Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Martin Adler

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1993.A.0089.13 | RG Number: RG-50.155.0013

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Martin Adler
    Transcript
    Could you tell me your name please--
    Yes, my name is--
    --and where you're from?
    I'm from a little village in--
    it's called in Russian Podkarpatska Rus.
    And in English you would call it Subcarpathian Ruthenia.
    And the village that I come from is named Volova in Jewish,
    and Volové in Czech and in Hungarian Okormezo.
    And your name?
    And my name is Martin Adler--
    M-A-R-T-I-N A-D-L-E-R. And my Jewish name is Meilech,
    Meilech Adler.
    That's my Jewish name.
    Tell me a little bit about what you remember about your family
    and community life--
    OK, well--
    --before the war started.
    All right, before the war started,
    and the best that I could remember,
    I was born in 1929 in September.
    And all I know is that in 1939, up till 1939,
    I was a Czech citizen.
    And in this little village where we come from,
    the Jewish people were very religious, primarily all of them
    were Orthodox.
    All the men wore beards.
    On a Sabbath, or on a Saturday, to work, that was unheard of.
    I mean it would thunder or lightning whatever, or to eat
    treif.
    So the children, when they were three years old,
    they would take them to the synagogue, cut off their curls
    and leave the payots.
    98% did that.
    There was a few modern ones that they left payots
    just up to the bone here.
    And they signed up for cheder.
    And you went to cheder around when you were five.
    And cheder, which is the-- which is the Jewish school.
    You went all day.
    All you did is you took off time to go to regular school, which
    was mandatory.
    And you would come home.
    You get a little sandwich.
    And this cheder even went at night.
    And we studied by a one of these kerosene lamps,
    where you turn up and the wick gets higher.
    And you would come home at night.
    Occasionally, I remember maybe some Gentile kids
    would throw stones at us and call us
    derogatory names like Jew or this or that.
    But we would walk home real--
    real fast.
    And it was a small village that cheder maybe
    could have been five houses, six houses, 10 houses away from us.
    And on the Sabbath, Friday, like 4:00 or 5 o'clock,
    when it started to get dark, or maybe earlier yet,
    we went to the mikvah.
    I went with my father.
    I was the oldest.
    I had two brothers and a sister.
    And we cleaned up.
    We went to the ritual baths.
    But actually it was like a bath too.
    There was no indoor plumbing.
    There was-- in fact, I even remember
    when they started electricity.
    And then we come home.
    We put on our best clothes.
    We went to the synagogue, me and my father,
    and maybe my younger brother, who was still with my mother.
    Maybe later on, maybe two years later, my little brother
    went with me to the synagogue.
    And then my mother would make the most--
    there was the festive day, whatever
    it was, whatever we didn't need through the week,
    the best was saved for the Shabbos, for the Sabbath Eve.
    We would sing songs.
    We would come home.
    Sometimes there were beggars in the synagogue.
    Some families would bring them home for a meal.
    And we would come home.
    And my mother would light a candle.
    You always know the candles were lit.
    There was a tablecloth on the table, only on Friday nights.
    Through the week, there was no tablecloth.
    And the best silverware and perhaps chicken soup and after
    each dish, you would sing z'miros, or in Hebrew they would
    say zemirot.
    And we were a family together.
    And everybody was happy.
    They-- as we say in Jewish, have naches, they gained a lot of joy
    from their children, my mother and my father.
    And then Saturday, again, we went to the synagogue.
    Saturday morning, we come home again.
    We had our meal.
    And again, we sang--
    we sang praises.
    And maybe, they would take a little nap, my father and me.
    I was already a teenager.
    I was going with boys my age up on the hills,
    or as they say in Jewish, [NON-ENGLISH],, to go for a walk.
    We became worldly.
    We talked we are Americans and all,
    just growing up as a youngster.
    How large was your whole family, the extended family too?
    You mean like my father's-- from my father--
    like aunts and uncles?
    Aunts and uncles and cousins.
    Yeah, well, my father comes-- my father was one of eight.
    And I'll name them to you.
    There was the [NON-ENGLISH] Racheal.
    That's Rachel.
    Then came my father.
    Then came the Feitel Mendel.
    And then was Shimon and Beresh and Baruch and Charna and Hinda.
    Those were either his brothers or sisters.
    They were all married.
    And I would say just from memory because I
    was only 14 when this whole-- when they took me away already
    to Auschwitz, I would say on my father's side,
    there could have been, let's say, between no less than 15
    and no more than 20 cousins from these eight.
    Now on my mother's side, my mother was one of five.
    Her name was Fayga.
    She had a brother Moshe Leib, a brother Luzer, and two sisters,
    Pella, and a sister Nissel.
    And this Nissel, from her, two cousins
    survived-- no, three, two sisters and a brother.
    The sister and a brother is in Israel,
    and the other sisters in California, which I call them.
    And also on that side there could have been around,
    let's say, also about 15 cousins.
    So a total aunts uncles, cousins, grandparents--
    Grandparents-- well, the grandparents, let's see,
    the grandparents, both the grandfather, my father's father
    and my mother's father died before the war.
    I mean before Auschwitz.
    My grandmother also died before Auschwitz.
    And everybody said how lucky she was.
    She died maybe a year before.
    But my grandmother, my father's mother was still alive.
    And she died in Auschwitz.
    So all in all, you would say, let's say, 8 times 2 is 16.
    And then 5, but actually it's 4, because you cannot figure them
    on both sides.
    So you got there 8--
    8 and 16, you had 24 total aunts and uncles.
    And you had, let's say, 35 cousins.
    And out of that is left myself.
    I got a cousin in England, which he didn't go to the camps.
    That's Moshe Leib's son.
    Then which I mentioned before, the two sisters and the brother.
    And then on my father's side, this Charna, a girl and a boy,
    a sister and a brother are left.
    The sister is in New York.
    And the brother is in Israel.
    This is my total family out of all these people
    I just told you.
    So six survive?
    Yeah.
    Well, let's see, one in England, one here is two.
    The three is five, six, seven, total of seven including myself.
    And right now a cousin to me is more than a twin brother
    because this is all the family that I have.
    But even this family, I didn't know about them till later,
    till later when I came to the United States
    because at the time I was too young to look.
    I just knew where they lived.
    And I kind of told people from my hometown,
    they went to Israel, if they meet somebody
    from such and such a town, which is
    called Bychkiv and the last name was Elovitch,
    those are my cousins.
    And they met them.
    And that's how I found out.
    Used to send them letters and a little help and what have you.
    What was the population of--
    Of our town?
    I'll tell you the truth, I really don't know.
    I really don't know.
    But I would say--
    the Jewish people would always say it's got 120 [NON-ENGLISH]..
    That means that head of households.
    There could have been, let's say,
    I would say maybe say 200 families.
    Jewish families?
    Jewish families.
    See, in other words, right or wrong,
    because we were so isolated and there
    was so much prejudice and so much antisemitism,
    it's not that the Jews wanted to keep to themselves.
    They had to keep to themselves because there was always
    some kind of Jewish law against the Jews.
    And if a Gentile kid would throw a stone at me,
    it's just too bad.
    We had no one to go to complain.
    Was there lots of antisemitism in Czechoslovakia?
    Well, I really don't know because, like I say,
    I was in that village and I never went out to that village
    further than maybe 40, 50 miles.
    And then I'd only go with my father.
    I am too young to give you that type of an answer
    because I'm not qualified to give you that.
    Do you remember your father ever talking about Masaryk or--
    Oh, yeah, I remember that.
    I remember when Masaryk was because the Czechs
    supposedly emulated the Americans,
    the American way of life.
    And they had like department stores or what have you.
    But again, once the Czechs left, I was only 9 or 10 years old.
    So all I remember is really the natives.
    I remember my neighbors.
    As far as politics, Czechs or Hungary,
    it really didn't make any difference to me.
    I just knew it was a new flag when the Hungarians came in.
    And there was another flag when the Czechs were there.
    What do you remember about when the Hungarians came?
    As a 10-year-old child, what do you remember?
    OK, when the Hungarians came the town remained the same.
    Instead of having Czech schools, now they get Hungarian schools.
    And it was like fashionable go to Hungarian school
    and to learn Hungarian.
    And there was a lot of troops, a lot of Hungarian troops
    in our town because in order to cross the border to Poland,
    they had to cross our village.
    That's on the way to go to the front.
    But actually everything remained the same.
    It's just like I read in books where these Quislings,
    or the Fifth Column, whoever was pro-Hungarian,
    they had the jobs down.
    The city hall, again, remember this is a very small village.
    So, you know, it's a small, little village.
    Do you remember seeing them come in?
    Who?
    The Hungarians?
    Hungarians.
    Yeah.
    I remember them they came in on horseback.
    What happened is where I am from, for a while there,
    that's supposed to become independent Ukrainian.
    And the Ukrainians were supposed to run that part before they
    gave it to the Hungarians.
    And their colors was yellow--
    yellow and blue, I believe.
    And they already had a list which Jews to kill.
    In other words, everybody was eager to please the Nazi regime.
    So when they came in, the Hungarians,
    they did away with those Ukrainians.
    And they became in power.
    And the Jews really, we weren't bothered
    that much because the Jews were really
    sympathetic towards the Hungarians
    because they remembered them before it became Czechoslovakia.
    But that doesn't mean they reciprocated.
    In other words, we weren't occupied
    as you think like Poland or the others because ours was--
    Hungary was an ally of Germany.
    So it was like tranquil or benign.
    It wasn't-- they made Jewish laws.
    A Jew couldn't have a store.
    Anybody that was a Nazi or a fascist
    could requisition a store.
    We had to give them an inventory.
    God forbid we stole a few pounds of flour or a few candy bars.
    We had a little general store.
    And this Christian took over the--
    or the non-Jew took over that store,
    didn't you have to pay rent, didn't
    have to pay for the inventory.
    It was made like legal.
    We voluntarily-- we give it to them voluntarily.
    But if not, God knows what.
    But my father at that time was already taken away
    for the front for forced labor.
    But before we talk with the--
    You asked me what I remember the Hungarians.
    Do you remember when they came in, the day that they came in?
    Were they in trucks?
    Were they--
    They were on horseback.
    They were on horseback.
    What do you remember about that?
    Oh, I remember we were kids.
    OK, that was like '39, let's say '39.
    And we as kids, we tried to distinguish the ranks,
    you know Czech officer versus Hungarian.
    And to us-- I mean you got to understand
    I'm talking to you now at the age of 55
    and that was at the age of 9 or 10.
    So to me, to us, we would draw--
    we would draw a Hungarian soldier the way
    his cap is and what his medals.
    To us, it was like seeing a different movie at the time
    that I was in.
    Maybe our parents, the grownups, looked at it in a different way.
    Even my parents, they weren't that old.
    My father was born in 1900 and my mother in 1904.
    So I mean I'm not trying to argue with you.
    It's just that I cannot--
    How did how did the grownups react when they rode in?
    Well, all I remember is this.
    When this happened and the Hungarians came
    in around the Jewish holidays, in the fall right
    after the Jewish holidays, and I remember how they all talked,
    how there's going to be a war.
    And most of these people were in World War I.
    This was in Italy, all their exploits.
    But we were kids.
    We were kids.
    I mean because I'm laughing, and I'm not laughing at anything,
    because I remember while this happened,
    some other kid asked me, do I know how children are born,
    and I really didn't know.
    And they made a bet.
    And I think the guy lost because I really didn't know.
    You know comes out of stomach or a stork.
    So I was really a child.
    I was a child when it happened.
    I mean this is not to get sympathy or anything.
    That is a fact.
    So just like you ask any child here
    what happened to you when you were 9 or 10, he remembers.
    But to me, let's say, at that point,
    it was more important to me that my mother should
    let me wear a belt instead of suspenders
    because I felt a belt is you're grown-up, and a suspender you're
    still a child.
    And I could have cared less if the Chinese marched in there.
    I didn't care.
    That was not my problem.
    You said some of them had--
    you told me earlier--
    had put on their Hungarian uniforms.
    No, not uniforms.
    The Hungarian colors, you know like an armband.
    And the armband had the flags.
    They went to greet them.
    They put on their Sabbath clothes.
    In other words, what they really said, oh, we love you.
    We would love to--
    I mean, we are happy that you took Czechoslovakia--
    or that part of Czechoslovakia, that part.
    And but they just practically trampled them, trampled them
    with their horses or hit them with a whip.
    And then when they came back, I remember the grownups would say,
    well, these are not the same Hungarians
    that were here, you know, 20 years ago.
    Well, exactly, that's 20, 21, or 22
    because that was Austria-Hungary for years and years and years.
    And how did things start to change for you
    after the Hungarians came?
    Well, really for me, it didn't change that much at all.
    I was a kid going to school.
    Instead of-- well, when the Czechs were there,
    I never went to Czech school anyways.
    I went to the Russian school.
    All my formal--
    I mean the grade school was in Russian, in the native tongue
    of the population there.
    And when the Hungarian came, it was already
    mandatory to take so many hours in Hungarian, Hungarian
    language, Hungarian history.
    And by then already, I was getting older.
    By older I mean I was going 11, 12, towards my bar mitzvah,
    you know.
    So that's all I could remember.
    But basically, the village did not change at all.
    See, you're thinking of Poland or these occupied countries.
    This was a prize given to Hungary.
    There was a prize, a present.
    Well, they didn't fight for it.
    It was handed to them on a platter.
    There was no resistance or anything.
    So there were laws.
    The same thing, we still had the same on Monday or Tuesday,
    or every second Monday or Tuesday,
    you had the bazaar or a market.
    The farmers would come from the smaller villages or the hamlets
    with sacks of pears and apples and potatoes and watermelons
    or grapes.
    And to us, if you could play hooky and go to that market,
    to me that was my life.
    I didn't know about politics.
    I mean politics didn't interest me.
    Or let's say my younger brother would come to me,
    I would chase him away.
    You're too little.
    I'm a big boy.
    I was the oldest.
    So these things-- then later on, let's say in '43 already
    or '42 even, people started to, as you read probably
    that there was an underground route from Poland to come
    to Hungary because in Hungary, the Jews were really very little
    molested.
    See, where I come, that was in Hungary proper.
    Hungary proper, there was a lot of freedom for the Jews,
    much more than where I come from because mine
    was like an occupied territory.
    But I brought that up because I remember
    these Jews was a secret.
    You had to hide them maybe in the synagogue or whatever
    to keep them sending further.
    But they were emaciated.
    They were hungry.
    They were filthy because they slept outside.
    And they told these stories, these horror stories
    how they would have to dig their own graves
    and how they would machine gunned them
    and how there was a dead woman and the child
    was still alive and suckling on her breast.
    These stories I heard.
    But if I went too close, the older ones, the grownups,
    would chase me away.
    You have no business listening to this.
    But you were already at an age where you could hear
    and, you know--
    and you cannot hear.
    And this is--
    But basically, it was a war.
    Things were rationed.
    We lost our store.
    We had tenants.
    The law was the tenants don't have to pay rent.
    But we had one was a nice tenant.
    In fact, I have a friend of mine in Czechoslovakia
    that he might go there and he might see that guy
    if he's still alive.
    They cried when they took us away,
    this guy that paid the rent.
    The other guy, the miserable idiot, or the bastard,
    he went like this.
    He was happy that they took us away.
    Maybe he wanted the whole house or whatever.
    But again, I was only a child.
    I didn't know I knew they're taking us,
    where they're taking us, I don't know.
    I remember my mother would tell my father, well--
    I'll never forget-- why do we have to go?
    We don't have to go.
    Tell them to kill us here.
    Well, I heard what she said.
    But really it penetrates now.
    Now, I hear every word.
    I understand it.
    But I didn't understand it then.
    And I don't know what my father told her
    or what her response was or--
    another, the Russian front was very close that time,
    very close.
    And I remember my mother said, well, so what?
    So we won't a own a house.
    Isn't it better to be alive and you work and you get paid?
    In other words, they talked about communism taking over.
    But to me, this was all Greek to me.
    I was, let's say, 13, going on 14.
    To me, maybe a boy, stronger than me or older,
    he would coach me how to court a girl, how to say--
    I had those problems.
    I mean I had--
    For instance, to me, was very important, right or wrong,
    I didn't like these big payots because they made fun of me.
    And maybe, at that age, I knew I was Jewish.
    In my mind, maybe I thought if I don't have these payots,
    I'm no longer be a Jew.
    But you had to wear the yellow armband.
    Or, for instance, you say how it affected me.
    For instance, at the age of 12, a boy
    had a privilege to become like a boy
    scout or paramilitary training.
    They called it in Hungarian--
    Levente.
    That was a big achievement.
    You wear a cap like the soldiers.
    They give you a wooden rifle.
    Maybe they let you shoot a real rifle.
    Well, when our turn came, when we became 12,
    our privilege was they still gave us the cap.
    Yeah, we could have worn the cap.
    But on the cap, we had to have a yellow mark that we were Jewish.
    And we had to have a yellow band.
    And they gave us a shovel.
    They going to teach us now how to be slaves in the future.
    But still, to me, I still felt I belonged.
    Now, I am 12, and I wear a shovel.
    I knew I am a second class citizen.
    But I didn't look at it the way I would look at it now.
    I looked at it from a 12-year-old, like a camera.
    You got a regular lens.
    You got a zoom lens.
    With a zoom, you see closer.
    With the plane lens, you don't see it as good.
    So at that age, you know, I just--
    you ask me, you know, I'm just trying to answer you
    the best way I know how.
    At what point, when did your father--
    when was he taken away to--
    OK, all right, now, let me tell you my father.
    I was the oldest.
    And my father loved me very, very much.
    And probably I loved him too.
    But again, like children are rebellious, whatever.
    But he'd always pick me up and--
    not every day, but maybe once a month.
    And he would say to me, oh, I'm such a rich father.
    I got such a nice little boy.
    And for your bar mitzvah, you'll get the nicest watch
    that any boy ever got.
    And you'll make a [NON-ENGLISH].
    A [NON-ENGLISH] is like a lecture or a discourse.
    And I kind of worried a little bit.
    Maybe I wouldn't know how to say it or whatever.
    But in my mind, I knew I'm going to get a gold watch.
    OK, but now you ask me what I remember about my father.
    I remember that in '39, they were mobilized.
    That is the word.
    They were mobilized into the Czech army.
    They cut off his beard.
    I mean not like you see in the pictures of Germans.
    I mean to be a soldier, you know.
    I mean with respect.
    And all these able-bodied men became soldiers.
    They were mobilized.
    And each time I seen a soldier, I
    went close to see because I didn't recognize my father.
    He left in civilian clothes with a beard.
    And now he's a soldier without a beard.
    And he came home on furlough for a day or so.
    But the whole thing lasted like two weeks.
    He came home.
    And he became a civilian again.
    And he grew back the beard, but a short beard.
    He was a red head, my father.
    And then in '41, they conscripted--
    not mobilized-- they conscripted all the able-bodied men from 18
    to 45 or to 50.
    And they send them all to Russia.
    And only God knows what they did or what they didn't do there.
    My mother would scrimp and send him a package.
    I'm sure she never got-- he never got it--
    with food, with clothing.
    But we would get once in a while a card.
    We'd look for that mail every day.
    We would go to the post office.
    The mail was-- mail wasn't delivered to your house.
    Maybe it was too.
    But also, they would read it out at the post office.
    You could go there at the same night,
    rather than waiting the next day.
    And once in a while a little card came.
    And all we know is his--
    we knew his handwriting, but no return
    address because it was censored.
    It was like from a military post.
    And on that card in printing in many different languages it
    said, [NON-ENGLISH].
    So now when that happened, our neighbor came over.
    They lived across the street.
    Their name was Wiederman.
    And there, they had a couple of boys already past 18.
    They were in that labor battalion, which in Hungarian,
    they call it munkatábor.
    Munka is work.
    Tábor is work.
    No, munka is work.
    And tábor is camp, in a labor camp.
    And this woman, Fayga was her name--
    no, Esther.
    She says, Martin, or Meilech, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    your father is away now.
    You're going to be the man of the house.
    She sound like a [NON-ENGLISH].
    And I took her-- took her verbatim.
    I just knew the next Friday, just like my father took me
    by the hand to go to synagogue, I took my two brothers.
    And we went to the synagogue, sat in the corner
    there in the back.
    And I don't know what the grownups said, you know,
    the poor kids, or whatever.
    And when the services were over, I
    took my two brothers back home.
    And whatever my mother had for us, and the poor woman
    she was crying.
    She was very devoted.
    She really believed in the phrase, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    gaining knowledge, study the Torah, exceeds everything.
    When my father was away in that labor camp,
    we had to go to cheder.
    And you had to pay tuition.
    She didn't have any tuition.
    She didn't have anything.
    So what she did she made a deal.
    I could cry when I tell the story.
    She made a deal with this rabbi, the teacher.
    She will let him sleep in her bed for the semester
    and she slept on the floor so he could teach us.
    I mean that's more sad than even being in the camps.
    And this is what I remember.
    And then finally one day, my father did come home.
    They sent him home because he was born in 1900.
    And I believe in '42--
    in 1942, in the fall--
    I'm almost-- either the fall of '42
    or early '43, either one, I forgot which one.
    And like they released them in Kassa, Kosice.
    You heard maybe of that.
    That's where--
    Anyway, so my mother went there.
    And I know I was left on that Sabbath,
    now totally alone, even without a father or a mother.
    But then they came back.
    And I remember my father telling stories
    about hospitals being burned down
    with patients and these mass graves and all that.
    But again, he didn't tell it like to me.
    He told it to his contemporaries.
    And should I come closer, the conversation would stop.
    And my father had a sister.
    They were very well-to-do.
    They practically owned a--
    they owned a forest.
    They had maybe 100 people working.
    And my father went to work for her.
    These are the sisters that I told you, Rifka and Hershel.
    are alive.
    Rifka is in New York.
    She's married to a guy by the name of Leiser.
    And Hershel, which is Tzvi, he's in Israel.
    She was the richest.
    She's one of the eight.
    And he worked there.
    And I was there like for the summer too.
    They took me in the forest there.
    And I don't know what I did.
    But then they decided-- my mother decided, no,
    that's not for you.
    You have to study.
    And they sent me to a town called Ungvar.
    You heard of Ungvar--
    Uzhhorod.
    That is the biggest town in Carpatho-Ruthenia.
    That was like the capital, Uzhhorod.
    And in Uzhhorod, my father had a brother, Baruch.
    He was the youngest.
    And they sent me to the yeshiva.
    This was my first semester.
    And I really didn't like that idea at all
    to be away from my home.
    And on top of that, they made me eat--
    in Jewish, they call it [NON-ENGLISH]---- to eat days.
    What was eating days mean?
    You cannot eat a day.
    But what it means is that each day you go
    to another household for lunch.
    They'll be charitable or hospitable,
    whatever the word is.
    And each day I went to another household with another boy
    my age to eat at lunch.
    And to me, it was very good because I was more
    worried to know the lesson.
    I was on the yeshiva.
    And I was good.
    In fact, I remember these older ones,
    the [NON-ENGLISH] would test me with different these algebra
    problems, so many chickens and so many goats, 50.
    And I always came up with the answers.
    I was good.
    But what happened is that there was one semester right
    after the Jewish holidays in '43.
    In '44, the Germans marched in.
    Well, then I didn't know.
    I was in the--
    I went there every day to work.
    But-- I mean to work-- to school.
    But on the weekend, for the Sabbath, I stayed with my uncle.
    I went to the synagogue with him.
    He had three small children.
    And then when this happened in March,
    when the Germans marched into Hungary because they wanted
    to surrender or make a separate peace with the Germans--
    all of this, I learned here.
    So now that I'm that smart and all that.
    And he told me, you better go back to your parents
    because another day you might not be able to go.
    And he gave me car fare or train fare.
    He put me-- he gave me-- showed me, instructed me what to do.
    And I took the--
    I went the train.
    Took the train from Ungvar to Khust.
    And Khust already-- I know this--
    Khust is 60 kilometers from Volové, which is
    something like, what, 40 miles.
    There, I didn't hitchhike.
    I just got, I remember, a truck.
    Are you going to Volové?
    Yeah.
    Would you take me?
    You give me so much.
    He put me on the back of the truck, open truck.
    And I'll never forget it as long,
    the minute the truck hit the outskirts of the town,
    it was like 2 miles to my house there.
    He stopped.
    This is Volové.
    And I got out.
    He could have taken me right to my house.
    But I was so happy to be there.
    And whatever I had, I don't know, a little suitcase
    or whatever I had.
    And I came home.
    And here I am.
    Now, this was in March, late, middle march of '44.
    And before I knew it, you see German soldiers.
    And before you knew it, this guy was taken to Gestapo
    and they tortured--
    or whatever, you know, the rich people, or whatever.
    They tortured them.
    But again, all these things that's happening, the grownups
    are talking.
    But when you got home, what were the conditions in your household
    when you got there?
    At best, very depressed, total depression.
    My mother was pregnant already, eight months pregnant.
    My father is home.
    And these conversations that I hear
    are why they not kill us here?
    Where they're going to take us?
    And this and that.
    But whenever I'm near them, they don't talk.
    They don't they don't discuss that in front of me.
    So here, I was away for six months in this other town
    studying.
    So I was away from my friends for six months.
    But now, they got a curfew.
    You cannot go out after night.
    In other words, when I got home, really within a week,
    the whole trouble started.
    Within a week, everything already became chaos.
    They would take us out first to work to shovel snow someplace
    and all kinds of deals.
    And within a week, we were already
    in the synagogue with our belongings.
    You were allowed to take so much.
    Tell me more about that week.
    You didn't go to school anymore.
    No, no, no, no.
    There was no school even.
    This school, that I told you, there was a Jewish school.
    There was a religious school, a yeshiva.
    No, school, you weren't allowed to go to school already
    a year prior to that.
    Jews weren't allowed to go to school.
    No school for Jews anymore.
    Let your neighbor teach you, whatever.
    In '43, actually, in '43, school was out for the Jews.
    No more.
    Jew cannot go to school.
    In '43, I imagine they had pressure.
    The Hungarians had pressure from the Germans.
    But that week, all I could say, that week when I came back,
    the first night, in a way, I was disappointed.
    I thought I'm going to make a big deal with me.
    Here, they missed me for six months.
    But now I understand exactly what happened.
    They were very depressed.
    My mother was eight months pregnant.
    Here, they know any day, they're going to take us away.
    And I kind of thought they're going
    to make me a party or something for getting me back.
    And now, finally, it dawned on me what's happening.
    Is there food enough?
    Yeah.
    There was food.
    I mean but makeshift food.
    By makeshift, in other words, because we were rationed already
    two years prior, you had a slice of bread or whatever.
    And you knew this is all you had.
    But you lived in that village.
    Maybe you had a basement with a lot of potatoes, you know.
    And you could cook a potato and maybe cut it up and put it
    on top of the stove and like fry it or whatever, you know,
    and make a soup.
    In other words, it wasn't what you would say starving,
    like I read about the Warsaw ghetto.
    But this happened very fast.
    Within a week, we were in a synagogue.
    In a synagogue, we were-- when I say synagogue,
    we didn't go to play there.
    They put the whole village there plus the surrounding
    little hamlets.
    The synagogue was overflowed with people, overflowed.
    It was an Orthodox synagogue, the women upstairs,
    the men downstairs.
    But I mean this is when everything was normal.
    When the Germans took us there, they just piled you in,
    as much as it would take.
    But it was an overflow.
    But it was already late spring or early spring.
    A lot of the young people slept outside.
    The Germans came to collect everyone in the town.
    How did that happen?
    Well, not the Germans, the Hungarians,
    the Hungarian police.
    Tell me about that.
    OK, how it came, well, I remember very vividly
    because, first of all, we had like practice from before.
    I mean, they didn't say practice.
    Like I mentioned to you one time that in '41,
    they took away half of the town.
    The day when they took us, the night before, all the news
    was given by a drum.
    The drummer would come.
    He'd stop every, let's say, 500 feet or whatever.
    And he'd read the edict, whatever.
    I mean not-- but in this particular time,
    the edict was that all Jews, tomorrow morning, by 7 o'clock,
    they should be ready by their gates, ready
    and to be with their belongings.
    And they will tell them where to go, or something like that.
    Well, naturally, all night they were up.
    We were up all night.
    And in the morning, I put on all the clothes that I had,
    my bar mitzvah suit, which I used to brush it every week.
    And it was made out of a second-hand suit on the inside
    from.
    And maybe I had on me three suits and whatever I carried.
    And my father carried what he carried
    and my younger brothers and my sister.
    And we were ready there.
    And then the Germans came--
    I mean the Hungarian rather, the Hungarian police.
    You had to give them the key.
    And that's it.
    And you marched.
    And you marched to like a city hall.
    Well, not lot of city hall, to an official place,
    you could almost say city hall.
    And there you registered.
    You told them what you left at home.
    And they instructed you.
    All the valuables, you got to hand over to them, well,
    any valuables over, let's say, $100 or $20, whatever.
    And then they searched you.
    They bodily searched you.
    The women were searched by women, the men by men.
    And from there, when you passed inspection,
    then you go to the synagogue.
    I mean that's where not to pray.
    That's where is the assembly point.
    And from there, from that synagogue,
    they took us in trucks to a little village called Sekernice,
    which is really, six ironically enough,
    60 miles away, at the same, Uzhhorod, where
    I took the truck to come back.
    This is the town where they made the ghetto, but a little village
    near there, Sekernice.
    They emptied out the peasants.
    Maybe they gave them our homes.
    And in turn, they put maybe-- like we were three families
    in one little shack.
    I don't know what you would call it, a little hut.
    The floor was earth, earth floor.
    And it really was one room.
    And for these three families to be separated-- for these three
    families to have a little privacy, they hung a sheet.
    They hung a sheet across.
    But it was wall to wall people because you
    had to-- whatever you brought with you,
    the quilt or the blanket or whatever,
    you put it on the floor.
    And that's where you lived.
    And that's where my mother gave birth to her last child.
    And through the day, you worked a little.
    And you've seen these things going all the time.
    And you were almost idle.
    You were almost idle, just waiting
    for your turn to be deported.
    What happened to the child?
    Well, the child was stillborn.
    Now, till today, I'll never know.
    There is-- well, there's a woman in New York
    that she knew my mother.
    She survived.
    They had an only son.
    And the son didn't make it.
    I really don't know.
    I just have an opinion that her girlfriend's-- my mother was 39.
    Let's see, she was born in 1904.
    Yeah, about '39.
    I imagine they told her, look, we're all starving here.
    They're going to kill.
    What do you need a little baby for, the little infant?
    So in my opinion, I think the child
    was killed on purpose, whoever helped to deliver the baby.
    There was no doctors, no nurses whoever was in that house,
    in that house--
    maybe they called, I don't know, you know,
    probably it was done when--
    I didn't-- I didn't see the delivery, you know.
    What happened next?
    Well, what happened next, there was this daily life there.
    The daily life, all day long and even at night,
    you heard these things going.
    We were from the railroad track maybe 200 feet.
    And just, again, they would take you some kind of a work detail
    to clean the garbage or to shovel dirt.
    And you had to stay in line for that bowl of soup.
    They had this kitchen in the ghetto.
    And it was just idle.
    It's like waiting-- it's like being stranded someplace
    and waiting to be rescued.
    Except there, I imagine, it's the other way around.
    You knew what's going to happen.
    It's just a question tomorrow or the next day.
    I mean--
    Were you frightened?
    No.
    No.
    Not really.
    No, I was never frightened.
    I never was frightened not because I'm a hero
    or I'm that courageous.
    The worst fear-- I never had the fear.
    I never-- I brought this book along purposely.
    This is called Art of the Holocaust.
    And in there, they have a lot of artists
    that drew pictures from different camps
    and in here there is one, Dora--
    let's see.
    It's here someplace.
    Should have folded it.
    Buchenwald, I was in Buchenwald too.
    But we could get to it.
    We'll find it when we talk about--
    Fine.
    OK.
    But there was hanging--
    I know you asked me if I was afraid.
    No, I really wasn't afraid.
    I was in a frame of mind something like this like.
    Finally, when before the police came, before we actually
    went to that city hall, and my mother cried and my father
    cried, and the fact that I didn't cry,
    to me that was kind of I was embarrassed.
    Here I am, I'm already going on 14.
    Well, let's see, 9 from-- yeah, I was 14 years old, OK.
    I shouldn't act like a child.
    I should cry along with them.
    And finally, I did cry.
    I broke down and cried.
    And I really felt good about it that I'm
    participating with their agony.
    But, no, I wasn't afraid.
    I wasn't afraid.
    I mean, I don't know, this is just-- you asked me
    if I was afraid, like I was held up
    in this country a couple of times.
    It's not being afraid.
    It's just you face it.
    Plus, at that age, that I faced it at my age, there was not--
    you cannot explain fear at 14, the way you explain fear at 30
    or 40 or--
    How did the deportation take place?
    OK, the deportation actually to Auschwitz?
    Hmm.
    OK.
    Just like the night before when they told us
    at home to be ready with your belongings,
    this time there was much more curt.
    In other words, there's no longer anything.
    Tomorrow, by 5:00, you'll be out of your little hut ready.
    The night before we-- this is the first time
    we really seen the SS.
    Or as I read in this country, the Einsatzgruppen,
    the specialists, the exterminators.
    That's the first time I've seen those guys.
    And they really looked rough, tough, and mean whatever.
    They looked like guards with the steel helmets, with the guns,
    with the bayonets loaded.
    And in the morning, we were there 5 o'clock.
    And we were marching.
    Anybody that couldn't walk out of the hut
    was shot right on the spot.
    Anybody that couldn't keep up with this column was shot.
    You had to run.
    You actually had to run.
    You ran until you got to some type of a station
    where there was a train.
    I don't know how many cars, lots of cattle cars or freight cars,
    whatever, freight cars.
    And we seen that train, a nice warm day, end of April.
    And on each roof, or on each second roof, on on the third,
    there was SS with machine guns on the roof.
    And there was SS with machine guns on this field.
    And when we got there, and most of the people were there,
    and we were surrounded by these SS.
    And on the top of the roof, I knew that all the old ones--
    by old ones, the grownups then, I shouldn't say the old ones,
    the grownups took out their prayer books.
    And they started to say vidui, confession.
    I mean they knew within an hour or half hour or 10 minutes
    or four hours, we're all going to be machine gunned.
    This is 1944, April.
    It's no longer a secret what's being done to the Jews.
    And again, I was in that field as a boy
    and with my two brothers and my sister.
    And you just picture a throng of people.
    It's like an airplane crash or the Titanic.
    I mean on a time like that, what is there to say?
    You know, everybody is bewildered.
    And that was in the morning, 5:00.
    By nightfall already, by nightfall,
    when it started to get dark, or late in the afternoon--
    they had their timetable-- they started
    to send all these people into the cars,
    you know, go more and more till it's full.
    And all you had really are wall to wall people
    with the little belongings that you took.
    The truth is I don't think everybody really
    had a space, the car that I rode in, to sit in,
    even really somebody had to sit on somebody else.
    There was no room for everybody, impossible.
    And then they made a bucket to relieve yourself
    for your personal needs.
    And they gave us bucket of water for the whole trip.
    And I remember vaguely, or I remember quite
    good that there was ration.
    They wouldn't give it to you unless you absolutely
    need it, if somebody fainted.
    And the train started rolling--
    I think it started rolling that same night.
    And it's not like here.
    You can't sleep, you take an aspirin.
    You visualize a train full of people,
    full of people on top of each other, men, women, children,
    grandparents, grandkids.
    And who should comfort who?
    Should the grandkid come for the grandfather or vice versa?
    And nobody knows where we're going.
    And here, I'm on a train maybe for the second time
    or the third time.
    And it's going.
    And again, this is '44.
    There's a war going on.
    And they shuffle these trains sometimes.
    They put it on a siding.
    And from what I've read, but I also
    remember that, Kassa, there's a big city, Kosice, in Slovakia,
    that's where the trains, from there the trains went
    to Auschwitz.
    And we've seen, you know, through the cracks,
    we see maybe a little crook or a river--
    I mean or a mountain.
    And I remember maybe hear someone say, [NON-ENGLISH],,
    are you going to Poland or whatever?
    And I remember the train stopped someplace.
    And I think they might have let them empty out that bucket
    or maybe they gave us a fresh bucket of water.
    I'm almost positive they may have.
    And after that stop, the train stopped someplace else too,
    but not to let anybody out.
    It just stopped.
    And somebody knocked on the window.
    They said, better throw out all your valuables, gold and money,
    because where you go, if they find money on anybody,
    they'll kill all of you.
    In other words, these were extortionists
    that tried to get something for nothing.
    And there was a man in my wagon-- in fact,
    he's a relative of mine, Josef [PERSONAL NAME]..
    His son is in California.
    And he was the richest.
    And people said, well, Josef [PERSONAL NAME],,
    maybe you should throw it out, or whatever.
    Maybe they thought he had he didn't have.
    But anyways, and from there, the train
    did end up in Auschwitz, which I only know now it was Auschwitz.
    I don't know where that train was.
    There too was put on a siding because they had someone
    else ahead of us, or whatever.
    And finally, we must have been in that train two or three days,
    two or three days.
    But, you know, you put people in one train like that, so many,
    you really don't need anything.
    You don't need no water, in the same clothes-- you know, here,
    if you stay up at night till 2 o'clock,
    you're dead the next day.
    You just think what happened there.
    And then finally, when they--
    we were still locked up.
    And we seen people, guys, these Haflinge
    with the striped uniforms.
    We didn't know who they were.
    Well, I heard my mother say, or my father or somebody said,
    that can't be too bad.
    Look, people are working.
    And before we know it, the door was swung open.
    Alles raus.
    Everybody out, out, out, out.
    Men separate.
    Women separate.
    And all kinds of commotion.
    Schnell, schnell.
    Leave everything there.
    You'll get it later.
    Leave it.
    And men separate.
    Women separate.
    And then I remember just like that,
    my mother said to my father, and she said,
    Meilech, you go-- or she told it to my father,
    let Meilech go with you, and I'll go with the kids.
    And while she said that, she was already maybe--
    maybe 20 feet away with this crowd of people because they--
    the ones that were on the left, the women
    and the children, the old people,
    they went straight to their dead.
    That I find out now after reading about the subject.
    At the time, I didn't know.
    They said the women are going to cook.
    The children are going to go to school.
    The old people go to an old folks home.
    But these people went straight to their death.
    That's where they went.
    And I read in some books where they wanted full capacity.
    When the thing was full, they took
    children, they throw it overboard,
    over the-- this I learned maybe 10 years ago, in this country,
    in English, of all languages.
    And then I found myself with my father
    about these able-bodied men.
    I am with the able-bodied men.
    And maybe, I'm holding on to my father by his hand,
    or he's holding me.
    And this man comes up to my father--
    I mean not like strolling along.
    He's there working.
    I mean I know exactly by reading about it.
    He was in the Sonderkommando, the detail that
    handled these new arrivals.
    And somehow or other, he knew that it's
    safe to say this short sentence in the quickest possible way--
    is this your son?
    Yes.
    In Jewish.
    How old is he?
    And my father told him 14.
    He says, well, when you go to that guy there, to that officer,
    you saw him better tell him he's 16.
    And he quizzed my father how old he is, just
    in the fastest possible way.
    We obviously feared and physical, but tell him
    you're 38.
    And I'm among these people now, lined up in 5 or 10
    going towards this Dr. Mengele.
    I mean he doesn't say, I'm Dr. Mengele, welcome to Auschwitz.
    You go there.
    In other words, a man is robust and healthy,
    he just keep on going.
    If there's a question mark, like myself, he says, wie alt
    bist du?
    I said, well, [NON-ENGLISH].
    Konnst du arbeiten?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    Because he's a busy guy.
    They could always get me later.
    My father went through too.
    And as these people went through this inspection, which
    I know now, I didn't know it at the time--
    I didn't know what it was.
    When he asked me, can I work, I thought he had a job for me.
    I didn't know what the heck is happening over there.
    And all these people now are ending up in a hall,
    something like this, maybe say four times
    the size of this, at the most, but probably only three times.
    In there, once you're there, undress.
    Remember where you put your clothes.
    We got to cut off your hair.
    And there's all kinds of barbers and stools.
    You know, if the guy is--
    let's see, if the guy is tall, he's got to get on a stool,
    right.
    The guy short-- and they take everybody's hair off.
    Now, this is only men, able-bodied men.
    And I was at an age where I only had
    hair on my head, no hair on my private parts.
    And they keep emphasizing, remember
    where you put your clothes.
    Remember the number, or whatever.
    And then as these people now are naked, one of these guys,
    one of the barbers, tells my father again,
    you better go with your boy against the wall,
    by the end of the wall, because an SS man is going to come in
    and you might lose your boy if you don't do that.
    In other words, he wanted me to be out of this officer's sight.
    And sure enough, an SS man came in, or two of them.
    And they picked out, in fact, a boy a year older than me.
    They pulled him out.
    They said, no, you're young.
    You got to go to school.
    There was a man with a hunchback, let's say.
    He went through, people carried--
    he is naked.
    They see he's got a hunchback, or a guy with a leg missing.
    Or maybe a guy was really old.
    Now you could see know he's old and gray.
    So they pulled out.
    This is all males now.
    And they gave each guy a legitimate reason
    why he's taking him out.
    The old man will go to the old folks home.
    The hunchback, they'll give him very light
    work because this is heavy work.
    The young ones, youngsters my age, they send him to school.
    And they pull these people out.
    They probably took them right on the other side to be gassed.
    And after that, again, no announcements are made.
    It's all milling around.
    Maybe another 20 minutes or 30 minutes,
    now we're going to the shower.
    And water did it come down.
    Water did come down.
    But it wasn't a shower as we think of over here
    that you adjust the water.
    For about 2, 3 minutes, it was steaming hot, like you could
    you could burn.
    And then the next few minutes it's like ice cold,
    like icicles.
    And that was off and on for maybe 5, 10 minutes.
    So all you did really, either you ran away from that water
    or you scratch your sweat over your body.
    And then as you came out-- oh, and they instruct you,
    when the clothes, leave all your clothes.
    Remember where you left it.
    But carry-- just leave your shoes and your belt,
    that you carry with you because they
    didn't give you any shoes and belts when you got out of there.
    When you got out, there was a couple of prisoners there.
    They put bucket of water on you with chlorine on it.
    And that really cleansed you, whatever, you know, did more,
    did a lot more than the shower.
    And after that, now you're completely
    nude with a pair of shoes and a belt. That's what you've got.
    That's it.
    A guy gives you a union suit.
    They lined up these workers there.
    A guy gave me a union suit.
    The next guy-- I don't in that order--
    the next guy gave me a cap, next guy
    paid a socks, next guy a jacket, and the next guy
    a pair of pants.
    That's it.
    I'm all set.
    Now, if I am little, my age, if my trousers are long,
    I could roll them up.
    If my sleeves are long on the jacket, I could roll them up.
    But if a 6 foot 2 gets a 5 foot 2 jacket, he's in trouble.
    So these big guys would come changing maybe
    with me or with the next guy.
    And that's it.
    And now, you you're ready there.
    And now, they line you up again.
    Now, you're a new creature.
    You were born again.
    You were a new born person.
    You what was let's forget it.
    You're a new man without hair with a striped uniform,
    and everybody is equal.
    And now, you got to register.
    I don't know why they register you for.
    But when I got there, they didn't give me no tattoo.
    They just-- you know, these transports came.
    Who knows?
    And they register your name and you were born and all that.
    And when that was done, they take you into a barrack--
    into a barrack, no food, no nothing like food, all that.
    And the barrack had like shelves.
    Really, that's the best to describe it.
    It had shelves.
    And they had it so when even the boards on the shelves
    were not closed in.
    They had spaces between the shelves.
    And they give everybody a blanket
    as you go into that barrack.
    So my father got a blanket.
    And I got a blanket.
    And as you go in there, so on the shelves,
    one goes on the shelves, the people, these guys that
    came from the train.
    And I happen to get a lower bunk.
    So we see what's happening.
    And these people come, get closer and closer.
    I mean, they really get to a point
    where you could maybe just turn over, they pack you in.
    So what we did, we put my father's, or one
    of the blankets, what's the difference, one of the blankets
    we put under us so the boards wouldn't cut us.
    And the other one, we covered.
    That was in Auschwitz.
    And at night, just we went to sleep, or whatever,
    another SS man came in.
    And he says, if there's any children under 16, step out,
    you'll go to school, or you're able to go
    to school, something like that.
    And my father told me, encourage me, you go with the children,
    or with the kids.
    And after the war, we'll meet, just like that.
    And I didn't like it.
    I started to cry.
    I said, no, I want to stay with you.
    I really-- see, when you ask me was I afraid,
    I was more afraid to be alone.
    I was more afraid to be separated than what are they
    going to do to me.
    That was a little abstract to me at that age, I think.
    So poor father, he said, OK, you stay with me, all right.
    And the next day, they took us out.
    And they drilled us.
    They taught us how to respond when they call you number.
    You know, let's say, in Auschwitz, we did get numbers,
    but not tattooed.
    We did have-- they told, this is your number,
    Martin Adler, number 66420, let's say.
    So now they tested us.
    66420?
    Here.
    You know, you got to answer right away.
    Then they taught you how to take off your cap
    and how to put it on.
    [GERMAN]
    That's an [NON-ENGLISH].
    When you look at-- when you face an SS man,
    you got to stay from him maybe 3, 4 feet, at attention.
    You take off your cap, your hands on your sides.
    And you got to turn your head.
    [GERMAN]
    And that went on for--
    well, finally, we were very-- we were starved.
    We were actually starved.
    We didn't eat in that train.
    The haircut, and the bed, and the night
    sleep, when do they give you food?
    Finally, that first day, maybe 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, they
    gave you food, a bowl of soup.
    Till today, I swear to you, till today, I
    don't know if there was a liquid or a solid.
    It wasn't solid enough to hold it in your hand.
    And it wasn't liquid enough for a spoon.
    It was a big bowl.
    They lined you up again, one bowl for five people.
    A guy holds a bowl, one and four more, next guy.
    And how do you divide that?
    Each one takes, let's say, three gulps.
    Three gulps, you're hungry, everybody eyes is on each guy.
    God forbid he should take a fourth gulp.
    And then, if it's left again, you
    go another round, another three gulps.
    That's it.
    But then maybe towards night, they gave you a piece of bread--
    yeah, they did because I remember
    that's the first time when I seen a piece of sausage.
    And I looked at my father.
    And I didn't even ask.
    I just looked at him.
    He said, that's OK, you can eat it.
    And ever since I haven't stopped.
    But anyways-- and we were there maybe 3 nights in Auschwitz.
    That's Birkenau, but anyway, the Auschwitz complex.
    Let me ask you a question.
    When the SS man came in and said anybody who's under 16
    come forth and go to school, did anybody--
    Oh, yeah.
    Oh, yeah.
    Oh, sure.
    Oh, sure.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, sure, quite a few, quite a few.
    Oh, sure.
    What happened to them?
    I really don't know.
    I don't know.
    What do you think?
    I mean, see, visualize a barrack, very practically
    no lights, with shelves of people.
    And those go out.
    Who-- how do I know?
    I really don't know.
    I know I didn't go.
    That's all.
    I know on the way when finally that barrack was emptied out
    to go to Buchenwald and marching to that next train
    to go from Auschwitz to Buchenwald,
    an SS man asked me, if you don't feel good,
    we could take you to a hospital.
    And I said, no, I feel fine.
    It's like really--
    I didn't tell him like I tell it to you.
    See, I had apprehension.
    Not fear, but I mean it's like instinct.
    I had instinct what's happening there, but clearly not
    understanding.
    OK, this is a good place to stop.
    OK.
    Take a little break.
    Great.
    So that's the story.
    In the meantime, if you don't make the mortgage on time--
    [AUDIO OUT]
    You were telling me now about your arrival in the first three
    days at Birkenau, Auschwitz.
    Yeah, Auschwitz.
    You were still with your father?
    Yeah, I was with my father.
    And we marched to that train.
    And in that train, you always learn something new.
    I mean-- in the train now, now they had a system already.
    The first train that we came to Auschwitz, that was--
    we were civilians with baggage, with parents.
    Now, we're strictly numbers.
    We were all alike.
    So they send in five in.
    And he teach-- shows you, the SS, how
    to do it, to stretch your legs, spread
    your legs as far as you can.
    And he pushes you against the wall from that train.
    Where the door is at, where the door of that car, in the middle
    there is a bench.
    That bench is reserved for two SS men, one with a machine
    gun for one half of the train or a third,
    and the other one for the other side.
    Now, the next batch, five or six or whatever,
    the width of the train, they go into the laps of the next guy
    and so on.
    They stop by the width of the door.
    The width of the door is reserved for the two SS.
    They take you.
    Are you with me?
    Now, as this goes on-- you ask me if I was with my father.
    I don't know where my father is at.
    I really don't know.
    I know he's in this group.
    But as these people keep on, I really
    now feel there's a big burden on me.
    I feel I'm being pressed because they
    keep on putting more and more.
    I'm in the back.
    And out of nowhere, the SS with a machine gun
    that watches, that's in charge of this group,
    says to me, Junge, come here.
    So I climb all over these people.
    I don't know what he wanted.
    But in a way, he did a deed of kindness.
    What he did he pulled me out of there, I should sit in front.
    So now, nobody leaned on me.
    I leaned on the next guy.
    I mean it's sad to say, but I felt a lot better sitting
    in front there.
    I don't know where my father was.
    He was in that train.
    He was there.
    Or maybe he was--
    I really don't know where he was because that's
    the way they sandwich you in--
    that's the way they sandwiched us in from Auschwitz
    to Buchenwald.
    Before you went to the train, did you and your father talk
    about--
    No.
    No.
    The only thing that my father spoke to me
    from the time we got to Auschwitz until my father
    was shot, which I will come to it later in this Dora camp.
    He said to me in Auschwitz those words I'll never forget,
    he said to me like this, see those chimneys?
    They say that's where your mother and brothers were burned.
    I didn't answer him.
    I really didn't quite understand what he said.
    But I did understand.
    I took it verbatim.
    He says, they say.
    But now, thinking about it, the poor man
    must have gone mad already.
    In other words, he knows his wife and children
    are burned in that building with the chimneys.
    And he tells me, see those chimneys?
    They say-- probably wanted me to tell, hey, that's a lie.
    Don't worry about it.
    That's impossible.
    But I didn't say anything.
    My eyes are red when I tell the story
    because it's very, very sad.
    And now you ask me, this is all.
    There's nothing to talk because there was always commotion.
    They kept constantly on the go.
    Either they drilled you how to know your number.
    They drilled you how to take off your cap.
    When they put you in those shelves,
    you weren't allowed to talk.
    You were you were pressed in together like cordwood.
    There was nothing to talk.
    There was were always on the go.
    You were always late for something.
    If you got up 4:00 in the morning,
    you weren't fast enough.
    If you go to bed, you're not on your bunk
    right away, that is too-- you're not fast enough.
    You're always slow.
    But not to get away from the subject.
    Did you think about what had happened to your mother?
    Well, no, I never thought about that because I always just
    thought maybe I'll find her.
    But I never really thought, even till now, in a way--
    I mean, I don't know, I'm just talking to myself here.
    I mean I know I have lots of psychological scars,
    and I'll have them till I die.
    But even when we were liberated, some boy
    met me from my hometown.
    He was two years older.
    He knew my mother is not here.
    So he told me, you're going to Bucharest,
    and you'll meet her there.
    But even till today, I'll tell you the truth, even today,
    even I know my father was shot, in a way I just can't--
    I know they're gone.
    I know they died.
    I know my mother and my brothers died maybe the same day
    for sure, maybe even the next half hour.
    But I just see maybe I don't want to accept it.
    Or I want to deny it.
    But I never-- oh, you have nightmares once
    in a while or often.
    Or you-- in the camps, I would daydream,
    even I know my father was shot, I knew it, I would like
    fantasize when this is over, I'll come back home.
    And we'll sit at the table.
    And I'll tell him what happened to me.
    And my father will say what happened to him.
    But I still don't believe it.
    I really don't believe it happened.
    I mean not that I don't believe it like somebody is telling it
    to me.
    It's just very hard to believe here a person dies at 45
    of cancer, at 50, at 60, at 70.
    Well, 70 is young.
    My God children died at the age of 1,
    at the age of 10, 20 years, 18, 17.
    Every day there were piles of bodies.
    But I think I got away from the subject.
    OK, let's go back here on the train now.
    Yeah, the train to Buchenwald.
    You went to Buchenwald.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    So I'm on this train.
    And the ride wasn't--
    I don't think it was that long.
    It was a pretty efficient ride now.
    You know, it wasn't like from Hungary to Auschwitz
    with troops are going to the front.
    This is now already a pretty good timetable.
    I think maybe we traveled, at the most, a day, at the most.
    But maybe not even that long.
    And we got there early in the morning-- no,
    I think just at night.
    We got there-- they took us in Auschwitz like in the afternoon.
    And I think by 8 o'clock we were already in Buchenwald.
    And at Buchenwald, when all these guys came out, 1,000 of us
    came, 1,000.
    And father was right there, whether in the same car,
    I really don't remember because I sat in front of the SS,
    you know.
    And then they put us in a barrack in Buchenwald.
    And they taught us--
    they took the youngsters aside.
    I was separated from my father with some other young boys.
    And I'll never forget, they taught us how to sew burlap.
    They gave us a wooden, like a pencil made out
    of wood-- it didn't have no lead in it.
    And with this point, you pushed it through the burlap.
    And you put in a thread and you sewed.
    You made a sack out of it or something like that, or maybe
    a mattress, a sack for straw, or something like that.
    But we were in Buchenwald maybe 3 days at the most, 3 days.
    They gave us numbers from 55,000, 55,000 till 56,000.
    And from that 1,000 people-- now this
    already represents people from all
    over, different towns, whatever.
    And from these 1,000, when the war was over,
    at the most, the maximum, I don't think more than 50
    really survived.
    All the others were massacred.
    So let me finish with my father.
    So from Buchenwald, they shipped us by truck, now by truck,
    to Dora.
    That's Dora Nordhausen.
    That's a town, Nordhausen.
    In fact, that's where this Arthur Rudolph was
    that they sent back to Germany.
    He was with NASA, one of our brand--
    that's where they made the rockets, the pilotless missiles
    or whatever.
    And to Dora, when we came to Dora, all the older people--
    I mean all those that weren't really youngsters,
    teenagers-- they were all massacred, beaten to death,
    shot, just done away with.
    And my father too, he was--
    he was shot about maybe the third week we were there,
    or the second, the third week at the most.
    At the most because a Jewish man told me, the Yahrzeit,
    which is the date of his death, and that's [NON-ENGLISH],,
    that means the beginning of the month of Tammuz.
    And that couldn't be over a month since they took us away.
    Tell me the circumstances how you found out about that.
    Well, OK, all right, when we got from Buchenwald to Dora,
    they put us on a truck.
    And again, you went to an office.
    They registered-- you already had the number in Buchenwald.
    You had to sew it on, and a number on your leg,
    and the emblem, the yellow emblem that you're Jewish.
    Until then, really nobody was beaten.
    But when we got to that Dora, it was terrible.
    Our welcome was they just beat everybody with clubs, terrible,
    just beat them, kicked them, beat them, worked him to death.
    My father right away was in another barrack.
    He was somehow other in another barrack.
    I found out where he was.
    And one Sunday, on a Sunday, maybe I
    would sneak up and see him for a couple of minutes.
    Otherwise, because if you're missing from your barrack,
    you're dead.
    And you're not supposed to be in another barrack either.
    And what I would see my father in this Dora only was--
    it was 12 hour shifts, or two shifts, night shift
    and day shift.
    They would march us out to work in the morning,
    and the night shift would come in.
    So he arranged it where he would be on the outer left
    where I-- in other words, it was like the Lagerstrasse,
    the street that you go out or come in.
    He would make sure that he is on the right where he could see me
    and I was on the left.
    You know what I mean?
    And that's just maybe nodded or whatever or waved.
    And that's it.
    And then the Sunday, the Sunday before he died,
    I went by his barrack just to see him.
    He tore off a piece of bread.
    He gave me this piece of bread.
    He says, you know, you're as pale as the wall.
    If you're going to last another week, you'll do real good.
    And Tuesday, Tuesday when they were counting us all the time
    and preparing us and sorting us out,
    the little ones in front, the tall ones in back, some guy
    walks up to me.
    Maybe he was a village near me.
    He says, you're a Volover.
    I mean a Volover means you're from this little village called
    Volové.
    Yeah.
    You're from Volové.
    Do a guy by the name of Adler that they shot today?
    And before I could even say anything
    in Jewish, another guy that is from my town, which
    he is in Israel right now, he tells
    the man, what are you a dummy?
    This is the kid's father.
    What the hell is wrong with you?
    But as he tells it to the guy, this man calls me aside.
    He knew me.
    And he says to me, come on, I want to talk to you.
    And he says, look, if you ever get out of here--
    because like I explained to you before,
    our village was very religious and they kept all
    the traditions-- if you ever get out of here, remember,
    the Yahrzeit--
    Jahr is year, Zeit is time--
    the time of year that your father was shot.
    He gave me the date in the Hebrew calendar,
    which was [NON-ENGLISH],, or which is the Eve of the month
    of Tammuz.
    And on the eve the month of Tammuz, seven--
    Shavuos is in the month of seven.
    So it was a little maybe two weeks after Shavuos or something
    like.
    And that's it.
    How was he shot?
    Well, the man said he was shot.
    And the other man told me when the Yahrzeit is.
    But I didn't ask any questions.
    I didn't because this whole conversation took place
    while we were sorted to get ready to be counted.
    And you were really in a stupor there.
    You were-- what I heard was I heard that some SS told
    them to take off his hat.
    And the other one says, get your hat.
    And the first one said, what you do?
    Trying to escape?
    And he shot him.
    I mean this is just the games they play.
    But, you see, in those camps, or at least the camp that I was in,
    the Dora--
    and there a book out, I loaned it to a doctor,
    called Dora written by a Frenchman.
    And ironically enough, that was not a Jewish camp.
    It was mainly Gentiles.
    They just kept--
    In other words, it's like you tear off you
    tear off all the parts from a fly and all you got
    is the torso, the body.
    They wanted you to succumb.
    They wanted you to die or to be killed because they
    had so many replacements.
    There was a quota.
    They had quotas.
    Each day when you went out, now looking back,
    I understand what happened.
    These Kapos had quotas to fill.
    They told them, listen, when you come back with these guys,
    we want so many dead.
    And he just killed as many either to save his own skin
    or because he became an animal himself.
    Who knows?
    I don't know.
    But for the grace of God, there go I. I don't know.
    Well, no, you ask.
    And that's it.
    And there was other boys my age there.
    And some of them lost their parents-- or their father.
    The mother was gone a long time ago.
    And there was one kid there, he was a little younger than me.
    And he was a cute little boy.
    And they took him as a pet or whatever.
    I don't know what they did, you know, maybe they abused him
    sexually or whatever.
    And I said something.
    And he says to me, well, if I were you,
    I wouldn't brag about anything.
    My father is still alive.
    Your father is already dead.
    What I'm trying to say is on one level, we were children.
    We were actually children made into instant adults
    and into instant prisoners.
    Like, for instance, the first day when finally they
    already put me to work.
    So they take, let's say, 100 guys or 50 guys.
    Each guy goes to a storeroom.
    They give him a wheelbarrow, a shovel, and a pickax,
    or an ax, whatever you call it in English.
    So to me, that alone is already heavy at the age of 14,
    especially after all the nourishment and all the travels
    and all that.
    Well-- and they stop on a field there.
    In fact, they were building the Appellplatz, the parade grounds.
    I didn't know at the time what the heck it's all about.
    Well, I wheel this wheelbarrow.
    And I put it on.
    And I'm standing.
    I don't know what the heck is happening.
    I know I'm not next to my father.
    I wasn't even thinking about anything.
    I was just--
    I don't know.
    Before I knew it, this guy comes and starts
    really beating me terribly with a big heavy stick.
    [GERMAN]
    I told you to planieren.
    Well, I understood everything.
    [GERMAN] I know what it meant.
    [GERMAN]
    But this planieren, I was a little,
    not that I took a lesson, but I know he hit me and I cried.
    But I still didn't understand what this damn planieren meant.
    So fortunately, next to me an older prisoner, a veteran,
    until today I don't know what nationality he was.
    And he pointed to me in sign language what he wants me to do.
    I should work with an ax and shovel the dirt or the mud
    into that wheelbarrow.
    And when the wheelbarrow was full to take it to the--
    come back and keep on doing this.
    Well, I caught on pretty fast.
    After that I knew what they wanted.
    They put you on a work detail.
    They wanted you to work, actually do calisthenics,
    actually exercise.
    They wanted that pick to go at full blast.
    I could even imitate it now without one.
    The shovel had to go at full speed.
    It's like-- it's like taking exercise or a marathon run
    as fast as you can.
    Now, that's all they wanted, to exhaust you.
    And if you do it, and even if you didn't do it,
    they just came and beat you and beat you till you fell out.
    And maybe you were still able to go, strong enough
    to go the next day again for work.
    And they sandwiched you in for the night at asleep, no food.
    And before you knew it, you were a Muselmann.
    A Muselmann is the slang for a guy that's like a zombie.
    He just walks.
    And you could hit him.
    You could tell him, he don't know what's all about.
    And then they select you.
    And they put you in a barrack, a quarantine.
    And they got it so improvised and so perfected,
    their murder machine, where after a while, once they picked
    you out to die, they didn't even leave you
    in your striped clothes.
    Well, why do all that?
    You leave your clothes.
    They gave you a blanket, the worst blanket
    with most holes in it and most lice.
    And with that blanket, you go to die.
    And there was never talk to anybody.
    There was no talk.
    You were always full--
    if you march to work, you had to keep step.
    [GERMAN]
    On the side of you, there is so many SS
    to so many guys with a machine gun--
    with a gun with a bayonet on it and a dog.
    You don't have anybody at that time.
    You don't have no father, no mother.
    You have your worry to keep step.
    And at the age that I was, my steps
    were shorter than the guy in back of me.
    And the guy had to keep step with me.
    And the SS would hit him, or the Kapo, he's not keeping step.
    He would kick me.
    And maybe towards the end, they arrange it
    where they put a little one-- just like when they counted,
    they put the young ones in front.
    Now they got smart, they put the young ones in the end
    so the guy don't have to keep step with me.
    And then when they gave you this bread, whether they gave it 4
    to a bread or 3 to a bread or 2 to a bread or 7 to a bread,
    you could have eaten up the whole bread.
    And now, you really hope that you
    get your share from that piece of bread and.
    All these theories-- do you eat a bread now?
    Or do you eat it at one time?
    Or do you eat it in the morning or do you eat it at night?
    Or do you eat it before you eliminate
    or after you eliminate?
    And when you cut that bread, you make
    sure you're at least with three or four guys
    that you could trust, that know they're not going to hurt you.
    But regardless how much you trust them,
    you still watch them to make sure he doesn't, God forbid,
    go a quarter of an inch or a 10th of an inch further.
    And that's not the end either.
    They just say, well, now you take your piece.
    You turn the guy around.
    You turn the guy around.
    He no longer sees these four or five pieces of bread.
    And now you mix them up just in case
    he remembers where the biggest one was.
    Now you pick one up behind his back--
    I mean it's a joke, but it's gallows humor.
    Who does this go to?
    Now, for instance, the end piece of bread,
    that's a choice portion because you only lose
    crumbs from the end.
    You don't lose from the other side.
    Plus, you have no pockets.
    You have nothing.
    And the end, that could be kept better.
    In other words, if I get the end piece
    of bread, no matter how small, there's very little waste.
    If I get the middle part, there's crumbs on both sides.
    All these things came to you as you went along.
    How did you cut the bread?
    How you cut the bread?
    I'll tell you how you cut the bread.
    They gave you a bowl, rusty like anything.
    And they told you, this is the bowl you're going to get.
    You lose that bowl, you don't eat.
    So the bowl was tied up to your belt, the belt they left you.
    So with that bowl, either you work the bowl tied up to you,
    or maybe you took 10 guys or whatever,
    and they put the bowl on a stack and somebody
    watched the bowls, that rusty bowl.
    Now, you asked me about the knife.
    They did give you a spoon.
    So what happened?
    For a little piece of bread or something, somebody
    that maybe works in the machine shop or whatever,
    he'll file down--
    he'll file the spoon where the end of the spoon
    could be used as a knife.
    Or if you're really affluent, if you really
    belong to a country club, then you
    give him a bigger piece of bread.
    Maybe the guy will steal a whole knife for you.
    And now, they are all--
    For instance-- for instance-- these bowls
    were rusty, like I told you, rusty.
    And you had no water to clean them.
    You could do with that bowl whatever you want to.
    That's your problem.
    The only thing is when they give you
    that little soup or the little tea, what they call it,
    I tell you I don't know what was in there,
    you better have a bowl.
    You don't have a bowl, you don't eat.
    Now, potato, you might get it in your cap, you know.
    But, OK, so the guys that were affluent towards the end
    or maybe later on, they called it a [NON-ENGLISH]..
    A [NON-ENGLISH] is like you've seen the soldiers have it
    in the front.
    It's made out of aluminum.
    And it's got a cover.
    Let's say if you left a little soup, you could eat it later on.
    That was a bigger luxury, as far as I'm concerned,
    in Dora to have one of those--
    well, it's like a lunchbox.
    You know what I mean?
    Made out of aluminum because Dora,
    really the main thing was they build those rockets.
    And there was a lot of metal work.
    But that was a luxury compared here
    to have a Pierre Cardin suit or something like this.
    You really envy the guy if he had something like that.
    And let's say, for instance, if they picked out a guy to die,
    for whatever reason, he was week or whatever,
    if he was a gentleman, he would maybe leave that inheritance
    to the next guy.
    He says, listen, we were good friends, this is yours.
    Because that's a big luxury, because, you see,
    you have no pockets.
    You cannot-- the bowl is tied up to your back.
    Something like this, that's a very, very expensive thing
    because you could leave a little soup for later.
    The guy that didn't have that, he couldn't get-- he
    couldn't leave a little soup for later on.
    I mean, these are just trivia, or things,
    you know-- or let's say you've seen the SS coming
    and he would beat these people.
    Because I thought they were too slow,
    I would start working fast enough.
    At that point, I didn't worry about my aunts and about
    my father and about my mother, about my brothers.
    I just worried he shouldn't hit me.
    Now, when you ask me was I afraid,
    well, maybe the word is I was scared.
    I was scared.
    Or maybe I was afraid he will hit me.
    When you found out your father had died,
    do you remember what went through your mind?
    Nothing at all really.
    I don't know why.
    I don't know if I should feel guilty about it or not guilty.
    The only thing I could say really--
    Well, first of all, maybe I was conditioned to it
    partly because my father was away
    for two years in that forced labor camp.
    So I was without a father anyways.
    You know what I mean?
    In the time, you got to understand--
    and then I was away for six months when I studied there.
    But from the time when they-- from this ghetto
    with the synagogue, the ghetto, the train, Auschwitz,
    Buchenwald, the whole thing, if it lasted five weeks is a lot.
    So I mean, you really were confused.
    They remind you every day--
    a Vorarbeiter is a foreman.
    And the Vorarbeiter really, he's no special--
    he's not a privileged prisoner.
    And this Vorarbeiter always remind, you see that chimney?
    That's where you're going to end up.
    And you really don't care.
    You really don't care, not only the camp, not only the camp,
    even in the ghetto, the Warsaw ghetto, which had about it,
    a lot of people went to that Umschlagplatz,
    to that place where they took you
    to Treblinka because they gave you a loaf of bread
    and some marmalade.
    In other words, all these things, pity--
    I mean they had a program.
    The pity was no longer there.
    You had other things.
    You worried if you got to go to the latrine,
    it was very important that you could only stay a minute or what
    and get it done with because there's
    a good chance he'll throw you in if you're not
    finished in a minute.
    Did it ever happen?
    Did you ever see anybody get thrown in?
    I haven't seen it.
    But I know a lot of guys did end up there.
    I didn't see it personally.
    But I know a lot of them did.
    Was there a Scheissmeister there?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    I mean I was not a Scheissmeister.
    And I wasn't-- but I'll tell you,
    I came to this country in '48.
    And in '55, they confirmed I had ulcers.
    And many times I think about it.
    Maybe my ulcers came not from the agony and all that, maybe
    because of not eliminating properly, holding in, you know.
    And all of this is part of the stomach.
    But what they didn't do.
    They pulled out one-- because we were on new transport,
    they knew.
    They had experience.
    Any doctors in this outfit, or lawyers or people, engineers,
    people that had office works, this is dangerous work.
    We don't want you to do that type of work.
    Explains it real nice.
    So these guys step up.
    And before you knew it-- you mention Scheissmeister--
    they took him to the latrine.
    They made them-- but, you see, they
    didn't make a spectacle of it.
    In other words, whatever they did, that was them.
    You weren't supposed to see.
    You're supposed to go full blast with that ax
    and with that shovel.
    What happens to the next guy, that's their business, not mine.
    We have a photograph from Dora, from the hanging--
    Yeah, Dora--
    What do you remember about the--
    Oh, I remember it all.
    I remember this-- I remember better than what I just
    said to you five minutes ago.
    They had hangings many times, but not that many at one time.
    They would have two, three.
    But this time, they hung maybe 30 or 40.
    And what they did, just like you see the picture here,
    except what you don't see is you don't
    see that on all the barracks were SS
    with machine guns on the roofs.
    On the bottom there was SS with dogs.
    I don't know if they show it here.
    And exactly just the way I see it here,
    they put them a piece of wood tied with a string, barefooted.
    See?
    They're barefooted.
    And their hands tied behind their back.
    The whole-- see, the hands tied behind their back.
    The whole camp had to watch that.
    Not even one guy lifted a fist.
    And that was Gentile people, not Jewish cowards.
    Those were prisoner of wars, resistance fighters.
    When they got through with you, you
    were what they wanted you to be.
    You were a man on the chessboard.
    You were strictly an object at best.
    And that's it.
    And we watched.
    And we didn't know what they're going to do.
    We thought maybe they'll machine gun us too.
    They read some kind of degree in German why they were being hung.
    In fact, one of them worked with me in the [NON-ENGLISH],,
    right in my detail, a Russian guy, a Russian, a Russian,
    Russian guy.
    In that whole camp, there were maybe,
    I don't know, 30,000 people.
    If 300 were Jews was a lot.
    They didn't want Jews even-- they didn't even
    want to give the Jews a privilege to be beaten to death.
    They didn't want any Jews there.
    And that's it.
    So I forgot what you asked me.
    But after they got through with them, they let them down.
    And each barrack, each barrack, the people had to pass by there
    to see them.
    And everything went back to normal.
    I mean you didn't sit down and talk like I talk to you.
    You come into the barrack.
    Again, you got to clean your feet within less than a minute
    or maybe carry them in, and they beat you again.
    And pretty soon they whistle you got to go to sleep.
    And before you know it, you got to wake up again.
    And for good measure, many times they would take a searchlight
    and shine at night on the prisoners
    so they don't get sleep at all.
    They just-- they were crazy.
    It was a crazy, crazy, times.
    That's why I don't believe--
    I don't know what happened.
    I really-- I still don't believe it happened.
    What else about Dora do you remember?
    Anything that stands out in your mind?
    Well, I remember once a guy tried to escape.
    And I mean he did escape because if the count didn't check,
    that means one guy is missing.
    And if they didn't find him sleeping
    or whatever, now they send out, you know.
    And they caught him.
    He must have been-- well, Gentile for sure,
    but he could have been even been a German national.
    And this stands out in my mind pretty good
    where they put on the guy a drum.
    Probably what they did with him before that, only God knows.
    They put a drum on him.
    Two guys carried a placard.
    In German, it says, hooray, [GERMAN],, hooray, I'm back.
    And with this drum and the two guys,
    they're marching up to the gallows.
    And they strung them up.
    Or one-- two more incidents I want
    to say from Dora, which I'll never forget.
    One, I call it the second bowl of soup
    with this poor man, maybe my father's age, year older, year
    younger.
    He already lost everything in Auschwitz.
    And he knew it.
    He knew it.
    I didn't know it.
    I didn't even-- I don't want to know it even today.
    But these people were grown, and they knew it.
    The other day, I asked a man, you know,
    he lost his wife and kids in Auschwitz.
    I say, you know you lost a wife and kids.
    So he says, well, you could forget a wife,
    but you cannot forget the kids.
    So what I'm saying is for a father
    to lose a kid it's much more painful than for a kid
    to lose a father.
    I mean at least that's what I think.
    I don't know.
    So this man has the striped uniform.
    He know he lost everything.
    But this bowl of soup, he could eat 10 of those bowls.
    So the poor guy goes in line again.
    And he gets the bowl of soup.
    He figures, well, he fooled them.
    He is smart.
    We all look alike.
    How would they know?
    Little does he know that there is a criminal Kapo there
    that that's his job.
    He's going to-- he's watching everybody.
    But now he's seen this guy going in the second time.
    He doesn't do nothing all day.
    He's got three servants.
    He even eats better than the SS.
    He goes down to this guy, the guy sitting in the mud eating
    a second bowl.
    And he says to him quietly, he says,
    do you know what you're doing?
    You're taking a second bowl of soup.
    The soup could be this little boy's soup.
    You know there's only so many bowls in the cauldron.
    What if you took the second bowl and there's no more
    left for that little boy?
    What's he going to do all day?
    You know you are a murderer.
    You're killing this little boy.
    And he talks to him.
    He lectures him.
    And before he knew it, he raises his voice.
    And now he starts getting excited,
    like he took something from him.
    And he's there walking with his boots and his stick, you know.
    He's a big Kapo with a green triangle.
    And he starts beating him.
    And the shovel is next to him.
    That's his lunch break.
    He starts beating him with the shovel and then
    with the iron part.
    And the man fainted.
    He was out.
    So he tells to a guy, bring me a pail of water.
    We got to revive this man.
    And the guy, whoever brought him the pail, the guy takes
    the pail, throws at him with a sharp edge on his head,
    split his head open.
    And that was the end of that.
    You ask me what I've seen?
    It's not what-- it's like--
    it's like you have you have 10 feet of snow
    in Detroit metropolitan area.
    No matter where you go, there's 10 feet of snow.
    That's what happened there.
    I mean there was constant torture, constant agony,
    constant brutality.
    Or, for instance, this man, this one is in California, Kahn,
    this relative of mine.
    He was a subcamp near Dora.
    Well, he could no longer work.
    He was in his 40s.
    They picked him out to die.
    He knew it.
    They wrapped him up in a blanket.
    And they put him in a barrack, not him, well, maybe 100 or 200,
    300, or whatever.
    And somehow or other, we heard that--
    his name was [PERSONAL NAME]---- you know [PERSONAL NAME] was
    picked out to go.
    I was still there with a couple of boys my age.
    So we thought maybe we'll sneak in, give him a little bread.
    Here, I'm already in this camp now six, seven months.
    I'm already a little bit of a old timer.
    And I maybe have a job in a--
    I got a little better position.
    I work in a clothing depot.
    So he says to me, Meilechku, sort
    of an endearment for Meilech, if you ever get out of here
    and you see my son, please tell him
    they take me to die because such and such a Kapo from Romania
    beat him always for nothing.
    Poor guy he don't know he died because he was starved
    and he just couldn't endure it anymore.
    And I met his son after the war.
    In fact, he's in California.
    And he would ask me, not now, that's already 40 years later,
    but at first, are you sure you don't know that man's name?
    You know, he tried to take revenge on the guy.
    But there is nothing--
    I mean Dora itself, Dora was already anticlimactic.
    Actually, the most agonized part, in my opinion,
    is the inception, the taking civilians, men, women,
    and children, you know, taking them
    to such a horrible death for no reason.
    The rest-- I mean that's terrible too.
    But I mean it's like a person dies
    and the other one's been there for two years.
    Had they had-- had they won the war or had they lost the war,
    the actual lifespan in those camps,
    if you had to do according to the rules
    was really two or three months.
    That's all.
    You said that there was another picture in this of Dora--
    Let's see--
    --that reminds you of yourself.
    Oh, yeah.
    This is just before, I think.
    Yeah, here.
    This is me, except I think maybe this is just me right there.
    I mean it's not me.
    But that's the way it was, forlorn.
    This is a typical picture of a boy my age
    just still, let's say, in grade school--
    still in grade school, lost.
    You know you lost your family.
    You don't want to believe it.
    But you're left alone on a big planet.
    You're on this planet all alone.
    The whole planet belongs to you, yet you
    were left alone on this planet.
    So it's a confusing situation.
    What happened after Dora?
    After Dora, they shipped us to Bergen-Belsen.
    The Americans-- they knew the Americans
    will come there pretty soon.
    They put us on a train to Dora--
    I mean to Belsen from Dora.
    And the train traveled quite a bit too.
    When we got to Belsen, they no longer fed us over there.
    And I was already plenty weak, ready to die.
    And what happened was that the British came.
    And from what I've read, that they
    made a deal behind the scenes, Himmler with the Allies,
    that if he gives up the camp intact, they won't bomb Hamburg
    or whatever.
    I don't know.
    But Belsen was liberated April the 15th.
    And the war ended May the 7th.
    What was it like when you got to Bergen-Belsen?
    Well, the same stupid as before.
    They didn't give us any food.
    They put us in some kind of a barrack.
    And you were sent there.
    What did the camp look like?
    Were the people dying around?
    Well, you weren't allowed to go out.
    You weren't allowed to go out.
    You were in that barrack.
    And then when we were liberated, those that were able-bodied,
    they let us go to a town near Belsen.
    I really don't know how Belsen--
    I mean I seen it how it looked like.
    But I've seen the pictures--
    I mean I've see when they made the movies, just like you're
    making it now, and the bulldozers
    and all that and the British soldiers.
    But in Belsen, again in Belsen, I
    was only maybe three days before I was liberated.
    So the British came and then--
    Yeah, the British came.
    As a matter of fact, you know, everybody has a different story.
    And that doesn't mean that it's made up.
    It's just different circumstances.
    Ironically enough, just like they
    counted each day, when the British came,
    we were lined up again.
    And they counted us.
    And next to the SS was a British officer.
    And the SS saluted the British officer.
    And he told us in German, you're no longer under German command.
    You are free.
    And then the British officer must
    have read that thing in Polish, because primarily most of them
    are Polish.
    Before I knew it, they started singing, "Roll out the barrel,"
    you know.
    And everybody was free.
    And they all-- they took revenge on the Kapo, some of them.
    Me and some of my friends went to town
    to tell them that the British sent us you should give us food,
    and if not to write down your number.
    I mean we were kids.
    And let's say when I was in Celle,
    I was always like a mascot, hung on to someone older.
    Let's say if they went to see a woman, I waited outside.
    I was too little.
    But the only thing I could say really is like you--
    just like a martian would land on Earth, supposedly,
    and wherever he is he is in a strange terrain, the same thing
    the way I feel.
    Here, at a very early age, at a very young age, I was uprooted.
    And till today, I make these decisions instantly-- not
    that I'm a genius or anything.
    I make it and that's it, and I live with it.
    And whichever it comes out--
    And maybe one day when it's all over, maybe by then,
    I'll meet my father and my mother
    and my brothers and my friends and my teachers and all
    these people from that village.
    And I'll say, well, you see, eventually,
    we all end up in the same place.
    But while we're alive there's a lot of confusion.
    Just briefly tell me the places you went after Bergen-Belsen.
    Oh, my God, let's see.
    OK, from Bergen-Belsen-- OK, from Bergen-Belsen,
    we went to Celle.
    From Celle, I went to Hanover-- always with these older guys.
    By older, I mean maybe four or five years older,
    six years older.
    From Hanover, they had-- like all the Czechs were repatriated.
    So I went with this truck to Czechoslovakia.
    We came to Pilsen, there was women there.
    They hugged us.
    And they cried, oh, my God.
    They had children in the camp.
    So Pilsen, from Pilsen we went to Prague.
    And all these towns, you had Red Cross kitchens always,
    Red Cross kitchens.
    I mean not with a menu.
    But they gave you a bowl of soup.
    And they had a school or whatever where you could sleep,
    you know, or maybe in a railroad depot or station.
    And from there, I went-- from Prague
    I went to Bratislava, from Bratislava to Budapest.
    Now, this is not just like a tour, like an itinerary.
    See, on a train, if you put your foot on it,
    one foot you're already riding.
    There were no tickets.
    There was-- all of Europe was in chaos.
    So you were two months old, you don't remember.
    So in other words-- and all these trains
    were going to Russia with German prisoners, German prisoners
    of war, in German uniforms.
    And to me, there was more than like even finding my family.
    And I enjoyed it so much now it's their turn
    and they're going to jail.
    And they ask me, what's in Germany?
    And I told them, but not sarcastic and not with revenge,
    I told them, I come from Hanover or Celle.
    And how was it?
    Was it bombed?
    But their trains went to Siberia.
    All, wherever you went, all these trains went to Siberia.
    It was all under Russian zone.
    Then I went to this Khust.
    From Khust I went to Sighet.
    That's where Elie Wiesel was born.
    From there, I went to Satu Mare.
    But again, you didn't go like you said, I'm going to go there.
    Two guys said they're going to Sate Mare.
    So you went with them.
    You put your foot on the train, or you
    will landed on the roof of the train, and you were going.
    Were you trying to go home?
    No.
    No.
    I don't know, because in Bucharest they were giving you
    $1 for being in the camp.
    So I'm going to--
    I'm going to get compensated.
    I really didn't know where I was going.
    I am going to look for my family.
    Down deep, if a guy would ask me,
    hey, what happen to your family?
    Most likely they are dead, you know.
    But because all these centers, all these towns, Budapest,
    Bucharest, Sate Mare, Sighet, there were all these people.
    You know what I mean?
    Now ironically-- and maybe you'll
    find someone that is a relative of yours.
    Ironically enough, a man came in to me, a total stranger.
    He described his son.
    And his son was with me in the camp.
    And he said, how do you know?
    And I told him he had a gold tooth.
    Here, he kept it.
    That's my son.
    And I never seen that man before.
    But that son was--
    and the guy was so happy to see, [NON-ENGLISH],, you know.
    But I mean, everybody went looking
    for something that isn't there.
    But they went.
    What is the difference?
    You got nothing here.
    You got nothing there.
    It's like the joke with the social worker.
    The man is signing up to go to New Zealand.
    And the social worker says, why would you want to go so far?
    The guy says, far from what?
    The hell is the difference really.
    After I just told you with eight and five, 13 set of uncles
    and aunts, and no cousins, and no homes,
    what's the difference where you put me?
    You could put me on the moon.
    What's the difference?
    I got no one there, and I got no one here.
    I mean except the new family that I married
    and my children and all that.
    From Sighet you went where?
    Pardon.
    From Sighet, you went where?
    From Sighet, I went to Sate Mare,
    from Satu Mare to Nagyvárad, from there to Bucharest.
    I remember in Bucharest, they had a big wedding.
    And they invited these guys that were left from the camps.
    And to me, it was such a treat because I really
    had a good meal.
    And from Bucharest, we went back to Budapest.
    And from Budapest, clandestine like,
    they carried us to Austria, from Austria to Italy.
    And in Italy, I was two years really ready to come to Israel.
    But Israel was no state.
    And one day, somebody told me that orphans
    can go to the United States.
    And I went to Rome.
    They gave me the address.
    And the social worker from Boston interviewed me.
    And she said, fine, you will go to America.
    See me in a week later.
    I went there in a week later.
    She says, no, you cannot go to America.
    I said, why not?
    They said we found out you were lying.
    Your father is alive.
    Your mother is alive.
    You lie to us.
    And I broke down and cried not because she
    won't let me go to America.
    It just hit me the wrong way.
    She gave me a handkerchief.
    She says, well, we had to do this because there are so
    many kids that have parents.
    And these places are really reserved for kids like you.
    And that's when she signed me up.
    And about a year later--
    and then I went to Paris, not to sightseeing.
    Somebody, they had openings to go to Canada for kids.
    But in Paris, the Canadian Council was very rough.
    They gave me a test to see if I'm nervous.
    And I imagine because of the test to see if I'm nervous,
    they made you spread your hand.
    They put a piece of paper and the paper shook.
    So then they're going to process me to go to Australia.
    While they did that, my visa in Italy came.
    And the social worker called me and said,
    listen, how would you like to go to America?
    I said I really don't care.
    We think you'd be better off in America.
    So they put me on a plane from Paris to Rome.
    From Rome, they instructed me to go to Naples.
    And here I am.
    I hope I find my car, I know where I parked.
    So that's the story.
    Briefly, you have a family now.
    Oh, yeah, I got a very nice family.
    And I'm very, very happy.
    But again, I don't know, all of us are different.
    I still know a lot of what is missing.
    And it's still--
    I don't dwell on it.
    I don't dwell on it.
    I'm in the furniture business.
    If the guy complains about the headboard,
    it's very important to me to satisfy him
    or to be at work on time and the tires should be inflated.
    But it seems something is missing.
    I mean something, in other words,
    instead of me telling you the story,
    I would have liked it much better
    to tell it to my father or my mother or my brother.
    But that's impossible.
    But I'm here to tell what happened.
    There are some people, educated people,
    that write books that it never happened.
    Now, why they want to do that is beyond me.
    I don't know why they could gain by that.
    I don't know why an educated person would deliberately
    want to write a lie.
    That's dumb.
    The least he could do, if he really hates the Jews,
    let him write a book, look, Hitler was right.
    He did the right thing.
    He should have killed all of them.
    But how can he write that it never happened?
    That's what I don't understand either.
    I mean, admit it, fine.
    OK, fine, you hate the Jews.
    So that's your privilege.
    But don't write-- you weren't even there,
    maybe you were even young enough you weren't even born.
    How the heck does he know it didn't happen when here I
    am telling you what happened and the hundreds of people
    and thousands of people?
    We have just a few minutes left.
    Is there anything you want to add?
    Well, I really don't know what to add.
    I just want to add that I hope it never happens again.
    And I hope that anybody that suffers today or tomorrow
    or yesterday, they shouldn't suffer any more.
    And whoever goes hungry, should have something to eat.
    Whether it's Ethiopia or Vietnam or Colombia or Nicaragua,
    or El Salvador, I think we should
    think about our fellow man.
    And this was exploited, the whole thing,
    there was cold blooded exploitation
    by intelligent people, not by Hitler--
    Hitler was a maniac.
    It's smart, intelligent people that went with that program.
    They didn't care.
    They know so and so it's wrong.
    It's like you pay a guy starving wages.
    He's got eight kids.
    So what?
    Let them starve as long as I get what I want.
    I don't know what to add or what to subtract.
    I just-- it's a very sad thing that something
    like that happened.
    OK.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Marton Adler, born in 1929 in Volové, a village in Sub Carpathian Ruthenia (now Mizhhir'ia, Ukraine), describes growing up the oldest child and his two brothers and one sister; his father; the Jewish community in Volové; the Hungarian occupation in 1939; the conscription of his father into a labor unit in Russia from 1941 until the end of 1942; the anti-Jewish laws and his family losing their store; the German occupation in March 1944; being deported with his family to a ghetto in Sokirnitsa, Ukraine; being sent to Auschwitz and the deaths of his mother and siblings; being sent with his father to Buchenwald; being sent to Dora; his father’s death in Dora; and being liberated by the British from Bergen-Belsen.
    [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]
    Interviewee
    Marton Adler
    Date
    interview:  1985 March 08

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Adler, Martin, 1929-

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    University of Michigan-Dearborn
    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The University of Michigan conducted the interview with Martin Adler on March 8, 1985. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Archives Branch received the tapes by transfer from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Oral History Branch in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:18:08
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn511869

    Additional Resources

    Transcript (English)

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us

    Also in Oral history interviews of the University of Michigan-Dearborn Holocaust survivor oral history project

    Twenty-three Holocaust survivors from the Dearborn, Mich., area discuss their experiences during the Holocaust. The interviews were conducted from May 11, 1982, to Jan. 26, 1993.

    Date: 1982-1993

    Oral history interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter

    Oral history interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter

    Oral History

    Dr. Irene Hasenberg Butter, born in Berlin, Germany in 1930, describes moving with her family to Holland, Netherlands in 1937; being deported with her family in June 1943 to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then in February 1944 to Bergen-Belsen; how her family managed to be included in an exchange transport in early 1945 using falsified Ecuadorian passports; the death of her father during the transport; the release of the rest of the family, who went to North Africa; and moving to New York, NY after the war ended.

    Oral history interview with Erna Blitzer Gorman

    Oral history interview with Erna Blitzer Gorman

    Oral History

    Erna Blitzer Gorman, describes her experiences as a child when she and her family were in Poland at the time of the Nazi invasion and were unable to return to their home in France; living in various ghettos; escaping the ghetto; hiding for more than two years in a barn by a Ukrainian farmer until the area was liberated by Russian soldiers.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Kent

    Oral history interview with Ruth Kent

    Oral History

    Ruth Kent, born in 1930 in Łódź, Poland, describes her life before the war; her family; living with her family in the Łódź ghetto until it was liquidated in 1944; being deported to Auschwitz where her family was separated and some family members were immediately put to death; being sent with one of her sisters to Stutthof, where they were later separated; surviving a forced march as the Germans evacuated the camps in the face of the advancing Russian Army; being liberated by the Russians; and reuniting with two brothers after the war.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Lessing

    Oral history interview with Alfred Lessing

    Oral History

    An interview with Alfred Lessing, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, Professor of History at the University of Michigan--Dearborn. Mr. Lessing recalls his experiences living with other families as a hidden child in the Netherlands during the war. He talks about the last year of World War II when he was reunited and lived with his father and brothers

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral History

    Abraham Pasternak, born in Betlan, Romania, relates his experiences in Romania during the Nazi occupation and his internment in several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt, Schlieben (a satellite of Buchenwald), and in Zeitz, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral history interview with Agi Rubin

    Oral History

    Agi Rubin, born in Monkacs, Czechoslovakia (Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes being deported with her family in 1944 to Auschwitz, where her mother and younger brother were killed; working in a sorting shed in the camp until it was evacuated in January 1945; surviving a forced march of several months; being liberated in Germany when she was 15 years old; and reuniting with her father.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Muschkies Webber

    Oral history interview with Ruth Muschkies Webber

    Oral History

    Ruth Muschkies Webber, born on June 28, 1935 in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Poland, describes her childhood; her family’s limited religious observance; the beginning of the war; learning years after the war that her aunt was sexually assaulted during the German invasion; her sister’s piano studies in Warsaw and placement with a Gentile family to continue her education; the creation of a ghetto around 1942; her family attempts at convincing her to hide with a Gentile family and her refusal; her feelings upon seeing the Germans in their town; her parents getting work at the nearby labor facility (Bodzechów camp) and secretly bringing her along; hiding while her parents worked; sneaking out of the camp with her mother during the selections for transfer; her memories of the winter of 1942 and walking all night long so they wouldn’t freeze; her various hiding places; playing with rodents; her daydreams while in hiding; being separated from her father in 1942-43 when she and her mother were sent to Starachowice; witnessing the German camp guards argue over what to do with she and another child and eventually being allowed into the camp; her work in the camp, peeling potatoes and taking messages around the camp; seeing many deaths; the tension and anxiety she felt in the camp; being in Sandomierz concentration camp; returning to Bodzechów; the effects she still feels from her Holocaust experiences; having to internalize all her emotions while she was in the camp; being sent to Ostrowiec concentration camp then Auschwitz; the journey to Auschwitz; arriving in the camp with her mother; going through the showers with the other women and laughing as they left and searched through the available clothing; how they dealt with corpses; teaching each other how to knit; the gas chambers and crematoriums; contracting measles and pneumonia and going to the hospital; the measles epidemic in Auschwitz; the various blocks in the camp; her camp tattoo; living with other children in her block; the twins being taken and returned continuously; her mother being sent away for a few weeks; being liberated by the Russians in January 1945; being in some of the photographs the Russians took; reuniting with her mother and sister in Krakow, Poland; how her relationship with her mother and sister was more complicated after the war; staying in a children’s home with her sister in Bielsko-Biala, Poland; going to Toronto, where they had family; the complexities of speaking about her experiences after the war; finding out about her father’s fate; her thoughts on being one of the few children to survive concentration camps; and her three children.

    Oral history interview with Franka Charlupski

    Oral history interview with Franka Charlupski

    Oral History

    Franka Weintraub Charlupski, born in 1920, describes living with her family in Łódź, Poland; being in the Łódź ghetto from 1940 until August 1944 when they were transported to Auschwitz and separated; the death of her mother Auschwitz; the death of her father in a labor camp; spending three days with her sister in Auschwitz before being moved to a labor camp outside of Bremen, Germany; the closing of the camp on April 7, 1945 and being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; and being liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945.

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral history interview with Emanuel Tanay

    Oral History

    Dr. Emanuel Tanay, born in Vilna, Poland (Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1928, describes living in Miechow, Poland before the war; living in the Miechow ghetto; escaping with his mother and sister just before it was liquidated; how his father did not escape and was later executed by Amon Goeth; spending part of the war living in a monastery as a novice and passing as a converted Jew; and using false Aryan papers as he moved around Poland and Hungary.

    Oral history interview with Stefa Sprecher Kupfer

    Oral history interview with Stefa Sprecher Kupfer

    Oral History

    Stefa (Sarah) Sprecher Kupfer, describes being 10 years old and living in Sanok, Poland when the war started; the death of her father in the early days of the occupation; going into hiding with her mother and young sister instead of registering with the occupational government; how a Polish woman, Mrs. Orlewska, played a significant role in their survival by hiding them in her house; and being aided by other Poles, some of whom knew they were Jews.

    Oral history interview with Shari Weiss

    Oral history interview with Shari Weiss

    Oral History

    Shari Weiss, born on April 28, 1929 in Herina, Romania, describes going to live with an aunt and uncle in Cluj, Romania at age nine; remaining in Cluj until 1944; the German occupation in 1944; being sent to a transit camp in a brick factory for three weeks; being transported in May 1944 to Auschwitz; living in Auschwitz with her aunt stayed for about five months; being transferred with her aunt to a labor camp in Altenburg, Germany; working in a factory until April 1945; being marched out of the camp with the other inmates; being liberated with her aunt by the American army two days later; and learning that her uncle did not survive the war. [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]

    Oral history interview with Leon Salomon

    Oral history interview with Leon Salomon

    Oral History

    Leon Salomon, a born in Maków Mazowiecki, Poland, describes living in Maków Mazowiecki with his family until Poland was occupied by the Germans in 1939; moving with two of his sisters to Kobylnik (Narach, Belarus) to live with their brother; a school teacher who was later killed when the Germans took over the area; the massacre of the town’s Jewish residents by the Germans in a nearby forest in 1942; escaping the shooting and hiding in the forest; being the only member of his immediate family to survive; joining a partisan group fighting in the Vilnius, Lithuania and White Russia area; joining the Soviet Army near the end of the war; and fighting until he was wounded in east Prussia.

    Oral history interview with Alexander Ehrmann

    Oral history interview with Alexander Ehrmann

    Oral History

    Alexander Ehrmann, born in Kralovsky Chlumec, Czechoslovakia (Král'ovský Chlmec, Slovakia), describes his family; being deported with his family to a ghetto in 1944 and then to Auschwitz, where his parents and a sister and her son were killed; being transferred to Warsaw after the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto ended in order to salvage materials from the ghetto; spending five days in Dachau; being transferred to Muhldorf, where the inmates were building an underground aircraft factory; being evacuated from the camp and put on a train; being and moved back and forth in the unoccupied area until they were liberated by American troops; and reuniting with two sisters and his younger brother after the war ended.

    Oral history interview with Hilma Geffen

    Oral history interview with Hilma Geffen

    Oral History

    Hilma Geffen, born in Berlin, Germany in 1925, describes being an only child; her father serving in the German Army during World War I and being awarded the Iron Cross; moving with her family in 1931 to Rangsdorf, Germany, where they were the only Jewish family in town; her father, an accountant, continuing to commute to Berlin for work; how a couple of nights after Kristallnacht SA (Sturmabteilung) men came to the house and smashed the furniture; moving with her family in 1939 to Berlin because Jews could no longer own property; returning home after work in October 1941 and being told by her mother to run away because people were there to pick them up; using false papers and going into hiding; living with a German couple, who knew only that she was Jewish, until the end of the war; immigrating to the United States; living in Miami Beach, FL, where she had relatives; and how her parents were deported to Auschwitz and did not survive the war.

    Oral history interview with Leo Liffman

    Oral history interview with Leo Liffman

    Oral History

    Leo Liffman, born and raised in Wiesbaden, Germany, relates his experiences with antisemitism as a child and young adult during the closing years of the Weimar Republic and the early Hitler years; being arrested during Kristallnacht and imprisoned for several weeks at Buchenwald concentration camp; fleeing Germany in 1939, leaving his parents behind; and being the only member of his family to survive the war.

    Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

    Oral history interview with Helena Manaster

    Oral History

    Helena Manaster, born in Poland, describes being one of eight children, all of whom were adults at the beginning of the war; the separation of her family after the German invasion in 1939; going with her father and several siblings to Lwów, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), which was under Soviet control at the time; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the occupation of Lwów; the deportation of her father and brothers to Belzec, where they died in the gas chambers; being moved with her husband to Lesko, Poland and then Zamosc, Poland; the Germans sending she and her husband to a labor camp in Rokitna because her husband was a doctor; escaping the camp; and making their way to Kraków, Poland, where they remained in hiding until the end of the war.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nathan Offen, Bernard Offen, and Samuel Offen

    Oral history interview with Nathan Offen, Bernard Offen, and Samuel Offen

    Oral History

    The Offen brothers, Nathan (born December 15, 1922), Bernard (born April 17, 1929), and Samuel (born August 7, 1921), describe growing up in Kraków, Poland; the beginning of the war and life in the Kraków ghetto; being sent to the Płaszów labor camp; Bernard describes being transported with other children out of camp Płaszów, escaping, and being smuggled into another sub-camp to be with an uncle; reuniting as a family at Płaszów; being transported to Mauthausen; the separation of Bernard and his father from Sam and Nathan; the transfer of Sam and Nathan to Auschwitz; the death of their father in Auschwitz; Sam and Nathan going to Italy after the war ended; and Bernard finding his brothers in Italy. [Full transcripts available at http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/]

    Oral history interview with Marton Adler

    Oral history interview with Marton Adler

    Oral History

    Marton Adler, born in 1929 in Volové, a village in Sub Carpathian Ruthania (possibly Mizhhir'ya, Ukraine), describes being the oldest of his two brothers and sister; the Hungarian occupation of his village in 1939; the conscription of his father into a labor unit in Russia from 1941 until the end of 1942; how the family eventually lost their store due to the anti-Jewish laws; the German occupation of the area in March of 1944 and being deported with his family soon after; being sent first to a ghetto in Sokirnitsa (Sokyrnytsia), Ukraine and then to Auschwitz, where his mother and siblings were gassed; being sent with his father to Buchenwald and then to Dora, where his father was killed; and being liberated by the British from Bergen-Belsen.

    Oral history interview with Nathan Roth

    Oral history interview with Nathan Roth

    Oral History

    Nathan Roth, born in Veliky Bereznyy, Czechoslovakia (Velykyĭ Bereznyĭ, Ukraine), describes being deported with his mother, father, and eight siblings to the ghetto in Ungvár (Uzhhorod, Ukraine) in 1944 after the German annexation of his town; the split up of his family; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then to Jaworzno, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; working for I.G. Farben at Jaworzno on an excavation project; being liberated by the Russians while on a death march following the evacuation of the Jaworzno camp; returning to Veliky Bereznyy after the war; and immigrating to the United States in 1949.

    Oral history interview with Zolton Rubin

    Oral history interview with Zolton Rubin

    Oral History

    Zolton Rubin, born in Kapúsány, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), describes being the youngest child in a large family of eight sons and three daughters; how his family was fairly well off since his father owned a large farm and several mills; being protected with his parents from deportation because of an economic exemption until 1942 when the exemption was eliminated and his parents were deported; avoiding deportation because he used Gentile papers given to him by friends; being captured with a group of partisans in 1944 and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Jena, Germany, where he was part of a forced labor detail digging tunnels for the Germans; escaping towards the end of the war with three others and living off the land for about six weeks until the American Army arrived in the area; and reuniting with an older brother, who was a doctor with the Czechoslovakian Army.

    Oral history interview with Martin Schlanger

    Oral history interview with Martin Schlanger

    Oral History

    Martin Shlanger was born in Vel'ke Kapusany, Czechoslovakia (Velké Kapušany, Slovakia), describes moving to Budapest, Hungary in 1942 to work in a factory; the German occupation of Budapest in March 1944; acquiring false papers but being identified soon after as a Jew and arrested; being sent to Jaworzno, a sub-camp of Auschwitz; surviving a death march to Blechhammer in 1945 as the Russian Army invaded the area; hiding when the Germans left Blechhammer and being left behind at the camp and eventually encountering the Soviet Army; reuniting for a short time with his brother, who was serving with the Czechoslovak Brigade in the Soviet Army; and returning to his hometown where he lived until 1949 when he immigrated to Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral history interview with Abraham Pasternak

    Oral History

    Abraham Pasternak, born in 1924 in Beclean, Romania, describes his parents and siblings; the religious practices in his family; the Jewish community; the Hungarian occupation; restrictions placed on Jews; being forced out of Beclean and sent to Daiysh (possibly Dej, Romania); the forcing of Jewish men to shave off their beards; being sent to Auschwitz and life there; being sent to Schlieben and his work there; his work in Zeitz, Germany (Tröglitz concentration camp); being sent to Buchenwald for two months; being separated from his brothers; life in Buchenwald; religious practices in the camp; being beaten by a SS woman; food rations in the camp; life in Theresienstadt and reuniting with his brothers; liberation; returning to Beclean; going to Hungary and then the United States; and settling in Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Szymon Binke

    Oral history interview with Szymon Binke

    Oral History

    Szymon Binke, born in 1931 in Łódź, Poland, describes how shortly after the Nazi invasion his family was moved to the city's Baluty district, which became the Łódź ghetto; being deported with his family in 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where his mother and sister were gassed; being placed in the Kinderblock; escaping from the Kinderblock to join his father and uncles in the main camp of Auschwitz; and being transferred later to a series of forced labor camps until he was liberated in May 1945.

    Oral history interview with Noemi Engel Ebenstein

    Oral history interview with Noemi Engel Ebenstein

    Oral History

    Noemi Engel Ebenstein, born in 1941, retells the stories told to her by her mother about how the family survived the Holocaust; the deportation of her father being to a forced labor camp when she was a baby; being deported in May 1944 with her brother and mother from Subotica, Yugoslavia to several camps; going to Strasshof labor camp; and being sent to Moosbierbaum, where she and her family were liberated by the Soviet Army.

    Oral history interview with Alexander Karp

    Oral history interview with Alexander Karp

    Oral History

    Alexander Karp, born in Baktaloranthaza, Hungary, describes moving into the Kisvarda ghetto with his mother and 15 year old sister in 1944 when he was about 19 years old; the arrest of his father in Russia in 1942 and how they did not know if he was alive or dead; being transported with his family to Birkenau, where he was separated from his mother and sister; spending four months with an uncle in Birkenau; how he and his uncle claimed to be tool and die makers and were sent to several different camps; eventually ending up at an underground airplane factory in the Kochendorf area (Bad Friedrichshall, Germany); being evacuated in March 1945 to Dachau and then to Mittenwald, Germany, where they were liberated; and being reunited with his father in August 1945.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Klein and Emery Klein

    Oral history interview with Bernard Klein and Emery Klein

    Oral History

    Bernard and Emery Klein, brothers born in Humenné, Slovakia, describe their immediate family, including their parents and younger sister; the German occupation in 1939 and the deportations of Jews in 1941; how their family was not deported until 1944 because their father was an important farming advisor; Emery being sent with the family to Auschwitz without Bernard, who had become separated; the immediate gassing of their mother and sister; Bernard being reunited with his brother and father at Auschwitz a month later; being sent with their father to Gleiwitz, where Emery and his father worked in a factory while Bernard worked in the concentration camp kitchen; the evacuation of the camp in 1945 as the Russian Army advanced into the area and being sent to Blechhammer; how the German guards fled the camp, leaving the prisoners; walking with their father and several others back to Humenné; moving to Israel and Montreal, Canada; and eventually going to Detroit, MI.

    Oral history interview with Michael Weiss

    Oral history interview with Michael Weiss

    Oral History

    Michael Weiss, born in Kascony, Czechoslovakia, chronicles his experiences under the Czechoslovakians, Hungarians, and Germans, both prior to and during World War II; being transported with his family to the Hungarian ghetto of Beregszasz (Berehove, Ukraine) in 1944; being deported with his family to Auschwitz, where his mother was gassed by the Germans; and being sent with his father to Buchenwald and then on to Zeitz, Germany.

    Oral history interview with Manya Feldman

    Oral history interview with Manya Feldman

    Oral History

    Manya Feldman, born in Dombrovitsa, Poland (Dubrovytsia, Ukraine) in 1923, describes her large Orthodox family; the Soviet occupation of her town in 1939; the German invasion in 1941; how the Jews in Dombrovitsa immediately felt the effects of the German’s antisemitic measures; the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1942; escaping with her father, brother, and eldest sister into the forest; the deportation of her mother and her two sisters to Sarny, Ukraine, where they were murdered; joining the Kovpak partisan movement with her family; being separated from her family and spending the remainder of the war hiding in several small villages in the region and serving in different partisan units; the death of her father and siblings in combat; being placed in a displaced persons camp in Berlin, Germany following the end of the war; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with David Kahan

    Oral history interview with David Kahan

    Oral History

    Born in 1928, in Gheorgheni, Romania, David Kahan was part of a large extended family, consisting of his mother, father, several siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. In April 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary and immediately began the full-scale persecution of Hungarian Jewry. The Kahan family was detained by Hungarian Gendarmerie and placed in a school room for several days. After their initial detainment, the family was shipped to an ad hoc ghetto in Szaszregen (Reghin, Romania). The family remained incarcerated in a brick factory in Szaszregen for approximately four weeks. They were then shipped to Auschwitz. Upon arrival in Auschwitz, David was separated from his family, who were gassed, and David was shaved, deloused, and held for future use on work details. Of the camp itself, David remembers very few details. After approximately four weeks, David was shipped to the Mühldorf labor camp in Southern Germany. While there, David worked for Organization Todt, clearing trees for the construction of an underground airplane factory. David contacted typhus after he was liberated and was hospitalized in the displaced persons camp at Feldafing. Following his recovery, David showed no desire to return to Romania and made his way to the United States, arriving in New York in May 1949. From New York, David moved to Minneapolis and eventually made his way to Detroit around 1950. He married in 1953 and had three sons.

    Oral history interview with Henry Krystal

    Oral history interview with Henry Krystal

    Oral History

    Henry Krystal, born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1925, describes the escape of his brother and father to the Soviet occupied zone of Poland shortly after the Nazi invasion while he and his mother stayed in Bodzentyn, Poland; being sent to a labor camp in 1942; his mother’s deportation to Treblinka, where she died; being a member of a labor Kommando sent from place to place, including Starachowice, Bobrek, Birkenau, Siemensstadt, and Sachsenhausen, from 1942 until the end of the war; working in a factory operated by the Siemens company; being in the city of Schwerin (Skwierzyna, Poland) in the British occupied zone of Germany at the end of the war; immigrating to the United States in 1947; settling in Detroit, MI, where he lived with an aunt and uncle; and attending school and becoming a psychiatrist.

    Oral history interview with Rene Lichtman

    Oral history interview with Rene Lichtman

    Oral History

    Rene Lichtman, born in Paris, France in 1937, describes being the only son of Polish immigrants who arrived in France in the 1930s; his father joining the French Army shortly before the outbreak of World War II; the death of his father while in combat just outside of Paris in Compiègne; how after the fall of France his mother sent him to stay with a family in the countryside, where he was kept hidden from the Germans for the remainder of the war; his mother going into hiding in Paris in 1942; the survival of he and his mother and the death of most of his maternal and paternal family members in Poland; and his mother’s marriage in 1950 to an American Orthodox Jew, after which the two moved from France to Williamsburg, NY.

    Oral history interview with Jack Gun

    Oral history interview with Jack Gun

    Oral History

    Jack Gun, born in Rozhishche, Poland (Rozhyshche, Ukraine), describes living in Rozhishche with his father, mother, older brother, and sister; the annexation of Rozhishche to Ukraine by the Soviets at the outbreak of the war in September 1939; how after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 his family was forced into the ghetto and were used as forced laborers; the liquidation of the ghetto in August of 1942 and the murder of his father, mother, and sister; fleeing with his brother and receiving help from their father's non-Jewish friend; how upon this man's urging he and his brother hid first in the woods and then in a bunker they dug in a field; several near-misses with the occupation authorities; and hiding in a non-Jewish Ukrainian household, where they remained until the Russians liberated Ukraine in 1944.

    View All 34 Items in the Collection