from my father.
    OK, do it make sense?
    Mm-hmm.
    And when I was 21, it was all honest and good people.
    But again, no warmth, no hug, no nothing.
    It was cold.
    Maybe I was cold too.
    I don't know.
    Maybe in my unconscious, I drove people maybe away.
    I don't know.
    Was this new after the war?
    Before the war, were they warmer when you were around them?
    I was only a kid.
    So you don't remember?
    No, I remember them from before the war.
    But I was not the same child.
    They thought they would see the same child that they
    knew 11, 12 years old.
    They expected the same apparently.
    And a person who came back from the death and hell
    was a very old man at age 17.
    If I would be in their shoes, maybe I
    would have acted the same way they did.
    Do I make sense to you?
    Yeah, it does.
    Does it answer your question?
    Yeah.
    Did you find it just as insensitive that they would
    charge this board from you?
    Not then.
    Again, I was in a state of shock, no feelings.
    I could care less.
    I didn't have any feelings.
    It didn't touch me.
    Much later--
    Did that bother you later then?
    Oh, yeah.
    A lot of things.
    But I will talk about it later if you don't mind.
    No, no, I was still a robot in a way.
    But I never recognized myself then as a robot.
    I was told years later, during counseling.
    So I went to the department of unemployment.
    And I wanted to have an unemployment disability.
    I'll never forget, it was an elderly gentleman.
    I told him my background and why I could hardly
    walk, only in slippers.
    How it went, I don't remember.
    And the man started crying.
    The bureaucrat was crying.
    And he said, I want to prove to you
    that you can't get any money.
    He wanted to prove to me.
    And I remember he opened the big book.
    He said, under article whatever in the year
    1900 whatever, if you never paid in, you can never collect.
    And he cried.
    He said he was an underground fighter and he saved people.
    It hurt him so much to tell me, nothing for you.
    Again, I didn't have any pain.
    Then, at the beginning of the war,
    my father and myself gave to our neighbors.
    I helped my father carrying-- it was in 1941,
    beginning of '42, '41, '42--
    carrying all kinds of stuff to neighbors who we thought
    were honest, decent people, in case that when we come back.
    It was silverware but also my bike.
    So after the war, my aunt--
    and I was walking on slippers--
    I didn't have any shoes.
    I never heard about orthopedic shoes, nothing.
    I went with public transportation.
    So we went to see the people.
    And then I saw a beautiful carpet from my mom and dad
    on the floor.
    First of all, after they took us away
    in 1943, before the Germans came to plunder it
    and sent it to Germany, neighbors--
    it happened all over the place-- went
    in the homes of the Jewish people and grabbing
    whatever they could.
    I don't say they're bad people, but this is what they did.
    So I saw the carpet.
    So I asked him not even about the carpet.
    I want to have my bike back, I want to have the crates back.
    Then there was a big fight--
    not physically.
    The oldest son, who later became a member of the clergy,
    mind you, worked part-time for the police.
    And he threatened me.
    Here I'm just back from hell and death.
    If I don't leave their home, they will go,
    they will get the police.
    They'd arrest me, put me back in jail.
    Here I am just 18 years old, emotional a cripple,
    one can say, physically a cripple.
    Besides being a cripple, the experience--
    I only came to get what was legally mine.
    Finally he gave me only my bike back.
    But he took off the tires.
    Would you believe that?
    The tires of the bike.
    There were very religious Christian people.
    Now, I have to jump a couple of years later.
    I'll come back to that later.
    In that same period, '41, '42, I helped
    my married sister bring all kind of stuff
    to neighbors for safekeeping.
    A lot of Jewish people thought they
    had neighbors they could trust.
    I also went there because I was close to my married sister,
    especially on account of her little baby, who was murdered
    when she was 1 year old.
    But I always loved her very much,
    even though I was only, when she was born, 14 years old.
    So I went to the neighbors of my sister's.
    And here's what they told me.
    Before, when your sister brought the stuff,
    they give us instructions-- don't give it to anybody
    except to us when we come back.
    I said, I brought it over with my sister myself.
    Because I know you.
    I know your name because we visited.
    When I visited my sister, we visited you next door.
    Very religious people.
    I never got it back.
    Then I talk now about people who took advantage.
    But then my father, who had a wholesale business in fruit
    and vegetables for many, many years, a wholesale business,
    in Amsterdam, had clients of course.
    And as a child, I was always working--
    and really working-- with my father in the business.
    He'd say, you can visit, but you have to work.
    On account that I helped him--
    It was till 1941.
    I was born in 1927.
    So as far as I know, it was always
    on the wholesale market, not the retail.
    You'd start in the middle of the night.
    Anyway, I always had to carry heavy crates.
    Maybe that helped me survive.
    Somebody told me, years ago, that I had such strong arms
    that I could do work.
    I don't know.
    But he had two clients who I knew very well.
    And in the old country, you would never
    say, to older people, by their first name.
    You never call them Joe.
    It was always Uncle Joe and Aunt Mary, for instance.
    Never by first name.
    Oh, you're kidding.
    No way.
    So I remember them as Uncle So-and-so.
    So they saw me growing up.
    And one came to me one day.
    And he said, Eddy, your father gave me money.
    And I want to give it back to you.
    I didn't know about it.
    I was only a kid.
    My father never told me about it.
    I said, that is beautiful.
    Do you have children?
    He said, I had a son, and he was killed after the war.
    And he started crying because I wanted to give
    something as a thank you.
    He was not a religious person.
    He was non-Jewish but not religious.
    Then, about the same time, another client of my dad
    brought me--
    had the jewelry from my parents.
    I didn't know what they were hiding.
    They were non-Jewish people, both.
    As far as I remember--
    I got to know them quite well--
    never went to church.
    So going to church, maybe there are
    people who don't like-- how could you say that?
    But going to a synagogue or church
    doesn't make somebody good or bad.
    It is inside of people.
    And I experienced that.
    And I emphasize, nor a synagogue, nor a church.
    I believe, for myself, if God is around me,
    I don't go to a place to worship.
    I don't have to.
    But being a churchgoing person, two families, they stole.
    The other two never went to church.
    They were honest.
    Later I realized that going to a synagogue, a church,
    doesn't make anybody good, regardless
    how much donations they give to the church or synagogue.
    But anyway, so I got my bike back.
    I hope I make myself clear-- my bike back without tires.
    But I didn't have an occupation nor an education, only
    two years high school.
    I couldn't go to school.
    I have to make a living.
    But I didn't have an occupation.
    Then I went to the Salvation Army and had second-hand shoes,
    because I had to have shoes.
    And I put in cotton to fill up the shoes where
    the toes were supposed to be.
    And all kind of layers in so I could--
    I had to walk very careful because I could feel
    the stones through the soles.
    But I had to walk.
    No organization-- the government of Holland then,
    the philosophy was the Jews came back,
    but they were not political prisoners,
    were not underground fighters, there is no law for them.
    OK?
    Later, it all accumulated-- and maybe now I make myself more
    and more clear--
    but it happened after the war.
    It was building up, but I never knew
    it was building up, because it was not there, the feeling.
    It was still building up.
    Do I make sense so far.
    Yeah, I understand.
    I mean, you can have lots and lots of feelings
    and not feel any of them.
    Nothing.
    Right, I didn't feel anything.
    I wanted to have the business from my father back.
    In '41, a Dutch German sympathizer
    came and stole Jewish businesses,
    not only from my dad, from other people too.
    So he stole the private money, the business money,
    kicked people out.
    He was a robber.
    We would call him, today, a robber, a thief.
    And he became a German sympathizer
    on account of making money of the stolen Jewish businesses.
    So after the war, I want to have that business back.
    But I was not trained on anything about doing business.
    Let me emphasize that.
    And I thought, I'm the sole beneficiary of my family.
    I could prove that.
    That my family was murdered.
    But it's not easy.
    Now, I had to take a lawyer.
    The Dutch government created the Justice Department--
    Reinstatement of Justice.
    I always call it Continuation of Injustice.
    One of the reasons I talk about it today is about justice--
    not about money, justice.
    I fight for justice.
    I will not accept injustice.
    There are no conditions I compromise with justice.
    Because I know what it means to live under a system
    where you don't have justice.
    I fight for my rights.
    Because they took everything the rights away.
    They took away civil rights, legal rights,
    and human rights, and my human dignity, during the war.
    So I made up my mind, when I came out of the freezer,
    to fight for it.
    But apparently I start fighting then, but I never realized it.
    If I would have been open then, I
    would have been another person today.
    But anyway, I had to go to a lawyer.
    And yes, they gave me the business back.
    Then what happened?
    To Dutch German sympathizer was punished in court to go to
    jail, many of them.
    But slowly but surely, they helped him out because,
    quote unquote, they were "ill."
    They became "ill."
    Got a piece of paper from a doctor.
    OK, and they were released.
    And they had their own businesses.
    But the Dutch government appointed people to run them,
    to be in charge of the business.
    So the thief who stole my father's business
    and private money was allowed, after he
    was feeling better mind you--
    he was never punished.
    He was never required to pay the money back, never.
    That's why I called it the continuation of injustice
    office.
    So it's more justice for the wrong ones.
    More and more I realize still today, it gets stronger.
    We, the innocent ones, we become the guilty ones.
    And the guilty ones became the innocent ones.
    Do I make sense what I want to say?
    Yeah, except I'm a little bit confused.
    Maybe I will make it clear.
    The Dutch government appointed--
    they were put in jail, right, punished for what they did,
    the Dutch German sympathizers.
    After the war, they went to jail, say,
    a sentence of three years or whatever.
    But after a couple of months, they were freed.
    Because of the doctors.
    Yeah.
    And money of course.
    Now, were they sent to jail because you prosecuted them?
    No, no, I didn't, because I didn't know the man then.
    Apparently others did.
    Maybe he did, in other city, the same what he did in Amsterdam.
    Because he came from another city, from Rotterdam.
    You ever heard about Rotterdam?
    The big port, the biggest port in Europe, I think.
    Yeah, my grandparents sailed from there.
    Right.
    They go to England.
    I left from Rotterdam to go to the United States.
    That's right.
    Now, so that man was allowed to work in his own business again,
    the similar business my father had.
    But he was not a free man to do business.
    He was not in charge.
    He was only a manager.
    He was not the owner.
    The Dutch government appointed somebody, an owner,
    say, for two, three, four years, as part of his punishment.
    But he was manager.
    And this was-- what, formally, was your father's business?
    OK, maybe I don't make myself clear.
    He had his own business in Rotterdam.
    I'm sorry, I didn't say that.
    The man who stole my father's business
    had his own wholesale business in Rotterdam.
    But he stole businesses in Amsterdam.
    And incorporated them into his business?
    I don't know.
    But he stole it.
    No, no, no, he kept it and he ran it in Amsterdam
    during the war, and in Rotterdam had his own business.
    Everything flourished because he made a lot of money,
    besides stealing a fortune, not from my dad, from other people
    too, business, money, and private accounts.
    Do I make sense to you now?
    Yes.
    You sure?
    Uh huh.
    If I don't make sense, it's my mistake, OK?
    So anyway, he was allowed to go back
    to his own business in Rotterdam.
    But he was not the owner.
    Somebody appointed by the court was the owner.
    After the war-- that's kind comple--
    How do I explain it?
    During the war, there was no free trade in Holland.
    Every wholesale dealer got a percentage
    from what he had before because there was hardly any food.
    There was not actually free trade,
    because retailers were more than happy to pay whatever to get
    some food for the people.
    So a big organization was formed in the war.
    I found that out after the war.
    So he-- you didn't have to do anything.
    You got so much business.
    And automatically, the next morning, the retailers came.
    You didn't have to say, hey, you want
    to buy beautiful cauliflowers?
    No, (URGENTLY) can I have it?
    No, I can only give you so much.
    You know, it was no business.
    There was hardly any food, especially
    at the end of the war.
    But they made good money.
    So the Dutch thief made money on account of what my father sold.
    They took what did you sell from '35 to '40, for instance.
    From that, total, what you sold, you get so much percentage
    as your part and your part, to be fair to all
    the wholesale dealers.
    Do I make sense?
    Yeah, they just give you the same proportion.
    Correct.
    And I think they took the income tax or whatever you pay.
    It's complicated.
    I found that after the war.
    What did I know?
    So after the war, when I came back,
    there was money accumulated in my father's business that
    was then stolen, owned by that Dutch--
    I say bastard.
    I hope that is acceptable.
    But he made money on what my father sold from '35 to 1940,
    before the war.
    So after the war, after going through lawyers again--
    I hardly had any money to pay lawyers--
    I got money that was accumulated from 1945 till 1947,
    after the war.
    I'm talking now after the war.
    There was still hardly any food.
    The same organization still existed,
    but not in a free country.
    Holland was liberated '45.
    So they gave me an amount of money
    that was due me as a beneficiary of my dad
    on what he sold between 1935 and '40.
    And he, the bastard, the thief, made money from 1941 to '45
    also was my father, because he stole the business.
    So I got the money.
    It's not a lot of money, but money.
    Then I got a letter, it was unbelievable in my mind,
    in my opinion, from the man who was in charge
    of his business in Rotterdam.
    Mr. Wynschenk, you owe this corporation the money you
    received after the war, in '47-'48.
    I said, what?
    This money due what my father sold 1935-'40.
    I couldn't believe it.
    And I said right away, no, I'm not going to pay a penny.
    I have to be the thief who stole everything
    from my father and my mom--
    private money, business money, stole everything?
    After the war, he continues to plunder?
    I went to a lawyer.
    I said, I'm not going to pay.
    He said, here's what you do.
    Pay him $10 a month, and then stop.
    And then you get letters.
    And then you pay him again.
    I said, I don't want to pay.
    But I was not strong as I am today inside.
    I was threatened, mind you, if I don't pay,
    they would take the furniture away.
    I was married in '49.
    History repeated itself.
    Because the Germans took our furniture away.
    In '49, they want to do the same,
    but it was the Dutch government.
    The guy was appointed by the Dutch government.
    Maybe he was, during the war, also a German sympathizer.
    I don't know.
    I never met the man.
    Now I'm going to tell you what people
    don't like to hear maybe.
    I was just married in '49.
    And it was happening-- yeah, about 1950, whatever.
    I hope it makes sense so far.
    I knew where the business was in Rotterdam I lived in Amsterdam.
    I never met that bastard.
    I never met anyone.
    I found his address.
    And I told my wife, I'm going, and I'm going to kill that man.
    She said, you can't kill people.
    No, you can't kill people, but I said it.
    My father-in-law and my wife talked me out of it.
    But I went.
    And he never met me.
    He was general manager in his own business, the thief.
    So I never forget, when I walked in there,
    I said, where is the thief and war criminal--
    I'll spell the name for you--
    B-i-j-l, pronounced "bile."
    And I went at a time that was a very busy time, on purpose.
    And people came to me, you want to talk to Mr. Bijl?
    I said, yes, where is he?
    And I yelled.
    Didn't realize it was already my anger coming out.
    I didn't realize that.
    So they brought me to an office and they introduced me.
    And the guy wanted to shake my hand.
    Uh uh.
    I said, do you know who I am?
    He said no.
    He said no.
    And I said, I am the son of Moses Wynschenk.
    You stole everything from my father--
    business, money, private money, and now you
    want to have all the money back?
    I said, you're lucky because my wife and my father-in-law
    talked me out of it.
    Otherwise I would have killed you right now.
    Because in a way, you helped kill my family.
    My father worked for 25, 30 years in his business.
    And by stealing his business, it was the beginning
    of my father's end.
    I remember that.
    I realized that many years later in life.
    He said, right away, Mr. Wynschenk, quiet down.
    And he said, now, wait a minute, this is not the war anymore.
    I was very aggressive.
    I yelled.
    I remember that.
    He said, I am not free.
    And it was true.
    I'm only a general manager.
    But in a couple of years, I am free.
    I promise you, if I'm free, I'll write you a letter
    that I don't want to have your money.
    After we say, he kept his word
    Now, justice.
    I had to pay him.
    I never got back what he stole from my father.
    If it's a dollar or $10,000, I don't care.
    The stealing, the plundering.
    Because they stole everything from us in the war,
    again and again.
    But the stealing continued after war in a free country, Holland.
    Now, I started to get my father's business back.
    I had to go to court to fight it.
    And I opened a business.
    But I could hardly walk.
    And I failed.
    I went bankrupt.
    Because I was 18, 19 years old.
    I never did any business.
    I helped my dad as a kid.
    I didn't know business.
    I thought I knew, but I didn't.
    And I hardly had any money.
    Now, I paid all the debts, and then closed up.
    And I remember, I named the business still
    the same as if my father would have been alive-- not my name,
    in honor of my father and in memory of my dad.
    But I didn't have any occupation.
    And there was no--
    it was strange-- no organizations,
    be it Jewish or non-Jewish, where I could go to--
    and I'm not talking about money-- to ask for help,
    for job or whatever.
    The only thing I got after the war
    was one package of the Dutch Red Cross.
    Then on account I hardly had any clothes,
    the American Jewish people--
    and I had a close friend after the war
    who was with me in the camp.
    I lost sight of him, but we met again.
    My age.
    And I found out last week that he passed away
    a couple of years ago.
    I am now 62.
    So maybe he lived till age 59.
    He lost half a leg and half a foot.
    And I remember we went to a Jewish organization in 19--
    oh, let me see--
    '48, '49.
    They had all clothes from American Jewish people.
    Now, we hardly had any clothes because we came back naked.
    Only our inmate outfits.
    So we went there not to expect an expensive, tailor-made suit.
    But they had rags.
    In the camp, we walked in rags.
    Again, we did not expect beautiful clothes, but decent.
    My wife, myself, we would never give, to Salvation Army, junk.
    We'd give decent clothes, or we'd throw it away.
    Because human beings are human beings.
    Maybe because my wife, myself, experienced in life,
    in World War II, what only a few people survived.
    So we were outraged.
    But I needed clothes.
    So I-- and my anger was still not there--
    I picked out an army coat, from United States Army.
    But they painted it dark blue.
    It was warm, heavy.
    Ugly, but beautiful warm, heavy.
    It was a good coat.
    The rest was rags.
    Apparently, in our unconsciousness,
    we didn't want to have any rags anymore.
    Again, we did not expect expensive, beautiful clothes.
    No, decent.
    There's a difference between decent and rags.
    The American Jewish people listened to that,
    they say, oh, what does the survivor expect?
    Do we give them diamonds?
    No.
    If you give, you give with your heart.
    But don't give rags.
    Do you want me to continue to talk?
    Do I make sense?
    You can feel now the anger was building up,
    but it never came out.
    I was in boarding homes.
    I was under 21.
    My aunt and uncle put me from one boarding home
    in the other boarding home.
    Why?
    I don't know.
    I never asked them because they made the payments to the person
    in charge of the boarding homes.
    I was in about six or seven boarding homes in about 4
    and 1/2 years from '45 to '49.
    I never realized how much pain I had from that,
    until many years after the war, when I opened up.
    I come back to that every time.
    Because since 1943, I never had a normal home life
    till they took us away.
    My normal life stopped 1940.
    My aunt and uncle never had the common sense
    to say, listen, we have some money from your dad.
    Why don't you go on a little vacation?
    Go out with girls.
    I'd never knew what girls were.
    No, I mean, the child had stopped.
    You come back 17.
    I don't know what holding hands or kissing or dating was.
    From 12 years old, I became an old man.
    So I pay a price for it, I know.
    Nobody can change it.
    But I never had the forming years.
    The parents nowadays say, in a normal life,
    oh, my 17-year-old, he drives-- or she drives-- me nuts.
    I never had it.
    I mean, I never had a sexual relationship.
    I didn't know what sex was.
    You interview me, and I want to be open.
    I have nothing to hide.
    And thank God nowadays we can talk about sex.
    But I didn't know.
    So my aunt and uncle should have said, OK,
    why don't we make a reservation in a summer place, whatever,
    in summer of 1945, when I came back, and stayed
    for a couple of weeks.
    And we have money from your dad.
    And we pay for that.
    No, there was no rest in between.
    There was no-- to recoup my--
    to be human again.
    In the camp, apparently, I fought for survival
    but I didn't realize.
    After the war, I had to keep fighting for survival.
    And I always said, the Holocaust, for me,
    will never stop.
    Would stop when I die.
    The Holocaust is still in me.
    Somebody said, you can take the Jew out of the camp,
    but the camp never out of a Jew.
    Maybe other survivors don't agree or don't feel it.
    But I agree with that because I feel very strongly.
    So I never had edification.
    I needed special shoes, orthopedic shoes.
    I had to fight with the Dutch government until 1953-'54.
    I had to sign a paper that this time we give you--
    you can go to orthopedic shoemaker
    and we pay for this only once.
    The rest of your life, never come back.
    And I never asked for money, never asked for favors.
    But I needed orthopedic shoes.
    I could hardly walk.
    I hope it makes sense to you.
    It's not for pity or sympathy, but it's a fact of life.
    Now, the Dutch government-- and I give them credit--
    made a special law for the underground fighters who
    were in concentration camps, caught by the Germans,
    who came back.
    They were treated fantastically, deservingly so.
    Many came back maybe as much of a wreck as I was,
    and the after-effects, whatever.
    I was in the hospital after the war together with many of them.
    And they deserve everything they get.
    But for Jewish survivors, there was nothing at all.
    It's hard to comprehend or understand.
    I hope it makes sense to you.
    There is bitter, yes.
    Now anger, yes, a lot of anger.
    Not oh, let me give the guy $1,000 a week.
    I'm not talking about it.
    There are other ways.
    For instance, if I could go back to school
    and the government had said, OK, we'll give you 20 a month
    or a week so you can pay the boarding home,
    then maybe I could finish my education.
    Because without a high school diploma,
    it's hard to get a job.
    So I failed in my father's business.
    I just was out of the camp, 18 years old.
    How I even tried it, for me, it's
    unbelievable that I even tried it when I look back at it.
    But I didn't have an occupation.
    So I worked in a factory, in a leather factory.
    And I have to stand the whole day on my feet.
    But I did.
    And my feet were swollen, and my amputation was still not
    healed.
    But then, in the old fashioned way, you didn't get a paycheck,
    you got a little brown bag.
    So you earned 25 guilders or $10, whatever.
    They put it in a little brown bag.
    And on Saturday, they gave you that money.
    You worked five hour days.
    It was the same as American then.
    There was no checking account, nothing.
    So I was not allowed, because I was a minor, to handle money.
    I was in a boarding home on one side of the city,
    and my aunt and uncle lived on the other side.
    I had to borrow money for public transportation,
    mind you, to bring that little brown bag that I earned.
    They turned around, they gave me 2 guilders and 50 cents pocket
    money.
    If I wanted to go to a movie, I didn't have enough money.
    Then I started realizing that there is such a thing as girls
    in the world.
    But you can't take a girl out for a cup of coffee.
    I didn't have any money.
    So that was building up in me.
    Then I did something.
    I had a tremendous good boardinghouse,
    but I couldn't handle it anymore.
    The pressure from my aunt and uncle,
    they treated me, still under 21, as a little child.
    I couldn't breathe.
    I was choking.
    I went in hiding.
    After the war, I went in hiding.
    I made a big mistake.
    I made a lot of mistakes in my life.
    I had money accumulated somehow.
    And I had a cab.
    And I ordered a cab with an open roof that--
    you had it, and for everybody to see I don't know why I did it.
    I left.
    Everybody could see that I left.
    I went to the railroad station in Amsterdam,
    and went to a friend, a survivor, who lived
    in another part in Holland.
    In hiding, mind you, in hiding.
    One day, the police came.
    What apparently happened, the guardian, my uncle,
    went to the juvenile police, and said, he's gone.
    So they were looking for me.
    I didn't commit a crime, but I was in hiding.
    I went goodbye.
    And I remembered--
    So I had to come back.
    And then I had a long conversation with the inspector
    of the police.
    And when I talked, the man cried.
    He said, I can't blame you.
    I can't blame you what you did.
    But here I wish I would have tried
    to go in hiding in the war.
    But after the war?
    Also, many years later, I found out that somehow,
    someway, people who wanted to be good to me, I pushed away.
    Some people wanted to be warm and good.
    Later I learned, through counseling, it was normal--
    even though it was not nice--
    that I didn't realize it.
    Because goodness in people I lost--
    in the camps, if certain people want
    this you want to have some extra bread or whatever,
    there was always, hey, why?
    What is behind it?
    Why nice?
    The Germans also used a tactic all over the place, whoever
    comes in railroad station at 10 o'clock
    in the morning gets extra bread.
    In the Warsaw uprising, in 1943, remember?
    Mm-hmm.
    They use it all over the place.
    So people were good to you, apparently
    in my unconsciousness, hey, wait a minute.
    That's not kosher.
    Go away.
    So I pushed--
    I can never make up for it-- but afterward, a lot of good people
    away.
    And I didn't realize why I did it.
    I was still in a camp.
    I was told, you were still living in camp.
    You're still in a camp.
    Now, do I go too, too slow or too fast?
    Or do I make sense?
    No, you make sense.
    Do you have any questions?
    Well, I'm kind of interested in how
    did you manage to do those jobs when you didn't have any toes.
    I didn't have any choice.
    I had to make a living.
    And how did you get, eventually, support
    so you could support yourself?
    I don't know what you mean?
    Till age 21, I was a child under the law, right?
    Right.
    So I could not buy a shirt or a handkerchief.
    They bought everything.
    They meant well, my aunt and uncle.
    In their mind, they did exactly what the law told them to do.
    But there was no love or understanding.
    Now, maybe I would have done the same
    if I would have been in their position.
    So people say, hey, you walk funny.
    And I remember saying, I don't have any toes.
    Nobody ever asked-- yeah, but it happened after the war,
    people asked me, I am so-and-so, Jewish,
    I heard you are a survivor, did you know
    my uncle, blah blah blah, the normal questions.
    I'd have to say no.
    Nobody, Jew and non-Jewish alike, in Holland,
    ever asked me, over all the years--
    I lived in Holland from '45 to '56--
    do you mind talking about it?
    Can I ask you a question what happened?
    Nobody.
    I was told the good Jews were murdered,
    and the bad ones came back.
    Apparently you survived because you did terrible things
    in the camps.
    Oh yes.
    You came back, Jew, but you better shut up.
    You're lucky to be alive.
    Don't make any waves.
    That was the non-Jewish who told me that.
    You're kind of shocked, right?
    I'm very shocked.
    I can see it.
    Yeah, I was shocked then.
    Now I feel angry.
    By the way, in a way, it is still the same here,
    and different, but I'll tell you that later.
    But anyway, that was my country then.
    Again, I never asked, please help me with money, no, no.
    I want to have a chance to live life.
    Then they bottled me up.
    Justice-- I never, never, ever got justice.
    Till today, never.
    So nobody asked.
    Maybe, and I repeat myself, maybe I would have said,
    I don't want to talk about it.
    That's fine.
    But looking back so many years, if they would have asked me,
    I would have been different maybe today.
    I would start talking about it slowly but surely,
    the same as we talk, and if we did about eight,
    nine months ago, I would maybe inside be a different person.
    Nowadays, people hear, ah, Holocaust survivor.
    Still talk about 45 years after the war.
    They don't know.
    Thank God they don't know, but don't kick me.
    Don't minimize me as a human being.
    I'm very easily angered.
    Of course I am.
    I talk about it the same way-- the first time ever
    I talked about that part that I go to schools and universities
    or whatever, radio, TV if I'm invited.
    I undress myself.
    I was so-- you undressed yourself when you talk.
    Say yeah, I have nothing to hide.
    In 1948, so I worked in a factory.
    A leather factory.
    In 1948, when I became 21 years old, 18th of July, 1948.
    I was a free man.
    They gave me all the papers.
    My father gave me so much money.
    My aunt and uncle that is, and we spent so much on underwear
    and so much a sock.
    What do I care?
    Oh, they had all receipts.
    They were beautiful people that were honest.
    Only, they were not warm.
    No love.
    You know what I did?
    I quit my job.
    I became an alcoholic.
    Because I want to die.
    By being an alcoholic, I wanted to commit suicide.
    But what I tell you, I tell the younger generation
    when they go to school.
    I didn't want to live anymore.
    Apparently, I'm my own consciousness,
    I couldn't handle to be alone.
    I never had a role model in life.
    In normal life, a band can be a role model.
    A brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle, whatever.
    And that is the price, I think, that these teenage survivors
    pay.
    All survivors pay a terrible price,
    but we pay a heavier price.
    In my judgment, because we were children,
    we were never allowed to be children.
    Only in age of a children.
    So I became alcoholic, and spent money.
    Oh my gosh, I went out with girls.
    Then finally as I went out with girls, oh, I was wild.
    I couldn't care less.
    Working?
    No way.
    Then one man, he kicked me.
    Not physically.
    He kicked my behind.
    And I fought with him with my mouth.
    He never asked me, what happened in the past.
    He knew I came back from the camps.
    There was the expression, you came back from the camps.
    And he hit me, and I accepted his hitting.
    How did he hit you?
    By talking to me.
    The first time ever--
    he was kind of a stranger-- he talked to me.
    About the camps?
    No, about life.
    Yeah, not about camps.
    He knew I came back from the camps.
    He knew I didn't have any toes.
    For instance, before the war in Europe,
    the sport was and is soccer.
    You know that, right?
    Here also, of course, but not as big.
    Here's baseball and football.
    In Europe and South America, there is soccer.
    So I grew up a soccer player, and I was not a bad one.
    I didn't say excellent, but I was a very good one.
    I was tall as a kid.
    Then the man who kicked me said, why don't you play soccer?
    I said, are you out of your mind?
    I don't have ant toes.
    I never can-- how can I play soccer.
    My feet on aren't even here.
    He said, can you buy soccer shoes,
    and let them somehow build a way to protect your feet.
    I said, but I can't run.
    Do you know the game of soccer?
    You have to run a lot.
    You also have a goalie, right?
    The same as-- the same as hockey.
    Correct?
    Yeah, I don't know soccer, but--
    You have a goalie in ice hockey, for instance, or field hockey.
    Right?
    You have to get--
    with soccer you have to kick the ball in the nets.
    Yeah.
    He said, why don't you become a goalie.
    I never play goalie.
    I was always forward.
    Anyway, I said, but no organization
    would like to have a cripple like me.
    And he found one, and told apparently my background.
    I mean, that I don't have any toes,
    and I lost my toes in the war.
    That's all he said because that's all he ever knew.
    And they said, OK, will you try it?
    So to get to the point, I tried it.
    And on account that I--
    He was so smart that man he touched apparently
    one spot that was opened that was my youth and soccer.
    It was my hobby.
    It was my life.
    I remember when I came home from school before the war,
    my mom would say, homework.
    I want to play soccer.
    Uh-uh, homework first then soccer.
    And it was very normal in that time of life.
    The parents were very conservative but anyway.
    I don't think I really enjoyed it because remarks were made.
    Look, a cripple.
    The guy who walk and play soccer as a cripple, whatever.
    And I didn't really enjoy it.
    I stopped it, and physically, I couldn't do it.
    My heart, yes.
    Oh, yeah, but I couldn't do it.
    Then I stopped drinking.
    I never touch any alcohol anymore from that time on.
    Never.
    What caused that?
    Because he talked me out of it to stop drinking
    and don't commit suicide.
    He didn't say commit suicide.
    Later in life, I realized I was committing suicide.
    By the way, there are survivors who
    committed suicide after the war who couldn't handle it anymore.
    Apparently, we could handle to a certain extent
    what happened in the camp, not what happened after the camp.
    I was going to ask.
    Do you think it was more often the memories or the way
    you were treated afterwards?
    Afterwards.
    No justice.
    No, I got married, and I was a different--
    I was still frozen, right?
    I was still in a state of shock.
    So when I got married--
    if I would have been today, I would cry.
    And I would feel pain, because I would miss my parents.
    I never cried.
    I didn't even think about birthdays of my family.
    But I do-- for many years-- now.
    It was never talked about.
    That part was never talked about.
    I think I told-- this was my first wife.
    I told her.
    She knew about my feet.
    Oh, another thing that people said.
    I hope I don't confuse you.
    You think you had a rough time in the camp, right?
    So I say, yeah, pretty rough.
    Hah.
    You should have been here in Holland, because we
    had a terrible hunger winter.
    True-- the winter of 1944-1945.
    Many people died on account of starvation.
    Not in camps.
    There was hardly any food.
    So the people minimized.
    Oh, you think you had it hard in the camp.
    Now, they didn't know what had happened because nobody asked.
    You should have been here.
    Now I can say, I wish I would have been here.
    So they even minimized and compared with their hunger.
    But they could go on their bike or walk.
    And try to find something to eat without the fear of being
    put in a gas chamber.
    All the years, they slept in their own beds.
    Not the freedom, but slept in their own bed.
    And I don't say--
    one Jew is killed, the underground fighters
    or whatever.
    I'm talking about, generally speaking,
    the people said, you know, you should have been here.
    You think you had it hard.
    People tell me now.
    I would jump on them with my mouth
    and I would teach them something.
    Then, apparently--
    Well, what would happen inside when
    people would say this to you?
    It didn't come out.
    It was building up.
    I'm still building up.
    But I'm telling you now, it's still accumulating here.
    Yeah.
    Does that makes sense?
    Yes.
    It is there, but I didn't feel it.
    Did you feel like you were two people?
    No, nothing.
    I didn't feel anything.
    So you never split or anything like that.
    I'm sorry?
    You never split?
    No.
    Because that happens a lot of times under stress like that.
    No.
    I don't think so.
    I also went back to the old neighborhoods
    where I grew up, whatever.
    I thought I'd go and say hi to the people.
    Hey, I'm back.
    Not for sympathy.
    To say hi, I was born there.
    And people completely ignored me.
    Even when you would say hi?
    Yeah.
    They would walk by like you weren't there?
    Yeah.
    Physically ignored me.
    Did everybody do that?
    I can only tell you what happened to me.
    Did everybody you met there do that?
    Except the clients of my dad.
    They were nice to me.
    But where I grew up.
    I can't remember anybody saying, hey, come here
    for a cup of coffee or whatever.
    No.
    Or they would say, hi, and--
    I know now why.
    I'll talk about it later.
    Oh, yeah.
    I know why.
    OK.
    So I got married.
    My first wife was not Jewish.
    But what did I care?
    I worked in a leather factory, of course.
    My income was about--
    when I got married--
    22 guilders a week.
    And I got a raise to 27 guilders.
    The price was low.
    But I didn't get an education.
    And she had a job.
    And we lived with her parents, so the rent was very low.
    Then in the beginning of the '50s, I wrote Adenauer.
    Remember, the first chancellor--
    Chancellor.
    Of Germany.
    I wrote him a letter.
    So I said my name is so-and-so, whatever.
    This is what happened to me.
    I only ask because the Germans are responsible.
    I'm not.
    I only ask for the payment of orthopedic shoes
    and a pension on account that I'm a cripple.
    I don't even ask you for all the mental suffering, nothing.
    I got a letter back.
    I wrote letters.
    I remember my wife then said, no, they'll put you in jail.
    I said, listen, I write the truth when I feel it.
    They put me in jail, I could care less.
    I sometimes have cramp on account of my feet.
    Do you want to stop and walk around a little?
    No, that's OK.
    I got a letter back from Adenauer, yeah.
    It's terrible what happened to you.
    But you were a Dutch citizen.
    You have to go to the Dutch government.
    I said, wait a minute.
    The Dutch government didn't do it to me.
    I wrote the Dutch government.
    I got a reply it's terrible what happened to you,
    but the Germans are responsible.
    We don't have any laws for people like you.
    Justice?
    But it was all the anger building up, correct?
    So the Germans said, no, you have to go to Dutch.
    The Dutch said, you have to go to the Germans.
    And we don't have any laws for people like you.
    And I remember at certain times, the anger
    came out loud and clear.
    Because when I wrote the letter to Adenauer
    and to the Dutch government, to the Secretary of State,
    there was a knife in the letters,
    if you know what I mean.
    I didn't hold back.
    Right?
    Right.
    And especially Adenauer.
    I kicked the behinds of the Germans,
    because that's the way I felt. And after the letter,
    I would close everything up again.
    It was very strange.
    And my wife said, oh, they'll put you in jail.
    Put me in jail-- for what?
    The kind of language, my God.
    Why?
    It's truth.
    It's my feelings.
    Big deal.
    Put me in jail.
    Send me back to Auschwitz.
    Big deal.
    So I never got justice in Holland.
    There's no law for people like myself,
    not only for Eddy Wynschenk, but for many people like myself.
    There's maybe a lot of Jewish survivors left Holland--
    Dutch Jewish survivors, maybe.
    Before I go on, you have any questions?
    How was your marriage working out?
    Your first marriage.
    Because you said you didn't talk to her
    at all about your experiences.
    I think I did.
    About the feet, of course.
    And I presume I talked, but I don't know in detail.
    I don't remember.
    Of course, she knew about--
    because she was a girlfriend of my cousin.
    But wasn't it hard to have a marriage
    when you were having all this anger building up?
    I think.
    Let me tell you.
    I'm married now for the second time.
    But I admire every spouse who marries a Holocaust survivor,
    be they he or a she.
    I admire them all.
    Because it's not easy to be married
    to a survivor who is not in the freezer anymore and who erupts.
    I admire the children of survivors.
    The survivor-- only one or two.
    How hard it was for them when they
    were children to grow up with sometimes an angry parent
    or to be a witness to whatever it is.
    Because children of survivors, in my judgment, most of them
    are victims, too.
    Well, they've got a symptom called children
    of Holocaust survivors.
    Right.
    I wish I could make up for it, but I was not
    nice enough to my two children, who are adults now.
    There's no way I can make up for it.
    And probably bad for his wife-- it was not always
    very pleasant at all.
    Later.
    I'll talk about it later.
    I wish I could make up for it, but I can't.
    But my second wife, Marianne-- we are married now seven years.
    We're different.
    She knew what kind of person I was.
    Still, I admire that she had the guts to marry me.
    With the pain.
    I just want to say that I don't think that.
    You're probably not the hardest person
    to be married to, because you're open to the idea
    that your past has these effects on your life.
    The past has a tremendous effect on my life.
    Right.
    But what you don't seem to be doing is--
    I'm always right.
    And you don't know anything.
    I think that that makes a person much easier
    to live with when they are--
    the way you phrased it-- coming out of the freezer.
    I just want you to know.
    I don't think that you're probably the worst person.
    No, not the worst.
    Thank you for the compliment.
    There are maybe one or two walking around that
    are worse than Eddy Wynschenk.
    I'm sorry.
    Can we get that off the tape?
    We keep it on, Joan.
    Leave it running.
    I'll call the lawyers, send you a lawsuit to explain it.
    Well, you know I mean.
    I think that it's just taken so much courage
    for you to go out and start talking about it.
    That's something different.
    But later, I'll talk about the rage and the anger
    and explosions.
    I call them explosions.
    OK.
    But I thank you for the compliment.
    But I don't agree with you.
    I don't agree with you what you just said.
    About what?
    That it's not that bad or whatever you just said.
    Easy, it's not too hard.
    Yes, I think it is hard to live with,
    to be married with a survivor, be they he or she,
    who's out of the freezer.
    You think it's more difficult than being
    with one who still has their emotions under control?
    Of course.
    I had it for a long time.
    Sure.
    I didn't feel anything from 1945 to 1972.
    That's 27 years, right?
    Right.
    Please remind me to talk about it later--
    about the rage and the anger and the explosions.
    Yeah.
    Could you turn this off for one second?
    All right.
    So we got married in 1949.
    Of course, I didn't have any family.
    So there was nobody from my side.
    And I never felt any loss-- no pain, no tears.
    Because I was still--
    everything was numb.
    State of shock.
    In the freezer.
    But I wrote the German government
    and the Dutch government.
    But I didn't come to first base.
    So I was again, a person without any rights.
    No justice happened.
    But they took away-- the Germans in World War II--
    our rights, all my rights.
    And of course, only injustice being done.
    In a different way, but still they continued the injustice.
    No rights.
    Because if I would have gotten my rights--
    but do I have to pay the thief who stole my father's business
    after the War?
    I ow him money.
    If I tell people that I deserve money, they would say yes.
    I have his name.
    That's facts.
    I remember the name of the man who--
    now I remembered, the Dutch government
    appointed guardian over him for a short time.
    He could only be general manager.
    And the name was misspelled for you.
    I remember, my gosh.
    D-I-R-K-Z-W-A-G-E-R.
    He was a fanatic.
    He was after me.
    I never met him.
    And I don't know why.
    So he really worked hard to get this money that--
    For-- yeah.
    For the group.
    Yeah.
    And understand, Peggy, that I don't believe in justice.
    I can understand that.
    Until today, I don't believe in justice.
    Yeah.
    Hard for people to understand or comprehend.
    And again, I don't have sympathy.
    But that's life.
    Still today, never got justice.
    I fight for justice.
    Did you ever actually pay any of this money?
    A little bit, at the advice of a lawyer.
    But I didn't want to.
    I wanted to get the furniture, because my father-in-law
    said, if they come for the furniture,
    don't worry about it.
    It was my furniture.
    You rent here first apartment, don't forget.
    I said, thank you, but no way.
    Nobody ever will take furniture away from me.
    I said it.
    So in my unconscious now, because then
    I went back to 1943.
    Does that makes sense to you?
    Does that makes sense?
    Yeah.
    That you went back to where they took your furniture away.
    The Germans.
    So nobody ever, over my dead body-- never.
    It's hard for people to understand.
    And thank God they don't understand,
    because they don't know what it is.
    But that part after the war had to be told.
    It had to be known.
    Not only for me--
    not for sympathy, for understanding.
    The people should accept, be they Vietnamese
    who went through hell or World War II
    veteran or soldier who fought the Korean during the police
    action, Holocaust survivor.
    Accept them the way they are.
    And in my judgment, till today, people don't.
    And I'll talk about it later.
    They don't.
    That was one of the reasons that I made up
    my mind to be interviewed about this after the War.
    Otherwise, I would never have done it.
    Not only for myself, but for other people.
    Yeah.
    If one person who watches this program--
    or two-- will change from pushing people away.
    With my background, other similar backgrounds.
    But accept them.
    That it is worthwhile what I go through now.
    I hope I make sense to you.
    Anyway, I wanted to leave Holland.
    And I wanted to go to Canada or Australia, but my wife said no.
    Then I'm in America.
    There was a new law, signed by President Eisenhower,
    who made it possible for--
    normally, when you come to the United States,
    you have a sponsor.
    And you have to wait three, four, five,
    six years or whatever.
    An organization sponsored me.
    There was a law made for victims of World War II.
    I'm not talking about Jewish people--
    victims.
    All victims.
    I'm sorry?
    All victims.
    Yeah.
    Who want to come to the United States.
    And you have to go through the process.
    The police check you out in Holland.
    And have gone through everything.
    And you have to be in good health, whatever.
    And before I came to United States,
    you have to go back and forth.
    It was understandable.
    And I had to go--
    they called me.
    with a note that I had to come to the police station.
    I thought, I didn't know what I did wrong.
    But they needed questions about me.
    A question about if I was a communist or whatever.
    But I didn't feel any pain about it.
    But I wanted to leave Holland very badly.
    But later hurt me.
    And maybe people will watch this program.
    who don't like in particular Dutch people.
    There were war criminals in Holland
    who were responsible for the death of, for instance,
    100,000 Jewish people.
    That's 100,000.
    And Germans.
    They were in jail.
    And they got the death penalty.
    And the Queen of Holland then--
    better that came out last year that I tell you now.
    The Queen of Holland then, Juliana--
    now Beatrix.
    So they're the mass murderers.
    One, I experienced some things from that person myself.
    Person-- no, he is not even an animal.
    He was inhuman.
    He was responsible of over 100,000
    Jews lead to their death--
    Dutch Jewish people.
    And the date was set that he was going
    to be executed after the War.
    War is over.
    And the Queen said, if you execute him,
    I will not be a queen anymore.
    That came out last year.
    Now, what happened apparently--
    That wasn't Pieter Menten, was it?
    No.
    Not Menten, no.
    Menten was a little war criminal.
    Oh, he died, by the way.
    You know that, right?
    He passed away.
    Yeah.
    No, it was in German.
    There were several in jail.
    Several went back-- for medical reasons,
    were released by the Dutch government, mind you.
    For poor health.
    One of them-- L-A-G-E-S--
    was released while I was already living in the United States.
    And a doctor or doctors convinced the Dutch government
    that he had cancer.
    Oh, he was a war criminal.
    It's hard for people to comprehend.
    Oh, he's responsible for 10,000 people who died-- or 50,000,
    or 30,000.
    Or he shot himself 15 people, whatever.
    That's nothing.
    Being sarcastic now, of course.
    And they convinced the Dutch government
    that he was dying of cancer.
    So they let him go to Germany.
    I think he's still alive.
    He fooled them.
    Cancer is terrible.
    Dying of cancer is terrible.
    But that kind of people don't belong on the street.
    They should be against the wall.
    Or at least for life--
    no parole, nothing.
    But there's a lot of politics behind it,
    because Germany put a lot of pressure.
    Germany becomes stronger again--
    an issue.
    They put pressure on the Dutch government.
    Also, from what I read, Prince Bernhard
    had a deal with the German government.
    And he actually tried to betray Juliana's country,
    from what I read.
    No, I never heard about that.
    He fled, but he was on the--
    He fled, but it was a secret.
    The book I read it in was a book about Pieter Menten.
    Oh, Pieter Menten.
    He was a war criminal and a thief, of course.
    Right.
    And Prince Bernhard saved Menten right after the War,
    that he stopped the--
    I'm sorry.
    I never heard about it.
    But I can't accuse.
    It's kind of funny-- it's sad.
    The grandmother of the current Queen Beatrix was Wilhelmina.
    During World War II, we had Wilhelmina.
    Her husband was a German.
    Julianna married a German--
    Bernhard.
    Beatrix, the current queen, married a German Waffen SS man.
    Really?
    Would I lie?
    I make a statement here.
    There were big riots in Amsterdam.
    Can you imagine?
    Waffen SS, there were a special unit.
    Hitler's special units.
    His name is Claus--
    C-L-A-U-S. Can you imagine?
    You're flabbergasted, I presume.
    That's the truth.
    Of course, he became a citizen when he got married.
    But still, he's about my age.
    You know what?
    But he was not a regular in the regular army.
    No.
    Waffen SS is something different.
    That was army, right?
    Yeah, but they were murderers.
    SS.
    You seem them in the camp, SS.
    There was a Waffen SS.
    The Waffen SS, for instance killed American POWs.
    in the Battle of the Bulge.
    You remember in '44?
    You heard about it?
    You read about it?
    The Battle of the Bulge--
    B-U-L-G-E-- in Belgium.
    Near the Ardennes.
    Yeah, it was the last attempt.
    Correct.
    In winter, '44 if memory is correct.
    And the Germans had American POWs.
    So against the Geneva Convention,
    they undressed American soldiers,
    put them in civilian clothes, and tied the hands
    behind the back, and shot them to death.
    Crimes against humanity and against Geneva Convention.
    The Waffen SS killed them.
    And one of the members--
    I don't say he did it himself.
    But a member of that Waffen SS is the current husband
    of Beatrix.
    Can you imagine.
    I'm not surprised.
    Now, in '56, we went to America.
    And then still everything was frozen.
    I never felt sorry that I left Holland.
    I came in Philadelphia, where I was sponsored.
    I stayed a year in Philadelphia, never talked about it.
    Started from scratch, of course.
    Didn't have any family-- no friends, nobody.
    And we came with the attitude of America didn't need us.
    America doesn't have to adjust to us--
    we have to adjust to them.
    A lot of kind of funny things happened.
    But we didn't have money for a car, of course.
    No furniture, nothing.
    We came with $70 or $90.
    But a lot of immigrants came with nothing.
    That's nothing special.
    And the organization who sponsored us,
    we went there because America--
    about jobs.
    First thing we ask--
    how do you go about jobs?
    Now, my first job wife was a fantastic office worker.
    She could blind type.
    You know blind typing?
    You type, but you're only--
    I think 70 or 80, 90 words a minute.
    She was fantastic.
    In different languages.
    But I didn't have a good occupation
    for the United States.
    I worked in the letter factory.
    And the Jewish organization, the Jewish Family Service
    of Philadelphia, who co-sponsored us--
    I said, we would like to have a job.
    Take it easy.
    We said, no, we didn't come here to take it easy.
    By the way, we arrived here the 28th of April, 1956.
    We left Holland April 18, 1956.
    We left Holland the day that the late Grace
    Kelly got married with the Prince of Monaco.
    Right?
    Yeah.
    So I always made that joke.
    We came back by boat and I became seasick.
    I always made the joke--
    one famous person left Philadelphia.
    Grace Kerry came from Philadelphia, right?
    Mm-hm.
    And another famous one is going to Philadelphia.
    And Jimmy Durante could make it with his long nose,
    so I can make it, too.
    I always make that joke on the boat.
    The other boat was not on the sea yet.
    Because I became seasick.
    But anyway, then it was not that funny.
    But anyway, we told the people in Philadelphia,
    we came here to start a new life.
    How can we find a job?
    Again, we were never asked and I was never asked
    about the background-- never.
    But I was still in a freezer in '56.
    We didn't have a place to stay.
    In Holland, there were no-- and still,
    I think, you have a waiting list.
    You can't rent a place like here.
    You look around for an apartment for rent, whatever.
    So we lived with my in-laws in Amsterdam.
    And then somehow, because my father-in-law was very ill
    and became ill.
    He couldn't handle the noise from young people.
    And doctors checked it out.
    And then we got an apartment on our own.
    We were very lucky.
    In Holland, you don't have signs--
    vacancies.
    Philadelphia's a very big city.
    Now I start laughing-- here is what we did.
    We go to find a place to live.
    No idea where to look, to go.
    We never heard about real estate offices.
    We don't have that.
    To the government, you have a waiting list.
    How many children?
    You have three children.
    Oh, you wait about three, four years.
    And you could see maybe your in-laws could take you in.
    Because there's shortage of homes, apartments.
    So downtown Philadelphia-- did you ever go to Philadelphia?
    You start counting by 1st street up to 60th Street.
    1st Street is near downtown, if memory is correct.
    So we were looking for a place to live.
    We remembered, we saw big signs.
    No money for a car.
    We had only a couple of dollars, so no public transportation.
    Because we have all the saved-up money.
    The Jewish organization paid one month's rent,
    then we found an apartment.
    That's true.
    $50.
    They did not help us to find a job.
    We don't know anybody.
    Later, I found out that in Philadelphia,
    10% of the population is Jewish--
    and businesses, whatever, at least.
    the anger-- I felt similar with Holland, somehow.
    When the knew that I'm a Holocaust survivor,
    that I was being pushed away.
    I didn't feel it.
    Later, it came out.
    Don't come close to me.
    Keep distance.
    I'll tell you later why, in my judgment,
    that feeling existed and still exists.
    We look for a job.
    And they told us, look in the Yellow Pages.
    In Holland, you don't have Yellow Pages,
    but that's the way I found the job.
    Looking into the Yellow Pages and going to all the factories
    who do similar work to what I did in Holland.
    And my first job, I made $1 an hour.
    That was a lot of money then in '56.
    $1 an hour, gross.
    And my wife made $1 an hour, gross.
    In the meantime, we needed a place to live.
    And we saw all signs of buildings--
    vacancy, vacancy, vacancy.
    And I'm not making it up, Peggy.
    People say, you have a good sense of humor.
    They say, that maybe helped you survive, maybe.
    I told my wife, the people are cuckoo here.
    She said, what are you talking about?
    Who is going on a vacation and put a sign in the window?
    The burglars can go in.
    Because vacancy-- in Dutch, you have the word "vakantie."
    It's only spelled a little different-- vacancy.
    In Holland, you spell T-I-E. This is so similar.
    Oh my.
    And I couldn't get over it.
    And we walked from block one to block two, till the 50th block.
    And I have a hard time walking.
    Thank God, no hills.
    It was flat.
    And I could not get over how stupid people in America
    are to put a sign and go on vacation.
    You don't do that.
    And I was not that upset.
    I say, are the people here cuckoo?
    Are they stupid?
    I would never do that.
    We never did it.
    Not realizing that vacancy--
    what it means.
    So then we didn't know what to do, where to go,
    because where do you look for a place in another country?
    Somebody told us, go to a real estate office.
    We said, what is a real estate office?
    So we went to the real estate office.
    And then I said, will you explain to me
    why people put the signs up for vacation?
    He said, vacation?
    The guy broke up.
    And then I learned something.
    I felt embarrassed that--
    my God.
    In my mind, maybe I insulted American people.
    I didn't mean to.
    My God, these people on vacation put a sign.
    Oh my God.
    But then with his help, we found a nice place.
    But we walked the block till 55th Street, in the 50s.
    I'll never forget.
    We could have had an apartment maybe
    in the first block already, but we didn't
    know that there was an opening.
    So we stayed about a year in Philadelphia.
    And we saved money.
    And we couldn't handle the climate anymore,
    because the humidity was too much.
    We didn't have a car.
    Whenever we went shopping, we went by public transportation.
    We had a nice landlord.
    They would pick us up when we went for grocery shopping
    once a week.
    I always made a joke about it.
    My first wife's birthday was March the 7th.
    And we arrived in Philadelphia at the end of April, 1956.
    Correct.
    So in '57, we made up our mind.
    We are going to leave Philadelphia.
    Let's go to the West Coast.
    We didn't know anybody.
    We didn't know any people.
    We heard about an elderly couple,
    but they never-- no family, no relation to us.
    How to go?
    So we saved money to buy a car, but I know nothing about cars.
    In the meantime, nobody ever asked me
    whatever questions about it.
    They thought I walked funny.
    That's all.
    What is the matter?
    You walk funny.
    See, I don't have any toes.
    Oh.
    That was the end of it.
    I never volunteered to talk about it.
    Nobody asked me.
    Because I felt it was mine.
    Probably.
    So I made a joke.
    I told my wife, OK.
    I buy you a lipstick for your birthday or we buy a car.
    Of course, the cost of a car is different.
    And we only had money for a second,
    so we bought a second-hand car with the help from somebody.
    $500 or $700.
    We were members of, say, the AAA.
    Their name over there-- sister organization of AAA.
    We filled up.
    You want to go to San Francisco.
    Again, Holland is a very small country.
    Very small-- compared with America, of course.
    So we look at the map from America.
    You go from here to here to her.
    No idea what a trip.
    And the distance.
    Yeah.
    So we bought a car and I went for my driver's license.
    And I passed the first time.
    First shot-- driver's license.
    Then we bought a car and we bought a car near downtown.
    And I said to my wife, we go right downtown
    over small streets and--

    There is no transcript available for this track

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Eddy Wynschenk, born on July 18, 1927 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses childhood in Amsterdam; his memories of the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany; the restrictions placed on Jews after Amsterdam was occupied, including the confiscation of his father's business; his arrest and subsequent release with his parents in September 1942; his memories of the Jewish Council in Amsterdam; being deported with his family to Vught concentration camp in 1943; the deportation from Vught of his parents, sister, and niece in November 1943; being transferred to Westerbork and being deported from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau; conditions in the camp, including his work sorting the clothes of arriving Hungarian Jews who had been sent to their deaths; his transfer to Fürstengrube, a work camp; a death march he endured; his arrival at Dora concentration camp, where his toes had to be amputated; his liberation by the 104th Infantry Division of the United States Army in April 1945; the responses of the guards to the liberation; his interactions with liberators; his return in May to Amsterdam, where he was hospitalized; learning that his family had perished; the difficulties he had living with relatives and adjusting to his new life; his decision to immigrate to the United States with his wife, Maryanne, in 1956; his life in Philadelphia, PA and San Francisco, CA; the terrible psychological aftereffects of his Holocaust experiences; and speaking in 1986 at a reunion of the 104th Infantry Division about the liberation of the camp.
    Interviewee
    Eddy Wynschenk
    Interviewer
    Peggy Coster
    Date
    interview:  1989 September 20
    interview:  1990 March 04
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 videocassettes (SVHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project conducted the interview with Eddy Wynschenk on September 20, 1989 and March 4, 1990. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project in December 2001.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Related Materials
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0383
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:45:01
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn509629

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    Oral history interview with Leo Samuel

    Oral History

    Leo Samuel, born in 1924, discusses his childhood in Cherna, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); the effect of the economic depression of the 1930s on his family; his deportation to Khust, Ukraine in September 1939; the Hungarian annexation of the region; his work as a tailor in Budapest, Hungary and Cherna; his experiences in the ghetto at Khust; the conditions in the ghetto; the things he had heard about the camps; being deported to Auschwitz in early 1944; being separated from his family; his transfer to Płaszów and the conditions there; working as a tailor; his encounters with Göth's assistant Wilek Chilowicz; being transferred to Melk (subcamp of Mauthausen) several months later; the conditions in Melk; the people he encountered; the help he received from a friend; the work he performed building tunnels and crematoria; his transfer to Ebensee; working in the kitchen; his liberation by the United States Army; his postwar life; his immigration to the United States; and his life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Lily Spitz

    Oral history interview with Lily Spitz

    Oral History

    Lily Spitz discusses her childhood in Satu Mare, Romania; her family life; her religious upbringing; the changes she observed after 1939, the increased antisemitism, and the difficulty in attending school; the changes she experienced when her region became part of Hungary in 1944; her family's deportation to a ghetto and the conditions there; her experiences during her family's deportation to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944; the selection process, and her entry into the camp; her experiences in Auschwitz, the work she performed, and the many selections she endured; her transfer by train to Mauthausen in early 1945; being liberated; the medical care she received from the United States Army; her reunion with her surviving siblings and their return to Romania in July 1945; her marriage and family; their immigration to the United States in 1964; and their life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Melvin Suhd

    Oral history interview with Melvin Suhd

    Oral History

    Melvin Suhd discusses his childhood in Detroit, Michigan; the antisemitism he experienced in school; his education as an electrical engineer; his decision to join the military in 1943; his training in weaponry; his arrival in France in December 1944; the military actions he was involved in; his experiences while helping to liberate Dachau and his emotions at the time; his life after he returned from the front; and the psychological aftermath of his wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Benjamin Broclawski

    Oral history interview with Bernard Benjamin Broclawski

    Oral History

    Bernard Broclawski, born January 27, 1917, describes his childhood in Pabianice, Poland; how he began to work at 13 to support his family; his socialist political leanings; his involvement in Jewish socialist organizations from 1936-1939; his awareness of political events in Germany; being drafted into the Polish Army; his time in Soviet-occupied Poland; reuniting with his father and brothers in Grodno, Poland (Hrodna, Belarus); his work as a machinist in Siberian coal mines in January 1940; his work as a German-language teacher in 1941; his arrest for giving a counter-revolutionary speech in 1943; his experiences in prison from 1944 to 1948; his release from prison and return to Poland in 1948; his marriage and the birth of his daughter; his involvement in workers' organizations; his studies at the University of Łódź; the increase of antisemitism in 1968; how and why he immigrated to the United States with his family; their immigration with the assistance of the HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society); and his life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

    Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

    Oral History

    Julius Drabkin, born in 1918 in Maritopa, Latvia, describes his parents, Mikhail and Sarah Daviolovna; life before the war when he lived in Riga, Latvia; being a soldier in the Latvian Army until the German invasion in July 1941; living in the ghetto for most of the war; getting married to his first wife, Amalia, in 1941; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; being sent to Kaiserwald camp; being liberated on March 10, 1945 at Stutthof; returning to Riga after the war because he was distressed, even though he had the opportunity to emigrate; the perishing of all of his family during the Holocaust, except for one of his aunts; getting remarried shortly after the war (his wife also lost all her family); having two sons and living in Riga until he immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s; emigrating because his older son found it impossible to pursue his career because he was Jewish; and visiting Riga for the World Conference of Holocaust Survivors.

    Oral history interview with Renee L. Duering

    Oral history interview with Renee L. Duering

    Oral History

    Renee Duering, born January 7, 1921 in Cologne, Germany, describes her childhood in Cologne; moving to Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1933; her experiences in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation; getting married in 1941; the time she and her husband spent in hiding; her family's deportation to Westerbork in July 1943; her experiences in Westerbork; her parents’ deportation to Bergen-Belsen; her and her husband's deportation to Auschwitz; how her husband perished in Auschwitz; being a subject of medical experiments, including those involving sterilization; her deportation to three other camps; her experiences on a death march to Ravensbrück in January 1945; her escape during the march; hiding near Dresden, Germany until liberation by the Soviets; living with her sister after the war; moving to Israel; immigrating to the United States; her second marriage; and her joy at becoming pregnant despite the experiments she endured.

    Oral history interview with Werner Epstein

    Oral history interview with Werner Epstein

    Oral History

    Werner Epstein discusses his childhood in Berlin, Germany; the anti-Jewish regulations he and his family encountered when the Nazis rose to power; his decision to leave Germany after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; fleeing by bicycle to Belgium, where he prospered until the war began in September 1939; being arrested as an enemy alien; his experiences in a series of detention camps in southern France; his arrest, imprisonment, and deportation to Auschwitz; arriving at Auschwitz; volunteering to work in a coal mine in Silesia, where he remained until December 1944; being ill with malaria, which he contracted while in French detention camps; the death march he endured after the camp’s evacuation in advance of the Soviet Army’s approach; being liberated by Russian Mongol soldiers; journeying to a transit camp in Magdeburg, Germany; reuniting with his fiancee; returning with her to Paris, France, where they settled and he became a chef; and immigrating to California in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

    Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

    Oral History

    Lya Galperin discusses her childhood in a small town near Kishinev, Romania (Chisinau, Moldova); her family's flight after the invasion of Nazi Germany; a traumatic incident in which Romanian soldiers sexually assaulted the women in their group, after which the family returned to their home town; her family’s imprisonment in the local synagogue; her experiences in the ghetto of Beshard, Ukraine from 1943 until her liberation in 1945; her postwar life in the Soviet Union; her marriage; her life in Riga, Latvia; her mother's attempts at helping the family immigrate to the west; and her eventual immigration to San Francisco, California in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Lore Gilbert

    Oral history interview with Lore Gilbert

    Oral History

    Lore Gilbert, born in Worms, Germany in 1929, describes her childhood in Worms; the antisemitism she experienced as a child; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938 and its impact on her family when her father's assets were confiscated; the family's move to Heidelberg, Germany and their deportation to France; their experiences in Gurs concentration camp; the family's selection by the Dominican Republic Settlement Association (DORSA) to be sent to the Dominican Republic; the Jewish refugee community in Sosua, Dominican Republic; the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina; the security and safety Jewish refugees enjoyed in the Dominican Republic during the war years; her family's immigration to the United States; her father's difficulties in adjusting to their new life; the experiences of her grandparents, who remained in France during the war years and were sheltered by the French Catholic Church; and the trauma and fear she has felt over the years as a result of her Holocaust-related experiences.

    Oral history interview with Rita Goldman

    Oral history interview with Rita Goldman

    Oral History

    Rita Goldman discusses her childhood in Berlin, Germany; her parents' painful decision to send her on a Kindertransport; leaving Germany for England in 1939; the kindness of the family with whom she stayed; the events of the war years; corresponding with her parents, who had fled to Shanghai, China; her reunion with her parents after the war; and the difficulties she experienced in adjusting to life with them.

    Oral history interview with Mala Holcberg

    Oral history interview with Mala Holcberg

    Oral History

    Mala Holcberg describes her childhood in Poland; her early memories of the Nazi occupation of Poland and crimes committed against Jews and her family's desire to flee Poland; the confiscation of her family's possessions and the family's deportation to an unidentified ghetto; her experiences in the ghetto; the murder of her father; being deported to an unidentified concentration camp, where the inmates were forced to make bombs and grenades; the terrible conditions in the camp and her illnesses; the camp's liberation by Soviet troops; her return to Poland; her marriage and family; her present ill health and the lasting emotional effects of her experiences during the Holocaust; and the loss of many family members.

    Oral history interview with Kate Kaiser

    Oral history interview with Kate Kaiser

    Oral History

    Kate Kaiser describes her childhood in Mistek, Austria (now Czech Republic); her marriage and move to Hamburg, Germany; the rise of antisemitism after the Nazi's rise to power; how she and her husband were affected by the Nuremberg Laws; their decision to leave Germany after their daughter was born; the wait to obtain papers; her husband's move to the United States in advance of them; waiting with her daughter in Mistek until August 1938 when their visas arrived; her adjustment to life as an immigrant in the United States; her attempts to find her family after the war; learning of the death of her family, all of whom perished except for one brother and a cousin; and her trip to Prague, Czech Republic in 1998 to discover the details of her mother's fate.

    Oral history interview with Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner

    Oral history interview with Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner

    Oral History

    Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner describes her childhood in Odessa, Ukraine; her family life and her marriage at age 19; the outbreak of World War II being ejected from her home by her neighbors and being imprisoned with her family in Odessa; the ensuing chaotic events; being separated from two of her brothers; being placed on trains to a small village, where she endured terrible conditions with her younger brother, daughter, and mother; the threat of mass murder; escaping with her mother and daughter; being transported to a series of villages; attempted sexual assault at the hands of a Rumanian officer; being separated from her mother; successfully passing as a non-Jew and working as a cook at a police station until the end of the war; reuniting with her mother and husband; and immigrating to the United States with her family in 1978.

    Oral history interview with Vera J. Lieban-Kalmar

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nadine Lieberman

    Oral history interview with Nadine Lieberman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral History

    Bernard Offen discusses his childhood in Krakow, Poland; his early experiences with antisemitism; the events he witnessed during the German invasion of Poland in 1939; his experiences in the Krakow Ghetto starting in 1941, including the deportations of many family members and hiding from raids; being deported to Płaszów in 1943; his narrow escape from Płaszów; hiding in a nearby camp with a family member; his deportation to Mauthausen; his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; his experiences in Auschwitz; his transfer in October 1944 to a subcamp of Dachau near Landsberg; his experiences in the subcamp; being on a death march in May 1945; being liberated by the United States Army; his search for other surviving family members; the fates of the rest of his family; immigrating to the United Kingdom after the war; his subsequent immigration to the United States; enlisting in the United States Army to serve in the Korean War; his life after the war; returning to Poland to conduct tours of Holocaust-related sites; the time he spends speaking about his personal experiences.

    Oral history interview with William Pels

    Oral history interview with William Pels

    Oral History

    William Pels, born on May 11, 1924 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses his prewar experiences in Amsterdam; his memories of the German invasion of Holland in 1940; the changes that he witnessed during the occupation; witnessing the arrest and deportation of Jews; the German raids on homes to find hidden Jews; his own close call with deportation; moving to Vienna, Austria in 1942 to work in a hotel; his experiences with wartime Vienna; the bombing campaign by the Soviets in March 1945; travelling into Hungary, where he remained until May 1945; his postwar activities; working for the United States Army; working in a former concentration camp; returning to Holland; marrying his wife in Great Britain; immigrating to the United States in 1957; and his life in America.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Plainfield

    Oral history interview with Ruth Plainfield

    Oral History

    Ruth Plainfield (née Oppenheimer), born on January 27, 1925 in Gau Bickelheim, Germany, discusses her childhood in Mainz, Germany; the rise of the Nazi party to power; her father's arrest in 1935 and the effect that had on her; her childhood encounters with antisemitism; her family's immigration to the United States; living first in New York and then San Francisco, CA; her family's experiences in California; her education; and learning of the fate of family members, including a grandfather who died in Theresienstadt.

    Oral history interview with Thomas Schneider

    Oral history interview with Thomas Schneider

    Oral History

    Thomas Schneider discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria; being raised as a Catholic child of a Jewish father and a Jewish mother who had converted to Catholicism; being forced to leave school and study at a Jewish school in 1938 after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany; his family's immigration in March 1939 to the United States; settling in New York, NY; his experiences in school, college, and law school; his legal career; and the conflicts he has felt throughout his life about his Jewish identity.

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Shlyapochnik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

    Oral History

    Benjamin Sieradzki, born on February 4, 1927 in Zgierz, Poland, discusses his childhood in Zgierz; his awareness in 1938 about Hitler and the discrimination experienced by German Jews; his memories of the mobilization of the Polish Army, and the invasion of Poland by Nazi forces in September 1939; hiding from the bombing; his brothers' escape to the Soviet section of Poland; his family's move to the Łódź ghetto; the harsh conditions in the ghetto; the first deportations in 1941; Chaim Rumkowski's leadership in the ghetto; a visit by Heinrich Himmler in 1942; the deportation in September 1942 of the ill, elderly, and children, during which his parents were sent to Chelmno and killed in gas vans; the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944; his transport, with one sister, to Auschwitz; watching the selections and seeing his sister being taken to the gas chambers; his experiences in Birkenau, then in a concentration camp in Hannover where he worked for the Continental Rubber factory; being forced to work in a quarry, where he became emaciated, sick with dysentery, and indifferent to his fate; the abandonment of the camp by German troops; being liberated; the state of his health and his experiences in military hospitals and then in convalescent homes in Sweden; experiencing anti-Jewish sentiment in Sweden; being smuggled to Denmark to stay with his uncle; his reunion with his older brothers, who had survived the war; the difficulties of his living situation; his immigration to the United States in 1953; and his marriage and family life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Gisela Spigel

    Oral history interview with Gisela Spigel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erika Weingarten

    Oral history interview with Erika Weingarten

    Oral History

    Erika Weingarten (née Mosler), born on October 9, 1918 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her childhood in Berlin; her assimilated family life; her education; the few instances of antisemitism she experienced; her family's decision to send her out of Germany to attend school in Switzerland and her experiences there; her journey in August 1939 to Great Britain, where she reunited with her parents; their immigration to the United States in March 1940; the work she performed; her continued education; passing as Swiss when she tried to get work; her trips to Europe in later years and the closure she experienced; and her thoughts about the German people.

    Oral history interview with Max Weingarten

    Oral history interview with Max Weingarten

    Oral History

    Max Weingarten, born in April 1913 in Lechnau, Poland, discusses his childhood in Vienna, Austria; his education and religious upbringing; studying the law; his work in the film industry with his uncle in London beginning in 1936; his immigration to the United States in 1938 and the work he performed in the film industry; his experiences in the United States Army and his work in intelligence and international law; his life after the war; his marriage and children; his work as a lawyer; his feelings about the United States; and the fates of his other family members.

    Oral history interview with Herman D. Wiener

    Oral history interview with Herman D. Wiener

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Liza Avrutin

    Oral history interview with Liza Avrutin

    Oral History

    Liza Avrutin, born in 1930 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes her big family, which consisted of nine brothers and sisters; how even though her family was not very religious, Liza remembers various religious traditions such as all of the kids saying a Shabbat wish in front of the candles; her mother’s reluctance to leave before the Nazi occupation; her uncle’s evacuation to Tashkent where he and his family survived the Holocaust; the Nazi occupation in October 1941 and the summoning of Jewish residents on December 22; being taken with other Jewish residents to Slobodka (a section of Odessa) where they spent three months; a pogrom in Odessa on October 23-24, 1941 in which much of the remaining Jewish population was murdered; being sent with her family on cattle trains to Vaselinivska; the train journey, during which many passengers died including her father and her four-year-old brother, Boris; her mother’s psychological reaction to their deaths and her eventual death; being taken to Vasnisenska (Voznesensk, Ukraine), where they were sorted and sent to different places; being sent to Babini Balki in Krivoruchka, Ukraine; the lack of food and the death of many of the imprisoned people from starvation; the arrival of the Russians, who murdered all the civilians; being one of two survivors (Rosa Lifchitza also survived) who were rescued by the nearby villagers; waking up in Nadia Zhigalovna’s house with a bullet wound on the top of her head; hiding her Jewish identity by saying her name was “Lida” not “Liza”; changing her name to Valentina Ivanovna Panchivka; her life in the village and the sacrifices her new mother made for her; living with Nadia and her family until 1947; staying in close contact with the family that rescued her; getting married and immigrated to the United States; and changing her name back to Liza when she became a US citizen.

    Oral history interview with Aleksandr Belfor

    Oral history interview with Aleksandr Belfor

    Oral History

    Aleksandr Belfor, born September 18, 1923, describes his childhood in Kishinev, Ukraine (now Chisinău Moldova); the onset of the war and his family's escape from the approaching Nazi forces to Alma-Ata, Khazakstan, where Mr.Belfor lived and studied medicine until he was inducted into the Soviet Army; the stories he heard about the tragic fate of many family members during the Holocaust, including the sexual assault of one aunt; being arrested and imprisoned after the end of the war; his life in the Soviet Union and the antisemitism he encountered there; and his immigration to the United States in 1983.

    Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshteyn

    Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshteyn

    Oral History

    Semyon Berenshteyn discusses his childhood in Moldova; the family's move from Balta to Odesa after the beginning of the war in 1941; the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; the establishment of a ghetto in Balta; working for a Christian friend; passing as a non-Jew by wearing a crucifix; learning of war news from Christian neighbors; the forced labor imposed on Jews; the murders of Jewish men, women and children by German soldiers, including the death of his father; liberation by Soviet troops in March 1944; his service in the Soviet armed forces; his marriage and the birth of his son; and his immigration with his family to the United States in 1988.

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral History

    George Denes, born on September 9, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes his family and early life; the fates of different family members; growing up Jewish but not Orthodox; the beginning of the war at which point his father was sent to the front to perform forced military labor and his return before the German occupation began; antisemitism before and during the war; Polish refugees arriving in 1939 and 1940; the belief amongst Hungarian Jews that the Nazi policies would not affect them; the German occupation and his father relocating the immediate family to another part of the city; his mother working as a nurse for a wealthy family while he and his brother stayed in a "private day care" for Jewish children; being discovered and escaping; his father acquiring false papers for the family (new surname was Faketta); staying with an older Christian woman until her son, a Nazi sympathizer, had the boys and their father arrested and taken to a local Nazi headquarters; being imprisoned in the basement of the building with other Jews and some other people arrested by the Nazis; being taken on December 29, 1944 with his family to the river to be shot by the Nazis and being saved when the German army prevented the Hungarian Nazis from shooting in this area; escaping the prison a few days later; reuniting with his mother and going with his family to the eastern side of the river; hiding for several weeks in the basement of a villa; having difficulties acquiring food and being near starvation by the time the Red Army liberated the city; being given food, baths, and clean clothes by the Russians; attending a Jewish high school after the war; being refused by the university because he attended a religious high school; befriending the head of the university's engineering department and being accepted the following year (1956) [note that the first interview includes family photographs]; the revolutionary period following 1956 as well as his life as a university student in mechanical engineering; everyday life in post-war Communist Hungary, including some analysis of the political and social climate of that period; his life after the revolution, including his marriage, the birth of his son, and his military career; his family's two attempts to defect, once without help, and once with help (the second one was successful); the time they spent in Vienna, Austria while their refugee status was established; the help given to them by HIAS; the medical care given to Robert, who had contracted typhus during their escape; his life in the United States, including his career as an electrical engineer working in semiconductors and his divorce; and his state of mind at various points in his life.

    Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

    Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

    Oral History

    Lev Dumer, born in 1919 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes the Jewish community in Odessa before the war; experiencing antisemitism before the war; the deaths of his maternal grandparents in pogroms; receiving a degree in radio engineering; working in Kirovograd (Kropyvnyts'kyi, Ukraine) when the war began; the German occupation of Kiev; the Jewish response to the invasion; his family’s evacuation to Chelyabinsk in August 1941; his grandmother, Pena Gershova Dumer, dying while evacuating later in 1943; the Romanians entering Odessa; Jews having to register; the denouncement of Jewish families by antisemitic neighbors living in the same building as his family; the hanging of his college mathematics and physics professor, Foodim, for failing to register; the roundups and mass murders in Odessa; Alexander Sepino, who was able to escape imprisonment; observing a minute of silence every day for five years as a prayer for those who perished; the deportation of the remaining Jews to a ghetto in Slobodka; various righteous people who risked their lives to save Jews, including Oleg Krist and Jora Temoshenko; the experience of his aunt, uncle, and two cousins in Pervopol; the difficulty of living during the Stalin regime; the growing antisemitic trend in Russia during the years following WWII; the Russian government hiding the evidence of the Holocaust from the people; and spending many years gathering information from survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust in Ukraine in order to preserve the memory for future generations.

    Oral history interview with Anisim Dworkin

    Oral history interview with Anisim Dworkin

    Oral History

    Anisim Dworkin, born in 1923 in Smirenskiy, Soviet Union (possibly one of the many Russian places named Smirnovskiy), describes how at the time Jews were required to live in a few designated towns in the Soviet Union; his great-grandfather, who served in the Tsar’s army as a cannon operator for 12 years and was thus given the right to live in a Russian town even though he was Jewish; the regret he feels for having spent his childhood in a Russian town because it stripped him of the rich Jewish culture he saw in his parents, including celebration of Jewish holidays and speaking Yiddish; not experiencing antisemitism as a child but being teased as a child for being part of the lower middle-class; moving with his family to a kolkhoz in Smolensk in 1928; having a good life on the farm until the famine in 1933; several of his aunts and uncles who moved to Brest, Belarus with their families; the arrest of his older brother for writing a letter expressing anti-Hitler sympathies in 1939; the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941; being sent to the east since he was not able to serve in the army because of an injury to the eye; being accepted to serve in the Allied army for four months; studying after the war at a university in Ural (possibly Ural Federal University); working in the oil industry in Ural after the war and being discriminated against because of his religion; being fired from a job as head of the research department at a university because of rumors that he was involved in the Zionist movement; his life now in Perim, North Ural (probably Perm’, Russia); his daughter who is married to a non-Jew; and reuniting with his older brother in 1987.