Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Ralph Altman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.0503 | RG Number: RG-50.152.0001

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 Ralph Altman
    Transcript
    My full name is Ralph Altman--
    A-L-T-M-A-N.
    A-L-T-M-A-N. And how old are you now, Ralph?
    I'm going to be in a few months 70.
    OK.
    Could I have your address before anything else?
    62 Ridge Avenue.
    R-I-C-H?
    R-I-D-G-E.
    Ridge.
    R-I-D--
    That's where my accent comes.
    --G-E. Ridge Avenue.
    Avenue.
    Central Islip, New York.
    Islip is I-S-L-I-P?
    Correct.
    And what is the zip, please?
    11722.
    OK.
    First things, could I see your arm a moment?
    Yes, surely.
    OK.
    Could you read off the number?
    86693.
    Is there anything symbolic about that number,
    or was it given to you at random?
    No, it was given in sequence.
    In sequence.
    So I was registered below the first 100,000 Jewish prisoners
    in Auschwitz.
    In Auschwitz.
    And from what year to what year were you there?
    I got to Auschwitz six weeks after my arrest.
    Not six weeks.
    No, two weeks after my arrest.
    Three weeks later, on the 12th of January 1943.
    How were you discovered?
    In what year were you liberated, please?
    What year were you liberated?
    January the 27th, 1945.
    Now, going to Lori's question, how were you arrested?
    Well, the Jewish community in Berlin
    put together the transports, the lists.
    Of course, they know where we live.
    We were all registered.
    We walked around with a Jewish star, all those things
    that are quite well known.
    But we still lived in Berlin in our apartments.
    We had to perform work.
    Those who didn't work, they were already
    deported maybe a year, maybe a year and a half
    before, sometimes two years before.
    Since my father worked for the Siemens company
    and I worked for a electro-metal company,
    we made products for airplanes, so we stayed in Berlin.
    In a house, we lived in a tenement house with Gentiles.
    We were the only Jewish family in this house.
    And we had a Jewish star on our door.
    We had a curfew, all those restrictions, of course.
    We only could use public transportation
    if we lived more than two miles from our residence,
    and we needed a permit from the board of transportation
    to use the public transportation,
    but only going to work.
    But we used it for other purposes too.
    They didn't look that close.
    You flashed that thing, and nobody
    looked you're going from this station to this station,
    whatever.
    And the Jewish communities had the registration where we lived
    and everything, and they were ordered by the Gestapo
    to put the transport together.
    This was one of the ingenious--
    I say ingenious, it was really quite an accomplishment
    to do this with only a handful of Gestapo personnel,
    to do those huge deportations.
    So on the 20th of December, which was a Sunday,
    Sunday we were off.
    And we just were sitting around our home
    when there was a knock on the door.
    Two Jewish-- we called them-- they were called Ordnens,
    so keep order so to speak of.
    And we were told that in about four hours,
    they're going to come and pick us up.
    They gave us four hours, and then they
    picked us up and took us to a point of concentration
    in Berlin, a Jewish old age home, which we just
    visited last year.
    It's in East Berlin, and they have a memorial there.
    And as a matter of fact, this was
    one of the anniversaries of the first deportation,
    so they had flowers and a wreath from the president
    of the German Republic.
    Anyhow, since four days later was Christmas and then
    New Years, the transport did not leave until the 9th of January.
    And in three days--
    it took three days to get us to Auschwitz in the trains--
    the infamous cattle train, 70 to--
    about 70 to a wagon that was locked.
    And we had a bucket for our bodily functions.
    And then three days later, the doors opened,
    and we were in Auschwitz.
    Did anybody try to escape on the way there?
    No.
    It was very hard.
    You would have to really dismantle
    one of the wooden planks of the cattle cars.
    But it was done.
    Not on my transport, but I know somebody
    who did, a friend of mine, and who went,
    who jumped off the train, went back to Berlin.
    He had a German girlfriend whose parents hid him out
    until the end of the war, and he married the young lady later on.
    So anyhow, we got to Auschwitz on the ramp,
    and then you know the story.
    You line up, and left, right, right, left, whatever.
    From the transport of 1,700 people,
    125 were selected to work, the very young ones.
    You had to be at a certain age.
    Women and children had no chance.
    And my father had no chance.
    He was 65 at that time.
    How old were you?
    I was 20.
    No, I was precisely 19.
    What was the--
    I was-- no, I was-- wait a moment.
    Sure.
    For a moment.
    20-- 18.
    I was 18.
    18, right.
    There were babies there too, weren't they?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    How were they-- they were selected
    to go to a children's camp?
    No, no.
    They were selected left, right, you were at the ramp.
    An SS officer divided you.
    You had to tell him how old you are and any skills or whatever.
    And then he said over there, and women and children,
    they went over the other side.
    And they went on trucks to the gas chambers,
    which was about two mile or mile and a half within the compound
    of the so-called Birkenau camp.
    What did you tell them, that you were proficient in a skill?
    Yeah, I said I'm a machinist.
    And so that's how I--
    19.
    I got to go back again.
    I was 20.
    20.
    OK.
    I just had celebrated, if you can call it celebration,
    my 20th birthday in November.
    The 3rd, my mother's birthday was November the 30ths,
    and December the 23rd we were picked up.
    What was a typical day in the camp like for you?
    Well, I went from Auschwitz--
    or they sent us from the 125, 110
    went to a small camp, Golleschau,
    which was a cement factory 45 miles from Auschwitz.
    It was a small camp, only 500 people.
    And I worked in the quarry gang.
    We broke stones.
    We got up early in the morning, and we went to work,
    and we went back home, back home, back to camp,
    and got our rations and went to sleep.
    So there was very little other activities.
    You did your work.
    The critical month, it's like basic training.
    The critical time was the first three months.
    If you made the transition from, quote,
    unquote, "civilian to animal" or subhuman being, which
    that's what they considered us.
    And then you said to yourself, well, this is it.
    That war is not going to last forever,
    and we're going to outlive you bastards.
    That's right.
    So we had that determination.
    And most of us who survived the first three months
    had now a shot of making it further, unless you got sick.
    I had the misfortune to have the typhoid fever.
    It could not be hidden anymore.
    The foreman from my job, the kapo,
    he was a Jewish boy from Paris, one of the most brutal people
    that existed in this camp Golleschau,
    he killed many, many people.
    He was Jewish.
    Yeah.
    He was like a trustee.
    Correct.
    And pronounced-- how did you pronounce--
    He was not a kapo, actually.
    He was a foreman.
    Kapo--
    Kapo you would pronounce C-A-P-O.
    Which would mean?
    In charge of a detail.
    Detail, OK.
    But he was just a foreman, and we didn't have
    any Jewish Kapos at that camp.
    But nevertheless, I think that he
    killed more people in Golleschau than anybody else.
    What was his name?
    Do you remember?
    Gabriel Lipschitz.
    What happened to him?
    He got with his buddy George, who also was a killer--
    a little less than Gabriel, if this is any consolation--
    but they both were convicted after the war in Paris
    and served life in prison.
    And to my knowledge, they were not--
    Executed.
    Pardoned.
    Or because of their youth, they were not executed.
    But they got life in prison, and this is authentic.
    I don't know if they died in prison
    or they got out after 25 years.
    The ironic thing is that Gabriel saved my life twice,
    maybe three times.
    To me, he was very good.
    It doesn't diminish the fact that I would
    have testified against him.
    How was he good to you?
    Well, I don't know how he took to me,
    but he sort of protected me a couple
    of times when things got rough.
    And so he saved my life.
    At one time, let's say there was a--
    we stole of potatoes.
    And we had a way of cooking those potatoes.
    A civilian helped us.
    It's a long story.
    I'm not going into it.
    I mean, we had potatoes-- period, two or three potatoes--
    life-saving.
    And all the civilian told us is to get rid
    of any peels or any residue of the potatoes.
    We didn't know that we could have eaten them.
    We could have eaten the peels like we do now.
    Yes.
    We didn't know it at this time.
    So I had some in my pocket when we walked into the camp.
    And we were searched.
    And to my luck-- otherwise I could not talk to you now--
    the guy who searched me was Gabriel.
    And he said with his German--
    that French-accented German when he found it, how could you?
    I said, well, how could you?
    It's there.
    I mean, it happened.
    So I put it back--
    he put it back in my pocket and didn't report me.
    And if he had reported me, I would not
    sit here and talk to you.
    Were there many Jewish traitors like him?
    Yes.
    There were?
    Yes.
    There were collaborators.
    Collaborators.
    Not everybody was a jealous sadist like this boy.
    Some collaborated out of necessity.
    I will not condemn anybody who did unless it's
    a Gabriel, a murderer.
    Right.
    Quote, unquote, "outright."
    I never was in a position high enough
    in the hierarchy of the prisoners to be a collaborator.
    How I would have reacted, I don't know.
    Honestly, I don't know.
    There was a TV movie done with Richard Widmark and Gary Merrill
    about a Korean soldier, a lieutenant who got into a POW
    camp in Korea, and he signed some documents or whatever,
    what they wanted him to do.
    His father was a general.
    And when he came home and was court-martialed,
    his father said, how could you?
    He says, dad, they gave me a piece of stale bread,
    and they gave me a blanket with stench of urine,
    and I thought I had a bargain.
    And nobody but I could say that he told the truth.
    And nobody can say--
    you know, we have this stupid code we had--
    it's not anymore in effect--
    that you cannot give them anything but rank and serial
    number.
    This is very nice to say this in Washington.
    But in the real world--
    But in the real world, it's a little different.
    So who came up with that stupid thing,
    I think it was Eisenhower.
    I think it's ridiculous, not even worthwhile discussing.
    Idiots made this law that was revised eventually.
    Tell them anything you want.
    There's more people who tell them, you want me to sign here?
    I sign.
    It's less value the confession has.
    That's right today, of course.
    We learned that during the Vietnam War.
    Right.
    So there's absolutely-- but again, I
    say I was never in a position.
    Now, the camp is itself administered by the SS.
    There were very, very few SS officers who administered--
    who was in charge of administration.
    The guards were mostly Ukrainians, Latvians, and
    Lithuanians who were competing in cruelty
    with the Ukrainians taking the prize of first among equals.
    That is not to say that there were not some decent Ukrainians
    in Ukraine who saved Jews.
    There were.
    But as a whole, they applauded.
    They applauded when they saw Jews in--
    in Ukraine.
    So you got to tell the truth.
    OK.
    The prison, the camps itself were administered strictly
    by prisoners.
    Auschwitz started as a Polish camp only for Gentile Poles.
    And you had it very rough the first two years.
    The survival rate wasn't--
    was very minimal.
    They were greatly mistreated by German SS.
    Then when Auschwitz became the extermination
    camp it was designed to perform, those Polish prisoners who
    had survived by that time, some with a number below 100,
    they were there from the beginning,
    they got all the good jobs while they transported
    100 German prisoners from German concentration camps
    to Auschwitz, and they were mostly Kapos, detail leaders
    and block chiefs.
    So the entire camp was in the hands of prisoners.
    In order to survive in Auschwitz,
    you had to know people. , Now coming back,
    I was as I said in Golleschau on a quarry gang.
    My fortune was at that point that Gabriel was my foreman.
    And I said to him, look, I feel dizzy.
    He said, sit down.
    Don't worry about it.
    And I marched out for three days, and I didn't work.
    Gabriel let me sit down.
    And then I'm burning up with fever.
    I had no choice but go to the infirmary.
    My infirmary, I say it was less than Northshore University
    Hospital.
    And I was admitted.
    And 10 days later, I was sent to Auschwitz as incurable,
    meaning to the gas chambers.
    Most of the people who went from Golleschau back to Auschwitz
    aren't able to walk, they're gassed.
    Again, people fell through the crack,
    and two people that I know went from Golleschau to Auschwitz
    and survived.
    And then third-- me.
    We got there late at night.
    There were a couple of guys there
    and a shower, a couple of Polish Jews.
    I never seen them again.
    And they took me to another barrack,
    and I was admitted to a ward for diagnostic purposes
    as the only Jew among Poles.
    So again, I say that not all the trustees and all the prisoners
    that had good jobs, they are collaborators.
    Some did use their good offices to the better of their people.
    Anyhow, I was in this hospital now,
    and I were there for October, November, December 3 months.
    By that time, I had no more temperature.
    Did you ever see that doctor who did the experiments?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    His name was Walter--
    no, not Mengele.
    I seen Mengele, yes, a couple of times.
    But absolutely no contact with him.
    Mengele was only notorious for his eccentricity.
    The other camp doctors were not any better than him.
    You know, everybody knows Mengele,
    but there are other Mengeles in the camps.
    Anyhow, the Polish doctor who did those castrations
    and those horrible operations and those selections
    was Dr. Walter Dering, a Polish-German doctor.
    And he was released in 1943--
    at the end of '43, and he became--
    they released him, and he joined the Polish army
    under General Anders and fought against the Germans
    in World War II.
    He was eventually caught in England and imprisoned.
    And Leon Uris wrote this famous book QB VII about him.
    Did you read this book?
    No.
    Got to read the book.
    It's a fantastic book, and it's true, everything in that book.
    Well, could you repeat the title again?
    QB VII.
    QB VII is the name of the district court or the courtroom,
    was QB VII, where the trial took place.
    The trial was about this.
    Leon Uris wrote a book, in Exodus,
    and he talked about this Polish doctor.
    I wanted to ask you, were there any good Germans?
    Not in Auschwitz.
    Not that any I knew.
    None.
    Sadistic?
    Well, not everybody was-- no, no, no.
    See, we have the idea--
    just let me just finish that from QB VII.
    Leon Uris wrote about this man, and he was at this time
    practicing in London.
    And he had to sue Leon Uris for defamation of character.
    Can you believe that?
    Well, you know, Leon Uris was found guilty
    and sentenced to pay one penny in damages.
    OK.
    All right.
    That's fine.
    I met Leon Uris a couple of years ago.
    He gave a speech in one of our local temples,
    and we talked about this, and it's quite emotional.
    OK, aside from this, now, what was your question, please?
    In terms of Germans, were there any good ones?
    Let me tell you, I would be the last to be a defense
    counsel for the Germans.
    They don't need me.
    In Auschwitz, the regular Auschwitz SS,
    I didn't find any good ones.
    I only found bad ones.
    But in Berlin, beginning of the war,
    beginning of the persecution, there were about 12,000
    to 14,000 Jews living underground in Berlin
    without papers, without anything.
    For every German-- for every Jew,
    there had to be at least 10 Germans who
    were involved in saving this particular man or family.
    If it meant a dentist to give a filling,
    if it meant a surgeon to perform an appendectomy on a kitchen
    table, Germans to give food--
    let's say you were hiding me out.
    You're a nice fellow.
    You sympathize, and your daughters sympathize
    and everything, and now her boyfriend is an ardent Nazi.
    So he comes to stay the weekend with you, so I have to leave.
    So you have to find somebody else to take over the hiding.
    And 4,000 or 5,000 survived.
    The others got caught and some with bad repercussions
    for their--
    for the people that hid them out, were hiding them out.
    So there were plenty of good Germans in Berlin
    who tried to help, who did not agree with those mass killings.
    But SS, the name SS meant that this was their vocation.
    Now, they were not--
    I'm not talking about the GI Joe or the kapo who
    let his sadistic feelings go wild and got maybe
    another week's furlough because he killed two people trying,
    quote, unquote, "to escape" or whatever.
    We are talking about the murderers,
    they were sitting on their desks.
    The Germans had a name for this--
    Schreibtischmorder.
    They were sitting, murdering at their desk,
    signing orders and so on and so forth.
    You used a German word a few minutes ago.
    What's that word?
    Schreibtisch, which is a writing desk.
    Writing desk, OK.
    And Morder is self-explanatory.
    Murder, yes.
    People-- yes?
    Did you learn German right away or?
    No, I was born in Berlin.
    Uh-huh
    So.
    You have to adopt to the language, though?
    No, I was born in Berlin.
    This was-- German is my language.
    Natural language.
    I went to German schools.
    German is my language.
    So coming back to this, if you've seen Hogan's Heroes,
    you think they were all--
    Clowns.
    Clowns and idiots.
    Far, far from it.
    We were invited back in 1940--
    1974 to Berlin by the Berlin Senate.
    They invited everybody back.
    Not at that particular time.
    Invitations are still going on.
    So the mayor gave us a dinner.
    He later became ambassador to the United States.
    He was ambassador to Israel too, then, eventually.
    And he asked me my impressions, and ba-ba,
    and so on and so forth, my first time in Berlin after 30 years
    and--
    29 years.
    And I said, somehow, Mr. Mayor, I cannot help to think that
    the same efficiency that was applied to make this trip
    of ours successful was also applied to get the trains
    to Auschwitz on time, 1943 and 1944.
    In a bombed out Germany, this was quite a feat, quite
    a feat of efficiency.
    He said, you're right.
    But he said, I didn't kill anybody.
    I said, no.
    If I knew this, I wouldn't have come back to Berlin.
    This is a new generation.
    I have absolutely no animosity to anybody here.
    We had seen a documentary now with Rolf Mengele,
    Mengele's son, who's was a lawyer in Stuttgart--
    or Frankfurt.
    And he talks very nice.
    I got no-- no beef with Rolf Mengele.
    That's not his fault that his father was the notorious,
    infamous Dr. Mengele.
    But he knew where his father was hiding.
    I didn't expect him to give out his father.
    No, no.
    Even under those circumstances?
    No, not under any circumstances.
    I cannot blame him for this.
    As a matter of fact, the granddaughter of one
    of the commanders who was on trial in 1965 wrote a book,
    and that she cannot sit with her grandfather at the same table,
    thinking what he did.
    And she was an American, very intelligent young lady.
    She was on some talk shows, and it was very
    interesting to talk to her.
    He was on 60 Minutes too.
    Some of the children of the commanders of the SS.
    Now, Bormann's son became a priest.
    So-- OK, now what are your questions?
    Can you describe the room you stayed in?
    The room where we stayed in?
    Room that you stayed in at night where you slept?
    The first night in Auschwitz?
    Yes.
    It was a washroom, the laundry room.
    Was a little wet on the floor.
    And that was the first night.
    I remember I took off my coat.
    I said, tomorrow begins a very rough day for me,
    so I might as well get a night's sleep.
    And I put that coat on the floor,
    and I slept the night until they woke us up the next morning.
    And our day began.
    The first day in Auschwitz began.
    How many others were in the room with you?
    125.
    Were they men and women?
    No.
    Just men.
    Men and women were strictly separated,
    as I told in the beginning, at the ramps.
    When we got there.
    Why was that?
    Were there any particular reason besides dividing up the sexes?
    No, for one thing, the women and children
    went to the gas chambers immediately.
    They did.
    There was no--
    From our transport, no women were selected to work.
    On other transports, yes, because they had a woman camp,
    a women camp in Auschwitz, several.
    But especially from the Hungarian transports in '44,
    when they needed more workers for their factories
    in Auschwitz, they selected more women,
    and they extended the age limit.
    When I got there, the age limit was something like 24, 25
    or a young-looking 28.
    But this was extended a little bit as more workers were needed.
    Women and men were strictly separated, different camps.
    You can-- there was no way--
    Of course, wherever there are walls,
    there are cracks in the walls.
    I'm sure that somebody had sex in Auschwitz.
    I do not know of any, but I'm sure there were.
    I'm--
    What was your first feeling when you entered this room?
    The first feeling?
    You know, it's very interesting that you ask that.
    And I remember this very vividly,
    even though that took place almost 50 years ago, 49.5 years
    to be precise.
    I had a fierce determination that I am going to make it.
    I'll see those bastards hanging.
    And I was young, and I never was anything in life yet.
    So I said, I'm going to make it.
    For somebody like my father was a teacher, a respected member
    of his community, the transition between civilian life
    and Auschwitz life was probably too much.
    Not many made it.
    They crumbled.
    And once you crumbled--
    That was the end.
    That was the end.
    You give up your self-respect, your dignity.
    But there is some pride that they cannot take from you.
    Now, for amusement, the guards used to--
    they used to throw cigarette butts at us,
    and people dove for them, for a cigarette.
    I never did this.
    I'm not going to pat myself on the back
    and say that I'm one in a million.
    No.
    I took-- when somebody handed me a cigarette, I took it.
    But I wouldn't dive for it.
    Somebody'd throw a piece of bread into--
    everybody-- I would not give them
    that show or that satisfaction.
    Did you ever see anyone die right in front of you?
    Yes, yes.
    Some people, yeah.
    Well, some people were shot out right.
    Trying to escape was a very favorite sport of the guards.
    Because they caught somebody escaping, shooting him,
    they got extra rations or vacation.
    God knows what.
    So--
    Excuse me.
    Did they take all your belongings?
    Yeah.
    Is that what happened when you got there?
    All our belongings.
    They were left-- our belongings were left in the wagons.
    Because they told us, come down.
    We're going to give you the baggage later.
    And they were sorted another work detail.
    And they sent back to Germany usable items--
    shoes, good clothing.
    Of course many valuables, there were all details
    that nothing else but ripped up coats and heels of shoes
    to find valuables.
    And with success, I might add.
    In heels of shoes they were trying to hide?
    Mhm.
    So they knew exactly where to look at all times, of course.
    Yeah.
    So then we were separate from our clothes that we wore.
    And we were handed the infamous pajamas with this little hat.
    And we were shorn.
    And a fellow friend of mine who survived with me,
    we are very close friends.
    He looked at me, I looked at him,
    and we both started laughing.
    He said to me, you look like a billiard ball.
    Oh, at least you still had your sense of humor.
    Another thing-- sense of humor.
    I think this was one of the number one reasons of survival,
    that we retained a sense of humor,
    that we told jokes, that we did sing in Auschwitz,
    and that we believed that the war is ending very, very soon.
    In 1943, they made some swimming pools in Auschwitz
    under the pretext, this is water for fire, we get bombed
    or whatever.
    But we used the swimming pool, the swimming pool,
    and we laughed.
    We said, take a look what they do.
    They make swimming pools.
    In a couple of weeks, it's going to be over.
    If we would have known how long it takes,
    we would not have survived.
    It was hope.
    - Did you know that the women and the children
    were going to the concentration camp--
    I mean to be killed?
    - Gas chambers?
    Yes.
    We knew this the first--
    they talked.
    They told us.
    Well, everybody realized.
    They did-- they did tell you?
    I didn't think they--
    No, the prisoners told us.
    Oh, the prisoners did tell you.
    Some did it mockingly.
    Yes.
    You know, your parents are up the chimney,
    or you're fried or whatever they called it.
    I thought they didn't know at all.
    In Auschwitz.
    In Auschwitz, they did tell you.
    Yes.
    Because you could see fire.
    You could see.
    But then he knew before they were ever arrested.
    Well, I knew what happened.
    I listened to broadcasts, and I knew what was going to happen,
    but I never would have left my parents by themselves.
    Do you blame the United States for not coming to the rescue?
    No, no, no, no, no.
    I don't.
    Mhm.
    They fought the war.
    The Jews were incidental towards the war.
    That's your feeling?
    Do you think that's correct?
    They should have done more.
    All right.
    I would have made an excellent American soldier
    if they would have let me into their country in, let's say,
    1938.
    I blame much more Canada and Australia,
    who only took handfuls in the vast Australian continent.
    The sad fact is that nobody wanted us.
    And then when Himmler offered the Jews immigration,
    any country, you want to take them, here they are.
    And then he said, well, see, nobody wanted you.
    And that was a valid excuse that he had,
    because nobody wanted it.
    They made a very famous song "tell me, where can I go,"
    if you know the song.
    There's no place I can stay
    Where to go.
    Where to go
    Every door is closed to me
    To the left to the right
    Well, whatever.
    Yes.
    That's the song that nobody wanted us.
    Denmark was very good to the Jews.
    They evacuated 6,000 of them to Sweden and saved them.
    Because in 1943--
    I think it was October--
    a German diplomat blew the whistle
    that they are about to be picked up,
    and they hid them out and ferried them over
    on the risk of their lives to Sweden.
    Of course, somebody-- some of those Danes
    also did it for money, but most of them
    did it for goodness of their heart.
    But they didn't let in any Jewish immigrants.
    Switzerland, very few.
    France, England?
    Well, we knew.
    So of course, their excuse--
    the lifeboat is full.
    But they could have done of course much, much more.
    The Scots, not even worthwhile discussing.
    Let's go back to the beginning, when this first
    started with Kristallnacht and so forth and so on.
    Yeah.
    Did the Jewish people make a mistake somewhere along the line
    to prevent--
    that could have prevented Hitler?
    No, the Jews were in such a minority.
    The same thing that we speak much too much
    of the Jewish influence in America.
    We have much, much less influence
    than most people think.
    Like the cliche the Jews got the money.
    In other words, the Irish and Italians,
    they throw it right in the garbage.
    It's nonsense.
    It's folklore.
    We don't have that much influence at all.
    If we had this much influence, then Israel
    would have gotten their $10 billion loan guarantees.
    Now, I'm not saying they should have gotten it or whatever,
    but if we were that influential here in America,
    we could have then exercised our influence
    and made sure that they got it.
    Was there something the Jews could have done?
    Absolutely nothing.
    Absolutely nothing.
    Could have emigrated?
    Again, tell me where can I go.
    Now, my father at this time, by 1935 he was 58.
    He was a merchant.
    A merchant they didn't need in Argentina.
    They didn't need him-- as a matter of fact,
    they didn't even need him in America.
    He had no trade, so to speak of.
    He couldn't talk any other language.
    So where should he start at age 58 someplace else?
    Not everybody could emigrate.
    Not everybody could pull up their roots
    and go someplace else.
    It was not that simple.
    Of course, if he had known Auschwitz was in front of us,
    somehow, one way or the other, we would have tried something.
    Question-- in the years ahead, did you
    ever confront any commander of a camp at Auschwitz or any guard
    at a camp face to face?
    I went to two trials.
    And our Auschwitz personnel was evacuated
    with the evacuation in January '45,
    and they all went to Bergen-Belsen.
    Not all of them, most of them got caught by the English,
    and our camp leader, Hoesler, camp physician Klein,
    camp leader Kramer from Birkenau, and several others
    were executed.
    I went one day to their trial.
    Did you have a chance to speak?
    No.
    I confronted a Jewish collaborator,
    a doctor who came to America.
    But I had my own problems at this time
    to pursue it any further.
    And I confronted him, and we had a violent discussion
    and let it go at that.
    But no, I did not meet any--
    Is this doctor still here in the country?
    He passed away two years ago.
    No remorse from this doctor?
    No.
    Was he a practicing physician in the United States?
    Yes, he practiced in Syracuse.
    Yeah.
    He had a big practice in Syracuse.
    Dr. Rubenstein.
    I don't see how the Jewish community allowed this.
    Well, they might not have known about it.
    It's not that easy taking out newspaper ads.
    And I had at this time lost my first wife.
    I was going out with her.
    I had lots of other problems financially as well as personal.
    And the priority, again, priority again--
    if there is such thing as justice an afterlife,
    whatever, he'll get it.
    Did this terrible experience increase your--
    how can I put this-- your religion?
    Did you go deeper into your religion
    or did you go out of your religion?
    It's a good question.
    Most of the people that came out of it
    are either non-believers or strong believers.
    And I am some sort of a novelty.
    I'm sort of in the middle.
    I strongly believe in Judaism, but I don't believe
    in practicing orthodoxy.
    In other words, again, what I told you before, to me,
    eating kosher or not does not make me a better or worse Jew.
    But I deep--
    I never forget my roots, where I came from.
    I'm a Jew, and hopefully my children
    will carry on this tradition to be Jews.
    My big one doesn't believe in--
    Maybe he leans more to be an atheist.
    But his roots, he knows he's Jewish.
    He would never deny his--
    Judaism.
    Not by design, but by coincidence
    he never went out with Jewish girls,
    but he always made sure that they knew that he was Jewish.
    Like he would say, got to pick up my brother from bar mitzvah
    lessons, or gee, I've got to call--
    I have to call my rabbi, or do such a little thing.
    And he's in the police department,
    and he belongs to the Jewish society.
    Don't they have a trial going on where they're not
    sure this man was a--
    Yes, yes.
    They just can't prove it.
    Now, I will say again, since the Ukrainians as guards
    were first among--
    first among equals--
    The most savage, right.
    --the chances are almost, and emphasize almost 100%,
    that he is guilty.
    Now, he said he was not in Treblinka.
    He was in Sobibor, another extermination camp.
    But I'm sure he was not there to do any Red Cross work.
    Yes.
    But unless there's irrefutable evidence
    that he is the man who did xxx, he has to be set free.
    We have to set--
    just to convict one, maybe we have to set mine free,
    but this is the way our society, our democratic society works.
    And we cannot deviate from this for the sake of taking revenge
    or whatever you call it.
    What happened the last day at Auschwitz?
    It's excellent question.
    Give that again in the camera, Laurie.
    OK, we'll get you in the camera.
    OK, go.
    What happened the last day in Auschwitz?
    I worked the last few months in Auschwitz in a hospital.
    And I was a sort of orderly in the office, which again
    was run by six Ukrainians.
    They were very intelligent ones.
    They were lawyers, doctors, and they treated me very nice.
    But I heard in their conversation of course
    all the antisemitism, but that didn't
    mean that they were not nice to me or whatever.
    They did not kill anybody.
    That much I can put my hand on fire for all these five or six
    of them.
    Anyhow, I was awakened in the middle
    of the night on the 16th of January
    to come downstairs to the office.
    And there were Ukrainians, and they told me go to all the wards
    and let the doctors make lists, who can walk and who cannot
    walk.
    So my first question was, how should we make the lists?
    More walkers or less walkers?
    I don't know.
    So the same thing, I came--
    my first stop was a good friend of mine, Dr. Greif, from France.
    He survived.
    And he asked me the same, and I don't know.
    Then going down the stairway, I ran
    into our barrack chief, one of the very, very few decent ones
    in Auschwitz.
    He was an Austrian, a former railroad engineer.
    And I said, Blockalteste, what do you think?
    He says, I stay here.
    I'm a communist.
    I'm imprisoned since 1938.
    I don't have to fear if the Russians liberate me.
    I have it made.
    So I'm not going on transport.
    I stay here.
    16 degrees outside, six, seven inches of snow.
    Where are we gonna march?
    The Russians came from one side, the Allies from the other side.
    So most probably we will run around in circles.
    And you know who can't march is going to get shot on the way.
    And there was a possibility for other people,
    if they wanted, to stay behind in the hospital as orderlies
    because there were not many who wanted to stay.
    Logic, they wouldn't let us live.
    I went to a couple of friends of mine.
    I could not convince anybody to stay.
    Dr. Greif stayed.
    We persuaded the Greek physician.
    Dr. Meiser, we persuaded him, and another friend of ours,
    we persuaded him to stay.
    And then the SS left.
    The evacuation took three days.
    They marched out of the camps, and we stayed behind.
    Without any-- you had supervision?
    The supervision stopped on the sixth day.
    On the sixth day, there were no more SS.
    But it was front territory.
    So we were relatively safe in the camp at that time.
    But we ventured outside.
    We got picked up by a German military police unit.
    And they were good enough to take us back to the camp
    and advised us not to run around loose because they shoot and ask
    questions later.
    There are a lot of partisans in the area,
    and so on and so forth.
    So we stayed, and we wait it out.
    We have it made now.
    We wait for the Russians to come.
    Well, shortly before there came that execution squad,
    Ukrainians under German command.
    They rounded up everybody.
    In other words, everybody out of the barracks.
    So we sat there.
    Only the very sick that day came on the stretchers.
    Everybody out.
    So we thought that our last moment has come.
    But we had already cut a hole in the wire
    because the electricity had stopped.
    So the wire were not anymore loaded with electricity.
    In other words, you stopped it, and you touched it,
    and you were electrocuted.
    So a couple of buddies of mine, we went through the hole,
    and we went into the SS theater, where they had like here you
    would see USO or so.
    And we hid there for one day.
    What happened was that they had no time to kill those people.
    They all went in trucks, and they
    left because the Russians already
    had broken through into the city of Auschwitz.
    Same thing happened to the women and a couple of men
    from Birkenau.
    They were just in the middle.
    The three kilometers, they were maybe
    in the middle at that time.
    And they were also told, march into Auschwitz, like it's
    over there, and wait for us.
    We come back.
    Well, they couldn't come back.
    And a day later, the Russians marched in.
    And we were free.
    We lived in Auschwitz for another few months
    because there was no place to go.
    The war was still going until May.
    But we were free to go.
    Let's say we went to Kraków to a movie or--
    most of them girls and boys got together
    and after years of celibacy, celibacy, celibacy, we
    had a lot of fun there and everything was nice.
    We waited for a new life to start.
    Sooner or later, the war was going to be over,
    and that's what happened.
    But I go over the 11 days very fast in two or three minutes.
    It was not only 11 days, 24 hours a day.
    It was much more than that.
    And there was a couple of incidents
    that are quite interesting I could tell you about.
    But this is about it, the last days of Auschwitz.
    Now, I met people who went on the death march after the war.
    After the war, I met them.
    And they told me, and I know that all the sufferings
    in those years in Auschwitz was absolutely nothing compared
    to the marches, marching days, a week without food,
    without water.
    And you seen the conditions after the pictures
    were taken by the Allies, when they liberated the camps.
    You seen in those pictures, I'm sure,
    those people weighing 60 pounds.
    No matter what, in Auschwitz you didn't weigh 60 pounds.
    We were slim, and we were undernourished, but not this--
    those things all happened during the march.
    You were fed each day one meal a day?
    We got two meals a day.
    Well, per se.
    In Golleschau in the cement factory, food was quite scarce.
    And it's a great deal of starvation.
    But in Auschwitz itself, Auschwitz I I'm
    talking about, not Birkenau Auschwitz II.
    I'm talking about Auschwitz I, food
    was a little more than in other camps.
    Now, another thing about German thoroughness--
    in Auschwitz, 12:00, everybody had a hot meal, no matter
    where you worked.
    30,000 people had a hot meal.
    I'm not saying that compared to the meal
    we're going to have served tonight, but it was a warm meal.
    They had thermos, kettles, and whatever.
    And even it was warm water.
    But you had 12:00, and even was only a pint or whatever,
    but everybody got this at 12:00.
    Were you able to take showers?
    Yes.
    In Golleschau, we got regular showers.
    In Auschwitz, there was the laundry room,
    where there were showers.
    It was maybe a little bigger than this room
    with shower heads.
    And you could go there at night.
    Well, if you work at night, you could go there in the morning
    and take a shower.
    But seeing the shower head, the ideal temperature
    that you desired, and there was no shampoo.
    But you got a spoonful of liquid, a laundry detergent they
    gave you in your hands, and it was
    adequate to cleanse yourself.
    And this was so important to do so.
    Because when you feel clean after a shower,
    it gives you a sort of lift.
    Were those numbers--
    Go ahead.
    Again, Laurie.
    Were those numbers placed on your arm by that of a needle?
    It's permanent?
    It was a French--
    it was a French artist who did this.
    And it went so fast.
    I tell you, I didn't feel it.
    All of a sudden, I looked, I had a number.
    Don't forget, the first day was quite a shock.
    Everything traumatic, everything was new.
    And the second day--
    well, even the first, I think the evening of the first day
    after we slept the night in that laundry, we got to Golleschau,
    and then first we seen what Auschwitz actually
    Meant the French boys, they beat up everybody
    and so on and so forth.
    So--
    Did what now?
    Who is this?
    Those two French boys I was talking, Gabriel.
    Oh, yeah.
    So yeah, you didn't even realize what happened.
    Did you have musicians at the camp?
    Yes.
    Now, the orchestra-- we had an excellent orchestra
    in Auschwitz.
    And I don't think that they had Jewish musicians.
    I think they were mostly Polish.
    It was an excellent symphony orchestra.
    There was a movie, Playing For Time.
    Yeah, I think that movie was not 100% accurate.
    I think it was a little more dramatized or more novel than--
    but the basic--
    Basic premise.
    The basic premise was, yes.
    Were they Jewish?
    I mean, the Polish orchestra.
    No, no, no.
    They were Polish.
    They were inmates?
    They were inmates, yeah.
    Everybody, everything in Auschwitz was inmates.
    Inmates.
    But people organized themselves instruments.
    We called anything that you bartered for or stole
    or whatever, we called it organizing, organization.
    Without any organization, your chances in Auschwitz
    were not slim and none--
    they were nil.
    You needed somebody, and you needed organization
    to barter and to supplement whatever you had,
    even it was buying a piece of soap
    or getting a decent pair of shoes.
    It was a matter of life and death, a pair of shoes.
    So those things, we had a Dutch doctor, de Wind.
    He later became a psychiatrist, quite noted,
    wrote books in Europe.
    He was a doctor to please his parents,
    but after graduating medical school,
    he had a little band, a quartet or quintet,
    and he played in clubs.
    And in Auschwitz, he was a doctor.
    But he organized a little band.
    And he used to go around the hospital wards
    in the evening on Sunday and play 15 minutes here,
    15 minutes there, modern music.
    And believe it or not, this was very important for the soul.
    It gives everybody a big lift.
    We look forward to it.
    I got liberated with him together.
    Also, we had in Auschwitz a cabaret.
    Needless to say that millions who came to Auschwitz, Jews,
    there were some very talented people among them.
    And we had an excellent cabaret.
    Were they treated any better?
    Yes, they all had good jobs.
    Anybody who was an artist, they had good jobs.
    That went with the territory.
    We had a cabaret.
    There was the first performance was
    for Jews, a second performance for Gentiles.
    Was strictly segregated, Auschwitz.
    Were there any Jewish women guards?
    Yes, some of them were very bad.
    The Slovakian Jews or Jewesses, if that's the right word,
    some of them were in cruelty like I was
    talking about that French boy.
    Yes, guards, Kapos in Birkenau, yeah, some very bad.
    Some were very good.
    My first wife, who had a big heart condition,
    now Lillian asked me once a valid question.
    How come Rose survived Auschwitz?
    And that's again falling through the crack.
    I said before that two weeks was the limit you could stay
    sick before being gassed, and Rose lived there 10 months
    from the Hungarian transport until she got liberated.
    She had somebody, and she had cousins
    who worked in the kitchen and ba-ba, whatever.
    It happened.
    She made it.
    The people who worked at the gas chambers
    were executed every three months.
    Still somebody fell through the crack and made it.
    I don't know of any successful escape from Auschwitz,
    yet there were.
    Did they have guard dogs there too?
    Yeah, the women.
    The dogs, dogs.
    The women had guard dogs.
    Oh, the women did?
    Yeah.
    Oh.
    Irma Grese, who got executed and sentenced to death
    and executed by a British court in Bergen-Belsen,
    she was noted for having a dog.
    Could the Jewish women that you did see,
    could they ever wear makeup?
    Yes.
    If they could barter for lipstick,
    let's say, they could put it on.
    Yes.
    Clothes, you could barter for clothing.
    You could have custom-made prison suits in Auschwitz,
    if you had the means.
    Let's say you worked in the bakery,
    and you smuggled bread in, and you took that bread
    to the quartermasters, and you bought a new coat, a new prison
    coat.
    From this prison coat, you could make a jacket.
    There were enough Polish tailors who
    for a couple of portions of bread
    made you a custom-made uniform.
    And from another coat, you would make a pair of pants.
    The trimmings would be enough to make a cap.
    And there were strict--
    I would say strict but there were
    very firm rules of fashion in Auschwitz, as silly as it seems.
    At one time, it was very modern to have
    white lapels, white collar--
    white collars and very trim French-cut
    figures and bell bottom trousers.
    And that, incidentally, the cabaret, we had a comedy writer.
    Guy was from Berlin.
    Rolf Hut was his name, a genius.
    He wrote all the skits for the cabaret.
    He was the barrack clerk of Barrack 11,
    where they had those executions.
    And he wrote once a skit.
    We had a fashion show at the cabaret
    titled "What the Elegant Prisoner Wears
    in the Springtime."
    See, and we parade--
    they parade them out.
    This is a creation from--
    And the Germans did not mind this?
    Not at all.
    Not at all.
    They went.
    They're being sarcastic.
    They went and laughed about it.
    Yes.
    We had a comedy team.
    One guy was a Viennese--
    Viennese Jew.
    The other was a German communist who
    was in since 1933 in concentration camps.
    And they did-- they teamed up, and they
    made the most excellent comedy.
    We had artists.
    We had a piano artist.
    It was quite interesting.
    Now, I got in the hospital, I was the recipient
    of three or four tickets.
    And--
    You received tickets to attend this?
    Yeah, you needed tickets.
    And they were very scarce.
    There's only one performance.
    How did you obtain these tickets?
    They were given out by the authority, whoever
    the block chief or whoever.
    Was it just to special people they liked?
    No, they told me, give them out.
    You know, I worked in the clerk's office,
    so they left them there, and I gave out four tickets.
    It sounds like you were well liked.
    Yes, I will say that.
    You haven't mentioned any arguments you've had.
    No, because as I say, in the beginning,
    I was never in a position to be that advanced.
    But what happened is my friends wanted tickets,
    and I only had three or four, maybe five.
    So two I had to give out, really,
    to a couple of doctors in hospital, and the other three--
    I bought tickets on the black market to satisfy a friend,
    because he used to tell me like, oh, all of a sudden,
    you don't want to know me.
    So just I suppose like an athlete at the Super Bowl
    gets 20 tickets or 10 tickets, he
    buys some tickets to satisfy other people
    so they don't call him bad names or whatever.
    It was interesting.
    So we used to go to the--
    they had also a bordello in Auschwitz, a whorehouse--
    With Jewish prostitutes?
    No, no, no, no.
    There's strictly segregation in Auschwitz.
    Remember, I told you this.
    This whorehouse was strictly for Gentile prisoners.
    They got some sort of a coupon.
    And with that coupon, they could go at night
    to the whorehouse in Auschwitz.
    There was usually Polish or foreign girls, but not
    Jewish girls.
    That would have been against the law
    for a non-Jew to have relations with a Jew.
    And there was a lot of teasing about it when
    they lined up at night to go.
    We used to go and shout obscenities at them
    in a funny sort of a way, like Eddie Murphy would do so
    or Robin Williams.
    And in December--
    I think it was December--
    camp leader pitched-- the camp leader, the first lieutenant,
    he was only in charge of Auschwitz, of there's one camp.
    The commander was Hoss.
    Was in charge of overall.
    He got hanged at Block 11.
    He got sentenced to death by a Polish court in Kraków,
    and he was hanged in Auschwitz.
    He wrote his memoirs.
    I have his book.
    Out of gratefulness, how good he treated them in prison,
    he figured that he's not going to be mistreated, get
    a fair trial and whatever.
    So anyhow, our camp leader, his name
    was Hossler, Hossler, he came once to the hospital,
    and he walked through.
    And all of a sudden, he stopped, and like
    a brainstorm came to him.
    And he said, the Jews do such good work
    at the ammunition factories.
    He's going to try to organize a brothel just for the Jews.
    And we were all so thrilled.
    Now, you were talking.
    You're going to go?
    You going to go?
    As I say, we had humor.
    We laughed.
    So unfortunately, it never came into being
    because six weeks or seven weeks or eight weeks--
    six weeks later, the camp was liberated, as I said in January.
    Which was better than having our own whorehouse, so to Speak
    To say the least.
    Can you introduce us to your lovely wife, please?
    Is she here?
    Right here.
    Here she is.
    This is Lillian.
    Hi.
    How are you?
    How are you?
    Fine.
    This is the one--
    You have a wonderful husband.
    This is the one who puts up with all my idiosyncrasies.
    What a young man.
    Yeah, I know that.
    The good thing is that I have no temper.
    Don't believe that.
    I am very--
    They don't believe that
    Like Henny Youngman says, I have an even disposition,
    always miserable.
    Can I say one thing about what I've
    learned about the concentration camp in Auschwitz?
    It's a camp of paradoxes, where one thing could be bad for one
    and good for another.
    It's crazy.
    I want to say this too.
    I want to give my $0.02 on the world of paradoxes.
    Now, you were a patient in the hospital.
    And at 2 o'clock, you were intravenously fed with glucose.
    Right, beautiful.
    4 o'clock, you went to the gas chambers.
    One had nothing to do with the other.
    2 o'clock you were due to get this,
    but the day before you were selected to go to the gas
    chambers, as incurable.
    By incurable, we don't talk about cancer.
    We talk about a boil that didn't heal
    or something like that, all right?
    But at 2 o'clock, this was due, and you got it.
    Auschwitz hospital had three kitchens--
    one for normal food, one for salt-free diet
    for those patients who had high blood pressure or heart disease,
    and for those patients with gastro problems,
    gastrointestinal problems, there was a soft diet,
    like Farina, white bread, and so on and so forth, milk.
    And that was religiously given out.
    Again, I say, two hours later, you went to Birkenau
    and be gassed.
    But you got your salt-free diet.
    Because everything was so well organized by the Germans.
    Yeah.
    And so--
    It had to be as such.
    That was how their rules were.
    Yeah.
    If we got a little more time, I wanted
    to say a couple of things.
    Did you lose your whole family?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Hold on a second.
    I'll get you over here.
    Repeat that.
    OK.
    Did you lose everyone in your family?
    Yes, I had a kid brother who was 11.
    And my mother was 56.
    My father was 65.
    And of course, they had absolutely no chance
    of making it.
    Yet some children fell through the crack again, I say.
    There was children in Auschwitz that got liberated.
    A lot of twins-- not a lot.
    Some twins and dwarfs got liberated.
    They were Mengele's--
    Experiments.
    Experiments.
    But they were too sick to march or they stayed behind on purpose
    or whatever their reasons.
    I seen a few of them on television and documentaries,
    the two Hungarian twins, Iva and Magda.
    And those dwarfs, they were a circus troupe from Romania.
    They made it.
    But an interesting thing is about four days
    before the liberation, as I said before there was no more
    supervision by the SS, I was at the gate,
    and a staff car pulls up.
    Out gets the colonel, and he walks over to me and says,
    is this the concentration camp of Auschwitz?
    I said, yes, sir.
    I have heard a lot about it.
    He said, my name is-- he shook hands with me.
    My name is Colonel so-and-so.
    First German ever shook hands with me in years.
    I said, yes, I'm so-and-so.
    And he says, you think you can show me around the camp?
    Why not?
    He takes his aide-de-camp with him, a captain.
    And he told me.
    He says, you can talk freely in front of my captain.
    You don't have to fear anything.
    All right.
    So right when you marched into Auschwitz,
    there was the library on one side.
    Excellent library.
    They had books that were outlawed
    in Germany, which they had.
    Could take these books out and read?
    Only Gentile prisoners could take them.
    But the Ukrainians who were, to me, very nice, there
    was one particular Ukrainian doctor who also made it.
    He testified at the Auschwitz trial.
    He always got me any book that I wanted under his name
    and took it.
    So that was the library, and here was
    the music, the plaza where they played the music.
    I didn't tell them this, but they carried in the dead people,
    and they put the gallow up to hang somebody,
    but the music was playing when we marched in.
    Another paradox of Auschwitz.
    And I said here, this is our whorehouse on the first floor.
    There was two-story barracks.
    I said whorehouse, library, music.
    Couldn't--
    So we go further.
    I said, this is our kitchen.
    Here's the diet kitchen for those people
    who-- and the guy started now really
    to think that I'm pulling his leg, which I was.
    But he knew there was something coming.
    And then I said to him, and now I
    show you the other side of the coin.
    And then I showed him the bad things, the barrack 11
    and so on and so forth.
    And he was shaking his head.
    And then my barrack chief came.
    So as we walked, more and more people came.
    And then we went into our barrack chief's room.
    And we had a drink, and we asked him, what do you think
    is going to happen?
    He says, all I can tell you, willingly
    we are never going to leave to the Russians
    that type of facility.
    Chances are there's a liquidation squad coming.
    Chances are that it's going to be dynamited.
    And you just do the best you can.
    Try to get away from here.
    Did any prisoners do drugs to escape their problems?
    No, that is, I think, the only thing.
    Could you repeat that, Laurie?
    Did any prisoners do drugs to escape their problems?
    No, I can say in all honesty, there
    was nothing that was unobtainable in Auschwitz,
    from a diamond ring to a pair of nylons or silk stockings
    to lipstick, like we mentioned before, cigarettes, whatever.
    Bartered with civilians outside or whatever.
    Also don't forget that millions brought their last belongings
    to Auschwitz.
    Not everything went back to Germany.
    Lots of it was smuggled back into the camp.
    I was one of the smugglers, one of the carriers,
    mules you would say in the drug trade.
    But as far as I know, there was no drugs in Auschwitz.
    But then 50 years ago, drugs were no problem.
    There were people who drank.
    There was whiskey or schnapps or whatever you call
    it obtainable in Auschwitz.
    OK, not too-- the battery's going on this right
    at this point it's ending.
    OK.
    We want to thank you very much for your time.
    It was my pleasure.
    And I also want to thank our fine interviewers.
    Namely Judy Yolken.
    Hi, Judy.
    Hi.
    Very well done.
    And our main commentator, can we have your name please?
    Laurie Yolken.
    Laurie Yolken.
    And Steve Yolken here signing off, and thanking you,
    Ralph, and thank you, Lillian.
    Very welcome.
    For everything you had to say.
    Thank you.
    It's supremely interesting.
    Very good.
    And, I might add, historical.
    And I intend to give a copy of this not only to you, of course,
    but to our local temples.
    From where we come from, I think they will have
    it in their library forever.
    Oh, I'm thrilled for that.
    I'm really-- I'm happy that people want to know about it.
    And I have no hang up to talk about it.
    Unfortunately, in one hour, you cannot tell the story
    of Auschwitz.
    There are so many misconceptions about it.
    You know that you see all the atrocities and the people that
    were dying and being 60 pounds.
    There was much more to Auschwitz, the intricacies
    and the way Auschwitz worked.
    And again, it is a tribute to German ingenuity,
    how they built this camp, how they made this function.
    And how they destroyed.
    And how they destroyed.
    Everything was done on a scientific calculated base.
    Was not a spur of the moment.
    This was started at the Wannsee Conference
    and was carried out by intelligent people,
    by efficient people.
    Hoss used to walk around.
    He traveled around all through Germany,
    all through Poland, Treblinka, Sobibor, to see their methods.
    And he was very proud of the fact
    that he did it the humane way.
    The gassing was so humane.
    It was so fast and so efficient, and they
    could do it in such large numbers
    that he was proud of that fact.
    He had several children, and he loved them.
    He went swimming with them and horseback-riding with them.
    He was a very nice human being, according
    to him, who was not an antisemite, not a sadist.
    He just carried out a task that he was assigned.
    It's so frightening.
    And it could happen again.
    It did happen in Cambodia.
    The Khmer Rouge killed a million and a half people because they
    had different ideas about life.
    Nigeria killed the Igbos and Biafra, millions of them.
    They let them starve, and let them
    starve in Somalia and in Sudan and in Ethiopia
    for political reasons, millions of people starving, dying.
    And now the Yugoslavia--
    It's happening in Sarajevo.
    And now in Sarajevo, the Yugoslavs killing the Croatians
    and for no reason whatsoever.
    Thank you again.
    OK.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Ralph Altman
    Date
    interview:  1992 July 02

    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
    Altman, Ralph.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview from Stephen Yoken in 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:52
    This page:
    http:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn512178

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us