- My name is Cecille Steinberg.
- Today is June 12, 1986.
- I'm here to interview Mrs. Betty Katz, who
- is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
- I am doing this under the auspices of the Oral History
- Project Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.
- The purpose of this interview is to add
- to the oral history of the Nazi Holocaust
- so that, through this living memorial,
- future generations will know what happened.
- With this knowledge, hopefully we
- can prevent any such occurrence in the future.
- Name.
- And before was Basia [?
- Lutnik.
- Lutnik.
- ?]
- [? Lutnik ?] was your maiden name.
- [? Ludwig. ?]
- When and where were you born?
- In Vilna.
- And when?
- When?
- I was born in 1918.
- 19--
- 18.
- And the date?
- August the 26th.
- Were you one of-- were you the only child?
- No, we were six children.
- And five was killed with the parents at Ponary.
- Vilna was Ponary.
- So all the kids went to Ponary with the parents.
- What is Ponary?
- Ponary was the place where they kill everybody.
- When you were young, though, how did your father earn a living?
- Well, he was a cantor.
- Yeah, he came from a very religious family.
- But he couldn't make a living with six children.
- So he went to work in a Fabrik from [? Leda. ?]
- In Vilna?
- In Vilna.
- And we lived very nice.
- I was-- I went to school.
- The children went to school.
- Everybody was fine.
- We live in a nice [INAUDIBLE].
- In a nice spot.
- Did you live in mainly a Jewish area?
- Yeah, very nice, next to a shul.
- Because my father used to go there.
- For the weekends he used to sing in shul on [? Friday. ?]
- And a few days, he used to work in the Fabrik
- because he couldn't make a living.
- What-- where were you in the order of the children?
- I was the older one, the second one from the older one.
- Could you tell me their names and--
- Well, the older one was Avramke.
- And I was Baske.
- And there was Henke and Senke and [? Sajke ?] and Liebke.
- Three boys and three girls.
- And your mother's name?
- Leah.
- And your father's name?
- Feivel.
- Were there other family members nearby also?
- Oh, yeah, we have a big family, uncles and aunts.
- And we have a very big family.
- All of them was killed.
- I have only two cousins.
- I find two cousins, one cousin from Kovne
- and one cousin from Vilna.
- They came from Russia, and they came in store for a job.
- And he recognized me.
- I left him when he was 15 years old.
- I didn't see him for a long time.
- But he ran away.
- He was [? skilled, ?] and somebody
- help him, from the Russia.
- From-- so you ran away, and he's alive.
- He came here, and he have two children.
- The wife-- the wife is from Russia, but she's a Jewish girl.
- They live in Washington?
- They live in Silver Spring.
- Mm-hmm.
- That's her son have the optical, what I went for the glasses.
- Oh, oh.
- Yeah.
- When you were growing up, all of the children went to school?
- Oh, yeah, everybody.
- I went with my husband for eight and a half years.
- We know each other, children.
- They was very rich people.
- They have a business like a [NON-ENGLISH].
- Like business-- only meat, meat business.
- And they was very rich people.
- We went.
- We was in love for a long time.
- And then we married before the war, the war start,
- but not in Germany.
- Now--
- The Litviner came in.
- Then came in the Russian and then the German in Vilna.
- And that's what is.
- When you were in school, did you have any contact,
- or in your town, did you have any contact with non-Jews?
- No, no, we not.
- None at all.
- We was very frum in the house, very religion.
- My grandfather lived with us for a long time.
- And he was very--
- he was-- he came from a very religion.
- I keep even here kosher.
- I eat-- when I go out, I eat--
- I don't eat like the other things [INAUDIBLE] [? treif. ?]
- But I eat.
- I eat fish, flounder.
- When you go out, you have to eat something.
- Yeah.
- Did you-- what language did you speak at home?
- Well, we speak Yiddish and Polish.
- Yiddish, mostly Yiddish.
- I speak even now with my children only Yiddish.
- We never speak English in house.
- We speak Yiddish.
- That's what I don't speak too good English.
- [LAUGHS] Because we always speak Yiddish.
- My daughter, she never speak with me English.
- She don't want to forget.
- And my younger, too.
- They don't want to forget.
- It was I got to speak--
- so we always-- when we come with our friends,
- we speak Yiddish, too, even with our friends.
- So you met your husband while you were--
- While we was children.
- Yeah, we was children.
- We was playing together.
- And 8 and 1/2 years, then we married.
- And I live very, very rich.
- They build a house for us, and we have everything.
- In Vilna?
- I came from a not a rich home, but when I married,
- I was very good off.
- And came the Hitler, and that's what is.
- He came one day in the house and said, everybody have to go out.
- Not one soldier came--
- 10 soldiers with guns, and you couldn't do anything.
- Came into your house?
- To the house.
- And they said, you have to go out.
- And I want to take something, like a picture or something.
- They didn't let us.
- And we went out like this, like we stay.
- I took for my baby--
- she was nine months old.
- I took for her a little something to change.
- That's all.
- They didn't let me even take anything.
- And I left everything, the house with our goods.
- And that's what-- we went out.
- The parents live in the same building.
- And we have a house.
- They have a house next to us.
- Everybody went out.
- And we left everything, and they took us to the ghetto.
- How old were you when you were married?
- I was 19.
- And did you have--
- 20.
- 20, I remember.
- 20, I think.
- Yeah.
- Did you have any idea what was happening?
- I mean, as far as Germany--
- Oh, when they came?
- When-- no, we didn't know.
- But then we heard.
- We saw.
- We-- a few-- a week before they came to our house to tell,
- we heard that something has happened.
- So the parents-- his--
- my husband was five children.
- So one son wants to go to Russia.
- And my gran-- her--
- my husband's parents didn't want to go.
- The mother, she said, how I can leave everything?
- They were so rich, So they didn't want to go.
- That's what we didn't go.
- So everybody stayed?
- Everybody stay.
- And then a week later, they came and they took us out
- from the house.
- We left everything.
- And you had no warning?
- No, nothing, nothing.
- The whole street, everybody, all the Jewish people, not only me,
- but all the Jewish people went.
- You saw the movie Exodus, where they go walking on the street?
- That's what is-- we was walking to the ghetto.
- Then they took us to the ghetto.
- Where was the ghetto?
- The ghetto was like from here to Silver Spring.
- We was walking on the street where the cars--
- so we was walking.
- And we came to the ghetto.
- We went into a house, and maybe 10 couples
- went in the same house.
- And we stayed in the same house.
- We sleep there.
- We stayed there for a week.
- And then they took the men to work.
- No food-- was no food, no nothing.
- But we find in the houses there, everybody
- took something what we find in the house.
- And then they took the men to work.
- So my husband went to work.
- He was a butcher.
- And he used to hide a little butter, a little bread,
- and he bring home for the kid.
- You know, to have for my baby.
- You had-- your daughter was nine months old?
- And I have her with me.
- So we was-- we was there like this.
- And then one day, was a couple weeks later--
- it was only before a holiday--
- they killed the people.
- Before our holidays, they took out from the ghetto like 1,000
- people and taking in a place to kill.
- Did you know that that's what they were doing?
- We didn't know.
- I know that now, but we didn't know.
- Before, we didn't know.
- So one day, we saw in the ghetto in the morning was terrible.
- Everybody hiding and everybody dead,
- and we didn't know what is going on.
- So my husband came in.
- He said, they're going to take us to Ponary.
- We know already about Ponary.
- They're killing.
- Because my father, they took from the street, men,
- and they killed at Ponary.
- They took.
- And then they took my parents.
- Everybody before me, the religion people,
- they took there first.
- You mean--
- Like people with--
- --from the ghetto or before the ghetto?
- Before the ghetto, before the ghetto.
- They took them to the ghetto, and they took them
- at the same night.
- They took them out.
- All the religion people they took first.
- You know, what is next to a shul or next like this,
- they took before.
- And my husband came.
- He said, we have to hide.
- So they took a place, and we all was hiding.
- And the German find us.
- In the ghetto?
- In the ghetto.
- They took us out, everybody.
- And we came out, and they took us to work, to work.
- They take us to Ponary.
- My husband, they took with all the men before,
- not with me together.
- So I didn't know.
- I was walking with my daughter on my hand.
- And I figure I'll go to run away.
- I'll try to run away.
- So in Europe, when they built our house,
- they fix the house, the used wood
- they take out on the street.
- So it comes out when you walk, you can't go on the sidewalks.
- Everybody-- all the streets have sidewalks, not like here,
- like a beltway.
- We have sidewalks.
- So when I walk, I figure I'll go to hide.
- And my husband's mother said, no, don't run, don't run.
- Let's go.
- I said, no.
- I took my girl on my hand, and I have a [? lappe. ?]
- So I put a big shawl.
- I cover my [? lappe, ?] and I hold her,
- and I went out like this.
- The Germany didn't see me.
- So when I went out, our boy was staying,
- and he said, go in, go in.
- And he took me in in a house.
- And I went in in the house.
- And the people was walking and walking all night.
- It was people walking to kill all the Jewish people
- on the street.
- Because the Germany was walking like this.
- Maybe a [? hand ?] out of that, from both sides.
- You cannot run away.
- The only thing, that was the building, and I could run away.
- But not, I couldn't.
- It's very hard to explain how I ran away.
- You had to sneak, sneak into the building.
- So I sneak in, and that's what happened.
- I was alive.
- And when I was alive, I was staying there.
- The woman said, you cannot stay here because Germany people live
- there, but stay here for a while.
- So I was staying there for a while.
- And at night when it was dark and I didn't
- see no people on the side-- on the streets,
- so I went to a woman where my mother used to live,
- where I used to live when I was a little-- when
- I was a girl, to a Polish woman, I went to her, and she saw me.
- She was crying.
- She was a very nice Polish woman.
- Some people was nice.
- Some didn't-- some wants to help, some not.
- And she said to me, you cannot stay here
- because your mother's house, Germany people live there,
- and they will recognize right away.
- And my daughter speak only Yiddish.
- She didn't know Polish, nothing.
- Because we speak Yiddish in the house with her.
- But she said, sleep over at night.
- And in the morning, try to go to the ghetto, maybe, back.
- So I was sleeping.
- I slept there.
- And in the morning, I went out from her.
- And I told her, maybe you can bring a little note
- to the ghetto, because everybody know my husband.
- His family, Katz, everybody knows us.
- Like here, here everybody know us, too.
- So I wrote in Yiddish so the German cannot [? write. ?] And I
- told him I am--
- I ran away from this place, and I was there.
- And I told him where I am, and I'm going to the ghetto.
- That's what happened.
- So somebody give to him the note.
- He ran away, too.
- He didn't know I ran away, but he ran away, and he didn't know.
- So he didn't get the note?
- No, no, he got the note in ghetto.
- He ran away, and he came back to the ghetto.
- Ah.
- And what happened.
- Back to come to the ghetto with a child, I cannot go in.
- Because they got-- the German people staying next to--
- ah, you ran away.
- So they know right away you ran away.
- So I came to a [? jail, ?] and I was staying in a [? jail, ?]
- and I was crying.
- I didn't know what to do.
- I figured maybe in a [? jail ?] to hide.
- I didn't know where to go.
- This day, I couldn't go to the ghetto
- because the Germany men know.
- They took out everybody.
- So sure they will take me.
- I ran away, you know?
- How did you-- how were you going to go back into the ghetto?
- So I didn't-- listen.
- So I went--
- I was staying and crying.
- And a older woman came in, a Polish.
- And she said, what happened?
- What has happened with the baby?
- She didn't know I'm Jewish.
- And I told her, I don't have a place where to go,
- and I don't know what to do.
- My baby wants to eat.
- I feed her.
- I feed her too late.
- Tell her I give her away to a Polish woman.
- Next time I give her that [INAUDIBLE].
- And I told her, I don't know what to do.
- So she said to me, you know what?
- I go.
- You going back with me.
- I'll take you to my house.
- And she took me very far.
- We was walking.
- She took me in.
- I sleep over there.
- A very nice woman, she give me food.
- And I was taking care of the baby.
- And I feed her with something.
- And next day, she said, I'll go in the morning,
- and I'll see if people coming to the ghetto back.
- You can go to the ghetto.
- So she came back, and she said, you can go to the ghetto.
- You go, try and go in.
- So I came in in a group people going from work.
- So we took the baby like this.
- We was walking and hold her here.
- Between your legs.
- Between the legs and between the people.
- And she was such a good baby.
- She know already that she have to hide.
- And we went in in the ghetto.
- She wasn't walking by now?
- No, no.
- In two months later, she started walking.
- And when she used to walk, she used to say--
- but she speaks very good.
- She used to say [NON-ENGLISH].
- [NON-ENGLISH] was the bad Germany man.
- When she saw a Germany in uniform,
- she know that is [NON-ENGLISH].
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- She know already.
- And that's what these people-- my husband came there.
- He find out I am alive, and we was together again.
- And we was for a while again.
- Then start again, they took us from this ghetto.
- They make another ghetto.
- They took us to the other ghetto.
- This ghetto that you were in was in Vilna?
- In Vilna.
- And it was--
- It was houses.
- They make a fence around.
- You cannot-- you cannot go in, you cannot go out.
- Was with locks and bar--
- every place was soldiers, Germany people.
- Germany soldiers was there.
- Gestapo, all there was Gestapo.
- And you cannot go out.
- You have to--
- I don't know.
- So then my husband start to go to the underground.
- He start maybe to go to the underground.
- And he start with the underground.
- So he was involved with that.
- And we built a big box like this high.
- And we used to--
- he find the Germany man what have guns.
- And he was very rich before.
- Before, when we-- a day before the Germany came,
- we hide some money with gold.
- He put in the ground.
- That was where our houses is.
- So he took a Germany man, and he went with him.
- And he took out everything.
- He give him something.
- It was a Germany man.
- For money, they do something.
- He was walking with him, and he was a very nice man.
- And he told us, go to the underground.
- Go to the places.
- What are you staying here?
- Try to run.
- He said, I don't have nothing.
- How I can go with no guns?
- So he used to bring him in ghetto with the guns.
- And he pay him everything.
- And everybody, the partisaner, they told him,
- we all go to pay you back.
- All right, nobody pay us back.
- But he paid for everybody.
- And he start--
- I used to sleep on the guns.
- We was so high with guns.
- About three feet off the ground?
- Yeah.
- And we make like a bed.
- And we sleep there.
- And then start again, they want to--
- the Germany find out by the underground,
- by the partisaner in ghetto.
- I tell you first the story, because if I have to tell you
- the story, it's a long time.
- It's OK.
- It's OK?
- It's very good.
- I'd rather it be longer than shorter.
- Yeah?
- So the thing is, before that, one day, they want to--
- no, they came in to see by the underground.
- And they find out that the underground have a house,
- and all the partisaner is there.
- Somebody told them this, I think, from the Jewish people.
- But Germany maybe told him, will--
- you going to be alive if you tell
- us what is going on in ghetto.
- You know how it is, but some people was like this.
- And maybe he told them this story.
- We don't know who that was, but we figure.
- And they came in, soldiers with guns, with [NON-ENGLISH].
- How you say?
- Granate.
- Granate.
- Oh, grenade.
- Grenade.
- And they put under the place.
- And all the partisaner was there.
- My husband was there, too.
- This wasn't in your house?
- No, no, that was in a house where everybody used to come
- and talking, like all the partisaner.
- All young boys came in, and girls.
- They was very active in the partisans.
- And one group went already to the underground.
- One group went out.
- They went out of the ghetto.
- Went out already from the ghetto.
- They have-- this Germany man, he was very nice.
- And he took them out from the-- they
- went out like people walking on the street, one
- by one, not all together.
- Like two and then two going, boy with a girl.
- And they went to the underground.
- And people came back.
- Some partisan came back, and he said,
- it's very nice in the underground.
- Everybody should go, to try to go out how many people can go.
- So we tried.
- Everybody was-- a group went out.
- Then went another group.
- And then we supposed to go, but they came.
- They find out about that.
- And they came in on the street, and they find out which house.
- I think somebody was told them.
- And they put a bomb.
- How you say [NON-ENGLISH]?
- Like a grenade.
- Grenade.
- And that was terrible.
- So many people was killed.
- I cannot tell you how many.
- My husband was staying in another friend.
- He wear a leather coat.
- And thanks God for that.
- And he pull-- take out from the coat.
- He went-- he went out.
- He left the coat inside.
- He couldn't.
- But some was killed, and some came out sick and dead.
- But next day, it was terrible.
- So nobody could go already, and we lost a lot of people.
- When they left, did they go into the forest?
- To the forest.
- To live in the forest.
- To the forest, yeah, yeah.
- There was Russian soldiers, and there were partisaner.
- And there that's what we--
- they came.
- They came there.
- And they used to go, like partisaner
- used to go to put a train-- under a train a grenade,
- under that.
- They used to go for--
- They used to send them.
- The commanders, they said the order
- what they take care of that.
- They used to send the people.
- They used to send me.
- They send my husband.
- That's what--
- So the thing is, we was--
- we couldn't.
- Then, they tried to bring more guns and that.
- And we tried to bring more partisaner, more
- older people, younger people.
- They took everybody to try to go out
- to help we will be alive, a lot of people.
- So one day, they came.
- And they said it will be children, children.
- They'll come for the children.
- Just the kids they're taking out.
- So when they came in ghetto, one day, my husband find out.
- So he hide me in a oven.
- I was sitting.
- In an oven?
- I was sitting for three days in a row,
- and I [? feed ?] her already [? blistering. ?] She was 11
- months old.
- You were sitting together with your daughter?
- My daughter-- he hide me, closed me-- he closed the oven,
- and I was sitting there.
- And the people was hiding in other places.
- And he put me there.
- And next day, I'm getting cold, and I have to [?
- talk about that. ?]
- (SOBBING) Next day, they took all the children.
- They told the parents to take out the kids
- and bring to this place.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- If a mother doesn't want to give,
- they killed the mother with the child.
- And they put on a truck the children, the children.
- My husband saw the--
- I know them.
- I know my cousin's children.
- So you were in the ghetto with your families.
- Yeah, not my parents.
- No.
- No, but I have family there, my husband's family.
- So they took away the kids.
- I didn't know.
- I didn't see that.
- Next day, my husband came.
- When he opened me three days later, he said, you know what?
- We have to take out the girl because the parents will
- kill her.
- You know, they lost all the kids.
- How come my kids is alive?
- And he took me out.
- He call up a woman, a Polish woman.
- And she said, bring my daughter.
- And he took 300 rubles gold.
- We have-- we have jewelry.
- We have gold.
- And what I wear, I give her, the woman.
- And we I met her.
- And the woman, I met in on a street.
- This Germany man took me out.
- So you were outside of the ghetto.
- Outside of the ghetto.
- At night, in middle of the night, he took me out.
- And I was waiting there.
- And then the woman came with a--
- that's a horse with a carriage.
- You know, we used to have horses with carriages.
- And I was sitting there with her.
- And she took me.
- She said, don't worry--
- in Polish-- don't worry, I'll take care of the baby,
- and I'm going go to give you back.
- Because I don't have children, and I'll take her.
- So I said, OK, I don't want her back.
- I want her to be alive.
- Because I don't know if I will be alive.
- Let her be alive.
- It's a shame, my child, to go to be died.
- She said, no, no, she will be alive,
- and I'll take care of her.
- And she told me everything is all good.
- So when she-- I have to go out from the carriage,
- my daughter started screaming.
- [NON-ENGLISH] Don't leave me by yourself-- by myself.
- Don't leave me.
- And I was crying, and I went out.
- I left her.
- I couldn't do anything.
- How old was she?
- She was a year and a half.
- I-- one day--
- she left.
- All right.
- I was-- I came home.
- I was crying.
- My husband came from work, and he was--
- all right, no children.
- No children was already.
- All the kids they took.
- The older one was about 12, 13, this kind of kids.
- So one day, a policeman came from another place.
- We have like a ghetto in another place.
- So he came from there, and he said you know what?
- I saw your daughter.
- I said, what?
- I said--
- He said, I saw Scheineman yesterday.
- I said, where?
- He said, by Elke, my girlfriend.
- I said, what happened?
- He was a policeman by the ghetto.
- A Jewish policeman?
- Yeah, a Jewish policeman.
- What happened?
- This woman, she started crying.
- She want to go to her mother.
- So she left.
- She bring her there, and she left her on the street,
- and she went.
- She left her on the street?
- She left her on the-- next to the ghetto.
- Your daughter.
- She left her there.
- He saw her, and he recognized her,
- because his wife is my girlfriend.
- They live in Canada.
- They live in Canada.
- They was here for the Holocaust.
- They all were with me [? at the time. ?]
- So he took her, and he said, you don't know what to do?
- So the wife, Elke, she took her in.
- And he said, you know what?
- I'll go to tell Baske and Chaim.
- You got to tell us what is going on.
- So when he came and tell me, I said, you know what?
- Bring her to me.
- I'll take her out to another place.
- So he came with her on a bicycle.
- He bring her.
- And she was crying, and she was crying.
- This night, I took her out to another woman
- because I couldn't keep her.
- At night, it's all right, but I couldn't keep her in the day.
- Where I got to keep her?
- No children.
- So I-- and we supposed to go already in the underground.
- So I took her out.
- And I give her away a Polish woman, another one.
- And she said, don't worry.
- I'll take care of her.
- No, I-- a woman told me she have a woman,
- and she'll take her out.
- So this woman took her out to her.
- That is, she is alive, this woman what she took.
- She took her children out, a Polish woman.
- So this woman, her name is Sonia.
- She took her out, and she give her away
- where her children is to a Polish woman.
- And I give her--
- I give her [? gold, ?] and everything what I have,
- I give to this woman to give to the Polish woman.
- And she said, don't worry, dear.
- We'll be all right.
- What happened there?
- This woman took her.
- And she left her not on a street, but she took her,
- and she left her on a--
- where a train go.
- Tracks.
- Yeah.
- And she left her, and she went.
- So she was crying.
- And a little boy, this boy what is on this picture,
- he saw a baby crying.
- And he said [SPEAKING POLISH].
- That is, he left--
- he left a baby.
- And they left the baby.
- And so he came to her, and he took her for her hand.
- And he bring her to his mother.
- When he came to his mother, she said, let her be with us.
- She is very poor.
- They go to every house to beg for food.
- They are very poor people.
- And the Germany took out her husband for a communist,
- and he was in jail.
- So she was alone with her son.
- She was alone with her son.
- So she figured, let me [INAUDIBLE] with a child.
- So a poor have a good heart, you know?
- So she keep-- she keep the baby.
- We didn't know what is going on.
- I didn't know if she was--
- this other woman left her.
- When I left to the underground, I know that she is all right.
- So you thought she was with that woman.
- She is with that woman, and I figure maybe she will be alive.
- Anyway, we went to the underground.
- And there, we went through--
- we went a lot through--
- was [NON-ENGLISH].
- I don't know how to explain in English.
- I don't know what it is.
- The Germany went to the--
- how you call the trees?
- Forest.
- The forest.
- All Germany came to the forest.
- Looking for the--
- Looking for the partisaner.
- And they kill a lot of people, and everybody was hiding.
- It was very hard to hide in the forest.
- So I'm with another girl who was hiding.
- We was walking five days in one place, and we didn't know.
- Five days we walk.
- We eat only this [NON-ENGLISH], like what is
- in the [NON-ENGLISH].
- You know the--
- Berries.
- Yeah.
- And we was taking out red like this, red.
- You know, red.
- Raspberries?
- Raspberries.
- And we eat only this.
- With this, we was alive.
- I don't know how we was alive.
- We was so skinny.
- We couldn't walk even.
- We were so tired.
- We couldn't walk nothing.
- And we walk.
- But we-- but she's in Israel, My girlfriend.
- And we was walking and walking and walking.
- And everybody we went before--
- we want to go to somebody to help us.
- Nobody wants to take us because everybody was hiding.
- Some was hiding on a trees, some were on a tree, some there.
- It's very hard.
- Then, three people saw us.
- We was hiding so long, we said.
- We was walking around, and they was hiding under in a bush.
- [AUDIO OUT]
- You were walking.
- We was walking in the forest for five days, and we didn't know.
- We was walking and walking, and we couldn't--
- at night, we were sleeping like this.
- And then we was walking and the water was so high.
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- It's a--
- A swamp.
- A swamp, in the swamps.
- We was walking in the swamp so high with water.
- Up to your knees.
- And we was cold and hungry, everything.
- And three boys were sitting, and they was hiding.
- And they saw us walking around and walking around.
- And they were so sorry for us, they came out.
- One boy came out at night, and he said,
- you cannot walk anymore here because Germany going with
- the planes, with the airplanes and that, and they'll see you.
- They'll kill us, too.
- Come on with us.
- They were sitting, you know, on the fell--
- in the forest, [INAUDIBLE].
- They have-- they put a straw, you know like this, the straw?
- Like a little hut.
- Yeah, they put like these big straws,
- and it's like this, what they're making the bread after that.
- How you call that?
- Like a haystack?
- Yeah.
- So they were sitting in the haystack in the [? middle. ?]
- So they took us, too.
- And one have a little flour, cornflour in a bag.
- So everybody he give a little bit to took--
- to eat like this.
- And they have a bottle of water.
- So everybody is giving that, the water you have to drink.
- We don't have anything.
- They don't have anything.
- Anyway, one boy, we was sitting there for three days again.
- And nobody can move already.
- We was so sick.
- We were so tired.
- And sitting like this, you have to sit like this
- because it's not a big place.
- No.
- And five people was worse.
- So one boy said he'll go to see by the partisaner what
- is going on.
- Maybe because one day we hear no siren,
- no aeroplanes, no nothing.
- So we figure maybe it's quiet.
- He went to the partisan.
- Take him two days to go to the partisaner.
- We went very far.
- And he came there.
- Was already partisaner.
- Everybody came back already from the hiding places.
- And he came back, and he said he'll
- go to make like [WHISTLES].
- You know?
- Whistle.
- Like a whistle.
- And we hear the whistle in the morning.
- It was 5 o'clock.
- Oh, and one came out, and he whistled, too.
- And he came.
- And I didn't know where my husband.
- My husband is sent to put a bomb under a train.
- They went.
- Six boys went for that.
- And I didn't know where he is.
- So.
- Yeah, when this boy came back, I'll
- tell you after everything what he--
- when this boy came back, he said we can go to the partisaner
- already.
- Which was further away.
- Yeah, that is far away.
- So we can go to the partisaner.
- So we went already to the--
- he was walking.
- Takes two days to walk.
- Walking and one night, we were sleeping with a boy--
- came another couple.
- And they speak Polish.
- And they from Vilna, they said.
- All right.
- I was speaking to them.
- They know my mother-in-law and my father in-law.
- They know everybody.
- And I figure they partisaner like me.
- We didn't know who they are.
- They were Spion.
- A spy.
- A spy.
- Spy?
- How you say a Spion?
- Yeah?
- Spy.
- Spy, yeah.
- They were German?
- Polish spy.
- Was Polish and German.
- And we didn't know.
- They was for the-- they was bad for the Russian people, see.
- And we was good with--
- the Russian was good for us.
- So when we came back, I didn't know I was--
- I was fig-- I figure already my husband is not there already.
- I don't go to find him.
- I didn't know.
- And when we came in two or three days,
- we came back with these people, with this couple.
- We were sitting together.
- We were sleeping together.
- We didn't know.
- When I came, we came on the [? base. ?] It was a big place
- where the-- was [NON-ENGLISH].
- I don't know how to explain in English.
- Where we were sleeping was like you go on a--
- how you call that?
- Where your parents taking children to go in the forest.
- What are they making to sleep?
- Oh, a tent?
- Tent.
- We was-- we have tent, a lot of tent.
- We was living in there.
- So I came back.
- My husband is there.
- I saw him from far.
- And he saw me.
- Anyway, he came.
- He took me in in the [INAUDIBLE] thing.
- And he bring some food.
- He was cooking there.
- And these people--
- This was like a big camp where all the partisans came?
- Yeah, but that was not a house.
- Was just a tent.
- Everybody have a few--
- four or five people sleep in a tent, six people, like this.
- And we used to call that a [? beidel. ?] In Yiddish I know,
- but in English, it's very hard for me.
- So we was-- and this couple came in.
- I said, come, you'll eat too.
- As they came in with me, in a second--
- takes a second-- and a soldier came in,
- a Russian soldier, a commander.
- And he took them out.
- And we heard two shots, and that's it.
- What is?
- They were spies, and we didn't know.
- They killed them right away.
- But the Russian knew right away that they were spies?
- The Russian knew right away.
- They was working with us, and we didn't know.
- They was working with us.
- See, the Russians saw us already.
- They saw them already.
- And we didn't know that somebody saw us.
- We was walking around, and nobody-- we didn't know.
- Anyway, when I came-- when we came back--
- how my husband came back?
- They went to the zadanie.
- That's the called zadanie.
- They give them to put a bomb under a train.
- And they went there.
- So they said some--
- they came to a house for food because they didn't have food.
- When you going for a zadanie, you
- have to stop in a house for food.
- And if they don't give you food, you show them the guns.
- They have to give you food.
- That's where they got food.
- So when they came in in a house for food, this man, a Polish,
- he said you know what?
- All Germany went already around the whole world, all the--
- how you call the--
- In a valley like?
- Yeah.
- No, they went to us, all the partisaner to kill.
- They went to kill all the partisaner already
- in this forest.
- They went already to the forest.
- So he said, if you want to--
- don't take from us anything.
- We'll leave you here.
- You can be alive.
- So they didn't take anything.
- And they went on a roof, in a--
- on the roof.
- They have a [NON-ENGLISH].
- How you call it on a roof?
- Oh, a chimney?
- Not on a chimney.
- They was hiding.
- From the house you have-- in Europe, you have a house.
- You have a [NON-ENGLISH].
- Like a room upstairs.
- Oh, an attic.
- Attic, attic.
- I speak English.
- I'm telling you, that's what is.
- With me is a problem.
- He took them on the attic, and he hide them.
- The Polish man.
- Yeah, he hide them.
- And after it was already they was there
- for five days with him.
- He was a very nice man.
- They didn't take from him anything.
- They went to attic.
- After he told them they left already,
- all the German had left already, you can go back.
- So they went back to Swieciany.
- Was a state where there they have to put the bomb.
- And they went, and they did it.
- They did it on a train to Germany.
- They was all killed.
- All the Germans was killed.
- Yeah, they put a bomb.
- But then when they went back, soldiers was shotting them,
- was trying to kill them.
- And three boys didn't come back.
- They was killed.
- But my husband, thanks, God, he came.
- He came with two more boys.
- They came back.
- One was in arm was shot, the other one in foot.
- But they came.
- They came back.
- And that's what happened.
- That is the way he came back.
- When not this boy-- this man, they would be all killed.
- So he was hiding.
- Then when we was in the underground, and we used to--
- I was in-- we was in a commander--
- I don't know the--
- Was a Jewish soldier.
- He was the oldest.
- He was taking care of everything.
- So when my husband used to go to bring some food,
- because he used to catch in the forest.
- He used to go sheeps and-- sheeps or a cow.
- Sheep.
- He used to catch them, and he caught them,
- and he put them in the ground.
- He make in the ground to stay.
- Used to be colder, and that is no good to keep them.
- And we used to eat still, but it was very, very bad with food.
- Very bad.
- They have to go to ask for food, to the farmers.
- And if they come to a farm to ask for food,
- they have guns, too.
- They don't want to give.
- It was a big problem with that.
- How large of a group were you?
- Well, we was a very big group.
- Was about 50 people there.
- And then we went in another group with 30 people.
- We went in a lot of places.
- In one place, they didn't have women, only men.
- You were the only woman?
- So we have to go where is women there.
- We have to run away.
- Was-- we have-- we went through a lot in the underground, too.
- We went a lot there.
- And then we came after we heard it is already quiet.
- So we went back to Vilna.
- W was walking to Vilna back because I
- want to find my daughter.
- The war was already over?
- When the war was over.
- Before-- see, every week they used
- to send-- every couple of days, they
- used to send other boys there for food to bring.
- They went for other stuff we need.
- We didn't have nothing.
- So you have to go to farmers where they rich.
- You have to take horses from them to run.
- They don't want to give, you have to kill them.
- It was very hard life.
- Wasn't so easy.
- It was very bad.
- And I didn't like what my husband used to go,
- but they used to put me with a gun.
- And believe me, I didn't know what is going on.
- What were you supposed to do with a gun?
- If somebody comes to me, I have to--
- you know, I have to kill him or something.
- Did that ever happen?
- Never happened.
- But I was staying.
- I wasn't a good partisan because, you know,
- I didn't hear too good.
- I have a--
- See, when I went out the second time, I did--
- I forgot to tell you.
- When I went the second time from the ghetto, when I went out
- and I ran away, I ran away three times.
- Not one time, I ran away three times.
- The second time when I ran away, I
- got held from a soldier with the thing what they have.
- And he put me here and I--
- Oh, a bayonet?
- Yeah, and I couldn't hear for till I come to America.
- I didn't hear in one.
- So I couldn't hear too good.
- But--
- When he did that, did he make you go back into the ghetto?
- Back-- not in ghetto, back to go to work.
- But I ran away again.
- That was in the forest, the forest.
- And I ran away.
- But it was-- with my daughter on my hand, three times I ran away.
- Three times, they took us to kill.
- They took the children.
- One thing is they took her by herself.
- And that's all the time I ran away.
- I tried to run away.
- My husband ran away, too.
- We used to talk, in case something
- happen, try to run away.
- Try to run away.
- So we ran away.
- And really, if we wouldn't run away, we wouldn't be here.
- Because you were able to leave where
- they were going to take the people to.
- They took to kill, Ponary.
- So that's what happened.
- We ran away.
- But after everything, when we came-- yeah,
- so when they gave me a gun the first time--
- after I didn't mind already.
- I was used to them, but I couldn't hear too good.
- So every little thing, like a tree, they moving the tree,
- a fly--
- something flies, you hear something.
- I used to stay like this, but I didn't hear anything.
- But after I told them I can sew--
- I was-- I used to be--
- I used to sew dresses and everything.
- After I told them I can sew, so he didn't put me outside.
- I used to sew for them.
- If the aeroplane came, they used to-- from Russia,
- they used to put guns with everything with the aeroplane,
- the parachute.
- So he used to bring me the parachute.
- He used to call out the Russian people, the color of red,
- the goyim, you know?
- So he used to make red.
- So I used to make a shirt for me,
- a shirt for my husband, a bra.
- I used to make for all the girls bras from the red.
- Bras we used to--
- from the parachute.
- Yeah, from the parachute.
- I used to sew for them shirts.
- They like it.
- They like a high shirt, here a button, and plain straight.
- They took-- from a farmer, they took a machine,
- a sewing machine.
- And they bring, and I used to do.
- So I used to have better.
- When I used to sew, I used to have better
- because I didn't go outside.
- I used to ask him, don't send my husband.
- He said, I cannot think to.
- You know, my husband wants to go by himself.
- He wants to be a camper.
- You know, he wants to do that.
- He said, my father was killed.
- My mother was killed.
- Why I got to live?
- One day, I'll tell you a story.
- One day, they find-- they got a soldier, a German soldier.
- They catch him in the forest.
- They catch a soldier.
- So they came with him.
- My husband and another one came with him.
- They put him on a street because they
- didn't have to put on the thing what a policeman put on.
- They put some like this.
- They find something, and they put him on a runner,
- and they bring him in the--
- They tied him up.
- Yes, they tied him up.
- And when they tied him up, they came with him.
- And he said-- to one boy, he said, you know what?
- You can do with him what you want.
- You can do with him.
- I give him to you, to a Jewish boy.
- He was a very tall, nice man.
- He said, do anything you want with him, and he doesn't care.
- So he told him to make a--
- to take out [? a sign ?] to make a group, like you going to die.
- You put it in.
- A grave.
- A grave, make a grave.
- So the soldiers, they-- they are always staying outside.
- You make the grave.
- Then he hit him, you know, with the hand.
- He tried to do anything he wants.
- He was crying and doing that.
- He didn't-- he couldn't do that, but he was crying and do that.
- He said, that is for my father, and that's for my mother.
- That's for my brother and for my sister.
- A Jewish boy.
- And then he told him, goyim, and he put his--
- they put his hand on him.
- Everybody-- everybody put his hand.
- And there are some people were staying, as I said.
- One time, you want to see what a Jewish boy will do.
- Because if he wouldn't do one time, we have one time
- was like this in another place.
- And a boy couldn't do that.
- So they killed the boy.
- Killed the Jewish boy.
- The Jewish boys.
- They kill them right away in the place.
- And they put him in ground with the other one.
- The other one was killed him, and they put two together,
- the Jewish with the German.
- So this boy, now he was crying and do that.
- And everybody came and put his hand.
- He was still alive.
- Oh, [? gosh. ?]
- I'll tell you, these are things there.
- Soldiers used to stay and clean--
- clean the guns.
- And all right, maybe that wasn't right.
- Maybe that he didn't want to do that.
- He was-- killed a girl.
- Maybe he didn't want to do that.
- Who know?
- But was like nothing.
- Killing was like nothing.
- For the Russians more than for the Jews.
- Well, the Russian was-- for the Jews, they was very good.
- First of all, when we came here-- there, they take care.
- They was with us.
- They let us stay with them.
- If not the Russian, where we would go?
- See, the American people came to the--
- they helped the concentration camps.
- They helped the camps.
- They came, and they helped them.
- But they came late.
- We came-- if not the partisaner, a lot of people
- would be killed because the last people, they killed all of them.
- The last people from the ghettos they killed.
- They sent them on a train, and they killed them, all of them.
- Did you know what was happening as far as the concentration
- camps?
- Well, yes.
- They-- see, the thing is, we was in a camp.
- They took us one time in a camp.
- And a Germany man took me out with my husband.
- They took us in a camp before, in Bergen-Belsen.
- You were there?
- From the ghetto?
- From the ghetto.
- And then about there, my husband--
- no, a Germany man, he was talking with him nice and that.
- And he was hiding a few [NON-ENGLISH].
- And he gave him.
- And he took us out.
- So that's what it was, all the time in the underground.
- How long was that?
- How long was that?
- We was in the underground I think a year and a half or two.
- Two?
- About three years he was there.
- And the winter was so cold.
- We sleep on the street.
- You know, on the snow because inside was cold.
- And I don't know how we are alive.
- I'll tell you, I don't know.
- After, when we came back in Vilna,
- I was touching myself if I'm alive.
- We was so hungry.
- I came in our house.
- We came in our house.
- Our house was open, a Jewish house.
- And we find the crackers.
- So we start eating crackers.
- Then falls a cracker and I see full the little ants?
- I don't know.
- We eat so much of them.
- And that's what it is.
- And we are live?
- I don't know.
- Did you think you would survive?
- No, I didn't.
- I'll tell you.
- I used to say I am a survivor.
- I got to survive.
- I used to say all the time.
- Ask my husband.
- And he used to say, you don't know.
- I said, no, we all got to survive.
- And I don't know why.
- I have in my mind I got to survive.
- I always wanted to run.
- I was hiding in ghetto with her.
- Was an oblawa in ghetto.
- I was hiding.
- One policeman was my husband's nephew.
- He was a policeman in the ghetto.
- And here was a room, like a door.
- So he put a big closet, like a big--
- the big closets.
- He put from the other side, and you couldn't see that's a door.
- And under that, in the [? drawer, ?]
- we went into a room.
- We was 50 people in one room.
- 50?
- 50 people, and the room was a quarter like this.
- We were staying one on each other.
- My baby would start crying.
- She start crying.
- And what can I do?
- So I give her.
- I feed her.
- Then she was still crying.
- It was hot, and no food and no water.
- So they said we got to kill her because we cannot take it.
- And once I put her the breast, she start crying.
- So another baby was crying.
- So the father took a pillow and put on her face.
- Hmm.
- I saw that.
- I couldn't see, but I hear.
- So I said you know what?
- I'm going out.
- My husband said, how you can go out?
- And I was staying my husband, my husband's parents,
- my wasn't already.
- And all of them was there, his whole family.
- They start slapping me, you don't go, you don't go.
- And I put my daughter here, and I knocked the door,
- and I went out.
- I figure because of me--
- 50 people will die because of me?
- I cannot do that.
- So when I went out, you see, we used to have big doors,
- not like this.
- You open like this door.
- Double doors.
- Yeah, I hear the stairs somebody walking.
- I open the door, and I was staying under the door
- with my daughter.
- And I hold her.
- And I said to her, don't cry.
- And she was-- when we went out, the air was better.
- You can [NON-ENGLISH].
- It's different.
- And she was quiet.
- And a German soldier came in and knock our shelves
- and knock that.
- And he knocks everything and look and look.
- And he went out, and he didn't see me.
- And I think he saw me, and he didn't touch me.
- I think he saw me.
- How he cannot see me, I don't know.
- I saw him.
- And I was staying under a door, you know?
- And that's what is.
- You went so much through.
- I don't-- I cannot remember everything.
- I remember.
- When I talk about that, I can't remember everything.
- We went so much through.
- One day, they was taking us.
- That's the third time.
- And I didn't--
- I didn't know what to do because my husband
- they took in the morning from work.
- And my brother also they took.
- All of them, all the men they took.
- And after, they have to take all the women.
- So I went in a room.
- People was there, too.
- And they said, come on in.
- They're closing a closet.
- They're putting the door.
- I figure I know what it is.
- I went in, and I said, before you close, I'm going out.
- I didn't want to stay.
- I was afraid.
- My husband is not there.
- Nobody's there.
- And you know how I can?
- They kill my daughter.
- I didn't want it.
- So I went out, and I--
- they took me again.
- And the third time I went, I ran away.
- I tried to run away.
- I was walking, and I ran away.
- I don't know how I ran away.
- Something happened.
- I took-- I'll tell you what.
- My grandfather, when he died-- before he died,
- I wasn't married with my husband then, but he was working.
- He was in our house like a son to my parents,
- and I to his parents.
- My husband told-- my grandfather hold my [? head. ?]
- And he was very frum.
- He was a rabbi.
- He hold my [? head ?] and my husband's [? head, ?] and he
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- And then something happened.
- I talk to my grandfather.
- I have to run away.
- I talk to my grandfather.
- From the first day I'm in ghetto,
- I talk to my grandfather.
- Even now, I go on a plane, everybody know.
- My girlfriend said, talk to your grandfather.
- So we'll come [? to it. ?] That's what is I have
- in my mind.
- My grandfather, I talk to him.
- And I told my husband, I'm going to be alive, and you, too.
- And that's what happened.
- Really, I don't know what to say.
- Why do you think you were able to survive?
- I don't know.
- Maybe to tell the stories.
- [LAUGHS] Maybe to tell the stories.
- And my daughter know everything.
- She knows everything.
- She's nervous.
- She's sometimes very nervous.
- Because I'll tell you, the thing is, when
- I find her was the problem.
- See, when we came back, we couldn't go to the place
- because the brig was broken already.
- The bridge.
- We couldn't go.
- Yeah, we have to go to a bridge over to where we used to live.
- And we couldn't go, so the Russian soldiers
- took us on a ferry.
- And they took us to the other place.
- When I came there to look for this woman what took her out,
- I know where she took her out, in which place and which woman.
- But we couldn't find her.
- So I couldn't find this woman.
- So I went to the woman where she give my daughter away,
- and I couldn't find the woman, too.
- The war was over already?
- The war was over.
- So Germany was--
- The German was already gone.
- When we came in, was still the German hiding.
- They used to kill, did that.
- But a few days later was gone.
- All the partisane came already.
- It was after the war.
- Was after the war, and everybody came back.
- It was already quiet.
- So not too many people came back.
- These people that came back from the partisaner is always there.
- From the concentration camps some came.
- Some left in Germany already.
- They didn't want to go back to Poland or to the--
- So these people what came, we went.
- We met-- we met each other in a place--
- not the first day.
- The first day we went to see--
- I went to see the woman because I went to see my daughter.
- That's what I ran first.
- And we was walking.
- But sometime a woman, when she drives something,
- horses, they going--
- they used to take us for a while to drive with them.
- Then we walk.
- And this way, we came to Poland.
- It takes us two weeks to come to Vilna.
- So you were very far away from Poland.
- Oh, far away.
- For two weeks, we walk there, and two weeks back.
- So you were in Russia, basically.
- That was Poland, not Russia.
- It was Poland.
- No, that was-- was in--
- how called that?
- Naroch, Naroch was the--
- used to be-- it's called Naroch That
- used to be-- people used to go there skiing and everything.
- Used to be where the hills with the skiing.
- Naroch.
- That was in Poland?
- That was in Poland.
- That-- was they used to have big like these,
- like trees, a lot of trees.
- That's what we hide there.
- You couldn't hide on the streets.
- See, this is the places where we used to hide.
- My husband with other boys used to make--
- they make a place where to hide in case Germany came again.
- They open a tree, and we used to go out maybe--
- For weeks, they used to take the sand to put in the water.
- One liter of water we cover already with full sand.
- Was no water.
- They used to take it out from that, from the ground,
- and they make a place to walk out another place.
- In case Germany came here, we could go all of them
- here and walk.
- Like through a tunnel.
- Tunnel, yeah.
- So they working for that nights.
- In the night, they used to work to take out the sand.
- So they actually dug in the ground, in the sand?
- Yeah.
- In the tunnel.
- And we used to walk far away to take the sand,
- not to see on the street the sand, you know?
- Used to be we all used to work.
- We worked so hard for that.
- But we never used it.
- Still there, maybe.
- We never used it.
- Nobody know about it.
- Yeah, nobody know.
- Were you here when the war ended?
- Were you there?
- Yeah, we was there till the end.
- And then we was walking two weeks to go back to home.
- How did you find out that the war had ended?
- Soldiers came and told us already, that the war over.
- The Russians soldiers?
- Yeah, the Russians have contact.
- They used to have the radios with everything.
- We have everything, all the news from all over.
- They have contact with the Russians,
- with Vilna, with all over what is going on.
- They took out all from Vilna, all from ghetto
- in Warsaw, was there already as they start.
- And everything we know.
- We know there everything.
- Ah, so you knew everything that was going on during the war.
- What was going on?
- Sure, that's what it is.
- Sure.
- Was partisaner was a very big group.
- You know everything.
- So that's what it is.
- And we was very far.
- So when we came back, we went to look for my daughter.
- What is the river that you had to cross?
- Do you remember?
- Zwierzyniec.
- Or [? Snipisek. ?] [? Snipisek. ?] [? Snipisek ?]
- [NON-ENGLISH] used to call.
- Mm-hmm.
- So we went-- we crossed there.
- We came there, and we couldn't find her.
- So we sleep over in a house.
- It was a Jewish house.
- And somebody, a woman, was there too.
- And we sleep there over.
- In my house, people was living there already.
- You went back to your house?
- Yeah, we couldn't go in.
- People was living.
- And so we went back.
- And for a couple of weeks-- three weeks later, every day
- was like this.
- I work-- I used to go to find the woman,
- and we couldn't find her.
- So my husband said, what can you do?
- So we-- when we came back, we crossed the bridge,
- and we came to the woman.
- And she said, we cannot find her.
- Anyway, I used to go every day, maybe in the morning, at night.
- I couldn't find her.
- And the Jewish woman said, she must be--
- she must come back home.
- She doesn't know where she is.
- And we couldn't find her.
- We don't know if she have the girl or she don't have.
- We didn't know what is going on.
- So is already three weeks.
- And my mother came in a dream.
- And she said, get up, my Kind, and you'll find your daughter.
- Like this.
- In a dream?
- Because I used to dream in the forest.
- When I was in partisan, I used to dream every night my mother.
- My daughter falls from my window, and she catch her.
- My daughter falls in water, and she takes her out.
- And every place, my mother takes her out, and every night.
- So my husband said, you know what?
- Maybe you're getting crazy.
- To go to a psychiatrist?
- We figure I'm getting crazy.
- Here, too, is not enough.
- He said, they are really dreams.
- I said, OK, you think like this.
- He said, he's not going.
- And I said, I'm going.
- It was 6 o'clock in the morning.
- I went to the woman.
- I went to--
- The Jewish woman?
- No, to the Polish woman.
- The Jewish woman couldn't find her, too.
- You know, what can she do?
- She cannot find her.
- She took her out from the ghetto.
- I came by the Jewish woman.
- I was staying with her.
- So I came there.
- Nobody is there.
- So I figure, I'll wait.
- Maybe she must come.
- If my mother told me, she must come.
- I see about maybe an hour later, she's there.
- She's the other woman because I know which woman that was.
- And she didn't recognize me.
- I don't know if she didn't recognize me or--
- all right, sure.
- I went.
- When I went there, I was different.
- I was very skinny.
- I came back with long hair and very skinny and not dressed up.
- I didn't have what to wear.
- So I told her, you know what?
- You have my daughter--
- and in Polish-- and I would like to know where she is.
- I didn't came to pick up to take her,
- but I would like to see if she's alive.
- So, oy, I don't know.
- The Gestapo took her away.
- And I said, what?
- How come Gestapo took her away?
- Yeah, the Germany took her away.
- I said, why?
- Why they took her away?
- And I'm talking to her and talking to her, and I'm crying.
- And she said, no, no.
- They took her away.
- So in that, I saw from the window my husband comes
- with NKVD, with the Russian, with the soldier.
- A friend of mine, he took him.
- He was afraid to go by himself.
- He saw so long I'm not there, you know,
- he didn't know what is going on.
- So he took him.
- And I saw him.
- I said to her, you know what?
- I'm going to arrest you now if you don't tell me
- where you put my daughter.
- She was very afraid.
- She said, no, no, no, don't arrest me.
- I left her on the street.
- I came out to my husband.
- I said, my daughter lives.
- She's alive.
- I didn't know.
- I didn't know.
- But I said, she's alive.
- He said, what happened?
- So I came.
- Yeah, he came in.
- And she said she left her on the street because she was crying,
- and she couldn't do-- she was speaking Yiddish.
- She was a very smart girl.
- She speaks only Yiddish.
- She didn't know Polish.
- So when I-- but she was blonde.
- She looks like a shiksa.
- She looks like a-- she have blonde hair.
- And so anyway, this was a picture what I show you.
- That was before.
- Anyway, so she said she can nothing do.
- She have to give her.
- She have to put her there.
- And then she was crying, and don't arrest me, don't do it.
- So my husband said, you got to show me where you left her.
- So she didn't want to go, but she went with us.
- When she showed me where she left her,
- I didn't know how a child can be alive there.
- Trains go, and only you see barrack.
- You know, green both sides and cows.
- Cows is there.
- That's all.
- Cows?
- Yeah, cow.
- Cow.
- And you cannot see anything there.
- How can a child be alive there?
- So we went with her there.
- She said, can I go?
- I said, no, you cannot go.
- Till we find her, you don't go anywhere.
- And she went with us.
- And I didn't see nothing.
- I didn't hear.
- I didn't see.
- I was like, I am going--
- I don't know where I'm going.
- And we came to a house.
- And we went in on a hill.
- And I saw a little boy.
- I ask him, maybe you saw this and this here.
- A little girl was there with a red dress, with flowers.
- He said, is her name Jadzia?
- I said, maybe.
- I don't know.
- He said, we know a girl, what we find here.
- Somebody find her.
- Bronke, a boy Bronke find the girl.
- I said, where is that?
- He said, I'll show you.
- So we was walking.
- I didn't see nothing.
- I walk with him.
- I hold him for a hand.
- I didn't know how to walk him.
- And I was so-- like I'm getting blind.
- I didn't see, from nerves.
- I couldn't see.
- I hold him, and he took me in a home.
- My husband was walking on the street,
- and he saw her on the street playing, and he picks her up.
- I didn't know.
- I walk in the house.
- And I walk in house.
- I want to ask somebody.
- I see my husband walking with her.
- He knew right away.
- Oh, yeah, right away.
- He find her.
- She was playing on the street.
- The boy was with her.
- The boy was-- the mother wasn't there.
- So he told me, my mother went.
- I told her, you're my daughter.
- She said, no, you're not my mother.
- My mother went buying something.
- You're not my mother.
- OK, not your mother.
- But I saw she's alive.
- I was happy.
- So the woman came to me.
- She said, can I go?
- I said, go ahead.
- I don't want to see you anymore.
- [LAUGHS] And she left.
- What I am going to do with her?
- So we was waiting till the mother came.
- The mother came.
- She took her right away from my hand.
- And I wouldn't give her nobody.
- And I wouldn't give away.
- And I don't care what you got to tell me.
- I said, I don't come to pick her up.
- I don't got to take her away from you.
- I didn't want to start with her.
- You know, I didn't have nothing.
- I don't have even have where to take my baby.
- I didn't have a place where to stay.
- What can I do?
- But I didn't want to take her right away.
- I will pick her maybe later, but I want to see if she's alive.
- So she told me the whole story.
- That's her.
- The boy find her on there.
- And she was crying, and he took her home.
- And she speaks a good Polish already.
- So she didn't have food.
- She went with her to the Germany.
- And she told them-- in Gestapo.
- And she told them, she find the girl.
- And she wants to keep her.
- So he said, she is a Jude, a Jewish.
- And she-- my daughter saw a mundir-- the uniforms.
- She know how the uniform.
- And she hold her so strong, the woman.
- And she didn't want to look at him.
- She-- like this, she look.
- She told me how, the way that was.
- And he said, she's such a smart Jude.
- I'll give you two cards for food.
- They got a card for food.
- So she give her two cards for food, for the girl.
- And he said, she's a smart Jude, so let her be alive.
- And he gave her two.
- She knows she's Jewish because when she-- at night, one night,
- she was say Yossele, [? Dinde. ?]
- That's the children, a nephew of mine.
- And she learned [? Dinde, ?] Yossele.
- They died.
- They took away the kids.
- So she figured that she's Jewish.
- So she give her a name.
- She went to the church.
- She put her on a [NON-ENGLISH].
- She give her a name, Jadzia.
- And she was Christian.
- They make her wear cross.
- And I still have her cross.
- I keep the cross for us to wear.
- Anyway, she was-- she said she don't got to give me back.
- And that's OK.
- We was--
- You're talking Polish?
- Yeah.
- Your daughter was speaking Polish?
- She speaks only Polish.
- She didn't know Jewish anymore.
- She didn't know a word.
- Even when I pick her up, I talked to her
- and she didn't know what.
- She used to say [POLISH].
- That is a very bad word for Jewish people.
- That's what-- in Polish, they used to say to the Jewish people
- there.
- That's what she know.
- But they-- she didn't know Yiddish anymore.
- She forgot everything.
- And she was in class.
- She went every day to the church, every day to the church.
- And then what happened, her husband, they took him away.
- They supposed to kill him because he is a communist,
- they said.
- The Russian people-- the German people
- said that he's a communist.
- He wasn't a communist.
- He was a poor man.
- But they have to have somebody.
- They wants to kill, they kill.
- They put him in jail.
- So he ask-- before they hang him,
- He wants to see the wife with the children,
- because he was there when the girl--
- but they took him in the--
- Anyway, he told her, till you live, you keep the girl.
- Till you will be alive, you keep your daughter.
- He loves her.
- And she kiss him, and she kiss him.
- And she told me, she used to go to the church and say,
- my father came back.
- She ask only her father to come back.
- When my husband took her on the hand, he said, I'm your father,
- I'm dad.
- She said, I don't know if this is my father.
- She know her father have to come,
- but she didn't know if this is the father.
- She said, she don't remember.
- Children, they don't know.
- She was how old now?
- She was four and a half years.
- She didn't know her father, was it four years, a year--
- You hadn't seen her for three years.
- Three years I didn't see her.
- Three years for a girl.
- She learned everything in Polish.
- And nobody speaks Yiddish.
- How she can remember the few words what she speak.
- And she was there, and she didn't want to give me back.
- So I went-- we went back home.
- And then my husband got a job by [INAUDIBLE].
- And he worked for a while.
- And we was together.
- Then, they took him to the army, and he ran away.
- This was in Vilna?
- In Vilna, in Vilna.
- The Russian took him to the army.
- And what happened?
- They took all the men to the army, to send to the army,
- to go in the army.
- And he just came back.
- And I find my daughter.
- I didn't have her with me yet.
- And I find her.
- I figure how he can go?
- So he went.
- He have to go.
- And then when they have to send the boys on to fight,
- so we came there.
- That was in a forest not far from Vilna.
- Another woman, this woman what took out my daughter,
- her husband they took, too.
- So I went with her, and we bring them food.
- And we were sitting in the forest.
- And we told them, you go.
- Try to go.
- And they ran away, and he went to Kovne, in another state.
- And he opened there.
- He borrowed some money, and he opened
- there a business, my husband, a meat business, a small meat
- business.
- And then we came back to Vilna, and--
- You were still in Vilna?
- Yeah, and we tried to get my daughter.
- So we used to come every day to her,
- but here I have already a few dollars, you know?
- Every day there, I was crying for her so much.
- And she said no and no and no.
- And I said, you have a son, and I don't have children.
- She said, have another child.
- And she didn't want it.
- But then one day, I came and I figured,
- I don't know what to do, to go fight with her?
- I didn't go to fight with her.
- She's such a nice woman, a poor woman.
- One day, I was crying so much, she said, you know what?
- I cannot see you anymore.
- If you going to cry anymore, I cannot see.
- And she said, take your daughter and go.
- She was such a nice woman.
- So I want to bring her to America.
- I cannot find her.
- So when we came here, I cannot find her.
- Maybe she died.
- I don't know.
- No answer.
- So I send letters.
- No answer.
- So what I want to tell you, the son
- used to come and stay with me.
- And she-- we bought her furniture,
- and we bought our clothes.
- And everything what we have, we give to her.
- She stayed with me for weeks.
- And my daughter used to cry, oh, what I have from her.
- She used to cry.
- She said, I don't like you.
- I don't want with you.
- I want with her.
- I was so sad for her.
- And then I used to take her every day to the church.
- I used to sit on the steps, and she used to go in.
- She have to go every day, every day.
- Oh, I was so tired from that.
- I was so tired.
- But I couldn't do anything.
- I didn't want to start with her right away.
- I give her everything she wanted.
- That's what, I spoil her.
- I told her, now even I spoil her.
- And she's so close with me.
- She don't want to move from me far away.
- That's what we live so close.
- I don't know what to do.
- She never wants to move out from my house.
- Even now, we're very close.
- Some people say, how you can live next door to your daughter?
- You don't fight?
- We never fight.
- We're very close.
- So that's what is.
- Sometimes, it's good to live close, sometimes not.
- It's too much.
- But the woman give me back.
- She said-- she used to come and everything.
- When I left to Germany, I send her a letter.
- I got back.
- And then when we came to America,
- I figure, when I come in America, I promise her,
- I'll bring her with her son.
- And we couldn't.
- I couldn't find her.
- Or she's afraid to answer, maybe?
- Can be she's afraid.
- Who know, you know, with the Russian?
- And we have a business in Kovne.
- So from Vilna, you went to Kovne.
- Went to Kovne.
- And we stayed there because we couldn't stay.
- We went-- see, we have an uncle in Kovne.
- And his name was other name.
- So he went.
- He took out his papers.
- He was killed, my mother's brother.
- He took us his papers.
- He went on his papers till he came to America.
- Bentsel Levin.
- Your husband was traveling on your uncle's papers?
- We live on this uncle's papers.
- We didn't travel.
- We lived there.
- He opened a business, and we lived there.
- People what know us, they know our name.
- But for the Russian, we was Levin, not Katz,
- because they would kill us.
- He ran away from the army.
- You know what it is to run away from the army?
- That's what I was wondering, how he could come back to Vilna.
- Yeah, that's what is.
- He was out on a--
- and then I'll tell you, he was very rich.
- We make a lot of money.
- And I have a woman in the house.
- I didn't know what to do with the money.
- Everybody who came after the war, I give meat for nothing.
- I give that.
- I didn't know what to do.
- So we put-- we figure we'll go to Israel.
- We got to leave to Israel.
- We didn't plan to go to America.
- We planned to go to Israel.
- And we went.
- We want to go back.
- So we came back.
- We have to come back to Vilna.
- From Vilna, we have to go to Poland and from Poland
- to Germany and from Germany to Israel.
- See?
- That is not so easy to go.
- So we put some money in shoes and some money in suitcases,
- and we make places in couches.
- In anything you want, we have money.
- We make so much money there that I didn't
- know what to do with the money.
- From the meat market?
- From the meat market.
- We give everybody.
- We would stay there, we could be very rich,
- but we didn't want to.
- We want to go to Israel.
- We figure in Israel, we open a business, and I'll have a child,
- and that's all.
- So when we came--
- we came to the train to take a train to Vilna.
- And somebody recognized my husband,
- that he is Katz, not Levin.
- And he ran away right away from there.
- And I left everything.
- I hold a doll with money.
- And I have a suitcase.
- So I took the suitcase out, and I hold the doll.
- I told, you hold the doll.
- And in her coat was money.
- In my coat was money, my husband's coat was money.
- In her doll was a lot of money.
- So she hold it.
- She loves the doll.
- So that's what I put some money.
- And a soldier came to me.
- And he said you know that your husband ran away from the army.
- He recognize him because he was in the army next to him.
- And he said, we got to arrest him.
- And he sent two soldiers to arrest him,
- but they couldn't find him already.
- He ran away.
- And I-- he took me to take me to the place
- where they put in jail.
- So when he took me, and there was--
- houses was the building.
- Is broken houses and stones.
- And I know how to run already.
- I'm running.
- So I took my daughter on my hand, and I told him,
- you know what?
- I can go there.
- She want to make-- because she's got to make in the pants.
- And she wear a nice dress.
- We're going on a train.
- We have money.
- We was dressed up nice, in all our clothes.
- Everything was there.
- And I said, I just want to put her there.
- He said, go ahead.
- Such a stupid soldier.
- Go ahead.
- I went.
- He never saw me back.
- That's all.
- I went there.
- I went down, and I saw a house there.
- And I went in in the house.
- And I said, you have to hide me.
- What is now she said to hide?
- Now you're afraid.
- I said, I'm afraid.
- Till it's night.
- She said, OK, come on in.
- And she took me in.
- That is like a [? farm-- ?] nothing there,
- just a few houses.
- And I went in, and I was sitting till it's dark.
- And she gave a glass milk my daughter and that.
- And we were sitting till it's dark.
- And I went to a friend of mine in Vilna.
- And she is-- she is there.
- She is now in Canada.
- So I stayed there, and I said, you'll see my husband run away,
- and he'll come to you.
- And I told him the story.
- So he came down, too.
- I told him he'd come.
- And he came there.
- And now how we can go?
- We cannot go.
- So he find out for papers, for other papers.
- And he paid for the papers.
- That was the suitcase.
- When I put the suitcase, I saw somebody.
- He took the suitcase, a friend of mine.
- And he came with the suitcase.
- Because the few [INAUDIBLE], the few people
- what we came after the war, we know each other very good.
- So he gave me the suitcase.
- I have the money.
- We took it out.
- And we pay for our tickets to take us to Lódz, Poland.
- And we came to Poland.
- And in Poland, we stay.
- From Poland, we have to go to other places,
- to Switzerland to there, to come to Germany.
- And then when we came to Germany, it's not so easy.
- Before we came to Berlin--
- we have to come to Berlin.
- In Berlin was a place where we can go to Israel.
- And when we came to Berlin, with only one suitcase, I have,
- that's all what I have.
- I don't have nothing.
- In the doll is money and that.
- So I couldn't hold the girl on my hand
- because we work at night.
- We have to hide to come to the-- we cannot work like this.
- You have to work at night.
- Somebody was there what to take you at night to the places.
- Across the border.
- Border.
- Yeah, we couldn't go.
- We have to hide all the time.
- We have to hide to go.
- You couldn't go like this.
- So we have to hide to come to Berlin.
- And he went, and soldiers catch him.
- He went with a few boys more, and soldiers catch him.
- I was still sitting.
- I was tired.
- I was sitting.
- I have her on my hand.
- So I'm with the suitcase staying there.
- And he-- they took him.
- I don't know.
- We came to this place.
- Nobody is there already.
- The train was gone.
- Somebody told us other people would came,
- but we're going together.
- We used to go all together, 50, 60 people.
- They take us out at night, but not all together--
- five this time, five this time.
- Like this we have to do, to go at night.
- So he-- they took him.
- He came in a place where they were sleeping overnight.
- And all names is there, who comes there.
- My husband, why he didn't put a name I would know he is there?
- So he didn't figure.
- He didn't figure.
- We came there.
- We're looking on the walls.
- Nobody is there.
- So he went.
- And in train, he was sitting.
- The girl was hungry.
- He didn't have anything.
- He didn't have even a penny with him.
- He didn't know is in a coat money.
- Because I put all over.
- I didn't know where to put.
- And somebody was sitting there, a soldier, and eating bread.
- So he told him.
- We speak Russian too.
- See, I speak Russian and Polish.
- So I told him--
- maybe he told him, maybe you can give her a little piece.
- So he give her a little piece of bread with butter.
- She didn't eat all day.
- So he came to Berlin.
- When he came to Berlin, he find friends of mine.
- So they took the girl from him.
- They said--
- He had your daughter all the time?
- He had the daughter on the hand.
- And they took him with her.
- So when he came to Berlin with a child, he told him a story.
- You have to tell a lie there or something.
- So they told-- they put him--
- the soldiers put them on the train, and he went to Berlin.
- He said he wants to go to Berlin.
- He have the wife there and that.
- Nobody told him.
- So he came to Berlin.
- And he met friends of mine.
- So they said, we'll take the girl from you
- because he didn't know what to do, not food,
- not where to sleep.
- And he'll wait for her-- for me.
- So when I came there, we came there,
- we found out we didn't see him.
- We find out he is there already.
- So that's what happened.
- When we came in-- we came in München.
- No, not in Berlin.
- We came in München.
- This time we came to München.
- Munich.
- You know Munich?
- Oh, Munich.
- Munich.
- So when we came to Munich, we tried to go to Israel.
- So everybody said, in Israel is bad.
- No food, no that.
- Let's go to America.
- Everybody start with America.
- And on the way there, I find a cousin
- of mine, my mother's sister's daughter.
- And she with her husband, they said they going to America.
- So I figure at least I have a cousin.
- But I'll go to Israel.
- I'll have a cousin.
- So we planned to go to America.
- So we didn't live in Munich.
- We went to Gailingen. Was a state where
- all the Vilna is there.
- So we went there, and we lived there for five years.
- What year was this about?
- That was Gailingen, Germany.
- No, four years we lived.
- We live 45 people--
- 45 couples in one house.
- That was a [? old ?] [? age ?] homes they give us away.
- The Germany give us away [? old age home. ?]
- And we live together.
- We cook together.
- We eat together.
- We was very close.
- We like one family, even now.
- We were like one family.
- All right, a lot of them died.
- Some have children more and that.
- But we lived together all the time.
- What years were those?
- That was in '45 till '49.
- We came '45 and we stayed till '49
- in Gailingen. We live all together.
- Some live in New York, and we make us like a [NON-ENGLISH].
- You know what it is?
- We make like if somebody have a wedding or a bar
- mitzvah or death or something, everybody
- should come because we didn't have family.
- We all should come together.
- And the first was my daughter married.
- So everybody came.
- From Israel they couldn't afford, believe me.
- They borrow money, and they came to the wedding.
- And we go to every place.
- Where we have to go, we go if we can.
- So my daughter's-- then I came here.
- I got pregnant, and I have a younger daughter.
- Well, when you were here in the States?
- Yeah, when I was here in the States.
- Yeah.
- That is my younger daughter.
- What year did you come to the States?
- '49.
- So all the traveling you were doing was really in one year?
- In one year.
- And you picked up your daughter?
- We picked daughter and that's it.
- All that--
- No, no.
- We came in '41.
- In '40-- we came in '41.
- We came in after the war.
- We stay in Kovne for a year, no more than a year.
- We came to-- we came to Munich in '45, 1945.
- Hmm.
- In 1945, we was three years.
- It was-- we came in '40--
- '42.
- In three years was that.
- In Kovne?
- In Kovne we was--
- I'll tell you, I don't remember all that.
- '41-- yeah, one year.
- We was in Kovne.
- And then we came-- in '46, we came.
- We came in '46, 1946.
- To Germany?
- Yeah.
- And that's what is.
- In 1950, we came here--
- 1950.
- 1950.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah, we came.
- Four years we were together.
- And all of you decided to come--
- Some people went-- yes, some people went to Israel.
- Some went to Canada, to Winnipeg.
- Some went to Montreal.
- Toronto, I have been in New York, in California.
- I was two times there to weddings.
- Los Angeles and San Francisco, like this.
- All over.
- People went there.
- Some find families.
- I find like--
- Did you come right to Washington?
- We came right to Washington.
- It's a story, how I came here.
- That's my grandson got married.
- She's from London.
- I went last year to London to the wedding.
- What is this?
- See, this is my granddaughter when she went to Israel.
- This is my granddaughter.
- And this is my grandson.
- This is now my granddaughter.
- This is her parents.
- That's my son-in-law.
- Here, my daughter.
- And this is my younger daughter.
- She wasn't there.
- My younger daughter's daughter.
- That's the younger one.
- And I think this is the older one.
- I don't have it in pictures here.
- I have--
- So once you came to the States and settled in Washington,
- then you had your second daughter.
- Yeah, I'll tell you.
- Yeah, I planned to go to Israel.
- But everybody-- then I have a girlfriend in Israel.
- But I went with her in the underground.
- We were staying five days.
- We walk around, what I told you.
- She lives in Israel.
- So I sent her-- because she went before me.
- So I sent her a letter to send me a letter, how
- is there to come with a child?
- How is the life there?
- That was very bad before.
- I didn't figure.
- From first was not good there.
- Was after the war.
- So when she sent me a letter not to come because it's so bad,
- maybe go to America.
- I'll come to you.
- No meat, no food, no nothing.
- The job is not good, and it's hot.
- It was summer time.
- And she said, go to America if you can.
- She figure, for me good.
- Now she's sorry she said it.
- Now she's sorry.
- And I'm sorry.
- I'm very sorry.
- I love Israel.
- So it's a nice life.
- I was seven times in Israel.
- I go every year mostly now.
- I love Israel.
- So it's a nice life.
- She's sorry.
- Then I want to bring her here.
- She didn't want to go.
- So that's what is.
- And the thing is how I got to America, I couldn't go.
- With the HIAS was too late.
- So I find a Jewish paper in America-- in Germany.
- In Munich, I find a Jewish paper.
- Somebody was reading it.
- Oh, yeah.
- I said, give me the paper.
- I'll read the Jewish paper.
- I didn't read from Vilna.
- So I read the Jewish because I'm getting every day a paper
- from New York.
- I read some paper.
- So I read a paper, and I see a Mrs. Abramson wants
- to bring a family, and a Doctor [? Vinik ?]
- wants to bring a family.
- So I said, oy, maybe I'll send them a letter,
- and they'll send me papers.
- I don't know the people.
- So I sent--
- I didn't tell my husband.
- He planned still to go to Israel.
- I send the--
- I send a letter to Dr. Vinik.
- I send a letter to Mrs. Abramson.
- I send her a picture of me with my husband and my daughter.
- I have already pictures made there in Germany where we live.
- And my husband start making money there too.
- He makes a nice living.
- Everybody used to make-- buy coffee
- and sell and [? handle. ?]
- And we make-- we make not bad.
- And we live nice there in Germany all together.
- We eat all together.
- And so we--
- I figure I'll send her a letter.
- And I didn't tell him.
- [AUDIO OUT]
- So you wrote the letter, and you got--
- I find a paper, a Jewish paper in München.
- So I wrote.
- I figure I'll got to send a letter to the Mrs.
- Abramson and a Mr. Dr. Levin.
- And I'll send them.
- I'll see Dr. Vinik, and I'll see what they got--
- maybe they can send me papers.
- I'll pay.
- I'll pay him for that.
- So I sent a letter to him.
- And I sent a letter to her.
- I say I want come to America, and I don't have family.
- And my husband have cousins.
- We don't know how to find them.
- And I'll pay for them if they can bring me.
- So this-- they both was in Washington.
- So and a week later, or two weeks later,
- I got a package from America.
- I go, who I have in America?
- I forgot about the letter.
- Who I have in America?
- Then the Abramson, an older woman she was,
- comes a letter with a package, boots with clothes,
- with for the baby, for my daughter clothes.
- I figure, what is it?
- It's [? brot ?] with chocolate, with everything.
- And a letter.
- She write to me, my children and my children,
- and I'll bring you here.
- And don't worry.
- You don't have to pay me back.
- Nothing.
- I'll send you out the papers.
- Just send me the years and your names and everything,
- and I'll send you right away papers.
- I talked to a lawyer.
- I figure, what kind of people they are?
- Such a good people.
- And I sent to Dr. Vinik.
- And now three days later comes Dr. Vinik.
- I want to send you not a package,
- but be very proud of people that can do that.
- And we'll send you papers.
- Just send me letters with And Dr. Vinik sent me pictures
- from the wife with the husband.
- They from Russia.
- They came-- people came from Russia a long time ago, see?
- And we'll help you, and we'll help you.
- You don't have to pay us nothing,
- and we'll send you papers.
- So I said to my husband, you see?
- I told him.
- He said, what do you-- why do you make a big story?
- I said, I want to go to America.
- I have a cousin in America.
- Why I have to say?
- He have two cousins here, and he didn't know the names.
- And we have three cousins.
- And he didn't know.
- He didn't know where they live.
- We know the names.
- So then, OK, I sent her the woman.
- I sent everything, my name-- the name and the years.
- I figure, he's a doctor.
- Who know?
- Maybe there-- and I still have his paper.
- So I sent to her a paper with the names, with everything.
- And in meantime, my--
- she's now my [NON-ENGLISH].
- My daughter married with my girlfriend's son
- in Atlantic City.
- So she went to America.
- I said, you find out the cousins of my husband.
- In meantime, before I-- before I going
- on this ship, before I have to go to America,
- she-- comes a letter from my husband's cousin.
- She is poor, and she don't have anything.
- And she cannot help us.
- She would like to help us, and she cannot help us and that.
- I figure, I didn't ask her even.
- What kind of people?
- People what I don't know, they send me paper.
- So then when-- before I left to America,
- I sent to the cousin a letter.
- I told her I'll be very rich.
- I make a bigger store.
- And I told her how she's not ashamed to tell us.
- People what doesn't know us send us paper.
- We don't need her, and we don't need her nothing.
- And that's all.
- I sent her a thank you for the letter, and that's all.
- When we came with the ship in New York, a woman,
- they call us, Mr. Katz, Mr. Charles Katz.
- And he's not Charles Katz.
- He's Levin.
- We came here for Levin.
- Oh, you came with Levin.
- Off a [? chance, ?] when I went for the citizen papers with
- Charles, really [? late ?] because, see,
- from Poland we couldn't go.
- We couldn't go far because still who know?
- Who know what they can do?
- The Germany wasn't there already,
- but the Russian, he was afraid for the Russian.
- So when we came--
- when we came in Germany, everybody
- know us already for Katz.
- Everybody know us.
- So they call us.
- We went.
- I went to see.
- I came to a woman, an older woman.
- I didn't know who she is.
- I said--
- Well, she said to my husband, Chaimel, Chaimel,
- you look like your father.
- I figure, who is that?
- Cousin?
- Cannot be because she said she cannot take us.
- That's the cousin.
- Because of my letter, the way I wrote to her, she was upset.
- And she came, and she said, oh, I'm sorry, and I'm sorry,
- and I want to take you to my house,
- and you'll see how I live.
- And I know you cannot--
- we was afraid in case you have--
- I have to keep you.
- She lives in Pitkin Avenue, a poor woman.
- I didn't know.
- A poor woman.
- And her husband was used to work by jewelry, old, but old people.
- And they-- all of us from the first day they came in America,
- they live in Pitkin Avenue.
- And they poor, but we didn't know.
- See, I was very upset because a cousin to answer like this?
- Some people.
- But I don't know them.
- They're so nice.
- You should see the letters.
- I still have the letters someplace.
- I couldn't believe.
- So she was very-- she is poor.
- She is poor.
- Then we came to her one.
- I got pregnant.
- And I was-- and they have a wedding, the daughter
- I didn't want to go and that.
- And then we went to the wedding, and I saw their house,
- and I saw everything.
- She was a poor woman.
- So when-- but she was a very good woman.
- When I got my daughter, I was very sick.
- I got sick.
- And she called me up, and she said, what are you doing?
- I said, I'm sick.
- I'm in bed.
- Who takes care of the baby?
- I said, I. I try.
- Because we couldn't afford that.
- We came here, it wasn't so easy.
- I went to business, and we live in a one-bedroom apartment
- with two children.
- It wasn't so easy.
- And you have a few dollars, you put in the business.
- And then he bought a car, and we didn't have anything.
- And it was very hard for us when we came here.
- It was very hard because this woman, the older woman,
- I'll tell you--
- just I'll tell you for this.
- The cousin, she took us.
- Yeah, I didn't.
- And she hang up the phone.
- Three hours later, she came.
- She stayed with me two weeks, the woman.
- In Washington, she came--
- To my apartment.
- Yeah, and that I'll never forget.
- I bought her a watch, and I bought her a coat,
- and I gave her a dress.
- And I didn't have too much.
- This time, I didn't have too much
- because he went already in the business.
- We make a nice living, but we didn't have money
- because we put--
- we came with a few dollars.
- I'll tell you what happened.
- When we came, this woman took us to her.
- Abramson.
- Yeah.
- And the doctor, I'll tell you what with the doctor.
- The doctor, I have papers.
- He could make papers.
- My husband have a brother with a wife came with a daughter.
- Ah, with the doctor's papers.
- So I give them.
- I send them a letter if he can make for them.
- So he sent for them papers.
- But when we came, Dr. Abramson want to take us in.
- He want to take us to his house.
- But we didn't.
- We went to there.
- But every Friday, we came to him for dinner.
- So he didn't know what to do with us.
- He have a daughter like my daughter's age.
- And I used to go to him when we was sick
- or my daughter was sick.
- We go to him every time.
- And we become so close with the doctor, with the wife.
- They was such a nice people.
- He died.
- But this woman, I'll tell you about this woman.
- When she took us in, I didn't know
- how she can pay for a lawyer.
- She was so poor.
- She live in southwest.
- And the whole night schwartze was fighting there.
- And it was terrible.
- Was there terrible to live.
- And I said to my husband, we'll go in apartment.
- And I want to pay her.
- She didn't want to take money.
- So one day, I told her, we got to move out.
- We find a apartment in Kaywood Gardens.
- I don't know if you know what it is, a one-bedroom apartment.
- And we move out.
- We move out from here.
- And I'll tell you, when I came, I bring a watch, a gold [?
- on them, ?] and I give her a silver I bought for her
- and other things, little things.
- She was such a nice woman.
- And she used to take me to her daughter.
- She have children, a son and a daughter.
- And she wasn't good with them.
- She didn't live good with them.
- So she always with me, and she told my daughter,
- call me Bubbe, and to me, call me Ma.
- And I call her Ma.
- Then she was working for old--
- for older people.
- She was cooking something.
- I used to go to help her because I couldn't
- see how she do it [INAUDIBLE].
- Anyway, when I have an apartment,
- she used to come Saturday to me.
- And Friday, I used to go to her for dinner.
- And she become like my mother.
- She was so close.
- I love her so much.
- She died.
- The best woman.
- Such a nice woman.
- Why she just leave, I don't know.
- She was like a mother.
- And with that, then we find my husband had very rich cousins.
- Very rich.
- They live in New York.
- They were the only family that you have?
- Yeah, we have.
- We find them.
- Yeah, we go to them sometimes.
- They come here, and we don't need them.
- We don't need anyone.
- We don't need it.
- My husband-- took us a couple of years,
- because it was very hard for us.
- We bought a house.
- My husband said he'll go to buy a house.
- We got to stay in two bedrooms-- in one-bedroom apartment
- with two children.
- He bought a house without $1.
- He bought from one $500, from another one $500,
- and give $1,000 a deposit.
- He bought a house.
- And we came in with $1 in the house, the first house.
- And we make a nice living.
- And thanks God, he works very hard.
- He works very hard.
- When did he start Katz's, the grocery store?
- Katz's we start in 19--
- in 1952, I think.
- 1952, yeah.
- I think so, 1952 or '51.
- He didn't go to work for nobody.
- He worked one time in a--
- for a butcher.
- And he didn't like it, and they took him for a partner.
- He didn't like to work for nobody.
- So he took him for a partner.
- And then he went for himself.
- We went in Four Corners we have, and now in Rockford.
- See, my daughter is with us.
- If my daughter wouldn't be with us,
- we would go out already for the business.
- But my daughter and my son-in-law works with us.
- That's what is.
- But some people is good people here.
- Some people is good.
- I was very close with her.
- She was like a mother cannot be better.
- Believe me.
- She was so good.
- I don't know the woman.
- I never know her.
- And Dr. Vinik, such a nice people died.
- I'm telling you.
- In Jewish, they say, [YIDDISH].
- I'm telling you, I don't know what had happened.
- He died, such a nice-- a young man, a Young doctor.
- Dr. Vinik, maybe you heard?
- No, no.
- You was born here?
- No-- yes, I was in Baltimore.
- Oh, in Baltimore?
- Baltimore.
- Yeah.
- Have you ever been back to Poland?
- No.
- Last year, my-- all my friends went.
- We planned to go, but then I cannot go.
- I'm afraid.
- My husband ran away from the army, you know.
- That's right.
- And I'm afraid to do that.
- Sometimes, we can have trouble with it.
- I speak a good Russian, but it's not the point.
- I can have trouble with it.
- So when I came here, I tried to go to doctors
- because I couldn't hear good.
- I hear only on this ear.
- This I couldn't hear.
- So I tried to go to doctors.
- And I went to so many doctors here,
- and nobody know what it is.
- Nobody know.
- They blow.
- They do this.
- And one doctor, Dr. Levin, I went every week.
- And he didn't know what.
- He couldn't find out.
- So I went-- was already there--
- 15 years ago, I went--
- yeah, 15.
- No.
- Yeah, about 15 years.
- Somebody came here from Philadelphia.
- I have friends in Philadelphia.
- Somebody came to my son-in-law in Atlantic City.
- They say I was operator here.
- I said-- he said, where you operate?
- He said, in Philadelphia.
- So he called me up.
- He said, make appointment to this doctor.
- He's a very good doctor.
- So I call up.
- I call up, and I wait eight months for an appointment.
- There it's terrible to come into him.
- And I went with my husband there.
- I have a lot of friends where to stay.
- So we went to him, and we stayed on for a few days.
- And he checked me my ear, and he said he can operate on me.
- Took pictures, and he took--
- I was all day with him.
- And he said, he can operate on me.
- He cannot say 100%, but he thinks I should operate.
- That's what he thinks.
- But you have to do what you want.
- So I told my husband I want to operate.
- So he make an appointment, and we went home.
- And two weeks later, we went to the hospital in Philadelphia
- and he operate on me.
- And he didn't-- he didn't tell me I have to operate--
- he have to take a cut here.
- But he told me just the ear.
- My husband told him not to make a big thing, make a little less.
- So he was-- anyway, he operate on me,
- and they took out from here.
- You cannot see.
- Oh.
- They took out from here [? a vein ?] in here.
- Oh.
- And they put-- my bone was broken.
- What he hurt me was here.
- It's the bone was falling on the nerve.
- Was broken.
- Oh, when he hit you in the ear.
- When he hit me.
- So he touched the nerve.
- And this touch the nerve, you cannot hear.
- When he pick it up, I hear again.
- Oh, for goodness sake.
- So he pick it up.
- He put with these veins.
- I send already three people there, and they operate.
- And here they didn't do.
- A young doctor took me in here in a hospital.
- And he said, I want to help you.
- He used to come in store.
- And he said, I'm a doctor, an ear doctor.
- And I want to do something for you.
- He took me in in hospital.
- They couldn't find anything.
- Can you believe it?
- So now you hear fine?
- Oh, yeah.
- Thanks, God.
- Thanks, God.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- In Germany, I could go to a good doctor,
- but I was afraid from them.
- I said, I don't want to have children there
- to go to Germany doctor.
- So that's why I have so late.
- I would have here a few and that, but we were over there.
- But that's what it is.
- I didn't-- I'm so afraid of that.
- When I see the German, I'm telling you.
- One year, we went.
- We stop in Germany because we have a friend there.
- And when I see the Germany people,
- they're talking Germany--
- woo.
- My daughter speaks a good German.
- And Polish she used to-- she forgot policy.
- So when I came here, I start with her Yiddish.
- So she forgot the Polish.
- She remember a little, but she forgot.
- That's what is.
- And now she said she'll never speak
- another language, only Yiddish with me,
- with me, with my husband.
- But we speak anyway Yiddish in the house.
- You don't speak English?
- No, we never speak English.
- How did you find out about your family?
- My family in ghetto?
- You knew that?
- Yeah, this street where she live, they took to the jail,
- and from the jail at Ponary.
- And they kill everybody.
- My father they took before.
- Mm-hmm.
- Before-- the thing is, my father was hiding, too,
- with a lot of men.
- They was hiding on an attic, in a house, in a attic.
- Oh, an attic.
- An attic.
- So the thing is, when they were sitting there,
- I have a little brother, five years old.
- My mother was young.
- I have a little brother.
- He was five years old.
- So he said, yeah, Germany men are going.
- So he ran to tell the father to go into there.
- So they run after him, and they took out everybody,
- seven people, seven men.
- My brother.
- And then they kill him, the mother
- with the children, all of them was killed then.
- What are-- what are your feelings today
- about how the war influenced you?
- Still what can I feel?
- How I can feel?
- Who know?
- I hope it will be never, never again like this.
- I hope so.
- But who know?
- They took-- they make this man for a president.
- What's his name?
- Waldheim.
- Yeah.
- Can you believe?
- He was such a Nazi.
- No.
- Plenty Nazis there.
- Here too, plenty Nazis.
- Who know what can be?
- I'll tell you, if people wouldn't be alive,
- nobody would know about it.
- You wouldn't believe.
- People doesn't believe.
- Some people doesn't believe what we went through.
- But that's what is.
- Yeah, that's what is.
- Do you feel that the war still affects you?
- I don't know me, but some--
- sometime, sometime.
- Sometime, I feel.
- I dream a lot of times.
- I dream about that so many times about the Nazis,
- where they take.
- It's very hard.
- It's very hard, what you went through.
- In the middle of the night, My daughter screamed, Ma.
- One day, my son-in-law said, next time she scream,
- Ma, I'll take her to you on my hand.
- I'll bring her to you.
- My husband cries in the middle of the night.
- He screams, like screams to Germany.
- [?
- That's right. ?] I met there a woman, but she took away.
- But she put her daughter a pillow, her husband.
- You know she came to my daughter's wedding?
- She said to me, let's think that's my daughter, too.
- Two girls.
- You have two girls.
- One girl they took her.
- They took her away.
- One girl, and then the other was she.
- She put a pillow.
- She's alive.
- I don't know.
- I'll tell you when I see her, I don't sleep nights.
- I cannot fall asleep.
- When I see her, I don't know how she can be alive.
- It was like--
- I have a girlfriend.
- I-- she used to walk around with her daughter and I with mine.
- We used to walk around in ghetto.
- And here is a baby, too.
- I thought when I took out the first time, I told her,
- try to give away.
- She said, how I can give away?
- Her mother said, how I can give away?
- How she can give away her daughter?
- So she went.
- The mother went with the daughter at Ponary.
- What's the difference?
- There's no difference.
- Some people, when they have on the train children,
- so some Polish people stay and watch when they took children.
- Children was there on the train when they took to Auschwitz.
- Maybe you hear.
- Mm-hmm.
- So when they took the kids, some Germany mens
- used to say to the Polish, maybe you want to buy?
- A zloty, a $1.
- Give and I'll give.
- So he took out the baby, and he give him for $1.
- They didn't care.
- Some refused.
- We went to look for my daughter.
- We went to places in--
- in a child-- they have children what they find.
- And the one boy came to me.
- Maybe he was about 10 or 11.
- He said, you're my mother, you're my mother.
- But I will take a few children.
- I didn't have nothing.
- How I can take?
- I didn't have even where to sleep then.
- And after that, we have a lot of problems.
- I couldn't took it, but I could take some children
- if I would go later.
- But I was afraid.
- We have a problem with my husband.
- That's what I--
- when not, I would take a few children.
- Who knows if the parents live or not?
- Maybe they are alive somewhere.
- Nobody know.
- I know we have a neighbor also.
- Her daughter went to a Polish woman.
- She went to stay there.
- And the boy hide her on an attic.
- How you call?
- Mm-hmm.
- And he hide her there.
- He used to-- the mother didn't know and the father.
- She was there, and they didn't know.
- He used to bring in the middle of the night water
- for her to wash.
- And in summertime, he used to take her out in the forest
- to take air a little.
- And he bring her, and they didn't see.
- And he hide her.
- And after the war, and she became so close with him--
- she didn't sleep with him, she said.
- But she becomes so-- he was so nice to her.
- That's a nice boy, a Polish boy.
- And after the war, he told her, if you want to marry me,
- I would love to marry you because I'm so in love with you.
- But if you don't want to, you can go anywhere you want.
- You don't have to be obligated to me.
- And she said, no, I'll go to marry you.
- And she marry him, but she said she wants to go to Israel.
- They have two children.
- They went to Israel.
- And they went to Israel.
- He's a nice boy.
- Some was nice, like these women what hide my daughter.
- She was a nice woman, a poor woman.
- She didn't have food enough.
- She was a poor woman.
- And she didn't-- she didn't want to give up your daughter.
- Yeah, she didn't want to give her up.
- The boy was crying.
- He used to come home.
- He slept in our house because she didn't want to go home.
- He's a big boy now.
- I wish I can find him and bring him here.
- But how I can find them?
- I send letters.
- I send them.
- Nothing.
- I have a Polish woman work for me, and I make papers for her.
- I send papers for a Polish woman.
- Not this one, another one.
- And she came-- for her daughter, I sent papers.
- And she came to work for my daughter in Atlantic City.
- Then she asked me to send papers for her mother.
- So I went.
- I make papers, and she worked for me a long time ago.
- And she's an older lady.
- She got sick.
- And she said, I promise you I'll go to put in the papers
- the picture, what I show.
- What I show, the picture from the woman with the boy,
- and she'll put in papers.
- No answers, no answers.
- Or she died, and he don't know, but it's already he forget.
- He was a little boy.
- Or she's afraid.
- You know, with the Russian, who know?
- They can put her in jail, too.
- Who know?
- Sometimes, They.
- Can start with that.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's a problem.
- Yeah, that's what is.
- Is there anything else that you would like to talk about
- that we might have left out?
- [LAUGHS] I'll tell you the truth.
- There's a lot of things to talk, but I'll tell you.
- Yeah.
- What do you got to do with it?
- What, do you put in the tapes?
- Mm-hmm.
- Ah.
- Yeah, that's what is.
- What would you say to youngsters today about your experiences?
- Well, I would tell them that it's very--
- they would be-- they should be very careful with it,
- very careful with the Germany people.
- I don't trust them.
- I wouldn't trust them.
- Even they good, I wouldn't trust them, not in Germany.
- I don't know if we have [INAUDIBLE],
- but I don't know what to tell them.
- Some, I'll tell you, this is a very good thing what
- they're telling in the schools.
- They're going in the schools and telling the children.
- Let them know because it's good to know.
- It's good to know what people can do.
- Lots of murders, lots of murders.
- My cousin is-- she was in concentration camp,
- but she lives here in Washington.
- And she is very sick now from them.
- She's very sick from the concentration camps.
- Her mother was with her.
- And her mother, if she have a little piece of bread,
- she give her mother, the daughter, her mother.
- She figures she's old, and she is young.
- Maybe she will be alive.
- And when the American soldiers came--
- So when the Germany ran away with them, before they came,
- they ran away with all the people.
- So they told them to work.
- And her mother couldn't work fast, so they kill her.
- And she wants to sit down to the mother
- and pick her up and help her to work.
- So they told her, or you stay or you work.
- If you work, you will be killed.
- And she's now like this, where they go ahead, and--
- and they was very rich people in Kovne.
- They live in Kovne.
- The mother was my mother's sister.
- And she was-- they lived very rich.
- The daughter never do anything, just by the piano, play piano.
- They was such a rich people.
- And for poor people was a little maybe better because you're
- used to this life.
- You're used to them sleep, not sleep, here sleep.
- You sleep altogether.
- Three girls, we sleep all together on a little [?
- beds there. ?]
- But these kind of people, what is from a rich home,
- was very hard for them, this life that come to them like a--
- I don't know how to explain.
- It was very bad, very bad.
- So that's what is.
- And she's a sick woman now, very sick.
- She don't want to go to doctors.
- She didn't want to go.
- It doesn't help anyway.
- The nerves, nerves, she scream.
- And she's at night, sleeps and she see the mother all the time.
- And she is sick.
- She is sick from that, very sick.
- Some people is stronger.
- I'll tell you, I find my daughter.
- I figure my husband is there.
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- I'm married 46 years with my husband.
- So thanks God for that.
- What can I do?
- What can I do?
- I'm still alive.
- I have to try.
- How many years I have, I have.
- That is.
- What can you do?
- You have to try.
- You have two children?
- I have two children.
- And how many grandchildren?
- Five.
- And now, my grandson got married.
- Yeah.
- And he's very happy.
- She's from England, the girl, from London.
- We went last year to the wedding.
- And one daughter went to Israel, one granddaughter there.
- And she loves there.
- She said, I don't want to come.
- She calls.
- She don't want to come back.
- Maybe she'll come back.
- That's what is.
- And that's life.
- And my younger daughter have two children, two girls.
- 14-- she lives in Atlantic City.
- 14 and 11.
- I'm going Tuesday because she's graduate
- from junior high school.
- Over there, they make a junior high school graduation.
- Yeah, and that is.
- Well, thank you very much for participating in this.
- You're welcome.
- You're welcome.
- You know, you cannot see every little piece to tell.
- It's very hard.
- This has been Cecille Steinberg interviewing Mrs. Betty
- Katz about her experiences as a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.
- This interview will be included as a valuable contribution
- to the oral history library of the Oral History Project,
- Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington.
Overview
- Interviewee
- Betty Katz
- Interviewer
- Cecille Steinberg
- Date
-
interview:
1986 June 12
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 sound cassettes (60 min.).
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Katz, Betty.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Betty Ludwig Katz was conducted on June 12, 1986, as part of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington's oral history project to document Washington, DC-area survivors' experiences of the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the interview on May 26, 1993.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:19:45
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn511496
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- See Rights and Restrictions
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- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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Oral history interview with Robert Solomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Regina Spiegel
Oral History
Regina Spiegel (née Gutman), born in Radom, Poland in 1926, describes her childhood; her three sisters and two brothers; the German invasion in September 1939 and being the only survivor from her immediate family; being at the mercy of the Germans; having to move to a small apartment and give up their valuables; the restrictions placed on Jews; the creation of the ghetto in 1940; life in the ghetto and bribing a guard to escape; living with her sister in Pionki, Poland; bringing other Jews into the village; working in a labor camp; the camp allowing her sister to bring in her baby boy; the deportations to Treblinka; the denouncement of her sister and confronting the woman responsible after the war; the closing of Pionki labor camp and being deported to Auschwitz; conditions during the journey; her experiences when she arrived in the camp; being selected to work in a munitions factory at Bergen-Belsen; the bombing of their train and being hit by shrapnel; the importance of sharing Holocaust experiences; returning to Poland after the war; and her reflections on the Holocaust.
Oral history interview with Samuel Spiegel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alexander Stolzberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gerd Strauss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Richard Straus
Oral History
Oral history interview with Andrew Theodore
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hilda Thieberger
Oral History
Hilda Thieberger (née Hildegarde Goldberger), born on February 26, 1913 in Teschen, Silesia (Cieszyn, Poland), describes how the town was half Czech and half Polish; having a Czech passport; getting married to Irving Thieberger on November 11, 1935; having a daughter in February 1937 in Bielsko, Poland; the plundering of Jewish stores in the fall of 1937; going with her child to her sister-in-law in Zabjek, Poland (possibly Zabrzeg); the German invasion and her husband’s imprisonment for three months; smuggling themselves into the Auschwitz (Oświęcim) ghetto and wearing armbands with star; Jews being forced to build a camp in June 1940; her husband being sent to Belice work camp in 1941; going to the Sosnowice ghetto; going to the Belice work camp in 1941 and living with her husband in an attic; bribing guards with food and whiskey; witnessing hangings in the street; having to wear the yellow star; working for a year as a cook and seamstress for the SS; her husband going to Gleiwitz-Blechhammer; joining her husband in Bystra in December 1943; hiding in a hole in a basement in the summer of 1944 and getting false ID papers; the Allies approaching and hearing Auschwitz inmates marching in January 1945; their house being bombed on February 10, 1945 and seeing Russian soldiers; renting an apartment in May 1945; having a second child in December 1945; going to Ostrow, Czechoslovakia on false papers in August 1946; going to Hof, Germany in October 1946 and the difficult conditions in the camp; going to Landau, Germany and staying in the displaced persons camp for four years; going to the United States and settling in Washington, DC; living on a chicken farm in Pennsylvania for five years; returning to Washington, DC, where her husband did metal artwork for the Smithsonian Institution; and her husband making the menorah for the White House.
Oral history interview with Helena Ticker
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bella Tovey
Oral History
Oral history interview with Perry Vedder
Oral History
Oral history interview with Alfred Weinraiech
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Weiss
Oral History
Anna Weiss (née Loewi), born on January 26, 1911 in Gratz, Austria, describes attending medical school in Munich, Germany in 1932; returning after seeing swastikas on the street; attending medical school in Vienna, Austria for two years; going to Prague, Czech Republic in 1936; her father, Otto Loewi, receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1936; getting married to Ulrich Weiss on May 23, 1937; living in Aussig on Elbe (Ustí nad Labem, Czech Republic) and having a child; seeing the Nazis marching and their attempts to emigrate; going with her child to Stara-Boleslav, Czech Republic and hiding in a furniture van to get to Prague; getting visas to Belgium; meeting her father in Brussels, Belgium in March 1939; going to Argenteuil, France; seeing planes and shooting; going to Clermont-Ferrand then to Vert-au-Laye; renting a room on a farm; going to Lyon, France to the Spanish, Portuguese, and American consulates; going to Marseille, France in March 1941 and staying in an inn with Spanish soldiers; persuading HIAS to give her money for tickets; sailing with 250 people, including artists and scientists; docking in Martinique and staying in an internment camp for one month; sailing to the Dominican Republic then New York, NY; arriving in New York on June 2, 1941; getting a job to pay off the debt of her father’s trip; going to Washington, DC in 1957; and working at the National Institutes of Health with her husband.
Oral history interview with Arnold Weiss
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ulrich Weiss
Oral History
Ulrich Weiss, born on June 24, 1908 in Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic), describes earning his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1930; working for a pharmaceutical company; getting married to Anna Loewi in May 1937; his wife and child going to Stara-Boleslav, Czech Republic then to Prague; going to Belgium in March 31, 1939; his company setting up an office in Paris, France in July 1939; his wife and child living in Argenteuil, France and experiencing antisemitism; the German approach in June 1940 and fleeing to Clermont-Ferrand; staying in a shelter with Belgian refugees; going to a farmhouse in Marat and helping with the harvest; his wife going to Lyon, France and getting American visas; going to Marseille, France in March 1941 and staying in an inn with Spanish soldiers; sailing with refugees, including Andre Breton, Victor Serge, and Anne Seghers; docking in Martinique and staying in an internment camp for one month; sailing to the Dominican Republic then New York, NY; working at a pharmaceutical company; going to Washington, DC in 1957; and working at the National Institutes of Health with his wife.
Oral history interview with Shulamith Wellisch
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eddie Helmut Willner
Oral History
Oral history interview with Arno L. Winard
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bernhard Witkop
Oral History
Bernhard Witkop, born on May 9, 1917 in Freiburg, Germany, describes being raised by a Catholic father and Jewish mother; being baptized as a Catholic; his mother’s move to Bavaria in 1935 and his parents’ divorce in 1936; living with a cousin; being considered a mischlinge by the German government and not being allowed to attend university; his mother being forced out of the country and winding up in Holland; working on his Ph.D. in Munch, Germany in 1939; being rejected for an American visa in 1940; moving in 1942 to Freising as conditions worsened in Munich; living in a farmhouse and doing lab work in a technical high school; the destruction of his records in Munich during the bombardment; not registering with the government; Professor Heinrich Wieland getting him an identity card to show he was an employee at a pharmaceutical company on the Rhine; being liberated by Americans in May 1945; getting married and contacting his mother in Holland; becoming a university professor in 1946; how his friend, Hans Heiman, arranged a position for him at Harvard; sailing on the Ernie Pyle from an UNRRA camp in Bremen, Germany to New York, NY; his Mellon fellowship at Harvard from 1947 to 1950; being a visiting professor in Japan; and how he considers himself a devout agnostic.
Oral history interview with Frederick Wohl
Oral History
Oral history interview with John Wolff
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marion Wolff
Oral History
Oral history interview with Renee Barr
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sonia Blickstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Candy Krasnostein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Margaret Bogler
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irving Bogun
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leslie Solomon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Cy Vaber
Oral History
Oral history interview with Christine Jan Flack
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jack S. Orick
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hy Asin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Shirley K.
Oral History
Oral history interview with William Kost
Oral History
Oral history interview with Emanuel Mandel
Oral History
Oral history interview with Daly Burrell
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marion Rosen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Eda Saks
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Schofield
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mildred Steppa
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marshall Treado
Oral History
Oral history interview with Ella Tulin
Oral History