- Greenman, reel 1.
- Mr. Greenman, if we could start with a bit of your family
- background, which I think is important to the story.
- I believe your grandfather was a Dutchman.
- Yes, he was.
- He was born in Amsterdam and his name
- was Joseph Groenteman, which, translated,
- means "greengrocer."
- But at the time of him living in London and registering,
- they couldn't find a translation.
- And the name Groen is green, so he became Joseph Greenman.
- What was he doing in London?
- He was doing several trades.
- I think he was from, what father used to mention it,
- making wooden cases for transporting things for a firm,
- and so on.
- He's probably been in various trades.
- Of course, he also traveled to America and back to Holland,
- and from Holland to England and England
- to America, all over the place like that.
- So I've got a family in America and I've got a family
- in England and in Holland.
- I understand, though, you were actually born in England,
- as were your parents.
- You went to Holland at a very young age.
- Yes.
- I was born in 1910, and probably two months later it
- would have been 1911.
- We went to Holland.
- Grandfather went to Holland and grandmother.
- And at that time, the children followed their parents,
- and so I came to live in Rotterdam.
- What was your father doing in Rotterdam?
- For trade, he was in a cigar-making trade
- and a diamond-polishing trade.
- Later on, as I can remember, he was
- someone who went to the ships and got the sailors into shops
- for new clothing.
- So he was really a salesman on the ships,
- out of the shops, if I can remember that.
- The reason that you went to the camps, as you did later on,
- was because you and your family were Jewish.
- Can you tell me a bit about the nature of your family Judaism?
- Well, I can remember that, as a youngster,
- I went to Hebrew school, right up to my 13th birthday.
- And I remember, on the doorpost in our room,
- there was hanging a little bag with the so-called holy straps
- and a little box attached to it, which
- contained part of the holy Scripture, which,
- according to my father, was property of my grandfather.
- My grandfather was a very Orthodox Jew.
- I also remember that my father used
- to say the Hebrew prayers before food and after food,
- and we children were not allowed to leave the table
- until the prayer was finished.
- And to us, it seemed a long prayer.
- Father also mentioned once to me that it
- was no good to light any fire on the Sabbath,
- and mother was cold.
- Well, grandmother was cold and he lit a fire for her.
- And when grandfather came home, he
- got a little bit of a good hiding
- because he had done that.
- So grandfather stood very near to God.
- So was I later on, but unfortunately, I've
- forgotten my Hebrew.
- I'm still, of course, very much a Jew.
- I've stood near death and I know God was always with me.
- But I don't feel to be an Orthodox Jew.
- I fear Him.
- I love Him.
- I argue with Him.
- And I thank Him, whatever God may be.
- You returned to London from Holland
- as a young man in the trade of hairdresser, I believe,
- when you were 18 or so.
- Can you tell me what life was like in the East End of London
- for you--
- not as a hairdresser, but as a Jew,
- what you saw of antisemitism?
- Well, I remember, before I was 18,
- I also had visited London once or twice
- on a holiday with my brother.
- They used to come over from England, for a holiday,
- to Holland, and they used to take me back once or twice.
- Of course, I felt terribly patriotic about the King
- and anything to do with England.
- So when I got into London and I was courting my wife,
- I went into the hairdressing and I did not
- experience any antisemitism, because as I'm just
- thinking now, most of those shops
- were run by Jewish owners.
- No, I don't think I met then antisemitism.
- There was, of course, a large Jewish community
- in the East End at that point.
- Yes, there was.
- Now, we're talking about, I remember
- later on in 1932 or '34, something
- like that, I remember the marching of the fascists down
- to East London.
- But I was not in London.
- I was living in Brighton.
- Although I'd heard Mosley talk in Goldson Street
- outside Brooks Tea Factory, but I was too
- young to understand politics.
- What can you remember about that Mosley's session?
- We were shouting and talking and he had a large crowd
- of people around him.
- I don't remember much what he said.
- I didn't stay long, I think.
- They were hustling and arguing.
- That's what I remember of Mosley, although I
- have now in my possession--
- some time ago I found a '78 record of Mosley,
- in which he talks about our empire
- and how greater he would make England.
- What did you think of that?
- Well, when I bought it, this was after the war,
- and I've listened to it once or twice.
- Miscalculated.
- Miscalculated entirely because I don't think we've
- got an empire anymore, not in that sense.
- No, quite.
- But of course, I've met antisemitism since then
- when I got back from the camps, without a penny in my pocket.
- And I lost my dear brother, who had been a market salesman,
- and he left a wife and four children.
- And no one was there to help us.
- People promised a lot of things to do for us, but no one did.
- And I started off on the market.
- And I remember one of the first pitches I got, given to me
- by the inspector of the market.
- I think it was in Finsbury Square, somewhere there.
- And I put my little suitcase down
- and it happened to be next to a store who
- sold greens and fruit.
- And the old gentleman behind it said to me, boy,
- what are you doing there?
- I said, well, I got a trade here.
- He said-- well, in different words,
- he said, get back to Palestine.
- So I felt rather funny about it.
- I've just come from hell and now they're
- starting on me again here.
- That's what I thought.
- Although in the camps, one day I saw in the distance
- a British prisoner of war, and I somehow told my kapo,
- can I get to the toilets?
- He said, go and hurry up.
- So I got inside the toilet, where
- the soldier found himself.
- And as he was coming out, I stopped him.
- I said, hello, soldier.
- I said, I'm from London.
- I said, I'm a prisoner here, et cetera, et cetera.
- Perhaps you can spare a cigarette or two, which would
- buy me some soup in the camps.
- So he listened a little bit to my story.
- And then he said, you and I are a prisoner here,
- and way back in England, the Jews are black marketeering.
- I said, but I got two brothers in the war.
- And he walked out.
- That hurt me as well, coming from a British soldier.
- Well, antisemitism, my dear, in 1983--
- that's very recently, isn't it?
- I've got it on paper--
- I found myself in Romford Market,
- buying some greens and fruits, and to hurry back home
- because I had an appointment in the afternoon.
- Between all those thousands of stores over there,
- I had to pass between two stores, one with fruit.
- And as I pass by, a tall fellow--
- about 17 or 18 maybe, he was two heads taller than me.
- And he leaned over and he did as if he
- was sickening over my head.
- I stopped my trolley and I turned around
- and I said, what's the matter?
- You're not well?
- He said, you're a Jew, aren't you?
- I said, yes.
- And with that, from behind the stall, I dare say his mate,
- he said, the Jews are always circumcised, aren't they?
- I said, yes.
- So what about it?
- Then all of a sudden, it struck me.
- They must have been members of the National Front.
- I said, I've got no time here, but I'll come back one day
- and I'll tell you things.
- And I walked away.
- That took me a couple of days to forget that.
- That was as recently as 1983.
- Yes.
- Talking about the late '20s and early '30s,
- are there examples of antisemitism in Britain?
- From what you've told me a few minutes ago,
- it sounds as if there generally were not.
- I didn't experience a lot then.
- No, I can't think of incidents.
- Well, maybe I heard my little cousin, my little niece
- come home from school.
- She was crying.
- And then she told her mother they called
- her a little Jew in school.
- I comforted her.
- And I guess at that time, I had no knowledge
- at all about politics.
- I was trying to get on in the world.
- And one thing I know, I was proud of England
- and I always wanted to get to England.
- What sort of political persuasion
- would you and your family have held at this time?
- I know father always told me about labor, voting labor.
- And I daresay I did vote labor most of the time when
- I was old enough to vote labor.
- But I had no idea that I had right to a Dutch nationality
- until I was nearly taken away to the camp.
- I had to have papers to prove that I was British.
- Yes.
- Still going back, before the war,
- you were living in Britain then at the time
- of Hitler's rise in Germany.
- What did you know about that?
- Well, Hitler, I didn't give it a lot of thought
- while I was in England, I don't think.
- I don't think so.
- I was still in Holland.
- I must have still been in Holland sometime
- when Hitler came to be head of Germany, I think.
- He was elected in 1933.
- 1933.
- 1933.
- Before that, I didn't listen a lot.
- I didn't hear a lot.
- I didn't take a lot of notice.
- I do remember that shortly after that--
- and this must have been, of course,
- in 1940 and '39, when I was in Holland--
- we listened to the radio.
- And I heard him shout and he was applauded and all that.
- And now it's come into my mind, in 1934,
- my sister and myself found myself at my parents'.
- And see, we were talking about the war
- and arguing about the war.
- And she said, Hitler's going to lose it.
- He's going to lose it.
- I said, of course he's going to lose it,
- but what's going to happen in between liberation and now?
- We both were right.
- A lot of things happened.
- That's how I saw it.
- Then I was handed--
- on the street, they were collecting signatures
- of Jewish and non-Jewish people to let the German-Jews
- into Holland, because they were being done wrong to in Germany.
- This is before the war, you mean?
- Yes, just before the war.
- 1934, '33.
- '34 it must have been.
- And I refused to sign that list.
- I said, it's not the Jews that should come out of Germany.
- It's the man Hitler and his lot.
- They should come out of Germany.
- Then the Jews can live there, the Germans,
- and the German people will have peace.
- That's how I thought.
- Again, it proves right after the war, my way of thinking.
- Hitler started his anti-Jewish laws, and so on, fairly early
- on, well before the war.
- Did you travel in Germany at all?
- No.
- No, I didn't travel to Germany.
- I said no--
- I must have been about maybe eight or 10 years old.
- Mother had gone to Germany.
- I dare say there was a kind of a row or something between father
- and mother, stepmother.
- I thought your mother had died.
- My second mother, stepmother, who he married,
- the housekeeper, she was non-Jewish.
- And somehow, we had a bit of strict life.
- And I dare say a quarrel started and she left home
- for Germany, where her parents were living in Oberhausen.
- And father went after her, and he took me along,
- but I must have been very young and very ignorant to remember
- anything about those things.
- Well, she came back again and life went on as before.
- That's the only time I went to Germany.
- After the war and I came back from the camps,
- I did once go to Germany.
- I was working in show business as a singer and the cabaret was
- taking place near Enschede in [NON-ENGLISH]..
- I believe you married in 1935.
- Could you tell me about your wife?
- Yes.
- Before we got married?
- There was a need for a Jewish youth club in Rotterdam,
- and so I became a member of the eight or 12 ladies
- and gentlemen.
- And we made a club, which grew very quick to over 100 members.
- And once a month, we used to give a program of music,
- singing, and acting sketches, and dancing.
- One of the ladies in the committee, she said,
- I've got a friend coming over from Holland, a nice girl.
- I would like her to meet you, knowing
- you were so proud of England.
- So I said, yes, all right.
- That evening, or some evening later on, there
- was a program of singing and music,
- and it was my turn to do my singing.
- And while I was on my second song,
- I think the door opened near the stage
- and in walked a charming young lady.
- I went on singing, and when I finished,
- later on in the evening, I was introduced
- to the lady who walked through the doors,
- not knowing that's going to be my wife.
- Well, she was on holiday in Holland
- for a month or two months, staying with her grandmother.
- And it was our duty, members of the committee,
- to see that the girls got home safely in the evening.
- So the men took eight or 10 or more girls to hand
- and walked them to the homes.
- And in my case, I saw all the girls home.
- And the last one happened to be my young lady.
- And I took her to her home, saw that she got inside, locked
- the door, and said, good night.
- After our marriage, she told me that she
- told her grandma, Ma, Grandma, this is
- the first time that a boy takes me home and doesn't
- demand a kiss.
- Later on she said, when I heard you singing,
- I knew you were going to be my husband.
- [CHUCKLES]
- Well, that's part of my pre-marriage life.
- Then, of course, I went to England.
- She was living in England and I went to England.
- I was a hairdresser.
- And I lived a little while in the home of my wife-to-be.
- Later on I went into lodgings nearby.
- This is in East London?
- In East London.
- We were living down in Golders Green,
- but I was working in East London.
- Then my father-in-law said, I'm going to put up some money,
- he says, and we're going to see to it
- that you get your own saloon.
- Of course, you must make a living before you get married.
- I said, I don't want any money printing up
- our work until I got sufficient, and then we'll get married.
- And that's what happened.
- So you were married to Elsie Van Dam in 1935.
- Yes.
- Then continue the story.
- It was back to Holland at that point.
- Yes.
- We got married on the 7th and we went for our honeymoon
- to Holland, to her grandmother.
- And we stayed at her grandmother's.
- She was her grandmother's angel.
- I went backwards and forwards through London,
- doing my antiquarian book business,
- and my business was growing.
- We had, where we lived, a large attic
- above the rooms where we were living,
- and I start making room there for the stock of books.
- Later on, we moved away from there
- to a bigger house, bigger rooms, and I
- start buying and selling first-class books,
- if I may say.
- And that's how the business grew.
- Why did you and your wife decide to settle
- in Holland instead of England?
- Well, it was, more or less, a want
- and a need of the grandmother.
- She and I became under her influence.
- I didn't like it very much, but I agreed and we stayed on.
- She was a woman nearing 80 years, over 80 years.
- A bit of a cook, kind, and all that,
- but we had to be home in time, not too late.
- Even when you were married?
- Yes.
- She didn't mean any harm, but that's
- how the lady was brought up.
- And remember, my wife, as a child, lost--
- not lost her father, but her father and mother
- were divorced.
- So the mother and the grandmother
- took jolly good care of the child
- since she was about a couple of years old.
- So that grew and grew until she was old enough.
- Anyhow, then came the signs of war.
- I found myself in London.
- What were these signs of war?
- Well, whispers and probably little pieces in paper that war
- was coming.
- I didn't believe it.
- I didn't know what war was.
- And this seemed like I've been asleep.
- I remember reading of two men, British men,
- who were caught in Germany.
- And I think one of the man's name was Best or something.
- This only slightly-- I was interested
- because they were English.
- I think they were spying or they landed somewhere in Germany
- and they were caught.
- I didn't take any further notice.
- So life went on and I went to London, to and fro.
- But that particular time, I found myself in London
- and I saw people digging already dugouts in the streets.
- I didn't quite understand.
- Then I saw them queuing up for gas masks,
- and I just joined a queue and I got my gas mask.
- This would have been 1938?
- Yes.
- So I became panicky.
- And the same evening, I went back to Holland
- with the idea of getting my wife out of Holland, and probably
- the old lady.
- Well, when I got in, the radio was on
- and the news, and there I heard Chamberlain announcing
- that he had seen Hitler and there
- wouldn't be any war between England and Germany.
- So I must have fallen asleep again because I said,
- all right.
- We won't go tomorrow, or whatever it is.
- We're going six months' time.
- So life went on again.
- My wife told me that I promised that we would have a child.
- I said, we better not have a child
- because I still think we're going to have a war.
- I don't know why, but I feel it.
- Well, she said, you promised a child.
- I said, OK then, we'll have a child.
- Just like that and nine months later the child
- was born, a boy.
- But that was already during the wartime when he was born, 1940.
- 1940, but nine months earlier was still '39, wasn't it?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Well, there you are.
- He was born on the 17th March, 17th of March.
- There was still no invasion.
- But before we get to 1940, of course, Chamberlain's Peace,
- or whatever you may call it, didn't last.
- What happened to you when war was declared in September 1939?
- Oh.
- Well, I was still in Holland, thinking what should we do?
- We can't leave the old lady.
- And I didn't know where to turn or what to do.
- I went to the British Consul, I remember, in Rotterdam.
- And I said, what's going on?
- What rumors are there?
- Well, we can't tell you that.
- They said to me, you can leave now on the A
- or you can leave on the B, which means in a few weeks' time,
- or on the C when we leave, when the staff of the Consul leaves.
- I said, all right, I'll leave when the staff leaves.
- Because the way I was thinking, I've
- got rooms full of books stuck, there's an old lady,
- and my wife is pregnant.
- So I put my trust in the British Consul.
- Then when the child was born in 1940, 17th of March,
- I went to the Consul.
- I had registered there.
- No one still told me about the danger.
- So the child was born.
- March, April, May.
- On the 10th of May, the first bombs fell on Rotterdam.
- We were living near a hospital.
- I remember, I think it was on a Sunday morning.
- I was standing, looking out through the curtains
- outside, looking out.
- Mr. Greenman, reel 2.
- So on the 10th of May--
- I think it was a Sunday morning--
- the first bombs were dropping near our home.
- In our neighborhood, there was a hospital, St. Francis Hospital.
- The first bombs landed on that.
- Although, later on, I heard that there
- was a Red Cross painted on the roofs,
- it didn't make any difference.
- I looked out through the window, lifted the curtain.
- And I saw about four or five airplanes
- circling around in a circle and letting the bombs drop.
- Could you identify the planes?
- I mean, did you know they were German?
- Oh.
- I didn't know, but I expected.
- I expected they were German, because rumors
- had that they were dropping parachutes, and so on,
- near the river in Rotterdam.
- And already rumors that you couldn't trust anybody,
- so I took it for granted that it was German.
- Who else could it be to bomb Rotterdam?
- Yes, I remember that I heard something fall behind me
- and I turned around.
- My wife had been just busy bathing the child,
- and it slipped out of her soapy fingers on to the floor.
- I didn't say a word.
- I picked it up and handed it back into her hands.
- And I looked at her.
- We both couldn't say nothing.
- Then we said, well, it's real.
- It's real.
- What can we do?
- So that was at the beginning of the war.
- Can you tell me about the scene in Rotterdam after the bombing?
- The big bombings took place on the 14th of May,
- on the 14th of May.
- Of course, days before-- they say the 10th, 11th, 12th,
- and the 13th--
- we heard of parachute chutes being dropped
- and Germans occupying the bridges in Rotterdam
- and what was going on, but we were too far away
- to go anywhere.
- And I wasn't really--
- why should I leave my wife and child and the old lady
- alone just to be inquisitive?
- And anything could have happened,
- so I didn't go far to wonder.
- Although on the morning of the 14th, I went shopping.
- I had to do some shopping for the wife.
- And I found myself then in the house of a friend of mine,
- a bookbinder in [NON-ENGLISH].
- And I was watching him binding some books.
- I was learning a little bit by watching.
- And we were talking about the war
- and we didn't know what was going to happen,
- and this and that.
- Then it must have been about half past 1:00.
- All of a sudden we heard a tremendous crash.
- The bombs were falling.
- We rushed into his shop, because his shop
- was built to his house.
- And we looked through the window and we saw smoke
- coming from behind the houses.
- And then we said to one another, it
- must have been the paper factory,
- which was in that street.
- The bombing went on for a little while, and when it stopped,
- planes were circling and shooting in the streets.
- I said, I've got to get home.
- So I rushed out of the shop and took cover,
- walking from side to side.
- And where I walked, the airplanes
- were flying and shooting people down.
- I saw people laying in the streets.
- And halfway, I met a friend of mine
- who came towards me, crying and shouting out, my wife.
- My child.
- My child.
- I said, go home.
- Go home.
- I said, I'm going home as well.
- I hope they're all right.
- Anyhow, I got through that and I got home,
- and I found my wife and child and grandmother in the center
- rooms of the house.
- They were crying, of course, and afraid.
- I comforted them.
- And then life went on again.
- I went out to my father's, and I saw Dutch soldiers
- walking the street, not knowing what to do without guns.
- I found my father's place.
- No one at home.
- Part of the streets were burning.
- And I rushed back to our house, looking all over the place,
- if I could find my father or mother.
- People were rushing to and fro, laying
- in the grass, because we had a little, small park near where
- we lived.
- And after searching for hours there,
- I found my mother and father--
- without a coat on, just a waistcoat,
- his head between his hands, in his hands, laying in the grass,
- sitting in the grass.
- And I talked to them and I took them home to my place.
- And he had no time to get anything out of the home,
- so I rushed out again and I found
- a kind of a car, a trolley or something, a burrow.
- And I went with that to the house, trying to save things.
- And I found some portraits of grandfather and grandmother
- and a few odds and ends.
- I don't remember why or what, things probably of no value.
- What condition was the house in?
- It had been shaken not directly by a bomb,
- but it was kind of crumbling.
- But nearby houses were burning.
- So I went out again and I found also in the house
- a kind of paraffin jug, in which this contained paraffin,
- which you could pour out.
- I took that along with me.
- Anyhow, when I got home, I did fetch many things.
- We all were upset.
- We couldn't understand, really.
- The shock was too big for most of us.
- We passed the night.
- There was no water, no electricity, no gas.
- And a lot of things happened then.
- We didn't know what to do exactly.
- I remember we boiled some water on a candle.
- We fixed up a candle, standing with something over it,
- a little bucket of water.
- Silly things, really, but we couldn't do different.
- Well, the next morning, I went out.
- And where I walked yesterday, the day before, there
- was nothing but hot ashes.
- I was walking on hot ashes.
- The houses were no more, like hot pillars, gray ash,
- hot pillars.
- They were standing, smoking from street to street.
- The main street, the high street,
- was about a kilometer in length, from beginning
- to end and all around, which is finished.
- I couldn't understand.
- I remember going right to the very end, which
- had a windmill, an old windmill from the 1700s or something.
- That's the only thing that stood there,
- and I saw an SS soldier taking a picture of it.
- I walked back and I found myself in a spot
- where I could see the street where I had
- been living when I was a child.
- I could see right across.
- There was no more streets.
- The house where my sister had been staying was no more.
- It was all ashes.
- I could see a long, long way across Rotterdam.
- Well, I went back home.
- My sister hadn't turned up yet.
- I went out again to find my sister.
- She turned up the next day.
- She had went with people to The Hague to find cover.
- That was the bombing of Rotterdam.
- Yes.
- What were you and your family or friends
- saying about the Dutch government
- and Dutch armed forces at this time?
- The government was gone.
- Why did she go?
- Later on, we couldn't sing different,
- but probably it was a good thing that they went.
- Rumors that the Dutch soldiers, they had been fighting
- and it caused a lot of casualties of the Germans
- in one part of Holland.
- In Grebbelinie-- a lot of Germans
- must have been killed there.
- The Grebbelinie-- G-R-E-E-B-B--
- no, G-R-E-B-B-E-L-I-N-I-E.
- Thank you.
- I went out again and Rotterdam was burning.
- And the street, the station near,
- three minutes' walk from our house, was a light.
- And the flames were coming towards the street behind us,
- and that street would have gone.
- Our street would have gone.
- So some men running through the street called out to volunteers
- and we had to get all the curtains off the houses.
- The windows were all smashed and the curtains were burning.
- We had to pull them down as best as we could,
- put wooden boards up against the windows.
- Stopped the flames coming into it.
- Luckily, the wind turned and that street was saved
- and our street was saved and the rest.
- I turned the other way, and the center of Rotterdam finished,
- all burned.
- I remember seeing people laying in the road bleeding.
- I couldn't do nothing.
- I couldn't do nothing.
- My sister turned up the next day.
- With the fairly easy capitulation
- of the Dutch government and Dutch Army,
- was this level of bombing necessary?
- Well, they said it was a mistake.
- What we heard was the order not to bomb,
- because Holland is capitulated, came too long.
- The pilots didn't get that message,
- so they dropped their bombs.
- That's what they said.
- But I think it was just like when they had bombed Warsaw.
- They went ahead and just frightened us.
- So we had to capitulate.
- Now, could you talk about life in Rotterdam,
- in that early period after the bombing?
- After the bombing?
- Life at my home wasn't actually at peace
- 'cause mother and father wanted to live on their own again.
- It's no good families living one another,
- so they went out trying.
- And they did find a way giving out a house to live.
- So peace returned to our home.
- We still went up and visited my father several times a week,
- of course.
- We understood the situation.
- Then I remember walking the street.
- And there must have been, probably right
- after the bombing, the next day or so, a column
- of German motorized soldiers coming in.
- Right near where I was walking, they stopped,
- and I remember looking in.
- A big fellow, man about 35, 40 maybe.
- Very strongly dressed in his uniform, everything.
- Strong and heavy, that's what I imagined.
- It must have been so.
- And I walked away.
- Already I began to feel a hate for ruining our city.
- Well, I could not trade in my antiquarian books anymore.
- Shops where we used to go and sell and buy,
- they were bombed away.
- The German regulations came in force.
- And there we were.
- We were not allowed to leave the town.
- We were not allowed to go into a cafe.
- You mean because you were Jewish or because you were Dutch?
- Yes, Jewish.
- Anti-Jewish laws came in.
- Now, only because we were Jews, we
- had to register at the town hall.
- And I had a lot of Jewish friends,
- because of probably a Jewish club we had made.
- So I felt, as a Jew, to be with my Jewish friends.
- And I had been waiting for the Consul.
- This all comes down to my mind.
- I've been waiting for the Consul.
- I didn't get any reply from the Consul at all to get away.
- This was just before the bombing of Rotterdam.
- The British Consul?
- British Consul I went there and I
- found the house closed and nothing, nobody there.
- So we were trapped.
- I still don't understand why they
- didn't let us know that they were going to go.
- What do you think about that?
- Do you think they forgot because of the panic?
- Or do you think they couldn't be bothered?
- Well, it's one of those three things,
- which, when I come to think of it, I didn't think of--
- well, directly I thought, what could have happened?
- The house was there.
- It wasn't bombed, but nobody inside.
- I thought, well, the world is not fair.
- Later on, I thought to myself, well,
- they must have not wanted to have done it or forgotten it,
- or what it was.
- There must have been time.
- I don't know why they didn't do it.
- I don't know.
- Anyhow, as it was, so the Germans
- made their anti-Jewish laws.
- You told me about registering you and your Jewish friends.
- Yes.
- Was there a possibility that you and your friends
- may have discussed of not registering?
- If you didn't turn up, how would they know?
- Well, it's like this, which we don't have in England,
- but everybody, Jew or non-Jew, everybody who lives in Holland,
- comes to live there, has got to register.
- When he moves to the door next door, the house next door,
- he's got a register where he's going to.
- So you can always find those people.
- In England, it's not so.
- It would have been a good thing if they were.
- So comes the registration.
- The Jews have got to register and get their identity card.
- So I goes to the town hall.
- They look in the card index and they
- find that I got a sign a form.
- I got four Jewish grandparents, two on my mother's side,
- two on my father's side.
- Ah, you're a full Jew then.
- Registered.
- You get an identity card with a J on it.
- So in the street, anybody asked for your identity card,
- you take it.
- Show it that you're a Jew, otherwise you won't have it.
- If you had two parents or if you had three non-Jewish parents,
- you there were 3/4, but you were still having
- a J on your identity card.
- If you had two Jewish grandparents,
- there was a possibility that you were exempt from various things
- or being deported.
- But in my case I had four, so we had to register
- and we had to have our yellow David Star.
- We have to buy these.
- They are about five pence or six pence at a time.
- And we have to sew these on our coats and our jackets
- and pullovers so that outside people could
- see you were a Jew.
- Did they know themselves that you
- had four Jewish grandparents or did they only know
- that because you told them?
- It could have been that I filled in a form and told them.
- On the other hand, they could have
- looked it up and found out.
- Some of us, later on after the war,
- heard some of the Jewish people didn't register and went
- into hiding and they couldn't find him,
- unless they did find people who went underground.
- They are no more.
- But some of them who did went to hiding didn't register.
- But I was banking on my British nationality,
- so I was fighting the Germans in my own way.
- I was in contact with the Swiss Consul in Amsterdam,
- who was then taking aware of the business
- for the British subjects in Holland,
- because I had got a call-up to go and work for the Germans,
- to a work camp for the Germans.
- I didn't want to.
- When would this have been?
- 1941, around about that.
- Quite early.
- Had you previously had a call-up for the British or Dutch Army?
- No.
- I didn't have a call-up with the British Army.
- I was always thinking I wish that the English would
- land in Holland and then I could go back to them and join them.
- It never happened.
- But I didn't join a Dutch Army because--
- I got a paper in my pocket.
- But I had a paper which said, "owing to Leon Greenman's
- British nationality, he's not to join the Dutch Army."
- I don't think I would have joined the Dutch Army because I
- have a brother who went from Holland to escape
- from joining the Dutch Army.
- He joined the army.
- My other brother was, as I told you, in the first war.
- With the British Army.
- The British Army.
- Why didn't you and your brother wish to join the Dutch Army?
- We felt patriotic, English.
- Yeah.
- It's really silly.
- Not silly, but I always had a feeling as a child.
- I was always talking about England.
- And I wasn't going to join the Dutch Army.
- Now, you told me about the registration.
- Oh, yes.
- And the yellow stars, which you had.
- And your wife and son also had them, and the baby?
- Yes.
- Had to be sewn on their clothes.
- How did that feel wearing that?
- Well, it was a kind of insult. What shall I say?
- Why should we have to show the outside world that we're
- Jewish by wearing a star?
- A question, why?
- And then you thought, well, I'm a Jew, so what do you want?
- What do you want to do about it?
- I wasn't the only one.
- And I was really proud to do it because I
- had a large Jewish circle of friends with me.
- I could have not worn that star, for an incident
- jumps into my mind now.
- I made a lot of trouble by not wanting to work for the Germans
- in the camp.
- I wrote to the Swiss Consul in 1942--
- I still have the letters--
- asking for their protection and to give me passports
- so that I could be interned, et cetera, et cetera.
- And then I had to have permission
- from the German and Dutch officials to leave Rotterdam
- and to go to Amsterdam.
- I went to Amsterdam, got into the Consul.
- I was waiting there.
- It was very busy.
- I went into a room.
- In that room was a Ms. Jansen.
- And she looked at me.
- I said, I'm Leon Greenman.
- Jansen is spelled J-A-N-S-E-N, Jansen.
- and I said, I'm Leon Greenman and I've been writing so often
- and I can't get no proper papers or passports from you.
- And she said, you need not wear the star.
- You can take that off.
- I said, I know I don't need it because
- of my British nationality, but things might happen.
- I want to be true to my Jewish friends.
- At the same time, I feel safe because my British nationality.
- But why don't I get proper papers from you?
- She said, you can leave that off if you like, but inside
- is a Consul and you'll be let in in a moment.
- And when I got inside in front of the Consul, Mr. Prodilier--
- you want to put his name down?
- Yes.
- P-R-O-D-I-L-I-E-R. Prodilier, the Swiss consulate at that
- time.
- I stood before him with my father.
- Father had also sent forms for passports.
- And he had a bundle like that on his desk.
- A big pile.
- Everyone was the same, photographs and forms.
- And there was my form of photographs
- I'd sent eight days before.
- I said, look, sir.
- I sent this eight days before and I've been writing to you
- and now they're still on your desk.
- It's very urgent.
- It'll be all right.
- He smacked, closed the lot, and I could go.
- No help.
- I've got to go right back for a moment in Rotterdam
- again because the Jews were rushing to and fro an office
- where they could make photocopies of papers.
- We Jews were fighting for our lives.
- We had to have proof the Germans and the Dutch
- were cooperating with the Germans.
- Had to have proof.
- Papers.
- Papers.
- Also I had to have papers.
- I had a friend who used to play the piano for us when
- we were rehearsing our songs.
- And he was working for a firm who
- had the right to go into the town hall
- and seek up cards of people, business,
- or whatever it may be.
- I said to him, could you do me a favor?
- I said, there is somewhere in our cards
- something which my father had told British Consul.
- I said, if you can do that favor,
- get that card out, let me see it.
- Said, I'll do that.
- So he went into the town hall and I waited at the side.
- And he came to the desk and said, yeah.
- And on there was my father's name.
- And on there in pencil, on the edges,
- "Barnard Greenman declares, in front of the British Consul
- that all his children are British subjects, 1923."
- He had to put it back.
- They were asked-- one of the people there in the town hall,
- Mr. de Groot--
- G-R-O-O-T. Mr. de Groot.
- D-E in front of it, small d.
- Groot.
- He was one of the people in that department in the town hall.
- I could never get hold of him again.
- I asked him, I said, get that card and read on there
- we are English, and I want you to give me papers.
- To the effect, I was fighting for my wife and my child
- and my own life.
- Is this an example of collaboration with the Germans
- or is it just an example of incompetence?
- I'll give you another example.
- Whenever we came from England to Holland,
- we had to register alien police.
- My father did so.
- I did so.
- My wife did so.
- We have to show our passports, and then the thing
- went entrance, right?
- We did this every time.
- One evening, we were having dinner at home--
- my wife, grandmother, child, and myself--
- when there was a ring at the door.
- We opened.
- Mr. Greenman, reel three.
- Please continue with that incident.
- So there was a ring at the door, and a man in civilian clothes
- called upstairs, Mr. Greenman.
- I said yes.
- Sir, can I have a word with you?
- I said, yes, please come upstairs.
- So he came upstairs into our room.
- He says, tell me how does it come to be that you are--
- first of all, tell me.
- He said, what are you, British or Dutch?
- I said, I'm British.
- He said, well, how are you to walk as a free Englishman?
- I said, I'm waiting for papers from the Swiss consul
- so that we get--
- we get interned as a British subject.
- So would you mind coming to the police--
- alien police department?
- I said yes.
- I jumped up and put my coat.
- And he said, not now-- tomorrow morning at half past 9:00.
- I said, I'll be there.
- Oh, you can imagine the night, what kind of a night we passed.
- Because at that time, people were taken out of their homes
- and never came back again.
- Anyhow, I presented myself before half past 9:00
- in the main office of the alien police--
- police station in Rotterdam.
- I sat down there waiting, and in and out came
- German soldiers, SSers.
- And then at last I saw a man who I
- had seen before when I was registering before the war.
- His name is Inspector Roos, the chief inspector of the alien
- police, R-O-O-S.
- He took me into a room, my back towards the door.
- And he sat there, and I was here.
- And he said, tell me, how do you come to be walking about here?
- I said, what do you mean?
- He says, what nationality are you?
- I said, I'm British.
- I said, you know, I've been registering.
- He said, let me tell you something.
- I know you're British, but I'm not
- going up to the wall for you.
- I can only stamp you now as a Dutchman, a Dutch Jew.
- He said, tell me, what did your father do during
- the '14-'18 war?
- My father was in the intelligence service
- in '14-'18 war when I was a nipper.
- I didn't know much about it.
- Slightly remember something, but '14-'18 war.
- I said, I don't know.
- He said, you Jews always crawl around the questions
- when we ask you.
- Then I knew I had the wrong man in front of me.
- So he said, now you can go home.
- I came home at half past 12:00.
- Wife, child, old lady there crying and waiting.
- All right.
- A few months after that, we were taken away.
- A ring at the door in the evening, round about 20
- past 10:00, half past 10:00.
- Child was asleep.
- We were whispering.
- Before you come to that, can you talk some more
- about your life in Rotterdam under the Germans?
- Yes.
- You wearing your yellow star were obvious, of course.
- How were you treated then by fellow Dutch people?
- I don't mean, these people in the high positions who appear
- to have been collaborators.
- I mean ordinary Dutch people.
- How was their attitude?
- I got several examples of them.
- Let me think of one.
- I had friends who I used to see very often, very often.
- As a matter of fact, there's some
- was in the same singing class as myself.
- Of course, I went to the Academy of Singing to study singing.
- So did he.
- I used to be home at their place often.
- One day, we visit, myself, my wife, and the child.
- We brought our cash to those people, all our cash to save.
- Why?
- Well, we were sensing we got no help from anybody, so our turn
- would come to be taken away.
- And while I was there talking to them, the lady said,
- Mr. Greenman, if you should happen to go away,
- you bring your child to us.
- We will look after your child until you get back.
- I said, well, that's very nice.
- When we got back home, we talked about it.
- We never would have done it.
- We never would have done it.
- We loved that child too much.
- And as fate would have it, Some time later I went to the house,
- and I said you remember you asked,
- you told me you would look after our child.
- Oh, she said, we talked it over with my husband,
- and we'd rather not do that.
- OK.
- Another occasion where I was living,
- I was living on the first floor.
- On the second floor, there were a husband and wife.
- He worked for the Spanish consul.
- She was a funny kind of woman.
- And on the king's birthday, I used to hang out
- the Union Jack in our street.
- That's the way I felt.
- During the occupation, it was the king's birthday that day,
- Sunday.
- And I didn't put a Union Jack out.
- I was getting scared now.
- I didn't know which way to turn or what to turn.
- I was thinking of my wife and child,
- and I didn't trust the Germans whatsoever,
- if I even couldn't trust the police and all that.
- So when I came down the stairs or up the stairs,
- the lady was just coming down.
- She said, oh, Mr. Greenman, no flag out today?
- It's the king's birthday.
- Oh, you're against us all right.
- I said, I'm sorry, but the flag was dirty,
- and it's in the washing.
- I got out of it that way.
- I never trusted her again.
- Luckily, she moved away.
- I had better neighbor's coming in then, better neighbors who
- let me, listen to the radio BBC broadcast,
- the news, which I later brought around to my Jewish friends,
- and he was very kind to us.
- Well, we didn't trust--
- I didn't trust my people anymore, my friends.
- I had to be very careful with whom I went around.
- I remember there was a young man behind the bookstall
- on the market.
- And I used to go to him and tell the news of the BBC.
- Before the war I knew him, and we used to do business.
- And then one day said, you've got to be careful.
- He is on the wrong side.
- So I didn't go to him no more.
- Who said that?
- Some other people who I knew, friends.
- Later on, I got to know that he was courting a fascist girl,
- and he was on her side.
- He's no more.
- Other incidents, we were not allowed to get into the trams.
- So I walked miles to other little places
- around Rotterdam, see if I could earn something.
- My book trade was gone.
- I went from door to door, trying to sell remnants of silk,
- but only at Jewish doors.
- We were not to mix with non-Jews anymore.
- Couldn't get into a tram.
- I said, no pictures, no parks, nothing.
- We were on our own.
- How about food and shopping?
- Food went-- right, we had coupons to buy food.
- There wasn't enough for this and not enough of that.
- So we only could get--
- and we could only shop between certain hours that day.
- If you found yourself in a shop after a time and somebody gave
- you away, you went to a camp.
- So I always tried to do the right things,
- in the background always my wife and child.
- Did you have the same rationing coupons
- as non-Jewish Dutch people?
- Yes, we did, the same ration.
- How did you find that people whom you didn't know,
- such as shopkeepers, treated you?
- I didn't take a lot of notice of that.
- We didn't-- there was no--
- I don't think I came across shopkeepers
- who refused or said anything.
- No, I think-- it could have happened in other towns that
- weren't bombed, but the Rotterdam people
- were full of hate at what Germans
- have done to their town.
- Of course, only the fascist-minded people, and you
- never knew who they were.
- But on the whole, we didn't trust anybody anymore.
- To what extent were you and your family still able
- to follow Jewish religious practices?
- The synagogues were bombed.
- So we had our services in one another's homes.
- Already I didn't participate in services.
- I probably was in a quarrel with God
- to have those things done to us.
- Others did attend services at rabbis' homes
- or whatever it was.
- I had some very Orthodox friends, Jewish friends.
- And one particular very Orthodox Jewish friend
- of mine living near us, who we used to visit every Sabbath,
- just have a chat, the wife and child,
- and I remember him coming to me one day on the street,
- walking to me.
- He said, I've just come from the rabbi,
- and he was informed by the German authority
- that the Jews wouldn't come to any harm.
- I said, well, I hope you're right,
- but I can't think different.
- Well, this man was taken away with his wife
- and two of the three daughters.
- Never came back.
- His third daughter wasn't home at the time.
- Third daughter went underground when she
- heard her family taken away.
- I found her after the war.
- She's still alive but is a very, very nervous person.
- Other Jewish friends, one at a time, two at a time they went.
- I used to visit them during the day.
- Then I went around the next morning,
- and neighbors said they'd been taken away until the day came
- that we were taken away.
- Before you tell me about that, were there
- occasions on which you would have been required
- to use the Heil Hitler greeting when meeting officials
- or seeing someone in the street?
- No.
- I don't think we had to hail our hands.
- We didn't do that.
- But whenever we were out with our child in the pram
- or walking with the child and an SS
- used to put his hand on the little blonde baby
- as he passed by, I used to spit on the street
- in my way out of hate.
- Did they respond?
- No, we did it when they passed by, you see.
- Otherwise, we'd have been taken away or something like that.
- Yeah.
- But in the meantime, a lot of things were going on.
- People were rounded up from the streets and so on.
- We kept as much--
- I kept as much as possible out of the hands of the Germans.
- What did you know about what was happening to those people who
- were rounded up?
- Well, come to think of it, they were taken to Westerbork.
- We heard they were taken to Westerbork.
- Or Vught or Amersfoort.
- There were three camps.
- Amersfoort and Vught were concentration camps,
- but Westerbork was a camp where people passed through.
- We heard that people were sent away,
- but we never knew or thought that bad things were
- being done to them.
- The only thing is we hated to work for the Germans
- or to be sent away.
- The least thing that in papers was said,
- listen you're not allowed to do or you
- will be sent to Mauthausen.
- And the word Mauthausen filled us with fear.
- Why?
- Well, we heard rumors, it were hard work and so on.
- And now I come to think in my mind,
- I came home one afternoon from my walking
- around the town or visiting people.
- And my wife had a funny look on her face.
- And I said, what's the matter?
- What's up?
- She said, I've been talking to friends,
- and I heard that they were going to gas the people.
- We Jews are going to be gassed in the camps.
- I said, don't be silly.
- Gassed?
- And I only thought that of a gas where
- you boil a kettle of water.
- I said, don't be silly.
- Why should they do that to us?
- We're healthy.
- We're young.
- We work.
- Anyhow, she agreed somehow.
- She wasn't far from the truth, because we didn't know.
- No, we know that now.
- But how had she heard that then?
- She heard it from some people she used to visit.
- I don't know who.
- Probably something leaked out, but we didn't want to know.
- We didn't want to hear.
- I remember listening before the war, before the invasion.
- On the radio, I heard somebody talk.
- He had been in a concentration camp,
- and he was willfully filled by tube in his stomach
- with water because he had stolen some food.
- I remember hearing that, and I said, did you hear that?
- I don't believe him.
- It's a terrible thing.
- I don't think people would do that.
- You see, we didn't believe the bad things.
- When one speaks to Germans who were in Germany at that time,
- as you know, they frequently say they knew nothing
- about the camps.
- So I'm very interested to know what
- it was you knew, what it was people could know.
- Well, we did not know--
- well, I did not know, and there's
- a lot of people, what was really going on in the camps.
- We absolutely thought we were going there to work.
- What could it be?
- Work in factories, on the fields?
- What could it be?
- We had to go to work.
- The thought never came into our mind,
- where are those thousands of us going to?
- What kind of work?
- It never came into our minds.
- To what extent did you know anything
- about resistance or underground movements?
- None whatsoever.
- Was this because you didn't really wish to,
- or you weren't able to find out?
- I didn't know about underground.
- It come to my mind, someone said, can't you get away?
- How could I get away with a wife and child and an old lady?
- So it never came into my mind to resist in that way.
- And still I was backing, in the back of my mind,
- my British nationality papers.
- I thought I had this.
- That was an ace for me against the Germans.
- The only thing I did was listen to the BBC news every evening.
- This presumably was banned.
- Yes, we had no radio.
- The Jews had to give up their radios.
- I remember staying in the queue with my radio,
- and the radios had to be playing.
- You couldn't give an old broken down one.
- I put mine down.
- I had to stand back, and I saw the hand
- pointing towards the BBC from the evening before.
- I'd forgotten to switch over.
- And as the man, the policeman switched on,
- I took a step forward, and got hold of the thing,
- and turned it the other way.
- God knows what would it said "here's the BBC" or something
- like that.
- It saved me.
- That's what happened.
- You had mentioned your upstairs neighbors listened to the BBC
- and let you listen.
- Were they allowed to listen to the BBC?
- At that time, no.
- Well, you were not allowed to listen to the BBC in any case.
- But later on, the non-Jews also had to give up their radios.
- So they were without news.
- The only news they got then from the underground,
- I daresay, or buy papers and all that.
- That's the only thing I did because this alien policeman,
- this inspector Roos, he told me, who are you
- mixing with with your friends?
- What do you do I says, I don't know anything.
- So--
- And then the door opened behind me.
- And he looked up, and then the door closed again.
- And he talked again with me.
- It was the wrong man.
- After the war, if I can mention it now,
- I came to Holland for a holiday, and I
- stayed with my nephew, who also was in the Westerbork camp,
- but his life was saved because of the Canadians
- had cut the railways.
- They couldn't go out anymore.
- And he told me during a meal, he said,
- uncle, a very good friend of yours has died.
- I said, who is it?
- He said Inspector Roos.
- I said, God love a duck.
- I says, that's the man who sent us away,
- who didn't want to cooperate with us.
- I would like to have told him what I thought of him.
- And it was early evening, this was.
- I'm going.
- I'm going to the police station.
- I want to make sure.
- I took my passport.
- I went to the police station.
- I came in the department of alien police.
- There's a man sitting there, a detective, I daresay.
- I showed him my passport.
- The pass has got a lot of gold on it, you know.
- I says, am I too late?
- It's gone 5:00.
- He said, no, come in.
- I said, this is the first time I come
- into this place with a smile.
- He looked at me like I'm mad.
- He said, what do you mean?
- I said I've just heard about half an hour
- ago that one of your officers had died,
- and I would like to have told him what I thought of him.
- He said, what's this then?
- Who is it?
- The way they talk, the police.
- I said, it's Inspector Roos.
- He said, he went home half an hour ago.
- He's not dead.
- I said, is he?
- I said, oh, well, then the day will come when I see him.
- He said, well, you tell me what it's all about.
- So I said to him that and that, and he told me
- he wasn't going up against the wall for me.
- And he was one of the causes killing my wife and child.
- So I said, I'd like to see him.
- He said, well, he lives down there in Rotterdam.
- I said, I'll go and see him.
- I said, and there's another one I'm looking for.
- He said, who's that?
- I said Kurt Schlesinger from Westerbork camp.
- Yes, you'll be telling me more about him later.
- I did see Inspector Roos the next day.
- I went to his house.
- I rang the bell, and the woman next door, neighbor, she said,
- they're not in.
- They're on holiday.
- When are they coming back?
- The next day.
- I went back again the next day.
- I knocked at the door, and a lady opened the door, big lady.
- Yes?
- I says, can I see Inspector Roos?
- Who are you?
- I said, I'm Mr. Greenman.
- Well, then a man came behind, from behind her
- through the passage, and he looked.
- She says, a Mr. Greenman to you.
- He said, Greenman?
- Greenman?
- I said, yes, inspector.
- There's only one Greenman in Rotterdam, and it is so.
- Oh, oh.
- Come in.
- She took me in, into his room.
- A lot of brass, his collection of brass.
- So what can I do for you?
- I said, I come here to shoot you.
- Eh?
- What do you mean?
- I said, if I had a gun, I would shoot you.
- I said, because I'm in a temper.
- Hey, what's it all about?
- He said, you can't take the law in your own hands.
- I says, you remember?
- I was called to your office, and we talked.
- And you said you wasn't going to put me up
- against the wall-- you weren't going
- to go up to the wall for me.
- You knew I was British, but you let me go away.
- My wife and child, because of you they died.
- I couldn't help you, he said.
- I couldn't help you, he said.
- I helped other Jews, but I couldn't help you.
- He said, I myself, I went into prison because I helped Jews.
- I said, your fault one of the people--
- the cause of my wife's death.
- I talked to him for over an hour.
- I said, sir, if I had a gun, I would shoot you
- because that's the way I feel.
- Well, you mustn't do that.
- You mustn't do that.
- Then I got up.
- He helped me put my coat on.
- He said, don't take the law in your own hands.
- Forget about us.
- I says, I'll never forget, and I walked out.
- I'm not a murderer.
- And if I would have shot, I wouldn't
- have been sorry about it.
- And it's always been me.
- So also with [? Proullet, ?] consul of Switzerland.
- He didn't help me.
- The man in the town hall in Rotterdam, he wasn't with me.
- When you went back to the Dutch alien police
- on this post-war visit and you told them about Inspector Roos,
- what was their response?
- Nothing, nothing.
- Nothing.
- Didn't say nothing.
- I only had his address, and I went to him.
- Is he still alive?
- I dare say I didn't hear that he died.
- You see, it hurts me very much to see those people.
- I'm so afraid that I will lose my temper
- and start using camp methods, kicking and hitting.
- I would like to do it.
- I'd probably feel better for it.
- I would like to revenge my wife and child.
- I mustn't.
- So also with Kurt Schlesinger.
- Before you tell me about your own deportation,
- still on the life under German occupation in Holland,
- to what extent did the Jewish community
- try to advise or help or organize
- Jewish people in Rotterdam?
- Well, we had what we called the Joodse Raad.
- It was a council of Jews who were told by the Germans
- to form a committee and see that the Jews are registered
- so that we can send them to Westerbork and to Auschwitz.
- Often I thought that they were wrong,
- that they were not helping.
- But come to think of it, each one of them,
- like myself and many others, were
- holding on to a piece of straw for life.
- They must have thought, we've got to do that job.
- We got to raise and send them away.
- The war might not last so long.
- And while I'm doing it, I'm alive.
- I'm here.
- Of course, in turn, they had to go as well.
- Some of them said they were not doing
- what they ought to have done.
- They could have said, well, we don't do that.
- We're not cooperating.
- Then they would have been grabbed and sent sooner away,
- I dare say, by the Germans.
- You see, to me, they were frightened,
- like we all were frightened, and that's why they did that job.
- You could say, well, why didn't they say no?
- I don't know.
- I probably would have had other people doing it.
- But then again, my answer is, that's
- the beginning of the rope.
- But at the end of the rope, why didn't the Allies
- bomb the railways so that the trains couldn't
- go from Holland, from Belgium, from France?
- Leon Greenman, reel four.
- You had a few more things to tell us about this period.
- Can you tell me about the airplane that was shot down?
- Well, for one afternoon, the airplane-- a couple--
- some airplanes came very low in across Rotterdam, and--
- German planes.
- German planes.
- No, no, English planes they were.
- English planes very low, they were.
- I didn't think they dropped bombs.
- I didn't.
- They were taking pictures or something.
- And we were surprised because we heard the sound, and whoosh,
- very low.
- And then I rushed out on the street.
- I said to my wife, I'm going to have a look.
- They must have landed somewhere there.
- So I walked down the turning and another turning,
- and yeah, then I heard it had come down in the Noordsingel.
- That's a small brook in Rotterdam
- just outside the main prison in Rotterdam.
- It had been shot down or it had landed?
- It was shot down.
- It landed.
- The pilot was dead, I heard.
- And I couldn't get very near to it
- because as I was trying to get near to it,
- a lot of people, a truck come along filled with SS soldiers.
- And I thought best not to push my way through
- but to get back home.
- But now there's a memorial stone in front of the place.
- It got stuck in the mud, plane and all that.
- The pilot was wounded, as I said, killed.
- And there's only a stone memorial outside the spot
- where it came down.
- But other incidents in Rotterdam, there were several,
- you see.
- What can I think of?
- You couldn't talk to anybody.
- You didn't trust them.
- You only went to visiting your Jewish people.
- I spent some hours with them, or they came to your home.
- For instance, I had Jewish friends not living far from me.
- They came to my home, and we played table billiards.
- And then I went to their home.
- We played cards.
- They were taken away before me.
- We heard from time to time, nearly every day,
- acquaintances were taken away.
- We didn't see them anymore.
- And this lack of trust and your relationship
- with the various Dutch people you've mentioned--
- Yes.
- Were you surprised by their behavior
- under German occupation?
- Or was it what you would expect?
- Well their town, our town was wounded very much,
- and we were hurt.
- And I would say 9 out of 10 Dutchmen hated the
- Germans for it.
- The one must have been a co-operative
- or a fascist-minded.
- But though you did explain they hated the Germans,
- they seem to have been hostile--
- To the Jews.
- Towards you.
- Or would the fact that you were an Englishman make it worse?
- No, no.
- Not everybody knew about me.
- That was only the close friends in my circle
- knew that I was English, and I didn't
- notice any trouble in that way.
- Well, I mixed as long as possible
- with the non-Jewish people as well.
- We went visiting them until we were not allowed to mix anymore
- with non-Jewish people.
- And in the meantime, I was waiting for the actual papers
- from the British-- from the Swiss consul,
- which didn't arrive.
- When would this have been that the British reconnaissance
- plane was shot down?
- Well, I should say it was 19--
- it wasn't a summer day.
- 1942, beginning '42, somewhere around April, May,
- I should say.
- Somewhere around that.
- Tell me about the Allied bombing of Rotterdam.
- Oh, the Allied bombing.
- That was a good thing, we thought.
- Because I remember I heard it on the--
- we still had the radio then.
- Well, we heard it from other people, the bridge was bombed.
- So I went out.
- It's a long way from where I lived.
- And then I imagined part of the bridge was slanted.
- It wasn't so.
- But it was medicine to me, you know.
- Oh, a little more in the middle, and the lot
- would have been gone.
- That's how we thought.
- You mean it was bombed, but they hadn't succeeded.
- No, the bomb-- the bomb must have just gone off it.
- Other incidents was the Allies were
- bombing Rotterdam, the part in Rotterdam where a school--
- the school where the German SS were, the SS were living.
- And it was somewhere near a square,
- in another square friends were living of mine there.
- Well, they started bombing about 8 o'clock.
- And I know we, myself, my wife, the old lady and child,
- we went downstairs and stood at the bottom near the stairs.
- So if the house would have been bombed,
- then we would have been in the street or something.
- And we waited there, and it took hours
- before the bombing stopped.
- And we thought, well, I'll go out.
- I went outside the steps of the house,
- and people come and rushing through.
- I said, where's the bombing?
- And they said there and there and there.
- I said, oh, well.
- I said to my wife, I must go and have a look.
- All my friends are living there.
- Something happened.
- I must help.
- So I went.
- You're not allowed in the street at that time,
- but anyhow I went.
- It was around 12:00, and there he was.
- The son and father was nailing wooden planks
- up against the window.
- The glass was all smashed to pieces.
- They had missed.
- They had missed the school.
- School is still there.
- I went by every time.
- I went by last week.
- And I said, oh, give us the hammer and give us the nails.
- I'll help you.
- And I got along the wood, and I was knocking.
- And a bit of glass that high fell into my--
- see the scar here?
- Look.
- A glass about a foot long.
- Yes, stuck into it.
- Stuck into it.
- I pulled it out.
- I'm bleeding.
- And I went.
- I left him, and I went to the hospital.
- That hospital was partly bombed, partly was still there.
- And there's still a piece of the hospital standing there,
- the arch where I used to walk through.
- And about half past 2:00 I could go after they
- cleaned it and bandaged it up.
- I like that because the Royal Air Force did this.
- I'm proud of it.
- I'm silly, but I'm thinking like that.
- And that was that.
- What else was there?
- Oh, yes, laying in bed, and then the time
- when a thousand aeroplanes went out to Cologne.
- We were-- and we were listening, and it went on and on [BUZZING]
- all the time.
- Our blessings were with them, really.
- Every time we thought, well, they must give in now,
- it's over, it's over.
- But it wasn't.
- And sometimes--
- You had told me when you were in England in 1938,
- people were digging shelters in their gardens.
- Yes.
- What shelters did the Dutch people have?
- From what you've said, you didn't go to a shelter.
- You stayed in your house.
- I stayed in my house, yes.
- What about other people?
- I don't think there were any, come to think of it now.
- Let's see.
- There must have been, but I didn't make use of it.
- When I came back from the camp, I
- was told that an American, some group of American planes
- had tried to bomb Rotterdam near a harbor,
- and the bombs came on the other side of it
- and killed about 300 people.
- Whether they were in a dugout or--
- I don't know.
- I don't think so.
- Never came into my thought to go into hiding.
- No.
- No.
- What did the authorities do about the bombing?
- Well, clean up.
- We had to clean up the dead people,
- cleaning up the rubble of the big bombardment of Rotterdam
- by the Jerrys.
- And when the Allies came, there was only a few houses
- broken down or here and there bombed.
- I don't think it was really severe.
- Often I heard they bombed next to it
- or they didn't do enough and so on.
- Big things never happened.
- As long as I remember from '40 to '42,
- that's two years, about two years
- when I was still a free man.
- I didn't-- I didn't hear of a lot of really that things came
- down.
- No.
- No, I can't think of big things.
- The harbors were bombed now and then, but not much.
- With what sort of frequency was Rotterdam bombed?
- What, by the Allies or--
- Yes.
- By the Allies?
- I asked you that to know whether you
- were living every day thinking there were bombs
- or whether it was--
- No.
- Now--
- To you.
- Now and then, now and then they were bombed.
- Say, two or three times a week when they flew over,
- there was the anti-aircraft, the Germans shooting up at them.
- And we expected the next morning to find a lot of damage done,
- but I couldn't find a lot of damage.
- I didn't go far from home.
- Once or twice, but I didn't find a lot of damage.
- I remember going a little away from home,
- and I found an unexploded bomb as big as this table
- and half as high.
- About five feet long and--
- Yes, a tremendous big thing it was.
- It was laying there in the grass.
- It was supposed to have been dropped.
- It didn't go off.
- It's a very big thing.
- I don't know if it was real or not, but I stood next to it.
- I touched it.
- Gosh, I mean, it can go off.
- Maybe it-- maybe it didn't go off.
- I didn't hear more about it.
- Now, you have said that every day, practically every day you
- heard of friends or people you knew who were taken away.
- Yes.
- Jewish friends had been taken away.
- How had this come to happen?
- Were the Germans following a systematic pattern?
- Well, the registration, first of all, they knew where you lived.
- So the Dutch cooperating with the Germans,
- they went from house to house, going to the address.
- Knocked at the door, took out whoever was there, their names
- and even it must have been if that a non-Jew was found there,
- if they were found there, a non-Jewish neighbor
- or something, they were taken away as well.
- I remember when it happened to me.
- The upstairs neighbor, after I was talking loud to the people,
- we don't need to go, we don't want to go,
- we don't need to go because here's
- the papers of the consul.
- The two policemen there in black jackets,
- they said, you come along with us,
- and you can tell it all and show your papers
- to where we've taken you.
- Then the neighbor downstairs must have heard and came down
- and looked in the doorway, and as he stood in the room,
- and they didn't say nothing.
- And I remember one of the coppers,
- he looked over my books, stack of books.
- He must have taken a few out.
- And in the passage was a nice water painting of Rotterdam,
- 1912, painted 1912.
- And he said, oh, I'll have that.
- I said, well, you'd better leave it because I'm coming back.
- It's my stock.
- It's my business.
- He said, well, when you come back.
- He said, if you come back, I'll give it back to you.
- I never saw it again.
- And I don't know the policeman.
- So those things were going on.
- Were these Dutch police?
- Dutch cooperating ones.
- Yes.
- Go back, then, to tell the story about your deportation.
- This was in October 1942.
- Because people were disappearing all the time,
- you must have known it might happen to you.
- Did you and your wife make preparations?
- Yes.
- We got a list from the Jewish Joodse Raad.
- Everybody got a list, and on the list
- was so much you've got to take along,
- all types of medicines, bandages, pills, tablets,
- blanket, and anything you can use for a cold country.
- You have to take it along.
- The Germans were clever in this, because those thousands of Jews
- took that along with them.
- Can you imagine thousands of articles in medicine?
- When they arrived in Birkenau, they were killed,
- but the medicine went onto the table, and the people
- in the camp that were wounded by the work, prisoners,
- they had to be seen to buy the medicine.
- So they used that medicine and things
- until there was no medicine anymore.
- So they very clever, that.
- So we were ready for it.
- We were ready because we felt it was hopeless.
- Nobody was helping us, even the British--
- the Swiss consul was waiting for it.
- So I got a last call-up, and we had to go.
- Yes, so this is how it happens.
- I get dressed.
- The baby was standing up in his cot.
- Didn't know what was going on.
- After all, half past 10:00.
- This was at night.
- At night.
- The 8th of October, 1942.
- We usually went to bed early.
- There was nothing else to do.
- We're still in bed, child together asleep.
- And then we fell asleep and wait for the next day.
- So that evening, we weren't quite asleep.
- We were still talking, and the bell rang.
- I jumped out of bed, got onto the landing,
- pulled open the door.
- And two men stood there in the doorway, shining a torch.
- Greenman?
- Yes.
- And he stormed up the stairs.
- He said, get dressed.
- Come along with us.
- And within seconds, they were in the room.
- I said, what for?
- Why?
- How?
- I surmised, of course, because I've heard it.
- I've seen it.
- So I said, I don't need to go.
- Look, there's all the letters from the consul,
- and I'm waiting for my passports.
- They didn't want to hear.
- How did they identify themselves?
- Well, they didn't.
- I guess they knew that we had already known.
- I had not seen a policeman go into a Jewish home
- and take the people out because they
- would have taken me as well.
- I have seen Jewish families who had only a paper.
- You got to present yourself there,
- and they had to walk there to assemble.
- Yes, they came up and saw that we
- were dressed and taking our bundle and get into a coach.
- The coach went from street to street.
- It was getting off at half past 1:00, if I remember.
- The coach was full, about 40, 50 people in there.
- Pillowcases with stuff in it or whatever, blankets
- and all that.
- And there was a young SS fellow, about 17, 18, big fellow.
- And when we arrived at the assembly part
- on the other side of the river in Rotterdam,
- a big, very big hut filled with many, many Jews.
- So the coach stopped.
- Door opened, and we had to get out.
- German-- raus!
- So we got up, the old ones, the young ones, all had to get out.
- And he got hold of the luggage, threw it out.
- And my wife's standing with the baby,
- and I was standing there, and the old lady.
- And I told him myself, if you dare to touch my child,
- you're not finished yet, boy.
- Luckily, he didn't touch us.
- We got out, and he threw our luggage out after us.
- How much luggage did you have with you?
- Well, we had each a blanket and a pillowcase with the medicines
- and whatever we had to take along--
- bandages, so on.
- Clothes?
- Clothes, we had our best clothes on.
- We're going to a cold country, so we had our best clothes on.
- And it was October.
- We only were allowed to take so much, so much.
- No more.
- And it meant only carrying--
- well we got with it--
- Nappies and food for the baby?
- Well, maybe a little food for the baby, and probably
- a nappy--
- well, he's 2 and 1/2.
- I don't think he had nappies at 2 and 1/2.
- I don't think so.
- Because I remember we gave a load of nappies
- to friends of ours who was expecting a child.
- Yes.
- So we got in there, in a big shed, and we waited.
- And there were a row of [? SSers ?]
- behind desks standing.
- So I went up, and I showed them papers,
- I'm British, my birth certificate and papers
- from the consul.
- And they said, stand over there.
- Wait, wait, wait.
- What can I do?
- Thousands of us, there were people I knew,
- people I didn't know.
- And then on the 10th, just the second day we were there,
- we were loaded into trains on way to Westerbork.
- Well, we arrived at Hooghalen.
- Hooghalen is a little way, about a mile or so away
- from Westerbork camp.
- Before you tell me about that, you were then two days
- at that reception center.
- Yes.
- As we call it.
- Yes, reception.
- Yes.
- What was going on then?
- Well, not much.
- You had whatever you had with you,
- and people were sitting there with their head in their hands
- and all this sad-looking faces, children, families,
- and running about and then sitting down and trying to get
- some sleep or whatever it was.
- We didn't know what to do.
- Did they have facilities for preparing meals?
- No, no, no, no, not there.
- Without beds?
- No, you were not meant to be there a long time.
- Two or three days, and then you were sent on.
- Then you were sent on.
- Those who probably stayed on, like a nephew of mine who
- was a barber who stayed on, and he tried to cling on to life
- by shaving people, probably they brought something in to eat
- or something.
- But I wasn't there then.
- I wasn't there.
- What sort of emotional atmosphere
- would there have been?
- Terrible, terrible, to see the faces, sad.
- We couldn't help one another.
- I was just thinking about my British nationality.
- We couldn't do nothing about it.
- We couldn't get out.
- We couldn't escape.
- How could I escape?
- I had a wife and child and an old lady with me.
- No, it was just a hopeless lot, a forsaken folk.
- Did people try to escape?
- Some of them did get out somehow.
- I daresay one or two.
- I didn't-- I didn't often hear it.
- When I got back, probably I heard one or two,
- but I don't know.
- I don't think so.
- They must have been very clear in the head and all
- that to chance it so that the SS didn't you or something.
- But I didn't try those things.
- Who were guarding you?
- SS and Dutch police.
- Yeah.
- Did they speak to you?
- No, they didn't speak at this point.
- No, we were a forsaken lot.
- Forsaken.
- There's no one to help, no one to turn to.
- Just wait.
- Sit or lay and wait.
- Well, the second day, we were pushed into trains.
- There were still trains then.
- And on our way to Westerbork, as I said.
- Were you told where you were going?
- No.
- We surmised.
- We thought.
- And we got at Hooghalen.
- Hooghalen has no rails for Hooghalen to Westerbork camp.
- About a mile long.
- There was no rails.
- The rails were made while I was there.
- I see the men still fixing the rails.
- So later on, you could get with the train right near the camp.
- But when we come there, we had to walk through the mud,
- and it's pouring rain, pouring rain.
- Imagine about 1,000 people there walking all by, old and young.
- Some couldn't even properly walk.
- Well, myself, my wife, and child--
- my wife had the child.
- So I took her blanket and her things,
- and we walked until we got into the camp, into a shed.
- And you wait.
- And then you registered there again.
- Your name goes on a card, and birth, religion.
- Well, they know your religion.
- And then you wait again.
- And then you're sorted out and get into a barrack.
- And did you at this point bring up
- the subject of your British nationality?
- Every time, every time.
- Born in London.
- So there were others--
- British-Dutch, American-Dutch.
- And we were put at the beginning in a barrack
- for those double nationalities.
- So the English and Dutch went into one barrack.
- Can you describe the Westerbork camp, please?
- Well, at that time, it's a big piece
- of ground with wooden huts.
- Were they made specially for the camp or were they already
- there, school or something?
- Yes.
- Way back in 1934 or '33, when I told you
- I refused to sign the paper for the German Jews
- to come into Holland, the German Jews did come into Holland.
- And this camp was made for about 1,000 German Jews.
- So they fixed and built the barracks.
- Later on, they were the boss of us,
- and the Dutch Jews were into the barracks.
- What had happened to the German Jews?
- They were still there.
- They had very, very good positions,
- cooks in the kitchen, in the administration work, and so on.
- And already there was a hate because they were very bossy.
- And as I read lately, lately why they were bad
- for us is because they thought when they came
- into Holland in 1934, '33, that they would have
- had a better life and organization and a better way
- than to live in barracks.
- So this time they turned the roles around.
- I remember there was fighting going on
- and cursing and bad words.
- And--
- Could you describe the layout of the camp?
- Rows of-- rows of barracks.
- That's all I know.
- In between the barracks you could walk.
- There was a washing where a lot of the washing could be done.
- There was a small locomotive with train
- going through the camp for carrying things,
- baskets or whatever it was.
- There was a kitchen, of course, where cooking
- was done for the prisoners.
- And we all had barracks, and we had one, two layers
- on top of one another.
- Those were iron bunks.
- Later on in the concentration camp were wooden bunks,
- but these were iron with a mattress
- and a cushion and a blanket.
- Were they segregated by sex?
- Yes, women and men were separated.
- My wife went with the women in the barrack,
- and then a little way you had the barrack for the men.
- After 9:00, half past 9:00, the men had to leave the barracks
- and leave the wives alone and get into their own barracks.
- In the morning, you couldn't get in till about 10:00,
- half past 10:00 when the women had finished washing.
- Then you could mix.
- You mixed outside or inside a barrack.
- I remained in my barrack, at the beginning.
- So we all sorted out then, and everybody's got to work,
- especially the men have got to work.
- Mr. Greenman, reel 5.
- You said they wanted you to work.
- What was the work?
- Well, I found out what work.
- Any work I didn't want to do it.
- I didn't want no work at all.
- But they sent me the first day with a group
- of Dutch Jews, men, to outside Westerbork camp.
- And when we arrived there, we had
- to unload trucks of stones, bricks.
- What was happening, they were building a barrack for the SS.
- And I did this a few hours in my way.
- I thought to myself, I made up my mind.
- I'm not going to do this tomorrow.
- So when that day was over, we marched back to the camp.
- And there was a kind of labor exchange,
- a bureau where you could ask about work and all that.
- And I spoke to the chief.
- I said, I'm not going to--
- I'm not going out to camp tomorrow.
- I'm not going to work for the Germans.
- I'm British and I don't want to work.
- He said, well, you got to work.
- Everybody works here.
- So I thought, well, if I don't work,
- what are my own mates next to me going to say?
- You're not working.
- We got to work.
- Whether it's inside the camp or outside the camp,
- you've got to work.
- I said, all right.
- They're going to make me [NON-ENGLISH],,
- which means one who gets food for the--
- I said [NON-ENGLISH] for the British barrack.
- I think it was barrack 69 or 68, 67.
- That's all, right you do that.
- That meant that I got up in the morning, or someone woke me up.
- I usually go on myself, say about 4:00 to 5:00
- to be in the kitchen to get milk for the children.
- So you went to the kitchen, and a metal container
- filled with milk, and you took it to the barrack.
- And you gave it there and they sorted it out for the kids.
- Then about 8 o'clock, you went again
- and you came back with some tea or coffee and bread.
- Bread, it was very scarce.
- Bread must have been something else to eat.
- Then at midday, half past 12:00, you
- went again, and in the evening.
- The soup-- usually it was soup or goulash, or something
- like that, or cabbage.
- Food wasn't too bad.
- But there were too many people, so there
- was one or two occasions where there was not enough food.
- On the whole, we could eat more.
- There wasn't enough.
- For instance, we had a chance to send GIRO forms
- to people who you left behind, in my case my neighbors.
- And you put on there, please send me
- that food or this, or repair batteries for the torch,
- or whatever it was.
- So I asked them to send me some food.
- So my neighbor used to send me glass jars with brown beans.
- It's nice like Heinz baked beans,
- but these are the Dutch ones.
- And more than once or twice, the packets arrived
- and the glass was broken, so we had to throw it away.
- But if they did arrive, you sat on a table
- with eight, of wooden tables, and you share it out,
- even if you didn't know who it was.
- But you got to know them people and you share them out.
- I remember there were three brothers there who were later
- interned-- old friends of mine-- interned
- because by chance, they had their passports
- and the SS okayed that.
- So for the while being, they were in prison in Westerbork,
- but they went later on to be interned.
- They came back.
- There was only two alive, I think now.
- And they had loaves of bread, small ones,
- and they're eating it.
- I'm blooming hungry, and the kid, and we haven't got enough.
- So I said, if you give me bread, I
- said, as soon as my passport comes in, you'll get it back.
- And they gave me a small loaf.
- And as it happened, I had a niece in Amsterdam--
- who also was sent away later on, didn't come back--
- who sent me two long loaves of bread.
- Beautiful.
- And a loaf of bread you could buy the black market
- inside the camp.
- How they got it, I don't know.
- About 10 pounds at a time, more than that.
- So I opened the parcel and two of those loaves are out.
- And everybody's looking.
- So I thought to myself, I'll keep my promise.
- They gave me bread.
- And they didn't have to have it, but I gave it to them
- and they accepted it all.
- So we had this loaf of bread, I remember.
- Well, time went by.
- You were in barracks with other--
- British.
- British-Dutch--
- British-Dutch, yes.
- --people.
- About how many would that have been?
- Oh, about 100 or so.
- Yes.
- And were you kept separate from the other people in the camp?
- We were kept separate.
- We slept separate.
- The Dutch-Jews were in our barracks,
- but you could mix one another.
- But when nighttime came you went,
- you found your own barrack because you
- was registered at that barrack.
- So you had to do with the British-Dutch.
- Was the camp crowded or did they only take as many people
- as there was room for?
- Once or twice, Westerbork was overcrowded, I remember.
- Everybody was cursing and this and that.
- Sleep was bad.
- Rowing went on.
- My poor wife and kid suffered a lot through that.
- My wife wasn't there, not one of them.
- Yet some were rowing one another.
- Anyhow--
- Because it was an English, British-Dutch barracks,
- did you speak English?
- I spoke English.
- I even gave conversation English to about half a dozen
- or eight British-Dutch who didn't talk English, only
- were born in England, that went straight away to Holland
- like by myself.
- And the Berlitz Method, I was telling them
- how to pronounce it, in case the British come in.
- And they won't take long.
- Boy, a couple of months and the British come here.
- They know what to talk about.
- That's how we thought.
- And probably that went around, that this fellow
- is teaching English there.
- Probably I would not have done it, but I did.
- So that went on for October right up to Christmas.
- In between, there was a little bit of variety
- now and then in the barracks, which I did not enjoy.
- My feelings in there were not for laughing and singing.
- My child became very ill.
- Went into the child's hospital barrack and became
- very skinny, very thin.
- What was the problem?
- He had something in the ear.
- We only could see him through the window.
- Little champ.
- They were so thin, his legs, like legs from a table.
- Must have had a temperature and all that.
- Anyhow, it probably saved us a few weeks
- from not being sent away sooner.
- In the meantime, my father was picked up in Rotterdam
- with 200 Dutch men and sent to Westerbork.
- I'd made myself a nuisance by speaking to Kurt Schlesinger.
- When are we going to be interned?
- We're British subjects.
- Didn't hear.
- Can you tell me about Schlesinger?
- Who was he?
- Schlesinger was a German-Jew.
- He was born in Gelsenkirchen in Germany.
- And he was the chief inside the camp.
- He was the Hitler inside the camp.
- He was the head that gave the orders, and of course, a few
- of the others surrounding him.
- He used to wear Wellingtons, walk through the camp.
- And he was a nasty man, as one can read now--
- with what I've said years ago, he was a bad man--
- in the books coming out recently.
- For instance, my father was picked up with 200 men
- from Rotterdam and sent to Westerbork.
- I was awakened by one of the maids.
- Leon Greenman, there's 200 Rotterdam men
- coming this morning.
- They're in the barrack down there.
- So I dressed and went.
- I thought to myself, my father might be there.
- Yes.
- I was not allowed to get in, so I climbed on to a window shelf,
- opened the light on the top, and shouted out, Barnard Greenman.
- And 200 men were there, talking and smoking and the noise.
- And they heard me, and my father came to the window.
- I said, Dad, don't leave the camp tomorrow morning.
- Stay in.
- I'll come and get you and I'll take you to Dr. Neuberger.
- Dr. Neuberger was a German Jew, a lawyer.
- And professor Alfred Myers, a well-known law man in Holland,
- one of the biggest and best--
- those two were trying to get my British papers.
- I said, they can do it for you.
- It never happened that way.
- They could not.
- They didn't succeed.
- So I was standing there, talking to my father
- when somebody pulled my leg.
- And I heard, who is this up there?
- Another voice said, this is the Englishman.
- That's the Englander.
- That was the assistant of Schlesinger
- and Schlesinger was with him.
- He said, come down, Schlesinger, he said,
- or I'll send you to Poland.
- I said, you can't send me to Poland
- because I'm waiting for my British papers.
- I said, and why can't I talk to my father who has just come in?
- And then he walked away.
- Well, the next morning, I took my father to Dr. Neuberger
- and explained it to him--
- Dr. Neuberger was presumably also
- an inmate, a prisoner at camp.
- Yes, a prisoner like myself.
- All prisoners in there, all Jewish.
- So he took particulars on my father
- and we stayed there in the camp.
- My father had a barrack.
- I had a barrack, where I was with my wife and child.
- So we saw one another every day until the day came.
- Yes, while father was outside yet, before he was taken in,
- we had a solicitor in Rotterdam, who so-called was trying
- to get us out of Westerbork.
- He never succeeded.
- Later on, I found out that he was an anti-Zionist,
- so he didn't help me.
- Stevens, his name is.
- Lives in Rotterdam.
- Stevens and others wanted a lot of money to see to it.
- It seemed like a lot of corruption, you know.
- So I did this in the camp, that type of work
- I did, getting the food for the people.
- And days went by.
- And so often a week, I went to find out if any of my papers
- had arrived.
- And I did see one letter, of which I got a copy, which says,
- so and so and so and so is to be held back
- and the question of agreement is under view.
- I was glad at last someone--
- Who was this letter from and to?
- From some authority out in Germany.
- Where from I don't know.
- I don't know exactly.
- But after that-- they told me that.
- After the war, I saw that letter and I had a copy made of it.
- I got a copy at home.
- But there was something ready for me.
- I had only a matter of time.
- So my child came out of hospital.
- He was still very ill.
- And all of a sudden one morning, about 2:00 in the morning,
- the lights went on in the barrack--
- of course in various barracks, but in my barrack.
- And there they called out a name.
- Some people had to be deported, Dutch-Jews, English-Dutch,
- everything.
- And it was Greenman, Leon; Greenman Barnard Van Dam;
- Esther Greenman, or Greenman Van Dam, Esther.
- I was surprised.
- Said, what could we do?
- We could do nothing.
- There was a man on the table calling these things out.
- He didn't mean nothing to me and he couldn't do nothing.
- The only thing is I had to get to Neuberger.
- I got dressed and I went out to Neuberger's office.
- Woke him up and told him, look, I got to go.
- They called me up.
- He couldn't understand it.
- He was also flabbergasted.
- So I went back and got my wife and child
- and waited till about 8:30, when you
- were let out of the barrack.
- Had other people been called the other night?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Did you know where they were going?
- To Auschwitz.
- That's the main word we heard, Auschwitz.
- Work.
- Work.
- And what did Auschwitz mean to you?
- Work.
- Work.
- I didn't think of people being killed, no.
- If you were healthy and strong, you could hold it.
- So half past 8:00 the next morning,
- we got out of the barrack.
- Everybody had to stay in otherwise.
- Only those that were called up had to walk to the gate
- and pass the gate into the trains.
- When was this?
- On the 17th or 18th, January 1943.
- I said to my wife, look.
- There's Schlesinger standing, talking to Hammeke.
- Hammeke was the SS commander outside the camp.
- We had to stay with the whole lot.
- But Schlesinger was his co-operative in camp.
- I said, there's Schlesinger talking to Hammeke.
- I says, Else, you walk on the side, the baby in your arm.
- I'll walk next to you.
- And when we get to Schlesinger, we'll stop.
- And you have to say to him, Mr. Schlesinger, we need not go.
- We need not be deported because our papers are on the way.
- We did that.
- We stopped.
- My wife said that.
- He looked at us and he looked at Hammeke.
- He said, that's been refused in The Hague.
- They got to go.
- That was the last word.
- Pass through the gates into the train.
- The doctors came by the trains and I showed my baby.
- Look, he's still ill, but he couldn't help me.
- Once in the train, you're finished.
- Right about half past, 10:00, quarter to 11:00, the train
- leaves over the border into Germany via Bremen.
- It's 36 hours journey to get into Birkenau.
- Would you describe the train, please?
- Train where we could still sit, covered.
- Not open trucks, but ordinary passengers train at that time
- yet.
- There were about eight of us in a compartment.
- I just want to record on this, the train left
- and we were on our way to Auschwitz.
- I didn't hear then of Birkenau.
- Nobody knew of Birkenau.
- When I came back from the camp, I
- knew that Birkenau and Auschwitz were two different things
- next to one another.
- But the people outside didn't know about Birkenau.
- When I said Birkenau, they didn't
- know what-- so every time a question came up,
- I said Auschwitz.
- Auschwitz.
- What did you have with you?
- We each had a blanket and pillowcase with some medicines.
- The same as before?
- As before.
- And my wife had made for herself and the child
- a sick cape with a pointed hat covering the shoulders halfway.
- We had very heavy velvet curtains.
- And she had cut them up and made one for the child and one
- for herself.
- What about food on the journey?
- No.
- I don't remember.
- There was no water, no food for the kids,
- although they said a wagon has gone along with food,
- but we didn't get it.
- But I just want to trace back that when Schlesinger said,
- they got to go--
- when he got back to his office, say 11 o'clock,
- and he opened his morning mail, he found papers in there
- that I, wife, and child should be--
- what do you call it?
- I forgot the word now.
- What's the word?
- Mean that you should be kept behind and not deported.
- Not deported and that I would have been under Red Cross
- protection.
- Interned.
- Interned.
- How do I know that?
- Well, I was in Auschwitz, see--
- February, March.
- January, February, March.
- March, April, May, June.
- June.
- Summer months I was in Auschwitz.
- A very warm day.
- The windows were open, the barrack where I was.
- I'd been shaving people, I think.
- And somebody outside called, hey, Leon, come outside.
- Somebody wants to meet you.
- So I came outside and I met a man.
- And he introduced himself as Mr. Jacobson from Westerbork.
- He had been sent also to Auschwitz.
- But he had worked on the administration.
- And he said, Mr. Greenman, you're a very unlucky man.
- I said, why?
- What now?
- What have I done now?
- No, he says.
- Your train had left a quarter of an hour, 20 minutes--
- your train had left a quarter of an hour, 20 minutes after that.
- Your name was paged all over the camp.
- Your papers for internment had arrived.
- What could I do?
- So I hold Kurt Schlesinger responsible for not
- opening his mail before.
- If he would have, he would have held my family
- out; Eddy Hamel, an American Dutchman; Rostock and his wife,
- English-Dutch; and who knows how many more.
- Those people went under because of his badly performed work.
- So we arrived--
- It sounds as if he didn't care because he missed--
- He didn't care.
- He didn't care.
- I read--
- Saving his own skin in collaboration with the SS.
- Well, I don't think they would have ever sent him away.
- He was too much German first, and probably
- Jew the second category.
- If he wouldn't have been a Jew, he
- would have been a second Hitler.
- Before you progress, do you have any other reminiscences
- about him in the camp, in Westerbork?
- Only that he didn't like me, and what I just
- been saying, that he told me he'd send me to Auschwitz
- and he didn't care.
- He never listened to me.
- And everybody was afraid for him, kind of frightened of him.
- What he was saying was master.
- You do it and that's it.
- Lately, I can read in the books--
- I always look in the books for his name.
- If they're there, then I'll read what kind of man he is.
- If the young girls agreed with what he said,
- they were allowed to stay longer.
- If they didn't, they weren't--
- that type of man, not caring.
- They didn't expect any of us to come back and to tell them
- or to find them.
- I've been seeking for this man for years,
- and certainly on paper since '76,
- to the American Bureau of Criminal Investigation, war
- criminals.
- I've never had an answer.
- Gave them all the information, photograph.
- I still wait for an answer.
- There is a book lately came out, in which
- Schlesinger is mentioned.
- And I wrote to this author in America,
- can you give me information about Schlesinger?
- And he wrote back, Schlesinger, I think,
- was living in Rotterdam and I've been
- looking for him in America.
- And he says presumably he's dead.
- Oh, if it's so, I missed him again.
- Recently in Rotterdam, in Amsterdam,
- I phoned the Department for Wartime Investigation
- and Documation.
- I asked them-- because they sent me a letter about Schlesinger
- upon my inquiry, where he was.
- They couldn't tell me.
- I said, this man was apparently a criminal.
- He did this and do that.
- He said, it's none of our business.
- If you want to follow that up, you've
- got to go to the Minister of Justice in Holland.
- Well, that's a very big and difficult thing to do.
- They didn't care.
- I was arguing with him on the phone for over a half an hour.
- They didn't want to know.
- I say, you don't mind what people you had in the camp?
- You don't want to talk or write about it.
- I hope he's still alive and I may meet him one day.
- Anyhow, I was there.
- We arrived at Birkenau.
- On the train journey, you said it was 36 hours.
- About 36 hours, yes.
- And no food?
- No food.
- No drink.
- Toilets?
- I didn't leave.
- I didn't leave the compartment.
- I don't think the wife left.
- What about sleeping?
- Sleeping?
- Just sit and sleep.
- And in turn, we gave one another the baby.
- And I could sleep.
- One might sleep.
- You're thinking and dozing off and talking.
- And what I talked about was this-- if I don't come back,
- you may marry again.
- Find a good man who is good for the child.
- And she said, and if I don't come back, if I'm ill
- or something like that, you take a wife
- who is good for the child.
- That's how we were talking.
- We didn't know then what was going to happen to us.
- Only we knew it was a cold country.
- You could catch flu or influenza, whatever it was,
- and you could not come back.
- All the work was too heavy.
- We didn't know.
- And how was your son behaving at this point?
- Well, a bit sleeping through, you know.
- Sleeping through.
- More or less, he had a temperature
- and I think he was ill.
- He was ill.
- And I remember, there was an old couple
- there in the name of Van der Zandt.
- He was a photographer from The Hague,
- as we got a little bit in conversation.
- But I didn't hear of them anymore.
- Anyhow, we went and it stopped again.
- The train went on and it stopped.
- And at last we arrived at a place,
- which we didn't know then what it was, but it was Birkenau.
- Birkenau is going to be the greatest extermination
- camp there is.
- They got the gas chambers there and the ovens.
- There were 800 people of us that were left
- at Westerbork that morning.
- It usually is more, usually 1,000, 1,200,
- all the [INAUDIBLE].
- The train stopped.
- I got up and looked through the window and I saw heaps of snow.
- But have a good look, here and there.
- A corner of a suitcase is sticking out.
- I thought, that's funny, luggage.
- They said they're going to get it
- later on when the snow is gone.
- Then the bullying come.
- Get out, [GERMAN].
- Leave everything behind.
- Leave everything behind?
- It's cold.
- Leave everything behind, [GERMAN],, all what we had--
- blankets, medicine.
- And we got out and we stood there empty-handed.
- Then they separated the women from the men.
- Could you describe what it looked like, what you saw?
- There was a platform with the snowy heaps of suitcases.
- Those were suitcases from people.
- Mr. Greenman, reel 6.
- You were describing the scene on arrival at Birkenau.
- Yes.
- We were bullied out of the train and there we
- stood, waiting for things to come.
- It must have been about two hours, past 2:00
- in the morning.
- It was dark.
- Only a blue light was shining on the platform.
- And I saw a few SS men walking up and down.
- And they separated the women from the men.
- So I stood, say, right in front of the men.
- And I could see my wife there with a child in her arm.
- She threw me a kiss and she showed the baby, like that.
- And then all of a sudden, one of the women
- ran away from where she was, towards her husband,
- hysterically.
- Probably she sensed something.
- Halfway she was met by an SS officer,
- and he let a club come down on her head.
- She dropped to the ground and he kicked her in the belly.
- That was new to me and to all of us.
- And it went so quick that the shock wasn't
- over when he turned around and counted 50 men from the men
- standing there, by placing his hand on his shoulder-- you,
- you, you, boy's club.
- 50 men.
- And then one of the prisoners in striped uniform,
- who had been there already, commanded us to follow him.
- Well, we turned to the left and we walked a little way.
- And we walked two or three minutes.
- A truck arrived, stopped almost near us, slowly.
- And on the truck, all men, all women, children,
- babies, and in the center my wife and child, standing up.
- Those people supposed to have gone to the bathroom
- to have a bath, to eat, and to live.
- Instead, they had to undress and into the gas chambers.
- And two hours later--
- and that's a long time-- two hours later,
- those people where ashes, included my wife and child.
- We didn't know that.
- We thought we'd see our wives every weekend.
- That was told us.
- At this point, when you saw your wife and child
- for the last time, did they see you as well?
- I doubted.
- I called out to her, but the engine was running
- and I didn't see her face turn below to look at me.
- No.
- How could you tell it was she?
- She and the baby had those pointed capes.
- And they stood up to the light, as
- if it was meant to be like that, that I could recognize them.
- Otherwise it would have been amongst probably people
- you wouldn't recognize it.
- And a picture, I'll never forget it.
- It's the very last thing I saw of my wife and child.
- So from the 800 people, 50 men were sorted out
- to work and to die.
- Of the women, about four or five good-looking young women
- were taken out, probably for Dr. Mengele.
- What had you 50 in common who were taken?
- What do you mean in common?
- Why were you chosen?
- Ah.
- Probably we stood in the front.
- I stood in the front.
- Probably physically, we weren't old.
- Young and fit?
- Yeah, so he must have been taken them.
- Who was doing the sorting?
- The putting the hand on the shoulder
- was the SS officer who had kicked that woman.
- Yeah.
- And you couldn't do nothing.
- In a normal way, you'd say he would have beaten you there,
- and then he would have--
- because you were a witness.
- He didn't.
- That woman on the platform was your first inkling.
- Yes.
- That something was wrong, yes.
- Yes.
- Bodily, what I saw there.
- Yeah.
- So then the 50 of you were taken off?
- We marched away to another barrack.
- We marched inside a barrack.
- It wasn't a large barrack, small one.
- And as I got in, the floor was covered with envelopes,
- photographs, papers, heaps, and I couldn't
- understand what it was.
- Photographs, all people, all the people
- that were coming in probably and all the papers
- robbed from them, and God knows where they are now.
- Probably put to work or what.
- I showed my birth certificate and my paper
- that I had to two men.
- They were not in uniform.
- They were a kind of kapos, I should
- say, in civilian clothes.
- Probably Polish or Russian.
- I don't know who they were.
- But they got all my papers, slung them to the floor,
- and wanted to slap my face.
- We were asked any watches we had on us or gold or tobacco.
- Well, none of us had none of this.
- We had done that already in Westerbork.
- They've taken everything we had.
- So we were marched to another barrack.
- I had to undress.
- I had my thick winter coat on.
- All closing for a coal country.
- We had to undress, and there we stood.
- Then, in turn, we sat on a chair and our hair
- were clipped very short.
- Hair was taken away underneath the body and under the arms.
- Another one had a stick with a bit of rag on it,
- dipped it in a container with paraffin oil, paraffin,
- and dabbed us with paraffin, the so-called cleaning for lice,
- or something like that.
- Then we went into another department
- from the barrack, the wooden barrack,
- and we had a hot shower.
- And we stood there until the water was turned off,
- and then we had to lay down on the wooden floor
- to dry and wait.
- So there we stood and laid, 50 men, 50 Dutchmen looking
- at one other, laughing because you look
- silly naked and short and long.
- Then in comes a kapo, which we know now was a kapo.
- He passed by us.
- And some of us asked what happens
- with our wife and children.
- Where are they now?
- And he happened to be a Belgium kapo, as some of us said.
- I didn't hear it myself.
- But he did point up there, like that.
- So we said, he's mad.
- He must have been a long time here.
- He is mad.
- He wasn't mad.
- He meant through the chimney.
- Smoked, finished.
- And we didn't understand it.
- Then we came into a barrack and we were
- given a vest or underpants.
- And at that time we still had somebody's civilian trousers
- and a jacket of people that have been killed, murdered.
- We didn't know that.
- You had no time to think it over.
- You know, you were as if you were a dreaming all the time.
- Then we were chased outside a barrack,
- and there was barbed wire on the searchlight, electrified.
- There was a strip of ground covered with snow.
- And thousands of men were staying
- there that arrived before us.
- Of course, we all were bunches.
- Then came the drilling, the kapos.
- They said in German, [GERMAN],, "with five of you."
- It meant five behind one another, and the next five.
- Form up in groups of five?
- Yes.
- And we didn't understand it.
- We didn't understand the German.
- So as we stood, tens or eights or 15s, or whatever it may be,
- we were kicked away after the fifth.
- You know, those were kicked away.
- So 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 were kicked away
- and had to form another one, and that went on
- until we knew what they meant.
- All of a sudden we heard a shot and we went quiet.
- And I saw two prisoners carrying a man
- who had tried to run away.
- He was shot by the SS.
- And the word said that if you want to go ahead, you do it.
- We'll do the same to you.
- Well, we didn't want to be shot or killed.
- We didn't know what was going to happen yet.
- Then we were chased into a barrack.
- We had nothing to eat all that time.
- Then comes in containers with soup.
- We get into the bunks.
- Had no mattress.
- Some had hardly two or three wooden planks to lay on.
- I found a bunk, a third bunk up with my American friend, Eddy
- Hamel, American-Dutch.
- He's no more.
- And we lay down on top, talking.
- It was cold.
- And he was a professional footballer formerly,
- as he told me.
- He was big.
- And he was very warm, and we sat back to back to get warm.
- And we talked about our miserable things,
- what we had seen up to that.
- Then food comes in, containers with
- a black, dark-looking liquid with a lot of leaves in it.
- And I was hungry.
- I climbed down and I queued up and I got some.
- I acted.
- I was hungry.
- I didn't know what it was.
- But others said, we don't want that mud water.
- Anyhow, it went on.
- What did it seem to be when you tasted it?
- No taste.
- A kind of watery, a thicky water, and it
- looks like the leaves of cauliflower,
- I should say, something like that.
- I don't know what it was.
- I didn't care.
- I was getting something in me because I'm a good eater.
- You saw it.
- [CHUCKLES]
- So we're laying there in our bunk and all of a sudden
- a tumult went on.
- And we looked and there was a man, one of the prisoners
- who had been there before, probably
- a Pole or Russian, young fellow, about 20.
- And he's being beaten up by another.
- There's a bit of a kapo.
- First his face.
- Bum, bum, bum.
- Then he came like that.
- Then he kicked him.
- He covered his face.
- Covered his face so his body was bare.
- So he got kicked and hit, kicked between the bed.
- Then he went like that.
- Then his face was uncovered.
- Then he went back to the face.
- And it went on like cat and mice.
- That was also new to us.
- Anyhow, we let them go.
- And then what I remember is I had to do nature's call.
- I climbed down.
- It was very quiet in the barrack.
- Everybody was asleep, I dare say.
- And I walked outside and I did my duty outside.
- Of course, what was standing there
- was a wooden bucket on four wooden legs full of dirt.
- I could never have carried it by myself outside to empty it.
- So I did my duty outside, and I came back and I got up.
- Nobody had seen me.
- Very lucky I was because half an hour later or so,
- they found a man outside doing the same thing that I done,
- brought him in, and beat him up.
- The rule was that if the bucket was full,
- you had to carry, two men, to carry it outside, empty
- it, and bring it back again.
- Those were the dirty conditions.
- Then comes the day that we get our striped uniform,
- but that's much later.
- I want to go back a minute.
- There comes a day that we-- the next day we're
- going to have our numbers tattooed.
- We get into another barrack.
- We queue up.
- And your name is put down, say Greenman Leon,
- British by birth, London-born, Jewish.
- Well, we were Jewish, but there was non-Jewish amongst us.
- Write number, so and so.
- So you get tattooed, 98 to 88.
- They go so quick that you can't think.
- You can't say nothing.
- You only think-- you feel like a rogue, a gangster.
- And your name is never mentioned again, only your number.
- Now, the man who tat--
- You numbers on your left arm, lower arm, near the wrist.
- Yes.
- Were everyone's number done in the same way?
- Yes.
- If you had three numbers, very early prisoners
- had bigger numbers, you see they're getting smaller.
- Now those with six numbers are still smaller than this.
- You had those numbers also on your uniform later on,
- the front of your chest, and the side of your leg, trousers.
- The little triangle here is a sign that you're a Jew.
- Triangle below the number?
- Yeah, below the number.
- I got this-- we got this--
- later on.
- Of course, in the beginning, they
- gave everybody a number like that, Jew or non-Jew.
- And probably it caused somewhere discomfort or whatever
- in the administration.
- So we got this later on.
- Were there other distinctions for other categories,
- socialist or communist, homosexuals, and so on?
- Oh, yes.
- Yes.
- I'll come to that.
- They colored triangles on your uniform.
- But the man who had taken my name on the card,
- he could talk English when he saw London, England.
- He talked English to me.
- He was a Viennese Jew, young fellow.
- I said, what's going on here?
- Tell me, what-- how?
- Of course, I wanted to know so I could tell the fellows.
- He said, there's three things I'll tell you.
- Do what I tell you to do or they'll beat you up
- and you'll have to do it.
- Don't come into the hospitals because you
- won't get much to eat.
- You'll die.
- And don't drink the water.
- The water is here bad and it gives you
- dysentery, which will land you in the hospital.
- Always remember that.
- Was that true about the water?
- Yeah.
- We didn't have a wash for three weeks.
- We had no face wash for three weeks.
- And when we did have it, washing the horse--
- the barracks in Birkenau, made of wood,
- were former Polish cavalry barracks.
- Outside on the doors are red enamel placards,
- "Cavalry of the Polish Army."
- And they had rebuilt them and put wooden bunks in there
- where we could sleep.
- So the horses had to drink from long, kind of-- what
- do you call it?
- Trough.
- Troughs.
- And they were in another barrack.
- And the third week, we are all now going to get a wash,
- and we had to walk to it.
- And it was all gray, dirty water.
- And we sloshed.
- And I drank a little bit, just a little.
- It was lovely.
- Of course, there was no water.
- We didn't drink no water.
- It was not allowed.
- We scratched pieces of ice from the window or bits of grass.
- You were a group of 50 who were separated out initially.
- Were you kept together with those 50
- or were you mixed in with some other people?
- In the beginning we kept together, 50 boys.
- 50 boys.
- And one of us said, boys, fellows, we're
- not going to talk about our wives and children anymore.
- They'll be all right.
- He was the first one--
- he must have got a good hiding.
- I never got over it.
- He was the first one to die.
- And we had to carry him out on a morning.
- It was as thin as a sick rabbit, skin and bones.
- And he had to be counted.
- If at morning everybody can be accounted,
- then you're written off.
- And the next day or the next evening, you recount it all.
- But you must carry it out.
- So he's laying out the barrack while we're all being counted.
- And they count the dead ones as well.
- He was the first one to go.
- He was a Hague fellow, hairdresser.
- Baruch [PERSONAL NAME] his name was.
- When he died, I said, boys, I'll take his boots.
- Got my shoes, given up.
- And it was 6 and 1/2 instead of 7.
- And I walked in them for days and then
- I had to put them off at the bath.
- I saw fit in them.
- Were the shoes you were wearing shoes
- that had been allocated to you, someone else's shoes,
- or had you retained your own shoes?
- In the beginning you retained your own shoes.
- If they were very good at this, they were taken away from you
- and somehow they gave you a pair of rotten ones.
- Because good clothes, such as the good pullover
- my wife had knitted for me, was taken away
- by one of the prisoners seeing to us.
- He put it inside his jacket.
- Of course, he could sell that for other things in the camp
- or outside the camps.
- The boots we got were wooden, wooden clogs.
- Very bad for the heels.
- Mine, anyhow, which I had to wear later on,
- they gave me holes in my heels.
- There were no shoelaces.
- I fasted them with pieces of wire,
- which I found on the ground.
- But you asked me about the colors, the colors we had.
- We had a red triangle on our uniform, striped uniform.
- At what point did you receive these uniforms?
- After the third or fourth week.
- Then the civilian clothes were taken away, in my case anyhow,
- in our case, and we were given uniforms.
- But in those seven weeks I was--
- seven or eight weeks-- at Birkenau, a lot of things
- happened.
- A lot of things.
- Describe the uniform, please.
- It's white and blue stripe uniform,
- which you sometimes see now in the cities.
- If I see a lady or a man with a shirt, blue/white stripe,
- it brings me snap-back to Auschwitz.
- As a matter of fact, this morning
- I saw something like this.
- For me it means Auschwitz.
- To the woman or man who are carrying, they don't know.
- Some of them were thin, some were thicker.
- That's what you had.
- And if you were lucky in the winter time--
- the winters are very severe in Poland--
- they gave you sometimes a coat who had belonged
- to a man that were killed off.
- I remember getting one of those coats, a lovely coat.
- And I walked out with two days.
- The third day I had to stop in.
- You with your coat, come here.
- How come you walk out without a piece out of the back.
- We had to cut out all-- the tailor then,
- one of the prisoners, had to cut out a square piece
- and sew a white piece on the back.
- So in your work, wherever you walked,
- you were a prisoner because the SS could
- see the piece in your back.
- I remember that.
- And sometimes I didn't have a coat.
- I walked out just in jacket and trousers.
- Why were the prison uniforms blue and white?
- Was there a significance to that?
- I don't know why.
- But that was a usual thing, striped.
- Pajamas they called them, but they're not pajamas.
- I got mine.
- Mine is in the Wiener Library in London.
- I wore that in Buchenwald.
- Can you tell about those colored triangles?
- Yes.
- Political prisoners had a rare triangle.
- The Jews had a rare triangle with a yellow bar beneath.
- And sometimes there was a kind of Star of David in it.
- That way, the political prisoners--
- they call them political prisoners, anti-Nazis.
- Then come the green triangles.
- They were kapos who, in civilian life,
- had been swindlers, light criminals.
- Green.
- The black triangles, they were murderers, rapists,
- terrible men in civilian life.
- They were taken out of prisons, the sentence
- waved away, sent to Auschwitz, make
- them work, make the Jews work.
- They're not allowed to live, do anything with them.
- Those were the people that made our lives
- in the first moment a misery.
- Then you had the mauve-colored ones.
- I think they were the homosexuals.
- Mauve.
- What other colors were there?
- What about Gypsies?
- Gypsies.
- Were they there?
- They were there, 20,000 Gypsies.
- Beautiful women, beautiful men, beautiful children.
- I'll never forget.
- They came into our camp in Birkenau
- on the other side of the barbed wire, where our barrack was.
- A lot of them.
- And as a matter of fact, I remember
- they got half of our rations, and our rations
- were already little.
- Of course, in my barrack in Birkenau
- were about 1,400 prisoners.
- But the 50 men stuck so good, as well, together.
- And in turn, because we didn't have a lot of potatoes,
- didn't have a lot to eat, the kapos
- had given it to the Gypsies.
- In turn, we crawled underneath the barbed wire.
- Got into the gypsy barrack on the quick.
- Looked around.
- And in the corner there was heaps
- of potato peelings, which Gypsies
- had to clean their potatoes.
- And we made our pockets full and our caps we had full,
- and we came back and shared the peeling out.
- That's how we lived, apart from Russians in Birkenau.
- I don't think I've seen bread in Birkenau.
- Small containers with a kind of--
- it wasn't Quaker oats.
- It wasn't cornflakes.
- It wasn't rice.
- A thickened thing.
- Flour, probably.
- Sweet sometimes.
- That what your morning.
- A sort of gruel?
- Something like that.
- Then in the afternoon--
- it was wintertime in the afternoon.
- Three hours, three or four hours,
- four-- you were chased into the barracks.
- It was getting dark.
- And you got in the three or four small potatoes in a jacket.
- Jacket potatoes.
- I can't remember anything else.
- Anyhow, a lot of us went thin and weak.
- You had been mentioning the uniforms
- and the different-colored triangles.
- Yes.
- Were these people, the criminals, the green and black
- triangles, were they Polish?
- German and Polish.
- They were taken from Poland and Germany.
- And you had some Dutch kapos.
- There was one Dutch kapo who had a very good name in camp.
- He was an Ex-Mariner, and he was a very good kapo
- for his commando of people.
- What does that mean, to be a good kapo?
- Well, you're not hitting.
- You're not chasing your people.
- You're not giving them a miserable life.
- I served one or two days under him and then I was taken out.
- I had to move into another commando.
- Did he get in trouble for being lenient with the prisoners?
- Yes.
- Well, so-called in trouble.
- I think this man was from royalty, Dutch royalty,
- so they kept him alive.
- There were two young boys in his commando
- who had done something wrong, trying to escape or something,
- and he didn't want to testify.
- Didn't want to know, this kapo.
- He didn't want to know.
- He said, I don't think it was like that.
- And I seen the two boys were severely punished.
- I think they be hung.
- And the man may still be alive.
- Then again, there were kapos--
- I remember one kapo, [INAUDIBLE] man.
- One arm he had, but when he hit you, you didn't get up again.
- And if he was around when you were unloading or loading
- the trains, whatever it was, the trucks,
- you better look out because he could kill you at one.
- Kapo Franz.
- Oh, a Muselmann.
- I don't think I met many kind kapos.
- If you thought he was kind, all of a sudden
- he could tear into a rage and then you had it wrong again.
- You've said a bit about the kapos.
- What was the relationship amongst the non-kapo
- prisoners--
- political prisoners, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies?
- Mr. Greenman, reel 7.
- You were about to tell me something about Monowitz.
- Yes.
- At either Monowitz or Auschwitz--
- but I think it was Monowitz-- there was a barrack being
- put up, and they can put a barrack
- like that up in a few days.
- And in there, we heard, were women.
- Kapos, and some under-kapos, four arbeiters,
- they could get a ticket from one of the head kapos
- and they could visit women in that barrack.
- And I remember standing there, watching this one
- afternoon, one late afternoon.
- And one of the boys next to me said, one of the men
- said, well, Leon, wouldn't you like to go in there?
- I said, no.
- I said, no, I hope my wife is not in there.
- You see, I hope my wife--
- up to then, I still was thinking my wife was alive.
- It could be your wife or what it is with the prostitutes.
- And the women probably are forced to do that.
- No, I don't think that.
- In any case, I myself, during my years in the camp,
- I was too busy with my mind, with my family,
- and how to get out and to stay alive,
- and fighting hunger and other things,
- to be thinking about sex.
- There that didn't trouble me.
- But somehow, towards the end of Monowitz time, one evening,
- when we all had to, we were in bed and the lights went out.
- And I heard a few beds away, a kapo,
- or the under-kapo say to--
- and I knew this man because we were working the same Kommando
- some time--
- I heard this voice say to some young fellow, who
- had his bunk near him or in the same bunk, I don't know.
- He'd say, not like this, like that, in German.
- And then the lights went on all of a sudden.
- Somebody switched on the lights, so you could see.
- And there he was, standing up with a boy, busy with the boy.
- Then it came to my mind homosexual.
- Well, you let it go.
- You didn't care.
- It wasn't you.
- You see, it wasn't you.
- What was the question again?
- I was interested to know how the prisoners got on
- with each other.
- Oh, yes.
- Not the kapos, the other prisoners.
- Well, some of us, we didn't care a hang about one another.
- Life was such.
- For instance, my bread has been stolen more than a dozen times.
- If you could make friends with a good one, then it was OK,
- but often it didn't work out that way.
- First of all, I didn't talk Yiddish.
- Among the Polish prisoners, mostly Yiddish was talked,
- so I couldn't join in.
- Did you speak German?
- Yes.
- We were beginning to learn German.
- Had you known German previously?
- Very little.
- Very little.
- Only for songs and before the war.
- But I'll give you a for instance.
- There was a moment in camp that we
- were carrying, unloading trucks loaded
- with hundredweight of cement.
- You know, those big things?
- And there was one Hungarian-Jewish man there.
- There were some Hungarians working with us then, Jews.
- And he carried two of them on his back.
- And we said, don't do that because we all have to do that.
- What?
- He says, I'm strong.
- I said, if you do it we'll kill.
- You don't do it because-- and I couldn't have carried it, too,
- and then he would have copped out.
- But he said, he's doing two.
- You do two.
- So we made him understand.
- At last he understood.
- We didn't let him.
- Then he only took one, the same as us.
- What else?
- For instance, there was a young Polish Jew, boy about 18,
- I should think.
- Taller than me.
- And he was working.
- We were working the same Kommando,
- carrying things into a factory they were building.
- And I happened to receive from a British prisoner of war--
- he must have seen it--
- one cigarette.
- I put it in my pocket and he said,
- Leon, Englishman, give me that cigarette.
- I said, no, I get that cigarette.
- Brings me soup in camp.
- He says, give me that cigarette and you
- get my piece of sausage.
- I says, no.
- I says, when I get tonight in the camp,
- I feel like a little more soup, and I'll
- get a little bit of soup for the boys.
- He says, give me that cigarette or I'll take it.
- When he took it you got nothing.
- So I gave him the cigarette.
- I said, don't forget your sausage you just promised me.
- He said, yes.
- So two days later, when the day came to,
- we had sausage with our breakfast.
- It would be sausage.
- I went to him.
- I said-- he's laying on this blanket.
- I used to lay my bread or something,
- and looked around and was gone.
- And he was eating.
- I said, how about my sausage?
- He said, go up it, in German.
- I said, look, I gave you a cigarette.
- That would have meant my bit of food.
- I said, you promised a sausage.
- He said, go away.
- I said, yes, I will.
- And I grabbed his sausage and I ate it in front of him.
- I swallowed it.
- So he tried to fight me.
- So one of the staff of the barrack came along and said,
- what's going on?
- I said, we're only having a joke.
- That's how we lived.
- Or if I had a bit of bread in the beginning,
- I had my bread and somebody said, they stole my bread.
- I haven't got it.
- Give me a little bit of your bread.
- I said, how can I give you?
- I have a little piece like that myself.
- So he says, look, give me half of that
- and when I get my ration, you'll get yours.
- So I said, all right.
- I gave it to him.
- So when he got his bread, he said, now you cut it
- and I'll take.
- So he cut it and he took the biggest piece.
- That's how we lived.
- Now, some of us, if we were very close--
- I had some marvelous Dutch friends.
- One of them didn't come back.
- Several didn't come back.
- One came back and died, the Dutch.
- But the Polish, I didn't make any Polish friends.
- The Frenchman who saved my life I didn't meet again.
- I don't know his name.
- And otherwise, life was everybody for himself.
- Can you tell me, please, what you and the other inmates
- were doing at Birkenau before you went on to hard labor
- at Auschwitz?
- Well, it was more a quarantine to find out
- who would be still alive after the seven or eight weeks
- that I was there.
- The weak ones, of course, died and were done away with,
- and the strong ones were later on sorted out
- to go to the slave labor camps.
- So in this case, what we did, we got u--
- let's say we got up early in the morning, 4:00, an hour past
- 4:00 or earlier.
- And we had to queue up.
- Sometimes we got nothing for breakfast
- in the morning but a little mug, a mug
- with some kind of sweet drink.
- And we were chased outside in front of the barracks
- and counted for.
- We were drilled how to stand five
- at five, behind one another.
- And when we mastered that, which went
- with a lot of bullying and kicking and pushing
- and slapping, then we were drilled
- how to take off our beret in one call.
- For instance, if the kapo called out, if I translate it--
- I'll just say it in German.
- "Mutzen, up."
- Well, the word "mutzen" is head covers,
- and in this case berets.
- And off is means off.
- It had to come down in one kind of sound.
- You mean all the men together?
- All the men, yes.
- If you mention thousands, they are queued up.
- Say of our barrack, I say 1,200, 1,400 inmates, standing there.
- Then the kapo used to say--
- we all stood erect, and then he used to say,
- "mutzen," which meant hats, or berets in this case.
- You brought your right hand up to the head cover,
- a cap at that time.
- Some had berets.
- I had a cap at that time.
- We still had civilian jackets and trousers
- from people that had been exterminated
- before we came there.
- So then it was head, and then off, up.
- Then with one smack, the hands had to come down
- at the side of your trousers.
- Now before we mastered that, that took some hours,
- so the sound of that one smack.
- And after then, we were accounted for.
- It was heads up.
- Again, you put your beret back.
- Then it was at rest and you stood there, nothing to do.
- You stood there for some time.
- And then the kapos made you turn your jacket
- the other way so that you've got a kind of apron
- in front of you.
- And you walked 20 or 30 meters to a heap of sand.
- At the site were then two of our prisoners with a shovel,
- and they shoveled one or two shovels of sand
- into your jacket.
- And you walked back and deposited,
- and you went back again.
- So you can imagine hundreds of us did this.
- And when that heap was full up, we
- had to do the same thing, going back again.
- We never understood what was really
- taking place because it just made you immune to anything.
- Was the point of this to keep you occupied?
- Keep us occupied, but also making
- us feel like little boys, I should think.
- Well, that went on for some time.
- You mean hours, days?
- Yes, hours, days.
- And then, because it was January in the wintertime,
- January getting on for February, we
- were chasing through the barracks earlier in the day,
- getting dark and all that.
- So sometimes it was, say, 3:00, 3:30,
- we were inside the barracks.
- Often we got our ration of potatoes and the peel,
- or in other words Jack potatoes, outside the barrack--
- 3, 4, 5 small potatoes--
- and then a mug of something to drink.
- And that was your ration.
- What did you drink?
- It was a kind of sweet--
- it wasn't Quaker oats.
- I can't find the right name for it now.
- You know when people suffer with dysentery,
- you take something like that given by the doctors
- to stop dysentery.
- A thin gruel?
- That's right, something like that.
- Rather than something like a tea.
- Probably a kind of flour or something.
- Yeah.
- But of course, we were grumbling amongst one another.
- We were hungry, hungry, and we didn't like it a bit.
- Does this mean that you spent all your time
- carrying the sand back and forth,
- or was there idle time as well?
- Idle time as well.
- The idle time took part like that.
- We stood outside in the cold, rubbing one another's back
- and jumping up and down to keep feet warm.
- And it went on for hours, and you
- stood there just doing nothing.
- And then the command the kapo is giving, inside the barracks.
- And you went inside the barracks.
- Now, inside the barracks in Birkenau,
- you had, in the middle of the barrack,
- a long brick-build kind of chimney.
- At one end you're supposed to have coals.
- We used wood, pieces of trees that were alight,
- and the warmth went through the chimney right to the other end,
- and that warmed the barrack.
- You mean the chimney went horizontally
- the length of the back?
- Yes.
- And sometimes you stood very near to it
- to get a bit of warmth out of it.
- I still wonder how that could have warmed the whole lot,
- but it did.
- How effective was it?
- Yes.
- There was warmth sometimes.
- Not very much.
- You could sit on it or stand up against it, all according
- to who or how much wood was being burned.
- Do you know where the wood came from?
- It would be quite a lot.
- From the woods around us, the trees and all that taken in,
- brought in.
- Gathered by whom?
- By the prisoners.
- Everything was done by the prisoners.
- Well, then you stood in the barrack.
- And then the command said, undress to seek lice.
- We did breed lice a lot in Birkenau, even
- in the cold weather.
- So you turned your shirt or your undie around, inside-out.
- And then usually under, where the armpits used to be,
- then you found lice, or in the turn-ups underneath.
- Wherever the body was warm or so, lice was breeding,
- and you had to kill those lice.
- You got to hold them.
- I used to get a hold of them [INAUDIBLE]
- and just kill them between the nails.
- It was dirty in the beginning, but you got used to that.
- And then often it went with a good hiding, whoever had lice.
- The kapos went sadistic and they chased you
- around the barrack nonstop, having a stick in his hand.
- He drummed the stick on the chimney there
- and you had to run around.
- What proportion of the men, do you think,
- would have had lice before they came?
- Before they came into the camp?
- None.
- We all were clean.
- In my case, I'd just come from Westerbork
- and we didn't have lice.
- We were still clean.
- Later on, during my imprisonment,
- if a lice was found, one lice in a barrack--
- the Germans are afraid for typhus--
- the whole barrack had to be cleaned out.
- The man probably got a beating and everybody
- suffered for it, which made us to be very careful not
- to breed lice.
- If it did happen--
- as it did happen, I know.
- It fell in front of me.
- I saw a lice crawling.
- He had just finished looking for it.
- Put his shirt back on and I saw a lice.
- I touched his back and I said to him, you still have a lice.
- And then he took it down and he got out
- and he killed it, without saying anything to the kapo.
- You had to say lice is there, but a lot of us
- didn't dare to tell him because he
- got beaten up, whatever it was.
- Can you continue to describe the conditions in the barracks
- at Birkenau, because I think they were different from what
- you had later?
- Yes.
- The outfits.
- So in order to make a comparison,
- can you describe them more fully?
- Well, the barracks in Birkenau-- so the barrack
- where I was living contained 1,200 or 1,400 inmates.
- It were the formerly cavalry barracks of the Polish cavalry.
- I know that because on the front of the door,
- I read on the enamel plates, "Cavalry of the Polish Army,"
- in those words.
- They were fairly wide.
- So these were the cavalry barracks, rather than
- the horse stables?
- Well, I dare say the horses probably went in there.
- The cavalry is horses.
- Yes, but I meant men, not the horses.
- Not the men.
- I don't think the men.
- They would not live in those wooden barracks.
- Soldiers, I don't think, would.
- So the former prisoners had been there before us.
- They cleared a lot out.
- And they build wooden beds.
- There were three layers, three beds
- on top of another, wooden bunks all along the barrack.
- And each bunk, there were eight of our prisoners laying next
- to one another.
- Above that, you had another eight and the top one
- contained eight.
- So the Dutch prisoners, we 50 Dutch boys, still alive then,
- always stayed amongst one another, with one another.
- How much room was there in the bunks?
- Could you sit up?
- You could just sit up.
- The top one could sit easier than the middle ones
- and the bottom ones.
- If you sat up, I mean, you would step outside, outside your bed,
- because what would you have to do sitting straight up in bed?
- So you got out.
- You said there were eight men deep.
- Does that mean that for the people's numbered 2 through 8,
- it was difficult?
- They had to climb over other people to get out.
- If the eighth had to get out, he had
- to crawl over the seven others and climb down, and do that
- carefully not to wake the others, and so on.
- And how much room was there for people?
- Were you crowded in, touching each other,
- or was there room, as in a bed?
- No, you weren't laying next to one another.
- Eight next to one another, just pointed out.
- You laid next to one another, close to one another.
- And in my case, I remember that I was asleep,
- or I was covering myself with a first-class beautiful blanket.
- And upon the blanket was sewn a piece of linen.
- And on that linen was a Dutch name and an address
- in Amsterdam, which made me think this belongs
- to a Dutchman from Amsterdam.
- Where is he now?
- We didn't know that he had been murdered.
- So we had very good blankets from those people
- that had brought all those things into the camp.
- Later on, that was quite different.
- And I remember that when the command were giving, undress
- and get into the beds, you took your boots or shoes off.
- You put them underneath the bed at the bottom,
- but with the nose of the shoes exactly next to one another.
- Not one in front of the other.
- So there were 24 pairs of boots.
- Well, in the beginning, we just put them down
- and they didn't care, but we soon
- learned that that was wrong.
- We were called out.
- 24 people were called out if it happened
- in that region of the beds.
- And we got beaten up and told that the nose of the shoes
- had to be one straight line.
- So if you stepped out of bed during the night,
- you had to go and do your duty, you
- were very careful to see that you didn't push them over.
- So you got to sleep then.
- As I'm telling you this, a picture appears in my mind,
- that we had a Dutchman amongst us.
- His name was Sais from Amsterdam, a strong man.
- And he was called out by one of the Polish kapos, a big fellow.
- And he had to wrestle him because this Dutchman was
- an amateur wrestler.
- And I can see how he wrestled.
- Of course he went under.
- We were hungry.
- We weren't as fit as that Polish man.
- And probably, in his mind, the Dutchman had,
- I better not beat him because it might be wrong.
- Anyhow, when we woke up in the morning,
- the kapo were called out.
- The lights went on and the kapo called out, "raus."
- So we all climbed down.
- And the space between the fire, the mantelpiece, the fireplace,
- and the bed was about not quite a meter.
- So you stood there.
- If you took the top bed, you could dress yourself.
- I was laying on the top bed.
- You could put your trousers on while you were laying still
- in bed and climb down, your jacket.
- That's all what you had to do.
- Some had pants, some had only an under--
- what do you call it--
- something underneath your jacket.
- A shirt?
- A vest.
- A shirt.
- A vest, yes.
- And then you stood there, close to one another,
- because there's a lot of prisoners there
- and you do your best to get dressed.
- But you had to see to it that your blankets were folded
- as if it was salvages, in which the blankets were beautifully
- next to one another, placed so as if it was a window dressing.
- And if one of the blankets were out of position, well,
- 24 of us copped out, because the kapo went along the shoes
- overnight, called you out of bed if it was wrong.
- And in the morning, before you left the barrack,
- you looked at the blankets, and they all
- had to be beautifully placed like that.
- I don't know what the reason for that was, but anyhow,
- we were disciplined like that.
- If you had to go to the back of the barrack, where there was
- a container or a barrel, which you
- use for your natural outings, you
- have to squeeze through all those men.
- Well, 50 Dutchmen and the rest were
- Polish or from other nations, and yet they
- pushed through everything before you got there, and some of them
- didn't like it.
- So life was not easy inside the barracks.
- But then came the command outside
- and you were drilled again, and you stood there.
- Still on the barracks, what sort of ventilation was there?
- Only the doors, wooden doors.
- And now a picture comes into my mind.
- I'm laying in the wooden beds, and in front of me,
- the Dutchman's laying there.
- One of the Dutchman is a man who used to live in the same street
- as I was living.
- And we were near the door.
- It was very cold, very cold.
- All you had was your blanket and your body next to you
- to keep you warm.
- And we said good night.
- And the next morning when we woke up,
- the man who I knew from my street, he was dead.
- Probably heart failure or whatever it was.
- He wasn't very old, probably about 30.
- But he was dead.
- He was the second one to go from our 50 men.
- But also, say, a few days later, in the middle
- of the night there was a knocking at the door,
- and the knocking held on, and the door wasn't
- open quick enough.
- One of the prisoners who was to be
- the watchman during the night, who used to,
- had this duty to walk around in the barrack
- and to keep an eye on everything.
- There was only a little blue light shining in the barrack.
- He probably has fallen asleep and he wasn't quick enough
- by opening the door.
- When he got to the door, and the kapo was then awake as well--
- the kapo lived in a little department
- in the barrack, built there with curtains.
- And they went to the door and opened the door,
- and in came an SS officer.
- A lot of silver on his uniform.
- A very big-built man.
- And he said, why wasn't a the open straight away?
- So what could kapo say?
- There was the watchman, one of the prisoners.
- He went to him and he said, why didn't you open the door?
- You were asleep.
- He said, no, I wasn't asleep.
- And this SS officer, he had his gloves on.
- He slapped his face, one side.
- He said, you were asleep.
- No, the prisoner said, I wasn't asleep.
- I didn't hear you.
- He gave him a smack in the face on the other side.
- And that went on for an awful long time, what seemed to us.
- So often he smacked his face both sides, on and off,
- until the kapo said something.
- "He must have been asleep, so say yes."
- At last, the fellow, nearly sinking down to the floor,
- he said yes.
- And then the SS officer says, I don't want
- to see this man here again.
- We never saw this man, either, what they did with him.
- Those were the incidents in the barracks.
- Did you have lighting in your barrack?
- Yes, we had we had lighting.
- Electric lighting, yes.
- Also in the barracks, for the first three weeks, we had no--
- we were not allowed to drink water.
- There was none.
- A lot of us had beards.
- Then a command came, who are barbers?
- Hairdressers.
- And some of our prisons were hairdressers, barbers.
- And we were given a razor.
- Someone got a razor and someone got a shaving brush and soap,
- and we had to see to that we shaved the prisoners.
- For doing that-- sometimes, not always,
- more or less than often--
- you got, at the weekend, if there was any soup left over--
- but at that time, they were giving us a watery soup to eat.
- You got a little more soup for your trouble
- of shaving the people.
- I remember now that one of the Polish prisoners
- who already had razors given to him, he said,
- I want a few more hairdressers.
- And I was a hairdresser.
- In my time, I had been a hairdresser.
- You had been a lady's hairdresser?
- I was with ladies, but I started with gentlemen's head.
- I gents and ladies.
- I said, I'm a hairdresser.
- Thought to myself, I can do with a little extra food.
- And he said, go on.
- You're not a hairdresser.
- I said, I am.
- He said, are you?
- Yes.
- Why don't you believe me?
- And this is all going on in bits of German and Dutch.
- And this was a Polish prisoner.
- And he said, yeah, pick up that scissors.
- And a hairdresser has got a certain way of picking up
- a pair of scissors.
- And I picked it up the right way.
- He said, yes, you're a barber.
- I said, why are you interested in me?
- He said, well, the way you picked up the scissors
- and it's right.
- That goes outside the scissors.
- The little finger goes outside.
- And that goes in.
- And if you were to pick it up like that,
- you wouldn't have been a barber.
- The finger next to the little finger goes into the hole?
- Yeah, the hole.
- And he said, yes, all right.
- If I would have done it differently,
- he would have said, you're a liar.
- Then he could have made me got a good hiding.
- That's what life was like.
- Did this barbering take place within the barracks?
- In the barracks.
- Yes, in the barracks.
- Was there a supply of running water
- or did you have basins brought in?
- Basins brought in.
- I didn't see running water in the barracks at all
- in Birkenau.
- And I'll tell you what, the first three
- weeks we didn't have a wash.
- We didn't have a wash.
- And we were not allowed to drink the water,
- if there was any water, because the water was poisonous,
- they said.
- So we didn't drink water.
- It was still January, cold, so I scraped a little piece of ice
- from the window shelf and let that melt in my mouth.
- A lot of food there wasn't, so whenever
- it was, and I saw the blue grass coming out
- of the frozen ground, I tucked on the bit of grass
- and chewed a bit of grass.
- Well, that was life in Birkenau.
- Where did you get the water for the shaving?
- They brought it in properly.
- They brought it in.
- But you don't know where it came from?
- No.
- But later on, when we had our wash,
- we were marched to another barrack, and in that barrack
- there was a metal container running
- right along where the horses used to stand and drink.
- I don't know the right word for it.
- Trough.
- That's right.
- And they said, go and wash.
- And I noticed it was all grayish water, not clean.
- Not clean water.
- And we washed first time after three weeks.
- And I did taste a little of water when I was thirsty.
- How did it taste?
- Not nice.
- I didn't have enough.
- I didn't gulp it down a lot.
- You said that you were told the water was poisoned.
- They told us.
- Was that true or was that to keep
- the supply for other people?
- It could be.
- It could be.
- If you drank water, probably the water wasn't good,
- and you became with dysentery and you went into hospital
- and you died.
- You went weak and you died.
- The whole setup, if I come to think of it now,
- was to get the strong men, to keep them going--
- sort him out and keep them going,
- and they'd be all right for work, for slave labor.
- I remember we had a little hut at one part of the barrack.
- Just outside the barrack was a little wooden hut
- in which was a big barrel with chloride water.
- Chloride is poisoned, I think.
- Bleach.
- Bleach.
- Yes, a kind of bleach.
- And some of our fellows went out and got some of that inside.
- I drank some of that.
- I didn't, but they did, and they went into hospital.
- I was standing near it.
- I could smell it, but I never dared to do that.
- Another incident in the barrack, which comes to light,
- comes into my mind--
- so we had help in shaving the prisoners,
- and we got in the weekends a little bit of soup.
- And I remember that day I had been given to me our dish--
- half of the dish with soup, which was, in this case, a lot
- to us.
- The Dutchmen were all gathered around us.
- And with a spoon, which we had, we doled out--
- or I dealt out-- each of the fellows one
- or two spoons of soup.
- And there was enough.
- You mean you gave yours to the other people?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And there was enough left, say, about four or six spoons.
- And I start eating that.
- And then one of the fellows said, oh, what are you doing?
- You're eating more than two spoons.
- I said, I'm sorry, but do you mind?
- It's my soup.
- I've been giving you all some of it.
- Do you mind if I have the rest?
- So was our life and feelings.
- And this man is still alive today.
- He doesn't remember, but I do.
- Then came the incident that one of the fellows,
- who, in the beginning, had told us, boys, we're
- not going to talk no more about our wives and children.
- We'll see them sooner or later.
- He had done something and he had been given a good hiding,
- and he couldn't take it and he died.
- And I remember now that if you died in the barrack,
- you still had to be counted for on roll
- call outside the barrack.
- And we had to take him outside the barrack.
- And as we stood there, five at a time, his skinny body
- was placed up against the wall of the barrack.
- And he was counted and then written off as a dead man.
- Was this first man to die, was this Mr. Borstrock?
- No.
- No.
- The first man to die was Baruch [PERSONAL NAME]..
- [PERSONAL NAME] was a hairdresser in The Hague.
- And I mentioned this to his family later on, on liberation,
- but I don't know where his family lives now.
- Mr. Borstrock was the one with the incident with the soup,
- the spoons of soup.
- How difficult did you find it to sleep?
- Or would you say that people slept easily just to escape?
- It was a godsend to us, the only rest
- we had when we were asleep.
- But often, it was such a lot of noise going on
- for one thing or another that we had little sleep.
- As I'm thinking now--
- this was during the daytime inside the barrack.
- One man was beaten up by the kapo.
- He's bleeding all over his face.
- And at the door, an SS, a young SS man, about 20, is watching.
- And as long as this SS kept watching,
- this kapo was kicking and beating this fellow up.
- We got hardened to all those things.
- What could we do?
- So there were barracks, which had
- to be put in order for prisoners to live in.
- So the kapo, for one reason or another,
- he picked me out of the lot, and a very tall fellow.
- His name was Heinrich.
- He was a German-Jew.
- Escaped to Holland, but also now a prisoner with me.
- And he said, get into the barrack
- and put the wooden bunks in order.
- So we went in there and we start putting
- the wooden bunks, which stood just anyhow in right order.
- And those wooden beds, there were no mattresses, just
- wooden planks.
- And I lifted one up from the ground,
- and there the sun was shining through the barrack window
- onto the floor.
- And I saw there something shining.
- I picked it up.
- It was a coin.
- Had a good look, made me see.
- It was a 5 ruble piece with Tsar Nicholas II on there.
- Beautifully new.
- And I called out.
- I said, Heinrich, have a look at this.
- And he said, oh, that's good.
- He said, put it in your pocket and save it
- because I might be able to get some food for that.
- So I said, yeah, but if I keep it and they search our pockets,
- I'm for it.
- You're not allowed to have money and all that, not at all.
- And the 5 rupees is probably worth many a pound
- at that time.
- But to me, for a half a slice of bread, you could have taken it.
- Anyhow, I put it in my pocket and the day went on.
- And in the evening, I still had it in my pocket.
- I fold my jacket to make a kind of a pillow of it
- and I went to sleep.
- And the next morning when I woke up, I tried to feel my pocket.
- It wasn't there anymore.
- So whether Heinrich got a hold of it
- and disposed of it, one way or another, I don't know.
- I was sorry because a piece of bread
- would have meant a lot to us.
- That's another incident how we lived.
- Who would have exchanged the 5 rubles for bread for you?
- Well, probably he.
- Being a big fellow, he probably knew some contact there,
- another prisoner or so, or somebody
- who worked near the kitchen, or one thing or another.
- But I never had that kind of contact or so.
- I wasn't clever enough.
- Some of our men were clever.
- They knew ways in and out, but I didn't.
- I just couldn't figure it out.
- Though you may not have known ways in and out, as you say,
- you seemed to have avoided being beaten.
- How did you do that?
- If I could avoid it, yes.
- Was it possible to avoid or was it just luck?
- Not always.
- Just luck, I think.
- And I dare say my angel that protected
- me, the various incidents in my prison life that I escaped.
- But there were also that I copped out,
- and in no little way.
- Was it also at Birkenau that you were involved
- in singing for the kapos?
- Yes.
- Would you tell me about that?
- We had amongst our prisoners violinists,
- who had been violinists, as singers.
- And from time to time, the kapo fancied a little bit of music
- in his barrack.
- He used to call out, where is anybody that can sing
- or anybody can play a fiddle?
- So out came a Dutchman who could play the fiddle.
- His name was Dantzig from Amsterdam.
- He played a fiddle.
- Later on I know he went very thin
- and we didn't see him no more.
- But at that time, we were still a little bit
- of fresh, probably the third week, third or fourth week
- in our prison in Birkenau.
- And he called out the singers.
- And there was another Amsterdam boy.
- He was a very light tenor.
- Shriver his name was, Shriver.
- And then myself, because I had started
- singing before the camp.
- And then the kapo used to say, well, all right, come on.
- Give us some singing.
- So we used to sing some songs and he used to play the fiddle.
- I can see us still standing on the warmed fireplace running
- through the barrack, and we stood there singing.
- What songs did he want?
- Didn't make any difference.
- We were saying, we hope we get some food for it.
- We just made up our own songs.
- Well, the night came--
- a night came along and the kapo said, everybody into the beds.
- So we all went into the bed.
- And he said, good night in German.
- "Nacht."
- Night.
- Then we all had to call back, good night.
- Well, probably because we were hungry or dissatisfied,
- one thing or another, not all of us called out good night.
- But at that moment, we did not know that.
- So we were all in bed, and about 10 minutes later, the lights
- went on.
- The kapo came out of his department into the barrack.
- And he said, where are those singers?
- I wanted to go, look, I've got to stand up and sing now?
- I feel like going to sleep.
- So I got up, and the other singer
- got up and the violinist, and we stood there on top.
- Well, boys, let's just sing.
- We might, we might not get something.
- But to our surprise, he said, now everybody out of the beds.
- And it didn't happen quick enough.
- And he started, with his assistants,
- with the stick in the hands, hitting the sticks on the bed.
- Get out.
- Get out.
- And like monkeys, they had to climb out.
- And there we stood.
- I watched it all, in between the beds, all the men.
- And when they stood, he said, into the beds.
- Everybody into the beds.
- And they climbed up into the beds.
- Those couldn't do it quick enough,
- they were beaten with a stick.
- And we were all in the bed.
- He says, out of the beds.
- So we had to climb down again.
- And this went on for a good quarter of an hour, 20 minutes.
- The men couldn't climb up.
- They couldn't climb down hardly, out of breath.
- And we were lucky we saw this all.
- I saw this all standing there.
- If I wouldn't have been a singer,
- I would have been doing the same thing.
- Then at last, he says, into the beds.
- And then he says, good night.
- And then the whole lot said, good night.
- He said, that's what I want to hear.
- Because we didn't answer him one call good night,
- we were punished that way, one of the kapos.
- So that's another incident.
- Was it at Birkenau that you got diarrhea and tried
- to medicate yourself?
- Yes.
- A lot of us got diarrhea.
- And if you went into hospital--
- I was warned before by the young Austrian fellow
- who said, don't get into the hospitals
- because they'll starve you.
- So I didn't want to go into the hospital.
- I took wood, pieces of wood from a tree
- where I found them, and burnt them into black ashes.
- And I put that into my portion of soup.
- I did it several days to stop the dysentery.
- It helped me.
- How did you know that making charcoal would help you?
- Yes, because when we left Holland,
- one of the medicines we had to take along was Norit,
- N-O-R-I-T. It were black tablets,
- which you swallowed them, they stopped you from becoming
- dysentery.
- Did the black tablets that you made work in the same way?
- Yeah.
- Well, they told me that in those tablets,
- they only burned wood and burned bones.
- They told me anything, you know, the boys among one another.
- So I burned it and somehow it did stop my dysentery.
- Well, I think it was more God or the angels working with me.
- Anyhow, that was another incident then.
- Was it also at Birkenau that you had
- trouble with your shoelaces?
- Yes.
- The boots we had on, I had no shoelaces.
- And they took too long to button up in the morning,
- when you are standing on top of another and one pushing
- past you, to tie your boots.
- They were wooden-soled things.
- It was already uneasy to walk in.
- So I found pieces of wire and tied my shoes
- with wire, which was done in a few seconds,
- just tied the wire together and your shoe stayed on the foot.
- Were there any problems with that?
- Yes, because you walked and the wire
- touched the front of the foot, so it made a cutting effect.
- The shoes were bad, so I had open holes
- in the heels, blisters.
- And life began to become a little bad now
- because, well, in the barracks and outside the barracks,
- nothing was good.
- I remember now that in our early prison,
- when one had to get up out of his bed to do nature's call--
- and there were only a wooden-made container.
- And if that was full, you had to carry it outside, trying
- not to spill it.
- If you spilled it, you had to smell in the barrack
- and you copped out.
- So I remember that evening I couldn't go on
- to that container.
- It was loaded.
- And I slipped outside the barrack and did my duty
- and crawled back again.
- And lucky nobody had seen me.
- Because it was dark?
- It was dark.
- But probably the man inside the barracks,
- he was probably sleeping or something, the watchman,
- wherever he was.
- I got back in my bed and fell asleep.
- And then I woke up because there were a lot of noise going on.
- And they had carried a man inside from outside who
- had been caught doing the same thing that I had done.
- And he copped out.
- They were beating him up.
- He had gone outside, and instead of waiting for someone
- to come and help him to carry that wooden container filled
- to the rim--
- so in other words, I escaped that good hiding.
- It could have been me.
- You had the one container for all the over 1,000 men?
- Yes.
- When it was full, you had to carry it out.
- Yes, it was a miserable life in the barracks in Birkenau.
- Yeah.
- You were in Birkenau until, would it be March, April?
- Half January.
- End of-- no, no.
- End of February, seven or eight weeks.
- Say we arrived about 18th or 19th of January
- '43 in Birkenau.
- And I was there between seven or eight weeks.
- I would make it to March.
- Yes?
- Beginning of March, yeah.
- Well, there comes the day, the evening then,
- that we were called into a barrack and everybody strip.
- There were a few thousand of us there.
- So we stood there naked.
- Called into a different barrack?
- Into a different barrack.
- In that barrack, the two tables on each table,
- an SS officer standing with paper in his hand.
- And we all had to file passing.
- And he looked at you, and it was up to him to say to the left
- or to the right.
- So the weak ones went to the left and the better physically
- looking ones went to the right.
- Those who went to the left, the weak ones,
- they said they were done away with.
- They were too weak to work, so they were finished with,
- the gas chamber or whatever it was.
- I remember queuing up, and for some reason the man behind me
- pushed me out of the queue.
- By mistake or on purpose?
- I still don't know why he did it.
- And an SS officer saw that.
- He jumped from the table, came to me,
- and kicked me between the legs, and there I lay on the floor.
- And I jumped up quickly.
- With all my pain, I jumped up quickly
- because I wanted to show I was strong.
- And I stood in the queue again.
- And then it was my turn to pass by
- and he put me on and told me to get to the right.
- That's why I'm still alive today.
- Well, that evening then, about 1,500 of us--
- five and five and five and five, next to one another,
- give them one another, locked into the arms--
- we were marched to Auschwitz.
- How far is that?
- I'd say about three or five kilometers,
- something like that.
- Not at all a problem for someone fit and well.
- How did it seem?
- Were you well enough at this point?
- We were well enough to do that march
- and gallop almost non-stop.
- I'm just thinking I left one of my best friends behind.
- He had a swollen inside of his mouth.
- He was a big fellow when we left Holland.
- I never seen him again.
- Eddy =Hamel is his name.
- Eddy Hamel.
- Yeah, a nice fellow.
- He was an American Dutchman.
- Did you know where you were going?
- No.
- No.
- We just marched.
- And marching, not 1, 2; 1, 2.
- No.
- Come on, come on.
- We were chased up, the guards with guns.
- And then we arrived in Auschwitz.
- And it was evening, late evening.
- And we all were put into a big room,
- but it was too small for all of us, where we stood.
- Belly to belly we stood, really, and all through the night.
- And what could you do?
- You had to do your duty.
- And you just tried to squeeze out and get
- into a corner or something.
- I remember I had a piece of bread under my jacket.
- And I was standing belly to belly, face
- to face with a Czechoslovakian prisoner.
- Bigger man than me.
- And we were talking in broken German
- and wondering what's going to happen.
- And it was warm standing so close to one another.
- And he said, what have you got there then?
- And he pointed to the little bit of bark on my jacket.
- And I said, that's a piece of bread.
- So we shared that piece of bread.
- Well, they went on right throughout the night,
- and then the next morning we were chased outside.
- There we stood on the square in Auschwitz.
- How had you got a piece of bread?
- From Birkenau.
- Towards the end, they gave you a little piece of bread.
- Did everyone have one?
- Yes, everyone.
- Why did you share yours?
- Well, probably I didn't feel hungry.
- I didn't feel like hiding it any longer.
- I realized he was hungry, otherwise
- he wouldn't have asked it.
- So we shared it.
- There are several incidents like that with sharing food.
- Not often, but you could do it if there were circumstances.
- So we stood outside that morning.
- And I remember one of the kapos standing on the truck
- and calling out professionals-- electricians, carpenters,
- and so on.
- And who else is a professional?
- So one of them said, professional hairdressers.
- I said, I'm a hairdresser.
- And they all start laughing.
- Later on I realized why they were laughing.
- I was pushed back amongst the prisoners.
- And of course, if you're a hairdresser in the barrack,
- if you're a chief hairdresser in the barrack,
- you need not go out to work.
- You're in the barrack.
- You're in the camp.
- You get better, more food.
- You get a nice, clean striped uniform.
- And you got somewhere to stay in the barrack,
- whereas in my case, of course, we were slaves.
- And we only had be a barber at the weekends
- to clean the men up by shaving and cutting the hair.
- So that's why they had laughed.
- They all laughed.
- And instead of being a hairdresser,
- I became a slave labor and I was dealt
- into a Kommando of 1,000 men.
- Do you know what proportion of your 50 Dutchmen remained?
- Oh.
- I lost sight of-- well, half of them
- had died already in Birkenau.
- I didn't see many of them.
- I think Borstrock was still with me.
- But I don't remember anybody.
- Yes, one or two more.
- One or two more there were, yes.
- Only about half a dozen, I should say.
- So then with people, most of whom
- you didn't share a language with.
- Yes, Polish.
- I couldn't speak Polish.
- Czechs.
- I couldn't talk Czech.
- So we did it all more in broken German,
- and in Dutch with those few.
- Of course, I remember now that day we didn't work,
- march out to work.
- We were dealt into a barrack.
- And of the Dutchmen that were still alive,
- there was very one tall Dutchmen, Rotterdam fellow.
- A picture comes to my mind, that because I was a barber,
- we were giving them razors at the weekends to shave,
- the prisoners.
- And that morning, we're inside a barrack next to the bed.
- We put a wooden bunk, and the prisoner had to sit in there.
- And they were lathered by one and shaven by me.
- And one or two other barbers with razors.
- And I still hear the Dutchman say to me, shave us first
- so we can get out.
- And I said, no.
- I said, if I do that, the others will start screaming.
- I said, I'm quick enough.
- I said, I'll take one Dutchman, and one Pole, and a Dutchman
- again, and another Pole.
- Let me do it like that.
- And that's what I did.
- Because otherwise, there would have been an inquiry.
- What are you doing there, your people first?
- So that ended that way.
- Why did they want to get out quickly?
- Well, they didn't want to stay in the barrack.
- They wanted to get out.
- I don't know-- no reason for them to stay in the barrack.
- But then comes the time, the next day,
- that we had to march out with the Kommando.
- That was the Bauhof.
- Before you tell me about your work--
- Yes.
- --could you describe the Auschwitz barrack?
- The Auschwitz barrack were barracks
- built entirely out of bricks.
- These were purpose-built as a concentration camp,
- weren't they?
- I dare say they were built--
- why they built that one in bricks,
- I never gave it a thought, Really but luckily enough,
- they still exist.
- And otherwise, they would not have been there.
- Because I doubt whether any wooden barracks
- in Buchenwald, or in Monowitz, or in Birkenau--
- there are no barracks left.
- They've probably been destroyed or by age being destroyed.
- But Birkenau exists because of the brick barracks.
- I mean in Auschwitz, the brick barracks--
- barracks, yes.
- Yes, Auschwitz.
- Auschwitz.
- Now, in those brick barracks, the lower part of the--
- there were three divisions.
- The upper part was for the prisoners like ourselves.
- You mean, they were three stories tall?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Downstairs, as I could, at that time, hear, and see, and think,
- there were important people that were taken prisoners--
- probably burgomasters, doctors, lawyers,
- or somebody who had been, probably, in the government.
- Then comes in between, where people lived.
- They were less important.
- But the upper lot would be--
- where I was sleeping, then, that were the Jewish prisoners
- and some non-Jews.
- So who was in the middle then, the second floor?
- Also what-- prisoners-- we're all prisoners.
- We all were prisoners.
- But some of them didn't go out to work, probably, I--
- [AUDIO OUT]
- You were just describing the Auschwitz barracks.
- Yes.
- As we had lice in Birkenau, we had not hundreds,
- but thousands of fleas trouble.
- I remember that the blanket were--
- under which I was sleeping-- we just had only one blanket
- and a broken-down mattress--
- there were so many fleas that kept us awake.
- I remember, when the lights went out,
- and there was only a blue light, you
- could see the fleas dancing--
- and not jumping away, but just crawling on your blanket,
- probably through the blue light or something.
- And I used to catch them and kill them.
- If you couldn't catch them, they kept
- you awake by crawling on you and the itch.
- So fleas was the second thing we had to do-- to deal with.
- You said that you and your group were on the third floor
- in the barracks--
- Yeah, yes.
- --at Auschwitz.
- Was the third floor one great hall or divided into rooms?
- No, the halls were smaller than in Birkenau.
- There were smaller halls.
- How many people?
- Well, let's say 400 or 500, something like that.
- So whenever you had to do your duty in the night,
- you had to go one, two, three downstairs.
- Downstairs, you had beautiful lavatories, porcelain--
- the pans, the WC pans.
- That made me realize, also, that there
- were more important people sleeping
- downstairs in the barrack.
- And I always had an idea.
- I didn't-- never wanted to sit on the seat of a WC.
- It's a habit of mine.
- I remember that I was doing my duty.
- And I didn't sit down.
- And the man looking after-- the prisoner looking
- after the lavatories during the night, a big fellow,
- he pushed me down.
- And he said, sit down.
- I didn't want to.
- He said, sit down.
- So I sat down for the very first time, I think,
- contact with the seat.
- This jumps now and then just in my mind.
- Anyhow--
- Were you afraid of disease?
- Well, I always thought, who's been on here before me?
- Don't know where I got it from, but it's still like that, even
- at home.
- Funny, that.
- It comes into my mind now.
- And that was it.
- Were the lavatories sufficient for the number
- of people in the building?
- No, not sufficient, but you did it.
- And you got-- you did it quick and out.
- You couldn't linger.
- There's no need to linger in there because they soon
- made you hurry up.
- So you did it quick.
- You didn't took your time.
- Were your bunks in three tiers again?
- Yes, but they were--
- either they were single bunks either placed two next to one
- another or just single.
- So you slept in each bunk alone, but mostly, with two of you--
- head to feet, feet to head.
- And there was one week there were three in one bunk--
- three.
- That was in Auschwitz.
- At that time, that was the hospital department
- of Auschwitz.
- It's like that.
- Yes, this was the hospital in Auschwitz, the barrack.
- And I had been chosen out because I wasn't well,
- the doctor said, after making us trip outside after roll call,
- asking us, are you ill?
- And are you--
- I still was afraid to go into hospitals.
- I said, no, I'm all right, although I wasn't.
- And he said, let's have a look at your tongue,
- pulled my tongue out.
- Let's have your hand.
- He felt my pulse.
- He said, in, into the hospital.
- Well, I was glad on one side.
- I was glad to get in--
- meant a rest.
- And probably, they would tune me up
- because I had holes in my heels.
- I didn't feel well at all.
- And as I stood there next to a bunk,
- I heard somebody say, hey, hey, Englishman.
- I wondered where the voice is coming along.
- And then I found him.
- Next to it, in the lower bunk, was a man.
- And he said, don't you recognize me?
- I said, who are you?
- He said, I'm the barber from Westerbork.
- And I remember then, he had beautiful blonde, curly hair.
- He had all shaven off now.
- And he's laying there in bed.
- I said, oh, from Westerbork.
- So this is about two months ago.
- I says, what's the matter with you then?
- And how did they treat you in here?
- He says, have a look.
- And he pulled his blanket away.
- He was laying on his belly.
- And I saw his back from halfway--
- his back right down to the back of his knees
- was yellow, green, red beaten up.
- I said, what's the matter?
- Did you fall?
- He says, fall, he says, a kapo hit me this afternoon
- like that.
- He said, look.
- Well, I didn't see him again.
- He could never got better from that.
- Anyhow, I got into bed.
- And I was dealt into--
- I had to get into a bed.
- They saw to my heels by putting bandages on there
- and resting in bed.
- There were too many of us, three in a bed, and we couldn't--
- In hospital?
- --in hospital.
- And we couldn't sleep.
- Then came the night.
- Outside the barrack, the brick barracks, you had steps.
- And if you walk over those steps, which are stone,
- with the wooden clogs, wooden shoes,
- you heard the sound as if war horses were running.
- And I remember, I was laying in bed and awake.
- And say, an hour before that, one of the three
- had to come out of bed.
- So we-- I was laying with another one in bed.
- And the third one was out of bed.
- And we didn't know where they went to.
- Probably-- we didn't know.
- What could we think?
- And all of a sudden, I heard a non-stop
- going down those three steps.
- On and on, it went.
- And then I realized, they're going to be killed.
- They're going to be done away with-- too many of them.
- And they're weak.
- And they must have been gassed.
- While I was then in hospital still in Auschwitz,
- several incidents happened.
- Before you tell me further about the hospital,
- can you finish telling me about the barracks in Auschwitz?
- You've described, there were only one
- or two men and three tiers.
- How were they heated?
- We had the kind of, shall I say, central heating
- alongside the barracks.
- You mean radiators?
- Yeah.
- Did they work?
- Oh, yes, they was warm.
- There was warmth in the barracks, inside the barracks.
- Yes.
- What about ventilation?
- Ventilation-- you had windows.
- You could open the windows, I suppose.
- There's a door going open the end of the hall then.
- The door went into the corridor and the steps.
- So there's always fresh air coming in and out.
- Light?
- Light?
- Yes, there was light that went out in the evening.
- And only a little light kept burning for in case somebody
- wants to go out or what.
- Electric?
- Yes, electric.
- Yes.
- Did you have water?
- There was water.
- Of course, downstairs, you had to-- in the morning,
- when you had-- there was--
- called out of bed to, say, 5 o'clock, quarter to 5:00,
- half past 4:00, called out of bed,
- you went downstairs to wash.
- There was plenty of water and no soap, no towel.
- You just washed as best as you could.
- And then you got back to your bunk,
- you saw to that your broken down mattress and the blanket
- you had was so made that if the kapo and the SS
- could look in between the beds from a distance,
- there was one even heap.
- Several incidents come into my mind
- now in the barracks in Auschwitz.
- One or two I can mention is that one morning, say, half an hour
- before time to get up, I was up already.
- I went down.
- And as I passed the table upon which was already
- laying to be dealt out loaves of bread,
- or quarters of loaves of bread.
- And the first piece of bread was a big piece
- because the ones that cut up the bread just did it anyhow.
- So you never had a good square of loaf.
- And I saw that was number one.
- So I thought myself, I'll be up in time.
- I'll have my bed made.
- And I'll be number one in the queue.
- And I'll get that for the very first time.
- I'll get that large piece of bread.
- So when I came up, I'd washed already downstairs.
- And I came up and I made my bed.
- And I was all quiet in order.
- And I stood number one in the queue.
- And then the gong went and everybody got up out of bed,
- and rushed downstairs, and came up, and stood in the queue.
- Then the kapo and the-- of my barrack, of my--
- of the whole in my barrack said, Leon, Englishman,
- where are you?
- I says, I'm here, kapo.
- He says, did you make your bed?
- I said, yes.
- Yes, that's all OK.
- And I thought it was OK.
- It was OK.
- He said, come here for me.
- So if I would go away, then number two
- is in the first queue.
- And you won't get--
- I won't get that piece of bread.
- Now, he wasn't the kapo of the barrack.
- He was the chief of the men that shared out the food, what
- they call the Stubendienst.
- That's the kitchen department in the barrack--
- saw to the food, dealt out the bread, the soup, and all that.
- And he came to me.
- He got a hold of me.
- He said-- he dragged me to the bed.
- He said, make your bed.
- And my bed was all upside down.
- He had turned my bed upside down.
- And I was the last one in the queue
- to get a little piece of bread.
- Those are the goings-on in the barrack.
- Can you compare the kapos at Birkenau and Auschwitz?
- Did you notice any difference?
- No, I didn't notice any difference.
- If it came to punishment, they could punish you.
- They were all ex-prisoners, civilian prisoners,
- that were sent there to be governors of us.
- They were ex-murderers, fanatics.
- A prisoner was imprisoned for committing murder,
- he got 10 or 12 years, he was set free--
- swindlers, all those types of people
- who they, the SS could use to kill us off--
- not to be nice to us, to kill us off.
- They could do with us how they liked.
- So they had to see to it that you behaved yourself.
- If you did behave yourself, you still copped out sometime.
- They saw to it that you worked to please the SS.
- How did you know that they were murderers or swindlers?
- I did not know until later on.
- That always puzzled me.
- How can a man do this to another man?
- Later on, I got to know, when we talked among one another.
- But then when I was a free-- when I was free,
- then I realized.
- Because a normal somebody would not
- have lent himself to have done to us what they did do to us.
- They had to be abnormal people.
- Haven't you got it somewhere?
- There is an incident that--
- yes I was ill then.
- I was still ill and laying in hospital in Auschwitz
- when I was queuing up to have my heels bandaged.
- And the doctor had a look at my arm, which
- had a big swelling coming up.
- At that time, I daresay, my body was in bad condition.
- And he took my number.
- And I went back to bed.
- And I fell asleep.
- And then I heard my name and my number being called,
- Dr. Volman, 98288, where are you?
- Come out.
- And I look down, Dr. Volman, as I remember
- his name, Polish doctor, a kind man, he said,
- come on, come out.
- He says, we got you on the list for operation on your arm.
- Down I came.
- And they put me on the table.
- And they cut into that--
- what shall I say?
- It must have been a large kind of carbuncle.
- I still got the scars.
- On your right forearm.
- See?
- Yes.
- And I felt terrible that they were messing about with me
- because you lay there, they cut you,
- saw everything was happening, the dirt.
- Without anesthetic?
- And without anesthetic.
- According to them, that must have
- been only a small operation.
- And then I was led back to my bed.
- And I fell asleep.
- But I had another one coming up.
- And I massaged it away.
- And instead of staying away, it came up there.
- But I was afraid to get onto the table again, to be cut into.
- And one of the prisoners who was a male nurse,
- I showed it to him.
- I said, look, I don't want to go on the table again.
- He said, oh, I'll see to that.
- And he took a crochet hook, which
- ladies used for crocheting, and he opened up the wound,
- and turned that hook around and got something out.
- And it only left a mark, as you see.
- So it was no need for me to go under the table again.
- That's how afraid I was that they
- would treat me the wrong way.
- You said Dr. Volman was a kind man.
- What do you mean by that?
- He was a prisoner.
- And I didn't hear a lot about.
- He was a calm Polish prisoner, but a doctor by trade.
- And I never heard him shout or what.
- Then comes the day that--
- a picture comes into my mind now.
- I'm still in hospital and I'm starving.
- We're all hungry, hungry.
- And there's a-- in the bunk next to me,
- there's a young Polish prisoner, Jewish.
- And we're talking in broken German,
- again, about soup, and potatoes, and food.
- And then from underneath his blanket,
- he showed me a bucket, which we usually use for soup,
- filled to the top with jacket potatoes.
- And right on the top, a very small one, small as my pink,
- my little finger on my hand, I says, look, I says,
- give me that small one.
- And tomorrow when-- or day after tomorrow,
- when we get the potatoes, I'll give you my potato back.
- How had he got them?
- He probably had a connection with one
- of his friends, who probably worked in the kitchen
- and got that in there.
- I found that some of the Polish boys, among one another,
- they could help in that way.
- Because later on, the Dutchman also
- gave me extra potatoes out of the kitchen
- where he was working.
- No, he said, I'm not going to give you a potato, nothing.
- And he put it back underneath his blanket.
- And I was laying there, and waiting,
- and didn't know what to do.
- But my mind was made up.
- I must try to get that potato.
- And I waited for hours until he was properly asleep.
- Because if I was caught stealing,
- they could do anything with you.
- Well, this was a hospital barracks.
- So I found he was asleep and slowly, my hand
- came from underneath my blanket, over the rim of the bunk,
- underneath his blanket, very carefully found the container--
- his container with potatoes, and I felt for the little potato
- on the top.
- And I took it slowly back again, and put it in my mouth,
- and swallowed it.
- And the next day or the day after, when I got my potatoes,
- I really gave him back one of the smallest potatoes
- I had given to me.
- And he looked at me, he didn't know what it was all about.
- I didn't tell him.
- So that's the first time I was a thief.
- That's how we lived in the camp.
- Whereas I had shared my food whenever I could,
- others were greedy and didn't do it.
- Well, you were a thief in that incident.
- However, he, it sounds like, had more than enough potatoes.
- Yes, yes.
- There must have been instances in which people
- stole from people who didn't have enough.
- Yes.
- My bread is certain-- more than a dozen times
- been stolen by just looking around or being called away,
- and coming back to my bed, and my bread was gone.
- Oh, yes.
- Couldn't do nothing about it, couldn't accuse anybody.
- Or if you caught somebody doing it--
- but I never caught somebody doing it.
- It went so quick.
- And bread was gold to us.
- What sort of bread was it?
- Well, a kind of brown color.
- The Poles had had round--
- oval, round bread.
- But there also were times that it was not oval, but probably
- straight-cut bread.
- But the outside was covered, which, I would say,
- was now the--
- what do they call them, the--
- you can buy in the shop now.
- I forget the words.
- I have it every morning, a spoon I put on my bread.
- Bran?
- That's right, something like that.
- The outside of the seeds.
- I forget the words now.
- I must be asleep.
- Anyhow, and-- but it was, I think, sawdust.
- Husks?
- Something like that, yes.
- It looked like sawdust--
- not a lot of bread.
- How did it taste?
- Well, we didn't care if it tasted.
- Tasted all right.
- We didn't make a meal of the taste of what we ate.
- And the little bit of margarine we
- had three or four times a week and one spoon of little spoon
- of jam once a week, that was--
- and, of course, in the beginning,
- a large piece of sausage, which, in the end, it was no more.
- How big would be large?
- Well, how big would that be?
- Five inches?
- Yes.
- In the beginning, we were surprised--
- that was the beginning of Auschwitz-- that went
- small and smaller until that.
- And then there was no more.
- And I'm still in Auschwitz then, comes
- the day that I'm queuing up for my arm and my heels
- to be bandaged.
- And a doctor came along, a man in a white coat who
- was a doctor.
- And he went along the queue.
- And he stopped at me.
- And he took my number.
- And I didn't think more about it.
- After being bandaged, I went back to my bed
- and I fell asleep.
- And the next morning, I was called up
- out of my sleep, come out of my bunk.
- I was given wooden clogs and a coat
- to put on and follow the man, the doctor, across--
- out of the barracks, across the space, into another barrack.
- Do you mean you had gone from the hospital back
- to your ordinary barracks at this point?
- Or you were still in hospital?
- No, I was still in Auschwitz hospital.
- And he placed me in a chair.
- And I sat there.
- And I thought myself--
- and this was a laboratorium, I should think--
- bottles and tubes were hanging about, and glasses.
- It was a doctor's department, medical department.
- And I sat in a chair.
- And there were-- there was another doctor.
- And they were talking to one another.
- And I said, what's going to happen to me?
- What are you going to do?
- What am I here for?
- Oh, they said, we just want to try out
- a new kind of tool or instrument, nothing much,
- he said.
- I said, well, because I'm a British subject, I said.
- And I think I ought to know what's going on.
- Anyhow, I waited 20 minutes, half an hour maybe.
- Then one said to the other, I don't think he's coming.
- So we'll take him back.
- And they told me to get out of the chair,
- and put my coat on, my clogs, and I
- was walked back to my bunk.
- The next morning, the same thing happened.
- Come out of the bunk and follow them again.
- And sit in the chair.
- And we waited a few minutes.
- And then the door opened.
- And in came an SS officer.
- And he said in German, commence--
- [GERMAN]
- So the doctors start strapping my hands, my arms,
- to the chair, and my legs spread out and strapped to the chair.
- And the lights went out.
- A very small light is burning.
- And they were getting a hold of a tube.
- Up at the end of the tube was a metal something
- the size of a ball pen, about three times the size
- of that, that metal thing.
- So it was as thick as a ball pen, about 18 inches long?
- Yeah.
- And while he was doing that, the doctor casually
- mentioned to the SS officer, this
- is an Englishman who is in the chair.
- So the SS turned around, he said to me in English,
- you're English?
- I said, yes.
- He says-- I said, and I'm here, really, under false pretenses.
- I says, I'm an Englishman.
- I don't know what they're doing here with me--
- my wife and child.
- I said, and I hope that you can do something
- for me that I come out of this camp
- because there's no need for me to be here.
- So he looks at me.
- And he said, I can't help you with your nationality.
- He said, you have to go to the political department for that.
- I'm here to supervise medical questions.
- And with that, he turned away.
- With that, the doctors commenced by putting a tube
- in the front of my body and a large bottle with liquid--
- they said it was water--
- was pumped into me, into my bladder.
- And I let go.
- He said, don't let go.
- Hold it.
- So again, they pumped water into me.
- And I said, was-- there's nothing wrong with my blood
- then.
- Anyhow, they didn't say nothing more.
- And they just went on.
- And the lights went out.
- And they placed this instrument in front of my body
- and twisted it around and around.
- And they pulled it out and adjusted something.
- And then they put it back again.
- And they started hurting me.
- And they took it out again.
- And they weren't succeeding, I think,
- in what they wanted to do.
- And became to feel very uncomfortable
- and start aching me.
- And then they put it back again.
- And they twisted and turned it.
- And then I said, they're hurting me, now in English
- so that the SS officer could hear it.
- He wasn't far away, staring out of the window.
- I thought myself, what can happen?
- He can give me a good hiding.
- But I don't want this.
- So he said, all right, stop here and take him--
- let him go.
- And he need not come back again.
- So they took the straps off my arms and my legs,
- gave me my coat and my clogs, and I was marched outside,
- and taken to the bunk.
- For the next week, whenever I had to answer nature's call,
- I urinated blood.
- And all the men next to me-- must
- have been about 50-60 all next to me,
- they all underwent the same thing.
- I dare say it was an experiment.
- Perhaps it was Mengele.
- Perhaps it wasn't.
- I don't know.
- Have you seen pictures of Mengele?
- Yes.
- But I don't remember the face of this SS because at that time,
- I had no idea that they were using prisoners as guinea pigs.
- I had no idea that there was a man such as Mengele.
- I didn't know.
- This catheter or whatever they were experimenting with,
- did you and the other victims have any idea of what they
- might have been trying to do?
- Maybe sterilizing, could be.
- I still don't know.
- Probably get never to know what they were trying to do.
- But it shows you, we were just like sheep.
- They could do with you what they liked.
- Now, I was lucky that this man, this SS officer,
- could understand English.
- Perhaps he was a German who had studied medicine in America.
- I remember a slight American accent on his-- in his talk.
- He was-- there was no time enough to take him up properly,
- to take his face and remember his face.
- I don't.
- Well, there were, of course, other doctors as well,
- with Mengele.
- Yes, must have been.
- Later on, I heard stories about other men.
- And they had also been used as a guinea pig.
- In what way?
- Well, stomach-- finding things in stomach, that's one.
- Did this only happen to people like you who were in hospital
- already?
- Or were people taken from working parties or whatever
- for experimentation?
- Well, I suggest that they take them from anywhere, everywhere.
- But it's still a puzzle to me why he stopped in the queue
- and took my number.
- Was it that I physically seemed to be still OK?
- Whereas where the weak ones, they probably--
- wouldn't matter what they'd done.
- They wanted probably healthy physically examples.
- And then they could make them ill or something like that.
- While I'm still in Auschwitz hospital is another incident.
- There was a day that the SS and the kapos brought in a barrel,
- a large barrel of black olives, which probably came from Crete
- or the Greek islands.
- And they start sharing out buckets full of black olives
- to the prisoners.
- I've always said, well, it's food, but it's salty.
- Why they give us this?
- Well, most of the prisoners didn't eat them.
- And the men not far from me, two or three men,
- they didn't want them.
- I said, can I have them?
- And I got them.
- And with a knife, I got during my--
- in my possession, I start cutting the meat off of the--
- the flesh off of the olives, throwing the pits away.
- And in the end, I had a bucket loaded
- with the flesh of olives.
- And I start eating them, thinking, olives, olive oil,
- it's good.
- It'll keep me longer alive.
- Well, it probably made me sick.
- And there was one incident that I--
- How could you have got a knife?
- Well, it wasn't a right to have a knife.
- But if you found a large nail on the field where we're working
- or wherever it was, and you could beat it
- down one side to a very fine edge, you used it as a knife.
- And that's what you cut your piece of bread with,
- your bread in little pieces.
- How did you beat it?
- With a brick on a brick.
- Did a lot of people do that?
- Yes.
- And sometimes, you have to give it up
- because after all, it was recognized as a knife,
- as a weapon, which the kapo then got a hold of.
- And there was an incident that I was in with a Gypsy Kommando.
- And the Gypsy kapo, one day, emptied all our pockets.
- And all the knives that came out--
- some had pocket knives-- some of the Gypsy boys got a hold
- of a pocket knife somehow--
- and the nail knives, then, like I had.
- And they were all confiscated and thrown away in the fields.
- So you waited until you found a nail again.
- And you did the same thing.
- Or the back of your spoon-- if you had a spoon,
- you could beat that down to a sharp edge
- and use that as a knife.
- Could you-- because the bread, you
- could eat it two or three times in your mouth.
- This bread was gone.
- But if you had a knife, you could cut it into little pieces
- and make yourself believe it took a long time before you
- finished it.
- You see, so a lot of fantasy you always have to keep,
- all to keep you going, keep you going all the time.
- So the olives made you sick?
- Made me sick.
- So I remember--
- How sick?
- Like this-- I jumped out of bed.
- And we had two metal containers in a wooden encasement
- in the barrack.
- That's where you did your natural duties in.
- And when it was full, you carried it
- to the outside lavatories and emptied it in the outside lav.
- Not all in the barrack, but you had a department
- where porcelain pan, WC pans were for the doctors
- and for the prominent people.
- And then you had to empty it in there,
- and carry it back again, and so on.
- Well, I had to give over.
- I sickened.
- And I sickened into one of those buckets.
- And I went back to bed.
- And I felt cold and shivery.
- And I lay there.
- And my tongue was surveying my mouth.
- And I found that my false tooth had gone.
- And I thought myself, gosh, I can't be like that.
- When the liberators come, I can't talk to the soldiers
- with a tooth missing in my mouth.
- Now, where is it?
- And I looked under my jacket, which I used as a cushion.
- I looked in between the blankets.
- Nowhere, it wasn't there in the mattress.
- No.
- So I start thinking, the only thing
- is it could have been in the bucket.
- So I climbed down again.
- It was very quiet.
- It's a barrack for the sick.
- So that hall was for the sick barracks.
- There was only doctors now and then and the male nurses
- now and then.
- And otherwise, they were in a room,
- chatting with one another.
- So there was no--
- it was quiet.
- There was no noise about it.
- So I went to the bucket, and got the bucket out,
- and took it to the department where all those porcelain
- lavatories were for the doctors.
- And I found a kind of something in the corner of that room.
- And I started emptying the bucket.
- You had something to use as a ladle?
- Yes, as a ladle.
- And bit by bit.
- And then the door-- halfway, I was there.
- The door opened.
- And one of the doctors came in and said,
- what are you doing there?
- So I told him, my tooth have fallen into it,
- and I want to get it out.
- He said, ah, and he closed the door.
- And he went.
- He didn't say no more.
- And really, at the end of the bucket, I found my tooth.
- I picked it out, went back to the barrack--
- to the hall, to the ward.
- And on the ward, they had a table.
- And on this table was a big enamel bucket.
- And they had a little ticket on it--
- disinfection.
- So thought myself, I'll put it in there.
- And I washed my hands in there.
- And I left it in there.
- And I was-- nobody were watching me.
- It was properly clean.
- I put it in my mouth again.
- I went to bed to sleep.
- About two days later, I was just peering out of my bed
- across the room.
- And I could see the bucket of disinfection standing
- on the table.
- And I saw one of the prisoners, one of the male nurses
- getting a hold of it, and bringing it back, and pouring
- a pail of water in it.
- It wasn't disinfection at all.
- It was water.
- I had fooled myself.
- I felt so embarrassed.
- So that's another part of my life,
- trying to be a gentleman, afraid to talk
- with a hole in the mouth, and all that.
- Where in your mouth is your false tooth?
- Did you think it would show?
- Yes.
- If I wouldn't have had it--
- that one tooth, I had it out by, early in my life,
- boxing on the street with the boys.
- That was the first time my tooth was knocked out.
- And I had a bridge made to it.
- And I had it--
- my tooth.
- In front?
- Yeah, front tooth, yes.
- Were there any other incidents about hospital
- that you wish to recall?
- Yes.
- I was in sufficient strong again to get out of bed,
- and to be given a razor, and to shave the prisoners who
- had been brought in from outside with wounds, especially wounds
- on the heads or on their backs or arms.
- And I had to shave them.
- And I remember one big fellow, a wonderful, big fellow,
- he was brought in from outside.
- And of course, the winters are terrible there.
- And he had a hole in his back as big as my fist, really.
- And when he stood straight up--
- because I had to shave the hair around him--
- he had a hairy chest, hairy back--
- he stood up, the dirt just dripped out.
- I still see it.
- He had to be operated on or whatever they did to him.
- Then I had a man I had to shave his--
- behind his ear.
- Half of his head had to be shaved.
- He had something wrong with the ear.
- And for that I had then a little extra soup given to me
- by the kapo of that department.
- It was a poor sight to see all those people coming
- in with big holes in their legs.
- And I showed them how they were treated with bandages.
- And the wounds were cleaned and all that.
- I don't think many got through.
- The wounds were too big to heal in time
- enough to get back to work.
- So three, four, five weeks in hospital,
- the SS doctor comes along, finds you there,
- and you go to the gas chamber.
- They had no use for you.
- Why, in that case, did they bother curing people
- if they weren't going to be cured?
- Yeah, that's always an idea to me in my mind.
- But, of course, Auschwitz and around Auschwitz, you
- had camps where things were being built. Now, for instance,
- Monowitz had the Buna works.
- The Buna was-- first of all, was a rubber factory.
- But there was also a large piece of land
- upon which dozens and dozens of warehouses were built--
- and factories, all built with the blood
- of our slave laborers, Jewish blood and non-Jewish blood.
- And they had to have people to work these things.
- So if the prisoners were treated--
- so if you were too weak to live on, right, away with you.
- But if there was still a possibility
- that you were physically fit and they could make you
- better that you could continue, even for a couple
- of months or whatever it was--
- because the SS was earning money from the people who
- paid them on behalf of us who were working there.
- I heard, say, that you got three marks a day,
- that 1.50 went into the pockets of the SS and 1.50 was then
- spent, so-called, on your food and your sleeping in the camps.
- That's how it was told to me.
- So if hundreds of prisoners just were done away with,
- there was a gap.
- And it didn't bring any money.
- And the works didn't get underway.
- So that's how they tried to weed you out.
- You worked there until nature made you die.
- Or if you were still alive and too weak, we will kill you off.
- That's how it was.
- And there were plenty of people to come in yet
- from all the countries occupied.
- That went on and on.
- That's why so many millions were killed--
- deliberately or by weakness, no food, and hard work.
- There must have been occasions at which the SS themselves
- were taken ill or were injured.
- Did they go to the same hospital?
- No.
- I've never seen an ill SS in our hospital.
- They had their own barracks.
- And they must have had their own hospitals
- and their own doctors.
- And they could be sent away outside the camp for treatment.
- And they were never with us.
- The only time we saw SS, we came in to the barracks to count you
- or to see that everything was all right, otherwise--
- or at your work, to see that you were there,
- that you were working.
- But I say, if SS was ill, it never come into my mind
- at all now.
- We never saw one.
- What about kapos, if they were taken ill?
- Kapos was treated, of course, in our hospitals.
- But I never heard of kapos being ill, funny enough.
- I never heard of ill kapos.
- Of course, those people had a fairly easy life.
- What did he have to do?
- They could-- they got the food.
- They got probably special food from somewhere.
- They had clean clothes.
- They had the enjoyment amongst one another.
- All what he had to see to-- that we marched out
- and that we marched back, and in between, that we did our work.
- If they became ill, I daresay, they
- had a way of getting special treatment from prison doctors.
- And if there was no medicine, probably from the outside
- came medicine via the SS or whatever it was.
- How long were you in Auschwitz hospital?
- Six months-- not in hospital.
- No, in hospital.
- Hospital, say, four or five weeks--
- four or five weeks.
- I remember, one morning, I was still shaving the wounded ones,
- when I was told, you leave tomorrow.
- And I had to leave.
- Were you better?
- No.
- We were never better.
- But we had to get on with it.
- You picked up your life again.
- And you tried to carry on as good as you can.
- How adequate was your continuing care in hospital?
- Well, every other day, you came out
- of your bunk to have your wound dressed.
- In hospital, you were not ill-treated.
- The doctors didn't beat you.
- Or the kapo of the hospital didn't beat you.
- Although I must remember now, something comes in my mind.
- I'm still in Auschwitz.
- And I think I got into a fight in bed with another prisoner.
- And we let our fists go to one another.
- And that created some noise.
- And the kapo doctor came along.
- And he inquired what was going on.
- And I had to come out.
- And for punishment, I had to sit in front of the bunk
- with bended knees for a while--
- and outstretched hands like that.
- And then he said, well, get up to bed again.
- What did you fight about?
- Something or another, probably lying in one another's
- way or something like that--
- irritation.
- Five weeks seems a very long time to have been in hospital.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Which suggests that you weren't receiving very adequate care.
- Well, if they knew I could shave,
- so they used me to shave this thing--
- to shave the patients there.
- So you were useful.
- I was useful, yes.
- They say, that's it.
- I remember, now, that they gave me
- a little bit extra bread or extra soup for my work there.
- And it wasn't every day.
- It wasn't non-stop all day, no-- whenever
- they brought in prisoners.
- And that day, I had to go out.
- And I didn't get my extra rations.
- That was Auschwitz.
- And just now, there were several other incidents in Auschwitz.
- When you returned from hospital, did you
- go back to the same barracks?
- To the same barrack?
- Sometimes, you went then after into another barrack.
- But what I can remember, went to the same barracks.
- And you had then one or two days in the barrack
- to remain before you were sent out with your Kommando to work.
- Now, incidents jumps into my mind.
- I was laying in the under bunk, three high.
- So the middle one was a Polish prisoner, non-Jew,
- who had also been in hospital.
- And he had a bandage around his head.
- And I'd seen him there several times, several days.
- And one morning, I said--
- there was my--
- I had to work--
- get out to work then.
- And he could stay in there yet.
- I dare say, he had several more days being ill.
- And I said, cheerio, see you tonight-like.
- And because I always tried to be friendly to people.
- I had no hatred or aggravation.
- And I was trying to be just normal.
- So you said to one another, good night,
- and see you in the morning again.
- And you became friendly.
- So on my work, I was working, then,
- with the Kommando for erecting barracks.
- So you-- pieces of barracks, you had to carry from one part
- to another part and erect them into a barrack.
- And that was about 12:00, half past 12:00 in there.
- And we looked in the distance.
- We all-- people next--
- the man next to me-- we were at work, digging the ground
- or whatever it was we were doing, we stood up.
- And we looked in the distance.
- And we could see, in the distance,
- a lot of men coming towards us.
- And on and on it went.
- There must have been at least 1,000,
- according to what the kapo let fall out of his mouth
- while he was standing, watching us and watching them.
- And in there, I saw this man who had
- said cheerio in the morning in there, walking as well.
- And then a suggestion came to us,
- they're all going to the gas chambers.
- They were useless.
- I never saw that man again.
- And when I came in, his bunk was empty
- until somebody else came in again.
- So every time, I seem to have escaped that road
- to be done in.
- Did you use a euphemism for what was happening to those people?
- Or did you admit to each other and to yourselves
- what was happening to them?
- At that time, if you-- we knew then
- that if you were too weak to work,
- you went in the gas chambers.
- That's what you mean?
- Yes.
- And you actually said gas chamber, did you?
- Gas chambers, yes, [GERMAN],, and the [GERMAN],, yeah.
- That's why you try to keep as strong as physically as
- possible.
- Now, I wondered if, even though you knew it,
- you didn't want to say the word at the time.
- Oh, no, we talked to one another about it.
- Yes.
- Now, I'd like to talk about your work at Auschwitz.
- Yeah.
- Can you start by telling me how they divided or sorted
- people for work at Auschwitz?
- Well, I was then in the Kommando of 1,000 men,
- the Bauhof Kommando, that went out to build barracks,
- to build the factories, the warehouses,
- to dig in the grounds dugouts for laying cables,
- electric cables, like you see still
- reels in the town here Siemens.
- Sometimes, I read the name.
- They all had to be laid.
- But it was very hard work because,
- if you can imagine, say, 1,000 of our men--
- if it was a smaller cable, 500 of our men--
- we had to stand in the dugouts and drag
- the cable between our legs under the ground, inch by inch,
- you could say.
- While the kapos at the top-- not one, but several kapos,
- took a whistle and whistled.
- Every time he whistled, you had to pull, had to pull.
- Now, imagine that the man in front of you
- and the man at the back of you didn't feel like pulling.
- And you had to pull it.
- And it was more difficult. And if he saw you were struggling,
- the kapo saw you were struggling, he came over,
- and he had a right to whip you or to use his--
- kick you or something like that.
- Was everyone doing this same task?
- Or were there different things that people were assigned to?
- Different things.
- That was one-- that's the cable Kommando.
- Then you got a Kommando that unloads the trucks, train,
- trucks loaded with 100 weights.
- Can you describe further work at Auschwitz?
- Yeah.
- The trains that came in with the building material, 100 weights
- of cement, thousands of bricks, trucks
- loaded with coal and other materials
- for building and renewing parts of the camp.
- For instance, unloading a wagon full with hundreds of cement
- went like this.
- You queued up, and then you went to the edge of the wagon.
- And in the wagon, one or two prisoners,
- and who lifted hundred weights of cement onto your shoulder.
- And you took it on your shoulders,
- and you walked away with it, and deposited it elsewhere
- where it was necessary.
- Now, if you were a tall fellow and your shoulders
- met the edge of the truck, it was not such difficult
- to put the bag on your shoulders.
- But me being short, I never reached there
- where the edge of the truck was.
- So it came down as a bang on my shoulders,
- a drop on my shoulders.
- But still all the same, don't go through your knees.
- You got to walk away with it and deposit it where it was.
- Well, that went off and on.
- Were these trains coming into the same place
- as the people came into Auschwitz?
- Yes, they came into--
- no, the outside.
- Outside, of course, the camp was being enlarged.
- So the trains didn't come actually
- into the camp-- outside the camp.
- And I think most of the time, as I've experienced,
- there was no man or no locomotive.
- They only came to a certain part of the camp,
- and then we prisoners had to queue up
- on both sides of the trucks, put our shoulders against the edges
- of the trucks, and push while the kapos went along
- with their sticks and the kicks, which they gave us,
- to push the load of trucks, 10, 20, 30, trucks, bit
- by bit along the way where they could be placed and then
- unload.
- Into a railway siding.
- A railway siding.
- And that siding went somewhere on the field,
- where the stuff was required.
- And if you weren't pushing, and it
- must have been always somebody who didn't want to push,
- and the kapo happened to catch your eye-- his eye on it,
- he came over, and he kicked you.
- Many a time I was pushing.
- I never-- let myself--
- Let me do it in case in case they do spot me not doing it
- or whatever it may be.
- Let me do it, and many times it appeared as if I wasn't.
- And then a kick, I remember one kapo,
- they called him the black kapo.
- He had a black triangle on his uniform.
- He was a very bad man, and he came over to me
- and kicked me in my side, my kidneys.
- And the same man made me unload all by myself
- a truck of porcelain pipes for groundwork.
- Yes, all by myself non-stop.
- What was the weather at this point?
- It must have been summer.
- Summer was nice, warm.
- Summer was all right.
- Well, so far as the weather concerns.
- You--
- No, I just thought it might be hot.
- Yes.
- Yes, it was hot, and wasn't no water to drink.
- You couldn't just walk away and have something to drink.
- There was always an SS on the tower watching you.
- One thing I remember--
- that if you want to go to into a hut where you could urinate
- or what you had to do, you had to go--
- I usually went behind the tower, the watch tower of the SS,
- and I came back the same way.
- Go in there, you probably stayed away longer
- than necessary, your so-called rest.
- Then you came back.
- But there was one afternoon that I did the same,
- and I didn't know that the SS was a different SS man.
- And I had gone about three meters
- past him when I heard a shout, and I looked around.
- And the SS was calling me back.
- I came back, and he came down the ladder,
- and he stood in front of me and said, where are you going?
- I said, I'm going to the lav.
- He says, where?
- I said-- he said, why don't you walk in front of the tower.
- I can see you.
- I said, I always walk this way.
- Sorry.
- And this went all in broken German.
- And he slapped my face.
- And then he pointed me to get on.
- And I felt insulted, being slapped in the face by an SS.
- Because every time I could walk behind,
- and nobody ever said anything about it.
- Well, you forget those incidents.
- During the day, whilst you were doing this heavy labor,
- were you allowed to have an official rest,
- or were people expected to work continuously?
- Continually you work.
- It was bad, because if the kapo or SS was watching you
- for an hour or so, you worked nonstop.
- You walked to the wagon.
- You got your bricks or your cement
- or whatever it was were unloading,
- and you walked to where you had to deposit,
- and you walked back again, and you went on and on.
- But there were moments, of course,
- that the kapo wasn't there.
- And then you walked slowly, or you hid yourself
- behind a heap of bricks if possible.
- But obviously if you wasn't caught.
- Punishment always came after if you was caught.
- And that's how you tried to prolong life, really, and try
- not to lose a lot of energy.
- How long was your working day?
- Well, you got up at half past 4:00, quarter five or earlier.
- You queued up for your so-called breakfast.
- Then the gong went in at 6 o'clock.
- You stood on the square and being counted.
- And then after being counted, the sign was given.
- You marched out, and at about 7 o'clock, you was on the place
- where you had to work.
- You finished between 12 hours, 12.
- You had a rest where the containers with soup
- came onto the field.
- You had your half an hour rest then, your food.
- You laid down on the field, whatever it was.
- Fell asleep or what, and then the shout came.
- Come on, work.
- And then you was awake, and you worked again
- until about in the summertime half past 4:00,
- 5 o'clock in the winter time, much earlier,
- according to how soon it got dark.
- And you marched back to camp.
- Marching in, you were counted for.
- I mean, the kapo shouted out, and so many,
- his number in his commando, and so many prisoners.
- And they had done that in the morning,
- so it had to be the same.
- God help us there was one missing.
- And then you went into your barracks,
- and you washed your head or your hands or whatever it was,
- and you queued up for your portion of soup.
- And that was it.
- If the kapos left you alone, that is.
- Things jump into my mind now.
- There was one evening we marched back,
- and the kapo of the barrack, he said, right,
- before we dole out the soup, I want
- to know who urinated in the barrack.
- Well, none of us said anything.
- We didn't know who it was.
- So I'll give it 10 minutes to make up your minds.
- Well, we couldn't know.
- We didn't know.
- We were going to-- if we did know,
- we weren't going to say who.
- But one of us had urinated in a corner of the barrack
- instead of going outside.
- And he said, right, nobody?
- And he closed the doors, and you had these few assistants
- with a stick in their hands.
- And then we all had to knee bend, and go up and down,
- outstretched arms like this, hands, and move up and down,
- all the time, non-stop.
- And if you stopped or you fell over to another,
- you had a smack with the stick on your head.
- And that went on for a hell of a long time.
- And nobody came forward to say who it was.
- And the man who did it, he didn't come forward.
- But took a hell of a long time.
- If I may say, a half an hour, yes.
- And then he said, right, don't let it happen again.
- Out you go.
- Then you queued up for your soup,
- and then you try to forget about it again.
- That type of thing they did with you.
- This heavy labor that you were doing,
- there must have been incidents in which people
- weren't able to carry on with the labor.
- Well, if you fell out, then you marched into camp.
- And then you went out in the evening to the hospital
- to the doctor and tell them you weren't right.
- And if it was so, you went into hospital for a few days
- or whatever it was, or you didn't come back anymore.
- I remember one incident, it was winter time,
- and I was very, very ill.
- And that was in morning.
- I felt very ill.
- And out on the work, I hid myself
- behind a door, a wooden door standing up somewhere brick,
- a lot of bricks.
- I had stood all day.
- I stood there.
- I didn't work.
- I didn't work.
- I think I just came out to see what happened in the afternoon
- with the soup that's being doled out.
- But I was shivering all day long.
- And I got through that.
- Nobody noticed?
- No, the workers didn't say nothing.
- The kapo wasn't there.
- But I was very ill.
- I know that.
- I don't know whether it was flu or cold.
- Really miserable.
- Well, I pulled through again every time it happened.
- If somebody was having trouble with his hundredweight load
- or whatever, would other prisoners
- help him, or were you all too weak that this was impossible?
- No, you just carried what put on your shoulder.
- And if you happened to drop it, like I did once--
- there was one occasion that in the afternoon,
- we had to empty part of a warehouse
- where a lot of hundredweight of cement was there.
- We had to get it on our shoulders,
- queue, queue up, walk away with it,
- and walk onto a narrow plank, a long narrow plank.
- Too narrow.
- When you got in the middle of it, you sagged up and down,
- and then deposit it into the truck,
- and then you walked back again.
- And I carried 52 hundredweight that one afternoon
- from half past 2:00 till about a quarter past 5:00.
- 52.
- I counted them because I though to myself, I just
- want to see how strong I am.
- 52.
- But there were other occasions that I did the same thing,
- and I dropped a bag of cement.
- And it split open, and the kapo beat me up.
- Because, well, I'm probably too weak.
- It fell off my shoulders.
- I couldn't do it.
- They beat me up.
- And this was before 12 or 12:30 in the afternoon.
- So before lunch, shall I say.
- And during lunch, after lunch he says, come on, you Englishman.
- Sing.
- I didn't feel like singing.
- And imagine about 500 or 1,000 men around me,
- they all formed a ring.
- And I was in the middle.
- He said, go and sing.
- I had to sing a few songs.
- I didn't feel like it.
- I did it.
- Do you remember what you sang?
- Yeah, it's a silly serenade, a little bit of this
- and a little bit of that, one of my favorite songs.
- But I was more like crying because he beat me up,
- and then he wants me to sing.
- So, he [INAUDIBLE] was a boss or something like that.
- He beat me up there, and now you want me to sing.
- What's the matter with you people?
- Well, I got through that again.
- But if the SS caught you doing the wrong things, not working,
- or, as I did many a time with my shovel, nobody's looking,
- it went into a bag of cement, poured open.
- You mean you broke the bag on purpose?
- Yeah, in my feeling, it was sabotage against.
- Some of us did it.
- And the next morning, you came to the place,
- and there was a heap of cement, broken bags and all that.
- But accident, accident, accident.
- No, on purpose.
- Or putting bricks down.
- Four bricks.
- There was an idea, you put four bricks down,
- and the center ones broke in half.
- There was a whole heap of broken--
- all those things we tried to do.
- Yeah, that was work.
- We weren't strong enough to do, but we held out.
- Another thing come into my mind one afternoon, about 3 o'clock.
- We got to unload a truck, a train, truck with bricks.
- So we're all queuing up, and we get our bricks.
- And we walk.
- And as I walk, almost next to me is a heap of bricks,
- and behind the bricks is three British prisoners
- of war having tea.
- I can't talk to them because the kapo is there.
- But I looked, and on the sand is a little bit of yellow.
- God love us.
- That's egg, egg.
- God.
- Oh, I hope they don't tread on it.
- I'm with my bricks still there, on and on, still there.
- Problem is I don't dare to jump over the bricks and pick it up.
- First of all, what would the Englishmen
- think of me, begging for food?
- So you remain a gentleman.
- As long as I don't step on it.
- The kapo, I wish he'd go away.
- Anyhow, it happened.
- They finished their tea.
- They went away.
- It was still laying there.
- I looked around.
- The kapo wasn't there, wasn't looking, wherever he was.
- I jumped over the bricks, picked it up,
- as big as the nail on my thumb.
- In a minimum of time, I had people
- around me, our prisoners, and I broke little pieces off.
- I think I could finish about five.
- People with a little piece of egg, but it wasn't egg.
- It was egg powder at that time, but I didn't know.
- That's how we lived.
- So you didn't have an opportunity at that point
- to speak to the British prisoners of war.
- Did you ever?
- No, no.
- Oh, yes.
- I speak.
- It was medicine to me when I saw a British prisoner.
- And right in the beginning when I saw British prisoner, when
- we went to Monowitz, an open fields, building,
- and in addition I saw all khaki.
- Look at that.
- Who are they?
- Das sind die Englander, the English prisoner of war.
- OK.
- I made way to go.
- So my kapo said, where are you going?
- I says, I just want to talk to the people.
- Just stay here.
- Well, but later on, in between, I
- talked to several British prisoners of war.
- If they were working in a factory and machines and all
- that, I used to creep in and talk to them.
- I said, I'm from London.
- Anything special to eat you don't want,
- don't throw it away.
- Or you got any cigarettes.
- I used to get cigarettes, three cigarettes.
- I got a good lot of soup, a bucket of soup in camp
- off the boys that were cleaning the containers.
- Sometimes they gave me a little piece of bread,
- or the soup wasn't too good for them, so I had them--
- I had it now and then.
- Even one occasion, the British prisoners of war,
- there was a lot of them sitting in a factory resting,
- lunchtime.
- And I happened to be there.
- I made happen to be there.
- And I talked to them.
- So come on.
- You march out tonight with us.
- So I said, I can't do that.
- I says, look at my hair.
- Look at my face.
- A uniform won't fit me.
- I said, and if never catch me, they'll hang me.
- So that fell through.
- But they were-- occasionally they
- were-- meant to get me out.
- And when we marched home to my camp,
- and they marched to their camp, often we met on the road,
- and I shouted out, good night, Charlie, good night, Joe.
- Oh, good night, Leon.
- If it were the same people.
- Yeah.
- How did they react to you when they first saw you?
- They must have thought they were-- yes,
- they must not have thought there would
- be an Englishman in the German camp.
- Well, I quickly told them who I am and why I was in there.
- And what could they answer?
- They were prisoners of war.
- See, prisoners.
- Yes, but prisoners of war are treated differently.
- Different Oh, yes.
- They weren't beaten up.
- And they must have seen some of our boys being beaten up
- and the way we lived and all that the way.
- I'm surprised they would have been where
- they could have seen that.
- Yes.
- They were near us.
- Not all the time but often enough.
- But whenever it was, and there was a time I could get to him,
- I did.
- I always made an excuse to my foreman, ,
- if the kapo wasn't there himself, the foreman.
- And I used to say--
- there was one occasion that I said to my foreman--
- and he was a Jewish foreman.
- I said-- Abraham his name is.
- He's probably now in Israel somewhere.
- Abraham, says, I've got to go to the lav.
- I said, the Englishmen are there.
- He said, don't forget, Leon, cigarettes.
- I said, OK.
- Then I went, and I walked to the British prisoner of war,
- and I stopped next to him, and I walk.
- I said, keep on walking, soldier.
- And he looked.
- I said, I'm from London, and I'm here a prisoner,
- but I shouldn't be here, really.
- I was born in London, and they got my wife and kiddie here.
- And I talk.
- I said, and if anybody stops us, tell
- them or I'll tell them that I'm bringing you or showing you
- where the ambulance is, ambulance
- because you hurt your finger.
- OK, I says, if possible, take it down on paper.
- I said, have you got pencil?
- Can you remember it?
- My name and where I lived?
- So in my imagination, I was crying out for help.
- And then we stopped without knowing it,
- and all of a sudden, I heard somebody behind me
- say, what are you doing here?
- So I looked around.
- There was a tall man, civilian.
- And he was a civilian SSer, one of the boss at the works.
- Where's your commander?
- I said over there.
- What are you doing here talking to an Englishman, English
- prisoner of war?
- And they could shoot you for that.
- I said, well, the man is asking me for the ambulance.
- He's hurt his finger.
- He says, come on.
- Show me your command.
- Show me your kapo.
- I says to the prisoner--
- I says, soldier, you might never see me again,
- but get that message through.
- I never saw the soldier again.
- I think it was Sergeant Woolwich,
- somewhere from Woolwich.
- I could never find him, and he might never remember that.
- Then I marched back to my--
- he marched me back to my commander,
- and he says to the foreman.
- He says, I caught your man talking
- to a British prisoner of war.
- He said, you know what that means?
- He says, now, are you going to see to it
- or am I going to see to it?
- So the man says, I'll see to it.
- So he hit me.
- This was Abraham?
- Abraham hit me.
- I fell down, got up, and he kicked me and hit me again.
- And I fell down again.
- And this other fellow watched him.
- Then he walked away.
- Then I got up, and he said, sorry, Leon, but I
- had to do it.
- I said, I know.
- That didn't hurt me.
- I knew it was only playing.
- He said, where are the cigarettes?
- I said, I got no cigarettes.
- I had no time.
- But if he would have seen to it, the SS, in the evening
- I wouldn't have been alive now.
- They would have beaten you up.
- They would have made sport with you,
- made you crawl in the sand like nobody, and run up
- and run up, like I saw done with others.
- So I escaped there again.
- But what hurt me most--
- one afternoon, I was working, and I
- saw an Englishman, British prisoner of war,
- go into the lavatories.
- In the hut, I said to him my kapo--
- I said, I've got to go to the lavatories.
- Hurry up.
- So I went, and I got in.
- I said, soldier, I said, he was just coming out.
- I said, soldier, I says, I'm from London.
- You haven't got any cigarettes on you?
- I'll get some food with that.
- He said, who are you?
- I said so and so and so or so, and I told him who I was.
- So he said, you and I, we're prisoners here he says.
- But in England, the Jews, they run black markets,
- and that was a slap in my face.
- I said, look, I got two brothers in the army in England.
- I said, the same as you.
- And then he walked out.
- It was a slap in my face.
- It draws you back a bit, you know.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- There there's also an incident comes into my mind.
- We had-- I was working with a kommando
- with about 25 Hungarian Jews.
- There was one man there.
- He must have been probably about 30, 40,
- but he looked like about 50, 60.
- But he took two hundredweights on his shoulders of cement
- that afternoon when we were working.
- And we said, don't do that because the kapo will
- make us all do that.
- And we are not fit for that.
- He wasn't going to listen.
- So we got a hold of him and made him understand
- that one was sufficient.
- And then he understood.
- Otherwise, we would have--
- yeah, sometimes you let the shovels
- come on top of one another.
- We're fighting one another, yeah.
- Why would he have done that?
- Well, he wanted to show his strength,
- I dare say, and show off or something.
- There was no need for that.
- No, if one carried eight bricks, we all
- had to carry eight bricks.
- Well, we can do with four.
- Who decided what it was likely you could do?
- Who decided that you should carry eight bricks or four
- or whatever?
- Nobody decided that.
- You just did it, unless the kapo had a bad mood and he said,
- I want you to do this doubled.
- So you get double.
- But if you had just taken one brick, that wouldn't have--
- No, no, not one brick.
- Not one brick.
- That would be too much.
- How did you find that four was the right amount?
- Well, that's what they gave you, four.
- The prisoner was handing out.
- You could carry for.
- Somebody was eight.
- Once we had to carry eight.
- It was twice as much as we usually do, four.
- And it was quick also to give you four.
- Eight would take a longer time to put it on your shoulders.
- But unloading the coals, a truck of coals, that is dirty work.
- Of course, we got back to camp, how could you clean yourself?
- You had to wait till the weekend to take
- a hot bath, a hot shower without soap, without towels.
- But yet, you got to be clean in bed.
- So you wash yourself with cold water.
- How did you unload the coal?
- With a shovel.
- Shovel it in a little cart, and you wheel it away.
- Before we go any further talking about Buna, Monowitz,
- I think there were some more points about Auschwitz.
- Yes, Auschwitz, I stayed six months
- I lived in Auschwitz, the brick barracks where
- a lot of prominent people like solicitors
- and doctors and government people
- must have been living there all as prisoners.
- Because I remember that barrack I was sleeping in,
- and most of them were like that.
- There were three departments, one ground, one middle,
- and one top.
- And the top floors, that's where we slept.
- And some of the incidents that come into my mind at
- Buchenwald--
- No, Auschwitz.
- Auschwitz, that's right.
- Was that whereas in Birkenau we had lice and fleas, but more
- lice, in Auschwitz, it was the fleas that
- were getting the upper hand.
- Not there's dozens of them but many more.
- I remember going with my kommando then to the work,
- and it was a very warm day, that I felt the itching on my legs.
- And I turned the trousers, the striped prisoner's
- trousers over, and there they were jumping about,
- dozens and dozens of them.
- And we just let them jump about.
- That was one kind of pest, fleas.
- Also in bed.
- when we made time to get asleep, the fleas were there.
- Was there anything you could do to get rid of them?
- No, nothing.
- It was either kill them if you wanted to or do up with it.
- Well, it's very difficult to kill a flea, isn't it?
- Well, there was in the barrack, the lights went out,
- but there was always a blue kind of light shining,
- so you could see a little bit where
- you had to walk between the beds if you had to go downstairs.
- And I remember I could see the fleas dancing
- about on the blanket, and I used to catch
- them, big ones and small ones.
- I remember I used to catch them and kill them with my nails.
- And then I dropped off to sleep.
- They buried themselves into the blankets.
- We each had one blanket each.
- That's all.
- But other incidents--
- Did the kapos or guards worry about there
- being so many fleas?
- No, no.
- I never heard them complain about a flea.
- About lice, yes, they were afraid of lice.
- Lice could make typhus.
- But fleas, they didn't worry about them.
- I never heard a kapo say about fleas or get rid of the fleas.
- No, we couldn't.
- There were too many fleas.
- But all the same, we had to look after our bodies.
- We had to wash our heads, which were closely clipped.
- Our head so there was no dirt on our heads.
- We had to wash our bodies with cold water every morning.
- And in the evening, when we got in, there was no hot water.
- Once, a week they probably called us out for a hot shower.
- And talking about that hot shower, usually on a Sunday,
- on a Sunday late morning.
- Then a kapo used to shout out, undress,
- we're going through the baths.
- And we undressed, and we walked naked through the streets
- between the barracks into the showers,
- and there was a hot shower.
- And there we stood, no soap, no towels, just hot water.
- Let hot water get on to you, and then after several minutes,
- he used to say, right, outside.
- And you walked back as wet as you are, got into your barrack,
- and wiped yourself with your jacket, and that was it.
- Well, that particular Sunday afternoon,
- we had the same thing.
- And we'd just come back from the baths.
- Say, two or three minutes later, a kapo
- shouted out, undress, to the baths.
- And we looked at one another.
- We've just had a bath.
- Did you hear me?
- Undress, and get to the baths.
- Well, undressed again, and we went to the baths.
- We had another shower, and we came back.
- Those are the games they played with us, the kapos.
- They had fun in doing that, but we felt it.
- Then there was the occasion in Auschwitz
- that I had to shave the people because I was formerly
- a hairdresser by trade, a barber by trade.
- And that was always on a Saturday,
- or if we didn't have to march out to work, we stayed in,
- and we got from the chief hairdresser
- of the barrack a razor.
- Say, two or three men got a razor,
- and say three or four men a shaving brush and soap.
- And so in a little part of the barrack,
- we put the man on the wooden bunks, and they were lathered,
- and we shifted them up like loaves of bread,
- shifted them up, and then they come under my razor,
- and I gave them once a quick over.
- And hopefully, the razors were not too blunt.
- We hurried up the job.
- And for that we got a ration soup at the weekend,
- if there was sufficient for that work.
- Did you ever nick anyone with the razor?
- Oh, not the-- well, maybe the one or two, but you
- couldn't help that.
- No, quite.
- Especially if the razor wasn't very sharp.
- That's right.
- But I remember now you tell me that,
- there was a underkapo in the barrack ,
- and he was a Polish non-Jew.
- And the word went round that I could shave,
- and I could shave well.
- And he called me into the bathroom,
- and he stood on a table, and he said, shave my head,
- and shave my bottom free of hair.
- So I had to lather him as a lot of prisoners
- who, for instance, had to go into hospital from the barrack,
- they had to be shaved and cleaned underneath.
- And--
- Why did the kapo wish to be shaven?
- Well, they-- the kapos--
- and I think it was a Polish character
- of having the head shaved and polished, absolutely polished
- bald and put cream on it, and polish it as if it was shining.
- And in the sun, it used to shine.
- But this particular man, I was lathering him
- after giving my attention to his lower part of the body,
- I couldn't say no.
- I had to do that.
- Anyhow, I was getting used to doing that,
- like a doctor gets used to patients.
- And when I was done with that, I had to shave his head.
- And I was shaving him, and I nicked him,
- and it started bleeding.
- He didn't feel nothing yet.
- I said, well, that's I'm going to get such a good hiding
- I won't be able to walk anymore.
- So I took the cream which he had, and after absolutely
- getting all the hair off him all around the head,
- I put a lot of cream on it.
- And it was shining, and the bleeding stopped.
- And I didn't hear any more about it,
- but it must have left a crust or something in the skin,
- but I didn't hear any more about it.
- And for that he gave me a little jam, a glass, a little glass
- jar with jam he gave me.
- They couldn't take this.
- They got those rations.
- They could go to the kitchen and get anything like.
- Of course, there were kapos and underkapos,
- and they were better seen to than we did.
- So that was that.
- He never noticed?
- No, he never said nothing anymore.
- Never said nothing.
- Would there have been a homosexual element
- in his asking you to shave around the genitals?
- Yes, I was thinking of that.
- I was thinking of that.
- But at that time, I didn't--
- I didn't think that way at all.
- Probably just now I'm thinking about that, but because
- in the beginning in Auschwitz, I had to shave.
- And I was ill in hospital, but I could leave the beds
- and walk about.
- And I had to shave the people that
- were brought in, to shave them free from hair for operations.
- And they had to also be cleaned underneath.
- So they queued up, so 10, 20, 30 men you did.
- So it was nothing to me.
- Probably he had element in it.
- Yes.
- But I never questioned that.
- I never thought of that.
- The only thing was when I do the job right,
- I'll get hopefully some soup or something to eat,
- and he gave me a little jam.
- No homosexual ideas in my head never came.
- I never seen anything like that until Monowitz--
- until Monowitz which was near liberation.
- Then I became aware of what went on between kapos
- and some of the youngsters.
- Well, I never-- I never looked at it that way.
- I never noticed it.
- I probably didn't want to notice anything like that.
- I think in your memoirs, you mentioned
- that in Auschwitz hospital there was
- a young 15-year-old Polish boy who
- used to prance around and tease people.
- Oh, yes.
- Oh, he was-- if I may say, he was a little bastard.
- And he was only about 12, 13 years maybe.
- A little fellow, but he had a lot to say walking,
- and he had a nice, clean, blue stripe uniform on.
- And he used to walk through the barracks
- and throw his weight about.
- And he used to--
- he called me once out, where's the friseur?
- And then he gave me some soup or something,
- probably for a job I had done.
- But we were all afraid of him because he probably
- was the darling of some of those kapos there,
- and what he said were done.
- Do you mean that he was a homosexual darling
- of the kapos?
- I-- no--
- Is that what you mean?
- I don't-- I don't know about that.
- I wondered how he could behave that way.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- At that time, I always thought, well, probably he
- is a brother or a family of some of the kapos here.
- That allows him to shout about and to show his authority
- for nothing whatsoever.
- But we were afraid because if we were doing something wrong
- or talked back or something, he could easily go to the kapo
- and say, so and so and so and so and so and so, and then
- you were in for it.
- No, there was a young boy.
- I guess he were about 15, 16.
- And this was in Monowitz, not in Auschwitz,
- that he had a kapo which he obliged.
- And I only heard at that time from hearsay,
- and I couldn't understand.
- He had a nice, clean uniform, and also he
- looked better than the others because he
- had gave him more food.
- But I never questioned that until one day
- I heard a row going on in the room
- of the barrack of the kapos, the kapos' room in the barrack.
- And he came out crying, and I heard a kapo said out, out,
- away with you.
- And I never saw him again in the barrack.
- He probably-- I don't know--
- didn't do what he wanted or once or another.
- Only towards the very end of the war at Buchenwald,
- when the SS shouted through the loudspeakers--
- every barrack had a loudspeaker.
- It was connected with the headquarters of the SS.
- And they called out the morning, have the kapos see to it
- that every homosexual comes to the open space outside for roll
- call, the same as they did all the Jews had to get out,
- but also the homosexuals.
- But then I was in bed.
- I was ill in Buchenwald.
- So they were getting them out for some reason or another.
- And I wonder how many are still alive of that lot.
- though it's not difficult to see why
- young boys would oblige because of course
- it could save their lives.
- Save their lives, and they got more food.
- I got more food, but we couldn't say anything about that.
- I know that there was a kapo of the potato warehouse.
- The potato warehouse was a kind of a shed, a kind of a smaller
- barrack where food was stored-- cabbages, potatoes,
- barrels of beetroot-- where I used to work sometimes.
- And there was one of the kapos.
- His name is Schiller, Schiller.
- Schiller we used to call him.
- He didn't hit us a lot, but we were afraid of him
- because if he did, he did hurt you.
- But he used to bully a lot.
- And he had one of the young fellows--
- I guess he was older than 16--
- who used to work with us, and then stopped working with us.
- And we found that he was better dressed,
- and he was a more happy face he had.
- And he was shying away away from us when we got too near him.
- And he was being used by Schiller.
- But I never noticed it until one night
- when we had to all get into bed.
- It must have been about half past 8:00, gone half past 8:00.
- The lights went out, and then you get to sleep.
- And then I was laying there, and I heard someone--
- I heard Schiller's name because he
- used to sleep in the same barrack as us.
- And I heard him say in German "not so but so.
- Yes, so is good."
- And the lights went on.
- Somebody probably wanted underkapos or wherever it was.
- Put the lights on.
- There he was standing straight up in bed on the top bed,
- and that fellow, the young fellow was standing opposite.
- That's the only time I've thought, well, well.
- But only gave it a little thought
- because my mind was on getting out,
- getting out, staying alive.
- So I gave all those incidents only a little thought.
- I never stopped thinking about that.
- But then I realized that there were homosexual actions taking
- place, although there was in Auschwitz or Monowitz--
- I'm not sure, but there was a special barrack
- being built, put together, which contained women.
- We knew that.
- And sometimes, after roll call, some of the kapos or underkapos
- were given tickets by the upper kapo.
- And they could go into the barrack and see the women.
- And I remember I was standing there watching it, watching
- after roll call.
- And one of the fellows said, wouldn't you
- like to go in there, Leon?
- I said no.
- I hope it's not my wife that's in there.
- That's how I thought.
- Yes.
- I think you mentioned at one point
- that whilst you were in Auschwitz hospital,
- you looked out a window or went outside
- and saw SS officers with pet rabbits.
- Yes.
- This was the hospital barrack I was laying in.
- And all of us were very ill, suffering with various things,
- but mostly from the cold weather and so on.
- But we were being brought in and seen to.
- Well, at that particular moment, I got out of my bunk,
- and I had to do nature's call into two containers, which
- were stood in front of a window in a kind
- of a wooden emplacement.
- Two round containers were placed there, small containers.
- And you did your duty in that until it was full,
- and then you had to carry it out into the main lavatory
- department and pour it out and bring it back again.
- Many a time that I just laid over the side of my bunk,
- and I had to go, but I didn't want to.
- I don't think I could have lifted that container which
- was up to the rim.
- And I wait, I wait until somebody came along
- who was stronger than me probably, and then he took it.
- And when it was brought back empty,
- I got out and did my duty.
- But at that particular morning, I looked through the window,
- and I was hungry.
- And I saw an SS officer cuddling a rabbit.
- They had a kind of a small place there with animals in it,
- rabbits.
- And he was cuddling it.
- And I thought to myself, now look at that.
- He's cuddling a rabbit.
- At the same moment, he could kill me
- by hitting me instead of cuddling me.
- Yeah, the mentality was that.
- That's what it was.
- The rabbit was worth more to him than what was going on inside.
- Were the rabbits there for food supply or as pets?
- As pets, I should think.
- Because we never had--
- I doubt-- well, we never had no meat.
- We never had any meat.
- And I don't think the way he was cuddling
- a nice white collared white rabbit.
- What I could see from where I stood,
- they would kill it and eat it.
- No, I think they were pets.
- I think so.
- Were there any other animals about?
- No, I didn't see no any other animals.
- No.
- Did the guards have dogs?
- I can't-- there must have been, but I can't say I noticed them.
- The guards I can picture now with guns and revolvers.
- They could put the guns in your back.
- They could hit you with the back of the revolver on your head.
- They could kick you.
- But I didn't-- in fact, I don't remember that they ever chased
- a dog at me.
- There probably was one with the chief kapo of Monowitz camp
- who had a dog as a pet who walked with him,
- but otherwise I don't remember seeing a dog.
- Did the officers ride horses?
- I didn't see no officers on horses in the camps, no.
- No.
- No.
- It gives a different picture if you think of that in it.
- Yes.
- I don't.
- No, I never saw them.
- I think one of the kapos at Auschwitz
- that you mentioned was a strongman or a bodybuilder who
- could bend iron.
- Yes.
- There is in Auschwitz, and I hope it's still there--
- I helped building it with hundreds of men--
- the kitchen.
- Outside the kitchen, we built--
- we built-- outside the barracks a kitchen.
- Anyhow, there was a kapo who was a physically very
- strong, well-built man.
- And now and then, he used to give
- a performance on a Sunday afternoon
- in a spot in the camp.
- I think it was Monowitz or Auschwitz.
- I don't remember anymore.
- More likely must have been Auschwitz in the kitchen.
- And we had wooden--
- we had chairs or wooden bunks, and we could sit on there then.
- And in front of us on a little bit of a platform, a raised
- platform, this man used to perform like this.
- He had long, flat pieces of iron,
- and he invited three or four or six men out of the audience
- to come to his platform.
- And he took this bar and placed the middle of it on his head,
- and he told these three other men on both sides of six men
- to hang on it and to bend it.
- And as they hung onto it and pushed it down,
- you saw it bending on his head.
- Then and if they didn't do it properly, of course,
- there was a lot of shouting going on.
- Anyhow, he got it and bent it, and then he
- took the rest in his hands and bent it
- as if it was a bit of elastic.
- Well, that went on several times,
- showing his strength and all that.
- But if you didn't do it correctly,
- they used to shout at you.
- Anyhow, it was this man.
- I'm going now back to London after liberation.
- When I was liberated, a long time after that,
- I noticed in The Jewish Chronicle a picture
- and an article about Sampson II, and I looked at the picture,
- and I saw a familiar face.
- And I read the article, and yes, it
- was this man who had performed strong incidents in front
- of me.
- So at that time, I had a nephew, and I said to him
- I'd like to meet this man.
- And he was-- because this article
- said that he was performing in London in the trades hall,
- I think, in Tottenham, to raise money for Israel.
- So off I went with my nephew.
- And I arrived there and looked around,
- and yes, there he was sitting, beautiful suit on,
- and a lot older, I should think, and a bit of hair now,
- not shaven.
- And he sat there, on each side of him was a lady.
- And I went over to him.
- You see, my feelings was happy to meet somebody out
- of the camp who I had seen in front of my eyes.
- So I stood in front of him, and I said in German,
- you are the kapo from Auschwitz camp.
- You used to perform outside your strong act.
- And within a matter of seconds, his hands
- went out to my lapels, and pulled me down.
- And he said, wasn't I good for the prisoners?
- I couldn't say no.
- Because there was one incident one evening when we got back
- from our work, and the prisoners who were caught during the work
- sabotaging, not working, or doing something what was not
- right, the SS used to take your number,
- and in the evenings after roll call,
- they called out your number, and you were punished.
- You either were beaten.
- You either went over the wooden horse,
- and you got 20, 30, 40 smacks with a stick
- on your bum, which often went past your bum into the kidneys.
- Or they made you climb up on your elbows a heap of sand
- or crawl on your elbows and along the ground over and over
- again until you were out of breath.
- Well, that particular evening, an SS officer
- handed this kapo a stick, and it happened right
- in front of my eyes.
- And he said, give this man a prisoner.
- Was maybe probably 20 or 30 beatings on his bum.
- And it did happen.
- He was given the stick by an SS, and the SS told him to do that,
- and he did it.
- If he would have said, I'm not going to do it,
- he would not have--
- I would not have seen him in London.
- So in my eyes, in my thoughts, this man
- is not guilty of beating up one of our prisoners that time.
- But I do not know if he was bad for our prisoners
- during the work.
- But as a lot of kapos were usually well built fellows,
- ex-criminals from German prisons,
- prisoners let loose upon us, they
- could let their authority be felt.
- So at that moment, when he said, wasn't I good
- for the prisoners, I doubt it.
- But I couldn't say you wasn't.
- I said, I dare say.
- He let go of my jacket, and he got up and walked away.
- And the lady said to me, was he good for the prisoners?
- I said, I dare say he was.
- I can't say no.
- The rest of the evening, he performed the same act.
- He took off his suit, put on a kind of a suit,
- something what he performed in, and the s--
- Kind of tricot, like the wrestlers put on.
- And then he performed the same act
- as what he did in the camps, invited some men to hang on
- to his bar, until it bended.
- And it didn't go exactly as he wanted.
- And he lost his temper.
- But he had to control it.
- But my nephew next to me, said I know what you're feeling.
- I know what kind of man it is.
- [INAUDIBLE] he's now in London.
- He's not in a camp, and he's still losing his temper.
- But he couldn't, of course, bully out and all
- this and that.
- And then when it was over, the dance took place.
- And I was standing there.
- And he used to come to me more often than not,
- and stroke my cheeks, trying to be kind or something like that.
- Now, I know that this man was wrong, had been wrong
- at times in the camp.
- But I can't prove it.
- He is no more alive.
- No more alive.
- So there that incident.
- If you spoke to him in German, I presume he wasn't English.
- What was his name?
- He was Polish, Polish-Jewish, or German-Jewish.
- But I think he's Polish-Jewish.
- Yeah.
- But a very big, strong man, well powerful.
- I understand that in the camps, the term organizing was used
- for obtaining food or whatever.
- Yes.
- Could you explain that, please?
- Well, that was a word for organized,
- for pinching and trading.
- So if you could organize or pinch a spoon,
- which is valuable in the camp, a spoon,
- because you could eat your soup with it.
- You'd have to put bucket in your mouth.
- You'd put the spoon.
- You paid, if you saw a spoon laying on a table
- somewhere, which I don't think ever happened, not in my case.
- You could pick that spoon and get food
- for it, soup or probably bread.
- They called it organizing.
- If you could pinch somebody's other enamel bucket,
- and sell it to somebody who lost his bucket for a piece of bread
- or whatever it was, and the other thing is organizing
- anything you could do.
- Well, I never, as far as I can think,
- I never organized anything.
- I didn't know how to go about it.
- My mind wasn't set that way.
- All I can say is organizing what comes into my mind now,
- I mentioned a potato seller, that potato warehouse,
- where I went in one Sunday and organized
- a cabbage, a raw cabbage which I set eating.
- Yes, I did do that.
- And I also organized or pinched when I was working there,
- hands full of beetroot out of the beet root
- barrel, if nobody was watching.
- It was food, you see.
- The main thing is food.
- So you stole things when necessary.
- And they called that organizing.
- Probably somebody organized somebody else.
- I remember when I come into the camp,
- the very, very first time when I had to undress
- all my good clothes went off.
- My pullover, a beautiful pullover my wife had knitted
- went underneath of the jacket of one of the fellows that
- was taking our hair off.
- Well he organized it from me in that way.
- And he must have sold it or exchanged it
- for something else, for food.
- But I never went that way.
- I never did this to my own mates.
- I never stole, only one, that little potato
- which I mentioned.
- Yes, you had mentioned that.
- How widely was this term organizing used?
- Oh, yes.
- Often.
- Often.
- But I never gave it a thought.
- I never gave it a thought.
- Well it's an interesting word because of course
- it removes the bad connotation that there
- is in the word stealing.
- And so presumably people using that word organizing
- felt justified in doing what they did.
- Of course, as they were saving their lives.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Were there any further anecdotes about Auschwitz
- that you had wanted to record?
- Anecdotes?
- Stories about Auschwitz that you had wanted to record?
- Yes.
- There are so many.
- But I'll try to remember a few.
- For instance, the razor incident at Auschwitz.
- The razor in Auschwitz.
- I know the razor incident at Auschwitz.
- What was that?
- Yes.
- We were given razors, as I said formerly,
- to shave the people, the prisoners.
- And I had a very blunt razor.
- And I made way into the little room
- where the kapos usually stay, went into the chief hairdresser
- who was a Belgian man, Belgium.
- But he was the chief hair dresser
- of the barrack who dealt out the razors.
- And he was standing shaving a man, and not a kapo
- I dare say in the chair.
- And while he was shaving, I went up to him
- and I said, please could I have another razor,
- because I can't get on with the job.
- And as I said that, the man in the chair.
- Moved his arms.
- He pushed the hairdresser out of the way,
- got up, and gave me a kick between the legs.
- And I fell out of the door and back into the barrack again.
- He was probably annoyed that I had interrupted
- this shaving business.
- Then again comes into my mind, the kapo
- of the barrack said to me, now then,
- the hairdressers, the barbers, they
- stay here in this compartment.
- And you do your work.
- And no one is allowed in this compartment.
- And we took that from ourselves, now nobody can walk along,
- and we can get along with it.
- I was doing my shaving.
- And in the doorway came the naked body,
- because it was summertime, a muscled body.
- I should think it was browned in the sun.
- But he was an under kapo, standing there with his hands
- in his side looking at us.
- And near the door, I had planted my shaving strap.
- And I had to strap my razor.
- So I had to go over to the strap.
- And as I went to the strap, my elbow
- must have touched his body.
- And he said, can't you see what you're doing you--
- and he lifted up his arm as if he was going to hit me.
- And up came my arm with a razor.
- And I was no more in Auschwitz.
- I was annoyed that this man took this little what
- unnecessary item to fall on me.
- I said, if you dare to lift one thing on me,
- I'll get this into your body, in your face.
- They could have killed me for that.
- But at that moment I wasn't in Auschwitz.
- I was just opposite a man who was doing something
- not justice to me.
- And his arm came down.
- He stood there, and he went inside.
- And I continued my shaving.
- Probably half a minute after on myself,
- what are you doing Leon?
- You ought not have done that.
- Because if he would have gone to the kapo, man with a razor,
- they would have shot me.
- They would have killed me because it's a weapon.
- Well, luckily nothing happened.
- Then there was the time that in this case the razors,
- you get your razors, but you got to give your razors up Sunday
- evening when you finish shaving.
- Well in the barrack, I had sometimes non-Jewish kapos,
- especially if it was a Pole, who received parcels of food
- from his family in Poland.
- And in those parcels was fat bread, sausages, garlic,
- everything to eat.
- And if I shaved those people in the week,
- if I could get a hold of a razor,
- then they used to give me a slice of bread, not often.
- The bread again, was all stale bread with green on top of it,
- moldy bread.
- But I ate it.
- I was hungry.
- Or they gave me one little piece of garlic,
- which I rubbed onto my bread in the morning,
- always thinking it's for my health, health, health.
- It came the day, that Sunday, I was too late
- handing in my razor.
- We had to get into bed.
- So I put the razor in my pocket and I went to sleep.
- The next day we were on our work.
- And walking on our work between the barracks on the open space
- then, a kapo who I didn't know came to me.
- And then later on I was told this kapo took boys and fellows
- out, if anybody walking into his little wooden compartment
- and told them to empty the pockets.
- And anything he saw in the pockets what he could use,
- he took, thinking it was cigarettes or whatever maybe.
- Well he got a hold of me, dragged me inside.
- He said, empty your pockets.
- Well what could I do?
- I had to empty my pockets.
- So I emptied my pockets.
- And this razor came.
- Oh, he said.
- A razor.
- How do you get this?
- Oh, where's your kapo?
- So he took me to the kapo.
- And this was, I think, a Russian, a boy about 20, 21.
- He was more than six feet tall and broad and strong,
- really a real strong man.
- He was the kapo of my--
- we used to work with him, 1,000 men.
- And he said, one of your man he's got a razor.
- And he looked and he says, a razor?
- And he gave me a good hiding.
- He kept on hitting me until I couldn't think,
- I couldn't walk, I couldn't do nothing no more.
- Then he made me get up and stand aside.
- I was beaten up, because I had a razor in my pocket,
- which I ought to have given up the night before.
- But me thinking, I'll keep the razor.
- I might earn an extra something from the others in the barrack.
- Well, it was wrong now.
- So when I got in, I had to give the razor up,
- or probably he did give it up.
- The next week when we marched out
- to work, what just happened on a Monday,
- on a Sunday I was sitting, Sunday I was shaving.
- On the Sunday he came to me, you keep a razor in your pocket.
- Tomorrow morning, in my little shed, you're going to shave me.
- I looked at him.
- I said, but you beat me up for having a razor.
- He says, shut up and do what I'm telling you.
- So I had to do that.
- If I would have complained, it was no good.
- If I would have come out without a razor,
- he would have beaten me.
- So you just do what those bastards tell you to do.
- So one week I was beaten up for having a razor.
- The next week I had to do the same for him.
- That was life.
- So it was fright, hunger, and beatings.
- We got to Monowitz.
- When we came in from work one evening,
- yes, this was the 15th of September 1943.
- Yes.
- Is that right?
- Yes.
- I don't know why I know this day,
- but it always stuck with me.
- Well, I was beginning to think the dates
- I could tell you later on.
- Yes.
- Just before you go on, how did you
- know what day it was on an ordinary day?
- Yeah, well we kept up.
- Some of us kept up with the dates.
- But you didn't have a calendar?
- No calendar, no.
- We had no nothing.
- We had no pencils.
- I got a pencil later on in my concentration camp life
- and wrote a letter.
- But otherwise, there was nothing like that.
- No calendars or something like that.
- But some of the people, I dare say, the kapos,
- they had newspapers.
- And the dates, we tried to remember, one another.
- Sometimes we didn't know.
- We just said, what is it?
- Well yesterday before this.
- And then you counted back.
- So this Sunday into Monday, and you
- try to remember that's how you have to do it.
- So we marched in from work.
- That 15 September, '43.
- And after being a roll call, we stood there
- and we were told to undress.
- And in my vicinity, they took 200 men.
- We got dressed again, and loaded onto a truck, followed
- by a truck where SS with guns were placed.
- And we rode away and we arrived in Monowitz.
- Did they tell you what they wanted you for?
- No.
- No.
- That's the trouble, you see.
- Sometimes what they're going to do with us.
- But we thought, well, they looked at our bodies.
- So they picked us for our body.
- So we couldn't be too skinny to go into the gas chamber.
- So it must have been something else.
- So we guess we had to work.
- And yes, we went--
- What had you previously heard of Monowitz?
- Not much.
- There's supposed to be a rubber factory there, the Buna, they
- call the Buna, the rubber factory.
- I never saw the rubber factory.
- I didn't work in the factory.
- We worked, again, outside, mostly around the camp.
- And this was a big, big, very big piece of ground,
- upon the dozens and dozens of factories
- were being built and warehouses all built with Jewish blood,
- you can say, and also non-Jewish blood.
- Because we had non-Jewish amongst us as well,
- like the Gypsies.
- They were all with us.
- So 200 men then filled up the spaces in Monowitz.
- And I lived in various barracks.
- Monowitz, I spent 17 months there.
- And work was, again, heavy.
- The same life-- bullying, hunger.
- How did the barracks compare with those
- you had known previously at Auschwitz and Birkenau?
- Monowitz had wooden barracks, compared
- with the brick buildings.
- Of course, the brick buildings were strong and all that.
- But it didn't make no difference to us.
- Our bunks were the same wooden bunks, wooden bunks.
- In threes again?
- In threes again, and sometimes I slept,
- mostly I tried to sleep on the top.
- And one or two to a bunk, usually two to a bed.
- One with a feet that, and the other one with his head
- the other side.
- And that's how we got on, sleep, a blanket each.
- Broken mattress, no pillows.
- Probably some had pillows, but they were all broken, broken up
- pieces of straw inside.
- But I folded my jacket up and made the best of that.
- And of course the barracks were crowded, especially getting up
- in a morning.
- And you have to climb down and stand
- in between a narrow space between the bunks dressing
- yourself.
- Some of them were quick, and they pushed you aside.
- You fell over or something like that.
- Or you were screamed and cursed at, standing in the way.
- And I found that tying up my shoes
- was the longest bit there was.
- So I took pieces of wire and put them in the holes of my shoes,
- and just put them together and use them as shoelaces.
- But not to have to do a lot with that pushing
- and cursing and all that.
- I used to get up earlier than the others,
- and put on my trousers carefully and my jacket under my arm.
- And then when the first gong went, I rushed out.
- And I was early in the barrack rooms where you could wash,
- where there was cold water.
- Were you able or expected to polish your shoes
- and keep your clothes clean?
- Yes, well you're supposed to keep your clothes clean.
- But now and then you couldn't help it with the kind of work
- you did, and then you apply to the kapo.
- And then once a fortnight or once a week,
- there was a bundle of clothes being brought in.
- And you were given or you picked it.
- Or even if your shoes were worn out or so,
- and there was a lot of shoes brought in.
- But you had to do it quick, or take
- what he threw to you, whether they were big or small.
- You had no say.
- Oh, they'll fit me or this one will fit me.
- He wouldn't stand for that.
- They were so stupid I should think all the time.
- Then you try to change the shoes with somebody else
- or whatever it was.
- But anyhow, you had to make do with that kind of life.
- Were these clothes and shoes new or used?
- Oh, no.
- They were used.
- They were anything alive in there
- was killed in the steam houses.
- You had a wash house there where the laundry was done.
- And usually we had a lot of steam, I think.
- And you didn't care whether what.
- You just did it.
- You began to become miserable and also not caring
- in a little way.
- If you had replacement clothes, were your torn or dirty clothes
- taken away or did you still have them?
- No, no.
- You gave them up.
- You gave them up.
- You just threw them down, and then walked away
- with the other.
- Yeah.
- And in the winter time, well you had still your striped uniform.
- But if you're lucky enough, you were
- given a coat, either a striped coat, or a civilian coat.
- Of course that probably came from somebody
- who'd been killed in the gas chambers.
- And I remember one day I was given a coat.
- And I wore it for two days.
- And then the third day the kapo announced
- just as we were going to march out, 98 to 88, you stay in.
- I had to stay in.
- I was what for?
- He says, take off your coat and take it to the tailor.
- Now one of our mates was acquainted with tailoring.
- And he had to cut the back of the coat out,
- say, a foot by a foot square, and sew a white patch on there.
- And I thought, what a pity.
- It's a beautiful coat.
- But they did it because where you worked,
- the guard could see you walk about.
- He could aim at you, it was.
- And you couldn't go into the village to escape.
- They all thought of this, escape.
- You had a patch on your clothes and that
- was you were a prisoner or a criminal.
- Yeah.
- But there was also times that there was no coat,
- and I just marched out in the wintertime
- with my jacket and trousers, terrible cold and all that.
- And I applied once into one of the smaller barracks
- where you could obtain gloves.
- So they said, well those with cold hands
- can apply for gloves.
- And then I went for gloves, and queued up there early
- in the morning.
- And then I was let in.
- What gloves?
- There are no gloves.
- And they kicked me outside.
- All those things to demoralize you,
- till you didn't trouble no more.
- To me, it wasn't worth doing things
- to end up with a good hiding.
- I had several.
- And I knew what could happen.
- The main thing of mine, stay alive, get out, and tell.
- And if you couldn't do that, you went under.
- You must have gone under.
- That's why a lot of them just gave up hope.
- They didn't see it anymore.
- At the Buna works, you were mainly
- doing heavy physical labor outdoors.
- And of course, it was extremely cold
- there in Poland in the winter.
- In the winter time.
- If you didn't have gloves, could you
- do something else, to wrap up your hands for protection?
- No.
- I couldn't.
- And if we had to unload trucks with bricks,
- the tops of your fingers, the skin start aching.
- But you made the best of it.
- You made the best of it.
- Did other people have gloves?
- No I didn't notice.
- If they did, they must have organized it.
- They must have given something up
- for it, like I, when I was very ill, I had pneumonia.
- And I gave up for the first time,
- I gave up my ration of bread for a small cup or bucket,
- a small cup of water, which was not allowed.
- Yes, I remember that.
- Because bread was gold.
- And there wasn't a lot of it.
- Did you have socks?
- No.
- No.
- No socks.
- Your feet went into your shoes and that's it.
- No.
- The SS or other people who were guarding you
- were also out of doors I expect in this cold weather.
- How were they dressed?
- They had gloves, and they had thick heavy coats on it.
- Oh yes, and proper hats, they were all right
- and they had their shoes or Wellingtons.
- Oh yes, they were well against it.
- They could do it.
- But not us.
- We weren't there to live.
- We were there to die whichever way.
- Did you have hats?
- We had berets, berets.
- The same as the ones you had previously
- described that you had to do a salute with?
- Yes.
- But in the beginning, as far back as Birkenau
- when we were drilled to take off our berets,
- we had caps, civilian caps from people who had been killed.
- Later on, we got a beret.
- Someone had striped white and blue striped berets.
- And some were just black berets.
- And I had a black beret.
- Did you have any sort of insignia
- or mark on you or your clothes to show
- that you were a slave worker at Monowitz,
- rather than an Auschwitz prisoner?
- No.
- That's all the same.
- You had your number and your triangle.
- And the Jews had two triangles, as
- if it were the Star of David, and the number that
- went on the side of your trousers
- and in the front of your jacket.
- You had to sew it on there.
- That's the only thing.
- And your arm of course, on your arms, the tattoo number.
- And that was the same for Auschwitz or Monowitz.
- Only in Buchenwald, I got a different number.
- Yes.
- The purpose, the sole purpose for your being at Monowitz
- was for working?
- Yes.
- To what extent did that make any sort of different atmosphere
- at the camp than at Auschwitz or anywhere else?
- No difference.
- It was hard work, unloading trucks
- of bricks, cement, 100 ways of cement,
- coal, cables, pipes, iron pipes.
- Digging the ground to lay the cables in.
- And that went on and on and on, pushing the trains.
- The trains didn't come right into the camp.
- Somehow not into the camp, but into where
- we are to produce our labor.
- They were staying there a little way from us,
- say a quarter of a mile or something.
- And no locomotive.
- So we had to push the trains right up to where we wanted,
- and then unload.
- And that pushing went both sides of the layer of trucks
- we stood in, and we're pushing with our shoulders.
- And the kapos would have a whistle,
- and they would say, whistle.
- And every whistle you have to push,
- or they used to shout up, shout up, push.
- Or they used to come along and like whipping the cattle, pigs
- or something.
- They used to move us on to push.
- And if you wasn't pushing right, they
- came along and gave you a couple of kicks.
- And I remember one which we called the black kapo,
- he wasn't a black man.
- He was a German.
- He was a criminal, a tall fellow.
- He gave me a kick once in my side.
- And I was doing it right.
- I was doing my duty.
- But he just picked on me.
- That's how it went.
- This same man made me, because I was a Jew, unload all by myself
- a truck load of hundreds of pipes
- which were meant to go into the ground,
- into the ground of the building sites.
- So much so that even the Gypsies that I was then
- part of a Gypsy kommando.
- The Gypsies said to me, Leon, Leon, how could you do it?
- No one was allowed to help me.
- And he stood watching me, non-stop at it
- until it was empty.
- I'll never forget that.
- What evidence was there at Monowitz that you
- were working for IG Farben?
- I didn't know.
- I didn't know.
- They always were talking about Buna rubber factories,
- but I never saw a rubber factory.
- I didn't.
- I only just worked building, the sites unloading trucks,
- carrying those big iron--
- what you call them?
- For gas, big iron, which they use not oxygen. Is it oxygen?
- Not oxygen.
- Cylinders?
- Cylinders.
- I remember me and one, the two of us
- had to carry them on our shoulders up the steps
- into the building sites and put them where they were wanted.
- And we always thought if we drop one of them
- we might go up and blow up.
- But we had to do those things, unless you could get out of it.
- See the kapos says, you, you, or you and you.
- And then you four went--
- and you went somewhere, you hid yourself behind somebody else.
- Yes.
- Someone told me that at Monowitz, dead prisoners,
- dead workers were thrown into the ditches that
- were dug for cable laying, and then cemented over.
- Oh, no.
- I never heard that.
- I believe it.
- But I never heard it.
- I never seen it.
- Were there people with you there at
- Monowitz whom you had known previously in Auschwitz?
- In Auschwitz?
- Well, of the 50 men, Leon Borstrock
- soon went away from me.
- So were you with people you knew or not at Monowitz?
- At Monowitz, only no.
- No, I didn't see Leon Borstrock no more.
- He worked in a different department.
- When I saw him later in London, he told me at a better job
- than I did.
- He didn't like to talk about it.
- He used to see how we had to work on the trucks,
- and all that.
- But he had an indoor job.
- He could draw signs but I think he was on the administration
- department.
- And he had a better job than I had.
- And he didn't want to talk about it.
- He didn't have to be ashamed of that.
- If you were dealt into a better job, that's OK.
- It's a matter of luck.
- So I was alone with all types of nationalities,
- Jews and non-Jews, Poles, Czechs, Belgians, French,
- some Dutch, but which I didn't know.
- At Auschwitz, if I can come back,
- I mean Auschwitz was friends of mine, yes.
- There was Leen Sanders.
- He was a champion boxer of Europe.
- But I think I've talked about that before.
- Was he the one who sent you some potatoes?
- Yes, right.
- Yes.
- Had I mentioned that before?
- At Monowitz, where there were these many different
- nationalities or groups, as you mentioned,
- how did you communicate with each other?
- Well, most of us understood a little bit of German.
- And what we did we have to communicate to one another?
- With just normal speech.
- I mean you yourself didn't actually know German very well,
- did you?
- A little, not much.
- But we didn't have to communicate a lot.
- You got on with the job.
- And if they were talking, you didn't want to join in to talk.
- You just didn't join in.
- There was very little to talk really,
- unless you knew somebody, and then you
- were converting things which you both knew about.
- In Monowitz, I don't think I didn't talk a lot of things.
- There was nothing to talk about.
- Was this at Monowitz that you came across your friend De
- Wolf, a Dutch friend?
- Yes, Jack De Wolf.
- He passed away a couple of years ago.
- But he come out.
- He came out of the camps.
- But he had a weak heart.
- Now, I knew him from before the war.
- And I met him again in Monowitz.
- He was very optimistic.
- And I used to visit him in the barrack where he was living.
- And we used to meet during the day sometimes.
- And I remember that there were other Dutch then
- with him, who probably had left Holland with him after me.
- And I remember when I used to go singing for some extra food,
- I used to sing in the barracks and I got enough soup left over
- for the next morning.
- I used to save that, if they didn't pinch that
- through the night, and shared it with Jack De
- Wolf and some other Dutchmen, usually about four of us.
- And I remember now that this was in Buchenwald.
- Now I want to go back to Monowitz.
- There was a bombing was taking place.
- I was in the camp.
- I didn't go out to work.
- But the place where some of the prisoners had been working
- had been bombed.
- And they were bringing victims in.
- And one of the victims was Jack.
- He had a very thick blue eye.
- And he was in a barrack.
- And I remember getting a bowl of soup,
- giving it to another Dutchman through the gates.
- Because we were not allowed to get in there.
- Somehow I got to him.
- I said, give that to Jack or share between yous.
- And I used to do those things when I could.
- Since Jack De Wolf left Holland after you did,
- did he have any news for you?
- I mean people you had known or what was going on.
- No.
- He left Holland after me.
- But when I met him in the camps, he
- didn't have no news on one thing or another.
- He was picked up I think for doing some black market deals
- or something like that.
- And he had already lost a son, his oldest son,
- who I knew as a child.
- He was before him in the camps.
- And he died.
- He didn't come out.
- But he couldn't tell me nothing about the family.
- No.
- But he did have photographs with him of his family.
- That was nice.
- I said, well, you got something to live for anyhow.
- How was he able to keep the photographs?
- Yeah, that's what I thought as well.
- He said, it was a matter of luck.
- Probably by taking out of his pockets or so,
- that he held onto them.
- Later, probably, must have lost them.
- Because we had nothing no more by the time we
- evacuated on the long march back to Buchenwald.
- None of us had anything I don't think.
- That was in Auschwitz.
- Halfway through my prison in Auschwitz, one of my mates
- said, Leon, come outside.
- There's a gentleman.
- He wants to see you.
- When I came out he introduced himself
- as Mr. Jacobs or Jacobson, who had
- worked in Westerbork on the administration department.
- And he said you're a very, very unlucky man.
- Because when your train had left with your wife
- and kiddie and the others in it, it
- was gone about a quarter of an hour,
- your name was paged in the camp.
- But you had gone already.
- Your papers had arrived for internment.
- Well, what could I do?
- What could I do?
- My train of thought was then, well, I was right.
- My papers were on the way.
- But this man, Schlesinger, had to come
- on the inside of Westerbork.
- He didn't do his duty.
- In any case, he didn't do his duty.
- He could have exchanged us for German prisoners
- because the Germans had a law that so many nationalities
- could be exchanged for German prisoners of war.
- But he never did this.
- And matter of fact, I got papers,
- which mentioned that my case had been into,
- and my papers must have been on the way.
- And that was this Dutchman.
- Of course, he didn't come back.
- A lot of them didn't come back.
- I think at Monowitz, you had mentioned
- there were women workers, Polish women.
- Were these prisoners or were they local women just
- doing a job?
- Well, I think they were prisoners.
- They were women.
- And I was surprised to see them carry bricks, not four,
- but a lot more than we used to do.
- And they used to dig in the ground.
- Then I remember I was working on the ground
- and not far from me was a Polish non-Jewish woman.
- I couldn't talk Polish.
- She took a fancy to me, and she told
- her name, Rosa her name was, if I remember, Rosa.
- And I gave her my name.
- And we all used to suffer.
- In any case you suffer from a wet dripping nose.
- And I used to wipe my nose on the sleeves.
- To them I was saying that.
- And then she gave me, the following day just by chance,
- she had to be there again working.
- And she brought me a handkerchief.
- And I found it so marvelous.
- Of course I haven't got a handkerchief anymore,
- and I didn't see her any more after that.
- But those things still remain in your mind.
- If only I could see her again, and if she would remember that,
- but I doubt it.
- I doubt it.
- You said the women were quite strong.
- Does this mean that they were healthier somehow?
- Yes, they must have been healthier.
- She looked healthy.
- Probably she was just a very short as a prisoner.
- But they were building a factory with pipes that had
- to be cemented and all that.
- And they went up the steps, the step ladders, like flies.
- They could do it.
- And I was surprised.
- Because I only up to then thought that men only did
- that work.
- But the women did work hard.
- What sort of number of women were they?
- Oh, I didn't see many, one or two only, one or two.
- You had mentioned singing in the barracks at Monowitz
- for extra soup.
- Yes.
- What did you sing?
- Well let's say, "Ave Maria" or when you do "The Lambeth Walk."
- In English?
- Or "Underneath the Arches," a little bit of that.
- A few, four or five or six songs, as best as I could.
- But there was one occasion I sang in a barrack.
- I think it was barrack 14.
- And the kapo was a pro-British man, a German.
- And he heard me sing, and he gave me a portion of soup.
- And he says, sing "God Save the King."
- I said, I dare not.
- Because the SS guard is outside almost, he could hear.
- And it's quiet in the evening.
- You should sing it.
- I thought to myself, well, it might bring me
- in a piece of bread or some soup.
- So up goes Leon on a chair.
- And I start singing (SINGING) God save our gracious King.
- And they applaud it.
- Because the prisoners were listening as well,
- and the kapos, and the other kapos.
- What blooming cheek I've got to do that.
- If this SS would have heard, he would have
- said, what's this going on?
- The same answer now then.
- You come here every evening for a portion of soup.
- Because singers must be fed.
- They must be strong.
- I said at Christmas time, you come here
- and sing to us, Christmas.
- I went every evening I went there.
- I got my portion of soup.
- Apart from that, I still went singing around.
- That wasn't sufficient for me.
- Four or five barracks at least I had to do, if I could.
- Then comes the Christmas time.
- The night before Christmas, I think it was.
- Will this be Christmas 1943?
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- And a little bombing takes place and all the lights go out.
- And everybody into the barracks.
- And Christmas, no one was allowed out of barracks.
- So I had all the time I had the soup for nothing.
- The concert never took place.
- And while I'm telling you that, I remember one evening
- I came away from a barrack with a bucket of soup,
- which I was going to save for the next morning.
- And the sirens went.
- And the chief kapo of the camp, he was walking about.
- And I ran into him without knowing.
- It was dark.
- And he gave me a kick.
- He said go into your barracks.
- And he nearly kicked the soup out of my hands.
- I remember that.
- I must have had angels around me and good spirits
- to escape a lot of incidents.
- When you sang "God Save the King,"
- do you think the other prisoners knew what you were singing?
- Yeah.
- Well I dare say some of them had the melody or something.
- But the kapo knew all right.
- I never questioned it.
- I never questioned it.
- Of course, then I thought myself, well,
- they're all looking at me.
- And sometimes I stood there eating
- my soup, what they gave me.
- And I almost said, well yeah boys, I'm sorry.
- But I feel hungry, same as you are.
- I worked for it.
- I sang for it.
- And that's how I conquered my weaknesses.
- Were people jealous of your singing ability?
- No.
- I don't think so.
- Of course, I wasn't--
- there was no piano I just wasn't really singing what I did.
- No, but other people?
- Oh, they could do it probably if they wanted to do.
- They could have done the same, and probably they did.
- There must have been several that did this.
- I know that the first Dutchman had told me
- way back in Birkenau, he went singing around the barracks.
- I didn't do it then.
- But it came into my mind.
- As my civilian life fell away from me,
- and the hunger appeared, and I didn't know what to do,
- then I tried it out.
- Even in Buchenwald, I sang for the Americans.
- I got up a concert for them, for the boys.
- Found some man who could play a fiddle,
- some with the saxophone, instruments which the SS had
- left behind, confiscated from people that had
- been killed off, and myself.
- And I used to sing, can't do the fiddle, and all that.
- And we got our rations, American army rations for that.
- Yes.
- Did the SS officers realize you were singing?
- Presumably they didn't actually notice when
- you sang "God Save the King."
- But I mean on other occasions?
- No, no.
- They didn't do much.
- I imagine that eating time, say half past 5:00, 6:00,
- the SS probably wasn't aware of what,
- and they were in their own barracks.
- Probably one or two were walking past in the camp.
- But they didn't take a lot of notice.
- In that case, we could just stand there and sing inside.
- I never used fortissimo singing, probably couldn't at that time.
- I never was--
- I was applauded by the prisoners,
- but I was never mentioned about my voice, no.
- I think you mentioned there was a band or orchestra at Monowitz
- that played when you were marched on parade perhaps.
- Yeah, there was one in Birkenau which I never
- saw, was too far away, in which a friend of mine
- was a trumpeter and a fiddler.
- I never knew that then.
- He's now somewhere in Canada.
- He used to live in the same street as me.
- I used to play with him as boys.
- But in Auschwitz, we had an orchestra
- that played when we marched out to work every morning.
- In Auschwitz?
- Auschwitz, also in Monowitz.
- And when we marched back from work again, and when some of us
- were being hung then the orchestra
- also played, until the moment came that they were hanged.
- Yes, there was an orchestra.
- What can you tell me about the composition of it?
- Well, I'll listen to some of the marches that play
- or pieces of music, but in my mind,
- it never took long, a quarter of an hour, 20 minutes.
- The thing was playing while you were waiting to be counted for.
- You often, well I thought, hell is here
- and they're making music.
- Why?
- Why?
- That's how it was.
- Who were the instrumentalists?
- All prisoners.
- Prisoners brought in, professional musicians.
- If you were good, you were picked.
- If you weren't good you just became one of us
- or went to the gas chamber.
- This particular friend of mine who lives now in Canada,
- he arrived at a time when a kapo said, who of you people
- are musicians?
- I'm looking for a trumpeter.
- Who can play the trumpet?
- And three men put their hands up, as I was told.
- And he let the first one play.
- He said, that side.
- The second one, was not to his liking.
- My friend played.
- He was a good professional.
- He had his own band and all that.
- He said, you're in.
- And the other two, probably they went into ordinary works,
- as we did and whatever.
- But it saved his life.
- And later on, it saved the life of his brother
- by him being in the orchestra.
- He could make mates friendly with the doctors.
- His brother became ill and had to be sent to the gas chambers.
- One thing or another led to the other,
- and they saved his brother.
- They smuggled him out.
- And he came back to Holland, his brother.
- He also had lost everything.
- Married again, lost his wife again.
- And he died a couple of years ago.
- I knew those people.
- Because I used to grow up with them.
- Did the musicians live separately
- from the rest of the prisoners?
- Well, in my barrack, I never noticed that there
- was a musician living with us.
- Probably they had their own barrack, not as big,
- probably a barrack where they could rehearse
- or whatever it was.
- Of course, there is a lady here, Lily Mathé.
- She was in Auschwitz.
- And she played for Eichmann, I think.
- She was also a member of the orchestra.
- I met Lily some years ago.
- What music did they play?
- I never thought about the titles of the thing,
- sometimes a popular song, sometimes
- pieces of overture or whatever.
- I never took a lot of notice of it.
- It never made me happy, those things,
- that I had to stand there and sing with it in my mind,
- hum with it.
- No.
- There was no time for me to do that.
- No.
- Life was too miserable.
- For most of us, we just didn't--
- we knew we were going to march out.
- We heard music.
- OK, well, we're going to work again.
- What's going to happen today?
- We'll I ever get back?
- We marched in overnight, this things is playing again.
- And you stand there.
- I'm hungry.
- Let's go.
- Hurry up.
- I want to get inside and have a bit of food.
- And that's how we thought.
- So your mind wasn't with the orchestra
- like you would be doing here in civilian life.
- Stand and listen there.
- You knew it was playing in the background.
- But you wasn't all ears for it.
- You was looking in front of you.
- You're going to be counted in a minute
- and what's going to be next?
- You said they played popular music, as well as classical.
- Would it include things like "Deutschland über Alles"
- or the "Horst-Wessel-Lied?"
- No, I don't remember that.
- No, I don't think so.
- What the SS did make us do and the kapos, when
- we were marching to work or marching back, sing.
- We had to march and sing.
- And what was it again?
- "Und wir fahren nach England," and we
- are going to sail to England at that time.
- We are to sing that while we were--
- and then we also used to sing "Roll Our the Barrel."
- (SINGING) Roll out the barrel.
- We used to walk.
- In English?
- No, in Dutch or what German what it was.
- But I used to sing a little bit in English.
- And what did I used to say?
- Well I don't think I did a lot of singing
- while I was walking like that.
- And then there's one or two other songs
- which I don't remember anymore, because we didn't know,
- and when you're marching there in groups of 500 or 1,000,
- some of them be singing.
- If you didn't sing what?
- You didn't look at everyone whether they were singing
- or what?
- No.
- We just do it.
- If you would, of course, you're not singing or walking,
- probably they would say, come on.
- But no things like that, not what I experienced.
- What sort of music did they play for the hangings?
- Just music.
- Just music.
- I don't remember if it was sad music, just the sound of music.
- I think it was that winter of 1943
- to '44, in which you became ill at Monowitz, was it?
- I became ill.
- Oh, well, I was several times ill.
- I had if you mean that one, that occasion when I had been trying
- to sing in one of the barracks.
- The kapo kicked me out.
- And kicked me between the legs.
- And that developed into a big lump in that region.
- And I couldn't walk anymore, because it's
- interfering with my steps.
- So I was allowed to get into the hospital.
- When I got into hospital, I developed a temperature
- and they operated upon me.
- Is that what you mean?
- So the doctor and one of the Polish nurses, male nurses,
- nice fellow he was.
- He could talk English.
- They took me out of my bunk and operated upon me.
- I did have anesthetic then.
- And when I came to the doctor, he said,
- that's a very interesting story you've been telling us.
- And I don't know what story it was.
- And then they took me back to my bunk.
- And I laid in my bunk.
- And in my bunk I shared with an Italian solicitor.
- And I didn't eat my potatoes.
- And the rations of food I got, soup was always thin and hardly
- a potato in it.
- My portion of bread was small always, never a large piece.
- And that when I was in my bunk, the soup was given to us.
- And I had a bucket full.
- And there was four or five potatoes in it.
- And the soup was thick.
- I couldn't eat it.
- I laid it beside me.
- And the Italian said to me, let me have it.
- It will get bad.
- So I gave it to him.
- I couldn't eat it.
- As if fate was playing with me, you know?
- Well, a couple of days later, the barrack
- had to be fumigated because it was overrun with bugs.
- And we could not sleep during the night in the dark.
- They seemed to come to your body and itch you, bite you.
- That morning, early morning for our breakfast,
- for our piece of bread or whatever it was,
- we got a mug full with some sweet--
- it wasn't coffee.
- It wasn't tea.
- But something sweetish syrupy stuff, and we all drank that.
- And there was a table beneath my bunk where I slept.
- And on there was about a dozen.
- And in every mug I saw a little bit of the sweet stuff.
- So I said to one of the prisoners.
- Put it all together in one and give it to me.
- Probably I was a bit very ill or something.
- And he took pity on me.
- And he poured it all into one mug.
- And I drank it.
- It was wet.
- It was something I needed.
- I was thirsty.
- I was very ill.
- I realized that.
- But my brains were still working.
- And then one by one, we all were carried out.
- And the barrack had to be fumigated.
- And they were already patching up near the windows
- with paper and all that.
- And then came my turn to be carried out.
- And this Polish male nurse, he took me on his shoulder
- and carried me along the road, between the barracks
- to another barrack.
- And we got into a little part of the barrack.
- And he put me on a chair and I fell off of the chair.
- And I can still hear him say the England is kaput.
- Which meant the Englishman is dead.
- And I thought myself, no, I'm not dead.
- I'm not going to die.
- Then he picked me up from the floor.
- And put me on the chair.
- And from nowhere came dysentery.
- I couldn't stop it.
- He picked me up again.
- And carried me to a barrack where
- only prisoners were living with that complaint, dysentery.
- And I always wanted to get into that barrack,
- because I had worked with prisoners
- who had been in the barrack with the same complaint.
- And they found that the kapo in there was a very good man.
- And I thought to myself, now--
- You were just saying, you had always
- wanted to be in that dysentery hospital.
- Yes, because the kapo was a very good man for his prisoners.
- And this male nurse carried me on his back
- again to this barrack.
- And I was laid down in a bunk underneath.
- And he went.
- And probably, my feverish thoughts--
- I start talking English.
- And one of the prisoners called out to the kapo.
- And the kapo came along.
- And he started asking me in English questions.
- And I told him who I was.
- And he said, well, you're going to stay here
- for a long, long time.
- And he made himself so friendly that I said, oh, thank you.
- But I got a terrible pain in my back.
- He said, oh, I'll call my friend a doctor in.
- And he will examine you.
- And this was in the evening.
- Who ever thought that a thing like that could take place?
- And really, five or 10 minutes later,
- a doctor who I knew in the camp came in.
- I had to come out of my bunk, sit on a stool, bend over,
- and he examined me.
- And his verdict was--
- I just mentioned it.
- Pneumonia?
- Pneumonia.
- And I couldn't stay in the barrack.
- I had to be placed straightaway into another barrack.
- Well, so I had lost the chance of meeting this man.
- Why was that kapo in the dysentery barrack nice to you?
- Well, he was pro-Allies and he was pro-English, I daresay.
- But also-- he was also probably pro-good for the prisoners.
- Really, then, they meant that if you come in there,
- you got no beatings, no nothing, and he looks after you
- until you're better.
- And then you clear out.
- Well, you can be better in a week, in a couple of days.
- So we had a good time.
- And I never--
- I couldn't remember him now.
- I-- well, he's a tall fellow.
- But well, there you are.
- The chance was gone.
- So I had pneumonia.
- I was taken to another barrack.
- I laid in bed.
- I became very ill.
- I was not allowed to drink.
- I didn't feel like eating.
- And after a few days, I had a dream.
- And in the dream, I didn't see my wife and child anymore.
- And then I woke up.
- And opposite me in a bunk was laying a Frenchman.
- His head was bandaged.
- And he-- before this day, I had been talking with him.
- He was a Frenchman who translated French films
- into English and English into French.
- So he could converse with me.
- And I said, I don't want to live anymore.
- He said, what's the matter?
- I said, well, I had a dream.
- And I didn't see my wife and child.
- And I think they're gone.
- They're dead.
- I said, don't want it anymore.
- I don't want to live anymore.
- And he said, no.
- He said, suppose they are alive, and they come back,
- and you're not there.
- What's going to happen to them?
- And that brought me to my senses again.
- And I became a little better.
- I started to eat again.
- I never saw this man again.
- And I was about three or four weeks with this in the barrack.
- Were you still, at this point, bandaged up
- from your thigh operation?
- Oh, no, a thigh operation was tragic.
- There was no linen bandage, there
- was only paper, crepe paper--
- white crepe paper, which they folded around you.
- Well, of course, the wound was open.
- And I laid there for about eight days with an open wound
- not caring.
- You couldn't care.
- There was nothing.
- How well did the paper bandages work?
- No good.
- The least movement, you tore them to pieces.
- And it was no good anymore.
- It was-- where the wound was, it was wet, it was.
- So I didn't have a long time bandage.
- And I just laid there with the wounds.
- Of course, they didn't care.
- I've seen others coming in with big wounds being operated on.
- And you couldn't do nothing about it.
- And they just died.
- But I still had my thoughts with me.
- I was still fighting.
- And I got through.
- Your reason for being there was to do the heavy labor
- in building up the Buna works.
- Why did they bother to cure you if you were ill?
- Why didn't you go straight to the gas chamber?
- And they could always get lots more men.
- Yes, that puzzled me always.
- But I probably-- towards that time, they already
- had plundered the countries with people.
- And of course, they wanted to make sure
- that the work was being continued.
- And I think, above all, probably God
- was with me to make the thoughts of the SS and of the doctors,
- whoever it was, close their eyes,
- close their thoughts that he is a sick man.
- He won't be good for work anymore.
- So kill him off.
- It's different because I got through.
- As weak as I was, I still got through.
- So I was ill, but I probably was probably physically still
- good to look at.
- And I think it is luck or something like that.
- Did you feel safer in hospital?
- I did because you weren't beaten up, you weren't bullied that.
- You just lay there.
- And you could converse with your mates.
- And you could sleep hours and on sleep.
- The tiredness of your labor all those week,
- all those years, or whatever it was,
- you could sleep until you were really
- woke up happier that you had a good rest.
- I remember that this was in Monowitz.
- I'd been there now several weeks in Monowitz.
- And the doctor used to call us out one by one every morning,
- every other day.
- You left your bunk, you came to him, he examined you,
- and he sent you back to bed, or he signed a card or paper,
- and you had to leave hospital next day, something like that.
- In my case, it was wintertime.
- And I dread the thought to get outside to work again.
- So I was getting better from operation.
- And I was getting better from the pneumonia.
- And I used to play tricks like this.
- Also, I was taught that by some other prisoner.
- Every evening, you got your temperature taken.
- And if the temperature was very high,
- it meant that you were sick.
- And the kapo had to know why you were sick
- and what it was because it could be typhus.
- So what this fellow told me he did--
- when they came around with a thermometer,
- he rubbed it up against the blanket, which
- made the surface go up high.
- And then when they came around and took it out his mouth
- and they saw it was high temperature, so stay in bed.
- You're still ill.
- Well, I did the same thing one night
- and thought, well, that's it then.
- And the male nurse that was taking the temperatures,
- he said, hey, you ought to have been dead by now.
- You've got a terrible high temperature.
- Come out.
- So I had to come out.
- Said, what's the matter with you?
- Look, he said.
- So to my luck, another male nurse came out.
- And he said, those thermometers are no good because I got one
- here, and somebody ought to be three times dead, the man
- speaking.
- So he said, well, get into your bed,
- and I'll bring you another thermometer.
- And so I got out of it again.
- But all the same, I stayed there about four or five weeks.
- And then one morning--
- I used to play it up like this.
- When it was nearly my turn to come out of bed for the doctor,
- I used to pull the blankets over my head.
- And I began to sweat.
- And by the time he called the number and I came out,
- I stood before him with sweat on my face.
- And he used to look at me and feel my head.
- And this is up in the bed.
- So he took it probably--
- either he knew I was playing him up,
- or either he said, well, he's still a sick man.
- Said, back to your bed.
- And I did this often.
- But then came the morning that I did this.
- And he-- I stood him up.
- And he said, today, this afternoon, you're
- leaving hospital.
- I said, but I'm still sick, Doctor.
- He said, shh.
- The SS doctor might come in, and you're finished then, he says.
- You've been here already too long.
- So as weak as I was, I got dressed,
- and I marched out, and got back to my Kommando.
- So this doctor wasn't an SS doctor?
- No, it was a prison doctor.
- If a SS doctor would have come in, it would have--
- Yes.
- That suggests that he perhaps realized what you were doing.
- Yes.
- He was working, working with--
- yes.
- Now, you felt better.
- You had a somewhat easier life being in hospital.
- But you had told me earlier about the advice you had when
- you were first imprisoned--
- Yes.
- --first in a camp not to go in hospital.
- Yes.
- Hospital meant little food.
- You had no chance to organize.
- And if you lay too long, you get ill,
- the SS doctor might come in and take your cards.
- And even three or four weeks, if he
- has to look at you, in the gas chambers.
- So that-- it was dangerous on one side
- and good on the other side.
- Yeah.
- And there's one incident that for one way or another,
- I developed piles.
- And a Dutch fellow who lives now in Amsterdam, Joop de Groot--
- Jopie de Groot, his name is--
- Jopie de Groot, he came back out of camp.
- He used to sleep next to my bunk.
- His bunk was next to my bunk.
- And he-- standing me next on roll call.
- And I said, I can't walk.
- He said, all right.
- I'll take you to the doctor.
- So there's a doctor standing at the side,
- doctors due to see to the people that
- couldn't march out to work.
- Because after all, you can't send ill people
- to the work compartment that the white bosses--
- what are you sending me here people who can't work?
- They're invalids.
- So they were kept behind and see to be strengthened up
- in their own way.
- So I was taken by this Joop de Groot to the doctor.
- And he said, this man can't walk.
- And the doctor says, into the hospital.
- So I went into hospital.
- And I was there about four or five days until they
- cured me from that complaint.
- I always tell him that when I see him, when I go to Holland.
- I see him.
- Yeah.
- After you had been in hospital, I
- believe prisoners were allowed some light work for a while
- before having to go back to the hard labor.
- Yes.
- That's so if you were lucky enough,
- they gave you a job for a week or so.
- And you could sit in the kitchen,
- peeling potatoes for the SS and cleaning
- the food for the prisoners.
- Now, for the SS, every potato had to be absolutely cleaned
- from the peelings.
- And for the prisoners, it didn't matter so much.
- You didn't peel potatoes for the prison.
- They got potatoes and the peel, jacket potatoes.
- But if there was spinach or other kind of food,
- we used to put them once through water.
- And spinach is usually a lot of sand in it--
- once for the prisoners, once for the bath and under.
- So there was a difference between the food
- being made for the SS and for the prisoners.
- Well, getting back to sitting there, peeling potatoes,
- you had any chance and nobody was looking, well, or say,
- eight or a dozen of our prisoners that
- weren't coming out--
- came out of hospital, they were sitting there.
- And we used to peel potatoes.
- And when nobody's looking, we had potatoes.
- So you were peeling them after they'd been boiled?
- Yes, after being boiled, yes.
- They were carried in with big containers.
- And then you picked the potato out and took all the peel off,
- put them down.
- When nobody was looking, you ate.
- And you had a chance that-- being
- in the kitchen, that you, where possible,
- got another ration of soup.
- Well, this particular kapo of the kitchen, he didn't like me.
- He knew I was English.
- And whenever the Royal Air Force bombed Germany, German towns,
- it was known then through the radio.
- He used to call me and say, hey, in German, your Royal Air
- force bombed that and that town again.
- And he just slapped my face.
- I said, well, they did the same to Coventry.
- But every time, they used to be like that.
- But we had another kapo, his name
- is Sicher, a German Jewish kapo, a kitchen kapo.
- But he was the under kapo, but a good cook.
- Otherwise, he wouldn't have been there.
- He used to prepare the-- help prepare the food for the SS.
- And he was a very nice fellow--
- but a young fellow, about 25-28.
- And I remember, one day, in the kitchen,
- the trucks came in with those iron containers,
- which had been filled with soup and taken to the fields,
- shared out amongst the prisoners,
- and then brought back empty.
- And then they used to say--
- the prisoners come outside, and unload a truck,
- and take the containers into the kitchen.
- Well, I remember, that morning or that afternoon, I went out.
- And one of the fellows next to me,
- we both got a hold of a container
- and carried it to the kitchen and back again
- a different department of the kitchen, where
- they had to be cleaned, and unloading the truck like that.
- And several of us were doing that, when
- all of a sudden, one of the kapos in the kitchen
- came to me, got a hold of me, and kicked me between the legs.
- And I fell to the ground.
- He said, you were to carry one of those containers
- by yourself, not the two of you.
- And I was crying out for pain.
- And out came this kapo of mine, this German fellow, nice one.
- He said, what's the matter?
- And the prisoner said, well, he's been kicked by that kapo.
- And so he said to him, you're not
- to touch my prisoners, my men.
- He says, if you do it again, I'm going to make complaint.
- Because you've got nothing to do with that,
- with what they are doing.
- And he was a Jew, Polish Jew, strong man, kitchen work.
- Yeah.
- All those things went on.
- Wait, the Polish Jew was the one who kicked you?
- Yes, yeah.
- It's like the Polish Jew that beat me up.
- Being a Jew felt a way-- they had made use of their might.
- You said that whilst you were on this kitchen Kommando,
- one of the kapos used to beat you
- at the times of the RAF raids.
- Yes.
- Would this have been the only way
- you knew about the RAF raids on German towns?
- No, there must have been somewhere among the doctors
- or among the kapos newspapers and news
- by radio that pieces of news slipped by, and we got to know.
- For instance, in 1944 sometime, I was working on the fields.
- And I got hold of a Schlesischer--
- Oberschlesischer Beobachter-- was a Polish newspaper
- in German.
- And I read in German that airplanes were dropping tanks
- and all that above Holland.
- And I didn't want to believe it.
- But that was the invasion of Arnhem already.
- So bit by bit, you got a bit of news.
- Sometimes, a doctor left a newspaper on his table
- in the barrack, and the kapo got a hold of it and read it.
- And he had his favorites, he used to talk about it.
- And pieces of whisperings came to our knowledge.
- In June 1944, you must have been still
- on kitchen Kommando when D-Day happened,
- the invasion of France.
- Yes.
- How did you get news of that?
- Well, I was sitting, peeling potatoes, as it was.
- And next to me was a Belgian Jewish prisoner.
- And he said to me, did you hear it, Leon?
- They have invaded France.
- The invasion has started.
- And we'll soon be free.
- So I said, well, if you can tell me this in a week from today,
- I'll believe it.
- Because many things were said, and it was never true.
- But it was true at that time.
- This same man, he was beaten up one day after roll call.
- And I never saw him again.
- He went into hospital.
- I never saw him again.
- Yeah.
- How did rumors, whether they were true or not,
- affect the morale of you and other prisoners?
- Very much.
- I remember being in Monowitz in hospital--
- I wasn't well again.
- And the backlash of the Ardennes, the Americans
- were driven back, which meant, oh, god, we
- got to stay another time, a long time in camp.
- We don't want to do that.
- And I with one Dutchman-- he said,
- I don't want to believe it.
- I don't want to live anymore.
- And I used to say, look, it's a military technical thing
- they're doing.
- And I wasn't quite wrong.
- I didn't know anything about it.
- But I talked to him.
- I said, look, the Germans are coming up.
- But the Americans are going around them.
- And on the other side, the English, and then
- they've got them.
- And they cut them off.
- But he didn't want to know it.
- This man was a Amsterdam man.
- And I never saw him anymore.
- Because I left hospital, and a lot of people,
- you don't see more.
- But I always kept my--
- it hurt.
- It hurt me when I knew that they were being--
- the Americans were being driven back again--
- god, another month or another year, another winter.
- But I don't know.
- I had always hope to get through,
- while others just gave up.
- And the Dutch prisoners were very weak.
- The Polish prisoners were strong.
- The Dutch--
- You mean physically--
- --and the French, yeah. --or mentally?
- Mentally as well.
- They were brought up different.
- They were brought up nicer way, cultural, and had it
- good always at home.
- Whereas the Russian or the Polish,
- they were tough and hard.
- That's what I noticed.
- It's also known that the Dutch died like flies.
- You described how you yourself nearly gave up at the time
- when you had that dream about missing your wife and son.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Well, I pulled out together again.
- And somehow, I got out and I started again.
- And also, medicine, to me, was mixing
- with the British prisoners of war
- which used to work near where I was working.
- And I used to try to get over to them and talk to them.
- And probably--
- Yes.
- Tell me a bit about that.
- Yeah.
- You've been telling me how you knew some of the events that
- were happening during the war.
- Were there any changes within the camp these times
- when the Germans were having difficulty in the war?
- No, nothing changed.
- As a matter of fact, we thought they would change and let us
- live, but they didn't.
- On the contrary, they made life more miserable.
- Well, that could be a change.
- You could have changed for the worse or changed
- for the better.
- Yes, well, of course, commands-- the orders
- were given that we had to die.
- We're not allowed to get out.
- Because well, I remember seeing that--
- and this was at Buchenwald-- they were shooting up--
- through the barracks, they were shooting the people out.
- And they had to come in to be accounted for,
- and to be marched away, and killed off, especially
- Jewish people.
- And they called out all the Jews who showed themselves.
- And what I remember, what I saw, that SS were putting probably
- sticks of dynamite underneath the barracks.
- Didn't know what they were doing,
- but what were they poking about underneath of the barracks,
- and that they were shooting through the windows
- as the people came running out.
- Of course, that was near the very end.
- But still at Monowitz, the Germans
- were having some difficulty because, of course,
- they were fighting on two fronts.
- And they had a problem with manpower.
- Was that reflected in any way in the SS
- or German officers you saw?
- No, I didn't notice then changes with the SS.
- We knew-- well, where I was working with my Kommando,
- or in my Kommando, the trains used
- to come by the trucks, filled with tanks and airplanes.
- And on and on, it went.
- And then the next day or two days later,
- I saw them coming back from the east,
- had been in battle with the Russians.
- They were burned out in pieces and shot-up airplanes.
- And that used to be medicine to us.
- And then the following day, again,
- a new lot going there, all newly-made or newly-painted.
- So it was going, and coming, and going, and coming.
- We still didn't have a lot to do personally with the SS.
- And of course, the kapos, they must have been thinking, well,
- I've misbehaved towards the prisoners.
- What's going to happen when we're free
- and they recognize us?
- But it didn't came into our minds.
- The main thing is we were still keep
- on-- trying to keep on living in the same old way as before.
- This is late in 1944, I should think, at this point.
- Yeah.
- You saw the trains with the military equipment.
- Were there still also trains of people?
- No, I--
- New prisoners?
- No, I didn't see trains with people coming in.
- No, I didn't see them.
- But what I remember now-- that it must have been around
- about that time they brought in the Hungarian Jews,
- well-dressed men, probably the day before, two days before,
- taken out of the homes.
- I could see them standing there-- not many, say,
- 100 or so.
- And they're all beautifully dressed yet.
- And I'm looking at them.
- And that evening, there was--
- for our food was spinach soup.
- And in that same potato cellar where I used to work there,
- they were standing there.
- And there were nine of them looking down at the nine
- buckets of spinach soup.
- And they weren't going to eat it.
- I had finished mine.
- They weren't going to eat it.
- And my mates and myself said, eat it.
- It's all right.
- They said, no, we're not going to eat it.
- So others said, they weren't hungry.
- So I said, do you mind if I have it?
- And they said, OK.
- So I took nine lots of spinach soup,
- took all the spinach out, and left the liquid with--
- I come to think of now as the wrong way of doing it.
- But I ate a load of spinach all at once.
- And what happened to the liquid?
- I just threw it away.
- Oh, with all the vitamins?
- Yes, and that's why I did it wrong.
- Yeah.
- The same thing happened with the olives I told you about.
- But I got a good appetite.
- When I don't eat, I'm ill.
- Did it make you sick to eat all that much spinach?
- No, no.
- It probably send me to the lav the next day.
- And talking about the lavs, the outside lavs, of course,
- they're small wooden huts with about a dozen round holes.
- And you had to sit in there.
- And then the lot dropped down.
- And once so often, that had to be emptied by us.
- And we had to queue up, I remember, on a Sunday morning,
- when I did a march out to work.
- But we were rounded up and come and empty this lot of dirt.
- And we all had to queue up with buckets, small buckets
- or big tins from food or something made into a bucket.
- And then one or two of us stood with a shovel
- and shoveled it falling.
- You had to take it elsewhere and put it in the ground, where
- it could run away.
- Yes.
- What haven't I done?
- I think you were locked into the lavatory at one point.
- Yes, it's coming into my mind now.
- Yes, they came those--
- that morning, in that--
- the reason could have been that I was in the-- inside the camp
- and didn't march out to work because, probably, we
- had a few days off from being in hospital.
- So what could we do?
- Just wander around the camp.
- When I say we, I say, in my case, about a few dozen--
- 30-40 of us.
- But wandering around the camp, see
- if we can organize something.
- But I wasn't thinking of organizing.
- And I found myself then way back in a little wooden hut, which
- had 10 so-called lavatories.
- They were round holes, with wooden covers.
- And on the covers were only holes.
- You could sit on them.
- And we just sat there, a couple of--
- a few dozen of our men, talking, and thinking,
- and not knowing what to do.
- And we were looking forward to 12:00, quarter
- past 12:00, when we would hear the first gong go.
- And then usually, it is food dealt out.
- Your ration of soup is dealt out in the camp.
- So if you had a chance, you went to your barrack.
- And you got your ration of soup.
- And if you were lucky, you rushed to another barrack,
- and perhaps, you could get another ration.
- Now, that morning, we all were sitting there and waiting
- for the time to pass by.
- Then came the time that we opened the window.
- And some of the fellows leaned over, and jumped out,
- and went to the barracks.
- Or one by one, but you were not allowed
- to do that because the kapo had locked you up in the morning,
- had locked the door.
- You couldn't get out through the door.
- You were locked into the lav?
- Yeah.
- Why was that?
- Well, you're not going out to work.
- And you're not going to mess about in the camp.
- He felt like doing that.
- So I look out of the window and I saw nothing.
- And then I climbed out.
- And halfway, I was on the ground,
- I had to jump back again because, in the distance,
- I saw this kapo, the camp kapo.
- So I walked-- jumped back inside and sat down.
- And I thought myself, any minute now, you
- see the face of the kapo coming in front of the window.
- And we looked down, as if there wasn't
- many left of us in there.
- And he looked into it, his head through the window.
- And he says, where are you all gone to?
- Where are you?
- Where?
- We didn't answer.
- We did-- we were stupid.
- So he went away.
- And then it was my turn to get out of the window.
- And I did.
- And I got to my barrack.
- And I got my ration of soup.
- And I wandered around the camp for half an hour.
- Couldn't get anymore elsewhere.
- And then I went back to the lavatory
- and climbed inside, and sat, and waited.
- But this kapo had a good memory for faces, as I was told.
- And he said already in the afternoon,
- when he saw the lavatories at home
- was empty that you get him at half past 3:00,
- 4 o'clock, when there's a roll call inside the camp.
- And well, everybody in the camp, then,
- at that time, about half past 3:00,
- 4 o'clock in the afternoon, special roll call, everybody's
- got to come outside.
- So we did as well.
- And I did.
- And by god, he picked some of our fellows who he knew
- had escaped out of the lavatory.
- And I was amongst them as well.
- But I worked myself backwards.
- And I escaped his hitting out and bullying.
- Yeah.
- That was that.
- Well, the next day, I just marched out to work again.
- I think, one day, you actually missed a roll call-- almost
- missed a roll call.
- How did that happen?
- Well, the barrack I was sleeping in,
- I was sharing my bunk with Young Perez.
- Perez was an Algerian French champion boxer, world flyweight
- champion, who had fought our Jackie Brown way back
- before the war.
- And he became very pally with me.
- And he spoke a bit of broken English.
- And I talked to him.
- And we were very pally.
- But he was working in the kitchen, had a good job
- there as a cook or something.
- And the SS had a favor for athletic people,
- like my friend, Lane Saunders, who way back in Auschwitz
- had become under kapo in one of the barracks
- because he was known as a first-class boxer, you see.
- So Young Perez worked in the kitchen.
- And he had promised me oh, so often to come to the kitchen
- and get an extra bucket of soup.
- But the days went by, evenings went by, and nothing happened.
- And I was going to be--
- I was beginning to be a bit disappointed.
- And I remember, one evening, I woke up in the night.
- And he had his arm-- and he had thick arms,
- well-developed, muscled arms across my throat.
- I was nearly choking.
- And I woke him up in his sleep--
- all in fun and friendliness.
- But then came the Sunday morning.
- I didn't march out to work.
- So I stayed in the camp.
- And I went to the kitchen.
- And I waited.
- And somehow, I got to see him when he came out.
- And he went in again.
- And I shouted out, Perez, soup.
- Oh, yes, he recognized me, of course.
- And he called me in.
- And then he brought me almost to the rim
- filled bucket of a kind of sweet soup--
- wasn't a green soup.
- It was kind of sweet and thick.
- I had no spoon.
- And it was boiling hot.
- So I stood away in a corner, the bucket to my mouth.
- And I was sipping it bit by bit, enjoying it--
- not much because the door opened.
- And in came a kapo.
- And what he said was this--
- the roll call isn't right.
- We all got to wait.
- And we're standing there.
- There's one missing.
- The hell this and the hell that.
- Oh, dear, dear.
- Then he looked around, he caught eye of me.
- And he looked at me, he said, hey, what are you doing here?
- You don't belong here.
- And he got a hold of my soup and kicked me outside.
- I went through the door.
- And I looked left and right.
- And there was silence over the roll call, everybody standing
- there, waiting, waiting.
- One is missing.
- And who's that one?
- Leon Greenman.
- My god, I thought, how stupid not to think about the time.
- So I waited until the kapo, the camp kapo, his back
- was towards me.
- And I run to my position.
- And I stood.
- And the fellows behind me inside said, oh, you, Englishmen, you,
- Leon, you going to become--
- oh, you going to get afterwards.
- I thought myself, well, what could happen?
- Fate.
- Then the SS sergeant was-- every barrack
- had an SS sergeant who used to account
- for the amount of people that were in the barrack.
- And the counting started again.
- And of course, it was OK.
- Well, then it was into the barracks.
- And I went into the barracks.
- I never heard no more about it.
- I escaped a good hiding.
- I escaped bullying.
- How many people would there have been
- that he was counting that he had to make sure that were there?
- In my barracks there, 1,000-1,200.
- But over the whole thing was 10,000 of us, the whole camp--
- 10,000 of us.
- But on that incident, 1,000-1,200 people.
- So it would be difficult to make sure if you
- had the right number anyway.
- Well, he looks five, and five, and five, and five, and five.
- And your own kapo's got to see to it you stand in five.
- And you stand quiet and looking straight forward.
- You're not even looking around, still like a statue.
- So he can see it.
- And he counts.
- And was only four there.
- Where's the other man?
- And the kapo might cop out by the SS.
- But then I've seen it that one or two were missing.
- Oh, and the uproar--
- you stand there for hours until they do find him.
- If they don't find him, you stand for hours
- before you go in and have your meal, if you call it a meal.
- But that moment, I escaped it.
- Yeah.
- Some people actually tried to escape, didn't they?
- Yes, if you were lucky enough to escape.
- But how could you do it?
- Well, exactly.
- I don't know if they would be very lucky.
- Yeah, well, they-- some of them--
- as the saying goes, some of them did escape.
- I didn't know the people who escaped.
- It's like this, as they say, as I have heard,
- you could escape by hiding yourself in the camp.
- There must have been an occasion that two men hid themselves
- in a load of wooden planks on the field.
- They prepared it days beforehand.
- And they got underneath there.
- And nobody could find them, even the dogs couldn't find them.
- They searched for days.
- And then they gave up.
- But look, here, how are you going to escape?
- There was a occasion that British prisoner of war
- offered me to come along with them and march out of the camp.
- And they would see to it that they would get me further.
- How could I do that?
- First of all, you got very short-clipped hair.
- Secondly, you don't look this thing anymore in your face.
- And you don't walk no more as you used to.
- You are frightened.
- Suddenly, you can't talk the Polish language.
- So you get into the village, you knock at the doors,
- and you can't make yourself understandable.
- And the people had been told, anybody in a striped uniform,
- they're criminals, they're murderers.
- So don't lead them into your home.
- So how can you escape?
- If you knew the Polish language and you
- had other clothes for the moment,
- if you could get a hold of them, and probably
- make your way away, OK.
- But then it was still a long way to get out of it.
- I never thought of it.
- I only thought, keep going.
- Health-- try to keep your health and strength
- and get out the right way.
- I didn't want to die by the gun.
- And I didn't want to die by being hung.
- But I pitied those who did, were found,
- and they were marched back.
- And I remember marching in of an evening.
- And then there's a little trolley.
- And on the trolley is a man.
- And on-- around his neck is a board, I'm again here--
- [GERMAN]
- And they-- he had tried to run away.
- Then he got caught.
- And he was hung, you see.
- And that's another way of fighting for your life.
- But you lose your life that way.
- So in my mind--
- When he was there with the board around his neck,
- was that while he was still alive?
- Yes.
- They caught him.
- And then he was hanged later?
- Yes.
- And then everybody had to read it,
- you see, going by again there.
- And then the SS, they stand there, they're laughing,
- and they call out, come on, call out.
- And he says, [GERMAN].
- And again, back-- I'm back again.
- I'm back again.
- And then they hang him.
- When people tried to escape, I think they held these hangings
- in public, did they not?
- Only we were the public.
- Yes, before all the prisoners.
- The prisoners, yes.
- We all had to come out.
- We all were accounted for after work or on a Sunday.
- Everything is in order, everybody's
- there, right, bring up the prisoners.
- So they bring out those that are going to be hung, two or three.
- Only once, I saw 12.
- But several occasions, one or two.
- And then it is quiet.
- They bring the man up or who it was.
- And they get the loose--
- noose around his neck.
- And they're done away with.
- And then you're thinking so well,
- thank god I'm not the one.
- But you take pity with the man.
- But you can't do nothing.
- You can't.
- Only the hate gets bigger.
- And yeah, you can't do nothing.
- The machine guns are aimed at you.
- They could kill 1,000.
- It makes no difference.
- So you wouldn't do it again.
- And the last boy I saw hung was in September '44.
- I think it was '44, September, sometime in September,
- a young Frenchman.
- And to look at his face, he didn't even
- know what was going to happen or what he was there for.
- But they hung him.
- Probably, he sabotaged at work or tried to run away.
- I don't know.
- That was the last one I saw.
- And if I think back at the two men
- that were standing there, ready to--
- with the noose around the necks, and they called out,
- let us live.
- We will work.
- We will work.
- Let us live.
- No, no, no pity.
- And they were hung.
- Yeah.
- Who actually did the hanging?
- The kapo of the camp.
- So it was the prisoners--
- The prisoners.
- --who did it.
- Oh, yes.
- And the SS looked at it.
- Oh, yes.
- You never saw an SS get a hold of a loop, noose, or something.
- They had the camp commander.
- He had to do it.
- And he did it.
- And if he didn't die quickly, he pulled your body
- so the noose went tight around you.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
- And you got used to those things.
- And you saw yourself saying, the lord, it's not me,
- and one thing, another.
- I presume they held these hangings where you would all
- see them as a deterrent--
- Yes.
- --to keep you in line.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Look about those 12 men I saw hung when the SS--
- Would you say it was an effective deterrent?
- Yes, well--
- Because people still kept doing things wrong.
- All right.
- If you have got nothing to lose and your brains are
- like that, you've got nothing to lose, then you say,
- well, I'm going to try it.
- But I got the picture already from beginning to end.
- I can't make myself understandable.
- I don't look the right thing.
- When I said to the British prisoner of war,
- how can I march out with you?
- There is no uniform--
- khaki uniform to fit me.
- I don't look the thing.
- They would pick me out straight away.
- And they'd kill me.
- They'd shoot me.
- They'd hang me.
- So I never saw the sense in doing it.
- But if you were courageous enough to do it,
- then you do it.
- And you take that chance.
- Does it happen?
- OK.
- If it doesn't, well, you're finished.
- You won't come back.
- No.
- I never felt as courageous as that.
- Though some of the prisoners, of course, were Polish.
- And they, therefore-- could they escape,
- they at least would be able to speak, which you wouldn't.
- Yeah, they could say then-- if I would
- be-- if I'd be in England, I'd say, open the door, please.
- I'm a prisoner here.
- I'm not a criminal.
- Help me to escape.
- Then the woman or the man would say, come in,
- and I'll help you.
- But you can't-- I couldn't do that there.
- No.
- Of course, the people there in the towns and in the villages,
- they must have been also afraid for the SS.
- Of course.
- To what extent did you ever see the local inhabitants
- of the towns and villages?
- During my apprenticeship, being imprisoned,
- I seldom saw civilians, but standing, watching, or standing
- on roll call, and yes or no watching
- a hanging taking place that behind the barrack, where
- the gallows stood, they made their own gallows.
- I could see them behind the barrack,
- say, about 20 or 30 yards away from where I stood,
- behind the barbed wire, whatever it was.
- I could see somebody riding a bicycle going by--
- free, one of those men out of the village.
- If you could see him, he could see you.
- So they must have known what was there.
- Yeah, but I never saw him-- saw the man, as I see it
- now, look around and know.
- Probably on the other side were SS guards, maybe.
- And you go through.
- And you don't look this way, maybe.
- Even a bird outside on the other side of the barbed wire--
- I used to sit down sometimes near the barbed wire,
- eating my piece of bread.
- And I couldn't spare a crumb of bread
- to give to this sparrow on the other side.
- And I said to myself, you're free.
- You can fly.
- You can pick up something else.
- But I can't spare a piece, not a crumb of my bread.
- That's how it was.
- Life is beautiful.
- But you've got to fight for it.
- Did birds fly into the camp?
- Yes, but not often.
- They must have flown in between this--
- the barbed wire, into it.
- But what was it for them?
- And I don't remember it, of course.
- Most of the time, we were out of the camp.
- And in the camp, it was in the evenings.
- And you never took notice of that, only that morning,
- I just-- this come into my mind.
- I think you told me previously that, as time went on--
- this, I guess, would be end of 1944 or so--
- some of the SS guards were replaced by rather older men.
- Yes.
- This was in Monowitz.
- Say, a week or so before we left Monowitz,
- we were still marching out to work.
- And god knows what we had to work.
- We were digging big, square holes in the ground,
- almost as square as this room here.
- What they were for, I don't know, maybe
- that oncoming tanks had to fall into it or something.
- And I remember, I was with my shovel, I was busy.
- It was cold, January.
- And I took a rest.
- Sometimes, things, they were--
- let's rest a minute, it's so quiet around here.
- And I was by myself.
- So there was no one up on top watching.
- That's what I thought.
- Usually, we have one of our men there,
- making out as if he's working and looking around.
- And then those had below or wherever
- they were in the dugouts, they took a rest
- until he saw an SS or a carpenter, said, work.
- And then we start working until the kapo and SS come along,
- and they look.
- Then he walked on.
- And he said, all right, rest.
- That's how we played.
- Well, in this morning, I was staying there.
- And I took a rest and wondering, thinking,
- I dare say, well, what's going to take place?
- The Russians were coming and all that.
- And I looked up.
- And I saw the Wellingtons.
- And my eyes went eye to the Wellingtons.
- And there was a man there, I think about 60 or more
- old, not large and not small, in uniform.
- I think the uniform was much too quick-- too big for him.
- And he said, [GERMAN]--
- rest.
- Oh, that's funny, SS telling me to leave it.
- So he started talking to me about something.
- His sons had been in the war or are in the war
- and don't know where.
- Then he took his pipe out of his pocket.
- And he says, [GERMAN].
- Come to think of it now, very, very slippery, he was thinking.
- He expected us to have tobacco.
- Well, as it happened, I had found, say,
- a third of a cigarette somewhere on the ground sometime.
- And I had it in the back of my pocket.
- And that was a little bit of tobacco.
- And I don't know, it come-- probably,
- I felt pity for the man or what.
- And it only took not even five minutes or something like that.
- And I got no tobacco to smoke.
- And he's showing his pipe.
- I could have said, well, I got none, bugger off or something.
- I wouldn't say it.
- And I went, had-- my hand went to back my pocket,
- and got this bit of cigarette out.
- I says, yeah.
- And just by chance, I could reach up to him.
- It was very deep.
- Oh, danke, thank you.
- That incident, I remember.
- So he was there to guard us and me.
- And that's what happened.
- Sometimes, the better of your nature gets above you.
- Is it not odd that he would think you would have tobacco?
- Yeah.
- You see, the prisoners got--
- now and then, they got coupons to go to the canteen
- and exchange them for 20 or 10 or 20 canteen cigarettes.
- They were rubbish.
- But I didn't smoke, in any case.
- But for that, you could get a little bit of food in the camp.
- Oh, well, then he had reason then.
- You might have had some.
- So he must have thought, probably--
- and it also could be that he was transferred from somewhere
- where people were still coming in with tobacco
- or whatever it was.
- But why wouldn't he have tobacco?
- Wouldn't the SS have their own?
- Yeah, before we run out.
- And that-- probably at that time, those weeks
- or so, there was nothing coming in.
- Could be, could be.
- Well, I would think, actually, the SS ought
- to have been in quite a state at that point, in January 1945.
- Yeah, of course.
- Because I think you could actually hear the Russian guns.
- Yes, I heard the Russian guns for a long time.
- And whenever you saw the burned out and damaged material
- coming back into Germany from the Russian front,
- it was good to us.
- But the next day or two, when fresh stuff went going out,
- I would say, oh, that's bad.
- They're still fighting back, you see.
- How did you know that you were hearing the Russian guns?
- Oh, you could hear them.
- Yes, but how did you know they were Russian?
- Well, see, the Russian front.
- And we said to one another, that's the Russians.
- Who else could it be?
- And whispers went on that Russians were fighting back.
- Somebody must have got hold of a paper and put the news out.
- You said, you had looked up and seen Wellingtons.
- Yeah.
- What were they doing?
- No, not Wellington bombers.
- Oh, Wellington boots.
- Boots.
- I see.
- Sorry, no, I never saw or heard airplanes
- that called to bomb the camp.
- But I didn't see no mess of airplanes.
- No, Wellington boots, yes.
- Now, it was early in January 1945--
- Yes.
- --when, I think, you were told to prepare to leave.
- Yes.
- It must have been about 15, 16 of January, 1945.
- Yes, I think, actually, it was even a bit earlier than that--
- It could be.
- --that Buna was evacuated.
- Yes.
- But in any case, how were you told?
- Well, first of all, for weeks, they were going on, already,
- that all the Jews had to--
- no, that wasn't-- it was Buchenwald.
- No, we had an order given that we should not--
- we're not marching out to work anymore.
- That is January, still in Monowitz, yeah.
- Yes.
- And '44 in January.
- '45.
- '45.
- And so we stayed in the barracks.
- And we were told to get ready for a journey, a march.
- So in my case, we laid there on the beds.
- I got my feet--
- I covered my feet with some--
- two sleeves of a coat I found in the barrack.
- I pulled the lining out, and put them around my feet,
- and put my boots on.
- And I laid there on the bunk, all of us did.
- And we were wondering what was going to happen next.
- Well, we laid there all day and the day after that.
- And I think it was the third day when the march came
- outside, everybody outside.
- And we rushed outside.
- It was snowing.
- And there was a lot of snow on the floor.
- And there was a wave of triumph amongst us.
- We're going.
- They're losing.
- We're going.
- Hopefully, we're going the right way.
- And we marched off into Auschwitz camp,
- where I'd been formerly, with-- kept the arms locked
- into one another.
- And we arrived in Auschwitz.
- And we saw thousands of others the same as we are.
- How did that feel to come back to Auschwitz?
- Lovely, because it-- we was on the way back.
- Well, but you might have been on the way to the gas chamber.
- Could be, but somehow, we didn't feel that.
- We didn't feel because--
- well, I didn't realize, then, that a gas chamber had--
- that they could do away with thousands of people in one day.
- We didn't know that then.
- Now, it's known, they could put 1,000 and kill them
- several times a day.
- But we didn't know that then.
- And we were dressed and all that.
- So we were to march.
- And we marched.
- And we came into Auschwitz.
- And I met there seven columns-- several columns,
- also my old friend, Lane Saunders, he was there.
- I talked to him a few words.
- We'd see one another in Rotterdam.
- And then we stood there not long.
- And then, I think the same day, we marched on to Gleiwitz.
- Now, that was a terrible journey.
- Did you have any extra food or other supplies for this march?
- No.
- No, not leaving Monowitz.
- I don't think we had any extra food.
- We had our rations, and that was it.
- And we marched on to Alt Gleiwitz.
- And that was the unexpected thing of natural murder
- and murder by the SS.
- Because the journey was such a terrible thing.
- And what follows--
- You were marching from Monowitz by way of Auschwitz.
- Leaving Monowitz, there were, say, 10,000?
- 10,000 of the whole camp, yes, 10,000 of us.
- And then you must have been joined
- by an equally, if not larger number at Auschwitz.
- At Auschwitz, yes.
- Well, they all had their own way, I dare say, going.
- I only remember seeing a lot of our fellows
- and a lot of columns.
- And I dare say, the SS who had us in hand
- marched one way and another way.
- But we arrived at Gleiwitz after, I think--
- Gleiwitz from Auschwitz is a long, long walk on the map.
- If I'm right-- I might be wrong-- about 90 miles.
- And we walked all day in the snow,
- walk, walk, walk, chased along.
- Those that couldn't, they dropped out, they were shot
- or they stayed behind.
- I remember seeing one running away from my column.
- And the beautiful white snow showed him up.
- And the SS took his aim, easy and calmly,
- went down on one knee, put a gun in his shoulder,
- shot the fellow.
- Well, you're not coming home.
- Another one, I remember--
- one dropped out.
- He pushed him to the ground, took off his boots-- probably
- had a pair of good boots, I'm assuming.
- And that went on.
- The SS themselves were actually fleeing--
- Yes.
- --retreating from the Russians as well, weren't they?
- Yes.
- And taking us with them.
- So what sort of mental state were the SS in at this point?
- A mental state at the-- that if they
- had done wrong all that time, that therefore, it
- somehow afraid.
- And also, I daresay, in the back of the mind, god,
- our big German country has lost.
- So the whole lot collapses.
- They must have had that in the mind.
- Maybe some of them thought, well, thank god, it's over.
- But defeat is defeat.
- It must hurt somehow.
- It would have slowed the SS down to take you lot, you 10,000.
- But it didn't.
- It didn't, you see.
- We had to go on.
- And those that were still dying, that
- was all right, according to the Hitler program
- or whatever it was.
- The whole idea was that none of us had to remain alive.
- And give evidence to the Russians.
- Also that.
- The Russians just the same found things, must have found things.
- Because when we marched away, the ill ones
- were still in the hospital.
- I thought the SS were going to kill them.
- They had no time to do that.
- The Russians found them.
- But I was away, two days away already, from Monowitz.
- So I didn't see the Russians.
- But the march to Gleiwitz--
- on and on.
- And my feet begin-- began to give away.
- Did you pass Polish civilians on the way?
- No.
- Because they may well also have been
- retreating from the Russians.
- Could be.
- Could be.
- But as I go on with my picture, walk, walk--
- I couldn't walk anymore.
- My-- I couldn't lift my legs.
- My thighs were aching.
- And I was locked in with two men on each side.
- And we were chased along, chased along, walk, walk, walk, march.
- And I nearly fell to the ground.
- And the Frenchman next to me, he says, come on, Leon, come on,
- Englishman.
- Hurry up, keep up, keep up.
- We'll soon be there.
- And once or twice, I couldn't.
- But an SS guard came along, I looked--
- I made out as everything was OK.
- And when he went, I slowed up a bit.
- But if I slowed up, the bands behind me
- slowed up and got onto my needle-- in my heels,
- and so on.
- And the gap began.
- And they coming.
- And then the SS would come along and they go, what's the holdup?
- And then you were finished.
- I had luck again.
- I came to my senses and I got on.
- And then we stopped somewhere in a factory
- where they used to bake bricks.
- And we were inside for a rest.
- And we were glad to rest.
- We got our rest.
- We climbed up as best as we could and laid down.
- We were hungry and thirsty, but there was nothing.
- We didn't care.
- We want-- we were dead, dead tired.
- And we were out of the cold, and out of the rain,
- out of the snow, and all that.
- And then we lay there and fell asleep.
- And then all of a sudden, we were woken up,
- one another awakened, one and up.
- Come on, outside again, and march, march.
- And then I remember, in the early morning, maybe 2:00
- the morning, we passed the first village in Poland.
- And the little village is called Nikolai
- because I saw on a pole, the signpost, Nikolai.
- I'd like to find it on the map.
- I want-- only once, I've found it on the map, Nikolai.
- And we stopped there for a few seconds, halt.
- And then we had to march into the village.
- And the first thing I saw was this--
- a shoe, a little shoe shop of Bata.
- And it did so well to me, and foreman
- said, oh, lovely, the word Bata shoes, I've heard before.
- Ah, and we're going home.
- And then I remember seeing an old lady coming
- to the door and some of our fellows
- running out of our queue and getting either something
- to drink or something to eat until the SS come
- along and chased them away.
- And then went on and on.
- And I see small wagons with horses, ponies with SS on it,
- running, riding away quickly.
- And I know they were all running away from the Russians.
- And then we arrived at Gleiwitz in the evening.
- Now, that was a massacre then.
- Gleiwitz was a camp for about 1,400 prisoners, as I was told.
- Well, remember, we had a mess of people with us.
- And we all tried to get into the barracks.
- It was cold, freezing cold.
- And the strong ones, of course, got inside.
- And those that couldn't fight themselves a way in,
- they were hit back.
- And there were fighting going on.
- And I stood there.
- And I nearly got in.
- And then I couldn't.
- And I walked away.
- I didn't feel up to it to be taken under their feet
- and watching this.
- I didn't feel like it.
- So I walked away.
- I thought myself, let's wait till later on.
- And I saw something, a pieces of wood laying.
- And I sat down on that.
- I pulled a blanket around me.
- And I closed my eyes.
- I was dead, dead tired.
- I wanted to sleep.
- And I sat there.
- And it was icy cold.
- And then it went quiet.
- And I nearly fell asleep.
- And I thought myself--
- my thoughts took me back to right
- in beginning, Birkenau, where one of our Dutchmen
- froze to death.
- And I came to him--
- I came to again.
- Oh, if I sit here, I'll be dead tomorrow morning.
- I don't want to do that.
- I promised my father, I'd come back.
- So I had to come back.
- So I got up.
- And I walked over as best as I could.
- I was stiff from the cold.
- I walked to the barrack and look inside.
- And they were all snoring away, dead tired.
- They were four or five on top of one another, like a load is--
- I don't know what, full of people--
- men.
- And I climbed through the window.
- And I let myself drop onto them.
- There was no hitting.
- We were too tired.
- We were asleep.
- And I got my sleep.
- Then the next morning, I woke up,
- and we all got out in the barracks
- who wanted to get out--
- had to get out of the barracks or what and ever, had a wash.
- There was still too many people for this little camp.
- And then the call went out.
- Those that couldn't walk can remain in the camp.
- Oh, that was good.
- No more walking, no more marching,
- the possibility stay alive.
- The Russians are coming.
- That's what I thought and others thought.
- So I said to the doctor--
- you had to present yourself first to the doctor.
- And he had seen me several times in Monowitz.
- And he said, are you going to stay here?
- It's your own responsibility.
- I said, I can't walk, and I'll be shot.
- He says, you stay here, it's for your own spot.
- Only I think you ought to go.
- Well, I didn't want to.
- So he sent me to a barrack where all the wounded once went--
- sore hands, sore heads, and I-- my legs.
- And more and more were coming in there.
- And in that barrack, I found an old mate of mine
- from the street where I used to live--
- Judah Felomon.
- He was a street photographer in his way of making a living.
- And he's standing there near a fire, the stove,
- on which he was toasting some pieces of bread.
- I had to talk to him.
- And his hair was tied up, bandaged.
- He was wounded one way or another.
- And I asked him, what's going to happen to us?
- And what do you think?
- Are they going to kill us off or what?
- Anyhow, we had a little talk about it.
- And then I walked away.
- And within matter of half a minute,
- there was a lot of shouting going on.
- I looked around.
- And they had pinched his piece of bread from being toasted.
- That's how life was.
- Now, I had found in Gleiwitz in the SS barracks--
- or in one of the barracks-- a beautiful silver spoon,
- beautifully engraved.
- I put it in my pocket.
- And I found a razor and a shaving brush.
- I thought myself, well, that can be
- used if I got to shave people.
- And I earn a bit of food with it.
- So my mind was still very much in the camp.
- For me, they were tools to earn food.
- Then all of a sudden, a man jumped on me
- and got a hold of my throat.
- And he was going to choke me.
- I don't know-- didn't know what it was all about.
- And we start fighting.
- At last, he let loose.
- And one of the fellows who--
- one of the prisoners who separated us,
- they start talking.
- And then it was a Greek prisoner who
- thought I'd stolen his piece of margarine.
- I hadn't seen margarine for weeks.
- And I thought he was trying to get a hold of the spoon
- out of my pocket, the silver spoon, somehow.
- I probably had shown it to someone.
- So all that went by.
- I was saved again.
- And I was wandering there in the barrack all day.
- And all of a sudden, the window opened.
- And a SS officer was there with a leg of a chair, dare I say.
- And he banged it on the window shelf.
- He said, shh, shh, silence.
- So we all went quiet.
- There's several hundred of us in there.
- He said, all non-Jewish Germans, come outside.
- So several of us went out, non-Jewish.
- All non-Jewish French, non-Jewish Dutch,
- non-Jewish so-and-so.
- And only Jews remained then.
- And then he-- I said, well, what about me?
- I'm English.
- He said, oh, you been a-- you're a Jew?
- [GERMAN]
- I says, yes.
- And he closed the window.
- Then I start thinking, that's funny,
- only Jews in this barrack.
- The others, he let them go.
- What is he going to do to us?
- So I made up my mind to get out of that barrack.
- And I went through the door.
- And there was a SS guard with a gun.
- He pointed a gun to me.
- So I pushed back.
- Then I tried the other door, the same thing.
- I said, no, that's no good what they going to do with us.
- I want to get out.
- So somehow, I got out through the other door.
- And the gates, the barbed wire gates around the barrack
- was locked.
- And there was a SS guard outside.
- And in addition, I could see some of our men of our barrack
- who I used to work with-- and amongst them,
- the kapo who used to live in our barrack.
- And he was a decent man.
- I used to shave him, and he was quite all right.
- He was a German, but he was a decent man.
- Because he was a prisoner.
- And he wasn't a kapo in our barrack,
- but he was a kapo by some work outside.
- But he knew me.
- I knew him.
- And I called out to him.
- First, I called out some other people there.
- But they didn't take notice.
- Then I called-- I saw him, I called his name.
- Carl, Carl.
- And after a while, he looked around.
- And I must have made a lot of noise.
- And then he came.
- And I said, I want to get out.
- So he says to the SS guard, what's this man doing in here?
- He's a good worker.
- He's got to come out.
- So the SS guard said, he can't walk.
- So I said, I can walk.
- I can.
- And I walked and jumped up.
- And my luck again, he undid the chain.
- And I was out.
- As I was out, I was face to face with another Rotterdam
- friend of mine, who I knew--
- I used to work with.
- I didn't see him after that.
- I said, we see one another in Rotterdam.
- He didn't come back.
- Well, so once again, I was free.
- And then we stood on the platform
- in Gleiwitz, waiting for, as I said, a load of trucks
- would come along--
- trains.
- And we waited all day.
- And the SS were giving big pieces of sausages
- and big half-- big rations of bread.
- And we get-- got only a little piece of sausage
- and a little piece of bread.
- So I said, well, probably, they're going a long journey.
- They got to do a lot with that.
- It takes long to finish all that.
- And we were cold.
- And it was freezing.
- And we were rubbing one another's back.
- And we were standing on the platform our feet.
- And we didn't know what going to happen next.
- And the SS guard didn't know neither, standing just
- amongst us.
- And then towards getting dark, a load of trucks come along.
- You mean a train.
- Trains, yes, open trucks, cattle trucks.
- And the commander is giving, everybody in the trucks.
- Well, the strong ones, they climbed up.
- They were inside the trucks.
- And those that couldn't, they had to do it slowly.
- And I was one I couldn't do it quick.
- So here and there, the butt of the gun in your
- back until you were all in there.
- And they were all in there.
- The platform was empty.
- Thousands of us were in those trucks.
- Now, slowly, the train start to move away.
- Now, you can imagine, we all stand atop one another.
- So the strong ones said, we'll organize this.
- We'll make it right.
- They said, let's all sit down and spread your legs.
- So we all spread our legs.
- And the next one also got in between the legs.
- And the next one got in between his legs and so on.
- Well, you can't sit like that.
- We couldn't.
- We can't do that.
- And it was a load of people standing up.
- So we got up again.
- And we stood there again.
- Then we tried standing next to one another
- or sitting next to one another.
- They didn't.
- They said, well, do as you like.
- So we dropped three, four, five atop one another.
- In our truck, there was-- it must have been about 140,
- 145 people as they counted.
- Well, so I sat between two Dutchmen-- a friend of mine
- from Monowitz, Byron Dienstag.
- He was shorter, a little shorter than me,
- but well-set and strong.
- And the other Amsterdam man on the other side,
- I don't remember his name.
- Of course, I didn't know him so very well.
- And I was sitting there.
- And I was ill.
- I wasn't good at all.
- I knew I had a temperature.
- And I was beginning to talk of anything.
- But one of the things I remember I said to my friend on my left,
- I said, Byron, when you get home,
- go to my father's address.
- And I gave him the address.
- I said it.
- And like today, if I die tomorrow,
- I said, I'm alive today, tell him that I was still alive
- that and that day.
- Because I promised I'd come back.
- In any case, he'll know, then, that I did get out of the camps
- and that I still lived at that day.
- He said, yes, that's all right.
- And I must have repeated that often in my temperature view.
- And he said, yes, I'll do that for you.
- I'll do that for you.
- So we sat there, days went on, was snowing, cold.
- The train stopped, the train went, train stopped,
- train went.
- And then if I remember, it was the morning that all in turn
- had to get out and get some snow in a metal container
- so that we got--
- everybody got some snow to eat.
- There was nothing to eat.
- So it was my turn to get down.
- I could hardly because my legs weren't listening to me again.
- But anyhow, I didn't want to say no.
- I went out.
- I was bending down and shoveling with my spoon snow
- into the container, was nearly full,
- when I saw the Wellington boots next to me.
- And I looked up, SS officer.
- Bum, what are you doing here, you pig?
- Swine, shit bag.
- So I look up, I said, well, I've got to eat that.
- There's nothing to eat.
- Give us something to eat.
- He said, what eat?
- Get up.
- So he pulled me up.
- He said, help carrying your comrades.
- And I looked around.
- There's a row of our prisoners carrying things.
- I didn't exactly see what they were carrying.
- He went away.
- And I quickly climbed up the truck.
- And I handed over the bucket with snow.
- And with that, he must have seen me.
- And he pulled me down again.
- He said, I told you to help carrying you.
- So I feel, I better do it now.
- So they come along.
- And I got a hold of-- they were carrying bodies.
- I had also to carry a body.
- And two or three men carrying bodies-- they
- were blue, yellow, green, dirty, dead, frozen men
- with beards, unshaven.
- Our fellows had been-- died in the trucks--
- not a few, a lot of them.
- And then we had to carry them to the last wagon.
- Now, the last truck was a oval one, big one.
- And in there were all the bodies,
- piled up nicely on top of one another.
- I never saw so many heads and feet.
- So I did this a couple of times.
- Everyone to himself was bloody murder.
- Then I looked around and I didn't see the SS guard.
- I thought myself, that's enough for me.
- And I walked down the other truck.
- And by chance, I found my truck.
- And I climbed in and I came back.
- I sat myself down and said, I'm going
- to tell you something what's happening outside.
- I says, that, and that, and that.
- Well, we couldn't take no notice.
- You couldn't do nothing about it.
- Did they save your snow for you?
- No.
- I got in and I said, well, where's my snow?
- Ridiculous, really, because snow melts.
- And there is none.
- So it was snowing.
- And on the blankets, snow was falling down.
- I said, give me a few spoons of snow.
- Keep off it.
- Snow.
- I said, it will go.
- I was stealing.
- So I didn't get no snow.
- Why did they bother to take the dead prisoners with them?
- Proof for the Russians.
- And probably, I don't know how they did it,
- they were taking them back probably.
- There's things I still don't understand why they did it
- until we get some high official or SS man who could tell you
- why we did it because of that.
- I don't know why they did it.
- But I think too--
- they couldn't leave the bodies lying there
- on the ground, many of us, hundreds of us.
- They couldn't.
- So they took them along.
- Well, then came, in the same journey, which took five days,
- one night, I woke up.
- And I couldn't take my feet--
- my one foot was under the arms of one of the fellows.
- And this was a Rotterdam man who I
- knew in Rotterdam, a friend of my father's,
- lived in the same street of mine--
- Jaap Teibaum and his son, Jopie.
- See, because some of the Dutchmen still stuck together.
- And as it happened, they were near me.
- So I says, Jaap, leave my foot be.
- He said, no, he says, leave it like that.
- I said, put my--
- let my foot free because I can't feel it.
- It's aching.
- So my friend Dienstag, he said, don't be silly
- and leave the man's foot free.
- And his son said, go on, Dad, leave the foot be.
- The foot is not harming you.
- So he let go.
- And then he got up.
- And he said, you always make trouble, you people.
- He said, I'm going to get out of the train.
- And I'll be home before you.
- Jaap Teibaum said this?
- Jaap Teibaum.
- And he walked across our bodies and climbed out of the train.
- And I never saw him again.
- His son was still all right.
- But I didn't see his son either.
- He must have died coming into Buchenwald after that.
- Byron Dienstag is also no more alive.
- All my pals are gone who I knew, all of them were gone.
- Did people try to stop Teibaum?
- No.
- No.
- A truck is as big as that.
- So if that happened, and you walk over there,
- and you feel miserable-- well, I felt--
- I was sick.
- I was ill, the temperature and all that.
- So you don't know what's going on, really on, around you.
- And I see him climb out and drop down when
- the train stopped somewhere.
- And they must have saw him and shot him.
- But he went mad in the end, you see.
- He went mad.
- I understand you were on that train for about five days.
- Can you tell me about your arrival at Buchenwald, please?
- Yes.
- I probably did mention to you about the hot soup
- and the bread thrown into our wagon during the journey.
- How frequently did you have that?
- Only once, one evening, in the dark.
- They threw over 25 full loaves, round loaves of bread
- for 100 and-- over 140 people.
- And the weak got nothing.
- And the strong ones-- of course, they did.
- But my friend, Byron Dienstag, he
- got up and came back with a chunk of bread in his hand
- and a chunk of bread for me because I couldn't
- stand up and fight that.
- And then there was one evening that they called out
- how many people there were.
- And we had to share, then, hot soup three men to one bucket
- because our bucket where we used to have our soup out,
- we used for--
- call of mother nature's and then slung out of the train.
- So there were very few containers left.
- And I remember, I got up, I wanted something hot to drink.
- And I stood there with one man.
- And he let me put my mouth to the bucket.
- And I took one little sniff of soup in my mouth.
- It was too hot.
- And I just went back again.
- So I was unfortunate to get that.
- I felt it was nothing given to us.
- Well, the train went on.
- And it was a terrible journey because so many died.
- Every morning, four or five were taken out of every truck.
- And some of our prisons had to do that.
- Where did you think you were going?
- We had no idea where we were going.
- We didn't know.
- We just went and we stopped.
- And we went and we stopped.
- And we came somewhere.
- It must have been Czechoslovakia,
- getting into Germany.
- And one morning, early morning, 7 o'clock or 6-7 o'clock--
- people were walking over the bridge.
- Of course, our train went under a bridge very slowly.
- And people started throwing their sandwiches into our wagon
- as the train went.
- But then the SS started shooting.
- And then they didn't throw anymore.
- Not that I've seen there, but I see
- the little packets coming over into the train moving along.
- And this went on.
- And the fifth evening, I reckon it was about half past 5:00,
- 6 o'clock, it stopped in a camp.
- And then after a few minutes, we heard people, the boys or so,
- mentioned Buchenwald.
- Well, the strong ones jumped out of the trucks.
- And there were many dead ones laying in my truck.
- They didn't move.
- And the weak ones were helped down.
- And I was helped down.
- But I had very bad feet.
- They were swollen up like elephant feet.
- And there were a dirty matter and funny colors.
- So I couldn't walk very well.
- And as I stood there, the side of the truck,
- I was held down by a man, a prisoner who was
- dressed in a dark green coat.
- Later on, I was told they were the camp police.
- And I stood there.
- And I saw my friend, Byron Dienstag.
- And I called out to him, whether he
- could help me to walk towards a wall or the side of a barrack,
- where I could stand up.
- And he did that.
- That's the very last time I saw him.
- As I stood there, I tried to make my way
- towards the door of the barrack where we were standing outside.
- But there were so many of us standing
- there trying to get in that the door opened,
- and one of the other camp police in green uniform,
- he had a club in his hand.
- He opened door.
- And he started lashing out his stick
- so a few hundred men walked backwards.
- And I came to lay on the ground.
- And they stamped on top of me.
- I called out, help, help.
- And they somehow got a hold of me and picked me up.
- And then all by myself, I crawled almost to the door.
- And the door went open.
- And I was let inside.
- And I stood there.
- And one of the prisoners there--
- I daresay a kapo, under kapo--
- he told me to undress, take your striped uniform off.
- I was dirty from top to bottom.
- I didn't know what was happening to me.
- I was inside.
- I didn't care anything what I had
- in my pocket, my silver spoon, or what
- I had tried to take along as a souvenir, or a razor,
- or a shaving brush.
- Nothing could matter more to me.
- I just took my jacket off and I dropped my trousers.
- And there I stood, naked.
- And I set myself down on a chair that was standing there.
- And I looked around.
- And what I saw was this--
- the ground was covered by slowly-moving bodies, bone
- and skin, heads like skeletons, slowly moving.
- I remember, I once was, as a child, in a fish market.
- And I looked in one of those zinc boxes
- in which were a lot of eels crawling to and fro.
- And here were human beings crawling,
- trying to get to a leaking tap in the corner of the barrack.
- And I watched one of them pull themselves up
- on the edge of the sink and let the drops of water
- go into his mouth.
- And then he sank back, let go, and he laid on the ground.
- And then some other prisoner came along and took him,
- carrying him along the ground, into a corner.
- And I looked up.
- And I remember, I saw a hairdresser,
- a barber standing there, clipping
- hair of other prisoners.
- And I talked to him.
- And he made himself known that he was a Dutchman.
- He had a hairdressing salon in Maassluis, Holland.
- I was taken away as a prisoner.
- And I said, the people are drinking water.
- Wouldn't that be bad for their health?
- Which, of course, my mind was fixed
- on drinking water in Birkenau.
- It would be bad for your health.
- So he said, no, let them drink.
- They're as good as gone.
- So don't refuse those few drops of water.
- And then I tried lifting some of those skeletons up.
- So they could put their head, their mouth
- underneath the drops of water.
- But I could only do that a few times.
- I was too weak myself.
- Anyhow, I sat back on a chair, and waited,
- and asked the hairdresser, what is
- going to happen with us here?
- Are they going to kill us off?
- Are they going to put us in the gas chamber?
- So he looked at me and said, there's
- no gas chamber here in Buchenwald.
- And if they were going to kill you off,
- why should I have to cut the hair,
- clip the hair of the prisoners?
- So that satisfied me a little.
- And when I was waiting, say, half an hour
- or so, a prisoner came along and told me to follow him.
- Somehow, I followed him.
- And another few who could still move about followed.
- And I remember, went into a big bath with little water.
- About six of us went in there.
- And we laid there in the water.
- And I was glad because it would take some of my dirt
- off my body.
- And then we were withheld out of the bath and laid on the floor
- to dry.
- Was your bath cold?
- Warmish.
- But I remember, Lysol kills.
- It's a disinfection.
- So I liked it.
- No soap whatsoever, you just lay there
- and let the water get over you.
- Well, when you're-- after a little while,
- you were taken out of the bath and laid on the floor.
- By whom?
- By prisoners, former prisoners who were there seeing to it.
- I guess nobody knew exactly what was happening.
- Well, I didn't know, anyhow.
- I just went the way the wind went.
- One thing I remember, I was out of the cold, out of the misery,
- I was inside.
- Of course, I was ill.
- I had a temperature and all that.
- But my brains were still fairly well.
- And then we were taken on a barrow to another barrack.
- And we were all spread out on the floor--
- a huge lot of men, hundreds of them.
- And when I was laying there, another column of men
- came in and went downstairs to the baths,
- to have a bath, the same things, I daresay, as I had.
- And amongst them was my friend Jacques de Wolf.
- He lived in The Hague.
- But I met him nearly every day in Monowitz.
- And I called out his name.
- And he looked around.
- And he saw me and he called out my name
- and only went with his--
- in the queue.
- And I didn't see him until I got back to Holland later on.
- But there, I was laying on the floor.
- And there was a man sitting at a table,
- some 20 or 30 yards from me.
- There was a big barrack.
- And one of his assistants, also all prisoners,
- they went from man to man laying on the floor.
- And he had to call out your name.
- And you got a number.
- So when it was my turn--
- A different number?
- A different number.
- When it was my turn, I was laying there.
- And the man in front, the assistant,
- was looking at and touching those men.
- And then he came to the man in front of me, who didn't move.
- And I did move.
- So he called out--
- I had to call out my name.
- And I got a number, 120,000--
- 120,931.
- And then the man in front of me moved.
- And then the assistant said, oh, hold on a minute.
- He said, this one here is still alive.
- So he-- I got 130.
- And they moved to him.
- It was 120,930 he got.
- I dare say, he lived five minutes, and then he was gone.
- But I got 120,931 Buchenwald number.
- The man at the table was putting that in his books
- or on his register.
- I didn't hear or think no more about that.
- And then loads of us were loaded, again,
- onto a kind of trolley or a barrow.
- And we went to another barrack.
- And there we lie.
- Why did you have a new number?
- Well, that's how it was done.
- Our Auschwitz number wasn't talked about no more.
- I dare say, we were a new lot of prisoners
- coming into Buchenwald.
- I never went-- I never thought more about it.
- But it is so.
- To keep their records straight, did they also take down
- your Auschwitz number?
- No, they didn't ask for my Auschwitz number.
- No.
- But from hearsay, Buchenwald had, I think,
- 68,000 registered prisoners--
- of course, thousands were not registered.
- They were killed off somehow or whatever.
- When the Americans liberated Buchenwald,
- there were only about 21,000 left.
- There were very many stories about how people
- were killed off in Buchenwald.
- But I wasn't in Buchenwald all my prison life.
- So I don't know exactly if that's all true.
- I dare say it is true, killing people, hanging them
- up, beating them to death, and all that.
- Were you tattooed with your new number?
- No, I wasn't tattooed with any number.
- Or did you have a label or something?
- No.
- Later on I got on a kind of a card, they had the number.
- But it's a little bit vague now.
- I know, when I left Buchenwald, I had a card.
- And on my card is my Buchenwald number, and my name, and so on.
- I still got that.
- Or it's in the library, Wiener Library.
- Yes.
- So you were taken--
- To that barrack
- --still naked to another barrack?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And we had to crawl into the so-called bunks or beds.
- Well, they were compartments of about that height.
- How high would that be?
- 30?
- 18 inches?
- 18 inches, yes.
- On top of one another, it was about one,
- two, three, four lots like that.
- And underneath went those that were so good as dead.
- They were helped in there.
- I went into the second lot.
- I was still alive and movable.
- And the third lot people climbed by themselves-- and the fourth
- on top.
- And we had to lay in there, one with the head outside
- and the other with his head inside.
- And his feet came in out next to the head.
- And the third one went in again with his head out.
- And the next one, the feet inside.
- And that's how we laid.
- If you want to try to sit up, you couldn't properly
- sit up because you'd knock your head
- against the bunk above you.
- And as I look across, all those compartments
- were full, full of prisoners, the same way,
- laying like that, just like loaves of bread
- at a bakery shop.
- Well, we laid there.
- Did you have blankets?
- No, no, no, we just lay there naked.
- And nothing was done yet to us--
- no doctor, nothing, no food until the following day.
- Following day, hot soup was brought
- in with the metal containers and shared out in buckets.
- And that was very welcome to me and to the others.
- But next to me was a man who had a hole in his cheek,
- if I remember.
- And he told me, he was shot there or something.
- And as he ate the soup, it just came away from his--
- through his mouth.
- So I told him, lay on the other side,
- gave him room to lay on the other side
- so that the soup could stay in and that he could swallow it.
- It's very hot soup.
- So he had to do it slowly on.
- But he couldn't finish it all.
- And what he couldn't finish, I had after I had finished mine.
- So were you eating lying down?
- Lying down, just-- no spoons, just put the bucket to you
- and try to swallow it like that.
- And then you gave the bucket back
- when it was empty or something.
- I don't remember.
- There was no room to put it next to you.
- I don't remember that.
- Then the next day, about a dozen doctors
- came in, all in a hurry.
- And then they searched everybody.
- And they nearly missed me because I want to--
- I was thinking, what are they doing, examining
- people and some are going--
- being taken out and all that?
- And then I called out, I've got some wounds as well.
- And I did have wounds on my feet and my hand.
- And they accepted me.
- And I was taken out with some others, also on a trolley,
- to another barrack.
- Well, in that barrack, we went into bed.
- I counted 26 prisoners in that ward.
- And it was the best ward and the best bed I had since my coming
- to Birkenau.
- There was a sheet, and there was a blanket,
- and there was a pillow.
- So some of us were Jewish prisoners, some of us
- were non-Jewish.
- We had the Danish police there, who had
- been taken away from Denmark.
- We had Czechs laying there all amongst us.
- I counted about 26 people, and one to a bed.
- And then we got the camp doctor, I dare say,
- one of the doctors coming around from man to man.
- And he looked at the feet.
- And whoever he saw with the bad feet, [GERMAN]..
- [GERMAN] meant cut, cut, cut the feet off and all that.
- We all were taken down.
- The names were taken down, all the numbers were taken down,
- whatever.
- And this didn't happen until a couple of days later on.
- The ward was stinking with the smell of rotten feet.
- Well, I saw someone go--
- being taken away, coming back with no feet, or one foot off,
- and all that.
- And I remember my turn.
- And I prayed and I begged, don't cut my feet.
- They're just chilblains.
- I have them every winter.
- And they heal again.
- Don't cut them.
- I'm a British subject.
- And very shortly, the Americans will be here.
- I don't know where I got all the words from.
- And this assistant looked at me.
- The assistant was a communist who
- had been about a dozen years already in prison.
- And I don't know.
- He listened to me.
- He said, but you're a Jew.
- I said, yes, but that makes no difference.
- I prayed.
- And by gum, instead of cutting, somehow,
- he put plenty of Vaseline on my feet, and I went--
- he took me back to bed again.
- There was no other medicine.
- And when I was laying in bed there, he just slanted over me.
- There was a bunk.
- And there was in there a young Dutchman, a boy no
- more than 17 years of age.
- And he used to give a boxing demonstration in Monowitz,
- I remember.
- And this fellow came from Amsterdam.
- His name was Oppie Perels--
- red-haired boy.
- And he had his feet cut off.
- But before it was done to him, we
- were talking and arguing about--
- he said, I'll never see my parents and my sister again.
- And I said, well, I hope to see my wife.
- He says, look, I'm sure I won't see my sister and my parents
- anymore.
- I said, how sure can you be?
- So we argued about it.
- And then he said, now, you tell me, how did you see your wife?
- How was it the last time?
- And I told him, I came into Birkenau,
- and they were loaded on a truck and taken away.
- He said, stop.
- He said, so that's how it happened.
- Those people that were loaded on a truck,
- they went to the gas chamber.
- And they were killed off, he said.
- I know, because I worked near and I saw what was happening.
- I said, well, it may be so.
- But I hope to see my wife and child back.
- But he was very--
- he was right, somehow.
- Then it was his turn to go down or some-- in another barrack
- to have his feet cut off.
- And he said to me, if you can, shake my bed up a bit
- so when I come back, I'll lay a bit better.
- And I shook his cushion up.
- I couldn't do much myself.
- And I went back to bed.
- And then in a little while, they brought him back.
- And he woke up out of his--
- after the operation, he started crying, crying,
- and shouting, screaming, what they done to me?
- What have they done to me?
- Well, he quieted down then.
- And we were there some days then.
- And I remember that I heard whispers
- that the SS had stopped a train loaded with parcels
- sent to us by the Red Cross.
- But then all of a sudden, one day, parcels did come in.
- But the SS had taken the cigarettes out of it,
- the chocolate out of it, and all the good things.
- And what did they leave us?
- Tins of sardines and biscuits.
- Well, we all more or less knew what dysentery was.
- So if you had that oil, sardine oil,
- it might bring on dysentery again.
- But there-- it was food, so we ate it.
- And we had our morning cup of imitation tea or coffee,
- what it was-- imitation.
- And we had our piece of bread, the usual thing which you
- get in a concentration camp.
- Before you tell me more about that, when Oppie Perels told
- you what he thought might have happened to your wife and son,
- which you didn't wish to believe at that point,
- what did you think about that?
- I thought it was terrible, alas.
- I should think it was not true.
- I mean, my mind--
- I must have been stupid thinking that all
- those millions of people there must be somewhere.
- All what I knew is if they were too weak to work,
- they went to the gas chambers.
- But healthier people were arriving from a country
- there to be killed off, I didn't want to believe it
- until a long time after that, when I got back to Holland
- and I went to the Hague.
- And if I wanted to get married or started courting seriously,
- I would have had to have black and white
- that I wasn't married anymore, that my wife was in the war.
- So I went to The Hague.
- And the Red Cross, they produced papers and gave me papers
- that my wife and my little son had been gassed,
- killed at Auschwitz in the gas chambers.
- So I had to believe that.
- And when I ask them, how many people came back
- from that transport of that and that date that left Westerbork,
- he said, only two men got back, according to our papers here.
- And you are one of the two.
- And the other one is Leon Borstrock.
- I didn't-- I had to accept it.
- But I still hoped that I would see my wife and child--
- perhaps that they were liberated by the Russians,
- perhaps they had been sent somewhere else,
- and they'd come out.
- But then as time went on, I realized it was so.
- Well, getting back to--
- But whilst you were actually at Buchenwald,
- you didn't allow yourself to accept what he had told you?
- No.
- No.
- I didn't accept it until I got back to Holland.
- You mentioned in passing that Danish police were
- with you at Buchenwald.
- Yes.
- Were you actually in daily contact with them?
- Yes.
- They were wounded also.
- They were laying in the bed next to me.
- And they received parcels, either from home
- or from the Red Cross.
- But they had parcels.
- And several times, they gave me their bucket of soup to me.
- I didn't get any of the parcels, whatever
- was in it, bread or something like that.
- But they just gave me the bucket of soup.
- And they told me they were police
- opposing the Nazis in Denmark.
- And they were sent to Buchenwald--
- several hundred of them, as they told me at that time.
- Had they been there for some time?
- Or had they just come as you had?
- No, no, they were laying in bed when I arrived in that ward
- and got into bed.
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- But I didn't understand the language.
- So I didn't have a lot of conversation with them.
- Would you have spoken with them in English?
- Oh, yes.
- German?
- Yes.
- There was-- next to me, on my other side in bed, there was--
- I think it was a Czechoslovak man who
- had knowledge of a lot of languages and also English--
- and, of course, German.
- And I told him--
- we got in conversation, one another, English and German.
- And I said to him, I told him who I am, Englishman and so on,
- and so on.
- And I said, would you like to do me a favor?
- You understand the English language
- and the German language.
- If I tell you what something in English,
- you could translate into German, and write it down.
- I said, because I want to send a letter
- to the political department in Buchenwald
- and tell them that I'm really wrongly imprisoned
- in the concentration camps.
- And now that I'm in Germany, Buchenwald is Germany,
- I want something done about it.
- That's the way I thought--
- very, very stupid of me.
- It means that when I thought those things
- and said this to this man, that in some way,
- I had faith in the SS, that they would review my petition
- and they could do something about it.
- So I start telling him in English my name, where I lived,
- my wife's name, my child that was
- taken away out of Westerbork, and my British nationality.
- They had no right to keep me here.
- And now that I'm in Germany, I would like to be--
- my case would like to be reviewed,
- and that I would be sent home.
- How ridiculous I was thinking.
- But I did think that, really.
- And he wrote it down in German.
- I said, thank you very much because I
- was going to give this to the prisoner assistant
- of that ward who saw me daily.
- The nurse?
- The nurse, the male nurse, this man who was a communist,
- and ask when he came in to take temperature.
- Every evening, they did this.
- And he came to me.
- And I gave him this letter.
- And I said in German to him then, please hand this
- to the political department.
- And he opened it.
- It was a folded bit of paper, must have got
- a hold of this from the desk of the doctor or somewhere.
- But anyhow, it was written on paper.
- And he read it.
- He stood away from the bed and he read it.
- And when he finished, he turned around to me.
- And he came like this with his finger--
- you and me.
- Drew a line across his neck?
- Yes, finished, dead.
- And he took a hold of it.
- And he tore it up.
- And he took it away and put it--
- and I was disappointed again.
- But I suppose, he would have taken this there,
- he would have been killed.
- I would have been killed.
- Because we were proof.
- I was told the world.
- Well, there, I was saved again, my ignorance.
- And I had done this before--
- now, I'm telling you this-- in Monowitz or in Auschwitz.
- I had given-- written--
- I got a hold of a pencil somehow.
- And I wrote on a bit of paper the same thing--
- who I was, I was wrongly here as a prisoner, and my wife,
- and child.
- The whole lot, I put on paper and gave it to one of the boys,
- one of the prisoners there who had a chance
- to meet a British prisoner of war as he was told me.
- And this prisoner of war could give it
- to the Red Cross, who came to visit
- the British prisoner of war.
- That's how I was thinking.
- I've tried everything to get out of it.
- Well, I never heard any more about it.
- I doubt whether he ever gave this letter.
- You said, you wrote to the political department.
- Yes.
- What made you think there was such a thing?
- Well, way back in Monowitz--
- no, in Auschwitz, when I was taken
- to the medical department, and they experimented on my body,
- and this SS officer said to me, I
- can't help you with your nationality,
- I'm only here to supervise the medical practices here,
- and you got to get in touch with the political department.
- Of course, the political department must have been,
- say, one or two SSes who's got to do with the nationalities.
- And I thought that was in every camp, one of those.
- You said, you did that partly because you
- were in Germany now--
- Yes.
- --Buchenwald.
- How did you know you were in Germany?
- Well, Buchenwald is in Germany.
- Yes, we know that.
- But did--
- I mean, Weimar--
- Buchenwald was near Weimar.
- And Weimar is in Germany.
- I remember it from school.
- Yes.
- So how-- had you seen a sign or something?
- No, I was-- I heard that.
- We heard other prisoners coming in to visit some-- probably
- somebody's mates laying in bed.
- And we had-- we heard talk about it.
- These Danish police again--
- Yes.
- --if I can ask you a bit more--
- did you have any opportunity to talk
- with them about their experiences or work in Denmark?
- No.
- You said, they were involved in resistance.
- No.
- All what I could make out is that they were Danish police.
- And they must have opposed the Nazis in Denmark
- and were taken prisoner and sent to Buchenwald.
- They were non-Jews.
- Non-Jews, they were.
- Were they separated from you or treated differently from you?
- No, no.
- In that ward, we all-- we just--
- when our soup was dealt out, it went from bed to bed.
- They were treated the same way as us in what I can remember
- and what I've seen and could see.
- Only they had more food.
- They had their parcels coming in.
- They were allowed parcels, whereas we never had parcels.
- Were you ever allowed letters--
- I mean, cards, something like that?
- Not the sort of letter you wanted to write,
- not in Buchenwald, not in Monowitz, not in Auschwitz.
- But in Birkenau, in the beginning, we--
- I remember, the-- we were all in a barrack,
- a lot of our men in a barrack.
- And the word went round-- you can write home.
- So we all got a card given.
- And on that card, you can only put--
- and if you couldn't write German,
- somebody who could write German had to do it for you.
- We arrived here safely.
- Work is all right.
- Food is very good.
- And we're healthy.
- So you could put on that card the reverse of what
- was really taking place.
- Well, I had told my father, if ever
- I be taken away to a concentration camp--
- in this case, we only knew of Auschwitz--
- that if I send him a letter or a card and on there was--
- everything was good, reverse it 100,000 times.
- Because that-- and as it happened, he got this card.
- Because only few of these cards were taken to post.
- There were thousands of cards.
- And I think they were all put on in a box.
- And one SS, whoever who did it, took one handful
- and posted them.
- But my card got through.
- And my card is in the Wiener Library.
- And on there, it's written.
- That's the only time you had post, never no more after that.
- Never no more after that.
- You said, when they were threatening
- to amputate your feet, you said, don't do it
- because it's only chilblains.
- And for another thing, the Americans are coming.
- Yes.
- What made you think that?
- Well, all those whispers were going.
- And we knew we were going towards the end of the war.
- Somehow, we got to know.
- Yes.
- Well, you had heard the Russians coming
- when you were in Holland.
- Yeah, but we was a long way from Russia and from the Russians
- now.
- Yes.
- We had traveled two days from Auschwitz
- when the Russians arrived in Auschwitz
- and five days-- that's a week we were away from the Russians.
- And what we could hear from other prisoners coming
- in and out, the Americans were coming in.
- And also, I remember that in Buchenwald-- in Monowitz,
- when the Americans were trying to get into Germany and they
- were hit back--
- hitting back at the Ardennes, so they must have been coming.
- Of course, I didn't know they were
- coming within a matter of hours or a matter of months.
- But I said this, more or less, to make them see, make
- this man see that something might happen if he took
- my toes off or my feet off.
- Did you have any evidence other than rumor?
- I mean--
- No.
- --hearing or seeing aircraft?
- No rumor.
- Later on, later on, yes, when I was taken out of this barrack.
- I must have been about three weeks or more in this barrack.
- And my feet were, to my luck, almost normal.
- The swellings were gone.
- But one big toe on my left foot, which
- was amputated later on in Paris after liberation, was swollen.
- And if I knocked it on the edge of the bed or something,
- dirty matter came out.
- But somehow, they had enough of me in there.
- And I was going to be sent out of the barrack,
- out of the hospital barrack.
- And the evening came.
- And I was worrying myself.
- I got to go out in the cold in the winter.
- And who knows what's going to happen.
- And they took a temperature of me, say, what, about 6 o'clock
- or so.
- And he looked at me.
- He said, you've got a temperature.
- What's wrong with you?
- I said, well, I've got a pain in my ear.
- And he looked.
- And he said, god, he says, erysipelas.
- That's very catching.
- He said, out, tomorrow morning, out, quick, out.
- So I've almost said, out, quick, out, what's wrong now?
- But I was-- a kind of a happy feeling went through me.
- I was ill again.
- And I could go into hospital.
- So I was loaded on a small burrow
- the next morning after they put some paper
- bandage around my foot.
- I was taken to another barrack, where hundreds of men
- were suffering from erysipelas.
- Erysipelas is a medical term.
- It means--
- Yes, it's a streptococcal inflammation.
- Is it?
- So I came into the barrack.
- And I remember sitting on a bunk there, on a seat, wooden seat.
- And a Russian doctor was there.
- He came over to me.
- And he looked at me.
- He looked at my ear.
- And he looked at my foot.
- The paper bandage was already coming off, crepe paper.
- And he started talking to me.
- And I mentioned to him that I'm an Englishman.
- So we-- in broken German, he said to me,
- English, England, England?
- So he called out, Albert, to the other doctor,
- who with another man came up he was a doctor and this
- was by the name of Albert Kongs--
- Kongs.
- Albert Kongs was a doctor from Luxembourg
- who had been arrested because of his resistance movement,
- something like that, I was told.
- He came over.
- And he started talking English to me.
- And he knew then all about me, told him how or what.
- He said, never mind, he said, you're
- going to stay here until the end of the war.
- We'll see to your foot.
- And we'll see to your face.
- He said, go on.
- Now, get into bed.
- So I went into bed.
- I crawled at the third.
- There were bunks again, three on top of one another.
- I got into the top one.
- And as I was laying, I was laying
- on a dirty sheet, sheets which had been there for months.
- And everybody had been in it.
- So I climbed down again somehow.
- And I went to the doctor, who was still
- standing there talking.
- I said, is it possible to be for a clean sheet?
- So he looked at me, he said, look, now, those sheets--
- the washing hasn't come in yet.
- He said, you're still here.
- And I realized, I was still a prisoner.
- So I climbed back again and just lay down
- on the sheets and the blanket.
- This ward was more like the prison barracks, then, rather
- than the other, which had beds?
- No doubt.
- Yes, it was different again.
- I was back into the bunks, the wooden bunks, like a barrack.
- And there were hundreds of men laying there.
- I remember, there was a man from Belgium.
- He had-- his eyes were swollen outside.
- He was blind.
- He couldn't see.
- He couldn't see.
- And I talked to him.
- Flemish is Dutch almost.
- And I helped him eating, give him his soup to eat.
- He was very thankful.
- He told me, when you get to Belgium after liberation,
- come and see me.
- And he gave me a pair of blue gloves later on,
- as the eyes opened up somehow.
- And he got a little better.
- And he didn't want to live.
- But I talked and talked.
- And I fed him.
- And the friendship made him realize,
- there was more than just dying.
- After liberation, I went to his place,
- but no one knew who he was.
- I don't know whether he came back or not.
- Then I remember that--
- Before you tell further about the other patients,
- was this Dr. Albert Kongs the one
- that had been in resistance?
- Yes.
- Let's say, as they told me, he had been in resistance
- in Luxembourg.
- What did you find out about that, about his resistance?
- Nothing.
- I didn't.
- I only knew, he was a very kind man to me.
- He came every morning, telling me
- the news, how the war was progressing.
- And then I got moved to another part of the barrack.
- And I laid underneath in the bunk in the bed.
- And I came to lay next to Oscar Rothschild.
- Oscar Rothschild-- Rothschild was a German Jew from München--
- I think it was München--
- who had-- he told me all this.
- He had, with his parents, a clothing shop, men's clothing
- shop in--
- I think it was München, he mentioned.
- And he had been--
- he escaped from Germany to Holland.
- And he was taken up by the SS in Holland
- and sent to various camps.
- And he landed in Buchenwald.
- And he was in the bunk next to me.
- And he was skin and bones.
- And he went worse and worse every day.
- And we talked.
- He could talk Dutch because he had been
- living in Holland some time.
- And told me, he had a clothing shop in Groningen
- and so on, and so on.
- But he suffered with dysentery.
- And I took him many times to the lavatory
- and brought him back again, cleaned him up,
- a shocking business.
- And then one morning, he said to me, take my piece of bread
- and get me some ginger cake, gingerbread,
- from the Frenchman over there.
- The Frenchman was a non-Jew.
- He was laying in a bunk, also ill.
- I said, look, Oscar, if you do that, your dysentery gets
- worse.
- And he didn't want to listen.
- So I had to do it.
- I took his piece of bread to the Frenchman
- while the kapo wasn't looking.
- I crawled out of bed and walked over to the Frenchman,
- told him a bit of bread.
- Of course, bread was gold in the camp.
- And the Frenchman had a parcel.
- And he had-- he cut a piece of ginger cake off it.
- And I took it back to Oscar.
- And he ate it.
- Well, I lay there in bed.
- And every morning, the doctor came around
- and told me some news.
- And when I noticed the kapo coming in,
- I stuck my head under the blankets
- and lay very quiet, like most of us were.
- I was laying near the windows.
- And he came along, the kapo, look in the beds.
- And of course, he must have saw, well, they're all dead,
- laying, or half-- nearly dead.
- There's nothing but-- nobody moving,
- covered with the blankets.
- Then he passed by.
- And I played this game every morning.
- I didn't want to get out into the open
- because I felt that I was on the way home.
- So I wanted to play it so that I stayed in.
- In any case, I wasn't strong to march or to work.
- I think there was an Italian prisoner named
- Levi in the hospital at that time, was there?
- Yes, yes, yes.
- He came walking in.
- He was small, thin, slim man, black hair, black, beady eyes,
- white face.
- And he had a white gown over him.
- Him-- probably came-- probably from the showers
- or from the bath.
- He was walking to his bunk.
- He had his bunk given to him.
- And he laid it across where I was.
- And we got pally with one another.
- He came in.
- And he told me, he has stomach trouble.
- And he laid over across me.
- And we somehow converted.
- Not much-- he was a Catholic, he told me, Catholic.
- And in the beginning, he only had a little of his soup.
- And the rest, he gave to me.
- And days went by.
- And I saw this man slowly dying.
- And then we used to converse, Oscar and me and this Italian.
- Then he didn't talk anymore.
- And there was one day, I watched him.
- He was almost dead.
- And I watched him.
- He was looking at one thing.
- His eyes were staring at one thing.
- Up comes his arms, slowly, just moving about,
- trying to fight off god knows what it was-- death
- or whatever it was.
- He had a little smile on his face.
- And I looked at his eyes, they were still shining.
- And I watched him.
- I want-- I wanted to see him so I could see later on when
- I'm free what--
- how the people-- how they were killed or how they died.
- And then took only a matter of minutes--
- I'd been watching him for hours--
- half an hour, a quarter of an hour,
- or 10 minutes, and then his arms went down on the blankets,
- they stopped moving, his smile disappeared.
- Somehow, his eyes were glassy.
- And then he was no more.
- And if that happened, you had to call out.
- And the doctor came along and examined him.
- He was dead.
- Kapo came along.
- And two prisoners that painted his number on his chest,
- big numbers on his chest--
- they did it with all the prisoners that were dead.
- So wherever they took them, from a distance,
- they could see that number.
- Because the number on the arm was very small.
- And they took him in the sheet.
- Two men got a sheet at the back, two front.
- And they took him out.
- It's the last I saw of Levi Olivi.
- The kapo came in, look in his bunk,
- and lifted up a bit of broken pillow.
- And his strap was there, his lattice strap with--
- which he had when he walked in.
- I said, may I have his strap, kapo?
- He looked at me and said, all right, have it.
- So I got his strap.
- I still got it.
- Strap for what?
- A leather strap.
- A belt?
- Belt, yes.
- If he was Catholic, why was he in concentration camp?
- I don't know.
- I don't know that.
- Because it sounds like a Jewish name.
- Yeah, but he didn't-- he told me, Catholic, Catholic.
- That's what I understood.
- And the soup was dished out.
- And the kapo said, you have his portion of soup.
- You've been looking after him.
- I remember this, near the bunk of mine,
- there were others who had been looking many a time,
- trying to grab his food.
- Of course, we all were hungry.
- Well, that was the end of Levi Olivi.
- And I didn't see any more of him.
- Then the days went on.
- And I think, I shaved the doctors and the kapos.
- But Oscar Rothschild was getting worse and worse.
- And he had to get into another bunk near the window.
- And Oscar always used to say to me, I'm going back to Holland.
- I'm going to get back to Holland.
- I know, he said.
- I said, I hope so.
- Then comes the day that Dr. Albert Kongs says,
- we all got to leave Buchenwald.
- We got to empty the camp.
- I said, well, I can't walk as I should walk with marching.
- I can't.
- I said, my feet are aching me.
- So I said, can't I somehow take the place of somebody else?
- Give me the number of this Italian man who had
- died the day before and so--
- and take my number, put my number--
- I had died.
- And I don't know what I was saying that for.
- But I wanted to remain in the camp.
- The doctor said, no, that's no good changing
- numbers and all that.
- That's-- you don't need to do that.
- He said, but we all--
- Everyone had to go or only Jews?
- Everyone.
- Well, according to the doctor, the camp had to be emptied.
- That were the orders from Berlin or something like that.
- And I remember that I said, well,
- I'd rather jump out of the window and do something else.
- I can't march.
- And they shoot me.
- Because I had in my mind that-- what
- they did on the march from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz.
- If you couldn't march, they shot you
- because you're holding up the troop.
- So he says, well, even I got to go, he said.
- I don't know what's going to happen.
- Well, it didn't come as far as that.
- It didn't come as far as that.
- I remember that during the stay in Buchenwald, in the hospital
- barrack, I got a little better.
- But I hid myself under the blankets
- to make out that I was very ill.
- So there comes a day that I'm--
- there is no kapo about.
- So I get out of my bed.
- And I hear a lot of noise.
- And I get to the window.
- And I look out of the window.
- And I see between the barracks, so the street
- between the barracks is covered with--
- loaded with people, with fellows walking towards my barrack.
- Some were carrying guns and loud calling.
- And I realized they were prisoners
- who had been taken away by the SS into the woods
- or into the barracks, locked up as the whispers went.
- And they were strong.
- To me, they look all strong and man--
- not only Jews, everybody.
- I don't think there were many Jews.
- There were a lot of non-Jews there.
- And they were somehow set free.
- But in the morning, that same day, in the morning,
- I had looked out of the window and saw no SS
- in the guard houses--
- no SS, no-- nobody with a gun, only a little airplane circling
- over the camp.
- And I realized that something was taking place.
- And then in the afternoon, what I just mentioned,
- those people were set free somehow.
- They got out.
- And they were marching through the camp.
- And Oscar Rothschild asked me, what's going on?
- And I told him what I saw.
- And I said, I think we're free.
- We're free.
- And we both were happy about it.
- And then there comes the day that the kapo
- says to me, come along.
- There's the clippers, the razor, shaving brush, soap.
- I had to go to another little barrack through a passage,
- smelled and stink was terrible of the dysentery and awful
- smell.
- And he said, there are those men here.
- Clean them up.
- Clean them up.
- They had beards, long beards or short beards,
- hair on their heads, hair between the legs,
- hair underneath the arms, skinny ones, half-dead.
- Well, I was in the room.
- And one by one, I put them on the chair,
- clipped the hair, clip the hair from underneath his arms,
- full of lice, clip the hair from the lower part of the body,
- full of lice, bunches of them--
- terrible.
- I don't have to shave them.
- So they were cleaned up.
- Some of the men couldn't even sit on the chair.
- They fell over every minute.
- I was doing this job all by myself, all day long.
- And I counted 42 men who would have died, probably,
- within a matter of days if it wasn't
- for the Americans being now in the camp
- or coming into the camp.
- The floor was like a thick carpet, all hair.
- And the lice was crawling all over--
- a terrible thing.
- Well, I think most of those died just the same.
- And then I went back to my own barrack, to my own--
- What was the point of that?
- Was that--
- The kapo was afraid that the Americans would
- have told them, look at those men,
- you look what they look like, and they probably
- would have copped out.
- I think that was the reason.
- Of course, if the Americans wouldn't have been there,
- those people would've been just dead.
- And they would have been cremated, finished with.
- Before you tell me about the liberation,
- I think there are other-- some other things about Buchenwald.
- Buchenwald had actually been built
- one of the earliest camps, which you may not
- have known at the time.
- I don't know if that would have made any difference.
- Could you see any difference in atmosphere
- at Buchenwald and the Polish camps?
- Well, you must remember, I was in a hospital barrack.
- I was a sick man.
- I wasn't out working.
- I could move about in the barrack.
- Of course, it wasn't in the hospital barrack
- where I was-- there wasn't a lot of beating going on.
- There was no need for that.
- Most of us were too ill.
- A lot of us died.
- So what could they do with us?
- So I didn't see the beatings going on.
- Treatment was little-- after all,
- you were there to die to the very last--
- the kapos, and the doctors, and everybody attached to it.
- And the SS, they must have been worrying themselves sick
- because they knew now that they had lost the war.
- And the Americans were coming and the Russians
- on the other side.
- So I don't know, actually, what's going on in their minds.
- And they had lost.
- And what was going to happen?
- So there was a little bit of a chaos.
- But long before this, what I'm just telling you now,
- every morning--
- now, there was one day that a young fellow came along
- with a paper in his hand.
- And he went from bed to bed and asked, who is a Jew?
- Because the headquarters in Buchenwald of the SS
- was connected with every barrack.
- Every barrack had a loudspeaker.
- And every morning, I heard this.
- The kapos see to it that all the Jews are outside on roll call.
- So some of the Jews had to leave the barracks.
- And they called us every morning.
- And then I heard whispers, they don't want
- to come out of the barracks.
- And there was-- that morning, then,
- when this young fellow came from bed to bed with a paper.
- And he marked who is a Jew.
- Well, my stepmother was a non-Jewish woman.
- So I held on to that.
- I thought myself, it might help me.
- Who knows?
- God knows.
- I said, so I leaned over my bunk and I said, half a Jew.
- So he marked half a Jew and so on.
- I didn't hear any more about that.
- But on and on it went.
- All the Jews have got to come out of their barrack
- onto the square to be counted--
- and of course killed off, if it come to that.
- He didn't mention that, but it was so.
- Then I saw the barrack opposite me, where I was in the barrack.
- I could see through the window one evening
- that the SS was doing something lower
- to the ground of the barrack.
- The barracks were made of wood.
- Later on, I guess, it was dynamite they were
- placing there for some reason.
- Later on, I was told that orders are
- given from Berlin that every barrack had to be blown up.
- I don't know if that's really true.
- But that's what I heard.
- And so I thought-- put two and two together.
- They were dying-- trying to dynamite the barracks sooner
- or later.
- But what I did see in front of me one morning,
- the people didn't want to come out of the barracks.
- They knew-- they felt that liberation was near.
- So I saw the SS, two SS with revolvers in hand,
- shooting through the windows into the barrack.
- And then the doors opened.
- And Buchenwald barracks had steps on the outside.
- And the doors opened from the top.
- You come out and walk down the steps.
- And then you were on the ground.
- The first dozen or so rushed out, down the stairs, fell.
- And hundreds after them, they trampled upon them.
- And then they were marched away.
- And then I saw on the ground five or six on both sides
- of the steps men laying.
- They were dead.
- They were tramped upon.
- They were finished.
- I didn't hear no more about it, what happened to those people.
- They marched away.
- They usually took them to the woods and killed them off.
- But they didn't shoot into the barracks where you were?
- No, they didn't shoot into the barrack.
- My barrack was still recognized as a sick barrack
- where the ill were laying.
- And if you died there, well, they took you away,
- and you were cremated.
- Then comes the day.
- That's--
- Before you go on, the male nurse in one
- of the hospital's barracks in Buchenwald, you said,
- was a communist.
- I understand that there were quite a lot of communists
- in Buchenwald.
- Did you know anything about the structure of the prisoners'
- committees in Buchenwald camp?
- No.
- There must have been underground--
- there must have been a radio.
- There must have been a resistance.
- But I had no connection with that whatsoever.
- It didn't come my way.
- And that was only meant for a fit man, I think.
- A sick man couldn't do nothing.
- Did he talk to you at all about the advance of the Russians?
- Who?
- No.
- No, nobody talked about that.
- The advance of the Russians, I could see for myself
- and feel for myself.
- I had been working the-- near the railways
- where those wagons went with material tanks and airplanes
- coming back, being shot up, all burned, and then
- fresh tanks went.
- I was thinking you could have given him
- information which might have been of interest to it.
- No.
- What, to the doctor?
- No.
- No.
- This was known.
- Everybody could see that.
- All of us could see that, what was taking place,
- to and from the front.
- But in Buchenwald, we didn't hear anymore
- about the Russians.
- But I'll tell you, talking about the Russians--
- there was one day in Buchenwald that for some reason,
- one of the Russian male nurses--
- he was a young fellow, probably about 18-20, big fellow.
- And he used to come into the barrack, into the ward
- sometimes.
- But this day, he came into the ward,
- and he took away the blankets from our bodies and had a look.
- And then he-- from bed to bed, he went.
- Then he came to me.
- I dare say it was so-called lice inspection or what it may be.
- And he saw that I was circumcised.
- So he said, in German, broken German, you're a Jew.
- Ooh.
- And he pulled up his nose.
- I said to him, there is no antisemitism in Russia,
- is there?
- So after those years in the camp, here
- I got to deal with a Russian prisoner who was antisemitic.
- And that hurt for a moment.
- This suggests that you had nothing to wear.
- You were just naked in bed.
- Is that it?
- Yeah.
- We probably had just a top on the--
- just a top, a slip, or something.
- Yeah.
- How much in evidence were the SS or any other Germans?
- In Buchenwald?
- Yes, in Buchenwald, at that time,
- when everyone believed the Americans were coming.
- I didn't see no SS come into the barrack.
- I didn't notice SS coming into the barrack
- like in the other camps.
- And I was inside the barrack.
- So I couldn't see what was happening
- outside-- only those SS that shot into the barracks
- and hearing the voices.
- And I remember hearing the voices that the chief SS had
- promised the Americans, he would hand over
- Buchenwald camp to the Americans when they arrived.
- And nobody would be harmed, which
- was, of course, a big lie.
- It never came to that.
- It never came as far as that.
- What do you mean?
- Well, they were still taking prisoners away and doing
- with them what they wanted.
- And of the morning, early in the morning,
- I heard the Kommandos walking out, marching out to work.
- Buchenwald was near Weimar.
- And Weimar had an ammunition factory.
- They were making guns there and so on.
- And prisoners were working in there on the guns.
- If you heard this speech over the public address system
- that they were going to hand over
- the whole camp to the Americans, that means the SS
- themselves admitted that the Americans were coming.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- And I was very pleased when I heard that.
- But you see-- but you couldn't trust the Germans.
- You couldn't trust what they said.
- But we were pleased they were realizing it.
- And they didn't keep--
- didn't stick to the words.
- But it was music--
- in my mind, it was music.
- They realized that the Americans were coming.
- Were the SS still patrolling and manning the watchtowers?
- Yes, before-- until whenever I looked out of the window, yes.
- But until the day when--
- on April the 11th, about half past 1:00,
- when I looked out of the window, I
- didn't see anybody in the towers.
- And then I was told that they had
- escaped the SS commands and all of them who
- were attached to were--
- had escaped.
- And later on, I heard that the Americans were after them.
- But when I left the barracks two or three days after that
- and I came to a barrack of the SS,
- where the Americans were now stationed,
- the next day, they were away.
- They weren't there anymore because they were chasing
- the SS further into Germany.
- Can you tell me about the capture of the camp
- by the Americans?
- Yes.
- This April the 11th, 1945 was the same day
- that you had seen some people let out of camp
- and that you had seen an airplane circling,
- is that right?
- Say that again.
- The day that the Americans--
- Yeah, the 11th, yeah.
- --came into Buchenwald, was that the same day
- that you had seen the airplane circling?
- Yes, the same day.
- There was no SS.
- It was very, very quiet in the camp.
- As I looked out of the window, I saw no--
- What sort of plane?
- A small airplane, a small-- very small airplane.
- But you didn't know the plane's nationality?
- No.
- I didn't know, but I guessed.
- It was quiet.
- And somebody told me, maybe it was
- a spy plane from the Americans.
- So how did you see them arrive?
- What part of their arrival did you see?
- Well, as I saw the people coming towards my barrack,
- they were liberated, and we realized the camp was free.
- And then was getting on for-- this was about 4 o'clock.
- So we guess we're free, we're free.
- But they were to make sure--
- around about 6 o'clock, the loudspeakers announced,
- everybody stays where they are.
- The camp is free.
- But you just stay where you are.
- And look out for those faces who are new to you
- because some of the SS have taken some of your uniforms
- and put them on, try to escape.
- Who made that announcement?
- Some call.
- And I think it must have been a German, one of the prisoners,
- in contact with the Americans.
- And if you see a strange face, hold on to him.
- And I did see a SS, still in SS uniform,
- being marched away by some of our prisoners--
- not many, one or two.
- So they must have caught them.
- And I think I was very lucky one evening, a very dark evening.
- I had wandered out of the camp into the woods
- on the road to the woods.
- And I was calling out.
- This was after I had met a lot of American soldiers
- inside the camp.
- And I called out.
- And where am I?
- Where-- I couldn't come out.
- I didn't know which way to go.
- And in the distance, I saw--
- it was not quite dark--
- some man.
- From nowhere, he appeared.
- And he pointed his finger to me.
- And he called me over like that.
- And I didn't go.
- It could have been an SS come along,
- and kill me off, and take my uniform.
- Well, then came the day that we've been proper liberated.
- Did the liberation happen with shooting?
- No.
- Or was there a surrender with a white flag?
- No, I didn't notice that.
- I didn't notice any of that.
- I was still inside.
- But anyhow, there was announced, the camp is free.
- Everybody stay where they are.
- And yeah, well, then we could do what we liked so, somehow.
- And I remember that I didn't go out straight away.
- A few days later, one afternoon, I went--
- I left the barrack, the ward.
- And I went into the grounds.
- And I saw an American Jeep with an American soldier in there.
- And I went up to him.
- I talked to him.
- And he was surprised to hear me talk.
- And then he said, you want some biscuits?
- I said, yes, please.
- And as he opened the back of his Jeep to get some biscuits out,
- there were hundreds of hands around me.
- And they all grabbed the biscuits.
- And I had nothing.
- But then back again--
- Two days, you said you were in the-- you stayed
- in the barrack.
- Yes.
- What were you doing at that time?
- I was just wandering about in the barrack
- and wondering, thinking.
- And then one day, the Americans came in.
- Had you been fed in those two days?
- Fed?
- Yes, we got our pieces of bread and soup.
- The kapos were still there.
- But we were proper hungry.
- We were proper hungry, yeah.
- So the Americans hadn't done anything about feeding you?
- Not yet.
- So from nowhere, the Americans arrived,
- about eight or nine big chaps come in.
- And they're at the door of the barrack.
- And then my kapo said to me, you speak the English language so
- talk to them.
- So I went to them.
- And I said, I'm Leon Greenman.
- I'm from London.
- And what can I do for you?
- What would you like to see?
- They said, well, we've seen it.
- And it was a terrible smell.
- I said, you you have seen nothing yet.
- So don't you go.
- Come along.
- And I pulled the first one.
- And the others came along.
- And I took them from bed to bed, pulled away the blankets,
- and showed them all the living skeletons.
- I said, make pictures of that.
- Tell the world about this and that.
- So I was talking.
- I was free.
- I had a right to talk.
- And I want to get my own back to the SS.
- And then after half an hour or so talking,
- that's-- then they left.
- And then the following day, it must have been,
- I made my way out of the barrack.
- I went to the American commander, told him who I was.
- He said, you can't leave the camp yet.
- Come tomorrow and see me.
- And we'll see about it.
- Before you were able to leave the camp,
- during that first day or the first couple of days,
- when the Americans had come, can you recall your emotions?
- Oh, yes.
- I was pleased.
- How did you believe it?
- How did you know you were free?
- By seeing them.
- First of all, the quietness in the camp--
- no SS about, no bullying.
- This quietness-- I didn't see a kapo.
- They probably were also hiding themselves
- and talking what they had to do or what not to do.
- And then-- well, this calling-- when
- I saw the man with guns, our men with guns and all
- that, I realized, we're free.
- Only one thing-- we were afraid that the Germans
- might come back.
- But then again, we thought, well, the Americans are here.
- Surely, they wouldn't allow a thing to happen to us.
- And so it went.
- And then I realized.
- I went out and saw the commander.
- And he said, there's no hurry to go.
- Come back tomorrow, and we'll see
- about your papers and all that.
- When I went the next morning, they weren't there.
- There were not a lot of Americans there.
- Those from the day before had moved up.
- And I was told, they're chasing the SS.
- All right.
- So I didn't make a hurry then.
- I knew I was then with friends and nothing to hurry.
- Then came the day that I wandered about.
- And I got into the barrack of the SS.
- They were decent barracks, decent beds.
- And the Americans were laying there in bed, in the uniform,
- talking, wondering.
- And I walked up to one of the beds.
- And I had a talk with him.
- And one of the young Americans says,
- I don't know what I'm here for.
- I don't know what I'm doing here.
- I said, well, soldier, I said, you're saving a lot of people.
- You saved me.
- Said, if you wouldn't have been here,
- tomorrow, I would have been probably finished off.
- Said, you saved a lot of.
- And they realized it then.
- They realized that they saved a lot of people.
- They did, by being there.
- Well, I got back to the barrack.
- And the Americans opened the gates.
- And we were free.
- We could leave the camp.
- And what did--
- I didn't.
- But what did the others all do or a lot of them did?
- They went to the villages around Buchenwald camp
- and stole a lot of things--
- chickens, and radio sets-- and probably molested the women.
- They had a good go.
- And then I heard that when everybody was back in the camp,
- through the loudspeakers, no one is to leave the camp.
- The gates are locked.
- It wasn't the meaning of the Americans to set you free
- and go robbing people in the villages.
- So no one was allowed out.
- For me, said, what?
- I didn't do anything of those things.
- And I want to talk to the people, the Americans.
- I want to-- these are my people.
- They got my languages.
- So somehow, I got my way to the barrack
- where the Americans were.
- And I said, look, I am so-and-so.
- And I didn't do any of those things.
- I want to move free about.
- I want to leave my barrack to talk to the Americans.
- And yes, I got a paper.
- Leon Greenman is allowed to come in and leave the camp.
- I still got it.
- It's in the Wiener Library and was
- signed by a sergeant or something
- like that-- or captain.
- So the American guard at the gates, they let me go by.
- They knew me, that I come in and out.
- And then I was asked whether I could get up some amusement
- for the American soldiers.
- And I told them I could sing.
- And I would try to find somebody, some musicians.
- And yes, I found some people who could play a saxophone.
- We found saxophones amongst the things
- the SS didn't take along.
- There was no piano, so we had to do with a fiddle,
- and saxophone, and probably drums, and a bit of singing.
- And we gave the Americans in one of the barracks--
- or a lot of Americans came along.
- And we gave some music and some singing.
- And then we went--
- Can you remember what music it was?
- Well, the fiddles were playing their kind of music.
- But it's difficult to say how or what.
- I can't remember what, but we did do some singing,
- some playing, and all that.
- How did you feel about that?
- Was that a celebration of release?
- Or doesn't that sort of deny the suffering and the problems
- that you had and were still having?
- Yes.
- But we didn't feel the sufferings for that moment.
- We were free.
- We were alive.
- There was nobody to hit us, to beat us, or to bully us.
- We didn't have to work.
- And we were longing to go home, to meet the other people
- we had left behind, and so on.
- That was the main course in our thoughts,
- to get back to the country where you come from.
- So any pain or so what you had or what--
- or thoughts, they were pushed to the background for a moment.
- How had the liberating Americans organized food, and clothing,
- and medical attention?
- Well, I remember that the Americans, when they were there
- and they saw the living skeletons and the people in bed
- in my barrack--
- and also probably in all the other barracks--
- they start feeding us with a too thick soup,
- not watery like we used to have.
- And the stomach of the people couldn't bear it.
- And a lot of them died.
- They gave us bread--
- not pieces, small pieces of bread, a good portion of bread.
- And people couldn't eat it.
- I remember seeing-- I still see it, heaps of bread
- laying near the door, being swept away
- from the beds, chunks taken out, and laid there, heaps of it.
- I told the Americans, you're feeding the people.
- You were just telling me about the food
- provided by the Americans.
- Yes.
- I remember that I was wandering in one of the barracks,
- SS barracks.
- And there was an American soldier,
- tall fellow with an aluminum bucket in his hand
- in which he had some food he was going to throw away,
- the way he was walking and looking.
- I went over to him.
- I said-- and I looked in his bucket.
- And I saw a piece of meat in there, a steak
- and some fried potatoes, a few potatoes.
- And I said, you're not going to throw that away, soldier,
- are you?
- I said, I haven't had a bit of meat for years.
- He says, you want it?
- I said, yes.
- He said, yeah, then eat it.
- Sit down and eat it.
- He said, it's as tough as the sole of my shoe.
- I sat down, and I got a hold of it in my hands.
- And I ate it.
- I finished everything.
- So he said, you want any more?
- I thought he was joking, and I said, yes.
- He said, well, come along then.
- And he took me to a kind of field kitchen.
- And I had a whole bucket full of fried potatoes.
- I ate them all.
- That was their food, not the food for the prisoners?
- That was their food.
- Meat-- chunks of meat.
- How did your stomach react to having meat and potatoes
- after years?
- Lucky, all right?
- Lucky, all right?
- Somehow-- and--
- What about clothes?
- Well, they gave me--
- my uniform, my jacket, my striped uniform and trousers
- I put in a pillowcase with other things I collected.
- Pair of braces I saw laying on the ground,
- I took them home with me.
- I had some packets of Philip Morris cigarettes
- given to me by the Americans, a toothbrush
- given by the Americans.
- I collected them all and took them home.
- They are somewhere in the Wiener Library.
- And as I'm now thinking, I was wandering around the camp.
- And I came to the ovens.
- In the ovens were parts of bodies, skeletons.
- There were bodies burnt.
- And outside, a little way from it,
- were heaps of bones, heaps of it.
- In a room like that, dealt into four parts,
- there were heaps of bones, of people that
- had been cremated in there.
- And outside, further up, was a load
- of leather jackets from the SS and a load of straps.
- And it was an American soldier there with a gun watching it.
- And I went over to him.
- And I said, do you mind if I have one of those jackets?
- They stole my coat and everything
- what I had when I came into the camps.
- He said, go on, and pick one for me as well.
- I said, but you're not going to shoot, are you?
- He said, I don't shoot.
- So I looked over the leather jackets, fit one on for myself.
- And I took another one to him.
- I said, and they took my strap.
- Can I have a strap?
- So I was allowed to take a strap.
- I still got the leather coat at home.
- I've only wore it once or twice in civilian life.
- The leather strap is somewhere in the library, I think.
- Does your leather coat have SS insignia?
- No, no.
- It had brass buttons on it.
- I think it was brass buttons.
- I took it back to my barrack.
- And in the barrack was a young Polish Jew
- who was by trade a tailor.
- And I said, how much soup do you want
- if you can put half a dozen other buttons on?
- And this was in the evening when I came in.
- Of course, I was whispering to him because a lot of people
- were asleep.
- And we were bartering about it--
- four pints, two pints, one pint.
- I said, well, I'll give you two pints.
- He said, well, I've got no buttons.
- You look for the buttons.
- The next day I went out, and I got myself into a barrack
- where there were heaps of clothing.
- I crawled over bales of clothing.
- And then I found several coats.
- And I looked for the buttons which I fancied then.
- And I took them off and brought them to the tailor.
- And he sewed the buttons on.
- And I gave him, I think, three or four tins
- of American rations for doing it.
- Yes.
- What about medical care?
- Well, medical care-- there wasn't
- much to do now in medical care.
- I heard that doctors were coming in from various countries,
- but I didn't have a doctor looking after me anymore, I
- don't think.
- No.
- But what jumps into my mind, I was going to say--
- it's slipping away.
- Some incident-- now, what was it?
- Well, slipped me.
- You better ask me.
- It slipped my mind.
- Might come back in a minute.
- What were the American plans for sending the people
- from the camp back to wherever they ought to be?
- Well--
- I mean the prisoners.
- Yes, well, several left the camp on their own way.
- I didn't somehow want to leave the camp somehow.
- I was wanting to go to Holland.
- Well, there'd be no point surely for you to leave the camp.
- You didn't speak German very well.
- You had no money.
- No.
- But, you see-- well, this is how it went.
- I wandered outside.
- I got my card then that I could leave the camp--
- signed by the Americans, and a note signed by a Captain
- Jacobs, I think, that I was--
- if there was an airplane, to fly me out to where I wanted to go.
- So there was nothing more to do for me in the camp.
- And there was no need for me to hurry because the Americans
- said, you don't have to hurry.
- It's all right.
- But then I got a feeling I wanted to leave the camp.
- And what were other people doing?
- Other prisoners, I mean.
- Well, they were making their own way out of the camp.
- Probably some of them didn't wait
- for proper orders and all that.
- And some of them were taken care of by people
- coming from the various countries, from Holland,
- from Belgium, from France.
- But that didn't happen to me.
- I got then my card.
- And I left the camp.
- And I was wandering around.
- And I got as far as Erfurt.
- Erfurt is not far from Buchenwald.
- It's an aerodrome.
- E-R-F-U-R-T, Erfurt.
- It's on the map.
- And I saw the airplanes and the Americans coming in and taking
- off and coming in, like taxis, and a lot of petrol tanks
- unloading and loading.
- And I was wandering around there, taking my time.
- And I went into one of the barracks
- where the American commander was.
- And I told him, I want to fly to Holland.
- I didn't want to go back to England yet.
- I wanted to first go to Holland, see what was there,
- news for me or what.
- And I sat down and talked to him and so on.
- And then he said, well, you make your own way.
- And if there's airplane going, find out by yourself.
- And I wandered about all day there.
- And I was enjoying myself, seeing those airplanes coming
- in and out, and mixing with the American soldiers
- there, colored and uncolored, on the field, on the airport
- and in the barracks.
- And then one evening I was walking.
- It was getting quite dark, and I was walking.
- I went into a barrack, and there were some Americans sitting
- around a table, at a table.
- And there was a bottle of wine in the middle of them.
- And I introduced myself.
- And we start talking.
- And he says, we were just contemplating
- opening a bottle of wine.
- Would you like some?
- I said, well, please.
- Well, I probably didn't have a lot to eat that day.
- And I got some wine to drink.
- And we were still talking.
- And then it was quite dark, and I wanted to make my way back
- to my barrack.
- So I was outside the barrack, walking along.
- And all of a sudden, from nowhere,
- an American soldier stood in front of me with a gun.
- And I had to stop.
- And he got hold of me and marched me into a barrack.
- I had to sit down until the commander was called.
- I had seen this commander in the afternoon.
- They woke him out of his sleep.
- And he came into the barrack, and he looked.
- He said, you're the chap I spoke to this afternoon.
- He said, what are you still doing here?
- I said, well, I can't find an airplane to go.
- But I'm a little drunk.
- So he said, sit down.
- And he was annoyed because I had woken him asleep.
- I sat down.
- And then he sent out for some British prisoners of war
- because the door opened a little while after that,
- and about a half a dozen British prisoners of war came in.
- They had been liberated by the Americans.
- And he said, this chap here, he says he's a London fellow.
- And he's walking about all day here.
- Now he woke me up.
- And just see who he is.
- So one of the fellows there, a London fellow, he talked to me.
- And he said, what about this and what about that,
- all places in London.
- I could answer because I knew.
- He says, you know, he's all right.
- Because they thought I was somebody else, see?
- A spy?
- Yeah, or an escaped somebody or other.
- Yeah, the American-- take him with you.
- And you're responsible for him.
- I don't want to see him again.
- So they took me to a barrack where the British soldiers
- were sleeping.
- In Buchenwald?
- In Buchenwald, in one of the barrack.
- No, a air fort.
- Air fort?
- Air fort.
- Airdrome?
- Airdrome-- one of the barracks there.
- Well, anyhow, barracks-- they were wooden sheds there.
- And they all lay down on the ground.
- And I was drunk, must have been, because I was talking,
- and then I heard say, shut up.
- And this and that.
- And then I got a shoe thrown at me, a boot.
- And then I fell asleep.
- And the next morning I woke up.
- I was quite all right then.
- And they were sharing out army rations.
- So I pulled myself back into a corner.
- Well, [INAUDIBLE] boys' rations.
- I'll find somewhere else something to eat.
- One of the other officers, come on you, here.
- I said, well, it's yours.
- He said, it's yours.
- So I had a tin of rations.
- And then, in a half an hour's time, we went outside,
- and we stood there.
- And an airplane came in.
- And all the soldiers got into the airplane
- and went to England.
- And there I stood.
- And then from nowhere, behind me a soldier said, you're
- the chap from last night.
- I took you to my commander's.
- I turned around.
- I said, yes.
- I said, I'm waiting for an airplane.
- He said, you know, I would have shot you.
- I had called out twice to you, and you didn't stop.
- If you wouldn't stop the third time,
- I would have shot you because you
- were out that-and-that time, and the commander
- said nobody's allowed out at that time.
- I didn't know.
- [LAUGHS]
- Well, then I wandered about.
- And I was outside air fort, must have been on the road.
- And I was again with the Americans.
- And I was looking for somebody to take me to--
- oh, that must have been before I went air fort.
- I was wandering about and asking,
- are you going to an airport?
- I want to get to Holland.
- Who's flying to Holland?
- No, no, no.
- Then a Jeep came along past me.
- And he said, you're the chap that's going--
- wants to fly?
- I said, yes.
- I said, are you going?
- And he said, no.
- I'm not going, he said, but here's
- a lady who wants to talk to you, is from an English paper,
- a London paper.
- And did I tell you that already?
- Not on the tape you didn't.
- No?
- No.
- So it was Anne Matheson.
- And she got out of the Jeep and asked me several things.
- I'll tell you some, I said, but you
- must put my name and the address in London
- where I used to live so that my family, if they're in London,
- they can read and they know that I'm alive.
- And she did that.
- Anne Matheson put the article in the Evening Standard
- on April 23 or 24.
- "The Barber of Buchenwald," she called it.
- Well, I wasn't a barber in Buchenwald.
- I must have mentioned to her that I
- earned a little bit of extra soup by shaving the people.
- "The Barber Of Buchenwald."
- And it went into the papers.
- And really, a neighbor next to my brother,
- in the same turning, came rushing at my brother
- one evening, as he told me later on.
- He said, this and this, isn't this
- your brother, Leon Greenman?
- And then they knew I was alive.
- Well--
- Before you left-- before you finally left, that is--
- how were you and everyone else living
- in Buchenwald in the barracks?
- Were you still stacked in as tightly as you had been?
- Yes.
- Well, you looked up your bunk, and you laid to sleep.
- I had my-- there were army rations
- which we had earned, which some of us
- had earned with singing and giving them a concert.
- We had these, so we didn't trouble about our soup,
- I don't think.
- And somehow we were getting a happy feeling.
- Well, I got a happy feeling I'd be home,
- and I'd see my wife and child and my family again.
- So a lot of things you didn't think anymore about.
- You just wanted then get away.
- But it was still the same wooden bunks with no blankets?
- Oh, yes.
- That stayed till the very end, oh, yes.
- No alteration in that.
- No.
- Recently you and I watched a video
- of a television program together,
- including Sidney Bernstein's film
- about the liberation of Belsen.
- Yes.
- And we saw scenes with the SS, I think, perhaps kapos,
- taking bodies to be cremated in big pits
- and so on, scenes after the British liberation.
- Was it like that at Buchenwald?
- No.
- People still died, though.
- What happened?
- People still died, but I didn't see it.
- Only, as I mentioned, the ovens, there
- were half, or so good as finished, bodies
- into skeletons and the bones.
- I didn't see then.
- I didn't.
- Oh, there were people that had been--
- they had died from dysentery and ill health, like Oscar
- Rothschild and a lot of the others.
- But I didn't look at that way anymore.
- I didn't notice it anymore.
- It didn't come up.
- Somehow, I was out all day, mixing with the Americans,
- wandering around outside the barrack.
- And I got in late, when it was dark.
- So really, what was going on at that time in the barracks
- I didn't realize anymore.
- But when the day came and I left Buchenwald,
- certainly Oscar Rothschild--
- I said, I'm going home.
- He said, wait.
- I'm going to give you a letter.
- And he wrote a letter on a note.
- I still got it.
- It's in the Wiener Library.
- He wrote in there in German.
- Thanks very much for looking after me and friendship.
- And whenever you come to Groningen, come and see me.
- I'll never forget.
- Yeah, I took that with me.
- And then I said cheerio, and I went.
- And I realized that a doctor would take care of him.
- The doctors or medical men would take care of him.
- Well, it never come as far.
- He came back as far as Eindhoven.
- Of course, when I was back in Rotterdam the first few days,
- I wrote a letter to Groningen. And I wrote in there.
- And it came back to me.
- Oskar, I'm in Holland now.
- I'd like to come and see you.
- How are you?
- Something like that.
- A few days later, this came back with another letter.
- Oscar Rothschild had died in Eindhoven.
- He never came back.
- How were you able to keep up with news at that point?
- The war was, of course, still going on for several weeks
- after your liberation.
- Yes, well, I was still then in the camp,
- on the airport, air fort.
- But where you were?
- You were in Germany, and Germany was still at war.
- Yes, but we didn't see any-- we didn't
- see anyone but the Americans.
- But the Americans were fighting the Germans, of course.
- But we didn't know how far they were getting.
- Were you near the fighting?
- I mean, was there gunfire, or was that elsewhere?
- No, I didn't hear any gunfire.
- I didn't see any fighting going on in Buchenwald
- or near Buchenwald, no.
- Did you know what was happening to the German command?
- For instance, did you know about Hitler's death?
- No.
- No, none of that ever came through to us
- until after liberation.
- Oh, yes.
- Well, his death was after liberation.
- But I wondered how the news came.
- No, while I was in Buchenwald, I didn't hear that.
- I don't remember hearing anybody telling me
- that they had tried to assassinate Hitler.
- Probably in France, when I was later on in France,
- it could have gone through then.
- You wanted to go to Holland to look people up,
- of course, and find your family and so on.
- But because the war wasn't over, how could this be possible?
- I couldn't go.
- Let me get back to air fort.
- Then, at last, I found an airplane.
- The Americans were going to Paris--
- not to Holland, but to Paris-- and I could go along.
- Well, I got into that plane.
- And there were several American officers there.
- And I think one general was there.
- There were five and a lady American, a woman soldier.
- And they asked me about the camp.
- And I told them some of the things.
- And then we flew into Paris.
- And coming down then, we landed on the airport there,
- somewhere in France.
- And I remember getting out of the airplane
- and American soldiers walking me to a canteen, I think.
- And there were trays of donuts laying there.
- And I looked at them, and I looked at him.
- He said, go on.
- So I picked one.
- And he said, go and put some in your pocket.
- So I put some in my pocket.
- I ate them all.
- Donuts-- a hole in it, you know?
- Yes.
- Do you know the date you finally left?
- Oh, this must have been the 25th, 26th of April.
- Yes.
- It can be looked up.
- The papers are in the Wiener Library, amongst my lot.
- And then I sat there.
- And I was taken in a Jeep to I think
- it was the British consul or British embassy.
- I was led into a room.
- And this was, say, 7, 8 o'clock.
- And one side of the table was a man sitting, reading,
- telephone next to him.
- And I sat in chair opposite him.
- And he never spoke a word to me, not one word.
- And I wasn't going to talk to him if he
- wasn't going to talk to me.
- So I was looking in front of me, and I was weighing him up.
- And I was thinking and waiting.
- The phone went once or twice.
- He answered it short, sat reading again.
- Then somebody came in, whispered to him.
- He went out.
- I start looking for myself.
- Well, if this is England where I am,
- why don't he blooming well talk to me?
- After all that short hair, I didn't look the same at all.
- And then about half past 12:00, he looked up,
- and he said, you hungry?
- I said, oh, you are talking?
- I said, I am hungry, yes.
- And I think it was the British consul, British embassy
- somebody, or some of those people.
- All right, he says, somebody's going to collect you.
- And you're going to a home.
- And you have something to eat and so on.
- And yeah, car came along.
- I think it was a truck or something, or a Jeep.
- How do you explain his behavior?
- I don't know.
- He probably wanted to hear me talk or find out who I was
- or what I was.
- And I wasn't talking.
- He wasn't questioning me, so I wasn't talking.
- And I just kept calm.
- And then we arrived at a home in Paris
- where they collect the-- where people
- were let in who had come from various camps,
- I realized, internees and other people, all nationalities.
- And there I was presented to the supervisor or attendant
- of the home.
- It was a house.
- It had a lot of rooms.
- And I was asked by him--
- an Englishman, if I could-- he understand an Englishman--
- if I was hungry and gave me something to eat.
- And there I was eating again potatoes and greens
- and a few other things.
- But that was 1:00 in the morning.
- And then I was shown a room where I could go to bed.
- And I went to bed, and I slept.
- The next morning I woke up late.
- Usually wake up early.
- Now it's late.
- So I woke up, went to the bathroom
- where I could have a wash, undressed--
- naked, as usually I did in the camp--
- dressed, and went down to the room where there were people
- sitting at tables eating.
- I looked around.
- And I felt a bit shy and out of the way.
- Everybody was looking at me, and I didn't like it.
- Of course, they were looking at my short hair, what.
- And they also had been somewhere in camps.
- Not in concentration camps--
- I think maybe internment camps.
- So I went into a corner.
- I sat at a table.
- And an old lady came up to me.
- And she said, may I pour out your tea?
- And it was Louise White, Louise White from--
- she lived near Richmond, in London.
- She had been a nurse, non-Jewish, a nurse.
- And she had been nursing an old lady in France
- right throughout the occupation.
- And she was from London, from Richmond, she said.
- I think that way--
- Richmond.
- And she had been a nurse.
- And she started talking to me.
- And she poured out my tea.
- And I felt happy.
- And then she told me she was going
- to go the day after tomorrow.
- She's going to London.
- And I said, can you get word to my brothers who are in London?
- Tell them that you met me.
- I'm alive.
- And I hope to be home soon or later.
- She said, yes, I'll do that.
- And I said, I'm going now to the British embassy or consul,
- to find if I can get a passport and move about easier.
- So I walked about 3/4 of an hour, if not longer,
- from where I was to the British embassy.
- And I wanted to have a passport.
- The man who I saw there, he said,
- come back in a little while.
- We left our address.
- We'll get to know, and there's no hurry.
- But you can't have a passport now.
- So I walked back.
- And I couldn't walk hardly.
- My feet were giving me away.
- Given away again.
- So I got back to the home.
- And I saw this old lady.
- And I said, I've got a terrible pain in my foot.
- Can you put a bandage or something on it?
- She said, well, let's have a look.
- I took off my shoe and my sock, if I had a sock.
- I don't know.
- And she looked.
- And they were brown boots given to me by the Americans
- which they had found in the barracks
- of the SS, beautiful boots.
- I never had a pair like that since.
- Oh, she said, you promise you go to the hospital.
- And the hospital wasn't far from their home.
- The hospital was in Levallois, rue Villiers.
- And I said, oh, I don't want to go into hospital.
- I don't want to.
- I said, if you can-- you're a sister, you're a nurse,
- you know-- just put a bandage around it,
- and I'll be all right.
- But she knew more than I knew.
- She said, well, if you're not going to the hospital,
- I'm not going to your brother's.
- So I took it literally.
- And then I said, all right, I'll go.
- So I went to the hospital.
- Well, all right.
- So I promised I'd go to the hospital.
- And I went.
- I got into the British hospital in Levallois-Perret, Paris.
- I got in there.
- And there was a big man standing at a desk.
- I guess he was a former officer in the army, a man about 60
- or more, big fellow.
- And he said, what do you want?
- I said, well, I got a bad foot, and I want to see a doctor.
- Sit down and wait.
- That's how he talked.
- So I sit down and wait for myself.
- He's talking like there is no difference, only
- wants to put up his hands and then-- the same as in the camp.
- Anyhow, then I was let into a room.
- And I met Dr. Schwartz, Dr. Schwartz, S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z,
- Schwartz.
- A German?
- He was an Englishman, Jewish.
- I sat down.
- And he asked me what was the matter.
- He asked me who I was.
- And I told him I came from the camps.
- I'd been in the camps, and I got a bad foot.
- My toe was aching.
- And I had an idea.
- My eyes were falling out of my--
- dropping out of my head.
- So he talked to me.
- And he told me that his parents didn't come back
- from the camps.
- They had been taken to the camps.
- And I sat talking to him.
- And then he had a look at my foot.
- He had a look at me.
- And of course, being a medical man, he knew what was wrong.
- And he said, would you like to come into the hospital?
- I said, no, I don't want to go in the hospital.
- I had enough hospital in the camp.
- And I just want a bandage around my toe, and I'll go.
- He had a look.
- He said, well, I think it's better
- to come into the hospital.
- He said, one or two days, no more.
- So he talked me into it.
- And I said, can I have a bath?
- He said, you can have five baths if you like.
- I said, well--
- I said, I left some things in where I'm staying.
- I got a pillowcase with some so-called things
- from the camp and all that.
- So I went back, collected them, and took them back
- to the hospital.
- And then I was let into the ward.
- I was given a lovely bath and into bed.
- My pillowcase with my odds and ends in it
- went into some cupboard.
- And there I lay.
- And next to me was a foreigner who had come from the camps.
- And opposite me was a man, an Englishman
- who had come from the camps.
- He was a car dealer in France, had been in the camps,
- came back, but was suffering from dysentery.
- I still got his card somewhere.
- He didn't live long.
- He died a few weeks.
- Malnutrition, I think it was.
- And I was laying in bed the first night,
- and I couldn't get to sleep.
- I was hungry.
- So about 10 o'clock, the doctor came around from bed to bed,
- just an inspection if everything was all right.
- And he came to my bed.
- And he saw I wasn't asleep.
- He said, why aren't you asleep?
- What's the matter?
- I said, I'm hungry.
- See, I didn't want to--
- I felt too gentlemanlike not to say it.
- But if I didn't say it, I could not get asleep.
- Even now, every time before I go to bed in civilian life,
- I got to have something to eat before I go to bed
- or else I won't sleep.
- He said, oh, you're the fellow from Buchenwald.
- I said, yes, Doctor.
- So he gave instructions to a French nurse there.
- And she came back with a tray with a glass of milk on it
- and some slices of bread.
- He said, I'll see you tomorrow morning.
- I ate that, and I fell asleep.
- They were lovely, those French nurses.
- There were also some English nurses,
- but they were a bit, do it or take it.
- Anyhow, the next morning, doctor come around from bed to bed,
- examining.
- And then they put shields around my bed.
- And I had to go through examination
- from top to bottom and so on.
- And then he had a look at my foot.
- And he said nothing.
- I got my rations of food.
- And then days went on.
- And it was the 9th of May when he brought in a French surgeon.
- And I had to lay in my bed, lay out in my bed.
- And the doctor said, I got a pin here.
- I'm going to just touch your toe.
- And I didn't understand French then, but Dr. Schwartz told me.
- And where you feel it, just call out.
- And they were examining my toes.
- And I called out, and sometimes I didn't.
- Well, after a few minutes, he said--
- I sat up, and he said--
- they were talking to one another.
- And then Dr. Schwartz says, we have
- to amputate that toe because it's gangrene.
- No fear, I said, no!
- And I jumped out of bed.
- I said, I can walk with it, the same thing I did in the camps.
- God love it.
- I said, no.
- I thought to myself.
- Hitler didn't get a bit off of me,
- and he's not going to get that.
- And he talked me into it.
- He said, well, if you don't do it now, in three months' time,
- you'll have to miss your foot.
- Well, what could I do?
- Say yes.
- So I supposed to have been operated the following day
- or something.
- And they put it off because D-Day was coming on.
- That was the 11th, I think.
- Is it?
- VE-Day, you mean.
- VE-Day, yeah.
- The end of the war?
- Yes.
- So they put off the operation for a few days.
- And then they operated upon me.
- How was the end of war treated in hospital?
- Oh, well, everybody seemed happy.
- And there was one particular nurse there.
- She said her name was Daisy Fontaine.
- She came from Canada.
- And I fell in love with her.
- I was just out of the camp, and I fell in love with her.
- She had such a lovely personality.
- And she could play the piano.
- And then later on, as the weeks went by, I got out of my bed.
- And I sang.
- And my first song was, "Oh, Danny Boy," I sang.
- And it went right through the passages.
- And they had to open the doors of the lady departments, where
- the lady patients were laying.
- And I had to come and sing there.
- And she was a lovely girl.
- But it didn't work out that way as I thought.
- Leon falls in love so quickly.
- So I'd like to find her again because, see,
- I've got something to settle with her.
- She gave me a photograph from her.
- And she asked it back, and I didn't want to give it back.
- And now I don't know where she is.
- Anyhow, I was laying in bed.
- I was operated upon.
- And I had, when necessary, double rations.
- And my strength was coming back.
- They amputated your left big toe?
- Yes, half of it went.
- And the skin-- as the doctor pointed out to me, the skin
- from underneath the toe, they took
- the toe away and then pulled it over what
- was remained and sewed it.
- So I've got a half a toe.
- And Daisy Fontaine called me Nine and Half Toes.
- [LAUGHS]
- So that was done, and I laid in bed.
- And I was seen to.
- And it healed.
- I got better.
- The French nurses, they recommended me
- for being so brave with the operation.
- I could see everything what's going on.
- There was a big chrome light shining down.
- I could see the blood.
- I could see the hands of the doctor moving.
- I was quite interested.
- And they must have killed it locally,
- so I didn't feel nothing.
- An anesthetic?
- Anesthetic.
- Anyhow, they took fancy to me, the nurses there.
- They saw to me and all that.
- And the British nurses, the English nurses
- were a little bit harsher, telling the French nurses off
- in the night, this and that.
- Anyhow, I got quicker back to my health.
- I remember telling the doctor one morning.
- Nurses are all around.
- And I want to speak to him myself.
- I said, I got my first wet dream.
- Oh, yeah, good.
- You're coming back to health, boy.
- That's good.
- I said, sure?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
- So I got stronger, stronger.
- I was allowed to go into the garden, a nice garden
- behind the hospital, if it's still there, I dare say.
- And behind that, people living in the flats,
- they could see into the garden and talk to us.
- And I was walking in the garden with other patients.
- And people that lived in the flats
- came and see me and brought me in some jam and pieces of cake.
- And it became quite friendly.
- And I stayed with them after I left hospital.
- They're both dead now, those people.
- Anyhow, so I was out of hospital then.
- But while I was in hospital, I was having food.
- And one day, this man at the door
- who I saw the first time I came in came upstairs.
- He had a uniform on.
- It was kind of--
- not a soldier uniform, but he had some uniform on.
- He said, where is your ration card?
- I'm, what are you talking about?
- He said, you're having our food here.
- Where's your ration card, coupons?
- So he made me understand that you had to have coupons for it.
- I didn't know about that.
- I'd just come out of the camps.
- I said, well, I don't want your food.
- And I jumped out of bed.
- I said, give me my clothes, and I'll go.
- [LAUGHS] I was like that.
- Well, then the nurse explained to him who I was.
- And then he backed off.
- [LAUGHS] I must mention those incidents
- because they stay with me.
- Did they get you a ration card?
- I dare say they kept it, I daresay, until I went out.
- I don't think I had a ration card.
- Or I take it and give it to the people
- where I stayed with to get the rations.
- I daresay like that it was.
- And those people where I stayed with had friends that came in.
- And we sat there, and we had to eat.
- And I remember seeing other people,
- like the old lady or one of the gentlemen, one
- of the men in the streets, going into the dustbins
- behind the hotel and taking out there all steaks on top of one
- another, meat.
- And they took it away.
- One was looking at that dustbin.
- I tried to do this in camp--
- grass and--
- These were Parisians that were doing that?
- Yes, yes.
- Those people were starving as well, you see.
- They were rationed.
- But I was staying where people were in business,
- and they probably could get black market
- and all that stuff.
- And they fed me well.
- And I had a lot of friends.
- And everybody--
- This is the French family you stayed with?
- French family, yes.
- What was their name?
- Gaston Pron, P-R-O-N. He died a couple of years ago.
- His wife died sooner, earlier.
- And I had a very good time there.
- They well looked after me.
- I went back once or twice to see them.
- Could they speak English?
- No, French.
- You had said you didn't speak French.
- Very few words, not many.
- And [LAUGHS] I couldn't make myself understood, but anyhow.
- There was another prisoner in Buchenwald, who I only met--
- he says he met me in Buchenwald.
- I don't remember that.
- But I met him at the table when we were eating.
- He came in there.
- His name was Roger Jones, J-O-N-E-S.
- And he gave me a razor.
- One day he came up with a razor, new razor,
- said, that's for you as a present.
- And he's talking in French.
- And with me he talked English and telling me
- what he was talking about, things in the camp.
- And all the French were listening, of course.
- He stayed with the Pron family as well?
- No, he came there as a friend, visiting.
- They must have known one another.
- And Daisy Fontaine came also once or twice.
- Yeah, then comes the time that I get letters
- from my sister and my father--
- the Red Cross.
- I had written to the Red Cross, or somebody for me
- had written to the Red Cross, asking about my father.
- And then I knew my father was back out of the camp,
- was still alive.
- He had come back from Westerbork after 11 or 12 months
- being there.
- And my stepmother was alive.
- But no news of my wife and child, nothing like that.
- And then I got my passport, something
- like that, papers to leave France.
- And I said good-bye.
- And we got into a train who went very slowly and then
- through Belgium.
- That took a long, long time out of Belgium into Holland.
- And then we arrived at Eindhoven.
- At Eindhoven, the Philips factory,
- we had to all get out there and stay there.
- We were examined by the doctors.
- And of course, the Dutchmen were all around me.
- And we were talking.
- And one of them said, we're going to escape tonight.
- We don't want to be kept here.
- So I said, well, don't escape.
- What's the trouble?
- He said, they're holding us here for our health.
- We're healthy, all right.
- But we weren't, of course.
- So I went to one of the doctors.
- In Dutch, I said to him, we're contemplating
- leaving this place tonight.
- And I said, you can shoot of us, but we
- can't have any getting out.
- We want to get home.
- So the doctor said, we're not going to shoot.
- But everybody who wants to go out can go,
- but you've got to sign a certificate
- that in your towns-- where are you going to?
- I said I was going to Rotterdam.
- You got to present it at the hospital
- and have your self seen to, your lungs and all that.
- Of course, they were afraid for some disease you had.
- And we did that.
- I was examined the next day.
- And I was okayed.
- But of course, I wasn't.
- Physically, I was not all right.
- But this was before-- before I want to tell you now.
- I arrived in Rotterdam after a long time with train.
- And the old station was bombed away.
- There was nothing there.
- And I had to get to the place in Rotterdam where my father was.
- And I got into a tram, I think.
- Yes.
- And very slowly we rode through the streets.
- And it was well dark when I arrived,
- 10 minutes away from my father's house.
- I got out of there, and I walked.
- And I stopped some young fellow.
- I said, would you mind?
- I said, I've just arrived from outside.
- I've been in the camps.
- My father's expecting me.
- He lives there and there, that and that number.
- Go and tell him that his son will soon be at his place.
- And he did it.
- So I waited another 10 minutes.
- I didn't want to jump in there.
- And then I arrived.
- Well, of course, Father was very thin.
- And the neighbors came down.
- And I went into the room.
- I remember seeing photographs, [SOBS] my wife and child.
- And I must have gotten very sick.
- And they calmed me down and all that.
- And I pulled myself together.
- And then I went to sleep.
- And I was up early in the morning, 5 o'clock,
- as I usually did in camp.
- Father was still in bed.
- What are you doing up so early?
- I said, well, I get up early, half-naked, washing myself
- and all that.
- I couldn't get out of the habit.
- I'm still not out of the habits.
- I still wash and all this.
- Anyhow, so I got onto the streets.
- And I met an old lady friend on my way to an office
- where you could collect some money for those
- that came out of camp.
- And she said, did you see my husband?
- I said, your husband?
- I didn't know you were married.
- Yes, she said.
- I said, well, where was he?
- He was in Auschwitz, but he hasn't come yet.
- I said, what does he look like?
- Well, then that name--
- and a big fellow.
- I said, yes, I met him in Auschwitz.
- I said, I don't think he'll be coming home.
- Because this fellow-- way back, I
- told you about the Dutchman who said shave us first.
- We want to get out in the barrack.
- And I said no.
- The Pole, a Dutch--
- the Pole and Dutch.
- I said, don't get no trouble with the kapo.
- He was a tall Dutchman.
- And one day he was transported away from Auschwitz.
- And we never seen him again.
- And whispers when did they shot--
- they shot him.
- The long, the tall Dutchman, [PERSONAL NAME]..
- That's what the whispers were.
- But I didn't know her husband properly yet.
- I said, I imagined that was her husband.
- She says, well, come home and have a cup of tea.
- Of course, I knew her.
- I knew her parents.
- I knew her sisters.
- She's still alive, she is.
- And I came into her room, her sitting room.
- And on the sideboard was a big photograph.
- I said, I know him!
- So she says, well, that's my husband.
- Gosh, I said, if he hasn't come back yet,
- he might come back later on.
- But I knew he wouldn't come back.
- Well, then I met other people had been in the camps, got
- friendly with.
- I went to the Hague and came back to Rotterdam.
- I stood outside my house where I'd lived.
- I rang the bell, and I said to the lady
- there who opened it, I said, I was living here
- before I went to the camp.
- I says, would you allow me to stay in the room [SOBS] where
- we had lived?
- Oh, yes.
- So she took me upstairs and the room
- where I used to spend hours with my wife and Kitty,
- where the piano used to be.
- And they left me alone for a moment.
- But it was empty.
- It was no good to me.
- There was nothing more to hold me.
- So I thanked them, and I went out.
- I stayed altogether about three weeks there.
- My father was thin.
- And what else could we do?
- I wrote away for milk for my father,
- which I could obtain coming back from the camps.
- They sent me a letter.
- As you are a British subject, we can't allow you to have milk.
- We only give milk to Dutch subjects.
- So the man behind that desk didn't
- know what he was talking about.
- So I went to this office.
- I said, can you give us--
- can you give me money for myself,
- my father and mother, enough for the fare to England?
- We want to go to England.
- I said, well, I've got to stay here six months or a year.
- You've got to pay me every week money.
- And no need for that.
- So they gave us sufficient money to get back to London.
- And we arrived in London.
- You, your father, and stepmother?
- Yes, the three of us.
- There was nothing more.
- My sister didn't come back.
- And there was nothing more.
- Although I wasn't certain my wife and child nor my sister--
- later on, yes, agree.
- Then we knew.
- But there was nothing more to hold me
- in Rotterdam at that time.
- And we came to live in London.
- A little while we stayed with a brother.
- But there was too many of us there.
- It was only small house.
- My brother, who had been in the army for five years--
- In the British Army?
- British Army.
- He was living outside of London, in Bletchley.
- They were evacuated.
- The family had evacuated, and he was in the Army.
- My oldest brother had been in the 1418 war
- and was now in the Home Guard.
- So he was released from the Home Guard.
- And we stayed with him a little while.
- My father got a flat in the East End of London.
- And I stayed there for a few days.
- I wanted to make my way to Lewes,
- near Brighton, where my in-laws were.
- I think your other sister was also alive.
- Who?
- Your other sister.
- Kitty, all the time, had been in England.
- And she was alive.
- But she was still outside London, living outside London.
- She had been a voluntary help, a nurse in hospital.
- Why were your in-laws in Lewes?
- I thought they were Dutch.
- No, my in-laws-- yes, they were-- well,
- he was Dutch, from Dutch descent, but British-born.
- He had several daughters born in England.
- And my wife was his stepdaughter.
- He married my wife's mother.
- My wife's mother and his first wife were sisters.
- His first wife died.
- And the stepmother, or my wife's mother, took over--
- they got married-- and looked after the children,
- of which a child was born.
- Well, I made up my mind to go to Lewes
- and tell my mother-in-law what had happened
- to us, the child and my wife and her mother, grandma, and so on.
- When a telegram arrived from my sister-in-law out of Bletchley,
- who knew that I was going to Lewes--
- stop, Leon.
- Morry very ill.
- Morry was my brother who had been in the Army
- for five years.
- So I stopped in London.
- I didn't go to Lewes.
- And about 11 o'clock, my sister-in-law arrived.
- And she told us that my brother had gone the evening before.
- At the back of the house, they had a lavatory.
- Had a heart attack, and they had to carry him indoors,
- and he died.
- I found it such a shock.
- Instead of going to Bletchley, I rushed off to Bletchley.
- Instead of going to Lewes, I hurried back to Bletchley.
- And they had carried my brother's body
- into the police station there.
- And I went into the police station.
- I saw my brother.
- And I've seen hundreds in camp.
- But when it's your own, it's a little bit different.
- And I took a promise that I would
- try to help his wife and four children, who were still young.
- The oldest was about 14.
- And then I went back to London.
- The body came back to London.
- And we buried my brother, who is now
- in East Ham, Marlow Road buried.
- I didn't have a penny.
- I got 26 shillings from the British government
- to get my health back, which they
- increased a fortnight later to 35 shillings,
- and a few coupons.
- I couldn't live from that, to get back my house.
- Luckily, I wasn't smoking.
- I wasn't drinking.
- So I said, keep the 35 shillings.
- Give me enough coupons to get a decent coat and some shoes
- or something like that.
- And that's what I did.
- And then I went to work in the markets.
- The sons and daughters of my brother who had just died,
- the oldest son was a very clever chap.
- Before my brother died, he had told me,
- my son wants to become a doctor.
- And I got no money to let him study.
- And I'd lost everything in Holland what I had,
- so I couldn't help him.
- And I remember that.
- What could I do?
- Family on both sides, my sister-in-law and my family
- couldn't help me, had promised financial help
- which they didn't do after all.
- So I went on the markets and tried
- to earn a living in the markets.
- My first chance of facing the public
- was at Lewisham bombsite, where I worked,
- which my brother had done formerly, demonstrating
- hair curlers for ladies.
- But the oldest boy couldn't pass his exams as a doctor.
- This is interesting or not.
- Or not?
- Yes, we'll just tie up.
- One day, they were walking on the street.
- And they met a captain of the Army,
- who was a friend of her husband, had been very good to him.
- And he said, if there's anything I can do for you-- of course,
- your husband was a very good friend to me.
- How I can help you?
- So she mentioned her son.
- He said, well, he can study with me
- and become a solicitor instead of a doctor.
- And he did this.
- And he's a very well-to-do solicitor at present.
- The family moved away.
- And I just went my own way.
- You said that the first time you appeared in public, as it were,
- was that at the market in Lewisham.
- How did people react to you?
- I mean, people you didn't know?
- That's right.
- I was very shy and really frightened to face them.
- So I worked talking.
- I never did face a crowd.
- And I don't know how it would have gone with my singing,
- but it all held together.
- And later on I got more courage, and I did face the crowd.
- And they listened to me.
- And there was plenty of money about because people
- were buying.
- And that's how I happened to land in the markets
- instead of in a proper job or a proper businessman.
- I think the date of your arrival back in the Netherlands
- was the 10th of October.
- 10th October.
- 1945.
- So that's almost exactly three years.
- Three years and two days I'd been away, three years and 10--
- three years and two days, the 10th of October.
- I stood outside my house where they had taken me.
- Only it wasn't half past 1:00 in the morning,
- but it was about 10 o'clock in the night.
- When you were back in Holland and later on back in England--
- Yes.
- --did you find that anyone realized that there was
- something different about you?
- Did people react to you?
- I mean people who didn't know you.
- Well, of course I was staying then in my brother's house.
- Because after my brother died, we moved back to Forest Gate,
- and I lived in Forest Gate.
- And people came in, neighbors and all that,
- and they had read the article in the paper,
- and they had heard, probably, other people talk about it.
- So they came in, and they talked to me.
- And they didn't know what I was always talking about,
- but in the British hospital in Paris,
- the BBC had made a record or a couple of records of me.
- And I was telling on the records what had happened
- to me in the camps and so on.
- And I played those records to the people
- who came in and listened to it so they'd
- get a better idea of what I was telling them.
- At my brother's place, when I talked about the camps,
- I told them several things.
- I don't think they took it all quite in.
- They couldn't understand it, not until years later,
- when they saw on television something
- about the concentration camps.
- I remember coming in there one evening,
- and they said, you know, you told us about the camps
- when you came to us after liberation.
- Yes.
- They said, now we understand because we saw something
- like that on the television, and we know
- what you were talking about.
- So people didn't always in the beginning
- what it was all about.
- They didn't believe it.
- Now you spend a certain amount of your time talking
- at people's invitation to schools or groups
- about the life in the camps.
- Yes.
- How do you find people react or respond?
- Very good, I should think.
- Very good up to now, especially the youngsters, the school.
- The older people have read a lot about it,
- but I seldom meet somebody who's really been in hell.
- The children, they listen to it, and it's news to them,
- but I'll give them a kind of a warning,
- and that's what I want to do.
- Way back in Birkenau, when I saw the first man being almost
- beaten to death, I made a promise with God
- I'd go out and tell the world what was happening to us.
- And that's what I have been doing, have been wanting to do,
- and I am doing now if they let me.
- So anybody, whether it's one or two or 1,000 or 2,000,
- if they want to know about it and they ask me,
- I'll tell them about it.
- It's a necessity.
- There are people, as you know, who
- deny that the things that you say
- happened and deny 6 million Jews died and so on.
- Yes.
- I didn't read the books, but I saw the titles.
- But I assure you it is true.
- Not only 6 million Jews died, but they
- say that four million non-Jews died.
- Where are those people?
- And they died a terrible death.
- Not all of them died of pneumonia.
- Not all of them died of heart attacks or disease.
- The mass died in the gas chambers or being beaten up.
- Yes.
- I gather it was about 10 million altogether.
- That is so, and there's enough proof of it,
- and God help anybody who comes out of the camps.
- You can underestimate it, but if you're
- talking about the things in camp, don't overestimate it.
- Don't make it fantastic more than it is.
- I myself will not tell you things.
- I am there again.
- I'm walking.
- I'm seeing it, and it's coming out of my mouth.
- It's always there in my mind.
- And if anybody wants to know it, I'll talk about it.
- Do you wish you could get it out of your mind
- and not think about it?
- I never wished.
- I made this promise with God, and automatically it's
- come true.
- The world should know about it.
- I don't want people and children to be killed off just
- because their beliefs are different.
- It shouldn't be like that.
- Did you follow Nuremberg and other war crimes trials?
- No, I didn't follow them.
- I didn't read.
- I collect books about the camps and about my country where
- I used to live, Holland, Rotterdam especially,
- the town where I lived.
- But I don't read a lot in those books.
- I got it in me.
- But I do like to know more about the camp Westerbork.
- After I left Westerbork, a lot of things altered there.
- And above all, I'm always looking and searching
- if I can find people who were there with me,
- and I could talk to them about things we both
- or whoever it was experienced.
- Have you received restitutions from the German government?
- Well, years ago, I got 2,500 marks.
- We all had paid, got paid from GI Farben,
- where most of the people in Monowitz and Auschwitz
- worked for.
- After that, it was a fight between me
- and the British government for compensation.
- I am disappointed in my country, in my English, England.
- I've talked to people in Whitehall
- or wherever they were.
- I asked for compensation, and they
- didn't want to listen to me.
- I got no compensation from the Dutch government.
- Ironically, there was a time that the Dutch government
- refused to compensate me for what I went through,
- and they said, because you're a British subject.
- Why didn't they say that in '42?
- Why didn't they say you're English,
- you're interned instead of being sent away?
- I would have had my wife and child.
- I would have been a grandfather by now.
- Ironically, I had to fight that as well.
- In various ways, the Dutch government said,
- you are Dutch because of your grandfather.
- You're British because you were born in England.
- It happened to you in Holland, and we
- got to compensate you if you got your Dutch nationality.
- Well, the first 10 years or more, I wasn't back in Holland.
- I didn't want to go back to the country
- where I had such sorrow.
- Then I did by writing to the Queen I
- got so-called my Dutch nationality back again,
- and I get a compensation from the Dutch government.
- You're now a dual national.
- I'm a dual national.
- I was it all the time without knowing it.
- I never joined the Dutch Army.
- I've got a paper which says, he need not
- join the Dutch Army because of his British nationality.
- Father had proclaimed us as British subjects
- at the British consul in Holland.
- The British consul in Holland never
- informed me at the very end that we are going,
- you can come with us.
- They went without getting me to go with them.
- I accuse four people.
- To start with Mr. Groot, J-R-O-O--
- G-R-O-O-T, a man of the town hall in Rotterdam,
- who refused to listen to me about talking about
- my nationality, who could have collaborated with me.
- Instead, he didn't do his job right.
- I accused the Dutch consul, Mr. [PERSONAL NAME]
- for not answering my dozens of letters which I wrote to him.
- In the very end, I found my forms and photographs
- for a passport on his desk.
- And shortly after that, we were taken away to Westerbork.
- I accuse Inspector Roos, one of the chief inspectors
- of the alien police in Rotterdam,
- who told me when we were together in one room,
- he said, I know you're British, but I'm not
- going up the wall for you.
- I can only stamp you now as a Dutch national.
- He refused to help me.
- And most of all Kurt Schlesinger,
- the German Jew who came to Holland, in Westerbork, later
- became chief inside Westerbork camp,
- could have exchanged me with a special program
- the Germans had exchanging prisoners, German prisoner
- of war for Jews.
- He didn't do that for me.
- He sent us away.
- And when we were away, he found letters to me,
- my wife and child could have been interned.
- He opened the mail after the train went intentionally.
- He ought to open the mail before the train went,
- and he could have got me out of there, American-Dutch subjects,
- and other English-Dutch subjects out there.
- He didn't.
- And I hope that those four people
- can be brought to justice.
- I can't do one wrong thing, or I am for it.
- Why should those four men get away with what they've done?
- Not only to me but for the others, something like that
- must never occur again.
- And that's how I feel.
- And if Kurt Schlesinger is still alive, I want to find him.
- And if he's dead, I want to know if he's dead.
- Give me black and white where he's buried, where he died.
- What would you do if you did find him?
- I would try to get him in front of the judge,
- and I think I would be then talking
- about this, because most of the others
- didn't come back to tell what this man has been doing.
- One can read in the books coming out now what kind of a man
- he was.
- He was a bad man.
- I'm not a murderer, but I live with this.
- He is the man that said no to us, and he ought have said yes.
- Have you been back to Germany or to Poland?
- No.
- During my stay after the war in show business,
- I once went back for about a half an hour
- to an hour in a little place called Grünau just
- over the Dutch border when I was in show business
- in the town near Enschede.
- I walked there, and I walked back.
- I was, in my mind, in the mouth of the lion,
- and I walked out of that again.
- To Poland I haven't been, but I contemplate going in October
- to visit once the place where I was a slave laborer, Auschwitz
- and Birkenau.
- And the life I'm leading now, which I don't always
- show to the outside world, but when am I alone, it's daily.
- It's minutely.
- It's hourly.
- It's always there, the life I lead is not good,
- and I blame the Germans for that.
- I dare say there were good Germans.
- So were my wife and child.
- They were good.
- No one asked were they good or bad.
- They did away with them.
- I can't do away with the bad Germans.
- I can't find the good ones, but I hope I never
- have anything to do with them.
- What they done to my folk, the Jews, but also to the non-Jews
- we will never forget.
- And when I'm dead, there's one less to talk about it.
- Thank you very much for making this recording.
- Because of course you now will continue
- to talk about it whenever anyone listens to your recording.
- Yes.
Overview
- Interview Summary
- Leon Greenman, born in 1910 in England, describes his grandfather, who grew up in Amsterdam, Netherlands and did trading in London, England; growing up in Rotterdam, Netherlands; his father’s work in trade; attending Hebrew school; hearing Oswald Mosley speak in London in the 1930s; the rise of Hitler; his marriage to Esther van Dam and their decision to settle in Rotterdam in 1935; anticipating the war; the German bombing of Rotterdam May 14, 1940 and the damage to his family home; the German occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; registering with German authorities as Jewish; reasons for not being called up to British or Dutch armies; wearing the Star of David; his attempt to gain internment as a British citizen from 1941 to 1942; relations with Dutch neighbors; his employment selling door to door; the effects of food restrictions; continuing religious services in Jewish homes; his degree of knowledge of concentration camps; his lack of contact with resistance; listening to the BBC; the story of his postwar meeting with a Dutch policeman who did not help Greenman to escape deportation; witnessing the shooting down of a RAF reconnaissance aircraft in the summer of 1942; Allied bombings and the lack of air raid shelters; the deportation of Jews; being sent to Westerbork transit camp in October 1942; conditions in the camp; German Jewish refugees; work details in the camp; food rations; giving English lessons; his son's illness; the character of deportation administrator Kurt Schlesinger; his father’s arrival; being sent to Birkenau in January 1943; the fate of his wife and child; the selection of able bodied men; the treatment by Kapos; undressing, shaving, and receiving clothing; the shooting of an inmate; being tattooed with a camp number; the various colored triangles worn by inmates; Romani inmates; sexual relations in the camp; relations between inmates; rations; the lie infestation; his job shaving inmates; facilities in the camp; sharing soup with other inmates; the counting of dead bodies during Appells; finding money whilst tidying barracks; the importance of luck to survival; singing for Kapos; punishment of barracks for not saying good night loudly enough; attempt to treat his dysentery; problems with shoelaces; problems of night time ablutions; beating by SS man during selection; being marched to Auschwitz in March 1943; conditions in the hospital; stealing a potato from a fellow inmate; being subjected to medical experimentation; the issue of an olive ration; making knives; his work with a cable laying Kommando; his work unloading trains; working conditions in summer; sabotage attempts; his contact with British POWs; the problems of unloading coal; prostitution in the camp; seeing SS men with pet rabbits; strongman performances by a Kapo; being sent to Monowitz in September 1943; living conditions in barracks and life in the camp; having to unload railway wagon by himself as punishment; his contact with a Dutch friend, Jacques De Wolf; songs in the barracks; Christmas Eve 1943; the camp orchestra; being beaten; contracting pneumonia; the mortality rate amongst Dutch Jewish inmates; his memories of Jon Perez; birds in the camp; being sent to Buchenwald in January 1945 then being marched to Gleiwitz; the mental state of SS guards; receiving medical treatment for frostbitten feet; his memories of Albert Kongs and Oskar Rotschild; events in the camp leading up to liberation; being liberated by American troops in April 1945; receiving clothing and food; visiting Erfurt, Germany; meeting with journalist Anne Mattheson; going to Paris, France and being hospitalized; the amputation of his big toe; staying with a French family; going to the Netherlands; reuniting with his father; moving to Great Britain; his reflections on his Holocaust experiences; and his attitude towards Germans.
- Interviewee
- Leon Greenman
- Date
-
interview:
1986 April 22
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
12 sound cassettes (90 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- Restrictions on use. Permission to copy and/or use recordings in any production must be granted by the Imperial War Museums.
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Antisemitism. Bombing, Aerial--Netherlands. Concentration camp guards. Concentration camp inmates as musicians. Concentration camp inmates--Intellectual life. Concentration camp inmates--Medical care--Poland. Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Concentration camp inmates--Sexual behavior. Concentration camp tattoos. Concentration camps--Psychological aspects. Death march survivors. Death marches. Forced labor. Holocaust survivors--Great Britain. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Netherlands--Personal narratives. Human experimentation in medicine. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Netherlands. Jews--Netherlands--Rotterdam. Kapos. Prisoners of war--Great Britain. Prostitution. Roll calls. Shooting (Execution) Star of David badges. V-E Day, 1945. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. World War, 1939-1945--Conscript labor. World War, 1939-1945--Songs and music. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Erfurt (Germany) Great Britain--Emigration and immigration. London (England) Netherlands--History--German occupation, 1940-1945. Paris (France) Poland. Rotterdam (Netherlands)
- Personal Name
- Greenman, Leon.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Imperial War Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview was conducted by the Imperial War Museum as part of their retrospective oral history interview program. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired a copy of the interview with Leon Greenman from the Imperial War Museum in February 1995.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:17:33
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn510857
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Oral history interview with Joukje Grandia-Smits
Oral History
Joukje Grandia-Smits (nom de guerre Clara), born Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1917, describes her family; her employment as a teacher; the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940; reactions to the bombing of Rotterdam; the German’s initial attempt to conciliate the Dutch population; the persecution of Dutch Jews; German recruitment of Dutch labor and her evasion of the labor conscription; methods of defeating the German ration card system; the residence permit system; forging and stealing identity cards; resistance activities in the Netherlands from 1941 to 1944; the role of women in the resistance; her role and handling firearms; tensions between different types of resisters; the motivation of traitors and the pro-German sections of Dutch population; the concealment of men who had gone underground; the influence of the terrain on Dutch resistance; the attitude of Dutch Jews to German persecution; an incident in which a Jew in hiding insisted on seeing his wife; the assistance given to a shot-down Allied aircrew; the failure of Germans to conciliate Dutch civilians; her arrest and interrogation by Germans in June 1944 after being betrayed by a Dutch collaborator; eating an incriminating book; the rivalries in German security services; the nature of the interrogation and being accused of espionage; being sent to Ravensbrück in 1944; the train journey to the camp; the use of colored triangles for inmates; the refusal of former resistance prisoners to work for Germans; the heavy work women were made to do; the guard dogs used by Germans and winning over a guard dog; being selected for factory work at Dachau; the prisoners’ sabotage activities; march out of the camp and being liberated by US troops; returning to the Netherlands; the strike among Dachau prisoners over food; the go-slow tactics and sabotage employed by concentration camp workers; the German divide and rule tactics; precautions against informers; conditions at Ravensbrück; degree of knowledge of German civilians of concentration camp conditions; conditions on the journey to Dachau; the attitude of German civilians to camp inmates; attitude to Jehovah's Witnesses; and the use of acorns for dysentery.
Oral history interview with Odette Hallowes
Oral History
Odette Hallowes (born in 1912 in France) describes her enlistment and training with the Special Operations Executive in Great Britain; being married to an English man and offering to help the War Office; her motivation for enlistment and her attitudes towards Germans; her impressions of Colonel Maurice Buckmaster; details about the training she received; her acceptance of the risks of service and feeling prepared for what was to come; wearing the same suit during all of her imprisonment; going to France in 1943 as an agent with Special Operations Executive; the journey to France on a fishing boat; going to Cannes, France; the Réseau in Cannes; being an inmate of Fresnes Prison, Paris, France, in 1943; resisting Gestapo questions; attitude towards torture and her methods for getting through it; her religious beliefs; her torturer who was a Frenchman; reasons for attitude of defiance in captivity; using the name Churchill in the prison and attributing her survival to it; further details of her defiant attitude in captivity; her contact with other F Section prisoners and befriending another female prisoner; the importance of secrecy for her while she was imprisoned; her attitude towards the Germans at that time; her views on those who gave up information to the enemy; the difficulty of being separated from her children; controlling a female SS guard who wrote to her after the war; her conversations with other imprisoned British female agents; her arrival in Ravensbrück; being put in an isolated cell next to the punishment cell; conditions in the camp; being moved to a cell next to the crematorium; witnessing the cannibalism of a woman who was shot; punishment in the camp; going to several different camps north of Ravensbrück after Hitler’s death; her physical condition upon release from the camp; her feelings when she returned to England and experience of wartime service; her reflections on her captivity from 1943 to 1945; her attitude to her biography and film; being awarded the George Cross; and further details on Fresnes Prison.
Oral history interview with Mayer Hersh
Oral History
Mayer Hersh, born in Sieradz, Poland, in 1926, describes his family; education; the orthodox beliefs of his family; his family’s lack of political interest; their loyalty towards Poland; antisemitism in Poland; aspects of being a schoolchild in Sieradz from 1939 to 1940; the reaction to the German invasion in September 1939; leaving their home town; the shooting of Polish civilians by the German Army; living conditions during the occupation; the restrictions on Jews; the execution of a friend by Germans in Otoczna concentration camp in 1940; rumors that Jewish civilians would be transferred to a labor camp; being taken from his family home in March 1940; being an inmate of Otoczna concentration camp from 1940 to 1942; the effects of the lack of food; being beaten by a camp guard; the rations they received; their daily routine and work building a railway line; the suicides of inmates; the possibility of escape; the brutality of Hitler Youth towards his brother in another camp; the attitude of the Polish population towards Jews; the character of Kapos; being an inmate in Auschwitz concentration camp from 1942 to 1944; the selection process under the supervision of Dr. Josef Mengele; roll calls; the construction of a camp compound; selection of inmates for gas chambers; the orchestra playing at the camp gates; the uprising by Sonderkommando in the gas chambers in 1944; the presence of gypsies in the camp and their elimination by the Germans in 1944; resistance in the camp; personal morale; a story of support received from an older inmate during a march in 1945; being an inmate in Stutthof concentration camp in 1944; the presence of his sister in the camp; being moved to an airfield near Stuttgart, Germany, in December 1944; his work duties and contact with German civilians; being an inmate in Gotha then Theresienstadt in 1945; the march to the camp; conditions in the camp and the typhoid epidemic; the death of his friend; liberation of the camp in May 1945; contracting typhoid; his immigration to Great Britain in 1945; arriving in Windermere, England; his attitude towards the work of Jewish organizations; the German medical experimentation on twins in Auschwitz; inmate relations; the discomfort of train journeys; the psychological and physical impact of imprisonment; his attitude towards Germans; the punishment work on Sundays in Auschwitz; medical problems in the camps; an inmate with a sense of humor and rumors about the war’s progress; the degree of religious life in the camps; the impact of his experience on his religious beliefs; and his survival.
Oral history interview with Jerzy Herszberg
Oral History
Jerzy Herszberg describes his background in Poznan, Poland, in the 1930s; Polish antisemitism; his family circumstances; their level of knowledge about Hitler; the arrival of Jewish refugees in Poznan; being in the Łódź Ghetto from 1940 to 1944; conditions in the ghetto; the death of his mother; his job as a messenger; selections in the ghetto in 1942; food in the ghetto and conditions during the winter; his work making parachute harnesses; hospitalization during the typhoid epidemic in 1942; the liquidation of the ghetto in July 1944; hiding in a cellar and leaving with the police deportees; the train journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau and being there from July to November 1944; his reaction upon arriving in the camp; ex-policemen in the camp; the camp guards; the selection process; being moved to Birkenau; rations in the camp; the discovery of a water source; the contrast in diets between the ghetto and camp; morning ablutions; roll calls; latrines; the growing awareness of nature of camp; his method for leaving Birkenau; the train journey to Braunschweig in November 1944; arriving in the camp; conditions in the camp; the infestations of lice; working in a factory and the German master; rations and water supply in the factory; Ukrainian female workers; Allied air raids; the state of his health at that time; the character of German and Jewish Kapos; his will to survive; companionship in the camp and the treatment of dead and sick inmates; the journey to Watenstedt in February 1945; the accommodations and size of the camp; Spanish inmates playing music; the different nationalities in the camp; activities when they were confined to the barracks; why Germans evacuated inmates; being sent to Ravensbrück in March 1945; Hungarian inmates; the visit of a Red Cross representative; being in Wöbbelin from April 1945 to May 1945; the preparations of Kapos to leave and the disappearance of guards; being liberated by US troops; trips into the Russian zone; the relations between the US and Russian troops; going to Poland through Czechoslovakia and the attitude of Czechoslovakians to camp survivors; going to Great Britain in August 1945; Theresienstadt transit camp; the fate of his sister; being a refugee in England; his flight from Prague, Czech Republic to Britain with the group “The Boys”; arriving in Windermere, England; continuing his education; receiving reparations; and his post-war visits to Germany and Poland.
Oral history interview with Stephanie Hessel
Oral History
Stephane Hessel, born in Berlin, Germany in 1917, describes his family moving to Paris, France in 1924; his parents; his education; his attitude towards the Nazi regime and his reaction to the Munich Crisis in 1938; his conscription into French Army in 1939 and being an officer; the retreat after May 10, 1940 and the morale in the French Army; his attitude towards Fifth Column; reaction to the Dunkirk Evacuation and Mers el Kebir; escaping from France to Great Britain in 1940-1941; being an officer with Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA) in England from 1942 to 1944; his initial training as a navigator with the Royal Air Force from 1941 to 1942; being recruited to intelligence service; his role and duties; aspects of operations as officer with the BCRA in 1944; parachuting into France in March 1944; his role organizing resistance communications; being captured by the Gestapo and interrogated; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in October 1944; arriving in the camp; his change of identity; working in a German factory; escaping from the camp and being re-captured; being sent to Dora concentration camp in February 1945; living under threat of execution; conversations with V2 saboteurs; escaping from a train near Luneburg, Germany in April 1945; joining US forces near Hanover, Germany; his temporary capture by SS; the comparisons between Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps; control by ‘criminal’ inmates in Dora; working on V-weapons; sabotage attempt on V-weapons; his own Kommando at Dora; the arrival of victims from concentration camps in the east; the use of limited power by ‘political’ inmates in Buchenwald; the divide and rule tactics employed in concentration camps; the attitude towards Russian inmates in Buchenwald; memories of Wing Commander F F E Yeo-Thomas; his opinion of misconceptions about concentration camps; the Nazi attitude towards camp inmates; his contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses in the camps; the behavior of ‘mussulmen’; possessing an escaping mentality; Rottleberode work camp; the degree of breakdown in Germany in the spring of 1945; the effects of his experiences on personal attitudes; the achievements of the resistance in France in 1944; and his observations on the British during World War II.
Oral history interview with Piet Ketelaar
Oral History
Piet Ketelaar, born April 7, 1921 in Haarlem, Netherlands, describes his family and educational background; the invasion of Holland by Germans in May 10, 1940; war work; witnessing dogfights over Bennebroek; the arrival of the Wehrmacht and the attitude of the Dutch population towards the arrival of Germans; the impact of the occupation on the standard of living; rumors regarding the fate of Jews; collaboration and resistance in the Netherlands; his resistance work in Holland from 1940 to 1944; being a resistance leader; resistance groups; listening to the BBC; distributing newsletters to Dutch people; supplies dropped by the Royal Air Force; acquiring and concealing weapons; organizing weapons training; sabotage; types of people that joined the resistance, including a female courier that gathered information on V2 sites; members of his group; German attempts to capture resistance workers; helping Allied airman; being arrested in December 1944; the fate of his brother; being interrogated; the journey to Neuengamme, Germany; being interned in Neuengamme concentration camp; the procedure on arrival; his first impressions of the camp; Appells; privileged Norwegian and Danish prisoners; various types of inmates; relationships between inmates; security in the camp; medical problems in the camp; his recollections of being aboard Cap Arcona, leaving Neuengamme and the air attack on the ship; illness and hospitalization; travelling to Brussels, Belgium; contracting typhus; and the attitude towards the bombing of Cap Arcona.
Oral history interview with William Dillon Hughes
Oral History
William Dillon Hughes describes being the senior medical officer with Royal Army Medical Corps at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp hospital from May 1945 to July 1945; taking Royal Army Medical Corps staff to Belsen; conditions at camp on their arrival; conditions of the inmates; diseases to be treated; the influx of Russian forced labor workers suffering from tuberculosis in late June 1945; the use of DDT (AL 63) to kill typhus spreading lice; uncooperative attitude of the leader of the Russian group; visitors to Belsen inmates; the sanitary situation in the camp; relations between medical personnel and camp inmates; handing over the camp to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association in July 1945; and the role of British nurses in the camp.
Oral history interview with Jack Kagan
Oral History
Jack Kagan, born in 1929 in Novogrudok, Poland (now Navahrudak, Belarus), describes the demographics of the Novogrudok area, including the languages spoken and poverty in the peasantry; his family and education; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; the role of Polish nationalists; Jewish political organizations; the religious attitude of his family; examples of Polish antisemitism; the Russian occupation of the Novogrudok area from 1939 to 1941; the Russian introduction of communists measures; his experiences with the pioneers; the Jews' welcome for Russians and the suppression of antisemitism; opportunities for Jews; the changes in his schooling; the German attack on Russia in June 1941 and the Russian retreat; the German bombing of Novogrudok; the German treatment of Russian POWs and witnessing a German killing a Russian POW; the German occupation of Novogrudok; the Polish collaboration with Germans; his belief that Germany could not win the war; Germans massacring the Jewish population on July 12, 1941; being an inmate in the Piereszeka Ghetto from December 1941 to August 1942; the work regime within the ghetto; narrowly escaping from the German round up in May 1942; the massacre in Piereszeka Ghetto on July 8, 1942; conditions in the ghetto and the rations; relations between ghetto inmates; receiving aid from outside ghetto; being in the Novogrudok labor camp from August 1942 to May 1943; the character of the German commandant; his reaction to Appells and escapes; his own escape from the camp in December 1942; an attempt to join a partisan group; returning to the camp and the amputation of his toes because of frostbite; surviving a massacre on July 5, 1943; an inmate's concealed radio; plans for a mass escape; hearing the news of the Piereszeka Ghetto liquidation in January 1943; the construction of an escape tunnel; escaping from the Novogrudok Camp in September 1943; being with partisans in the Naliboki Camp from 1943 to 1944; life with the partisans, including the supply problems and workshops; the German counter-measures; the attitude of peasants towards partisans and the partisan tactics towards them; the aid given by Russians; camp defenses; relations between his group and the Polish partisans; dissensions amongst the partisans; orders not to disband partisans on liberation; disbanding of his partisan family group in June 1944; the fate of Romanies in the area; the German use of air power; partisan discipline, ranks, and direction; partisan morale; the partisan revenge group; the formation of farmer's family groups; his partisan pension; and inmate morale in the labor camps.
Oral history interview with Martin Hoffman
Oral History
Martin Josef Hoffman, born in 1929 in Prague, Czech Republic, describes his family; his neighborhood; his education and health problems; reasons for his move to live with relatives in the Carpathian Mountains; the Jewish and Russian Christian communities; the Hungarian occupation of the Carpathian region in Czechoslovakia from 1939 to 1940; the effects of the Hungarian occupation; his parents' fate in Prague; the food situation; the confiscation of Jewish businesses; his opinion of Hitler's attitude to Jews; the restrictions on education; his religious life; living in Budapest, Hungary from 1940 to 1944; his failure to emigrate in 1940; support from Jewish community; daily life in the city; hearing stories of German antisemitic atrocities; the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 and the reaction of Jewish community; the contrasts between Hungarian and German attitudes towards Jews; his deportation from Budapest to Auschwitz in early 1944; the journey there and not knowing his fate; the reception in Birkenau and Auschwitz and the selection process; his initial impressions of the camp; being shaved and receiving an uniform; the role of Kapos; avoiding classification as a child; conditions in the camp; being an inmate in Buna Monowitz in 1944; his daily routine and conditions in the camp; the attempted rape by a Kapo and consequences; his efforts to avoid work; being selected for engineering training; the health situation; the medical facilities and the fate of the chronically sick; the lack of hygiene; the mental state of inmates; the guards’ willingness to shoot inmates; the role and nature of Kapos; recreation; rumors of German defeats; the political and criminal inmates; relations with other inmates; the abandonment of religious dietary laws; the loss of faith; mental attitudes; his selection for gate duties and his consequent transfer to Glewitz; his daily routine at the gate; the barrack accommodations; the cruelty of Kapos; the hanging of inmate escapees; varying degrees of brutality of different SS camp commandants; work duties; the story of being given a meal by a German Army officer; the evacuation of camp in February 1945 and the journey from Glewitz to Buchenwald; the death march and the execution of inmates falling out; the varying behavior of German guards; their interval at Gross-Rosen; being loaded into cattle trucks; the effects of hunger; the casualties amongst the prisoners; life in Buchenwald, including the conditions and death rate; being transferred to the main camp for kitchen duties; the German Communist Kapos; his efforts to aid friends; the avoidance of a second death march; staying in camp as after the evacuation; being liberated by United States troops in April 1945; the German resistance in the nearby woods; moving to SS quarters and bartering with US troops; being a displaced person in Czechoslovakia and Germany in 1945; returning to Prague to search for his family; his role as a mascot with a US Army unit in Germany; his second return to Prague; immigrating to Great Britain; the free travel for former inmates; the long term effects of his experience and his attitude towards Germans; his refusal to take reprisals against Germans; and the capture of SS guards during liberation and the treatment of former Kapos.
Oral history interview with Jørgen von Führen Kieler
Oral History
Jørgen von Führen Kieler describes growing up in Horsens, Jutland, Denmark; his family; his education; traveling around Europe frequently with his family; being a student in Germany, Paris, France, and Cambridge, England from 1937 to 1938; attending a Hitler-Mussolini meeting in Munich, Germany in 1937; the antisemitic exhibition; the metro strike in Paris in 1937; the friends he made at Cambridge University; his attitude towards the Nazi regime; learning of the existence of Dachau in 1937; his attitude towards German Danish relations; the neglect of Danish defenses; the Munich crisis in 1938; being a medical student in Copenhagen, Denmark from 1939 to 1940; volunteering for service in the Finnish Winter War at the end of 1939; the German occupation of Denmark in 1940; the appearance of the German Air Force over Copenhagen September 4, 1940; his reaction to the lack of resistance against Germans; joining the Danish Resistance in 1942; his membership in the Free Denmark Resistance group from 1942 to 1944; his resistance contacts; propaganda activities; the controversy over the collection of food aid for inland in 1943; the origins of the Aalborg Resistance in the spring of 1942; the start of the Communist KOPA resistance group (Borgerlige partisaner) in the autumn of 1942; reasons for the change in Hitler's policy towards Denmark in September 1943; the Special Operations Executives' contact with the Danish Resistance (1940- 1943); the arrival of Flemming Muus in 1943; the contrasts in attitude towards sabotage by Danish Communists; the collaboration between Finland volunteers and Danish Communists for sabotage; his decision to start his own sabotage group in Jutland, Denmark in the spring of 1943; the initial sabotage attempt at Horsens; the German attitude towards Danish sabotage; the Danish Government's aid to Germans; the German take over of Denmark in August 1943; the beginning of the persecution of Danish Jews in 1943; the lack of German Army co-operation in antisemitic policy; the role of his group in the campaign to save Danish Jews by removing them to Sweden in 1943; the orders to deny the Danish Navy to the Germans; Germans not pursuing boats taking Jews to Sweden; Danish motives for protecting Jewish civilians; their methods of securing explosives in late 1943; the capture of a resistance leader; the treatment of captured resister by Germans; the orders to stop sabotage in December 1943; moving to Jutland and the sabotage carried out; returning to Copenhagen to sabotage a shipyard; the capture and interrogations by the Gestapo in early 1944; his capture in Copenhagen harbor during the sabotage operation; being interrogated; his sentence for attempting to escape to Sweden; his release and move to south Jutland; being captured by Germans in 1944; meeting with a former group leader in a Gestapo cell in Copenhagen; the execution of the group leader in April 1944; the requirement for him to sign a confession; how a general strike led to his deportation to Porta Westfalica concentration camp; being an inmate in Porta Westfalica and Neuengamme from 1944 to 1945; mining work; stoning because of failure to work fast enough; how being transferred to a job in the camp hospital saved his life; the arrival of Red Cross parcels; his memories of Nikolai, a Danish inmate from south Jutland, and how Nikolai stopped Russians attacking Danes over Red Cross parcels; the death of Nikolai from starvation in the infirmary; the effects of starvation on inmates; how he was the last Danish prisoner to leave Neuengamme on April 20, 1945; reuniting with his mother and a colleague from Cambridge in May 1945; more details on Porta Westfalica, including the organization of camp and the beatings; and the effects of his experiences and his attitude towards Germans.
Oral history interview with Judith Konrad
Oral History
Judith Konrad describes life in Budapest, Hungary during the 1930s; her Jewish education; encountering antisemitism; her awareness of events in Germany and Austria; the political beliefs of her parents; life in Budapest after 1939; the impact of anti-Jewish legislation on her father's business; restrictions against Jews; wearing the yellow star; the deportation of a number of Jews, including her father's family and their fates; their knowledge of concentration camps; the confiscation of her family home; food rations; their accommodations in a yellow star house; obtaining extra food by working in kitchens for Germans; her mother's success in obtaining Christian ID papers; working as a maid for a Hungarian Christian; returning to Budapest to protect her mother; meeting with her father before her deportation in October 1944; the fate of her mother; her work digging tank tracks on the outskirts of Buda; a five day march to Austria in October 1944; the poor treatment of teenage boys; the reaction of civilians to marching prisoners; trading valuables for food; her comparison of Germans and the Hungarian Arrow Cross; coping with freezing conditions; medical problems; her internment at Lichtenworth concentration camp beginning in November 1944; the camp commandant and conditions in the camp, including the food rations, sanitation, the disposal of camp dead, the camp’s medical facilities, and roll calls; Christmas day in 1944; activities to relieve boredom; attempts to keep clean; the typhus epidemic; caring for fellow inmates; her attitude towards having a shaved head; the treatment of inmates by guards; self preservation; the escape of some inmates to a village to get food; the attitude towards Allied bombing; babies born in the camp; trying not to think of parents; the role of Jewish police in the camp; hearing approaching Allied gunfire and the disappearance of German guards; liberation and the reaction of Russians to the sight of the camp and prisoners; the disorganization of the liberation operation; staying in a disused farmhouse; food distributed by Russians; the arrival of vans to disinfect inmates; the attitude of villagers towards inmates; her first sight of herself in a mirror; being cared for by the Hungarian Red Cross; the reaction to the news of liberation of other concentration camps; returning to Budapest, Hungary in May 1945; searching for and reuniting with her mother; her first meal at home; her gradual recovery; learning that her father had not survived; immigrating to Britain in 1946; her reasons for emigration; her attitude towards the Cold War; and her attitude towards war today.
Oral history interview with Pinkus Kurnedz
Oral History
Pinkus Kurnedz, born March 15, 1928, describes life in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland during the 1930s; his family background and education; the relations between Poles and Jews; antisemitism; his father's involvement with the Zionist movement; the German entry into Piotrkow Trybunalski in September 1939; life in Piotrkow Trybunalski under the German occupation; the increase in Polish antisemitism; restrictions against Jews; the creation of the ghetto and life there; the confiscation of Jewish businesses and property; the deportation of Jews in 1942; working in the Hortensia glass factory from 1942 to 1944; conditions in the factory; being interned at Czestochowa from 1944 to 1945; working in an ammunition factory; food rations; obtaining extra food; the evacuation of the camp; the journey to Buchenwald; his internment at Buchenwald and conditions there; deaths in the camp; the procedure on arrival; clothing; forced labor at an ammunitions factory near Colditz, Germany; stealing food; marching to Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia in 1945; his uncle's illness; the liberation of Theresienstadt; the problems of inmates overeating; the initial chaos upon liberation; revenge on a Kapo; the reaction of inmates to the arrival of Russians; the kindness of a Russian soldier; his immigrating to Great Britain in 1945; adapting to normal life; his reflections on his Holocaust experience; the long term effects of his experience; and his attitude towards Germans and Poles.
Oral history interview with Richard Leatherbarrow
Oral History
Richard Leatherbarrow describes applying to join the Army Film and Photographic Unit in 1943; his previous photographic experience; being with the Army Film and Photographic Unit from 1943 to 1944; his training course at Pinewood Studios; his preference for cinematography over still photography; his memories of other recruits; battle training; test films; becoming a sergeant; photographing flail tanks and filming training exercises with the American Rangers; preparations for the Normandy landings and volunteering to land with commandos on the first day; the voyage from Southampton aboard LSI (landing ship, infantry) and experiencing seasickness; his memory of tinned soup; disembarking onto the beach; the problem of keeping the camera dry; not having camera guns but seeing the results of them; filming on the beach during the landing; the atrocities he witnessed; his view on his purpose as a cameraman and believing it was important to record the events for posterity; moving off the beach at Saint Omer; sleeping in a slit trench; the problem of returning film; his opinion of Vinton and DeVry cameras; billets; transport; meeting General Gale; the problem of filming and checking for danger; intelligence briefings; French civilians; the story of the death of Norman Clegg; filming French female collaborators having their heads shaved; his opinion of the French and Belgian Resistance; coverage of the Ardennes offensive in December 1944; the problem of snow and bad weather; the co-operation with Americans; using a jeep and driver; the coverage of operations at Arnhem, Holland in 1944; casualties in the Army Film and Photographic Unit; his first impressions of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945; the condition of the inmates; story of a visit by Ellen Wilkinson; the coverage of the German surrender in Luneburg Heath, Germany; relations between cameramen and Montgomery; and being in Berlin, Germany at the end of the war.
Oral history interview with Moshe Nurtman
Oral History
Moshe Nurtman, born January 1, 1929, describes life in Warkr (Warka), Poland in the 1930s; his family circumstances and education; the Polish-fascist boycott of Jewish shops; religious character of his family; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; the German bombings and searches; the German occupation; restrictions against Jews; the treatment of Jewish civilians by Germans; his family selling some possessions; the German and Polish abuse of Jews; being in the Warka ghetto and the living conditions including food and heating; contracting typhus in the ghetto; moving to Miszew in 1940; having accommodations with Polish women; expeditions to beg for food; evading German and Polish patrols; being in the Kozenice ghetto in 1941; the layout of the ghetto; being beaten from a Jewish policeman; escaping from the ghetto in the summer of 1941; hearing the news of the fate of the Jews in Kozenice ghetto; working on the drainage canal; returning to the ghetto; being an inmate at Skarszisko from 1942 to 1944; working in an ammunition factory; acquiring a transport job; an incident involving Ukrainian guards; escaping the blame for an accident to a drunken guard; being used by the guards to pass information into the camp to discourage escapes; being transported to Czestochowa during the Russian advance; conditions during train journey from Czestochowa to Buchenwald; conditions in Buchenwald and the punishment of Jewish policeman by inmates; political prisoners; the duties of the blockmaster in the children’s block; volunteering to clear bomb debris in Weimar, Germany; being in Theresienstadt in May 1945; the death of prisoners on the journey to the camp; conditions in the camp; the difficulty of comprehending the end of the war; the behavior of inmates towards each other; beatings received; the selection of Kapos; competition for position as Kapo; food and water supplies in Buchenwald; reaction to Nazi persecution of the Jews.
Oral history interview with Berek Obuchowski
Oral History
Berek Obuchowski, born in April 1928, describes life in Ozorkow, Poland in the 1930s; his family circumstances; his education; incidents of antisemitism; the German occupation of Ozorkow from 1939 to 1942; overcrowding in the town; restrictions on Jews; the humiliation of Jews; his brother's refuge in Russia; knifing by Pole; Polish antisemitism under the Germans; the German policy towards Jews; the selection of Jews by Germans in June 1942; the fate of his family in Chelmno; being an inmate in the Łódź ghetto from 1942 to 1944; conditions in the ghetto; the behavior of criminal police; the problems of cold and hunger and the difficulties of escaping; employment in ghetto; contracting typhoid and other health problems; the liquidation of the ghetto; being an inmate in Birkenau beginning in 1944; restrictions on the use of latrines; surviving the selection process; tattooing; being an inmate in Auschwitz in 1944; the Romani inmates’ fear of other inmates; the electrocution of Romanies on the perimeter wire; the food rations; being an inmate in Babitz in 1944; his friendship with a German Jewish doctor and helping in surgery; inmate clothing; the journey from Babitz to Buchenwald in December 1944 and being made to march; the shaving and disinfecting of inmates; overcrowding; being an inmate of Rehmsdorf (Troglitz) in 1945; conditions in the camp and the abuse of inmates by German civilians; breaking his foot; escaping from execution; obsession with survival; a murder committed by an inmate; the behavior of inmates towards each other; the behavior of the Kapos; the journey from Rehmsdorf to Theresienstadt in 1945; an Allied air attack on the train; rejecting the offer to make an escape attempt; the shooting of stragglers; life in Theresienstadt; his hospitalization for his broken foot; the sight of newly constructed gas chambers; liberation by Russians in May 1945; the lack of retaliation against Germans by inmates; physical condition upon liberation; his opinion of the medical treatment given by Russians; immigrating to Great Britain in 1945; details on his obsession with survival in the camps, the lack of news about the progress of war, his religious observance and beliefs, and the effects of his experiences on his attitude towards non-Jews; an incident of a random hanging of Jews in Ozorkow in 1942; his post-war visit to Chelmno; the execution of inmates in camps; sadism exhibited by guards; and his rehabilitation in Britain.
Oral history interview with Janina Pawlica
Oral History
Janina Pawlica, June 1, 1922, describes her early life in Czestochowa, Poland; her family and education; the bombing of Czestochowa by the Germans in September 1939; the behavior of Germans during the early part of the occupation; the problems with food rations; treatment of Jewish civilians by Germans; the fate of Poles who aided Jews; reasons for her arrest by Germans in December 1942; being an inmate in Ravensbrück concentration camp from 1943 to 1945; conditions during the train journey to the camp; processing on arrival at the camp; the behavior of the female Blockmeister; help given to her by a Polish inmate; working in kitchens; rations; punishment for attempts to smuggle food; the special block for mothers with babies; a Red Cross inspection visit; accommodations; the execution of inmates; the German use of a punishment bunker for Allied agents; the reasons for the execution of a Czechoslovakian female inmate; a friendly German warder; the harsh treatment of prostitutes and thieves; the treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses; the selection of inmates for the crematorium; receiving food parcels from her father; escaping from the camp by assuming a false identity in April 1945; her physical condition upon arriving in Sweden; the fate of her family in Poland; immigrating to Great Britain in 1948; and her attitude towards Germans.
Oral history interview with Hana Maria Pravda
Oral History
Hana Maria Pravda, born in January 29, 1918 in Prague, Czech Republic, describes her family; her childhood in Prague; the history of Jews in Czechoslovakia; her education; the reaction to the Munich Agreement in 1938; Czech patriotism; the attitude towards the German speaking population of Czechoslovakia; the reaction of the Czech population to the German invasion in 1939; the confiscation of her family home; moving to a village with her new husband; being betrayed to the Gestapo by a neighbor; her arrest by the Gestapo; the attitude of Czechs to the German occupation; Czech collaboration with Germans; being an inmate of Theresienstadt concentration camp from 1942 to 1944; the journey to the camp; her attitude towards the prospect of imprisonment; conditions in the camp; her sense of optimism; the medical care; entertainment in the camp; punishment for those who tried to document their time in camp; a visit by the Red Cross; relations between German and Czech inmates; medical problems; volunteering to leave the camp; being an inmate in Auschwitz concentration camp from October 1944 to 1945; the cattle truck journey to the camp; advice given to new arrivals by inmates; the selection procedure; the attitude towards Germans; showering and head shaving; not receiving a tattoo; receiving clothes; her knowledge of the gas chambers; the reaction to the Allied bombing; survival techniques; her selection for work in the Krupps factory; the nature of her work; treatment by German guards; the German use of dogs; the execution of an escapee; health problems and lice; relations between inmates; the death march away from the camp in 1945; conditions during the march; the killing of her friend by SS guards; escaping from the march on January 29, 1945; betrayal by Hitler Youth after escaping from march; how she was allowed to escape from the march for second time by an SS guard; receiving aid from Russian forced laborers; being advised to go to Poland; taking refuge in a school; delousing organized by Russians; returning to Czechoslovakia; the impact of her experience on her religious beliefs; and why she and not others survived.
Oral history interview with Ian Proctor
Oral History
Dr. Ian Reginald Proctor describes being a civilian medical student starting his final year in 1945; volunteering to treat liberated inmates in Bergen-Belsen in 1945; the journey to Bergen-Belsen; their accommodations in former SS barracks; the appearance of the camp; the nourishment they supplied; medical problems they encountered; the daily routine; the threat of contracting diseases and illnesses contracted by medical students; the use of Hungarian POWs; his reaction to the end of the war; changes during his time working in the camp; the ceremony at the burning down of the camp; the disposal of dead bodies; his work in the hospital treating inmates; the attitude of the German nurses; the conflicts between Polish and Russian inmates; seeing the devastation in Hamburg, Germany; the effects of working in Bergen-Belsen and his attitude towards Germans; and returning to England.
Oral history interview with Frederick Riches
Oral History
Frederick Alexander Riches describes being an ambulance driver serving with the Royal Army Service Corps; evacuating inmates from Bergen-Belsen in 1945; the smell of the camp; members of his unit; details about his job; the German Air Force strafing attack on his unit; the initial sighting of the camp; the conditions of the inmates; the treatment of the guards; disposal of bodies; a Royal Engineer bulldozer driver digging mass graves; the demeanor of German guards; the transfer of the wounded Germans by ambulance; his work evacuating inmates from the camp; choosing inmates for evacuation; the interior of huts; the condition and age of inmates; unloading inmates at the hospital; the hospital facilities; the medical treatment of inmates; the quarantine period in Norway in 1945; the reception from the Norwegians; the reprisals of the population against collaborators; more details about Bergen-Belsen, including the sight of bones in incinerators; Josef Kramer and Irma Grese; the lack of medical problems amongst British personnel; how his experiences changed his attitude towards Germans; the rate of inmate evacuations; and the rate of the disposal of bodies.
Oral history interview with Agnes Sassoon
Oral History
Agnes Sasoon describes her early life in Czechoslovakia, circa 1933 to 1939; her father's work as a teacher; Hitler's visit to her Kindergarten in 1938; attending Jewish school; living in Budapest, Hungary from 1939 to 1944; her father's attempts to help refugees; living in a yellow star house; antisemitism; the difficulties of everyday life; the arrest and transportation of children from her Jewish school in late 1944; being in a camp on the outskirts of Budapest; the suggestion by an Arrow Cross guard that she escape; the efforts of her father to save the family; being sent on a march; deciding not to attempt an escape; food rations; a blessing from a Roman Catholic Bishop; the train journey to Dachau and conditions in the trucks; the cleaning out of the trucks; the bombing of the train; her prior knowledge of concentration camps; arriving in the camp; receiving assistance from an experienced inmate; conditions in the camp; food rations; the relationships between inmates; sanitation; working in a kitchen and a farm; punishments for stealing grain from the farm; the Jewish Kapos; the shooting of a friend, Alex; the punishment for keeping a diary; being in a sample camp shown to Red Cross and the better conditions there; dental treatment; her psychological state; marching to Bergen-Belsen in 1945; being shot by a guard and rescued by Germans and French POWs; being taken to Bergen-Belsen for treatment; her internment at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; the corpses littering the camp; the dehumanization of Jews in the camp; being liberated by the British in April 1945; being rescued from a pile of corpses; being treated in a hospital; her diet; refusing to testify against a SS guard; her attitude towards revenge; being cared for by Major Chutter; her post war life; the emotional impact of her Holocaust experience; resistance in the camps; reuniting with family; and her immigration to Israel.
Oral history interview with Laurence Wand
Oral History
Laurence Geoffrey Rowland Wand describes being a medical student treating inmates at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in 1945; the selection procedure for physician volunteers and their preparations; his awareness of concentration camps; the journey from Britain to the camp; their accommodations in former SS barracks; conditions in the camp; the anti-lice measures; the personnel coordinating project; the camp huts; his reaction to the stench in the camp; the condition of the inmates; the work of Hungarian POWs; the disposal of dead bodies; the clearing out of huts; the layout of the camp; rumors that the Communist inmates worked in kitchens; the operation of human laundry; the conditions of inmates; the difficulty in obtaining medical supplies and equipment; the effect of British troops giving inmates their rations; the failure of Bengal famine mixture; prevalent diseases; the psychological condition of inmates; the death rate; the reaction of inmates to the end of the war; the lack of concern for personal safety; evacuating inmates; the burning of huts; his memories of two specific deaths; communicating with inmates; receiving information about the camp from inmates; the question of cannibalism among inmates; the creation of a children’s hut before the liberation of the camp; the nationalities of the inmates; the disposal of the dead bodies; the origins of the camp; seeing piles of shoes; and a description of the crematorium.
Oral history interview with Konrad Bogacki
Oral History
Konrad Bogacki, born July 28, 1908 near Poznan, Poland, describes his family and educational background; civilian life during World War I; the death of his father during WWI; attending the cadet school, Rawicz, beginning in 1924; his reasons for joining the army; the class background of the pupils; his training and the disciplining; his course at officer school in Warsaw, Poland; being in the 14th Infantry Division; the importance of horses in the Polish Army and the use of foreign equipment; the arrival of Polish signals equipment; the system of conscription and the foreign officers in Polish Army; seeing that war with Germany was inevitable; his attitude towards the Nazi regime; the attitude of officers towards the possibility of an alliance with Russia; the French and British response after the German invasion of Poland; his memories of the German invasion and preparing for it in August 1939; the encirclement of Infantry Division 14 at Lublin, Poland; evading capture; his opinion of the German Army; the condition of Warsaw and it's population in October 1939; German activities in Poland; deciding to remain in Poland and search for resistance groups; organizing signals equipment; his attempts to forge a radio link with the Polish Consulate in Budapest, Hungary in March 1940; security precautions when sending radio messages; other radio links; establishing contact with London in September 1940; his reaction to the fall of France in 1940; German surveillance of Polish men of military age; overcoming technical problems of reception and transmission; the reaction of the Polish underground to the German invasion of Russia in 1941; security measures within his resistance unit and the size of the unit up to 1943; transferring signals between different parts of Poland via London; being aware of the existence of the Warsaw Ghetto; evading capture at a German checkpoint; his first arrest and release in October 1943; his second arrest December 8, 1943; his feelings of relief after being captured; being interrogated by the Gestapo; his lucky escape from execution; being sent to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in April 1944; working for electronic section in camp; the treatment of inmates by the camp staff; conditions in camp; the execution of inmates who tried to escape; the evacuation of the camp in February 1945; the train journey and the conditions on board; the psychological effects of life in concentration camps; working with a mining unit at Hersbruck and repairing railway tracks through Nuremberg, Germany; marching to Dachau concentration camp and the execution of inmates there; being liberated by Americans; the comparison between Dachau and Gross-Rosen; the treatment of Poles by French authorities; more details on being with the Polish resistance from 1940 to 1943, including the use of hand and bicycle generators, securing equipment from a Warsaw electrical factory, the near discovery of radio equipment by Germans, the difficulties for resistance workers dropped by the RAF, forging a radio link with Russia circa 1942, and providing assistance to the People's Party; and the German policy towards Polish elite.
Oral history interview with Estera Brunstein
Oral History
Estera Brunstein, born in Łódź, Poland in May 6, 1928, describes her family; education; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; the initial restrictions against Jews; wearing a yellow Star of David; the fate of her brother and father; moving to the Łódź Ghetto in 1940; cultural activities in the ghetto; working in a carpet factory and the disappearance of other workers; witnessing patients being taken from the ghetto hospital by Germans in September 1942; hiding from the Germans in an attic; her brother’s escape from Germans; conditions in the ghetto, the shortage of food, and the social life; the speculation on the fate of Romanies kept near the ghetto; the deportation of her brother to a labor camp; the suffering of Czech Jews brought into the ghetto; the start of the liquidation of the ghetto in 1944; hearing war news from resistance groups; growing vegetables; being deported to Auschwitz and the train journey there; her initial impressions of the camp; the selection procedure; being separated from her mother; showering; spending the first night in a field; meeting a school friend; the fate of her mother; being transferred to a camp near Hanover, Germany and her work clearing bombed ruins in Hanover; the cruelty of the German commandant; their clothing and food; the cruelty of the female guards and the kindness of male guards; marching to Bergen-Belsen in 1945; working in the kitchens; the collective punishment of kitchen staff; contracting typhoid; being liberated by British forces in April 1945; rations; the policy of forcing Germans to clear corpses; being sent to a makeshift hospital; coping with lice; the kindness of British padre John Davies; deaths of inmates after liberation; her belief that family members would survive; her attitude towards Germans; her reflections on her Holocaust experiences; babies in the Łódź Ghetto; her post-war employment; and her attitude towards Jewish faith.
Oral history interview with Peter Fussell
Oral History
Peter Fussell describes joining the army in 1939 when he was 16 years old; joining the Commandos in 1940; his operations as a private with the 4 Commando during the Dieppe Raid in France on August 19, 1942; preparations for the raid, the briefing, and crossing the English Channel; the nature of the target site; the results of the attacks on the German artillery positions; contact with French civilians; landing and his section's task; breaches of security before the raid; the reorganization of commando units after the Dieppe Raid; Exercise Harlequin in September 1943; training for D-Day in Great Britain 1942-1944; training on the Sussex coast; moving to a transit camp in the Southampton area; D-Day briefing; stand down because of weather; his operations as a private with Headquarters, 1st Commando Brigade (Special Service Brigade, 1st) during the landings on Sword Beach, Normandy during D-Day on June 6, 1944; the assembling of an armada in Solent; experiencing seasickness crossing English Channel; the impressions made by ships firing; rumors before landing; landing on Sword Beach; the German opposition; the importance of getting off the beaches quickly; reasons why he did not have a dry landing; the armored support; the first German POWs; linking up with airborne troops on Pegasus bridge; taking up positions at Le Plaine; using code words; German infiltration attempts; the use of German nationals as interpreters and translators; the wounding of Lord Lovat; changes in command of the brigade; the use of captured weapons to deceive Germans; the German use of eastern Europeans; his opinion of German troops; the superiority of Allied air forces; his attitude towards Hitler Youth troops; the character of the static warfare from June 1944 to August 1944; penetration behind German lines; crossing River Seine; the period re-grouping in England September 1944; crossing the River Maas, Netherlands in January 1945; crossing the River Rhine in March 1945 and the nearness of the Allied bombing; the devastation of Wesel, Germany; the killing of a German field marshal; the capture of a V weapon site; the capture of a bridge over the River Aller; a bayonet attack by 6 Commando near Belsen, Germany; the behavior of liberated Russian POWs in the Neustadt area; the story of the breaking of Field Marshal von Milch's baton; the restraining of commandos by Royal Artillery from killing SS troops; and various aspects of withdrawal of the 1st Commando Brigade from Germany in May 1945.
Oral history interview with Jerzy Orwovski
Oral History
Jerzy S 'Jurek' Orwovski, born in Łódź, Poland, describes his family history in Poland; his parents; his early life in Poland; being a Polish member of the Polish Home Army and active in resistance in Poland from 1943 to 1944; being captured; being a POW in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in November 1944; escaping and going to Holland and being recaptured in January 1945; immigrating to Great Britain in April 1945; and serving as a technical officer with the Polish Air Force based in Cupar, Fife.
Oral history interview with Isaac Finkelstein
Oral History
Isaac Finkelstein, born circa 1914 in Poland, describes his childhood in Poland; his family and education; antisemitism in pre-war Poland; the relations between Jews and Poles including the question of inter-marriage; the degree of migration; languages spoken; his involvement in the Zionist youth movement; his political attitudes; serving in the Polish Army from 1935 to 1936; antisemitism in the Polish Army; the nature of basic training; suicides of new recruits; the pre-war attitude of Poles towards Germans; being mobilized with the 25th Infantry Regiment as a private in August 1939; the attitude of Poles towards fighting Russians; the lack of modern equipment; being wounded in the leg by German machine gun fire; being captured and hospitalized; the Germans using machine guns against Polish troops and civilians; his time in a convent hospital from 1939 to 1940; being transferred to a POW camp; being an inmate in the Piotrkow Trybunalski Ghetto from 1940 to 1942; his status as an ex-POW; conditions in the ghetto; the speculation on future fate of Jewish inmates; the role and behavior of Jewish police; plans to escape from the ghetto; the rounding up of Jewish inmates in 1942; being an inmate in Bugaj Labor Camp from 1942 to 1944; his work duties; smuggling food into the camp; conditions, beatings, and executions in the camp; being transferred to Czestochowa concentration camp in 1944; working in a steel foundry; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944; the removal of his finger nails; being sent to Colditz concentration camp (Oflag IVC) and his work duties; marching to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1945; conditions in the camp; his physical condition; the liberation of the camp; escorting a group of Jewish children bound for Windermere, England; his reflections on his Holocaust experience; relations between camp inmates; the psychological state of camp inmates; the death of his father in Buchenwald; the attitude of child inmates to camps; and his attitude towards Germans.
Oral history interview with Hugo Gryn
Oral History
Hugo Gabriel Gryn, born June 25, 1930, describes life in Ruthenia, Czechoslovakia from 1930 to 1938; his family; his education; the relations between Jews and non-Jews before 1938; being a school child in Ruthenian during the Hungarian occupation from 1938 to 1940; the reaction to the Hungarian take-over in November 1938; the previous Hungarian terrorism; the impact of occupation on daily life; the influx of Polish refugees in September 1939; restrictions on his father’s business; anti-Jewish attacks; attending boarding school in Debrecen, Hungary from 1940 to 1943; viewing propaganda films; the work of the Jewish Schoolboy Labor Brigade; self-defense training received from a school teacher; the standard of living in Debrecen; his apprehensiveness about future; his attitude towards Allies and Axis powers; returning to Ruthenia in 1944; his father’s plans to escape to Turkey; the arrest of thirty Jewish civilians and their ransom in March 1944; the confiscation of the family home; moving into the Berehovo Ghetto in April 1944; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in May 1944; the transport to Auschwitz; lying about his age during the selection process; witnessing new arrivals entering gas chambers; being an inmate in Lieberose concentration camp in 1944; working as a carpenter; his opportunity to write a postcard; rations; working in a hospital; the evacuation of the camp; marching to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in January 1945; being an inmate in Mauthausen concentration camp from Feburary 1945 to April 1945; going to Gunskirchen concentration camp in April 1945 and being liberated by American troops; the physical condition of inmates upon liberation; going to Hersching air base and the death of his father; his religious beliefs; his attitude towards Germans; the behavior of inmates towards each other; executions at Sachsenhausen; marching through Berlin, Germany in December 1944; acts of sabotage in the camps; and the killing of an Ukrainian guard by inmates.
Oral history interview with Fred Knoller
Oral History
Freddie Knoller, born in April 17, 1921, describes his early life in Vienna, Austria; his family; education; experiencing antisemitism; the rise of right wing political parties in Austria; being in the Socialist Highschool Boys' movement; the German take over and the treatment of Jews; being forced to clean streets; Kristallnacht; growing restrictions of Jewish civilians; deciding to leave Austria; attending a tailoring college in 1938; entering Belgium illegally in December 1938; living in a hostel in Antwerp, Belgium; moving to a children’s camp in Brussels, Belgium; playing cello in adult camp orchestra; leaving the camp in May 1940 in anticipation of the German invasion of Belgium; going to France; being arrested by French police and imprisoned in an Orleans jail; his internment as an enemy alien in camp near Spanish border; the cholera outbreak and escaping; living with relatives in Limoges, France; moving to Paris, France in late 1940; acting as a guide to German soldiers in Paris; his accommodations in a hotel frequented by prostitutes; acquiring false papers; his arrest, interrogation, and release by Gestapo in late 1941; German round ups of Jewish civilians; joining the resistance; interviewing with resistance leaders; his liaison role between different resistance groups; the plans to attack SS barracks; the level of support from civilians for the resistance; the German treatment of captured resistance members; courier work; air drops; his arrest and interrogation by Gestapo in October 1942; being sent to a jail in Paris and confessing his Jewish identity; being sent to Drancy; conditions in the camp; the lack of a work regime; attempts to construct an escape tunnel; rations; the attitude towards the Jewish administration; being transported to Auschwitz in November 1943; the conditions during the transport in wagons and being with Dr. Weiss; arriving in the camp; undressing, experiencing selections, shaving, receiving clothing, and tattooing; inmates’ triangles; being sent to Buna Monowitz; a speech by an SS officer regarding inmates' status; Dr. Weiss being sent to the hospital and the rations he gave Knoller; the importance of maintaining personal morale; the organization of the barracks; monthly selection procedures; the daily routine; working with the cement Kommando; attempting to get into the camp orchestra; the relationship between the SS and German civilian workers; inmate boxing matches and other entertainments; witnessing execution of escapees; inmate suicides on electrified fence; the effects of the Allied bombing on the factory; being marched to Dora in November 1944; the change in Kapos’ attitudes during the march; arriving at Katowice railhead; traveling by train the disposal of dead bodies; doing construction work in Dora; hearing of sabotage activities; witnessing execution of saboteurs; being sent to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945; their accommodations in SS barracks; the treatment by Hungarian guards; the lack of food and searching for food; seeing the starving inmates; the disappearance of SS guards and attitude of Hungarian guards; breakdown of discipline in camp; being liberated by British troops; the reaction of British troops to the sight of inmates; advice from Red Cross not to overeat; acquiring food from German farmhouses; the attitude of British troops to German civilians; revenge taken by inmates on Kapos; a talk given by a British Army Rabbi; the medical aid given by the Red Cross; his desire to return to France; recuperating in France; going to Belgium and being interrogated by the French Resistance and the police; VE Day celebrations; meeting with his brother who was serving with the US Army; and the effects of his experience.
Oral history interview with Marsha Segall
Oral History
Marsha Segall, born January 16, 1922, describes her early life in Scholai, Lithuania; her family and education; antisemitism; the Jewish boycott of German goods in 1933; life during the Russian Occupation in 1940; the German attack on Lithuania in June 1941; anti-Jewish legislation; the arrest and execution of her father; their relationship with their servant; the billeting of German troops in their home; the creation of the ghetto in September 1941; living in the Troki ghetto; the Judenrat and public hangings; the transport of children from the ghetto on November 5, 1943; contact with partisans outside the ghetto; working as secretary for the Judenrat and her attitude towards the Judenrat; escaping from the ghetto with her husband in November 1943; hiding with a Lithuanian in the countryside; being found and arrested in early 1944; her imprisonment; going to the Scholai prison; interrogations and her work repairing German army uniforms; briefly returning to the Troki ghetto in May 1944; being sent to Stutthof concentration camp in July 1944; her first impressions of the camp; the suspension of menstruation; food rations; roll calls; categories of prisoners; being part of a work group outside the camp; living in tents and digging trenches; the journey to Rendaels near Wistula; medical problems; her work chopping wood; the evacuation of camp as Russians approached in January 1945; conditions during the march; frostbite; the fate of her mother and sister; successfully escaping; receiving assistance from local Poles and a Russian women's work camp; receiving medical assistance for frostbite from a German unit; evacuation as a German civilian from the area to Gdeieia; receiving medical treatment at Gdeieia hospital; amputation; being evacuated aboard the Deutschland and two other ships to Rigan Island; being in a Nazi party hospital at Bergen February-June 1945; continuing to pass as non-Jewish; liberation by Russians in May 1945; revealing her Jewish identity; working as an interpreter to a Russian unit; making clothes from parachute silk; acting as an interpreter in the interrogation of German SS suspects; deciding not to return to Lithuania; travelling with a friend to Hannover via Berlin in December 1945; the chaotic state of Europe; finding friends in a Jewish refugee camp; going to Munich; American antisemitism; her husband's survival and reuniting with him in January 1946; mental and physical condition of camp inmates; the difficulties of immigrating to Palestine; going through Austria to Italy; obtaining Hungarian passports; obtaining a Rhodesian residence permit in 1947; the impact of the war had on her; and her belief that a successful Jewish revolt against Nazis was impossible.
Oral history interview with Aron Zylberszac
Oral History
Aron Zylberszac, born in 1927 in Łódź, Poland, describes his family; his education; the relations between Jews and non-Jews; the German occupation of Łódź in 1939; the role of the Volksdeutsch; the collaboration of Poles with Germans; the survival of his family after the confiscation of their business; the public execution of Jews; German behavior towards Jews; the creation of the ghetto in 1940; the overcrowding and starvation in the ghetto; suffering from cold; the ghetto administration; the fate of deportees; cases of madness; the lack of contact with the outside; attempts at sabotage; religious life; the destruction of the synagogue; being sent to Birkenau in 1944; being separated from this parents; Kapos; the treatment of Romanies; the atrocities committed against Jewish children in the Łódź Ghetto; the contrast in food between the ghetto and Birkenau; being sent to Auschwitz; the food and selections; working in a factory; being sent to Buchenwald in January 1945 and the journey there; conditions in the camp; the killing of Kapos from other camps by inmates; being sent to Rehmsdorf (Troglitz) in 1945; working in sand pits; the necessity of conserving energy in the camps; the pollution of the water supply; being sent to Theresienstadt in April 1945; the Allied bombing of the train during the journey to the camp; being liberated; the German use of camp for propaganda; the generosity of Czechs towards inmates; the attitude of Russian liberators; the psychological impact of being released; the long term effects of incarceration; the impact on his religious beliefs; the behavior of German guards; crime in the Łódź Ghetto; cannibalism amongst Russian POWs; and details of his family.
Oral history interview with Anonymous
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Lauth
Oral History
Henri Francois Claude Lauth describes growing up in the Toulouse area of France; his family and education; being wounded while he was in the French Army in 1940; being part of the French Resistance around Toulouse from 1940 to 1943; joining a resistance unit; his intelligence gathering role; being imprisoned by the Gestapo in France from July to October 1943; reasons for his arrest; treatment by Gestapo; being sent to Buchenwald in 1943; the train journey; arriving at the camp; German Communist control; selection of inmates to go to Dora and being sent there in October 1943; living conditions during the building of the camp; the shooting of an inmate attempting to obtain a drink of water; camp rations; reasons for not being selected for extermination in the spring of 1944; the discovery of a German agent in the camp; sabotaging V1s at Dora; being arrested by the SS and interrogated; reciting poetry with the mistress of the Gestapo head whilst under interrogation; being sentenced to death and the delay of his execution; the confinement in a bunker and the execution of German Communist inmates; traveling by train to Bergen-Belsen in April 1944; liberation by British troops of Bergen-Belsen; and the interrogation of Josef Kramer, commandant of Bergen-Belsen.
Oral history interview with Samuel Pivnick
Oral History
Samuel Pivnik, born 1926 in Bendzin, Poland, describes his family; his limited education because of the war; the German invasion; antisemitism pre-1939; the fate of Jews in the Polish Army captured by Germans; the degree of Polish collaboration with Germans; antisemitic effect of religious services on Poles; restrictions on Jewish civilians; the creation of a German administration of the area; the separation of Polish and Jewish communities; the establishment of a ghetto in July 1940; the selection of Jews for deportation; his German foreman; the arrival of German settlers; the Jewish administration; German round ups; restrictions on religious practice; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943; selections in the camp; the nature of his work; the execution of Polish partisans; various transports into the camp; contracting typhoid; being sent to Furstengrube in December 1943; resistance in Auschwitz-Birkenau; the treatment of inmates by Germans; the evacuation of camp and march to Gleiwitz then going to Nordhausen in late 1944; acts of cannibalism; obtaining bread and collecting snow to drink; conditions in Nordhausen; rations; travelling aboard a barge towards Lubeck in April 1945; the bombing and sinking of Cap Ancona in the Baltic in May 1945; escaping the sinking ship; their treatment in the barracks at Neustadt; the variation of treatment of Jews of different nationalities by Germans; his attitude towards survival; his attitude towards notion of revenge; and his belief that perpetrators should be punished.
Oral history interview with Zdenka Erlich
Oral History
Erlich Zdenka (née Fantl), born in 1922 in Czechoslovakia, describes her family moving when she was two years old to Rokycany Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); her family and educations; being expelled from school for being Jewish; the degree to which Jews were assimilated into society; mobilization during the Munich crisis in 1938; being in contact with refugees; the German invasion in March 1939; the registration of Jewish population; the increasing restrictions; attending the English Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic); the arrest of her father by the Gestapo in the fall of 1940 and his imprisonment in Buchenwald and Bayreuth; her aunt going to England; the degree of collaboration and resistance within the Czech population; being transported to Theresienstadt in 1942; their treatment during the journey to the camp; conditions in the camp; the contrast between Czech and German inmates; the organization of the camp; working in the kitchens; Jewish inmates being hanged for smuggling cigarettes; cultural life in camp and participation in plays; the importance of satire; her memories of Karel Svenk; selections in the camp; a visit by Adolf Eichmann and the Red Cross in 1943; being transported to Auschwitz in October 1944; arriving in the camp, experiencing the selections, hiding a ring, and having her head shaved; adjusting to camp rules and its effect on survival; the barracks; being told her mother’s fate; daily routine including roll calls and food; camp rumors; treatment by Kapos; having to give blood for German soldiers; building fortifications in East Prussia from November 1944 to January 1945; coping with working conditions; carrying tree trunks to a sawmill; the state of prisoners’ health; marching westwards in January 21, 1945; supporting each other when sleeping and walking; the shooting of prisoners who fell by wayside; crossing River Oder; staying in Gross-Rosen in February 1945; the sight of male prisoners; the journey to Mauthausen in early 1945; working in the quarry; a composer’s wife committing suicide in the camp; the train ride to Bergen-Belsen and writing a message as the train passed her hometown; receiving aid from Czech workers in Pilsen; daily life in Bergen-Belsen; rations; finding a knife that was then discovered by the warden, Irma Grese; the outbreak of typhus; the removal of corpses; the lack of water and having to drink from puddles; the state of health in the camp; liberation by British troops; collapsing in front of the Red Cross hut; her hospitalization in Sweden; the contrast in men and women inmates’ survival rates; mental states in the camp; cooperation between inmates; stealing in camps; hearing how her brother had been shot trying to escape; the lack of religion in camps except Theresienstadt; the role of fantasy in the survival process and importance of human relationships; and what she gained from her experience as a survivor.
Oral history interview with Anita Lasker-Wallfisch
Oral History
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, born in 1925 in Breslau, Germany (Wroclaw, Poland), describes her parents and her two older siblings; her educational background; antisemitism; the first restrictions against Jews; moving to Berlin, Germany to study cello; Kristallnacht; her family’s attempts to emigrate; life in Germany after the outbreak of war; working in a toilet paper factory; living standards; the deportation of her parents in 1942; forging papers for French workers; attempting to escape to France with forged papers; being arrested and imprisoned in 1943; a suicide attempt; her interrogation by the Gestapo; her trial at Sondergericht June 5, 1943; returning to Gestapo custody; being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau; selections for the women’s camp orchestra; the role and organization of the orchestra; being interned in Bergen-Belsen; the comparison between Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz; the disorganization of camp; remaining with her women's orchestra friends in Bergen-Belsen; liberation; Hungarian guards; the conditions for women's orchestra at Auschwitz; and the 'Canada' warehouse where inmate's belongings were kept.
Oral history interview with Henry Wermuth
Oral History
Henry Wermuth, born April 4, 1923, describes his family background; life in Frankfurt, Germany during 1930s; his education; religious practice in his family; antisemitism before 1933; reaction to Hitler coming to power in 1933; increasing antisemitism; working for his uncle; attempting to emigrate; going to Krakow, Poland in October 1938; queuing in a tunnel at border; living with relatives; the German occupation; the black market; the arrest of his father; life in Bohemia, where he lived with his grandparents, from 1941 to 1942; living in a Bohemia ghetto; the role of the Judenrat; feigning tuberculosis to avoid being registered for work; working at the Klaj ammunition camp; the deportation of his mother and sister; life and conditions in the Klaj camp; beginning to a write book in the camp; escaping from the camp; attempting to derail a train; being in the Montelupe prison then sent back to Klaj; being sent to Płaszów concentration camp in February 1943; his work duties; Commandant Goeth shooting at inmates; conditions in the camp; the role of Jewish police; hiding with a Jewish policeman’s relative to avoid execution; witnessing a public hanging; the regularity of shootings; being shot at by Goeth; his work unloading bricks from trains; transfers from the camp; getting into Kielcz (Kielce) concentration camp with his father in November 1943; civilian management of the camp; unloading metal from trains; food rations; the escape of inmates; being sent by cattle truck to Auschwitz in July 1944; arriving in the camp; hearing the camp orchestra; his work building roads; the relationship between block leader and inmates; difficulties for orthodox Jews; his attitude towards religion; selections; working as painter at IG Farben works and working with civilian employees; the relationship between inmates and Kapos; the daily routine; being sent to Nordhausen by cattle truck in January 1945; being briefly interned at camp in the Harz mountains; being interned at Helmstedt camp (Beendorf concentration camp); his work duties; the execution of inmates who were too weak to work; a march following the evacuation from the camp in April 1945; helping his father to walk; his father’s death on April 27, 1945; being interned at Mauthausen; problems with dysentery; being liberated by American troops on May 5, 1945; recovering in a hospital tent; registering for emigration to Palestine; living in a refugee camp in Italy; deciding not to emigrate to Palestine; his attitude towards other people's survival stories; his involvement in the black market; traveling to Austria in December 1945; moving to refugee camps in Munich, Germany and Frankfurt, Germany; writing his autobiography; his attitude towards Germans; his determination to be successful; and his attitude towards the death of his sister.
Oral history interview with Abraham Zwirek
Oral History
Abraham Zwirek, born in 1926 in Plock, Poland, describes his family; his education; experiencing antisemitism; his family’s business; his family’s Zionist sympathies and religious practices; the German invasion of Poland in September 1939; seeing the destruction in Gąbin, Poland; expecting help from Britain and France; the confiscation of Jewish property, including his father’s business and the family home; restrictions on Jews; beatings of Jews in the streets; living in the Plock ghetto; smuggling food into the ghetto; Jewish ghetto police; food rations; the obligation to work for Germans and treatment of workers; maintaining morale; liquidation of the ghetto in early 1941; living in the Suchedniow ghetto; escaping from the ghetto; his mother being sent to Treblinka; being in Skarzysko concentration camp from 1941 to 1944; his work duties; being beaten by a Ukrainian guard for stealing potatoes; the execution of people unfit for work; his tooth being extracted; suicides; being in Buchenwald concentration camp form July 1944 to September 1944; his work serving food; being in Schlieben concentration camp from September 1944 to March 1945; his work duties; the kindness of the German construction supervisor in the quarry after an accident; Allied bombing raids on the camp; the suicide of a fellow inmate; the behavior of a female SS guard; the operation on his hand without anesthetic; suspected sabotage of the factory; evacuation of the camp in March 1945; being sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in March 1945; contracting typhoid; being liberated by the Russians; the death of former inmates from over eating; contracting mumps; the Russian attitude towards revenge against Germans; the fate of his family during the Holocaust; further details on Buchenwald; his Holocaust experience; his attitude towards Poles and Germans; being smuggled by a Russian soldier to Czechoslovakia; and his first impressions of England.
Oral history interview with Hedy Epstein
Oral History
Hedy Epstein, born August 15, 1924, describes her life in Kippenheim, Germany during the 1920s and 1930s; her family and Jewish identity; being aware of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis; the boycott of Jewish businesses; the impact of Nazi rule on education; Kristallnacht and the destruction of Jewish property and the synagogue; the persecution of Jewish children at school; her father’s arrest and his imprisonment at Dachau; anti-Jewish legislation; her father’s return; leaving Germany on a Kindertransport in May 1939; her attitude towards leaving Germany and family; arriving in England; meeting Mrs. Meyer; living with the Rose family; living with the Simmons family; the beginning of the war in September 1939; communication with her parents; selling her stamp collection and sending the money to her parents; the fate of her parents; having to leave school to get job in 1940; her various jobs; working in a war factory in 1943; losing part of a finger in defective machine; working in an ammunition factory in 1944; losing her job due to her enemy alien status; working on lathe in a factory; attending night classes at Morely College; joining the Free German Youth; her first boyfriend; working with the censorship division of US War Department in Germany in July 1945; receiving training for two weeks in France; her attitude towards German people; her work duties; working at subsequent proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials; being assigned to department dealing with medical experiments carried out on camp inmates; searching through documents for evidence; the suspensions that a US colonel in charge of the documents department held sympathy for Nazis; witnessing the trial of Goering; returning to England in March 1948; immigrating to the United States; her life in the US; working for the New York Association for New Americans with Jewish displaced persons from 1948 to 1950; working for a Jewish agency in Minnesota; visiting her grandfather's grave in Gurs, France; her attitude towards German people; returning to Kippenheim and family home in 1990; participating in anti Gulf war demonstrations in Bonn, Germany in 1991; her fears for the future; living in New York, NY when she first moved to the US; her work for the United Restitution Organization filing claims for property lost under the Nazis; attending a university in the 1950s; speaking at her son's school about her Holocaust experience; speaking at schools and universities in the US and Europe; her research regarding role of women in the Holocaust; her refusal to speak to children under 12 about the Holocaust; her involvement with the Kindertransport Association; discovering photographs of Grandmother in concentration camp at Washington Holocaust Museum; and planning to attend the Nuremberg Trials reunion in 1996.
Oral history interview with Kurt Klappholz
Oral History
Kurt Klappholz, born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland, describes growing up in the 1930s; his family; antisemitism; the 1937 pogrom; Zionists organizations; deciding not to leave Poland; the beginning of the war; the German occupation and the burning of the synagogue; his father’s arrest; wearing the Star of David; being forced to move from west to east Bielsko-Biala in 1941; conditions during 1941; deciding to work for the Germans to avoid deportation; working near Teschen (Cieszyn, WojewÛdztwo Slaskie, Poland), producing equipment for Afrika Korps; being deported in June 1942 and separated from his parents; staying briefly in the Sosnowiec camp; being interned at the Sakrau camp and his work building the autobahn; being sent to the Laurahütte camp form August to September 1942; being sent to Gross-Paniow and Brande concentration camps in the fall of 1942; the camp guards and work songs; being transported to Gross-Sarne concentration camp then Gross-Masselwitz; his work and the organization of the camp; being interned in Ludwigsdorf in January 1943 and working in an ammunitions factory; his friendship with another inmate; being sent to Gröditz and finding a distant relative; spending time in the camp hospital; being sent back to Brande; his work gardening in the camp; murders in the camp; being sent to Blechhammer; British prisoners of war in the camp; the relations between various groups of inmates and German civilian workers; dysentery in the camp; religion in the camp; the incorporation of Blechhammer into Auschwitz; the tattooing of inmates; SS guards; non-Jewish Kapos; the women's camp; working for Jewish doctors in the hospital; the sexual advances of the doctor; helping to cremate bodies in the crematorium; the execution of inmates for suspected sabotage; the treatment of patients with gangrene and boils; the bombings in the summer of 1944; marching out of Blechhammer in January 1945; being interned at Gross-Rosen for three nights; being sent to Buchenwald by train; dreaming of food and revenge; being deloused; the death of one of his friends; political prisoners being Kapos; his internment at Kaiseroda and working in a salt mine; the resistance of Russian prisoners; antisemitism; marching back to Buchenwald; the journey to Flossenbürg; being evacuated; avoiding close relationships with other inmates; escape attempts; being liberated by American troops on April 23, 1945; refusing to take revenge towards a captured SS man; the reaction of civilians to released inmates; convalescing in a Red Cross hospital; the typhus epidemic; being employed by the US Army; the attitude of the German population towards defeat; not wanting to return to Poland; staying at an UNRRA children's camp; his relationship with a German girl; his immigrating to Britain and staying in Wintersill Hall in October 1945; giving an interview to radio a journalist; the lack of psychiatric help for refugees; his friendship with an American photographer; life in London and staying at a hostel on Finchley Road; his feelings on religion; his education; communicating with an aunt and uncle in France; finding out the fate of his immediate family; attending the London School of Economics; how his Holocaust experiences have affected his life; his reaction to the Nuremberg Trials; his attitude towards Germans; returning to Bielsko-Biala; and the legacy of Hitler and WWII.