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Oral history interview with John Steiner

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.497 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0497

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    Oral history interview with John Steiner
    Transcript
    In seconds, you can identify everybody and you start it up.
    OK.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan.
    I'm here with John Steiner, interviewing
    John for the Oral History Project in San Francisco.
    Today is the 27 of March, 1991.
    And we have as a second--
    Brian, would you like to introduce yourself?
    My name is Brian Paris.
    And also John's friend--
    Carol Hurwitz.
    So would you please start out by introducing yourself and giving
    your names and if your birth name was any different.
    Yeah.
    And who and where you were born.
    OK.
    My name is Dr. John M. Steiner and I was born in Prague
    on August 3, 1925.
    And you were born John Steiner?
    I was born Jan Mikhail Steiner.
    That's what I was born.
    That was the Czech name for John.
    When I came here, I changed it into John
    for reasons which escape me now.
    Could you talk a little bit about your family.
    Are you an only child?
    I'm an only child.
    And I had a family that came from upper middle class.
    My father was a bank employee, executive with one
    of the largest private banks.
    My mother was an Orenstein and she
    was related to those people.
    We were related to those people who
    were the owners of this bank, which
    was Otto Petschek in Prague and one of the richest
    people in Czechoslovakia then.
    And we lived pretty much in the center of Prague.
    That's where I was raised in a large apartment building.
    And we never changed our address.
    We had a villa.
    My uncle had a villa back in--
    close to Prague and that's where we
    spent many of the summers or parts of the summers.
    And we were a very extended, functional family up to a point
    and very closely knit.
    Very open, not dogmatic.
    And we were not--
    none of my parents were ideologues of any sort.
    They had perspectives, which changed with new information.
    And they were, by persuasion, anthroposophists and adhered
    to that, and I was brought up in that particular philosophy,
    if you will.
    And we met very interesting people throughout my childhood.
    I was very lucky in this respect because we
    were exposed to the creme de la creme in terms of educated,
    culture people who made a very important contribution,
    Jewish as well as non-Jewish, but primarily
    culturally Jewish people.
    Not necessarily religious Jewish people
    because my only one who was religious Jewish
    was my grandfather.
    And he always came there on Saturdays for Shabbos meal.
    And he always-- and my responsibility
    was to bring him the book with a cap
    and then he prayed in a prayer book after the meal.
    And that was very mysterious and always
    was dreadfully impressed.
    And none of us were very Jewish types.
    I, later on, just only found out about his background.
    I found out that my grand, grand,
    grandparents on his side, grand father's side,
    converted to Judaism for reasons which escape me.
    I've never found out.
    And they were Joseph and Maria Steiner.
    And I think they converted to--
    And little did they know what it would do to me.
    Could you talk a little about the anthroposophy?
    Well, anthroposophy is a movement
    which was founded by a man called
    Dr. Rudolf Steiner, no relationship, was an Austrian
    and died in 1925, as a matter of fact.
    And he developed the kind of philosophy of concerning
    humankind, anthropost--
    philosophy of man, which is very esoteric, very metaphysical.
    And is different from most of the other notions of that kind
    perhaps related to some degree to theosophy,
    and because he started to be a leading
    member of the theosophy movement until he
    started his own movement.
    And just in a nutshell, that is perhaps
    the center of the whole thing.
    It's just more complex, but I don't
    think we should be talking about that in great detail
    because it would only produce some degree of confusion.
    Anyone who is interested can read about it.
    There are many books which have been written by him.
    That is to say, primarily, lectures
    which then were transcribed and published in book form.
    Well, I mean, what is perhaps important or should be said,
    particularly in conjunction with survival,
    is the fact that I was very fortunate to have been
    born in that particular time.
    I was because I was exposed to, perhaps, the ideal time
    in respect to politics, in respect to democracy
    and in respect to individuals who became very important role
    models to me.
    And one person who permeated this sort of thing where people
    like Tomás Garrigue Masaryk who was the first president
    of Czechoslovakia.
    He was the founder of Czechoslovakia
    and so-called the person who freed these peoples
    from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which may or may not
    have been a mistake.
    I've had many discussions on that with notable historians
    including [? Koroman ?] who felt that Masaryk was really
    a person who did greater harm by actually participating
    in the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy,
    which he felt was a tremendous system.
    And in a way, it was.
    So I mean, there are very interesting different notions
    about that.
    So I was exposed to role models during my early socialization,
    which were public figures whom we considered to be very
    important and trailblazing.
    Masaryk, of course, one of the foremost.
    And then in terms of family relationships,
    which looking back now and having some sort of comparison
    by virtue of my age, I found really quite ideal,
    although I had a very difficult father.
    A father who had a very bad temper and was
    a person who somehow had a problem finding his niche
    to really find the proper expression--
    the channels for his proper expression, self-expression.
    And other than that, all the other members of the family,
    which includes my grandparents--
    mother's grandparents had died when she was still
    a teenager, both of them.
    So I never met them, but they were
    exceedingly wealthy family.
    And just brought up with governess and English
    governess.
    And they spoke languages, many languages
    when they were already still very young,
    particularly English.
    And that somehow rubbed off on me.
    Just rubbed off, them on me, and was very helpful.
    And so it was a very cosmopolitan sort
    of atmosphere, at that time in Prague
    as well as in our family.
    It was wide travels and very international connected.
    And so it gave me a very good basis in terms of orientation,
    finding meaning.
    And that was, of course, very important,
    later on, when we came into the situation
    when people were deported.
    Now the interesting thing is that this particular background
    was very helpful in providing me with some sort
    of a philosophy of life.
    So that this philosophy of life still
    had some very practical application
    during the times of the internment.
    And that, I recognized as so important also
    in terms of my present endeavor where
    I emphasized how important-- that is of course,
    fragmented families and all this sort of thing
    was a very rare occasion.
    It existed and it also was in our immediate environment.
    And my mother, actually, got divorced
    when I was 13 from my father, which
    was a very traumatic event.
    Not so much for her and myself, but socially.
    In a way, it was a totally strange sort of thing to do
    But because there are so many important links in family
    relationships, important links so that if one link somehow
    did not function that well-- just as my father
    didn't because he never really had learned
    to play the role of a father.
    It was very difficult for him.
    Not that he was not well-meaning and all that,
    but he just was very impatient and had problems with that.
    So many other people took his place.
    So that missing father didn't really
    create any sort of traumatic situation, which
    could have not been happening.
    Actually, he didn't create any because there were so
    many other people who took, immediately--
    while he was not really functioning properly,
    took his place.
    So you lived with your mother, the two of you?
    Well, that was already '38.
    I mean, you see that was just barely before the--
    it was already trouble, you see and--
    What is your memories then from your younger days?
    My memory from younger days is just I went
    to an English kindergarten.
    I went to a German primary school.
    And I went to a Czech gymnasium and, later,
    started medical studies back at the Charles University
    in Prague.
    So my memories is very harmonious and very
    reflected and tremendous childhood,
    which I would wish to my son, anyone
    who is a friend or particularly my enemies
    because then the chances are they would be my--
    they wouldn't be my enemies.
    So the important thing in terms of the Holocaust
    is that, as I said, every Saturday, there
    was kind of an institution.
    My cousin and I only--
    you see, this is my father's sister.
    My mother had a sister in Prague and were closest
    uncle and aunt, but they didn't have any children.
    And my father's sister, Leah--
    beautiful, blonde, blue eyed individual, beautiful.
    And she only had one son and his name was Tommy.
    And Tommy was two years younger than I
    and we were very close like brothers.
    And we also, then, reunited quote,
    unquote in Theresienstadt.
    So Tommy and I, we always went on most
    Saturdays to my grandfather, and I
    we had this sort of tremendous meals.
    And in 1934, it must have been, they
    had all sorts of interesting gadgets.
    And my grandfather, my father had problems with it,
    was a sales--
    kind of a senior sales representative
    of a very large textile manufacturing company,
    producing textiles for shirts.
    And to me, it was tremendously interesting
    because all these fabrics and all that.
    And I just-- from that, you know,
    he always gave me his samples.
    And he didn't-- traveled quite a bit and had a tremendous
    personality.
    He was very witty and was just a fantastic sort of human being.
    And so was my grandmother.
    So this sort of institutionalized event
    always brought some interesting encounters and events
    during these Saturdays and feasts
    in so many ways, real feasts.
    And in '34, as I said earlier, I just--
    they'd just had received, in '34, a wireless set radio.
    And I still remember that it was kind of oval shaped,
    made of wood, of course, as all these radios
    at that particular time.
    They were wooden cabinet.
    And name was standard-- the standard.
    And the first time, actually, they
    turned it on and all that, I heard
    Hitler speak during a rally.
    And just a friend of mine came for a visit
    to give a speech back at the University,
    and so we discussed some old times.
    And I just mentioned to him, you see,
    that's something which he has come to my mind.
    And of course, at that particular age,
    I was about eight years old--
    eight years old.
    I've heard this voice and, of course,
    didn't understand at all what he said and all that.
    He was just shouting and then I got very disturbed.
    It's really terrible.
    It's just a terrible thing.
    Something terrible, just the feeling I've had.
    And my parents, of course, had much better
    than my grandparents and all the other ones who listened--
    had a much better notion in terms
    of what was all about Hitler.
    Because at that time, '34, it was already
    well known what he stood for.
    And that remained in my mind.
    It was kind of a very dreadful type
    of experience, kind of an awe.
    This awesome-- sort of awesome dramatic experience.
    Although, as I said, I didn't understand hardly a word,
    but the tone and the whole thing was just a very disturbing
    thing to me.
    So things of that nature, of course,
    occurred from time to time.
    But politically, we all were very focused on the Czech
    democracy, which particularly during the life of President
    Tomás Garrigue Masaryk was very safe and secure.
    So that we didn't have any sort of fears.
    However, what changed later on when I was still very small,
    in '34, we had a lot of refugees coming to Czechoslovakia
    from Germany.
    And that is some sort of to speak of--
    so my parents and my relatives immediately
    became aware of all the refugees from Hitler--
    Germany, and gave them shelter.
    And every time, every week, some child came to eat with us.
    And I remember that somehow I don't always behave very well.
    I felt kind of an intruder coming in
    and I just had absolutely no notion about the significance
    of the whole thing.
    So at times, I didn't behave very nicely to these children.
    And I recollect that with some kind of shame and trepidation.
    But it only points out that the entire clan-- the entire family
    was very much aware of what was going on
    and also were very supportive to the people who
    came as refugees in terms of money,
    inviting them and supporting them, trying to find jobs
    for them and what have you.
    Just providing for them a support system.
    So very in early in life, I became aware--
    very sensitive to the need to be supportive of other people
    and be empathetic.
    And that was a very important impulse,
    which then was developed.
    And my mother, especially, was very conscious of that
    and I think she tried to instill that in me.
    So that when I was a small child,
    I was a person with compassion and concern
    for the needs of others.
    And that, I think, was a very important thing
    in terms of my later development.
    And in a way, I'm sold on the pedagogy of my parents
    because they were very important role models to me.
    Did your mother's family have a religious point of view
    as grandparents?
    Oh, yeah, there were anthroposophist, of course.
    The other, with the exception of my grandfather,
    they were all kind of cultural Jews,
    but they're very assimilated Jews.
    And that was not an emphasis.
    Judaism was not an emphasis except the cultural aspects
    of people with Jewish background who
    were very significant-- made very significant contribution
    to Czech society.
    And that, to me, was very important.
    That was very important.
    But there was no chauvinism, no flag waving or religiosity,
    which was emphasized.
    On the contrary, anthroposophy, of course,
    is very much pointing to the figure of Christ.
    And he's a central figure in that particular philosophy.
    So that I was exposed to the leading
    people on the Jewish faith and we discussed these things.
    My parents and all that were very open and not
    at all prejudiced, in one way or another.
    And then, I also met very important
    people who were of different other faiths including
    Catholics and all that, who made a very deep impression to me
    even before I got into camp.
    For example, one of my close associates
    was the cardinal of Prague, Joseph Baron, who was not
    only fighting the Nazis, but he was also fighting
    the communists and was a prisoner of both
    until he was permitted to leave for Rome.
    And he was very instrumental in helping
    me to skip the country in 1949, and helped me
    with very important contacts in Italy because I went via Italy.
    And I had escorts and everything, military escorts
    and everything.
    You know, someone who came with nothing,
    I didn't even have a handkerchief to mine.
    And so this sort of networking-- what we call today networking
    was very important.
    And in all this sort of significance,
    I recognized, of course, ex post facto, how important it is to--
    in contrast to what we have today where we were very, very
    lonely individuals, those survivors, very isolated,
    socially and otherwise.
    And so that, of course, comes to mind when we just experience,
    many of us, exactly the opposite where we just simply don't fit.
    And lots of talk and no action, in terms
    of survivors and all that.
    And that's one of my concerns anyway.
    I was wondering, also, when you were young,
    as you were saying, even in '34, you were hearing Hitler.
    While your family was receiving refugees,
    did they have any sense, that you knew of,
    of the terrible things that were happening to Jews in Germany?
    Well, I think so.
    I mean, except I personally didn't at that particular time,
    for sure, because I would imagine that my parents did.
    But they certainly didn't share it with me
    because they felt I was not ready for it.
    So all these sort of things, the details or the things
    which we know today, from the very beginning in 1933,
    particularly the thing which I've
    researched all that, of course, I had no idea at all.
    Except I know some bad things were going on.
    But a child of that age just really couldn't really quite
    picture that.
    Because to me, it was just like a different world.
    It was just a totally different reality, which
    I couldn't relate to at all.
    So I'm sure that my parents just simply
    didn't want to involve me because, somehow, they
    also were very protective of me in terms of it.
    And also, they felt that it's in Germany.
    And really, Czechoslovakia was so self-contained in a way
    and so secure at that particular time--
    during that particular time, that they felt, well,
    there is not very much.
    Until, of course, '38 and all that sort of--
    and that actually started early because the death of Masaryk,
    he died of old age, I think was the turn of the tide.
    It somehow changed the entire issue
    because his successor, Edvard Benes,
    just simply was not at all--
    and there, he made a mistake that he was his choice
    and he became his successor.
    And I think that was a terrible tragedy because the man was
    not up to it.
    And many of the things which happened in Central Europe
    were due to his inactivity and being dreadfully misguided.
    And though those people--
    this person was very educated, supposedly educated
    and experienced, seasoned statesmen,
    but he just simply didn't live up
    to the hopes of all the people.
    And the fact that I'm here would say to a large extent
    due to the fact that he failed.
    Otherwise, I wouldn't be here.
    When did the Czechs begin to feel
    the political climate changing?
    Well, I think '37 and '38, of course,
    was very obvious and '39.
    In what ways?
    In what ways?
    Well, simply because they realized
    that there was an aggressor with an eye on Czechoslovakia
    and that there may be a war with Germany.
    And that's particularly something
    which there was full, total mobilization and were
    prepared for air raids.
    I still have a--
    I think I brought it with me actually.
    In a crowd where we're just like in Israel, for example.
    They're just getting gas masks and all
    that because of the Iraqis.
    We were getting exactly the same situation,
    buying gas masks, people's gas masks during '39
    when people thought that there's going to be a war.
    And they're ready to go.
    Except it was prevented by the decision of Benes who said
    we have absolutely no chance.
    It is something which--
    and so the joke had it that Benes had a plan
    and his plan was an aeroplane.
    And that was one of the greatest tragedies
    because as I've talked to, later on after the war,
    to SS Generals and said, John, we
    were not at all well prepared.
    And if your Czechs would have gone to war,
    the chances are that Hitler would have changed his tune.
    Not only that, but so many other people
    would have joined in with Czechoslovakia against Germany.
    And so he was very upfront and said, I mean,
    that was a big mistake.
    We were not ready.
    Did you all know that back then?
    It happened to be that this SS General--
    this SS General happened to be one of my namesake's, a fellow
    called Felix Steiner--
    was very nice guy, actually, so very nice guy.
    He was Waffen SS.
    He didn't have anything to do with any of the concentration
    camps.
    He was a professional soldier and not a Nazi.
    But he wanted to make a career.
    He was an opportunist.
    And he just joined the SS because he said, hey, there I
    have a career, which he did.
    So he said it's just unbelievable some of the things
    Hitler were having.
    Were you aware of any anti-Semitism?
    Yeah.
    Can you tell us about it?
    Well, there was a fellow called--
    I remember his name.
    There was one kind of small, impoverished addition
    of the Lord Fauntleroy, and he was
    one of my fellow schoolmates.
    And small fellow and just really looked impoverished addition.
    Anyway, just very snobbish parents and name was Miller.
    So the school I went to was the primary school.
    In primary school, there was always
    some sort of classes for catechism
    and all that, which I didn't attend
    because my parents didn't want me to attend that, of course.
    And there was no other, then there was
    Catholic teaching of religion.
    And so a Catholic priest came in and all that.
    Some kids and I just talked about something and said,
    well, you know the Jews killed Christ and crucified him.
    And I said, well, yes.
    Well, that's-- but you know the Jews are responsible.
    I said, hey.
    I was, of course, very steeped in all these things
    because I had my private lessons in religion
    and all that, went to a minister who did that.
    And I said, well, yes.
    But you see, he was a Jew too.
    And so he said--
    he told that to his teacher and said,
    tell this dirty Jew to keep his mouth shut or something like
    that, some of sort of remark.
    And I was really--
    I was really very upset.
    And then there is some sort of, in this Miller fellow,
    just innuendos.
    And he wanted to invite me to his place,
    but his mother didn't want to because she said, well,
    you are--
    you don't belong to us or something of that nature.
    And I said, what do you mean you don't
    belong to us and all this?
    And these sort of things came up.
    That was one thing.
    So that was one of the first episode,
    and that was just very rare, actually.
    And then there was actually two episodes
    which stayed in my mind.
    And the second episode was just--
    must have been either '37 or '38 and we
    were riding the bus going from some-- coming home.
    And I was very lots into sports and did all sorts
    of things and kind of a role model
    for an association of gym people who went
    into gymnastics and all that.
    So I did a lot of things and I was very--
    I was always very rubbery and tremendous runner
    and all this sort of thing.
    And so in this bus when he stepped out very close
    to our home, I always jumped off the bus earlier
    before it actually stopped to the dismay of my mother.
    And so she was a bit on the overprotective side.
    There's no question about that.
    And so she shouted at that particular time and in German.
    And she was a very dark-- could have been an India.
    I mean, she was very dark and kind of small and all that.
    Obviously, the Czech type.
    She was very obviously not a Czech .
    And what she was shouting at me just to stop and not
    to jump off the still moving bus,
    there was one man who made a very interesting remark, which
    disturbed her more than it disturbed me.
    He said, Hitler!
    Hitler!
    Only Jews, only Jews.
    Hitler!
    Hitler!
    And that stopped me.
    And I said, my God, what is wrong?
    My mother was terribly upset.
    And when we went out, we went to a policeman
    and she complained about this person's remarks, which
    was kind of naive and all because he
    was gone with the wind anyway.
    But that was actually two incidents through which
    the first awareness.
    So when your fellow students considered you Jewish.
    That's right.
    Did you think they considered themselves cultural Jews?
    Oh, yeah, I would say that.
    I think absolutely, yeah.
    Absolutely, in spite of their faith
    which was very everything else.
    But culturally, absolutely, yeah.
    And which was a very enrichment of the environment, which
    is exceedingly important influence
    on me and certainly on them.
    So that was the first awareness I've had.
    And then I joined the Boy Scouts when I was about 12,
    and was an Eagle Scout and all that sort of thing and leader
    of a group of the Owls.
    And that was already then during a time when we were occupied.
    I was still in it, I remember.
    And before I got actually accepted,
    there was also a namesake of mine,
    also his name was Steiner, who was in charge.
    He was in charge of the whole division of Scouts
    or the district Scout leader.
    And so my mother and I went there,
    it was not very far from where we lived, and introduced
    ourselves, me and all that to be accepted as a member of the Boy
    Scouts.
    And then he made some sort of innuendos, Jewish
    and all this and that.
    And that continued during the time I was actually in it.
    And that also was the third incident which somehow
    was an eye-opening experience.
    Was your family--
    But they're very infrequent.
    All these sort of things were relatively infrequent
    and that's why I just recollected
    sort of three events, which I think made me more sensitive.
    Because before that, my identity was everything else but Jewish
    or this or that.
    I really didn't have no identity.
    And you asked a question.
    I was wondering if you were sensing fears in your family
    by that time.
    No fears.
    Unfortunately, no fears.
    No fears because very many of our friends--
    since you mentioned that, it's just always
    good to just ask questions so that I can fill
    in some because they lead to some associations which
    might be interesting.
    Many of our friends left in the '30s,
    and all sorts of different places
    depending where they could go.
    And yeah, it became a concern.
    Oh, they're leaving?
    Well, it's Hitler and all this and that.
    So that started, actually, in the '30s.
    It was just started long before the blow up.
    And my mother was also and --
    So she insisted, well, maybe we should learn some Spanish
    because we may go to South America or something.
    So I learned Spanish and I took lessons in Spanish,
    which evaporated very quickly because I didn't--
    So then I said, well, what's going on?
    So there, just around '37--
    that's just after the death of Masaryk, actually.
    I said, well, it's not as clear cut and as solid
    as I thought it would be.
    We just didn't feel that something was changing.
    The situation was no longer political [INAUDIBLE]..
    Intellectual, of course, I didn't really
    understand that much about that, except I felt, well,
    some things are changing.
    Some threats, someplace which do something
    with the feelings I have about being in this sort of place.
    I identify where I feel secure and which I enjoy tremendously.
    I enjoyed it tremendously to be born where I was.
    I really enjoyed myself.
    I made the best of it.
    I had this sort of elan the river.
    Yeah, was really appreciating enjoying what
    the opportunities were there.
    Were the adults talking about the political situation?
    Oh, yeah, they very much into politics,
    except most of the things I just didn't particularly-- was not
    that fully interested, one.
    And two, I didn't quite understand
    the implications, the words.
    And it didn't make much of an impression, only after,
    of course, the beginning and '38 and all that.
    And then, of course, we got all into a totally
    different situation, which then--
    oh, yeah.
    There was another situation, which
    was the beginning of, so to speak,
    the beginning of the dreadful time.
    There was one person who was--
    that was very shortly after the German invasion.
    And a man called Weiner, and he came from Germany, refugee.
    And when the Germans came in, actually--
    so he lived in the same apartment house.
    So he committed suicide jumping out of the window.
    And my mother was-- during World War I,
    she was a very identified with Austro-Hungarian things.
    She was a highly decorated nurse, highly decorated nurse.
    I could still remember when I played with all the medals she
    had as a young woman.
    And very well skilled and very liked
    and exceedingly successful, and made very important contacts.
    So she was at home then.
    And of course, that was the first thing she did.
    She just somehow observed it or heard it or something,
    went down and the body was there.
    A very massive sort of a fairly large figure.
    I still remember him, Dr. Weiner was his name.
    So we had more of these incidents, suicides
    and all that before and after.
    And then of course, for Hitler, it was a total change, well,
    the whole thing.
    And my response, political awareness or awakening,
    so to speak, was with the Scouts, when I'd become a scout
    leader, and it was in '39.
    That kid said, all right-- just said we have to do something.
    So we organized a quasi underground.
    We just playing with--
    training with weapons or something like Mickey Mouse
    stuff.
    And that was the first thing that I started to resist.
    But my parents somehow still didn't
    woke up to the whole thing, except they
    said you have to go.
    So they arranged for me-- they arranged
    for me to go to England with the assistance of this Petschek
    And although Petschek had died long before, many years before,
    but there was another Petschek and children,
    and they were the heirs to all this unbelievable money
    and all this and that.
    So when she was--
    Martha Petschek was my mother's first cousin.
    So they were already in England before things happened.
    And because all these people, all the rich people
    we knew, all of them, I mean all the really rich rich people,
    they had left before 12 o'clock.
    And so that made a very important impression.
    Because some of the people who now
    are in the United States and all that,
    the [INAUDIBLE] people who had the largest sugar refineries
    in Czechoslovakia called [? Mansel ?] Jewish people
    with whom we were friends.
    And they had left and all that.
    So they tried very hard to--
    because somehow, they didn't feel it was possible for them
    or whatever reasons, and it's a very complicated situation
    whatever.
    They talked about the complicated--
    So they felt they didn't, in particular, were
    able to leave for reasons which were not at all
    reasonable to me in retrospect.
    They felt that I should leave in time.
    And so I had my railway ticket.
    I had a college that is a private school back in England.
    I was just-- bought me all the various suits
    and things and everything, outfit, beautiful,
    and have specific date.
    And that is an important thing because then, by that time,
    the Nazis already had invaded Czechoslovakia.
    And Gestapo was in place and the Jewish measures
    were introduced and all that.
    So we already were--
    it was not the Jewish star as yet, but just shortly before,
    actually.
    That was before the war, so it was '39 before Poland.
    And so I had to go to the Gestapo headquarters,
    some of the very infamous SS officer-- very infamous
    SS officer, present myself in order
    to get a Gestapo permission to leave the country.
    And I remember I knew that sort of spade
    of this stereotypical--
    I should say stereotypical SS types,
    they just had to stand in attention all this sort
    of thing that was expected.
    And I was very good at it, very good at it.
    So I [? greet ?] a very important fellow
    was named Burger, that's Hauptsturmfuhrer Burger.
    Burger, B-U-R-G-E-R.
    And so I went and sat with my mother.
    And he was kind of OK, very OK.
    All right, OK, all right.
    Kind of impressed because I didn't fit the type.
    So that was fine.
    I was ready.
    I had my railway ticket.
    And then just a day before I was to go, something
    of that nature, day or two something of that nature,
    they invaded Poland and war broke out.
    And all the borders were closed and I was in, finished.
    So I didn't get out.
    And prior to that, of course, the mobilization--
    there's still a possibility we're at war with Germany.
    I remember all the sort of things
    with all the measures to no light and all that,
    air raids and gas masks and panicky sort of situation.
    I find that was very adventurous.
    I just thrived on it and just thought it was terrifying.
    You weren't afraid?
    No, not at all.
    I was just thriving.
    It was terribly stimulating, a very interesting sort of thing.
    Then when the Germans--
    I was, at that particular time, in the German school.
    When the Germans came in, they didn't know-- many of them
    didn't know that I was Jewish background.
    There was another fellow from Austria who was half Jewish
    and we were kind of close friends.
    A fellow called Erich Fromm, but has
    nothing to do with the other Erich Fromm.
    And a very intelligent fellow, nice person.
    I don't know what happened to him.
    I was lost, unfortunately, sight.
    He got out.
    He got out in time, somehow.
    So then they said, OK.
    Heil, Hitler, Hans.
    They called me Hans.
    Heil, Hitler, Hans and all this.
    And I said, hey, what do you mean?
    So I came with the check line in it, the check thing.
    And I said, what the hell, are you crazy?
    What they do?
    You join the Hitler Youth, what?
    Well, and then, of course, the whole thing
    came out and all this, and I was kicked out of school.
    And they joined the Hitler Youth, of course,
    and I was ordered to attend some of the meetings, Nazi meetings
    because the whole school had to go.
    And then, of course, they saw that the background
    was and Nuremberg laws and all this and that.
    I was kicked out of school.
    So then the whole notion of Jewishness
    and all that sort of thing, that just was overwhelming.
    And I was totally unprepared, and so I just
    was very ambivalent and said, what the hell?
    How come I this and that?
    Because who understood racial or logicity of racial laws?
    Something which is totally and utterly
    illogical and unscientific, and you name it, obviously.
    So then all those who were similarly situated,
    namely all those who were defined
    as according to the Nuremberg laws as Jews, all their friends
    and all that, we all were externally and internally,
    of course, isolated and then banned together.
    And then the whole thing started.
    And it was a Jewish school, a trade school.
    And I went into Jewish trade school
    to learn the trade of an electro technician.
    My uncle had one of the largest wholesale businesses
    in the electro-technical field.
    He had some former employees, people he worked with,
    so we said, well, we should go and learn the trade too,
    not just that.
    So I went there, and then the anti-Semitism,
    all these sort of things--
    and the rather primitive sort of people who took advantage and I
    felt, my God, we are Czechs, but we are not Jews.
    So there are some people who are below us,
    and you are one of them.
    So that was quite a bit of cruelty and unpleasantness.
    And that's when I started to learn
    to defend myself physically and otherwise.
    And it was a very trying time.
    You were beat up?
    Oh, yeah.
    Well, I was abused, beat up.
    I mean, I could defend--
    I was strong and so I defended myself.
    But I mean, you can't defend yourself always
    against a number of kids who are older and all that,
    and tough primitives, you see.
    And so that's when I learned to defend myself,
    and successfully.
    But I suffered a great deal because of the injustice
    and unfairness and all the whole thing,
    it just totally overtook me.
    I just had to come to terms with that,
    which I just had problems with because I was not prepared.
    It came very sudden and with tremendous force.
    And to adjust all these things was exceedingly difficult.
    But we got that and then we--
    my father, and the whole family and all that,
    had links with the resistance, and we
    did all sorts of things we could to sabotage and all that.
    Nothing really great, help people to escape over
    the borders, I remember that.
    Very endangered sort of species, a person who
    was very active in the Social Democratic Party, a man
    called Walter [Personal name] who
    had a Social Democratic paper published,
    a paper with a publisher.
    And so he had to--
    so we sheltered him back in the villa in Rostok
    and sheltered him and helped him to get over
    the border to Poland.
    That was before the Polish situation,
    but the Nazis were already there in Czechoslovakia.
    Did you family do any other resistance kind of things?
    Oh, yeah.
    Well, yeah.
    All these sort of-- yeah, my mother, for example,
    was an interrogator, oh, yeah.
    Well, that's kind of interesting thing.
    So the bank place-- the bank building
    in which my father worked was confiscated, of course.
    Immediately after the Germans come,
    it become the Gestapo headquarters.
    And my mother was brought there to be interrogated
    and that was after my father already
    had been deported to Theresienstadt because he was
    one whom they call the AK2 transport, AK1
    and AK2 transport, to build up Theresienstadt as a ghetto.
    And he was on the bottom ground in AK2 transport
    and he was deported in '41.
    And because he was tall, he was relatively young then and all
    that to build, and then he became a very important person
    at Theresienstadt, in this regard.
    And had privileged status by virtue of the fact
    that he, with so many others who came from Prague and elsewhere,
    had to develop Theresienstadt and prepare it
    for the concentration camp, the ghetto.
    Well, that gave him a privileged status.
    Anyway, but because some things were
    known, and whatever about his activities and this,
    so my mother then was interrogated by the Gestapo.
    I don't think really very much happened.
    She came home and always told me very little
    just not to scare me and just make
    me worry and all this and that.
    Then we still had a--
    at home we always had a live-in maid, help--
    one, two, one.
    And she was still there and the German soldiers came
    and all this.
    And so this one, changed them occasionally and this one
    happened to be kind of woman of just kind of a little bit
    retarded or whatever.
    So some German soldier picked her up and came to our family
    there and slept overnight with her and all
    these sort of things started on that.
    And so then we had contact with the Germans
    who then had occupied that--
    and I became very active in the kind of resistance,
    and that was strictly Jewish, Maccabi type of resistance,
    under the leadership of a man called
    Fredy Hirsch, Fredy Hirsch.
    And we became very close friends.
    And a group of youngsters like myself, under his leadership,
    and with the permission of the Gestapo,
    prepared deportees for deportation.
    That is to say help them to gather their things together
    and bring them to the station or whatever and kind of render
    support.
    And that was a very important thing.
    And also sabotage what could be sabotaged.
    And that was my first real active situation
    in this and I totally identified.
    So I was provocative, Jewish star,
    went through Wenceslas Square in center of Prague,
    which we didn't have permission, but I
    had a special permission because of my activity
    and I just used it to the hilt.
    And we did what we could and made
    it somewhat easier for people who were deported somehow
    to prepare, to help to pack, particularly older people.
    And it was something which started, somehow,
    my active type of resistance, if you will.
    Resistance in a way to outmaneuver, whenever we could,
    the Nazis.
    You were quite young.
    Well, what kind of sabotage would you be able to do?
    Well, sabotage in terms of doing things
    we are not supposed to do in favor
    of those who were victimized.
    So it was nothing political in terms of blowing up
    things or this and that.
    No, that was not-- although some people did it and all this.
    But no, my thing was just simply to render support
    within this sort of group, to those
    who were to be deported and advise them and help
    them, whatever and all that.
    Now during that time, also some other people--
    then of course, apartments of the nature we've had,
    of course, were much too large.
    Then by order, we had to take in some other people, Jews
    and all that would come from different other places
    and lived in very crowded conditions.
    But not in ghettos because that was not in Prague.
    They just stayed where they were living, except they
    had to bring in more people.
    And then from these places, then they
    were eventually deported to various other places.
    So that was one activity, and that's
    how I got to know Fredy Hirsch.
    And I was with him off and on until he committed suicide back
    in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And he was a very important role model.
    He was just a fantastic person.
    And a man called Adler, who wrote about the Theresienstadt,
    and I discussed it with him.
    He just simply didn't have much.
    He was just totally distorted and just totally distorted.
    And so role the Fredy Hirsch played in--
    not only in resisting the Nazis with methods which
    were just very uncanny and all that and saving many people's
    lives.
    Until it was not possible anymore
    because all these people were gassed
    at that particular moment.
    In the period between, I was going to say, '39 to '41
    when you weren't living with your father,
    but were you in touch with him regularly?
    Oh, yes, of course.
    I mean, it never ended because what he did.
    He just moved to my grandparents,
    which was 10 minutes walking distance.
    So that was no problem.
    I saw him regularly and we had a nice relationship
    with no problem.
    My mother felt OK about that and I also felt kind of better,
    but it was kind of a good arrangement.
    I didn't suffer or my mother didn't.
    I think he probably suffered a little bit
    because by virtue of the fact that he
    had a room with his parents.
    There was not too much of a problem,
    so he had some closeness and was not abandoned
    by anyone for that matter.
    Except some of my mother's blood relations were not exactly
    happy with his conduct and all that.
    So there's always two sides to it.
    Did he lose his job?
    Well, I mean, he was-- yes, he lost his job.
    And then the Gestapo also ordered him to liquidate.
    We were one of the last liquidators of the Petschek
    bank.
    And because he knew too much and some of the things--
    then he was also the first to be deported to Theresienstadt
    as kind of a thank you.
    Where you present when he was deported?
    Oh, yeah, of course.
    You know, I mean, we used to send him parcels and all that,
    whatever there was, which was more than they had there.
    So we sent regular parcels and were in contact with him
    all the time.
    In terms of letters and all that,
    he could write and all that.
    [INAUDIBLE] that before.
    Oh, yeah.
    And how did your mother--
    And he also knew when I came myself.
    He expected me.
    He was there when I came, actually, in the railway,
    in the wagon, box car.
    He was there, present, expecting me
    because he found out, because of his position,
    that I was on the list.
    He found out?
    Oh, yeah.
    Yeah, he already expected me.
    And when was that?
    When did you go there?
    Well, that's another thing which--
    is a story which I have to say because it's an important one.
    OK.
    How about your mother, how did she fair financially?
    Financially, she was pretty well off.
    I mean, she was pretty well off because my uncle always
    rendered support.
    He was quite wealthy and he rendered support
    when there was some shortage.
    And we didn't-- there was never any sort of--
    so I certainly didn't feel it and she didn't feel it.
    I mean, we retained our apartment
    with the exception of the fact that we had
    to take some people into it.
    How many people came in?
    Two-- well, we always had some people from Germany
    all the time and single ones, usually single women, which
    was kind of interesting because I was a good looking chap
    at that particular time.
    And so they all--
    although I was a child, they always
    tried some sexual innuendos with these young women who
    were just in their early 20s.
    And so on, and you sat on my lap and all this that.
    It was kind of interesting.
    They didn't do anything bad, actually.
    I found it quite interesting.
    You were very young, a teenager then.
    No, I was not a teenager then.
    That was before.
    No, no, no, that was long before that.
    OK.
    But so we always took that as part of the refugees.
    So that was before that.
    But that was in connection with the refugees,
    so when we sheltered and then took and all that.
    I see.
    Two people, yeah, family.
    You were forced to take them by then?
    Yeah, forced.
    And they were also the ones who were deported and were
    called Peltzer from Vienna, Dr. Peltzer from Vienna.
    And he was there until his deportation.
    And he was a very interesting person
    because he had some sort of corroboration,
    some very shady deals with some of the Gestapo people.
    I don't know what he did, but there
    was some-- he always had some tremendous things.
    They got special foods and all this and that.
    Went down with black boots kind of emulating the SS,
    not identifying, but emulating in terms of power.
    They wanted to endear themselves and did some very strange
    things, very strange things, and knew a lot of things,
    and very shady deals.
    Something was going on, which was obvious because they got
    also chocolates and all that when these sort of things
    were not to be had for anyone, and living in splendor
    and not only boasted about their contacts with SS
    and all that and the important SS officers in charge
    of deportation all that.
    So they had some dealing and wheeling,
    and that was kind of very strange, very strange.
    Never adhered to these rules and all that.
    They had some special sort of thing.
    But then they were taken and boom, no one heard from them.
    But they still were forced to leave their home.
    Mhm?
    They were still had been forced to leave their own home.
    Oh, well, they came from Vienna, yeah.
    Forced not-- that, for sure, yeah.
    Yeah, yeah.
    But they had some very-- there were very interesting
    thing, which if I had more time and occasion,
    I would have liked to research.
    Because there was some very interesting sort of things
    going on because he told us about his terrific contacts
    with this deportation authorities and all that.
    Well, but the thing which I want to say that--
    so that happened.
    And then Heydrich was assassinated in '42.
    And there was a very, very exciting time for me.
    I was also doing things to earn some extra money for my mother,
    just to earn.
    So I was cutting toys out of wood things
    and put them together and all that,
    and got paid so much for a number of things
    which I'd cut up and all that.
    I used this one.
    And at that time, all the other people were deported already.
    And so we were on our own there in the apartment again.
    You mean, your extended family had gone off?
    That's right, they all were all gone.
    So after the sort of assassination was a search.
    So the military was ordered the German armed forces went
    through every house, every room, everything searching
    for the assassin, which was--
    and they also came to us and were
    very impressed that I was cutting out
    these toys and all that.
    They were quite nice about that.
    Then as a retaliation to the assassination of Reinhard
    Heydrich, they decided to have a special transport
    to Theresienstadt of kind of very rich Jews or whatever,
    this sort of thing, as a punitive sort of transport,
    as a retaliation to the assassination.
    And I was one.
    And on the 10 of August, 1942, I was deported to Theresienstadt.
    And actually, I had celebrated my birthday on 3 of August,
    it's my birthday.
    And I already had some sort of premonition,
    something terrible is going to happen.
    And I woke up and told my mother some-- you know,
    are you sick or something?
    Just something terrible is going to happen.
    I kept on repeating that terrible going to happen,
    terrible.
    And on the 10 of August, they took me and my mother stayed.
    My mother stayed.
    They didn't take my mother for whatever reason.
    So they took me as a kind of punitive act.
    They came to your house?
    Yeah, so then I came to Theresienstadt
    on a terrible transport, all these sort of things.
    Of course, you have traumatic adjustment to new realities
    and unanticipated, all these sort of things,
    will never occur to you in nightmares.
    Although I had quite frequent nightmares,
    which pointed to some direction or some --
    I've had them.
    And so then we arrived.
    My father was there, and the whole thing in Theresienstadt
    started.
    And many people I knew and got involved
    in a lot of activities.
    There was Fredy Hirsch, of course,
    and with him and some other people
    I got very much active in cultural endeavors.
    I encountered people I never would
    have encountered in my life.
    Other than that, just people, Nobel Prize winners, whatever
    and very active, intellectual life.
    And I was exposed to people who were
    the best of possible teachers you ever would meet in reality.
    Virtually impossible to encounter
    and that was Theresienstadt for a certain time.
    I stayed with about 12 or 13 youngsters in one thing
    under the supervision of a Czech philosophy student,
    almost finished his doctorate but didn't, a man
    called Gustav [Personal name] who staged
    plays and unbelievable things.
    And so that the cultural scene, which existed there,
    of philosophers, thinkers, scientists, artists, musicians,
    all that, was a very, very stimulating
    and an important experience which somehow powerfully
    balanced all the traumatic events, the deprivation
    and the dreadfulness of it all.
    It had a very important impact on me,
    lasting because there were people of many-- all you know
    lots of different people there.
    Encountered were just from SA--
    members of the SA, but they found out they're Jewish,
    so they deported them.
    And then they had the priests.
    You had people of different persuasions.
    Just unbelievable, unbelievable, broad spectrum.
    And also had the Judenrat, and they
    were the worst of them all.
    In what way?
    Well, they were just not only collaborating,
    but they just simply tried to save their skin
    and collaborated with the Nazis in a most abominable way
    and just terrible.
    And I still remember some of the people
    during the deportation situation,
    particularly where we assemble, the place when
    people are deported in Prague.
    Some of these characters, some of the rabbis and whatever,
    were just unbelievable types and did all the dirty work
    of the Gestapo.
    And that was unforgivable.
    And that continued pretty much in Theresienstadt,
    so with the exception of the Judenrat, which was simply
    totally unacceptable, the other people were counterbalance.
    Then of course, I was with my grandmother
    there, some distant relatives, many
    of the friends with whom we were very close,
    befriended families.
    So there were a lot of people with whom I had contact,
    but the older ones, of course, deteriorated very rapidly
    and it was just terrible to see what happened to them.
    My mother, of course, was also not well off.
    She had pneumonia, caught pneumonia there.
    She had come later?
    Mhm?
    She had come lately, your mother?
    Yeah, she came the same year, later,
    I think in October or something--
    October or November.
    And so to see all that was, of course, terrible.
    And how was the food situation?
    No situation.
    It just awful in this place, dreadful.
    People starving.
    But my father supplemented some of these things because
    of his privileged status.
    So he was getting more by virtue of the fact
    that he had come during the so-called AK2 transport.
    So he was able to get special rations, which he then
    shared with us.
    He was in this kind of very different and he was very,
    very supportive and fantastic things for mother
    from whom he was divorced.
    But he behaved very well also towards me.
    Very, very nice and supportive kind of relationship.
    It changed in the camp.
    So all these various activities, we studied
    and we worked and we did all sorts of things
    with various people who became well known
    in the history of the Holocaust, many of the names.
    And I was right in the midst of it.
    And I knew them all and worked with them in the activity.
    And then in '43, I was on the list for those to be deported.
    I also worked with some of the people, so that I--
    in some sort of administrative situation
    as clerical situation.
    So therefore, I had some knowledge
    in terms of the type of Gestapo people and Judenrat
    and all that.
    And what I saw was just awful, awful, awful.
    It was just awful what I saw.
    These characters-- saw people ruined and the way
    they collaborated and all that.
    It was just awful, just awful.
    It was very depressing for me.
    Mhm?
    I was asking if you could speak of that.
    Well, I mean, it's just that they
    did-- they collaborated to do the dirty job.
    An extension of the Gestapo, that's what they were.
    And I found that to be totally and utterly unforgivable.
    And they did that also because, first of all,
    they wanted to prevail and wanted to save their own skin
    and have a better life with a rich position.
    So that's the first time I became
    interested in what I later studied as an academician.
    How people behave in extreme stress situation
    in terms of moral precepts.
    And many of these people are rabbis, as I said before.
    That's why rabbi doesn't mean anything to me.
    It doesn't mean that he's a person who
    is any better than any.
    He's just as vulnerable as anyone else.
    Anyway, so that people with doctor degrees and all
    that behaved in a way which was, I
    consider even under those circumstances,
    beyond forgivable.
    Did you have instances where people
    were extraordinarily kind beyond what you might expect?
    I mean besides in a family situation with your father.
    I don't quite understand what you saying.
    Where there-- in hard times, people were more kind at times
    then you would have accepted, as well as being--
    Well, my father always was very socially-- as I said earlier,
    socially very social person, very oriented in his regard--
    very socially-oriented and--
    but the fact is that in spite of the conflict
    he had with my mother and certainly with me, he
    behaved in a way which was exceedingly
    responsible and supportive.
    And so that changed kind of the relationship with all for us,
    actually, mother as well as myself.
    Yes, and there are some interesting incidents.
    When I lived with a group of young people,
    there are some people, lots of half Jewish people--
    half Jewish were first degree, not second degree Jews.
    Half Jews, first degree that is to say these people
    were not exempted.
    Second degree were exempt.
    So in the Theresienstadt, it was still
    possible to make contacts, by people, do things.
    So some of these kids, I knew, just periodically left over
    the weekend to visit home.
    Left Theresienstadt, and this is just a fact,
    and then they came back on Sunday.
    How did they do that?
    Well, they just had the contacts.
    And they dealt with the Czech Gendarmes and all that,
    knew where and how to get out.
    Knew the loopholes and got out, slipped out,
    and then they returned the same way back.
    And that was the so-called, I know the names, of course,
    the Friedman brothers--
    one older and younger brother -- terrors.
    Absolute terrors.
    Yeah, they were half Jews, first degree.
    And they did that.
    And then a good friend of mine whom I knew from Prague,
    I didn't know them before, but I got
    to know them-- and a real terror because they misbehaved
    in so many different ways.
    They were cruel to a lot of young kids like us
    and just really beat the hell out of them whenever they could
    and all this sort of thing.
    And then there was a fellow called Taussig.
    And his appearance, he looked like what we called
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    That means that the Jewish community put together
    in terms of stereotypical Jewish appearance.
    So he did the same thing.
    It was a close friend of mine, and I was always supportive.
    Of course, I knew all the things and did
    all I could in order to make it possible,
    whatever I could do from my end because I
    didn't have that contact.
    I couldn't do [? either. ?] Although, I
    could have gone to people who would have sheltered me,
    but it was a very risky thing.
    And it was just an unbelievable thing.
    I don't know if anyone has written about that yet.
    I mean, if not, one should really.
    So there was this Taussig and he looked very Jewish.
    And to be sure, he did it on a number of occasions
    because he too was out, and got caught
    and came to a very bad end.
    And I tried to help him on that bad end
    because the Judenrat just tried to protect themselves,
    not to be chided or just get into real problems
    with the SS authorities.
    So I mean, he then was taken out of circulation,
    put into some special confinement
    and gassed and sent to Auschwitz.
    And then was another fellow who was also like that,
    but looked not at all Jewish--
    and blonde.
    And that was one of my major things which I did,
    and I'm very proud of.
    He didn't have anyone else to talk to.
    He was actually an orphan of sorts,
    so he always confided in me.
    And said, OK, I'd like you to help me
    to escape from Theresienstadt.
    And this and this, I'm going to do, leave on that day.
    I need some supplies.
    You can help me with that and all that.
    And then you have to cover for me in case people would--
    And he had found exactly, again, a loophole
    to get out, to slip out.
    That was possible in Theresienstadt
    if you really knew it.
    And he was a very enterprising, aggressive individual.
    His name was Kurt, Kurt [Personal name]
    Kurt [Personal name] And that was in '43.
    It was in spring '43, I think.
    So he-- we prepared everything, rations, food, everything
    so that he could, strength and all that.
    And one night, he just said, OK, it's time.
    He went and everything went OK.
    And why do I know that?
    Because I met him by accident in Prague,
    in Prague Street after the war.
    [Personal name] made his way because the way he looked.
    He just looked like he could have
    been an SS man if he wanted to.
    And he made his way to Vienna and out of Austria, Balkan
    and then to England.
    He came back and then became a member of the Allied British
    Forces.
    A miracle.
    - Yeah, Kurt [Personal name]
    Did you ever think to try to do something like that?
    Yeah, I did, but that was before that.
    And since you mentioned-- because we
    had non-Jewish relatives and all that in Vienna,
    particularly in Vienna.
    And my uncle, a husband of my mother's sister, Charlotte
    Froehlich, was his name, Froehlich, was
    a very well-known figure and high official in Vienna,
    and had very many well-known influential people.
    So he became a submarine.
    He disappeared and survived.
    After the war, we were in touch and all that,
    so he died of old age in Vienna.
    So then we also had some distant relatives
    who were not Jewish or just not sufficiently Jewish
    to be affected.
    And so one of them was a physician.
    And he came to Prague and said, why don't you come to Vienna?
    I help you to become a submarine.
    Then I said, yes, we should really do that.
    I was take-- don't give anything to the Nazis.
    Bury all the jewelry, all this and that.
    But they wouldn't do it because they just--
    or we haven't done it.
    We just have to be obedient and do these things and all that.
    All my parents and my relatives kind of
    felt obligated to abide by--
    which was very-- and I was really rebelling and said,
    this is crazy.
    And so did this physician relative
    of ours, distant relative.
    So I said, well, but I wouldn't want to do it.
    I didn't want to do it.
    And I said, why don't we?
    At least we have nothing to lose.
    Said this is terrible you didn't do nothing.
    But no, they wouldn't do it.
    Yeah, so I thought of that, but did not succeed in this.
    Now the same thing, of course, with this Kurt [Personal name]
    and all that, that was among the worst
    conditions and the Friedman brothers got away with it.
    No, Freed, not Friedman.
    Freed brothers, Freed was their name.
    Freed.
    And Kurt [Personal name] got away with it and survived.
    Why would people go out for the weekend and return?
    Because it would have been too risky to keep them there
    on a permanent basis.
    It would have been too risky.
    And they would have--
    they would noticed that they are not there.
    Of course, [Personal name] later on,
    of course, after I've tried to cover for him and all that,
    when he was already gone, God knows where,
    and then they found out.
    They count and there was someone missing.
    But that's something which you found out
    because they kept tabs on you.
    I mean, precisely, that's how they structured it.
    You had Jewish overseers who said, hey, that is [INAUDIBLE]
    and then went up and reported.
    That's everything, OK, and all that.
    And that's the system which is described
    by Raul Hilberg and Hannah Arendt
    and so many other people, which they institutionalized,
    the Nazis, the Gestapo institutionalized
    because that saved them a great deal of personnel
    and implicating the Jews to corroborate.
    And so that there was a division of the unification in terms
    of the leadership and all that.
    They were very successful.
    It was just an absolutely, devilish, satanic method.
    It was only to retaliate on the family members left behind
    also.
    Right, right, right.
    Well, so that was a very interesting thing.
    And then I was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And by that time, there were some friends of mine
    who were already there from Theresienstadt.
    They too were kind of elected for reasons which escape me.
    Because I, again, came with some sort of special outfit
    to Auschwitz-Birkenau, not to be gassed.
    Not to be gassed.
    Did you know that then?
    And we have privilege--
    no, then it was just something unbelievable.
    And we are sent to the so-called B2 family camp.
    They didn't cut our hair.
    And this friend of mine, a man called
    Hans Fisher was a jazz pianist.
    A very gifted person, son of a psychiatrist,
    a professor of psychiatry in Prague.
    Friends from Prague I knew before the camp time.
    So he was part of the musicians, the Auschwitz-Birkenau
    musicians, who were in the band.
    And therefore, had a privileged position
    to move around a little bit.
    And so somehow, he was already there,
    that I'd be in this thing.
    That I would be in--
    arriving in this transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And he was there and said, here you are.
    Do you have anything?
    Give it to me.
    I can bring it to you.
    So we give it.
    And of course, we were deloused, so to speak,
    cold showers and all this.
    And that was a very interesting sort of thing
    because I'm not circumcised, of course,
    by virtue of my parents.
    And so when we went into Kanada with all the people in Kanada
    and dealing with us and the delousing.
    so they said, hey, what are you doing here?
    And started interesting sort of remarks that were not funny.
    They thought it was funny.
    I didn't because I was traumatized in terms
    of what was taking place there.
    I could smell the gas, everything, an awful thing.
    So this Hans Fischer, meanwhile, of course,
    took some of the things which they were taking away from me.
    And I was able to save some few things in some of my crevices
    in my backside, a beautiful knife and all
    these sort of books and just unbelievable stuff.
    By that time, I already was seasoned
    and I knew how to manipulate my situation to my advantage.
    And I talked to some of the people in Kanada
    and they gave me some advice because they
    knew that we somehow were very different
    and we will be treated differently
    and not sent to the gas chamber.
    So they're more talkative and more supportive
    because they did what they could.
    And yes, they just went and told me what to do.
    We went through the showers, of course, dreadful this terrible,
    everything left.
    And we had this awful striped things
    and the smell is awful, just dreadful situation.
    Then we went to the B2 camp and there was Hans Fischer and he
    just gave me back all the things because he was a friend and all
    this and --
    And then Fredy Hirsch came and many other people.
    And then eventually my parents came, both of them.
    And my mother was on the--
    see, the members of the AK2 transport to Theresienstadt,
    their basic camp building Kommando, so to speak,
    they were exempt from being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau
    or from Theresienstadt, period.
    They were exempted from any movement -- transportation.
    But my mother came next.
    You see, my mother then was on the list
    to be shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And so my father did one of the most heroic things.
    He said, I'm coming with you.
    That is--
    Knowing already that this was death.
    I mean, we didn't know the gassing and this or that,
    but rumors, rumors that this was the [? arnoux ?] [? Mundi, ?]
    the worst thing.
    And so he did volunteer to go with my mother
    and I'll never forget that.
    Totally.
    That is heroic.
    That was a heroic act.
    Because you see, when I went, they didn't volunteer.
    No.
    And I remember my cousin showed me two of the wagons
    and another one [INAUDIBLE] and gave me his--
    poor fellow was sort of ski medal
    kind of a talisman and all that and was absolutely distraught.
    But none of them said I would come
    with you which was a possibility you could do that.
    You could volunteer?
    You could do that.
    And some other people would be exempt and taken out,
    and you could go.
    Well, they didn't, but my father did it.
    My father did it, so they both arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    I helped them to adjust because I was very--
    I was quite alert, quite alert.
    How did you know they were coming?
    I didn't.
    I didn't.
    I just simply was alert, and people said, well,
    these possibilities existed.
    And they too, for some reason, whatever by chance, were
    not selected and came to the family camp.
    Were you tattooed?
    Mhm, yeah, for sure.
    They too?
    Mhm?
    They also?
    Oh, yes, of course.
    Well, you see, once you were tattooed,
    people who were designated to go in the gas chamber
    were not tattooed. you know.
    There were no point.
    But people whose fate was kind of unclear,
    it didn't prevent you from being sent--
    and I'll tell you in just a moment.
    But that means for the time being, a day, week,
    two months, several months, you would not
    be sent to the gas chamber.
    So they're not sent to the gas chamber.
    And so we stayed there for very many months,
    dreadful conditions.
    Hell, absolute hell.
    Unbelievable situations, one could write books and stories
    which have never been told yet about some of the [? feats ?]
    blockalteste, woman also called Steiner.
    There were lots of Steiner people all over the place.
    And beautiful.
    She was in Theresienstadt.
    She was because of her beauty.
    Well, she was blockalteste, block senior.
    So then next to it was camp A and then it was B2.
    I was next to it, adjacent.
    And so one night I saw that someone
    had dug under the barbed wire, the charred barbed wire
    from Camp A, crawled under it.
    Although there were posts all over the place,
    they just risked it in order to have
    some sexual encounter with Eva Steiner who
    was the block leader.
    And just because these people still
    functioned sexually because they had enough food to function.
    While physiologically, the rest of us, of course,
    didn't because we had other problems to worry about.
    And that was just something.
    And then they discovered-- the SS discovered that
    and they just thought, oh, that was heroic.
    They were very impressed, very impressed.
    Nothing happened, nothing.
    Very impressed, they were very impressed.
    And very shortly after that, of course, these people escaped.
    Two people escaped, not these people, but someone else.
    And one, actually, escaped with one SS person.
    And they caught them, they came back.
    But before they caught them and all that, after a while and not
    immediately, and so we had to stand,
    I don't know, in those winter, bitter cold.
    And we had to stand there and I caught pneumonia
    and I had to be sent to the barrack
    and almost died of pleurisy.
    Pleurisy, caught tuberculosis and all sorts of things.
    I had everything there.
    And so there was a pediatrician who was
    a very close friend of ours.
    And he was working very closely and was also
    a prodigy of Mengele.
    And so I able to let him know, because he was accessible,
    that I was there.
    So the little medication they had, I got.
    Had injections, everything, sort of thing,
    in order to help me to survive.
    And I did, and because of this extra help.
    Then Fredy Hirsch came and brought me some food and all
    that, for a visit and all this.
    So again, this network and support system
    made all the difference.
    Because without it, I never would have survived.
    Freddy Kantor, Alfred Kantor, he wrote the book,
    A book of Alfred Kantor.
    He was a close friend of mine and was in love with--
    very close relationship with Eva Glauber who was his sweetheart,
    even already in Theresienstadt.
    They were there, too.
    So he was getting vitamin and parcels.
    We could get parcels and did get parcels
    to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which many, many people don't know.
    Mhm, you did get parcels?
    Huh?
    You did get parcels?
    Yeah, and very few people now that, realize that.
    They could be sent and they were received.
    Actually, there's one fellow here
    who knows that who was the former president of the--
    I've talked to him many years ago,
    many times socially and other--
    who was in Auschwitz.
    And he was in charge of this sort of or part of the parcel
    thing.
    But he did lousy stuff, I don't have much respect for that,
    were they just forced them to open and took the best thing
    and left a little bit something for the people.
    Not with me, I got the full things.
    You mean food and everything?
    Yeah, I got the full thing.
    In Auschwitz-Birkenau, you didn't
    have to go to a post office.
    In Auschwitz, you had to go to this sort of post office thing.
    But we were just given that by-- they brought us the thing,
    and I received them regular.
    Could you get medication?
    Huh?
    Could you get medication?
    Well, he was getting vitamins, this Alfred Kantor.
    And he shared his vitamins with me, for example.
    So you had all these sort of this networking
    made it possible for you to enhance
    your chances to survive.
    So you could remain in the barracks being sick?
    Well, that was the point.
    You see, so I could remain in the barracks being sick.
    But periodically, they came.
    The SS came and selected people.
    And that was the very important thing because then,
    his name was Heller, Dr. Heller came
    and said you have to leave because tomorrow there's
    selection.
    Because if you're here, you're finished.
    And said, I don't care how you feel and all that, you can
    come back again or whatever.
    You have to get out.
    So I was back in the barrack.
    Although, I was not [INAUDIBLE].
    And then they came, the selection,
    and they selected the people, send them to the gas chamber--
    periodically selections.
    So if you didn't have any sort of contacts, you were a goner.
    So the great support of other people.
    That's right.
    There was just really networking, this sort
    of support groups where the major sort of thing
    in those situations.
    And that was precisely Auschwitz-Birkenau because that
    was the most deadly place.
    And if you didn't have that, I mean, you're just finished.
    OK, so then I had the same thing.
    I was-- also very strange sort of encounters, which might--
    which I wanted to bring.
    I've actually written about some of these things,
    and I want to bring you that.
    Do you?
    I forgot-- I forgot--
    I forgot to bring it.
    Well, we might have another session.
    Yeah, probably because it's just getting late and all that.
    It's getting late, but just go on as much as you'd like today.
    I don't know, where was I?
    Oh, yeah, we were sort of networking.
    So I had, for example, jaundice.
    I developed this sort of jaundice, terrible situation,
    yellow.
    And for some reason, I was not mistreated by SS people.
    Somehow, they were supportive of me in so many cases,
    for reasons which--
    because my perfect German and because the way I looked.
    They somehow felt that I somehow didn't fit the stereotype.
    And so I already had jaundice.
    And to get a job in the kitchen peeling potatoes
    was just like if you would have won a million dollars,
    more than that actually, kingdom empire.
    All right, so that was being--
    they're looking for.
    And there was an SS man in charge of the thing, kitchen.
    And said, I'm looking for some people.
    And then, of course, all the various people
    who were members of the power elite-- and you talk about 1%
    of the power elite in a camp of thousands,
    you had 1% of the real power elite.
    And they were, of course, having their buddies
    and all this and that.
    And I was there.
    I didn't have any one no spokesperson
    or mentor who would intervene on my behalf with the SS men.
    So I said, yeah, I'd be interested.
    And said, yeah, you, you.
    And then all the people with all the big Kapos and all
    that, look at him.
    He's yellow.
    I mean, he's yellow.
    You can see, he's sick here.
    [INAUDIBLE], he's yellow.
    And I don't care, he said.
    I don't care.
    I want him.
    Well, the thing is I didn't last because I
    got so sick that I had to go into the sick barrack.
    I just didn't last.
    That was just two days, lasted, and then
    I just collapsed because I had this bad case of jaundice.
    So back I was in the barracks.
    And then, again, I had some relatives.
    A fellow came and visited and tried.
    And Fredy Hirsch and all the various people
    supportive, and the doctors were sent
    by a man called Dr. Otto Heller who was a protege of Mengele,
    survived.
    His family survived, child, wife survived
    because of the protegee of Mengele, Josef Mengele.
    He got shot during the liberation
    of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    Not by the SS, but by some sort of stray bullet.
    Otto Heller Dr. Otto Heller.
    So because of it-- so then again,
    they looked after me, tried to help me.
    And I stayed there and then they said,
    you have to get out again.
    The same sort of game, the same thing.
    And then I got out and then I was better.
    Because if you want to cure jaundice,
    starvation's the best cure.
    So it did not take long.
    I mean, I was ready in no time.
    Where did you go when you had to get out of the barrack?
    I went into the barrack where I came from.
    They just sent me back to the barrack
    where I just came from with hundreds of people.
    Well, and just the usual stuff.
    I'm just trying to tell unusual stuff
    because so many things which people will tell
    you are pretty much the same.
    I'm telling you things other people won't tell you
    because the experience is different.
    This is good.
    But tell anything that--
    So then when I was well again, we
    joined with, under the leadership of Fredy Hirsch,
    sort of resistance group, some sort of Haganah,
    ridiculous stuff.
    And so resistance and all these sort of things, so we did that.
    And talked big and nothing came of it, of course.
    And then came the terrible thing that all
    of a sudden, certain people with certain numbers
    had to go and be separated, taken away.
    So that all the people-- they went and controlled people
    with certain numbers, which was just exactly
    the number of Fredy Hirsch and my friends, Hans Fisher and so
    many other buddies I've had, like my people and all that.
    Friends, close friends-- and they
    had to go and be gassed for no reason.
    Young people, no-- they took them out and gassed them.
    That whole entire transport which had a certain number,
    for reasons I don't know.
    And Fredy Hirsch committed suicide.
    Fredy Hirsch committed suicide because he
    didn't want to be gassed and had poisoned himself.
    The other ones were gassed.
    And then father of Hans Fischer, a psychiatrist working
    with Mengele, survived.
    He survived Auschwitz-Birkenau because of Mengele.
    Came and said, you're alive.
    See?
    And our Hans has been gassed.
    And that was devastating because, you see,
    interesting things psychologically,
    I tell my students very frequently when
    we have the sociology of the Holocaust,
    is that absolute denial.
    Because I was the one who refused to accept the fact
    that people were gassed.
    Refused to -- people died by the thousands until I know.
    And that was the point when they took--
    in this transport which took place relatively early
    during my stay in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    on this B2 familienlager.
    There I just simply couldn't deny it anymore.
    I smelled it, everything, chimney, you name it, refused.
    And then he comes, the father comes says,
    they've gassed Hans.
    You're still alive.
    He said it in some sort way.
    Why him?
    Why not you?
    Right.
    Right.
    So you had to see it then?
    Mhm?
    You had to see it then?
    No, I just had to face up to it.
    I just had to accept the reality of the situation.
    How did you cope with that?
    Well, cope, just philosophically cope with it.
    Just what is the meaning?
    And that's why I'm very much a supporter of Viktor Frankl's
    writings.
    Because if you didn't have--
    if you didn't have any sort of ability
    to psychologically resist and find
    some sort of meaning, regardless with what means,
    but meaning in this type of hellish existence,
    you lost your resistance.
    You lost your resistance.
    And I mean, in terms of logicity,
    in terms of medical history, in terms of--
    I mean, I'd absolutely-- it was just a miracle
    that I didn't die with all the things.
    I had typhus.
    I had dysentery.
    I had pneumonia, pleurisy.
    You name it, I had it all in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And no food, starved, walking x-ray.
    And I didn't die, stayed alert, a miracle.
    It is.
    Did you have some work you were assigned to that you--
    Well, I mean, there's work that was very incidental
    and that was very interesting too
    because it got me into other camps.
    And women's camps where I saw things, cruelty and all that.
    I've got problems in this because they were cruel.
    They were more cruel to each other
    than they are in the camp I was, the women's camp.
    And then some sort of work, which was just really
    token type of work.
    It was not really hard work.
    They just took us, get out.
    For example, an SS man took us out
    to some sort of ridiculous singing group of people.
    Nothing, you know nothing.
    It was no real hard work, nothing.
    It was just mild thing.
    And then he let us stand there.
    He just met an SS woman, this female SS type.
    And then they started and they just went and had sex.
    And then we waited until they had that sex
    and then he came back, and we just went around.
    So it was kind of an excuse and on account
    get to her and all that and this.
    We didn't do any work, speaking of it all.
    It was just mild things.
    I didn't really work hard there at all.
    But then came the type of selection process, again.
    Because then in end of '43--
    no, it was already '44, beginning of '44,
    I think it must have been.
    Because yeah, it was '44, I think,
    and so then they needed people in slave labor situation.
    Because they had less and less manpower.
    So they came and said, well, we are looking
    for people and all that.
    So then Mengele was there or I don't even
    know whether for sure Mengele or some other SS
    officer, selection officer, it was an officer,
    and we had to run naked and see to what extent.
    So then, of course, my father and I--
    but only men, no women.
    So my mother was left behind.
    So we passed for reasons--
    whatever.
    Because we all were skeletons anyway, but we could run.
    We still could run.
    And he could run, I could run.
    So he was selected to go to the one slave labor
    camp, which was still in the subcamp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    It belonged to that particular center thing,
    which was called Blechhammer.
    But anyway, so my mother stayed.
    And so we were moved temporarily from B2
    to the A camp, which was the adjacent one.
    And I still could talk to my mother
    and still kind of through the barbed wire.
    And there was a French, Jewish Kapo.
    And he saw that and came, and he just in front of her just
    really beat the hell out of me and just--
    that was the most devastating thing because that was,
    not that it hurt that much, I didn't--
    that was nothing.
    But that my mother saw it and she was devastated.
    And that was the last sort of view she had of me
    because that was a parting thing.
    Because she stayed in the B2 and we went to the A
    to be moved from there into the other camp which
    was called Blechhammer, which was a synthetic fuel thing,
    which was not very far.
    In a lorry, we were taken there with an SS guard.
    Did you say it was a French, Jewish?
    A French, Jewish.
    He had a black triangle.
    He had a black triangle.
    A real son of a bitch, he was too.
    And blockalteste and it was a French
    and had a black and a Jewish.
    So black and a yellow triangle, all that--
    And what does the black mean?
    Sabateur, sabotage.
    He had some sort of sabotage.
    He did some-- whatever, black market business and all that.
    So he was not just Jewish, but he also
    did something in addition to which was against the laws
    and all that.
    He was sent to--
    and he then was a Kapo and he did that you know.
    It was nothing, really, in terms of physically.
    He didn't hurt me.
    He just slapped me so hard that I just simply fell
    to the ground, which didn't mean very much for someone
    who's relatively well-fed and all that.
    We were walking X-ray's, so it doesn't take much to slap you.
    So he did that in front of-- and my mother was devastating.
    And that was the last thing I have seen her.
    And she stayed there.
    And then I talked to people who survived,
    particularly the family of Dr. Otto Heller.
    And said, well, if we had known, surely I
    could have saved her life because of her connection
    to Mengele.
    I could have done that.
    She knew that we were there.
    Why didn't you do it?
    She could have done it.
    Because I stayed with them.
    I lived with then in Prague for a while
    and in an apartment with the survivors of the family of Otto
    Heller, Dr. Otto Heller.
    So what was your mother's fate?
    Huh?
    What was your mother's fate?
    My mother's fate was obvious.
    She was gassed because she was healthy otherwise.
    44.
    She was healthy.
    Mhm.
    Yeah.
    And then we went to the other camp that was Blechhammer,
    called Blechhammer, which was the syn fuel plant.
    And by that time, of course, all the people I knew, most of them
    were gassed.
    Particularly in this one transport which was somehow,
    by orders of Berlin, it came from Berlin
    because was not internal thing.
    It was obviously an order from Berlin
    where they said all the people--
    the entire transport is going to be exterminated.
    And that's where I was most of my friends
    who had survived to that point at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And then before that, I--
    for some reason or another, I just don't know what I did.
    Somehow, I was able to move from one camp
    to another at some point.
    I don't know why because I didn't have any function.
    I didn't have any particular job.
    But it must have been in connection
    with some sort of work detail, some labor work detail.
    And I went to this other camp, which was a holding camp.
    Because at times, the gassing were so overcrowded
    that they had to wait until--
    wait their turn.
    So these were primarily old people.
    And then I just walked around.
    Somehow, I was not supervised.
    I just-- it just still beats me how I would--
    I don't remember how I could have done that at all.
    And there I see a relative of mine
    who was married to a non-Jewish Czech, well-known, high ranking
    politician.
    And why she got there because all her children
    were not deported and all that, because I thought she would--
    I don't know what really--
    and there she was, a person who was very close to me
    and a very important--
    personality wise, it was a very important person to me.
    And so it was a tremendous joy to be together, not to see her,
    but to be together.
    And at that particular time, I still
    didn't want to believe what was going on in these holding camp.
    And said, well, it's going to happen.
    We have no chance.
    So she said, well, do you want to take these things
    with you and all that?
    And people with $1,000 bills, here, they
    throw it in the latrine.
    And I wasn't into this.
    At all, this sort of thing, it impressed me in one way,
    that this is happening.
    Why this, what?
    Maybe should it be saved?
    Yeah, I said, they're throwing all the $1,000 bills
    into the latrine and all.
    So then I had to leave.
    And then only after that, then I just really wanted--
    I didn't want to believe these things.
    I just didn't want to face up to this reality.
    And so I tried to be supportive.
    I couldn't do anything, of course, supportive.
    And then left again, of course.
    And then after the fact, of course, I had to face-- yeah,
    there was holding camp and they sent them
    and gassed old people.
    No tattoo, of course.
    Same thing, I saw in the neighboring camp people
    who came from Hungary, women, naked and all the SS--
    fresh, well-fed, good looking, just from Hungary.
    They didn't go in other camp and was also dreadful times other
    than the transportation from Hungary
    to Auschwitz, a terrible thing, traumatic thing.
    But I mean, they still looked good.
    Then the SS came and they just started
    to rub around and mill with these naked women and all that.
    Gypsies, similar situations.
    But the Hungarian ones really stand up
    because I could see that he's swine,
    just try to take advantage sexually.
    Really tried to find an excuse to rub and all this.
    Those were around and just manhandled, whatever.
    And that naked in that camp before
    they were put into lorries and then gassed.
    And then I remember also some young kids
    who were used as some sort of sexual things
    for the Kapos and people who had the vitality or whatever,
    had their food.
    They kept young kids who were spared,
    not sent to the gas chamber, although they were in the age.
    But they were sent, and there are some how were exempt.
    And then were put into some beautiful type of camp clothing
    and all that and then started to terrorize grown ups.
    Terrorize
    Terrorize grown ups. Why?
    Because they are under the protection of their mentors,
    the things with whom they had some sexual encounters,
    whatever.
    And that stands out too as something kind of very bizarre.
    How old were [INAUDIBLE]?
    13, 12.
    You alluded, before, to the strength
    you got from your [INAUDIBLE] philosophy.
    Yeah, well, a very important question.
    Yeah, well, it gave me somehow meaning.
    I was able to put it in.
    It's some sort of--
    I don't know whether I should talk about that.
    I could, but I don't know whether I want to.
    And a question of something which was destined,
    I had to go through.
    Let's put it that way in a very simple sort of terms.
    Something which I was destined to go through
    for a number of reasons.
    And I had many people, including this one physician who
    was very supportive, helping me--
    and also I got a parcel, by the way,
    when I was in the sick barrack.
    And would discuss this with me because somehow he
    had noticed that there is something there which keeps me.
    And so we had a very lengthy discussion, not just with him,
    some other people about these things.
    Philosophy, general things and so on and
    made a great deal of difference.
    Without that, it would have--
    I would have been in a very different state.
    So that's why I say what Viktor Frankl is writing in his books,
    in terms of logo therapy and all that, is decisive to me.
    It's decisive because I totally agree
    with what he said, totally.
    I mean, 100%.
    I mean--
    --second [? standard. ?]
    I was going to go back to Prague.
    I wondered, when the Nuremberg laws came in,
    how did that affect you personally?
    And did your old non-Jewish friends and neighbors
    change their attitudes toward you?
    Well, first of all, I mean, I was
    dreadfully bewildered because it didn't make any sense
    to begin with, OK.
    That's one thing.
    It just didn't make any sense.
    It was totally arbitrary.
    It just didn't make sense.
    And yes, obviously, because of the laws
    and because of the penalties imposed on people associated
    with those who were defined as racially Jewish,
    indeed the relationships changed, with few exceptions,
    exceptions of those people who were willing to risk something
    and willing to continue some sort of relationship
    in a kind of undercover fashion.
    And so they continued and then came at night, at times,
    and knocked on the door, whatever,
    so that they would not be observed, and were very
    secretive, for obvious reasons.
    Now, for example, there was one thing which was interesting.
    My father was very supportive of a painter, academic painter,
    who was impoverished because he couldn't
    sell his very good paintings.
    He was German, happened to be German--
    Sudeten German.
    And so he met him in the street, after he had, years,
    supported him financially and all that.
    And stopped and say, how are you,
    Mr. Pinke was his name-- a painter called Pinke.
    And he just brushed him off, and he
    said, too risky, too risky, and brushed off and went his way.
    So these sort of things happened very frequently.
    And [SIGHS] it was a dreadful disappointment,
    that people didn't have enough profile in courage
    to continue a close relationship because
    of this sort of absurd decree.
    Human disappointment.
    And then you had people who continued
    to help because they felt that something could be had then.
    That's also a very interesting thing,
    the so-called Aryanization of belongings.
    And so they came and said, well, we'll
    safekeep it for you until you come back
    and all this and that.
    And some were genuine about it and really meant it.
    Other people said, hey, hopefully, they croak,
    and we get some.
    And we talking about jewelry.
    We talking about exceedingly valuable paintings.
    Some of the paintings, if I had them
    today, I would be a rich man.
    I wouldn't have to work.
    I would live like a king.
    And when we came back and said, what?
    I don't remember that.
    I don't remember that we have anything and all this.
    You had that experience?
    Oh, yeah.
    And just as I was in Prague last summer,
    I was talking about that.
    I don't know exactly who these people are, what they took.
    They took Rembrandt, you know, plus other things,
    which were equally valuable and all this, a collection
    of my uncle's paintings.
    I'm the heir to my uncle's paintings, and there are no--
    and denied everything-- furniture, antique furniture,
    you name it-- everything, denied everything.
    The domestic help, live-in domestic help
    took out I don't know what, you see.
    And I remember that because I went, even, there
    and took some things so that the Gestapo wouldn't take it
    and gave it to safekeeping to some friends.
    And they returned it.
    So some people returned.
    Some, I've lost sight of who might have returned it.
    And other people when--
    these documents and the photographs
    and some of the things which are, to me, priceless
    because they are my past, reflect my past--
    I would have lost if there had not
    been some people who were indeed honest and returned that to me.
    So that was a tremendous problem.
    Because when you've done a great deal for other people
    and so many other people didn't want to risk anything in order
    to be supportive of us.
    And it was risky.
    I mean, there is no question about that.
    Because I have documents and plenty of material in which
    any sort of association with Jews meant concentration camp.
    And if you gave refuge to Jews, people,
    whatever, you were hanged.
    You were killed.
    You were shot or whatever.
    And hey, now, I've got documents and whatnot.
    So I mean, it was not something which we should simply
    brush off and just say, hey.
    The question is, how would we behave
    under those circumstances?
    And that's what I've asked?
    And I behaved-- fortunately, I behaved differently
    after the war.
    And I rescued many Germans who were not Nazis.
    And I'm very proud of that.
    And I'm very proud of that and saved their lives--
    countless people, saved their lives,
    because that is something which I just learned.
    That's what I learned.
    And that's why I say one of the things I've learned--
    and I'm going to, also, publicly express it in the very near
    future--
    that people who have survived have
    a tremendous moral responsibility
    to behave in a way which is exemplary,
    particularly along these lines.
    We have to be role models.
    We have to behave in a way which reflects the maturation which
    only can come by experience and suffering of that nature.
    And if we haven't learned anything and behave
    like the other ones, what do we have to offer?
    And so I take that very seriously,
    the obligation of someone who has survived and learned.
    Yes.
    Well, this is another form of meaning from the suffering.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That's right because I still say the better of us,
    the better ones, have not survived.
    The better ones have not survived,
    certainly in my experience.
    You mentioned that your grandmother
    was in Theresienstadt and your grandfather, also?
    No, my grandfather died also already during the occupation.
    But he died of sclerosis of the brain and arteriosclerosis
    and sclerosis of the brain.
    He died a sick man--
    just as well.
    And my grandmother was sent to Theresienstadt,
    and then she was shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    I had a great grandmother who, by the way, was a countess,
    come from a countess sort of thing,
    so you can see all kind of very strange sort of things there.
    And she lived to be 92.
    Fortunately, she died before the dreadful thing.
    I loved her dearly.
    Just a tremend-- I also have a photograph.
    Just a fantastic person, just unbelievable.
    And so I was blessed with these sort of significant other,
    these role models who somehow gave me strength and somehow
    didn't quite also showed me the other side,
    so balanced out that there are human beings who behave
    like to be a mensch, you know.
    They really exemplified this sort of thing.
    And that, in times of dreadful stress and all that,
    a great deal of it was a very great help to me,
    a very great help to me.
    And without that sort of, I would be totally hopeless.
    I would be more devastated than I am.
    Because yes, I'm desperate in terms of what I see.
    And I'm a prophylactic pessimist,
    not at all an optimist and very saddened by everyday
    experience, human disappointment,
    if you will, of many kind, which includes America, too, my god.
    There's a few things to say about that.
    That's crazy.
    But anyway, particularly in regard to it's
    much easier to celebrate the dead and ignore the survivors.
    And that's exactly what's--
    and American Jews are not exactly dreadfully impressed
    with, if you want to generalize, particularly the older
    generation.
    All right.
    When I was asking you back about your work situation,
    I was wondering if, when you were sick so many times,
    how could you avoid work?
    I didn't.
    You had to work.
    No, no.
    You see, the thing is, I was particularly
    sick for some reason in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which
    was the worst possible thing.
    But when I was in the slave labor camp,
    I was still frail, to be sure.
    Because god, I mean, we didn't have enough food and all that.
    And I had frostbite, and I have this
    and that-- terrible, awful stuff.
    But somehow, I always made it.
    And then, I just developed a support group and people
    who were very, very helpful.
    And when I was in a jam, they just helped me to get out.
    Because I would have been--
    and then, I also was lucky.
    Because whenever I got into this--
    one thing, for example, in Auschwitz-Birkenau, I just
    got stopped by an SS man.
    I said, my god, that's the end.
    And he said, are you hungry?
    And I said, sure, we are.
    We're just starving.
    And say, anything I can do for you?
    I said, well, you must be kidding, you know.
    So said, come with me.
    I said, OK.
    Now, that's the end of the line.
    And he took me to the kitchen and said,
    I'd like to see that this fellow going to get food every day,
    special extra.
    Just out of the blue.
    Nothing?
    Nothing.
    Just it was in the camp, B2 camp.
    I was there, just walking and all that.
    And he just stops me--
    blonde fellow, tall, you know.
    I don't know, not an officer-- was not an officer.
    And these sort of things, just totally unexpected things--
    breaks, what we call breaks.
    Did you get extra food every day?
    Of course not.
    Just the once.
    That once.
    Because without him, they say, hey.
    Where?
    Must be joking.
    So yeah, if he would have come and said yeah.
    Without any supervision, no, they didn't do anything.
    Just only under-- of course not.
    You were able to live with your family in the camp, that family
    camp, both your parents, together?
    Yeah.
    Right.
    But I mean, we were the only relatives.
    All the other ones where elsewhere.
    My aunt, by the way, for some reason or another,
    worked in some sort of war industry
    type of thing, rocket parts, things in Theresienstadt.
    And she stayed there in Theresienstadt.
    And my then-future stepmother, who was half Jewish,
    also stayed there, was protected,
    was just you know deported and survived.
    These two survived.
    But all the other ones did not.
    And my father would have survived in splendor
    if he had not wanted to go with my mother.
    Well, I think maybe other people would like a turn for now.
    Some of the other questions we can take up next time
    if they come up in the course of your talk.
    So Brian, why don't you ask what you've got.
    OK.
    When you were in Theresienstadt, did you
    have any idea at that time that there
    were other camps surrounding that were,
    other than relocation, that they were actually extermination.
    At what point did that become--
    Extermination camps?
    No, I had no idea.
    The rumors-- not extermination in the very specific meaning
    of the word--
    that it was worse, that there is that, yes.
    That was pretty clear to us, all of us,
    that it was going to be worse.
    And Theresienstadt was bad enough,
    although it was one of the best, if you want to compare,
    relatively speaking.
    But no, that we knew.
    I mean, we knew that that was going
    to be a horrible, the worst possible, ordeal,
    but not extermination.
    Extermination, specific terms-- gassing, all this-- no.
    Some very strange rumors, things of that nature, you know,
    but nothing really specific, no.
    And then, some weeks after you arrive at Auschwitz that you--
    Yeah.
    Well, yeah.
    Well, but then-- yeah.
    Was your general physical condition fairly good
    when you were transported out of Theresienstadt.
    Oh, yeah.
    Because I wasn't sick there at all.
    The part that puzzles me is, obviously, your transport
    was not meant for extermination on arrival at Auschwitz.
    That's right.
    But you weren't put into a job?
    We are not selected.
    We didn't go to any selection.
    And you weren't given any job?
    No.
    Job?
    Well, just hanging around, really.
    No real job.
    I mean, it's just not really hanging out, just work details,
    you see, and not really something consistent.
    You know, the why don't you put these bricks or something.
    There was nothing really which I remember
    would have been really heavy work.
    I don't recall it at all, just hanging
    around most of the time, really, not doing very much at all.
    Did that type of arbitrariness-- that and the SS man offering
    you food, that type of arbitrary--
    do you think that was arbitrary or do you think it was
    a planned arbitrariness--
    No.
    --to keep you off--
    No.
    No, Absolutely, no.
    That was so spontaneous, I mean, there was no question.
    And I have many other examples of that
    later on, in different situation--
    totally spontaneous, absolutely spontaneous, nothing planned.
    There was no logic?
    No, no, no.
    I mean, this man had compassion.
    I mean, they had some sort of human feeling.
    And SS, you know, I met quite a few
    who would and said so publicly.
    They totally dissociated themselves
    from the actual role.
    It'll come out.
    Actually, it's part of my written.
    No, no.
    There was nothing not to--
    no.
    It was just, it was absolutely authentic.
    I have one more here.
    Your father's status from the AK II transport to Theresienstadt
    did not follow him out of Theresienstadt, then?
    No, no, no.
    The very moment you left Theresienstadt,
    it was finished.
    Then, you were assigned, just like, for example, I
    have a number from Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which was invalidated when I arrived in Dachau.
    They gave me a different number.
    And I had to start writing the records and all
    that from scratch, you know.
    All the other things just was no longer-- it was invalidated.
    A different number or different tattoo?
    Different number, which, of course,
    in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Auschwitz, they tattooed you.
    But in Dachau, they didn't, you see.
    So I was given a different number.
    As a matter of fact, when I was doing a film two years ago,
    I went back to Dachau because that's
    about a thing which they took, also, interview and all
    this and that.
    And I went to the archives, the registrar thing,
    and they found my number and everything and my name
    and all that on the registry with my number, my Dachau
    number.
    You started to study German in primary school?
    That's right.
    And by the time you were, you say,
    13, were you already fluent?
    Oh, yes, absolutely.
    I mean, fluent-- we spoke German at home.
    We spoke Czech at home.
    And my relatives spoke English, particularly during the earlier
    time when I didn't understand any English at all.
    You see, when they talked, the most frequent
    the English used word used was husband.
    And so they would say, husband, what is husband?
    I said, well, husband is just a support thing, supporter,
    a support thing, which we kind of said German,
    some of the German equivalent, which
    sounds like Hosenbund, which keeps up your trousers,
    you see, called Hosenbund.
    So it was a husband--
    Hosenbund.
    So my aunt and my mother, they spoke
    English whenever they wanted to be sure that I don't understand
    because they're talking about my father, you see,
    or some other things which they didn't want me to hear.
    Did they make extensive use of you as a translator?
    At Dachau, yes.
    At Dachau.
    Oh, yes.
    But not in Auschwitz?
    No.
    Dachau after liberation, yes.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Yeah, I have a few questions.
    You made a remark earlier in your interview
    in which you said, regarding the question of Holocaust
    survivors, that there's talk but no action
    and that this is one of your big issues.
    Talk and no action.
    And I was wondering if you could amplify
    what you were referring to.
    I don't remember that I said talk and no action.
    I wasn't sure whether you were referring
    to the attitude of the rest of the world towards survivors
    after the Holocaust or if you were talking
    about survivors themselves.
    No, no, I said--
    no, no, what I meant, at least that's what I think I meant,
    I remember what I've said--
    is that they tend to celebrate the dead
    and disregard the ones who are still alive.
    That's what I meant to say.
    You mean the world at large tends to do that.
    Yeah.
    Well, but also the Jewish community,
    especially because all the dead are much more important
    than the ones who stay alive.
    OK.
    I have a few more questions here.
    A lot of these questions are designed
    to get some specific detail information about things
    that you witnessed.
    You're so steeped in this that sometimes, I
    think, you summarize some of your experiences quickly.
    Right.
    This tape and this information will
    be looked at by people who are not Holocaust experts,
    so if we can get some specific details, it'd be helpful to us.
    Yeah, that's a good point.
    Yes, Yes.
    For example, you spoke of a very early childhood
    memory of antisemitism, and I wondered
    if there might be another one or two memories that you could
    share with us of some of your earliest experiences
    of this phenomenon.
    Well, you see, the thing is I don't
    think I've been exposed to that that much,
    other than what I've mentioned, not really.
    The whole thing only started to be
    very obvious after the Nazis--
    the Germans-- invaded Czechoslovakia.
    And by virtue of the fact that I attended a German school,
    all these kids, all my fellow schoolmates,
    joined the Hitler Youth.
    And then it became clear, more and more,
    the teachers too, said--
    also, teachers were very supportive,
    said, hey, he's a nice guy and whatever.
    I don't care.
    I disagree with this sort of thing.
    But other people don't.
    They didn't.
    And then they said, hey, you Jew and all this.
    They never really called me Jew or something like that.
    They just simply behaved differently towards me,
    you know?
    I mean, they didn't really call me or label me or call me
    names, just simply started to behave very differently.
    So with the exception of the bus situation,
    where this fellow said only Jews are only, only Jews, Hitler,
    Hitler, you know.
    But that was something which really concerned me.
    It was very direct.
    But it was very infrequent.
    It was very infrequent.
    Because we were not subjected to any sort of antisemitism
    to speak of.
    It was infrequent.
    So I'm hard pressed to really give you an answer.
    Because I can't fabricate anything
    which has not occurred.
    I mean, I can, but I'm not prepared to do that.
    That's fine.
    So it wasn't until the advent of Hitler
    that you really experienced--
    it wasn't until the coming of Hitler--
    Oh, yeah, well, I would say.
    Yeah, but other than the examples
    I gave you, which somehow alerted me, in a way.
    OK.
    Let me ask you, you said that, during a period
    of political transition, you actually attended some Hitler
    Youth meetings.
    One.
    Oh, one meeting.
    Could you tell us what that meeting was like?
    Well, that was just a propaganda meeting
    where a fellow in an SA uniform spoke
    to the so-called elite German youth.
    And of all the people who were in German schools
    were supposed to come, or many of them.
    And I've met very many friends I've had from that time
    and were there-- just indoctrination meeting.
    And what did he say?
    Oh, just said what great thing national socialism was and how
    happy we should be being under Adolf Hitler and all just
    the usual propaganda speeches, which euphemized Nazi ideology
    and said how great that was and Hitler and how the world is
    changing for the better and how these people are pure
    and superior-- whatever, these sort of--
    I don't remember in detail, specifically, what he said.
    It was just a clear-cut propaganda speech.
    That's the best way to describe it.
    Did you find it sinister in any way?
    I found it absurd.
    That's what I did.
    It was absurd.
    It was just totally, utterly absurd to me.
    That's how it struck me, as just making heroic things
    about Hitler and the Reich and the new movement, which
    was going to change the conditions in, now,
    the Protectorate of Bohemian and Moravia
    which is now the German people.
    And so that was that.
    And people up there was just something, just
    a storyteller, propagandistic storyteller.
    That's what he was.
    And the uniform and all that, with flags
    and all the various trimmings of power and yeah.
    And that was once, and then I didn't.
    Because, by that time, the next time, they said,
    hey, you don't belong.
    And I didn't want to go.
    I mean, I was forced.
    They said, we all go, told all of you to come out.
    I didn't know what to expect, anyway.
    OK.
    You mentioned that when you were trying
    to get on one of the Kindertransports
    to England that you got permission
    to exit the country from an infamous SS officer in Prague.
    Could you give us his full name and tell us
    a couple of reasons why he was known as an infamous SS
    officer?
    Later on.
    At that time, I was tough bastard.
    Turned out to be he was the right hand of Mengele.
    And his name was Burger--
    B-U-R-G-E-R. And he was in charge of this sort
    of situation to grant exit visas.
    And he was sitting behind a desk in a villa which
    was confiscated, a Jewish villa, confiscated,
    in beautiful region of Prague, very expensive suburb.
    And it was a villa, a beautiful garden, everything.
    And my mother just stepped in, and we
    had to stand in attention and all this
    and give the papers, whatever the documentation we needed
    to be.
    And he just put the thing and waved us and, OK, all right.
    So the infamy that you alluded to was infamy that he--
    Well, the infamy was already there, to some extent.
    The infamy was there, all right, in terms of the awe
    and the terror which they already had spread.
    You know, that was already there but not the actual.
    That was just the beginning.
    So we knew that these people, what had happened up
    to that point, was bad news.
    But later on, it turned out he was
    one of the major assistants of Mengele.
    OK.
    You alluded to a slightly later time in Prague.
    I wasn't sure if you were talking
    about when you were in school or if you perhaps
    had a job after school.
    You talked about the level of abuse towards you--
    Well, yeah.
    --from the Gentile co-workers.
    I was learning a trade in a electro-technical shop
    as an apprentice.
    Could you tell us some of the specific moments of abuse
    that occurred?
    Well, just the abuse that some of the fellow apprentices just
    took horse manure and threw it at me and all that.
    And, for example, a very specific thing is they got
    particular kick out of it because, during that particular
    time, they were showing a very well-known,
    infamous movie called Jud Suss--
    Jew Suss-- which was very well-known propaganda film
    against the Jews, a history of Jews who have a court Jew was
    hanged, an executive, because he did so bad things--
    many bad things-- for the duke whom he served as a court Jew
    and whose name was Jud Suss.
    It was a very well-known, anyone who studied that or you know
    has heard of that particular propaganda film, antisemitism
    propaganda film.
    And so the people in the shop said,
    we want to see you buy the tickets.
    Of course, I was not permitted to go to movies.
    Of course, I was not permitted to see that.
    But they just simply debased me.
    They just wanted to humiliate me in saying, we going to see it,
    and you buy us the ticket.
    We going to see about you Jews and this sort of thing.
    So that is an example which sticks to my mind
    because it just so happened to be the movie theater which
    was just across the house where we lived, on the street.
    | a cinema called Radio, which I used
    to frequent with my family and all that,
    go to movies and all this.
    And so they did that in order to humiliate me or just beat me
    or whatever they call it, mistreat me, whatever they
    could and just behave in a--
    because, you see, my uncle was their boss,
    used to be their boss.
    And now they felt that anything which they felt
    was done to them or not done to them or just felt,
    now, we are their bosses, now we'll show you.
    It just was a psychologically very clear-cut sort
    of situation they took advantage of.
    And you did buy the tickets for them?
    Oh, yeah, I bought the ticket for them.
    And the threat was they would beat you up if you did not.
    Well, I mean, it was the threat or that would just say,
    you do that for us.
    Because I was dependent on them for the work and all that.
    Because if not, I would have had serious trouble.
    Because the person who was in charge was going, also.
    So I mean, I was pretty much dependent on them.
    Because I had to have some work.
    I needed to work under those circumstances.
    Yeah, so I bought the ticket--
    tickets, yeah.
    OK.
    Could you tell us a little bit more
    about the affair that the maid in your house had with the Nazi
    who used to sneak in at night?
    How did that work?
    What was going on there?
    Yeah, well, it's another thing which I really
    have to tell you because that's something I forgot to tell you.
    It's important because it was in Theresienstadt.
    But I'll tell you that.
    Just remind me of that.
    I should tell you that.
    Because that was a very interesting sort of thing.
    It was just a soldier in uniform.
    And she was kind of feeble-minded.
    And she also tried to somehow seduce me.
    And she dragged me to the bed, and my mother came,
    and there was a big stink about it and all this.
    And she was totally harmless-- nice,
    slightly on the feeble-minded side,
    and sexually active, you know, we
    would say hyperactive, as well.
    And so she was looking for sexual relief,
    for reasons which are obvious.
    She was not exactly the most attractive person in the world,
    either.
    And so there, there was a horny soldier who was there,
    and just she was available.
    And she went out.
    She had times off and all that.
    So they connected, and he stayed overnight-- big deal.
    So my mother saw the soldier.
    He was very apologetic, very, very polite and said,
    I'm sorry, this sort of thing.
    And I don't know what's happening to you.
    It's not good.
    Because he found out what was what,
    he was in, and was very nice about it.
    So he just stayed overnight with the domestic person
    in her very small room.
    And they had mutual relief.
    And she was happy.
    He was happy and, you know, behaved in a very civil way,
    was not abusive or anything.
    He said, well, I'm sorry that you people have
    these sort of problems.
    And he was very nice about it.
    So and then he came back.
    And my mother was terribly upset that this sort of thing
    is happening in her house, in her home and said,
    well, you really shouldn't do that.
    It was fault that was inappropriate, particularly
    when there was a child like I there,
    and I was seeing that there was someone
    staying overnight and all this.
    She was a little bit on the Puritanic side.
    Let's put it that way.
    Did the soldier stay over one time only or more than that?
    No, he just came back, two, three times, maybe.
    I wonder whether that's such an important thing.
    You seem to be getting a kick out of that.
    [LAUGHS]
    When you were in Prague, you said
    that, with some of your peers, you
    got involved in resistance and underground-type of plans
    or activities.
    Could you specifically tell us about what you'd do--
    Yeah.
    Well, we just felt that we really should join--
    not join, just simply start a movement among young people,
    Boy Scouts, and learn to handle small arms and do something
    and to do some sabotage work.
    I mean, it was all talk, and preparation never came to it.
    But we discussed it-- what can we do?
    We didn't do very much, if anything.
    And then, of course, my parents and friends,
    they just tried to help a person who the Gestapo tried
    to find and all that, and we knew
    where they was and there was a big price on his head,
    whatever.
    And I've said his name was Walter [? Czupick, ?]
    and he was a publisher of a social democratic paper.
    And we helped him to find refuge and then
    helped him arranged-- four other adults and all that--
    helped him to escape into Poland, which, at that time,
    was just before the war with Poland, relatively shortly.
    And then there was an escape route,
    and he was helped to succeed in getting to Poland.
    That's what we've done and just some other, minor things,
    which didn't really amount to that much at all.
    You referred to your friend, Fredy,
    and some of his resistance work as having been misrepresented
    in some book by an author, if I understand that correctly.
    You did.
    Could you correct the misrepresentations for us?
    Well, Adler-- HG Adler--
    is his name over there, also.
    And he's written a very well-known book
    on Theresienstadt because there are not that many books written
    about it.
    And he was, himself, kind of a collaborator of sorts.
    And I've had several--
    one encounter in particular--
    in which I did not endear myself to him.
    And so he said that Fredy Hirsch was a person who was not really
    very significant and he happened to be, also, homosexual,
    and that certainly prejudiced this HG Adler in his writings
    about him.
    And so he somehow belittled the role he played in camp life
    in Theresienstadt and, later, in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which he did not have any knowledge of.
    But he limited himself to Theresienstadt.
    And I think that he played a very important role
    in terms of being a role model to young people
    and being supportive and keeping them healthy
    and doing gymnastics with them and all those sort of thing.
    And he was very, very helpful to me, very specifically,
    for example.
    A friend of mine who also happened to be-- the place
    was full of half Jews, and I'm also
    in this sort of partially category.
    So a man called Jiri [Personal name] was his name.
    We had a particular job in Theresienstadt
    to get the belongings of the deceased
    and bring them to a particular part of a warehouse.
    And so we had a two-wheel, what, cart,
    and we put these things in it.
    And that was our job.
    Now, I knew what was happening to these things.
    All the power elite took it and enjoyed it.
    And I'd say, hey, I'm going to get a piece of action here.
    And so I took some piece of soap and some books--
    medical books-- because we wanted to read something.
    And I read anything, you know, anything.
    It just happened to be medical diaries, annual things
    which appear annually or whatever.
    And soap and all that.
    And poor Jiri-- same name as George, Czech name for George,
    Jiri--
    [Personal name] Jiri, I led him into it
    because I was the initiator of many of the things.
    I was kind of initiator.
    And he, poor fellow, got along.
    And someone, some sort of big wheel or whatever, small wheel,
    saw it out of the window and stopped us and called
    the ghetto police and whatever.
    And we were into terrible trouble.
    And Fredy Hirsch got us out of the trouble and said,
    I'm going to see to it that they'll be punished.
    And he punished us.
    So we had to clean the toilets.
    Big deal.
    And other than that, we would have been in terrible trouble.
    I mean, deportation, possibilities-- you name it.
    That was Fredy Hirsch.
    OK.
    Do we have a specific example now?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    OK.
    All right.
    Let's see.
    Could you explain to me how the sheltering of refugees,
    how that was working in Prague.
    Well, I mean sheltering of refugees, simply,
    it's a support system.
    These people escaped from Nazi Germany to free Czechoslovakia.
    That's clear, right?
    OK.
    OK.
    Now, these people didn't have anything.
    They've lost everything.
    They were political refugees in a real sense of the word.
    Saved their lives because, otherwise, they
    would have sent to concentration camps or whatever.
    Dire thing would have happened.
    And so there were people--
    Were they hiding when they--
    Hiding?
    What the hell, hiding?
    No.
    They came to free Czechoslovakia.
    OK.
    So you just were helping [INAUDIBLE]..
    But they were penniless.
    They didn't have any means.
    That's right.
    That's exactly that.
    So that we provided, or we were, or so many other people,
    provided a support group to them so that they will be fed
    and that there's some shelter, a place to live
    or a place to eat.
    So then it was parceled out so that the burden will not
    be carried by one but by many people.
    And they did a number of things for them, you know.
    You know, not big deal, but I mean, yes, it was, in a way.
    It was something which was very--
    good dinners, food, and money, and whatever.
    So yes, it was something, more than
    American Jews have done for me.
    Let's put it that way.
    Can you tell us what a typical day was like in Theresienstadt
    from when you started at the beginning of the day
    and when you ended at the end of the day, sort
    of the step-by-step activities of the day on a typical day?
    Well, it depends very much, I think, let's say.
    I worked for the Space Allotment Administration--
    Space Allotment Administration-- for a while.
    And a fellow called Rindler, a real son of a bitch,
    collaborator par excellence.
    And so he required that the people working under him--
    and I'll give you very specific sort of things--
    would come very early in the morning-- well,
    around 7 o'clock--
    and work until they fell apart, some might--
    OK, or whatever-- not quite night but 6:00, all right.
    And he was supervising, a real autocratic son of a bitch
    if I ever seen one--
    Rindler.
    And so then, I had to put in charts, things,
    where people would be allocated when
    they would come to Theresienstadt, how
    many people, this thing.
    So in this connection, I had to do
    specific jobs, including jobs, for example,
    write calling cards--
    you know, calligraphically, calling card for the SS.
    And I remember still I had to write some calling--
    because I was able to do that.
    Calligraphy was something which I could
    do quite well and all that.
    So I just wrote this for a fellow.
    It was a SS lieutenant.
    I think it was a Lieutenant Ott--
    O-T-T was his name.
    I still remember that name.
    And then, he tyrannized me.
    I do it.
    He'd tear it down.
    That's not good enough.
    And bang or something like that.
    And so that was a day.
    And then I worked.
    And then I went home-- home, you know,
    we had this sort of group of young kids and relaxed.
    On Saturdays, Sundays, we didn't work.
    And there were some evening activities,
    which may have been theater or concerts or some lectures
    or meeting with people.
    And there was possible intelligent stuff
    because that was, you know.
    And avoiding the SS because they also
    around and all that, in the streets-- low-ranking types who
    were just really, really very, very cruel
    and didn't mind killing people, you know,
    quote unquote, "accidentally."
    And so that's what we did and just
    trying to get as much organized--
    what we call organized-- food, extra food, and connect,
    you see.
    And that was pretty much.
    And then we slept in this three-story bunker type
    of situations-- bunks--
    and slept like logs because we all were terribly exhausted
    and suffered from malnutrition.
    And Saturday, Sundays was a break.
    We didn't have to work.
    And depending, of course, your employment.
    Some of it was physical and some--
    I actually wanted to work for the electricians.
    But they didn't want me, for whatever reason.
    I'm sure they had a good reason for that.
    And so I did some other things, like this Allotment
    of Space, this agency--
    very powerful because they could allot
    you good or bad or privileged, whatever.
    What topics were the lectures on?
    Oh, yeah, well, that just depends on the various--
    well, you had scientists.
    You had philosophers.
    You had professors.
    So there was a professor of Berlin University who
    was a biologist, a man called Dr. Klein--
    Professor Klein.
    And so I went to his [INAUDIBLE]..
    By the way, he was so well-known,
    I think he was a Nobel Prize winner or something like that.
    And so that he was a privileged person.
    He came there with privilege, will not be deported
    and all that because of he was world-renowned.
    So he gave a lecture on some biological theme.
    I forget it.
    And then there was some other person
    who was Einstein's assistant.
    So he gave a lecture on physics.
    And there are some philosophers, and they
    had theater productions which are fabulous.
    Then you had jazz concerts.
    You had classical concerts.
    You had lectures of all sorts which were just unbelievable.
    And then we also, organized by one particular person,
    or organized this sort of get ourselves some education.
    Because we were kids, young kids.
    And so they gave us a special education.
    So we had kind of free learning classes, classes where we just
    simply discussed philosophy and learned Latin.
    And this fellow in charge of this group of 13 youngsters,
    which I was the one only surviving,
    by the way, a dreadful thing.
    I still haven't quite come to accept
    that because these people were gifted--
    some were geniuses-- very gifted people.
    They would have made a tremendous contribution had
    they survived.
    And that's something which I have the greatest problems
    with, actually.
    And so we got together.
    The poets, they wrote poetry.
    And I still have poems which I've
    been able to retrieve which were written there,
    just fabulous stuff, just unbelievable, by a 13-year-old
    who was part of that group.
    And so that's one activity which we did and had discussions
    of all sorts, real discussions about various themes,
    which were philosophical, political,
    whatever, and creative in one way.
    Some people into arts.
    And so lots of things-- into sculpture.
    They just took the soil and did things out of that.
    I did that also in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    So very, very many activities.
    And that was possible.
    It was not prevented.
    And the initiative and the imagination
    and the talents which one could experience there
    were of such natures, of so high sophistication,
    that under normal circumstances, even in Prague,
    I would have most likely not encountered any of it.
    So these were some of the activities.
    Now, I want to mention one thing.
    I got a big kick out of a thing when
    I was just in one of the rooms, just looking out the window.
    And the window was just really at the border, so to speak,
    at the headquarters--
    SS headquarters and some of the other barracks, which were
    administration and all that.
    And one day, I just looked out of the window.
    I can see the person who was in charge
    of the Theresienstadt and all, Dr. Seidl,
    trying to get into a horse and buggy, a Nazi horse
    and buggy type of thing and just go
    on a ride in a horse and buggy with a old,
    kind of antique, interesting sort of thing.
    And they're slightly drunk.
    And another one challenged him [INAUDIBLE]..
    And they got into a fight.
    And I really enjoyed that then.
    Then a person who was their subordinate,
    a non-commissioned officer, then tried
    to separate these commissioned officers who
    were high people, highly positive people
    in Theresienstadt.
    And they were beating into each other and all that.
    And I just got such a kick out of that.
    That was a tremendous relief--
    tremendous.
    Really some sort of degree of satisfaction.
    I have never forgotten that.
    And to me, I just think, oh my god, that's
    something I'd really like to see, these [INAUDIBLE]
    fighting each other.
    Bastards.
    OK.
    OK, today is June the 6th, 1991.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan, and I'm here interviewing John Steiner.
    This is part 2 of our interview.
    And we have Brian Paris as the second.
    And also with us, who may be talking, is Carol Hurwitz,
    a colleague of John's.
    And I just want to start today asking a few questions that
    relate a little bit to what we talked about in the interview
    part number 1.
    And really that is with focusing on the details
    of, say, your transports.
    You're talking about the--
    from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Blechhammer.
    And also what it was like at the very first, going
    to Theresienstadt.
    Uh-huh.
    Right.
    Whatever details you can remember of--
    Well, I mean, the interesting part,
    in terms of starting the specifics, on August 3--
    well, let me just start earlier with that.
    In '42, and that started just in the spring,
    there was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
    And that affected us all by virtue of the fact
    that all houses were searched by German army
    and other military formations.
    I have not seen actually any SS searching the houses.
    But they also came to us and searched.
    But they are quite nice, actually.
    They were quite pleasant.
    Although, I think they were told by the house manager
    that this was a Jewish household or whatever that was.
    And so they searched and all that,
    but nothing unusual had happened.
    But many of the friends who were accused of being co-responsible
    or members of the underground-- which also related
    to us directly, because we were accused
    of having done things before.
    And my father and my mother was interrogated
    by the Gestapo and all that.
    But they tried to keep all these details from me for reasons
    which really escape me now.
    And I was, at that particular time,
    still a member of the Boy Scouts.
    And I had a group until the time we
    had to have stars and all that.
    And then, of course, they disbanded the Boy Scouts,
    which I led a group of people.
    And we just tried to have this sort of kind
    of resistance thing, which just-- very childish
    meaningless stuff.
    But still, there was some--
    What sorts of things did you do for resistance, childish
    as they may have been?
    Well, I mean, they're childish in terms of, say,
    well, what can we do in terms of sabotage or resisting?
    Maybe we should learn to use arms and weaponry and all
    that, which we, of course, didn't have.
    And just talking about how we could sabotage things.
    And it was all very naive.
    The only thing is what indeed we did, we--
    before actually the war with Poland--
    because Czechoslovakia, then, was still--
    was already occupied and under German rule--
    we met friends and all that.
    And so people who were sought by the Gestapo.
    So the contacts we've had and friends of ours
    simply were used in order to get them into Poland--
    escape and go over the borders to Poland
    and just have this sort of escape route.
    Which, at that particular time, was used very frequently
    of people who were desperate and had to get away.
    Otherwise, they would have been in very, very serious trouble.
    So that's something which we did.
    And I was [INAUDIBLE].
    And we just thought, what can we do in order to--
    what do you expect of a kid?
    And so that's what we did.
    And because of some of the things,
    my mother was interrogated by the Gestapo.
    And my father was sent, as I mentioned last time,
    in this second transport, which was to build up Theresienstadt
    as a ghetto in '41, which was kind of relatively early.
    In '41, other people were sent to Łódź and other ghettos from
    Prague.
    And these were primarily people who
    had money-- who had quite a bit of money.
    And the Germans, the Nazis, wanted
    to get their possessions, because that was substantive.
    And my uncle and all that was part of that.
    And so I tried to rescue whatever they had left
    and give it to friends for safekeeping.
    And that was, in itself, a very interesting sort of thing,
    because all people are very eager to take these things.
    But after we-- some of us had returned,
    and survived obviously, then they
    said, well, if we had known that you come back
    or that you want it back, then we would have not taken it.
    And these were very serious disappointments, which--
    in that way, we also lost fortunes.
    Because the entire collection of my uncle's paintings
    were in safekeeping--
    were taken into safekeeping by--
    by his landlord of the apartment he had rented from.
    And then when I came back and said,
    you've got all the things, and so
    they denied everything and said, well, who are you?
    We don't remember you, because the only person who's
    like you was kind of small and now-- he said something.
    Very, very flimsy sort of excuses.
    And they still-- so many people have changed their lifestyle
    by virtue of the fact what they have
    stolen from those poor people and not returned.
    And that was called Aryanization.
    And some people, of course, were very nice and returned.
    And some people didn't.
    So there are this sort of mixed thing.
    But anyway, so I've tried to rescue things
    for my uncle and my aunt.
    And by the way, the interesting thing, that's where it started.
    In some way, interesting sort of psychological situation
    in terms of the breach of the--
    severing of bonds, human family bonds
    is, my uncle, when they were sent--
    and aunt, when they're told they had
    to come to the assembly place in Prague
    and be shipped to a ghetto, they've
    asked me to volunteer and go with them.
    And that could be done for practical purposes.
    And so I talked to my mother and said, you can't do that.
    And I kind of felt very guilty that I would not do it.
    Why did they want you to volunteer with them?
    Well, because they felt I was young and I was very --
    And I was kind of son-like to them.
    They didn't have any children.
    And it was a just very close family relationship--
    very, very intimate bonding.
    And so they asked me very specifically,
    and I didn't do it.
    And I had guilt feelings about that.
    And I had to discuss with my mother.
    And when I went myself, later on, my mother didn't volunteer,
    and I never would have asked her either.
    So it was quite a thing to ask.
    But see, that's when it happened,
    when it started to crack, you see?
    Because people then became increasingly dependent
    on themselves and lost their support system,
    even if the bonding was very closely-knit.
    And to me, that's a very important--
    very important insight which I've
    gained in terms of human relationships.
    The transitory temporariness of human relationships
    when the-- when the going gets tough.
    I've seen it throughout life.
    People will abandon you.
    People will be for themselves and renounce.
    Did you feel, in any way, that your aunt and uncle
    were asking too much of you?
    Not at that particular time.
    I thought he was asking quite a bit.
    But you see, you mustn't forget that we didn't know
    all the things we know today.
    And since most of the people-- of course, all the people--
    had a very clear conscience.
    They said, what on Earth are we getting into?
    We haven't done anything.
    They can't really do too much to us.
    And that's something which really
    should be stressed, because many people went into death
    without really knowing that--
    they didn't-- they didn't know, of course,
    what was going to happen specifically.
    They knew that it was not going to be milk and honey for sure.
    But anything which it turned out to be,
    people didn't know at that particular time.
    And I think it is psychologically extremely
    important for us to tell that and to make that very clear.
    Because so many people still have
    this sort of very naive and unrealistic notions about why
    people went like sheep and all this sort of idiocy,
    which actually is very annoying to me--
    very annoying to me.
    And because these people are not any different than anyone else.
    And because of it-- and it's something which I've talked
    about just recently back at school,
    when we had our last session in the Holocaust lecture series--
    that the trust into--
    fairness of authority still was inculcated in us.
    We still had the notion of authorities, in essence, fair.
    They always can deviate a bit and be different.
    But in essence, people are fair and will not
    do things to you which--
    so there was no real precedent, in more contemporary times,
    as to treatment of people.
    Even under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
    And otherwise, they could have--
    Jaroslav Hašek wouldn't have written The Good Soldier
    Schweik, where you just--
    authority and all that.
    But you don't take it too seriously,
    because there is always a way you
    can circumvent and all that.
    And that was the end of that, because you couldn't
    be Good Soldier Schweik.
    It just didn't work anymore.
    And so there was a new precedent.
    And most people don't understand it.
    For that, you really have to really
    have a more social-scientific perspective in order
    to really appreciate it.
    That's why I say that.
    Because the chances are, the survivors
    probably would not be as specific as I can be.
    All right.
    Did your mother not want you to go for her personal reasons?
    Or because she foresaw some political things that--
    Well, so I started with my father and all that.
    And then the assassination of Heydrich.
    And then as they searched and all that.
    Many people got arrested and--
    certain people-- and were accused of harboring the people
    who-- or whatever, collaborating with the enemy or whatever
    and committing treason--
    whatever the things, idiotic things, and shot en masse.
    And so that part I was very conscious of,
    because I was in the midst of it.
    And friends of ours, who'd just taken out and accused of things
    they obviously had not done, and then shot.
    And so that was after the Heydrich situation.
    So I was apprehensive.
    And then there was my birthday on the 3rd of August.
    And I woke up and told my mother,
    something terrible is going to happen.
    I really feel sick something.
    I have a premonition of something terrible.
    And said, have you eaten something bad and all that?
    It was my birthday.
    And I said, no, I just have a churning feeling in my stomach,
    so to speak, in my guts, that something terrible is
    going to happen.
    And I kept on repeating.
    It was just almost compulsive--
    kept on repeating, repeating, repeating.
    And she didn't know what, you know?
    And said, well, you must have had something bad
    to eat and all that.
    So had no idea, because there was no--
    And on the 10th, in a week after that,
    then I get the notification that I
    am to appear at this assembly place and all this and that,
    by myself.
    So my father went first.
    Then came all the other relatives--
    my uncle, aunt, and what have you,
    and my grandmother and some other--
    and my aunt, the other--
    my father's sister and what have you.
    And then I came.
    So we all went separate ways for reasons which still escape me.
    So you had no relatives with you, then, when you went.
    No, I was just on my own.
    I was just totally by myself.
    And so that particular--
    going to the assembly place in a streetcar with 20 kilos
    or 30 kilos of belongings was, in itself, very bad.
    Because I sat down, and then the Czechs, who
    were not known for their philo-semitic attitude, said,
    you can't sit.
    And then kicked me out of the seat while I was on my way.
    Because we couldn't use any taxis and all that.
    And I just couldn't walk, because it was too far.
    So that was the only way to do that.
    And the interesting part is that there
    was a person called Fredy Hirsch, who's being quite
    well-known in the history.
    And he was a very close friend of mine,
    and I worked with him--
    talking about resistance, because I
    need to get that in before I get into Theresienstadt.
    Fredy and I were very close friends,
    although we were totally coming from different walks of life
    and perspectives.
    But we had a very, very unusual rapport.
    And so kids of my age, under the leadership of Fredy,
    who had unbelievable courage--
    profile in courage, just very unusual.
    And he just had a way to deal with SS authorities, which
    was just singular.
    I don't know anyone else who was a Jew and a Zionist who
    would have behaved in this sort of manner,
    which impressed them unbelievably.
    So he understood their psychology and used it.
    So Fredy--
    In what way?
    How did he--
    Well, I'm just going to talk about it.
    So Fredy understood the tremendous trauma
    of all the people who had the notification
    to go to the assembly places and be without any sort of support
    system.
    Because so many people are old, didn't have any relatives,
    no one to help, and how did they get there?
    So under his leadership, and with the help
    of kids like myself, we had special permission
    from the Gestapo to pick up these places--
    to pick up the people from the places where
    they were to be deported and help them to go to the assembly
    center and see to it that they would come there in one piece.
    Well, that may not have been viewed, in retrospect,
    as a great favor, you see?
    But on the other hand, we tried to avoid that the Gestapo would
    come and use force, you see?
    And instead of that, we just helped them and assisted them
    and were supportive of them.
    And that was a tremendous important act.
    And I'm very proud of it.
    I really should get some medals for that,
    because old, poor Fredy didn't survive it.
    He committed suicide.
    He was just-- he was something else.
    I mean, he's one person I really--
    perhaps of all the people I came into close contact with,
    I respect most.
    And so we helped these people.
    But when it was my turn, the whole thing
    was already disbanded, because all the people were
    already gone, including Fredy.
    So I was without help, with the exception of my mother.
    And she, poor soul, was pretty helpless herself
    in that situation.
    So I went in this streetcar up there
    and connected with some people.
    As a matter of fact, friends of ours--
    his name was Gottlieb, I remember that, Gottlieb--
    his son, who was slightly older than I, and so many
    other people, and I just connected
    with those because I knew them.
    And not so just weeks before, the husband
    of this Mrs. Gottlieb and the son
    was precisely taken out and shot.
    For no reason.
    There was no apparent reason.
    And she, then, was deported.
    And that transport I was deported
    was a special transport, which was called the Heydrich Penalty
    Transport.
    So that all the people were sent to Theresienstadt
    in that particular transport from Prague, where
    people who were sent there in retaliation, as a penalty,
    for the assassination with which these people didn't
    have anything to do whatsoever.
    But it was a penal sort of transport.
    OK.
    Were they all Jews?
    They're all Jews.
    All Jews.
    All Jews.
    Mixed, like myself-- mixed up and all that.
    But they all were Jews according to the Nuremberg racial laws.
    All right.
    So then we went into these sort of boxcars.
    Well, first of all, there, there was
    a fellow called [Personal name] or [Personal name]
    [? Mandel. ?] And he was a rabbi.
    And he was a stooge of the Gestapo.
    And he was doing all the dirty work.
    He was kind of a Jewish kapo type--
    [? Mandela. ?] I think it was [? Mandela. ?] [? Mandelo? ?]
    [? Mandela? ?] I just get it confused. [? No, Mandela. ?]
    Anyway, and so the SS officers call,
    [? Mandela ?] here, come here, and all that.
    And then he was just doing the dirty work
    for them and just mishandled and mis--
    not mishandled, but mistreated these people there
    and was just sold out.
    He was just one of them.
    And that's where I started to be very apprehensive, because,
    my God, what is really happening here?
    Just people are turned around and do
    the dirty work for the SS--
    the Gestapo.
    Not SS, Gestapo.
    SS Gestapo, but specifically, Gestapo.
    And that set me on a course of apprehension.
    And then we had to stay there, on the floor, of course,
    under dreadful conditions.
    And that, of course, was the beginning of this odyssey,
    if you will, because there was no transition from a relatively
    normal life, which to be sure was full of suppression,
    repression, and--
    and discrimination and what have you.
    But still, it was in a different ballgame--
    of a different ballgame.
    And so that's what I--
    that was the first time I said, my God,
    we're just getting into a totally different situation.
    And the adjustment will be major,
    because then, already, I had to adjust with these people.
    And they all then started to behave very differently.
    Everyone was beginning to be for himself.
    And I had no one there other than these Gottliebs.
    And they already said, hey, don't want anything
    from us and all that.
    So they distantiated themselves.
    And that was a very interesting sort of thing.
    Which then, the tougher things became,
    the more this became apparent.
    So that you just totally sever ties with people
    you used to be very close to.
    It would seem to plunge a person into despair.
    Yeah.
    And that's the first time I really felt the despair
    and the foreboding of something very awful, terrible.
    All right, so then we were at this assembly place,
    which was pretty much centrally located, relatively speaking.
    And we put into this--
    we had to walk into this very quickly, under SS
    close supervision, into this [INAUDIBLE]
    boxcars, these cars.
    But, of course, knew that we were going to Theresienstadt.
    That much we anticipated, because that
    was what makes the deal.
    So then because it was packed full,
    no provisions to speak of people taking out of their life
    situation into something totally different
    about which they had absolutely no inkling what would happen
    is sort of unbelievable uncertainty.
    And therefore insecurity, fear, angst, existential angst.
    It's extreme.
    And so, so many people panicked and became hysterical, and then
    virtually lost their minds because of the pressure.
    And we arrived, because it's not that long a ride.
    How long was it?
    Three hours maybe or something, four maybe.
    And so we arrived in Theresienstadt,
    and getting out.
    And that was quick, fast, and all this.
    And take your things and all that.
    And who was coming into the car looking for me was my father.
    Because he had found out that I would be
    in that particular transport.
    And because of his position there and all that, he had to--
    he had access to this type of information and came to--
    to somehow take over.
    And so what he did, because so many people panicked and were
    in hysterics, so one particular person,
    I remember, was really, totally mad and was just crazed.
    So he took that person and slammed that person,
    because he was afraid that undue attention would be--
    would be drawn to that situation, which
    may bring into the SS people, and then some things
    would happen which would involve me and all that.
    So he took that person and slammed them.
    He was a very strong fellow.
    He was not tall, but very strong fellow-- sport type.
    He worked out and was in very good shape, actually,
    in spite of the situation.
    So he then eased me into the situation and took over.
    And the interesting thing is-- because our relation
    had been very strained, the father-son situation, virtually
    ever since I can remember.
    The interesting thing is that that all
    had changed in the concentration camp totally.
    I mean, we became exceedingly close.
    And the collaboration and cooperation between us
    was just getting more and more close.
    And we just had a totally different relationship, which
    changed, again, after we were--
    after our survival.
    But that was really unbelievable.
    We were very close and we had a tremendous relationship--
    was just in harmony with each other,
    very different from what it used to be.
    All right, so then I adjusted and relatively quickly
    to the situation, because there are very many people I
    got to know and knew from previous life and relatives
    and what have you, including my grandmother, who
    was actually sent--
    I said she was sent to a ghetto, which is not true.
    She was sent to Theresienstadt.
    She didn't stay very long, because she
    was sent from Theresienstadt relatively early.
    And so the entire clan--
    friends and distant relatives, relatives.
    So that was not too bad.
    And then Fredy--
    You mentioned that you had 20 or 30 kilos of goods
    you took with you.
    What kinds of things did you bring with you?
    Well, I mean, just the things which they're basics, you know?
    Basics and some things which were very important to me--
    idiosyncratically important, not really objectively.
    For example, my pillow, small pillow, because I
    wanted to have a small pillow.
    I even took, I think, a teddy bear and things
    of that nature, which was still in at an age like that.
    So things which were just bare necessities--
    clothing and whatever.
    No luxury stuff or whatever.
    Just the bare necessities we considered
    to be the most important, because weight was limited.
    So that's what we've had.
    And I was able to retain it.
    And then I was sent with--
    and then it was Fredy Hirsch and some other man
    called Gustav Schorsch.
    So they then arranged that people
    whom they knew and had worked with before,
    they would get into some special places
    where there were only kids--
    kids of that age.
    And then they did lots of things with them.
    Fredy somehow was able to arrange work for us and--
    which was relatively pleasant.
    And he looked after us and gave us massages
    and consulted about our growth and well-being and all that
    and was very supportive.
    And then I also got to know people I didn't
    know from previous times.
    So we've had discussions and the kind
    of university-level discourses with a person who almost
    finished his doctorate, a man called Gustav Schorsch,
    who was a writer and playwright and all that.
    Very well-known Czech.
    He would have been a very famous person had he survived.
    So a very closely-knit relationship and a support
    system, which then developed.
    And my mother was in one place, and my father was in another.
    Because they all were separated because only women and only men
    and all this and that.
    But my father, because of his connections and his work,
    was able to always get us some additional food, which
    helped my mother very much and me and all that.
    So somehow that life in Theresienstadt
    was very superior to any other place, in comparison,
    particularly after I had experienced other ones.
    But what I wanted to say, that the relationships which
    developed there were exceedingly meaningful,
    because we could go to tremendous performances
    and lectures and meet very distinguished academicians
    and people who had made major contributions.
    And there were Catholic priests and monks and anthroposophies,
    and it was just a center of culture.
    And I've learned more in Theresienstadt and I've been--
    so I was able to associate with people of tremendous stature
    more so than perhaps in my entire life,
    because it was so concentrated.
    And that is something which really
    should be stressed, because--
    So it was irony.
    Yeah.
    And also, the human relations were--
    as terrible as the conditions were,
    and as cruel some of the people were,
    they're very unique and somehow supportive,
    so that one didn't feel--
    but the young people, particularly,
    were still able to--
    they didn't feel that they--
    didn't feel that they lost.
    Well, so--
    Would you think that your parents had kind of a reunion
    in [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, I don't know a reunion.
    My parents, yes, in a way.
    And also the relationship between my father and my mother
    was very different.
    And they were much closer than before,
    because they had divorced.
    That's what I meant.
    That's right, yeah, when I was 13.
    And so that was--
    yeah, it was very unusual.
    And my father's humanity was just astounding-- astounding.
    And then, of course, I met with many other friends.
    And I said that it was just a source of tremendous learning
    and new impulses and insights, which otherwise never
    could have been gained in such a short time
    and in such a concentrated fashion.
    So I'm not, by any means, idealizing things,
    because they were terribly tough and dreadful cruelties
    happened.
    And there are some SS people who got--
    took pleasure from just simply running
    over people in their vehicles and all that
    and mishandling them.
    There were also Czech gendarmes there who were in charge
    and behaved in a very cruel manner.
    So I stayed in different places with young people.
    And then the interesting part was also, the people who were--
    they're from mixed marriages, but were Jews of first--
    first grade-- not second grade, but first grade.
    That means that they were counted as Jews, although came
    from mixed marriages.
    Some of them were very enterprising
    and left the ghetto over the weekend and came back.
    I don't know whether I mentioned that last time.
    We talked a little bit.
    But any repetition is not a problem.
    Well, all right, so the interesting part
    was that they are able to do that, the Friedman brothers
    and Tausig and some other people.
    And they caught up with Tausig eventually.
    He was caught doing-- he looked very Jewish.
    He looked like a [NON-ENGLISH],, just like a Jewish--
    looked very Jewish.
    But somehow-- and he got caught and was totally--
    was immediately isolated, and then
    separately deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which he didn't survive, because they probably sent him
    to the gas immediately.
    Anyway--
    Was that the usual punishment?
    I don't know.
    I really don't know, because there are not that many.
    I know that he was put in very particular cells
    from other people as a punishment.
    And the Friedman brothers, they never were caught--
    two-- one older and one young--
    younger brother.
    And they did it all the time.
    And they didn't look Jewish at all.
    And the last thing which was important
    is that people were very creative, produced
    a lot of cultural things--
    poetry, some of which are published,
    because I was able to put my hands on some of the things,
    in Czech actually.
    And the creativity and the thought processes
    and the human relationships which are very stimulating,
    were just very unique, particularly for us,
    these young kids.
    So that is one thing which I wanted to stress.
    Another thing is that there was this person--
    I mentioned it before--
    this Kurt [? Steuer. ?] And he was
    half-Jewish, blonde, blue-eyed.
    Just looked like an SS men, for all practical purposes.
    And he decided that he wanted to run away, worked out the thing,
    and said he needed my support.
    So I supported him and covered him and all that.
    And he left.
    And then after the war, I met up with him again in Prague.
    I mentioned that before.
    And that, to me, was a very important thing
    because of my part in his escape, which was successful.
    And I'm dreadfully happy that I did what I could do,
    which was--
    which was not only keep my mouth shut, but just
    being supportive, preparing the thing, until the time he really
    could do it.
    And then covering for him until he was discovered,
    so that by that time he was already far away and all that.
    So that, to me, is very important,
    because psycho-emotionally it was important that one resists.
    Just don't take it.
    After you could see what happened,
    you just do something, you see?
    And the more you could do something, the more active
    you were, the better you could cope.
    All right.
    And then there was an interesting episode
    specifically, which was a different week.
    I was in a detail, which was to--
    which was to collect items from people who had died
    and put it to the--
    give it to the--
    being transported to the people who
    were in charge of that, which means they
    all stole and gave it to the Jewish elite.
    So we took soap and all that, and someone saw us.
    And then they-- they told the authorities,
    and I was in deep trouble.
    And Fredy Hirsch stepped in and intervened on our behalf.
    So the penalty was that we had to clean
    the toilets for about a week.
    And that was not--
    What style did Fredy use in dealing with the authorities,
    that he was able to--
    Well, I mean, he was a very athletic individual.
    And being German himself, he understood
    the German-Prussian sort of military type.
    And he just confronted them without really kind of fear
    or just kissing their legs or whatever.
    But he just simply responded to them as equals--
    kind of superiors, but equals.
    And that was his style.
    And because he was athletic and had a tremendous physique
    and looked good and was so forward in his manners
    and unafraid, they just were impressed.
    Even the people who were just killers, just--
    and that helped him that he was, at all times,
    until the last day of his life, when he committed suicide
    prior to being gassed, he maintained
    a privileged position on that basis.
    Because he was able to handle the most vicious
    of the SS in a way which they could respect and treat him
    accordingly.
    So when all the other people didn't have anything,
    he always was able to organize and have access
    to situations which made a significant difference
    to those people who he was able to help.
    Which he did, because there was all he did.
    And then when we get to Auschwitz,
    we'll talk about the resistance.
    Anyway, so then came the day when I was supposed to go
    and was ordered to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And that, again, was some sort of special--
    I don't know-- transport, which I, at that particular time,
    didn't know.
    So some people accompanied me to the boxcars, which happened
    to be also closed ones--
    covered ones, not open ones.
    And so--
    Did you take your personal things with you still?
    Well, whatever I had, I could take with me, and I did.
    Wasn't much, to be sure, because there was just less and less.
    And by that time, many of our group--
    some of the kids who belonged to that particular group--
    we had 13 people, as a matter of fact, in that group--
    already had been shipped to Auschwitz prior to my coming.
    And one of them was Hans Fischer,
    son of a very well-known Prague psychiatrist,
    a professor at the university of psychiatrists.
    And he was there already and some other people
    were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    Other people are sent elsewhere.
    But he was there already.
    So this Auschwitz-Birkenau thing was, of course, very different,
    because lots of my cousins came and gave me
    his-- some sort of talisman and said goodbye to me.
    He stayed, and my aunt stayed, my father stayed,
    my mother stayed.
    And it did not occur to me to ask them,
    why don't you volunteer?
    I never would have thought of that.
    So I went just by myself, totally,
    just without any sort of people I knew.
    Did you know you were headed for Auschwitz at that point?
    Well, I didn't know.
    I just-- we went someplace else.
    And someplace else meant it would be a much worse place.
    That much we knew.
    You already had rumors or whatever back--
    Well, I don't know these rumors.
    Yeah, that's going to be awful places, yeah.
    But, I mean, gassing and all this, forget it.
    You don't want to deal with that.
    And so some of the friends that accompanied me,
    they're just like brothers, like my brothers.
    And we said goodbye, and we just, whatever, embraced,
    all these sort of things.
    And that was all dreadfully traumatic.
    And so then the bucket for all the things
    we've had in that particular carriage--
    not carriage, in the boxcar--
    and hardly any water and all that.
    And then people just really fell apart.
    And it took a long time.
    It was days, days, many days.
    Deprivation, stench, people who were sick and all that.
    It was just like in a haze, a terrible thing.
    We had no idea where we were going.
    I remember that very well.
    Because we just tried to get some orientation looking out
    of these small holes, which we--
    no idea.
    No idea.
    No idea where we were going.
    And so then we finally arrived.
    People were absolutely in dreadful condition
    when we arrived at the ramp at Auschwitz during the night.
    It was late night.
    It was dark, late night.
    And all the-- the lights were on the--
    reflect also what you--
    the-- what I'd call the--
    The floodlights?
    Floodlights.
    And that was terrible, just out.
    And so we had these people.
    They're from-- Canada people and all that coming out.
    And they said run and all that.
    Were there dogs?
    Huh?
    Were there dogs?
    Dogs, whatever you have.
    And then they searched through the place.
    And a lot of Russian kick, and they can run
    and all this and that.
    Which is the kind of typical thing,
    because all the people had been there.
    But this was particularly awful because it was nighttime.
    You didn't know the floodlights and the fear
    and the uncertainty and the cruelty
    and the kicking and the beating and all this sort of thing--
    the pushing and all that.
    It was just more because you just couldn't orient yourself.
    You didn't see anything.
    It was all pitch dark, with the exception of the floodlights.
    Anyway, so then we got sent to the various places.
    And I don't know whether it was even a selection.
    I'm not even sure that we went through a selection.
    And sent to the sauna, which was next-- close to the gas thing.
    But, of course, we had no idea about gassing anyway.
    And so we went through a Canada thing.
    And then they shaved us.
    And then they gave us-- they shaved us everywhere, but did
    not cut our hair.
    And that was a very strange thing.
    They didn't cut our hair.
    They shaved it.
    And then they made fun of, because I'm uncircumcised.
    So they said, what are you doing here?
    And they just kind of laughed at the fact
    that I'm uncircumcised.
    And they shaved everything here--
    all the armpits and all this and that--
    and laughed at me.
    Put powder on my penis and all this sort of thing
    and all this sort of thing.
    And I just, to me, it was not terrible.
    But I was a young kid, naive, all these sort of things.
    Hey, what's this terrible stuff?
    And so I was embarrassed.
    But it's not really cruel, except I
    was a target, you know, because what are you doing here?
    But there are some other ones who were very helpful and said,
    you do this and that.
    And then I took some things which--
    and that was-- took some things and was
    able to hide them in my behind.
    For example, a knife.
    A beautiful, beautiful very expensive sort of kind
    of Swiss type of thing.
    It was not a Swiss type, but a lot of things in it
    and all that.
    So I put that in and all this.
    And that's when I started to develop this ability
    to organize and play the role of a survivor.
    What else were you able to hide?
    Well, I took a lot of books and all that.
    And there, someone came in looking for me or someone else.
    It was Hans Fischer, one of my closest friends,
    who was part of the camp orchestra
    of Auschwitz-Birkenau, because he
    was a well-known musician in Prague,
    very accomplished in Theresienstadt.
    And was older than I and was just like a brother to me.
    And he was the son of this psychiatrist
    and his very beautiful wife.
    She was a beauty, a well-known Jewish beauty.
    She was just a beauty.
    She was just out of the world.
    Even I knew that in my young age.
    She was just terrific.
    And he wasn't.
    The father was just kind of a small, bald-headed, very--
    not that really good-looking fellow.
    But a very, very intelligent, very resourceful.
    Well, so he said, anything you have here, just give me
    and I'll be able to take in the camp.
    So I gave him books, I gave him this and that and that--
    some of the things which I still had in my possession.
    And he took it to the camp and gave it to me there.
    That's the type of friend he was.
    Just unbelievable.
    The loss, you know?
    And I've said just recently, when I gave a--
    a speech back at the--
    the Lincoln Park Memorial there was something,
    and I gave a speech.
    Neighbors asked me to give the speech thing.
    So I said, and I still say, there's one thing which came--
    actually, I just assessed it just relatively recently, not--
    on several occasions, that the best people,
    the most valued people as far as I remember,
    friends and acquaintances, relatives-- the best people
    did not survive.
    It is the ones which I considered
    to be of lesser human value, if one can put it
    that cruelly, who have survived.
    Why do you say that?
    Well, because I remember Hans Fischer.
    All these people would have been--
    they towered over me intellectually, emotionally,
    gift-wise and all that.
    These were the people who were the elite,
    the créme de la créme in terms of their talents,
    in terms of what they were able to do.
    And these people are just simply out of this world.
    I mean, these people would have really made major contributions
    to humanity if they had been allowed to-- to live.
    And I'm reminded of that particularly when I
    see some of the survivors, whom I have no reason
    to respect whatsoever, not only because how
    they survived under what circumstances
    and what they are now.
    And to say that is just a hard, harsh thing to say.
    But I say it, because that's my conclusion based on many years
    of interaction and observation.
    Do you think that some [? weak-minded ?] people
    survived, say, by luck?
    Oh, yeah, well, luck played always an important role.
    But somehow, the people who did not survive,
    they behaved in a way which would not
    be injurious to others.
    And by virtue of that, they had a better chance to survive.
    And that is something which hasn't
    been said, because it's not a very popular thing to say.
    And these were precisely people who were giving of themselves
    and sacrificing themselves.
    They're altruists in so many ways.
    Jewish rescuers so to speak.
    Hmm, a good point.
    And so therefore, they were not necessarily obsessed
    with survival as so many other people, including myself, up--
    in certain situations, obsessed, driven.
    But somehow they are not that driven,
    and therefore were not as circumspect
    as some other people in terms of their own survival.
    And I think that contributed, to some extent, to their demise.
    Mm-hmm.
    All right, so Hans Fischer was there and helped me
    a great deal and helped me to adjust.
    And then you have these sort of changes
    from one ball game to one--
    one-stage phase of horror to another one,
    increasingly getting worse.
    So the first shock was Prague, Theresienstadt.
    And the other one, which was double that,
    was, of course, Auschwitz.
    Because from that very moment, you heard--
    you wanted to survive.
    You had to guard--
    be fearful of your life every second,
    every minute, in terms of every step you took.
    And that was, of course, very different in Theresienstadt.
    So you just went from bad to worse.
    You must have learned that instantly, then, is that --
    Oh, yeah, because they already-- we went to the block,
    then we went through the whole thing.
    And then went to--
    we went to the family camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which was B2 next to the A camp--
    B2 camp.
    And so we got into a barrack.
    And the barrack senior--
    the barrack senior then immediately told us,
    you do this and that.
    And then just let us have it--
    merciless, talked about the gassing,
    killing, all this sort of thing.
    So we were totally all just--
    And then the whole thing changed from a very conscious state,
    where you're just really present and in touch with reality.
    Everything became just, like, that instant is a nightmare.
    It was no longer a reality in the real sense
    of the word in terms of the way some of us,
    and I, certainly experienced.
    It became a dreamlike nightmare.
    So that you responded to the reality as if it'd be
    a-- it would be a nightmare.
    Do you mean [INAUDIBLE]?
    And that gave you some sort of a feeling of just numbness--
    numbness.
    So that you try to deflect the pain by protecting
    yourself due to this state--
    the response, the reaction.
    And so then it was just 100%, 24-hour harassment
    in the worst possible sense.
    What was daily life like?
    Well, daily life, like, was just being harassed.
    And going up early in the morning
    and be counted twice a day.
    And trying to get the minimal food and do this and that.
    Work details of all sorts.
    And trying to interact, because then--
    with the friends and trying to organize and all that.
    And the books, which were saved by Hans Fischer, circulated.
    And I always got them back.
    Because they're the only books which existed.
    So everything was read.
    Which one was a medical book, and the other one
    was the Bible.
    And some other things were anthroposophic writings
    by Rudolf Steiner.
    Would you have been punished if you'd
    been found with the books?
    I don't know.
    I didn't care.
    Besides, he took the risk to smuggle it into the camp.
    I didn't, you see?
    He gave all these things to me which he was able to take.
    But had you been found with the books,
    would that be a punishable act?
    I don't know.
    I don't think it was-- it was an issue.
    I don't think it was an issue at that point.
    But I was one of the few, if not the only one of thousands,
    who had these sort of books.
    And they circulated and always came back to me.
    What work details were you on?
    Well, that was an interesting-- one work detail--
    well, just all sorts of things.
    Some of them I remember, some I don't.
    Just odd stuff, nonsensical things usually
    to justify some sort of interaction with the SS
    so that they could do some certain things which gave them
    an opportunity.
    Just give you an example, they just rounded up and said,
    you have to, whatever, carry bricks or something
    and in some sort of totally different camp.
    So the camp was--
    I don't know which one we went through.
    And then we stopped--
    given the order to stop--
    the SS.
    It was not just kapo.
    It was not-- actually, I don't even know where we had kapo.
    It was just an SS.
    And then he met with some sort of female SS.
    And then they started, in front of us,
    just if you will not exist, talk sex-type of sort of thing
    and say, let's go and-- go and screw.
    And so they went, and we waited.
    They did their business, and he came back.
    And then we went again into the women's camp.
    And that is something which we discussed and had problems
    discussing, because then we went to the women's camp,
    and I had a chance to observe.
    And I thought it was bad in B2, the women camp.
    The cruelty was just unbelievable.
    Also because, of course, you anticipated
    women-- the sort of prejudicial notion
    that women would be kind of nicer and more kind.
    The contrary was true.
    They were just absolutely 10 times more vicious.
    Meaning the kapos and the--
    That's right, what had happened there.
    And we were just absolutely shocked.
    And we came from hell, and went into another hell
    which was even worse than the hell we came from.
    And that was very hard to take, because
    also because of the sort of notions
    in terms of how women are.
    They're kinder, more gentler, all this and that.
    Hell no.
    The cruelty was just unbelievable.
    For example?
    Well, the beating and the kicking
    and how the SS women behaved towards the other--
    the kapos behaved to each other and all that.
    It was just unbelievable.
    It was just unbelievable.
    And so all these sort of things we saw.
    And then we returned.
    That was one of the work details.
    I don't know what we did.
    We didn't do anything, really, any work.
    But I think he used it as an excuse to get to one point
    where he would meet with the female SS,
    they'd do their business, and then go into the women camp
    just for an excuse or something.
    We're here and all that.
    We've done-- I don't--
    there was no real work.
    We stood around and walked most of the time.
    And then we returned.
    So that was one thing.
    Then, I had developed jaundice.
    And then I was yellow.
    Did I talk about that already?
    You talked about being sick in the camp.
    As I say, it doesn't matter.
    Just keep going.
    Well, anyway, so the jaundice happened and all this and that.
    So and then, for some reason, SS responded to me
    in a way which most of the time was favorable,
    for whatever reason.
    And so he wanted me to have in the kitchen
    detail, peel potatoes.
    And they said, look, he's sick, you can't take him.
    And he said, I want him.
    So then I really Couldn't last very long,
    because I got so sick that they had
    to put me in the sick barrack and all that.
    And then I was rescued from the sick barrack,
    because then a friend of ours, who
    was this pediatrician, he came and said, you have to get out--
    I was much better then--
    because there's going to be a selection tomorrow.
    And if you're here, they will send you to the gas.
    All right, so I got out--
    selection.
    And then I got--
    then I had pleurisy and pneumonia and went back again.
    And I got a little medication they had,
    only because of the contacts-- sheer luck.
    Because of the pediatrician was one
    of the most intimate assistants of Josef Mengele.
    So it sounds like you didn't have any severe work
    details that you can remember.
    No, no, no.
    What about the food that you ate?
    Well, the food was just--
    just the typical sort of thing.
    Just occasionally, during the-- during the weekend,
    we occasionally had some pea soup.
    And that was a feast.
    That was just like you win a million bucks.
    And most of the other time, it was watery turnip.
    That's exactly what it was, without potatoes to speak of.
    But the more substance you had, so you had to--
    and that was the difference between older people,
    young people.
    Young people being still more alert, having more vitality.
    So you could adjust.
    You had to be as alert as possible in order to survive.
    And that, one way, is to be the last, in case of soup,
    so that you get from the bottom of the barrel and not
    the beginning, where there was pure water.
    And then there you had some little bit more substance.
    Or when there was some danger, you were the-- you would just
    immediately avoid it and went the other way, became--
    became invisible so to speak.
    And I've learned that.
    And I can be--
    for example, I still have that ability, and I still train it.
    I can go to movies without a ticket,
    because I've learned this.
    I can make myself virtually invisible.
    So that when I need to be invisible,
    I'll just blend in and, you know?
    And I still train that.
    For some reason, I don't know.
    I have this sort of strange idea.
    I still train that, because I don't want to lose it,
    because I think I may get into hard times.
    I'm in hard times already in one way or another.
    So that was the art which you developed-- the organizing--
    And it sounds like there's hypersensitivity
    to other people.
    Hypersensitivity, where you have tremendous alertness,
    where you can see where these dangers were something
    to be had, so that you're there and take advantage,
    or you're just out of sight when they is killing--
    beating.
    And then someone, for example, escaped.
    And then, we still had the long hair.
    And then we had to stand for an entire night,
    and people collapsed and died like flies.
    I got pneumonia and had to get into the sick barrack again.
    And then people came and visited me as much
    as they could from the window.
    And there was one friend of mine,
    a relative, distant relative.
    And Dr. Peter Schleisner was a very gifted--
    again, talking gifted person--
    biologist and chemist.
    And he came, too, wanting to know
    how I was, very concerned, just like a brother.
    And came one day, the next he doesn't come.
    And said, what happened to Peter?
    They said, he died.
    He had just an infection of the nose.
    Overnight, he was dead.
    So all these sort of things happened.
    Fredy Hirsch came and brought me some food.
    And there we had this sort of organization,
    which he had young people talking
    resistance, what we can do all throughout
    the Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    Just all laughable stuff, you know?
    But yes, we did it, and he did it, until that time,
    where we could do something and all this.
    And so there was the preparation of resistance, absolutely,
    except with means, which to me, in retrospect, were laughable.
    We took it very seriously.
    You mean, you talked about it and this kept your spirits up?
    Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    But did anybody act on all--
    Oh, well, I mean, sabotage and all this sort of thing.
    But I said, just waiting for the moment where
    we could take over.
    And that was Fredy Hirsch very, very effectively
    trying to do that and prepare us.
    And I was part of that group, until the time Fredy Hirsch
    and the old people who had--
    had come before me, for some reason, there was an order.
    And I've tried to find it from the SS people myself.
    I was not able to find out, but I've tried-- out after the--
    after the war-- find out what--
    All the transport which came before us,
    for some reason or other, all the people
    had been there for a while.
    All with a certain number, regardless of their state,
    were sent to the gas chamber.
    And among them was this friend of mine, Hans Fischer,
    and many other brothers and--
    were identical types.
    And another, Alexander [? Lipen ?]
    and a lot of people I knew, close kids my age.
    And they were rounded up and sent to the gas chamber.
    And then Fredy Hirsch committed suicide,
    because he didn't want to go through that.
    And was not able-- that was the only time when,
    because of an order from Berlin--
    must have come from Berlin--
    and they said, round them all up, these particular people,
    and send them to gas chamber, for reasons which I still have
    not been able to ascertain.
    And I'm sure there was some sort of reason,
    but I just don't have it.
    I have not been able to find it out.
    Anyway, so that was the time when Fredy Hirsch
    was unable to really prevail.
    And because he couldn't prevail, rather
    than being sent to the gas chamber,
    he committed suicide proud.
    And it was a terrible sting.
    Well, the interesting thing is there was no problem
    in killing you, officially.
    But if you killed yourself unofficially,
    then there was a big investigation.
    So in the barrack I was in, for example,
    one person decided to-- to hang himself, successfully.
    And the SS came in with cameras and all that big hubbub
    and all--
    because he-- big investigation.
    Why was that?
    Why did they investigate [INAUDIBLE]??
    [CHUCKLES] Search me, you know?
    I mean, official killing was terrific.
    It was condoned.
    But if you unofficially killed yourself, that was not to be--
    that was not to be.
    And then therefore, it was--
    You took control of your own life.
    Well, you have no right to do that.
    You had to wait until you were killed.
    Was suicide common or uncommon?
    Well, I mean, some--
    sure, some people just went into coma.
    And I don't know how--
    I think it was very rare, relatively speaking,
    because, yes, I've seen people just threaten and go and run
    through the electric wire.
    That's what you did.
    But this fellow did it.
    During the nighttime, he decided to hang himself
    in the barrack of a bad thing, a bad thing.
    And well, there are some sort of freak sort of things.
    One comes to mind.
    There was one horny fellow from another camp,
    the neighboring camp, A camp, into which I
    was-- we were moved after we were
    selected to go to Blechhammer.
    And he, during the night-- and there was one--
    Eva [? Steinhardt ?] was-- Eva [? Steinhardt ?]
    was a block leader, one of the women's block.
    Very attractive woman who was--
    in Theresienstadt, I knew, was just unbelievably active.
    And I looked at some of these acts, sexual acts.
    And my mother got wind of that and said,
    you can't look at that.
    And just took me and was very protective-- you can't do that.
    And she--
    You mean you looked-- not pictures, but the sexual act?
    Oh, yeah, she would have affairs.
    And I just happened to be in proximity, so I looked.
    And my mother didn't just go for it.
    I said fine.
    And she didn't like her, because she was just very promiscuous.
    And she continued to be that in Auschwitz
    because she had the means to function, which we didn't have,
    because--
    because we're-- because of malnutrition.
    So she was a beauty, no question about that.
    Eva, Eva [? Alverastein. ?] And she kind of liked me
    and all that, but my mother hated her.
    [CHUCKLES]
    So there was one block leader in the A camp.
    And since he couldn't get into the B2 legally
    in order to spend the night with her,
    he decided to get himself just under the fence, barbed wire--
    electrically-charged barbed wire.
    Just dig a hole beneath it and just squeeze through it.
    Of course, they had towers all the place,
    with watchtowers with SS.
    And for whatever reason, he had some understanding
    or he was able to be out of sight
    so that he was-- it was not noticed, the way he did it.
    I don't know.
    He came to spend the night, and then they discovered
    that he went back and all that.
    Didn't have any proof or anything that someone came over
    and all that.
    And there was a tremendous uproar.
    SS came and all that.
    But they were very impressed somehow, impressed.
    Not punitive, but they were very impressed.
    Say, hey, my God, that's quite a thing to do.
    Some of these sort of acts, they respected.
    They had some, say, hey, this is something unusual, I mean,
    just-- you're not cowards this and that.
    Initiative.
    And they respected that.
    Yeah, initiative and all that.
    So that was-- she was the one.
    And he had a good time with her, and then he returned.
    Nothing happened.
    No one got caught.
    Well, it was different in terms of when someone escaped,
    because that was serious.
    Why?
    Not because of the fact that the person escaped,
    not business to escape, period.
    But because what could be spreading about
    Auschwitz-Birkenau, you see?
    Gassing and all of that.
    And people succeeded and all that.
    So then we were rounded up, and we
    had to stand in the middle of the winter, just ice cold.
    I had this pneumonia and all this and that.
    And then our hair was cut as a penalty.
    And all the privilege, we had no longer--
    were gone.
    And so that's when the hard times began.
    That was in 1943--
    1942, or '43 actually, yeah, winter.
    It's still January, something like that.
    Of course, in other things, time was only--
    you only knew time because of the seasons.
    Because the days you didn't know.
    You had absolutely no time--
    feeling for time, because there was no way
    you could measure it.
    All right, so--
    So the hair removal was punishment
    because someone escaped.
    Was the beginning, that's right.
    And was there other punishment for that escape?
    Well, I mean, yeah, some of it became much tougher,
    in general speaking, of course.
    It may have also changed without it for what I know.
    But and then they brought in Polish people, Polish inmates,
    who were searching the whole camp in a most
    ruthless fashion.
    Were you still allowed to live as a family?
    Well, we never-- you see, it was a family camp
    not because people lived as a family in one barrack.
    Female barracks and male barracks.
    And so the only time we could see each other
    was during the day, on the main camp road.
    Or we just could get close to the barrack.
    And that's what I've done.
    I've looked into that--
    looking for a friend of mine.
    And I was with my mother, as a matter of fact.
    And I looked into a barrack, just one you peep through,
    if I could see some--
    and an SS man saw me, an older SS man, small fellow.
    And he just took me and--
    and-- slapped my face several times,
    in a way which was no big deal.
    But it was terrible for me by virtue of the fact
    that my mother was seeing it, and she was terribly upset
    about that because he slapped my face and all that.
    And I could have gotten into trouble.
    I didn't see him.
    I was not alert, then, obviously.
    I didn't see him.
    But that was all.
    So that was relatively--
    And then, in contrast, you had some SS person who stopped me
    when I was with a senior.
    As a matter of fact, the camp senior was not a Jew.
    He was a German professional-- professional criminal and--
    a professional, what you call a--
    professional-- habitual criminal.
    And he was there because of that.
    But he was senior and was a nice guy, nice guy in terms of--
    and he defended himself, at that particular time,
    against some SS people who were there.
    And he said, you can't do that to me, I'm--
    I'm an Aryan.
    You just can't talk to me like that, I'm an Aryan.
    And I was terribly impressed.
    And I was watching nearby, listening to it.
    And there was an SS man, and said, hey, come here.
    I said, my God, now I've gotten--
    I'm in trouble.
    Well, you couldn't, you know?
    He just came in and said, are you hungry?
    I said, what are you kidding?
    Of course we are.
    We're starving to death.
    Come with me.
    I said, OK, come with you.
    Nice, nice kind of thing.
    I'm looking at the soldier, my God,
    that's the beginning of-- that's the end.
    Well, so I just came with him.
    And he just went into the kitchen and said,
    hey, I mean, I want him to get some special rations.
    These sort of things happened also.
    And yeah, they gave me some special--
    Acts of kindness.
    Act of kindness, because the man saw the errors of the way.
    And he was in it to play the game by the rules.
    Couldn't get out.
    And yet, tried to do things, whatever he could,
    in order to ease things.
    And that is something which also needs to be mentioned,
    because it existed.
    And more should be written about it.
    I haven't read anything.
    Were certain guards known for being kind if they could?
    No, because, you see, if they were known,
    they were in trouble.
    Couldn't do it.
    And I talked to some people who were--
    who were at Auschwitz-Birkenau whom I did not know personally
    in the camp, but after when we were in prison life--
    in prison.
    So we talked about that--
    very meaningful, all on tape.
    I have it all on tape.
    And we talked about this sort of thing.
    And they explained to me, you just couldn't.
    You had to do it on the sly.
    You just simply couldn't do it.
    Because if you had the reputation
    or if you were caught, you were in--
    and said, well, we could have exchanged our uniform
    with a striped uniform.
    So they, too, were-- and that is something
    which people don't realize.
    Because you have to know that--
    most survivors don't understand the rules of the game
    because they don't understand the organization
    of the Nazi structures.
    And I made it my business to learn about it
    from the people who are in it.
    Yes.
    In addition to all the documentation which I read.
    But that's incomplete.
    You really have to talk to people
    to get a more fuller picture.
    And that's why Hannah Arendt is to be commended for coming,
    that Eichmann is in all.
    She didn't go into the final sort of situation
    as she could have gone, as far as--
    but she recognized that we all have Eichmanns
    under certain circumstances.
    We all have Eichmanns in us.
    And she's absolutely 100% correct.
    I have expressed it in some of my writings differently.
    I say we all are sleepers.
    And that means that we have the good in us,
    as well as the bad in us.
    We are capable of-- depending on the situations.
    Those situations trigger certain responses
    which may be totally out of character.
    Yes.
    And that we all are capable of certain things.
    And that's what we've seen, how some kapos, Jewish kapos,
    or people who were the stooges did
    things which other people never would have done.
    And I pride myself that I've never been in that position
    where I would have done anything of that nature,
    because I would have not done it as a matter of principle
    and a matter of morality.
    In spite of the stress and the pressure I was in,
    I never would have assumed the kapo situation.
    And there are kids of my age who were in charge of--
    of barracks, and they're a few years older than I.
    And they didn't shy away from kicking and mishandling
    their father, if need be, in order to assert them.
    And I remember that very vividly.
    One of these people was a young kid, had a father,
    and he just--
    he physically abused him and called him names
    and behaved towards him in a way which was unbelievable.
    It was very cruel.
    He was just a very cruel, miserable sort of person.
    But, I mean, so some people-- they found plenty of people
    to do the dirty work which they needed,
    because that saved them a great deal of personnel.
    And that whole structure was dependent on that collaboration
    of people who were--
    collaboration of victims.
    So are you saying that the role that the person is cast into
    will draw on either the good or the evil,
    depending on what the role demands?
    Well, the role, how do you get into the role, you see?
    You get into the role either because you volunteer,
    and then you have to have some sort of idea
    in terms of the rule of the game.
    But forced into the role, let's say.
    Huh?
    Cast into the role or forced into the role.
    Well, if you're cast in the role,
    you can't be cast in the role of a kapo
    if you don't want it, because there was always a way to say
    no without any sort of penalty.
    So you volunteered.
    You assumed the role because--
    because you wanted it, and you were given that role.
    We were cast into the role of inferiors and subhumans.
    There you were cast, because we couldn't defend ourselves.
    That, yes.
    But in terms of the responsibilities
    which some people roles--
    which some people assumed by way of volunteering for it
    is a very different thing.
    Because that was their decision.
    That's what they wanted.
    Because they felt that, in that role,
    they had a better chance to survive,
    and they would ease their predicament.
    Which they did in most cases, at the expense of fellow inmates.
    So you could refuse, as you say, to be a kapo--
    Oh, yeah, you could refuse.
    Yeah, you could refuse.
    --without punishment.
    Oh, yeah.
    You could refuse, or you just could escape it.
    You could avoid it and all that.
    But most people wanted to have these jobs.
    And therefore, they did all they could in
    order to endear themselves, in order
    to-- when there was a competition
    or when someone say, who's going to, they say, I will do that.
    They volunteer.
    And then among those who volunteered,
    then they selected those people who suited them best.
    Doesn't mean that you were in a situation
    where you automatically received that job.
    But you had to be OK'd by those who had the power
    to give you these roles.
    So the assumption of that role was predicated on the basis
    that they felt that you were qualified.
    And then they watched you.
    And if you didn't do what they wanted you to do,
    then you were out and in deep trouble.
    So--
    Other things, though, did you--
    were you aware of any increases, say, in suicide or madness when
    the--
    Well, madness, yes, you see?
    I could see quite a bit of people who just simply lost it,
    and they became what you call muselmanners-- muselmanners.
    And so you could see that.
    But the interesting thing is that I
    didn't see an increase of suicide
    at all, because suicide was very rare.
    And that led me to the conclusion
    that the more your drive of self-preservation
    is stimulated by external situations,
    the more you will want to live rather than die, even
    if the predicament of such nature
    that you don't even know whether you'll be still alive tomorrow.
    And that's the amazing thing.
    And that is my conclusion.
    I wrote about that, too.
    I wrote about that.
    I published that, this particular notion,
    that the harder you're pressed, the more your
    drive for self-preservation will prevail.
    And so most of the suicide I remember
    occurred prior to deportation.
    So I knew plenty of people-- relatives, friends, associates,
    and all that--
    cases I know where they committed suicide
    prior to deportation.
    Yes.
    In the case of, as we were saying,
    madness, insanity, was becoming a muselmann
    the typical route this would take, rather than, say,
    an hysteria or--
    Well, I mean, you just simply couldn't cope anymore.
    You couldn't resist.
    You couldn't resist by way of survival.
    You couldn't survive if you didn't function,
    if you were not alert.
    Because then you were killed sooner or later,
    either by a kapo or your block senior or by an SS.
    I mean, you just couldn't do it.
    And it was a question of, if someone was a muselmann,
    you just could count the days of the person.
    And that means that you physically,
    you still may have been OK.
    But if you mentally could not function, that was the end.
    Physically or mentally, that was the end.
    And that was the muselmann situation.
    You could pretty much say-- predict
    how long that person would make it before he would be dead.
    For example, how long?
    Well, a matter of a week at the most, or sooner.
    Did the situation come on quickly or gradually?
    Well, it was a gradual deterioration
    of health or whatever, emotional thing.
    For example, this friend of mine, Alexander [? Lipen, ?]
    was a tall fellow, very gifted intellectual.
    So before he knew that he was going to, they knew that--
    and I was present in that situation, in that barrack--
    and said all the people in certain numbers
    have to assemble and will be taken out and all that.
    And here you are looking and all that.
    So these kids, this one of them, said,
    you know, they were apprehensive,
    because they knew exactly-- at that particular point, already,
    they knew what that-- what it meant.
    And he knew it.
    So he escaped into mathematics.
    And he had a piece of pencil or something to write
    and a kind of scrap.
    And he started to write down complex mathematical formulas.
    Still remember that, still today.
    Just unbelievable.
    It was just unbelievable.
    And that's just-- totally everything else was in --
    He just escaped into the world of mathematics.
    Now, the other ones were desperate
    and showed their desperation.
    But somehow stood their ground, if you will,
    or whatever you call it, and waited for their predicament,
    just their push to whatever-- because there was no escape.
    There was no escape.
    There was no way.
    Except the only escape, as I said,
    Fredy Hirsch had the means, because he apparently
    had access to poison.
    We didn't.
    And then, of course, maybe people would have done it, too.
    But even that somehow not--
    was not necessarily viewed as a viable alternative,
    because of--
    but it was terrible to watch all these people.
    And by that time, when they went,
    I still had this sort of reluctance
    to accept that, as a reality, that people were gassed
    en masse and all that.
    And then I remember the father of this Hans Fischer,
    after they had been put and he couldn't prevent it
    in spite of the fact that he was working with Mengele--
    the psychiatrist, he was working with Mengele-- survived
    of course.
    Was liberated at Auschwitz, this psychiatrist, Fischer.
    As a matter of fact, I saw him in--
    in Prague after-- very shortly after--
    after I came back from Dachau, in military uniform which
    he was put in or whatever.
    It was kind of a survival tool.
    The Russians made him an officer, too.
    It was just unbelievable stuff.
    Anyway, so he came to me and said,
    well, you see, you're still alive,
    and they gassed my son Hans.
    And Hansy was gassed and you are still out.
    And so that was the end of all my illusions.
    How bitter?
    Which I didn't have any, because at that time, I just--
    I just didn't want to accept it.
    But yeah, so many people like myself
    who refused to accept the fact that this existed.
    But you saw the chimney and everything.
    But in a way, that's almost helpful, to not be--
    Well, I don't know.
    Well, maybe.
    It's a psychological mechanism to--
    All right, and so then the last stage
    was this terrible situation, which became worse and worse.
    And then the food problems and the starvation and disease
    and people being sent to gas chambers.
    And then they came in '44, again, and the liquidation
    of B2, in a way-- beginning of the liquidation of B2.
    And so they are looking for slave laborers.
    And now we're coming to Blechhammer.
    And so there was an SS.
    I don't know whether it was Mengele or not,
    because I really don't know.
    But we had to be naked and run and all that.
    And on that basis, we knew that we
    would be either selected or not selected, which meant death.
    And so I was saying, which was true,
    that I was an electrician and all that.
    And they looked for certain occupations.
    And I had this type.
    And my father, too, said something which apparently
    was needed or whatever.
    And of course, you lied and adjusted
    to whatever they said that.
    Well, so we had to run, my father and I,
    naked in front of the guy.
    And we were selected, yes, to go and all that.
    You were together when you went to the selection?
    Yeah.
    And so we were moved to-- to the A camp.
    Did you worry that you might not be, because
    of your physical condition?
    Oh, yeah, absolutely.
    And so therefore, you just--
    absolutely.
    So you just really--
    which was kind of X-ray, you know?
    X-ray, trying to be athletic.
    An X-ray, walking X-ray, running X-ray, being athletic.
    And I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous.
    And your father had to run.
    Oh, my father-- my father was-- we
    were, of course-- but my father was in very good shape.
    So relatively speaking, we were viewed
    as still capable of work.
    And so then we were rounded up and put into the A camp.
    And that was the last time I saw my mother.
    And through that fence, A camp--
    where the A camp and B camp, which
    the one-- which this block, whatever he was, earlier,
    just dug his way through.
    So that's just about where I saw my mother.
    And we still talked over the fence.
    And there came a Jewish kapo, who was not only a Jew,
    but also had a black triangle, which
    means he was a saboteur of some--
    or was some other sort of thing, was sent there.
    And so he saw that.
    And he just really let me have it.
    Just slapped my face [INAUDIBLE]..
    And then I didn't take much.
    Then I fell on the ground, just again, in front of my mother.
    And so it's not what hurt me.
    But it was just terrible.
    And she was just-- it was awful, while we
    were talking and saying goodbye to each other.
    And so that was terrible.
    And I just really could have killed the man.
    Not because of what he had done to me
    so much, because there was no justification for that.
    But he was just a real sadist and a miserable creature.
    But how it must have pained your mother to see this happen.
    That's right.
    And that is something which really upset me most.
    That really upset me most.
    You know, I remember you once alluding to the fact
    that you thought your mother had some kind of connections
    to which, if she had struggled, she might have--
    Yeah.
    Well, after the war, I stayed with the survivors--
    with survivors of this Dr. Otto Heller Dr. Otto Heller
    was a pediatrician in Prague, who
    kind of was a deputy to my more permanent physician, who
    happened to be a distant relative and a professor,
    university professor of pediatrics.
    Well-known, famous individual.
    Was very fond of my mother.
    And they had World War I experience together
    or something, I don't know what, in terms of the war.
    And he was a physician, my mother was a nurse,
    during World War I.
    And so they had a-- apart from these sort of relative ties,
    and they're very fond of each other.
    And he was my physician who came to the house, house physician
    and all that.
    When he was unable to because he was some sort vacation or not
    in Prague or--
    then he had a deputy, and it was Dr. Otto Heller
    who was a pediatrician.
    And Dr. Otto Heller became the right-hand man of Mengele, too.
    And so he was able, because of the influence he had.
    And that is a very interesting sort of thing,
    because he had enough influence with Mengele
    to save his wife, his daughter, and he
    got killed by a stray bullet during the time of liberation.
    Otherwise, he also would have survived,
    because Mengele protected him, the whole family.
    So when I stayed with them, we shared the apartment
    with his widow and daughter, Helen, she told me if--
    and they are formed-- they are friends--
    they were friends from Prague.
    If your mother-- that is Ilsa--
    if Ilsa would have come to see me or Otto, we could have--
    we could have helped her and saved her.
    And why didn't she do it?
    And I don't know why she didn't do it.
    And the only thing is, what I remember,
    that was the last time.
    And of course, we always had hope.
    But the chances are, all the people who were left behind
    were all gassed.
    And just recently, we read again some things from the documents
    and said--
    from Hoss, what Rudolf Hoss said in his reports, whatever,
    that in '44, the people were just--
    about 500,000-- some up to 500,000 people
    were gassed in '44.
    And she was one of them.
    And that was a terrible thing.
    But because Otto Heller for all practical purposes,
    saved my life.
    Because they gave me-- when I had pneumonia or jaundice
    and all that, they saved my life by giving me the information
    to get out and giving me some sort of injections and things,
    which were just--
    no one really was--
    So I got the attention of physicians,
    whatever they could do.
    It was nothing, virtually.
    But they gave me something to just stimulate my heart,
    whatever.
    Otherwise, I would have kicked the bucket then and there.
    And so, yes, they could have done a great deal.
    No question about that.
    Because they've done it for me.
    Because I made it known that I was in trouble.
    And my mother, for some reason or other,
    didn't take advantage of that situation.
    I don't know.
    I just don't know.
    And she was very confident.
    When we talked over the fence about,
    we'll see each other in Prague, and--
    very confident-- very optimistic, very confident,
    and very reassuring and all that.
    And I felt that her premonitions or whatever,
    her feelings about the whole thing, she was very--
    kind of had these sort of special gifts in a way.
    And always highly intellectual and a terrific human being.
    Not only that she was my mother, but I was very--
    I was very lucky that I had a person like her as a mother.
    It just was a privilege, a tremendous stroke of luck.
    And personally, I don't know what
    would have become of me without her influence.
    So you [INAUDIBLE]?
    I really felt--
    I really felt that her notions--
    that she had some sort of good--
    and she didn't.
    She didn't.
    And that's how I found out that she didn't take advantage
    of what she could have done.
    And then came to that end as she is.
    And there's no question about that fact,
    because she was healthy, you see?
    The funny thing, she was--
    she was usually-- she looked kind
    of sickly because of psychosomatic problems
    with my father and all that.
    You do that.
    She always had some problems-- the kidney,
    this or that or nerves or whatever.
    And so she went to get cured some place, some sanatorium
    place, this and that.
    And was kind of on the frail side.
    Ha, ha, and at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she
    was just as sturdy, as tough as anyone and just unbelievable.
    Just tough as anything and in better shape than all of us.
    Why do you think that happened?
    That just beats me.
    It just absolutely beats me.
    It just absolutely-- unbelievable.
    She was in better shape than any of us.
    Small woman, you know?
    Very small and slender and very nice,
    strong, little body, but firm and all.
    She used to tell me, when she was naked with other women,
    and say, oh, these terrible people, you know,
    they're just bag-like things and all that.
    And they said she was kind of beautiful figure
    still, in spite of the age.
    She was in her late 40's.
    All right, so then very shortly afterwards,
    then we were put into open trucks, SS,
    and driven to Blechhammer.
    How long did that take to get there?
    It was just a few hours, two hours maybe.
    Just a relatively short time, because you're not talking
    about not too far a distance.
    Were you with your father?
    No, no, no, separate.
    And yeah, because you're talking quite a number of people.
    And so then the reception in Blechhammer was that--
    the few things which I've had, which I was able to save
    and still had--
    talking about books and things and all that, the knife,
    and all these sort of things--
    I don't know about the knife actually.
    I may still have saved it.
    I'm not sure.
    Anyway, so I virtually lost everything.
    Just nothing very much I was able to keep,
    because they took everything and went through the same processes
    and shower, whatever, this and that, and different thing.
    And then we were assigned to the barrack.
    And then had to march and were--
    What was the barrack like?
    The barrack, like, was not very different
    from Auschwitz-Birkenau, except maybe it
    was slightly more bearable.
    And so then we had to get up at 5 o'clock or something
    in the morning, every morning, and coming back fairly late
    in the evening or afternoon.
    Did you have the appell and all that, too?
    Oh, yes.
    Yes, yes.
    And so, but these was a little bit more
    freedom and more to be had--
    more resources you could organize in a way.
    And so--
    For example, what kind of resources?
    A mountain of cabbage brought in for the SS
    or for the-- for the inmates.
    I don't even know.
    So what I did is just learned to steal.
    Never stole from fellow inmates, because that
    was a capital crime.
    I never would have done it anyway.
    So there was a mountain of cabbage.
    And so I just-- and I was very fast and in good shape,
    relatively, and was very fast.
    Unbelievable runner.
    I used to be an unbelievable-- very fast, very good in sports.
    And so that helped, because I really had a trained body.
    And so I just rushed to the cab-- took a cabbage,
    put it under my striped thing, and ran.
    And they after me.
    And they saw it.
    Because I knew they would see it and all ran after me.
    But I was so fast, and I ran and knew the camp.
    So then I just went into my block and then I just--
    this sort of thing you had to do.
    You were never caught, obviously.
    If I would have caught, I would be dead.
    Were others-- in this kind of instance,
    do they punish others or make people stand
    in long periods [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, no.
    But what was there, if for example, there
    are air raids or things.
    And we had these sort of canvas boots with not leather soles,
    but wooden things.
    And you had laces.
    Laces never lasted or whatever.
    They were just all substitute--
    erzats type of substitute material.
    So during air raids, we were not permitted to go into--
    into the-- into any shelters which
    were open to the prisoner of wars
    and the Germans and all the other ones.
    We are not permitted.
    So we could only go into the cellars of certain buildings we
    worked at and all that.
    Anyway, so after the--
    many people got killed that way, simply because the bombs.
    And whenever the thing functioned well and all that,
    there came an air raid, and they just destroyed the whole thing.
    And then it was to be built up again.
    And it was just a game which never--
    never stopped.
    And so a lot of things were to be had.
    And I just-- some people took--
    I didn't-- took wiring, which was then used it as shoelaces.
    Now, one fellow was caught, for example.
    You took what?
    Wiring.
    Wiring, oh, OK.
    After the air raid and all that, because lots of things
    were lying on the ground and all this.
    And so I took that, put it into my shoelace-- into my shoes.
    And one fellow was caught.
    And every time someone did something which was--
    during the weekend, we had to witness the hanging.
    And these people were hanged.
    And so we all, the whole camp, had
    to come and witness the way that we can
    be hung, too, as a kind of--
    preventing that other people would do it.
    And so you just could do all these sort of things,
    because they're accessible.
    You couldn't let yourself be caught.
    And I said, I think last time also,
    I just picked up a book, and the whole thing--
    picked up a book during the winter, which was a code book,
    and I've talked about that I think.
    No, go ahead, tell that story again.
    Tell it even if you told it.
    Go ahead.
    Well, this code book.
    And because we wanted--
    I didn't have, at that time, anything
    to read anymore, because everything was taken away
    from me.
    So I was after reading material and all that.
    And so there it was after the--
    after one of those air raids, whatever, there
    was a code book.
    And I put it in my striped thing.
    And then because of the cold and frozen and all that,
    it just dropped out.
    I was just simply--
    because everything's cold and frozen,
    so I just couldn't really keep things as well,
    control it as well.
    And so it just fell out, and while we were on the--
    while we returned to the camp.
    And then an SS man picked it up, and then
    we all were then stopped.
    And they searched us when we came into the camp.
    And it was just terrible, just hours and punishments and all
    this sort of thing, beatings, whatever.
    And so that was a consequence, simply because I was careless.
    I actually described it in the other thing.
    Well, and similar things happened.
    And whenever you read something which
    you're not supposed to do, and the same thing with the shirt.
    It was your shirt.
    If someone stole your shirt in the washroom or whatever,
    you came out without the shirt.
    It's not only that you could have caught the worst possible
    pneumonia or whatever, but they would kill you
    because you didn't have your shirt.
    So they'd beat you to death.
    So you would not even have time to develop any sort of disease,
    because by that time, they would have beaten you to death.
    So what do you do?
    So we just try to get away with it,
    just taking another shirt from someone else.
    And that's what I did.
    And so the last person in the game
    is going to be the fall guy.
    And then you had these kapos and all
    that, who some of them more cruel,
    some people were very nice, depending on that.
    And so you had to play the game and deal with the people.
    And then, of course, I had a lot of--
    tried to have contacts.
    And I've met people who were there,
    sent also as slave laborers, except it's
    free-- kind of more free slavery, not
    SS convicts as inmates.
    And made contacts, and one of them was Czech.
    And I've asked him to, and he was very cooperative
    and helped me to get messages to my friends
    when we were there still and get packages, which he then
    brought into that.
    And I was caught once with an SS man who was known as--
    as Tom Mix.
    That was his nickname, Tom Mix.
    Why was that?
    Why was he called that?
    Well, because he was shooting and all the time.
    He was just trigger-happy and killing people and shooting
    at them and killing them.
    A trigger-happy fellow.
    And so he caught me while I just had
    come from this contact I have, this Czech fellow,
    and gave him--
    he gave me the contraband, which was medication and some money,
    but primarily food stuff, medication, just
    unbelievable things.
    Just like if someone would have given you a million dollars.
    And so my knapsack which I had organized
    after an air raid, which was also a stroke of luck,
    because one British POW had not taken it
    to the shelter with him.
    And I was there, so we stole what we could.
    So there was a knapsack full of powdered milk and goodies
    and things of that nature.
    So I took it.
    I had a British--
    [CHUCKLES] --British knapsack.
    And so I had that and filled with the contraband
    which I had received from this cooperative Czech.
    And there comes the worst SS in the camp,
    the most cruel, vicious, SS camp,
    who was like an eagle-- he saw everything.
    You couldn't get it--
    I mean, he was--
    so the only thing I could do was just
    put the knapsack out of the sight.
    So I put it behind me.
    And said, what are you doing here?
    Well, I said, well, foreman so-and-so.
    And that helped me a great deal, because my perfect German
    without an accent, without sounding
    Polish or Yiddish or something.
    So they hesitated.
    The interesting thing is, it was a threat to them
    to behave in a way to certain people who were like them,
    or who resembled them in terms of whom they felt related to.
    And say, hey, you know, he's like me, like me.
    And somehow, subconsciously at that time--
    I was not as psychologically aware as I am today.
    But somehow, I must have been aware of it subconsciously.
    So then I just, precisely, like this Fredy and all the other--
    I knew what sort of psychology you had to use with SS people.
    And I said, so and so, I've done that and--
    and so he slapped my face and let me go without searching me.
    Because if he had searched me, it would have been my death.
    Because for just transgressions of minor--
    just like the wiring and all that, they hanged you.
    And this sort of thing would have been just much worse.
    Was the knapsack having a strap like [INAUDIBLE]??
    Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    He didn't notice the strap even?
    Well, I don't know whether he did or not.
    He just simply didn't bother.
    Because, you see, I distracted him saying--
    whatever I called him, rank or whatever, I--
    whatever-- I report to you that I've been sent by this
    and that to do this and that.
    And then there was a German foreman,
    and I was-- which was kind of a lie anyway.
    So they just slapped my face.
    And said, I don't want to catch you.
    Next time, I'll kill you or whatever.
    I don't want to catch you again, because if I do, I'll kill you.
    And let it go by that.
    So these sort of things.
    So after the air raid, just sabotaged a great deal
    and destroyed things, which were not destroyed.
    It was very important equipment, instruments, and all that.
    So that it looked like it had been bombed?
    Oh, yeah, yeah.
    And I did that, because there was no one around,
    and I was very alert.
    Or just a situation, which I also described in the--
    in this booklet.
    After an air raid one day, we just
    were working on some sort of a detail.
    And there was a tank, large, where
    they had this natural, whatever, gas,
    or whatever, which was used.
    And all of a sudden, I can see sparks and all that.
    And I said, the damn thing is going to explode.
    And I was sitting there with a buddy who
    was in the same work detail.
    I said, run, run.
    But he was kind of not as alert.
    And I was.
    And that's what really was one of the most important
    ingredients of survival.
    And just that I, in spite of all the conditions,
    I kept on being alert--
    alert.
    Responded with tremendous-- much faster than I could today.
    Although I still have a little bit of it
    left, but not as much.
    And so I said, run, run.
    And he-- he kind of, what, what, what, what?
    And I ran because I could see.
    I couldn't explain to him.
    I ran.
    And the damn thing exploded.
    The man was just fried--
    fried chicken.
    And the big thing, of course, and he didn't survive a day.
    He died.
    Of course, didn't-- wasn't dead, unfortunately, not immediately.
    Totally fried.
    Just unbelievable.
    Totally fried.
    And I was still feeling the heat,
    but I was a safe distance so that nothing would happen.
    So these are some of the--
    What kind of work were you assigned to do there?
    Well, I was doing electrical work
    instead of just doing all the electrical wiring and all that
    in the various places, which were
    essential for the manufacturing of synthetic fuel, syn fuel.
    And so I was kind of slow and all that.
    Not the most efficient person, I guess.
    So they punished me.
    The German foreman was a man called [? Homan. ?]
    I remember his name.
    And his boss was called a fat man, [NON-ENGLISH],, a fat man.
    But [? Homan ?] was not too bad.
    And so he said something which I didn't do right,
    so he just takes me by the nose, just like that,
    and presses me in.
    And all the the juice comes out, out of the thing like that.
    And he said this sort of thing.
    And then the fat man comes, and I don't respond in a way,
    or I haven't done something according to his liking.
    So he come down and just slaps me and all that.
    And so these sort of things happened.
    But it was nothing serious, except--
    Were they particularly lenient?
    Or was that--
    Well, I mean, in comparison to the SS people,
    they were lenient, because they didn't take any sticks.
    They used their hand or something else,
    some sort of instrument to beat you because--
    and they didn't beat you where they really would injure you.
    They beat you just simply just like they
    would beat someone who doesn't obey or whatever--
    behaves in a way.
    And what he did with my nose, I remember that.
    And he said, I'm going to squeeze the juice out
    of your nose or something.
    It was just perverse sort of stuff, whatever.
    And so there were lots of incidents
    which were inappropriate for people of a certain age
    and all that, including some sort of advances,
    homosexual advances.
    A British prisoner of war was there with my buddy
    and said, OK, I have this chocolate and all that,
    if you let me stick it into your ear and all--
    it was just kind of dirty, filthy, lice-ridden
    and all that.
    He must be pretty desperate to want contact of this nature.
    So this buddy of mine, he just felt it was a good idea.
    And as I remember, it was more so a fellow prisoner of war,
    a British fellow, just a cockney type, whatever.
    And so I, of course, wouldn't have anything to do with it.
    But he-- just he did, and whatever he did with him,
    I just--
    none of my business.
    What about in general, in your other camp
    experiences, about sexual abuse of men, women, children?
    Sexual abuse?
    Nah.
    I mean, it never happened to me.
    But I know some after the war, and I
    know some kids who were known as the Pit Bulls.
    And they're considerably younger than we were.
    And they kept by camp--
    inmate camp dignitaries for sexual purposes,
    because sexually, they functioned.
    And there were no women available, so they used kids.
    And they saved them even from being gassed.
    And now, I know some people, now,
    here, got to know some people who survived on that basis,
    simply because of sexual abuse by some
    of the people in inmate--
    inmate dignitaries, inmate function holders.
    And so they're usually considerably younger
    than me-- three, four years younger,
    who otherwise would have been for-- somehow
    they were saved by these people from being gassed.
    And that's something which is a chapter which also has not
    been written.
    Lots of things have not been said, simply because it's not
    socially acceptable or simply would
    introduce a certain element into the survivor situation, which
    would not be morally or otherwise acceptable.
    Yes, another one that's sometimes very obliquely
    alluded to is cannibalism.
    Yeah.
    Well, that's an interesting thing.
    Because when we were on the transport, two weeks from--
    after the death march, from a place called [Place name] we
    didn't have any--
    hardly any food anymore.
    No food whatsoever for days or a week, whatever.
    I haven't seen any of it myself.
    And I haven't seen any situation where
    this would have been practiced in all my camp experience.
    I haven't heard of it, only afterwards--
    or witnessed it, of course.
    Haven't heard or witnessed it.
    Or even considering that as an alternative,
    I don't know anyone who would have even suggested it.
    So that's not part of what our--
    But I think it's interesting, you mentioning things that
    happened that wouldn't be socially acceptable to look
    into as --
    Yeah, right.
    But cannibalism is something which
    somehow is more excusable, understandable,
    because these people were not killed in order to be--
    they're usually dead probably anyway.
    But, I mean, that didn't even occur.
    I don't know anyone in my own observations or environment
    or whatever, all the camp-- throughout the camp time,
    where this would have been viewed as a viable--
    as even an alternative, not even viable--
    as an alternative, period.
    All right, so then Blechhammer was another situation
    where you could have had a privileged situation because
    of the air raids and unexploded bombs,
    that you could be in a special work detail to--
    to uncover these unexploded things.
    And many people got killed that way.
    And I volunteered, because of special rations which
    you were getting and for that.
    And then I found that this was not a very safe thing
    to do, of course.
    But I didn't care at that point.
    And then they come--
    they came-- the camp senior was in charge of the camp
    Jew, whatever that was.
    And he said, you're an intelligent fellow,
    I don't want you to be in this.
    So he just came out of his own volition or somehow and said,
    I don't want you to be in that.
    You shouldn't do it.
    Just get out of it.
    And I didn't-- because he simply made the arrangements,
    whatever, I just-- so that it wouldn't continue or whatever.
    Well, and so many people did that, and we were simply--
    they used inmates, because--
    because they didn't want to use their own people.
    Always under supervision, of course, of the SS.
    But still, they didn't want to use their own people.
    So instead of their own people, the inmates
    were expendable and got killed.
    So you could volunteer, but then you could unvolunteer?
    Yeah, yeah.
    Well, I volunteered, and then I was told, you know,
    I don't want you to do that anymore, because you shouldn't.
    So these sort of things.
    And then, for example, other--
    So this person helped you, then, by getting you out [INAUDIBLE]..
    Oh, absolutely in a way.
    Except I didn't see it.
    I resented that, because I felt that it prevented me
    from having access to extra food, extra rations.
    And so one day, for example, I wake up,
    and there was another thing.
    Just kind of one day wake up for some reason,
    another also kind of subconsciously
    [INAUDIBLE] all night.
    By the way, I just got shoes also from Prague
    with this connection I had there, this Czech.
    By the way, what was their name, the person
    who received the packages and the person who
    sent you the packages?
    Well, I didn't send any packages from the camp, for sure.
    No, the person who sent the packages from Czechoslovakia,
    that person's name.
    Well, [CHUCKLES] this was also a pediatrician.
    I don't know why I'm just surrounded by pediatricians.
    But--
    [CHUCKLING]
    This was a family who were what were mixed-marriage.
    And they also belonged to the same church
    as we did, in a way.
    And the wife of this physician was a German, Sudeten German,
    was an anti-pacifist and a very close friend of my mother's.
    And because of his connection this German pediatrician
    had back in Prague, Nazi connection,
    and because of the doctors who were not
    brought up in the Jewish--
    so they were viewed as half-Jews, second grade,
    and therefore, not sent to camps-- were exempted,
    didn't have to wear the star and all that.
    So they stayed.
    But they, of course, were very intimately concerned
    with our fate.
    And they went into a great deal of trouble
    to find out where we were and all that, because of the--
    and that went up to Hoss or something, real connections.
    I'm talking big connections they had.
    And so to cut a long story short, these were the people,
    and their name was [? Levochik-- ?]
    [? Levochik. ?]
    And we are back 10 seconds.
    OK.
    OK.
    All right.
    So I was talking about Dr. [? Lavacheck ?] and his family.
    And they're very caring and very supportive,
    simply because they also understood, related
    to the predicament we were in.
    And so they're very eager to help,
    and they were the ones who were the major suppliers of all
    the things which they sent to me, which included medication,
    which certainly helped me to save my father's life because
    of his dysentery and whatever.
    Because some medication which countervail whatever dysentery
    and all that.
    And so I was able to get many of the things which helped him
    because he was beginning to get into bad shape and anyone who
    was at that particular time.
    He was 44 years old, 44.
    And when you are 44, you were already an old person
    in a concentration camp.
    I mean, an old person, which was a very interesting thing,
    which, by the way, I want to bring up
    that I'm very dismayed about the fact
    that not enough research has been done
    with survivors, particularly from a medical point of view
    because I think much could be learned.
    Much could be learned and had been totally neglected.
    And for reasons which escape me because it's either
    unbelievable ignorance or indifference or whatever.
    And anyway, because of some of the things which I've noticed
    the way people responded to infections in extreme stress
    situations and deprivation and all that.
    Anyway, so he was in that particular predicament
    that he was on the verge of dying.
    He was actually in a sick barrack,
    as I was also for a while.
    And that was a deadly situation because they
    had periodic selections and selected those people who
    were in such bad shape that they could not
    be used as workers anymore.
    And they send them to Auschwitz, where they can now gas them.
    And--
    He slept out of the sick bay.
    Yeah.
    Out of the sick's bay, yeah.
    In the sick's bay, yeah.
    Sick barrack.
    And so my father was in--
    particularly towards the end, when it no longer mattered,
    because then, they didn't send them anymore
    because the Russians were already
    their own-- they had other problems.
    So they weren't going to send people to sick bay anymore?
    No, no, no.
    From the sick bay to Auschwitz to gas people,
    because they had stopped doing that.
    It was no longer-- they destroyed things and all that
    towards the end of '44, end of '44, summer '44.
    They still were doing up to summer '44.
    They'd still be gassing people and in large quantities,
    numbers.
    So I was able to get that through with medication
    and food stuff and all sorts of preparation which
    give you some energy and all this and that.
    And so I was able to share that with him.
    These people had access to this material.
    And what this fellow got and said, well,
    what can we do for you so that you continue these services,
    you know, they go between.
    And he was collecting stamps or something else,
    so they gave him stamps or whatever things like that.
    So that there'd be something in for him as well.
    Yes.
    I was going to ask what his motivation was.
    Well, his motivation was partially compassion and also,
    trying to get something for him because he was also
    be deprived.
    I mean, the deprivation there, too.
    So I mean, I wouldn't hold it against him.
    I met him after the war.
    What's his name?
    I forget.
    I forget.
    And I've met him.
    I made a point in meeting him after the war.
    And we got some jewelry back, the least significant jewelry.
    Just for example, in a tie needles--
    whatever you call it-- tie pins, things of that need.
    And so I gave him with ruby and all that.
    So I gave him a tie pin after the war and all that.
    I just said, I don't want it.
    But he was very happy to get.
    Is he a prisoner of war or what?
    What was--
    No, he was a Czech worker.
    Just that was a--
    so they rounded up instead of sending them to war
    because they didn't send them to war, Czechs,
    unless they were a special group of people or whatever.
    And viewed by the SS as acceptable.
    And it's a very small number of Czechs
    who would have been used by the Nazis.
    And sent into the SS.
    So they used all workers, all over occupied Europe
    and sent them to important industries, war industries
    and rounded them up.
    They didn't have a choice not to go,
    except the conditions were much better in concentration camps,
    but they're still rather inhuman and very confined and hard
    and all that because the Russians were bad and all this.
    But I mean, still, it was much better
    than what people suffered in concentration camps.
    Was it difficult for this family that was sending the goods?
    Was it difficult to get those goods at that time.
    Oh, yeah, of course.
    But I mean, they were well connected.
    So many of the things which were perhaps not
    as easy for other people to obtain, they were able to
    and therefore did what they could.
    And I had a very close relationship with them,
    and I still have.
    One of the daughter-- they all are dead.
    That one daughter committed suicide after the war.
    And the other, the parents of these two girls died of old age
    in Vienna.
    They had to leave Czechoslovakia because they
    are viewed as select Germans and therefore, are wanted
    because they all deported.
    And then they went to--
    so they went to Vienna and the tragic situation.
    OK.
    How about how often did you get a package?
    Oh, quite-- every two weeks or so, three weeks.
    Quite frequently and periodically.
    And that was mainly decide the difference.
    It was not enough, I mean, obviously.
    But it did decide the difference.
    All right.
    Now, then the other thing with the shoes.
    I woke up and saw that my shoes were gone.
    Well, then I mean, that's the end you know.
    So I went to the barrack and looked for my shoes
    because someone had stolen them.
    And they are shoes which they had sent to me, too,
    which were leather shoes which was unheard of.
    And they turned out to be a curse, another blessing.
    Later on, that's March, because they pretty much contributed
    towards the fact that I had frozen
    feet because once leather shoes get wet and soaked and freeze,
    they are much worse than the canvas actually.
    Anyway, so--
    How did you find shoes?
    Well I want-- I just saw them.
    Someone had taken them and put them--
    they didn't put them up-- put them under the bunk.
    And so I just took them and retrieve them.
    But that was while all the other people slept.
    And people slept there, not just like you wake up very easily.
    You know.
    But somehow, I woke up because I sort of sense--
    because if I had not, it would have been--
    could have meant death.
    You would have been no shoes.
    No shoes.
    What had happened to your canvas shoes?
    I didn't have the canvas shoes.
    You didn't have any.
    No, no.
    I just gave them to someone else or whatever
    and just use those instead.
    If say, the camp guards had seen you with these shoes,
    would that have been a problem?
    No.
    It was not a problem for some reason.
    Because obviously, they could see me,
    but they didn't look at it.
    But no, no.
    We certainly haven't had any problems.
    Wasn't it a problem, generally, if say,
    you got these special things and other prisoners
    would try to steal them?
    Well, we had to be very careful.
    And of course, I kept quiet about it.
    And I only had a buddy, and he knew about it
    because I confided in him.
    And I talked to him, and he wanted
    to somehow join in on the spoils without contributing anything
    at all.
    I said, well, let's have kind of a group,
    be part of a group to support each other.
    And well, that was very nice for him,
    but he had nothing to contribute.
    So it was not in our interest.
    And my father said, don't be crazy.
    Don't do it.
    He's not going to contribute.
    And we don't have that much to share.
    And so we did.
    Well, as you alluded to before that it was understood
    that if prisoners stole from each other,
    this was a capital crime.
    Yeah.
    And how was this capital crime affected?
    Well, I mean, they'll beat you to death.
    Was it just that there was a designated
    group that would do this, sir?
    Well, not as a designated group.
    But I mean, there would be an outrage.
    And so that if you say, well, you done this and that.
    And other people say, they would join in,
    simply because they're around.
    Because that was totally--
    it was a taboo.
    And that happened in Dacchau the same thing in that regard.
    Which camp?
    That was a Soviet prisoner of war,
    a young kid who tried to escape was caught
    And instead of being sent back to a Stalag,
    he was sent to Dacchau.
    And poor fellow, he was hungry and all that,
    just like anyone else, but he just
    apparently came from back home where you just simply
    go and steal.
    He was caught stealing from a fellow inmate.
    He was beaten to death.
    It was the end of him.
    I remember that.
    And so the other thing, same thing, you know, same thing.
    That was absolutely unacceptable.
    Okay, so I don't know what to say about any other.
    About Blechhammer except this sort of air raids
    were very deadly because we were not
    permitted to go into any shelters, air raid shelters.
    And had to simply be in their cellars of normal buildings.
    And I remember that some of the things just bombed
    and collapsed.
    And I remember when I only used the time
    to sleep because that's what I needed most.
    So I slept through these things and because we were unobserved
    and all that.
    And that was the only freedom I enjoyed tremendously because I
    was not bothered by anyone.
    And I use that time.
    And some other people prayed and had
    the jitters I just didn't because I just
    didn't concern me very much.
    So I lay down and slept, hoped for the best.
    And one time, there was a tremendous noise and all that.
    And I could see a hole through the wall.
    Side wall and bomb come through and just get stuck.
    It doesn't explode.
    I could see it coming, boop-sh.
    And it didn't explode.
    What a luck.
    Well, I don't know at times.
    That's another thing.
    So some people say well, you're lucky that you survived.
    And you know, I mean, that's a question I don't know.
    And it's something which is--
    at times, I'm not so sure that this could be defined as luck.
    But under the circumstances--
    and we will be talking about it when
    we wrap up the thing because I have a few things
    to say about that.
    Well, what about your father's life during this period--
    My father's life, he had a much more difficult life than I.
    And that's why he was somehow also aging more rapidly
    and was more prone to catch things and disease,
    susceptible to disease, by virtue
    of the fact that his major job was to carry cement
    sacks that's dreadfully heavy.
    And dreadful work, you know, and all that.
    And so I had much, physically, much easier work,
    except I was under very strict supervision,
    and I already said that.
    So that's what my father's job was.
    What about he had technical skills--
    Well, he didn't, you see.
    And he didn't have any technical skill.
    He would have wound up if he had stayed alive.
    He would have been a bank executive,
    which he was already.
    I mean, he's senior back then.
    But I thought he had [INAUDIBLE]..
    But he-- well, I mean, yeah.
    Well, I mean, he was quite capable of working
    with his hands, and did some gardening back in Prague
    when it was nothing else he could do.
    So he was employed as in a gardener kind of thing.
    You learn this.
    So I wish to god he would have come to my place
    and did some work, but--
    [CHUCKLES] which he didn't do.
    But he didn't have any real skills in this regard,
    except that he could work as a laborer-- as unskilled labor.
    And whatever he said, I forget actually what he said.
    Because what can you do?
    So he must have said something was just a straight lie.
    Because they wanted to have people with very specific
    skills which would fit into this ? syn fuel plant, this big,
    big thing there.
    So I forget what he actually claimed to be--
    whatever.
    So they used him for whatever he could do,
    which was just schlepping these cement sacks.
    And so he was totally exhausted.
    Also, we didn't stay.
    We were not able to be in one barrack together.
    So he was in a different barrack.
    Could you meet up?
    Oh, we met.
    You know, of course we met very frequently.
    And that was possible.
    What was the food like in Blechhammer?
    Well, the food was slightly better, but not significantly
    so.
    The quality was a bit better.
    Than soup was a bit more substantive,
    although it was also turnip and all that.
    It was just a little bit more.
    And then we are able to occasionally
    get some things from other people, maybe, who worked
    and all that, and steal lots, you know, and like [INAUDIBLE]..
    And--
    You mean, like, the cabbage?
    Yeah, this sort of thing, and then be
    alert if after an air raid, you would find a few things.
    Like, I found a full thing.
    It was just like a [INAUDIBLE]--
    just find a knapsack, you know, the knapsack
    with all the stuff in it.
    And--
    What about washing and toilet facilities there?
    Well, the toilet facilities were much better,
    because there was really some place where
    you could go, and wash up, and all that, which
    did not exist at all back in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And also, the toilets were much different.
    Because Auschwitz-Birkenau, I'll never
    forget the toilets, which were just
    rows of holes which people sat by in the dozens.
    And the place was infested with all sorts
    of crawling things, white worms, whatever they were,
    and just awful stuff.
    And you couldn't really wipe anything, you know--
    just awful stuff.
    And in Blechhammer and it was apparently a little bit more
    able to wash up and be clean.
    And the problem of vermin was not quite as acute
    there as it was in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    Were you able to keep warm?
    Well, I think it was--
    I think we had better chances to get blankets and things
    than-- it was better than back in Auschwitz-Birkenau
    or something.
    And so I can remember that the bunks were pretty much
    the same, except I think we've had better straw mats, sacks,
    whatever they were, and filled with straw,
    and blankets which were a bit superior than what we've
    had back there.
    Did do you have any days off?
    Sunday.
    You did?
    What could you do for amusement?
    Amusement?
    Mm-hmm.
    Well, amusement was none, actually, so to speak.
    We just simply tried to relax, and come to, and all that.
    And occasionally, there is some people
    with a great deal of initiative who
    gave performances to which even SS came,
    because they felt that they themselves
    didn't have any [INAUDIBLE].
    And some of these things were, of course,
    performed by professionals, and had a very high level
    of sophistication.
    And since you've mentioned that, it was something which
    was had very important ramifications later on for me
    personally, was for other people who remember that,
    as well as for that person himself,
    who was an SS person, who--
    all the SS, they all campuses came
    to these sort of performances.
    And in one particular instance, one person who actually had
    the SD, so he was really into SD room and all that, he just--
    after performance, he stood up and said in public--
    in front of all the SS people and all the inmates-- and said,
    we always are told that you are subhuman, and whatever,
    vermin, all that.
    And people who, under those circumstances,
    can give such a performance deserve our respect.
    And he said that in public.
    And then he disappeared.
    And I said, well, that's the end of him.
    But no, it was not the end of him.
    And when I was a witness--
    supposed to be a witness in the so-called Blechhammer trial,
    where I was an official witness--
    except it never came to it that I was called in and all that--
    but I had to testify.
    And here in San Francisco, the Consul was just a real SOB,
    you know?
    And you could see that the man was a Nazi, you know,
    and just really resentful, and treated me like a--
    if I had been some sort of a criminal.
    And so this fellow then was during the Blechhammer trial--
    which, apparently, none of these people really survived.
    He was one of the few who survived.
    Because they all--
    "Tom Mix" got killed, which comes to me
    as some sort of-- as a relief.
    Because, I mean, I'm not particularly bloodthirsty
    individual, but I think he certainly got what he was--
    what was coming to him.
    Anyway--
    How did he get killed?
    Somehow in combat or whatever.
    And so this fellow didn't, and that got him off the hook.
    So he was actually in the trial and accused
    of whatever they said.
    But then he said, I've said this and that
    and there are witnesses and all that.
    Apparently found witnesses in my testimony also.
    And he was not sentenced to anything.
    Did he receive any punishment by the SS at the time?
    That I don't know because I always
    wanted to meet the fellow.
    And I worked very closely with Ludwigsburg,
    as a matter of fact, the person in charge,
    the attorney in charge of the whole outfit
    which is to find people who committed crimes
    against humanity.
    The attorney in charge.
    Well no, not a--
    What do you call the attorney who in chooses people?
    I don't know that.
    You don't mean like a district attorney?
    District attorney type of thing, something like that.
    So he was in something like that except in charge
    of all the things.
    So I came there to do some research
    and look into the archives, and I got to know him and said,
    you have to look at this.
    And then just didn't want to let me go or something.
    He came out with a number of interesting very important
    books, some of which have been translated into a English.
    A man called [? Rickel, ?] [? Rickarol. ?] Very
    interesting man.
    So I went with him.
    He was under protection all the time.
    It's just interesting because a lot of attempts to kill him
    or whatever.
    So I've been through that with him.
    And because he told me all these stories
    and I had to work in his office with him directly
    and looking into the file and all that.
    It was very helpful.
    Died, unfortunately.
    Died of old age more than anything, I guess.
    So then I found out from these files
    that this man was let off the hook simply because--
    This was known and obviously I was not the only one witness
    that remembered that of those survivors, which I think
    is terrific.
    I really think it's terrific.
    Was he known for--
    No, he was not.
    No, no.
    He didn't do anything.
    And I talked to a number of people
    and observed a lot of SS officers and how they--
    And with the exception--
    It was terrible.
    Some assisted in the hanging of people
    and some of the weekly hangings--
    Well, actually not every week but most of the week someone
    was there and hanged.
    And then they read the whole thing
    and then they just said, OK, and then they hang them.
    They had some very strange type of strings, ropes or whatever,
    and they broke and then they hang them again.
    And they broke again and you know.
    And this sort of thing was terrible to watch.
    And most of the people they hanged were very brave.
    And that's something which I won't forget.
    They also just went into their death head high
    and then addressed the crowd of inmates, this is to survive.
    You will survive.
    Don't let yourself be--
    I was terribly impressed with that
    just for us to see that, to be forced to see that.
    And There is Tom Mix, you know, just anyone who
    wanted to hide in the barracks to avoid watching it,
    so he was getting them out and shooting at them
    and all that with pistol drawn.
    And I escaped his threats for reasons which are--
    All right.
    Well, what was this particular play that the inmates put on?
    Well, it was a cabaret.
    It was kind of a cabaret type of thing on camp life
    and which parodied the life, including SS and all that.
    It was highly incredibly sophisticated
    and very impressive.
    Sounds very daring.
    Oh, yeah.
    It was very daring.
    But in a way which was very amusing to the SS and they just
    took it in, just thought it was great.
    How else could you pass your time?
    Well, pass your time what you did
    is you didn't pass your time because you just talked about
    pass your time.
    People are exhausted.
    They slept.
    I mean, what do you do?
    You just go around a little bit maybe the camp premises
    and talk to some friends and all that.
    Yes, that was done.
    And people you knew.
    But there was so little energy left.
    So that if there is any time, we've got any time to spare
    and all that, you went and slept or organized some food
    or just so it could be had and talk to friends.
    That's it, period.
    How would you organize food?
    I tell you already.
    The cabbage I know, but what else?
    Oh.
    Well, just simply see where were you--
    Well, my father did one thing, for example.
    You know that some SS people through some inmates
    that they bought gold or something.
    So my father went to a dentist, had his gold fillings,
    one filling or two fillings, removed,
    and gave it to this inmate.
    And he gave it to the SS, and then they got a piece of bread
    and that's why we had some bread, which was
    his contribution to our things.
    And that's what he did.
    And it was very bad because my father died with false teeth,
    and he had the best teeth in the world.
    I mean, he was 40.
    During that particular time.
    He had just healthy strong teeth which hardly had any fillings,
    with just a few of these gold.
    And that gold he removed to sell for bread.
    OK, so that's one device he did.
    And then what I did, just made contacts
    with people who had more than you had and trade and organize,
    which included stealing.
    Oh, what I did too was just stole some things
    after air raids, removed it from air raids, which
    was, of some value to some people
    and sold it for a piece of bread.
    This was kind of necessary.
    There's dual morality where it was quite OK to steal
    from anybody except your peers.
    That's right.
    There was no problem with stealing from--
    Now in Theresienstadt that there was another thing which
    I thought was very interesting.
    The gendarmes, which were very close to where I stayed,
    they had their barracks, which of course are very different.
    And in the windows they had sausage hanging.
    So some people went and stole the sausage.
    I was tempted to do that, but at that time,
    I was not somehow pushed far enough to do it.
    I thought about it back in Theresienstadt,
    and I should have done it and I didn't.
    I could have, and I didn't do it.
    But then Blechhammer and Auschwitz and all
    that, then I said, hey, there was no question anymore.
    So you had a gradual sort of demoralization
    of the mundane morality, change in your mundane morality
    into the camp morality, and that was
    very different from the mundane everyday morality.
    And that's what I did.
    AND then I had absolutely no problem stealing, as long
    as it was not from a fellow inmate.
    But of course, then we've had back in Dachau,
    if you could see that a person was a goner
    and not going to live, then you just
    try to be around him just like a vulture, just like a hyena
    or whatever some animals who wait until someone
    dies so that you can take.
    That was acceptable
    Like the Muslim men you were talking about.
    Well, yeah.
    Particularly people who just about to croak.
    And then you just saw to it that you were around them
    and actually nursed them to their end
    so that you would inherit whatever may have been left,
    which may have been part of a ration or something they
    no longer could eat.
    When they reached, the Muslim, that stage,
    did they go and get their food on the list?
    Someone got it for them, which was.
    Someone else had to and just and gave it to them and sometimes
    didn't.
    I wouldn't have done that, but it was done.
    So they would have died more quickly if they weren't
    sustained by other people.
    But some people couldn't, that's right.
    But some people simply collected and didn't
    give it to them and just at it themselves and all
    that because they couldn't defend themselves.
    Then there was an important incident
    when I had some sort of--
    I still have the marks on my leg.
    Because of the shoes I've then had the canvas shoes,
    and the severe winter, they were rubbing
    against the skin and all that, of course no socks or anything,
    just pieces of rags which were filthy,
    lice-ridden or infected, rubbed against the skin.
    And so combination with frost and infection,
    I wound up with a leg wound which
    was so infected that I just couldn't walk anymore
    and I was accepted in the sick bay.
    And the sick bay was run by I don't know what.
    I forget.
    A Polish Jew or French Jew.
    I just forget.
    I don't know why I didn't put it down when I still remember.
    Could it be Belgian?
    Yeah, could be.
    I just forget some of the things.
    And so he treated the people who were already
    dying of malnutrition in putting a suction thing
    and bleeding them so that put things
    on them, leech-like things, suction cups.
    They didn't have leeches, but suction cups.
    And just absolute sadist.
    And worked hand in hand with the SS
    and designated those people who were to be selected and sent
    into gas.
    And he was an inmate.
    And somehow he took some liking to me and he let me be there.
    And somehow then there was another sort of male nurse
    there and he just was very protective of me and all that.
    So they nursed me so that I was OK again and all that.
    Nothing happened and I was kind of given special attention
    and all that.
    And that happened because I don't know why.
    It just simply happened.
    And other people he just virtually killed.
    So it was a situation where nobody would go to sick bay
    unless they were desperate.
    Oh, absolutely.
    Because he was deadly thing, a deadly game.
    Because you didn't know whether you would ever come out.
    But I had no option because I simply couldn't, I
    was just no longer in a position to walk.
    They did all for me that I could.
    And the whole thing healed.
    And that's precisely the thing, that under certain situations
    people had types of infectious disease
    and all that which are not normal conditions people don't
    survive.
    In concentration camps they did, and he just beats me.
    And the type of research which has been neglected
    is inexcusable.
    How do you understand that?
    I don't.
    I don't have the expertise.
    But I really think that the only thing
    is the drive of self-preservation
    or that your defensive system or whatever
    is so mobilized that it countervailed
    all the other things much more than other normal conditions.
    But that's a social/psychological
    explanation and not a medical one.
    But yeah, just unbelievable.
    Things which you normally don't survive,
    disease, they survived.
    On the other hand, some people died within a day,
    just like my second cousin or whatever, Dr. Peter
    Schleissner.
    And he had the [INAUDIBLE] on the nose.
    And one day he comes to see me and says, how are you
    and all this and all that.
    And next day he's dead.
    So I said, what happened?
    He's not coming, I didn't see him.
    He died within 24 hours.
    But I had pneumonia, I had pleurisy, I had a typhus,
    I had a jaundice.
    You name it, I've had it.
    And I survived for reasons which escape me why.
    People die here under normal conditions of pneumonia,
    and through some combination of that.
    And then I contracted tuberculosis as well.
    That I only found out after the liberation
    because we were given x-rays.
    So how long were you in Dachau?
    Well it was just about 3/4 of a year I would imagine.
    Yeah.
    No, probably more.
    Actually more, probably.
    No, 3/4 of a year.
    Because I was shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau '43,
    was there for about eight months.
    Yeah, just about that.
    And again you see all the inaccuracies.
    And that's what people, revisionists say,
    oh, it's inaccurate and all this because you
    didn't have calendars there.
    You only went by this season.
    And so the timing was exceedingly difficult.
    And in retrospect it is going to reflect
    on saying things which are inaccurate, very inaccurate
    in terms of time, perception.
    All right, when it came to the end of Blechhammer
    then we heard already the Russians advancing.
    And then they rounded us up and said,
    OK, those so you can stay who just can't walk.
    And my father was in a position where he just simply was
    at that time in the sick bay, and nothing very much
    could happen to him at that time because they no longer were
    selected, as I said before, and sent to the gas chambers
    to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And so I had that chance, of course,
    I had a choice because I was totally
    in a position to hide and all that and could have.
    And I had to make a decision.
    Am I going to risk that they will kill us
    because we counted pretty much on the fact
    that they would wipe us out before they
    let us fall into the hands of the Russians?
    Or am I going to join the majority who
    still were able to walk and start the death march?
    And then I talked it over with my father,
    and I don't know what he really said to me, but he couldn't.
    He couldn't come.
    And then I said, well I probably instead of staying with him,
    I said, I'll probably walk.
    And it was the biggest mistake that could have possibly made.
    Because he was liberated by the Russians
    and freed so many months before I was.
    And I had to go through the death march, the boxcar
    to Dachau which took about 10 days or 2 weeks
    or something of that nature.
    And then Dachau itself until the liberation,
    which was quite a few months.
    So I made the wrong decision and that saved his life
    because otherwise he would have not survived
    the death March, no way.
    Of course, how can you know?
    Of course.
    Yeah, but-- No, I couldn't.
    Now some people got killed.
    Because some people got killed, shot by the SS and all that.
    But he was not and he was able to survive and come through
    and got on his feet very quickly because of food and help,
    Russians, Soviets, whatever.
    And so we went on the death march--
    I think I'd like to stop you.
    Start with that fresh next time you let anybody ask questions.
    OK, great.
    How about you?
    Just two brief questions.
    Was German the most common language used
    between the various ethnic groups?
    No.
    Depends on the region and what was--
    Auschwitz-Birkenau, depending with whom you were,
    Auschwitz-Birkenau, because these people came primarily
    from Czechoslovakia and--
    In that particular B2 family camp,
    so the most common language was Czech, German Czech
    because most of them were actually from from that people.
    And in Blechhammer, for example, most of the people,
    work detail and all that, they were I worked with Belgians,
    I worked with French Jews, Belgian Jews.
    But the majority I think were Polish and so Polish
    it was probably more frequently spoken
    than many other languages.
    But I mean you found always enough people
    to speak whatever language you wanted to
    or you were more familiar with, I should say.
    You spoke German and Czechoslovakian?
    Yeah.
    And then I've learned in these godforsaken places
    to speak Yiddish, which I had no absolutely no knowledge of.
    But I picked it up in the camp.
    What was the status of the inmates
    who took the jobs of barber, Sonderkommando,
    those type of jobs?
    How were they looked upon?
    Well, they were just viewed as something
    in between the SS and an enemy.
    They were viewed certainly as depending on how they behaved.
    And since most of them misused their power
    and made the lives of those whom they supervised more difficult
    and were very frequently very cruel individuals,
    they were hated.
    And people couldn't defend themselves against them
    because they had the power and could enforce it.
    So they are hated, and feared, obviously.
    You want to--
    Yeah, I've got a couple of short questions.
    I wondered if you happen to recall any of the poems
    from Theresienstadt.
    Not offhand I don't.
    No, not offhand.
    Not offhand, no.
    I have published some of them, but even at school I
    had problems remembering poems.
    And I just always had an ordeal when I was in primary school
    and we had to go front and recite
    and I was just absolutely miserable.
    Must have been pretty comical, to be sure, but I suffered.
    There's a Swiss psychotherapist named
    Alice Miller who's written a bunch of books
    about child psychology.
    And she's written one book in which
    she has a very long chapter on Hitler
    and German child-rearing practices of the 19th century.
    She quotes at length from child-rearing manuals
    that she said were common in households of the day.
    And there is a very severe and sadistic tone
    in these manuals, a tone in which parents
    are counseled to be abusive to children
    and beat them and be severe.
    And this author's theory is that these child-rearing practices
    of the 19th century in Germany and Austria
    helped to create Nazi culture in adults
    who were acting out some sort of compensation
    for this abuse as children.
    And it sounds a little glib when you summarize it
    in one sentence, but when you read her theory in detail
    it's fairly persuasive.
    I wondered if you were familiar with it.
    Well, I haven't read that particular thing,
    but I'm familiar with that notion
    and that the various theories from other sources.
    And I have very mixed feelings about it
    because I don't think we can generalize that first of all.
    Just in Hitler's case it's certainly very true,
    and from other sources which you'd be familiar with, that he
    was beaten virtually every day by his father and all that.
    But not because it was manuals but also there's
    a difference in terms of, again, she not being a sociologist,
    she doesn't know that there are different practices depending
    what class you belong to, what social class you belong to.
    So I think it's just absolute baloney
    to think that the severity was just universal.
    It was not.
    It was particularly the lower classes.
    That was more prevalent.
    But middle class is absolutely not.
    Because for example I have a whole book
    which goes back into the early 19th century, which
    has been translated from German into Czech,
    about child-rearing practices.
    It's an original book, and all that, which is not known,
    but then was very popular, where you
    have the most liberal psychologically insightful
    advice you can possibly find which even has is very
    direct application for today.
    And that was for the more educated people
    who could read because they uneducated people didn't
    read these sort of things.
    And so I would totally reject a universal sort of thing.
    I would certainly look into it and say, yes, the lower classes
    had this sort of punitive tendency
    which I think I would certainly agree that certainly--
    and Hitler falls into that category.
    Now middle class is very much more enlightened and much more
    humanistic and pedagogy was very different.
    So I think we just simply cannot--
    Now the idea is that, indeed, if you said,
    well where did these sadistic SS people come from?
    Well, they came from most of the low classes because
    and they jumped to the occasion that they
    could get a lot of power.
    Just like today we have cops.
    Cops don't have to have any education and a bachelor's
    degree, they just go to police academies.
    They don't learn very much at all except training something.
    And so SS jump to that and other people.
    They just couldn't write properly,
    their language was lousy, unpolished, what have you.
    And that's known.
    These people were low-class people.
    Low-class people.
    One I've interviewed, and I have stacks of letters written,
    I mean just unbelievable this by itself would make a book--
    was so-called the Hangman of Buchenwald,
    interviewed and also taped interviews.
    And he told me over the years, because I was the only one who
    showed interest in him, so he was very thankful, grateful,
    and he was never to get out because he was--
    If there had been a death sentence in Germany
    they would have sentenced him to death.
    So this fellow had no education, was one
    of the most powerful people.
    Relatively high non-commissioned officer rank in Buchenwald.
    And he was the lowest of the low, class-wise.
    Low class.
    I mean bottom of the barrel.
    SS were not necessarily lower class.
    I'm trying to tell you yes.
    Yes.
    Most of them were low-class people, particularly
    in these sort of outfits.
    Not in terms of the military branch of the SS,
    but this type of camp and death head, low class.
    No question.
    And I have in my book statistics in terms of the percentage
    of where they came from.
    And it's in my book, which is SS statistics, not mine.
    Official SS by the official SS statistician.
    You're not talking about the leadership,
    you're talking about the people who are running the camps.
    Right.
    But even those who became officers,
    they're not necessarily educated people at all and low class
    also.
    I mean there was 1% of people who
    went further than high school.
    1%.
    And I've got that in my book.
    It's all there.
    And it's not my statistics, it's the official statistics
    gathered by SS statisticians, official SS statisticians
    and restricted to those who have a need to know.
    OK.
    One last question.
    There was another Holocaust movie
    that was released a couple of years ago called
    Triumph of the Spirit about a boxer in Auschwitz.
    And I was just going to ask you if you'd seen the movie
    and if you could tell us to what extent it
    was an accurate or inaccurate portrayal of life in Auschwitz.
    I don't think I've seen it.
    No.
    A boxer?
    About a man in Auschwitz who had been a championship
    boxer as a boy or a teenager and who
    became a boxer performer in the camp as his way of surviving.
    I haven't seen that.
    Now most of all what I'm trying to do to the article about some
    of my whatever things I'm trying to do in the Press-Democrat,
    I got a lot of responses, and one of the responses
    was a lady whose brother was one of the liberators
    and a official army information officer
    of sorts and apparently who had something
    to do with a documentary which they took after the liberation.
    And so there are unbelievable factual things
    which are available.
    And even the material which was taken by SS during the war,
    and I've seen some.
    One of them was on the Lodz ghetto, which
    we've seen on the Lodz ghetto, and there
    was actual footage where I recognized
    people I'd interviewed, one of them in particular.
    And I think those things should be
    used, that's my view, for teaching purposes,
    information purposes, rather than movies which
    have been done by people who have not done adequate research
    and distort the situation, which starts with Holocaust,
    one of the major first movie.
    It was called Holocaust.
    Unbelievable inaccuracies and all
    that, just distortions, and just write down
    this information I think doesn't serve any purpose
    because people are ignorant as it is.
    And just to inform them in a way which will further distort
    the wrong idea, I think--
    So I work with these things, have been for years now,
    trying to make documentaries which are
    based on some factual stuff.
    And there are also movies which are, for example, Wannsee
    Conference, which came out.
    First-rate stuff because it's beautifully documented.
    But it's usually done by Germans because they know what is what.
    If it was done by some Hollywood thing,
    then the chances are that it's distorted
    and highly inaccurate.
    So you've got this and that.
    And I say we have lots of movies which are actual documentaries,
    why not use those instead or some--
    Unless we know that some are really good,
    there is no substitute for something
    which we don't have which was not filmed
    and all that like the documentary on the Wannsee
    Conference.
    But I mean the way it was put together,
    and I just have read very carefully Wannsee protocol,
    and some of the things the way it is done, I think,
    is pretty interesting.
    probably not 100% accurate, obviously,
    because how do you know something where you've not been
    and it's not enough to go by.
    But I think it's very persuasive, some of this stuff.
    And I've seen some, and I worked on another one which
    is based on Heydrich many years ago,
    for which I didn't get the recognition I should have,
    but that's beside the point, and that was psychologically
    and otherwise just fantastic.
    Except it was taken out of--
    I tried to get it brought here into the United States
    with the synchronized whatever, and for some reason,
    they didn't do it.
    But I thought it was a very excellent, very accurate
    portrayal of Heydrich.
    And I looked into Heydrich's situation quite a bit
    myself in going back to his relatives
    and trying to find out what I could,
    and I thought it was very well done.
    So you've got this and that.
    So I haven't seen this one you mentioned.
    That's it.
    I just wanted you to specifically say
    the dates that were added.
    You said that you didn't have specific dates that if we could
    have an approximate month of the year,
    starting with Theresienstadt, which was August 10th.
    Well, that was August 10 is right.
    No, it's not actually.
    Because August 10 I had to go into the assembly place
    and we stayed there overnight and we probably left there
    on the 11th on the 12th.
    And so I stayed in Theresienstadt
    I guess until roughly late spring or something '43.
    Might be April or May?
    I don't know.
    But it was late spring.
    Yeah, well I don't think it was hot enough for being summer
    because I would have remembered that.
    Yeah.
    And then Auschwitz until spring, early spring '44 something.
    Yeah, early spring '44, if not earlier.
    And then you said--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    That's right.
    And then January '45, shipped out end of December,
    beginning of January with death march.
    And how long would that take?
    Well, it just took 10 days for what I--
    10 days and then about another 10 days in the open boxcar.
    And I must have come either at the end of January,
    beginning of February to Dachau.
    Actually, I have the exact date because I've got
    the exact date in my column.
    It's in there.
    I think it was February.
    And I found, because I went to Dachau when
    I was doing the documentary with the Hitler thing which we did,
    and then I got the official Dachau document
    of all the signers and I found myself there when I came
    and what happened then.
    Should we save it for the next time?
    No, go ahead.
    You've talked about some of the material or physical reasons
    that you've survived such as finding
    the knapsack, such as having certain people help you,
    the fact that you spoke several languages,
    and a number of things.
    No, several languages was totally unimportant.
    The fact that I spoke German.
    OK, so it's more specific.
    Do you remember?
    Why?
    Because I just know that there was no accent.
    It was just Prague German is one of the most pure German
    But don't you think speaking other languages--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    In terms of that I had something with the Czech and all that.
    But I mean we happened to be Czech
    and then I spoke obviously.
    But I don't know whether that was--
    I don't think so.
    German was certainly the most important language
    at that particular situation.
    Besides that, and you and I have talked about this,
    what helped you survive?
    What kept you going?
    Well, I thought I talked about it all the time.
    You have to be more specific?
    Well, I mean it's just like I said very specifically
    alert, to be alert.
    Physically in a relatively condition to be young.
    And have a certain measure of intelligence
    to adjust to novel conditions, which is
    the definition of intelligence.
    And the ability to adjust to novel conditions,
    the definition of intelligence.
    And then you have a measure of luck.
    And then the connections you make, support
    system which you have, and that is decisive.
    And to what extent you retain your health.
    And then also you have to have some sort of meaning
    and find meaning in that and somehow
    find meaning in the suffering.
    Or why.
    Find meaning.
    And that you only can do if you have some sort of belief system
    or some sort of philosophy of life
    which will enable you to explain and make
    some sort of unreasonable, chaotic, dreadful stuff relate
    to it and give it some meaning.
    So that you can say, well, there's
    a meaning which makes it possible
    for me to endure because of some cause or other reasons
    which I can use in order to make sense of it.
    So what about your philosophy?
    Well, that's what I'm saying.
    That's precisely the things, yeah,
    that I think it was very helpful for me to have been brought up
    in this particular situation, with this type of philosophy
    my parents had.
    And I think that, in that particular situation,
    was exceedingly helpful.
    Can you speak about exactly what you believe?
    Well it's just a question of--
    The notion of karma, for example,
    is very important in terms of that some of the things which
    you have done in previous lives which will come
    and you will have to atone for it in order
    to make some reparations, restitution for that.
    So that certain things you have done to other people
    will somehow come back at some sort of future life.
    And that, of course, is a very persuasive thing
    in situations like that to say, hey you know I mean,
    God, what did I do in order to have this sort of fate?
    And so that may be very specific and also
    in terms of what we have to go through in order to evolve.
    What is the suffering which may make you
    into a better person, a purification process,
    so to speak.
    And that's very concrete and that
    gives you some sort of meaning with which it just
    helps you to cope and Yes I have that and certainly used it made
    myself, availed myself of that.
    And I read in some books which I was able to--
    Steiner books which I was able to get in to Auschwitz-Birkenau
    because of my friend Hans Fischer--
    and so I read these things.
    And I actually also had, by the way,
    the Bible there too, which I've read.
    Old and New Testaments?
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    And so that was very helpful.
    I found it.
    And well that's it.
    Now you also talked to me about have been allowed [INAUDIBLE]
    and also talk quickly about feeling
    that the loving, strong relationships that you had
    in your childhood, in your family
    gave you a certain strength and a certain faith in humanity
    or faith in family and goodness, maybe goodness or maybe
    some other words that would be of your own choosing that gave
    you strength in that situation.
    Can you talk about that?
    Well, I think that I wouldn't say faith in goodness,
    but also the fact that there was a great deal of love
    in this world which I experienced which gave me
    a lot of--
    For example, if I go into some place
    where I have to be under dreadful pressure
    and I go there starved and obviously I
    won't have any sort of protective coat, so to speak.
    And this sort of love and this sort of affection and positive
    experience I've had, it's something which still somehow
    nourishes me now in a way.
    Because I've not with much of that
    left because of circumstances.
    And they made quite a bit of a difference,
    yes, because I think they gave me the resources which
    I otherwise would have not had.
    And that I think is a very important point.
    Yeah.
    Because the love I've experienced is sort of,
    yeah, well love more or less what this four-letter word
    really stands for.
    Caring.
    Well, it's just more than care.
    It's not strong enough.
    It's just the type of affection and nurture
    which I received made all the difference.
    Nurture which gave me this sort of strength.
    Because some people were physically much stronger
    than I am, much more athletic, muscle big things and all that,
    all perished.
    And they said, how come?
    You were one of the weakest we've had,
    thinnest, most X-ray type looking.
    And we are finished and that happened to the death march.
    I remember that.
    And so how come you still in this sort of shape?
    We are the big fellow, strong and all that.
    And they didn't make it.
    So it wasn't physical, was it?
    And you know the fact that I'm still
    relatively sane is simply that, because I haven't
    had much nature ever since because many people died
    and all that.
    People who have been--
    And I wasn't blessed with-- moved from one place
    to another, wasn't blessed with this sort
    of nurturing environment.
    And I'm still-- it's kind of wearing thin, but you know--
    You had kind of a special family.
    And you were living in kind of a special time
    Do you think that that was a kind of accumulation of culture
    and education and an interesting mix
    of Jewish and Christian secular influences going on
    during that time that you enjoyed and thrived on.
    Do you feel that in a sense at the time
    that we can go back to that.
    It was a very special time that cannot be replaced.
    Well, times have changed.
    People have changed.
    We have different generations with different experiences.
    And I haven't seen it very much.
    Yes, in certain circles you still
    have this sort of very substantive, civilized,
    cultured interaction.
    But I find it that it gets rarer by the minute.
    Also humanity.
    I think humanity is not something which is
    found very readily in our days.
    More rare than it existed before.
    At least that's my impression.
    Also, I'm no longer in the circle of people.
    Some have died out and there's no one,
    not many people are left to perpetuate it.
    And I still say, coming back to what I said earlier,
    and some recognition, which is relatively of recent time,
    is the fact that the elites did not survive.
    And I know if my cousin, for example, wouldn't be around,
    and in my aunt has, and she made the difference.
    She has survived, my aunt, because she stayed
    Theresienstadt because she was employed
    in a war industry which she developed some expertise
    and they didn't ship her to some death camp.
    So I know what sort of difference
    she did for me, although I saw her very infrequently, only
    once a year.
    And she was in Czechoslovakia, in Prague,
    and all that would visit her.
    And it made a difference in the world.
    But less and less people are available
    or are brought up who would have these sort of qualities.
    I just don't see them.
    They died out.
    And most of them died anyway, because I said, most of them
    died in the camps.
    They didn't make it.
    So we have a totally different input.
    And what I've seen here in the United States and all that.
    50s were still around some people
    who went through World War II somehow and had
    a different upbringing and a little bit.
    What I see now in the United States
    and the present generation, it's a catastrophe.
    I just have absolutely not great expectations
    of what these people will contribute
    in terms of this type of atmosphere,
    which would be substantive.
    Or how we would survive difficulties.
    That's right.
    Well, that's right.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    In terms of how people will respond to stress situations,
    how easy it will be, relatively easy before they sell out.
    In other words, they're not going to be able to--
    Well, we've seen that in Vietnam.
    We've seen that in Korea to some extent.
    And now, before people actually cave it doesn't take much.
    How much stress can they take?
    And it doesn't take much before they actually sell out
    one way or another or break.
    I don't know that's what you wanted me to say.
    It didn't want you to say something specific,
    but yeah, that's fine because I'm working on these ideas.
    I think maybe we should wait till the next time.
    Each of these questions is fairly complex.
    I'll give you a list of the various subjects
    that I presume we'll spend on.
    Yeah but I mean that's all because we still have--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Well, just go--
    Yeah, keep on going a little bit so that we just
    get that behind ourselves.
    I think it's important.
    I wanted to ask, out of all your experiences in the camps,
    you probably named a lot of the worst things
    because they stand out in your mind, the worst
    examples, the most horrifying events, the ones that
    caused you to lose your faith in humanity or whatever,
    if you have.
    I don't know.
    What would you say was the worst thing?
    Well, that I can point out very easily
    was the experiences in the open boxcar.
    I just don't hesitate only to hesitate for a moment.
    Do you want to talk about it?
    I thought we talked about it.
    Not on the tape.
    The details of that would be good.
    Because it's intense.
    Since we are going to start with a death march
    and then move on to the boxcar, maybe we could wait till then.
    It's all leading into other things.
    In fact, it's 6:00 now.
    We want it to feel relaxed and go on.
    Which I like the fact that one thing suggests another as we
    moved along.
    You don't have anything else which is not that involved?
    All my questions are involved.
    Oh, just doesn't lead one thing to another.
    There's the whole area of the death march and the boxcar.
    That's going to be covered, but is there anything else?
    Well, I know what she means.
    I think some of the philosophical questions--
    A lot of my questions have to do with the meaning
    of your experience and the implications for a time
    and this sort of thing.
    And implications in terms of what
    you chose to do with your life from having experienced that,
    so they're not easy to answer.
    And especially since we haven't also
    covered some of the chronology to refer back to.
    It's just very simply it's just not a situational accident
    that I became a sociologist after I
    failed to continue my medical studies,
    or was unable to finish them is more correct.
    Because that's what I wanted to do,
    and I still feel that I would have probably been successful
    in that type of profession.
    But that was not possible because I
    had to leave for Australia.
    I couldn't do that.
    And I came to the United States and it was still
    not impossible, but I was getting a bit old for that
    just to start from scratch.
    And so the next obvious thing is to understand.
    And I'm still working on trying to understand
    what is to be understood, what can be understood,
    as much as they can be understood
    or something which is known as the Holocaust.
    And so that's why I felt sociology
    would be the appropriate thing.
    Certainly psychology is helpful, and I've studied that also,
    but I think sociology, or social psychology more specifically,
    is probably the proper discipline
    to understand what can be understood,
    at least as much as one can.
    Did you sense from the beginning that you're
    working on the Holocaust?
    Or did you turn away from that for awhile
    and go in another direction?
    Well yeah, because I was still looking for my nation.
    I was doing a number of different things
    which had nothing to do with the Holocaust.
    And I don't particularly think it's very healthy
    to dwell on that subject for any length of time,
    no question about that.
    I do that not because I want to be in it, because I feel
    a certain obligation towards those who have died to somehow
    leave some sort of traces or kind of a legacy
    in places, if you will, of what I was able to gather.
    And that's very difficult because most people
    don't give a hoot.
    And they're not dreadfully interested in that.
    Although because they think it's something which happened
    in the past, not understanding that the material lends itself
    or analysis of the human status and humanity itself,
    and if you don't understand that,
    the chances are that we are not going to learn anything from it
    and that, to me, is unbelievable in view of the millions who
    were to die because of ignorance and destructiveness,
    human destructiveness, which is I
    think primarily based on ignorance rather than evil.
    And out of that I'm doing what I do.
    It's not that I enjoy it at all.
    I don't enjoy it.
    I don't enjoy every minute of it.
    It's a sacrifice on my part because--
    And it certainly has done something to my marriage too.
    And human relationships with everyone,
    it's still in the Holocaust.
    It's still in the Holocaust, and you
    know it's still the tainted with all the corpses.
    It smells.
    You can smell the corpses and when he's around.
    So who needs you?
    And I think that has very much to do.
    people?
    Are not particularly attractive.
    Not a very attractive sort of thing
    to deal with and be associated with it
    for the person who is doing that.
    So I consider it to be a sacrifice on my part
    that I do what I do.
    On top of the fact that I'm getting very little recognition
    for it except the rejection, more rejection than acceptance.
    It's a very thankless job to do.
    Sounds like a terrible legacy.
    Not terrible, but I do it simply out of obligation
    of those people whom I consider more useful and more
    worthy of living than the people who have survived.
    But I feel that's what is expected
    of me by those who have died.
    And that's what they would expect of me.
    And I know them and I know how they think and all that.
    So I'm doing it, but it just doesn't come easy.
    And I don't enjoy it.
    And I certainly don't enjoy it and I I'm
    not getting any recognition out of it to speak of.
    Certainly not rewarding.
    And I'm doing it.
    And maybe I should and maybe help you get out of it.
    Because how long can you do it before you
    say enough is enough?
    Well, I certainly thank you for just
    coming here also all the other lectures that you do at school
    and of course you give.
    You're right.
    Most people probably don't care, but there's
    a tiny group, maybe relatively tiny,
    a small and tenacious group.
    Well, we just talk to some people
    I'm forced and compelled to work with, how they view that.
    We'll talk about that another time, the various motivations--
    And why people work on that and feel
    just totally lacking in humanity or human compassion and all
    that.
    And they are into it for reasons which I don't even know.
    And to work with them, it's just--
    it's virtually almost masochistic.
    OK?
    Is that it?
    No?
    That's a problem and a threat.
    More a threat than a promise.
    OK.
    All right.
    Do you have anything else other than your kind
    last words to say which I appreciate, which I appreciate.
    What else I have is that, again, I
    think this is a very high-quality interview.
    You know the thing is I really don't have any comparison.
    Because most of the fellow survivors
    I know haven't told me anything very much
    other than the very descriptive stuff which
    has been repeated time and time again, and inside very little.
    Well that's what I'm talking about.
    I think it's the combination of the two
    that I think has been going all along throughout the interview,
    the combination of the so-called facts
    and the physical world, your perception of the facts
    and you're thinking about them.
    I don't think there's anything more that we could conceivably
    gain but that combination.
    Well, that's why we hope we do something,
    you do something, which not only has merit but can be useful.
    Now my final question would be a question to you.
    To what extent can you come out with some sort of excerpts
    of the various interviews, which I'm sure you have had in mind,
    and come up with a very massive, concentrated and substantive
    documentary on that particular part based
    on the type of interviews you've had?
    And that I'd like to see.
    Because we could use it.
    We could use it.
    And I think the public would use it.
    And the interesting thing, which is on a more happy note, it's
    I've been shamed almost by the response
    I get from some students in terms of they
    come and take me aside and say, we'd like to thank you.
    The insight and changed our lives and all that.
    And that is something which is a positive note
    to conclude this sort of discussion.
    Because apparently there's a great deal of receptiveness
    in young people.
    And it can make a difference.
    It can make a difference in their lives.
    So if we can come up with something
    which is really quality and permits them to develop
    insights which otherwise or elsewhere could not
    be obtained, then I think we've done something which
    might make a difference to our lives by saying,
    hey, we haven't done that in vain.
    And something really positive is coming out of it.
    So that's what I have to say.
    In know what you're saying.
    I think the majority part of your question
    needs to be discussed John [? Avlon. ?]
    I don't know what you have to say about [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah, I have some thoughts on that.
    May I turn the camera off?
    Yeah, sure.
    Yeah I'm fine.
    --rolling, and give us about five seconds,
    and we'll go and start now.
    OK.
    OK, this is interview number three with John Steiner.
    This is Sandra Bendayan, and he has
    his colleague, Carol Horwitz again here,
    and today is the 22 August 1991.
    And as we were just saying, we we're
    going to begin today with you talking about your leaving
    Blechhammer and the death march and having
    to leave your father behind.
    All right.
    So prior to our leaving Blechhammer,
    it became very obvious in terms of the turmoil
    and some of the things we could hear, war, war.
    Well, noises that the Soviets were closing in,
    and that, of course, in one way or another,
    was raising our hopes and stimulated our ability
    to fight on and struggle, continue our struggle.
    And it's an important thing that so many people
    said that there was no resistance against the Nazis
    on the part of the inmates, and Jewish inmates in particular,
    because they were there without really being
    aware of any particular reason.
    They had not done anything.
    They felt innocent, and they have not committed any crimes,
    but they are there simply because they
    were either religious Jews or cultural Jews
    and what have you, because most of the people, of course,
    never understood the reason why they should be there
    by virtue of the fact that the definition of Jewishness
    was something which the Nazis were
    totally haphazard and unscientific fashion related
    to a race, which of course, is totally
    unbelievable ridiculous.
    Particularly when we think in terms of the fact
    that you may have originated from a Jewish family which
    went back generations and centuries of Jews,
    religious Jews.
    And then they're considered to be racial Jews
    for reasons which never were properly defined
    were laughable.
    Even the SS and other people just never
    really could quite take it seriously,
    because the scientific hollowness of the whole thing
    was just simply not proven in any shape or form.
    And so people were bewildered, and say, I'm not racial.
    We're not a race.
    Jewishness is not a race.
    That's something which has not really been properly
    reflected on, I think, in very many interviews
    and discussions with survivors.
    And I think it's very important to establish that somehow
    this notion of a race, a Jewish race,
    was imposed by the Nazi ideology.
    It was very typical for the Nazi ideology
    developed by Nazi ideologues and foremost by Hitler himself,
    who had learned it back in Vienna.
    And so people were confused, so the struggle,
    which I was initially talking about
    before I went into this ridiculous notion of race which
    was accepted by serious academicians
    for reasons which probably escapes them now
    if they are still alive, made it very difficult
    to really find meaning in all that struggle
    and the resistance.
    And that's why, for example, psychologically people said,
    what do I resist with and against because I'm not
    guilty of anything?
    And I think that's a very important momentum which
    pose a problem for many people to find
    meaning in their suffering.
    Well, now, that then depended on the individual
    to come to terms with that particular predicament
    in which they found themselves in the camps.
    And I've had no problems with--
    difficult problems-- with finding
    meaning in it, except I could see the unbelievable cruelty
    and lack of reason in all this.
    But you see, that also gave me some sort of a,
    how do I come to terms with this sort of fate,
    with this sort of situation I find myself in?
    How did you?
    Well, simply by using my resources, and if you will,
    philosophies and notions which gave me
    strength, and that maybe of religious,
    philosophic, humanistic.
    And that helped me, and then very much
    along the lines explained by Viktor Frankl, which
    I really, totally identified with, because the man was
    absolutely right and independently much
    younger than he, of course, and not
    at all having gone through that schooling at that time
    because I was a teenager.
    I pretty much reached similar conclusions,
    and I think that's a very important thing to mention,
    which we haven't done before.
    Because I'm not just interested in describing
    their horror which has been done so many times,
    but how do we interpret that?
    What do we learn?
    And that to me is the most important thing.
    What can I learn from it?
    What can we learn which we can pass on to future generations?
    And that's my professional interest.
    At that time, are you referring to your belief
    in the anthroposophy?
    Yes, well, I think anthroposophy certainly was a great help.
    There's no question about that in terms
    of thinking in terms of reincarnation,
    thinking in terms of previous lives,
    thinking in terms of how do I deserve it,
    or what is the meaning of it all.
    How do I get into the situation merely
    by some sort of a chaotic occurrence,
    or is there some sort of verse and rhyme to it, meaning
    which really can be.
    And I ponder all that, and somehow, I thought about that,
    and I was very fortunate because my encounter with my family,
    at that time, two points.
    The Theresienstadt and then Auschwitz-Birkenau
    and then with my father being in Blechhammer together.
    So we certainly discussed that and helped each other
    in order to accept that situation
    and accept it not in terms of accepting it
    and say that's fine, but say, hey, how do I make sense out
    of all that?
    And what is the meaning, and how do I survive?
    And this gave us-- and that's why I'm talking about--
    this gave us some sort of additional motivation
    to struggle and not to give up, because so many people gave up,
    because they didn't have any--
    they couldn't find meaning in their situation.
    Only the dreadfulness of it all.
    And I have a profound understanding for that.
    Particularly, in the Jewish circle,
    because if I am a political person, which
    we did too, by the way, very actively against the regime.
    So we didn't just sit back and let it happen.
    No, we were very active, proud of that.
    All of us, actually.
    My mother in so many different ways.
    And nothing profound or major perhaps, but still something
    when I was a boy scout, and we had my group.
    It was the leadership where we were just a boy scout.
    And we did the Mickey Mouse stuff,
    or we helped people to escape, which we did very specifically
    when it was still possible to escape over the Czech borders
    to Poland when Poland was not--
    prior to the invasion of Poland, and then also
    meet with other people who were like minded
    and reflect on things and oppose whatever could be of opposed.
    So some of that certainly had been done,
    so that was a very good start to speak of.
    But most of the people found themselves in a predicament
    without having done anything to break the law
    and just went like sheep, so to speak.
    That's what they are accused of.
    And just closing the circle, saying that the will to survive
    was indeed resistance, and that's
    something which people have not understood properly.
    Just living from one day to the next.
    That's right, and to resist by struggling on and saying,
    I'm going to survive.
    Not how so many people to say, which
    is kind of ridiculous and ex post facto,
    and I'm absolutely opposed to that
    and say, to bear witness on all.
    That it's just something which people
    thought of only after the fact, and not during that,
    because they're preoccupied with other things.
    Just one of the most ridiculous things I've heard.
    And that keeps on coming, keeps on coming,
    and people say that, and the claim this totally absolutely--
    I've had other problems which were more
    immediate than bearing witness.
    But anyway, this every day struggle.
    And now, when there was very little hope, because obviously,
    the information we received was very minimal,
    if at all available.
    So when the Russians, Soviets, closed in,
    and we've heard the music of the war.
    Let's put it that way.
    Poetic.
    And then it gave us hope, because you see,
    the situation as we found it in terms of our situation was very
    hopeless, because we had absolutely no idea that we had
    a chance of survival or for political purposes that Nazi
    Germany would lose the war.
    That was not at all clear at that particular point,
    and certainly not to people who were
    isolated from any sort of news and information.
    And so there was no external information which
    would give hope, but all right, so during that particular time
    when the Russians were closing in,
    there was an additional sort of momentum of hope.
    I remember that was just around New Year's Eve and Christmas
    time, and then we suddenly, for reasons which still escape me,
    got tremendous soup which was pea soup with bacon in it
    and some special rations and all that, just absolutely beat me.
    I said, hey, all of a sudden, all this.
    And then very soon afterwards, we
    were just told that we had to leave,
    and we could hear there the cannons
    and all that in distance.
    So the question was, are we going to stay?
    And I've discussed that with my father,
    but my father was physically in no condition, although he
    was, at that time, he was 44 years old,
    a relatively young man.
    But all these sort of things were distorted,
    because anyone was over 30, so to speak,
    in a concentration camp was just like an old man,
    just deteriorated so quickly.
    So that's why people of my age had much better chance
    to survive physically than people who were older.
    More resilient.
    How was your father's health then?
    My father, he was a very sport-minded individual.
    He was into sports and all sorts of things as a young person
    until the time he was virtually taken to the camp.
    So he was physically, exceedingly active.
    He was considerably smaller than I am,
    but he was an exceedingly active and robust,
    muscle-bound individual who won prizes in whatever sports
    activities, what have you.
    So he was in good shape, but still
    because of the age and all the other things,
    he just deteriorated and had bad cases of dysentery
    and what have you.
    And that weakened him to the extent
    that he then was susceptible to some other disease
    type of things, which to be sure, were not constitutional
    but were based on the situation in which we found ourselves.
    Because, indeed, people who were older were less resilient,
    and even those diseases I've had,
    developed an unbelievable resilience,
    which I still can't explain.
    Because where you have the resources,
    where you got the resources under the circumstances
    without proper nutrition and all that sort
    of thing, which I think should have
    been studied by medical people much more than-- it
    has been totally neglected why people have survived
    on what basis without all the things which we are told today.
    You have to do that in order to be healthy and all that,
    and yet people survive things which
    under normal circumstances people don't usually survive.
    Certainly, I have.
    No question about that without all that.
    So that is something which people
    really should have studied, and they neglected to study that.
    Good point.
    So then the discussion was, am I going to stay with my father,
    or I'm going to move out?
    Now, all the able-bodied individuals
    were forced by the SS to move out.
    It doesn't mean that you really have to abide by it,
    because there are ways and means to stay.
    What was that?
    Well, it was just too high, because you
    talk about a tremendously large plant which
    was the Blechhammer which was the synfuel plant.
    And so there are ways and Means to either hide
    in the camp and all that or the plant
    and all this sort of thing.
    So there are possible opportunities,
    but for some reason or another, my father
    decided to stay because physically couldn't move on.
    And I decided for whatever reason
    to move on which turned out to be
    the biggest mistake I could have made under the circumstances.
    Because very soon after we had left, because when
    we were marching, the Russians were even closing-- the Soviets
    with closing in all the time.
    So actually, the distance between them and us,
    in spite of the fact that they were on the move,
    became closer.
    And so my father was liberated within a few days,
    and if I had stayed, I would have
    been liberated within a few days and would
    have survived the whole thing, physically speaking, virtually
    unscathed or minimally unscathed.
    Because he recovered in a very short time
    from all the various things he had,
    because the conditions changed.
    So was the guard detail left behind
    for those who could not go?
    Well, the guard details were then more and more
    increasingly more interested in their own survival
    than the survival of the inmates.
    And that is something which I'll be
    talking about in just a moment.
    And so to be sure, to begin with,
    they tried to round up all the people-- able-bodied people--
    and put them into this death march situation,
    moved them away from the battle ground Russians captured.
    But then some of them who stayed,
    or most actually stayed, and they are not
    killed or whatever, wiped out.
    And I don't even know were they anywhere.
    I don't quite remember, because I wasn't there,
    and my father just was not that fully aware
    of all these things, or we discussed it,
    and he told me quite a few things.
    I don't think there was a great danger that there
    would have been killed.
    He certainly wasn't and most of the other people
    knew were not and whatever.
    All right, so those were able-bodied, most of my friends
    with whom I had worked and all that,
    they moved out, because they were just
    about my age or older.
    Not necessarily younger, but most of them
    were just my age or older.
    And so the death march was one of the worst possible things,
    because not only were trails of dead people
    who were in similar situations killed by the real guards,
    because they no longer could march on, because it was--
    you're talking January, 1945.
    And the very cold, brutal winter snow
    and with our striped pajamas, we were certainly not at all
    protected against the cold.
    And we've had our wooden-sole shoes
    with canvas tops without any proper stockings
    to protect us against this freezing weather
    and in the snow.
    So within a relatively short time, people-- and then
    of course, bare hands were out.
    So most of the people incurred frostbite within a very, very
    short-- relatively short time, within a week and so
    the same thing happen to me.
    I had a pair of mittens which I was
    able to get from the contacts which I've had in Blechhammer
    with the outside, and the distant relatives who
    send in all sorts of interesting,
    important, survival materials like medicines and money
    and food stuff and what have you and mittens and shoes and all
    that.
    So I've had mittens which were unbelievable because most
    of the people actually did not develop their frostbite
    of their feet to begin with.
    Most of the people for reasons which still escaped me,
    and I'm not clear about, developed frostbite
    in their hands.
    And so they became black and blue,
    and then the flesh fell off.
    It was just terrible, just like third-degree burns, just
    a similar situation.
    So that did not happen to me by virtue of the fact
    that I-- and I still remember that it just very strange
    color, just kind of University of California color, black
    and gold.
    You know, black and yellow and--
    Missouri actually.
    It's black and blue, isn't it?
    Anyway, so one of the university had black and gold.
    Whatever that means.
    Missouri or California.
    Who cares?
    An omen.
    Yeah, at that time, of course, literally
    didn't know that I would wind up in the United States,
    because I didn't have any-- rationally,
    I didn't have any particular hope to survive even then.
    But then, for some reason, because we had to walk,
    and we slept in the snow and very
    rarely were we able to sleep in some sort of a hay stack
    or when we are very lucky, with pigs.
    But I remember there was an SS man in charge
    of that particular area, a local one and in uniform,
    and he just said, you could infect the pigs.
    So you have to get out, and the pigs were very important to me,
    because they're fed with potatoes you see.
    And so we ate the potatoes for the pigs, and that was a feast.
    And actually, also those who were able to get it, survived.
    And before we got to the pigs, we
    were thrown out of the place where they've had cattle.
    Cattle, hay, and also so when we would
    stay in this relatively warm situation that was just
    like today if I have a chance to stay overnight
    in one of the most fancy hotels, you know.
    I mean, and even that is not proper comparison to be sure.
    I always took advantage of that situation
    and made the best of it.
    And that was a very important thing, because I--
    at all times--
    was able to make the best out of a miserable, terrible
    situation.
    And that is precisely what we could do.
    The older ones are no longer as flexible and no longer
    as alert.
    And this type of alertness came with age too,
    and some measure of intelligence which most of the people
    had anyway.
    Because if they had not that type
    of minimal measure of intelligence,
    they would have not survived up to that point anyway,
    and that, I think, is an important point.
    So yes, whenever there was grains,
    we ate the grain and all that.
    But very frequently, we had to stay overnight
    in the snow and all that, and that meant that people had just
    developed a dreadful disease, pneumonia, pleurisy, you
    name it and dysentery and all that.
    They could not control--
    most of us could not control our bodily situation.
    So that we didn't have any underpants anyway so everything
    was soiled and all that which then crusted
    and all that sort of stuff.
    It would just be awful, and you had to walk virtually
    24 hours a day almost.
    Not quite, because, yes, there was rest.
    Now, the interesting part was also
    that as that situation increased, the SS, the guards,
    started to suffer also.
    And what they did, they took all their belongings
    and put them on some sort of carts
    and privileged, quote unquote, inmates then
    had to simply take the cart and push them or whatever.
    Drag them.
    Let's put it that way.
    Drag them.
    And for that, they got some sort of food, whatever.
    But then even though it says guards were differently
    equipped obviously and had all the proper clothing to protect
    them against the freezing cold weather,
    they started to develop symptoms, and they dropped out.
    So the more people dropped out, the less guards there were,
    and the more free we felt. However, that
    was very deceptive, because there was always
    a rear guard, which I personally never quite experienced myself.
    But anyone who stayed behind, and that's
    what we could see what happened to other groups of people who
    when we talked about--
    we are talking about over 1,000, easy 2,000,
    people in this particular-- our group.
    So those who came before us, then
    we could see where they went, because that's where
    they dropped all the bodies.
    We could see the-- where we walked there,
    so it was lined up with bodies who were shot.
    Because they were slow?
    Well, simply couldn't walk on anymore
    or were too slow or whatever and then dropped out.
    And so that's one thing, and then
    we could see a staff car with SS people,
    because there was a point that we were encircled
    or something and then would stop.
    And then they came to tell those who were in charge of our group
    say that we had to march on, and we had high hopes that we would
    return or that we would stay and that we actually
    would be overtaken by the Soviet Army,
    and we were not because we were told to march on.
    And I remember the staff car with SS officers
    coming in and giving the order to continue.
    Did you know to where you were marching?
    Oh, well, we had no idea at all.
    At least, I mean, there were some rumors, but we didn't.
    I mean, some people said, Gross-Rosen, and all
    this and that, but which, indeed,
    was the place they marched us.
    But so many people dropped, and they just died
    and what have you.
    So coming back to the mittens, we were sleepwalking,
    could not control our bowel movements, and all this sort
    of thing.
    Totally exhausted, so in this sort
    of half sleep walk, sleep type of situation,
    I was one with my mittens, and I knew what that meant.
    Because I already felt that I was not
    feeling my fingers and all that, and discoloration
    was already there in spite of the mittens.
    So I said, if I don't find it, I'm in deep trouble.
    I'm going to lose my fingers as so many friends of mine
    already had.
    And some of the much stronger ones
    said, well, I'll come that you are in such good shape,
    and I'm so much stronger than you also during their work.
    When we worked together, they were just the ones who really
    did more physical-- were able to do more physical work than I.
    And then they were falling apart and dropping out and all that
    and said, well, you are actually probably the weakest of us
    all, and you just are able to continue, and we're not.
    So that was a discussion.
    I just couldn't quite understand.
    Well, I still don't understand.
    There were no constitutional differences whatever.
    At any rate, then I decided that I had to find it again.
    Obviously, someone, and I went back by the comms.
    There was not enough SS to really see that necessarily.
    So I went back and looked who might have picked it up,
    because I could see that person who had it on, because it
    was yellow and black.
    So I said, you've got mittens.
    Here it is.
    Of course, he was not willing to give it up,
    so I took it from him, and then I had recovered my mittens,
    and I just continued.
    But by that time, my feet were getting very bad,
    and there was no question about it
    that I had that I had a dreadful case of frostbite which
    became worse and worse.
    And I remember also, for example,
    and that is an important thing which
    I want to mention during that death march,
    because it remained in my mind.
    We went through, of course, townships and little villages
    and what have you.
    And the response of the inhabitants and even animals
    was just really unbelievable.
    And there was one particular large--
    well, it was a small township.
    It was not a village.
    It was a township, and we went through the Main Street,
    marching through the main, and before we actually
    entered the township, there was a dreadful howling
    of all the various dogs and animals just instinctively
    apparently responding to this dreadful army of skeletons
    and half deads.
    And it was dreadful howling and people
    in the streets, which of course, were pretty empty.
    Some of the people just broke down seeing us,
    and some of the women also shouted to us
    encouragement-- not Germans.
    And said, don't give up.
    And then, of course, some people on the other hand
    came from buying some food stuff or whatever,
    or someone had some--
    I remember still-- in these sort of made out of canvas bags.
    Just simply these type of bags made out of canvas ropes.
    And so they just simply jumped.
    Some inmates, and took off what they could.
    And the SS came, and it was a big struggle,
    and they were shooting stuff and what have you.
    And I didn't do it, and other people, then of course,
    there was an outcry and all that.
    But then there are some people who
    really showed encouragement also the women, particularly women.
    We didn't see any men, because men were not around.
    They were all in uniform and what have you.
    And then, of course, we also saw the retreating Germans,
    and when they saw us, they just spat at us
    and shouted obscenities and all that,
    because they viewed us as their enemy.
    And particularly, since they were retreating and all that.
    So this sort of thing became worse and worse.
    And one night, this small group, one of us,
    were able to stay in a haystack, and then I found out that--
    took off my canvas whatever shoes I've had,
    and I could see that my toes were
    totally rotten and all that and already
    bone sticking out and all that.
    And I just took part of the rotten toes and threw them out.
    Took them off and threw them out there and just
    couldn't walk anymore.
    It was just-- couldn't put the shoes on anymore and all that.
    So then, I said, that's the end, because now, the rear guard
    will come in and take care of me, in other words, shoot me.
    But the interesting thing is, are we going to hide and all
    that, but we didn't.
    And indeed, the SS came and all that,
    and they're relatively civil.
    No big deal.
    How come they don't shoot us, because that's
    what I anticipated, that we would be shot just like we
    have seen who stayed behind.
    And so they say, you stay here.
    We'll come with some sort of carriage,
    and they'll put you in it, and we'll take you to some--
    well, that happened, and then I understood,
    because we were in a place very close to the relatively unknown
    concentration camp called Reichenbach,
    which was a woman's camp.
    And that was primarily women who were employed,
    were just slave laborers in the war industry.
    And so they were very close, so they took us up there.
    And so there was a horse carriage
    as they have of the farmers.
    But it was covered actually, and then I
    remember there came a Major with a drawn Luger pistol.
    I still remember that.
    He said, you swine.
    We'll show you what the Russians do.
    Whatever they've done, and they just
    started to really call obscenities and all that
    and with a drawn Luger as we could.
    Crippled people.
    So they kicked us into and threw us,
    kicked us into this sort of carriage and beat us in a way.
    It was not nothing.
    We just simply-- the degradation was worse than actually
    what they did, because they were calling obscenities,
    and we'll show you what the Russians, about the Russians,
    you swine.
    You're responsible or whatever they saw.
    And he was military police.
    I don't know what it is, but it was a military police person.
    A Major, I think, in terms of the rank as far as I remember.
    Anyway, so we got into that, and then they
    drove us to Reichenbach.
    And then it was then all the people could not march on
    or somehow were around and got stuck somehow.
    They were sent to this particular camp,
    and that's why they didn't shoot us,
    because they just removed them.
    The chances are, I mean, that's my conjecture.
    But otherwise--
    Why didn't they shoot you too?
    Well,
    because they just-- there was an assembly camp
    and from there on, they shipped other people further
    into some-- distributing them elsewhere.
    Now, those people continued to march, whoever were left.
    And people just died by the hundreds, so that you had,
    out of 2,000 people, you know, you probably
    had a couple of hundred who actually survived, or 300,
    you know.
    So then when they came to the Gross-Rosen destination, which
    was a death camp-- was not just a concen-- it was a death
    camp-- so those people hardly ever survived, you see.
    Some may have, but very few I personally met.
    But so those of us who came to Reichenbach--
    and there were very many movements,
    not just from Blechhammer, but from other camps, too--
    so that was a camp where they just put us.
    The men still were there, but they were on the move.
    They moved them out.
    And so we are the ones-- we were the ones who
    stayed for a few days, and then the whole structure
    started again.
    People had kapos, and they took over,
    and they were responsible to the SS,
    and they distributed the soup, whenever we got soup,
    and some bread.
    And all that was very, very little,
    but still, there were some.
    And people died like flies because of frostbite,
    and infections, and disease, you name it.
    And then there were couples who take advantage
    of that situation, not only to get more food for themselves
    by assuming that type of leadership situation
    and play into the hands of the SS, who enjoy that situation,
    and structured it so that it would become that way.
    But they also killed fellow inmates cruelly and all that.
    And one of them was a green type of inmate.
    Green, that is to say he was a professional criminal.
    And he was particularly bad, and he just simply--
    people who did not quite respond to his whims.
    He just came and just killed them.
    This is bad, so to speak and just killed them.
    And for reasons which again escaped me,
    he liked me for his idiosyncratic reasons.
    And so I had some sort of period he gave me extra food,
    and I could, whenever I had these sort of containers where
    the soup was in, so I was able to scrape it out,
    and some remnants, and all that.
    And then he came back and said, why are you still alive?
    Some other people, all should really-- should be dead by now,
    and just finished him off.
    And totally unpredictable.
    But with me, he was pretty consistent
    because he always had been more supportive
    for reasons, again, which rationally difficult, too.
    Well, and from then on, and we stayed and met some few people,
    and talked.
    And people died, and I could-- whatever
    they left, you know, I took.
    It was to use, blankets, whatever there was,
    and all that.
    But apparently they had some food still available
    in that particular camp.
    So when we finally were moved to the ramp up there--
    the kind of railway station and kind of lorries--
    but most of us who couldn't walk--
    I was one of them, you know, couldn't walk on.
    So they put into this sort of strange type of lorries,
    about four people in one lorry, which they then on rails,
    and then just pushed them and downhill
    in a way to the open cattle cars, open boxcars,
    railway cars.
    And I've had, with some other people, because they threw us
    into these sort of lorries, and so
    that you sat on the limbs or parts of the bodies
    of the other person.
    And one had a terrible leg injury, and he shouted.
    And then the SS came and looked at me and said, be quiet,
    don't give any attention.
    But he couldn't help himself.
    Don't draw attention to yourself.
    Well, anyway, but he couldn't repress, and shouted in agony.
    So this one SS man, I still remember,
    had a kind of iron bar in his hand.
    And he came and saw him, you know, and just killed him--
    just simply over the head and killed him, you know.
    And so these sort of things happened all the time.
    And then we just came, finally, to this sort of open car.
    And then they threw us in.
    And then that was another ordeal which was something which--
    I don't know whether I gave you the--
    Yes.
    --which I described in my writing.
    And so that you had several layers of people who
    were, first of all, thrown in.
    And then you had second, you had three layers.
    And the first layer was suffocated
    by the second and the third layer
    if they could not really struggle up.
    And that was the precise situation
    in which I found myself.
    I was in the middle layer, and was being
    suffocated by the third layer.
    And I just simply felt that was the end,
    because I couldn't breathe anymore properly and all that.
    So for reasons which, still, enough, I just
    had absolutely no hope, rationally speaking,
    I said, I can't make it.
    But I struggled on nevertheless, falling up.
    And so I got myself up out of this sort of situation
    so that I was on the third layer.
    But anyone who became the third layer
    caused the death of the second and the first layer.
    So that was this awful situation that your survival
    meant that fellow inmates beneath you,
    in a different layer, were going to be killed.
    And that continued up until time.
    And we just went through about 10 days,
    two weeks because time situations
    are very difficult to pinpoint.
    Because time experience was very different in concentration
    camps than under normal circumstances.
    So we finally--
    Had you been issued any food?
    Well, we had a very--
    that's an interesting thing, that because,
    as I said before, there was obviously food available.
    So we were given two loaves of bread, and some margarine,
    and some marmalade, or whatever it was, I remember.
    And I was able to get more, and so instead of two loaves,
    I had about three or four loaves.
    I think I had three loaves, and was
    taking under my shirt and all that down.
    And I was able to get two blankets rather
    than one blanket and all that.
    So I was what we called at that particular time
    the skill of organizing, which means that you just simply took
    whatever you could, as long as you
    didn't take from an inmate who was still alive.
    And that was morally unacceptable,
    although people still did it.
    But I never did, and I'm morally in a better
    position, because so many people survived
    at the expense of others.
    And that is, I think, a reason--
    and I keep on emphasizing that in my lectures,
    or in my writing, whatever-- that people who
    have survivor guilt do not feel guilty
    because they've survived.
    But they feel guilty because of how they have survived.
    And that's an important thing which
    is not being discussed very much because it's
    a very sensitive area.
    But I understand it, and therefore I mention it,
    and I specifically emphasize it, because there is no such thing
    as survivor guilt as such.
    I don't feel guilty because I've survived
    and some other people have not.
    Because I have not caused it.
    It was not my doing.
    But if I've survived at the expense of someone else,
    then I've got a reason to have more problems.
    And so many people who are survivors indeed
    have survived because they have taken advantage
    of the situation of people who were weak or couldn't defend
    themselves, and done things to them
    which caused either very serious injury or even their death.
    And they should feel guilty on that.
    I don't have any problems, philosophically speaking,
    problems with the fact that they feel guilty.
    But that's the reason, not by virtue of the fact
    that they merely have survived.
    You don't think that that instance is possible.
    I see what you mean about people who
    have done things they would feel guilty about, but just merely
    by the ritual of surviving.
    I don't see any reason for it.
    I don't see any reason.
    If they do, that is highly idiosyncratic,
    and I'm not ruling that out as a possibility.
    But, I mean, there is no rational reason for it.
    Because they've done what they could to survive,
    and they should be praised rather than faulted.
    And I should feel good about it rather than bad.
    Doesn't mean that I don't regret the fact that so
    many other people have not.
    I mean, that's obviously a tragedy.
    And I think we should feel sad, and sorrow, and whatever,
    but not guilt.
    All right.
    So by virtue of the fact that this sort of boxcar situation
    that people survived, they survived only
    in terms of that indeed they took up
    space which made it impossible for other people to survive.
    And from that point of view, I am, in a way, guilty, too.
    You see?
    But the interesting thing is-- and that's not necessarily
    a deduction of cognitive dissonance or, as we put it,
    rationalization, self-justification.
    But the fact is that there is such a thing as-- which
    I've never understood before because I never experienced
    it--
    drive of self-preservation.
    And under extreme stress situations--
    and I talk about total, total situations--
    the drive of self-preservation will take over.
    And you just can't help yourself.
    You just survive, even if you have absolutely, rationally,
    no hope to survive another minute, another hour,
    another day.
    Because I certainly did, but I fought on, because of the drive
    or self-preservation to go on.
    So that meant that brothers killed each other in order
    to survive, or--
    directly or indirectly-- buddies, friends,
    whatever, then struggled for space because they were just
    like sardines packed in this sort of-- talk
    about over 100 people in one open boxcar.
    So these were the situations so that people kept on struggling.
    And to begin with, then, there was more space
    by virtue of the fact that people are still alive.
    The more dead there were in that particular boxcar,
    the less space there was, because dead bodies
    have a nasty habit to bloat and expand.
    So they're not permitted to throw them out,
    because they didn't want, on the railway tracks,
    to have these sort of nice calling cards.
    Then what about all the dead along the roadway?
    Well, but you see, that was something
    which was on the roadway, but not railway tracks, you know,
    that was in the midst of wilderness.
    And there were no other alternatives.
    They didn't see any other alternatives,
    because there was no way of putting someplace
    because they're running from the Russians.
    I mean, they're closing in.
    But there, the situation was slightly different,
    because there still was a "civilized,"
    quote unquote, world.
    And you just don't leave any traces of that nature.
    So they're not permitted.
    And even those people who tried to escape--
    and some of them in their despair
    jumped off because it was moving very slowly.
    The train was moving very slowly.
    Or in their despair, they just-- or it
    had stopped-- they jumped off.
    Then they're ordered to come back.
    And in the car, they're shot, but not outside.
    And that happened.
    And even some people who moved, and the guard came and--
    particularly I think in terms of an Ukrainian fellow who
    couldn't hardly speak any German in just SS uniform.
    And that's one thing which I forgot to say.
    Interestingly, because there was a shortage
    of guards during the last march, some of the people
    who looked kind of more Aryan, or were non-Jews,
    inmates, were given SS uniforms and asked to be guards.
    And that was the irony of it all.
    It was just absolutely absurd.
    Bizarre.
    And so I could see--
    I saw it.
    It's not just hearsay.
    That's something which I actually--
    young kid who was still able-bodied, said OK,
    you German or whatever you are--
    Germans.
    At least learned to speak perfect German, or good German,
    whatever.
    Young kid.
    Someone said, now we appoint you an SS.
    So they gave him an SS uniform, kind of.
    And now he's-- and they did it because they felt it was going
    to be-- not that they did anything against their fellow
    inmates.
    But they said, well, maybe I'll have a better chance
    to survive.
    And some people tried to escape, but that was a very bad thing,
    because most of them were rounded up,
    and caught, and then killed.
    One of my close buddies did, and I've never heard of him.
    I would have heard of him after the war, one way or another,
    but I never heard of him again.
    And he did it in a town.
    In a township-- well, actually it was a proper town.
    And he-- which was easy to escape, because we are not
    that closely guarded, because more and more SS people dropped
    out.
    So that was in a relatively busy street of a city--
    actually a big town or city, in upper Silesia.
    I think it was Oppeln, actually, to be very specific.
    Oppeln.
    Oppeln.
    And so he just jumped into some doorway.
    And we discussed it even before.
    He said, I think I'm going to escape, and all that.
    I didn't know what--
    encourage him.
    But I felt--
    I had my doubts about to do that, to what extent
    it would be saving one's life.
    I had my doubts about it, and therefore I didn't do it.
    Not that I couldn't have done it, but I decided not to.
    He decided to do it.
    I've never heard of him again after the war.
    And I don't think he survived.
    He just didn't make it.
    And then also, you just supported bodies and all that,
    when they just no longer could.
    So you supported them until you couldn't carry them anymore,
    just support them anymore.
    And they said, well, don't you drop.
    And we dropped them.
    Of course they were just chucked in the rear guard,
    and you never heard from them again, of course.
    So and coming back to the boxcar situation,
    so first of all they organized some leadership and said,
    well, we really have to help each other.
    And why don't we collect all the food stuff,
    and we'll distribute it so that those who have more
    will share with others.
    And it was some sort of democratic faction.
    So one fellow, and he had these lieutenants,
    and they did it for a few days, and then they ate it all.
    And then they had the power elite and all--
    just like in real life, you see.
    And then you had this democratic leader then turn into a Stalin,
    you know, and left it all.
    And all the people rebelled against, they just beat
    up, or kill, or whatever.
    And the lieutenants, of course, helped them.
    And they lived for a few days like kings
    on whatever the rations they had taken
    from their fellow inmates, safekeeping
    and to be distributed.
    Well, but you see then, as we see now
    in more recent developments in the Soviet Union,
    then they turn against each other
    when they are under stress.
    So they were in the process of killing each other.
    So the lieutenants killed the fuhrer, the inmate fuhrer,
    and all that.
    So they came all to a rather bad end,
    except the two lieutenants survived.
    And they arrived in Dachau, and then they came and visited me,
    say here we are, your buddies.
    Some buddies you are.
    And I said, just get out, because I--
    you bastards, you know.
    In the boxcar situation, you had the top level, finally.
    Yeah.
    Was it a constant struggle to remain--
    Constant struggle, yeah.
    Because those who were alive because of the space--
    because of the bloated bodies and all that,
    so there was less and less space.
    And so where people encroached upon you and all that,
    and they took over your space, and just pressed
    on you and all that, so there was blood circulation stopped.
    You couldn't breathe anymore and all that.
    And that happened to, particularly in this situation,
    with one of my buddies, who, mind you, for a very long time
    and actually since, I think, Theresienstadt I knew him.
    And so he had dysentery, and his,
    particularly his one foot-- it was his left foot--
    was just hanging on some piece of muscle and whatever,
    piece of skin.
    It was totally rotten.
    The whole foot, not just the--
    and so he was in agony.
    And he had also a dreadful case of dysentery.
    And I helped him as much as I could.
    And then as space became more scarce,
    he just started to take over and lie on me, use me as a sofa.
    Not sofa, but just lie.
    I said, I can't breathe anymore.
    You have to go.
    I have to push you, because--
    talking about drive of self-preservation.
    And he couldn't.
    He couldn't.
    So I pushed him.
    And I knew that, when I pushed him,
    it was either him or me who would die.
    And then, when he was pushed in the middle,
    so no one wanted to have him on him.
    So the only thing which still had some degree of strength
    were the feet of the inmates.
    So they kicked him from one situation
    to another until they kicked him to death.
    And that was a normal occurrence.
    "Normal," quote unquote, "normal" occurrence.
    It was an everyday sort of situation.
    And if you did not defend yourself,
    you were in the center.
    And once you were in the center, all the feet were on you
    and you were pushed to death, virtually kicked to death.
    And then meanwhile, before we actually arrived to Dachau,
    I was-- more and more people, and more and more people
    were dislocated.
    And the people who were close to the walls of the boxcar, then,
    of course had something to lean against,
    and therefore could use their feet more effectively.
    Now, I was not leaning at any time against the wall.
    Therefore, I was much more at the mercy of all the other ones
    who were pushing me around.
    So finally I was also dislocated,
    to the extent that I was in the center and being pushed around.
    And some friends of mine said, well, if you get in the center,
    you know what's going to happen to you.
    And there was no question about that.
    And I used my teeth, my nails to defend myself.
    And everyone did it, used whatever they could,
    defend themselves to be dislocated.
    But meanwhile, there was virtually a pyramid
    of dead bodies, who already just looked
    like a glassy type of thing, smelly, rotten corpses.
    And so in the last stage--
    and it happened to be also the last stage of our journey.
    Because very shortly afterwards, we
    had arrived at Dachau via Prague, and I recognized that.
    And then people were getting food from some workers.
    And then the SS then pushed them away
    and with all the weapons, what they've had, and all this.
    And when they got some water or some food, a bunch of people
    just tried to take it, and spilled it, and all this,
    so that no one actually had anything.
    And it was just a terrible, tragic situation.
    And so when I was then-- during the last stage of the journey
    when I was dislocated, no longer I could hang on and defend
    myself sufficiently against all the pressure which I received,
    that I was in just a struggle and being kicked about--
    so then I was able to climb up this mountain of rotten bodies,
    and simply put my heel into one of the bodies.
    And it happened to be, I think, my buddy who
    had died because of it.
    And was able to remain in that particular situation, where
    I was out of reach of feet and other people,
    because I was up on that thing, and arrived in Dachau.
    And also, one of my buddies who was
    next to me, just pressing against me and all that,
    was this Ukraine SS man--
    which I didn't finish to tell, I think--
    came, and just looked at him, and he just
    he was moving, trying to get adjusted because of it.
    And for-- somehow he just drew attention of this SS person
    to himself, and he just took his Luger--
    I remember the Luger, it was a Luger pistol--
    and just simply looked at him just like, you know,
    no kind of hatred or something, just matter-of-fact type
    of thing, just looked at him with his Luger pistol
    and shot him in the vein.
    And I could see the surprise and the light went out,
    that eye light went out.
    It was terrible.
    I was next to him, just like that.
    Could have been me.
    So these sort of situation are just examples of what one had
    to be-- so that was actually one of the worst experience,
    worse than anything else I--
    OK, so then we--
    How did you get into the boxcar, when you went into the boxcar?
    Oh, they threw us in.
    Some of them could climb.
    And those who simply could not climb anymore,
    so they were just heaved in, just simply thrown in.
    And I was put up and the other ones between those
    who could-- inmates throw in.
    But, you know, first come, first served, so to speak.
    Except first come, first served was the death.
    How did you manage to hang on to your food through that?
    Well, I mean, I hung onto my food because some of them,
    I just simply didn't give up.
    And they simply didn't--
    so I've had some.
    Some I gave up, and some I didn't, you know,
    because I didn't trust them.
    I don't mean willingly.
    I just mean in the struggle.
    You were in the middle, and you were struggling
    to get up to get air.
    Oh, well, yeah.
    Well, you just simply pushing and struggling and all that,
    I mean from the second layer to the third layer.
    Well, I was in such a situation where
    you struggle for your life, and that
    gave me some extra strength, apparently.
    And you held on to your food, also.
    Oh, yeah.
    Not only that, but also my blanket,
    and some medication, which I still had, against pneumonia
    and all that sort of things.
    Because these relatives, or distant relatives, friends,
    happened to be also physician in Prague.
    And so they had access to medication, to medicine.
    And they send that along, too, which actually
    saved my father's life.
    Because they sent-- I asked them what to send,
    what the problems were, so they sent this type of medication
    against dysentery and pneumonia, and the sulfonamides
    at that particular time, what they
    used sulfonamides and all that.
    And I took what I needed, and gave my father
    that, which saved his life, for all practical purposes.
    In talking about many of these things,
    you have a wonderful sense of humor.
    Was your sense of humor alive still from the camp days?
    I don't think so.
    I don't think so.
    I don't think I've had much of a sense of humor.
    You didn't see many smiling faces, for sure,
    particularly during these situations.
    But I think it's a very important question.
    And I don't think--
    it was perhaps more subtle, you know,
    that I simply took advantage of situations,
    sabotage when I could, and was alert.
    But it was not really ha-ha funny sense of humor.
    Some did, and that is something important.
    I think it's an important question,
    because under certain circumstances,
    you could afford to have a sense of humor.
    And many of my inmates did.
    And that's something which, to me, was
    a very profound experience in Blechhammer when
    some of my friends, close friends, staged a kind of play,
    kind of a--
    what was it?
    Satire?
    Well, satire-- cabaret.
    That's the proper designation.
    A cabaret, a satire on camp life.
    All the SS came, first rows.
    And it so impressed that one stood up,
    and that's something which is very important because it had
    very specific consequences after the war when there were trials
    against the perpetrators.
    And I was involved, too, as a witness and things
    of that nature.
    And so this was so impressive.
    I will never forget it.
    It was just so professional, because, yeah, because there
    were professional actors among these people, too,
    one mustn't forget.
    And somehow they had props, and they found props, and all that.
    It was just parody on camp life, which included SS, and couples,
    and the dignitaries-- what camp "dignitaries," quote, unquote.
    These people were inmate functionaries.
    So it's so successful, that these people, SS people,
    just, you know, just behaved like human beings,
    dropped their role as an SS.
    And one, after it was complete-- and that's something which I
    wrote in my book, too--
    stood up and said, we were told that you
    are subhumans, and this and that,
    and that you're parasites, and vermin.
    Anyone who under those conditions
    can stage a cabaret or play of that nature
    is everything else but that.
    Stood up and said that in front of all the other SS people,
    and said that's going to be the end of it.
    And then I lost him out of sight.
    And I said, well, maybe something happened to him .
    But nothing happened to him at all.
    Why?
    I don't know why.
    But I mean, he just survived the war,
    and then was accused with all the Blechhammer
    personnel, in which I was a witness
    and was also questioned here by a Nazi--
    pseudo-- neo-- no, by a Nazi consul general in San
    Francisco, as a matter of fact.
    Behaved like a pig, this fellow, too.
    Just absolutely the way he behaved.
    And he had to do it.
    But you could see that he resented it,
    and he wished me dead.
    Son of a bitch.
    I only can say that this way.
    And so then in my research, I went to Ludwigsburg,
    where these things are being done,
    where this is being legally organized and investigated.
    And looked at the file in the presence
    of the man who was in charge of Ludwigsburg, now dead.
    Very interesting and, I think, very upright and good person.
    Older generation, too.
    Older than I, considerably old.
    And very upright person who really
    did what he could in order to get these people to bring them
    to justice.
    And so then I came across this fellow, and apparently
    some other people who were survivors of Blechhammer,
    when they were witnesses, when they witnessed these things
    and said this and this.
    They mentioned the fact, which I thought
    I was the only one who noticed, or maybe all the people, other
    may have died or forgotten.
    And he got off the hook.
    And nothing happened to him.
    He was not sentenced to any sort of.
    It's kind of interesting, simply because he
    stood up and opposed.
    Was he known to be a kindly--
    I never know.
    I never encountered him personally before.
    So I had no dealings.
    I had no, absolutely, knowledge of his other activity.
    I had not come across him.
    Some other ones, I've had, yeah.
    But I've described that in some previous situation.
    So anyway, so that's kind of interesting sort
    of reflection based on--
    so I was very interested in the SS response.
    And when we came to Dachau, out of the 100 people--
    about, approximately 100 people who were in one of the boxcars,
    and we talked about thousands in 10 boxcars or 12 boxcars.
    I don't remember exactly, 10 or 12, just about.
    Out of just approximately on the average, out of 10 to 15 people
    survived out of 100 people, maybe 20 at the most.
    The other ones were dead.
    So we came, and this dreadful stench of rotten bodies and all
    that, we all were saturated with this.
    When we came, the SS guard, which the reception,
    and they just said, we've never seen anything, and treated us
    humanely because they were moved.
    They just said, it's terrible, awful.
    They were moved.
    They were moved.
    And treated us humanely.
    I mean, not necessarily kindly, but properly.
    Do you think they might have been afraid now
    that the war was ending and--
    I'd say horrified.
    By the sight.
    That's my very distinct impression.
    Because we've never seen something like that.
    We've never seen anything so horrible.
    I mean, they verbalized.
    All right.
    So then a group-- and then I became a spokesman at Dachau
    and had to register, fill in forms, register
    and all this sort of thing.
    I had to do that, and talk about Dachau and all that.
    I still have, as a matter of fact,
    now when I was there some few years ago, three years ago,
    I went into the records in there,
    found my name and all this sort of thing, register.
    So then for reasons, whether it was some sort of a SS captain
    came.
    I don't remember his rank.
    I don't know what they were.
    And someone started to talk to us and said something.
    And we said, what's going on.
    Receptive to some sort of a dialogue.
    And I was a spokesperson, not because I
    felt so inclined or whatever.
    Most of them were in worse shape than I was.
    That's why I was still in a position
    to even speak up and be conscious of what
    was happening.
    And I said, hey, I mean, we are in such a bad shape,
    because I had nothing to lose.
    I didn't give a damn.
    And either you help us to survive
    or you just better have us shot.
    Because we are in a situation, we can't further
    endure this sort of situation.
    And
    The way I talked apparently, of course--
    and again, that was very important when
    it's impeccable German.
    That made a difference, you see, because how
    you can't see a person who is just so like you
    or similar to you, then you're just all of a sudden subhuman,
    all that.
    That was very important in all cases.
    And that was a very important momentum
    as to in extremely dangerous situations which somehow got me
    off the hook, in a way.
    And that was very important.
    Because you don't crawl and all that, but you're just upright
    and speak up to them, and just like equals.
    And that impressed them.
    But if you came whining and all that, then
    they just finished you off.
    That was the tendency.
    So I talked to him and said, that's the choice.
    And he ordered that we would receive--
    that these people need to get special rations.
    And we did for about a week or two.
    And then it just--
    he didn't enforce it, didn't come again,
    never saw him again.
    And then it stopped.
    But that was decisive in terms of survival of so many people.
    Because if we had not received that sort of thing,
    we would have had no prayer in that particular state
    we found ourselves in.
    What was special rations?
    Well, just special rations.
    They gave us white bread.
    They gave us more margarine.
    They gave us soup and things of that nature,
    so more than just the normal average sort of person
    would receive.
    And we were sent to the sick barrack.
    And that's where it is.
    But this sick barrack was made up of so many Belgian, French,
    and Dutch.
    And Luxembourgians were there, and Germans,
    and all sorts of-- and Russian prisoner of war was there also,
    a young kid.
    And the interesting thing is that once we were there
    at the mercy of those people in charge
    of that particular part of that barrack, or that barrack,
    was interesting that there was a tremendous-- especially
    among the French, and even the Dutch-- and antisemitism
    was just unbelievable.
    So that was later on.
    Some people still got rations.
    You still could buy for money if you had some.
    Apparently some inmates had money
    and got money sent from their relatives
    from home to buy special rations, which
    you could buy for money.
    And there was one German fellow.
    And he came to me and said, and we started to talk, and said,
    I've got a lot of money.
    I'm going to see to it that part of my money
    is going to be transferred to you,
    and you can buy some provisions.
    And so I was able to--
    at that particular stage, you could buy some--
    I bought some bloodwurst, blood sausage.
    Just from his kindness, he did this.
    Absolutely no reason.
    It was a German inmate.
    And then Czechs came, and then they
    said, what can we do for you?
    We have books.
    We can make some books available.
    And so I got to know many Czech inmates who then after
    would play a very important role, including
    the Archbishop of Prague, a man called Josef Beran,
    and some other dignitary people, important politically
    and otherwise in very important organizations.
    And one of the witnesses at Nuremberg, a surgeon
    called Blaha, who then operated on my frozen feet,
    and he tried to save me as much as he could then.
    And so these sort of things were just you made contacts.
    But in that particular barrack, I
    was-- if people didn't come from outside, those people who
    were actually in charge and all that, really tried to do us in
    more than support us, and called us "juif"
    and this sort of awful stuff.
    And then an interesting point--
    then all the Jews in Dachau were to be sent away.
    Just so they took them out and shipped them already.
    And for some reason or other, they didn't take me.
    Whatever reason, something, what happened.
    I had some people who protected me or whatever,
    I was not shipped.
    Because then they found these people
    killed and all that in boxcars.
    What month are we in at this point?
    We are in--
    About.
    I would say March, March '45.
    Were you the only one to stay behind?
    I don't know.
    I mean, I was the only one who--
    yeah.
    I guess so.
    Then there was an interesting thing.
    Around March, or at some time, they also
    distributed Red Cross parcels.
    Terrific things-- sardines, chocolate, you name it,
    all that.
    I didn't get a single one.
    All of the French, Luxembourgians, the Belgians,
    the Dutch, they got them, for reasons which escape me.
    The Czechs, I don't remember got any.
    I certainly didn't get any.
    And they wouldn't share.
    They gorged themselves.
    Well, there was some justice in their gorging
    because they died, many of them, because they no longer would
    digest this type of rich food.
    That was a very interesting thing.
    Because after we were liberated, I
    had no understanding of that at that particular time
    at all, the cause.
    And so after we liberated, a person
    who just had been promoted to American medical person--
    in uniform, of course--
    just had been promoted to major, and was in charge,
    medically speaking, of the camp, which they had liberated,
    understood that, and therefore rationed our food.
    Which we didn't understand.
    We resented it.
    We've starved under the Nazis, now
    we are starving after liberation,
    under the Americans.
    And that was precisely because he understood that we just
    simply couldn't take it.
    And that saved many people's lives.
    What are the symptoms of eating rich food after you've
    been starving for so long?
    Well, the symptoms were that simply you
    had a terrible case of this dysentery which couldn't
    be stopped and other symptoms.
    Terrible stomach cramps?
    The stomach cramps, whatever, vomiting, whatever.
    And you just simply dissipate, totally dissipate and die.
    Within a very short time.
    It's deadly.
    It's like poison, if you would eat poison.
    Sometimes there's kidney failure because your body
    can't process protein anymore.
    So if you give it too much protein,
    your kidney's going to go.
    OK.
    And so then, again, these two brothers, actually,
    were the lieutenants of this.
    So they came for a visit-- they could move around
    and all that-- and said, here we are.
    We're your buddies.
    I said, some buddies, and just kicked them out.
    I said, I'll have nothing to do with you.
    Bastards.
    And so you developed some sort of situation, relationships.
    And poor Soviet POW escaped.
    And if they escaped, they caught them,
    and they didn't send them again to a prisoner of war camp,
    but they sent them to concentration camps,
    apparently.
    And that's how he wound up in Dachau.
    And the interesting thing is that he told me
    about Soviet camps.
    And said the difference between these camps and Soviet camps--
    which of course I didn't know, because we
    had this very idealistic notion about the Soviet Union.
    It was all BS.
    And so he came for the first time
    and told me about all this.
    Said the difference between it is that there
    is more food in these camps.
    And my god, wide eyed I listened to him.
    I said I didn't know the other camps.
    Nazis learned from the Soviets quite a bit in terms of camps
    and all that, because the Soviets had camps
    before the Nazis came into power.
    Anyway, so poor fellow, he was kind of simple fellow,
    and was starving and all that, and so he
    stole from fellow inmate, food.
    And that was the end of him because they just
    beat him to death.
    So he was not around for a long time.
    Because that was viewed as a capital crime.
    Capital crime.
    So there was, of course, a whole other morality going on.
    Well, yes.
    Yes.
    But the morality of stealing, lying, or cheating authorities,
    that's fine.
    Great.
    Then you're really crafty and you're doing the right thing.
    But if you do that to a fellow inmate
    without having the power to do it,
    that is to say when you're not a inmate functionary, an inmate
    functionary who did it.
    And there are some people I remember,
    even here in San Francisco-- some survivors--
    say, well, I was in a post office, big fellow in the post
    office in Auschwitz, and worked under supervision of an SS.
    And we were in charge of the post office, incoming parcels.
    Because we could get parcels.
    I got, even, parcels to Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    which is just really something unbelievable.
    But we did, yeah.
    And I got from Prague and all that, and some of it
    was partially rotten, but who cared?
    Bread and all stuff, and within all old bread
    there's some other stuff in it, which they-- and I got it.
    I don't know how many I did not get.
    But I got it, you know, actually delivered into the barrack.
    All right.
    So this fellow back in Auschwitz-- it
    was Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    who is here, and who was quite a prominent sort of person,
    just talked to me about he lived in luxury.
    Because before he gave up, when the inmates came
    to pick up the parcels, they had to open it.
    And then those who were in the post office
    just took what they wanted.
    And if they didn't get anything, they took the whole parcel.
    And he said, I had a better life than if I had been outside.
    And he was proud of it.
    And that was the end of our relationship, because I said,
    hey, my god, I don't have anything
    to do with you anymore.
    No part of it.
    Very prominent.
    Very prominently in San Francisco well known.
    So as you say, it was the understandable morality
    of anything against the authorities is OK.
    Yeah.
    But if you were in charge, and if you
    had the power-- if you were a functionary and stole,
    then you could do that with impunity.
    But if you were just a muzhik, just one of the many,
    and did that, it was a capital crime.
    Because you were literally taking another one's life
    by stealing food.
    Yeah.
    But if you were in charge, then you could do it with impunity.
    So obviously when you got to Dachau,
    Dachau had become a collection point
    for all kinds of slave labor, prisoners.
    Yeah, who came in from the East.
    Whoever they shipped, the smaller the Reich became,
    because they encroached upon it from all sides,
    the more they concentrated in the center
    of still Nazi-occupied Germany.
    And so then you got people from all directions.
    Was the news growing as to how the Germans were failing?
    Oh, yeah.
    Yeah.
    Because some of the people also worked in certain situations--
    the air raids, which we've heard.
    And they came back from a slave labor situation, or industry,
    and terribly injured, and rocket things they were involved in,
    and all that.
    And some people came with torn bodies
    and that whole situation, air raids and you name it.
    No, so then, of course, it became obvious,
    because we could hear it all.
    There was no longer some sort of hearsay,
    but we could actually hear the action.
    But still, we had no specific idea.
    And when they came and liberated the camp,
    I was virtually giving myself just about another week,
    if that, before I would have died.
    Because I couldn't see anymore, I
    was virtually blind and all that, couldn't move anymore.
    Couldn't move.
    No.
    No.
    Not off my bunk.
    Not off my bunk.
    And so they came just in time, because I counted the days
    until I would die.
    I was actually in a state of almost virtually coma.
    When was the liberation?
    What was it again?
    28th, 29th of April '45.
    About how much do you think you weighed then?
    I was just a skeleton.
    I mean, skin and bone.
    That's all.
    And I was trying to--
    30, 40 pounds.
    30, 40 pounds?
    He was very skinny in person, anyway.
    30, 40 pounds, though, is the weight of a small child.
    Just the weight of the bones and whatever internal organs.
    That's all.
    And there was nothing, no fat, nothing left.
    Just like you'd see a walking X-ray.
    Well, in my case, I wasn't walking.
    I was a lying X-ray.
    A lying-down X-ray.
    How did the operation on your toes go?
    Well, it was just twice.
    First of all, actually, one of the Dutch people
    who happened to be a butcher, and also very antisemitic.
    So he took me--
    in that particular barrack, there was a bathtub.
    And he took me to the bathtub, and took a knife,
    and just cut off whatever remnants there was.
    And I was shouting and say, hey, you know just come
    and-- because he didn't care.
    He was a sadist.
    And I said, hey, help, whatever I shouted.
    Just come and finish me off.
    And he was mad at me and said, why don't you
    shut up, all this and that, and started just
    cutting off the thing.
    And then some apparently some Czech-- that
    was fairly during the initial stage.
    And then the Czechs became aware of my presence.
    I'm talking particularly about a man called Dr. [? Franz ?]
    Blaha, who then became a friend of mine after the war,
    and had some contact with.
    So they found out about that it's
    a Czech kid in the barrack.
    So they then took and did a proper--
    whatever proper what they had in Dachau-- but that was a proper,
    and it was a surgeon.
    And so he did what he could.
    So I had two things.
    First, this Dutch butcher cut my remnants
    of the toes and all that, blood all over the place,
    in a bathtub.
    And then he took me, and that was so,
    and I have some anesthesia.
    So I mean it just wasn't, you know.
    But that all was infected because they
    didn't have any medication.
    It was all infected and was full of pus, and all that decay,
    whatever, because they couldn't control it.
    They didn't have the medication.
    So that continued, and all they did
    is just paper bandages, made out of just paper.
    And they put it in nothing else.
    And so it was rotten.
    And it was sapping me, my strength.
    And I was in bed.
    That I didn't die of blood poisoning,
    I still don't understand.
    Sepsis, general sort of sepsis, I just don't know.
    Because there was nothing which would have prevented it.
    And the special rations had stopped already, so--
    Oh, they had stopped a long time ago.
    Yeah.
    Because we only had them for about two weeks.
    And what kind of food were you getting in the cells?
    Oh, just nothing, virtually.
    Very little.
    Some bread and watery soup.
    And whenever there was-- that's why I said in bad situation,
    this German inmate just said, well,
    you know they came with a kind of, just like they have
    in some--
    just a small cart with food stuff.
    And they came through all the barracks
    and sold the damn thing.
    You didn't have money, but everyone had an account.
    Those people had accounts.
    They could buy it.
    Didn't give it to you, but you had
    an account actually for money.
    And that's why this German fellow came and said,
    hey, I have--
    and he made arrangements, which was very difficult, and was
    able to do that, because he apparently
    had the proper contacts so that I would have an account, which
    enabled me to buy that food.
    And that's what sustained you.
    Oh, yeah.
    Well, all these sort of situations--
    sporadic situations of support, of
    unsolicited and unexpected support,
    they made all the difference.
    And so they postponed your death, so to speak.
    Do you remember his name?
    He never told you.
    I never had an idea who he was.
    He didn't introduce himself, I'm so-and-so, this and that.
    ?
    Fully kind ?
    There were many other people.
    Actually, the nicest were the Germans.
    Actually the German inmate is much more human, certainly,
    than the Dutch or the French.
    And the French, juif here and there, and it was awful.
    Real bastards, they were, particularly
    in a situation like that.
    And their political thing, I don't know just why it is.
    It's just unbelievable.
    I still have problems with that.
    Well, I don't know if this is the place.
    But the whole question of the hierarchy within the camps,
    within the prisoners themselves.
    That whole question.
    I know you've talked about, at times,
    that the same hierarchy exists.
    Well, yes.
    But I mean, these people didn't-- their power stemmed
    from receiving Red Cross parcels.
    But they didn't have any special functions to speak of,
    these people who are antisemitic,
    or they were just very, very antisemitic
    or espoused some sort of fascistic ideologies.
    They didn't feel compassionate with you, though.
    No, no.
    But they're very compassionate with each other
    and very supportive of each other.
    The various Dutch groups supported each other.
    The Czech support-- except I was the only
    Czech in the barrack at that time-- and the support I got
    was outside of the barrack.
    People happened to find out that I was a fellow Czech there.
    But I was totally ostracized, and I didn't get anything,
    and other people gorged themselves and died
    eating the Red Cross parcels.
    And I didn't get a single thing.
    No one gave me anything.
    There was one person who had some sort of lentils,
    or some sort of dried food, or whatever
    he cooked himself regularly, some sort of food.
    And whatever he had, lentils or whatever he had,
    peas or whatever.
    So he gave me the warm water, which he took out the peas
    and gave me the warm water.
    And that was a big thing.
    And that was the only time I remember.
    And one Dutch-- there were a lot of ministers,
    too, Catholic priests, whatever.
    And one Dutch Protestant minister,
    he was one who actually gave me things from his Red Cross
    parcel, and tended to be concerned, and share
    some extent.
    He was the only one.
    He was a-- and I stayed in touch with him after the war.
    And he continued his studies and was a minister.
    And then he just switched and studied medicine.
    And then he died, died of some disease or whatever.
    But I was in contact with him after the war all the time.
    And he was a person who was an exception,
    and he gave me things, shared and all that,
    and was very concerned and kind.
    But all the other ones-
    What was his name?
    If you think of it later.
    I think something like, started with M--
    Matthias, Martins, something like Matthias.
    Did you ever find out why the Czechs never
    got Red Cross parcels?
    No.
    No, no.
    No, that's something I never, never, never, never did.
    So you were saying you were barely conscious
    at the moment of liberation.
    Can you remember that?
    Oh, yeah, I can remember the liberation
    all right because it came to me as a total surprise.
    I mean, actually, I had given up on me.
    I said, I'm not going--
    I'm just ready to go.
    And although, of course, it was in the end.
    Many people already anticipated.
    But we were not sufficiently well informed.
    We had no specifics, to be sure, except, of course,
    we've heard more and more the noises by virtue of explosions
    and all these sort of war situations.
    So all of the sudden, they came into the barrack,
    and ran through it, and looked at us.
    And all the people in uniform, and then later few--
    after the civilian people, politicians, whatever,
    some people who came, because Dachau
    was a very important place, and high military officers
    and all that.
    So I can remember how they--
    actually, it could have been Eisenhower
    and some other people, too.
    But I just, at that time, I didn't know them.
    I know the high officers, and they just they didn't stop.
    They ran through.
    And some, too, some stuff, some cigarettes and all
    this and that.
    But none of them really stayed.
    They also were horrified that they just ran through it.
    It just was too much for them, for all of them.
    I have some sort of documentary which I've got,
    and I could see Patton and Eisenhower after liberation,
    seeing some camps and you can see that it just kind of--
    And so then we got some Red Cross people in.
    And I remember they said, you have to drink wine.
    So they just gave me wine.
    Drink wine.
    And then--
    You had wine given?
    Yeah, wine.
    They said, you have to drink wine.
    I'll drink wine, OK.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Or maltine and all this sort of thing, or maltine.
    Ovaltine?
    Ovaltine, yeah.
    The chocolate.
    Yeah, and these sort of things.
    And so that was distributed by Red Cross people.
    And then the Americans gave us some rations and all that.
    And then the medical people came and looked at us.
    And then I found out that I had a case of active tuberculosis,
    and X-rays, and all that.
    So we had people with tuberculosis.
    They had to have some special designation.
    And at that time, tuberculosis was just
    treated like, comparatively speaking, like AIDS today.
    And so you're a leper, leper because it's contagious.
    And so I was very upset because they still used me
    as interpreter, you see.
    I was an interpreter.
    And they said, well, you know you can't really continue.
    You shouldn't because of this and that.
    And you've got that.
    So our beds, they had designation
    and some sort of red ribbon.
    And I think we also had to just--
    anyway.
    So there was obviously no treatment.
    And the food was so that we wouldn't die,
    so that it was meaningful.
    And I stayed many weeks before I actually
    could be moved back and repatriated to Czechoslovakia,
    which I was only back in--
    what was it?
    June or July, actually, after April.
    What was your feelings when liberation finally came?
    Well, I don't know.
    I was in such a state that it just didn't move me that much.
    I mean, I was relieved.
    Perhaps that's maybe the best way to put it.
    But there was no ecstatic joy which
    I felt, because I was not capable of it
    in the state I was in.
    May I ask how old you were when the liberation happened?
    How old you were?
    18.
    Wow.
    So that's-- of course, later on, somehow,
    I fell into this sort of situation, a novel situation.
    And when I started to move about,
    then I was this interpreter, looked around, and went
    into surrounding bases to explore and see what
    I could find, and all that.
    Went into SS houses, which were the house,
    just looked for things, and searched, and was interested,
    and talked, and made friends.
    Well, what kind of things were you looking for?
    Anything.
    I was always interested, whatever they have.
    I found a number of things, and books, and Nazi stuff,
    and all that.
    And yes, and then of course Dachau
    was also one of the major warehouses for SS things,
    weaponry and all that.
    And that was guarded by GIs.
    And so I went inside.
    And they said, you really should get out.
    You shouldn't be here.
    Well, who cares.
    Some people took out things, and they played with it,
    and killed themselves, because there were explosives,
    which they were very, very intensive, very
    high-charged things.
    And so some of them killed themselves playing with that.
    And after that, they became very strict
    so that we were not supposed to go in there anymore.
    But it still could be done.
    And then you had different responses from the GIs.
    They said, well, can we do anything?
    And I said, I'd like to have something to read.
    That was very important.
    So they brought me something to read.
    And they're supposed to not really communicate openly
    with the inmates, the American personnel,
    for some reason, some of them.
    So some of the communication took place in toilets.
    And then they started to talk to them about anything,
    you know, talk to me, which was very strange.
    And then there was a sergeant I remember.
    And he enjoyed teasing inmates.
    And so he had these cigars made out of rubber and chocolate
    and which squeezed, and it squirted, and all this.
    And people are starved, and their disappointment
    was much more than under normal circumstances.
    And he got a charge out of it.
    He just really enjoyed that, fooling inmates,
    and then were terribly disappointed,
    fooling them and all this.
    Really cruel, you know.
    And another one said, I'd like to do a favor for you.
    So he came and took me out in some sort of--
    and there are some cubbyholes with doors
    and all that sort of thing.
    And then he took his machine gun and sprayed it, and said,
    I've killed a few SS people for you.
    Because they're locked up in there.
    Sprayed it.
    And he just thought he was doing me a favor or something.
    I was not into it.
    Was it true that they were SS?
    Oh, yeah.
    And I said that after the war.
    I've had interviews, reporters came, and I said that and said,
    well, we're not going to print that.
    It's not a popular thing.
    We won't print it.
    You see that already sanctioned things, already started.
    And these are some important things, actually.
    Then after a while, that is after about over one month
    or something like-- not even that, then they
    moved out, because there was still war with Japan.
    And they needed personnel, army personnel so they moved them
    out or elsewhere, whatever, for occupation purposes, anyway.
    So they moved out, eventually, all American personnel,
    with very few exceptions who were in charge,
    and brought in German prisoner of war
    and put them in charge of us who stayed there.
    And that was the last straw.
    And I had tremendous problems with it.
    And I fought it tooth and nail.
    But they were officially put in charge--
    and just unbelievable-- to save American personnel, which
    I can understand.
    But this sort of boo-boo, to put in German prisoners of war
    in charge of liberated inmates.
    And that was simply because I was still there
    and in a state of health where they
    felt that I needed to stay there before they could ship me.
    And then finally I was shipped and all that.
    How were you able to get around?
    Were you able to walk?
    Oh, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    Because eventually I could walk.
    I didn't walk quite normal.
    I just kind of hobbled around.
    But I did.
    And then it improved, and the healing
    was relatively fast because I got medical attention.
    And nutrition improved, so that I mended fairly quickly.
    Your vision came back?
    Oh, everything.
    That was very fast.
    Yeah.
    Yeah, that came back, and then I could move and all this.
    Were you suffering other things, like nightmares, or--
    Well, not so much in the camp.
    But then later on, after liberation,
    quite a few years afterward.
    Then particularly in connection with the fact
    that we were supposed to meet all in Prague again,
    and we discussed that in camps, that should we be separated,
    which we were-- my mother stayed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And I didn't want to accept the fact that the chances were,
    you know.
    Although I didn't have any great illusions about it.
    But still, my hopes were very high
    that she would have survived and that we all would meet,
    my father would meet.
    And we did-- my father met.
    He was already, of course, in Prague
    long before I did because he was liberated virtually days
    after I left Blechhammer.
    But my mother, of course, I expected.
    So we just went back in Prague.
    And that is something which I should-- because they
    brought me to Pilsen.
    And an American personnel in an American lorry
    open kind of brought me to Pilsen.
    And then I was given some sort of paper or something,
    so that I was still in my striped pajamas.
    And so from Pilsen-- and oh, that's something.
    Then we were in this open lorry coming back from Germany,
    and there's some Czech woman or something.
    And her response to when we were just driving by,
    said, oh, well, you shouldn't have come.
    We don't want you back in this state.
    We don't-- some terrible stuff.
    And so then railway wagons went just from Pilsen
    to Prague, which is not too large or too great a distance,
    so there was no great support or something.
    And then I went back to the house,
    which was very close to the main railway station.
    Very close.
    I wanted to go back and see our apartment in the house, one
    of the major streets.
    And of all the places, this was hit by--
    during an air raid and destroyed.
    So I had no place to go.
    So I went back to the railway station and slept on a bench
    up there until the next day.
    It was terrible.
    Yes.
    In your pajamas, in Prague.
    And no great support, nothing, you know?
    And some of the dreadful disappointments,
    what we did very frequently is some valuables
    that you gave to friends.
    And then I went to some of the friends, and here I am.
    And they looked at me, disappointed,
    and said, well, I guess you want your things.
    And had we known that you would be back again and asking
    for the things, we wouldn't have taken them to begin with.
    Hm.
    To hear this sort of thing was not exactly very encouraging.
    And some other people were very nice and gave me shelter.
    But the reception was muted.
    Was not exactly open arms thing.
    Bad conscience, didn't know what burden after the war
    and all this sort of thing.
    And I didn't particularly feel that the reception
    was a very warm welcome.
    Sounds like it.
    And although people, when you talk to them now,
    they just see that in a light which they have adjusted
    to the morality and whatever that things
    they wouldn't like to see.
    When was it that you got back to Prague?
    Well, it must have been sometime in July.
    I forget.
    I don't know the dates.
    Up to that point, where it just something which
    you didn't register at all, or very rarely, even then.
    What did you do after you spent the night in the railroad
    station?
    Well, I went to various people whom I knew
    were there and were friends.
    And they then gave me shelter.
    And I went to some people I knew and who relatives,
    tried to find-- none.
    But then they told me, your father is back.
    And that, of course, was a great thing
    because we understood each other.
    As a matter of fact, our relationship
    between my father and myself was the best
    in the camp for some reason or another.
    Because prior to that and after that,
    it was very rocky for some reason or another.
    Differences, whatever, personality conflicts.
    And so of course I was overjoyed.
    And he already had pretty much, because he
    had been back for such a long time, he had adjusted more.
    But still, the interesting thing is whenever we just--
    after losing our people, friends took care and just supported
    and all that.
    That took place, but there was no great enthusiasm.
    Looking back at it, I didn't particularly
    experience great enthusiasm on their part
    for us having survived and returned.
    And so then we adjusted gradually
    and did a lot of things.
    And the first thing I did is just
    help some of my German friends who were now
    in the same situation we were in,
    or similar situation because they were persecuted
    and all that.
    And people were decent people who
    also were very supportive of us when we were in there.
    So that was one of the first things I did, just
    helped those to get them out of jams, and prisons,
    and camps, concentration camps, and being supportive-- jails.
    And I did that.
    And that was one of my first things I did.
    Were you staying with your father?
    Well, no.
    Actually, he stayed-- you know, my father
    was quite a ladies' man.
    A womanizer.
    So he just stayed with some sort of friends,
    and all these ladies, and who took care,
    and all this and that.
    So I didn't exactly fit into his amorous sort of situations.
    [LAUGHTER]
    So later on when he then established, he made a choice
    and stayed with one person, then she reluctantly
    also took care of me.
    But very reluctantly, because I was not her choice.
    She was more interested in my father,
    and I was kind of a burden to her.
    And she kept on telling me, I'm doing
    this for you and you should be grateful,
    and [KISSING SOUND] and all this and that.
    And I was not really up to it.
    But we didn't exactly--
    she was very cold faced.
    She had sex appeal, but otherwise she was a cold fish.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And so we just didn't get along too well.
    We didn't have much in common.
    And the only thing is she kept on telling me,
    how much I do for you, I cook for you, and all this.
    So she expected me to kiss her feet, which I didn't.
    And she never forgave me for that I had not kissed her feet.
    Why do you think your relationship
    with your father changed after you had been so close?
    Well, because he was pretty authoritarian, and very
    impulsive, and impatient.
    And he was right, and all the other people were wrong.
    And if they didn't agree with him, they were just bad,
    and lost souls, or whatever.
    And I simply didn't feel that I agreed with him, because I just
    simply didn't submit.
    And we had a conflict all the time.
    He said, you shouldn't study.
    You should go and learn something
    and get into something where you can earn
    a lot of money and all that.
    And I was interested in catching up and finishing Gymnasium ,
    things so that I possibly could study it and all that.
    I was very interested in that.
    Why don't you waste your time, you're stupid, anyway.
    You're not very intelligent to begin with.
    But I didn't let myself be influenced.
    But these were some of the conflicts we've had.
    And I persevered, and I just went through all that.
    And then, of course, he was always very proud when I did
    exactly, and achieved, attained exactly what he had told me I
    couldn't.
    So then he just was very proud, tell all the people, my son,
    and all this and that.
    But when I then said, I'm going to get a doctorate,
    he said, oh, come on.
    This was a bad joke, and never should study.
    So that was the bone of contention,
    which continued until his very death, which only was different
    in the camps, where we cooperated
    in a very harmonious and very strange sort of situation.
    With my mother, it was very different.
    Because my mother was-- we were so close
    that we virtually didn't have to talk.
    We just looked at each other and we knew what we thought.
    Talk about black humor.
    Yeah.
    People, I think, the tendency is for people
    who have survived traumatic, very difficult,
    situations may develop this type of humor
    where they look back in some sort of way,
    in a way which we'll see also the irony, the humorous aspects
    of tragedy.
    And I think that certainly is not
    something necessarily limited to Jews
    but limited to people who have gone through hell
    and survived it and look at it back
    and see some of the [SNEEZES] humorous
    things which certainly have escaped them while they
    are suffering through that.
    But after the fact, I think, one can develop--
    and that has something to do with some sort of a detachment
    and some sort of a distance from the actual suffering.
    I mean, you do that, also, when you go through a bad marriage.
    You know, when you go through a bad marriage, my god,
    you know, you think you're just going to suffocate,
    and it's a killer.
    And once you get through that, and you look back
    at these sort of things, you just see some of the humor--
    black humor-- in these dreadful situations and the comedy,
    human comedy, in the sort of things which
    were a killer at that time.
    But you're out of it now, and you see it from a distance,
    from a different perspective.
    Also, the ridiculous comes forth.
    And that is, I think, an art which
    needs to be developed by people who are indeed,
    in the real sense of the word, survivors.
    Because if they're don't, they're not survivors.
    The chances are they may commit suicide.
    It is a real art of, in the best sense of the word,
    defending themselves.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Because, you see, some of us, and many of us-- and more will,
    in the future, the chances are--
    live lives where life is just nothing else but a struggle
    and defending oneself from aggressive forces
    of others or situations.
    And it's a dreadful thing.
    And if you can't find some sense of humor in the whole thing,
    you bury yourself.
    I'm thinking now of how you ended
    your writings, in which you said you felt that you had been--
    I'm not saying the exact words-- robbed of a certain capacity
    of happiness.
    [SIGHS]
    All right.
    I think that's a very important and profound,
    stimulating question, in a way, stimulating a lot of responses
    and a lot of thoughts and feelings, to be sure.
    Depending on the age of a person who survived and on the family
    situation, in terms of the loss of family,
    there is virtually anything which
    you can somehow overcome and transcend emotionally,
    psychologically.
    But one thing I have not is the loss of a extended family which
    functioned well.
    That is something which I have not been
    able to come to terms with.
    Now, those people lucky enough who
    have found some sort of a substitute family
    by virtue of having created it themselves, for themselves,
    are in a very different position.
    But those of us who really had been spoiled,
    as far as extended family and immediate family,
    close family members concerned, and have not found anything
    which would come close in terms of family relations which they
    may have created for themselves afterwards will find that this
    is the most difficult and tragic predicament and cannot easily,
    if at all, be overcome.
    And that is something which I still suffer from.
    Because the loss was too great.
    And what I got afterwards was not
    enough to compensate the loss.
    And I would say that's the tragedy of my life.
    And very frequently, I reflect on that
    and still decry the loss and what I don't have
    and what I used to have, this sort of thing.
    Now, if people, for example, didn't
    have anything which provides a meaningful and satisfying frame
    of reference to which they could refer
    or associate with later on in life,
    then they've got a different situation.
    But if you've had something which I consider to be,
    at least to me, a next-to-ideal situation, then I
    think the loss is more profound.
    And especially if you're not lucky to have encountered
    people who would have filled that gap,
    you are in a bad situation.
    So some losses are just never gotten over.
    No, no.
    To me, that is the, perhaps, most serious
    of it all, particularly when you were young
    and when you were not ready to lose that family
    emotional cycle emotionally, when indeed you were not
    in a position where, under normal circumstances,
    developmental circumstances, your umbilical cord is cut
    and when you're not ready for it.
    I certainly wasn't ready.
    And for years, I woke up at night.
    I wept because of the losses, primarily
    because the loss of my mother, who was the closest
    thing I've ever had in my life.
    And I never could come to terms with that.
    It's still something which is churning in me all the time--
    all the time.
    I think it's one of the problems of my generation-- that
    is to say, generation of survivors.
    The ones who were older, perhaps,
    may have been slightly different,
    although there was no systematic study on that at all.
    I mean, so little has been done-- a lot of talk
    and a lot of horror stories.
    And it's understandable, and people need
    to get it out of their system.
    But so little interpretation, so little interpretation.
    And if you look at all the things
    which you are generating in your project
    and to what extent it's going to be interpreted, who
    is going to interpret it, it seems to me
    that how fruitful is it, really, if it is not interpreted?
    Because people are getting saturated with horror stories
    and somehow calloused.
    And so where does it get us?
    And I don't think it does get us very far, just listening
    to this dreadfulness, ghastliness,
    if we don't have a key to understanding
    and overcoming and preventing.
    And that, to me, is what really motivated ,
    me after I was no longer in a position to continue my medical
    studies back in Prague, when I just was able to do that
    and starting it.
    I said, well, the next best thing
    is, when I was in Australia and then in the United States
    and, well, I don't know, in Germany and all that, I said,
    the next best thing is to study a discipline
    in the social sciences which will enable
    me to better understand what happened and how it happens
    and what can be done to prevent it.
    Because if I don't do it, I have wasted my life.
    What have I learned?
    And so many people just simply get
    lost and get suffocated or drown in their suffering
    without really getting out of it to see what can be learned.
    And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
    And that is why I felt obligated--
    and I mean obligated, particularly towards those
    who have not survived.
    And people who would have indeed closed
    that gap which has been created by the loss of family--
    my cousin, my friends, people who
    were, in their way, geniuses, musicians, artists,
    people of my generation, slightly older--
    who would have been ideal companions and friends.
    And that's what I said, with a great deal of trepidation,
    and that's my reflected opinion, that the best of us have died,
    have not survived, and that we are the ones who survived
    are not the best material of that particular group of people
    who went through hell.
    I was very fortunate, particularly in Theresienstadt
    but even in Auschwitz, but primarily in Theresienstadt,
    to meet with people who were extraordinary in so many ways--
    talented, gifted, in music, intellectually, scientists,
    human beings with tremendous humanity.
    Not a single one-- not a single one-- has survived.
    None of my friends whom I've been closest to,
    not a single one has survived.
    So besides the enormous loss of your mother,
    the mass of the loss of so many people
    you cared for has been too much.
    Right-- overwhelmed me.
    And then, of course, you look at those people
    who you have put on the pedestal, rightly or wrongly--
    I don't think wrongly, but I think rightly.
    Because really, with some sort of distance,
    I don't think I project some sort of things
    because I still have some of their products--
    poems, writings, thoughts still available, and music.
    And if you just look at it all and see who of these people
    created all this under those unbelievable circumstances
    have survived, you don't find any, hardly any.
    I haven't.
    Not in my environment, I haven't.
    I'm sure there may be some.
    But none in my environment.
    And that makes it very difficult now.
    And there is no substitute for that.
    So I mean, there are so many things which can be mended.
    And this is precisely something which
    I think is very important for me because I haven't come up
    with an answer.
    I haven't seen how these sort of thing-- yet if you're lucky,
    if you really meet people, who would be on a similar level
    of humanity and sophistication, if you will,
    human accomplishment, whatever--
    talent-- then I think you are in a very fortunate position.
    But I have not come across anything which
    would come close, actually.
    And I feel deprived.
    And I feel very lonely because of that.
    Yes.
    Do you think, saying that, if you would meet someone
    like that, the mere fact that you
    have been through your experiences in the camps
    has made such a dent in your life
    that true intimacy might not be possible, anyway?
    I don't know.
    It's a very complex--
    very complex-- problem.
    And I would say that in this regard,
    I am not that pessimistic.
    I think it is possible.
    But the chances which may come along your way
    are remote, that you would find people.
    There's no question that you can.
    And I think you can relate, and you can express,
    even though you may find people who
    may have had a very different type of experience,
    certainly very different from the one which one had
    when one survived the camps.
    I still think you can develop relationships
    which will be meaningful and profound and deep.
    But to find people who will fit this sort of requirement
    or, if you will, this sort of situation,
    no, hope are remote, unless you're lucky,
    and you just stumble across it, and you'll
    see people here or there.
    But in my life, there is some few, yeah.
    And either they are not accessible
    or they are different life situation.
    You just, simply, there is not enough of what
    you need to heal for such an encounter and all that.
    So some just pass you by, so to speak.
    It's very difficult. It's a question
    of tremendous fortune and luck.
    As you said, some of these elements were talked about,
    might have been studied and haven't.
    But what thoughts do you have about not only
    you, in particular, but anyone who
    went through that experience and how
    your own psyche and emotions were eroded
    or you had to be so guarded that it affects you ever after?
    Well, I don't know whether one can come out
    with any sort of generalization.
    I think that's pretty much--
    I guess the response would be, from case to case,
    different, probably.
    But obviously, people who have been hurt a great deal,
    in, particularly, the most sensitive areas, we all
    want to prevent any sort of hurt to recur
    and, therefore, will be guarded.
    That's, most likely, the tendency.
    And what I've found out, that, in very many situations, people
    who may have had a glimpse of the way
    you function and discovered your sensitivities,
    instead of really being sympathetic or empathetic,
    may actually use it to lash out and hurt you.
    Because they know that you are vulnerable, rather than
    and hey, you know, I'm going to be loving,
    or I'm going to be supportive, or I'm
    going to be this and that, which will compensate for that.
    Most of the people are either so callous that they don't
    give a damn, one, or, two, they will exploit that situation
    and turn it against you when it suits them.
    The cruelty, the amount of cruelty,
    I've experienced in people where you disclosed yourself,
    just opened up, and how they took advantage of these things
    and just to really stab you in the areas which still have not
    healed, which still are bleeding, is just enormous.
    And I've got problems with that, problems with that,
    understand that people can be, actually, so cruel--
    understanding that you're vulnerable in these areas.
    And that has happened, yes.
    And that, of course, teaches you a few lessons.
    And you know, I'm in no position to expose myself
    to this sort of continuous hurt, you know?
    And I've had my share.
    Therefore, I won't expose myself.
    But that's a tremendous problem.
    Because if you don't expose yourself--
    and that's something which I wrote, I don't know,
    kind of thought in all of my writings is to be related.
    And if you're not willing to relate, you won't be.
    And that's all about it.
    And so, therefore, you just can't avoid it.
    Because if you avoid it, you're not going to relate.
    You're just going to never have an intimate relationship
    and, therefore, not be satisfied in those areas which we need
    to be satisfied most, emotionally
    and psychologically, sexually, whatever.
    And so, therefore, it's a self-defeating sort
    of situation.
    And we have to open up and take the risk.
    And that's what I have to do, except I'm a little bit,
    hopefully, more prudent because you
    learn to whom you will expose yourself and to whom not.
    But that's not very easy.
    Because people in different situations
    behave differently and are, in so many ways, unpredictable.
    So it's very difficult to assess the situation accurately
    and say, hey, you know, I'm going
    to open up to this person.
    And I've opened up to the wrong people very frequently.
    I say, hey, you know, what have I
    learned in terms of human knowledge,
    in terms of assessing people correctly?
    And god, you know, and mistakes I've made
    is just inexcusable, almost.
    And so there, you become very cautious, yes.
    And that is something, perhaps, which I think
    is very important to discuss.
    Because I don't think many people you
    interview will come and talk about these things,
    will go into this sort of depth.
    Because so many people who are survivors survived,
    but they are walking in the mist.
    They have not walked out of the mist
    and still in a fog-- fogged in.
    And their level of consciousness is minimal.
    These are very difficult subjects to talk about.
    That's right.
    But I think it has to be.
    It has to be.
    Because otherwise, as I said before, if we can't learn
    from this, you know, forget it.
    So that's that.
    If we can't learn from that, what will we learn from?
    And most of the people I know just simply don't see.
    They don't even understand what we are trying to do,
    some of us, let's say, in the Center and all that.
    They're just totally blind, just not the slightest inkling.
    They're into it and all the talk-- blah, blah, blah,
    all that, and all this whole thing, but absolutely not
    understood what it's all about.
    And that's very discouraging, at times-- very discouraging.
    It sounds to me that, despite that, there
    was optimism in you.
    You believed that one can learn, one can analyze,
    and one can apply.
    Yeah.
    Because that's talking about meaning and Victor Frankl
    and all this and that if you don't find meaning in life,
    forget it because it's hopeless.
    And many people can't.
    And it's difficult to find meaning.
    I'm not trying to oversimplify that, at all.
    No, it's a struggle.
    Oh, it's a terrible struggle.
    And it's not something which you have once you have found it.
    It's something which you have to rediscover and work
    on all the time, just like you have to
    with human relationships.
    You just can't, I have it and then let it go and move.
    No.
    I mean, you have to work at it every day.
    And if you don't, it's going to fall apart.
    So there's no absolute meaning.
    No, no, absolutely not.
    Because absolute meaning is Hitler.
    That's absolute meaning.
    And some bloody chauvinist Jews--
    fascists-- or any sort of doctrinaire ideologues,
    absolutist ideologues.
    And no way.
    So, I mean, we learn.
    And if we just don't remain open and change perspectives
    as we continue to learn, I mean, we
    are doomed to be rigid and insensitive.
    Now, also, in terms of problems, in terms of human relations
    and encounters, some few months ago,
    I've had an interview with one of the local papers.
    And a fairly sensitive interview with an older lady
    and all that--
    fairly sensitive and relatively sophisticated.
    And some of the characteristics which
    she described as an individual and all that,
    said conclusions that I have no aptitude for small talk.
    Now, that was very important.
    And some people who know me picked it up.
    Because if you remain on the level of small talk,
    you're not going to be able to explore any depth,
    meaning, all the things we discussed.
    Because that's not accessible.
    It's not in it.
    And because you're surrounded by people who lose themselves
    in meaningless talk, it's very difficult
    to find a partner with whom you can really
    talk things and discuss them in depth.
    And that's, again, one of my problems.
    Because I don't find these people very easily.
    They're just very few in between.
    And therefore, if you don't have anything in common
    and if these people view life, or go through life,
    in this sort of haphazard, fogged-in, superficial fashion,
    there's not much left in terms of human relationships.
    And I think that's one of the things which
    are very important in human relationships in general terms.
    Because people may develop in different ways.
    And if, somehow, they don't keep up pace together,
    they will fall behind each other to the extent
    that they become estranged from each other
    and have found out that they will
    be left empty-handed and dissatisfied
    simply because they no longer satisfy each other's needs.
    Because needs have changed.
    This is true.
    Well, and that's the tragedy.
    So I mean, it's one thing which I see in this society,
    that it's very easy to be friendly
    and all that on a superficial level.
    But once it gets into the nitty-gritty,
    then people get scared and shy away from it
    and are unable to really explore it any further.
    And then that threatens the hell out of them.
    And then, now you are left with nothing, with just yourself.
    And that's something which I am in a process of learning.
    I haven't learned at all.
    But learn to live by yourself and satisfy your own needs,
    as well as you can, which is a dreadful predicament.
    Yes because the loneliness--
    That's right.
    --is there, too.
    That's right.
    Because you can see, hey, doesn't get me any place.
    So you may be surrounded by people
    but feel a profound loneliness.
    So you struggle on, day by day.
    Yeah, I think you can say that, mm-hmm, very much so.
    So that's why I can empathize with just--
    I've had, still, something I'm pondering about.
    We've had one of our last encounters
    in terms of our Center activity.
    It was a lecture by Bruno Bettelheim.
    And I had a occasion to talk to him.
    And he pretty much expressed similar things from his point
    of view, this unbelievable loneliness, where
    he had a family, a wife whom he was
    close to, but his children totally removed, far removed,
    nothing very much in common, and this dreadful loneliness,
    and his physical condition and all that,
    and no one to talk to, and going around
    to give tremendous, fantastic lectures
    but not being able to heal himself, in a way,
    by virtue of the fact that he didn't have anyone
    to help him very much.
    And some of the things he told me, you know,
    it's just really terrible.
    You wouldn't believe, the fact that,
    in spite of as well-known as he was, he was
    a very lonely person, deserted.
    And then all the physical problems
    he had because of old age and deterioration
    and all, which then put in a position
    where he felt he couldn't get out of it with all
    his knowledge and all that.
    But to commit suicide is just terrible thing.
    But I have great understanding for it.
    Because I think about some of these things except I
    don't particularly feel that I can do it.
    Because all of the things which I'm trying to develop and stand
    for would be destroyed.
    Because I would set a precedent which
    would eradicate all the things which I'm trying
    to constructively build up.
    So it's not a solution.
    So I suffer and say people afraid of death.
    As a matter of fact, I'm not so sure that they should be
    or they need to be because there are worse things than death,
    maybe--
    maybe.
    Had you thought often of suicide?
    Well, I mean, I certainly toyed with the idea, absolutely.
    But you hang on.
    You feel it would deny everything
    that you have worked for.
    That's right.
    That's exactly right.
    And that may--
    I wouldn't say how I'll feel tomorrow.
    But no, I don't particularly think
    it's a constructive solution, you see.
    I don't.
    But I have understanding for it, and I would never
    condemn anyone who do it, particularly
    in a justified situation.
    I think there are certain limits, you know, why you do it
    and all that.
    But I mean, this is just up to the individual difference,
    you see.
    I mean, you just can't--
    but I certainly have understanding for it.
    I just really do relate to that as some sort of a solution.
    But I don't condone it, and I don't
    think this is a constructive alternative.
    And that's why I feel it's a tragedy in terms
    of Bruno Bettelheim.
    It's a tragedy that a person who was a significant other to so
    many, a role model to so many people,
    finds himself in a situation where
    this is the only solution, apparently, to him,
    though, it's the only solution.
    Otherwise, he would have probably not done it.
    So then, there's the question of how, not only to live,
    on the one hand, a hair above desperation
    but how to live a life that has some riches in it.
    Right.
    You know, the riches, I think, more and more, I
    think, particularly in our situation,
    where this reality has changed very much from reality,
    let's say, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.
    If you don't find the riches yourself,
    the chances are not many people will help you to find them.
    And that's a terrible thing, you know.
    It makes you a very isolated sort of individual.
    There's no question about the riches.
    But I think people have become less
    and less able to find them and help each other to find them.
    They make it more difficult for each other, if anything.
    How so?
    Put such big roadblocks in your way to find them.
    And that's terrible.
    Because I think we live in a much worse world
    than the one which I experienced when I was a child, in terms
    of precisely this sort of thing, how people support each other
    and satisfy each other's needs and develop
    this sort of concern for each other
    and the compassion and the affection.
    And I don't see it very much in this world--
    less and less in this nightmarish technology
    in which we spend more time and concern--
    I see that with my son--
    with things, with things, rather than with human beings.
    How did you begin to put your life back together again
    in Prague after the war?
    There, I'm sure you must have been
    devastated with the loss of your mother
    and compounded with the correct with your father,
    after that good relationship, your own health problems.
    Well, what my priority at that particular time
    was just to catch up in my education and what I missed.
    That was, to me, very important.
    That was a priority, a long stretch and priority.
    And so I concentrated on that against all the various odds.
    Because I had to work.
    There was no money left, nothing there.
    And I had to work.
    And I worked for the United Nations Relief
    and Rehabilitation, which was the Czech part of it.
    And that was a very good job and all that.
    Simultaneously, I just wanted to catch up
    so that I could finish my, whatever, gymnasium
    and all that.
    And I had to do that during the night.
    And since we were fed, and I, at the time, I had tuberculosis.
    I had lots of handicaps, and psychologically and
    of emotional nature, whatever.
    But I willed it.
    I said, that's a very important thing which
    I need to accomplish in order to function
    and in order to be useful and be creative in some way
    or another.
    And instead of, in spite of, the fact that my father
    dissuaded me and all that--
    what I've said already and said you should do something else,
    and you're not intelligent enough, and all that and that--
    I just decided that I wanted to pursue that.
    And I've done it and then got active very much
    into the political life--
    very, very active and certainly I would call it
    not just someone who sits back, but I was an activist by,
    certainly, the real sense of the definition.
    And then the communist situation came, the threat.
    And I tried to oppose it and do everything else,
    was arrested, and was, for a few days, in jail
    and beat up by communist officials.
    And then just had just a hell of a time.
    But things I responded to just took up a shape, you know.
    And that was something concrete I could respond to and work
    with, or work against.
    And so that's what I did.
    Then, finally, I decided that I'm not
    going to go through hell again, and one totalitarian regime
    was enough.
    And I could not prevail.
    So I talked to one people about this sort of predicament.
    And this one happened to be also a person I knew before the war
    and also was in Dachau.
    And he was then archbishop of Prague,
    called Josef Beran whom I respected very much because
    of his humanity, not necessarily because of his Catholicism
    or whatever.
    He was a mensch, you know, and a very, very important one, role
    model.
    He behaved-- he stood up to the Nazis,
    stood up to the communists.
    And he was just a very unusual human being,
    precisely the type of human being
    you want to encounter you have a need for.
    So I went to his palace there, archbishop in Prague, and said,
    here I am, brother.
    You know, brother-- we are brothers because we all called
    ourselves brothers--
    survivors, inmates, former inmates or brothers.
    Well, I said, brother Joseph or Baron, whatever I said,
    I'm here just to discuss something very important.
    I don't want to skip the country because
    of some sort of cowardice and all that,
    but I think there's nothing I can change here.
    I know there's only going to suffer,
    and I don't want to go through the whole thing, I said.
    And he said, no, leave.
    Go with my blessing.
    Want to leave?
    OK.
    And then he gave me an address and safekeeping,
    and addresses in Italy because I was
    going by Italy and all that, which was exceedingly helpful.
    I mean, I had tremendous support from a mixed marriage situation
    where wife was a Czech, and he was Italian.
    And he happened to be a colonel in the Italian military.
    What do you call it?
    The Special Guard.
    And so they really were exceedingly supportive.
    They housed me, and they helped me
    and helped me to get the boat which
    I was to catch because that was paid from the United
    States, a trip to Australia.
    But what was that arrangement?
    Oh, well, these were distant relatives
    who happened to be-- well, distant, not so distant
    actually, not distant, really, cousins, second cousins.
    And they were-- the Jewish name was Petschek actually,
    the Petschek who supported Hilberg's study,
    for all practical purposes.
    They were all related to one clan.
    And so this [INAUDIBLE] Petschek was born pauper and was
    a cousin of my mother's.
    And they're the richest people in Czechoslovakia,
    or one of the richest, if not the richest.
    And so they left in time, of course,
    as most of the rich people did.
    Because they had different opportunities
    and information and all that.
    And many of these people were very close
    in terms of network and family relations.
    So they left in time, before that, and with, obviously,
    a great deal of loss but still enough
    to live terrific lives here.
    So we approached them, and they paid $1,000 first class cabin
    fair from Geneva to Australia.
    And I didn't have a handkerchief,
    but I had a first class ticket.
    Did you have to go to Australia, or you
    didn't care where you went?
    Well, no, you see, first of all, my first choice was, of course,
    the United States.
    But I mean, it was a very long waiting time
    because of the quotas.
    And the Czech quota that was not very
    high at that particular time.
    And so I couldn't.
    I couldn't get a visa.
    So I had relatives, close relatives--
    my mother's sister and my cousin, first cousin--
    lived in Australia and got there via England
    because they left after the Anschluss of Austria.
    Because they were Austrians.
    And so I met them.
    And prior to that, I had a great, great uncle
    who was a black sheep.
    And he started a family there in Melbourne
    because he had some sort of-- he was a womanizer, did
    some things which the family didn't, apparently, approve of,
    morally and otherwise.
    So they shipped him to Australia,
    which is the best thing they could have done to him,
    you know.
    [LAUGHS]
    And he instead of just starting a dreadful family back up there
    in Prague, which was doomed, you know, little did they know.
    And so they just punished him, which
    happened to be the best thing they could have done for him,
    just to really reward him.
    And so the punishment turned out to be a reward.
    And he married a Scottish lady and started the first biscuit
    factory in Melbourne--
    [LAUGHTER]
    --and had a ball, see?
    And so these people are there.
    And so that was the logical place to go,
    and I just did, which was a good thing.
    And I've learned a lot.
    Maybe I should have stayed there.
    Did you have any other emotional support, or people support,
    back in Prague besides--
    this archbishop helped you out.
    But who was your sustenance?
    Oh, yeah.
    Well, I had some people whom I knew since childhood,
    and some of the people who were some sort of mentors.
    And so I had some people then, yeah.
    I had some people there who were very supportive but very
    cautious, you know.
    And they themselves were under pressure because some of them
    were partially German and had to leave, got kicked out,
    and had to leave Czechoslovakia because of that.
    And some other people were very provincial
    in some of their perspectives but very, very good people,
    too.
    And some other people were just playmates
    of mine, childhood playmates, and then
    had developed in different directions, which may or may
    not have much in common.
    Then, of course, politics entered the picture.
    And many of the people then became
    communists, which, from the very beginning,
    I could see that's the lesson I've
    learned from Dachau, from this poor fellow who was beaten,
    beaten to death.
    So I said, hey, what do they have there?
    And he told me about-- he was the first to really expose me
    to the realities--
    I mean, not expose me, just simply explain the realities
    to me as they existed in the Soviet Union.
    And so that, to me, was very clear from the very beginning
    that this was another type of absolutist ideology
    with consequences which were exceedingly similar to those
    I had just survived.
    So I fought it teeth and nose and just risked my life
    and did a lot of things which other people wouldn't have.
    But at that point, I felt that, by virtue of being a survivor,
    I have tremendous obligations.
    And I just simply cannot permit myself to make similar
    mistakes, existentially and politically,
    than those my parents may have made.
    And also, my parents actually were not to blame.
    Because I was to be shipped to England.
    And I've mentioned that already in the previous interview.
    So they really tried to be very responsible
    and saw the writing on the wall.
    But somehow, it was limited to me rather than the entire clan.
    And they had enough money, but they just, simply, some of them
    didn't want to part with some of the real estate
    and some of the things which were
    home and all this and that.
    Because they said, we haven't done anything.
    We are guilty of nothing.
    How much can really happen?
    And there is not that much which can happen to us because we
    haven't done anything.
    We are innocent.
    And that was a dreadful mistake but understandable.
    Many people don't understand that.
    Because if I don't feel any guilt
    and I haven't done anything and my resources
    are possibly limited and in the other countries,
    they're not going to receive me with open arms--
    in other words, the future is very insecure,
    although very many friends, very close friends and relatives,
    left.
    But they didn't.
    And my parents didn't.
    Because that was a step they were not prepared to take.
    But they prepared me to do it.
    But then, fate, as it would, had it
    that they closed the borders.
    Did your father consider leaving when the communists came in,
    as you did?
    Oh, yes, of course.
    But he was more willing to adjust.
    But he didn't have any illusions.
    But I mean, he was more willing.
    Because he was very successful after the war
    in terms of his profession.
    And he was very successful when I hadn't
    gone to Australia all that.
    He was very successful in what he was doing, professionally
    speaking, and always somehow landed on his feet,
    so to speak.
    But I couldn't.
    He was more willing to play the game.
    But I was not willing to play the game.
    Because I understood a little bit more than he
    did, maybe, the consequences.
    And I am a different person, a different personality--
    characteristics, disposition, whatever.
    And so I was not willing to do that, not to compromise.
    So I got myself into very bad situations.
    And the only way, short of being shipped to another camp
    or slave labor camp, communist van,
    was to get out, which I did.
    How did you manage that?
    Did you get false papers?
    That's right, that's right.
    That's right.
    You got false papers.
    Yeah.
    How did you go, by train?
    By train, yeah.
    And when did you leave?
    In February 1949.
    You had a false identity?
    Well, an identity which was kind of shady
    and enabled me to get out with impunity,
    you know, at that time and lots of dealing and wheeling
    and all that.
    But I learned that.
    That's something which I still do.
    I just practiced.
    I still practice it, dealing and wheeling.
    I still do things, even those which are not necessarily
    viewed as dreadfully immoral because somehow, I
    feel I need to maintain some degrees of skills in case
    I should need them.
    I'm crazy, you know, about--
    Do you mean telling a pretended story
    in a anxiety-producing situation?
    Well, not necessarily.
    No, no, not at all.
    But, for example, just to get into situations
    where I will benefit without me being seen or caught
    or something, where I just--
    I might be with a bunch of generals, or just
    a group of people, who kiss each other
    and hand each other things.
    And I'll be kissing them, and they don't know me from Adam.
    Or just simply be the recipient of some sort of benefits
    without really necessarily having
    worked for it simply because I get myself in a situation
    where I'll get it.
    Like being in line at a movie theater.
    Oh, yeah, for example, I can get into any movie, virtually--
    almost any movie-- without paying.
    They won't see me.
    They don't see you, even when a ticket is expected?
    Oh, yeah, sure.
    And that's not only--
    I'm getting a charge out of it, too.
    I get a charge out of it.
    And also, it just keeps me on my toes
    because I really feel I need to.
    Get into certain situations other people don't from where
    you can benefit, in one way or another, maybe material
    or psychologically or whatever-- emotionally.
    And so I practiced that.
    Because still, it's part of the survival, a skill which
    I learned in the camp.
    And also, it's in your repertoire
    in case the need arises again.
    That's right.
    Absolutely.
    For example, I wouldn't have a passport
    so that I skip the country tomorrow
    or something of that nature.
    You wouldn't have a passport?
    Yeah.
    I would have a valid passport or things.
    Some things, I just put things in a suitcase-- preferably,
    have already a packed suitcase, which I don't-- but I mean,
    this is you know -- so that --
    In other words, just like when we got the soup and the soup
    bowl, if you luck has it-- and even Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    it happened once or twice that we had pea soup with meat
    in it.
    So I don't want to be the first.
    Because then, I get the water.
    So I wait and let other people go.
    Woo.
    So just organize it and say, hey, you know.
    And they learned that skill, also?
    Hmm?
    Haven't they learned that skill, also?
    Who?
    The others, waiting in line, to wait till--
    No, they haven't, you see.
    And that's the interesting thing.
    Because that's what life is all about,
    that some people have never learned these skills
    and that they haven't taken advantage of the ignorance.
    You don't get rich by working hard, not that I'm rich.
    But I could do things which are crooked, but I wouldn't do it.
    So I'm a underpaid professor, which
    is not to say that I'm not open to making a fast buck.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And that's what I'm doing, for example.
    This is something which is important, also professionally.
    Now, I have some sort of recognition
    back in Germany and all that.
    So this is about the third or fourth year
    I'm going to Europe, and the Germans pay for it.
    Because I'm doing the Nazi stuff,
    you know, which is terrific because I think it's great.
    I do, too.
    And this time, I just had the first time.
    This summer, I was there just for one day,
    actually, working--
    well, I prepared for it much longer,
    of course, and all that.
    But this broadcast, which I consider to be very important,
    Table Talk, a dialogue, for the first time in public,
    with former members of the SS, some of whom
    were perpetrators--
    at least one of them.
    And so that never has been done.
    So I say, hey let's get into it and telling them what
    is the SS and all this and stimulate the discussion
    and the response.
    And I consider that to be exceedingly important.
    Because it is historic because no one has done it before.
    It's the first time.
    And I've got tapes and all that.
    And we'll see what will come of it.
    But, I mean, apparently it has been sufficiently successful
    that it's being repeated.
    And it's already the third time.
    They are paying.
    And I'm doing things which I consider to be very important.
    They may not be necessarily discovered now,
    but in the future they will be, for sure, sooner or later.
    And I'm getting paid for it.
    I think that's good.
    Yes.
    It's not happiness, but it's satisfaction.
    Well, yes.
    Happiness?
    Happiness, no because there's nothing to do with happiness.
    But satisfaction, absolutely.
    Because I'm attaining some of the goals I've set for myself
    and leaving something for posterity.
    And that's exactly what gives me--
    talking about meaning and talking about Victor Frankl
    and all this sort of things, his notions and his thought
    processes--
    and to me that's very important that I leave a trail.
    What do I leave when I'll kick the bucket?
    And to me, it's important that I leave something which
    may be useful to posterity.
    And that's the only thing which really keeps me going.
    Because I don't have that much in life
    in terms of satisfaction.
    Yes, you were saying.
    Because no one gives a damn, very much--
    very few.
    So I mean, that's what I'm doing.
    I have to create my own resources.
    And they are meager, to be sure.
    But I mean, at least I can say, well, my life,
    by virtue of the fact that I've survived,
    at times I say, hey, some people make such a big thing out
    of being a survivor.
    I even don't know if that is such a lucky thing
    to do, to be in this situation.
    I'm not at all convinced of that.
    And it probably would have been much easier not to survive.
    But since I am, I just try to feel
    that I have not wasted my life.
    And I derive some satisfaction out of that.
    And rightfully so.
    In fact, it's getting kind of late,
    but I would like to, in the next session,
    elaborate a lot more on what your life's work has been,
    right?
    Mm-hmm.
    So I'd like to stop now so that I can give Carol
    a chance to ask some questions.
    I don't think she's prepared very well this time
    because she's got--
    Well, [INAUDIBLE] just the session.
    --her own Magen David to carry--
    you know, the Jewish star to carry.
    I can't say cross because she's Jewish--
    Yeah, mine is heavier than yours.
    [LAUGHS]
    --for reasons which, I think to some extent, escape her,
    but we won't go into that.
    [LAUGHS]
    Whatever.
    But anyway, what do you think--
    What was the last thing you said?
    What escapes me?
    Why you're Jewish.
    Why I'm Jewish.
    Well, we're not here to videotape my life story.
    Because I could explain some things.
    Well, it's never too late.
    I'm Jewish because of the Holocaust.
    But that's another subject.
    Do you have any questions that you would
    like to ask at this point?
    Yes.
    In a way, it means going back into some material,
    so I don't know how well it'll flow.
    Well, go ahead.
    And I'm kind of concerned about that.
    Don't worry.
    Just go ahead.
    OK.
    Back when he was talking about his losses and the pain
    of having lost his family and what he ends up
    with in his life as a consequence,
    I wanted to talk about the fact that those of us who know you
    and those of us who have been around you
    for some time in the Holocaust Center
    and in the lecture series were very painfully impacted
    by your story and your life and these things that
    have happened to you.
    And it brings up the concept that not
    only was this very hard for you and your life but then,
    it also has a deep impact on anyone who
    is involved with you in your life in any close way,
    whether it's a student of yours, whether it's
    someone who's in a relationship with you,
    whether it's your child--
    whatever-- that there's this rippling impact that
    happens for anyone who has close contact with someone who's
    been through that trauma.
    And some of us feel that we are willing to take on this pain
    because the wisdom and the insight
    that we get from it are worthwhile as a part
    of the bargain.
    But I have a lot of anxiety about the future
    in terms of our having to carry on,
    in a sense, this history and this painful aspect
    of human nature.
    And I feel that, in studying this,
    I've turned to people like you for wisdom
    and for some strength of character
    that you've developed, having gone through this
    and having reflected on it and having studied it--
    really, spent your whole life on it, in a sense.
    But I have a real anxiety of not knowing
    how we, the next generation, are going to carry it on.
    Because each of us who is willing to be involved
    with the Holocaust or willing to be involved with one
    of the survivors is taking on some small aspects
    of it, even the video-taper, the interviewer, I and the work
    that I do.
    But I feel that it's so inadequate
    and that, in fact, if you feel that the lessons of that time
    have not been learned and the lessons are not
    really integrated into our culture,
    into our society's values, I don't
    know how we're going to do it.
    And I'm still looking to you.
    I'm still looking back, in a way,
    even though I'm an adult, even though I'm
    becoming an educator, even though I know so much
    about the Holocaust now.
    And I'm learning more about it all the time,
    just from being around you.
    I don't know how to carry the meaning of it forward.
    And I have a real fear that when you are gone
    and your generation is gone, I don't know how to continue.
    Well, you see, we can do only the next best thing.
    And that's what we are doing right now.
    And that's why I have a great deal of respect
    and am very supportive of projects of this nature.
    That's why we do what we do in the Center.
    And if we can videotape these things
    and do it, which will make available those things which
    we are discussing here from different perspectives,
    different points of view, different survivors and all
    that, this is an idea which will have some degree of permanence.
    You never can actually relate sufficiently
    in the type of depth which reflects experience
    of that person who is the discussant or the person who
    relates that.
    That cannot be done.
    So short of that experience, I think
    we do all we can in order to preserve
    the notions of those who are survivors, and perhaps
    a bit verbal.
    And I've reflected on it, although I am not
    dreadfully optimistic how many survivors have actually
    reflected in depth about what actually happened
    to them, other than dwelling--
    understandably so-- on their suffering.
    And I like to transcend that, as I said before.
    And that's exactly what is quite realistically possible for you
    to continue or for anyone who wants to carry the ball
    and hand it, so to speak, or throw it,
    to the next generation.
    And that's the best you can do.
    We only can do that much, short of having
    that experience yourself.
    Hey, who wants that experience?
    I can do without it.
    I'm not advocating for having it.
    That's right.
    I mean, it's terrible.
    I don't want it.
    But I have to live with it.
    Now, also, I think, we should not
    become obsessed with the Holocaust.
    That's the danger.
    And that is also one of the reasons
    why my wife has left me, in a way,
    is because she had her fill, in a way.
    And that's one of many, many things.
    But I mean, it's still--
    and particularly if you don't relate to these sort of things
    and all that.
    Because I don't think we should become obsessed,
    and I think we should have some other things which
    we are interested in.
    And I'm doing it because I'm an educator.
    But I don't intend to stay within this sort of field
    and really concentrate and just think about the Holocaust.
    I think it's deadly.
    I don't think it's healthy.
    I don't think it should be done.
    I think we should have enough other things which we do,
    and that's why I'm telling you so many things.
    Let's do something, do things which
    will provide some sort of change and all this and all the other.
    But because of my role as educator
    and because the unfortunate incident
    that I'm where I am and feel obligated to that,
    and so few people can take it and carry the ball
    and do what I think I can do, I still
    am in a position where I have to do it.
    But I don't intend to do it forever.
    You know, I may die in the process forward.
    I don't know.
    But that's not intended.
    But I still have this deep sense that so many people
    don't understand--
    Of course not.
    --the deeper lessons.
    Absolutely.
    Absolutely.
    And that's for you and other people interested
    to make that work on it.
    Because we are not going to work it out.
    We just show perhaps some direction,
    in terms of which direction to pursue.
    But I don't think we'll leave with these really
    profound solutions.
    I don't think so.
    But I think, yeah, we're working on it.
    And other people will take it up and work on it
    some more, without necessarily having experienced anything
    which would as traumatic.
    And I think that's what we need to do.
    And that's what you can do, and other people, which
    is being done right now, whether it's
    just with the help of a camera, just doing that.
    Because, obviously, if they would not relate to this thing
    and understand the importance of that
    and have enough optimism to say that it will make a difference,
    they wouldn't be here.
    And that, to me, is absolutely--
    I mean, that's why I'm doing what I--
    because I don't particularly enjoy dwelling
    on this type of past, for sure.
    Isn't that sort of the way history
    is analyzed, in general, though?
    I mean, we look back at ancient Rome
    or at the Spanish Inquisition, and I
    think historical distance gives us that perspective.
    The further away we are from the event, the more dispassionate
    we can be about it.
    I think some of us are still too close,
    and that's why maybe they cannot analyze.
    All they can do is recite.
    This is what happened to me.
    They give that to the next generation,
    and they sift through it, and they
    pass what they've distilled down to the next generation.
    Maybe they're the ones who are going
    to figure it out, find out the lessons, the core of it all.
    I certainly don't think that the Caesars had
    the historical distance to understand what they were doing
    to Rome any more than we necessarily know
    what we're doing to the Earth.
    I think that's a very important point.
    And the difference is that we have a different means
    to process history.
    And they didn't have that.
    We have that.
    And to make videotapes of people still alive, for reasons
    which may escape them, it's a very important contribution.
    Because the old Romans or the Greeks didn't have it.
    Because if they had, we may have learned more from them,
    the chances are.
    It's a possibility, isn't it?
    All right.
    So I mean, that's what we are doing.
    Now, who is going to view the material and put it together
    and what have you is another thing.
    To what extent it may get buried someplace and forgotten
    is another thing.
    It just depends on the awareness of those people who
    will stay behind.
    And there, I don't have a great deal of optimism
    because I think people have become
    more ignorant by the day.
    Well, they are becoming more ignorant by the day.
    So depends what they will do.
    But I only can do what I can, or we can do what we can do.
    And if we do that to the best of our ability,
    we can die peacefully, so to speak.
    I think, too, that there are people involved
    in this program, for example, who are historians, who
    are doing it for the historical value
    as much as they're doing it for--
    But the historical value is valueless
    if it is not interpreted and if we
    don't learn our lesson from it.
    They're the ones who are going to interpret.
    And I think there are always people
    who are fascinated by history.
    And maybe--
    But that's not enough.
    To be fascinated by history is simply not enough.
    But in any case, I say I thank you
    for taking the hours and the psychic, intellectual, and
    emotional energy to come and do this.
    You I mean, to some degree we can predict, perhaps,
    who will use the material and who will interpret it.
    But I think that it will go forward in the education,
    as you've been talking, just as you've
    been doing, just as you've been doing
    and that it's a extremely draining but very, very
    valuable thing that you're doing.
    Well, it's important, for example,
    since we're talking about it, these sort of get
    togethers which I missed because I was in Europe because you've
    had this--
    Survivor reception?
    Reception and all that.
    I think that's very important.
    It just depends who is going to really get
    the kind of recognition and how these people will mix,
    who will be who and all that.
    And sometimes, the wrong people come on top, you see.
    And that's something which we really
    ought to avoid if we can.
    But the more conscious we are of some of the ramifications
    and some of the details, the better position
    we are to avoid that.
    But I have to work with people who I would prefer
    not to work with, you see.
    And simply because I'm in that position,
    it's really difficult to say, I won't work with you.
    Yeah, their understanding is so minimal--
    That's right.
    --of such a huge subject.
    Exactly that.
    And also, of there are survivors,
    it's just unbelievable how myopic they are.
    They just haven't learned their lesson at all.
    And they talk about, lecture and talk about it
    and just haven't learned a thing, other than trying
    to be in limelight and enjoy the fact of being limelight
    and reap some reward from it or whatever.
    Some odd kind of status.
    The status of the victim.
    Clues to explain ourselves.
    Well, we're trying.
    I'm still trying to get over the idea
    that such a profound trauma in recent history on humanity,
    on society, ought to have as its balance
    some kind of profound behavioral and consciousness
    transformation that would be the commensurate natural balance
    to that.
    And I think that I'm so idealistic and naive
    in this sense.
    Because I don't know.
    That would be fair.
    Yeah, that would be fair.
    And life is not fair.
    Well, but you see, I don't know exactly
    whether I would call it naive.
    Because I still expect it.
    And I'm disappointed when people who are survivors
    behave, in a way, as if they had not learned a thing.
    And that, to me, is a terrible disappointment.
    Some kind of [INAUDIBLE].
    So maybe I'm very hard on them and all that.
    But I think, what the hell have you
    gotten out of all this yourself before you just espouse
    some sort of things or talk to other people
    and try to tell them about what you have experienced.
    And yes, I'm getting very impatient
    and rather intolerant.
    But yes, I still think we can expect it.
    Because if we can't expect it from these situations,
    what do we have to go through before we wake up?
    And that, to me, is one of the crucial questions.
    What sort of suffering do I have to go through or survive
    before I wake up and start reflecting on it
    and behave in a fashion which will
    reflect some degree of understanding,
    which would make a change?
    That is probably the all-time question.
    Perhaps we should end there and start with that question
    again next time.
    OK, yeah.
    I didn't bring any photographs.
    Forgot to bring them.
    OK, we're rolling.
    You can start any time.
    OK.
    I'm here with John Steiner.
    We're doing interview number four for the San Francisco
    Holocaust Oral History Project.
    Today is November the 19th, 1991.
    And also here as a second is Brian Paris
    and Carol Horwitz is here along with John also.
    So where we left off last time was were
    about to leave for Australia.
    Yeah, so my decision which is quite interesting
    to go to Australia was primarily based on the fact
    that my affidavit to the United States, my quota number,
    was not-- there was such a long waiting list that I simply
    couldn't wait until I would get permission
    to come to the United States.
    Instead, I had Australian relatives
    and a great, great uncle who was the black sheep of the family,
    who started a family there and was very successful,
    and had married a Scottish woman.
    And then relatives, that is to say
    my aunt and my two cousins followed,
    came to Australia via England.
    And they actually sent there because they
    were viewed as aliens because they came from Austria
    and they didn't care whether or not they are Jews
    and what have you.
    So they were interned in Australia,
    and then stayed there and became citizens.
    And that was actually the main reason,
    because it was a very closely knit family.
    And my relationship to my aunt especially
    and to my considerably older cousin
    was close, because we used to see each other every year
    in one way or another.
    And so they were in Australia, and so I
    decided to go to Australia.
    Now prior to my decision to go to Australia,
    I talked to some people with whom I had been at Dachau,
    and these people are very important Czech people
    who were very important role models to me because
    of their conduct, their bravery, and their profile in courage.
    One of them was the Archbishop of Prague,
    a man called Beran and became later cardinal.
    Died in the Vatican, is actually buried in St. Peter's Cathedral
    back in Rome.
    So I went to see him and said I know that I cannot accept
    communism.
    It's another totalitarian system,
    and I've had enough of Nazis.
    And he was with me in Dachau, so we were
    kind of brothers, so to speak.
    And so either I can be here and be continuing the underground,
    but chances are because I already
    had been arrested before and my father got me out
    with the help of influential friends, out of jail.
    It was not prison then yet.
    And couldn't recognize me because they
    had beaten me up to such an extent
    that I was totally deformed.
    And it was actually worse than any
    beatings I got from the Nazis, as a matter of fact,
    if I come to think of it.
    And so I was on the blacklist because when they arrested me
    I was taken to one police precinct
    and then they looked at the list and there was my name.
    So I was not prepared to go through another sort of slave
    labor camps and all that, which of course existed already
    during that time, of course, for a number of years,
    as a matter of fact.
    So I decided to skip the country because I
    knew that I couldn't continue my studies by virtue of the fact
    that I was not a communist, by virtue
    of the fact that I was opposing communism
    with all means at my disposal.
    So then I had very wealthy relatives
    who left prior to World War Two in time with lots of riches.
    They were the richest Jewish people in Czechoslovakia.
    Their name was Petschek Otto Petschek
    And that was a family with my mother was the first cousin
    of Otto Petschek wife.
    And so they arranged for me to go to England,
    but they closed their borders.
    I think I've mentioned that.
    And I had a ticket, everything, but they closed the borders
    just about the day I was supposed to leave.
    And so that's how I got into concentration camps.
    Now, I didn't want to go through all these things again,
    because I felt I've had my fill.
    So then I got papers and then just
    smuggled my way through the borders
    and they paid for the trip.
    What form did the smuggling through the border take?
    Well, it just meant false papers and all these sort of things.
    And just a number of difficulties,
    so I guess since I had some training and all this back
    in the camp so it was not that difficult for me.
    But it was not easy either.
    How old were you at this time?
    How old was I at this time?
    At this time, I was 22.
    No, 23, 23.
    And I decided that I didn't care what I had with me
    because I didn't have virtually anything with me at all,
    couldn't take anything with me, or minimal.
    So this very wealthy relative came to the United States
    via England.
    But my whatever, my mother's cousin, her name
    was Martha Petschek She arranged all the things for me
    in London.
    And then her children arranged--
    she was no longer aliva-- arranged for me
    to go first class to Australia.
    Which was kind of an irony, because I didn't
    have a handkerchief to my name.
    So I went first class without having a handkerchief.
    And that took about 28 days, and I was shipped in and Genoa,
    and was picked up by my relatives in Sydney.
    And that, of course, was a tremendous reunion
    and all that.
    Then they took me to Canberra.
    And within about two or three weeks
    I had a job with the Department of Immigration
    of all the things, based on the fact that I spoke English
    and that I had some education and what have you.
    And within that particular time, also I
    started to think about the university
    and I enrolled as I think the first immigrant displaced
    person type at the so-called Canberra University
    College, which was associated with the University
    of Melbourne, kind of a branch.
    And so that was a big thing and was
    put into the papers that John Steiner of whatever John
    Steiner or whatever they called me then enrolled
    at the Canberra University College, which was a big thing,
    and worked for the Department of Immigration.
    Now, the important thing working for the Department
    of Immigration was that I could help countless other people
    to come into Australia, and primarily, Czechs.
    Not that many Jews, as a matter of fact.
    There were some Jews among them, but primarily Czech people
    who also had skipped the country and needed to go someplace,
    and they didn't know where to.
    So I assisted them to get landing permits,
    simply because I knew the ropes.
    And because of some of my activity, which I then
    initiated, we started an organization
    which was called The Czechoslovakian Australian
    Alliance Organization.
    And that was exceedingly active in supporting Czech immigrants
    and also bringing Czech immigrants into the country.
    So was one of my major activities,
    from which I derived a great deal of satisfaction.
    And then I also worked for the Australian Intelligence
    to work against the communists, because there some communist
    infiltrators coming in and all that.
    So that, to me, was also important,
    because my experience with the communists and I
    was very glad to be connecting with this sort of thing.
    It didn't amount to very much to be sure,
    but it gave me a psychological, emotional outlet.
    Were other survivors, you say not many Jews
    were coming to Australia, but I thought other survivors--
    There were some Jews, of course, who came.
    But they didn't come as displaced persons,
    most of the people.
    Because displaced persons had a two year contract.
    They paid the Australian government
    because they needed the manpower or human power,
    they paid their passage.
    But for that, they were under contract
    for two years, which means that they
    had to accept assigned work given to them
    by the various departments of immigration
    in different regions of Australia.
    And there was just ruthless exploitation
    because they were given jobs Australians didn't want,
    the worst possible jobs.
    And so I working then later I moved from Canberra
    to Melbourne because my father worked and lived in Melbourne
    and I wanted to be with him and also
    his second wife, who also was a survivor from Theresienstadt,
    but was half Jewish.
    And because of a fluke was sent to the concentration
    camp, Theresienstadt by virtue of the fact
    that although she was a half Jew first degree, not
    second degree, but first degree.
    That means these people were exempt
    because she was baptized.
    She was a Catholic and therefore,
    would have been exempt from being sent to a camp.
    But by virtue of the fact that she had married a Jew
    she lost all these privileges.
    Although, she was a widow because that person had died,
    so that didn't help her.
    And her mother was not because she was the non-Jewish link,
    and she of course stayed there.
    And so she was sent there but stayed in the Theresienstadt.
    Was not sent to any other destruction camp,
    so that saved her life.
    And anyway, so my father married her and they both worked
    in Melbourne, and I just wanted to be with them.
    Also, I wanted to continue my studies.
    I was not getting all the various courses I needed back
    at the Canberra University College,
    so I wanted to be at the University of Melbourne proper.
    So that's when I moved there and continued
    to work with that Department of Immigration
    in Melbourne, where I was able to help lots of immigrants
    and cut all the various red tape and got people out
    of difficulties.
    And saw to it that some people who were not divorced
    could marry married people, and did all sorts of things
    in order to aid people who had been affected by war conditions
    and sought refuge in Australia and got
    into some sort of bureaucratic morass.
    So that gave me some degree of satisfaction.
    But because I had also a number of interesting encounters
    and met a young woman, an Australian woman,
    I wanted very badly to marry, but it
    didn't work out because I left for the United States.
    Because I couldn't continue my studies
    at the University of Melbourne because I had a full time job.
    It was virtually impossible to get any sort of fellowship
    or scholarship.
    And I wanted to continue, but I simply it was just too much.
    And at that particular time, I still
    had an active tuberculosis, lung tuberculosis.
    And so it was getting too much.
    And I decided that it would be better
    for me to come to the United States
    and to take advantage of an offer I'd received
    from the so-called Masaryk Foundation, which
    supported and obtained fellowships
    for people who were political.
    I mean, real political refugees because they
    had to escape from Czechoslovakia because
    of political reasons, namely that they are anti-communist
    and were working against the communists.
    And I certainly fit that description.
    And they wrote to me in Australia
    that if I come to the United States
    they would guarantee me to get a fellowship to one
    of the larger universities in the United States.
    And so I decided to take advantage of it
    and in March, 1953 I went tourist class,
    not first class, because obviously I
    couldn't afford via England, where I also stayed
    for a while, toured Europe.
    And in England I was able to get some sort of inheritance
    from my uncle who had money all over the world, which included
    England and other parts.
    I only got a fraction of it, but that really
    put me into a very good shape so that I could indeed
    come to the United States from England cabin class,
    and that was something I never regretted.
    Because you just came to the United States not only
    the poor immigrant, but in style, which is very unusual.
    And I remember that I bought all these sort of things
    back in London at expensive shops
    so that I could have all the outfits to wear
    for the gala, dances.
    I even won some sort of things back during that time.
    And there was a intelligence officer on board
    and I got to know him and he found out
    about my background and my anti-communist activities,
    which of course put me immediately
    into favor with him.
    So that when I checked out with all my luggage
    I didn't have to go through any of the passport and things,
    and red tape.
    And that was kind of, I was very proud of that.
    That was very nice.
    I was going to ask you, in leaving Australia,
    how had your relation with your father been when you reunited?
    Well, the interesting thing is that I knew, of course,
    I knew her very well because they had lived together
    in Prague already without being married, which was OK,
    but not necessarily accepted socially.
    But I mean, they didn't have any problems because of it.
    Besides, he had some other ladies,
    and saw other ladies too, which was kind of interesting.
    But for him, not for me.
    So she was a very excellent cook,
    and so I used to come there for meals
    and she never forgot to tell me about all the things
    they did for me and what I would do in return.
    So she was a very, very calculating lady,
    and pretty cold.
    But she was very good looking and that
    was very important for my father because he responded
    to good looks and sex appeal.
    I don't blame him for that, I hasten to add.
    But I never developed any very close ties to her
    because she was a cold fish in so many ways.
    Very intelligent and all that.
    And so I got to know them already in Prague
    and I had hoped that he would marry someone else with whom
    he was engaged after the war.
    But just she persuaded him to marry her
    instead of the other woman, whom I liked very much because she
    was exactly opposite.
    She was very appealing and all that, very nice, and very warm
    person, and we became very close.
    And so that was a disappointment that he married her
    instead of the person I really liked and thought
    would have been probably the better wife.
    They would have gotten along much better.
    The only problem was that she was German and had
    considerable problems, but because she was not
    a Nazi, but merely a German, she could have stayed.
    But she chose not to stay in Czechoslovakia
    because she went with the rest of her family to Germany.
    All right, so we got along quite well,
    except she always asked me what am I going to do
    and what presence and this and that.
    And at that time, I was not as flexible as I would be today.
    So I neglected her appeals in a way,
    and in retrospect, I feel that I should
    have given her more recognition for whatever she did.
    Because she was an excellent cook and really
    looked after both of us in this respect.
    Not in terms of affection or so, but she
    put all the things into the cooking and hospitality and all
    that.
    She was very excellent in doing that.
    So it was not a very close relationship,
    but it was not a strained relationship either.
    The only thing I missed in her she
    didn't share the sense of humor my father had,
    who had a tremendous sense of humor
    and we had a lot of laughs together.
    So that we all were in tears very frequently because of some
    of the jokes he made.
    They were just really uncanny.
    It was just really out of this world.
    And I still miss that because I haven't
    met anyone who would have been that funny,
    could have been that funny in some sort of level
    of sophistication, but kind of intellectual sense of humor
    which I appreciate very much.
    And I miss that, yeah.
    So she didn't share that.
    All right, then I met this young lady there
    and of course, I brought them all to that place.
    And they of course, assessed and immediately took
    measurements, what have you in so many ways
    and assessed their manners and all.
    And they're all Australian women and lovely women,
    all very good looking and all that.
    But they always found something which just didn't fit that.
    So the one I was really very attached to I
    think they liked also, except she was not
    attached to the United States and certainly
    didn't think in terms of leaving Australia because of me.
    And she was very open about that, and if I had stayed there
    the chances are I would have married her.
    And so then I came to the United States
    for reasons which I've explained.
    Also, I was notified that the affidavit, which
    was the quota number was a Czech, I had to wait
    and all this.
    Now I was due, so I was able to come to the United States.
    And I came to New York and I was picked up by these very rich
    relatives, director of one of the enterprises who also had
    been a colleague and a friend of my father's.
    And they're very nice, but I've never met this these relatives
    because somehow they delegated these sort of care
    to this director.
    And so I found some friends, people
    who permitted me to share an apartment with them
    from Connecticut, Darien, Connecticut,
    to Englewood, New Jersey, and from Englewood, New Jersey
    to New York for just about half a year until the fall.
    And then for reasons which still escape me they
    said, well, you can go to Harvard,
    you can go to this and that. but I was so unbelievably ignorant
    about the reputation of American institutions
    that for reasons which still escape me
    I selected the University of Missouri, which
    at that particular time was number 10 on the list of state
    universities--
    state universities, not large universities.
    And that was on one hand, very good
    because I learned a great deal and I
    met professors who were like a family to me,
    and I'll never forget the chances.
    I don't know whether this would have
    been the same case at Harvard.
    But of course, Missouri didn't have all the--
    I made very good contacts.
    But that cannot be compared with contacts which were made by old
    Henry Kissinger and other people who were immigrants who knew
    exactly what they were doing, simply because they knew
    the ropes.
    I didn't.
    And so I got my master's there and started my doctorate.
    And then I had a chance and worked
    in a state mental institution just
    to apply some of the theoretical concepts which I had picked up
    and see how that would work.
    And that was a very beneficial experience
    apart from the money.
    Because I had a fellowship and this fellowship
    was consisted of pocket money, tuition, and all the textbooks,
    and whatever I needed for my studies,
    they paid for that, and meals, which
    I had to take at various fraternities.
    And that proved to be exceedingly interesting,
    although at times was a bit cumbersome.
    And that way I became I think the notion was
    to become acquainted with the different American sectors,
    walks of life.
    And I think that did a very good job.
    I thought it was extremely interesting
    for me to be introduced this way,
    and I made quite a few friends.
    Were you at all apprehensive about starting over
    in a new country and having to leave your family?
    Yeah, I was very apprehensive, simply because the university
    system was very different.
    And so for example, at the University of Melbourne
    or Canberra you only had examinations
    at the end of the academic year, which took hours.
    In every subject there was at least three hours
    and you had to write countless papers and things like that
    throughout the semester.
    But then, on taking that seriously, the important thing
    is that you had to, under very strict supervision,
    you had to respond to printed questions for about three hours
    in just one subject.
    And so here all the weekly quizzes and objective tests
    were something totally new to me and took a great deal
    to adjust.
    And by virtue of the fact that I had a scholarship
    I needed to excel.
    And during the first part of the semester
    I had two Ds because of that.
    And the dean called me in and said, and addressed me as sir,
    you are a disappointment to us because we gave you
    a scholarship expecting you to excel,
    and the report you have on these two subjects,
    I remember one was in anthropology
    and one was in psychology.
    And these were graded courses, and you have two Ds there.
    And that was a very bad things, so what then?
    I mean, a very embarrassing situation.
    And so there was not very much I could say other than just
    I'm adjusting or what have you.
    And that was a bit traumatic to be sure.
    And I worked hard, it's not that I was lazy, that I didn't try.
    But then I've learned the ropes and the quizzes in time.
    And so the D one day turned into a B,
    and the other D turned into a C. That's
    the only blemish I had on my graduate record, the one C.
    But because all the other things during the next two semesters,
    three semesters, I was at the University
    of Missouri for four semesters.
    I got my masters in 3 semesters, which
    included the writing of the thesis,
    so that means one and 1/2 years.
    Which is not bad for someone who comes from another start,
    mostly the Jewish start.
    But so that was not too bad.
    And when I made Honors Society simply
    because all the other things were As, you see.
    So therefore, I just caught up and got quite a bit
    of recognition, as a matter of fact.
    How did you adjust to social life?
    Social life was not very difficult
    because for some reasons, which at that particular time
    escaped me, I had lots of friends, very good friends.
    Also by virtue of the fact that I was in fraternities I
    had bit of problems with women, young coeds
    at the number of two private junior colleges
    at the same place Columbia, Missouri.
    Not that many women at the University of Missouri
    proper, and so I dated quite a bit.
    But I was very insecure by virtue of the fact
    that I didn't have a car, I didn't have any money,
    and couldn't invite them to big things.
    And most of these kids came from very well-to-do homes.
    So I was very self-conscious about my limitations.
    But apparently, these limitations
    were not that dreadful, because I had no problem.
    They still liked me and for reasons which, as I say,
    escape me then today.
    Perhaps it's a bit more easy to understand.
    I was not starved for company, for sure.
    And except my choices, I just simply
    didn't understand them too well because you had a date
    and they kissed you good night at the dorms,
    and then you went with someone else
    and the same thing happened.
    You see the girl you dated yesterday
    was kissing someone else.
    And that was very confusing to me
    because the dating system was not exactly
    something I was used to.
    So I had to adjust to that.
    And in a way, I didn't because I said hey, either you
    like someone and you just are steady with them
    and do the things from all the way,
    or you just sort of this halfway thing and all
    that was very frustrating.
    Because of the puritan ethic, which still
    prevailed at that time and people of course
    pretended to be this and that.
    But you know everyone claimed to be a virgin until she
    had a ring on her finger.
    If nothing else, at least the engagement,
    but usually there had to be the wedding.
    So I wasn't used to that.
    I had problems with that.
    So then I found some people who didn't have problems with that
    occasionally, and then I didn't have a problem too.
    That was supposed to be funny.
    But I was very overwhelmed with the hospitality
    of all the people, they were exceedingly hospitable.
    And I had a very functional support system there,
    and some of us who excelled were even
    invited to the governor's mansion, which
    was in Jefferson City and hosted by the governor in a very
    unusual way.
    I wish to god that something like that would happen here
    in California.
    But so that was very, and we had lots of important activities.
    And I was invited with another person
    who had excelled grade wise and all that, academically.
    We were invited as unusually gifted people to Dallas
    by the United Churches of Dallas for Christmas.
    And that, I never had heard of Dallas totally.
    And said who wants to go to Dallas?
    And my friend who was the secretary general
    of the University YMCA to which I belonged
    said Dallas is a very important place.
    And he started to explain to me, and I was not very impressed
    because I never heard of Dallas.
    So we went there and we were hosted red carpet treatment
    and all the oil millionaires with
    all their beautiful daughters.
    But I was a very naive person and didn't
    take advantage of all the contacts, which
    I should have at that time.
    But I just had my nose into the academic stuff.
    And so during that particular visit, which was when in--
    I came to '54, that was '54, Christmas '54.
    And so they asked me, well, what do
    you want to do when you finish your studies?
    I said, well I guess maybe teaching.
    And I said, well, how much will you make as a teacher?
    And I said well, I don't know, not that much.
    They said well, if you make that little money,
    these millionaires said, you can't be very intelligent.
    So that gave me some sort of a taste of the value
    system in the United States while I was in Dallas,
    and it was exceedingly interesting.
    And also, what happens to you and then
    you are treated as a VIP, which somehow I couldn't relate to.
    I just couldn't quite assume that role
    which they assigned to me.
    Because if I had, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you,
    the chances are.
    How was your health?
    My health?
    Yes.
    Was terrific.
    You said you had still the TB?
    No, the TB had healed.
    It had healed apparently at some time or another,
    either prior to leaving or after leaving.
    And I haven't had any problems with it since.
    So physically, you were all in pretty good shape then?
    I was in pretty good shape, yeah.
    Were you suffering any other kinds of things,
    like nightmares?
    Nightmares stopped pretty much back in the first few years
    in when I had returned back to Prague.
    And because I got it out of my system, to some extent,
    so that I wouldn't be bothered by nightmares.
    I had indeed nightmares and frequent ones
    the first few years.
    And I've had particular problems with the loss of my mother,
    because at that particular time emotionally
    I had not cut the umbilical cord at all.
    I was not ready for that loss and that
    is something which lingered on for very, very many years.
    And for all practical purposes, I still
    haven't come to terms with that, because that is something which
    both of us, that is my mother and I,
    were totally unprepared to cope with,
    including also many other my relatives because it
    was a very closely knit family.
    It's a very important point, which
    I think I've repeated on several occasions.
    It was probably the worst thing which
    has happened to me, the worst consequence of the Holocaust.
    So that all the physical injuries and the mental anguish
    and the trauma which was experienced,
    which I experienced in the camps, was something
    I could come to terms with in time.
    But I have not come to terms with the loss of my family.
    That's a lifelong grief.
    Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.
    And that's still my problem, and it's still
    something which comes back every new year, every Christmas,
    every holiday and Pesach for what I know.
    Because that was something which was celebrated by my uncle's
    relatives to which we were always invited.
    Because in contrast to my father, my mother
    and her relatives, which included
    my aunt who was married to that particular uncle,
    were very well to do people and very cultured
    and highly sophisticated individuals, role models
    in so many other ways.
    Not just people who were relatives,
    but people I looked up to and had good reasons
    to look up to because they just were fantastic people.
    My uncle's family were not religious Jews,
    but were very cultured Jews.
    And part of that included Jewish holidays,
    and Pesach happened to be a very important one for them.
    So that is something which was very important
    and we all participated in that.
    So just closing that circle is that
    because of these experiences and because
    of the age in which I lost my family,
    it is something which I am not able to come to terms with.
    And also primarily because I have not
    been able to find a substitute.
    I've had my relationships.
    I had a very unsatisfactory marriage, and I have a son.
    And that is the only link I still
    have in terms of really feeling of family.
    But other than that, also the death of my father
    and all that, to whom I after the war
    was not that close because then it reverted back
    to the sort of pre-war situation, which
    was very conflicting, I just simply
    haven't had a chance to find a substitute.
    And that is something which made things even worse.
    Because if you fall into and marry into a family
    by virtue of the appropriate person, then
    I think it would have been eased, I'm sure.
    But under the circumstances, that was not the case.
    So your vision is that if you would
    have had a good mate, and not only that,
    but someone with a family, the whole sense of family?
    Well, you see, that's the irony of my life
    in a way and the dreadful disappointment,
    because I always hoped for that.
    And that was also something which was more or less
    implanted into me by my mother.
    And my mother always dreamt about that
    and we talked about it even in Theresienstadt.
    As a matter of fact, I specifically said, well,
    when we get out and there was no if
    or but, yes we would get out.
    And we both were convinced that we would.
    Therefore, for reasons which were kind of strange,
    but psychologically understandable I'm sure,
    and so she said, well, I really hope that you
    will have a nice family.
    And I would not want to live with you in one place.
    And it was all these sort of pre-war notions
    which would supposedly continue after the war,
    after the liberation, whatever.
    And that's what she envisioned.
    And you will have the family and she saw herself
    as a grandmother and then just as a person who
    continued to be the very close thing which yes,
    I certainly would have wished more than anything else.
    And said but I'm not going to impose on you.
    And the way she talked, it was just
    something which really stirs my emotions when I just
    think of that.
    And I wouldn't want to impose on you,
    but I would like to have a small apartment near where you live.
    And all these sort of things come back,
    and I said my god, in terms of my private personal life
    what actually happened and all this
    would have been a dreadful disappointment to her.
    And she would be turning whatever her ashes at Auschwitz
    or whatever it is would stir in responding to my situation.
    And that is something which is a very heavy weight on me.
    And say my god, in a way, it's a terrible disappointment.
    Not just to myself, but certainly if my mother
    had lived it would have been a tragedy for her.
    Now, on the other hand, if she would have been around,
    the chances are she would have given me counsel
    so that some of the mistakes I've made I
    may not have because of her counseling.
    That she would have been at my side, and I'm sure
    she would have counseled me.
    Whether I would have listened to her or not is another thing,
    because at times these sort of things are not always heeded.
    That is to me, one of my-- that's
    the crucial thing in my life that this has not happened.
    That my personal life, my family life was destroyed
    and I was not able to replace it in any shape, or form.
    And I think probably, I may be wrong there,
    I think that it was made more difficult by virtue of the fact
    that I came to the United States.
    In what way?
    Well, I think in Australia it would have been easier in terms
    of human relationships.
    And the chances are that this particular girlfriend
    I had back in Australia, I think she probably
    would have filled the bill more readily than what I had found
    here or elsewhere, for that matter, because I married
    the person from the wrong country,
    our wrong culture I should say more than country, both.
    Would you have had a closer relationship
    you think with your father had you stayed in Australia?
    Well, he wanted to stay.
    He was very successful in Australia.
    He really built for himself a very secure existence
    and was well recognized in his field as an accountant.
    He was very able, very successful.
    And he wanted to stay, but because of his wife who
    had relatives in Germany, who then came who were Sudeten
    Germans and went to Germany, her brother, her mother I think,
    and then she had a sister in England.
    So she wanted to go back and she just persevered in this,
    that he then gave up his job there
    and decided to come with her to Munich.
    And that also affected my personal life,
    because the chances are I may have returned back to Australia
    under different circumstances.
    But because he went to Munich I was more than Europe
    oriented, by virtue of the fact that he was there
    and I wanted to visit and keep in touch, yes.
    And that was not the worst thing because I got also
    a doctorate back at the German University, which
    I do not regret.
    On the contrary, I think I've learned more there
    than anywhere else.
    Were you and he in Germany at the same time?
    Yeah.
    Well actually, the same time, I came to Germany because of him.
    Because he had come there, not that I had not
    visited Germany before, yes, but that was for different reasons.
    But he had come there and because he had come to Germany
    I also frequently came to Germany.
    And that was one of the major reasons
    apart from some of my research, which I conducted
    in with the archives there in Munich, the Institute
    of Contemporary History.
    And later then did all the research
    with former perpetrators.
    And so that was something which I never
    would have done if I had been in Australia, the chances of.
    So you continued your graduate studies in Germany,
    is that what you're saying?
    Well, I was a doctoral candidate at Berkeley,
    but they didn't want me to do the type of research
    I was interested in.
    So after you left Missouri, where did you then go?
    Oh, I see.
    So we didn't talk about that.
    No, I'm sorry, maybe I'm confusing it.
    No, that's sequentially I think we've gone a little bit astray.
    But no, I was back in Missouri until '55.
    And then one of my mentors got me
    a fellowship because I already started my doctorate
    at the University of Missouri after I
    completed my master's in '55.
    So he felt very strongly about the fact that he was a very
    eminent sociologist actually, a ? monologist ?
    man called Noel Gist.
    He felt that they taught me all they
    could at the University of Missouri
    that I should continue, and he didn't
    want me to get a PhD from the University of Missouri.
    Which I think was a mistake, because it
    prolonged the whole thing and complicated things,
    but made as it be.
    Then he helped me to get a fellowship
    to a place I was not particularly
    interested in going, which was in Louisiana, University, well
    known university.
    Tulane?
    Tulane, yeah.
    And I was scared of the climate because I developed an allergy
    and I couldn't take humidity, climatic kind
    of climatic allergy.
    And humidity is something which really exacerbated that state
    of sneezing and all this other.
    And so although I've had it and I was accepted,
    I was very reluctant.
    And in '56 I got a fellowship to a university in San Diego
    to spend about, I think it was about a month or six weeks,
    something like that, at a sort of international corporation.
    An international kind of interesting experiment
    which brought 23 different nations together,
    represented 23 nations together to live together,
    international kind of experiment in international living
    and interacting.
    And I got a fellowship.
    There was something which was done
    by the Quakers and the Friends service.
    And I got a fellowship to that and that way
    I came to California, which I had not intended before.
    And while I was in California I had
    a number of friends who were at the University of California
    Berkeley, who had studied with me
    and received doctorates from the University of Missouri.
    Who were in other words, more advanced than I
    because they had come earlier.
    So they said, why don't you [INAUDIBLE],, why don't you come
    and you may get something here?
    And so I had one of my Indian friends
    who I was very close to.
    I was particularly very close to people from India, students
    at the University of Missouri.
    It was a very closely knit communal sort
    of relationship in which I was totally accepted
    for interesting reasons.
    And all these people were in their doctoral studies.
    And one of them was a man called [? Shanty ?] [? Tongre. ?] And
    he graduated from the University of Missouri and got a job
    at Berkeley.
    And he said, why don't you come and I'd like to introduce you,
    me be possibilities and all that.
    And he did a lot of foot work for me prior to my coming.
    And I came and he said, well, they
    are hiring some instructors, lecturers
    in the department of speech, and you really
    should go and try and introduce yourself.
    And I thought it's just absolutely ridiculous.
    I didn't have any teaching experience.
    I was not an assistant.
    And just absolute 100% greenhorn,
    and I felt I wouldn't have a chance, particularly
    at Berkeley and all that.
    So I came, I had an interview.
    And they were enthusiastic, for reasons which still escape me.
    It just doesn't make any sense to me,
    it just doesn't make whatsoever.
    And they hired me on the spot, and I became a lecturer
    at the University of California Berkeley.
    And then I wrote to my professor, my mentor and say,
    hey, I'm here Berkeley and Tulane.
    He was very mad.
    He was very angry with me and say we've done so much work.
    And now next time around we don't have a chance with Tulane
    because you have somehow given up that sort of fellowship.
    And that I was very sorry for, because he was
    behaved like a father to me.
    I didn't want to be a disappointment.
    But I still stayed there.
    But then before I actually I got that job and they said OK,
    you start now in the fall.
    It was just summer.
    And I had butterflies in my stomach.
    And I had sleepless nights, and I said I can't possibly do it.
    I can't face a class of students without having ever
    taught before and not really knowing
    what the hell I was doing.
    And so I couldn't eat and lost a lot of weight and sleepless
    nights and butterflies in my stomach.
    And I said, I'm going to skip Berkeley.
    I'm going to run away.
    I'm just going, I'm going.
    And then I talked to my friend and he
    said don't do it, try it, and all this.
    And he was very supportive and all that.
    And then I mustered the courage to face up to the whole thing
    and I thought it just absolutely impossible.
    And for reasons, whatever, I adjusted and then
    I was in the doctoral program also.
    So I was a lecturer, but also a doctoral student
    back at Berkeley.
    And within a half year I was a very popular lecturer.
    Again, for reasons which I don't understand,
    but it just happened.
    The chair came, said John, he was a blind person
    and [Personal name] was his name, very famous attorney
    and a jurisprudent, wrote a lot of interesting, very
    important books.
    And so I sat down with you I mean
    all these students of course some female students
    they just all rave about you and say how well you dress
    and all that.
    What's with you?
    So I had to describe to him, because he never saw me
    by virtue of being blind.
    ?
    What about ?
    the success and so on.
    And so he said, well, when I left he said John,
    I like to finish your doctorate and you will send us
    a dissertation, and then we want to consider for full time
    track, tenure track.
    All right well, and that was, of course, very nice,
    but the fact is that while I was finishing my doctorate back
    at the University of Freiburg in Germany
    where I went there because they were
    very supportive of my theme.
    Of course, there are people there
    who themselves were interested in national socialism.
    And one of the professors, a very well known person
    called Arnold [Personal name] who was a professor in Chicago
    during the war because he had to flee from Germany,
    not being non-Jewish, but very active politically.
    So he had to flee and got a job at the University of Chicago,
    and then after returned to the University of Freiburg.
    How did you get this connection with Freiburg again?
    Well, that goes again back into a sort
    of interesting situation.
    I went to Germany.
    No, I went from Berkeley, I went because I
    wanted to have some sort of a change
    to continue my doctorate, but have some change.
    And I was hired by the United States Air Force
    as a social psychologist, as a researcher.
    And I went to Dayton, Ohio, which
    is the Wright Patterson Air Force Base to research there.
    And for reasons which I can't understand,
    which are partially political and my interest
    in applying some of the theoretical stuff, which
    I picked up back at Missouri, as well as at Berkeley.
    And it was exceedingly well paid,
    I just thought I'll try and see what it will do.
    And yes, I've tried it, and I know what it did,
    and I was pretty much disappointed
    because of some of the things which
    were going on there, which I absolutely disapproved of.
    The squandering of money and the nepotism, which I disliked,
    and some other things which were just really bad.
    And so I resigned and came back to Berkeley
    and applied for a job with the State Department,
    which I received as a vice counsel to go to Laos.
    And so they gave me all sorts of shots and all that,
    and I was ready to go.
    And prior to my going I wanted to be sure
    that I will see my father and visit there.
    And while there I got a cable from the State Department said
    unfortunately, we regret that we cannot give you the job
    because you have not been a United States citizen for five
    years.
    And I was a United citizen for four years and eight months
    or something like that.
    And I don't know, I think it was a trumped up thing.
    I think the CIA had something to do with that,
    because all the people would have been sent to Laos
    would have had also to work for the CIA.
    And I may not have been to their liking because of my past.
    And I think that was the reason because I said OK,
    before you go to Laos you just can go through all
    the various training, and in four months
    you can go when you've been a citizen for five years.
    All right, and that happened while I was in Germany,
    because I got that cable came to my father's address, which
    I gave to the State Department.
    After I had been screened, after I
    had all the shots, plague, cholera, you name it,
    I just had all these.
    I felt sick for quite a few days.
    Did you know you were going to have to work with the CIA too?
    Well, I had some inkling, but I felt
    that I could stay out of it because it was not-- well,
    the State Department was particularly too
    in aiding people.
    So I would have had to work with aids, third nations,
    in that case Laos.
    But I talked to people who were there and said,
    hey, the CIA connected everything.
    You will be ruined.
    And I think that broke the camel's back And.
    I didn't go.
    Well, these sort of things happened
    while I was in Germany.
    And what now?
    What then?
    I had a girlfriend who won't you come
    with me to Germany and all that, and I want to get married.
    And I said, I can't get married at this point and all that.
    And she was very disappointed and bitter and a very lovely
    woman.
    And so I had sacrificed a great deal because
    of that, what I wanted to do.
    And then it just fell through.
    So then I was saying now I'm here,
    I might as well see what I can do here.
    And I was interviewed for a research job
    at the University of Freiburg.
    Well, it was not actually the University of Freiburg,
    but it was some sort of supervised
    by this particular [Personal name] person.
    And I got to know him because I got the job as a researcher
    in this sort of research institute, kind
    of a trumped up situation.
    But nevertheless, I learned quite a few things
    about particularly German perspectives and research
    and all, which was helpful.
    What was the subject of the research?
    My subject was primarily race, international race,
    and minority problems.
    You really should talk a bit about why
    you were studying social psychology
    and sociology, really, why you chose those fields.
    Well, but that was prior to that simply
    because I studied my medical studies in Prague,
    and couldn't continue back in Australia.
    When I came to the United States I felt I was too old for that.
    And then I decided to switch to something
    which would be related to the camp experience
    and somehow find answers to questions which I've had,
    find meaning in all this trauma.
    And so I decided to study sociology
    because I felt that that was a field which might provide me
    with the tools necessary for understanding what is going on,
    and social psychology specifically.
    So that's what I did.
    Well, anyway, so when I was--
    so that's the answer to that question.
    But and also because I felt I was getting
    too old to study medicine, which was not correct at all,
    but I mean, I felt for reasons I was
    too old to start from scratch.
    And so when I was in Freiburg doing this sort of research
    and meeting this Professor Arnold [Personal name]
    with whom I had a very in-depth, very personal and in depth
    talks and who could relate to my background,
    he suggested you should get a doctorate here,
    forget Berkeley.
    Because we are interested in your dissertation,
    and we'll give you credit for things
    you've done and all that.
    And so that I could finish the doctorate in a minimum of time
    and had not lost any, in spite of the loss of semesters
    and all that, I could catch up and finish the doctorate
    within the shortest possible time, which I did.
    What was the subject of it?
    The subject was very simple.
    The subject was national socialism, the sociology
    of national socialism.
    And the title of my dissertation was Power Politics and Social
    Change in National Socialist Germany.
    This you have published into a book?
    Yeah.
    Yeah, it was very important because I
    had a friend back at Berkeley who
    happened to be in the process of getting his doctorate
    from the University of Oslo.
    And that was in '58, and that is to say the same year
    I was actually hired.
    Well, actually no, I was hired '56, so he got it in '58.
    And he asked me to come with him to meet his parents in Oslo,
    at the University of Oslo.
    And I helped him to put together his index on the boat.
    We took a boat, beautiful trip.
    It was just luxury and fun and just
    El Dorado on that ship from Stavanger Fjord.
    It was Stavanger Fjord it was called,
    a ship from New York to Oslo.
    It was just a terrific thing, two weeks.
    And so that was relatively inexpensive.
    I could well afford it, although it
    was everything was first class.
    It was first class, and I shared a cabin with him.
    And while we were on the trip he finished his last touches
    of his dissertation and then had to defend his dissertation
    at the University of Oslo.
    And he also said that the conditions
    for getting a doctorate at the University of Oslo
    was that you had to publish, that university
    had to be a publishable dissertation.
    And it had to be published or they
    had to have your contract to have it published
    in a reputable publishing firm.
    And I was very impressed with that,
    and I felt that it was very proper.
    So I just simply emulated that and wanted
    to write a dissertation which indeed was publishable,
    and that's exactly what I did.
    And so at that point, you had already
    decided to make your life's work studying the perpetrators?
    - Well, yeah, I mean, at that particular point
    I was not sure to what extent it would be possible.
    But while I was doing my preliminary research
    at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich,
    looking at all the archives and the documents
    and getting stuff together, looking
    at the German publications, the newspapers and Der Sturmer,
    and all these sorts of things, I had a person
    who was very supportive of me.
    A very well-known person, one of the leading people
    who died quite a few years ago now, a man called
    [? Brochet, ?] who was one of the leading German historians
    of Nazi national socialism.
    And he was very supportive and was
    very impressed with what I was doing and very supportive
    indeed.
    He was older than I, but very, very friendly and supportive.
    And so we talked about personal things and also my ambitions,
    and looking into not being satisfied with just simply
    archival material, and that I actually wanted
    to interview SS perpetrators.
    And that had not been done at the time,
    certainly not by a survivor.
    And so he was very helpful and said that's interesting
    because in Munich you are people,
    and I think it's crucial that you start with a man
    called general Steiner, Felix Steiner.
    And he was one of the senior SS generals, actually,
    and a person, interestingly enough,
    another national socialist, but he didn't know that.
    But he said that this general Steiner is very open
    and he's accessible.
    And so I called him and I said, hey, my name is so-and-so,
    and I think we have namesakes and may even
    be remotely related.
    And I'm from Berkeley, and originally
    from Berkeley and this and that, and just would
    be interested in coming to talking to you.
    And he was immediately very enthusiastic, very open.
    And we hit it off.
    Of course, I was full of trepidation with an SS general.
    I mean, here you are with all the notions
    which experiences I had.
    And I said my god, what are you getting into?
    And so I was kind of jittery to be sure.
    But the funny thing is so he came very elegant and very well
    dressed, kind of stocky fellow just about
    my size, stocky, big fellow, with the hands of a butcher.
    And so we opened the door and I came to the apartment
    back in Munich, which a very nice apartment,
    which he shared with a relative of Cardinal Faulhauber,
    a Munich cardinal who made an interesting law
    during the Nazis opposing Nazis.
    And so there was the table all spread with cake and coffee,
    and he had put all the things together.
    And I just said, what's going on here?
    I mean, you were SS and a coffee table with cake and all this.
    And so I had to adjust to my role as an interviewer,
    and not as a victim.
    Did he know you were a survivor?
    Well, I didn't tell him look, I just come from Dachau.
    I just come to visit and give you hell.
    Well, I couldn't, I couldn't do that of course.
    So I said yeah, I'm a researcher and I'm a former faculty
    member for Berkeley, and I'm interested in interviewing
    perpetrators.
    Perpetrators-- I said members of the SS,
    I didn't say perpetrators, I said members of the SS.
    And you have been suggested to me
    by this and that Dr. [? Brochet ?] and here I am,
    and I'm very interested.
    And so we hit it off, for reasons
    which because I said my god, he was a monster, monster.
    And it turned out not to be a monster.
    He was a very amicable sort of dreadfully interesting person
    who was very generous and very hospitable
    in a way which was exemplary.
    I mean, his hospitality because he had put his paper napkins
    in some sort of special way so that they had decoration
    because he just folded.
    So he went into real minute sort of things to prepare this.
    And I was totally unprepared for that,
    because I saw the SS types from the camp.
    That's my projection.
    I expected some brutal type of sadist barking at me.
    Well, the contrary was the truth.
    And so then he wouldn't let me go
    and then I came back and back and he just said,
    I want to call you Dr. Steiner or whatever.
    And can I call you John and you call me Felix, and all this?
    And I thought, what the hell is going on?
    This man is becoming my friend, an SS general.
    I mean, it's absolute irony.
    And I just had the problem to adjust to it.
    But I said, well, I have to be open minded,
    and I have to go through that because that
    may develop into life's work, and I just simply.
    And then I came back and back and he kept on writing to me
    and we telephoned.
    And then I came out with my first full blown project that
    was prior to the completion of the dissertation,
    but was certainly connected also.
    And in a questionnaire, which authoritarian
    personality and all that.
    What do you do?
    So I mean, what he has done is precisely handed me
    two other SS generals.
    And one of them was an SS General Karl Wolff.
    And he was really, he was a different type
    altogether because he was a political general, not a Waffen
    SS general as Felix Steiner.
    So he introduced me more and more so
    that a circle of people whom I was handed to
    simply was and this fellow is on the level.
    He's going to do objective research
    and he's got my support.
    And because of his position, senior position
    in the SS of that particular time,
    he opened all the doors for me.
    And so I was not a person non grata,
    but I became a persona non grata,
    and that made it all possible.
    And including this sort of Karl Wolff, who was, again,
    a very influential person who was Himmler's right hand up
    to a point.
    And taken with mischief because he
    interceded in the transport ministry
    to get the box cars, which made it possible to ship Jews
    to Treblinka, for which he got 15 years in prison
    and was released after five.
    So this fellow then viewed me as a friend
    and said now we know each other, and of course
    got to know my wife too.
    And said well, when you visiting in Freiburg
    and I stayed with him, and all the other places overnight,
    and was included in all the personal stuff.
    And Felix Steiner, I was the guest of honor
    during a so-called yule festivity,
    where all the SS congregated in the beer hall
    where Hitler used to meet and all that.
    So it was just real unbelievable stuff,
    and I went through this sort of thing like a dream.
    So I come with this SS general.
    Everyone was sitting there, hundreds of people
    congregated there to celebrate not Christmas,
    but what this Germanic Yule Fest, which
    was to be the new religion.
    And that's how I got this sort of interest
    into what was really brewing and what
    was being in preparation to really replace
    the traditional religions with the new Nazi religion.
    And that's what I was introduced to,
    and I was the first to really describe that also
    in publication.
    When was that?
    That was in, it must have been in '64.
    I don't know the exact thing, because it's published.
    More or less?
    '64, '64.
    And there you come and see all these people,
    and there comes the Yid with an SS general.
    With your arm covered, I presume?
    As I had long sleeves and it was winter.
    Fortunately.
    They never-- none of them had--
    Oh, no.
    Never knew what your history was?
    Well, I mean, some did.
    Some did, because I told them, but he didn't.
    I would have told him too, except he would have probably
    died of a heart attack.
    And so there all these people were
    sitting with their families, all the former SS people
    in all different things, but primarily or Waffen SS.
    But then of course, many people came
    from different walks of life, SD and the concentration camps,
    what have you.
    So all the Munich SS people are congregated there,
    let's put it that way.
    And there I come [INAUDIBLE].
    He was a senior general at that particular time, surviving
    general.
    So there I come into this beer hall thing
    where all these people are with him just as the guest of honor.
    I still can't quite fathom the whole thing.
    And all these people get up, the SS people,
    and stand in attention.
    Little do they know.
    Sounds surreal.
    Yeah.
    Absolutely and totally.
    So this was a new religion you're saying that was brewing?
    Yeah.
    And so then I was seated, of course, the guest of honor
    next to Felix.
    And then the people came and talked to me, because I
    was the American, you see.
    I was not a Yid, I was not from Prague.
    I was an American.
    And so they talked to me.
    And then the one came and explained
    this and that, that's the Yule and Christian is nothing.
    It was a Jew and all this and that,
    and comes and tells me about these sort of religious rights.
    And I, in my naivete, had a piece of paper and a pencil
    and I took notes.
    And they said, hey, what are you doing?
    So I said, well, I'm very interested.
    I'm taking notes.
    And then this fellow came, and it
    was a staff sergeant, a real bad,
    badnik I mean, if I've seen a badnik he was a badnik.
    And telling me about all the SS religion, which I, of course,
    never heard because there was nothing
    in the literature at that time published after the war.
    Documentation during the war I had not seen much of it,
    just some, minimal.
    And so he comes and then starts, don't listen to this person,
    he's just a criminal.
    Don't listen to him.
    And it's all published.
    I keep the whole episode, which is published.
    And but of course, I listened to him
    and I didn't see a criminal, because he
    wanted to disparage him because this
    was a very threatening thing.
    When you say he's a badnik was that from your sense
    that you had learned--
    Oh, yeah.
    I mean, he was a bad--
    That you could recognize?
    Oh god, he was bad.
    He was a real badnik no question about that.
    Well, could you elaborate on this religion
    and what he was telling you?
    Oh, yeah he said, well, it's all the things.
    It's all the Germanic paganism and all this Jewish stuff
    and Christianity, it's all bad news.
    And this is what it really stands for,
    and the Christians have stolen that all
    this from the Germanic festivities
    and turned it into Christianity.
    And we were there, and that's something which is important.
    And he explained to me the meaning
    of the solstice and yule and all these sort of things.
    And what the ritual were when they
    were singing songs and lighting candles for the people who
    died for Germany, these people for the children
    and for the mothers who suffered,
    and all this sort of thing.
    And I just don't remember all the things.
    I put it down.
    It's all published.
    And so I went through all that.
    And then he got wind of it while he was and said,
    don't listen to him.
    He doesn't know, what a criminal.
    He doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.
    And of course, he knew exactly, except he
    didn't want me to know what really what the game was,
    because that's what they celebrated.
    And then they said, well, we are still into this,
    and some other people are still into it,
    but our children we raised them in Christian thing because this
    doesn't--
    we will be the last ones probably.
    But in order for them to survive in this new society,
    it's important for these children
    to be brought up in a acceptable Christian religion
    denomination.
    And so--
    It sounds like--
    He devalued all the things which some of the people
    did and tried to keep apart, but they came and started talking
    and I listened because that's why I was there,
    except they thought I was there because I
    wanted to be a guest of honor.
    I didn't do anything.
    He said I want to invite you to this Yule Fest,
    Felix did, and I want you to be here.
    And then instead of then, so I was his guest
    and I was because I was his personal guest,
    I was the guest of honor.
    And it really shook me up.
    It really shook me up.
    So it sounds like this is another big element
    of many of the hints of the occult going on?
    Yeah.
    And that's what I was after.
    And then this led to my sensitivity
    towards this sort of thing.
    And then when this Karl Wolff, General Karl
    Wolff was sentenced to 15 years, and I went to the trial
    because I was there at that particular time in Germany
    doing my research and starting to work on my doctorate
    at the University of Freiburg, so I went there.
    I was already working quite a bit,
    as a matter of fact, on the doctorate.
    And so I went there to be on the trial because I knew him.
    So I come to Munich.
    The trial of [INAUDIBLE] said hi, hi, hi,
    and I talked to him.
    He was sentenced and then I visited him in prison,
    and visited other SS people whom he introduced me,
    oh by the way, there is this and this and that,
    and so we talked.
    And then one day, when I visited him,
    he said, well John, I've got a big favor to ask.
    And I've got this chain here with this amulet,
    and I'd like you to have that repaired because it tore.
    And tore, I say tore, it's interesting because it
    [INAUDIBLE].
    And I took it and there was a hammer,
    a silver hammer on a silver--
    or was it platinum?
    I don't know, platinum or silver chain.
    I said what the hell?
    Why would he have a hammer here?
    Why would an SS general have a hammer on a silver chain?
    And so I went to this [? Brochet ?] fellow,
    and said look, I've got that, I told him about my encounters
    because I went to visit him.
    And he told me many things about CIA connections
    and all these sort of things, the SS and CIA connections,
    that's what also he told me.
    And said, well, if they don't release me
    within a certain time I'm going to talk.
    And I said what do you mean talk?
    I'm going to spill the beans in terms of the CIA
    and their role in the SS and in all of this.
    Really?
    This is Wolff speaking?
    That was Wolff.
    And I said by all means, spill it now.
    And said well, I'll wait until I'll find out what's-- and sure
    enough, he got out because CIA intervention.
    Really?
    Did you ever find out whatever?
    Oh, yeah, I know the whole thing.
    What the CIA connections?
    Oh, yes, I know the whole thing.
    And so anyway, so coming back to the chain,
    and I went to [? Brochet ?] and said,
    hey, John, I have no idea.
    I can't place it.
    So but this sort of thing reminded me.
    I said I've had it repaired, I paid for it, of course.
    I always smuggled cigarettes to him
    which he could use and all that, and then he
    opened up and told me things, all sorts sort of things which
    otherwise he may not have because he felt obligated
    and also felt that I kind of was supportive of him.
    So it was a very complex game.
    And so I brought back the chain relatively shortly after that,
    brought it in the prison and said here you are.
    But you know, I'm bringing it to you.
    Now, tell me what it's all about.
    What the hell is this?
    And he was very reluctant to talk about it.
    And then piece by piece it came out that it
    was a hammer of the Thor.
    And I said what the hell is this?
    And then I got into this sort of religious sort of thing,
    and that gave me the end which I then continued to research
    and came out with a really important publication
    relating to this sort of thing.
    What was the name of the publication?
    "The God Believers in the SS."
    And that was published in German, in English,
    and in Swiss history journal.
    Is this in a book form?
    No, it was just an article, but and also part of my book, yes.
    It was a chapter, subject in the book.
    Except in the modified form it was in some other journals
    and see in a chapter in a book, in a German book, a very
    reputable history book, tool books
    talks god, for just about four or five different publications
    in modified forms.
    And one, which appeared in Switzerland, with lots
    of pictures, photographs.
    And so that was a very popular thing and most of the SS people
    read it.
    They were all over me later on said, hey, how can you
    do that, this and that?
    So were you referring by saying god to the ancient mythical
    gods that were pre-Christian?
    In this yule celebration, along with this mythology,
    were they still upholding the principles of fascism?
    Well, the interesting thing is they simply
    looked back more than forward.
    And somehow, I think most of these people
    understood that this was the end of the line,
    that this would not be perpetuated
    or would not be easy.
    Because they themselves said that we are bringing up
    our children in Christianity, in some sort of whatever
    Protestant or Catholic faith.
    But they still brought them to these yule things
    while they were around, and they continued
    to do that now, the old ones.
    Because they are their last who will continue with what they
    had adopted, accepted during that particular time
    while they were SS, in the SS during Nazi time.
    But they also know that it is coming to an end,
    and that chances are that no one else will
    pick it up and perpetuate it again, although we don't know.
    No, because the children are being inculcated
    with this to some degree?
    Well, yes, but I think they are exceeding those--
    many I've met, I don't think they--
    I think they have been so much influenced
    by the media about national socialism and all
    that that I don't think they are building
    or think it would be prudent to continue this sort of thing.
    I think there would be a very small minority, because I think
    the influence of the media and the teaching
    and the Democratic sort of perspective at this time
    is stronger than the influence of their parents.
    Should we assume that all these people
    who were celebrating the yule were brought up as Christians
    also?
    Oh, yeah, you can because you see because at that time
    this sort of thing was just beginning to be popular.
    And that was before, I'd like to make sure,
    that it was also existing starting
    at the turn of the century, something of that nature.
    And even before the beginning, the seed of it if you will,
    the beginning of that particular development, but no one
    took it that fully seriously.
    And very few people adhered to it or were interested in it.
    It only then became popular and furthered officially
    by the top Nazis.
    Now they all belong, for example, Bormann
    and Himmler and Goebbels and all these people
    came to this sort of thing and renounced the Christian faith
    to become what they called god glory, namely believers in god,
    which was the name of the new faith.
    And now with a friend of mine I'm
    doing research which has not been done before,
    because I found in legal texts that according
    to the Nazi definition, racial Jews called
    be Catholics or practice the Catholic or Protestant
    or any sort of Christian faith.
    But they are not permitted to become believers in god.
    That is something we were not permitted to do.
    You had to be Aryan to do that?
    That's right.
    And no one has ever written about it.
    It's just something which is totally new.
    And I just simply, because I browsed
    through some legal texts which I do see what sort of laws,
    particularly racial laws, and among those things
    precisely that.
    Including the fact that Hitler himself
    was the only one who could make an exception to the Nuremberg
    laws.
    That's also a legal permission.
    And right now, we are interested in both things,
    to find out if there indeed were cases of full blooded Jews,
    "full blooded" quote unquote, because there's
    no such thing as Jewish blood.
    That's the fiction of the Nazi imagination.
    And so I'm particularly interested in finding out
    if indeed an exception was made by Hitler, because yes
    there was a provision in that.
    Which kind of boggles my mind that even
    there was a legal provision and that's in the legal books,
    and I have it in several legal books.
    So you haven't yet run into an instance that he used this?
    No.
    I know that some people who were half Jews, or were just
    married to Jews.
    For example, a very well-known Austrian actor,
    his Jewish wife was exempted from her Jewish status,
    and that was referred to in documentation which I have
    lots of documentation on that.
    So would that be an instance?
    Because last year I went to Koblenz through the archives
    to search just to do a search like that.
    And now, because of east German all that,
    there are very many more archives open and access
    to documentation which hasn't been even tapped before.
    So and Prague also has very important documentation,
    particularly on the SS.
    So all these things, if I have a chance,
    if I ever should get into a financial position
    that I can do that, then I certainly
    would like to do that with Ms. Horowitz or someone else
    do that.
    But I mean, just it's something that we'll
    be able to get the funds, because it takes time
    to get away from.
    You had said that some of these SS people
    were aware that you were a survivor?
    Well, yeah, because you see, when
    I, for example, interviewed some of the Auschwitz perpetrators
    who by now have all-- and I taped
    all the interviews, which is important,
    or most of the interviews, I told them.
    And after the interviews say I am a survivor, and they said--
    they burst into tears, many of them,
    and said how is it that you treat us the way you do?
    And where-- couldn't quite come to terms.
    And I came back and talked to them again.
    Because of you, we haven't eaten and I have not eaten
    and I have not slept and all that, because of the encounter
    I've had with you.
    And you treated me as a human being, and all this and that.
    And these were the Auschwitz perpetrators.
    These were the gassers.
    These were the people who were doing it.
    And that was a very fortunate thing,
    because I had access to them by virtue
    of the fact that I was befriended
    with the Jewish attorney general of Hessen in whose jurisdiction
    the Auschwitz process and he initiated the Auschwitz
    process.
    And then these people who--
    I did not attend the Auschwitz process, unfortunately,
    but I talked to them later on after they were sentenced
    to multiple life sentences.
    And then I had access because of his permission
    and because of friends I've had.
    One friend who actually was the director
    of that prison at that time, was a personal friend of mine.
    So I stayed with him at the premises of the prison
    where all these Auschwitz people were.
    So I virtually 24 access to them,
    and took advantage of that.
    Except these people I taped, most of these interviews.
    So it sounds like in this group there
    was quite what you might call a human reaction?
    Oh, yeah, very, very much so.
    And most of these people were exceedingly
    eager to talk to me.
    And that is something which came to me a surprise because I
    thought that most people, once I start probing in depth,
    that they would clam up on me .
    But none of them had.
    Not only they did not clam up, but they
    couldn't get enough of it, so I had to come back and come back.
    And then one of them who was another,
    was not the Auschwitz but he was known as the Hangman
    or Buchenwald, man called Sommer,
    he wrote to me twice a month.
    And I have the correspondence over the years, which
    is just a mountain of letters.
    Somehow, I became the father confessor and also
    some person whom they could talk to in order
    to get all this dreadfulness out of their system,
    and that was to my advantage.
    And so they wrote to me, and they
    expected me to respond to their needs, which I did.
    And relations developed so that when still a person with whom I
    worked very closely, was one of my major research assistants,
    if you will, back in Germany.
    So whenever I come there I stay with them.
    They treat me like a family, and he knows that I am a survivor.
    And whenever I leave he bursts into tears and tells me
    I'm so thankful to you and all that.
    It's a dreadfully embarrassing situation for me.
    And he embraces me and cries and weeps,
    a man who was a guard at Dachau.
    And witnessed and participated in one way or another
    the destruction of Warsaw Ghetto.
    How is it for you--
    And he wrote me his whole description
    of the destruction of which he as an eyewitness, SS
    eyewitness, wrote and he's a journalist.
    He knows how to write.
    How was it for you to be in the role of forgiving and assuaging
    the feelings of--
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    You see, the sort of forgiving to begin with, I was terribly
    confused because hey, I mean, project my experience
    of numerous death camps.
    Most people didn't survive one.
    I survived four, five, a death march and all this.
    And project into this, particularly with Felix Steiner
    and say he is an SS general, my god.
    Swine like that terrible stuff, how
    am I going to stand up and not do something or say
    something or whatever, be there as a sociologist, an interview.
    And I thought I couldn't do it.
    And also the feelings came back.
    There was all this sort of replay of what had happened.
    And he turned out to be exceedingly human.
    A person who can be a very loyal and fully supportive
    friend, who is very caring.
    And I said hey, how is it possible
    that under those circumstances you can be humane,
    and before that they fought for the Nazi cause?
    How can you-- or you're glad to see me and talk
    to me as a human being, and you were the Hangman of Buchenwald.
    Or all you burst into tears and you gassed a hundred thousands
    of Jews.
    Just how do you put that into proper context?
    Well, yes, and that's precisely how people respond
    to different situations.
    And the interesting thing is and the upshot of it
    that most of these people who participated in it
    were not people who initiated, but were
    sucked into it by the system.
    Because they themselves never would have been initiators,
    most of them.
    Some of them are sadists, no question about it.
    And I discussed it with Erich Fromm
    and we agreed that among all these SS
    people in concentration camps, there was a pitiful 17 just
    about 16, 17, 18% of sadists.
    I've met them.
    And that's why I think that they feel a Zimbardo's
    experiment was very important.
    They simulated the prison.
    And that's why I participated in that as a consultant,
    because that was a replay of a situation which was not totally
    unsimilar to the whole thing.
    Except of course it was by far not as traumatic obviously,
    but traumatic enough to see what sort of--
    Eichmanns are all in us, which under certain circumstances
    will come out and we will behave out of character.
    So like the pressure of the hierarchy,
    the pressure of the peers to force you into this?
    Well, yes, the system.
    The system which creates situations,
    because the structure, which is manned by individuals,
    will compel, persuade and compel people
    with the help of an ideology, Nazi ideology,
    absolutist ideology, persuade people to lend
    a hand in mass destruction.
    It has like a life of its own, the system?
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Which is being created with the help of Hitlerism
    and people who will benefit from it because of power
    and satisfaction of their needs at the expense
    of countless millions.
    And where other people also will participate
    because they feel they are doing the right thing ideologically,
    indoctrinated, brainwashed to believe that they
    are doing the right thing.
    And when this sort of ceases to exist then
    they revert back into some sort of normal, quote unquote,
    "normal" selves and behave in a way which
    is not going to break any law.
    And you would meet them and say what
    a nice person, totally innocuous,
    nice kind of harmless individual.
    These Auschwitz perpetrators, the ones
    who were immediately involved, it
    sounds like they were suffering obvious guilt.
    Oh, yeah.
    But was this also true of the--
    Well, and some other people, for example, very few people,
    I just spoke to one of them, a man called Boger.
    And he was a well-known sadist.
    And I had one encounter with him and then
    he didn't want to continue any interviews.
    And this man just thrived on sadistic acts.
    I mean, he was thriving on it and he
    invented torture for that.
    A fellow called Boger, B-O-G-E-R.
    But then I also met someone else who
    was another general SS, also involved with-- no,
    that was not there anymore.
    But I went back because I wanted to see some other SS
    people in a prison in Bavaria.
    And then I tried to have an interview with a man
    called Bach-Zelewski who was actually
    the admin of all that region, Von dem Bach-Zelewski
    And I met him at this prison, and the director of that prison
    was very cooperative and with whom
    I had a tremendous relationship and also was
    a very fair minded and sophisticated individual,
    a humanist in a way.
    He cooperated with me and said, OK, we'll
    bring him out, Von dem Bach-Zelewski and Erik von dem
    Bach-Zelewski.
    And you can eyeball each other and see how we will respond.
    And so I came there and he was sitting there,
    because they brought him out.
    And I said my name is Steiner, and he introduced me
    and was kind of very courteous, very nice.
    And said Professor Steiner would like to interview.
    Would you mind doing that?
    And said if I have a choice, I'd rather not.
    And then this fair minded director
    said OK, if you don't want to, we won't force you.
    And that was one of the major interviews, which is about 98%
    of people never refused an interview.
    It was a matter of fact cooperated
    and it's just about 2% roughly speaking.
    And he's one of the 2% who refused to be interviewed,
    which is a tremendous loss because he
    was responsible for most.
    He was the senior man in all the destruction
    policies in the East
    So that's lost then?
    That's lost, because the man is dead.
    He died of cancer and was released
    prior to this, before his because he had a life sentence.
    He was the real.
    The other SS generals and people at that level of the hierarchy,
    did you feel that they were justifying themselves,
    or did they too suffer guilt in their decisions?
    I think that's a very important question.
    And I had a feeling that some of them to some extent maybe,
    but to a minimal extent.
    I would say primarily they bathed in their glory,
    in their past glory.
    They continue to look back and focus
    on their glory and their power.
    And that to them was more important
    than the consequences of their power,
    namely what they had done.
    And that I could see in Steiner.
    That I could see in Wolff.
    In all the generals, and I met a few, god I'd met a few,
    and none of them really came to say, hey,
    look this time is terrible.
    I mean, and now in the first time
    I got an apology, and that is an important thing,
    which I think it made history, although it's not recognized,
    so it maybe after my death that may come out.
    Because now when I was in Germany last summer,
    I had the first table talk, which
    was with SS people, which was a public broadcast in which two
    of them said, and we talked about it, any one of you
    apologize?
    Havel, Vaclav Havel, the Czech president,
    apologized to the Sudeten Germans what they've done,
    the Czechs to them.
    And I've been there, and I know what they've done.
    I've seen it.
    And I've helped many of the Sudeten Germans
    to save their lives, particularly
    those who were friends and I knew they're just
    as narcissistic as I am.
    And so he has done that, and that's what I use to say,
    hey, what have you done?
    Have you ever thought of apology?
    And yes well, yeah, I mean, it's really terrible.
    And so we discussed that, and that became a very interesting
    sort of thing.
    But of course, I left Germany before it was broadcast,
    so I don't know what sort of response it stimulated.
    But it was broadcast in a major broadcast stations
    all over Germany, including Cologne and all that,
    which caters to Berlin and what have you.
    And so there they said yeah, well,
    if we come to think of it, two out of the three
    said if we had understood what the consequences would
    be at that particular time we would have
    not become members of the SS.
    That was the first public statement anyone
    has made since World War Two.
    And I got them to do it.
    They said they would not have joined the SS?
    That's right.
    And they had regrets.
    And one fellow was just as old as I, same year,
    born same year, and the other one was born 1920.
    That's right, just turned 17.
    And the other one who was the senior there,
    he didn't join the club.
    No.
    He didn't join the club, he didn't say it.
    It seems that then, in general, they
    didn't have that same outpouring as those--
    Well, but you see, this is something
    with my questionnaire, I've tapped that all
    because these are questions I've asked.
    And that was published in 1970.
    And said how do you look back with regret or whatever?
    And categories there, and only a very small minority
    had regrets.
    It was too soon.
    Huh?
    It was too soon.
    Oh, no.
    I don't think so.
    I think it was just the timing was I think very appropriate,
    '70.
    I think I mean, you're talking 25 years.
    So you're saying the response would not
    have been any different?
    No.
    Surely, they would have by then--
    And that was of course in person,
    because they filled in a questionnaire
    without anyone being present and it was anonymous.
    So I mean, they had no reason to--
    and so I think that two or three times
    of their real true sentiments, I think that came out.
    That kind of came out loud and clear.
    So now at this point that you have
    spent a good deal of your adult lifetime studying
    the perpetrators, kind of generically,
    what conclusions have you drawn?
    Well, the conclusion, the terrible thing that most of us
    are capable of dreadfulness, regardless
    of how we were brought up.
    Well, maybe not, I think there is still
    some difference in terms of how we were brought up
    and what sort of insights we have gained by virtue
    of the way we were socialized.
    And so I think there is a significant difference.
    There's a significant difference between people
    who are authoritarian and not, because the authoritarians will
    be more susceptible to ideologies
    and also more willing to participate
    in crimes against humanity.
    But for all practical purposes that we see in everyday life
    that all of us are capable of things
    which would be defined as out of character
    and would be destructive.
    So human destructiveness is something which is not merely
    done by people of who won't say this,
    but by relatively, as Hannah Arendt said, individuals
    like Eichmann who himself would have not initiated,
    I'm sure, that the chances are in terms of what we know.
    The destruction he participated because he identified
    with the ideology and he was given orders,
    and wanted to advance in rank and power.
    And so that is, I think, that's the danger.
    That's the danger.
    And politicians and just general individuals
    who are not that fully well read or have not looked into it
    don't know that, and we all are more or less
    capable of these sort of things.
    And that's, I think, the dreadful outcome
    of this investigation.
    That these people, and that's something
    which I found out without any question,
    that the majority of the SS people
    who were perpetrators, who were doing
    all these ghastly, monumental crimes,
    under different situations revert
    into kind of behavior which is not going to break any laws.
    And that's exactly what I found out.
    They have not broken any laws.
    They are law abiding citizens who have not harmed anyone.
    That's the frightening thing.
    Do you think there's--
    Because I too went into this beginning of the research,
    I went into this sort of thing believing
    that I'm going to interview an SS
    and he's going to eat me up alive.
    Because I projected my experience
    into this sort of situation and that was my conviction.
    Say, hey, my god, am I going to blah, blah, blah,
    what am I doing exposing myself to all this?
    Who needs it?
    Only to be seen that these people are just absolutely
    charming, concerned, hospitable.
    Brutalizer.
    Do you think that the forms of child raising
    and the Prussian aspect of Germany
    made a larger contribution, or made it more fertile ground?
    I'm thinking of some of Ellis Miller's work.
    Well, my notion is after all these sort of research
    and reflection is that the socialization process which
    took place in Germany and in some Central European countries
    as well apparently rendered people
    more susceptible to ideologies, totalitarian, absolutist
    ideologies.
    And that, I think, is a key issue,
    because people will not become destructive
    unless they are persuaded to be destructive.
    And this persuasion is only possible
    when I'm susceptible to it.
    And the idea is, for example, what
    I'm trying to do with my son, know that, indeed,
    do all I can so that they will question authority,
    that they will question belief systems which indeed are myth
    rather than just buy into it and let themselves
    be influenced by them.
    And I think that's something which we can do,
    and we can do by way of proper socialization.
    That is my conclusion.
    Now, I use myself as an example for that,
    because I didn't buy into any of these sort of ideologies
    may they be communist or any absolutist ideologies which
    make you see enemies in people who have heretofore been
    your friends or your neighbors.
    I'm not going to be persuaded to accept that,
    and I think that's what I'm doing with my students.
    I'm explaining all this to them, and I
    think it will be more difficult to persuade some of my students
    who have taken my classes or have been exposed
    to the Holocaust lecture series or what have
    you to become true believers.
    And so that's the crucial step.
    Step number one.
    And also, may I don't have much influence
    is to appeal to politicians to see to it that there will not
    be outlets which will be socially acceptable outlets
    to do harm to other people.
    And that includes the type of prisons,
    which are obviously counterproductive,
    and total institutions-- what we call total institutions--
    in which other people simply have
    to act upon assigned roles.
    These sort of things, once they exist,
    provide outlets for human disruptiveness.
    And I think if we are mindful of that,
    and if we bring up people who will see that, we can reduce
    the resolution of conflict, which we will have at all times
    with violent means to a minimum.
    And that's what I find to be one of my major life goals
    to attain in my role as educator or as an individual who
    speaks his mind.
    I'm thinking how to go back and follow
    how you came to be the educator and involved
    in the Holocaust aspects that's on the state.
    But in the '50s, you went to Freiburg and did your doctoral
    work there, but you must have, I presume,
    come back to the United States somewhat after the doctorate
    was through or--
    Well, the same year actually.
    I finished my doctorate in '68, and that's
    when I came back to the United States
    to teach at Sonoma State.
    First, I had some choices.
    But I came there because of a colleague of mine
    with whom I initially taught at Berkeley,
    and he asked me to join him.
    But when I came, he had left.
    You know, he decided to leave, and so
    I actually assumed his position rather than the position which
    was available to me which was vacant,
    and which I think is a shame.
    But that's what happened, and then I--
    In the sociology department?
    Yeah, and then I stayed for reasons which still escape me.
    Did you start right out teaching Holocaust-related courses?
    Not really, because first of all,
    I had to think about things.
    How to teach them and to what extent
    there would be interest in them.
    And to begin with, I don't think there was much interest,
    and what I think is the irony that most
    of my Jewish colleagues in the Department
    were the ones who were least interested and didn't
    want anything to do or certainly not supportive.
    They still are not supportive, and that is something
    which I think is unforgiving.
    Why do you think they're not supportive?
    I don't know.
    I think they are dreadfully ignorant and insensitive.
    Defensive against the [INAUDIBLE]..
    Insensitive.
    Well, I would say defensive.
    In other words--
    Defensive maybe too, but I have not
    encountered any more insensitive individuals than I've met there
    in terms of my profession, in contrast
    to people I've met elsewhere.
    Just like Philip Zimbardo who is exceedingly
    understands the problem and has devoted a great deal
    of his effort to share insight and share
    understanding to this sort of dreadful problem.
    So I haven't had any help whatsoever
    from the Department whatsoever.
    So when did you begin to teach--
    Well, I started the first class sometimes
    in the early '70s or mid '70s, and I had no takers.
    No one came.
    Did you just introduce this by yourself?
    Yeah, well, I just offered that.
    No one came.
    No one?
    And then I just was, of course, disappointed,
    and then I waited for a few years, and I started again,
    and then I think the class--
    the first one was when you came which was in 19--
    '84?
    '84.
    And before that, I've had maybe one or two trials and nothing
    very much developed.
    And so the first more full fledged class
    with sufficient number of students
    was at that particular time.
    It was, as she said, 1984.
    About a dozen of us, I think.
    Did you have difficulty with the department or the university
    to teach this?
    Well, it just was uphill all the way.
    And now, we have someone who is very supportive.
    We have a Dean who is very sympathetic who is a historian.
    And generally historians.
    They are much more sympathetic than any
    of the sociologists or psychologists
    I've encountered so far.
    And so they cooperate and are very supportive.
    And this Dean, who is a historian,
    is supportive and has been very, very kind to us
    in making things possible which other people I know,
    they are not at all interested in or just
    they felt was just unnecessary sort of reminders
    of unpleasantness.
    I find it very disappointing exceedingly.
    I mean, it's one of my great disappointments in life
    that I've dealt with people who are dreadfully myopic
    and limited in their vision.
    And of course, it has something to do
    with the institution itself, because religion
    in which Sonoma State is and all that, in particular, it
    is a provincial place.
    I don't know, from what I understand,
    it would not be that different probably
    at San Francisco State.
    I don't know, but I have a feeling
    that in this part of the country,
    I don't think this is a subject which people would
    be interested in studying.
    Do you think there was anything special about the timing
    or the climate of things?
    Well, yes, I think that has something
    to do with it for sure.
    You know, the mood of the times.
    Dominant mood of the times which is changing.
    I think that has very much to do with it.
    But this burgeoning of interest in the mid 80s,
    I wonder if there was anything special happening that drew
    more students to the class.
    Well, politically, you had Cambodia.
    You had genocide taking place in different parts of the world,
    and then some people consciously or subconsciously
    respond to that, and therefore, may
    be more susceptible to developing
    interest in the area.
    But by large, I found with the exception of a lecture series,
    and there we have people who just look forward
    to units, which they would fit into their curriculum.
    And that is something which happened just in the last year
    and will happen this year.
    So how we can fit that in, we are not terribly interested,
    and they are very upfront.
    They're not very interested in that, but you know,
    it just fits in, and so we might try to.
    Yes, in this case, we're talking about students in their 20s?
    Yes, mostly.
    And undergraduates?
    Mhm.
    And when did the lecture series begin?
    About eight years ago.
    How did that get initiated?
    Well, that was initiated by the Alliance
    for the Study of the Holocaust, and that's
    a communal organization.
    Communal organization of American Jews who,
    for reasons which are not clear to me,
    just are motivated to do that.
    Well, I've got some notions, but I mean--
    Are you willing to say?
    Oh, well, I mean, --
    may be guilt, because they have not really
    done very much to assist those who were under pressure
    while they could.
    Some of them are fairly old and haven't done very much
    for anyone.
    They're not doing very much for me personally
    either for that matter.
    So I think it's very guilt as some place in it.
    And so they do it and initiate it,
    because they felt that would be a useful outlet for making
    a contribution.
    Do they do anything else other than the lecture series?
    Well, they try to have events in the community, such as--
    Yom HaShoah.
    Yom HaShoah and--
    Kristallnacht.
    And the Kristallnacht.
    Kristallnacht which commemorate and all these sort
    of things they try, which is not easy because not
    that many people are interested in it
    and want to hear about it.
    Some years ago, there was some interest in the local radio
    broadcast station interview with us, and they were supportive,
    and they had one event which was exceedingly well attended.
    I couldn't go, but that was supposed to be very successful.
    So yes, they are trying.
    And then, of course, what now we will
    be trying to do simply because of the law, we hope to--
    with the help of getting some money for it--
    to have lectures or some sort of introduction
    to the Holocaust for high school teachers.
    And so that might be something which may or may not
    develop by virtue of the fact that this
    needs to be that is a law that this needs to be taught.
    So that may be a productive.
    But you see, there is also not that many people who
    are qualified to teach it properly, and it's
    not simply enough to tell you how it was in concentration
    camps, although it's fine, and I mean, it's important.
    But I think much too much time is
    spent on the descriptive part and not
    enough on the interpretative part.
    And that's what I'm trying to do,
    and that's not always well received,
    because it is more complex.
    It is a bit more abstract and does not
    come out with all the gory stuff which kind of people
    like to hear because essentially the sensationalist
    and satisfies whatever curiosity they may have.
    And so we see that also in our students,
    because the students, when they respond to the student faculty
    assessment questionnaire, and the contents of the lecture
    series, they invariably say that the most meaningful
    or the most stimulating presentations
    were panels of survivors.
    And generally, panels of people who
    are eyewitnesses of either liberator's and what have you.
    So they seemed to be the most popular,
    and that tells you something.
    That tells you something that people
    want to hear the descriptive part of that
    and not that much interest in the interpretation of it.
    Well, above the immediate experience, I think, probably--
    Oh, yes, well, I'm not discounting
    the importance of it, but I don't think they know.
    Yeah.
    Because it doesn't get us any farther.
    We need to understand what can be understood.
    You know, prevent.
    Otherwise, it's all for the birds.
    We stimulate emotions maybe and disturb people, yes.
    But I mean, it's not going to change anything.
    I feel like you're doing both though.
    Yes, I think you need to do both in order to make it clearer
    to the people, and that is something
    which I've seen also in my present class, the Holocaust
    and genocide.
    The sociology of Holocaust and genocide
    where I have young students, and they simply very quickly became
    very saturated with the abstract theories, which I consider
    to be exceedingly insightful.
    But I mean, their level of sophistication
    did not permit them to appreciate that.
    So then they staged a so to speak palace revolution
    and said, how are you going to talk about the real thing?
    You know, that should tell us about your experience and all
    that.
    I'm not very happy with it and just
    to make it possible for people to have an experience which
    will be meaningful by giving the descriptive stuff
    and also associated with the interpretation which
    will develop the insights necessary
    for them to act in everyday life to prevent
    is exceedingly difficult.
    And to develop a pedagogy which will do it
    is a work for a lifetime.
    And since we are the generation and I'm
    one of the younger ones, of survivors
    with one foot in the grave so to speak,
    I think we have to prepare for who
    is going to teach the students after we are gone.
    And not very many people are interested or capable
    or equipped to do that.
    I don't think there has been any preparation.
    So when we die, there will be books maybe
    which have been written, and there will be some stories,
    and there will be oral history, which is exceedingly important,
    which is, I think, the next best thing.
    The real stuff, and that is going
    to be exceedingly important.
    But other than that, I don't see very much.
    So the oral History project I think is something which cannot
    be overrated as an exceedingly important contribution.
    Yes.
    And that's why I'm willing to do what I can to do my share.
    And thank you.
    But I'm not very optimistic in terms of other things
    which are being done to perpetuate
    the teaching of the Holocaust after we are gone.
    I'm not dreadfully optimistic as to who
    will assume that responsibility, if it will be assumed at all.
    Do you think this could happen again?
    Well, obvious.
    It's happening.
    It's happening all over the world.
    You just look at Iraq.
    You at Cambodia.
    You look at many places in Africa.
    You look at Turkey.
    It's happening, and it will continue
    to happen until we will educate people
    who will become politicians.
    So I think that whole problem is that we have politicians
    who are utterly ignorant and unqualified to even begin
    to understand the complexities that are into power.
    That are into limelight.
    They are into satisfaction of their personal needs
    without being properly educated and socialized to assume
    the responsibility for this tremendously consequential role
    they assume.
    And talking about role models and people who
    really have attained that is--
    the one I keep on mentioning to people
    who will listen as Tomas Garrigue
    Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic.
    The sociologist, the humanist, the philosopher
    who was a philosopher king.
    In that case, he was a president.
    And to some extent, he was also very close to Woodrow Wilson.
    I think Woodrow Wilson had many of the attributes which
    are needed for someone who is a president.
    He became very very ill towards the end.
    But he had the vision and the understanding,
    and I think potential as a potential president
    who probably could have grown into his position.
    It was certainly John F Kennedy, whom I've encountered back
    at Berkeley when I was there when
    he got his honorary doctorate.
    I sat just [INAUDIBLE] and just observed him and didn't
    talk to him, of course.
    I didn't have a chance to talk to him.
    But anyway, just was able to and Adlai Stevenson
    was certainly one.
    But other than that, I think Harry, old Harry Truman,
    I think had potential and probably would
    have listened to some of the survivors
    if they had talked to him, but those people
    we've had in recent times forget it.
    Just a sad commentary to what shouldn't be.
    And so I wish I could teach people who will have a--
    or could become potential leaders on a large level.
    And that obviously is other places [INAUDIBLE] university
    and Harvard.
    And I've made a terrible mistake that instead of Harvard, I
    went to Missouri, because I didn't know any better.
    An example is old Henry and he played it right.
    Look at his Secretary of State hid with an accent,
    and yet he made it.
    Why did he made it?
    Because he's been in war, certainly.
    He's a very good mind, and I think that he's that dreadfully
    ? adequate ?.
    I mean, that's another point.
    But he's a person who went through Harvard
    and made his contacts, and that is
    something I was reminded of when one
    of Hitler's very close associates at the time,
    until he came into power a few years after that,
    was a person who studied in the United States and at Harvard.
    And he then via England came to the United States,
    and because he got to know Roosevelt at the university,
    he was used as an informant and as a person
    to inform the president and the special position
    instead of being put into some sort of a business.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    He had a special status given to him by President Roosevelt
    by virtue of the fact that he was a Harvard
    man with tremendous contacts.
    And his name was Putzi Hanfstaengl,
    who has written a very interesting
    biographical account relating to the association,
    his association, to of Hitler, which
    I think first appeared in English before it actually
    appeared in German.
    It's exceedingly readable, and I think a very accurate account.
    So Putzi Hanfstaengl was a Harvard graduate,
    and that made all the difference even though he
    was a close associate of Hitler's and furthered
    the cause and all that until somehow
    because of his intelligence, he began to see some light.
    Not very much, and events simply triggered the fact
    that he felt obligated to escape Germany,
    because he felt his life was threatened by an event which
    was kind of a joke which they played with a Nazi Goring
    and they played a joke on him.
    And he took that very seriously, and in spite of assurances
    that it was a joke, He just felt that they were after him,
    and he may have been right.
    And so we escaped and via England
    came to the United States and became
    a wartime advisor, so to speak, to the administration.
    Which makes me think, what do you
    think about the kind of worldwide threat
    of Nazi groups, i.e, those who escaped Germany and went
    to Latin America and different enclaves?
    Well, I think largely, they've assimilated,
    and certainly are still a very formidable influence
    in terms of making contributions to general--
    if you will rightist mood prevailing in these countries.
    I think they certainly are very much at home.
    But I think their influence is limited
    by virtue of the fact that most of these people--
    the old guard are dead.
    And by old age or disease, they're no longer around.
    So if I had, for example, not interviewed all these SS
    generals in time, very shortly afterwards, they all died.
    I wouldn't have had a chance to see
    and then I realized that very soon.
    And that was too late already almost when I started.
    I should have started much earlier,
    but I just simply didn't have the means to do that.
    And so I don't think they are any force anymore
    by virtue of the fact that they are not very much around,
    and I don't think their children will
    perpetuate anything extremist.
    But I'm more concerned about the young people who are
    susceptible to some of these ideologies,
    because of their low self-esteem and self-image, which is--
    identity, which is an unpleasant one.
    And so they will be susceptible to any sort of ideology which
    tells them that they are superior and not inferior.
    So I mean, that's a tremendous danger,
    and I think that was very functional
    in the case of the Nazi Germany, because there you
    have a vanquished nation which used
    to play a very major role in European history well,
    you know was the war for the first time,
    because before that, they were very
    successful in winning the war.
    And having to come to terms with that--
    just in their identity and self-esteem.
    So Hitler-- I think it's just unbelievably brilliant sort
    of stroke to say, hey, you're not inferior, you're superior.
    and you think yo're inferior and these
    are the scapegoats responsible for the misery,
    and you are victims because you are such fantastic people
    blemished with mischief, and that's because you're superior.
    Now if I feel inferior, I want to believe that--
    I certainly will accept that as an alternative--
    a viable alternative, and feel better.
    And I think that is the momentum which should not be forgotten.
    I think it's exceedingly-- a very important ingredient
    in terms of detection of any sort of movement which
    resembles the sort of racist situation,
    because who are the people who are attracted to such belief
    systems--
    are people who are failures in some ways
    and have low self-esteem.
    Hitler certainly did, and most of his followers were losers.
    And so if I say you're not a loser, you are a winner
    and you're superior, my God, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon
    and feel better for it.
    And say what I can do I'm going to prove to you that I'm not
    a loser, that I'm indeed a superior person who's a winner.
    And I think that has been not sufficiently emphasized.
    Why indeed national socialism has been so successful,
    and was accepted by so many people.
    I think you were going to talk about the connection
    of the CIA and the SS.
    Well, the very important thing that Karl Wolff cooperated with
    the CIA in the so-called special armistice in northern Italy,
    and the Allied forces, and that particular event shortened
    the war in northern Italy--
    by virtue of his cooperation with Allen Dulles,
    [who at that particular point was the American intelligence
    representative in Switzerland.
    And that particular operation is known as Operation Sunrise.
    And this particular documentary I
    was asked to work on two years ago
    was just being shown in Germany and Switzerland
    without me getting any explicit credit for it, although I've
    done a lot of research which was used and made
    available to them, because they've
    hired me to do that as a consultant Didn't
    get any credit for it.
    So during that Operation Sunrise, Wolf--
    who could see, of course, the sinking
    ship of Nazidom and his very vulnerable position--
    tried to save his skin and that of many other people,
    and turned from a fanatic Hitler supporter to a traitor
    by cooperating with Allen Dulles to have a special treaty.
    So that the German armed forces and the situation
    there would be ended.
    And he was one of the prime initiators
    against all sorts of obstacles, and even went to Hitler
    to get his approval.
    And made it very palatable to him
    so that he has more or less seen ok.
    Although Himmler and Ernst Hermann Himmler
    who was Heydrich's successor--
    very, very eager to see to it that he
    would be punished as a traitor.
    And so he was able to come to Hitler
    and persuade him that what he was doing
    was in the interests of Germany, and put it in such a way
    as people see he's a very brave individual who
    was getting the so-called OK.
    And then continuing to do what he did-- namely,
    negotiate with Allies via Allen Dulles.
    And succeeded so that, indeed, they've
    had an armistice relatively before the general armistice,
    and thereby--
    and that goes to his credit, whatever his motives were--
    whereby thousands of people's lives were saved.
    And the interesting thing is also
    that he had almost a duel with Adolf Eichmann
    by virtue of the fact that he was trying
    to get some people who were being deported to prevent
    that other people were deported to [? just ?] get them
    exempted, or just see to it that they would not be deported.
    And intervened for these people who were not full-blooded,
    quote, unquote, again you know, who
    were not real full Jews, but partly Jews,
    but enough to be deported.
    And they almost had a duel because he intervened
    and Eichmann simply--
    even though he was a mere Lieutenant Colonel,
    and he was a full general.
    and Wolff was --
    simply wouldn't have any part of it, and almost came to a duel.
    And that's a fact because I discussed all these things
    with Karl Wolff.
    So this was the first CIA connection.
    Is this the information that--
    No, there was much more to it because--
    much more to it, some of which he told me,
    some of which he didn't.
    But that was the CIA connection which, at that time,
    was not CIA because it was CIC and what have you, and did not
    exist CIA [INAUDIBLE] only after the war.
    But that set-- that brought about the context of the SS
    what later became the CIA.
    And so that's how that developed.
    That was one of the first contacts.
    That was really a positive outcome.
    Yeah.
    In this case, it was a positive outcome.
    And so because of his contacts, he also
    was brought to the Nuremberg trial
    as a witness in full uniform, and he
    was the only one who came with his SS rank
    and full uniform because of these various contacts.
    Now also he was not accused and was not
    sentenced by the International Court for whatever he had done,
    which was known by virtue of his activity.
    And that only came up in the early '60s
    when he was very active and very successful in his business.
    But then because he was an ambitious individual,
    and missed the glory of his Nazi position
    as a very influential senior SS general,
    he then enjoyed giving interviews
    so that he would again be in some sort of a semblance
    of the limelight.
    And that brought his past to the attention of the legal
    authorities -- the criminal justice system,
    and they started to become very suspicious,
    and started digging until they found out that, yes,
    he was [? tainted ?] with mischief,
    and that he indeed assisted the Nazi authorities.
    So that was not his major occupation and function,
    but he intervened on the part of the SS Nazi authorities
    with the person he knew was in charge
    of the transportation system in Germany to make these boxcars--
    these cattle wagons available to the SS
    so that they could ship thousands of people
    to Treblinka.
    And so that came up, and they found
    that this was the case because he wrote telegrams and had
    a communication with these people,
    and very specifically saying these things.
    And thanked the person who was in charge to whom he wrote--
    these communications-- thanked him for his cooperation.
    That he made indeed these boxcars available.
    And that was found, of course, in the documentation,
    and he was therefore accused of aiding the destruction of Jews
    who were sent to Germany, and sentenced to 15 years.
    These other SS generals were not brought to the trials?
    Yes--
    They also--
    --as witnesses and what have you.
    But-- no, I mean charged.
    Oh, well, the charge--
    whoever they could find some documentation and all that,
    that is something which either happened locally
    in case of [Personal name] or through the center
    of the judicial system which brings war criminals-- that
    is to say criminals against humanity--
    to justice, which is in Ludwig's book.
    And they have small fish and all that people
    who were responsible for crimes against humanity
    in concentration camps.
    They bring them to justice.
    And I was, for example--
    which was kind of a moot situation--
    I was a witness, and I was interviewed back in Freiberg By
    an --
    attorney-- well, he was actually a state attorney--
    bear witness against Josef Mengele.
    And then I was also a witness, and I was interviewed
    by a very pro Nazi consul--
    or vice consul in San Francisco in connection with one
    of the concentration camps I was in to also be a witness,
    and give an account and this man was just so unbelievably
    hostile it was not even funny.
    And I told him a few things to just
    he was a all in all, a real SOB
    And you could see where his sympathy
    was, treating me just like you know and just unbelievable.
    And I really should have written a letter
    to the president of the Federal Republic of Germany,
    and complained about that.
    Anyway, so I was a witness in these two situations,
    and nothing has come of it.
    First of all, they didn't ahold of Josef Mengele.
    And secondly, although I know that he actually went back
    to Germany, and I know that from eyewitnesses with whom
    I talked from the town where I did some investigation
    in that town in Bavaria from where he actually came,
    and where his family had a very large organization which
    virtually employed many people of that Township.
    All these sort of machinery, agricultural machinery--
    production of agricultural machinery.
    So he came back with impunity.
    And people saw him and nothing happened.
    So I gather while you were teaching regularly
    at Sonoma State, several summers,
    you would go back to Germany and do research.
    Yeah.
    Well, also I had some Fulbright fellowships
    and I've had Alexander von Humboldt fellowship last year
    for three months.
    So I used that time to do whatever I can.
    But I mean that's all fine, and I
    guess it just requires a great deal of time to dig and find
    and all that.
    As I said, most of the people who really were perpetrators
    are all dead by now.
    And there are some still younger ones who are still around,
    and junior people-- relatively junior people by virtue
    of age who also know a great deal, and they're still around.
    And also I try to interview, and talk to, and visit,
    and do whatever I can in order to learn from them
    what can be found out.
    And one of them is the editor in chief of the so-called
    [German magazine name] which was the official SS news
    report which came out.
    I think it was a weekly paper, and which had
    a circulation of one million.
    And he's still around, and he knows a great deal.
    But he's very defensive.
    And I was fortunate enough to have taped interviews
    with him until the time, which was last year.
    Because of the broadcast, because of television
    appearances in Germany, found out about my background,
    and his wife became exceedingly hostile, although he wasn't.
    And that's something which is quite interesting.
    That some of the wives are very protective
    of their Nazi husbands.
    And the interesting thing is that the Nazi husbands shed
    their old wives, and they got a lot more recent editions
    of wives generation-wise.
    And many of whom have not even consciously experienced
    the Third Reich.
    And this one is one of them.
    A very attractive woman who with whom
    he procreate some children.
    And she's very protective of him,
    and so she really gave me a hard time when I was to see,
    which he promised to do, and she prevented it.
    She prevented it.
    It was last summer.
    You mentioned a bit ago that at one point,
    you were interviewing someone with your wife.
    And I wonder, was your wife American?
    No, my wife was German.
    She was German.
    Yeah, and I met her at the University of Freiburg.
    I see.
    And so she knew Karl Wolff very well, and what -- through me,
    and through me, she also went with me to visit Albert Speer
    with whom I had a very interesting encounter--
    very lengthy and interesting encounter, correspondence,
    and numerous telephone conversations.
    And that is something which I've mentioned in one of my writings
    during this-- primarily my experience in concentration.
    You interviewed Albert Speer also?
    Yeah, Albert Speer.
    On several occasions, I was with him--
    met with him in person twice, and had written communications
    with him, and several telephone conversations [INAUDIBLE]
    conversations.
    And what was your impression?
    Well, my impression is that he was
    a very highly intelligent person who was an expert manipulator.
    And also I think showed some degree of regret,
    but in a way which was to his advantage, and he knew it.
    And he played that particular game very skillfully.
    But I came in He just had a nice coffee and all this But he--
    I could see in his eyes he was scared to death
    that I would just make a scene, and I could see
    that he was very apprehensive.
    And so I had to set him somehow at ease, because otherwise, he
    wouldn't have talked.
    He just thought that I would blast him.
    And in a way, I certainly said you
    were responsible for slave labor,
    and I think you were also my boss.
    He said, no, no, no very defensively-- no, I
    was not your boss.
    It was Hermann Goring.
    He was your boss.
    I was not-- that was not my--
    [INAUDIBLE] in that Bleichhammer when I was a slave laborer.
    That's not something-- it was not under my jurisdiction.
    It was Hermann's jurisdiction.
    Very defensive about that.
    And of course, he was the boss of other slave labor camps.
    They made rockets which thousands of people
    were killed, and worked to death.
    And so somehow, he played his cards very skillfully.
    And he certainly was--
    just portrayed himself as a person
    with regrets, and to some extent,
    I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
    And not only that, but he also alluded to the fact
    that he was trying to assassinate Hitler,
    or thought about it, reflected on that,
    and wanted to put poisonous gas in the bunker in which he had
    this sort of air system which brought in fresh air,
    and he wanted to put--
    and all these sort of things.
    But I and the people who knew him just simply
    laughed because it was known he was
    a very enthusiastic supporter of Hitler, who was his mentor,
    and made it possible that he became what he had.
    And that was not because he was not
    a Nazi, or not a collaborator, or whatever he may be.
    Let's say he was an opportunist.
    Well, I mean, that doesn't make him any less guilty, does it?
    So then he somehow dissociated himself from his role
    as early enthusiastic supporter of Hitler.
    Well, obviously because when the going was getting tough,
    and it was obvious that Germany had lost the war,
    all sorts of people tried to save their skin
    by making claims which were kind of laughable-- ridiculous.
    So no, i didnt' see -- and that's something which also I
    said, well--
    I even talked to the president of the Federal Republic Lubke
    and I was, and I was invited along with other Alexander von
    Humboldt--
    people who had fellowships there.
    This Alexander von Humboldt fellow, he invited us,
    and he was a talkative individual, and all that.
    And he was accused--
    Heinrich Lubke the president, was
    accused of being responsible for constructing barracks
    in concentration camps, and he was publicly accused of that.
    And then I had a chance talking to him privately --
    in the White House in Germany.
    And I asked him, Mr. President, are these accusations--
    I'm very interested on research.
    I would like to know what--
    oh, well, let them talk.
    There's nothing to it.
    And if there is nothing to it, so it's very easy for you
    to say I'm not guilty.
    Why don't know you-- well, don't let them talk--
    I don't care.
    And then we discussed things further,
    and he was very evasive in a way.
    He said, obviously, that he was taken with [INAUDIBLE],,
    no question about it.
    He was not a dreadfully clever person to begin with--
    not a very intelligent individual.
    And then he said, well, Dr. Stein, or professor Stein,
    or whatever he said, there was only
    a handful of Nazis in Germany, and that was just
    about something which was just unrea;, unbelievable.
    A handful of Nazis in Germany.
    Heinrich, I quote him in my book.
    And so after the war, just like now, you go to Czechoslovakia,
    no one is a communist--
    and afterwards no one was a Nazi.
    I wasn't a Nazi.
    No one was a Nazi.
    You couldn't find any Nazis anymore.
    You can't find any communists.
    What about your wife?
    What were her politics as she understood
    them growing up in Germany?
    Well, I mean she was the daughter
    of a Prussian officer who was just an absolute chauvinist
    German chauvinist.
    And [INAUDIBLE] somehow, and I was very much aware of it.
    say, my God, what the hell am I getting into?
    And so, yes, she was--
    he was a person when she came after two or three years,
    or whatever-- went to see him and visit him.
    So instead of embracing her, or kissing, or just what
    normal people will do, he just shook her hand.
    That's all.
    Nice to see you.
    Nice to see you.
    How are you?
    That's all.
    Just absolutely no feelings, no nothing.
    And that's something which I should
    have taken more seriously.
    But I thought, well, Maybe once again..? overcome ?.
    What was her name?
    Ulrika.
    Was she your age also?
    No, she was not my age I'm happy to say.
    At least that part was not bad.
    No, she was 14 years younger than I.
    I liked to follow President Mararyk's advice to associate
    with women or somebody younger than I for reasons
    which do not escape me.
    And so when did you get married?
    In '68.
    And when was your son born?
    Hmm?
    When was--
    My son was born in '79.
    So obviously, you were married for quite a while.
    Yeah, quite a while.
    What's your son's name?
    Ingemar.
    Was he born in the United States?
    He was born in San Francisco I'm happy to say.
    And he just is totally identifying with that
    and very proud of it--
    that he was born in San Francisco.
    How did your wife--
    And on the 22nd of April.
    And I just really pushed it.
    I said, hey God, don't do it to me--
    that you would be born on the 20th of April.
    I couldn't take it.
    20th of April is Hitler's birthday in case
    you don't know.
    And so fortunately, he was born on the 22nd.
    And I said just hold on, hold on.
    Just give it a few days.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Not a very pleasant memento.
    How did your wife react to being in the United States?
    Well, not well because she didn't like them.
    She didn't?
    It was not her cup of tea, and she never adjusted.
    Did she have any interests of her own?
    I mean, certainly during that long period
    before your child was born.
    Well, primarily having an easy life relatively speaking.
    Not working too much and catering to her own interests,
    wherever they were.
    Did you about your Holocaust experiences?
    Oh, yeah, very much.
    I mean, she typed the entire book manuscript
    and many other manuscripts she typed,
    and did an excellent job, and helped me with editing,
    and all that.
    So she was very helpful in that.
    But she got very adamant that I should discontinue
    all these sort of things about the Third Reich,
    and she became saturated with all that, and tired of it,
    and wanted me to just simply disassociate myself from that.
    And not just because of her feelings,
    but also she felt very genuinely that it
    would be also better for me.
    And so that was a bone of contention, because I --
    eventually, if I'd done what I think I want to accomplish,
    then I have other interests and all that,
    and don't want to dwell on it permanently to be sure as long
    as--
    but there are certain things which I feel obligated.
    And I particularly feel obligated to those people
    who were very close to me and were my friends.
    And if they had lived, would have made very important
    contributions to humanity.
    I feel obligated to them to do what I can,
    which is less than they could have done if they had lived.
    Because very many of these people were just outright
    geniuses.
    And I was very fortunate to be able to associate
    with them, particularly in Theresienstadt
    where we had a group of people under a kind of leadership
    of two people.
    One was Fredy Hirsch, Fredy Hirsch,
    and then the other one was Gustav Schorsch.
    And these people were absolutely role models
    to me and significant others, not only because
    of their humanity, but because the intellectual brilliance,
    and leadership, and backbone profile, and courage,
    you name it.
    And just about all together, 13 of us,
    and I'm the only one who survived.
    All the other ones died, including
    all the other leaders-- two of the particular youth groups.
    And that is an unbelievable loss.
    An unbelievable loss not only to me personally,
    but also because there were, what I would
    consider, the better people.
    And that also helped me somehow to consider the possibility
    that, indeed, that the other people have not returned,
    and that those of us left are not exactly
    the cream of the crop.
    And that's something which I suspect is the case.
    In one sense, though, it seems to me
    that it may be very meaningful for you
    to do the things in the world you do as their representative.
    Well, I mean that's what I said about their representative.
    I mean, I know that that's what they would want me to do.
    But I simply-- intellectually and otherwise I'm
    much more limited than they were, because they
    were the brilliant people.
    I'm not.
    And so that, to me, is very regrettable,
    because I think their contribution would
    have been far superior to whatever I can do.
    And being aware of that, I just feel very humble.
    But on the other hand, I'm trying to do what I can
    in spite of all the obstacles, which are put in my way.
    And there is no question that this is the case.
    And I've had little support from the Jewish circle, virtually
    none.
    I have very little support from my colleagues,
    and I'm just a lonely person in a desert,
    so to speak, with some few individuals who,
    for reasons of their own, are supportive,
    and they themselves are strong.
    Do you think--
    Like, for example, poor Mrs. [? Horowitz. ?]
    I'm saying Horowitz.
    Broken accent.
    So I mean, it's just a struggle, and I'm getting very tired
    of that struggle.
    Do you think this was the wedge that
    came between you and your wife?
    Well, yes, it was certainly an area , a wedge,
    yes There's no question about that.
    And I gather that Ingemar is living fairly nearby?
    Well, very fairly nearby in Germany at this point.
    Oh, in Germany?
    So she returned to Germany with your son.
    Yeah.
    She wanted to return for quite a long time.
    So you really lost his presence also.
    That's right, which I think is a very serious matter, which
    I never would have done to anyone,
    under the circumstances especially.
    I wouldn't have done.
    But that's what is happening.
    And how it will develop in the future?
    Well, I've had him here last summer.
    He didn't want to return.
    And I said, well, I'm going to run away and wait
    until the plane has left, and then
    I'll come back and use the money for the plane ticket,
    because he's so very European, very thrifty,
    penny pincher because that's what he learned from me.
    Penny pincher because that's what
    has transpired by virtue of the divorce
    and things of that nature.
    And I just lost both my existential security
    for the third time.
    Once under the Nazis, second time
    under the communists, and third time because of the family
    problem.
    So now it's too late for me to start again financially,
    and just to recuperate is virtually
    impossible at this point--
    my age.
    Well, financially-- do you mean emotionally and psychologically
    as well?
    Well, that too, but I'm financially-- emotionally
    and psychologically, but also financially because everything
    which I worked for, which was quite nice and comfortable,
    just goes to attorney fees or to some of the things.
    Dividing off of property and all that sort of thing,
    and very little is going to be left.
    And to live on that is going to be a very, very difficult thing
    to do.
    So did you actually get divorced yet?
    I'm in the process.
    Right now?
    Yeah.
    But you sound as though you've been separated for a while.
    Oh, yeah.
    We've been separated for a while, off and on.
    But now--
    And all the time she went back to Germany [INAUDIBLE]..
    And how often are you seeing your son?
    Well, as often as I can.
    Just once a year, usually during the summer
    because he goes to school there, and he can't come.
    And I can't go there.
    But so far, I've been able to see him more than normally
    by virtue of the fact that I have these sort of assignments
    back in Europe, and which were paid.
    So financially, it was feasible because they paid the trip,
    and they paid for my stay there, and I was
    able to make a bit of money.
    But that may cease.
    That may-- it's not something which I can depend.
    Have you talked with Ingemar about your Holocaust
    experiences?
    Oh, yes.
    I've talked to him the first time.
    I've-- of course, he's seen my books when they left in '89.
    So he's seen my books, and Hitler, and all that.
    And so you know, looks at some of them.
    And I-- but I didn't force it on him at all.
    I just took it just step-by-step.
    And when he was interested-- now when he came back last summer,
    I showed him a movie which I participated in, and was
    a consultant, and was doing--
    which was Hitler, Man or Myth.
    And I showed that to him, and I showed
    him the short strip 50 minutes of liberation
    of concentration camps.
    And he said, why did you show me these terrible things?
    I said, well I just feel that it's just about time
    that you know what I've been through,
    and we can talk about it.
    And he talks, and is getting more and more interested in it.
    And he reads and said in class and all
    that, I've read this and about--
    all this.
    And so he just keeps on telling me.
    But again, I'm very careful not to force it on him.
    Last summer, I felt it was time that he would face up
    to some of the things so that he gets
    some sort of a feeling for it in fact,
    because my wife never talked about it to him-- about that.
    And somehow, tends to avoid this, and deemphasizes
    [INAUDIBLE].
    And I feel that I don't want to emphasize it,
    but I don't want to deemphasize it.
    So that I respond to him and I think he's ready for it,
    and not burdening him unnecessarily when he cannot
    digest it.
    But I think it's important that he
    knows what I've been through, and also
    what role the Germans had played.
    And I think that will in essence influence him
    because chances are that he will want to come here
    for higher education, one, and two,
    also live here permanently rather than in Germany.
    But again, that is not something which I would force.
    I hope that this will develop--
    whatever is best for him.
    And I know this place is right now--
    we don't have much of a rosy future
    to look forward at this point.
    So there you go.
    So I mean, it's a problem.
    Certainly, Germany is everything [INAUDIBLE]
    for so many reasons.
    So it's a problem.
    Is he learning about this in German schools too?
    Hmm?
    Is he learning in German schools too about this?
    Well, he hasn't so far, no, because it was not part
    of the thing. you know but --
    I think now, he's an age where they probably will you know.
    and he'll let me know about that for sure, he knows.
    And I talk to him over the phone every two weeks for at least
    an hour--
    just about an hour anyway.
    And he writes to me, and we write to him.
    He doesn't write much because he's dreadful lazy.
    People who are very, very intelligent,
    and that is a handicap because if things
    don't come easy to him, it just simply leaves them.
    because everything tends to come easy to him,
    and he's not used to working hard.
    He's got kind of a lazy streak.
    And so writing-- he doesn't like to write very much.
    And he wrote me because he enjoys using the typewriter.
    So now I guess because he has now
    reason to do something which he enjoys,
    he probably will be writing more.
    you know this sort of thing.
    I think I'd like to take a moment
    and ask if other people would like to ask you anything.
    up to this point before we--
    Yeah.
    How about you, Brian?
    [INAUDIBLE] notes here.
    When you were talking about the--
    I'm interested in how you perceive
    a kind of a schizoid character to the German people
    at the time that you were doing your interviews.
    This-- how do you account for their need
    to both purge themselves of their guilt-- at the same time,
    perpetuate some of the myth of the past?
    Well, I think that's an understandable question,
    primarily because they live in two different realities.
    They lived in Nazi Germany, which
    was a very specific surreal reality--
    not at that particular time, but looking
    back today, it is surreal.
    And so they-- their major professional life
    and their success stems from Nazi Germany on one hand.
    But Nazi Germany did not prevail,
    and they had to adjust to a new reality which is the quasi--
    and I'm stressing quasi--
    democratic we have to which they had to adjust.
    So they sit between two chairs, so to speak,
    because they had to--
    they were functional.
    They had to remain functioning in these two
    different realities.
    And that, I think, is the reason,
    or that is perhaps the reason why they are schizoid,
    because they had to adjust to the new reality,
    yet could not quite cut the umbilical cord with Nazi
    Germany simply because that is where they were in limelight,
    and that's where they were exceedingly powerful,
    and that's where they enjoyed the glory of which disappeared
    after they lost World War II.
    And had to adjust to new realities which were not
    as meaningful, and certainly not as rewarding,
    as the Nazi reality.
    So that makes sense to me why they would be schizoid,
    which they are.
    In so many ways, I think that's indeed
    what they are because they live in two worlds.
    You think that their willingness to repudiate the past
    was hampered in the decade following
    the war by groups like the CIA who were
    willing to deal with them and--
    Well, in a way, yes, because so many of them
    were used by the CIA because of the anti-communist fear.
    That is to say the communist fear
    and the anti-communist activities.
    And because that was more of a situational event--
    transcended all the other previous considerations.
    And therefore, they didn't care whether some of the Nazi
    was was tainted with mischief as long as he
    served their purposes at that particular time.
    Because there is no morality attached to it or whatever.
    I mean, it's just--
    no morality I don't particularly.
    And I wrote about these things in one
    of the books [INAUDIBLE].
    And just there is no morality.
    It's just a totally opportunistic thing
    which they think they'll do in order
    to further the United States.
    I think they've caused more damage to the United States
    than anything else apart from the financial losses, which
    is enormous in terms of--
    so--
    From a sociologists point of view,
    how do you view the phenomena of someone
    like David Duke who has repudiated his past,
    but is not believed by the public?
    It just-- he's no reborn Christian,
    and I don't to what extent it is authentic or not.
    I think the man is-- in terms of the type of long history
    of activity, and in the Klan and other thing,
    You know, not a very viable individual is in my eyes.
    I don't care how many times he's been reborn.
    Well, I mean, the other thing, it's a barometer of our times.
    And if a person actually can become a serious candidate
    for the governorship with this sort of background, I mean,
    that's enough to really cause you to stop and think
    what is going on in any case as far
    as the attraction people of that ilk have.
    And I think that's a very serious matter.
    It tells us something about our times.
    And it's typical also because if you
    got the socioeconomic upheaval, all these people
    will come out of the woodwork because there's
    a call for that.
    People need to find scapegoats for their misery,
    and these people will provide it.
    Do you think people who have gotten
    caught up in this type of ideology
    are precluded from a political life afterwards?
    I'm thinking particularly of someone like Kurt Waldheim.
    Well, I mean, I don't know whether they should be rewarded
    with all these positions of power,
    because obviously in the past, they
    have not been very credible in handling it responsibly.
    And I don't know whether they--
    I'm not-- and I've talked to some SS people about that too.
    And said, hey, we have got a right as anyone else
    to see the errors of our way.
    And I think we need to look at it also this way.
    And I'm not doubting that some people genuinely have seen
    the errors of their way, except that I think we'll get to --
    you talked about Speer a little bit earlier--
    a moment ago.
    And Speer was playing very, very clever cards
    in order to get off the hook.
    And you can also make believe something which you then
    will believe yourself is not a lie, but is the truth.
    You can repeat it so many times that you can persuade yourself
    that you are speaking the truth, although you played
    a very sophisticated con game.
    And so I like to look at the people very carefully.
    So one thing which I say-- which is not something which
    I'm the one who discovered--
    Bernard Shaw and other people--
    we have a situation-- that's something
    which I tell my students very frequently, where you take
    a civil service position, and you have
    to pass civil service tests.
    Now we have politicians, and we've got senators,
    and we've got people in the highest positions,
    and they're not given any tests.
    I think we should look into their background,
    and I think their autobiographies
    or their biographies should be developed
    very carefully by experts.
    And I think they should pass tests themselves to what extent
    they have qualifications which they claim to have.
    And to be sure, many people would fail miserably.
    And to me, it's just simply totally unbelievable
    that if I work in some sort of a two bit job
    in the civil service, I have to pass civil service examination.
    Those people will become the most powerful people.
    We just take their word for it.
    I mean, it's just absolutely unbelievable.
    It's scandalous.
    It's incredible.
    It's ridiculous.
    And it's not that much of a deal,
    because we've got enough expertise
    to develop these tests, and administer them.
    And people who are really experts in the field,
    and do it in a way which will be exceedingly objective.
    Why on earth don't we do it?
    It's totally inconsistent.
    Well, it's obviously because the powerful--
    those people who have a potential to be powerful
    can avoid all this sort of unpleasantness.
    We live in a political climate right now
    that seems to be trying to cleanse the system.
    Finding it very hard to find candidates
    for the high court that haven't had some kind of indiscretion
    in their background.
    The Kennedy administration-- there
    have been innuendos about that for 20 years now.
    How do you view that from a sociologists point of view?
    What do you mean Kennedy?
    I don't know specifically what you're alluding to?
    His connection with the mafia and--
    Well, I don't know whether he had connections with the mafia
    directly.
    I doubt it very much.
    I think he had a girlfriend who was--
    or the various girlfriends.
    The chances are that someone will
    have had a mafia connection.
    You know it's a realistic possiblity.
    And the other ones-- the youngest was being kind
    of the least gifted one--
    I mean, he's got lots of connections too,
    and these connections are the only thing
    which he has been very successful in,
    I guess, in a way, you know.
    But not in terms of contribution to politics
    in the United States necessarily.
    But many people are precisely very doubtful moral character,
    and very subject to corruption if not already corrupt.
    And if we permit them to become our leaders,
    I think it tells something about ourselves that we permit it.
    And I think ever since Kennedy's assassination, it's been--
    everything else has deteriorated.
    And I think Kennedy--
    I don't care whether he was a womanizer or not--
    I think he had a potential as statesman.
    I mean, I'm not a judge of his personal life,
    and I don't want to be as long as he
    has done things which are responsible, and learned,
    and improved.
    And I think he would have gone into a very
    substantive and important statesman.
    That's all I had.
    How about you?
    Do you have anything to analyze?
    Carol, do you have any questions or comments?
    I have two last things.
    I think we've done really well covering a lot.
    But two things I've just been pondering here.
    One is that the tattoo that you have
    on your arm which is characteristic of a survivor,
    and which--
    Auschwitz survivor.
    Specific the other ones were--
    Different-- yeah.
    No, no, because I've got two numbers.
    I've got the Dachau number which is not a tattoo,
    but is a number which I was given when I came to Dachau.
    And then I got to Auschwitz.
    And the notion of the tattoo is that people with a tattoo
    were not to get out ever.
    That was the notion.
    That these people were there until they died,
    and never to be release.
    So in a sense it's a mark of death.
    Yeah, absolutely.
    And in my generation, one of the things that has happened to me
    is that wherever I go, when I see people--
    and I do see people from time to time--
    I mean, I was in Vienna, I saw one,
    I was in Lucerne, Switzerland, I saw one.
    When I was just in--
    You were in Lucerne?
    Really?
    Yeah.
    When I was in--
    yeah, and I talked to him.
    Excuse me-- not Lucerne--
    on the way to Lucerne on the train.
    In New York, I just saw one-- a tailor--
    and we talked.
    He was from Mauthausen.
    And it had such a powerful effect on me
    whenever I see someone with--
    But he didn't have a tattoo-- it was because he's not
    from Mauthausen?
    Did he?
    Hew must have been in Auschwitz.
    That's what he said.
    Well, he was in Auschwitz, but he
    says he got it at Mauthausen.
    Oh, yeah.
    But I mean, the tattoo he got in Auschwitz.
    It was different than yours.
    I think it had a "B" in front of it.
    Yeah, because he came later.
    Yeah.
    But anyway, what I wanted to talk
    about was that I feel that knowing you
    and any other survivors that I've known,
    there's just something so--
    the impact of having a tattoo on your arm,
    and going through your life with this
    on your arm for your whole lifetime.
    I mean, you've had it for most of your lifetime as an adult.
    And I know you've mentioned to me
    several times the effect of having to hide it,
    for instance.
    When one of these generals asked you to go swimming
    on a hot day, and you couldn't take off your shirt,
    so you had to not go swimming because then
    you would reveal you were a survivor
    in this tricky situation.
    Yeah, it was a tricky situation.
    And you've talked to me about--
    Also during the summer when I was asked to go to SS rally,
    and I was also a guest of honor therefore, because I was --
    a general-- SS general who invited me.
    And I sat at the table for the honored people,
    and I was perspiring-- something dreadfully hot.
    And I couldn't take off my-- and that
    was an SS rally of about 1,500 people,
    and I had to address them.
    So you can see how I must have sweated, particularly
    to say something which reflected my persuasion,
    and did not antagonize them too much,
    because I had 1,500 or something--
    1,500 to 1.
    They could have clobbered me with some degree of ease.
    And then I was thinking of the time you told me
    when you were, I think, in New York applying for a job,
    and a woman said, don't tell people
    you're a survivor-- you will not get employed.
    That's right.
    And this was in--
    I don't know if it was the '60s when it was that you were
    [INAUDIBLE].
    That was in the '50s.
    In the '50s?
    Did you ever consider having it removed?
    Well, I discussed it --- that actually --
    with my father and my father's solution was that he put
    a Band-Aid over it.
    And then I was in a very tricky situation
    last year, so I put a Band-Aid.
    I remember that I put a Band-Aid over that,
    and they immediately were like, what
    have you done to yourself-- what happened to you?
    It must have been a large Band-Aid.
    Well, a small one-- a relatively small one.
    What happened to you?
    You can not-- that's OK.
    I mean, it's not-- your normal sized Band-Aid.
    And so they asked me what happened to you?
    oh my god, I said, oh, well, it's nothing.
    It's nothing-- right.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Anyway, so-- but I never you see --
    the thing is because it would be--
    it would go against my grain.
    I have nothing to be ashamed of.
    I didn't do anything which I would have to be ashamed of,
    and that's not my problem.
    The only thing-- some people respond to it differently.
    One person in Austria when I was there two years ago with
    my son-- or last year, as a matter of fact, with my son--
    and so he said oh, it's GI Joe.
    You've got whatever they thought was the number.
    you know, he didn't [INAUDIBLE].
    And another one when I went swimming back in Freiburg they
    said, hey, I know what you're wearing.
    I know because my brother was also-- my older
    brother was also in the SS.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Oh, no.
    And some you get a different interpretation.
    And they call it say, hey, what is it--
    you know a telephone number?
    I say, sure, you can call it.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Well, it's wonderful you have such a sense of humor about it.
    But I guess my point was that it has a terrific impact on me
    when I see [INAUDIBLE].
    Well, I'm sorry about that.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Don't be.
    Because to me, it feels--
    there are some people that find it a taboo subject.
    They don't bring it up.
    They look at you, they know that you're a survivor,
    and they're afraid to bring it up.
    Yeah, I get these sort of glances.
    People respond to you in all kinds of ways.
    Some people are hostile because you're wearing it--
    because you have it.
    Some people are supportive and sympathetic,
    and immediately drawn to you because of it.
    And then other people look the other way
    because it's kind of disgusting to them.
    That's right.
    And I guess that--
    I have grin and bear it.
    And that, to me, is one of my least problems
    to be perfectly honest with you.
    Well, yes, I understand that, except that I was thinking
    of it in terms of how you go through your life,
    and it's unavoidable unless you put your shirt on,
    or your jacket.
    I can handle that.
    I won't have any more serious problems in life.
    I tell you I'm well off.
    Speaking of that, one of the things
    that I wanted to kind of recap was
    what you feel have been kind of lifelong-- other kinds
    of scars.
    I know you talked about the grieving for your mother
    and the sense of family.
    That this has been a lifelong impact on you.
    I mean, it's about impossible to imagine a different life
    than the one has had, have there been other--
    Yeah, well--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    --I suffered a-- you see, I'm a very athletic person,
    and I was a very athletic person, and I excelled.
    As a matter of fact, excelled very favorably competing
    with German kids of my age.
    And then I was one of the role models in terms of gym,
    and workout, and what have you.
    So when I lost my toes, it was a very traumatic experience
    not just merely because it may impede all the sports--
    which it has--
    I still could swim, and that's one of my major sports,
    except it's getting more expensive because I don't live
    in a region where you can swim in the ocean,
    and I don't particularly like to swim in spittoons.
    And so the problem is that it is also an aesthetic scar.
    And I suffered from that very much,
    particularly with my relationship to women.
    And I was very self-- and still very self-conscious
    of that, because I feel that this is an imposition.
    Although, some people are generous enough
    and don't view it that way.
    Certainly, my wife didn't mind that,
    and I give her a lot of credit for that,
    and some other ladies with whom I had an encounter didn't.
    But I mean, it would bother me for sure.
    I don't to what extent it would bother me
    that I would not have an association
    or intimate relationship, but it could.
    And I certainly don't exclude that possibility.
    So that, to me, is a very important handicap which I--
    particularly, when I was young, it
    was, to me, very difficult for me to go to the beach.
    I always had some sort of tennis shoes or some moccasins
    or something, because I didn't want to--
    and it actually happened.
    Back in Maui in January, I was there by myself,
    and now I'm seasoned, and somehow I
    don't care that much anymore for some reason or another.
    And there are some young kids at the ocean and the beach,
    and then I was taking a shower.
    It was a cold shower after you come
    from being out of the ocean, and it's sort of a beach resort
    situation.
    Some small kids said--
    and they looked-- look what he's got--
    look at his feet and all this sort of thing.
    So I was reminded of that.
    I mean, I find it very curious and charming in a way that they
    responded the way they did-- in some sort of a very nice way
    in a way-- in -- awe of that, and somehow in an nice--
    not in a vulgar, but kind of admired--
    look at this strange things.
    And but I was reminded of that.
    Years ago, it would have embarrassed me--
    it would have bothered me.
    Now it doesn't anymore because I don't care that much anymore
    for some reason or other.
    But aesthetically, yes, it is something
    which I consider to be a flaw-- a very
    serious one-- a handicap.
    One more last question, and that is-- it's
    not a question, although you may take it that way.
    I'm concerned because from working with you for these
    eight years, or however long we've been working together,
    even though I value your work very highly,
    and I think that you've done a remarkable job of transforming
    your experience into constructive social work,
    and in your educational endeavors and so forth--
    media endeavors--
    I find that you continue to feel that your work has not quite
    made the mark, hasn't quite accomplished what you would
    hope, hasn't quite gotten the attention that you
    would hope for, and I continue to be troubled by this.
    I'm not--
    I continue to be troubled by it.
    Yeah.
    I'm not sure if there is something specific
    we can do about it, because it may just be a matter of time
    before enough people understand what you've done, before they
    understand what you've tried to accomplish, the kind of courage
    that you've had to have going into these situations
    with large groups of Nazis and all this kind of thing.
    But it does trouble me a lot that you
    would feel that you almost have to disparage yourself,
    that you--
    Sonoma State instead of Harvard, or that you've not
    done as well as other brilliant people in your past would have.
    Because I would like to see you contented with the amount
    of work you've done.
    You've published all these things,
    you've done all this media work.
    Somehow, it's not quite enough.
    And I guess I'm asking--
    I'm not contented and you're not going to talk me into it.
    No, I'm not trying to.
    I would never do that.
    What would it take?
    Well, first of all, get that type of recognition
    which would generate support on a massive scale
    so that one really could go forward
    with some sort of major research so
    that I could finish the thing before I kick the bucket.
    That, to me, is very important, and that has not happened.
    Because you can see yourself after knowing me for that many
    years, you see, well, whom do I have as a co-worker or someone
    I work--
    well, the best-- one of my best assistants--
    you are the best I've had so far.
    And then I have to say that my best ? assistance ?
    are from SS people.
    They are the ones who really support me,
    and that's kind of ironic.
    All the Yids around here, they just ignore me.
    Why?
    Because I'm dealing not with the dead people, because that's
    what they prefer.
    That's something which I'd like to mention.
    That it's much easier to deal with dead people
    than living survivors, because they don't talk back,
    and they are not a burden.
    I just simply buy and create some awful monuments, and say
    now I've done my duty--
    done my duty and my responsibility.
    It's easy way out.
    And I see that particularly in American Yids,
    which I don't find particularly very attractive, because they
    have ignored and continue to ignore the survivors.
    They haven't done a thing for them,
    or very little, if anything.
    And I find that totally intolerable.
    You mean American Jews [INAUDIBLE]..
    That's right.
    The American Jewish population in general.
    Yeah.
    Nothing.
    I don't remember that I've been ever
    invited by a Jewish group with the exception of one
    when we went together back in the--
    what was it-- back in Santa Rosa--
    the ? pink palace ?.
    B'nai B'rith.
    B'nai B'rith, and they gave me some sort of minor recognition.
    I give them that.
    But other than that, I have not been invited to any--
    by any people whom I'm working with, any of the people who--
    the alliance or anything.
    Not a single people asked, well, how
    are you doing, or be interested in some sort.
    Not a thing.
    And that is something.
    Ever since I-- in New York, when I came to talk to them well,
    come back later, maybe you come back again, or--
    nothing has been done for me ever.
    So it's easier.
    That's why I say it's easier to build monuments
    for those who are dead, because then you have done your duty,
    and you can ignore those who are alive and cumbersome.
    And very many of the scarred and traumatized survivors
    are cumbersome.
    No question.
    And therefore, they are being ignored--
    one of the reasons.
    I don't have to deal with them.
    And that's one thing which I think is inexcusable.
    What about the question of social life between survivors?
    That's another thing.
    For example, when you go to Europe and all that,
    the social life between survivors is much better.
    Here, it is not bonded, it doesn't take place
    very frequently, they don't relate to each other
    very frequently.
    There's no real meaningful support group of survivors.
    It is something which is exceedingly problematic,
    and I've been in some groups, and they fell apart,
    and you don't hear from them ever again.
    It's something which is very strange.
    The only explanation I have that they simply
    haven't come to terms with their own fate, which
    is a possibility, and don't want to be reminded of it.
    And therefore, they may want to avoid each other,
    because they don't want to be reminded
    of a situation which they haven't quite
    come to terms with.
    That's one of many explanations.
    Also I think that very many of the survivors
    have not been very successful existentially
    and educationally.
    So that their communication skills are not that great.
    And then also there are very many different nationalities,
    some of which have very little in common in terms
    of interests and all that.
    So that's another reason apart from geographic distances.
    And there's no real place for them to congregate.
    They don't have a place to go to.
    If someone-- instead of some sort of bloody monuments--
    and I mean bloody monuments-- they would build a place where
    people could come and perhaps also stay overnight
    or possibly retire, then they would have a place to go.
    They would have a home, and very many people
    don't have a home in the real sense of the word.
    And that's where I think the money should go instead
    of some idiotic monuments which don't mean very much at all,
    and don't do anyone any good in a very concrete sense.
    But that has not-- no one has thought of that.
    And with all the rich people here
    who could afford it with ease--
    inexcusable.
    Thoughtless-- just a thoughtless as they were during World War
    II when they didn't come to any aid whatsoever,
    and were ashamed that-- and, as a matter of fact,
    opposed to the fact--
    that some European Jews would come to the United States
    in order to enhance anti-Semitism.
    I was wondering-- I remember you making a reference back
    some time ago to a group carried on by [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah.
    Well, that is a group which I was referring to.
    It was a totally unsuccessful group.
    I considered it to be totally unsuccessful.
    The only two-- there were two people who [INAUDIBLE],,
    and they wanted to continue.
    All the other ones had left because they
    felt they just didn't do anything,
    and it went several years.
    And just was absolutely nothing-- nothing
    which would have changed their predicament.
    Nice talks and all that, but nothing of permanence
    has developed which would have changed predicament.
    And no social relationships?
    Socially, none-- zero.
    Perhaps more among women than among men.
    No relationships for--
    Yeah.
    And there is a Berkeley group.
    They have somehow met and continue to meet,
    and I think are active, and I think
    that may be the consequence of some of the encounters
    they've had within the [INAUDIBLE]..
    But you don't participate in Berkeley group?
    Well, I mean, it's a--
    I've not been asked really, number one.
    And number two, even if I'd be asked,
    I don't know whether I could avail myself
    of this sort of invitation by virtue of the fact
    that I just don't have the time to travel
    this sort of distance.
    I've got very close and dear friends in Berkeley,
    and one of my best friends and colleagues
    is living now in Berkeley, and I hardly see him anymore.
    It's not because we have lost interest in each other.
    On the contrary.
    ?
    Do you ever... ?.
    Go ahead.
    My question has to do with this concept of European survivors
    seem to bond more successfully than American survivors.
    One of-- my question has to do with Americans relationship
    with history.
    We're a very young country.
    Do you think that one of the reasons why
    we don't pay attention when we should
    is that we don't seem to understand
    the concept of history and that linear quality
    that Europeans seem to grasp a little bit better?
    I don't know whether this is the reason why
    people who are survivors tend to congregate
    more readily back in Europe.
    What I think maybe should be said
    that most of these people who have
    more functioning and functional organizations back in Europe
    are primarily people are non-Jewish inmates.
    And they were there for political reasons,
    which motivated them differently to stick together simply
    because they had common persuasion.
    Either they may have been political, or religious,
    or whatever-- or homosexual [INAUDIBLE]..
    And therefore, they have something in common.
    They fought for something, and all Jews were there
    because they're Jews.
    And therefore, they don't really look back at their presence
    there as heroes.
    They've never-- survivors are not viewed-- really,
    survivors are not viewed as heroes either by the Israelis.
    Heroes are viewed as people who were rescuers.
    They are the heroes and not the survivors, you see,
    and they are the ones who are celebrated.
    The survivors are being kicked about.
    Simply because they-- well, [INAUDIBLE] of course--
    I was in the underground.
    I didn't do very much, but I certainly
    was doing something when I was a boy scout and all that.
    And we did so a lot of things, and I certainly
    did what I could.
    Also in the camp.
    And certainly did quite a bit of sabotage.
    There's no question about it, but didn't go beyond that.
    And I risked my life, yes.
    No question-- on very numerous occasions,
    particularly in the slave labor situation
    back in the syn fuel plant in Bleihhammer
    where I did a lot of sabotaging and a lot of things which
    would have just-- a minor infraction of that,
    if they had caught me, I would have hung.
    There is no question because people
    were hung for lesser reasons than what I'd done.
    But they are not viewed as heroes
    because they didn't fight for it, because they're victims.
    But merely because they are victims
    doesn't mean they were not heroic victims.
    And many of them were indeed very heroic victims.
    And for practical purposes were heroes.
    But they are not because of what they had done,
    but what they were born into, and that makes a difference.
    So if they didn't have very much in common
    prior to the concentration camp, they
    don't have very much in common since they
    were in a concentration camp.
    And that is just a few reasons.
    I'm sure there are more why there is not
    a very homogeneous--
    some sort of closely knit type of group of survivors.
    And it's very unfortunate, because I'm sure they could.
    I made some friends, and I've had a friend of mine--
    and that is a terrible tragedy--
    as so many other ones--
    similarly situated ones-- who was in the same camp.
    Although, I never got to know him--
    he certainly don't remember that we had met--
    and he was at the syn fuel plant also.
    And just a few years ago, he committed suicide,
    and hung himself in his garage--
    in the garage of his house because of
    understandable problems which he had, and so many others.
    He was a very healthy person.
    Nothing wrong with him physically except a great deal
    of despair and abandonment.
    And that's what I'm particularly stressing-- abandonment.
    And because people feel abandoned--
    and I certainly in some way do feel abandoned--
    you don't get any support because no one
    gives a damn whether you were abandoned or not, how you feel.
    And this is particularly in the United States here.
    Elsewhere, I think it's not as bad.
    I find it-- even in Germany when I'm among friends,
    they are much more supportive than those people
    I've encountered here.
    And that's really-- if that is not an irony,
    I don't know what is.
    Is there some message you would like
    to leave or some comments you would like to make?
    Well, the message is do something
    before it is too late.
    Don't build monuments, build places
    where people can live, and congregate, and interact,
    and find support.
    Good point.
    And one more thing [INAUDIBLE].
    Do you think that the child raising methods in Germany
    changed in any way?
    Absolutely.
    You do?
    Absolutely.
    In what ways?
    Well, I mean first of all, they are less authoritarian.
    And secondly, I think they are being more critical
    towards authority.
    And I think they teach them useful stuff,
    which I think can make all the difference.
    And I think much more substantive.
    And that's one of the things why I have not really
    seriously opposed my son going to school back
    in Germany, simply because I think
    he's getting a more proper education-- better
    education than he would get here even if I would be able,
    which I am not, to pay for a private school.
    And that is one thing which makes it more palatable to me
    that he's there.
    And so as far as that is concerned,
    I think there is a great deal of progress, particularly
    those people who are more sophisticated,
    educated, with quite a few exceptions to the rule.
    But I think many of the people have seen and realized
    the errors of their way, and try to somehow learn from the past.
    And I think, very much to do with that--
    the media have played a very, very important educational--
    because in terms of my discussion with young people,
    and also what I see, there is so much shown
    and excellent quality about the Holocaust discussions
    and all that, which I think is only to be seen here
    on public television if--
    and that also takes place here.
    But not many people watch public television.
    But there, it is not public--
    television is for because there is no commercial television,
    so therefore, many people are exposed to that.
    And some people also complain about the fact
    that they are overfed with Holocaust material,
    and they complain about that.
    But what I've seen is primarily of high quality.
    I participate in production of some of these things
    myself as a consultant.
    And I think there's a great significant contribution, which
    is made towards developing insight and understanding
    about things which should be reflected on.
    What do you think about this growing xenophobia and--
    Well, I mean that is something which--
    --violence?
    --is primarily due to the changed socioeconomic
    situation, and also that East Germany--
    and that's something which I've been very fearful of and warned
    against in a way when I was interviewed.
    I just thought what I think is important to recognize--
    that East Germany was bypassed by any Democratic process
    to begin with, and remained a totalitarian regime.
    And by virtue of the fact that it has,
    they have quite a distance to go before they catch up.
    And the disparity between these two
    Germanies politically, socially, economically, skill-wise,
    professionally, and otherwise is going
    to take quite some time before it's going to be even keel.
    And so this tension is precisely reflected
    in the skinheads, and the xenophobia,
    and the behavior of those people who indeed are of--
    come from a large extent East Germany
    also, because there is unemployment
    for the first time.
    And they brought in a lot of foreign workers from elsewhere,
    and now they can't get rid of them,
    and now they have unemployment, and they have unemployed people
    in East Germany who now say we don't have jobs,
    and here are the Turks.
    And the Jews are no issue because in Germany, you
    don't have more than 45,000 Jews living there, particularly
    in urban areas and not rural areas--
    Frankfurt and so forth.
    And so they are not--
    there are no real issue.
    But there are other foreign workers
    in large numbers such as the Turks,
    and the beginning also Gypsies, and other people somehow
    have not assimilated-- are the targets.
    And Vietnamese or some other people who
    came there and have not been properly integrated.
    So that is something which has very much
    to do with the disparity, and also because
    of the changed economic conditions
    in West Germany due to the fact that they now
    have an additional burden which they underestimated
    in terms of what sort of burden it really will turn out to be.
    And it was just an unbelievable mistake the way
    they've done it.
    Well, it was a political issue, and also
    an issue of those people who wanted to have the glory,
    and wanted to be in history as those who unified Germany
    again.
    But for what reason, for what price?
    And that's something which they don't
    see because the present chancellor is
    a person of very limited scope and limited intelligence.
    Is there anything else you would like to add?
    Well, I think I have added all I could.
    And it's just-- other than that, I
    think the only positive thing which I've experienced
    in circles here-- in Jewish circles
    is precisely the sort of Oral History Project which I think
    will, hopefully, play a very important role after we
    have been reduced to ashes.
    And I think it should be continued and maybe
    developed further.
    And I think as I said, something needs to be done
    with those people who survived.
    And yet because of the emotional and existential conditions
    have not-- and sometimes, wish they had not survived.
    And I think something needs to be done about that.
    And the people who have neglected them
    and have looked the other way, I think,
    should stop in their tracks, and see what can be done,
    and what sort of contribution they can make towards making
    their life-- or the rest of their life for the few years
    they may still live, make it a little bit more livable.
    I hope so too.
    And thank you very, very much for contributing
    all your time and energy.
    You are more than welcome.
    It has been a pleasure.
    It's very excellent interview
    [SIDE CONVERSATION]
    OK.
    This is the Holocaust Oral History Project interview
    of John Steiner, undoubtedly number five,
    taking place in San Francisco, California,
    on December 2, 1993.
    My name is Sylvia Prozan.
    I will be doing the first part of the interview.
    John, how old were you when you were taken to the camps?
    I just turned 17.
    Just turned 17.
    And I was born on the 3rd of August '25.
    And as a retaliation of Reinhard Heydrich's--
    SS General Reinhard Heydrich's assassination
    in Prague, a number of people--
    Jews and non-Jews, but particularly Jews at that
    particular point in my case--
    were rounded up and sent to Theresienstadt
    as a special transport.
    And that was on the 10th of August '42.
    And I was born on the 3rd.
    And the interesting part was that, on the 3rd,
    I woke up, my birthday.
    And my mother came to congratulate me.
    My father was already in Theresienstadt.
    He was one of the first to build up, actually, Theresienstadt.
    He went there in 1941.
    And I woke up, and she came and congratulated me to my--
    my birthday.
    And I said, I'm really--
    I have a terrible problem.
    I just feel awful.
    Something terrible is going to happen.
    And I kept on repeating that and all day.
    And said, well, are you sick?
    Have you eaten something or whatever?
    What's wrong with you?
    I said, something terrible is going to happen.
    That's all I could say.
    And on the 10th, they came to pick me up.
    And just myself-- my mother stayed until later that year,
    for whatever reason.
    So we all were taken to Theresienstadt separately.
    First, my father.
    And that is to say our family, not the extended family.
    Extended family was taken before us, actually,
    to Lodz Ghetto, because my uncle and my aunt
    were very well-to-do.
    And people with money were taken to the camps
    before those who had lesser money, which is
    an interesting sort of thing.
    Certainly, in terms of Prague and Bohemia in general.
    So that was the beginning.
    And before that, of course, I was a member
    of a group of people, primarily Jewish people, who
    helped those who were deported to come to that assembly place
    and assisted them.
    And that is something which was a voluntary--
    voluntary activity.
    We had passes so that we could walk around freely,
    because some of the streets we are not
    supposed to enter during the day, during certain hours.
    And some of them we couldn't enter permanently.
    So we had special passes.
    And helped those people who were deported, primarily
    older people, to get to the assembly places
    and somehow psychologically support them.
    Which, in itself, was exceedingly difficult.
    But we at least saw to it that most of their belongings
    which they're permitted to take with them, they had with them
    and so that they didn't go barehanded and totally--
    because some people were very old.
    How long were you in Theresienstadt?
    I was-- from--
    we arrived, I think, on the 11th of August.
    And I was there until just about early--
    early autumn, '43.
    And then where did you go?
    And then I went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, again,
    on my own.
    My father stayed, because he was in a particular situation,
    which is unusual for those people, who
    build up the ghetto.
    He was protected from being deported to destruction camps,
    strangely enough.
    And so my mother was still there.
    My father was.
    But I went by myself.
    I was singled out for whatever reason
    and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And then eventually we met there, again, by accident.
    Because it was designed-- by design, obviously, because we
    had no control.
    But by accident, that my mother and my father came.
    The interesting thing is that my mother also
    was sent without my father, because my father had
    this exemption, as I've said before.
    He volunteered to go with her, which--
    which is really incredible.
    Because at that particular time, most people
    were pretty well-informed that some terrible things
    happened in the places to which they were deported.
    But we didn't know about gassing, obviously,
    at least we didn't.
    And most of the people I know didn't.
    But we knew that it was much worse, much worse
    than Theresienstadt.
    And Theresienstadt already was not
    the best place to begin with.
    But it was one of the best places
    of all the ghettos and all the concentration camps.
    So we met at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And I was informed, because I had very good contacts
    and also belonged to a group of people
    under the leadership of a man called--
    young man, Fredy Hirsch, who was a Zionist, a very, very
    unusual person.
    Very athletic and very bright and very--
    a very compassionate individual, who
    was just organizing that particular group
    in Auschwitz-Birkenau which was to be developed
    into a resistance group.
    But I feel that was all pretty much Mickey
    Mouse and premature.
    Because they then were taken, including Fredy Hirsch,
    to be gassed, while they were at Auschwitz-Birkenau
    in the family camp for quite a while.
    But they were supposed to be taken out.
    And they were taken out.
    And Fredy Hirsch, instead of letting himself be gassed,
    committed suicide.
    One of the few people who committed suicide.
    Because he understood that they would be gassed.
    By that time, of course, everyone
    knew that people who were taken out were going to be gassed.
    And that was an entire transport.
    And there were certain numbers which were tattooed on the arm,
    certain numbers which was, I think, 148,000-plus something.
    All these people with that particular number
    were taken out to be gassed at the orders--
    on the orders of--
    of Berlin.
    You knew your parents were coming to Auschwitz.
    I had some inkling, yes.
    In what circumstances did you meet them?
    Well, I met them when they came to the family camp.
    And before, I, at times, could get out
    of the camp on some sort of work--
    work group, which could get out of the camp.
    And so we had access, at times, to go out.
    And I've done that on several occasions.
    And I got to places and other camps
    and the family camp in which things happened,
    which were very different from the family camp.
    Because the family camp was, to a large extent, protected.
    And what did you say to them?
    Well, I mean, I prepared them for the worst.
    And I told them that this was--
    this was hell on Earth.
    As one of my best friends, who was part of the group
    of musicians who played music-- he was a very accomplished
    musician-- a pianist and a harmonica player--
    he came, and he already knew that I was coming.
    And he came to tell me that I should give him
    all the things, all my belongings,
    which I would like to keep.
    So that he would take them and prevent
    that I would-- that they would be taken away from me.
    So he came and warned me, and said, give me
    all the things which you want to save, the things which
    he could carry, and brought them into the family camp.
    Because otherwise, I would have lost them.
    And he told me already, prepared me.
    So in a similar vein, I prepared my parents
    for what was to happen, except I couldn't help them
    to the extent this friend of mine
    helped me, because he was in a privileged situation
    by virtue of being one of the camp--
    a member of the camp group of musicians.
    And what happened to your parents?
    My parents?
    We were all, for quite a while, in the family camp.
    And the interesting thing is that my parents
    were relatively physically doing very well, relatively speaking.
    My mother, who used to be very sickly, occasionally,
    was remarkably well under those circumstances.
    And so one day we were asked to--
    by one-- one of the SS officers--
    I don't know exactly--
    some kapos and officers, SS officers--
    to volunteer for work.
    And they wanted only specialists.
    So they wanted to know whether we had any skills.
    And I had quite some experience as an electrician,
    because that is something which I learned when I
    no longer could attend school.
    So we went to special schools in Prague to learn a trade.
    And that's exactly what I did.
    And I completed that particular course in that trade.
    So I, with good conscience, said, I'm an electrician.
    And my father said that he was a gardener or something
    like that or--
    or some sort of a building specialist construction person.
    And so we are asked to strip naked.
    And then we had to parade in front
    of either Mengele or some other medical person,
    but I think it was Mengele.
    Naked, run.
    And so then we, of course, tried to appear
    very healthy and all that.
    And, yes, we were selected.
    And then were sent to a next camp,
    next to us, the so-called A camp.
    And from there, we were shipped to a place
    called Blechhammer, which was an industrial complex, war effort.
    In that place, they produced synthetic gasoline.
    My mother stayed behind.
    And we still talked over the fence, electric-barbed fence,
    and said goodbye to each other.
    And she was very confident and said
    we'll see each other again soon and all that.
    She was very confident, very optimistic.
    And I think she was authentic about it.
    She was genuine.
    And I was much less so.
    And while we were talking, one of the block seniors
    came in which I was, in the block I was,
    of which they sent me to, where I was to stay for a few days
    until we would be shipped to this place called Blechhammer.
    And he saw me.
    It happened to be a Jewish block senior.
    And he saw that I was conversing over the fence with my mother.
    So he-- that was one of the few times
    he just really slapped my face hard so
    that I fell on the ground.
    It didn't take much for me to fall on the ground,
    because I was very emaciated.
    But anyway, so in front of my mother.
    And that really-- not that it physically hurt me so much,
    but my mother was very upset about the fact
    that this big, burly fellow came and just
    really slapped my face hard so that I fell on the ground,
    while we were saying goodbye to each other.
    So that was a lasting impression,
    which was the last I seen of my mother.
    And then we parted.
    We just said goodbye.
    And he just immediately took me into the barrack.
    But nothing else happened to me personally.
    And from then, we were shipped to this other camp called
    Blechhammer.
    And how long were you there?
    I was there just about, I would say, close to--
    close to a year, probably.
    Close to a year.
    And until the Soviets came very close,
    and because the Germans were losing the war
    at that particular time.
    That was in '44 already.
    And so they rounded us up.
    And we had two options.
    And I was there with my father.
    We were very close and supported each other
    and helped each other and really helped each other to survive.
    We were very close.
    At that time, we had the closest relationship
    we ever had as father and son.
    And so when the Russians-- we already
    could hear the noise of the battlefield
    and all that coming closer.
    So they rounded us up and said, all abled bodies--
    all able-bodied have to leave the camp.
    And those who are not, they can stay.
    But somehow, the notion was that that was a very dangerous thing
    to do because the chances were that they would be shot.
    And so we discussed it with my father.
    And my father was in such bad health--
    although, he was usually a very athletic and healthy person.
    But he was very deteriorated and had a terrible case
    of dysentery and so forth.
    He just simply couldn't.
    And he stayed.
    Now, and I decided to go on that march, which
    was a major mistake--
    major mistake.
    Why?
    Because we discussed, well, what's the better chance?
    And so we decided that I would go and he would stay.
    So nothing happened to him.
    It was very shortly after that he
    was liberated by the Soviets, by Soviet troops.
    And we had to go on a death march, middle of the winter,
    which was in early January '45, and--
    and marched for about close to 10 days.
    And many people died.
    Thousands of people were on that march.
    The majority died-- frostbite, other disease.
    We were not permitted to stay in other places
    other than in some sort of peasant huts and whatever,
    haystacks and what have you.
    And then frequently also slept in the snow.
    So and that was, of course, so--
    so dreadful that very many people
    died of frostbite, or just limbs fell off.
    And that's when my right foot and left foot was frostbitten.
    And I had a hard time continuing the death march.
    Where did you end up?
    Well, I ended up--
    finally, I ended up in a place called--
    which was just a farm and in one of those haystacks where
    they've had hay and all that, in this farmer's place.
    And then I found out that I just simply couldn't--
    I just took off my shoes, and it was all black
    and bloodied and infected.
    And I could actually take parts of my toes and throw them away.
    And so I knew that there was, for me, no chance to continue.
    And we knew, and that we knew, that people
    who were left behind were frequently shot by the SS,
    by guards who just simply followed all the transport
    and saw to it that it was all cleaned up.
    And what happened to you?
    And so they came and found us.
    And instead of shooting us--
    which we anticipated, we expected that--
    they took us and put us on some sort of horse and buggy,
    covered horse and buggy carriage,
    and moved us to a very nearby concentration
    camp called Reichenbach.
    And that's where there were some other incidents.
    Some other people came, and officers, and said,
    we'll show you, you swine, you bastards.
    The Russians are advancing.
    We'll show you what that means to you and all that.
    So threatening with pistols, drawn pistols and all.
    All ridiculous, because we could only crawl at that point.
    So, I mean, we were no threat to anyone for sure.
    Anyway, so they put us on another carriage.
    And then they took us to that place
    called Reichenbach, where all the people who
    no longer could walk and all that were sent, brought in.
    And we were lucky why we were not shot.
    It was a relatively simple explanation,
    simply because we were so close by to that concentration camp,
    that they'd rather brought us in than shoot us.
    And said, well, something is going to happen to them there,
    so we might as well put them there
    rather than to mess up the place.
    And because if we had been in some sort of wilderness
    in between townships or villages,
    the chances are that, as they have had done in other cases,
    they would have shot us.
    Anyway, so we came there to Reichenbach,
    and there we were assembled.
    And from there, we were shipped, after several days, without,
    of course, any treatment, without--
    we got some food, which was relatively speaking,
    for concentration camps, superior to what
    we had received before, apart from the fact
    that we are marching for about a week or so, or 10 days--
    difficult to be exact as far as the time is concerned-- where
    we received exactly nothing.
    We ate the snow and didn't receive any food.
    Or, if we were lucky, in some farmer's place,
    we were able to get some grain.
    And we were-- because we are not permitted
    to stay in the stables with cows,
    they put us, at times, into stables with pigs.
    And so we, at times, shared the food of pigs.
    And that was, of course, the best we could have.
    So the food which we received in Reichenbach was, of course,
    superior to what we've had for the last 7 to 10 days.
    And after Reichenbach, where did you go?
    Then, we were put on open lorries, small lorries,
    because there was some sort of industry there which--
    which had a-- small lorries and on rails.
    And these rails went directly to the-- to the small railway
    station, open railway station.
    And we were thrown in into open boxcars,
    because we couldn't climb in.
    So those who were more able-bodied were--
    were forced to simply help us or throw us into the-- those who
    were not able-bodied--
    throw us into these boxcars.
    And so that they were just about at least 100 people
    to one open boxcar.
    And so while we were in the lorries-- of course,
    some people are very badly injured--
    we were transported to the open boxcars
    from that concentration camp, Reichenbach.
    They're just small, open lorries, like miner lorries,
    you see, like, for miners.
    The SS came when people were crying out
    in pain and all that.
    So instead of somehow helping them, they just killed them.
    And that lorry I was, there was one person
    whose foot was badly mangled, frostbite, broken, whatever.
    And because we were about four in one of those open lorries,
    so obviously, we sat on other people's legs and injuries.
    And so the pain was terribly excruciable.
    And so he was crying out in pain.
    And I've told him, the SS are coming,
    why don't you try to be quiet?
    But he couldn't do it, because he was in such pain.
    So they heard him and came.
    And one of them had a steel bar or whatever, a piece of steel,
    and just simply killed the man.
    And then we proceeded to this open boxcar.
    And then we were thrown in.
    And there were immediately one, two, three layers of bodies--
    bodies, at that time, of course, live bodies.
    And so the first were covered by the second, the second
    by the third, so that so many people suffocated
    in a very short time, because they didn't get any air.
    And all the bodies lying on them,
    they had no other way to go, because we were just
    packed like sardines.
    What month of the year was this?
    What month?
    I've said, January.
    January of '45.
    [INAUDIBLE] in January.
    That's right.
    And where were you transported then?
    And from there, we were finally moved
    to Dachau via Prague, Pilsen, Bavaria, Munich, Dachau.
    Did you arrive in Dachau in January?
    That's right.
    Just about end of January.
    And what happened to you there?
    Well, there we were in such a state that, out of the 100,
    just about 10 were still alive.
    And there were just about 10 railway boxcars, roughly.
    Just about 10.
    So that was just about the average,
    that 90% of the people--
    80% to 90% of the people in every boxcar were dead.
    And they are not permitted to be thrown out.
    They had to be there.
    So we were just mingled, the live ones,
    with decomposing bodies for that length of time,
    which was just close to a week.
    And what was the state of your health?
    And my state of health, I was a total wreck.
    And so when we arrived, even the SS people,
    who received us there, they're making
    remarks, which reflected even compassion
    and said they haven't seen anything like that ever before.
    And they're absolutely horrified and expressed
    that horror, which was very interesting, very helpful.
    Were not cruel and were supportive,
    actually, more than cruel, which was very unusual.
    And so there was an officer.
    And I was-- most of the people couldn't even talk,
    or they couldn't speak, because they were so exhausted,
    just absolutely in a state in which they simply couldn't--
    couldn't function.
    And I was still able to talk.
    And because I'm fluent, perfect in German,
    when this SS officer came to look at us, I said,
    you just have to do something with us,
    because either you shoot us and--
    so that we can stop--
    we can't continue like that-- we just suffered something,
    you can see that--
    or you help us to survive.
    And apparently what I said impressed him
    to such an extent that he--
    he ordered that we would get special--
    special food.
    And that helped the group, to some extent-- not all survived.
    But it helped us to survive for--
    for quite some time.
    Because otherwise, we wouldn't have made it.
    None of us.
    Were you aware about the progress
    of the war during this time?
    Well, not really, you see?
    Because we are so isolated that we never received--
    at least the group I was a part of--
    never received any-- any news.
    We only heard, of course, that they are losing the war, simply
    by virtue of the fact that they are moved out
    and that the Third Reich was shrinking.
    And the allied forces were simply pushing them back
    into the Reich.
    So that much we knew.
    And that was, of course, a very good sign.
    But specific news or any sort of--
    I never received any of that nature.
    Other than, when in Dachau, there were frequent air raids,
    particularly nearby industries in which inmates had to work.
    And some came back dreadfully injured
    because of the-- because of the air raids--
    torn limbs, whatever, you know?
    I still remember that.
    And so that-- that is the only thing.
    And we also heard the--
    the consequences of the air raids and always could
    see when the inmates came back.
    So that much we knew and understood
    that, apparently, the Nazis were at the end of their--
    their reign.
    That much we could guess.
    But specific news, no, I never did.
    What happened the day that you were liberated?
    Well, the day we were liberated, I already
    counted my days, so to speak.
    And at that particular time, I was virtually blind.
    I was so weak and--
    and ill, primarily because of the frostbite and--
    the infected frostbite.
    They worked on my foot on several occasions,
    once in a bathtub.
    And the second time, a Czech surgeon,
    a well-known Czech surgeon, heard about me
    or found out about me, and he performed surgery on my foot.
    But still, they didn't have any medication,
    so it was badly infected.
    And there was just the kind of beginning
    to be a general sepsis of the entire organism.
    And so I counted my hours--
    not just days, hours.
    And I gave myself about 24 hours when we were liberated.
    And what I found out, how I experienced the liberation,
    I was just half conscious.
    I could see allied soldiers, officers,
    rushing through the barrack, looking at us,
    and being horrified at what they saw.
    And that was the--
    that was my impression.
    People were rushing through the barrack.
    And some of them threw cigarettes or chocolates
    at us and all that.
    But didn't stop.
    They didn't stop.
    None of them stopped the first day.
    They just rushed through, because they
    couldn't stand the sight of us.
    Were you aware of who they were?
    Well, I knew that they were American soldiers.
    You could see that?
    Well, that I was--
    faintly.
    Yeah, sure.
    That much I knew.
    Did you have any sense of elation?
    The funny thing is I was very flat at that time, very flat.
    My feelings, you know, I was so exhausted, I was near the end.
    So that I don't think I felt any sort of elation,
    because I was totally drained at that particular point.
    And only after a few days, when we got individual attention,
    and the American forces brought in the nurses and physicians
    and cared for us, and we are moved
    to some other better quarters and all that,
    and were given medication and were examined
    and what have you, then, at that particular point, of course,
    I felt that it was unbelievable I survived.
    To me, then, then I really could appreciate
    what has actually happened.
    And then I responded to that.
    But at that particular time of the liberation,
    I was too drained to respond with any joy or elation,
    because I was too far gone.
    And so they really took care of me.
    And they gave us very little food,
    which I resented, because I couldn't understand that.
    But they were sophisticated enough to understand that--
    and they apparently had some previous cases of that nature--
    that after years of starvation, the body couldn't digest or--
    just normal quantities of food, or just normal food.
    So they gave us very little.
    And we couldn't understand it, because we still were starving.
    Until much later, we understood that they actually
    saved our lives by not giving us more food.
    Were the others who were with you, were any of them happy?
    Showing it?
    Oh, yes, of course.
    Some of them were in much better condition.
    And they, of course, were overjoyed.
    And they dragged in some SS people and killed them and--
    and did things-- all sorts of things.
    And these people, of course, had a totally different response,
    because they were also mobile.
    They're much more mobile than I.
    At that time, I was immobile.
    I just could only lie, because I couldn't--
    until the time I got--
    I got proper care and treatment.
    And within a very short time, I was
    able to move and walk and go about the camp and--
    and then became interpreter.
    Because I went to an English kindergarten.
    And my aunt and my mother were totally perfect in English.
    And my mother actually even translated Gone With the Wind
    into German.
    And so I was surrounded by--
    by English, because they always talked English together,
    my aunt and my mother.
    Especially when I was not supposed to understand what
    they're--
    but later on, then I understood.
    And then, of course, they stopped,
    because I could understand.
    You were an interpreter for whom?
    For the Americans.
    And Americans, because most of the people, the inmates who
    were liberated, did not understand English, of course.
    And so the people who were treated and needed
    to be dealt with, they had to communicate with them.
    And so they couldn't do it, because most of the people
    didn't speak any English at all.
    Do you feel that you were almost dead the day of liberation?
    Well, I thought I made it perfectly clear.
    Yes.
    I thought that I was going to die, yes.
    I gave myself about 24 hours.
    So I stayed in the camp for another month,
    actually, before--
    many people were shipped out very quickly
    after the liberation.
    But I was-- they wanted to keep me there longer because
    of my injuries, and also because I was useful to them.
    But primarily because of my state, my condition.
    And so until I was in a better shape, then--
    then we are brought to--
    in an American truck driven by American soldiers,
    we were brought from Dachau to Pilsen
    and left there on our own.
    And I took a train from Pilsen to Prague.
    And then I wanted to go back home,
    because I understood that the apartment which we've had
    was confiscated.
    And as I found out, the Germans moved in, the Nazis.
    And so I wanted to go back into my family,
    only to find out that this was one of the very, very
    few houses which were destroyed during one of the very few air
    raids.
    So then I had to go back to the railway station
    and stay overnight at the railway station on a bench.
    And that, to me, was a disaster, because I was looking forward
    to move back into the apartment, to our apartment, only
    to find out that the house was destroyed,
    completely destroyed.
    Which was just an unbelievable accident,
    because there were very few air raids in Prague.
    And that house, especially that house, of all the other places
    to be destroyed, was just an unbelievable coincidence.
    Bad luck.
    So you were devastated.
    About that, yes, sure.
    And then I wasn't sure who had survived or not.
    Did my mother and father and all that, because we all,
    then, had been separated.
    And when did you find out [INAUDIBLE]??
    Well, my father [INAUDIBLE].
    I just went to friends and distant relatives [INAUDIBLE]..
    And they said, oh, your father's [INAUDIBLE] from friends
    who stayed until the very last moment in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    He was gassed in '44.
    Was there a time when you said, now I'm really liberated,
    I'm really free, it's over?
    Well, I think that's a really important question,
    because you're really free when you are--
    stand on your own feet, so to speak, and self-sufficient.
    And it took quite a while until I
    adjusted and became self-sufficient, because I
    was totally dependent.
    I had no place to stay.
    I depended on friends who gave me shelter.
    And then I had to get some money and work and whatever.
    And so until that time, of course, we had lost everything.
    We just came just--
    just in my striped--
    I came back in my striped pajamas.
    You know, the one which we were given back in Dachau.
    And that's what I came back with,
    and some memorabilia, which I took from raiding
    the SS places, the houses in which the SS lived.
    So some-- but worthless stuff.
    At that time worthless, but, to me, interesting stuff.
    And so that's all I've had.
    So then we depended on friends and people who supported us
    until we could earn our own living
    and were in a position to take care of ourselves.
    And that took several months.
    Do you feel that you are liberated now?
    Do you have that feeling?
    I think I'm liberated now.
    I mean, I'm responding to conditions, prevalent
    conditions of the times.
    But, yes, I'm absolutely sure, of course.
    Oh, yes.
    And I know others are going to be interviewing you soon.
    I just wanted to ask one or two questions about what the--
    going back and interviewing the German officers, what that
    meant to you psychologically.
    Well, my motivation to really respond
    to injustice and unfairness of that magnitude, of course,
    was totally novel.
    And I was outraged that this can become part of a reality.
    That this actually was a reality.
    And that, to me, I was preoccupied in the camp.
    And I'd say, how can people do that to other innocent people?
    And that was a big question.
    And I needed to find out how people--
    in what sort of position people need to be,
    what sort of state do people have to be until--
    when they do things to other people of that nature.
    And so that was the motivation which--
    which I had in order to go back to SS officers
    and find out what made them tick, so to speak.
    What made them do these things, under what conditions, and how
    they understood what they actually did,
    and to what extent they felt accountable, to what extent
    they understood the consequences of their acts.
    And so that was my major reason why I went back and said,
    I have to find out what sort of people
    are these people who have done what they have.
    And to a large extent, I have satisfied my curiosity.
    But I'm still working on it, because obviously this
    is a very complex question.
    But psychologically, also, it was very helpful to me,
    because I needed--
    I had an urge--
    I had a need to better understand
    how these things can come about, what produces situations
    in which people behave to each other
    in a way which was so destructive and inhumane.
    And did finding or seeking this--
    this information give you any more peace
    when you were at your-- had interviews?
    I think so, yes, certainly.
    It certainly did something to my hatred, which
    always existed to begin with.
    And it appeased me in a way, and said,
    ask general questions about human nature
    and under what conditions human nature will
    be responding to situations which produce
    these extreme situations.
    What did it do to the hatred?
    You said it did something to your hatred.
    What was that?
    Well, I think that I just simply don't hate anymore.
    I dislike, but I don't hate.
    And that certainly-- and also, I can better
    understand these people.
    I have a better understanding and a better insight
    under what circumstances people--
    any people-- will behave the way they have.
    And that somehow reduced my emotional turmoil.
    Have you any idea why?
    Oh, yes, I have written books about that.
    Could you just--
    Well, I mean, it's very difficult
    to say that in one sentence, you know?
    I think that we all participate in creating
    situations which are either constructive
    or the other extreme, destructive.
    And if we are not vigilant, and if we don't understand
    the interdependencies which produce the situations, which
    somehow imprison us so that we will behave in a way which we
    may not even know that we can behave,
    then we are out of control.
    And once I'm threatened or feel threatened
    for real or unreal reasons to the extent
    that I'll defend myself, or feel that I have to defend myself,
    I will primarily protect myself at the expense
    of the well-being of other people.
    Thank you very much.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    OK.
    OK.
    We're here on the same day, continuing the interview
    with John Steiner.
    His colleague, Carol Hurwitz, is here, who may also
    ask questions later on.
    John Grant is our producer.
    And I'm Sandra Bendayan.
    I'm going to continue a little bit asking you just a few
    more questions related to liberation, because I remember,
    in the past, you talking about a kind of loss of joy in living.
    Mm-hmm.
    That you felt your Holocaust years robbed you.
    Mm-hmm.
    I was wondering if you could talk about this more.
    Yes, I think that's a very important topic actually.
    Now, one has to remember that people
    were taken to camps during different stages
    of their lives.
    And so we have about three--
    roughly three, four generations-- three, four
    generations, taken to the camps.
    And I was one of the people who was in an age
    where they were not killed in destruction camps,
    because we were still deemed to be useful.
    People who were a few years younger than I
    were gassed with their mothers.
    So that, I think, is a very important thing.
    Also, in terms of survival, it was very important--
    the age was very important by virtue of the fact
    that we were--
    the young ones were more resilient vis-á-vis all
    the extreme pressures which we encountered.
    And where survival was directly linked with being alert.
    And if you were not alert, and young people
    are more alert than the older generations,
    we were able to survive.
    So there was a positive aspect.
    Because when people were older, they-- when they were 30, 40,
    they were already very old people.
    In a concentration camp, people aged much more quickly.
    So that people over 40 were like people over 60 and 70 today.
    That's how they looked.
    They just simply deteriorated very rapidly.
    So being young was, in the camp, an asset.
    However, after the liberation, having lost the entire family,
    namely those who were actually older than you
    and were less resilient and had lesser chance of survival,
    meant that we were deprived of a support system, which
    at that time, in our psycho-emotional development,
    we still very much needed.
    And because of that loss, and because there
    was no one else who would take their place in most cases--
    exceptions to the rule, of course--
    but in my case, I don't think there
    was anyone else who could possibly
    take the place of the lost immediate,
    as well the extended, family.
    I felt it very acutely, and still
    feel it to the present day.
    And I probably will feel it until the very day I die,
    especially because some of us are not lucky to--
    enough to find someone who would fill the void.
    All right.
    So because of that loss, I think--
    and because of this--
    the pain and the lack of psycho-emotional sustenance,
    I think much of the joy which other people experience
    some of us have lost.
    And I won't say that I've lost it.
    But I think it has been-- it has become diminished.
    It's not as strong as it would be under normal circumstances.
    That's my finding.
    And I'm speaking for myself and those people
    I was in a position to observe.
    Does that--
    Yes.
    Did you feel this diminishment right after you were freed?
    Or has it gradually diminished?
    Well, that's again, a very important question.
    I think after the liberation, I had tremendous hopes.
    I think I was inspired or whatever
    happened-- what had happened.
    I was still very optimistic.
    And the less my expectations were satisfied,
    the more I've lost my optimism.
    So that finally, when I wind up in the age I am now,
    I've seen what do I have to look forward to and what I have lost
    and what I have gained.
    And I would say that I still have lost
    much more than I've gained.
    Because life by itself, without affection, love, and family,
    is very barren.
    And that's exactly what I-- what I experience,
    especially those of us who were not lucky enough
    to find or form a substitute family, which as I said before,
    filling the gap which has been created
    by the loss of the family.
    Now, for older people, it's different.
    And that's why I say, it's very important
    to consider the age of the person who
    was taken to the camp.
    What was their age, and in what state,
    and what were the circumstances in the family and all that.
    So some other people who were older, of course,
    were more self-sufficient already.
    They already had cut the umbilical cord.
    I had not.
    There's no question about that.
    So you're talking a lot about the loss of your mother,
    the murder of your mother.
    Well, certainly, but not just the mother.
    It just so happened that mother and I were very close.
    And she was just, to me, a very ideal mother in anyone's book.
    And she was a very unusual person.
    And I had the privilege to have a mother like that,
    because not many people have the luck
    to have a mother like that.
    So at that time, when I still had her,
    I appreciated it already.
    And I was very clear about what I had.
    I was very mindful of the fact that I
    had a very unusual mother.
    And I consciously appreciated, even though I was very young,
    where most kids, nowadays, are just not
    conscious of the fact whom they have as parents,
    unless they are bad parents.
    If they are good, they usually just simply accept it.
    Where were we?
    Talking about the loss of your mother.
    Yeah, well, so, yes.
    My mother played an especially important role in my life,
    because we very close.
    I mean, we didn't have to talk.
    We understood already the thoughts we had.
    And we just looked at each other and we
    knew what we are thinking.
    So we were especially close.
    So that, of course, was the greatest loss.
    But it just so happened that the extended family, also,
    were very unusual people, and we were all very close--
    very civilized, cultured, warmhearted,
    compassionate individuals, who were very
    humane in whatever they did.
    And so their loss exacerbates the loss
    of my mother in many ways.
    And the only person who survived was my father.
    And we were very close in the camp.
    But before the camp and after the camp,
    we were not close at all.
    We are not really on a very similar wavelength in most
    of the things and didn't--
    didn't understand each other too well.
    And then I had--
    then my aunt, my father's sister, survived.
    And we were very close.
    And she was a fabulous person.
    And she-- I tried to take her out of Czechoslovakia,
    but she wouldn't go.
    And she said she wanted to stay in Prague,
    although the circumstances under which she had to live
    were exceedingly humiliating and--
    and meager in terms of socioeconomic lifestyle
    and what have you.
    So we were very close.
    She was also a very unusual person,
    and we're very lucky that she survived.
    Because she stayed in Theresienstadt because she
    was given a job in some sort of a war industry
    which she worked.
    And these people were--
    these people were protected from being
    deported to destruction camps.
    So she stayed in Theresienstadt until the time of liberation.
    And that's how she survived.
    So she was one member of your extended family
    that did survive.
    That's right.
    What experience did you have--
    And that's it, because no one else is.
    I was thinking about what the reaction was
    when you found that you and your father
    were no longer close after liberation.
    Well, my father somehow projected his notions
    as to who I am and what he wanted
    me to be in a way which didn't fit me whatsoever.
    And he saw me in a light which I, first of all,
    didn't feel that I should be seen,
    because I didn't identify with what he saw.
    And I don't think he really knew me too well.
    I don't think he had the talent to really understand people
    too well.
    I don't think he went into all the trouble
    or had the capability to really understand
    people in greater depth.
    So I don't think I was an exception.
    But then he projected pretty much
    what he wanted me to become and would want it to--
    what he wanted me to be in a way which didn't fit me
    at all as a personality, as far as my talent's
    concerned, and all that.
    So that we still, I would say, loved each other.
    I don't think there's any question about that.
    And there is no question that he meant well.
    But at times, he simply couldn't help himself
    and behaved in a way which didn't help
    our relationship whatsoever.
    And estranged me from him.
    And when I succeeded in so many things
    which he didn't expect me to succeed in,
    because he wanted me to be in business
    and all sorts of things for which I didn't have
    any interest whatsoever, and I don't think any talent
    to be quite clear about that, and when
    I succeeded in my academic career,
    he just bragged to all sorts of people about what I've achieved
    and what sort of a son he's got.
    But when we got together, he never bragged to me
    and say, hey, you know, I'm really proud of you.
    He gave me some presents when-- for example, I
    completed my doctorate, he gave me some money.
    But he never said, hey, I'm really proud of you.
    I'm really happy about your accomplishment.
    He didn't-- he never, ever said that.
    Did you expect that your relationship would
    continue close, as it had in--
    Well, I hoped, you see?
    I hoped.
    But we needed each other.
    And somehow the times--
    and that's very interesting, the situation
    brought us very close.
    And we were really on the same wavelength.
    I mean, we had tremendous love for each other, very supportive
    of each other, and very kind to each other.
    And that changed abruptly-- or that
    was very different before the camp and very different
    after the camp experience.
    And I hoped that it would continue, yes, of course.
    And but it didn't.
    It didn't.
    So until the very last time, we were not close at all,
    because we were in conflict with each other for most
    of the time.
    What about your physical health in relation to your
    [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, my physical health is quite interesting actually.
    Because after the liberation-- and that
    is something which needs to be recognized,
    and I don't know to what extent it has
    been talked about very much.
    After the liberation, the American forces
    brought in physicians into Dachau,
    brought in nurses with long, red fingernails,
    which I saw at that time, for the first time, which
    was very interesting.
    Very, very kind of paradoxical in that particular situation.
    Didn't fit at all.
    But they really took X-rays.
    They cared for us, gave us medication.
    And they had problems in communicating,
    simply because most of the inmates, as I said before,
    didn't speak any English.
    So I became one--
    the one major interpreter at that particular point.
    And was, therefore, able to help people who were actually
    in a stage of dying to communicate
    some of their problems they've had to their physicians.
    And that may have made all the difference.
    And one of my very close friends,
    who unfortunately is living in the East Coast,
    I saved his life that way.
    And he recognized-- gave me recognition for it.
    A Slovak-- a Slovak--
    a young Slovak Jew.
    And so I was very glad that I could
    do something constructive, even though I, myself, was still
    very hurting.
    And so they really took very, very good care of us.
    And during that particular time, when they took X-rays,
    they found out that pleurisy--
    I had pneumonia.
    And during that time in Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    apparently when I've had this, I developed active tuberculosis.
    And they found that out.
    And so then when they found out that I had active tuberculosis
    by way of X-rays, they put a red tape on my bed.
    And from that particular moment, they are much more careful.
    And I was not as frequently consulted any more,
    because they felt I was contagious.
    Which I was not, because it was not an open one.
    It was an active one, but not an open one,
    as it turned out later on.
    And that healed up and everything.
    But I was in a sanitarium after the war in Bohemia because
    of the active tuberculosis.
    And it never became positive.
    I never became positive, but I was active.
    And then it healed up, and I haven't had any problems since.
    But even in Australia, I was under control
    when I was in Australia.
    So and as far as my frostbite is concerned, of course,
    all these things were being treated properly.
    And therefore, strangely enough, in spite of all the-- in spite
    of all the deprivation which I had suffered for three years,
    things healed up very fast--
    very fast.
    So just the loss of your toes was the only
    permanent physical damage?
    That's right.
    As far as I can tell.
    I mean, it was all--
    I've had some other things, what I don't want--
    some sort of mental things which--
    [CHUCKLES]
    Did you feel that you suffered any emotional, spiritual
    damage?
    Not at the time, no.
    No, no, not at that time at all.
    No.
    Because I functioned very well.
    Now, looking back?
    Well, I think it's not mental, but psycho-emotional.
    I think I've suffered, because of the psycho-emotional
    deprivation related to the loss of family, I think I'm damaged.
    No question about that.
    High blood pressure?
    Well, Carol is also mentioning high blood pressure
    as a possible--
    Well, I don't think so.
    I mean, I don't think so.
    Because I don't think that is necessarily-- it could be,
    but I don't have any indication that this-- there
    would be a relationship.
    Could be, but, I mean, who knows?
    There were many other things--
    many other things which happened,
    which had nothing to do with a concentration camp.
    You know, a bad marriage and all this sort of thing.
    And that has--
    I don't think that that is directly related to that.
    And I think the bad marriage has more
    to do with the immediate consequences
    than the concentration camp.
    When you were in the camps, did you
    think that the liberation would be the total solution
    to your problems?
    Well, yes, because, you see, seeing
    from that particular predicament in the camps,
    liberation was a true liberation from--
    from excruciating suffering, hell.
    And therefore-- and it's particularly interesting
    in connection with your question--
    that very frequently in the camp,
    I said how nice it would be to be a beggar in the street
    rather than an inmate in a concentration camp.
    Because in my mind, at that particular situation
    and looking into relatively normal civilian life,
    for me to be a beggar would have been a deliverance.
    And these are the times I looked at it,
    because I had a lot to do with beggars back at home, because I
    felt very strong compassion for people who were deprived
    and lived a different type of life ever since I can remember.
    And it hurt me.
    It pained me and--
    to see them in this sort of a situation,
    in this deprived state.
    And so I was very clear in terms of how beggars
    lived in the streets or what--
    what deprivation they suffered.
    So that I was realistic about it and said,
    hey, that would have been absolute
    El Dorado to be a beggar instead of being in this.
    It would be terrific.
    So, yes, to me, it was--
    when I came out, I felt very, very, very, very much
    liberated and--
    and satisfied, just like a tremendous burden is taking--
    is being taken away from your shoulders.
    Millstone around your neck is being removed.
    And that, to me, was the first response after the liberation.
    Later on, of course, life became a struggle.
    And in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve,
    the goals I set myself with the help of the ambitions my mother
    had for me-- that's an important thing,
    in contrast to my father--
    I had to struggle in order to achieve these things,
    without much help.
    Only in terms of what I could attain through very hard work
    and in some--
    some part of what has been given to me
    by way of talent and whatever.
    And so I struggled.
    The times I have not struggled and really enjoyed life--
    and we're talking about enjoyment--
    have been very fleeting moments, and they've never endured.
    Did you have any expectations of how the world would greet you
    as a survivor?
    Yes, yeah.
    That's, again, a very meaningful question.
    Yes, I thought that we would be--
    we would be welcomed as heroes.
    And the interesting thing is, when
    I talked about leaving the camp and being
    posited on a truck driven--
    American army truck driven by American soldiers,
    we went into Bohemia.
    And there, some individuals then said,
    look at them, we don't want you back.
    Actually shouting, they said, we don't want you!
    And that, to me, was a very rude awakening.
    It was just really terrible.
    And I know that all the people, of course, most of them,
    all these people were Czechs on that truck,
    because, yes, we were repatriated to Czechoslovakia--
    then Czechoslovakia, free Democratic
    Czechoslovakia after the war.
    And to us, that was real--
    just an absolute trauma.
    It was just shocking, when this--
    and it was a woman actually who shouted, we don't want you!
    Why don't you go back where you came from?
    And that really-- that was a terrible thing.
    And then also I found that very many people who--
    with the exception of the authorities--
    the authorities gave us all sorts
    of privileges in terms of certificates and ID cards
    and all that, which virtually got us
    into any other place a normal person never
    would have been admitted.
    That were the privileges.
    But the people themselves were not dreadfully happy,
    necessarily, seeing us again.
    And that is something which we discussed earlier in [? the ?]
    [? car. ?]
    That many of us had friends, and they took possessions
    which we didn't want to--
    for safekeeping.
    And we called it Aryanization.
    And for safekeeping and when we would come back to--
    if we would come back from the camps,
    that this would be returned, because it was just
    for safekeeping.
    Many of these people were very reluctant to return that
    and didn't like to see us, because some of the things
    were really valuable things which they enjoyed having.
    And they're not happy to see us.
    And we were told so.
    I said, well-- and one person, I remember--
    it was one of a part-- a member of the Christian community--
    a person-- I belonged to, said, well,
    if I had known that you would come back,
    I wouldn't have taken these things.
    Can you imagine that?
    And he actually said that, and I'm verbatim.
    I'm just actually accurate in this.
    Shocked the hell out of me.
    And so, yes, there are some other people
    who were very supportive and very kind.
    But many people were just in between.
    Most of the people were in between.
    They're not necessarily happy to see you,
    but they're not unhappy.
    And they're supportive to some degree.
    But very few really provided you with the needed support
    after we had arrived back, quote, unquote, "at home."
    And the home after the concentration camp
    never was the home which you idealize
    and which you really feel as your home.
    And so that very frequently, in some of my dreams,
    I feel displaced.
    I'm still searching for a home which I have never found.
    Because the home which was home to me was taken away from me.
    And again, I'm talking about particular people of my age,
    because people have different needs during different stages
    of their life.
    Do you have any other thoughts or comments on liberation?
    Its expectations?
    How it was carried out?
    Well, all these sort of things I found out after the fact,
    actually, when we had--
    the American-Japanese.
    Many of the things, I don't know.
    I really had hoped, and to some extent
    believed, that they came to Dachau to liberate Dachau,
    liberate us.
    Only to find out that it was just an accidental thing.
    They were on their route to Munich.
    That was not at all their intention.
    And I think that is something which we
    didn't know until much later.
    And then the incidents also in the camp while I was there.
    And as I said, I was there much longer
    than most of the other people, who were then shipped home
    to the Soviet Union, to Poland, to all sorts of places.
    Lots of Germans, Austrians, what have you.
    They all went home.
    Most of us who just-- who stayed were very much in the minority.
    And I remember that one day there was an American soldier.
    And the funny thing is that also some of the American soldiers
    who understood and seen this sort of thing--
    and let me start with--
    let me start with this, because that was also
    a shocker, not because of the--
    There was one sergeant, a master sergeant, I remember.
    A burly fellow, well-fed and all that.
    And so one day, he comes and--
    and offers us chocolate and a cigar and all that.
    All this stuff was plastic and rubber.
    And it was a tremendous joke, because we, of course,
    grabbed it and so--
    and he laughed his head off.
    He thought he was dreadfully funny
    under those circumstances.
    Can you imagine that?
    I'll never forget that.
    And some of us-- these people had
    strict, of course, strict orders not to give us extra food.
    And I remember there was another sergeant, an older fellow,
    very compassionate fellow.
    And we met at the toilet frequently.
    And there, they could talk unobserved.
    And said, what can I do for you?
    I said, well, I'm hungry.
    So he gave me some-- a little bit more food.
    And another fellow said, well, just--
    well, I just would like to read.
    And the way I said it, he said, you would like to eat?
    No, I said, I would like to read.
    And then he gave me some things to read and did it.
    And these people existed also.
    And I want to be very clear about that.
    And then there was-- one person said, come with me,
    I'm going to do you a favor.
    And then he took me out the direct camp,
    from the camp premises, direct--
    just immediate camp premises.
    Took me out, and there are some sort
    of kind of barracks with doors in it and all this.
    Just kind of cubbyholed type of doors.
    And he took his machine gun and started to spray these doors.
    Said, you know, SS people are in it,
    and I just killed a few for you.
    And I was horrified.
    Were there SS people in there?
    Well, I've never-- I've never been to see,
    but that's what he claimed.
    He said, I've just killed some SS in there.
    And he was unobserved.
    No one was around.
    He was the only one.
    I don't know what his rank was.
    I don't remember that.
    But I was horrified.
    And he said, I'm going to do you a favor.
    So all these sort of things happened.
    And I remember that I was interviewed by some reporters
    in the camp and told them.
    They said, well, we don't--
    I don't think we should-- we won't write about that,
    because that doesn't fit into the--
    fit into our way of thinking at this point.
    So many of these things which happened
    were simply repressed, or suppressed, whatever.
    And so that experience was very interesting.
    Also, things which-- we were, of course, fairly
    free to move about, obviously, at that particular point.
    And Dachau had the largest SS magazines
    with all sorts of material in them,
    including ammunition, including all.
    And some of the kids, some of the younger people,
    naive people, just played around with things
    and killed themselves by using--
    playing with explosives.
    And I've seen that.
    Just caps, you know, which explode
    and all this sort of thing.
    Because that was the major magazine for the SS,
    Dachau, that it was part of.
    Not the direct camp, but the vicinity of the camp.
    So we went there and just played there.
    And then they finally, after so many people
    got hurt and even killed, then they put posts there.
    And even that was not enough, because we
    could sneak in and do all sort-- because we
    didn't have any sense.
    We didn't really have any-- we didn't know much
    about all these things.
    We just-- now we felt free, and now there was-- these things
    were symbols of power for us.
    And now we had access to them.
    And that's how I think we responded, subconsciously.
    Now, I didn't do anything that stupid.
    But I certainly was naive enough to have done that,
    except I was more careful.
    That's all.
    But I was not more sophisticated about that.
    Well, I think-- well, we can move on now
    to start to talk about your work.
    Can we stop for one minute?
    --specific questions.
    It also helps me to make associations.
    OK, good.
    And then feel free to go [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah, and that's what I'm doing.
    That's exactly what I'm doing.
    So that we just-- but then you have
    to be sure that I also close the circle again, that I come back.
    Well, yeah.
    But, you know, I--
    OK.
    I'd say anytime.
    OK.
    OK, so to proceed with how you came by your life's work.
    When did you first decide to study the perpetrators?
    Well, I mean, it started very early in life actually.
    And it's very much to do with, I think I already mentioned
    before, my early-developed notion
    sense of justice and fairness.
    And that is something which developed very early
    when I was a child.
    And I could see that the--
    the disparity between people's standard of living.
    And we had a house manager, a family of three,
    who lived in the basement.
    And not like in the United States.
    Were exceedingly deprived financial or otherwise.
    It was just about the lowest menial type of job
    you could have had.
    So the husband, who was also a manager, a house manager,
    worked as some sort of an unskilled laborer.
    And had his wife who cleaned the stairs--
    janitorial sort of work.
    And then the daughter just simply--
    and they lived-- lived under those circumstances,
    went to school, was considerably older than I,
    but still very young.
    And so somehow it didn't make any sense to me
    at all that-- that we would be living in a very nice apartment
    and have everything we needed and more
    than that and all that.
    And these people were in the basement living
    this type of deprived life.
    And that somehow concerned me.
    And that's the proper way to say it.
    And I spent a great deal of time with people who were--
    who were deprived, whether I saw them in the streets,
    I somehow was attracted to them for whatever reason.
    If I saw a blind person, so I tried
    to be helpful or something.
    That is something.
    And I don't know where I got it from.
    Certainly, my mother was there.
    But not to that extent that she would--
    still was upper-middle class and all this.
    And so that's how it started.
    And then at school, I noticed that--
    that people had prejudices and they're antisemitic.
    And one day, I remember very clearly, an incident
    which stayed in my mind.
    And that was in 1938, when I was about 12 years old.
    Mother and I were in a bus.
    And they just had arrived at our destination, just a few steps
    from our house or apartment.
    And children, or just 12-year-olds,
    just like they are, just didn't wait until the bus would stop.
    So I just went down to the steps and wanted to jump off.
    And my mother, who was a little bit
    overprotective at times, cried out in German and--
    stop and all that.
    And there was one person in that bus--
    I didn't-- I didn't jump off, but I stayed on the steps
    because because of that.
    So then a person in the bus responded to this.
    And that was the first time I really became aware
    of the problems which more or less
    we had to anticipate in a very childish sort of way,
    just a 12-year-old would.
    And this fellow said, in the bus--
    well-dressed, middle-class type of person.
    He had a hat on and everything.
    Just didn't look any unusual.
    Sort of typical middle-class person,
    who blends into middle-class society.
    And he said, "Only Jews, only Jews, Hitler, Hitler," in order
    to--
    and the message was very clear.
    What he meant to say is, too many Jews, all we need
    is Hitler to clean up the Jewish.
    Now, my mother was very dark and didn't look Jewish.
    But she looked very--
    she very frequent was confused being Indian, East Indian.
    Interesting, very dark-- so very dark-skinned.
    But he was very right on.
    And he was obviously a very antisemitic sort of person.
    And that brought a -- and my mother was terribly upset.
    And I remember that she went to a policeman
    and reported this sort of thing, which
    was a joke, because the man in the bus was gone long--
    just in the very moment she talked to him.
    But she was very upset about that.
    And I was upset, not because I really understood the--
    the consequences of it all, the meaning of it all.
    But the fact that this could have been said
    and that my mother was responding to it the way
    she did.
    And so that really set me up, so to speak,
    to expect things in a very childish sort of fashion.
    And again, I felt, how can a person say what he said?
    And Hitler was, to me, at that particular point, already
    an entity I was very much aware of.
    Because when I was much younger, my grandfather had just
    bought a radio, a wireless set.
    A typical old-fashioned radio set had come out.
    And I still remember the brand name,
    which was called Standard--
    Standard.
    A radio called Standard.
    And so they listened to speeches.
    And there, for the first time, I heard Hitler.
    And I was very small then-- very small, just a real small child.
    And I was horrified, not because I
    understood what was said, but the way it was said.
    And that I remember very vividly.
    So there are a lot of things which, then,
    somehow accumulated.
    And then incidents which also happened at school,
    for example, when I just had, in our art class, worked on a--
    worked on a castle out of this plasterine type of stuff.
    And I was very proud of it.
    I wanted to bring it to show it to my mother.
    And another boy came, who happened
    to be an orphan, a Jewish orphan,
    living in an orphanage, Jewish orphanage.
    And he was very aggressive and very disgruntled
    for psychological reasons which I can better understand.
    But at that time, I didn't understand why he
    would behave so aggressively.
    And he tyranized fellow students.
    He happened to be very strong.
    The monster was not that tall, but very strong,
    athletic build, a lot of muscle.
    And he came and smashed this beautiful castle which I built.
    And I was so upset that I started to shake.
    And I said, why would you do that?
    And when I asked him that, he became even more aggressive,
    and we got into a fight and all that.
    And that's what, you know?
    And I said, why would people behave towards each other
    in such a way which is totally uncalled for?
    So--
    Can you remember--
    This developed this sort of sense of fairness and justice,
    the need for--
    and I, today, still have this sort of very principled
    attitude, which gets me into conflict with even well-meaning
    people, that I just simply cannot give in.
    Not because I am not able to give in,
    but I can't give in in terms of what
    I have experienced in life.
    Because I would be selling out.
    I can't do it.
    All right, so because what happened in the concentration
    camp, which of course exacerbated
    all the things, all the feelings of injustice,
    it was an absolute must, a need for me,
    to find out about people who were in a position
    and did all these terrible things of which we--
    which we had to experience.
    And that is why I had this urge--
    and it was an urge--
    to seek out, not only to study the documents, to begin with,
    in order to better familiarize myself
    with the National Socialist system, the structures,
    and the--
    the infrastructure, if you will.
    And so I wasn't satisfied.
    And when I was not satisfied, studying these documents
    in various archives and with supervision of people
    who were eminent historians.
    At that time, already a very, very well-known historian--
    but was just in the process of becoming really well-known--
    somehow took me under his wing.
    And he was not that much older than I, but he was older.
    And was very supportive of my work, my research, of the SS
    in the archive which he was the director of.
    So we had always very frequent-- frequently discussions
    about what I found out my ideas and all that.
    And he responding very, very nicely and very--
    so I told him, OK, I've done most of the work,
    paperwork and studying, and I'm not satisfied.
    I really have to interview people in order
    to really get at the core of things
    and see what makes them tick.
    And he suggested that I--
    he was very helpful in doing that-- he said, there is--
    I was in Munich--
    there is a fellow with your namesake
    who is known to be very accessible.
    And why don't you go and see him--
    call him and see if you can get an appointment
    and interview him.
    And I've done it.
    And this man was very helpful.
    He said, oh, yes, of course.
    Well, we might be related and all that.
    The same, Steiner.
    Was this person Felix Steiner?
    Felix Steiner, SS general, full general.
    And so he was very, nice, very interested,
    and very encouraging.
    And so we made the appointment.
    And that was the first step.
    And then, of course, went there with a great deal
    of trepidation.
    And said, my God, now I'm going through this.
    Because, you see, at that time, I
    lumped all the SS people in one pot,
    not understanding that well--
    well, ideologically, of course, and otherwise, I
    understood that there were very many different departments
    within the--
    the SS and with different functions and all that.
    But to me, all these people were SS, which they were.
    And I felt they were all pretty much the same.
    So I felt that I'm going to interview a monster, you see?
    And then I--
    Were you afraid?
    I wouldn't say I was afraid, but I was very apprehensive.
    I don't think I was afraid.
    After the concentration camp, I don't know
    whether I know fear anymore.
    I have fear of suffering, that I have--
    I fear suffering.
    I fear to be hurt.
    And I get plenty of occasion to be made to be hurt.
    I've been hurt many times.
    And that, I would say, I have a fear of.
    But I am not feared to, let's say,
    get hurt, other than physically or that--
    I don't care.
    I really don't.
    So that was not an issue.
    The issue was, there I'm going to see a monster again,
    a person who will behave as a monster.
    And so I come to his apartment.
    And that was in '60--
    I think that was just early '60s.
    And the doorbell and his name--
    well, he didn't even have a nameplate.
    It was a piece of cardboard on which his name was.
    And not general, but author.
    Well, as I found out, the man had
    written a number of books, some of which I helped him with.
    As a matter of fact, one of which I helped him with,
    in terms of research and all that, which
    was interesting because I was very interested.
    And so anyway, he opens the door, well-dressed,
    and a very robust person.
    Just about shy of almost 6--
    what-- 6 feet tall.
    Very friendly, welcoming.
    I mean, bringing me to the dining hall,
    where there's just a beautifully prepared table
    with coffee and whipped cream and cake and all this and that.
    And I was just absolutely perplexed,
    because I had totally different expectations.
    There, I get a red carpet treatment of someone
    who would have probably not done anything if--
    if he would have seen me being shot
    under different circumstances.
    So I had to readjust.
    And said, my God, a very confusing situation.
    How did you decide to deal with the fact
    that you were a survivor?
    You still have a tattoo.
    Well, first of all, that's a good--
    good question.
    What I did is, first of all--
    and at that time, I very rarely, if ever,
    wore short-sleeved shirts.
    So I had always long-sleeved shirts.
    And so that was no issue.
    But it became an issue at other circumstances, when
    they asked me, why don't we go for a swim and all
    this and that.
    And then I had problems.
    And I really had to find excuses, and it was not easy.
    Or when I stayed overnight at some of the apartments,
    and they--
    they didn't mind undressing.
    Because I was looking for their tattoo, which was a blood--
    blood group which they had tattooed on them.
    And so I'd say, why don't you show me?
    I talked to SS gentleman and say, hey, show me.
    And he showed me and all this.
    So, yeah, I had to be very careful and very alert.
    Now, especially-- I didn't lie.
    I never lied when they asked me things.
    I told them the truth.
    But they didn't ask me whether I was in a concentration camp.
    And I didn't volunteer.
    In some cases, I volunteered, when it
    was useful for all concerned.
    I volunteered, and they knew.
    What would you have done if the person asked you
    if you were in a camp?
    If I was what?
    If you had been in the camps.
    Did you think what you might do if you
    got that kind of question?
    It never actually happened.
    But the chances are, I would've said, yeah, I was in camps.
    See, because I always said that I'm a researcher.
    At that time, I was at Berkeley.
    And that's what I said, I'm a researcher from UC Berkeley,
    and I'm a sociologist.
    And I'm doing this research on the SS,
    because I have a need to find out what happened
    and why you behaved or what happened--
    why you behaved the way you did and all this, what
    is it all about.
    Did you have any particular obvious negative feelings
    toward the Germans at that point?
    I mean, what about your own anger, rage,
    left from your experiences?
    Well, that is an interesting thing.
    And that is something which needs to be mentioned
    and perhaps emphasized.
    After the liberation and after my return to Czechoslovakia,
    I was so preoccupied with injustice and unfairness
    that hatred, for me, was not the issue.
    So what I did instead, very consciously, including
    my father--
    including my father, who was perhaps less aggressive than I
    in these things--
    I went around to help all my German friends
    who were into deep trouble.
    Some of them were killed, murdered.
    Some were put into prisons, and I got them out.
    Particularly those people, of course.
    And I only knew people who were decent Germans--
    quote, unquote, "decent" Germans.
    Because I was very much aware that you simply cannot
    generalize, merely because--
    not merely, but because you had SS people and because
    the German--
    many Germans were National Socialists and behaved
    in a way which was inexcusable.
    Doesn't mean that all the people are swine.
    And so therefore, my, again, feeling of justice was,
    I cannot let people who are innocent be treated the way I
    was treated.
    In that, I had my full support of my father, who
    was just on even keel with me.
    And so what we did, we helped our German friends,
    who were numerous.
    I even helped and saved the lives
    of people, my schoolmates, who couldn't care less
    about what happened to me.
    And certainly didn't give me any or render any support.
    But I felt it was my moral responsibility
    in view of the fact what had happened to me.
    And I even, for example, in certain parts of Bohemia,
    the northern parts of Bohemia where I lived to begin with
    and was clerk in--
    the town clerk, actually, and had lots of responsibilities.
    And we had lots of Germans which we had to deal with.
    And anyone who-- and that was an interesting thing, because that
    was patterned after the German model,
    that anyone who was a Czech was now superior.
    It just turned the table, so to speak.
    Anyone who was a Czech and fraternized with Germans
    will be fined 1 million crowns and punished, whatever.
    And I still have some of the original handouts on that--
    still have them at home in my-- in my files.
    So to me, that didn't mean anything at all.
    And then so people came to me for help
    and even offered me their daughters
    as kind of a reward if--
    they'd say, why don't you take her to bed or something?
    I mean, people were desperate.
    And I had understanding for this desperation.
    And I'm not going to--
    I was not going to--
    they bribed me, wanted to bribe me and give me money.
    I never took a dime.
    I never took advantage of my, at that time, power position.
    But helped these people as much as I could, and even took
    people over the border, so that they would--
    could get to Germany unharmed.
    And I'm proud of it.
    So for all practical purposes, what is defined today
    as rescuer, I was a rescuer.
    Yes.
    And it was not a question of the--
    I didn't-- that was something which came natural,
    because I didn't feel that I was doing anything special.
    I just simply behaved in a way which I thought I had to,
    morally had to, because that was my responsibility, after what I
    had suffered.
    And I'm still preoccupied with these things.
    And I'm very sensitive on that.
    And many people don't understand it, why I draw lines.
    They don't understand me.
    They think they do, but they don't.
    And therefore are offended when I draw the line and say, hey,
    I'll do it.
    I see that you do not want to act out
    the prejudice toward Germans which
    had been acted out against you.
    That's right.
    But did you have any other feelings towards, say,
    the particular perpetrators?
    The SS?
    Well, I just felt very strongly about what they did.
    And I felt that it had to be brought to justice.
    I really felt that they-- and that's
    why I was very much in favor of the Nuremberg
    trials of major war criminals, or minor war criminals.
    And I played a part in it.
    I was a witness and was interrogated
    as a witness against Mengele and some other people.
    And I did that very consciously and felt very good about it,
    because I felt I had to do it.
    So I really think that these people had to be brought--
    I still have the documents, by the way, of an SS witness.
    I had to go to German courts.
    And in one interview, I had here in San Francisco.
    And the consul general interviewed me.
    He was just antisemitic to the hilt and as unpleasant
    as he could possibly be.
    And I couldn't understand it.
    Just as unpleasant as he could be.
    Just really-- just awful.
    And I made it very clear to him also.
    I just hated that person's guts, the way he conducted himself.
    Anyway, so this is-- this is the consequence of my experience.
    And that's why I'm obsessed, preoccupied.
    And that's when I'm treated unfairly,
    what I consider unfairly, I respond to that, and I say,
    I can't take it.
    And people can stand on their heads,
    and they can be infuriated and say, OK, I'd
    rather part company with you.
    If you, you know, that's it.
    So when you began interviewing the perpetrators,
    you had some apprehension.
    Did you feel that you might get actively angry with the person?
    Oh, yes, and I did.
    Because there were situations, for example,
    when I was asked to be present during one of the rallies or--
    with the assembled former members
    of the SS-- assembled, which they still can do legally.
    Just about, I would say, 1,500 maybe or something--
    just a very large number.
    And I was invited.
    And then it turned out that I was also
    a guest of honor, which that was--
    I was, at that time, on a Fulbright fellowship
    and already teaching and full professor at that time.
    I just had been made full professor at Sonoma State.
    And so they invited me.
    And I had to address them and all that.
    So it was just a terrible thing and a tremendous strain
    to say things which would be truthful on one hand,
    and also would make a difference.
    So it was very difficult for me, because I didn't expect it.
    They didn't tell me that I would address
    a crowd of 1,500 former SS people and their family.
    That includes their family and because--
    and that was a very--
    kind of a very--
    I sweated blood sitting with SS generals at a VIP table.
    So I just-- it took a lot of concentration and adjustment
    for me to do all this.
    But I did it for a purpose, namely
    to really be a participant observer
    and see, how do these people behave and conduct themselves
    in different situations, which gave me
    clues and insights, which otherwise I never
    would have been able to get.
    See?
    And so the upshot of it was that, at times,
    I got into arguments, where you're-- for example,
    at this particular mass meeting.
    I was then socialized-- we then socialized after all
    the lectures--
    lectures-- not lectures, speeches and whatever.
    We socialized, and then I was asked to socialize,
    sit with some SS people at one table.
    And one person started very racist, antisemitic talk
    and all this.
    And then I said, well, you objective people
    are prejudiced against you, because you
    were a member of the SS.
    But now you do exactly what you object to.
    How do you account for that?
    And we got in a terrific row with the man and the other SS.
    There were just about five people
    at that table, five or six.
    And the interesting thing is the other SS people
    really supported my arguments.
    And what I found is that--
    that we prevailed.
    The person who came out with these antisemitic remarks
    is the person who left the table in a huff.
    So, yes, there are situations where I just simply
    got into arguments, because you draw a line.
    You are an interviewer.
    But you have to draw the line at times
    where something is being said which needs to be responded to,
    where you can say, this is irresponsible.
    Did you ever-- while you were in the camps, did it ever
    occur to you then to observe the behavior of the SS
    or any Germans that were in charge?
    When I was in the camp?
    Yes.
    Well, obviously, because I couldn't get out
    of my way to do that, because that
    meant that I was risking my life.
    But I could when I had a chance to observe it.
    And then I also could respond to them.
    And when I got into an interaction with them, which I
    always--
    or in most cases, 99% cases avoided--
    then I had to respond in a way which would be least
    harmful to me, which I did.
    But then, of course, all these sort of things,
    like in this case, a little bit of a photographic memory.
    And then this remained in my mind.
    And I drew from that experience, which--
    which was helpful in my research.
    How about your friends, family, colleagues?
    Did they have any reaction to you wanting to conduct research
    with the perpetrators?
    Well, I find very little understanding for it, because--
    particularly in Jewish circles.
    They say, how could you do that?
    That means you must identify with the stupid sort of stuff
    which people say.
    You identify with the enemy and all these things.
    Which is totally inappropriate, in some cases-- may or may not
    be.
    Even when I read something which I wrote about in my book about
    that particular thing, because some psychologists claimed
    that-- and I know exactly--
    I forget the name of the person who came out with this notion.
    And then I explained in my book that these people did not
    identify with the enemy, but they identified, at times,
    with their power position, with their power.
    And they wanted to have their power.
    So in order to balance the power,
    they behaved in a certain way which was symbolically similar,
    but did not identify with the cause of the SS at all.
    But they only identified with the way
    they conducted themselves in their overt behavior, demeanor.
    So what I'm saying, to put it differently,
    is that they did not identify with the--
    with the goals of the SS, namely to destroy,
    but they identified with the power in order to survive.
    So they used the means which they thought
    were similar which would-- which would counter
    the power of the SS by simply relating to their power values
    which they would recognize.
    And one of which, which I used, was immaculate German.
    And it worked every time.
    My immaculate German, for very many reasons, saved my life--
    saved my life, particularly when I had encounters with the SS.
    Because then they said, my God, I mean,
    this person doesn't fit the stereotype
    of a "Jew," quote, unquote.
    He's like us.
    And then they're more reluctant to hurt me.
    And every time I was in a situation--
    not that many occasions-- but every time this happened and I
    behaved in a way which I knew was, to them, familiar
    and they respected, I succeeded.
    So are you saying that identification
    with the aggressor would more entail the identifier
    [INAUDIBLE] abuse.
    The means.
    Yeah, that's right.
    And those kinds of things.
    That's right.
    But what you're describing is where
    you pick out certain values--
    That's right, exactly.
    --and embody those.
    Yeah, and that's what I explained in my book
    and said that, this is certainly what took place.
    For instance, kapos tried to look like SS people.
    Of course, many of the kapos were in for themselves
    and didn't care about fellow inmates
    and at times killed them without any reservation
    in order to survive, in order to have a better life.
    Again, it's understandable.
    I never would have done it.
    And I know quite a few who never would have done it.
    And there are also some kapos and people
    who were inmate functionaries who, indeed, did not
    misuse their power position.
    In fact, they used it to save other people's lives,
    fellow inmates' lives.
    And that happened also.
    But I've never been in a power position,
    because I wouldn't have liked to have it, number one.
    And it was not--
    I was not offered one.
    But I never would have done anything.
    If I would have accepted, I never would have hurt anyone,
    I'm sure.
    I would have played the game.
    So there were some kapos, you're saying,
    who you would describe as falling
    into the trap of identification with the aggressor
    in their behavior?
    Well, they did not-- still, they didn't identify.
    But they did not identify necessarily at all
    with a cause of SS.
    But they identified with their power to be sure.
    And they identified with the means to stay alive
    and to succeed, which meant to be brutal,
    which meant to kill people.
    But they didn't do it for the Nazi cause.
    They did it for their own personal cause in order
    to-- in order to have a better life and survive.
    So they didn't do it because they identified
    with the cause of the Nazis.
    And that needs to be clarified, because very many people,
    or most people, really don't understand it.
    Maybe this would be a good place, if you would,
    to describe what is the difference amongst the SS,
    the Waffen-SS, the Gestapo, all these different perpetrator
    groups.
    Yeah, so the SS was a very--
    was not at all a--
    a unified organization.
    It was an organization of many functions to be sure.
    Most of the people, that's what they had in common,
    identified with National Socialist ideology.
    Because one should under--
    forget that, until 1943, when people were recruited
    into the SS, still had some sort of a choice,
    but not much of a choice.
    They volunteered.
    So the SS was made up of volunteers.
    And that is a very important thing for us to remember.
    So if they volunteered, so they had
    to identify with something which appealed to them.
    And the dominant sort of thing was, of course, Nazi ideology.
    And you can't say that you disagreed with Nazi ideology
    if you became an SS member, because then you
    were a part of it.
    You become an integral part of Nazi ideology,
    namely to put Nazi ideology into practice.
    And that I think we shouldn't forget, because then--
    so that they had in common for sure.
    But their functions were different.
    So when I, for example, talked about the people
    of the Waffen-SS, so primarily, the Waffen-SS was supposed
    to be something like the US Marines--
    a superior combat elite.
    And Steiner was one of the people who was a co-founder
    of the-- that is to say, he built up--
    he really was one of the major senior instructors who really
    built it up, along with some other people, all of whom-- no,
    one exception--
    I got to know-- two exceptions--
    and interviewed.
    Now, so, they were soldiers.
    But the question is, whom did they serve?
    And there is no question whom they served.
    They served their country.
    That's exactly what I asked him--
    whom did you-- did you serve Germany or Hitler?
    See, but you see, and that's why it is important to understand
    that Hoess, the deputy leader in his introduction of Hitler,
    said, you are Germany, and Germany is you.
    So what they tried to do in the Nazi ideology,
    they tried to fuse Hitler with Germany and Germany
    with Hitler.
    And to a large extent, they succeeded.
    Is that what the SS would answer when
    you asked to whom did they--
    No, no, no, they didn't think that clearly, most of them.
    Did they think they were--
    They all claimed that they were--
    that they were serving Germany, that they were patriots.
    And that Hitler was a patriot.
    And that he meant--
    that he really meant--
    just wanted the best for Germany and all that.
    So that was this-- usually this type of question
    which they answered.
    But you had people in the Waffen-SS
    who were not necessarily members of the Nazi party
    and were not Nazi ideologues, particularly the older ones.
    The younger ones, of course, were very much--
    very much indoctrinated with Nazi ideology.
    They went through the Hitler Youth, for example.
    Or just about that, actually grew up
    under the Third Reich or the beginnings of the Third Reich
    up until '43, and very much affected by that, because they
    didn't know anything else.
    They really indoctrinated successfully.
    And so they had a different attitude.
    And therefore, the conflict between the older generation
    of the SS and the younger was--
    was visible, except they couldn't
    do very much because the older ones were their superiors.
    That only came out after the war.
    How was it that the older ones weren't
    full-fledged Nazis when you had to join from a [INAUDIBLE]??
    Well, Steiner certainly wasn't.
    And some other generals didn't like Hitler at all.
    Hitler didn't get along with them at all.
    But they felt that they are military people who
    fought a war against the communists, the Soviet
    Union, who were their arch enemy, hoping that they would
    align themselves with the West against the Soviet Union.
    Which, of course, never happened.
    But that's what they hoped.
    But they didn't like Hitler.
    And they didn't particularly--
    felt very strongly about him.
    But they didn't do anything against him.
    Well, Steiner, for example, knew quite a few people
    who were-- who were active in the 20th of July.
    And he knew about some of the things.
    He disagreed with what they did, not because he loved-- and I
    had discussions which-- with him,
    which are in my book, which are appended in my book
    very specifically, verbatim, because immediately after that,
    I put things down.
    And so he said, well, if you want to kill a dictator,
    you have to have enough courage to do it personally, and shoot
    him and personally, rather than leave a bomb and then leave.
    And that's an interesting argument.
    And so he said, well--
    he disagreed with the killing of, at this point,
    because he felt that it would have created greater chaos
    and more people would have--
    Let me put it that way.
    This is a rebellion that took place, as I understand.
    Yeah, well, the 20th of July '44.
    And so many people knew about it, but did not participate.
    And some knew about it and participate
    against these people--
    of the 20th of July people.
    And some people knew about it and didn't do anything
    about it.
    Just simply swept it under the carpet, didn't get involved.
    And Steiner was one person who did not get involved
    and had some inkling in terms of what was happening.
    This was a plot--
    A plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
    But that was already five to 12:00.
    Why did they wait that long, because they could have done
    that much-- of course, he was also lucky,
    because many of the attempts to assassinate him,
    he avoided successfully.
    But there was that much fervor in a group
    to eradicate him that late into this [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah, but the interesting thing is that all these people
    became generals.
    And then what did they-- they must have done something
    towards supporting Hitler, otherwise they
    would have not become generals.
    So all these sort of things are highly questionable things.
    And it's not-- it's a very complex question, which
    by no means has been resolved.
    And I don't necessarily see great heroes in these people,
    because they waited that long.
    And also, they became very high-posited officers,
    including SS.
    Why did they want to kill Hitler at this point?
    Well, to get out of the war and not be totally vanquished,
    because it was purely pragmatic--
    purely pragmatic.
    And some--
    OK.
    So you were talking about why it was that this plot to kill
    Hitler happened in July of '44.
    The 20th of July, '44, yeah.
    OK.
    Well, the general idea is that most of the people
    felt that they wanted to have some sort of peace
    with honor, because they are afraid that they were all clear
    that the law-- the war was lost.
    At that early point.
    At that particular early point, 20 of July, '44
    it was-- that was not early.
    But by this time, they must have already
    been saying this for a while.
    Oh, yes, they have seen it for a while.
    And I think it was purely pragmatic for most.
    Some other people also responded to all the atrocities
    and even mentioned the fact that Jews were being killed
    and what happened to people who were innocent and all that.
    But the major concern was to get out
    of the war with the best possible conditions
    at that particular point.
    So it was self-serving and very pragmatic.
    And the question is, why did they wait so long
    and why did they become generals and colonels
    and high functionaries before they started to move?
    And, well-- and it was five before 12.
    So I looked at the 20th of July movement
    with some degree of skepticism, and feel
    that these people were not really that tremendous heroes,
    apart from the fact that they bungled
    the whole thing terribly.
    And nothing came of it.
    As a matter of fact, it was just an absolute slaughter.
    And innocent people got involved and got killed in the process.
    So I mean, it was very poorly organized
    and bungled, badly bungled.
    Now, it is, of course, from a historical point of view
    interesting and in the interest of German history
    that there was some sort of rebellion against it.
    So that is being played up and made
    into something which I don't think-- it's inflated, which
    I don't think it deserves.
    But you were talking before about the difference
    amongst these perpetrator groups.
    So the Waffen-SS were this elite combat groups.
    Yeah.
    That was their-- that was their--
    so first of all, in the beginning 1923
    was the beginning of the SS, which
    was a integral part of the Brownshirts, the stormtroopers,
    the Brownshirts, the SA.
    And their major function was to protect.
    And that's what they call the protection guard, or protection
    squad.
    That's actually the accurate translation of the German.
    And why that?
    Simply because their responsibility,
    their duty was to defend and protect the Nazis,
    because Hitler, Goebbels, and all the people,
    [INAUDIBLE] people were addressing the crowds from
    hostile--
    from a hostile audience.
    Was this sort of like the FBI?
    Well, no, no, no.
    Because you talk FBI would be-- it was just simply,
    if you go to a bar, you have in front of a bar
    someone who is going to see to it
    that not the right people will come in
    and nothing will happen.
    So that was to begin on a very primitive level and just
    a handful of people, not that many.
    But that's how it started.
    That's how the-- and that was their original function.
    Body guards.
    That's right.
    Anyway, guards of-- the bodyguards of speakers and also
    see to it that unruly crowds would not
    cause any disturbance.
    And if they would cause it, they would just simply
    beat them down.
    And so that was the original function
    to begin with, the origin of the SS.
    And then they had more and more people
    coming in as the number of Nazis increased.
    And then, eventually, they became the strong arm and the--
    the policing, the protecting National Socialist
    functionaries of some sort, and being the sort of elite.
    And they developed into an elite.
    Until 1934, they were under the SR, leadership of Rohm,
    who was the leader of the Brownshirts.
    And then they-- part of it played a very important role
    in not only deposing him, but also murdering him.
    And that was done by the members of the SS.
    And they played a very important role.
    And as a reward, they became an independent organization in '34
    after the Rohm coup, so-called Rohm coup.
    And that needs to be understood.
    And then they also had a lot of people
    who became members because of they
    felt that there was a career that they had some position.
    And so then they incorporated the first police.
    The German police president was Himmler.
    So they incorporated policing responsibility into the SS.
    And the police, the order police became--
    they became members of the SS, you know.
    I mean, they were an integral part of the SS,
    except they may have had different uniforms.
    But they were part of that organization.
    And then you had--
    early in '33, you had Himmler appointed
    Heydrich to be the person to develop the secret state
    police.
    And Heydrich was then in charge of that.
    And then you had some other department and about--
    just about, I forget exactly how many,
    12 or 13 or whatever, different departments
    with different functions.
    Some had to do with race, some had to do with--
    with political ideological things.
    Some of them had to do with--
    with criminal things, you know, and criminal police.
    And all these people became part of the SS.
    Where did the group-- the Gestapo--
    And they were, in other words, incorporated so
    that they were not questioned.
    So some of the people, they're not asked,
    but they were incorporated-- the whole outfit
    was incorporated into the SS.
    So it was not just an individual sort of thing.
    But they incorporated whether they liked it or not.
    They-- if they didn't like it, they always
    could have-- they always could design that they could.
    So they had very, very many functions and different tasks.
    For example, development in occupied territories
    and the population of Germans in occupied territories and making
    plans for the future after war--
    after the War I war.
    And very, very-- and then you also
    had the beginning then was also of the so-called volunteers, SS
    volunteers.
    And they had very special designations of--
    simply because of ideological reasons, they joined the SS
    and were given what I know were just
    different grades of military rank.
    And semi-- semi-military rank, because they're not really
    counting as military.
    With the exception of the Waffen-SS.
    And the Waffen-SS was called [GERMAN] which was directly
    under to the--
    which meant that they were directly
    under the orders of Hitler, a special
    set up for Hitler to be used for whatever purposes he
    considered.
    It was-- that's what the meaning of [GERMAN] means.
    And then you had the normal people
    who became members of the SS without any function,
    just to belong to the SS.
    And that was called general SS, Allgemeine SS.
    And they didn't have any specific function
    other than being members of the SS.
    And were then given various responsibilities
    in these various departments eventually.
    So then there was a standard military hierarchy.
    That's right.
    Did the military brass have to be part of the SS?
    Military brass, what do you mean?
    Say you have your inducted into the army.
    I would say, there was no induction.
    Because up to what I've tried to make clear is until '43
    the military branch of SS was all
    made up of voluntary people.
    After that.
    After that they were inducted.
    Inducted.
    And all the higher ups were SS, either voluntary or--
    That's right.
    But they always, they always subordinated
    to the military non SS.
    So that is to say, the highest rank in the SS.
    And there are only two active, three active SS colonel
    generals, that was the highest rank you could attain.
    And there were only three of them.
    There was no field marshal.
    So the highest rank, and only three of them
    were colonel generals.
    And all the other ones, and they were
    subordinated to field marshals.
    So they were never in charge.
    There were division commanders.
    But then the superiors, their superiors,
    were marshals, field marshals.
    Non-SS.
    Non-SS.
    It was a separate military.
    Yeah, of course.
    Yeah, and they were the majority.
    And there were almost over 900,000
    towards the end of the war.
    You had well over 900,000, about 910,000 SS.
    And where did the Gestapo fit into this?
    The Gestapo, as I said, originated in 1933,
    actually started already in '32.
    Reinhard Heydrich who was a Marine
    officer who was kicked out because of sexual misconduct.
    He was also cohabiting with the daughter of a Marine admiral
    or whatever and behaved in a way which was unseeming for--
    unacceptable for a marine officer, Navy officer, actually
    Navy.
    And so he was kicked out.
    And then because of his qualifications,
    Himmler became interested in him and he then
    became the person who helped Himmler and was primarily
    the person who developed the Gestapo, the secret state
    police.
    And that was made up of civilians primarily.
    But that does not mean that some of them
    did not, at certain occasions, wear the uniform, the black,
    at that time black uniform.
    But primarily they were actually they were civilian.
    But they had military, they had SS ranks,
    which were comparable, SS ranks which were comparable.
    So the infamous person who was actually
    in charge of the Gestapo subordinated to Heydrich
    was a man called Muller and this Muller
    had a rank of lieutenant general,
    roughly speaking or equivalent.
    One other explanatory thing, typically, what
    would be a concentration camp hierarchy?
    A concentration camp hierarchy was
    made of the people who were--
    and that is a very important question
    --was made up of the people who were the guards.
    And these guards were not permitted
    to really have any function or permitted
    to even enter for any length of time, the main camp.
    So all they were doing is guarding
    the premises of the concentration camp
    and shooting people or whatever, guarding the camp
    so that no one would escape, number one.
    And then, when the people worked out,
    they would also guard them so that they would not
    escape to outside the camp.
    And then you had the SS, which was the member of the camp, SS
    and these people were, again, members of the--
    most of them were members of the Security
    Service, which were part, under Heydrich also, Security
    Service.
    And the Security Service was precisely
    to secure the position of the Nazi party
    and see to it that anyone who was rocking the boat
    would be taken out of circulation.
    And then you had the another security service
    which was developed out of what belonged to a man
    called Canaris, who was murdered after July 20, 1944.
    And that was then taken over by the SS
    and they had then a spy system, an espionage system, which then
    was also under SS leadership.
    And the man in charge was an SS Major General
    called Schellenberg.
    And who were they spying on?
    Well, just spying on--
    just like espionage, just like CIA or the OSS during the war.
    That was just the equivalent of the OSS,
    Office of Strategic Services.
    So
    Were they spying externally to the country or internally?
    No, see, the internal was--
    it was an internal security service
    and there was an external security service.
    And these people were spying outside the country
    and trying to get whatever information and intrigues
    and what have you.
    But were they part of the concentration camps?
    They had nothing to do with the concentration camps.
    The guards that you talked about, were they simply--
    Well, many of these people originally
    started with the so-called death head guards.
    And they started in Dachau under the leadership
    of a man called Eicke.
    And this Eicke became an SS general
    and had a division of these death head people.
    But these death head people had different functions
    and that's where things become very difficult.
    Because people for example who were military part of the thing
    became disabled in one way or another, wounded
    and then they were sent to concentration camps
    and able-bodied people were sent into combat.
    So Himmler did it on purpose to mix them
    around so that that would not be,
    and he said it very clearly and for everything.
    He said, well, it's not that they should not
    consist of people who have earned their laurels in combat
    only and are clean so to speak, but also people
    who do the dirty work.
    So he wanted to mix them around so that everyone would be,
    so to speak, included in some of the dirty work.
    And that's what happened, particularly
    towards the end, '43.
    '44, '45.
    They had some exchanges taking place
    where people who were in combat were
    sent to concentration camps because they were disabled.
    So these would be SS.
    Yeah.
    Yeah, yeah.
    And nominally, they would be nominally
    from SS, the military SS.
    Why were these guards not allowed inside?
    Well, because they wanted to have a separation of people
    so that only those people who did a certain part in that type
    of work would only know that much and not more than
    they needed to know.
    So the separation was on purpose so
    that no one would know more than they needed to do their job.
    And that was a special law and I've
    discussed that in great detail with Hitler's secretary, who
    told me that this was utmost in Hitler's mind,
    to have this separation so that no one would know more
    than they needed to do their job,
    to separate each other, divide and rule.
    And that was one of these principles to which he adhered
    and that's why he did not sign any documents which
    would have been--
    could have been used against him under different circumstances.
    And so forth.
    So that's why he didn't sign anything,
    but gave any order which was especially
    consequential and inhuman, he never
    would have given that in writing because it could
    have been used against him.
    So therefore he gave all orders to the people
    whom he wanted to do the job, such as the extermination
    of the Jews.
    Internally in the camps, what was the hierarchy,
    you know, the kapos were--
    the prisoner-- immediate prisoner--
    The internal hierarchy was based on the fact
    that they wanted to use as little of the SS as possible
    because they were needed in combat, number one.
    So in order to run the camps, they used the inmates,
    giving them privileges if they would
    support whatever the task of the SS
    and work along the lines of SS directions.
    So they were directly responsible to the SS.
    But because they're small in numbers relatively speaking
    and had to run camps with 100,000s of people,
    they just simply didn't want to use that type of personnel,
    and therefore used the inmates to do some of their dirty work.
    And they've done so exceedingly successfully, very successful.
    So for all practical purposes, the inmates
    were perhaps more responsible in running the camps
    under the supervision, do the bidding of the SS, than the SS
    themselves.
    Because if you were in a camp, you hardly ever saw an SS,
    only to supervise.
    And all the other work, the dirty, the immediate,
    body to body contact, eye to eye contact,
    was with fellow inmates, who were functionaries.
    And that was of course disastrous
    because that also produced, not a unification,
    but a tremendous conflict among the ranks of the inmates
    simply because they're not unified
    and therefore were not unified to resist,
    as they would have if they would have not divided against those
    who were the overseers and those who were the underlings, those
    who were the common--
    So you had different ranks.
    And so you had a hierarchy and I wrote
    a paper, which may or may not be published in Austria
    on that just very question.
    And--
    What were the levels of SS commanders?
    Well, SS commanders were usually not that fully high, probably
    the highest rank would be an equivalent of a colonel
    and that was rare.
    Usually the highest were for example, Hoss,
    commander of Auschwitz was a lieutenant colonel.
    Even if you just think in terms of Eichmann.
    Look at Eichmann with his tremendous power
    and this organizational talent to really get all the people
    into the various camps and all that, he was only
    Lieutenant Colonel.
    Never got any higher rank, which is nothing very much.
    But his power was unbelievable.
    So there would be one person say, at the lieutenant colonel
    level.
    Well, all over.
    For example, when I talked about the camp
    I was, the synthetic fuel industry there,
    the man who was in charge, and I remember him well, he
    was an older fellow, person, who was a major.
    Would there be other SS below that person?
    Yeah, of course.
    Yeah.
    And they had different ranks and most frequent ranks
    were the equivalent of captain, first lieutenant,
    and second lieutenant.
    These were the most frequent ranks of SS officers in camps.
    And they were primarily--
    And then they had of course noncommissioned people there
    who were of course, the most numerous ones.
    But were the SS the ones who were primarily giving orders
    to kapos?
    Of course, of course.
    Yeah.
    Yeah, of course.
    And the important thing is that they
    didn't have that much leeway.
    They had some, because they were assigned
    [INAUDIBLE] in situations of extreme stress
    and totally totalitarian setup.
    You always have a margin in your role.
    That is to say, discretion.
    And the question is and that is something
    which I've developed just recently,
    the fact that was totally overlooked, that in every role
    we play in life, we have a degree of discretion
    which we can use to some purpose either to help other people
    and be more lenient and tolerant or in a way which
    would hurt other people.
    And that was a very interesting thing,
    which was totally ignored.
    Because you had SS people and everyone there,
    including kapos, and that is to say inmate functionaries, who
    always had a certain degree of discretion.
    Of course in a dictatorship, in a totalitarian system,
    you have less discretion than we have
    in normal civilian democratic life.
    But even there you had discretion.
    So even when I was, for example, in the open box car,
    I had discretion to save my own life at the expense of someone
    else's.
    There was my degree of discretion.
    But I could say, I'd rather die and let you live.
    And most people of course behave in a way
    which they'd rather live than die and cause
    the deaths of other people.
    But again, even at Auschwitz-Birkenau,
    there was a SS man whom I didn't know at all.
    And I was just passing by and he called me.
    And I was expecting the worst, because obviously
    according to the experience, that usually meant bad news.
    And this fellow asked me are you starving?
    You hungry?
    And I said, yes, of course.
    And so he asked me some questions and was very nice.
    So he used his discretion he had to get me more food.
    Very naive, because he said, OK, let's go to the kitchen.
    And order them to give me some food.
    And he said, any time he comes here,
    he ought to get more food, for no reason whatsoever.
    The man didn't know me from Adam.
    Which was very naive, because without him supervising never
    would have happened anymore, unless I
    would have had some friends there, which I did not.
    But that was-- or that other fellow
    back in the synthetic fuel slave labor market.
    There was another one and he caught me red handed, you know.
    I just had come from a contact I've had,
    who brought me a lot of contraband,
    which means medicine and money, and, well, not so much money,
    but food stuff and all sorts of important stuff, which
    was vital.
    And I was able to make the sort of money.
    So this fellow was known as--
    was called-- this SS person had a nickname
    and he was called Tom Mix.
    Can you imagine?
    In this camp, Tom Mix, you know?
    And I always said, Tommix because I
    didn't know the cartoon at all.
    But people there apparently knew that.
    And so they called in Tom Mix because he
    behaved like Tom Mix.
    Right.
    And he called me and I said, that's the end, you know.
    And I thought, you know, I just put my knapsack, you know,
    behind so that he didn't see.
    But that didn't mean anything.
    He would search you, strip you naked.
    But because I responded in that style to which he could relate,
    perfect German, immaculate posture, and all
    that, he just lightly slapped my face, and said,
    I don't want to catch you again or you'll be a goner.
    Absolute [INAUDIBLE].
    That's right.
    So therefore again, he used the margin.
    He could have shot me on the spot without any problems
    to him, which he did.
    Which he did in other cases.
    But in my case he didn't do it.
    So that's the margin of discretion which everyone has.
    And that has not been researched at all.
    And I'm very glad that I came up with these things
    because that was totally ignored.
    And that's going to be part of my future, part
    of what I'm writing.
    Yes, I'd like to talk about that more [INAUDIBLE]..
    Why do you think these SS people allowed
    themselves to be interviewed?
    Obviously, the thing is, after that time, they also
    had a need to reveal themselves, to find an outlet, to get
    things out of the system.
    And I was, in my interview techniques,
    I was able to somehow play the role of the catalyst,
    to get things which they had to repress out of their system.
    So for them it was a relief in many cases.
    They had a need to talk to someone
    who had enough knowledge who would respond in a way which
    would not be threatening, but would somehow be encouraging
    for them to talk more about whatever they wanted to
    and play around with that and ask questions
    which were meaningful and respond
    to it in a meaningful way.
    So very appreciative.
    And I didn't know that to begin with,
    because I said, for example with Steiner or with most
    of the other ones, 90% of all the other ones.
    There was only one person who refused
    or two persons who refused interviews.
    And that was very interesting.
    One I missed because he was the highest of them all
    responsible for the slaughter in most
    of the Polish concentration camps
    and in the so-called Einsatzgruppen, a man called
    [Personal name] And I wanted to interview him in prison back
    in Bavaria, a place called [? Stadelheim. ?]
    And he came out and the director was with me
    and said there is Professor Stein.
    He would like to interview, and would you have some problem.
    So we were actually face to face.
    And he was one of the really most responsible,
    I mean he was the highest, who really
    could cause mass killings.
    He was just really above most of the other ones, full general,
    police general.
    And he looked at me and kind of thought about
    and said, verbatim, I remember.
    "Rather not."
    And this director was a tremendously fair, person
    exceedingly liberal and thoughtful and insightful.
    Very impressed with him, had lots of dealings
    with a number of people I interviewed at his prison
    where he was a director.
    And said, well, Dr. Steiner, what he said,
    Professor, Dr. Steiner, I don't think we should force him.
    And I said I agree.
    Because you don't have anything anyway.
    You can't force them.
    And he only said, he didn't say, I won't do it.
    But he said, rather not.
    Rather not.
    And so it didn't happen because the man knew more about--
    besides the mass killings than anyone else I've interviewed.
    He would have known more than Eichmann himself
    because he was, I mean, he was towering over Eichmann
    in terms of rank and power.
    One of the most destructive people in the entire situation.
    Why do you think he--
    I have no idea.
    I have no idea.
    I have no idea.
    I didn't come on threatening at all.
    And then I was somehow looking to be sure
    because I was very much aware of what he did and who he was.
    And he may not have been in the mood or whatever.
    You know, he may have been afraid
    that I would threaten him or that I would give him
    a bad time and all that.
    I don't know
    Do you think that this need that many of the perpetrators
    had to speak their feelings, did that reflect
    some kind of remorse or guilt?
    Well, I gave them-- you know, I distributed about 1,000
    questionnaires with questions of that precisely,
    with that particular question.
    Whether they were-- how they looked back at the activity,
    giving them a lot of choices.
    And remorse on one extreme and satisfaction
    on the other extreme, some other ones in between.
    And most of them say they look back with satisfaction,
    with the exception of those people who
    were doing the dirty work in concentration camps, which
    doesn't mean that they were remorseful.
    But that they didn't look at it with satisfaction.
    With regret, that was another thing, with regret.
    And so in my interviews, personal interviews,
    I found that very many of these people, and most of them
    actually, said it was their responsibility.
    It was their duty.
    And depending on what type of work
    they were in, function they had, if they were in the Waffen-SS,
    most of them said they looked with satisfaction.
    If they were in something else, then
    they said with regret and not with satisfaction.
    Or if they said not regret, they said something in between.
    Because I shaded these things.
    Well so, remorse, some had remorse, and some people who
    were Auschwitz perpetrator, whom I interviewed in a prison,
    a place called [Place name] broke out in tears.
    But I never was threatening.
    I asked questions in some sort of an understanding manner
    and not in some sort of a threatening manner whatsoever.
    And some broke into tears.
    And when I came back and said, Professor Stein,
    you caused me not to sleep last night or whatever.
    You know because I stayed there and saw
    them a number of occasions and kept in touch.
    And so I had people broke down on me.
    And yes, had regret.
    And some people I had contact with for very, very many years.
    I have stacks of papers.
    And that is one thing which I want to say,
    that this is something I did not anticipate.
    I felt that that was would be an interview,
    and that would be it.
    But because they had a need to stay in contact with me.
    They kept in touch with me.
    They wrote to me.
    They interacted with me and were looking forward for me to come.
    So that we developed a relationship,
    which I never anticipated, which included Steiner and all the SS
    generals, all of them.
    And also a lot of people, I would
    say to 80% of the people I interviewed,
    we developed a relationship rather than just an interview
    type of situation, which takes place once or twice
    and that's it.
    And you never hear from these people again.
    This is not something what happened,
    which is a very interesting and certainly
    did not anticipate it.
    Did these people at any point, realize you are a survivor?
    Some did and some did not.
    And in some cases, I volunteered that, not because I had to.
    I volunteered it.
    I wanted them to know, which includes Hitler's secretary.
    Which includes a number of other SS officers and men.
    And they appreciated me even more because they said,
    my god, this person is not doing it,
    but he has a human interest in me, which I always showed.
    And they appreciated that, so they're looking forward to me.
    And wrote me letters, which were very loving.
    And one of these people--
    and that's exactly what is the positive of the whole thing,
    was the Hangman of Buchenwald, one of the most brutal people
    one can possibly imagine.
    And he then was sent into combat because he did some things
    along with the command of that camp of Buchenwald,
    who was shot.
    Because he was appropriating things
    which didn't belong to him and all that.
    So he was shot.
    And this fellow was sent--
    was also sent-- as a matter of fact,
    was in a camp for a while.
    And then they sent him into combat.
    And he was totally so injured that he was a total invalid.
    He couldn't walk and he had to be only in a wheelchair.
    And, so I interviewed him at this particular prison
    I mentioned in Bavaria, with the help of this director,
    and also because there are some other people there,
    one is this gentleman I saw periodically.
    So I got to know him there and interviewed him.
    Because this SS general told me about him.
    Well, you should really interview this person.
    He's there and all that and some other lady was the so-called
    the Angel of the Inmates, with whom I became--
    a Swedish lady who was--
    kind of a story by itself.
    And-- related to Goering via marriage, so
    his first marriage, so she was related to Goering because she
    was related to his first wife.
    So she had a very important position in Nazi Germany
    by virtue of that.
    Anyway, so her job was later on to aid
    political, so-called political prisoners,
    and that was her specialty.
    And she went there and talked to them
    and supported them, and whatever.
    Anyway, so she came with me and she took me there
    to this for the first time.
    And I was there the first time to this prison in Bavaria.
    Anyway, so there is a person called Sommer was his name.
    Was in a wheelchair, and I interviewed him.
    And then he became so enamored with this type of relief
    he apparently experienced that he
    started to write me regularly.
    If I didn't respond to him, if he got very upset.
    And I became so to speak not only
    his father confessor so to speak, but someone
    he looked for was some sort of support
    and the man had a prison sentence, which was many,
    many life sentences, many life--
    absolutely no chance for him to get out, ever.
    He didn't.
    He died in this sort of semi--
    some sort of a home aid, a special place, but as
    a prisoner.
    Because he could not stay in a prison because he
    needed medical attention all the time.
    So they put him into some nursing home type of situation.
    In these cases, where as you say the people [INAUDIBLE]
    that their relationship in need of this, [INAUDIBLE] did
    you deduce remorse and regret from that,
    even if they didn't say so on the question?
    Well, see you had the different levels of sophistication
    in these people and also different emotional states.
    But even when I did sort of broadcast
    where we had three former SS officers
    and myself just recently two years ago,
    two years, no, was '92, when was it?
    I think it was '92.
    It's '93, no, '91.
    They officially and on broadcast, you
    know tabletop broadcasting, which I initiated,
    they regret it.
    They said, we regret, if we had known, the consequences and all
    that, and what happened and all that,
    we certainly would have not become members of SS.
    And that was the public sort of disclosure,
    and for which other members of the SS, still alive will
    never-- that's why I've finished my situation.
    Because I blew my cover so to speak and went public.
    And so the people who didn't know
    that I was in camps and all that know by now.
    And it's just went through like through the grapevine
    situation, just like lightning.
    So they won't talk.
    Well, so they still talk, you know.
    But that people who want to talk and some other, their wives
    don't want me to talk to them or something,
    you know, and very opposed because they
    feel that I betrayed their confidence
    or whatever, you know.
    And betrayed their confidence in as much
    as I didn't tell them that I was an ex-inmate.
    But I knew that something needed to be done
    and since my work is pretty much in terms of interviews
    pretty much done, I felt the time
    was, the timing was all right.
    I don't know whether it was worth it all, depends,
    you know, that I went public.
    I don't necessarily have any regrets
    because the people who want to talk to me
    will still talk to me.
    And most of the people I'm talking about now are dead.
    They all had died of old age or some other.
    Maybe you could describe at this point what
    your conscious idea of your interviewing technique was,
    what you thought about--
    Well, yeah, well, well, I've done
    a lot of graduate work in group dynamics
    back at Berkeley when I was working my doctorate.
    And I had tremendous teachers, some of whom
    were psychologists, some of whom were psychiatrists.
    One lady psychiatrist who was just a terrific,
    it was a postgraduate course.
    And another person was a social worker, a professor
    of social work, social welfare.
    And so I was exposed to a number of different techniques
    and schools of thought.
    And the one which I used pretty much exclusively, almost,
    not quite, was the client-centered, [INAUDIBLE]
    method.
    And in which I simply ask questions
    without really being, and using myself as a mirror.
    So that's what you mean, and they said--
    and so it was non-threatening.
    And that was the best thing.
    It was just, when I was in the summer in Luxembourg,
    I visit my very close friend, a professor retired emeritus,
    professor of criminology and also a psychiatrist.
    Was professor at the University of Mines and Luxembourg
    and was also in the Resistance and all that.
    Anyway so he took me to one bistro
    where he usually spends a great deal of time
    and met new people.
    And introduced me to some people, and I was interested.
    And I use this sort of technique.
    And he went home and said, my god,
    I've never heard anything like that.
    You're just really fabulous, the way
    you just get information out of people, without threatening
    and things which are just masterful.
    And to come from him, who's a real expert one of the leading
    people in the field, was just about the highest praise
    I could possibly get.
    And with the years, you know and all that,
    trying to put yourself in the shoes of other people and all
    that, you can develop the skills.
    And I don't think I'm particularly talented.
    But I've just developed a skill which
    has been exceedingly useful.
    And if I would pinpoint it in a way,
    it's primarily [? rotarian ?] type of client centered.
    Roughly, what were the kinds of questions
    that you were interested in when you--
    Well, I was interested why they joined and to what extent
    why they did what they did.
    And if they understood the consequences and how they felt
    about it when they were doing it, how they felt afterwards, ,
    and how they came to become what they did, you know.
    And that was precisely the radius pretty much.
    We also at times ran into some other things
    which were related, but not directly centered on that.
    But in order to get back to the center,
    I know what the situation in a way
    that and they will be more open and say, hey, yeah.
    So what did you do?
    And why did you do it?
    And how did you feel?
    And what did you feel when these people died?
    And I'm talking about Auschwitz perpetrators,
    and I'm one of the very few who, well, the only victim to be--
    victim if you will, survivor victim,
    who has interviewed Auschwitz perpetrators and SS
    people, period, as far as I can tell for sure.
    And so, so they came out and said,
    yeah, well how do you feel?
    You know what, I could complain, and if I wouldn't have done it,
    this would have been the consequence.
    So we talk about, can you--
    do you feel comfortable or whatever the number of things
    which deal with their role, why they assume the role,
    and what the consequences of their role was,
    and how they look at it in retrospect.
    So generally speaking what do you
    feel like you found as a group?
    Well first of all, I found, and that
    is something which because of my questionnaires and the more
    scientific aspect which preceded the interviews,
    or if not preceded, was generally
    the basis, that these people were very strong
    on the authoritarian F scale, fascist scale.
    So that is greater, and higher than the equivalent were
    in the German armed forces.
    So I've had two groups.
    I've had the SS, members of the SS, German armed forces,
    and there was a significant difference
    in some of the aspects of authoritarianism.
    OK.
    So you used the F scale from your research
    with a [INAUDIBLE] personality.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And then I read some few things which were not
    part of the F scale and I went to people who were actually
    the originators, he died on me, and he
    was very interested in that.
    But nothing came of it.
    Gave him a copy of my questionnaire
    and was very interested.
    A man called Theodor Adorno.
    And he didn't-- he died very soon afterwards.
    So we had no chance to discuss it further.
    And then it was published, the whole thing which
    is the only publication of that nature, ever will be,
    because most of the people are dead now
    and who could be interviewed.
    And so, the basis of my findings was yes, some
    are authoritarian.
    Which is an important understanding,
    because their obedience.
    And if you have obedience linked with
    ideological identification, which
    is part of national socialism that is in this case
    national socialism, then you have an instrument
    who is going to do the bidding of those people who
    are their superiors even if they don't like it.
    Now, the interesting thing is that I
    would say 80% of those people who are perpetrators would have
    not initiated what they did.
    They would have not initiated it.
    They only did it because they were ordered to do it.
    And that was an interesting thing.
    Because I went back into files and interviewed them and also
    found out that the level of criminality
    among former members of their cells
    is lower than the average of other people,
    other segments of Germans.
    So that it would have taken even initiative
    to be the individual criminal, but
    obedience in the personality--
    That's threatening thing and that's where Zimbardo comes in
    and I come in with my then notions
    about the power of the situation, which brings out
    certain things.
    And my notion which I've developed
    the notion of the sleeper, that we all are sleepers in as much
    as we can do things in certain novel
    situations, capable of doing things,
    which we had not done before and we don't know we
    are capable of doing.
    And that I think is a very valid sort general notion.
    And these are some of the outcomes, apart from the fact
    now the thing which the latest thing which
    I'm trying to develop and I have already written down
    in some sort of rough draft, is the so-called what
    I call a role margin, that we really
    have to look at the role margin as to how we use the role
    margin to what purpose.
    Because that's our discretion, that's us,
    and not the authority, the way we use the role margin.
    And that is something which has not been done
    and I'm very proud of having come to that.
    It's just serendipity.
    Serendipity.
    Serendipity.
    Because just reflecting on these things just
    recently, just a few weeks ago, suddenly serendipity,
    that's exactly and I just came to that, and that to me
    is a very important thing because I haven't read
    anything about it anyplace.
    It's my recognition.
    So a role margin, as we're defining it,
    is where this obedient person does take initiative--
    That's right, because it's up to his discretion,
    to do what he does without really having to do it.
    And that I think is a proof of the pudding.
    That's the proof of the pudding.
    In terms of what sort of person that person is.
    And Fromm would be overjoyed.
    Erich Fromm, and I worked with him.
    And he was very impressed with what I've tried to do,
    very impressed and unfortunately he died on me.
    But, you know, I mean, died on me.
    I mean, you know.
    Because he really understood what I was--
    he was one of the few people appreciated,
    understood what I was trying to do.
    And appreciated me-- more than he even
    appreciated Zimbardo wasn't he was not at all in agreement
    with-- in terms of his methods and what he did.
    Well, actually, following this out,
    it seems to imply that even the authoritarian totally obedient
    seeming person is an individual too.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Because regardless of what role you are,
    I mean, we have to understand that we
    have to scale that, the more totalitarian the situation is,
    the more totalitarian, the more encompassing the role will be,
    so that the momentum of discretion will be smaller.
    Then for example, we have here, you know, for example, John
    is supposed to be in charge of the camera here.
    But he's playing the role.
    He's got a discretion whether we like it or not.
    He just absents himself and does something else.
    Although his role would include that.
    But I mean that's the discretion that is not
    very much we can do about it and say, hey,
    I don't like what you do.
    That you absent yourself.
    But it's still part of the discretion he has,
    without really interfering too much
    with what is happening here.
    See.
    And same thing the police is very good.
    Now, I'm working with the police very frequently.
    And they don't know what I'm doing,
    except I'm riding with them and I'm observing them.
    And that also helps me somehow to come
    to some seeds which come to fruition in a way, recognition
    and all.
    And now I can see some people are real SOBs.
    They could be much more, because it does not
    serve the role at all.
    But there is a discretion to be humane.
    But they refuse to be humane because they
    enjoy not to be humane.
    And that's the moment of this [INAUDIBLE]..
    Because they don't have to do it.
    It's not part of the role which will
    be functional in that particular situation.
    In the case of SS, assuming that often they
    may not have known the brutality that
    was going on that they would be expected to act out,
    how do they comprehend the terrible killing and brutality
    that was taking place?
    Well, ideologically, because you see again,
    what we have to understand, most of these people
    are not very sophisticated people,
    certainly were not very educated,
    with the exception of the people like Mengele and all
    that, these people were highly trained,
    the people, if they would have been left to do what they did,
    would have become professors and whatever
    in their various fields, including
    anthropology, ethnology, and medicine and whatever.
    And so these people are much more, I would say,
    they are more accountable for-- but many of the other people
    who were their subordinates, they're very uneducated
    and unsophisticated people, and therefore more impressionable
    because they didn't know--
    I mean they needed to be led because they didn't know right
    from wrong to that extent.
    But they knew emotionally that what they were doing
    was terrible.
    But because they had this ideological conviction
    and accepted the indoctrination, integrated the indoctrination,
    they could justify what they did to themselves.
    And that's what we call reduction
    of cognitive dissonance.
    They reduced the cognitive dissonance, that's murder.
    But murder is in the interest of the state.
    I'm doing a favor by being brutal.
    I'm doing that in the interest of the national socialist
    state.
    I'm doing that in the interest of Germany.
    Therefore I can accept it.
    Justified.
    Partly it stemmed from thinking of murder
    as in war in the interest of the state.
    Well, yeah, but you mustn't forget that was all war.
    That was war.
    See, because all these sort of things did not happen before.
    Yet concentration camps, terrible concentration camps,
    people got killed, shot whatever.
    But you didn't have mass murder.
    You didn't have genocide.
    Genocide only happened during the time of war.
    That's when it happened.
    Were there precedents for Hitler's policies?
    For what?
    Precedents, as in he was not the one
    to invent the whole system and its perpetration and its plan.
    Well, I mean Hitler is charismatic leader
    with this sort of as, father of this type of ideology.
    I mean, which was a eclectic he took it from other places
    and put some of his own in it.
    It was not that [INAUDIBLE] because so many things existed
    before him already, except he was the one
    to put it into practice, actually, act upon it.
    Put it together and act upon it.
    Well they looked to him as their leader.
    Von Reich, [INAUDIBLE] one leader,
    And the identification of Germany
    with Hitler and Hitler's notions and that
    is something they accepted because they looked at him,
    you know, he was a prophet.
    He was a charismatic leader.
    I mean there is no way around it.
    I mean he was absolutely, no question about it,
    the real sense of the word, whether we like it or not.
    At that time it was perceived as charismatic.
    Today, we have different things.
    To Today we have the prince, we have
    all sorts of all the various people, I Hollywood types
    and all that.
    We have Ronnie Reagan.
    And Ronald Reagan had some type of charisma,
    for reasons which, if you look at it, you have to be ashamed.
    When you were interviewing the SS,
    did you find that they expressed anti-Semitism,
    active Jew hatred--
    You see, I had a scale in my questionnaire
    in which I did the following thing,
    which I think was a pretty good idea, as a matter of fact,
    I thought it was pretty cool.
    I gave them a set of 99% names of major cities in the world,
    distribution of all countries pretty much with one fictional.
    There was Jerusalem and Moscow there.
    And what do you think happened?
    They would have preferred to live in Jerusalem rather than
    in Moscow.
    And that was a significant difference.
    How did you interpret that?
    Well, I interpreted that the communism is worse for them
    than--
    than Israel.
    That's what.
    And Israel is a Jewish state, isn't it?
    Mm-hmm.
    Right.
    Still, they were murdering the Jews.
    That was after the fact.
    Oh.
    Yes, I'm asking, when you interviewed them.
    I can see, relatively, they prefer Jews to Russians.
    But was there any way--
    The Soviets.
    The Soviets.
    Was there any way to discern whether they had
    any kind of act [INAUDIBLE]?
    Oh, yeah, well, yeah, sure.
    Because there, there are some other questions
    which were indicative of how they felt about it.
    And I couldn't ask, because, you see, the thing is,
    what was very helpful, the person
    with whom I did my pilot study was General Steiner.
    And I had very specific questions
    about Jewishness and their feelings about Jews.
    And he looked at it.
    I have still the original sort of things.
    Because I used him as a testing ground,
    and he was exceedingly helpful.
    It's just the man opened the doors for me.
    Without him, I never would have-- just absolutely
    would have even come base-- wouldn't
    made any contacts whatsoever.
    Because he wrote an accompanying letter, which I always
    placed with my questionnaire.
    Without that, they would have thrown it in,
    because he was a commanding general.
    He was one of the senior SS general-- period, boom.
    So many things, which--
    I couldn't have done it today.
    Today, without him, it would have been virtually impossible.
    I don't think I could have ever succeeded without this letter.
    All right, so I showed him the original thing,
    which had a lot of questions real hidden,
    or some were clear-cut about their feelings of Jews.
    And said, John, if you put that in, I want you to throw it
    into the basket, paper basket.
    So if you have questions, you have
    to give the question in such a way
    that they are not going to be threatened by it.
    Because if you ask them, they're not going to tell the truth.
    They're not even going to bother.
    They'll just throw it out.
    So therefore, many of these questions which were directly
    testing antisemitism--
    directly, not indirectly--
    I had to throw out, because of his advice.
    And I trust him.
    I trust his judgment.
    Did you come away with any impressions?
    Or did they ever volunteer any feelings--
    Oh, yeah, sure.
    --about--
    Oh, yeah, sure.
    Sure, sure.
    But you see, the funny thing is that many of these people
    were very ambivalent about it.
    And I really can say, in terms of also the documentary which I
    did with people-- the documentary, Hitler, Myth and--
    Man and Myth--
    I interviewed one person who turned out
    to be much higher than I thought,
    because many things came out which I didn't know
    at that time of the interview.
    And who actually was present, or in the vicinity,
    was at the Wannsee Conference.
    I didn't know that.
    I didn't know that.
    So he knew about the Wannsee Conference and a very clever
    person and all that.
    And so I have to catch up with him next time when I'm there.
    And I got it from another SS officer.
    And said, hey, did you know?
    And, of course I didn't.
    And I have-- one of my best research
    assistants is an SS officer.
    He gives me information I never could even come close to.
    Sounds wonderful.
    But where was I?
    I was--
    Just talking about whether, even inadvertently,
    you learned what the level of Jew hatred was post-war.
    Yeah, and all I say, it's just very--
    very ambivalent.
    Because then for examine that, I tested in the following way.
    When I invited American Nazis to one of my lectures,
    to several of my lectures, I told them
    about my [? issues ?] of the SS, and they
    didn't see me as a Jew, necessarily, and all
    that or something.
    They don't--
    And so they asked me if I would assist them as a liaison person
    to make contact with former members of the SS.
    And I said, sure.
    And this is where-- they're leading people here.
    They're leading Nazis here in the Bay Area.
    I haven't heard from them for quite a while, I think.
    So the leader of the group and his lieutenants.
    And so we talked.
    And I said, fine, I'll do that.
    Because I said, hey, it's a tremendous opportunity.
    So I took that message, whatever the message was,
    whether they would cooperate and all that,
    and went to some of the leading people
    now in the SS organization.
    Which exists, because that's legitimate,
    and they have an SS organization in Germany.
    And it's kind of hidden.
    But, I mean, they're very active and--
    exceedingly active and very well-organized.
    And anyway, so I went to the leading people and say,
    here, this is something which is a message.
    They said, my God, I wouldn't even
    touch them with a 10-foot pole.
    We have nothing to do with these people.
    They are just behind.
    Today is a different time, and we have absolutely nothing--
    we would not dream--
    I mean, just totally rejected the idea.
    Absolutely rejected the idea.
    And that, to me, was very interesting,
    because that's what they stand for.
    Because they are into antisemitism.
    They are into racism, in general--
    anti-Black, anti-Catholic, you name it.
    And they wouldn't have-- they wouldn't even bother.
    They said, my God, just leave us alone with these crazies.
    Well, they make themselves sound like a liberal organization.
    Well, but they are not, you see?
    They are not at all.
    But they've changed.
    They've changed to a very large extent.
    They've changed their tune now.
    And that is, again, what I say with my notion of the sleeper.
    If, for example, what is called the Fascist Party of today
    in Germany, the Republicans-- and they
    are increasing in numbers, they were called Republicans.
    If these Republicans would gain ground, now then
    it would be very interesting to see to what extent
    the former members of the SS would
    flock to that organization.
    Most of them are pretty old and decrepit now,
    even the youngsters.
    Because the people-- the youngest people will be one
    year younger than I who would have been admitted during
    the war--
    would have been recruited.
    That is to say--
    Drafted.
    Drafted.
    Well, actually, we have a lot more to go.
    I'd like to stop here and let Carol have a chance
    to ask questions on what's been happening,
    if you have anything.
    Or if you want to continue with yours.
    I can continue.
    But if you have anything you want
    to say up to-- with what happened up to this point,
    or related, you're welcome.
    Feel free.
    Otherwise, I'll go on.
    OK, maybe just a couple, and then we'll go back to you.
    Sure.
    One was, you're planning another Nazi tabletop, or roundtable,
    if you can, right?
    If you can find enough of the older SS to participate?
    No, no, it's not a question of finding the people.
    It's a question of finding people in the radio business
    or TV business who would be interested in doing it.
    And that's what I was doing last summer.
    And I could see that people who have done it,
    the one person I've done it with,
    said there is no interest for it.
    They've got other interests now.
    To what do you attribute that change in German media culture?
    I really don't know.
    I mean, I would be guessing.
    I mean, that's all in my head.
    What I would say is that they are preoccupied
    with the first time after the-- after the so-called economic
    miracle, the demise of the economic strength of Germany,
    where they really have unemployment and really serious
    problems, primarily due to the unification of Eastern
    and West.
    Which I could foresee, which I also--
    in one of the interviews, I told them.
    And I was the only one who said, hey,
    you have a serious problem.
    And all the other people thought that I was off of the wall.
    So anyway, so what I'm saying is that I would--
    yeah, I would think that this is perhaps due to the fact
    that no longer they're interested in National
    Socialism, but whatever patterns are emerging now,
    which they seem to focus on more than the other stuff.
    So far, I haven't had any response.
    I have to call again and find out if there
    is anything one can set up.
    But I thought it was a sensation,
    but the timing was bad.
    And they broadcast the thing during the summer,
    when everyone was gone.
    So what would you be hoping to find out
    in one more last conversation?
    Well, I don't know whether it should be the last.
    I'd say that just I would be interested in--
    in, where do we go from here?
    So see the errors of their way and say, well,
    what can they do to remedy?
    What can be done in order to make some restitution
    and prevent future occurrences of this nature?
    That's what I'd say.
    Well, you had the experience, you were part of it, so what--
    that's what I would be interested in.
    So go one step further.
    Now, they've said they regret and all that.
    But so now what would we do?
    But you see, you don't have many sophisticated people in Germany
    who are interested in this sort of thing.
    To them, it's very threatening.
    And I've said before, that when I
    try to get people to work with me on research, none of them
    want it.
    And you're talking young people.
    You're talking young people.
    You're talking old people.
    None of them were interested in working on that thing,
    because it's too threatening.
    I just had a friend, a fellow doctorate from Stanford,
    professor at a relatively new university in Germany,
    he's a psychologist, whom I got interested in.
    Some of the interviews, I took him with me
    to interview the Auschwitz perpetrators once and so
    that he just developed some taste for it.
    And when he came here to visit, he said, I can't--
    I can't do it.
    It's too threatening to me.
    I can't do it.
    I just can't stand it.
    I can't do it.
    I'm very interested, and I think what you do is very important
    and all this.
    But I can't be part of it.
    I just can't do it.
    Isn't that a bad sign that Germany is unwilling to explore
    --
    Well, I think it's a very bad sign.
    --in depth again?
    Yeah, well, I think it's a very bad sign.
    And I have not found one person.
    The only people who work with me, believe it or not,
    are former members of the SS in giving me some-- helping me
    with my research.
    And that, I think, is a catastrophe.
    Well, it is of use to me, very useful to me,
    because these people have insight--
    much insight I don't have because of that part of it.
    The same thing, if you have some rabbi, young kid, Greenhorn,
    telling me now, as a survivor, how
    it was in concentration camps, which upsets me a great deal.
    So the same thing.
    I'm going to tell the SS person how it was to be--
    how it was to be a member of the SS.
    So I recognize the value of the information.
    And regardless whether I like it or not,
    I'm going to use it in order to develop
    the insight I need in order to do something with it.
    But in terms of social scientists,
    the only people you have there who have not shied away
    are historians, German historians, who've
    made a major contribution.
    No question.
    And some political scientists.
    Period.
    Not a single sociologist, as far as I know.
    Not a single psychologist.
    You should tell what happened to [INAUDIBLE] when
    he was on the roundtable, what had happened to his magazine
    and so forth.
    Who?
    Your editor.
    What happened to my editor?
    Well, how his subscriptions went down,
    and he was practically ruined because--
    Oh, well, yeah.
    Well, there was this person who was an SS.
    Actually, he was a guard to begin with.
    He was a guard at Dachau, SS guard.
    And I got to know him, did other things.
    He wrote me an autobiography, and part of it
    was the eyewitness to the destruction of the Warsaw
    Ghetto.
    I've mentioned that in some of my lectures
    when you were there.
    So he was part of that roundtable discussion.
    And instead of-- that was during the summer, so
    there was not much of an audience.
    Because as I said before, most of the middle-class,
    intelligent Germans were someplace on a vacation.
    But those people who apparently listened to it
    and immediately told it to some other people
    were fellow members of the SS.
    And they clobbered him.
    And they clobbered him to such an extent that the--
    he's got-- he had a small, but fairly influential type
    of publication firm, whatever you would call it--
    a--
    Newsletter?
    Huh?
    Newsletter?
    No, no, books and all that.
    Publishing.
    Publisher.
    Yeah, a publication firm.
    And so he had to fold, because people stopped--
    stopped buying things.
    Right wing, right wing-types, which included the SS--
    some members of the SS.
    It included right-wing Germans, who were not the SS,
    but right-wing.
    So I got a letter now from him, whatever, recently.
    So he just sold it to someone else who
    was going to take over, who was much more on the right
    than he was--
    much more on the right.
    Actually, he's a-- he is a follower of General Ludendorff.
    And he was a rabid antisemite and just totally off
    the wall, this fellow--
    unbelievable.
    General Ludendorff.
    And he was the person who participated, in 1923,
    trying to start a revolution in Bavaria and Munich.
    And he was marching with Hitler.
    And Hitler used him as some sort of a front.
    Because Hitler was unknown, but Ludendorff
    was a World War I German, World War I
    hero, along with Hindenburg.
    But he was totally--
    just totally-- I mean, he's got very strange religious notions,
    which go back to Germanic myths type and anti-Christian,
    anti-Jewish extreme.
    And so this fellow bought that publishing firm.
    He's a fellow of this Ludendorff.
    Kind of scary.
    Well, I will have--
    if I get to Germany, financially and all that, so I'm
    going to discuss it with him.
    Because I think it was a possible-- worst possible
    choice he could have made.
    Do you have some [INAUDIBLE]?
    Go ahead.
    You had said already that, very often, people
    would rationalize or lower their cognitive dissonance
    by somehow making it OK, what they were doing.
    Did any of these people admit to the fact
    that atrocities were happening?
    Oh, yes.
    They did.
    Oh, yeah.
    The difference, for example, one SS general
    who was a liaison between Himmler and Hitler
    was one of the senior SS generals, period,
    but in the-- more the political sphere.
    He didn't have any--
    he didn't deny that people were gassed.
    He didn't deny that people were murdered.
    But what he denied, and what I couldn't get him to accept--
    and that is something I'm still working on--
    is that Hitler gave the order.
    And so you have a lot of people who
    said it was Himmler who was responsible.
    Hitler was still the person, the pure person, the ideal type.
    And that happens for a number of different reasons.
    In his case, there may be a different reason than some
    other person's.
    Denial is another reason.
    So many people with a vested interest in the whole National
    Socialist business want Hitler to have a white shirt,
    clean type of thing.
    And he was one of them.
    But in his case, there was some other complication also,
    because he denied that he knew anything
    about the whole thing, which is absolutely
    unacceptable because he was so close to the center.
    And that he links--
    I didn't know, because Hitler didn't know.
    So if Hitler didn't know, how could I know?
    And if he would--
    and he also insisted, although he broke his--
    I broke that in some of his--
    and I got very, very rough with him, actually.
    And that was shortly before the--
    one of my last conversations with him.
    It was a telephone conversation.
    I said, the documents, which are clear-cut,
    have you looked at them and all that?
    And I cited some specifics and all that.
    And I said, how come they--
    well, I'm sorry, I don't want to--
    so I have to think about it.
    But he thought about it, but didn't reach a conclusion,
    because he died before he could give me
    his concluding thoughts.
    And said, of course, if you say that it is so, and if you give
    me the facts which you have given me,
    of course I cannot deny it, but I have to think about.
    And he knew the SS apparatus from A
    to Z. I mean, absolutely.
    So it was a denial.
    It's not a question.
    It was absolute repression.
    No question about it.
    Because I've talked to some other people who
    were also imprisoned with him, and they laughed and said--
    I mean, all the other people knew it,
    but he is one of the senior SS generals, left-hand,
    right-hand of Himmler, and friend of Heydrich and all
    that, he didn't know anything it's laugh --
    It's just impossible of it.
    Was this a general attitude?
    Or just specific to this person?
    No, it was a specific sort of thing.
    Because other people, of course, also tried to tell me.
    Because self-justification, if I'm implicated and am to assume
    the sort of unbelievable responsibility,
    we also have to understand that so many revisionists cannot
    accept this, because this horrendous truth is
    a tremendous burden.
    And we see that when we work with Holocaust-related staff
    at the university and all that.
    Now, it's not a healthy thing to be in for any length of time.
    Because it'll do something to you.
    And that is part of my recognition.
    I just probably will have to get out of that, too,
    because it does something to people.
    And it is a terrible burden to deal
    with all this blood and tears.
    It's terrible to do that years and years and years.
    And particularly when you then find
    some idiotic administrators--
    and I say idiotic administrators,
    who don't see the validity of what we are doing and simply
    more interested in paper-pushing and administrative concerns
    rather than what we have to--
    what we have to contribute.
    And to work with this without getting any sort of support
    and minimum of recognition.
    All right, so these people--
    these people, the SS people, were privy-- not only privy,
    but they were where the people actually
    enacted all these orders.
    Now, what does it do to your self-image if you say,
    hey, I'm a murderer, in a time when
    there is no call for murderers?
    So, I mean, you will become defensive,
    because you have to live with yourself.
    So that's why-- and I am trying to make it very clear-- that's
    why people prefer to justify, reduce
    cognitive dissonance to a minimum,
    so that they can live with themselves.
    So for example, this one general--
    and there is an important recognition, which to me is--
    and the one who denied that Hitler knew anything,
    and also denied that he knew anything,
    which is absolutely ridiculous--
    because he abetted-- and aided and abetted
    the transport to Treblinka of 300,000 Jews, intervening,
    so that the railway people would make that possible so
    that they could be moved there.
    And so when he was dying of cancer,
    during the last periods of his life, and his lady friend told
    me that--
    I was not privy, but his lady friend is pretty accurate,
    and now she's trying to soft-pedal it.
    But she told me that he was howling during night
    because he had dreadful nightmares and said--
    and about the devil is getting him, the devil is after him.
    That, to me, is psychologically exceedingly important.
    And he was howling really--
    howling is the right-- exact word she used--
    during the night.
    So people got scared and woke up and because he
    was howling, because the devil was after him.
    He comes from a very strict, upper-middle class family.
    Very Christian, very Protestant.
    So you think it had worn--
    worn him to that point?
    His behavior had caught up with him [INAUDIBLE]..
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    But I think you're also saying, people can say things
    like, I committed atrocities, but it was
    in the interest of the state.
    Yeah.
    See, for that, you need to use ideology.
    You have to have an ideology which
    will help you to justify that.
    And that's why the ideology was absolutely essential,
    because without the ideology, people
    would have not initiated it.
    German people would have not initiated it
    without the orders, without the indoctrination, the ideology
    supplied by the leadership.
    No question.
    No question.
    OK, I think this is a good point to stop and begin again
    next time.
    OK.
    It's 7:00 almost, my God.
    John?
    So I brought some--
    About ten seconds.
    OK.
    OK, today is December 17, 1993.
    We're doing part 2 of the interview
    with Jon Steiner about his work interviewing Nazi perpetrators.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan, and with us too is
    Jon's colleague, Carol Hurwitz.
    This is for the Oral History Project, San Francisco.
    Well, last time we were talking specifically
    about what you learned when you were interviewing
    the Nazi perpetrators.
    And we had been talking about them reducing cognitive
    dissonance in the case of being able to admit they're doing
    atrocities, but doing it in the name of the ideology that is
    [INAUDIBLE] to them. .
    That's right-- which is a very important point,
    very important point.
    Well --
    Well, the idea is that I don't think
    it has been sufficiently emphasized in literature
    and by those people who have supposedly
    studied the perpetrators.
    And very frequently, it is said that these people
    didn't have a morality.
    Of course, they had a morality.
    They had a private morality and they had a public morality.
    And it's just like we understand the two major types
    of roles we play, which is the communal roles on one hand,
    which deal with family, and friendships, and relatives,
    which satisfy the emotional needs, the affection.
    And all that comes into play, because that's the major reason
    for this type of roles.
    And then we have the societal roles,
    which satisfy the existential needs, in which it makes
    no difference whether I like my customer, for example,
    when I am a waiter.
    I just simply satisfy the needs in order to get a tip
    and whatever salary I may receive for my services.
    So that becomes more impersonal, and therefore, I
    serve anyone who is going to pay.
    So these are the major two distinctions
    which need to be made, and have different functions
    in the roles we play in everyday life.
    So in their relationships to their families,
    they had one set of morals, which emphasized warmth--
    whatever-- family spirit, mutual support, and affection--
    including the dogs, animals-- house animals.
    And on the other hand, you had people
    who were defined as subhuman or non-human.
    They're not actually even recognized as human beings,
    but as vermin.
    And those-- you applied total different moral set of values.
    And therefore, you didn't have any guilt feelings,
    or minimal guilt feelings when you killed them.
    And it was not viewed as murder.
    It was viewed as cleansing-- what we call to day cleansing--
    but in essence, were the same thing.
    Do you think it could have been equated with the notion of that
    it's OK to kill in war, that there were are categories
    in which --
    Right, right.
    I think it's very similar, because if he's my enemy
    and he endangers the safety, the well-being of my society,
    the state I live in, then I feel free to kill
    that person whom I view as an enemy, who
    is out to destroy my country.
    And I think it's very similar, very similar.
    And even we evoke God, and providence, and whatever--
    which Hitler did--
    and say, he's on our side.
    And the other ones, of course, do the same.
    And on whose side God is?
    Then that's a very important question.
    And yet, we are prepared to kill for the sake of being
    in the right, because obviously, we are right
    and the other ones are always wrong.
    Clearly, during the camp period, that was the case.
    When you were interviewing the perpetrators sometime
    after the war, did they have any different point
    of view about committing the atrocities?
    I think that's a very important thing.
    This is a very crucial question.
    And I was obviously very interested in their view
    after the fact.
    Now, you mustn't forget that, after the war,
    you didn't have a National Socialist state anymore.
    And what took place now was just a move away
    from totalitarianism into democracy.
    And so therefore, the values had shifted,
    and the emphasis of values has shifted.
    So for that very reason, they felt ambivalent about it,
    because now the morals which were emphasized
    in the democracy after World War II
    was very different from National Socialist
    notions of how a state ought to be run
    and who their enemies are.
    And so therefore, they were now in some sort of a twilight zone
    and didn't know exactly where they belong.
    But now reality had changed, and they
    had to live in the new reality, and therefore, they shifted.
    Some shifted and said, hey, under the reality of what
    exists today democracy of today, we did things which cannot be
    justified.
    And we are talking about former members of the SS.
    And some other ones said, the values which we emphasized
    during National Socialism transcend the values which we
    have today, and therefore, we don't-- we live in our reality
    today, but we don't acknowledge it as valid,
    and still adhere to those values which were advocated during
    National Socialism.
    And that, I think, is a very important thing.
    So you had two different types of groups--
    those people who accepted the new--
    if you will, the new contemporary reality, in
    contrast to the previous one.
    And the other one still dwelled on the old ones,
    acknowledging that they lived the new reality, but said,
    we don't accept it as valid to us,
    and therefore, we will adhere to the other one.
    Then you have people-- mixture of both, people
    who were actually confused.
    And in terms of racist anti-Semitic notions,
    they still adhered to the anti-Semitic racist notions
    after World War II, except they couldn't practice it, you see.
    They are not allowed to practice it because there
    was no outlet for it.
    Now, that's why, say, if things will change,
    and that's why I call these people actual sleepers-- that,
    in reality--
    new realities, is they then would revert against--
    revert again to the values they supported and adhered to
    during National Socialism.
    Do you think that the other group, those
    who accepted contemporary values--
    do you think they would revert?
    Probably not, probably not-- and I've, in my dealings with
    them-- and it's something which I did not expect--
    if one can call it that way, I converted quite a number
    of people to that type of thinking, which otherwise they
    would have not been perhaps exposed to the extent,
    by virtue of the interviews with them.
    And they became very important catalysts
    to change some of their attitudes
    within a segment of former members of the SS.
    And so to begin with, in my early time of the interviews,
    all these sort of things we are discussing now-- the,
    so to speak, consequences of these interviews I
    did not foresee at all.
    But they simply evolved after the interviews,
    and were utterly unexpected.
    But this was some sort of a bonus,
    as far as I'm concerned, because I've
    been able to influence people in a way which I think neutralized
    some of the viciousness and some of the dreadfulness
    in their thoughts which made it possible for the Third Reich
    to perpetrate all these crimes against humanity.
    Did you feel that, among any of these groups, the--
    during the interviews, that they were open to you?
    Obviously, they were open to some extent, but that they
    could open their hearts, or they would hold back some, or maybe
    vary from person to another?
    I don't know whether I can generalize that,
    but I would say that, once you enter
    into a dialogue with people, even if you have
    different views on things to discuss,
    there's an exchange of ideas which will affect all those
    who interact.
    And I think that certainly happened.
    And the fact that I got them involved in a dialogue
    by virtue of the interviews, I think,
    somehow opened avenues in any case
    to some sort of exchange of ideas, which
    indeed affected all parties.
    There's no question.
    And I was affected also by that, because not all these people
    are sadists.
    Not all these people are destructive.
    And especially when I looked at them after the fact,
    after National Socialism came to its end after World War II,
    these people didn't come to the attention of the public
    for having committed crimes in the new society.
    And that, to me, was very interesting.
    You will say, hey, if these people are sadistic people, who
    are, so to speak, bent on criminal activities,
    crimes against humanity, and all that, you would continue--
    that they will continue on their path
    and be criminal in the future.
    And that was simply not the case.
    And that somehow stopped me in my tracks and said,
    hey, I have to be very careful in distinguishing
    how these things come about and to what extent
    people who, under certain circumstances,
    will behave within the norms and relatively
    humanely under a different set of circumstances
    will become vicious killers.
    And that was what I consider to be
    a very important insight, which then I reflected on
    in some of my writings.
    Did you feel that, in general, they expressed
    true remorse, internal remorse?
    Well, as I mentioned before, when we've had this roundtable
    broadcast with three former members of the Waffen-SS,
    that we've had a very clear-cut case where they said,
    if we had known the consequences of our activities and what
    happened by virtue of our membership--
    an organization which was tainted with mischief,
    we would have not joined the SS.
    And they said that in public, and then
    incurred the wrath of those people
    certainly had a different idea, and were ostracized
    by their fellow SS comrades.
    And that is very important to me,
    because they said that in public to people
    it was virtually their business based
    on their public declaration of the insight they reflected on.
    So that, I think, is very important.
    And if we enter into dialogue with people, even if that
    was not intended--
    that was not my intention at all,
    because I came into the whole thing
    as a sociologist, a social psychologist,
    to research what made them tick.
    But I certainly did not foresee that I would then
    get into some sort of a interaction
    with these people which was totally on a different level.
    Did any of them know that you had
    Jewish family in your history?
    Oh, yes.
    They did?
    Yeah, because some-- I told some of them,
    and some of them I didn't.
    And I waited for the right moment to tell them,
    when it would be productive, rather than destructive--
    because some of the people I told in the right moment,
    and this furthered their acceptance of me,
    because I said, hey, instead of hating,
    he's listening to me and even supportive to me when I need
    to discuss some of the things which are a burden to me,
    or which need to--
    I have to get off my chest.
    And so as far as their view of me, their esteem--
    my esteem in their eyes was thereby heightened.
    And it certainly helped me to find out
    more interesting things which I wanted to find out.
    In your interviews, how did they react,
    and what was the process in their ideological changeover
    when Hitler fell?
    When Hitler--
    When the war ended, Hitler fell.
    That whole ideology seemed cracked, I presume.
    Well, it just depends on the attitude.
    What was the reason why people joined, let's say, the SS?
    Well, they may have been attracted
    to the ideology, number one.
    Number two, they may have been opportunistic about it
    and said, hey, everyone, it's now a National Socialist state.
    I have to see that I'll make a career
    under those present circumstances and, so to speak,
    said, well, I don't care what, but as long as
    it's going to support my cause.
    And so I'll simply collaborate.
    And some other people joined because they felt strongly
    about not only the ideology, but also because they
    admired Hitler because they really felt
    that Hitler was going to be--
    the true ideologists who felt that Hitler had a good point,
    and would indeed do for Germany what he claimed he
    would be doing.
    So you had a number of reasons why
    people joined, and depending on their reasons,
    they would have a different view after the war
    and look back with different feelings
    and reach different conclusions.
    And say for that group that were deep believers in the ideology,
    who felt that so-called God was on their side,
    how did they go through this transition?
    Well, they applied what we call reduction
    of cognitive dissonance, and they said, well,
    Hitler was betrayed.
    Hitler meant well, and he would have
    won if not so many other people would have prevailed
    and not failed him.
    And so they said he was OK, National Socialism was OK,
    but the Germans simply didn't do what
    they should have done in order to see that National
    Socialism would prevail--
    or, for example, said, well, technically, we
    are not as well-equipped.
    The whole world was against us, and it was too much
    for us to defend ourselves against.
    And so there are a number of justifications
    which they apply, but Hitler and National Socialism
    were still right.
    And you've got a segment of particularly older generation,
    and now even younger generation, who
    claim that Hitler was right, National Socialism was right,
    but all the other ones who failed him and conditions
    simply made it possible for him to go to lose the war.
    So that group came up with their ideology more or less still
    intact.
    Right.
    Was that group able to do then adopt more democratic attitudes
    later on?
    Well, they adjust to normal conditions
    in order to survive existentially,
    but they wait for the moment when they really
    can activate what they really feel
    and put that into practice.
    So they are very unstable-- a very unstable element which
    actually undermines any sort of democratic process,
    because whenever they see some weakness in all that,
    they'll come up and will say, well,
    we've told you so, and now we--
    it's our turn to take over, if we can.
    And yes, you got people today in Germany
    who are very interested along these lines.
    And what we seen in the Soviet-- the former Soviet Union--
    again, you see these sort of trends.
    So the question is, who is going to prevail?
    Which elements in a given society
    will prevail in time and space?
    And that, of course, is posited on the fact that--
    what sort of leaders they are, and how
    they will conduct themselves, and who are the role models,
    and how they can structure the society
    and move it away from any sort of totalitarian situation.
    Do you think that-- as a group, that they felt a nostalgia
    for their old days?
    They wanted --
    Well, yes.
    One can hear that.
    And then they say things which we also hear here
    in the United States and--
    law and order, law and order you know Turks.
    There are no foreigners who created unemployment,
    and everything was uniform, and there was peace in the streets,
    and less crime, and all these sort of things.
    And that's certainly one thing which
    is being advocated by these people.
    And they feel that these were the good old days,
    where everyone could walk the streets without being afraid.
    What about the good old days aspect of their camaraderie,
    their power over people?
    Well, that too-- yeah, the closeness, the closeness--
    [INAUDIBLE]
    That's a very frequent thing which
    came out in the interview.
    Invariably, regardless how they felt today
    about National Socialism, their closeness,
    camaraderie which they felt was so strong, very sustaining.
    And people supported each other in a way
    which does not take place today, and they miss that.
    There is no question about that.
    And that was one of the themes which
    was very strongly emphasized, regardless of their views--
    ideological views.
    So they were missing that--
    particularly within the SS, which
    was much more closely knit than other groups.
    Do then is that sense of power over others as well?
    Do they speak of that?
    Well, that is not something which they would emphasize,
    because somehow it doesn't sound good.
    But obviously, it came through in some cases loud and clear
    that some of these people played roles
    which had unbelievable power over other people.
    And that, of course, caused them to be elated,
    and they experienced some ecstatic joy
    playing these roles.
    And invariably, most of these people
    who were in these high positions, or even
    not that high positions, just consider
    Eichmann was only a lieutenant colonel,
    but look at the power he had, you see.
    So they miss that.
    And I've been told that by a number of interviewees that--
    who are well-off economically, and said--
    and I argued with them and said, you're well-off,
    so what are you really missing?
    And these two things came up--
    one, that the closeness-- they miss
    the closeness of these groups they were part of-- the SS,
    in this case.
    And then they missed the power, which
    was either direct or indirect by virtue of the fact
    that they wore the SS uniform.
    They're respected, and feared, and whatever,
    and that was something which, .
    Regardless of their position after World War II,
    they couldn't obtain.
    And that is something which they missed,
    the type of respect they received from others--
    and the respect not necessarily based
    on the respect of them as individuals,
    but the respect and fear of the role they played.
    And that is a very important distinction, very important
    distinction.
    That brings me to, after the war, were
    there-- did they express any changes in their relationship,
    say, to their family, to their friends?
    Well, that I haven't felt, because you see,
    it just so happens that I was frequently
    invited into their homes and stayed with them
    while conducting the interviews with people who were just
    really leading in this SS younger generation,
    but still had very, very high positions--
    and so naturally observed how they
    interacted within their family.
    And the interesting thing is that those people
    were more highly positive that married early in life,
    obtained divorces to marry younger wives,
    frequently with some sort of social standing,
    or were more attractive--
    not only by virtue of the fact that they were younger,
    but also physically more appealing.
    And that was an interesting sort of tendency which I noticed,
    particularly in those people who married relatively early,
    and then became older, and their wives also became older,
    and they lost their attraction.
    Or they married people who at that particular time
    were on their level of their social position,
    but once they had attained a higher social position,
    they left them behind.
    And then there you had people who were not
    that fully sophisticated.
    Some of the wives were socially not up to it
    to play that new role, so they just simply left them behind
    and took wives who were more in line
    with their new position in life so that they looked better,
    and of course, got also better satisfaction
    out of their marital relationship.
    So did you feel they did this after the war more often
    or then during --
    Well, that happened during the Third Reich
    already, because you see, with this type of power they've had,
    either they were not loyal to their wives
    and had side affairs, and when things didn't go that well,
    and they already were very high elevated--
    and so they divorced and got someone who was more
    suited for the present situation,
    and left the other ones behind.
    And they did it with very little feelings, just simply
    cold blood and I have a number of cases
    where I've observed that.
    But all these people were in higher positions.
    They're in higher positions.
    They're not just the run-of-the-mill type of SS.
    Were there any women in the Third Reich
    that held any power at all?
    Oh, well, yes, but you see, it was a very autocratic
    patriarchal society.
    And women were there to serve their men
    and do what the man told them.
    It was very clear-cut.
    But yes, you had women who were in charge of other women.
    And the National Socialist Women's
    Organization and the National Socialist Youth Organization--
    they all had women in charge.
    But the people who were in charge in reality
    were usually males, and not females.
    And they accepted that.
    I accepted that, and did not rebel against that--
    although some of them were academicians-- academics,
    and educated people and all that.
    But they willingly subordinated themselves to the males.
    The feminists had already been deposed by that time.
    Feminists of the Weimar Republic [INAUDIBLE]..
    They were the tradtional [INAUDIBLE] for the most part.
    Mm hm, Thank you.
    Were you ever able to interview any of the women who were
    in any positions during the --
    Yes.
    But this was very sporadic, piecemeal.
    And there were not very--
    not that they were not prepared to be interviewed or--
    there are not very many people around who
    played an important role and would
    have insisted that they did.
    Some of them have written books or articles about the time,
    and those, in a number of instances,
    I received from them--
    so that this took the place, if you
    will, of more in-depth interviews,
    because they already pretty much declared all the things
    I was interested in.
    So it was pretty limited.
    And the man I think was perhaps the most impressive interview
    was with some of Hitler's secretaries-- two of them.
    And that, I think, was very interesting.
    And in one case, one of the senior secretaries, and perhaps
    the most intelligent and efficient of them all--
    and he had about four--
    she was very outspoken.
    And I developed a very ongoing and in-depth relationship,
    as far as our discussions were concerned,
    and also got her to write--
    make contributions to the book which came out posthumously
    on her experiences.
    And so many years, I just simply was
    pushing her to continue her writing, which
    she did until she became very ill
    and no longer could use the typewriter.
    But she was one who I considered to have
    made one of the most interesting contributions,
    in terms of the view of females.
    Christa Schroeder was her name.
    And she was very intelligent and very vocal,
    and went through many changes, and I
    think assessed the situation relatively objectively
    after the fact.
    And I think she made a tremendous contribution.
    And she yet needs to be recognized,
    the book which she wrote--
    in German, of course.
    And I tried to have it published here and translated,
    and I have not succeeded so far.
    In the content of this book, are there
    other things that came out other than that she was
    trained as a patriarchal woman?
    Well, you see, Hitler depended on his secretaries,
    because he did not do any writing on his own, other
    than very short writings--
    letters, whatever, but nothing lengthy.
    So he was in the habit to dictate,
    and because of the dependency--
    Hitler's dependency on them, he told them
    things he wouldn't have told other people.
    And that came out, so that very many of her observations
    are invaluable, simply because of his dependency
    on his secretaries and his relationship.
    And it's just really amazing.
    One of the things, which I consider
    to be of significance in this relationship, in this regard,
    is that, whenever he started--
    when he came to dictate to her or some other ones,
    he came and greeted them, and kissed their hand
    before he started to dictate.
    Now, this in itself symbolically means something,
    because he certainly didn't kiss the hand of everyone.
    But simply, those people he considered
    to be important to him--
    in a very selfish way, to be sure--
    apart from the fact that it is an Austrian custom--
    and he's an Austrian, of course, and--
    to kiss hands.
    But not every male kisses the hand
    of a female who comes into contact.
    But in this case--
    and I've watched that in documentaries,
    and also what she said and what she wrote--
    is that he was very selective in terms of whom he kissed,
    whose hand, you see.
    And he kissed the secretary's hand.
    So that means there was a relationship, a certain degree
    of gratitude and dependency which was reflected in that.
    Course, when he had no need for them--
    so he was very cold-blooded-- just anyone, female or male,
    he discarded, and that was it, you see.
    Are any other things that you think of-- would
    like to add from her book?
    From her book, it's a wealth of information
    in terms of the relationships between the various Nazi
    leaders.
    And when we look at it from outside,
    as people who really are not insiders and understanding
    of the type of interaction which took place,
    we have frequently the notion that they're very unified
    and in harmony with each other, but that
    was not the case at all.
    And the tremendous rivalries, tremendous feuds--
    and also some of the responses, which
    were very private, come out in her writing, which I think
    is just absolute goldmine in finding out
    that some character of some of these people, which did not
    come out in public, because it was very private and was
    kept private.
    So how they responded to a certain situation,
    or towards each other, or towards mass destruction,
    and what have you is something which was not publicized.
    But it comes out.
    For example, Hitler's response when
    he occupied Czechoslovakia--
    his elation and-- it's just like a little boy's, that
    it's the greatest day of my life, and just jumping around,
    and was beside himself with joy and elation--
    whatever.
    And so some of these sort of things come out--
    details which she had a very good memory for.
    She discussed it with me and said,
    well, some of these things are trivial and all that,
    but I said, but it may look trivial,
    but it is a very important message.
    It really communicates something which otherwise would not
    be known.
    So she was very uncertain in terms of what was important
    and was not, and we had frequent discussions
    on what she should write about.
    And I said, just write what you remember-- and said, well,
    but that was insignificant, for example, the fact that she
    pleaded that the soldiers should be getting cigarette rations.
    And Hitler was very much against smoking,
    and simply wanted to discontinue that.
    And they got into conflict with each other,
    and she fell for a time in disfavor,
    because she talked back to him in a way which
    was not expected to be done by someone who is his secretary--
    in public, in a small circle of his confidants.
    And so these things came out in order
    to really find out how Hitler behaved in the inner circle
    or how some of the other high Nazi leaders
    behaved when they were among themselves and feuding
    with each other, or just backbiting and all that,
    and trying to be the first among the first,
    and what sort of means they employed.
    In the post-war SS group that you interviewed,
    those that still had strong pro-Nazi
    leanings, were they openly so, or was it a sub rosa group,
    or did they organize?
    Well, first of all, they have their rallies,
    and they still have them and they have their meetings.
    And the people who received their Iron Cross
    they have annual meetings and are proud of the fact
    that they've excelled and were recognized.
    And the question is, they're recognized for what?
    And that is not something which they would ask.
    They said, well, we fought for our country and very frequently
    --
    I said, for whom did you really fight?
    Did you fight for Germany or did you fight for Hitler's Germany?
    There's distinction between these two.
    And then they get into conflict and they
    don't want to hear that, you see,
    because they want to be viewed as heroes
    who did the right thing--
    namely, to defend and fight for their country.
    And so during these rallies, this is being reemphasized
    and said, hey, we have nothing to be ashamed of.
    We've done the right thing, and that is being justified--
    justified whether it's the SS or other groups of people who had
    a vested interest and were certainly --
    and that is something which some of them deny nowadays,
    who are certainly very sympathetic towards National
    Socialism and its cause.
    And that, to me, was very obvious
    that, if you continue to celebrate what you did, even
    after the dire end, then you must have had some very
    strong affiliation in terms of an identification with the role
    you played during the Third Reich.
    And that comes out during these rallies
    and during their speeches.
    And I was privy to that, because I was a guest of honor--
    one of those rallies, which we discussed,
    I think, in one of the things before, in one of our talks.
    So the fact that they still harp on that,
    and they still meet and celebrate,
    and they are reminiscent and--
    is a sign that they identified with what
    they did, and are proud of it, and were also highly decorated
    for it.
    And this is being reified by these annual meetings there.
    Did any of these people post-war claim
    that they did not know the whole extent, that it
    was a policy on genocide?
    Oh, yes-- number of them.
    But if you really probe more deeply,
    they just simply looked the other way, because people
    in high positions, and even in combat in, let's say,
    the Eastern Front--
    very many people saw what was happening,
    and also were very much aware of the fact
    that you had the Einsatzgruppen and mass murder
    behind the lines.
    And I remember, for example, when
    we were retreating when we were on the death
    march, and the retreating troops of the Germans talking
    thousands of people--
    military retreating and watching us.
    And so we saw each other.
    We encountered each other.
    And the interesting thing is that they called us
    names and all sorts of things.
    And if they would have permitted,
    they would have wiped us out.
    And these were not SS people.
    This was just the retreating military.
    And so they could see us in striped pajamas
    under the conditions we were.
    And then, instead of having some compassion, very frequently--
    there were some who did, but they didn't show it--
    certainly not the military, I don't remember.
    But they simply were cussing us, and calling us names,
    and behaving in a way where they just, if they would ever
    let loose, would have done us in, instead of feeling
    some sort of compassion for us.
    It was very different when we walked
    through some little villages and townships.
    Then we had a civilian population
    who rendered support not necessarily materially,
    because some of them couldn't do it--
    although some did it also in some sort of piecemeal fashion.
    But they shouted encouragement to us, and to the annoyance
    of the SS guarding us.
    So that I remember also.
    But in terms of the military, defeating the military was very
    clear-cut, because they--
    as I said before, if they would have been able,
    they would have certainly attacked us and--
    because they blamed us, because they identified us
    with the enemy from whom they retreated.
    And that also happened, then I no longer
    could walk in one of the last phase of the death march.
    So there was a military police soldier--
    actually, I shouldn't say soldier-- he was a major.
    And he drew a pistol and we crawled.
    We crawled.
    We couldn't walk anymore, so we were
    crawling into a horse and buggy type of situation.
    And so he drew the pistol and said, we'll show you,
    you swine what--
    me show you, swine, pay you back that we have to retreat
    from the Soviets and all that.
    We show you what it means to retreat,
    or something of that nature.
    So he just simply was ready to shoot us,
    but didn't, for whatever reason.
    And so we were then put into this horse and buggy
    and driven to the close concentration camps-- slave
    labor camp, what it was, actually.
    And so they blamed us because they felt that we
    were in cahoots with the enemy.
    And you can make this connection, of course,
    under the circumstances.
    So I still remember you swine, we'll
    show you what it means to retreat from the Russians.
    We'll show you.
    Anyway, so that was just one of the incidents.
    It would be nice now if you talked about the process
    of making an SS person.
    The person joins-- are there some specific rituals
    over and above, say, combat training?
    Well, again, what we said last time
    is that the SS was made out of very many functions
    and segments with different functions.
    And so the first thing which we need to remember
    is that it was a voluntary organization until 1943.
    So people who volunteered obviously
    could have not been opposed to the National Socialist cause.
    But the SS was kind of viewed by the population
    as the representative, the strong arm representative
    of National Socialism and the protector
    of National Socialism--
    so that if people say, we're not National Socialist, well,
    they may not have been National Socialists,
    but if they join that means that they had to, to some extent,
    identify with the cause of the SS,
    which was the protection of the National Socialist Party.
    It meant that they were also at the disposal--
    direct disposal of Hitler, that he could--
    he was the one who could dispose of them
    and put them to whatever use he felt was best in his interest.
    And that's exactly what he did.
    And so this was known.
    And also, of course, they had some social status.
    So very many people who were not well-prepared to assume
    other occupations, or were not that fully
    skilled in other things, or were without a job
    felt that, on that basis, joining the SS,
    they could embark upon a career which would be substantive
    and would give them security, prestige, esteem,
    and a role which they could identify
    with, they could be proud of.
    And so that was one thing.
    So therefore, what you really had
    is the situation where you had a change--
    well, change in society towards Hitlerism,
    where people could see that there
    was a chance for them to become something, and also,
    of course, an ideological identification
    with National Socialism.
    So that was the basis.
    Now, some of them, of course, were
    willing to do the things which was typically done
    by the Gestapo, by the death head guards in concentration
    camps who had very early functions, which were very,
    very brutal and violent.
    And some of them were aware of it and some of them were not,
    in terms of what they had to do, because that
    was not that-- some of these people
    were very unclear about it.
    They were very young, and they had
    no idea in terms of what was expected of them once they
    would become members, particularly
    in the early concentration camps in the Einsatzgruppen.
    They had no idea specifically what would be asked of them.
    So very frequent, they're very ignorant in terms
    of the tasks they would be--
    that would be assigned.
    And once they were in, it was very difficult to get out.
    And very many people who could see that they had to do
    something-- they couldn't identify,
    did not have the intelligence, or the foresight,
    or the ability to get out of it--
    although I've met some people who, for example,
    were members of the Waffen-SS and said, well,
    I was getting an assignment-- and I remember one--
    this person is--
    I've talked to many times, and he was very clear-cut about it
    and really talked about it--
    who married a very well-to-do lady
    and was very successful in what he did after the war.
    Namely, he was an owner of two resort hotels in a very
    well-known resort place in the northern part of Germany--
    southern part of Germany, actually.
    And he said that he wants to be assigned
    to be a commandant in a camp.
    And because he understood what it involved,
    he appealed to people who were his superiors
    and manipulated the situation so that, instead
    of being sent to be a commandant in a concentration camp,
    he was sent to the front and a combat situation.
    And he survived it very well, and I talked to him, as I said,
    many times.
    And he was very glad and very happy and proud of the fact
    that he manipulated the situation, because he said,
    I couldn't have done it.
    I couldn't have lived with myself.
    So these situations were also -- but of course,
    he was an officer, as you see.
    The small peons, the people without any contacts
    with high posited members of the SS
    were, of course, in a much weaker position
    to manipulate the situation.
    And even Auschwitz-Birkenau-- some people
    I've interviewed who were Auschwitz perpetrators tried
    to get out of it, and became very frequently drunk
    and all that, because they simply
    couldn't stomach what they had to do,
    and tried to be transferred.
    But that was exceedingly difficult. And one of them
    told me that he directly appealed to Himmler when
    he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and said,
    reichsfuhrer, I'd like to be transferred-- and said,
    you will serve.
    We order you to serve.
    You stay.
    And he stayed.
    Certainly, being transferred to the front
    was a much more dangerous situation--
    Oh, absolutely-- no question--
    --than to be in camp.
    Yeah-- well, of course.
    And also, as far as their job was concerned,
    in terms of their own personal safety and hardship,
    it was a terrific job than to fight someplace
    in freezing winter in the Russian front.
    My God-- there was a tremendous difference.
    And they knew it, so some of them
    were glad to be where they were.
    But later on, towards the end of the war,
    they replaced anyway, those able-bodied people
    they replaced and the old people who were wounded
    and all that took their place.
    I remember that particularly in one of the camps,
    in a slave labor camp of Blechhammer.
    So that was very obvious that older
    the people came all the time, and they didn't know exactly
    and they were quite sympathetic [? time, ?]
    certainly not very harsh and all that
    not just like the young people.
    And the young people were sent into combat, you see.
    So there was quite a bit of rotation.
    And that's very important, because very frequently you
    hear that people who were members of the Waffen-SS say,
    well, we were purely combat.
    Well, it's not so, because very many people were just
    circulating, you see.
    And they don't want to hear that,
    because they don't want to be tainted
    with this dreadful thing-- for reasons which I can appreciate.
    And some were not, but many were because they were circulated.
    Do you know of any instances where people requested transfer
    out of the camp and were sent other than to combat situation?
    Well, I don't know that many cases, number one.
    And those cases I know of that, yes some people
    were sent to the front and some people were simply
    told that they had to remain where they were period.
    had no recourse.
    Once you were in that situation, it
    was very difficult to get out.
    But yes, so many people said that they'd
    like to volunteer in combat, rather than do
    some of the things which they couldn't identify with.
    So the difficulty of, once you volunteered,
    you couldn't get out-- is this the normal difficulty
    of getting out of an armed service,
    that you have to about go AWOL in order to--
    I don't know AWOL, not very many AWOL, because that
    was very difficult. First of all, you couldn't get very far,
    and once they caught, you were finished.
    One incident comes to mind.
    One of my mentors--
    very well-known sociology professor and one of his --
    when we had, after our relationship which acquaintance
    kind of friendship, which lasted for very many years,
    he told me that he had something to confess to me.
    He was a major in the German army.
    And he said, I really have to tell you something
    which has been on my mind.
    I signed a death warrant for one of those people who went AWOL.
    And I never could come to terms with it.
    I signed it.
    And so I said you know it's --
    I can appreciate why you feel the way you do.
    And he talked about that.
    So you had no chance.
    Unless you got out of Germany or went over
    to the Soviets or the Western Allies, you had no chance.
    Sooner or later [INAUDIBLE] and that was it.
    Then you were shot, finished.
    Automatically-- no court martial?
    Oh yeah, sure.
    Oh, yeah.
    But that was very fast.
    And he signed one of these.
    [INAUDIBLE] SS training, were there
    any situations, as in certain other kinds of brotherhoods,
    like blood brotherhoods, or other kinds of rituals
    or knowledge that [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, no.
    What Himmler had in mind is to develop a Germanic creed--
    one perhaps can say some sort of religion--
    and I wrote about that--
    I was actually the first to write about--
    not much has been written about it since, anyway--
    which would replace the Judeo Christian religions.
    And so that got stuck because of the war and other problems,
    and also that some people, in spite of the fact that they--
    the National Socialists and joined the SS still
    remained active in their respective faiths, which was
    either Protestant or Catholic.
    But then there was a third group,
    which was just about one third of all the SS people--
    and became more and more popular--
    who then assumed this to be new creed of the--
    what they call-- just a literary translation--
    God believers, of believers in God.
    And so they left their religion and declared themselves
    to be believers in God.
    Now, the interesting thing is-- and that is something which
    relatively recently I found out, going through some books--
    legal Nazi books during that period.
    And I found out that, if people were Jewish,
    they could become Christians-- not that it would help them
    any, but they could switch from the Jewish belief, religion
    to any of the Christian ones.
    But one thing they're not permitted to do-- they
    could not become-- declare themselves
    to be believers in God, which is very interesting.
    That was only they open to Aryans.
    And that is something no one knows.
    Nothing has been written about that,
    and I just simply accidentally stumble across that.
    And that, to me, was very important,
    because that was to be the creed of the new Aryan Germanic
    people.
    Yes.
    And they, for example, could--
    an SS superior officer could, for example, marry people,
    or he could say whatever to be said when people had died
    and all that.
    So he more and more assumed the position
    of what was done by the ministers or, priests
    and that was to replace the Judeo Christian creed, which
    they, for practical purposes, rejected.
    And all the Nazi leaders--
    the high-ranking Nazi leaders, whether it was Himmler
    or whether it was if Bormann--
    they all left their religion, except Hitler did not.
    He still paid his dues to the Catholic Church,
    which is very interesting.
    He never left the church.
    But they did, and they became believers in God--
    and practiced, supported that.
    And that is a very interesting thing.
    And virtually nothing has been done with that,
    very little has been written.
    the occasional oblique references to ideas of going
    back to pre-Christian pagan religion--
    Yep.
    --that the solstice was to be the most--
    Right.
    --important holiday.
    That's right.
    Can you talk about that aspect [INAUDIBLE]??
    Well, that aspect is rather interesting,
    because when I was interviewing, and then developed
    a very good relationship with my namesake, Steiner,
    he took me to this--
    in Munich in this well-known, infamous [INAUDIBLE],,
    where the early Nazi situations took place--
    meetings and what have you, and all
    the various strategic things were discussed
    during the early period.
    Former members of the SS had a celebration there,
    which was a combination of Christmas and solstice,
    and Germanic thing.
    And that was the first time I really
    heard about it, because one of the SS people
    present-- and we came in.
    Steiner and I came just about 10 minutes
    after all the other ones have assembled--
    lots of people-- at least 150, no 250.
    I don't remember offhand how many there were--
    lots of people.
    So they all stood up with, some exception
    of some of the wives and children.
    But all the men stood up, and there we march,
    and I and Steiner.
    So it was just an unbelievable sort
    of feeling for me to just really--
    very, very unusual and strange for me
    to just walk in with him.
    And then you got all the SS high-ranking
    some former high-ranking SS people there and all
    that congregated and standing up.
    And I'm marching with him.
    So then they settled down, and then they
    celebrated the young ones, the kids.
    They had the tree and all that, and there
    were supposed to be a minister coming in to somehow--
    celebrating the Christmas for these children,
    because they're split.
    The old ones were very much into this new creed, and--
    but lived in a period where this no longer
    had any chance in a new society, post-war society.
    And so he declined to come--
    found an excuse not to come.
    So then all these people were there without a minister.
    There was to be a Protestant minister, not a Catholic.
    And so they simply continued, and instead of Christmas,
    it was very heavily emphasized-- the ritual which they had
    introduced already--
    as the basis for their future creed.
    And to me, that was quite an experience.
    And of course, I had no idea what it was all about,
    because I was not informed.
    I didn't have that understanding,
    because I had not written about--
    I had not read about it very much at all, if anything.
    And so there was one person who was a non-commissioned officer
    in the SS--
    saw me, so he came and explained to me the creed.
    And I was putting down things on paper
    so that I wouldn't forget it-- made notes.
    And Steiner saw it and say, don't take any notes
    and don't listen to this fellow, this criminal who's
    just talking Himmler nonsense and all that.
    So they tried to discourage me, because they're very well aware
    of the fact what was going on.
    But they didn't want me to really catch on to it, you see.
    It was very obvious, because the man was very helpful,
    tried to explain to me, this is not
    really Christmas what are we doing here, and--
    because that goes back into the German solstice and all this,
    and that's what we really celebrate
    this all these other things is nonsense Jewish stuff and all
    this, and Christian It's all this Jewish [? infested. ?]
    Anyway, so that was an eye-opener,
    because I had absolutely no idea that this sort of thing
    existed.
    And that started my interest, and I pursued it,
    and with the help of some other people, inadvertently--
    inadvertent help of some--
    because now it's no longer very functional.
    They still adhere to it.
    They even have candle holders, and they have pieces of ritual
    which is being used in these sort of celebrations--
    actual things.
    And I have one made out of ceramic so that--
    these candle holders were distributed
    to every SS person and every friend
    of the SS supporter of the SS, so
    that they became a household--
    part of the household which was being used.
    And all these things I found out afterwards, and so
    that you really could see that many of these things
    were being introduced by primarily Hitler--
    I'm sorry-- Himmler, because Hitler was not--
    was very much in the background-- all that.
    Hitler's notion of these things was sympathetic, but he--
    particularly towards the end of the war,
    he just was just letting them do what they wanted to.
    He didn't interfere.
    But most of all, that was done on Himmler's initiative.
    So the impetus to consolidate this new religion was not
    Hitler's?
    Well, it had his support, but he was very much standing back,
    I think, and didn't come, I think, for political reason--
    not that he did not empathize, because it
    was very much in line with his thinking,
    and Himmler knew that.
    But I think, for political reasons,
    and because it is a Protestant nation with very large number
    of Catholic majority, he didn't want to rock the boat.
    I think it was just merely strategic
    thinking why he was not more actively involved,
    and let Himmler do all this, you see--
    but not because he was not sympathetic.
    Could you describe this holiday ritual,
    the non-Christian part of it?
    Well, it's singing of specific songs
    and thinking of and talking about going
    through specific ritual verses of people who died in combat.
    And this candle is for the dead.
    This candle is for their mother--
    for our mothers.
    This candle is for the children to come,
    and all that-- and singing of specific songs, which
    were non-Christian songs, not songs
    you sing during Christmas.
    So this was perhaps something.
    And of course, you had no chance to attend these things
    after-- other than what I witnessed there.
    So you had a tree there, and they just put candles on it,
    saying certain things, as I've indicated,
    and singing particular songs which had absolutely nothing
    to do with Christianity.
    And there are no speeches, as far as I can remember.
    I put it all down.
    It's all part in my book, because I made notes
    when I was there, and then--
    immediately after I went home so that I wouldn't forget.
    And I described these things as accurately as I possibly could.
    But I was discouraged to make notes, as I said before.
    And it was very bewildering for me,
    because I didn't have any sort of background which
    would enable me to relate to what was going on.
    So I just simply relied on more the descriptive part
    of what I could see and witness.
    Do you have any sense of how those candle holders were
    used in the household?
    Oh, yeah.
    Sure.
    I've got one.
    So it's a candle holder which is made out of ceramic
    with particular symbols in it--
    not a swastika, but the light wheel
    and some other symbols which connote, relate to solstice.
    And then, on top of it, it's just
    a little bit like a pyramid.
    And on top of it you've got indented part,
    and there you put the candle.
    And you also can put the candle inside,
    but the idea is to put it on top of it.
    And when I bought this in some sort of antique shop--
    for virtually nothing, because although the lady who sold it
    to me-- she knew exactly, because she happened
    to be a National Socialist and she was very familiar
    with that.
    But it was-- she didn't see any value in it.
    It's actually very valuable, because most of these things
    no longer exist, or have been destroyed, or whatever.
    So it was covered--
    the candle, this pyramidal type of ceramic
    was absolutely covered with wax, which
    means that they put the candle on top of it,
    rather than beneath it.
    And there are perforations so that it
    could be done, because there are these sort of things which
    are cut, and let out light if you put in the candle
    underneath.
    And I haven't seen it, of course, practiced,
    but when I show it or talk to them, all these SS people said,
    my God, you've got really something.
    Why don't you give it to me, or this and that?
    And some of the things I had do--
    I gave to some people, particularly some people --
    and then I got it back after their death of the people said,
    can I keep it?
    And I'll see to it that you get it back.
    And do you know in what the candle was used?
    Yeah-- particularly when they celebrated these sort of things
    which were related to the creed--
    this new creed.
    Weekly, daily, monthly?
    That I have no--
    only certain, certain festivities which are not--
    they probably could use it every day for what I know,
    but I think the purpose was to use them
    during specific festivities which had meaning
    in that particular to be creed.
    Do you have any sense of how they
    were going to relate this creed to the religions
    of the German populace as a whole?
    Well, they just simply tried to replace it, and that's.
    It was to be discontinued, because they're
    after the Catholic priests.
    In their speeches and in their writings, they talked about it
    and condemned them-- and whether it's Protestant and all that.
    So step by step, they were going to discontinue that and replace
    it.
    And that's something which cannot be done overnight,
    because too many people were entrenched in their faith.
    So they had to do it step by step, and that was--
    these were the first steps which they took.
    So it never got to move on [INAUDIBLE]??
    Established-- no, never got established.
    It was limited to very small--
    And clearly, this notion of the military person
    having the power of the religionist, that's
    quite a powerful combination--
    the SS person who can take over the functions of the minister,
    as in marrying, death rituals.
    Well, the question is how it would
    have been developed, how it would have developed later on.
    Within the SS, that was already clear-cut.
    And it's not clear to what extent the SS--
    they would have taken, but I don't
    think that the SS would have celebrated
    all these sort of things for other people
    who were not members of the SS.
    I doubt that.
    But that's too early to--
    we don't know what sort of--
    we don't know.
    These are all speculations, and we
    have no idea in terms of what would have developed.
    But within-- primarily within the Nazi circles,
    high Nazi circles, National Socialist circles,
    that was accepted--
    and especially also within the SS in particular.
    I've heard tell that Hitler was vegetarian.
    Yeah.
    And do you think that practice had any religious connotation
    or a practical [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, see, that it's something which I discussed
    with the secretary and--
    Hitler's secretary and all that but the idea was that he was--
    in his early days, he was not at all against--
    just so developed because he was putting on weight.
    And then he combined the fear of putting on weight--
    because as a leader of this magnitude, this influence,
    I can't stand in front of the people
    with a heavy set stomach, whatever paunch or you know.
    And so that was one of the major reasons why he stopped.
    He used to drink and he used to eat
    meat and all this sort of thing, but he discontinued it
    primarily because he didn't want to put on more weight.
    And then he combined it with--
    somehow made an ideology out of it
    and say, well, I can't eat decaying flesh and murder
    all these animals, which is kind of inconsistent with all
    the other things he's done--
    well, not necessarily inconsistent, because to him,
    Jews were not human beings, you see.
    And they're even below animals, and that is an important thing
    too.
    So they all could rationalize, justify that.
    And so did he, of course.
    And he was the arch rationalisor.
    But he was very clear-cut and said,
    well, I can't eat animals, and decayed, and all that.
    I need to eat things which are not being killed.
    Also, I was told that he had a personal astrologer, who
    I believe has written a book.
    Do you have any sense [INAUDIBLE]??
    I don't think there's anything to it.
    I don't think there's anything to it.
    And I've looked into some of the things.
    Himmler yes, but not Hitler--
    Himmler had the people whom he consulted and all that,
    and he was very much into the mythical aspects,
    and astrology, and all this sort of thing.
    But from what I could find out in all that,
    I don't think there's anything to it.
    What was their notion in choosing
    the broken cross, the swastika?
    Well, it's the sun wheel, and Hitler chose it
    because not only the symbolic--
    because he liked the form of it, and also
    because it's a sign of the Nordic Aryan race--
    which, by the way, is the Indo-German type
    of thing, which includes-- when I was in Bombay
    and in India, you see swastikas all over the place.
    You see it with American Indians.
    You see it all over the place.
    So it is not really that unique, but he symbolically
    felt that the symbol was to connote Germanic Aryan
    types of people.
    And the swastika was his choice to use in the flags, colors,
    whatever, as the symbol of National Socialism.
    Did it have some kind of connection
    with the notion of this ancient religion?
    Was it a symbol in that ancient religion?
    I don't think that this connection was
    made to that extent at all, other than that it
    was his understanding of the Aryan purity.
    That's my understanding of the sun wheel, apart from the fact
    that it is used by those who are defined as Indo-Germanic.
    And that's why, for example, he did not view the Indians
    as an inferior race.
    There was even a battalion of Mohammedans,
    and Indians, and all that in the-- within the SS.
    And I talked to an Indian and his German wife,
    and he had a very important position
    during the Third Reich.
    How is that compatible with the notion of a light-skinned,
    blond--
    Well, that's precisely some of the inconsistency.
    Same thing with the Japanese--
    Japanese where very close allies,
    and he had very high regard for the Japanese,
    but also talking at times about the fact
    that they are a different ways and all that.
    But his interest, and his admiration, if you will,
    and his opportunistic interests transcended that.
    And the people whom he really--
    the real target, where he never could have somehow
    accepted any justification for accepting them as a race,
    or interacting, or using them as allies were the Jews.
    But all the other ones, whether they were Arabs, or Indian,
    or Japanese, he could deal with, and somehow could
    justify, but not the Jews--
    or the Gypsies.
    And the chances are that, if you rank who was perhaps--
    ranking order, the Jews probably below the Gypsies,
    the chances are, because Gypsies, during the war,
    even served until they took them out of circulation.
    They even served as soldiers in the Nazi army.
    And after they took them out relatively late,
    out of circulation.
    It's interesting that neither of those peoples
    have a nation that could potentially [INAUDIBLE] assets.
    That's right.
    Well, of course, the interesting thing
    is the inner circles of the SS to begin
    with, until before World War II, were
    very supportive of Zionism.
    In the process of the making of the SS person,
    were all the SS tattooed, with--
    I guess [INAUDIBLE]?
    Yes.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Yeah.
    So to speak, all of them had to do that,
    whether they were in combat or not.
    All members of the SS were tattooed.
    And there were some exceptions, but not because Himmler
    made them, but because they somehow weaseled out
    in one way or another.
    And that I have also seen in one of the SS generals,
    who was very much proud of his body, and his sexual prowess,
    and all that.
    And he didn't want to be marked at all,
    so he tried to avoid it.
    And Himmler insisted and kept on asking, well, finally show me.
    Have you done it now finally?
    So then he found some sort of a method where
    he was tattooed with some sort of a material which
    would be absorbed and would disappear in time.
    And then he showed me.
    And then I asked him-- say, so what happened?
    He said, well, I don't have it anymore.
    It just simply disappeared.
    Once I showed him and once I had it done,
    he no longer bugged me about it--
    Himmler.
    And then it disappeared--
    the tattoo disappeared, and he didn't have it renewed,
    and Himmler didn't ask him.
    So I said, show me.
    I'd ask some of these people, show me.
    I was interested.
    And he showed me.
    There was nothing.
    Did this tattoo have any meaning beyond simply [INAUDIBLE]
    information?
    No.
    No, no.
    That tattoo was just a very clever device,
    which is terrific-- that, if these people were wounded
    in combat or for whatever other reason, that immediately they
    would know what sort of blood group
    they would give it for transfusion purposes.
    And that was the major reason, none other.
    I understood it was a tattoo in the armpit.
    Yeah, left armpit-- the armpit-- yeah, yeah--
    on the inside of there-- yeah--
    so that actually, you wouldn't see it.
    Only if people just simply move their arms up and all that,
    then it was visible.
    So it was in a relatively hidden spot.
    Absolutely-- but people knew that.
    And after the war, for example, one of my interviewees
    wanted to somehow hide his SS membership for reasons
    which don't escape me.
    And so what he -- a sympathetic surgeon shortly after the war
    performed a minor surgery, and a surgery which simulated
    a shrapnel wound or something else so that it looked like he
    would have-- that he was injured,
    shot at by bullets or whatever.
    And so he performed that surgery,
    and he showed it to me, because I ask these people-- say, show
    me.
    And they are willing to do that.
    And so he's got scars here--
    nothing there anymore.
    This tattoo would also function in the opposite way,
    that it would be a brotherhood symbol too?
    Well, yeah.
    It's a sign of recognition, but I
    don't know whether they used it that much,
    because at that particular point in time, it was of no use other
    than for the purposes I've indicated.
    And so I don't think--
    only perhaps after the war and all that-- and say,
    I was in the SS or something Well,
    it used some sort of a purpose, let's say, in South America,
    whatever.
    So yeah, that was an identification mark.
    Of course, you can always fake it,
    if you know how they look like.
    And not that many people do.
    How do they look?
    Oh, it's just a very simple type of that data,
    not unlike that type of tattoo we got as inmates.
    And it is just a number that's just the blood group.
    That's it, and nothing else.
    Did anyone ever speak of any kind of special process used
    to desensitize these people in order
    that they could do some of these terribly brutal things?
    Well, the desensitization took place primarily
    by way of indoctrination, and to render the people, the targets,
    the victims, so to speak--
    make victims-- not victims out of them,
    but make vermin out of them.
    So you've got-- remove them from the ingroup into an outgroup.
    Create a social distance which would be so great that you
    would not feel any concern or compassion what
    you do to these people, because they are not people, period.
    And that was done very systematically
    by way of propaganda, indoctrination, ideology.
    And again, this is something which we need to understand,
    because there was no other reason for it where they simply
    could distantiate themselves from their victims--
    other than justify the fact of dealing with them
    the way they did by removing them from their midst
    and dissociating themselves from their kind.
    And they've done it very successfully
    in very many cases-- not in all, but in very many cases.
    Now, the interesting thing is-- and to me, it's
    very interesting talking about interaction
    in concentration camps.
    The more people behave like "Germans," quote, unquote,
    the greater was their chance of survival.
    The more they behave differently--
    and that was very interesting in Shtricker's Sturmer paper which
    was a weekly--
    anti-Semitic weekly.
    And there, all the Jews were depicted
    looking very different, very oriental, very Jewish--
    whatever they symbolized this Jewish--
    typical nose, eyes, bad figures, unathletic, and all that.
    And the interesting things-- the less they
    looked like that stereotype which was being propagated,
    the more they felt inhibited to mistreat these people.
    And that is something which I personally experienced myself,
    because I didn't look like the stereotype.
    I didn't behave like the stereotype.
    I spoke the language perfectly.
    And therefore, the SS responded to me
    very differently than if they would have then they
    would have responded to a shtetler Jew who
    more looked like that stereotype,
    behaved like that stereotype.
    That's a very important very important situation,
    because the chances are--
    and I really can say that with some degree of accuracy--
    that, if I had not look the way I do, or did--
    of course, now I look different--
    I'm older-- put it mildly--
    and if I had not looked and behaved and spoke
    the way I did at that time, the chances
    are I wouldn't have survived, because I was in situations
    where SS would have not hesitated to kill someone else,
    but they somehow were deterred to kill me,
    because I reminded them too much of someone
    who could be their relative or someone they
    could be related to.
    That is my reflected assumption, because I got into situations
    where other people would have been shot on the spot,
    and I was not.
    Do you think, say, someone who joined the SS in 1943--
    would that person have been--
    They wouldn't join.
    They were drafted.
    OK.
    Well, before '43 then [INAUDIBLE]..
    OK.
    Yeah.
    Would that person be sent to one of the concentration camps
    fairly quickly without some sort of [INAUDIBLE]??
    No, no, no.
    It just depends well, no -- because when you talk about
    war, most of the concentration camps were already headed
    by people who had some connection to concentration
    camps before the war.
    So they were occupied by special outfits which
    were assigned that role in concentration camps
    before World War II--
    prior to it.
    So the chances that there would be assigned there after '43
    are remote, other than that they were wounded,
    crippled so that they no longer somehow could serve in combat.
    Then yes, there was a chance, as I've indicated before,
    that they would be sent to concentration camps as guards--
    as guards only, but not in any other function,
    because those people in other functions
    were members of the security service,
    were members of the death squads,
    and members of the Gestapo.
    And so these people were specialists.
    Amongst the people that you interviewed,
    were there any people who served in the concentration camps?
    Yeah.
    And did they ever express any astounded reactions
    that they saw when they arrived there?
    Or were they prepared, do you think for what they would find?
    I don't think they were prepared at all.
    No.
    I don't think they were prepared, and just grew
    into it, and somehow got adjusted,
    because they didn't see any chance to get out,
    and so they did what they were supposed to in order
    to be rewarded.
    So they did that, and were very eager to buy into the ideology,
    because that would enable them to sleep at night.
    But very many people had problems,
    and therefore, drinking, being drunk in these places
    was very frequent--
    and among all different ranks.
    But it was very frequent, simply because they needed to get out
    of the situation, which otherwise, they couldn't.
    And alcohol was one of the very few means,
    because other drugs were not available to begin with.
    So they drank very heavily.
    So even with the whole process of dehumanization
    and everything that went with it,
    it was not enough to totally eradicate?
    For quite a few, yeah-- for quite a few.
    And that is precisely the interesting thing,
    which-- we will not be able to establish how many people were
    really suffering or feeling about what they were doing,
    and how many people were not.
    And there is one book which we are using in our lecture series
    next time--
    is where one of the historians has done very interesting
    and, I think, important research,
    in going back to the court documents
    when a battalion of people who were in the Einsatz--
    part of the Einsatz group were brought to justice
    by the Germans after World War II in Hamburg.
    And he looked at the court records
    and find out how these people responded to important leading
    questions of that nature, and came out
    with some sort of ideas that many--
    probably the majority adjusted and did
    what they were supposed to do, and other people
    tried to find excuses to avoid the mass killings in which they
    were to participate--
    found excuses or just were able to somehow avoid it
    in one way or another.
    But they were in the minority.
    And some of these people then also adjusted, and then did it.
    See, once you've found yourself in this sort of situation,
    it was very difficult to get out of it.
    It was not impossible, but it was difficult.
    And I think that needs to be recognized, because just look
    at people in our time, when they would
    be placed in this situation.
    And we've got experiments--
    Milgram, Zimbardo, and some number of other ones--
    how people behaved under some degree of stress,
    and how they respond to authority telling them
    you do that because I tell you so, because I'm the authority.
    I know best-- and people who are educated, intelligent.
    So it's something which should not be underestimated.
    Do you think that the SS hierarchy
    tended to choose people who might be
    more sadistic for in-camp jobs?
    In some cases, they went--
    had some psychological-- whatever
    they had at that particular time in terms
    of psychological tests, inventories.
    But I don't think they have much use one way or another.
    No, I think the--
    if there was a negative selection,
    it was the appeal National Socialists that is --
    National Socialism had for these people.
    That, I think, was already a negative selection,
    because if that appeals to you, the chances
    are that you probably will rank higher-- as I have tested,
    rank higher on the so-called fascist authoritarian scale.
    And that, I think, is the case.
    So therefore, you're more susceptible to do things
    and listen to authority uncritically.
    That much I can say.
    But I don't think they've selected people
    who were a priori sadistic.
    You talked before about the notion of potentially violence
    person--
    Yeah.
    --and having the violence-prone atmosphere
    meet up with it [INAUDIBLE].
    Right.
    And in the continuum say that, in a cultural ethos
    that might be in there too, how do you think--
    what's the entry point?
    How does it start and keep going?
    Or where does it stop?
    Well, and that is precisely where I respond
    with this notion of a sleeper. we all,
    to some degree or another, have violence potential,
    and this violence potential comes forth
    in certain situations-- for example,
    where you lose your temper, or where you just become physical,
    or you cuss someone out and behave
    in a way which is not socially, under "normal circumstances,"
    quote, unquote, acceptable.
    So when you get into situations which
    exert a great deal of pressure on the individual,
    then certain characteristics which heretofore have not
    come forth, were not overtly expressed,
    will be enacted upon.
    They'll come out.
    I think that is only possible if--
    as a person in power structures situations which
    will stimulate that in people.
    And that's why it's so important that the social structure has
    to be structured in a way in which
    this sort of violent potential we all have--
    whether it's the family, or the occupation, or whatever--
    will not be furthered, will simply not be stimulated.
    And most of the people who are in power
    are very ignorant of all the things
    which we are discussing here, and therefore, not mindful
    that what they structure is powerful individuals,
    because they want to structure society most.
    They are not the only ones to, be sure because, they also
    have to be supported by people who will go along with that,
    but still--
    so once you produce a social structure which
    will be violent-prone or will permit outlets for violence,
    you'll have it.
    And the people who already are repressed and somehow wait
    for that moment to behave violently
    will jump to the occasion.
    So do you think that, therefore, this violence-prone atmosphere
    serves the purpose of people in power?
    Well, if they are interested in violence, yes--
    particularly when they are interested in violence the way
    Saddam, or Hitler, or whoever the people in Cambodia,
    whatever-- in some other places are interested in.
    And then, of course, they will structure it
    so that they will have roles to play
    which will be officially acceptable, socially
    acceptable--
    not only that, but will be rewarded so that people
    will do it and become mass killers,
    because this is rewarded, and it's desirable,
    and there are social outlets for that
    by way of creating roles these people can play,
    who are violence-prone.
    In the question of the person who is a sleeper,
    is this person the same in that respect,
    or do you think different from every person who has some anger
    and violence-prone--
    Well, no, we all are sleepers, except some are--
    takes more for us to become aggressive
    before we become aggressive, and for some people of a very small
    provocation suffices to become aggressive and fly off
    the handle.
    And so we all are sleepers, more or less and I've seen,
    and that's why I developed this sort of idea,
    because what I could observe in concentration camps--
    how much does it take until any one of us
    will kill in order to live?
    And this cattle wagon situation, which
    I've described in some of my writings--
    not published writings-- is precisely
    a situation where we all, with the exception of perhaps 1%,
    defended ourselves against people
    who might have killed us, in terms of what they did,
    in a way that we caused the death of them.
    And that is something which needs to be acknowledged.
    Now, for some people it takes longer and more,
    and for other people it takes less.
    So for example, the inmate functionaries
    who assumed functions that were assigned by the SS
    in concentration camps.
    did it without any sort of hesitation,
    because it furthered their life and made
    their life more bearable in concentration camps.
    So that was the major reason-- not because they
    necessary were evil.
    Some people were sadists, and they
    enjoyed what they were doing.
    Yes, they existed also.
    And we don't know the exact percentage,
    but in terms of inmate functionaries,
    I think it was exceedingly high.
    And that is one of the reasons why I never
    would have assumed a function myself, because the very moment
    I had a function, the chances are
    that I would be guilty or responsible for the loss
    of life of fellow inmates.
    And to me, I couldn't have done it.
    Under those circumstances, I would have been pressed more,
    as I was pressed in this sort of cattle
    open boxcar situation, where I was suffocating and--
    so I knew that the person was suffocating me
    so that I couldn't breathe--
    that, if I pushed him away, if I had enough strength
    and I had enough strength to ask him, please move--
    which I did-- and when he couldn't, I didn't move.
    I said, I have to push you.
    I don't want to push you, because I, knew
    when I pushed him, that would be the end of him.
    I knew that.
    I knew that.
    But I did, because if I had not pushed him,
    I would have died myself.
    And that was the extreme of the situations.
    So yes, I'm also capable.
    See?
    So that was the sleeper was awakened.
    And there was only one person among about 110,
    120 people in that open boxcar who chose to die.
    And he was able-bodied, strong, relatively well-fed,
    and was a functionary before-- was an inmate functionary
    before.
    And I held his hand while he was dying and all that,
    and I could have helped him and done what I could,
    but he preferred to die rather than defend himself--
    one person, one person in that group of people.
    So I'm very much aware of it, because in one way or another,
    I'm guilty also, that the sleeper was--
    that my drive for self-preservation
    was strong than my feeling, my concept of morality.
    And I knew that I didn't want to be the cause of anyone else's
    death, even if it was indirectly,
    because I didn't kill anyone.
    But I helped the situation, in as far
    as that I pushed that person, and other people killed him.
    Were you able to forgive yourself for that?
    I don't think forgive is the right word.
    I still question it.
    I still question it.
    It's not a question of forgiveness,
    but I still question to what extent
    this was acceptable behavior for me.
    And I still question it.
    It's very important to me.
    And I'll probably question that until the end of my life,
    because I disagree with that but on the other hand,
    I don't have-- still, what would I do--
    the question is, what would I do today?
    Because then I was young, and I'm older,
    so the chances are that I would consider that in this decision.
    And today I have less to live for than I had then,
    I guess-- although I didn't believe
    that I had a prayer to survive.
    I didn't at that particular point.
    But that's the nature of the drive for self-preservation.
    Even if you intellectually and otherwise
    think that you don't have a chance,
    you still will act as if you would.
    Your body takes over.
    That's right.
    So I was attacked, and people wanted to kill me,
    and all this and that out of self-preservation,
    and I defended myself.
    I used my teeth.
    I used my feet.
    I used anything I've had.
    And obviously, I was successful.
    Now, this is one important point where
    I think we all have to-- those who
    are survivors have to ask, at whose expense have I survived?
    What did I do which may have caused the death
    or injury to fellow inmates?
    And that is something which has not been done to my mind
    in any sort of systematic way, which is really
    very bad, because there is a great deal we
    can learn from it.
    But because it's a very threatening situation
    and because many of the survivors-- and I
    would say many survived at the expense of someone else.
    And today the morals are very different.
    The situation is very different.
    It's a very frightening thing for many people
    to admit that they've done something
    which was, in terms of our values
    today, immoral or destructive.
    And therefore, they just will sweep it under the carpet
    or shove it into their subconscious
    and not talk about it--
    and if they talk about these things, not admit it.
    So there were the acts that one did that aided
    the death of someone else.
    Well, yes.
    Let me just give you a very, so to speak,
    innocent example, when you queued up
    to get your daily soup, water soup,
    you'd make quite a difference if you queued up in a way
    so that you got something when the water was already removed--
    the first people got their water, particularly when--
    [INAUDIBLE] in about 10 seconds.
    OK.
    OK.
    You were talking about camp inmates who
    might do acts, even small acts, that
    could very dramatically affect the life of others
    or outright kill them.
    Well, what I was going to talk about is an illustration.
    So we all had to queue up for this
    once a day bowl of soup-- turnip or whatever.
    If we are lucky, we got some peas in it.
    And even if we are even more lucky,
    we were getting some meat in it.
    And that happened occasionally.
    Even Auschwitz-Birkenau, I remember,
    I came as a tremendous surprise when
    we were getting a kind of pea soup with some meat in it.
    And that was just like a unbelievable stroke of luck.
    So when we got this soup, whatever kind of soup
    it was, and we queued up, the people who came first usually
    got the water.
    And later, those people who queued up
    got more thicker stuff, let's say
    a little bit more turnip or potato,
    if there was any potato.
    Very early, it was.
    And the ones who waited too long,
    they may have received nothing because there was nothing left.
    So if you queued up in a strategic way,
    that means that you got more than someone else.
    And therefore, by virtue of the fact that you got more,
    other people got less.
    And that's how it actually started.
    And most people didn't think about the morality of it
    but thought about the fact that they are getting a little bit
    more substantive soup rather than just water or just
    flavored turnip water.
    And I've learned it, and I was very good at it.
    And so the more alert, the more young,
    you were, the better chance you had
    to adjust to this sort of novel situation
    and make the best out of a dreadful situation.
    And so that's how it started.
    That's how you learn.
    The only thing, the only place, where some of us-- of course,
    many of us--
    drew the line is to steal directly from a fellow inmate.
    And once you were caught, that means
    that the chances were that they would beat you to death.
    And so people did not do it out of fear of reprisal.
    Or some other people didn't do it
    because they agreed and were convinced that this was not
    the thing to do.
    Because it was, according to the camp rules,
    an immoral thing to do.
    Was it an immoral thing in camp rules to take a strategic place
    in mind?
    No, no, no.
    That was totally accepted.
    As a matter of fact, that was viewed as being clever.
    And if anything, that was admired.
    Not everyone could do it, or just
    to disappear when you needed to disappear
    because if you had not, something would have happened
    to you, something dire would have
    happened to you, either by a kapo or by an SS person
    or whatever.
    And so you had very, very specific rules and regulations
    in terms of what was desirable and facilitated survival
    or what was against camp rules and was defined, in terms
    of camp reality, as immoral.
    And so one adhered to that.
    And, of course, stealing was totally OK and even admired
    if you stole from the SS or stole
    from food supply, which was not to be divided,
    or not part of the inmate's staple.
    And I did all of these things.
    And I learned to be invisible.
    I learned to be visible.
    And it was of interest to me when it was useful.
    And I was invisible in it when it was dangerous.
    And I still can do this today.
    As a matter of fact, I keep on training myself in this
    and do it in order to stay alert.
    I think it's a very interesting sort of game.
    It is, and could you talk a little bit about that?
    What I call a concentration camp game.
    Well, I mean, as I said--
    How do you make yourself invisible?
    Well, for example, I can, without too much of an effort,
    go to a movie without paying, a movie house.
    Or I could get into places which is only open to some people who
    have invitations.
    Or I can be part of a group without belonging to it.
    So these sort of things I am talking about.
    And so it's, in some sort of a way,
    it's kind of a deceptive game where you just
    pretend to be something or someone in a situation in which
    you really do not belong.
    Continuing the idea of the camp morality,
    you could actively do violence to another.
    But what about the notion--
    No, you couldn't actively do violence to one another.
    Or not do violence, but--
    You could do violence only if you were an inmate functionary,
    if your role was that of an overseer.
    And then you could do violence which was supported
    by the Nazi authorities.
    But if you were equals doing violence
    to an equal or fellow inmate, it was not acceptable
    unless you sought out a fight for whatever reason.
    And that was usually undesirable.
    Because people were beaten and injured
    enough without these sort of petty fights among each other,
    among themselves.
    So you found that relatively seldom.
    It happened, over a piece of bread or something,
    if someone with a large bed.
    But that was usually a battle of words rather than
    of just physical aggression.
    And then, in a much less obtrusive way,
    you could be struggling for your own life, which you described
    in the boxcar situation, but it totally
    affects the life of another.
    Yeah.
    And then, what about the situation where you are
    a bystander to something that, normally,
    you would feel the desperate need to interfere,
    but you don't.
    Well, all right.
    You were a bystander if, let's say, someone
    who was in charge of a barrack or some kapo
    or whatever beat up or even, if under circumstances, just
    beat someone to death or an SS man came and did
    some dreadful stuff to someone, dreadful thing that you
    witnessed but did not interfere because, if you would,
    it would be your end.
    You know, it was suicidal to do that.
    So people did not do it.
    If, however, you could see that one fellow inmate was
    attacked by another fellow inmate,
    then you may have interfered.
    Because you felt that you accepted the order of the camp,
    which means that some people have power,
    and they can apply that power and that this is legitimate.
    In other words, what used to be illegitimate outside
    the camp became legitimate.
    So you had a different type of legitimacy.
    You had a different type of law altogether,
    which, then, people had to accept
    if they wanted to survive.
    And again, survival was at stake.
    And if you want to survive, you simply will adjust.
    And one of the important things to remember
    is that the ability to adjust to novel situations, the ability
    to stay alert, was absolutely essential for survival.
    And the interesting thing was the younger people
    were, in most cases, the easier it was for them to adjust.
    The older people were, the more difficult it was to adjust.
    And that's why the older people just died by the droves.
    Because they couldn't take the hurdles.
    They were punished and beaten and didn't
    get enough food and all that so that the older
    ones were the people who didn't live long.
    Their life span was very short in a camp.
    Thinking about, as you say, that changes inside the camp,
    the power situation, I have a note here that in your writing,
    you had made the statement that the lower echelon
    SS were more identified with the power roles than those
    that were in them.
    And how do you explain that?
    I'm not quite sure which passage you are referring to.
    Well, the notion, to me, was that the people in the lower
    echelons of the SS were more identified
    with the roles of people in the upper echelon
    than those very people were, themselves.
    Now, maybe this doesn't sound familiar to you.
    No, I'm not quite clear in terms of what
    you're saying, actually.
    OK, well, maybe--
    Well, let me see if I understand when I rephrase it.
    OK.
    What I said in some of the things, one of the things
    I can recollect, is that the inmates did not
    identify with the persons who occupied SS roles.
    Because the SS role was a destructive role.
    And SS, of course, were perceived
    as archenemies, a deadly enemy.
    However, in order to survive in a camp,
    you had to use the little power to the best of your ability
    in order to survive.
    Now, the SS, of course, had the utmost power in a camp.
    So what people did, they tried to learn from the SS
    to lighten themselves, not to SS people
    but how to use the little power which was available to them.
    That's what they identified.
    So they identified with the SS person's power
    because their power decided whether they were going to live
    or not.
    So they identified with that, but they did not
    identify with the purpose and the role of the SS, as such,
    at all, other than the power.
    Is that how I understand your question?
    I don't know whether this is--
    No, I understand what you're saying about the camp inmate.
    This was a statement more related
    to lower echelon SS themselves being more fervently identified
    with the higher echelon's position
    than those higher echelon themselves
    were in their own roles.
    But maybe this is sounding confusing.
    So we can let this go.
    Well, first of all, higher echelon people,
    you hardly had any contact in the camps with, anyway.
    And so that was all relative.
    And the contact you had with SS was primarily only limited
    to low-echelon people.
    The high-echelon people you saw very rarely, if at all.
    Well, maybe your statement is more
    within the context of the SS and had nothing
    to do, in fact, with the camps.
    That's a possibility.
    Well, I still don't--
    like to clarify that.
    But the low-echelon SS only identified
    with what all of them identified with, the ideology.
    And that was not limited to rank.
    The higher rank people, of course,
    had privileges which the lower ones did not have.
    And there was a social distance, to some extent,
    which was much greater than they advocated.
    Because they said, we all are SS.
    Well, that's very true, but, I mean,
    there was a tremendous social distance between someone
    who was a high-ranking officer and someone who
    was a small man with a very low rank.
    At one point, you made the comment
    that the SS were as clients to Hitler.
    I don't know if you remember that.
    But I thought that was interesting
    and wanted to know if you would elaborate on that notion.
    Well, the client as much as the they didn't know,
    they didn't realize that, but they're
    clients to his designs and manipulative power.
    And I went one step further and said
    that, for all practical purposes,
    the SS were a sort of victim themselves.
    And yes, they're victims to Hitler's designs.
    Because obviously, they subjected themselves
    to his designs without really understanding fully the outcome
    or understand the danger, the dire consequences, which this
    meant for them, having accepted Hitler's orders, so to speak,
    blindfolded.
    I don't think they understood.
    And that is something which I brought up
    in the discussion, the roundtable discussion,
    with the SS during this one broadcast in which I
    made it very clear.
    And they saw the point.
    And that's why they said, if we had known
    the consequences of our joining the SS, in retrospect,
    it would have been better if we had not.
    And that's why they expressed regret.
    If we had known what will come of it,
    we would have not joined.
    And that's precisely the type of insight
    which is very important.
    So they were victimized, for practical purposes,
    in some sort of way, which seemingly and de facto gave
    them power over other people and made them
    satisfied for a period of time.
    But it led to their doom, too.
    So they were clients, as in consumers, at first.
    That's right.
    And then became victims in the [INAUDIBLE]..
    Clients to someone who was, for all practical purposes,
    conning them.
    And because he imposed his notion of reality on them,
    somehow was able to con them, sell it to them,
    so that they accepted it.
    But for all practical purposes-- and that
    is something which came out, also,
    in Hitler's secretary writings.
    And that was reflected in one particular incident, which
    she told me and also wrote about,
    because I considered that to be a very important pronouncement
    made by Hitler when they were in one
    of the headquarters during the war back in the east.
    And there was an air raid, or danger of an air raid.
    And they had to turn out all the light and all that.
    And during that particular time, she
    was looking for a flashlight and sent one of the SS people
    who was kind of a combination of servant/guard,
    to look for that flashlight.
    He came back and said he couldn't find it.
    And Hitler was around, and he felt
    that he may have been indirectly accused
    of taking the flashlight or something
    and said one very, very important thing,
    which, to me, was really decisive in order
    to gain some insight.
    He said, I may be a thief of countries or lands--
    and he said that in a dialect, in his Austrian type
    of dialect--
    I may be a thief of countries, but I'm not
    a thief of flashlights.
    The small thieves are caught.
    The big ones are let off scot-free.
    And I think that was a type of admission which we just
    had tremendous value for someone who is studying the personality
    and characteristics of Hitler in which he actually
    admits to be a thief, a robber.
    Well, do you know of any reaction from the people
    present to that conversation?
    Well, there are not many present, only three present.
    It was this one person, that SS fellow
    who was sent to look for the flashlight, Christa
    Schroeder, and Hitler.
    That's it, at that particular point.
    Because the chances are, he wouldn't
    have said it to anyone else.
    Did this imply they knew this already?
    Who?
    The witnesses, that they knew already
    that he viewed it as thievery, what he was doing,
    and that he would get away with it?
    I don't quite understand that.
    That he said this in their presence
    because it was an already-known fact.
    No, it was supposed to be a joke.
    It was not supposed to be a serious pronouncement,
    but it was a very serious--
    Admission.
    --connotation, yeah.
    No, it was supposed to be a joke.
    He was saying, hey, you know, I didn't steal your flashlight.
    I may be stealing countries but not flashlights.
    You know I don't bother that.
    I'm a big one.
    I'm a citizen beyond reproach or a citizen
    above reproach, you see, because I stand above the law.
    No, it was supposed to be a jocular
    sort of jocular response.
    Among the SS in general, do you feel
    like some people sort of over-identified
    with their role, went further than was demanded of, even,
    the role of SS officer?
    Well, yes.
    That that's one thing which is quite interesting.
    And just recently, I came out with some sort
    of a definition--
    I hope to be able to discuss it with some people who
    can more objectively assess my new theoretical
    conceptualization--
    is that we all have roles.
    And the roles are fairly closely defined.
    But even if we play these roles, there
    is always a momentum, a margin where
    we have the ability to act upon based on our discretion.
    So this role margin, I call, or I equate, with discretion.
    And so some people used the role margin
    in a way which was not more than they understood they had to do.
    And some other people used that role margin
    in a way which would reduce the suffering.
    And there are still some other people
    who used the role margin in order
    to hurt people more than they were asked to hurt.
    And so you've got the three major groupings.
    And in life, we all play roles, I think.
    When we understand the role definition
    of the set of roles we play, we can look for this role margin
    and observe how these people played
    and where they have, indeed, the type of leeway which
    they can use in so many different ways,
    and the discretion.
    And how you use the discretion tells you
    quite a bit about that person.
    And so you had assessed people who
    did what they were asked to do, not more and not less,
    which complied to their role definition.
    And some people made concessions,
    and they're not as severe, and said,
    well, I'm not going to hurt that person.
    Maybe I'll help that person.
    So I've witnessed that.
    That also existed.
    And then you had people who used the role
    margin to do more than they're asked
    to do in terms of cruelty.
    In other words, they're more cruel than they're asked to be.
    And that's how they used the role margin.
    And we can see that in everyday life, too.
    And that is something which I think is--
    this notion which I've developed,
    I think I have to primarily thank Erich Fromm, who didn't
    define it in this specific detail,
    but he said, well, instead of giving people
    a test or psychological inventories
    to find out to what extent they are sadistic or not--
    and he was referring particularly
    to the Stanford simulated prison experiment developed
    by Philip Zimbardo--
    he said that all these tests, he felt, were not very accurate.
    But if you really observe people in real life,
    I think you could find out much more about them
    than if you give them some psychological inventory.
    And he used that particular-- and gave me an example
    and said, well, you've got this person who
    is a clerk in some sort of a post office.
    And there's still one person waiting.
    And all the other ones were served.
    And it's now exactly closing time.
    And although he's the only one and he could serve him--
    that was within his what I call role margin or discretion--
    but he chooses to close the window
    and have a smirk on his face.
    So that means he gets satisfaction out of the fact
    that this man is not-- so and that, he said,
    well, it's typical for someone who has a sadistic streak.
    Now, he didn't talk about growth.
    He didn't talk about those specific things
    which are developed.
    But it is based on what Fromm said,
    except it's more specific.
    With that notion, what might be the difference
    in acting in the role margin if the person was being observed
    by his superiors?
    Well, that's a very good question.
    This depends what he would expect,
    depending on his superior.
    If he feels that the superior would reward extreme cruelty,
    then he would do that.
    If he would see that he would think that the superior will
    be critical to a severe response which
    would go above and beyond his call of duty,
    then he would not risk doing it because that
    means that he would be reprimanded
    or might jeopardize his promotion or what have you.
    So people are very opportunistic.
    And when we talk to each other, we usually
    also think in terms of, how is the other person going
    to respond to me when I say this or that?
    So I'll say things which will be responded to favorably.
    And so I won't tell you things which, the chances are,
    which would leave me unrewarded.
    Now, some people don't care, depending on the reward
    and what they can expect.
    And some people tell you unpleasant things
    and know that they will be negatively rewarded.
    But then, it's usually a situation
    that they either feel that they have equal power to yours
    or they are more powerful.
    But it really doesn't make a difference
    because they don't need you that much,
    or they want to get rid of you, or they are frank with you
    because they think they can be frank with you.
    So there are different sort of motives.
    And we have to look in terms of what is expected.
    And in most interaction, we do say
    things which will be favorably received and returned
    with some sort of favor which we want to receive from them.
    And that's why we say what we say.
    That's why we do what we do.
    Because life is based on interaction.
    And this interaction, we need because we could not
    survive without the support of other people.
    So what we do in our interaction,
    we reward each other.
    And if you do something to me which I don't like,
    the chances are not going to reward you positively
    but negatively in either cutting off the relationship
    or getting back at you in one way or another
    and so forth and so on.
    In the area of the discretion, say, toward the positive,
    would an SS person be viewed as weak
    or some other negative thing?
    Well, they could be, yeah.
    And so, for example, whenever I was supported by an SS--
    and there are some few occasions, not many,
    to be sure--
    they are always by themselves, not
    in the presence of some other SS, which is interesting.
    It may have been a coincidence because there are not
    that many cases in which I can say.
    And excessive cruelty also was also without witnesses.
    Because there are guidelines which
    condemned excessive cruelty and made it punishable.
    So excessive cruelty was not something which was advocated.
    What was advocated is cruelty which
    would be necessary to accomplish what they set out
    to accomplish, namely to have a relatively
    conflict-free program of mass destruction,
    in case of the Jews, or control over
    the conflict-free conduct in concentration camps
    where you had non-Jews or mixed inmate population.
    And Himmler was very clear about it,
    that anyone who was going to be excessively cruel,
    which was not going to accomplish what they set out
    to accomplish, would be punishable.
    And he made that very clear.
    Do you think that the notion of excessive cruelty
    would go too far over the line in that SS person
    having their own desires acted out
    or control over their own internal wishes?
    Well, again, I would go back to what I said earlier.
    In any role, whether SS or inmate or whatever,
    the margin of discretion we have playing that role
    is used in one way or another.
    It may be used which is totally consistent with the major role
    so that it's just an integral part of that role,
    or it is used in a way which would
    be excessive or constructive.
    And in most cases, I think the SS played the role
    in a way which they understood they were supposed to play,
    consistently with what was expected of them.
    So that excessive cruelty would not
    be considered like working overtime.
    No, no.
    And it was not necessarily rewarded,
    depending on your superior.
    If the superior was into cruelty, then, of course,
    it'd be a different thing.
    The notion of the externalization of conscience
    is talked about a lot.
    How do you think that process takes place?
    Is it a process that can take place in anyone?
    Or do you think it has any relation to German culture
    or German style?
    Well, I think that's cross-cultural.
    I don't think it has anything to do with one
    particular society or culture.
    What it has to do is where a society's so controlled that it
    either can be defined as totalitarian or a autocracy
    or anything of that nature so that people, in order
    to survive, will do things which they are ordered to do,
    which they are imposed to do, or imposed upon
    to do, by virtue of the fact that if they don't do it,
    they'll be punished-- in other words, negatively rewarded.
    So they do these things.
    And in a relatively free society,
    you have sufficient flexibility to use your own judgment.
    But in a totalitarian society, your judgment
    will be only marginal in terms of the role margin.
    I don't know whether I've answered that.
    Yes.
    It suggests to me further, do you
    think that the existing culture in any way
    makes a contribution toward people being more dependent
    on authority to make decisions?
    Yeah, OK.
    Yes, certainly.
    And it just depends how people are socialized.
    If you have parents who say, well--
    I hear that very frequently, back at home in Czechoslovakia,
    I used to hear that, or here, also, in the States--
    when you have children and they are told to do something,
    and they question that and say, why?
    And they answer, because I say so.
    Now, that's the step in this sort
    of authoritarian direction.
    Rather than explaining and say, because and say, you know--
    on their level.
    Now, they externalization of conscience
    is precisely where my individual conscience is relegated
    to those who give me the order.
    And therefore, I feel that I'm not responsible
    because it's not my initiative, which is true.
    And it's on the conscience of those who gave the order.
    So therefore, my conscience is free
    because I do it not because I necessarily like it or identify
    but because I'm told by someone who counts.
    And therefore, I delegate that to that particular person
    who is in charge because of the situation,
    which does not give me enough leeway
    to get out of it with impunity.
    So I'd rather do it and not be punished, or not
    get into some sort of unpleasant situation
    rather than disobeying.
    In your interviews, did you find that notion,
    or explore that notion, that people
    felt that they did not have to be
    responsible for their own conscience?
    Well, they said, some of the things
    we didn't quite understand, but the Fuhrer said so.
    Or my superior said I should do it, and I had to obey orders.
    Because that's how we have been brought up,
    to obey our superiors.
    And the notion which seemed to play a large role
    of the euphemisms that Hitler--
    I presume Hitler-- invented.
    Well, Hitler, I don't know.
    Hitler may not have invented it, but they all
    were inventing the euphemisms.
    Because they didn't want to call the baby by its name.
    And that has very important moral implications.
    Because on one hand, they are brought up
    with different set of morals.
    And they're, in the process, successfully changing morality.
    And because they're fearful that there'd
    be too much resistance of the old type of morality
    versus the new type, they felt that they
    didn't want to tell the truth in a way which
    would be offensive to those people who still were with one
    foot in the old morality.
    And they're much more successful.
    And that's why you've had quite a disparity between the older
    guard, the older people who were in the SS--
    well, as a tendency, we can't generalize that easily--
    but the tendency was that there was a difference, a conflict,
    between those who were around before the Nazi time
    and already were mature people and those people
    who were brought up during the early pre-war Nazi time
    and then during the Nazi time.
    Because these people were, of course,
    imbued and indoctrinated with very different sets of morals.
    And so, therefore, they did things
    because they more readily identified
    with that particular set of morals.
    And the old ones said, hey, you can't do that.
    And I remember that Steiner told me--
    and I put it also in my book--
    that he listened to a speech in Posen,
    I think it was in '43, when Himmler told only SS generals
    and people of that rank and people who had a need to know
    or were informed, about some of the mass destruction
    and just gave a speech on that and said,
    well, we have to do something which we don't necessarily
    like to do, but because of the situation and the fear,
    and because of the nature of things, we have to do it,
    even if we don't like to do it.
    And then he went into some details, which
    are pretty awful and totally against the type of morality
    which used to be embraced by the older members of the SS
    prior to the Nazi time and couldn't make, quite,
    the step accepting it.
    And so Steiner, after this speech by Himmler,
    went to see him-- and I don't have any question
    that he told me the truth-- and said, Reichsfuhrer,
    this is irresponsible.
    It cannot be done.
    It's totally irresponsible to do these sort of things.
    And Himmler, according to what he told me,
    Himmler just simply brushed him off without responding to him,
    without replying to him.
    So there were things which were done and responded to by,
    particularly the older ones.
    The younger ones didn't question it.
    And if anyone was questioning, it
    were the older generation who still were socialized
    with the type of morality where the sort of thing which
    took place under the Nazis was simply out of the question,
    and it was totally unacceptable.
    So does this mean that, despite the euphemisms,
    the SS people knew what they really meant?
    Well, some did and some did not.
    But anyone-- and that is my recognition
    because I've mentioned the Streicher's Sturmer, this Jew
    [INAUDIBLE] thing.
    And I, in my book, I went through 1940 to the end of '44
    until it no longer was published.
    It went through all that Institute
    in Munich and Institute of Contemporary
    History and went through all these things
    and made some sort of a content analysis.
    And what I saw there was very clear cut, that if you wanted
    to read and read it carefully, you
    could see that they're talking about mass destruction
    in that paper.
    That was the only paper where these sort of things
    were publicly advocated.
    And even some SS people came back and then talked about it
    and said, they're really lice, vermin, and all that.
    We've seen these ghettos and all that.
    So they came out with pronouncements
    which were pretty bare of these euphemisms.
    So in spite of the-- anyone who wanted to know in order
    to have some not specific, of course, picture
    but know that this was not just some sort of a work assignment,
    hard work, and all that, that this was mass destruction
    or that it was something dreadful and dire and all,
    they could have gotten that information in public.
    Because this sort of weekly newspaper, it came out weekly.
    I think it was weekly newspaper.
    It was posted in public.
    They had these sort of boxes, wooden boxes,
    in which they posted these papers for everyone to read.
    You didn't even have to buy so that anyone
    who wanted to be informed could be informed.
    And that also reminds me of the situation in Dachau.
    And I was in Dachau during the early time
    of the museum, the exhibits, which
    was very simple and all that.
    They just had started.
    That was very different from what it is today.
    And we went through some of the things.
    And there was this old lady next to me and said,
    did you know about all these things?
    And so I responded, not answering the question,
    but saying, did you have any Jewish neighbors?
    And she said, yes.
    Did you see that their apartments were sealed,
    and they disappeared?
    And she said, yeah, yeah.
    You say you didn't know anything about--
    you didn't know anything about it?
    And then she's, oh, my god, you know.
    Well, they didn't know.
    Because, well, certainly, they didn't want to know.
    But, of course, some specific things,
    in terms of what actually happened, they didn't know.
    But I mean, how much do you need to know if, all of a sudden,
    you can see people in the street with hand-carried luggage,
    getting out of the someplace, being shipped someplace else?
    I mean, that, by itself, should stop you in the tracks,
    you see.
    And that was public.
    Because I remember when people had to go to the assembly
    places.
    They were in streetcars.
    They had to go in streetcars.
    So they had to go.
    So people saw that and knew about that
    and in all of these places.
    And even there was one incident when
    I interviewed a person who was responsible for writing
    a complaint to Himmler.
    And he himself was an SS officer who observed an assembly
    place that was Berlin.
    I think it was Berlin.
    Yeah, I think it was Berlin.
    I also wrote it in my book about that.
    And he observed the mistreatment of Jews
    who were about to be deported.
    Yes, it was Berlin.
    And in one, it was a nightclub which
    they converted into this sort of assembly place
    and the courtyard and all that, and so
    there was a Gestapo person in civilian clothing,
    kicking and beating people and all that.
    And because it was in a courtyard
    and all the other houses were just nearby and higher floors,
    they could see what was happening
    from second, third floor.
    And all they could see what took place during the day.
    So they looked out of the window.
    So they're told to just not--
    go and close the windows and all that.
    So there happened to be, also, there
    some sort of a group of SS people
    who published the weekly SS paper, The Black Corps.
    And so they saw that.
    And they, of course, could not be ordered about.
    So what they saw there they just felt
    was absolutely disgusting and excessive in terms of cruelty.
    And so this person whom I interviewed--
    I found out about this person.
    I published his letter in the documents.
    By chance, I could get ahold of him.
    And I interviewed him on that thing and say,
    you complained about that and all that,
    about excessive cruelty and all that?
    And he said, yes, not because I like the Jews
    but simply because I felt it was excessive and not dignified
    for a conscious National Socialist person.
    Of course, he didn't know specifics
    about gassing and all that.
    But this sort of excessive cruelty, he felt,
    was getting the SS, and whatever was
    being done, into ill repute.
    So he was also very pragmatic about it.
    So he wrote and got a response.
    And the whole thing was investigated,
    and the man was sent to the front.
    So the ill repute with the population, the exterior
    population, the townspeople or whatever might--
    Yeah.
    So it sounds like, if you didn't want to know,
    the euphemisms would help you.
    Oh, yeah.
    But they didn't totally prevent you
    from knowing if you wanted to.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Well, because you didn't want to know
    because it was very threatening because, as I said, you know,
    people were in conflict.
    Because, on one hand, they had the morality from bygone days
    and, on the other hand, they're asked
    to accept the morality of the present day.
    And that got them into conflict.
    So they were in some sort of a situation in which they
    had to make some sort of a decision.
    And one decision was just, simply, look the other way.
    And with the Nazi policies, even from the beginning,
    at no point along the way, it seems, was there much active
    protest from the population.
    Well, the interesting thing is that the active protest was
    very strong when it dealt with German citizens, people who
    were incurably ill and otherwise a burden to the society
    and economy and what have you.
    So there, you've had the churches and people
    who were German saying, you know, what is happening there?
    And they band together and protest it
    and successfully so that the whole thing
    was stopped to a large degree and continued only the trickle,
    you see.
    Well, but, I mean, what comes first, the skin or the shirt?
    So because when Germans were involved, then
    they're prepared to risk and protest and do things.
    They're successful, to a large extent, in stopping it,
    at least to a large degree.
    But you see, when they are not related
    to the Jewish situation in any shape or form,
    they felt it's not me.
    It's too distant.
    And therefore, I'm not going to be that dreadfully concerned.
    And so they, so to speak, became bystanders and let it happen.
    They were indifferent.
    And in this situation, we can say indifference can kill, see?
    Now, the different thing was also in Berlin
    when they started to deport Jewish spouses.
    And so all these non-Jewish spouses
    started, in the so-called Rose Street
    in Berlin, a big demonstration.
    Why they demonstrated because German people were involved,
    as well.
    And the interesting part was that the SS people who
    had something to do with it and all, supported in that,
    actually supported it.
    They're not opposing them or didn't beat them up,
    but they're very much in support of it.
    Because it concerned them.
    All of a sudden, they were concerned because Germans
    were inextricably involved.
    And that made a difference.
    So then, they went on the bandwagon and protested
    and successfully so.
    And the people are not deported.
    That's quite a big thing which only relatively recently has
    been written up and made something of.
    So no protest took place when it was purely the Jews involved.
    Mm-hmm.
    And this, one might expect, would reflect a deep Jew
    hatred, despite the fact that the Jews felt assimilated.
    Well, the deep Jew hatred, there was antisemitism,
    but this antisemitism was not to be
    compared with the one which was developed under Nazis, you see.
    It build up on it and reactivated it,
    became more virulent again.
    More virulent is the right--
    but without the Nazis, it would have not been-- actually,
    it would have become less than more severe.
    And that's why I think it's something
    which needs to be understood.
    It's not all black and white.
    And simply because there are so many writers who
    never were living at that particular time
    and think they know it all, and they've
    looked at some documents, and had,
    even, possibly some interviews and all,
    now they think they can come out with decisive conclusions.
    And only, they're very, very inaccurate-- very,
    very inaccurate.
    And I think one has to be very careful with that.
    Because so many people really haven't had
    their own personal experience.
    They have not come out with any sort of balanced indices
    which would really be sufficiently
    objective to really depict the reality as it actually existed.
    You talked before about researching the laws
    at the time.
    Legally, it sounded that it was quite OK for the Jews
    to convert to some Christian religion,
    even though they couldn't become this
    inside Germanic [INAUDIBLE].
    It didn't float.
    No, no, no.
    Well, first of all, they could convert,
    but that did not protect them.
    The only thing they are not permitted to do,
    they were not permitted to be believers in God.
    They are not permitted to become that.
    That was not open to them.
    So they could not become--
    why?
    Because that was reserved to the ultra-Germanic SS, the Nazis,
    and all that.
    So they couldn't become that.
    That was only open to Germans.
    However, the religious conversion
    made seemingly no difference as far as being
    viewed as racially impure.
    No, no, no, particularly when it happened after 1935.
    See, before the laws, they could convert,
    and it still counted, to some degree,
    depending on the circumstances, so that they
    could be Jews of different--
    the two ways and more complicated according
    to the Nuremberg Laws.
    Do you know of any body of knowledge
    or historical precedent that Hitler may have drawn on
    in his plans, as in knowing that he needed to systematically,
    over time, dehumanize people in order
    to be able to commit genocide using euphemisms and all
    these strategies.
    Well, we have to be very careful here.
    Because we don't really to what extent Hitler wanted
    to commit genocide, to what extent
    he really embarked upon that path to commit--
    I don't think we have any proof of that, at least
    I don't know of any.
    That only develop when he couldn't get rid of them,
    you see.
    Because, yes, they tried to get--
    people were let out of concentration camps in '38
    if they had some sort of a guarantee to leave Germany.
    So they were let out.
    And we have plenty of people who came to the United States
    on that basis.
    Bettelheim was one of them, for example.
    And he was in Buchenwald and in Dachau
    and was let go because he could come to the United States,
    emigrate.
    So only until the beginning of World War II,
    they could leave--
    just about 1939, actually.
    And after that, the borders were closed.
    And then, this no longer was an option.
    And that's when the destruction program
    was developed, not that Hitler didn't have that in mind.
    Because he already talked about in Mein Kampf that,
    during World War I, they were supposed
    to be sent to the front, Jews, where
    France used poisonous gas.
    And during World War I, they used poisonous gas.
    So he said that, this way, we would have gotten rid
    of the unwanted.
    It would have been a very simple sort of procedure.
    And it would have been done by the enemy.
    And so he talks about it very specifically just
    in these terms.
    And so it was not something which obviously
    was distasteful to him to the extent
    that he would have not done it.
    He already talks about it in a very callous and cold-blooded
    way.
    But this only may have become activated during the war.
    Before that, the question is to what extent
    he really wanted to do that the way he described it.
    Do you know of any historical readings or any other kinds
    of precedents that Hitler used using
    these notions, these notions of the euphemistic language?
    Well, euphemistic language, of course, euphemistic language
    is used by the Americans.
    Euphemistic in terms of the Vietnam War,
    in terms of the Desert Storm and all that.
    All this euphemistic language is not
    something which was dreamt up by Hitler.
    And that is something which should be very clear,
    that this existed before.
    Yes.
    And the process, the dehumanization
    process in its steps.
    Yeah, well, that goes hand in hand, doesn't it?
    I'm thinking maybe this might be a good place
    to stop and start working on the pictures.
    OK.
    You didn't ask any questions.
    Well, we have a whole lot.
    Do you?
    But it's too much for--
    10 seconds to get going here.
    OK.
    OK.
    This picture is something I remotely
    remember, believe it or not.
    And I was just about one year old.
    And it was in our summer resort near Prague in Roztoky.
    And I remember that I was gnawing.
    I was in this what you call, the--
    Playpen?
    Yeah.
    What is it?
    Playpen.
    Playpen.
    And I was nibbling on the plastic.
    I remember that.
    I was nibbling on the plastic with my newly developing teeth.
    And I still remember that.
    I still remember because it was a very interesting sensation.
    I had a very strange, very interesting sensation,
    nibbling on the plastic of that.
    And so I was just about, and it was a very interesting level
    of consciousness at that particular time.
    And I was quite happy, as a matter of fact.
    That would have been, what, 1926?
    That was 1926.
    My mother was very anxious to have
    official kind of professional photographs taken
    of me periodically.
    And that is one of them.
    And I must have been, at that time, around three years old.
    And I still remember the situation and the toys.
    The one belonged to me.
    The one monkey on the right, that was my toy.
    And the other one was supplied-- the left one--
    was supplied by the photographer.
    And the outfit which I wear, and most of the outfits,
    were hand-knit by my mother or relatives.
    And that, in itself or by itself,
    is a reflection of the kind of love and care
    I received when I was a small kid.
    And that sustained me throughout my life, until now.
    It's wearing kind of thin.
    But without that, I'm sure--
    I'm virtually sure, I cannot be sure, but I'm almost sure--
    that I wouldn't have survived without this care, love,
    and affection which I received.
    And that's reflected in most of these pictures.
    So that was just about 1928.
    This is my very beloved Aunt Leah, my father's sister,
    who was roughly about one year older than he.
    A very gifted, intellectual person
    who survived Theresienstadt.
    She was blue-eyed, reddish blond, and a very attractive
    person.
    I've had some pictures of her when she was young.
    And that is in her one-room flat in a little bit
    outskirts of Prague where I visited her
    until virtually her dying days.
    And her pension was so small that she hardly could survive
    and all that.
    So I tried to help her, tried to get her to the United States.
    But she wouldn't budge.
    She wanted to stay in Prague.
    And that's where she died, in that particular apartment
    of hers, which only had one room and a kitchen and a toilet.
    That was all.
    And her pension was so minimal that she virtually
    could not afford any sort of amenities other people enjoy.
    John, how were you able to get these pictures?
    Able to get these pictures?
    I took some of them myself.
    This one, I took myself.
    Your small baby pictures, too.
    Oh, the small baby pictures.
    The small baby pictures were left in safekeeping
    with friends.
    And they returned these after the war, after we came back.
    And I don't know exactly who was the one.
    We left lots of things with friends and distant relatives,
    whatever.
    And some returned things to us, and some simply disappeared.
    We never heard from them again.
    And some people said, well, if we
    had known that you would come back to claim them,
    we would have not taken them.
    Because they didn't want to return them.
    And they didn't.
    So it was a mixed bag.
    This is actually my favorite picture of my father,
    when he was very young.
    Because my father was born 1900, and I was born 1925.
    And this was perhaps when he was around 30.
    And a picture--
    I remember him when I was still small.
    I didn't see him that much, actually,
    although, of course, we are together all the time.
    But he was very busy and very active person--
    culturally, athletically, and otherwise.
    And this, I think, is probably the best picture
    I have of him and the way I remember him when I was very
    small, and he was very young.
    Now, this is a picture which is much later--
    well, not that much later, but certainly in the '30s and,
    I would say, certainly before the Nazi business,
    before the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
    So he still was very young and a person who worked as a banker
    and working his way up into some higher positions
    at that particular time.
    He was very hardworking and quite dedicated.
    I don't to what extent he really enjoyed what he was doing.
    Actually, never found out.
    But he was very good at what he was doing.
    And he was an accountant and had worked in that
    and had his education as an accountant, kind
    of equivalent of a public--
    CPA?
    CPA or something like that, yeah.
    This was a picture--
    I think there was a picture before I actually
    was sent to a camp.
    So that was just about roughly the time
    before I was sent to a camp.
    And I was just about 16 years old, I would imagine.
    16 years, it would have, yeah.
    I don't think it was after.
    Because I didn't change very much.
    And although I was, after the war,
    came back and all that, I was considered
    much younger, many years younger, than I actually was.
    And that was a cause for my embarrassment
    because I was always looked at as some sort of a teenager,
    although I was way in my 20s.
    That was all taken in Prague.
    So all the pictures which you can see
    were taken in Prague, most of them.
    Well, this was a picture taken after the war.
    And I think that was taken when I was already in Australia,
    around I was 1949, 1950, in Melbourne.
    That's it.
    That was one of my mother's favorite picture
    in which she just simply posed.
    She certainly played the guitar all right,
    and a cigarette in her mouth, and just kind
    of a Gypsy type of appearance.
    And that's at my uncle's summer resort house, which I inherited
    but has been confiscated, first by the Nazis
    and then by the communists, the Czech communists.
    And that is in front of the house.
    And I still remember the same chairs.
    Because they were not altered.
    And the bench which you can see in the background
    was there when I was.
    And she was then very young and very single and just simply
    playing this role, just out of--
    it got away-- hamming it.
    And how old was she then?
    She probably was in her early 20s then.
    You should say her name.
    Huh?
    You should say her name.
    Oh, yes, her name was Ilse.
    And your father was Kurt, right?
    Well, that was also in my uncle's summer resort.
    And we stayed there always for quite a number of weeks
    during the summer.
    And that was my favorite time because I
    was taken care of and the only kid in the whole place.
    So I got a lot of attention and a lot
    of care, a lot of love, spoiled rotten,
    and enjoyed myself thoroughly.
    And these were my happiest days, and I'll never forget them.
    I didn't have that many happy days after the war.
    And so I'm very grateful-- very grateful--
    for this just unbelievable childhood
    I've had with all these fantastic relatives.
    And at that time, I must have been close to four years.
    This is a photograph I don't remember to have been present.
    That must have been someplace in Prague, I believe.
    And these are my grandparents with some sort of a ice bear.
    And I don't know who the ice bear is.
    But my grandfather was Edward Steiner, blond, blue-eyed,
    as you see him when he was in his better years.
    And my grandmother, on the left side,
    was a very loving and relatively simple
    individual, although she was not simple,
    but she was very easygoing.
    I've never seen her angry.
    I've always seen her in a balanced mood.
    I've never seen her upset in one way
    or another, other than upset when my grandfather was dying.
    And that was very upsetting.
    And fortunately, he died before the Nazis could get to him.
    And what was her name?
    She was called Mina, but her name was Wilhelmina.
    And so they called her Minny, Mina.
    And she was a bundle of love.
    That's what she was.
    And you referred to that character in the middle
    as an ice bay or something?
    Ice bear.
    Ice bear.
    Like polar bear.
    Ice bear.
    Oh, I see.
    OK.
    And i don't know who the ice bear is.
    I really don't.
    Because I don't remember that anymore.
    I don't think I was present, actually.
    But it's a kind of a nice photograph of my grandparents.
    And they are always good sports.
    They did all sorts of things, although they
    were very conservative and very set
    in their ways, no question about that.
    Now, the interesting story about my grandfather, his parents
    were Joseph and Marie.
    And Joseph Steiner converted to Judaism
    for reasons which escape me.
    I've never been able to really-- because all the people
    are dead.
    And so that couple, Joseph and Marie,
    decided to go back to Bethlehem--
    [LAUGHTER]
    --and become Jews.
    And so thanks to them, just wound up
    in a situation which I would have preferred to have avoided.
    So I've never been able to really find out.
    My grandmother also comes from a very strange background.
    And my great-grandmother--
    I have a photograph of her, I don't know
    whether I brought it with me--
    was a countess, you see.
    And that, also, was a very romantic sort of thing,
    that she was found in the woods because robbers had killed
    her parents and robbed them.
    And then, she was adopted by some well-to-do Jewish family.
    And so the whole thing, the whole family,
    is just a bundle of tales and mysteries.
    And even at Auschwitz, I've met a distant relative
    and discussed it with her before she was gassed.
    It was really bizarre and surreal, actually.
    And so she told me a few things.
    Because I've been able to get official pictures--
    not pictures but documents, I should say--
    of all the birth certificates and marriage certificate
    and all this in which these names are made very clear
    and recorded.
    And that's the only thing I have to go by, what I only surmise.
    But it's an interesting history.
    Yes.
    OK.
    This is a party I did not participate in.
    It's just a picture which was left to me by my aunt.
    And there, you can see, in the front left, is my grandfather.
    Right, as you can see, my grandmother, much younger
    than the previous picture.
    And next to my grandfather is my Aunt Leah.
    And next to her is my cousin Tommy.
    And at that particular point, Tommy
    must have been about four or five years old,
    and Leah, on there, was a real beauty.
    And you only can see a little bit of it,
    but she was a very attractive woman.
    And the other people there are just distant relatives.
    I forgot their name and all that,
    but they belong to the family.
    And that was in one of the typical restaurants,
    typical sort of restaurants, as you
    find them cheaper by the dozen in Prague and Bohemia,
    in general.
    And obviously, it must have been during a spring
    or summer or maybe autumn.
    But it looks like, to me, it must
    have been spring, late spring, early summer, the way they
    are clothed, clothing and all.
    Yeah, right.
    I was very fortunate to have received all this,
    being given these pictures, because they were
    in my aunt's property and, partially, also, my father's.
    But this I think I got from my aunt.
    And that is the last picture taken of my cousin Tommy
    before he was taken to the camps.
    That is how I remember him.
    And it's very difficult for me to just reflect on that.
    Because it's a very moving sort of situation.
    And we were very close.
    He was just about 10 times or more
    intelligent than I was, just a fantastic human being
    in so many ways--
    exceedingly, unbelievably intelligent.
    And if one thinks of-- and that's
    why I say-- if one thinks of what
    would have become of him had he survived, the sky's the limit.
    And this also leads me to conclusions.
    Because the best people I knew, my closest friends,
    the people who were my role models,
    the people I loved most, they all did not survive.
    And that leads me to say that the best of us
    have not survived.
    So that was Tommy Vogel, was his name--
    Tommy Vogel.
    His father was Vogel.
    Well that's another picture of my Aunt Leah after the war,
    shortly after the liberation, I would say, roughly in 1945,
    '46.
    And I think some of what happened to her, I think,
    is still visible in her face.
    Because she lost her husband in Theresienstadt--
    died of tuberculosis.
    And her only son Tommy died in the concentration camp death
    camp, also--
    Schwarzheide.
    And he was there in Theresienstadt.
    And he stayed, actually, longer in Theresienstadt than I.
    Because I was sent in 1943, late 1943, to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And he accompanied me to the closed boxcars,
    covered boxcars.
    And he accompanied me and gave me his favored talisman
    for good luck.
    And that was his only thing which
    he had saved, more or less, which he really wanted most.
    It was very important to him.
    He gave it to me when I left for--
    and, of course, we had no idea where we were going.
    But he gave that to me when we said goodbye to each other.
    What was it?
    It was a sort of medal, a kind of a good luck
    medal for skiers.
    This is one of my favorite pictures of my grandfather
    because that's how I remember him
    when he was still all right and so on
    and healthy and active and the way he was.
    And he was a person who was the only one in the whole family
    who identified with the Jewish, and practiced,
    the Jewish religion.
    And we had special meetings at his place,
    at our grandparents' place, which
    was in walking distance from where we lived,
    on Saturdays, every time.
    And after the meal, it was my responsibility--
    he made it my responsibility--
    to bring him a cap and a prayer book to pray after the meal.
    And that was a ritual--
    very moving.
    I had no idea what it all meant because he never explained it.
    But I knew it was something which he considered
    to be very important.
    And he was not at all dogmatic.
    He was not imposing.
    He let us do whatever we wanted to do.
    But he adhered to these things very, very religiously,
    that after every meal, he asked me to--
    because I was the oldest grandson.
    He only had two.
    He only had two.
    He had Tommy and myself, that's all.
    Because we are single children.
    And so that was my responsibility
    to bring it from that room and into--
    and on the table where we ate, he silently started to pray.
    And I was always very impressed with that.
    And it always was a very momentous occasion.
    And the food of, course, was just terrific.
    My god.
    Again, this is a professional photograph, or a photograph
    made by a professional.
    And I must have been around four then.
    And you can see how I am dressed,
    all this sort of meticulous care and all that.
    And my mother took it very seriously.
    I always looked like Lord Fauntleroy,
    well-dressed and elegant and nice.
    I wish to god I could go dressed like that today
    and be careful like that.
    And so she, then, took me periodically
    to this professional photographer
    to have photos taken by him.
    It was a he, not a she.
    Well, I was very small then.
    Oh, god, I must have been about one to two years old.
    And that's a picture taken of me in the park which we
    frequently-- which was just about five minutes from where
    we lived.
    And it was a public park, very large and very well-kept
    and very organized.
    And they had guards there so that everyone
    would behave properly.
    And people are not permitted to step on the grass there at all.
    So it was guarded and was very strict.
    And so my mother enjoyed going there
    and met some friends and acquaintances.
    And so we sat at these various small chairs
    there, which were all put together and connected
    with some sort of wiring underneath
    and which couldn't be removed so that they couldn't be removed.
    And we went there during nice weather and even less.
    So that was just one of those occasions
    when I was still very small and apparently couldn't run yet
    or, if so, just very inadequately.
    Well, this is, again, a professional photograph.
    This is what I would say just to--
    my mother wanted to have a picture of this cute kid.
    And she succeeded, actually, quite well.
    And so she wanted to leave that for posterity,
    and I'm grateful that she did.
    Because it reminds me of the good old bygone days.
    And again, you can see the outfits,
    you know-- all handmade-- all handmade.
    And how old?
    I was just about, just close to not quite three years old,
    I would imagine-- just around three, I guess.
    Yep, that's it.
    Now, I was not privy to this assembly.
    I was not part of it.
    And that seems to me that, in the forefront, there is--
    I can't even identify all the people.
    But they somehow must have been close or distant relatives.
    To me, they must have been distant
    because I don't remember a single one of them,
    with the exception of my grandfather and my grandmother,
    who sit there.
    And that was in a spa.
    You can see that she's holding a cup.
    And that was, I think, if I'm not mistaken,
    it was in Carlsbad in a spa.
    And they were there to drink the waters,
    the hot waters of Carlsbad.
    And that's where it was taken.
    So they may be friends.
    They may be relatives.
    Who knows?
    I was not part of it.
    And that was in the '30s, early '30s.
    I call him--
    Well, it's typical, again-- typical, again--
    of my mother's intentions.
    I stand there with the sort of clowning there.
    And she felt that this probably was cute and appropriate.
    And I think I must have felt like an idiot doing that.
    But I didn't like to go to these photographers, I'm sure.
    But she wanted me to do that.
    So I did, and it didn't last long.
    And I must have been around three years then.
    Just one of those many photos which
    were taken by a professional photographer.
    And again, I'm just focusing on the hand-knit outfit
    and the apparently essential ape, which
    I was to hold in my hand, which was not one of my toys
    but belonged to the photographer.
    So that's all you need to say about that.
    And I think my expression is very, very inauthentic.
    Because I'm sure I didn't feel that,
    well, clowning around and being portrayed in this the way
    they did.
    So there, it's, again, in this park,
    and when I was still a baby, obviously,
    and my mother sitting there.
    I don't know.
    I think my aunt took that picture, my Aunt Paula.
    And she may or may not appear in one of those photographs.
    And you can see that you have two happy people
    there, one a partial person and a full-blown person.
    And these sort of strange hats I still
    remember because my mother used to go to the hatmaker's
    all the time, getting all sorts of strange thing.
    And she dragged me with her.
    And for reasons which now escape me,
    I was always fascinated with all the unbelievable forms
    they developed.
    These hats were just really something else.
    And so I didn't quite understand how
    people could wear pots and all sorts of stuff which
    looked absolutely, to me at that time, ridiculous.
    --together, do you?
    No.
    That's interesting comment.
    They divorced when he was, what, 13?
    Yeah.
    This is, again, a picture of my grandparents in Carlsbad,
    or it could have been, also, Francisbad
    or Marienbad-- one of the spas.
    And you can see my grandmother, who, by the way,
    developed diabetes, with this glass in her hand,
    where she just drinks out of these glasses, typical glasses,
    which people walked around with these hot waters, which
    they drank.
    They taste awful, but apparently, people
    thought that they were helpful.
    I have my doubts about that.
    It may have helped your digestion, at best,
    but not much else, I guess.
    Well, that is a photograph which--
    none of us in the family, although they could
    have afforded it, had a car.
    So I was very fond of cars and always wanted to have a car.
    But no one ever wanted to buy one
    because they didn't want to drive themselves
    and simply were too set in their old ways to buy.
    So they always hired taxes and all that for the entire day.
    And my Uncle Otto, who was Aunt Leah's husband,
    he was the only one who had a auto with a chauffeur.
    But anyway, this photograph must have
    been taken when I was about five, six years old,
    back in front of the house in Rostock, near Prague,
    during the summer.
    This is a photograph I like very much because that's
    how I remember my mother.
    Somehow, that type of impression of her,
    I have kept with me for most of the time.
    And that was taken around 1937, '38, before the catastrophe.
    And I think that's how she looked when we still
    had a normal life in Prague.
    And somehow, it reflects how I see her and the way
    I related best to her.
    And also, the hairdo and all that
    was part of the later time, when she was already-- she
    was born 1893.
    So by that time, she must have been in her early 40s.
    This is the last picture, I think, of my grandparents.
    And at that particular time, if you look at my grandparents,
    he was already on his deathbed and no longer
    could walk on his own and had to be moved about.
    And you see also the expression of my grandmother,
    full of sorrow.
    And that was already, must have been,
    when the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia.
    That was, I think, in '39--
    '39 or early '40.
    And that was shortly before my grandfather's death.
    What was he sick with?
    He died of sclerosis of the brain
    and was totally demented before he died-- totally demented.
    It was just terrible, you know, what he must have gone through
    and was just awful, terrible.
    He was not himself anymore.
    He just totally lost his mind.
    And then, tell what happened to your grandmother.
    Well, my grandmother died in one of the ghettos,
    the chances are.
    But you don't know for sure.
    Or she died at Auschwitz.
    We don't know.
    We don't know.
    Yeah, Grandmother, in Czech, they called her Minka.
    My grandfather called her Minka--
    short for Wilhelmina-- Minka.
    That's the last photograph of both, period.
    That's it.
    And again, I'm very thankful that it was preserved.
    Well, this is my mother and I. And I
    must have been just about two years old, I guess.
    And that's how I remember her, just as
    far as one can remember that far back, when she was young--
    hairdo and all that, which was late '20s,
    the fashion of the late '20s.
    And she was always very well-dressed.
    And so I liked it very much.
    That's how she looked when she was still young.
    Well, young.
    She was not that young.
    She was 35.
    She looks younger in that picture.
    She always did.
    Did she?
    Yeah, she always did.
    So that is when I was out of the--
    could move about.
    Because I was one of the few who spoke
    English, and I was asked to show US personnel around and explain
    to them whatever I could explain.
    And that is, I think, a colonel whom I'm
    showing the Dachau crematorium.
    And that was possibly, let's say, about three,
    four weeks after the liberation, which
    took place on April 29, '45.
    So it took about four or five weeks
    before I really could move about--
    maybe four weeks.
    And so part of what I was doing, they
    asked me to show them around and talk to them
    about my impressions of it.
    And that was the picture whatever --
    which I discovered in a book called Christ in Dachau.
    And I recognized myself and remembered the time
    when I was showing the US personnel around.
    And that's what it is.
    And you can see, when you really see how I stand and all that,
    so I stand quite crooked because I still couldn't properly walk.
    I still had some problems with my frozen feet.
    See, I don't stand upright.
    I couldn't do it then, still.
    Go with this one.
    Better but--
    OK.
    Right.
    This is when I was a Alexander von Humboldt fellow from '65
    to '68.
    And one of the things, which was supposed
    to be a great privilege, is that we
    were invited to the president of the German Federal Republic.
    And because of my language skills and because of what
    I researched and because the people of the foundation
    saw that I was going to wind up as a big man,
    they always introduce me and make sure
    that I met and talked more extensively
    than others to whoever was president at that time.
    And at this particular time, I'm talking
    to a man called Lubke, who was not dreadfully intelligent
    and was accused of having participated
    in building, designing, and building barracks
    in concentration camps.
    And I confronted him-- and it's also in my book, by the way.
    And he said, well, you know, let's let the past go by.
    And I said, well, Mr. President, if they accuse
    you or you say you have had nothing to do with it,
    why don't you go in public?
    Well, let them talk.
    I don't care, really.
    And besides, Professor Steiner, there
    were only a handful of Nazis in Germany, anyway.
    So he came out with these sort of pronouncements
    and was known for that, that it was just totally off-base.
    And he had a very caring wife who was a teacher--
    before they-- in a normal life.
    And so she always kept him out of trouble
    whenever he started to talk things which didn't make sense.
    So you can see how I look at him in some sort of degree
    of skepticism because some of the things which
    we were discussing.
    And then, he took me upstairs.
    That's the White House.
    We were in White House in Bonn.
    And I went with him upstairs, and then we
    had a discussion on his part during the Third Reich.
    And he was very--
    had a interesting talk.
    And some of it, I've written up in my book.
    That's the same occasion, although I've
    seen him on several occasions.
    But that's the same occasion.
    This fellow next to me is a Polish fellow.
    The gentleman in the middle?
    The gentlemen in the middle who, I think, became
    very well known in politics, by the way.
    And the other one is an Indian lady.
    And the person next to me is a Alexander von Humboldt
    foundation person, I think a professor-- an official.
    Well, this is a rather more recent picture.
    It was taken in 1990.
    Again, I was invited to the German White House.
    And there, I am in a conversation
    with the first lady, the wife of Richard von Weizsacher, who,
    with a distance, is the most humane
    and democratic and insightful and intelligent
    president, most efficient one, they've
    had probably since the existence after World War II.
    And so, I was introduced to her by this gentleman,
    who is the vice president of the foundation, in the middle.
    And he was an official when I started in '64
    and always somehow was very supportive of me
    and did things for me which were above and beyond
    his call of duty.
    And he also felt obligated to somehow introduce me
    to the first lady, who is, by the way, a very
    charming and attractive lady.
    And indulge it.
    This is a picture with my son taken in 1989, before he moved
    to Germany with his mother.
    And so I made sure that we had some sort of photographs,
    remembering my mother and all that.
    That is some sort of a milestone and also reflects
    the sort of relationship we have, I think, very well.
    And he was a very handsome kid, very nice kid.
    Now, his face is full of acne and dreadfully tall
    and and will have to wear glasses
    and all sorts of things.
    So he was a very, very attractive kid.
    And I think is one of his problems
    that somehow, during his puberty years,
    his looks have changed, not to his advantage.
    So he has a name and so forth.
    And also, yeah, he's his name is Ingmar--
    Ingmar Michael Augustus--
    Ingmar Michael Augustus.
    Born what year?
    Yeah, he was born on April 22, 1979.
    And that's kind of a blessing because almost he
    was born on Hitler's birthday.
    And that, I think would have posed some problem for me.
    And he did me the favor that he waited two days before he came.
    This was a very interesting occasion.
    That was one of my visits to the couple,
    which you can see, left, which is former SS General Karl
    Wolff and his wife.
    And next to her, on the right, is SS General Felix Steiner.
    And he was the one who was instrumental in introducing me
    to all the people he knew and made it possible
    for me to meet other people.
    Without his help, the chances are I would have not succeeded.
    And he was also very helpful in my research.
    Because he wrote a letter to former members of the SS
    whenever I was sending questionnaires
    to ask for their support.
    Because without that, I wouldn't have done it.
    And he was one of the most popular SS combat generals,
    period, who was cited during the Nuremberg trial
    as a person who never broke the Geneva
    Convention of human contracts-- in other words,
    behave in a way which was used as a model for others.
    And therefore, nothing very much happened to him ever.
    Because he never did anything other than serve in combat.
    And I have no question.
    We've talked about many of the things which
    happened behind all that.
    So he was aware of some of the things, didn't condone them.
    And he also is the one who challenged Himmler.
    And I had exceedingly important and interesting conversations
    with him.
    Wolff, on the other hand, was the person
    who had very little military experience and was
    what you call a political general and then, for quite
    a while, was Himmler's right-hand man
    and was sentenced to 15 years prison by the Germans
    for having aided and abetting and facilitating
    the transport of 300,000 Jews to the destruction
    camp, Treblinka.
    Out of the 15 years, he was in prison only for five years.
    And that is before that time.
    And they owned, virtually, a small castle,
    which he had bought during his Nazi time
    because money was available to him.
    And he lived there in splendor, and he was just
    a fabulous host.
    And part of that sort of thing I still experienced.
    Then they had to sell the whole thing during the trial and all
    that, the whole thing.
    The family broke apart, and so forth and so on.
    So that was during his happy days.
    And he felt very safe and all that.
    Because he also felt that he was protected
    by Allen Dulles with whom he entered into a special treaty,
    a peace treaty, while he was the highest SS police and SS leader
    in Italy, in northern Italy.
    And so they had a special peace treaty
    which was initiated by him.
    And that helped him a great deal after the war.
    Because in-- when was it, '47, '48, '47?--
    Allen Dulles and others were instrumental in starting
    the CIA.
    Do you know Mrs. Wolff's name?
    Yeah.
    Her name was von Bernstorff, maiden name.
    You don't know her first name?
    Oh, yes, I remember it, but I don't remember at the moment.
    Of course, I don't, yeah.
    You wanted to write something--
    So the countess--
    Wolff's wife was married to a Count von Bernstorff
    and divorced him to marry Karl Wolff, with whom she
    had an affair.
    And she was known to be very attractive
    and a kind of model Aryan blond and Germanic looking person.
    And so was he, for that matter, and was therefore very much
    favored by Hitler, who aided his promotions so
    that he made a virtually lightning career in the SS,
    Wolff.
    And Steiner, of course, also, in a way.
    But he had substantive background
    before he actually joined the SS after 1933
    and was already at that time a major in the Weimar Republic.
    I was just asking if you remembered
    why General Wolff was in a mental hospital
    or a mental section of a hospital at a point.
    Well, one of the major reasons was
    that he did not comply and didn't behave according to what
    they were asking me to do.
    He somehow rebelled against the way he was treated.
    He didn't want to say things he felt that one
    wanted to get out of him.
    And to put him in a mental place was a kind of punishment
    just to render him more pliable and all that
    to just simply make him comply.
    And that, I think, was primarily the major reason.
    Also, because he was just getting out of hand.
    There was no question about that during that time,
    he was also disturbed.
    I don't question that as a real possibility.
    But I think it was more of a hysteria.
    It was a response from someone who was very high up
    to be treated in a way which he felt
    was not acceptable to a person of his rank, which
    he complained about, insisted.
    And he was the only person, the only person.
    Of course, he was not accused.
    He was a witness.
    And he was the only person during the Nuremberg trials
    as a witness who was permitted to retain his uniform with rank
    and everything.
    He was the only person, period, because he insisted.
    And he could insist because he had a lot of support
    because of the special peace treaty, which he initiated
    with the assistance of Allen Dulles, who, then, was in Bern,
    Switzerland and official during the latter part of the World
    War II.
    In your conversations with Steiner,
    how did he explain the apparent paradox
    between his attitude of observing Geneva Convention
    regulations and the sort of anti humanistic values of the SS.
    Well, he felt that this was a outcome
    of any type of dictatorship.
    I mean, he was very critical of Hitler
    in contrast to Wolff, who was not at all, on the contrary.
    And he had some conflicts.
    And Hitler didn't like him because he talked back.
    And also, when he was receiving the order to defend
    Berlin during the last days and had the Army Corps.
    Army Corps Steiner was called.
    Army Corps Steiner was given a very--
    to defend Berlin and actually for all technical purposes
    defend Hitler's last outpost.
    [CLEARS THROAT]
    He refused to carry it out because he
    said, I was not going to risk the life of my man
    when it was perfectly clear that the war was lost,
    that the war could not be possibly won.
    But the war was lost.
    And I was not going to risk my man for a hopeless endeavor.
    And therefore, he did not act upon Hitler's orders.
    And Hitler as a consequence shortly before he
    committed suicide anyway, but as a consequence,
    he fell into a rage and said that none of the people, even
    the SS, now is disloyal to him.
    Now, the coat he wears, Wolff has,
    because he didn't want to be photographed in just a shirt.
    So I let him have my coat.
    And so he just hung it over his shoulders, because it was,
    I think, too small for him.
    And so that was kind of funny because he
    didn't want to be photographed.
    And at that particular time, I was just
    beginning to annoy him that must have been during one
    of the early visits to his beautiful villa, which
    was almost the castle next to a lake on a lake in Bavaria.
    So the gentleman on the left is Hitler's adjutant,
    SS adjutant whom he selected.
    And I interviewed him.
    I had a long interview with him and several relationships,
    several encounters with him.
    And he, of course, was still very much enamored
    with Hitler, and defender of Hitler.
    You can see him in the rank of a major in the major in the SS,
    or was it actually Lieutenant Colonel?
    No, I think it was major then.
    And he was one of the younger generation who were socialized
    to be 150% Nazis.
    And he's one of the examples of a young officer who
    was in conflict with the older officers.
    He, for example, hated both and tried everything
    to lure him in.
    After the war, wrote bad things about him, badmouthed.
    And the interesting thing is Wolff
    asked me to be a liaison between him, Wolff, and this fellow.
    [COUGHS] And I did it because that way,
    I was able to get to know more people
    and the problems within the SS.
    And without this sort of thing, I never
    would have been able to find out about some
    of the underlying conflicts which existed already
    during the Third Reich and were carried over
    into the [CLEARS THROAT] postwar Germany.
    Yeah, that's just about it.
    This is a picture of General Wolff with his girlfriend, whom
    he wanted to marry.
    And when they went out and went to some official places,
    he introduced her as his niece.
    And people were laughing because most of the people
    knew that they had a relationship.
    And she met him during the trial in Munich
    and somehow fell in love with him while he was on trial
    and started initiating contact with him.
    And that developed into a relationship very quickly.
    And he had quite a number of ladies,
    but she was the most loyal and most helpful.
    The other one, Nana, who was very
    close to him whom he liked much better than this one
    because she was a real beauty but was married
    and a Jehovah's Witness, too good, died of cancer.
    And so he was left with her.
    And she really took care of him.
    She supported him financially.
    She cleaned for him and all that.
    Then, finally, she was transferred
    to Bavaria and with her brother, built some sort of a house
    or refurbished a house, which they bought.
    And he moved in with her.
    And he lived with her until he died.
    But they never married.
    And so when he told me that he was just about
    to thinking of getting married to her
    because he had divorced his second wife,
    the one I showed you on the other picture
    with whom he lived in this villa, in this castle,
    like a place at the lake.
    So I stayed with the two of us in his apartment in Dusseldorf
    and as well as in the other place where she then
    had half of the house and lived with him back in Dusseldorf.
    And he told me that he was just about to considering
    marrying her since he obtained a divorce from his second wife.
    He also offered me that if I would last for his girlfriend,
    I could have her.
    And he would move out of the bed.
    And I could move in.
    And that it was part of the Germanic
    the Germanic customs to share this with a special friend.
    So that, to me, was a very interesting sort of experience,
    but I didn't take advantage of this offer.
    Now, she's still around and whenever I'm in Germany,
    I visit her or at least talk to her.
    So I always go to that place, stay there for several days,
    and we discuss old days.
    And she introduces me to other people
    who are still very much infatuated
    with national socialism.
    And that gives me an opportunity to meet new people
    and talk to them and see what makes them tick.
    [COUGHS]
    I forgot to say the name of the person
    with Hitler, the other officer.
    His name was Richard Schulze-Kossens.
    There may be another picture of him.
    Does this woman know you're Jewish?
    Jewish?
    Yeah.
    No.
    Even now, after the radio show?
    She may found out eventually, and I
    was going to tell him at an opportune time,
    and he would have accepted it, and he would
    have probably respected it.
    But he died on me before the time was ready for me
    to tell him that.
    She is very openly anti-Semitic to the present day.
    She comes out with very clear-cut anti-Semitic notions.
    And we discussed them, and I challenged them,
    but she's very outspoken about that
    and in touch with the Himmler's daughter [CLEARS THROAT]
    and the other former Nazis.
    I've heard about that as in both Native American and Eskimo
    culture.
    It really is the main place that that's been talking.
    Yeah, well, when I was visiting the ex-general Wolff,
    SS General Wolff in prison in Bavaria,
    I went there once with one Swedish lady who
    was particularly interested.
    She was a relative by marriage of Hermann Goring.
    And after the war, she remarried, and then, I think,
    was widowed.
    He died, her husband.
    And she was known as the angel of political prisoners
    because she went there and aided the people who
    were incarcerated because there were Nazis
    or whatever, SS, whatever.
    So she specialized to aid these prisoners.
    And I got to know her because of my association
    with the German criminological association, member
    of the German criminological association.
    And I was introduced to her.
    And we then, for a while, had lots of common interests
    in discussing them.
    So she was not a Nazi, but she felt
    that these people were neglected and had
    no one who would render any support to them.
    And that's why she did what she did.
    So during one of the visits, I met this person who was there,
    had several lifetime sentences for what
    he did at the concentration camp at Buchenwald.
    And he was known as the Hangman of Buchenwald
    and was a young, very cruel person
    according to people who knew him.
    And also, [Personal name] and many writers on Buchenwald
    invariably cite him as one of the most cruel persons.
    Now, I was particularly interested in that.
    And he wrote me for very many years.
    I have about 100 letters or more.
    Hundreds of letters, actually, he wrote to me.
    He adopted me somehow as a family
    and some sort of a combination of family and father confessor.
    So the letters by themselves written by these persons
    are actually of tremendous interest
    and would be very useful to be applied
    to some sort of research project.
    What was his actual name?
    Huh?
    His name was Sommer, S-O-M-M-E-R.
    So this is again Gerhard Martin Sommer,
    known as the infamous Hangman of Buchenwald.
    And I took many of the photographs
    because he was totally invalid because what happened,
    he's commandant to Koch, was a Colonel
    in the SS, misappropriated funds,
    and did things which were against the type of sense
    of propriety of Himmler and the ISS.
    And he was shot.
    They sentenced him to death, and because some of us
    working very closely with Koch.
    He was also incarcerated for a while
    and then they sent him to the front.
    He was taken out of the concentration camp
    and sent to the front.
    And then he was wounded on several occasions or just
    once--
    I forget now-- and was absolutely totally crippled.
    But that, of course, didn't prevent him
    from being then accused because he was an entity in Buchenwald
    and did untold damage and killed an untold number of people,
    murdered them anyway.
    And so, therefore, he was sentenced
    and received a I don't know how many times life sentence.
    And he never was going to get out.
    But because they could not take care of him
    in the Bavarian prison, they sent him to a nursing home.
    And he was there under guard and under strict sort of situation,
    but, of course, a tremendous improvement
    because he was just like in a hospital,
    in a nursing home, very nice facility.
    I went to visit him there on numerous occasions.
    Also had, before he died, taped interview with him,
    which I had neglected to do.
    He wrote me an autobiographical account,
    which is exceedingly interesting,
    part of which I've published in my book.
    And so that is Gerhard Martin Sommer.
    And I took all these pictures of him when I visited him.
    And then he was just had undergone surgery.
    And I took the photo of him.
    Surgery in several places, it looks like.
    Yeah, it was all infected.
    He was a wreck.
    There is no question about that.
    So because he was a wreck, I was able to have
    a little bit of a different relationship with him
    because in a way, I felt sorry for him.
    I sent him money and bought him things occasionally and all
    that, sent him things.
    And he was very, very grateful because he
    was totally isolated.
    In a way, in spite of what he did,
    I had some sort of compassion for him
    because he was left totally alone.
    His wife divorced him.
    Everyone just simply left him because he was bad news.
    I don't know.
    It was kind of strange.
    I had some feeling of compassion.
    On the other hand, I told him, hey, you know.
    But he was a person who denied many of the things and said,
    you know, you have to understand this and that.
    And what [Personal name] writes, he
    doesn't really know because he didn't see what was behind.
    But there is absolutely no question that what the man did
    was terrible.
    And then he justified and said, well, you should have asked.
    Oh, yeah, and that's one thing.
    He also aided one doctor in Buchenwald
    in his killing people with injections.
    So he aided him.
    And he said, well, what should I have done?
    These people are sentenced to death.
    The order came from Berlin.
    And should I have said I would like to see the sentence.
    I would like to have proof of it and all that.
    And it couldn't 't be done.
    And so he went along and did these things.
    And some people say that he did all these things with relish,
    that he was actually sadistic and enjoyed doing that.
    He was then in his early 20s and had
    fairly high non commissioned rank in the senate
    as a non-commissioned officer.
    You say he denied doing these things?
    No, he denied some of it and said, well, you know,
    there are certain things I had to do.
    I couldn't help it.
    But I didn't enjoy doing it.
    And when I could, I helped these people
    and make it a bit easier for them.
    And when I was supposed to, for example,
    beat them up officially in front of other inmates.
    I just hit them in such a way that it would not
    be that painful.
    So these sort of things he told me.
    But I could write a book just on that person's story
    because I've got so much material.
    And as I said, probably hundreds of letters,
    which he wrote to me very, very consistently.
    He wrote to me just like periodically, just like him.
    So what is redeeming about the man then?
    Well, redeeming is--
    Too far.
    --not very much, actually.
    Redeeming is the thing that the man was a total wreck.
    And that he tried to come to terms,
    it was a very unsophisticated and, I
    would say, primitive person and who
    was not stupid but not very intelligent, totally
    uneducated.
    And so in his way, because I pushed and pressed him,
    he was trying to come to terms with what he had done.
    But he tried and, to some extent, succeeded.
    Some things he admitted and some things he said,
    well, I wrote about things.
    I had to do certain things.
    And I very frequently thought when
    these people were sent to Buchenwald and were punished
    and all that, this person could have been my father.
    And so that was quite an admission I got in that fine.
    And we discussed this thing.
    And unfortunately, I don't know what happened to my letters
    to him.
    And that would be interesting because I didn't-- after he
    died, I don't know what happened to his positions.
    The state took it.
    Whatever they did destroyed it.
    But of course, I have all his letters,
    and they all were going through the censure.
    You know, they all were read by the prison authorities
    or whatever before I got them.
    But some of them are really very moving,
    and also, some of the autobiographic accounts.
    And he has written about two or three for me.
    And I always pushed him to go further and deeper.
    And so that was very helpful for him psychologically
    to have someone who was sufficiently industry
    in pushing him.
    And he was not towards me.
    He somehow adored me.
    He thought I was the greatest, simply
    because I put up with him and showed concern.
    Did he know you were a survivor?
    Oh, yes, of course.
    Did he know you were Jewish?
    Well, yes.
    In this sort of way, he absolutely knew.
    But he also understood that people
    who were considered to be Jewish under the Nuremberg law
    were not necessarily Jewish.
    But, yeah.
    Yes, absolutely so.
    So he admits to doing many of these acts,
    but he does deny his enjoyment of it?
    Oh, absolutely.
    Duress and all that, yeah, absolutely denied it.
    But very interesting correspondence,
    very interesting autobiographic account.
    As I said, the most important things
    were published in the book.
    And then the interview, the last interview I had with him,
    I taped.
    Unfortunately, I used a tape recorder
    which was on its way out.
    The quality is not good, unfortunately.
    But it can be understood.
    OK, Gerhard Martin Sommer.
    Since we're not allowed to say.
    So this is after I've departed from a visit to Wolff.
    And you can see in the mirror there, in the glass,
    mirrored is Wolff who actually took the photograph during one
    of my visits.
    There ought to be some more of that, but maybe not.
    Maybe it's in the other batch.
    So don't mumble because we talking now.
    Yeah.
    Tape's rolling.
    We need about 10 seconds [INAUDIBLE]..
    She said mumble.
    OK, anytime, Sandra.
    OK.
    We are continuing with the interview of John Steiner.
    Primarily from the point of view of your work.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan.
    We're here with your colleague, Carol Hurwitz.
    And today is the 4th of February, 1994.
    And this then, again, continues from the San Francisco Oral
    History Project with John Grant as our producer.
    So today, let's continue with the discussion
    of all the things that you learned in your research
    with the SS.
    And begin by discussing the notion of an SS person
    as a victim.
    Yes, well, that is something which I've developed.
    And I guess in literature, I think
    I'm probably the only one who's labeled them as also victims.
    Because, particularly when we think in terms of them
    as victimizers, it's very difficult
    to imagine that they themselves were victims.
    But the interesting thing is that people who were victimized
    usually also have been victims.
    And that is simply because they've
    been socialized and treated in a way which caused them
    to behave the way they did.
    And one of the things which is important for us to remember
    is that we all genetically are born
    with some sort of an IQ, intelligence, which varies
    from individual to individual.
    But we know what is just about normative.
    And that's one thing.
    But very frequently, we are not aware of the fact
    that there is also such a thing as more intelligence
    and social intelligence.
    And particularly in these two areas,
    the SS are lacking because, in the earlier
    socialization process, these things have not
    developed to that extent.
    Also because perhaps they were originating
    from a background which was not that fully cultured-- which
    was deprived very frequently, socially
    and otherwise, financially.
    And that is a very important aspect--
    the fact that they came from low backgrounds also caused them
    to assume power roles which were in relationship to what they
    used to --.
    The roles they used to play before were low in power--
    as a matter of fact, powerless individuals
    in terms of their background.
    Now, they assumed roles which had a tremendous degree
    of power, by virtue of the fact that they
    could decide between life and death of those people who
    were under their supervision.
    And that is being forgotten.
    The second thing is also, because of their background,
    they are more susceptible to ideological propaganda--
    which, of course, again, relates very directly
    to their feeling of, on one hand, inferiority.
    And then when Hitler came into power and they said,
    hey, you are superior, not inferior.
    So they jumped on the bandwagon.
    Because people who feel inferior,
    of course, will be very tempted to assume roles,
    even if they are a myth--
    to feel superior and say, hey, I'm superior.
    I'm not inferior at all.
    So that does something to the people's ego.
    And I think that had very much to do with the fact--
    apart from the fact that they indeed were more susceptible
    to this type of National Socialist ideology,
    which indeed divided humankind in two parts--
    the superior and the inferior.
    And they said, hey, I'm superior.
    I didn't know that.
    Thank you very much, Adolf Hitler, for making me
    feel superior.
    Was there any aspect of victimization of them
    as they were SS--
    victimization by their own hierarchy?
    Well, not really, because I don't
    have any evidence for that, except
    that they had to adhere very much to the rules.
    And years ago, I dug up a secret report on expulsions
    from the SS.
    And there are several reasons there
    for which they were expelled, including reasons where
    they associated with Jews, or had
    some relationship with Jews.
    Then because the lack of discipline,
    because of fraud, theft, and other reasons--
    and also quite a few who committed suicide.
    So they were not expelled.
    They expelled themselves, so to speak, from life.
    And so, there are a number of reasons why they are expelled.
    And the numbers were quite stunning, actually.
    We had talked before about euphemistic language
    so much being used by Hitler.
    I was wondering if the SS was subject to that, too.
    Well the SS was directed to use euphemistic language
    because direct language was not desirable.
    Because they had to write reports.
    So very directly, I came across documents
    in which the reports about mass destruction were very blunt.
    And that was sent to Hitler's headquarters-- that is,
    to his chancellery.
    And they then were directed by Bormann--
    his chief Secretary, right-hand man--
    to use different language.
    And that was directed to Himmler.
    And Himmler then directed them to use different language,
    especially directed this letter to the SS statistician, who
    gave statistics about the mass destruction
    and was very blunt in the language.
    And then they told him that this type of language
    was not to be used in these reports
    and needed to be corrected.
    And that's what they've done.
    So that went down to the SS directly.
    Of course, in camps, it was not that necessary, only
    in terms of misleading the victims, the inmates.
    And so they said, well, showers and all this and that,
    because obviously, if they would have said,
    well, you are going to be gassed,
    there would have been a greater degree of resistance,
    except the resistance-- there were some cases of resistance,
    but not really very serious in terms of the SS
    to have to deal with them.
    Because you talk about individuals who were not armed.
    You talk about individuals who had no support system
    and really couldn't defend themselves,
    other than with their own body-- and that was not
    very strong to begin with.
    So the language, not only the euphemistic language used,
    was for the broader population so that the German people, as
    such, would not be too alarmed.
    Because it was correctly assumed that,
    if the Germans had known specific details about all
    these atrocities, they may have responded very well.
    That's a good possibility.
    So that was to be prevented.
    And then, of course, as far as the victims themselves
    concerned, they didn't want them to know
    that they were going to die, particularly in this way,
    or to die period.
    So they didn't tell them, you're going to be gassed
    or something else, but used euphemistic, misleading
    language.
    Was there any tendency say the SS
    who were assigned to the camps, that they would then
    know too much and have to remain [INAUDIBLE]??
    You see, you had a very clever sort of way
    they structured the camps.
    You had the SS people, who were usually
    SS who were in the combat type of SS.
    It was mixed.
    I don't want to overgeneralize, but usually these
    were people who only were guarding the inmates
    outside of the camps.
    They themselves were not permitted even
    to enter the camp--
    a very important point.
    And then you had personnel, which was particularly
    a specific type of personnel-- the Gestapo, certainly,
    but primarily the security service,
    and they had this sort of diamond shape like SD
    on the left sleeve, just close to the arm--
    and their special groups of people
    whose task it was to supervise mass destruction
    and what have you.
    And then you had the death skull outfits.
    And they also had a function in the camps.
    But primarily, the SD, the death skull and then people who
    were part of the secret state police.
    Why were the SS primarily outside of the camp rather than
    inside?
    Well, you had two different groups.
    So, then, it's not that they were not.
    But the people who actually guarded the camps,
    they guarded them from outside the camps.
    Even if you talk about the watchtowers--
    which were specific points where you
    had towers which the controlled the movements inside the camp--
    and they also were virtually outside.
    So they couldn't get inside the camps themselves.
    They were outside.
    Outside?
    Yeah.
    They stayed in the towers?
    Yeah.
    Going back to the notion of the victim and perpetrator
    relationship, what about the victims as perpetrators--
    say, as in the case of kapos or people
    in a different level of power?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    So you're really talking about the inmate functionaries.
    At this point, yes, the notion of the victim/perpetrator
    combination.
    Well, that, of course, is to be looked
    at from a different perspective.
    Because once you are an inmate, your major effort
    will be concentrated in survival of the camps.
    And the means available to survive were very limited.
    So if then the SS comes and said,
    OK, you will be an inmate functionary
    and be working under my supervision, on my behalf,
    towards my interests, then it's a tremendous temptation.
    Because these people were then rewarded--
    with more food, places to live which
    were a bit different, more comfortable, and all that--
    and also felt that, in that particular position,
    they would have a much better chance to survive, obviously.
    And so, they were tempted-- the temptation was
    great-- to really assume these sort of things
    and these sort of positions assigned
    to them by the SS, roles assigned to them by the SS.
    And that is something which, psychologically,
    is very different than if you volunteered to join the SS.
    So they were under a different type of pressure.
    And the temptation was greater because of survival and drive
    of self-preservation.
    So we have to see that from that point of view.
    Now, of course, were also people who
    assumed certain roles which may have had a specific function.
    But because of their understanding of the situation,
    they assumed that function, but did all the things
    they could in order to aid the inmates.
    However, these people were in the minority
    because it was at their risk.
    And it was not easy to do, because they were expected
    to do the dirty work on behalf or, or in the interest of,
    the SS.
    And to really turn that into something constructive
    was more difficult.
    I've had friends who did that.
    And because of them, they may have, on several occasions,
    saved my life.
    But most of the people who assumed these roles became
    savages--
    brutal people who killed their fellow inmates.
    And I, fortunately, never came into the position
    where I would have either thought about assuming this.
    Because, to me, it was unacceptable.
    I hope you know I've never been tempted in this regard.
    That is very important for me, because my survival today
    is of a nature where I don't have to have a bad conscience.
    Many other people who survived, survived simply
    because they assumed these type of roles.
    And they have to live with that.
    And I don't have that problem--
    fortunately.
    Because, if anything else, I've aided people.
    And I've helped people whenever I could.
    And even in one case, I helped a person to escape--
    successfully escape.
    And that is a very important thing that happened.
    I think I talked about it already.
    So my only problem is that, under extreme stress
    situations, I defended my life at the expense of other people.
    And that was particularly in the open boxcar situation.
    And that is a problem which is still with me.
    Because I had a choice, an extreme choice which we have,
    is either die or cause the death of other people
    in order to live.
    And that was the only choice we had,
    because we knew that, if we defended ourselves,
    it was going to be at the expense of someone else
    who wanted to take our place.
    And that is a problem, which I still have to come to terms
    with because -- yes, the choice I've had.
    And there's only one person I've met, and had
    very direct contact with, whom I would comes
    close to a saint, who made a conscious decision to die--
    although he didn't have to, because he was able-bodied--
    and decided that he'd rather die than cause the death of someone
    else.
    And this person, of course, is something very unusual.
    And he's the only one I've encountered
    in this type of situation.
    But, as you say, that situation is
    quite different than choosing to be a kapo.
    That's right.
    Well, I mean, you don't choose to be a kapo.
    You see, you don't choose to be a kapo,
    because that role was assigned.
    I don't say, I'm going to be a kapo.
    I can't do that.
    I can work towards that, but you were appointed directly
    by the SS, or by some other man who
    was a high inmate functionary.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    That's right.
    You could volunteer .
    You'd said, I'm ready to do that, and this and that.
    So, for example, I volunteered to be in a mine
    to deal with unexploded bombs.
    So I chose to do that until the camp senior told
    me, it's madness, don't do it.
    I don't want you to do it because you can't survive.
    And that way, you're not going to, and you may get more food.
    But the risks that you will be blown up
    is much greater than your survival.
    And I listened to him and he took the pain to tell me.
    And I listened to him and said, I want you to do it.
    I don't want to continue to do it.
    And so I discontinued.
    And then another thing is an SS man selected me
    for still different reasons.
    I don't know why.
    He just liked my face or whatever and said,
    I want you to work in the kitchen and peel potatoes
    or whatever, or put in turnips, or clean up turnips.
    And against the majority of people
    who were functionary inmates and said, look, he is all yellow.
    He's sick.
    He said, I still want him to be there.
    And I still don't understand why he wanted even select me,
    because I really was sick.
    I had jaundice and I looked terrible.
    I remember that just like anyone, apart
    from all the other emaciated sort of appearance.
    And the man insisted.
    And it was an SS man.
    And without him, I never would have had a chance.
    I didn't stay very long because I was just
    beginning to be really sick.
    And I had to go into the sick barrack in order
    to be dealt with because I couldn't function.
    So I lost that.
    I was there only a few days.
    And I lost that because I had to be put there.
    So that was a direct appointment by an SS,
    which I never would have otherwise been able to get.
    This seems to go back to that notion
    of the discretionary aspect.
    That's right.
    that the SS could have.
    I'm glad you remember that, because we all play roles.
    And these roles have a great deal of leeway.
    That's what I call the role margin.
    And this role margin actually will show us
    what sort of morality we have.
    Because that's our personal decision, which is actually
    where we have the freedom to act in a way within this role
    margin, which makes all the difference.
    So that, to me, is a very important concept,
    which has not been-- as I said before--
    not developed in literature.
    And that's one thing which I'm working on
    and hope to have a lecture, which will include that back
    at Stanford.
    Because it has not been described in literature.
    And that's what I'm interested to do new things rather
    than rehash old stuff.
    Was this true, I presume among the kapos and other inmate
    functionaries-- to have a discretionary [INAUDIBLE]??
    Oh, yeah.
    Kapos, certainly, yeah.
    Because kapos really could help you.
    And they did-- some--
    to survive and aid inmates in their struggle to survive,
    or they could kill them point blank
    because nothing would happen to them if they killed people--
    just simply outright.
    And not only that, but the SS certainly
    may have embraced that and say good man.
    Do you think that the inmate functionaries were identified
    with the SS at that point--
    those who behaved in that fashion?
    You mean by other fellow inmates?
    What I mean is, whether the kapo, in some instances,
    might identify with the role of the SS.
    Well, I wrote about that.
    Because that is, again, a very important
    point which caused a great deal of misunderstanding.
    I don't think even the kapos, the most cruel kapos,
    identified with the goals of the SS--
    namely, destruction and tyranny and cruelty and all that.
    Some were certainly sadistic.
    And we are particularly talking about those people who
    were in these sadistic inmate functionary positions who
    were professional criminals.
    And so, they were the ones who were most frequently selected
    by the SS because they knew that their morality, their ethics,
    and their consideration for fellow human beings,
    were very low--
    and therefore they were a very useful tool
    in the hands of the SS to do their dirty work.
    And that's why they were selected most frequently.
    There is no question about that.
    But some other people who assumed these roles--
    or were assigned these roles, which is more accurate--
    did not necessarily identify with the goals
    of the SS or National Socialism to destroy people.
    But they certainly identified with power.
    They identified with power because that
    was a means to survive.
    And the more power you had as an inmate, the better chances
    you had to survive.
    And with this, they identified.
    They identified with the power of the SS, no question-- but
    not necessarily as to how the power was used.
    And that is something which needs to be remembered.
    And there was some person--
    I forget his name now-- who came out
    with the notion of identification
    with the aggressor.
    And that is something which I oppose.
    Because it's a very misleading, and just downright wrong,
    way to look at it, which has caused,
    I think, quite a bit of damage in terms of understanding
    interaction and the group dynamics in concentration
    and destruction camps.
    And I think it's done a great deal of disservice,
    because most of these people who write about these things
    are not people who actually experienced and know
    the situation as it existed in concentration and destruction
    camps.
    And they are simply academicians who are theoreticians and think
    they are very clever.
    And some are, except it can lead to a great deal
    of misunderstanding.
    Maybe this is a good place if you
    were to discuss the authoritarian personality.
    And I believe it's a scale called the F scale that
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Well, in my research--
    and that's the only research which
    has been done on that level with the SS, or with the SS period,
    because not many people have done research with them--
    where I had two groups of people who volunteered.
    And some of them actually were assigned
    to fill in questionnaires.
    And these two groups were former members
    of the SS of all kinds--
    all different parts of the SS--
    and former members of the German armed forces.
    And there was a significant difference between these.
    It was significant enough.
    So the conclusion of that study is that, indeed, the SS tended
    to be higher on the F scale--
    the fascist scale-- than quote unquote "normal" members
    of the armed forces who were not members of the SS.
    So there is no question that authoritarianism and rigidity
    dogmatism--
    which is all part of that phenomenon--
    is directly related to their conduct and the susceptibility
    of certain types of people to join
    organizations of this nature.
    And that is the conclusion of my research.
    What about the post-war playing out
    of this authoritarian personality?
    Well, you see, the post-war roles former members of the SS
    assumed was limited by virtue of the fact
    that the people under discussion were professional SS people.
    That was their job.
    And it was not just temporary.
    It was pretty much permanent.
    It was to be permanent.
    And so, because of their limited skills
    to assume jobs after the war--
    which were available to them because, obviously,
    all the other things had dried up,
    with the exception of people who became part of the SS
    by virtue of the fact that they were professional police
    people--
    many of these people were responsible for atrocities--
    and that is something which has been documented
    beyond a shadow of a doubt--
    then went back to normal police work, quote unquote "normal"
    police work in a to-be democracy--that is,
    post-war Germany.
    And it did not come to any particular notice
    of the people, although we don't know how tough they
    were in their job as police--
    high police officials.
    So that was one way these people went back
    to continue their police work under different political
    economic situation.
    But they were able to curb that behavior?
    [INAUDIBLE]
    That's right.
    Well, you see, because they were able to somehow get away
    with it so that they only rarely were really caught and brought
    before courts.
    Some did, but most of them did not.
    And they just went back to be policemen--
    not all, but many of them who certainly
    were guilty of a lot of atrocities
    were simply not brought before the court.
    In other words, people who were tainted with mischief.
    And they were able to restrain their brutal tactics
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Well, the question is obviously the roles
    which they had to play were more limited.
    They couldn't go around killing people.
    They couldn't do it because there were different conditions
    and laws.
    And they couldn't do it without breaking the law.
    And that would have not been in their interest.
    It doesn't mean that they could have not
    been brought to the courts because they may have been
    brought [? forward ?] whenever they had a chance
    to be and get away with that.
    But it's not in a democracy.
    In terms of your function as a police person,
    it's more limited--
    although what I've seen here in San Francisco
    and all that while driving with the police
    was just unbelievable, which was virtually the same thing,
    which happened in Gestapo.
    I've seen things which could have happened
    under Nazi Germany here in San Francisco not
    that many years ago.
    So it just depends.
    Then you had another group of people who may have
    had different functions--
    all sorts of different functions,
    also in concentration camps, but primarily also in --
    and they were in the majority who were combat SS.
    And these people, then, usually--
    and that's what I found, and that more or less closes
    the circle of those people, what sort of roles they played.
    They played roles in sales, in business and all that--
    went into business, into sales, and all that highly aggressive
    sort of roles in business, and in which
    they were very successful, and more
    successful than their counterpart
    former members of the armed forces.
    So for all practical purposes, those people--
    who were not brought before the court for whatever they had
    done during the Nazi time--
    were, by and large, more successful
    in adjusting to normal conditions after World War II
    and become existentially more secure
    than comparable age groups who were members
    of the German armed forces.
    And that was an interesting sort of thing.
    So we have to see, look at the authoritarian personality
    on the one hand, tends towards certain aggressive roles,
    and also have to be mindful of the fact
    that, indeed, they lacked skills and not
    that many functions with that limited skills
    were available to them after the war.
    And that needs to be remembered.
    And also, some of the people actually--
    and that's what I found also, I shouldn't forget that--
    some of them went into the then-new German forces
    of the Federal Republic of Germany.
    And if they had up to Major, they could have a rank up
    to Major-- that is to say, in the SS--
    to be then accepted by the armed forces.
    And I know quite a few people I've
    interviewed who then went there, and were
    accepted, and continued to be officers of some sort--
    usually officers, because the other ones
    who were disbanded and go back.
    Usually, those people had the rank of an officer.
    OK.
    Well, let's focus then on this whole post-war period
    and the transition from being the SS officer to,
    as you say, the business person, the family person,
    the community person.
    Are you saying that, for the most part, whatever
    violence they were acting out during the SS period,
    they could abandon that and resume
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    I think that that's a very important and excellent
    question, because that's one reason why I welcomed whenever
    they invited me to stay with them in their homes as a guest.
    And I took advantage of that whenever I could.
    And some people-- most unexpected people--
    were highly antisemitic and just absolutely very vocal
    about it who befriended me and always offered,
    when I came they just offered if you'd like to stay overnight?
    Because we're going to talk and go to bed late and all that.
    And so, they were very interested for me
    to stay with them and were very hospitable.
    That's one thing which needs to be stressed.
    And that came to me as a tremendous surprise
    that you have these sort of contradictions--
    that, on one hand, you can, in certain situations,
    be exceedingly brutal.
    And in other situations, you can be very disarming or stable
    and really caring.
    And they're really caring.
    Some of the hospitality which I've
    experienced staying with these SS people
    was just totally disarming.
    I'm still surprised.
    I still have to come to terms with that.
    And so, you've got these two extremes.
    And I'm reminded of Philip Zimbardo's notion
    that the situation, or my notion of the sleeper,
    really stimulates certain things which were dormant--
    personality characteristics which,
    under certain circumstances, then come forth,
    will become visible which heretofore were not.
    And that, to me, is exceedingly interesting, exceedingly
    interesting phenomenon-- again, which
    is new, which has not been really discussed ever
    since Philip Zimbardo, and then I started discussing.
    They simply don't exist in literature.
    And that's why both of us are being increasingly cited
    in that, because someone looks at it from a different, totally
    new perspective.
    So there was no findings or notion
    that the situation drew this aspect out,
    but then it became habitual with the person
    to where they didn't let it go?
    Well, you see, the question is, didn't they let it go
    because it was let's say --
    Why did they like it, or why did they enjoy it?
    Why did it satisfy their needs?
    Let's put it that way.
    Well, sure.
    Because if I do certain things and I'll
    be rewarded for things which, heretofore, were morally
    unacceptable, and they are now not only acceptable, but even
    desirable, and I'm going to be rewarded
    for them in a way which I've never been rewarded
    before for anything else, then I will
    start enjoying these things--
    even if they are very contradictory and totally
    unethical.
    But, you see, what is more important,
    the rewards which I get or the unacceptable ethics?
    And the sad fact is that, for very many people--
    probably for most--
    the reward is more important than how
    they get to be rewarded.
    And that's the sad fact.
    And I think most of us also somehow
    there are times when we see, well, it is profitable.
    We will do things which, otherwise,
    if there would be no profit in it,
    we would condemn as unethical.
    Did you find that there were any percentage of the SS members
    post-war who were depressed or otherwise felt
    negative about their behavior?
    Oh, yes.
    But, you see, this needed to be dealt with.
    And as I said before in one of the other previous interviews,
    I had no idea what I would get into when
    I started my interviews. because I
    said it's going to be for the questionnaire.
    It's going to serve a certain purpose--
    find out what they did, roles and positions and conduct.
    and how they view the --
    But I didn't reckon with the fact
    that, now, I would stimulate some sort of coming to terms,
    so that I would start something which they had repressed
    or were not prepared to come to terms
    with without my triggering it.
    And so, then, kind of a chain reaction
    started to these interviews so that they actually did not
    break off the relationship with me after the interview,
    but they just continued to relate to me,
    and ask me back, and keep contact, and what have you.
    And we talked about people who were
    SS gentlemen, as I call them.
    On one hand, some of them were gentlemen--
    and they didn't do anything against the Geneva Convention--
    up to those people who were known as hangmen of Buchenwald,
    and people who were mass killers.
    And so that, to me, was very interesting
    that it started a process, a coming to terms.
    And then they needed me as a sounding board,
    as someone to reflect with.
    And the culmination in public was, indeed,
    that these three people with whom I had interviews with
    the radio and all that, with whom --
    denounced and said, if we had known, we regret.
    Yes.
    And if we had known what it would come to,
    what we would get into, we would have preferred
    not to be members of the SS.
    And that's a very important recognition.
    And some other people also told me
    about other people who said, hey,
    I have no regrets whatsoever.
    And these were usually people who had tremendous lives
    by virtue of the fact [? that ?] very, very powerful people
    who were rewarded for that position.
    And one of them-- the best example--
    was Karl Wolff, who was Himmler's right-hand man.
    And shortly before he actually became very ill and died,
    he, in one the last telephone interviews, actually, said--
    and that's part of a broadcast, as a matter of fact--
    I have no regrets and I'm proud of him
    being a member of the SS.
    Why? because the man had such unbelievable and the more
    I do research, the more I see old pictures.
    The pictures, that is photographs just came across
    two days ago where I see Himmler visiting Ravensbrück,
    the women's camp.
    And he was with Wolff.
    And then Wolff tells me, and said, hey,
    I didn't know anything.
    I mean and he really believed that he didn't.
    He totally repressed .
    On the subject of Wolff, there was a written paper
    that [INAUDIBLE] he sent you in which makes a reference
    to Himmler as whimsical.
    What does that mean, if you have do you have any recollection?
    I don't know what you're referring
    to exactly at the moment.
    OK.
    Well, never mind.
    It was this reference to Himmler as a whimsical person.
    And it struck me very strange when I read that.
    Whimsically, maybe in terms of the Final Solution.
    And that is something which you have
    to be very careful to sort out what is truth, and what
    is fable, and what is meant.
    And in this case, he said--
    and that might be an important thing
    to mention in connection with your question--
    is that, when Hitler gave Himmler
    the order to go into the Final Solution, Wolff told me--
    and it's recorded also on tape--
    that he came into his office when he was his kind of deputy,
    and his right hand man, and Himmler was in deep depression.
    And so, when Wolff saw him and said, are you ill,
    Reichsführer?
    Is something wrong with you?
    And he said, no.
    And then he started tell him that he
    got an order from Himmler, which is terrible,
    and which he finds very hard to do.
    But because he is who he is, he has to act upon that order.
    And that was precisely when he received the order from Hitler
    directly to enact a final solution.
    And so, he told me that.
    And so, that is something that, because he asserts, along
    with, perhaps, some other people too,
    but I'm particularly now drawing from Wolff's information.
    And that is something which I've seen also
    in connection with other people who are members of the SS--
    that, on their own, they never would have done that.
    In other words, they would have not initiated it.
    But they accepted it and went ahead with that order--
    but not because they liked it.
    And that's what "whimsical" is, that he was not into it.
    Himmler by himself, if there had been no Hitler,
    and he would have been a different position,
    and there would have been a different situation,
    he never would have initiated mass murder, mass destruction.
    That was perhaps something which he related.
    Perhaps.
    In the question of the post-war reactions,
    did you find ever people having symptoms of what now we
    call post-traumatic stress?
    But I presume those kinds of symptoms
    can occur after any kind of trauma,
    where their bodies would have symptoms,
    whether it was nightmares or a certain level of fearfulness.
    You know, the interesting thing is that I've
    come across this very much--
    certainly not in the discussions which I've
    had with the former SS people--
    and my feeling is that they didn't
    have that, which is not to say that they have not
    been traumatized in combat or in some other things.
    I have caused-- and that's perhaps
    something which I should say-- when I interviewed Auschwitz
    perpetrators.
    I had people that I came back and I saw them
    on many occasions.
    And, again, all these sort of things are taped.
    And it's important that I have that for posterity.
    And when I came back the second time,
    also, said they, kind of in a rather accusing sort of way--
    said, because of you, I couldn't sleep.
    I had nightmares.
    So what happened is that I retrieved
    something which was repressed.
    And then, because of the way I questioned them,
    and that was non-threatening.
    And I used usually my way of questioning
    was the sort of Rogerian clients and that dialogue.
    And so, I never threaten and say, God you swine,
    or you bastard and all how come?
    So I did it very differently, in a non-threatening way.
    But I stimulated people so that I didn't corner them,
    but that they actually accepted the ball which I threw to them.
    And then they started to play with it.
    And that opened up things which, heretofore, were repressed,
    or they were not prepared to face.
    And so, yes.
    That happened on several occasions.
    And then they, of course, had a continued need
    to talk to me about that now.
    And that is something, in the case of Wolff--
    and his lady friend told me--
    that when he was in the process of dying of cancer--
    and that may have been, or may not
    have been, connected directly with his dying and illness--
    he, at night, shouted and was in anguish.
    The right word for it would be screaming in anguish--
    something like that.
    And [INAUDIBLE] why are you screaming?
    The devil.
    I see the devil.
    The devil is after me.
    So I think there was a confrontation
    at that particular point in his life,
    while dying, that he no longer could repress, no escape, sweep
    under the carpet, and was faced with some of the horrid things
    which he has witnessed now.
    I don't know whether you went with us
    when we saw the documentary on Litzmannstadt--
    the ghetto Litzmannstadt.
    I don't know whether you went.
    We went to see the movie.
    And Lodz.
    I saw it, but not with you.
    And there, also, Himmler with Wolff.
    Absolutely no question.
    And he never talked about that.
    He said that in certain things.
    There were mass shootings.
    And he saw the brain splattered on Himmler,
    and he had to catch him because he
    was in the process of fainting.
    And so, that he said.
    That] he said, but some of the things all these various
    concentration --
    of which he visited that he never talked about.
    Only when I pressed, he said, oh, I may have been there,
    I may have gone there, or something.
    Was this relatively common, relatively
    uncommon among the SS that they would deny large portions
    of their war time?
    Well, of course.
    Because I think it's a general trait.
    We want to portray the best sides.
    And very few of us will admit our worst sides, or the shadow,
    or whatever.
    And we are not keen in propagating our weaknesses.
    Well, most of us don't have to repress mass murder.
    But still, I really think that this is all relative, isn't it?
    Obviously, in extreme situations,
    we will be capable of more extreme things
    than we are under normal conditions.
    And so that's all relative.
    We do bad things.
    Just think in terms of university, what happens--
    bad things, the way we are being treated--
    that, for that particular situation, is very interesting.
    Because I say, hey, in extreme situations,
    these people would be killers.
    They would be capable of killing.
    Because that's a very important thing.
    And that's exactly what I've discussed with Erich Fromm,
    particularly when the situation, and he said, well, you know,
    Dr. Steiner, I'll give you an example by Zimbardo's--
    the techniques he applied to measure the students
    in that particular experiment, in the simulated prison
    experiment--
    Stanford simulated prison experiment-- was inaccurate,
    because you simply can't measure these things--
    to what extent you have sadistic tendencies.
    And I'll give you an example, which
    is perhaps a much better way to measure things in real life.
    Just go to the post office, and the clerk is almost finished.
    It's closing time.
    And still one person waiting to be served.
    And he just looks at him.
    But because his time is over, he has a smirk on his face
    and gets a kick out of the fact that the man is disappointed
    and is not being served, he closes
    the window, his cubby hole there,
    and has a smirk on his face.
    And that, to me, is real proof of the pudding.
    So when I see that in everyday life,
    I am very mindful as I'd say, what
    would you be really capable of if the chips are down?
    And that also helps me to assess with whom I want
    to interact in my private life.
    My public life, I don't have that much choice if you're
    an instructor or whatever.
    But in my private life-- and some people say very
    judgmental--
    very many of the things I see and say,
    hey, I can see that I don't have to really interact
    with you a very long time.
    I can see how you use your role margin, the discretion you
    have.
    And I think you're a louse.
    I don't tell them that.
    I've got problems.
    I don't need it.
    Did you want to say something?
    To me, it seems that it's more than relative.
    In other words, it seems that someone
    who has to repress seeing 12 years of the Holocaust
    and the mass murder and the gore.
    But there's not 12 years of the Holocaust.
    Well, no.
    That's true.
    But they might have seen brutality beginning in '33.
    There was brutality happening here and there.
    There were cumulative public humiliations of people.
    In other words, someone who watched
    the humiliation and the murder of the Jewish people,
    or Gypsies, or whatever there--
    and the repression after the war that they
    would have to accomplish in order to forget all of that,
    and forget all the negative side of life during World War II--
    has to be a much more extensive, complete, and energetic
    endeavor on the part of the human psyche than someone
    who merely has to repress seeing that occasional brutality
    or not having been responsible in any way.
    And we find people that have even difficulty repressing
    things that they saw that were brutal, much less things
    that they were responsible for, or ordered themselves, or did
    themselves.
    And I was more interested in the fact, I think,
    that there probably is a whole continuum of repression
    we need to begin to study.
    Because you were able to find triggers.
    some people's repression by sort of, in a way,
    making it comfortable enough for them to become unrepressed.
    But given the circumstances of, particularly for the first 10
    years or 15 years after the war, that many of these men--
    if they had remembered it, or if someone else had remembered
    what they had done, they might be implicated,
    and the threat was also to their own lives and well-being--
    that the reason for repression is much more extensive
    in that case.
    Well, I agree with the fact that they have more
    to repress than people under normal conditions.
    I don't have any problems with that.
    But I still think it's relative, because I project, say, hey,
    if you [? will, ?] these people who
    are doing things which appear to be
    relatively minor in terms of comparing it
    to mass destruction.
    I think, already, tell me what they
    will be capable of if the chips were down.
    That's what I'm talking about.
    And that's relative.
    So I don't want to be around until the chips are down,
    because then I think my life would be in danger.
    And we've had that at the college also.
    We've had one person who was a virtual Greek dictator.
    And the way he just dealt with people, with the ruthlessness,
    was just simply, under normal conditions, just unbelievable.
    And yet I could see so many people today there and say,
    hey, I have nothing to do with it.
    It was very similar pattern.
    And I said, I wasn't a Nazi.
    I didn't do anything.
    And they tell me, I was not one of the people who kowtowed.
    And they threw out people that helped him to throw out
    people-- get people out of jobs, and discriminate, and all.
    And today, you're just a deny it, deny it.
    And so, I say that I have to see that in proportion.
    It's all relative.
    But, to be sure, if I'm a mass killer,
    I've got more to repress than if I'm not, obviously.
    It stands to reason.
    But you know that.
    So that's not the point.
    My point is that we can detect these sort of traits
    before things happen.
    And that's why I say we really have
    to be very active in helping to produce
    an atmosphere in which these things are not
    possible-- in other words, be sure that we don't participate
    in creating situations that people
    can act in a way which will lead to atrocities and mass murder.
    That's the only thing I can say.
    And very few people are mindful.
    One of the reasons why I do what I do
    is because there are very practical implications.
    Tell that to the politicians.
    Tell that to people in high power positions.
    Tell that to Henry Kissinger.
    The question is to what extent he will relate to that.
    Why?
    Because he enjoyed power.
    They enjoyed power.
    And they are prepared to pay the price.
    And that's what I've seen.
    I say this because, whenever I talk to them,
    the Israelis also say, oh my God, it's so beautiful.
    We were all so close together.
    And people are closely knit.
    And there was all these friendships, and comradeship,
    and all these sort of things.
    And we don't have that anymore.
    And these people are in high positions today.
    I mean high positions not in terms
    of power that much, but very successful
    financially speaking.
    And so, I tell them that.
    I remember one person who was married to a lady who
    was quite well-to-do.
    And he married into wealth and all
    that in a very fashionable resort in Germany,
    They had two hotels.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And this fellow had it all.
    And I was sent there by General Steiner.
    He said, you want to interview this fellow.
    He was in my division.
    And he told me very many things--
    among other things, that, yes, he's satisfied with his life.
    But he doesn't have the closeness, the comradeship,
    and all that.
    So he was talking about that simultaneously telling me
    that he was to be sent to be a commandant of a concentration
    camp.
    And because he had good contacts,
    and because he couldn't identify,
    and because he was not to be playing this role,
    he was able to avoid it.
    He told me that.
    What did he do instead?
    He went to combat.
    Did you ever see other kinds of signs
    of distress-- say, alcoholism, or drugs,
    prescription or otherwise?
    Alcoholism, no-- not first of all.
    Yeah, well, many people, but I don't
    think that was because of what they've seen and all that.
    They like to drink.
    Steiner, for example-- and I talked to him until 2
    o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning--
    always wine, and I do have some wine,
    but it doesn't affect me that much anyway.
    But he was drinking like crazy.
    And when he was in charge of a regiment
    and all that back in Munich, I remember one fellow then
    who also became an SS general.
    I also interviewed the person who was a significant other
    to him--
    I've interviewed and then later on befriended--
    and an old timer.
    He was even older than Steiner himself, I think.
    And he said that they had to carry him around
    because they were totally drunk during that early time.
    And they said, you can't go on like, that totally drunk.
    So he just couldn't.
    They had to carry him, physically.
    So these people were drinking before.
    And I certainly haven't seen that in terms
    of any sort of a drug situation we
    have now with the for example, Vietnam veterans.
    No, nothing at all.
    Did you have any sense that they would talk with their families
    about their wartime behavior?
    Well, you see, that's an important thing.
    Because they didn't talk to their families
    about it to begin with.
    So they usually kept them away from all these sort of things.
    And that was a tendency which prevailed during the time--
    and they were actually perpetrators--
    and I think continued pretty much after the war-- unless,
    like Wolff, who was a person who was very frequently sought out
    to be interviewed.
    But he had his young girlfriend.
    And she was present.
    So then she found out what was what and became interested.
    But no, never went beyond the interest of the interviewers.
    She never asked questions herself.
    Because the interesting thing is, regardless
    what sort of heels these lovers may be,
    they relate to the role of the lover and not the perpetrator.
    The role of the lover is what is important to them.
    And that is the satisfying aspect of it.
    And the other thing they somehow put aside--
    and they can't, because if you have a lover,
    you're not going to tell him what sort of a heel you are,
    right?
    You're just going to say what a nice person you are.
    Because you don't want to lose them.
    You don't want to deter them from loving you, right?
    So that's exactly what they did.
    And some of these people were married once, twice,
    three times.
    And that was already the tendency among high-posited
    members of the SS--
    just like you buy a new car, they
    discarded the old car, the old woman--
    and then many of the younger ones,
    for which I have to say I have some understanding for that.
    I have some empathy for that.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Typical for highly posited people,
    because power is charismatic.
    And so, young women saw in them--
    and I've seen that in many situations, people
    who were really, to me, repulsive almost looking.
    So Wolff happened to be charismatic
    in so many ways, but also a very good-looking person
    and some sort of a model for an Aryan SS man.
    But I've seen, Otto Strasser, who was an early Nazi--
    one of the highest posited early Nazis in the '20s.
    Not later on, he fell into disrepute
    and no one got along with him.
    But he still had this charismatic personality.
    He still had charisma.
    But he was ugly like hell.
    And there he got the most beautiful person,
    who was about 30, 40 years younger than he.
    And she married him.
    And she earned the money for him.
    And she did everything, and nursed him until he died.
    [INAUDIBLE] he was kissing her fingers, hands, and all that,
    carrying on in my presence--
    which was terribly interesting to me,
    because that was a learning process.
    I said, how could she, a beautiful woman?
    Well, she didn't relate to all this.
    She related to the charisma, the power he used to have--
    and still somehow a remnant of it,
    because he still tried to be active in politics
    and did the whole thing, which he hoped that he would develop
    his own political party.
    Did any of the SS discuss their wartime experiences
    with other people in the community
    and non-family members?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    But, you see, this is one thing which is very important.
    Most people don't know why they have rallies.
    They don't have rallies in order to revive National Socialism.
    That's an important thing, but they
    have rallies to get together and talk about old times,
    and recreate the atmosphere, which they enjoyed because,
    being so close and this brotherhood
    and all this sort of thing--
    one ideology and all this sort of thing--
    which really gave them their a unanimous --
    great deal of satisfaction.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    [INAUDIBLE]
    They just meet.
    Was it called SS rallies, Nazi rallies?
    No.
    The combat unit so-and-so, division so-and-so
    have a meeting at that-and-that place
    to get together and meet with each other and their families.
    And that's nothing at all.
    And it's not an attempt to revive National Socialism.
    That's not even their intention.
    And what I'm trying to say--
    and I'm absolutely convinced of that--
    it was just to get together to relive again
    this sort of feeling they've had during National Socialism--
    somehow to get a feeling of that, and get together.
    And I've participated in a number of these things.
    So I think it was very evident.
    They justified National Socialism, why they were there,
    and they still admired it.
    But not at all they are interested in somehow
    reviving it at this particular point in time.
    They're interested in recreating an atmosphere of closeness
    and brotherhood.
    Yes.
    That was the purpose--
    and still is, because it still exists until the last people.
    Now they are dying left and right,
    because they are of an old age.
    But they weren't discussing their behavior
    during this period so much?
    Well, yes, a question of justification.
    They say, well, they were fighting for Germany
    and a non-communist Europe.
    That's something which they insist on-- and not
    only insist, but repeat.
    What about the question of the next generation?
    How do their children relate to them?
    Well, that's one thing which is being studied, but not by me.
    But some other people are very interested in studying
    children of Nazis.
    And I think it's a very important aspect.
    What I, in my limited experience I had had--
    I've had some, and particularly with Heydrich's niece.
    That's when it started, when I started.
    And some other people who were--
    one was a medical SS doctor with a dreadful reputation
    for having killed an untold number of people.
    There are two major responses--
    denial or total shame.
    And we've had at the University also.
    A woman, German, person and she was guilt-ridden
    because her grandfather was the leader of the Bavarian SA
    Brownshirts, the head man.
    Early in National Socialism, he was one of the senior people.
    And his son was a high official under the Nazis--
    and, apparently, tainted with mischief
    in some way or another.
    But not because he was an SS or something,
    but simply because he was a Nazi official of sorts.
    And she was absolutely guilt-ridden.
    And that's what I found with very many, too.
    I've seen that with the younger generation,
    who dissociate themselves from the deeds of their--
    so these are the two major groups.
    And you have some other people trying
    to come to terms with the past of their parents
    in one way or another.
    My best friend was an absolute Nazi, a product of the Hitler
    Youth and a lieutenant during the war-- very young
    for a lieutenant, a full-fledged lieutenant.
    Absolute Nazi.
    His parents were absolute Nazis.
    But he got it out of the system.
    And he met me and said, hey, I've got to do something.
    So he was the first one to deal with my restitution
    in being my attorney, and tried his best,
    and tries to make a restitution--
    which he certainly has done in terms of what he has done
    for me, and how he stood by, particularly
    when I've had problems with my marriage,
    and all the other things-- stood by,
    a loyalty which I haven't seen with anyone else.
    Did you feel that this reaction was a common one,
    that the children would feel alienated
    from the Nazi ideology?
    Oh, yeah.
    I [? wouldn't ?] say alienated.
    I would say guilt-ridden.
    Guilt-ridden.
    Guilt-ridden.
    So that they say, I don't know whether you
    want to talk to me, because I'm German
    and you were in the camp.
    I don't know whether you want to talk to me.
    Do you have any sense of whether the children confront,
    or talk with, their parents about the issue?
    Oh, yeah.
    Except the parents are not taking it.
    Parents don't play ball.
    The parents don't want to talk about it.
    And, actually, they've been left in the dark for the most part.
    They have to find out themselves, inadvertently,
    or just surreptitiously.
    Because very, very rarely -- they simply won't talk about
    it.
    And they don't talk about to their children.
    They don't try to talk about the wives and all that.
    They find out something by just happenstance, something just
    by accident or something.
    Very rarely will they do some digging.
    Because once they start doing digging in some of the dirt,
    their relationship will change, to put it mildly.
    And they may not want that.
    Did you have any sense that the post-war Nazis
    tended to be more violent within the family?
    I haven't noticed that.
    I think they're authoritarian, all right.
    That there was no question.
    Master of the house-- no question.
    No question about male chauvinism--
    no question about that.
    Well, that goes hand in hand with
    the authoritarian personality in males.
    And so, that is something which there was no question about it.
    But I did not see any complaints-- no violence,
    either towards the spouse or the children.
    There was absolutely no violence I could notice--
    none-- but the responsibility to take care,
    and to be responsible in their role as master of the house.
    In which case you don't need violence.
    Because, in fact, you have already dominated the people
    in your environment.
    So you don't need to use force against them.
    And that also reinforces their ability
    to never be questioned throughout their life
    on their role during that time.
    Because they've already established a standard that
    cannot be questioned.
    That's the patriarchal authority.
    That's how it works.
    Along those lines, did you talk about any thoughts or feelings
    of apprehension that they had post-war
    that they might be called to the courts for their behavior?
    Oh, yeah.
    There's no question about that--
    no question about that at all.
    And so, they could depress to a degree,
    but not when they fear authority,
    the present authority.
    And so many people, of course, went underground,
    or changed their name, or left the country,
    or did some other things, or removed their blood group
    tattoo under the left arm.
    And so, they went into all sorts of lengths
    in not drawing any attention to themselves,
    or hoping for the best, but not drawing any attention
    to themselves.
    So, therefore, they're very careful not
    to rock the boat in order not to draw attention to themselves.
    And that, I think, we can say with some degree of certainty
    that that was the tendency in most of them,
    [? Führer ?] people.
    What relationships might they have with community members--
    the local civilian population who, themselves, did not
    believe any of these things were happening during the war,
    or claimed they didn't know or didn't see?
    First of all, let's make one thing crystal clear--
    and that is the conclusion of many years of research.
    Anyone who wanted to know, could.
    Because it was even in the papers,
    particularly in Striker Stürmer.
    I've been through all the papers from '40 to '44.
    And there were pictures of ghettos and letters
    from SS people about the conditions, ghettos,
    and threats of destruction, and all this sort of thing.
    So anyone who wanted to find out--
    perhaps not the specifics necessarily,
    in terms of gas chambers and all that-- but that something very
    dire was happening.
    So that's very clear-cut--
    no question about that.
    So any excuse--
    I didn't know anything-- you didn't want to know.
    And that, I think, we can say with some real degree
    of certainty, too.
    Could these SS perpetrators, then, in any way
    count on at least tacit support of their community
    for their wartime behavior?
    Well, if they knew about it.
    It just depends if it was expedient for these people
    not to draw attention to it and the opportunists.
    And in most situations, and if it
    was useful or serve their purposes, they'd say, hey,
    you were one of those.
    And if it didn't serve any purpose,
    pragmatically speaking, they didn't.
    They simply ignored it.
    But it depends, of course.
    If the concentration camp people and all that had found out,
    of course, they would have responded.
    Survivers and all.
    So they would have responded, no question.
    Because I certainly did.
    What about the maybe existent network of help among the SS
    people post-war--
    getting jobs or what have you?
    Very early in the game--
    and that was actually virtually immediately after the war--
    they started a support organization for each other.
    And I know quite a bit about it, because I really
    went to the very beginnings, which are not even
    published yet.
    They've had their own kind of mimeograph type of paper.
    And they started it at certain names.
    And they changed the various names, became larger,
    and more people joined.
    And it was legitimate.
    It is not something which is illegal.
    It's legitimized by the German authorities.
    So it's a mutual assistance society.
    And that is exactly the abbreviations--
    "mutual assistance organization based
    on reciprocity" or something of that nature,
    would be the English translation.
    It's called [? Hilfsgemeinschaft ?] auf
    Gegenseitigkeit [INAUDIBLE] in short.
    And so, they had dues and get money from various sources--
    and some people have become very well-to-do--
    to assist those people who are socioeconomically less
    successful and give them money--
    pensions, widows, whatever.
    And works exceedingly well.
    They've been very supportive to each other-- no question
    about that.
    Actually a model organization in terms of helping each other.
    Does it have any ideology?
    No.
    I wouldn't say that it has an ideology, other than that they
    say, well, we've done that for Germany,
    and we all have fought for Germany,
    and we have commonalities, and Hitler was all this and that.
    And that's it.
    And I've questioned people and also observed,
    during these sort of celebrities--
    particularly one which I published--
    describe very specifically they tend
    to not necessarily indoctrinate their children with what
    they used to believe in.
    And they justify because they have
    to live in a different world,
    And that was something which I was told by them.
    I think they are fairly representative
    so that you don't make their lives more
    difficult because of their affiliation
    and their identification with National Socialism.
    So it doesn't mean that they don't take them
    to some of these big meetings they have, and rallies
    and all that.
    They take their families because they
    don't want them to be ashamed of them, one,
    but also because they are family.
    But they don't indoctrinate them.
    But they also, of course, would like
    to see that they are not being condemned by their children
    from having been what they were.
    That of course is, of course, very true.
    But even people whom I know were fanatic Nazis in the SS,
    I don't think they impose the ideology on their children,
    other than expecting to be accepted by the children
    regardless.
    What is your thinking about the feelings of the elder Nazi--
    the elder SS in particular--
    toward Jews?
    Towards Jews?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Well, that was something which came out in my questionnaire.
    Because what I did in my questionnaire--
    I'm very glad I did it, because then it measured something
    which it no longer would measure,
    because the conditions , the times have changed.
    So I've asked them, where would you prefer to live?
    And gave them actually a list of places.
    And they're supposed to number these
    places-- one, two, three, four, which
    I like the least, and all that.
    So my assumption was talking about antisemitism--
    and Jerusalem was there--
    that Jerusalem would be the place which
    they would like to live least.
    Not true.
    It was Moscow.
    Communism.
    That's right.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    That's right.
    So there was very little talk about Jews among the SS now.
    Because that was finished, in a way, more or less.
    That's for sure.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    This organization-- did it have ties to the Nazis
    who had fled to other countries?
    Well, yes.
    The interesting thing is, because of my affiliation
    with Wolff, Wolff was on a mission to visit the people.
    And that was a real hush-hush affair.
    And at that particular time, I was there staying,
    there was in Dusseldorf at that time.
    We lived in Dusseldorf.
    And I was staying there with him until the day he
    left for South America.
    And so that's how I found out. with a person who
    was a young fellow, a young journalist, who
    just got into very deep trouble afterwards and was imprisoned.
    But we won't go into that, because it's a separate --
    a separate story.
    And so, we accompanied -- that is -- his girlfriend.
    And I accompanied him to the airport.
    And before that, I went with him to a medical doctor [? who --
    just checked up if we can go on this flight, and all this.
    And that was all hush-hush.
    And they told me very little about it,
    other than that they wanted to retrieve the so-called blood
    flag, which was in connection with 1923, when Hitler tried
    to overthrow the Bavarian government and install himself
    or the National Socialist party with the help of some
    of his early Nazis in 1923.
    And that the coup d'etat failed.
    so that had many consequences.
    And that's why he was also arrested and then put
    into prison--
    Hitler was, and a number of other people.
    So he was going there in order to see all the Nazis who
    had fled there and do some sort of investigation,
    some research, and somehow reunite,
    or just see who is left, and talk to them,
    and what they were doing--
    which he did.
    And that was financed by a group of people
    who wanted to publish some of these things--
    a popular German magazine.
    They financed that.
    What did they want to publish?
    The outcome.
    And some of these things--
    they would have published only those things
    which was in their interest, that is to say.
    And Wolff was not going to tell them everything.
    So I also think that they were looking for Bormann--
    and may or may not have found him, because that's still not
    100% clear whether he died in Berlin
    or whether he was able to flee.
    And I'm still open on that.
    But they certainly went to see the other people.
    I'm pretty sure that they went to see Mengele
    and all the other people.
    What year was that, more or less?
    '70s--
    '70s?
    The second part of the 70s, I think.
    Yeah.
    Was that the main period you were doing this research?
    So this is maybe from the mid-'70s on?
    No.
    I started much earlier.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    For all practical purposes, I started '59, '60.
    And went through the '70s in any case.
    Yeah, up to now.
    Up to now?
    Well, many people had died.
    Wolff had died.
    Steiner's died.
    Many people I've interviewed-- the Hangman of Buchenwald
    died-- lots of people died.
    I couldn't do it anyway.
    It was [? not ?] work, because the people are not around.
    The big players are not around.
    They've died or are totally senile.
    And I know that because three, four years ago,
    when I did the Hitler--
    Myth and Man, we interviewed some of the old Nazis.
    And they are just out of it.
    Those people were there, but they are so senile.
    There was not very much you could do with them.
    We've interviewed them, but they are pretty much out of it.
    So there's no one left of stature to be interviewed?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Gone-- no question about that.
    Back to this trip that Wolff took-- what,
    in fact, was the blood flag?
    That was the one which they carried during 1923.
    And because people were killed by the Bavarian police there,
    they retrieved it.
    And that became now the main symbol.
    So whenever there were some new flags which
    were created for new segments of the SR, SA, or the SS,
    Hitler came with a blood flag and then touched
    the other new flags.
    And then that was accepted now as part of that.
    So it was a symbol which was very powerful and very clever.
    And that black flag was exactly the one
    which Hitler always used to inaugurate, or to christen
    or whatever, the new ones, which were then accepted--
    not new flags as such, but because a new battalions,
    new groups of people, segments of the SA or different National
    Socialist organizations.
    And this flag then inaugurated the new
    included by touching that flag.
    And presumably, somebody who was [INAUDIBLE] Latin America
    had taken that flag?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Do you know it was ever found?
    Well, the thing is that is one of the things the details--
    specifics-- it was not easy for me to find out.
    Because that was not even discussed with a girlfriend.
    And so, I only found out, piece by piece, certain things,
    by him showing me Goring's ring or some other things--
    pieces of jewelry which were in his possession, which they
    were able to get brought up.
    And so I even had Goring's ring--
    and it fitted me perfectly--
    and some other sort of things.
    But he was not--
    or he was really --
    That's one thing which he was really not talking about.
    I would have eventually been able to if he had not died,
    because I was bringing up these things from time to time.
    But he was very quiet on that.
    This organization that you were talking about that
    was a mutual aid society
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    I had heard that there was certainly
    a Nazi, if not a totally SS, organization that continues
    to try to recruit new people--
    I presume to the ideology.
    But the thing is, let me just make that perfectly clear.
    I was very interested at some time and other years ago,
    when I was still relatively new at the college.
    I was still relatively new.
    I think it was early '70s--
    maybe '75 or something.
    So I brought in the American Nazi party to my classes
    and let them give their thing.
    And everything was very well-guarded
    so that there'd be no conflicts.
    So I let them do it with sophisticated students.
    And I'm lucky.
    I had a sophisticated bunch.
    And so, then, the question after that presentation,
    which was totally neo-Nazi-- totally based
    on the Nazi doctrines, just like translations from the German,
    just like it is in the book.
    So then I had students questioning them and all that.
    And after that, in my office, which I still have,
    they came in and wanted to talk to me.
    And the leader of the thing had actually a leather jacket.
    And on this little leather jacket,
    he's got the SS emblem, which was a real original, which
    the SS wore when they were in civilian things.
    And it was the SS -- which I have seen back when I was
    in Prague.
    And I've seen them in the original, when
    they were actually wearing it.
    So he said, I really need to talk to you.
    And I said, OK, fine, so sit down.
    And he said, I understand from what you've done
    and what I've read about you that you're doing research
    on the SS and you've got good contacts with the German SS
    people, former SS people.
    We of the Nazi party would like to have
    some contact that develops.
    So I would like you to tell them that we
    would like to collaborate or cooperate with them.
    And I said, OK, I'm going to tell them,
    and I'm going to ask them, and yes, I'll do it.
    And so, I went back.
    I saw them every year, just as I do now every year.
    Some of all those who are left those I
    still have contact with.
    I don't stay long enough There are many more
    I could contact them.
    So I went to the head honcho of the HIAG and said,
    you know, I've got an interesting proposition here
    for you.
    Of course, they had no idea about my background-- none
    whatsoever.
    And I just came across California --
    Aryan type of you know the Nazi party,
    which is the Nazi group of people who just --
    And they were interested in somehow initiating contact
    with you, because they would like to work with you.
    And he started laughing and said, tell them they are crazy.
    Tell them they are crazy We wouldn't touch them
    with a 10 foot pole.
    Why?
    Well, it's ridiculous.
    It's not interesting to them.
    And he was the head honcho.
    He was the person who was in charge of all the people
    who were members of the HIAG.
    So do you think that--
    Lieutenant of-- SS lieutenant colonel, and very close
    to Himmler.
    Very close to Himmler.
    No, no, but --
    There's no [? ruling ?] [? power? ?]
    No.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    New people rediscover-- your younger generation--
    and they may go and talk to some of the people,
    get some information, and they may
    find that they are sympathetic, maybe, or lend them an ear.
    But no.
    This is a generation They do their own thing.
    And they are very separate.
    Because I've found different places say,
    hey, we don't want anything to do with that anymore,
    any sort of revival or anything.
    We're not interested.
    So in the revival, is the same ideology [INAUDIBLE]??
    Yeah.
    In essence, the same ideology, but it's
    done by different people.
    Because they're dead.
    The old ones are dead.
    And the young kids, they don't know.
    The youngest people who still may be around are my age.
    My age, perhaps, one --
    because the maybe '26, '27, maybe even two years
    younger than I, they are the last ones who were recruited.
    And these people don't know nothing from nothing,
    because they're too young.
    They certainly were products of the Hitler Youth days,
    but that's just about it.
    And they were in the combat SS--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Certainly not in concentration camps.
    Are there any areas of study amongst these SS that you think
    should have been done?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Well, there are lots.
    Psychologists should have been involved.
    And they were not.
    And I've tried to recruit people.
    I've tried to tell them.
    That's one important aspect.
    And I still don't have a satisfactory explanation
    for why there was no interest by the social scientists.
    And I'm talking about social scientists--
    with the exception of historians, who certainly did
    a lot of studying and research, and to some extent
    some few political scientists.
    No sociologists I know have been involved--
    certainly no psychologists--
    to conduct any research which would
    be important to the field.
    They shied away from it.
    So, yes, lots should have been done and could have been done.
    But they didn't want to do it.
    I had to struggle.
    I got some grant money--
    and the only money I got, and the only support
    I got, from just a really sophisticated group of people--
    is Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
    And they are the ones who understood
    the merits of my work and went out of their way to support me.
    Let's put it that way.
    But other than that, I was only discouraged,
    whether it was here in the United States or in Germany.
    None of them were interested or were supportive, other
    than that particular group.
    What was the rationale to discourage you?
    To stop me?
    What sorts of things did people say to discourage you?
    Why shouldn't you study the perpetrator?
    Oh, it was not important, or no one was interested,
    and let bygones be bygones, and that --
    not that important, and a waste of time--
    just anything of that nature.
    What would be the psychological aspects that you
    wished had been pursued?
    I certainly hope people, just in that sense, what I'm doing,
    except occurring as far as possible,
    and say why people do what they do.
    Why do people behave the way that they--
    I have some answers, and I'm glad.
    And I know more than I knew when I started,
    obviously-- a great deal more.
    And I think I've got satisfying answers,
    but by no means exhaustive answers.
    And all these should have been researched
    as to why people get into situations
    in which they will commit atrocities
    and crimes against humanity.
    Let's put it that way.
    And so, that's very interesting how
    come that people, for example, build support leaders who
    already are very clear-cut, where
    you can say i mean chances when that person comes
    into power or something that is going to happen.
    And why do they support them?
    What are the reasons for that?
    So we're talking about mass behavior.
    And things have been written about that, but not
    in connection with the Nazis.
    [INAUDIBLE] and some other people
    have written about these things, but not
    directly in connection with the Nazis.
    The [INAUDIBLE] were the main people who--
    German psychiatrists who did some work
    in the psychology of this.
    Do you remember what their main findings were in whatever era
    they were working in?
    Well, [Personal name] was primarily interested
    in the medical aspects of the people who were responsible.
    The medical SS people were responsible for mass murder.
    That was [Personal name] primary interest.
    But she wrote quite a bit--
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    But for that particular time, they've done very important,
    what I would call, preliminary research, which
    provided the basis.
    But they didn't go very far.
    And there are a handful of psychiatrists, maybe,
    but very few, actually.
    [Personal name] was one of the very few.
    And so, all the other people in psychology
    didn't do very much at all--
    just minimal.
    You really can't say that there is a body of research
    other than [Personal name] and maybe some other few.
    Well, what are they going to study if people won't talk?
    That's my question.
    Because that was one of the main problems
    that they ran into over and over.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    It's not true.
    With this sort of assumption, I started mine so I said.
    That's what also some people forgot to say,
    that they won't talk, you won't get them to talk,
    and all this and that.
    It's not true.
    I found that out.
    But I believed that you were not going to make any headway.
    But the very moment I started, and I was had it because I had,
    at that time, a body of knowledge where I really
    could engage them in a dialogue--
    not just simply interview and say,
    yeah, there was this and that.
    I knew enough in order to engage in a meaningful dialogue
    so that it was worthwhile for them.
    And so, therefore, that they got some satisfaction
    from my talking to them.
    Because otherwise, they wouldn't have been interested.
    But that only could have been achieved because
    of my knowledge at that time.
    And then, since now, of course I know
    much more than I knew then.
    But my assumption that they would not talk,
    and that I wouldn't get them to talk, was totally wrong.
    Because there was only one person, or two or three, maybe,
    who didn't talk.
    And one, unfortunately, was one of the most important ones
    was von dem Bach-Zelewski.
    And he was in charge of all the exterminations.
    He was [? imprisoned ?] got him face to face,
    and he said, well, the director of that prison
    asked him, would you like to be interviewed by Dr. Steiner,
    and said, I'd rather not.
    He said, in that case, we're not going to force you.
    And that was it.
    But he's one of the very few exceptions,
    not even 1% of those I interviewed who would
    have not been prepared to [INAUDIBLE] not even 1%.
    I [INAUDIBLE] psychological patterns
    and so forth, which is what Margareta's point was--
    that even though they would say things about where they had
    been or that sort of thing, that to get them to talk
    about motivations or some of the deeper psychological material--
    that was not going to happen.
    That's what I meant.
    I think we've mentioned, and we got to it,
    talking about authority in my questionnaire-- which,
    if that is not social psychology and in-depth psychology,
    I don't know what is.
    And certainly I had an unbelievable return.
    I've had an excellent-- out of a thousand questionnaires,
    I received over 600, which is a very nice return.
    So you sent out a thousand questionnaires.
    You got back about 600 answers.
    I forget the exact number, but it was around 600.
    And, more or less, how many people did
    you personally interview?
    I lost the count.
    I lost count of them.
    Can you estimate?
    Some I imagine you interviewed maybe in more than one session
    and over time, you've talked about.
    And some maybe just gave you one or two sessions.
    It depends on the different quality
    of the interviews, number one.
    Because some of those in passing and some people in greater
    detail must have been close to 100, at least.
    Did you notice any difference in talking
    with those people who were in prison,
    and those who led a so-called normal life after the war?
    What was the question?
    Whether you found any difference.
    Well, obviously, if someone is in a prison,
    it's a difference in attitude.
    But they are not less willing to talk about it.
    They wrote autobiographical accounts,
    and wrote things for me, and then added you know]
    didn't object to being taped.
    They hope that I would reward them in one way or another.
    And to some extent, I could.
    In some extent, I could not.
    But they're in prison.
    But that didn't deter them from being interviewed.
    What was their attitude about being punished for those deeds?
    Well, they said that they were the peons.
    They were the ones who were acting upon orders
    and very correctly said that their superiors were,
    at times, scot-free someplace.
    And they were blamed for the orders they carried out.
    They were the bottom of the totem pole.
    And that's what they pointed out.
    And they're unhappy with that.
    They didn't say that they didn't do it, but they minimized it.
    And they all said, well, what could I do?
    What else could I do?
    And all this, and simply justified
    why they did what they did-- no question about that.
    But they didn't deny it.
    They didn't deny it, but they minimized it
    and said, what else could I do?
    In writing, in the interviews taped, and all this.
    And we talked about it at length.
    And talking about [? depth ?] psychology--
    God, yeah, it was [? depth ?] psychology
    if I've ever seen one.
    I'm talking about looking for ways to prevent
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Obviously, you do feel at this point that the material you got
    was enough.
    It was adequate.
    And it's satisfying to you in terms of what you found.
    Yeah.
    Right.
    Therefore, the subsequent premises, then,
    that you have found enough to know how to teach
    to prevent this again, right?
    I hope so.
    Yeah.
    I think so.
    But the only thing is, so many people
    have to have a body of knowledge to relate what I'm doing.
    Most people don't.
    Now, the interesting thing is--
    I wanted to commend you on that.
    Because you have, by far with a distance,
    asked me the most intelligent, poignant questions of anyone
    I can think of.
    Well, thank you.
    Thank yourself.
    OK.
    You're welcome.
    And so, then, you really can do things.
    Because once you understand whatever body of knowledge
    you can have, then you can develop strategies.
    But in order to develop strategies,
    you also have to know people in power.
    I don't know any people in power at the moment.
    I'm closer to knowing people in power in Germany
    because you can't do more than be
    invited to the President of the Federal Republic.
    And I have been there many times-- different presidents.
    And I engage people in this discussion.
    And particularly, the first president I
    have met when I was still in Hamburg fellow,
    I engaged the president and wrote about it.
    And he responded.
    And some other people, I could have,
    if I had had a better chance to really stay in touch and all
    that, which I was unable to do.
    But there, I think I would succeed more readily than here.
    Because here, no one was really interested.
    I have only people who are totally novices or ignorant
    or uninterested to deal with.
    And our college is a pretty good example in point.
    It's a case in point of that type of ignorance.
    Because they have-- even my colleagues--
    not the faintest idea as to the value of that research.
    Well, we've jumped ahead.
    But now that we're on this point,
    let's pursue it-- the notion of what to do with this knowledge.
    Right.
    What about this mandate and the interest
    in teaching the Holocaust?
    Does that extend to the college level?
    Is it required that a college student have a course?
    relating to --
    Not at all.
    And I don't think it's going to happen, either,
    in the foreseeable future.
    What I've been unable to do that I
    talk to responsible politicians, people
    who could make the difference by virtue
    of their power, their position.
    And I've certainly not made that at all.
    So what you do, you hope for the best
    by teaching ignorant or less ignorant students,
    and enlighten them.
    But what they will do with it is something beyond your control.
    So that's exceedingly limited, what I'm doing.
    And then, of course, I've got people--
    fellow academicians and in the last few years,
    for reasons which would be interesting to find out,
    they've quoted me more and more and more.
    And I'm now really quoted in lots of places,
    which is very nice for me.
    But the question is, what sort of difference will it make?
    Because what these people do is use it for academic purposes.
    And that's what's going to happen.
    That's where it's going to stay.
    But to convert it into action is another thing.
    It's a separate step.
    And for that you have to know people
    who are in power positions outside academia.
    And also, I don't know.
    I don't have any contacts.
    Because if I would have contacts,
    I would not be at Sonoma State.
    I guarantee you.
    Or you have to get popular coverage, which
    Spielberg has done, in a sense, for the Holocaust.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Even there, you may have a broader population, broader
    people, exposed to it.
    But the question is whether President Clinton
    is going to talk to him.
    I don't know.
    I doubt it.
    I doubt it very much--
    and if a politician is going to talk to him,
    and only to get a piece of action by being seen together,
    and all that.
    So that's the question.
    Even people like Spielberg may not,
    beyond what he has done with it, and simply
    get the information among the people
    in a way which can be relatively easily digested.
    I don't know what he can do beyond that-- to what extent
    he is an influence which would reach
    to high-level politicians.
    I doubt it.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Public opinion may be up.
    You may influence, to some extent, public opinion.
    Yeah.
    That, perhaps.
    But in the case of Germany, where
    you say you do know people--
    and obviously, where Germany is so
    self-conscious about the issue, it might make a difference.
    Do you feel that those politicians
    that you do know, or know of, is there a self-consciousness--
    any fear that this ideology may erupt, or is alive,
    or is it more restitution for past acts, or what do you feel?
    I don't think it's the fear, because I don't think
    that people in high positions fear what we
    see in the neo-Nazi activities.
    There may be a concern.
    But I don't know whether it's a fear at this point.
    I don't see that.
    But their interest may be purely academic
    or to satisfy their curiosity and their need
    to be able to say, well, it's not
    going to happen while I am, so to speak, in power.
    Because I'm not going to allow it.
    But the details, the specifics as to how to prevent it,
    I don't think they know and have not reflected on.
    Because they don't have that information.
    And I'm not sure that they seek that information.
    So I don't think it's fear.
    It's just simply to act in a way which
    will be identified by the world public as democratic
    and within the line of their convictions,
    which they espouse.
    In your research project of interviewing the SS people,
    how did you present your questionnaire?
    What was, as it were, the title?
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Well, just questions, and just like give the people a quiz.
    I see.
    And so, they didn't have to go into sentences or anything--
    it was just simply like an objective test, so to speak.
    And I forget what I called it--
    questionnaire.
    I didn't call it anything specific.
    I thought maybe the title might have had something
    to do with it.
    The thing is, this is one thing which
    is a very important connection-- because now, I
    just feel that there is one thing I haven't mentioned.
    Now, I've developed the questionnaire
    with the help of General Steiner.
    And the help he gave me was very simple.
    I asked very specific questions which were also
    very clear-cut about antisemitism, racism,
    and all that, which was much longer the questionnaire was
    much considerably long.
    And so, I gave it to him and said,
    OK, what do you think about this?
    He said, OK, if you leave it as that,
    they're going to throw it in the wastepaper basket.
    They're not going to even respond to that.
    So this is threatening, this is threatening,
    this is too clear-cut, this is something
    you have to leave out.
    So, then, he just simply purified the whole thing.
    He just expurged the thing and said,
    this is what they will accept and respond to.
    But anything beyond that, they're going to throw it out.
    They're not going to do it for you.
    So that was invaluable help.
    Because he understood the mentality of the SS much better
    than I did-- especially at that time, and we] talked in '68--
    something like that.
    Because '70, it got published.
    And I worked on it in '68 or something like '67, '68.
    And so, that was tremendous help, because otherwise,
    I never would have gotten any results.
    And did you have his or other people's entre
    by way of an introductory letter?
    Yeah.
    So what he did-- and that was a tremendous help, also,
    because he wrote an introductory letter to all the other people.
    And he worked with the HIAG.
    He worked with the HIAG and all the various regions of people
    in charge of the HIAG-- and not necessarily
    because they had the highest rank or anything-- simply
    because they're activists, or simply
    because they're a vested interest
    to have the time and motivation.
    And so, he wrote.
    And he knew who was in charge, or who is very influential,
    if not in charge-- influential person this and that,
    up to the highest people, the central leadership of the HIAG.
    And he sent all these batches of questionnaires.
    And then I gave it to the individual people I knew.
    And that's how I got the thing done.
    Because on my own, I would have whistled in the wind--
    no question about that.
    And that was an invaluable thing.
    And he wrote some sort of letter that said
    the man is an objective person.
    He's trying to find out more, and study, and research.
    And he deserves your support.
    I've got all these things you still.
    What do you think his motivation, and the motivation
    of the HIAG people were?
    To further this --
    I don't know about HIAG.
    They just wanted to look good by working and opening themselves.
    And Steiner was really authentically interested.
    He was very interested in my study.
    He liked me personally.
    He liked me.
    He viewed me as a friend.
    I was his advisor on many things.
    He asked for advice, came to me for advice-- said, John, I'd
    like to ask you something.
    And he said that--
    John, I'd like to ask your advice in this--
    and that and also I helped him with his book.
    Because I did the research in the Nuremberg trials--
    which, 23 volumes that he was mentioned
    as a person who was a member of the SS
    and adhered to the Geneva Convention
    as a model sort of a military officer.
    And he incorporated it in the book.
    And I was the one who got it for him.
    I did some research for his book--
    which is a very interesting book, [INAUDIBLE]
    some self-justification in it.
    But there is very much tremendously important,
    insightful things, which I was able to use in my book.
    It sounds like, as you say, that getting
    the response of 600 people out of a thousand
    is a high response.
    Right.
    A good response.
    Yeah.
    A good response.
    Yeah.
    In the course of analyzing the questionnaires and of meeting
    the people, do you think that motivation to answer came--
    obviously, maybe in part from the influence
    of General Steiner--
    in other words, a kind of an obedience response, in part?
    In what way.
    I don't quite understand.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    Yes, absolutely.
    This was part of the obedience.
    Oh, yeah.
    Absolutely.
    No question.
    What I'm interested in, too, is what
    about the 400 who didn't obey?
    Who didn't do what?
    Obey.
    Well, I don't know what happened to them.
    I have no idea, because I had no access to them.
    I don't know who they were.
    There is nothing I could do about it.
    [INTERPOSING VOICES]
    It's not a question of obedience.
    Obedience played a part, no question about it.
    As we said, that's established.
    But so many people were just ignorant.
    They couldn't do it.
    It was too much work for them-- some other possible reason
    which was totally innocuous.
    There are lots of possible reasons.
    Also, they may have misdirected.
    They may have moved or whatever-- so many things,
    they just didn't feel like it, postponed it--
    lots of possibilities, or disinterest.
    Along these lines, what do you think
    about the notions of people, particularly Alice Miller
    and her ideas of the ways of child rearing?
    Socializatoin, There's no question.
    You just simply can't dismiss the influence of socialization.
    So we had been talking about the role of child raising
    practices, particularly thinking about the Alice Miller
    theory and how this affects the creation
    of the authoritarian personality,
    the role of raising obedient people, et cetera.
    So do you have any notions about how that plays out?
    Well, what I found in some of the cases, as far as one
    could go back into details--
    so two things which were striking,
    as far as that is concerned, which
    I found interesting to reflect on,
    was first of all, the relative ignorance
    of the parents, people who were not very educated,
    low-middle class, if not low class,
    people who were unenlightened, culturally and otherwise.
    Number one.
    Number two, the strictness and the more
    the challenges are, the less educated people are,
    less cultured they are, the more they
    will depend on the role they play.
    And by virtue of their role they play as a parent,
    they say, I say so, not because of my knowledge or wisdom,
    but by virtue of the fact that I play a parental role.
    And therefore, you have to obey, you have to do that.
    So that was this type of strictness
    which was, to me, quite not only apparent, but probably
    striking.
    So you talk about strictness and adhering to the rule
    without knowing the whys and wherefores.
    So they say, because I say so.
    And so I think that was a very strong tendency, particularly
    in those people who were relatively unsophisticated,
    with very little education and basic school,
    and some even less, coming from culturally and economically
    deprived backgrounds.
    And that to me was very typical.
    Now, that was one group of people,
    namely from the social stratum of the low class or lower
    classes.
    And it was different with the upper classes.
    And there, I think things become more complicated.
    And what enters into the picture is, I think, the tradition.
    And I dwelled on some of that in my writing,
    because I think that the Prussian tradition,
    the military tradition as well as
    the social cultural tradition, has elements in it which
    are, indeed, strongly authoritarian and particularly
    male chauvinist and male dominant.
    And so that I could see that, in these families,
    the father was the ruler, in these middle,
    upper-middle class people.
    And so that obviously had rubbed off.
    And again, the sort of strictness, which was
    reflected in the parents' notion that they know better.
    And they reflected the tradition that, indeed, there is
    a pecking order or hierarchy.
    And these people don't have to rule,
    because if they don't rule, they are not really playing
    the roles as they should be.
    And that was also reflected as I said in the middle class
    and upper middle class.
    Now--
    Do you think that this was particularly severe in Germany,
    or not particularly severe compared
    to other European countries?
    Well, I think-- I don't know whether it's just German.
    I think it's pretty Central European.
    I think, certainly, part of Austria
    plays a role in that, certainly, no question.
    It's changing now a little bit, but it's still, I think,
    very apparent that the male feels--
    and even if they don't like to, it's
    just part of the role they play.
    It means that they have to be the boss.
    And if they don't--
    or, not because they enjoy necessarily being the boss,
    but somehow, if they are not the boss,
    they feel that they are not living up
    to the expectations of the role they
    should be playing and feel very self-conscious about that.
    That is something which is very crazy.
    It's not necessarily because they want to play.
    But they feel if they don't, they
    will not be taken seriously or they
    will be targets of some sort, some targets of ridicule.
    I would imagine historically it was the children who
    couldn't question the parents.
    They couldn't, as you say, ask why or form their own opinion.
    Is this still true?
    Or has there been--
    I think it has changed.
    They said-- I found that there is a great deal of rebellion
    of children against the parents who are strict and unyielding.
    So now, I think people, because condition has changed,
    it's very difficult to enforce things,
    because so many things which will influence the children,
    the media, and the peers.
    And I think they're just pretty much out of control now.
    So this is no doubt true among the children of the SS,
    as well?
    Well, I would imagine.
    But as I said, I really don't want
    to talk about the children of the SS,
    because I have relatively very little experience.
    And so-- because that's not my focal point.
    Those SS that chose to answer the questionnaire,
    they were clearly, in some form, a self-selected group.
    But did you find that they had any particular motivation
    for wanting to answer this questionnaire,
    for wanting to be interviewed?
    Well, I think the letter, which was written by General Steiner,
    I think was persuasive enough to say, well,
    if someone is interested in us who wants to be fair
    and just in assessing who we are, we'll do it.
    Because that may be in our interest,
    so that the public will know somewhat
    about the people who will lead the study, and what have you.
    And so I think that was certainly also
    a motive, that they felt there is someone
    who is really interested.
    They're not biased and will put us in the proper light.
    In their interest, in the sense that they could speak
    their side, perhaps speak to--
    if not justification, at least to--
    Yeah, yeah, in our favor.
    Now, this can be contested, because I
    have very different experience.
    And that should be mentioned in connection
    with that, because I think it's quite revealing.
    Then, when I was asked to go with the crew
    to do Hitler, Man or Myth--
    Man and Myth, or Myth and Man--
    to Germany, I already had talked to people prior to that.
    And they are very willing to cooperate,
    because they're willing to cooperate with me in the past.
    And I made a mistake by saying it's the people who are behind
    it, or who just behind that sort of you say -- well,
    which cooperation or whatever was doing that.
    And I made a mistake.
    Instead of saying Greystone--
    which was the subsidiary or whatever
    of doing the movie, that producing the movie--
    I said Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
    And then they all backed out.
    Horrible.
    Because said well, Jewish, and they've already
    done so many bad things with their movies
    on the Nazis and SS.
    So we will be portrayed in a way which
    will be to our disadvantage.
    And there will be a typical stereotype of the typical Nazi,
    movies which Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer already--
    and they just refuse to participate.
    So I had to find new people when I
    was in Germany, people who would participate,
    because they were just out.
    They were out of it.
    They just refused to cooperate.
    Were they ever informed that that was not
    the studio that was making it?
    Well, I didn't.
    I made the mistake, because they asked me, instead of--
    was stupid, was not properly reflected.
    Because I felt that if I tell them Greystone,
    they've never heard of it, because I didn't.
    I don't know who Greystone, or who
    could-- so I said Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in order
    to create some impression.
    But I didn't know that it would backfire,
    that they had that impression of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
    that they simply distort realities and turn
    that against the SS and Nazi and stereotyping them
    in this source.
    Because I could have known that if I would have
    thought more about it.
    If I would have reflected more, I could have guessed it,
    I could have prevented it.
    But I didn't think about it.
    And then, therefore, I lost a great number
    of people who were ready to be interviewed on camera.
    You were able to get others, I gather?
    I was able to get others, but it wasn't easy.
    I was able to get others, and they're not
    very easy, because they, too, were influenced,
    and people whom I had more direct contact and all that.
    But the powerful people, the people
    who would have been possibly of great interest,
    I just simply didn't get with, just other people.
    And so I had to find substitutes.
    In your talks, personal talks with the SS, did any of them
    ever discuss Adolf Hitler, per se, with you?
    Well, some did, yes.
    But you see, to me, it was not that relevant to discuss
    Adolf Hitler with people who didn't know him
    or were not in his entourage or were not close to him.
    I was more interested in discussing that
    with people who indeed have been in his presence.
    And those people just simply were
    glowing, absolutely glowing, with few exceptions the rule.
    But one SS general said that he didn't get the charisma at all
    and that he wasn't particularly impressed with him,
    and all this and that.
    Two of them, Steiner and another SS gentlemen,
    that they're not that fully impressed.
    And somehow his charisma, which no
    question he must have had for very many people,
    didn't affect them.
    And so that-- but other people who were in his entourage
    were absolutely taken by him.
    Wolff said and then saw that he was
    just a very charming person.
    And then his secretary was the most important to me,
    who knew him best of them all, because she
    was 24 hours available, had to be 24 hours available.
    I mean, she was not the only one therefore,
    but she was one of the senior ones
    and by far the most sophisticated of them,
    intellectual.
    And so she said that he was a very mixed bag,
    that he would be exceedingly charming
    and at times totally unyielding and scary and all that.
    But I mean, this is something which so many people said,
    that he had a very, very specific personal charm
    and very caring and interested in his environment
    and inquiring relatives and kind and pleasant and writing
    short notes, birthday and all that,
    and seemed concerned, as long-- and that's
    very important-- as long as they were useful to him.
    When they ceased to be useful, he dropped them
    like a hot potato, dropped them like a hot potato.
    And they were out.
    So they are no longer part of his horizon.
    And that was all very clear.
    That was very, very clear.
    And that happened, for example, to the family
    of Baldur von Schirach who was a youth leader and later
    the [INAUDIBLE] leader of Vienna and his wife.
    And they came in and they talked about--
    she came and talked about what she saw in Holland
    when the Jews were rounded up to be deported
    and how horrible it was, whether he knew about it.
    Asking, my Fuhrer, do you know about that?
    So he became very unpleasant, very abrupt, and said,
    you don't understand.
    You don't know what you're talking about,
    and all this and that.
    You don't understand what is involved there.
    And that was the end.
    He cut off all--
    he knew her when she was a small girl, because she
    was the daughter of the court photographer,
    a man called Hoffman.
    And so he knew her since she was a small girl because Hoffman
    was kind of a court jester.
    Apart from being the court photographer,
    he also was used as a kind of a court jester
    and as a person who was very humorous
    and was entertainer of the sorts of Hitler and his entourage.
    So he knew her for a long time.
    And then, of course, Baldur von Schirach
    played a very important role, but especially as
    long as he was leader of the youth, the Hitler Youth.
    And then he was replaced and became [INAUDIBLE] leader of--
    special title of Vienna.
    And so because she had saw that, they had to leave the next day.
    They just had to leave, because that was--
    but it was talked about and all that.
    It brought an important point, because some people say
    Hitler didn't know, or didn't give their orders and all that,
    of course.
    I mean, this is the proof of the pudding, one
    of many other ones, documents, and what
    he said in some of his table talks, and all that.
    And I've got it all down, too.
    Absolutely, unmistakably, that it had to come from him,
    and no one else assumed the responsibility
    to initiate something.
    If people spat in the landscape, he was informed about it.
    And that was a major thing, millions of people.
    So absolutely, particularly in terms of revisionism,
    it's just simply not any.
    So anyway, so they were very close to Hitler.
    They're very frequent guests and all that.
    And he just dropped them overnight,
    simply because she asked that question.
    And when people were dropped like that,
    were there any other kinds of retribution?
    Well, it could have been in some cases, yes, indeed.
    But I mean that--
    yeah, certainly.
    But in their case, it wouldn't be.
    I mean, it wouldn't be because of the duration
    of their relationship and the position they've had.
    But in some other cases, yes.
    He'd drop people if they were accused
    of some sort of serious breach of confidence,
    or if they did something which he didn't like,
    or betrayal of sorts, and all that.
    He just dropped them like-- even if they're
    very close, drop them.
    You just talked about the chief of espionage,
    Admiral Canaris, and some of the people of the 20th of July 1944
    movement who were part of the inner circle.
    That was it.
    And also, in case they didn't-- so he had, for example,
    a dietitian.
    And all these sort of informations
    I got direct from an eyewitness who
    was the secretary of [INAUDIBLE] and all that,
    because they were directly there.
    Wolff became the later adjutant, and Christa Schroeder
    was, of course, Hitler's secretary.
    And I said, I've met two of them or one of them in addition,
    and she by far was-- in terms of what I've read
    and what I've seen myself, she was by far, as I said before,
    the most sophisticated.
    So some of these things which I've been told just
    come from eyewitnesses.
    But there was something else I wanted to say.
    Yes, and they've told me that he was absolutely--
    when any something happened, people fell into disfavor
    and just finished.
    And they just-- they're dropped.
    And there are quite a few people throughout Hitler's 12 years,
    quite a few were dropped, and who
    used to be members of the inner circle.
    But that was something else I was going to say, but I forgot.
    We had been talking about whether there
    was any act of retribution to--
    Oh, well, active retribution, yes, in some cases,
    yes, there was active retribution.
    And some were sent to concentration camps
    and some people were able to escape and get out of Germany.
    And one of them, for example, is [Personal name]
    And he was able to get out in time,
    although, they said he should come back
    and nothing's going to happen to him,
    that it was all a mistake, and all this and that.
    And he was certainly part of the early inner circle
    and wrote a very, very well-written book
    on his experience, early experience,
    with Hitler, a man called [Personal name]
    And then you had Otto Strasser.
    And they tried to-- he escaped.
    His older brother was assassinated in 1934
    during the Rohm Purge.
    And he was able to escape to Czechoslovakia.
    And there he was politically active
    against Hitler and all that.
    And they send a special commando, or SD people,
    security service people, SS security, to assassinate him,
    except it just didn't work.
    And they've tried it on several occasions.
    He was lucky, that's all.
    Or, they didn't work too well, but [INAUDIBLE]..
    So there you get clear-cut retribution.
    For the average, say, SS person, as you say,
    Hitler wasn't a personal force in their life.
    But was the Hitler--
    the charismatic Hitler an active, sort of godlike force,
    or the ideology something that they felt strongly about?
    Well, I'm glad you mentioned that,
    because that's something I wanted
    to talk about a little bit, that very many researchers have
    underplayed the power of the ideology as something secondary
    and was not that important.
    Well, I totally, totally reject that.
    Because the ideology was, again, the cement
    which hold things together with Hitler's personality.
    And Hitler's personality and national socialism,
    or Hitler is something which cannot be dissociated to then
    fit together.
    And so it has to be understood-- and particularly when
    we talk about the SS, we talk about 1943
    when people volunteered.
    It's not something with people who were not drafted,
    but they volunteered to join the SS.
    So that means even if they in some way are not party members,
    they must have had some sort of affinity towards National
    Socialist ideology, to be sure.
    And so therefore, they had to have
    some feelings about Hitler.
    Now, later, that may have changed.
    Because out of the tremendous success
    he had during the early parts of the war,
    which turned then, particularly after Stalingrad,
    into the beginning of the defeat, the beginning
    of the end, then, of course, they
    had a change of heart, obviously.
    And that's what I said also in one of my writings,
    who's better at his song, I'll sing.
    And I think it's a very nice German saying,
    because it's opportunism.
    I like you because you satisfy my needs.
    And if you don't, I just--
    I may drop you.
    Well, some people won't, and say, OK, you have friends,
    and we still may be friends.
    You may not be the same level on friendship,
    but still be-- but in Hitler's case, and some
    of the very pragmatic, utilitarian types,
    they just simply said, OK, you no longer of any use to me.
    Therefore, I will reflect it in my feelings.
    And we all are in some way.
    We get divorced, or we just don't
    stop a relationship, friendship, or whatever you have simply
    because it's no longer satisfied.
    And therefore, we lose interest in that person.
    And some other people say, well, I
    mean, you may not satisfy my needs,
    but because of the past relationship,
    I'm not going to drop you.
    And so there are always alternatives,
    and it's exactly how we play the roles.
    But that's the role margin.
    And in coming back to the role margin,
    to the glimpse of my discretion, which I have.
    And then I can use this in a certain way.
    And if we look at it so we can see much more
    and tell much more about their personality
    of the character of that person we are observing.
    Anyway, so--
    Well, in terms of, as you say, it
    was an element of choice to join the SS,
    to embrace the ideology.
    Did that--
    Well, no, I would say element of choice.
    Well, I chose, not just in order to--
    when so many people became SS people out of ignorance
    inadvertently, but not because they disliked
    Hitler and national socialism.
    Because if you did, you just--
    it was your own place.
    Now, some people changed their mind.
    Some few people changed their mind and became disillusioned.
    And that certainly happened.
    That certainly happened in a number of cases.
    But you see, if I have too much of an investment--
    and many people had a long years of investment,
    relatively speaking, long years of investment--
    so you're not going to cut the ties that easily because
    of the reinvestment.
    And therefore, you will justify.
    You will justify, you will rationalize.
    You--
    So I presume--
    --use the cognitive dissonance.
    --at first, when the ideology was very focused
    on Aryanization, et cetera, but not talking about the total
    destruction of--
    That's right.
    That's--
    --you entered at that point.
    Do you have some sense of how these general SS people reacted
    once they learned the total scope of--
    Well, that depended on their level of sophistication.
    Among the 20th of July people are some SS people, too.
    And a person who was the police president of Berlin
    was a highly posited general of the SS.
    And so he was caught in that.
    And another one, too, was caught in that who was directly
    on the high deck and caught later under Miller,
    a man called [Personal name] And [Personal name]
    became disgruntled, although he was
    a leader of the Einzatsgruppen there, too.
    But see he, he could see the end coming.
    So it was also opportunism and say, hey--
    I mean, what they did to Mussolini
    and how they felt about history, once you are unsuccessful--
    I know we all have that same--
    once you successful, people will kowtow to you and be nice
    and all that.
    But when they see that the going gets rocky
    and you no longer in favor because you just fail or just
    simply are not succeeded in some of the things you are doing,
    they won't continue their alliance.
    And that's what you see.
    Well, if I'm not famous, people will treat me
    as someone who is not necessarily
    infamous, but nothing special.
    But when I become a big success and get a lot of publicity
    and the praise and recognition, then people go,
    oh, yeah, you're my friend.
    And I say, where were you when I was not recognized and rewarded
    and whatever, for whatever.
    And that's what I think very frequently,
    is one day I may wake up and say,
    hey, I've done my work which has been recognized.
    And then some people I'm sure who ignored me will come, oh,
    it's so nice to see you.
    I congratulate you.
    I've always your friend and supporter.
    Bull.
    And I say, well, where you?
    Well, that's exactly what I would-- where
    were you when I needed you?
    Now, I don't need you.
    See you later, alligator.
    Well, or just go and fly a kite.
    I have a lake nearby so you can jump into it.
    So that is something which I think
    is we are talking also about human nature.
    And human nature is cross-cultural.
    You're not really that different.
    There may be some genetic differences maybe and so
    who knows?
    But in terms of climatic differences, whatever.
    But human nature is pretty much the same.
    It hasn't really changed.
    And that's one thing which I also have
    discovered, fortunately, and wrote in one of my things
    about the fact that human nature has not changed, really,
    and over thousands of years.
    So for all practical purposes, you
    see 4,000 or 5,000 years the same human nature
    and driven by the very same sentiments.
    And that's something which I keep on stressing.
    Because I don't think we've-- we may have made quite a bit
    of progress in the technological field,
    but with the human nature, I think not much has happened
    which would reflect a positive evolution.
    This is an enormous and depressing point, because--
    maybe it's too much to get into this time,
    but it's the whole issue of can we do anything different?
    Well, I think we can.
    I mean, my--
    I may be wrong there.
    You see, why do people become educators?
    Well, people-- educators become educators,
    because if they're really dedicated, if they identify
    with what they are doing, if they view that as an avocation,
    then they do it because they think
    they can make a difference.
    And I still do, in spite of my pessimism,
    and no question about my pessimism.
    And I still feel that, yes, if we try--
    and we have to try--
    then we can make a little bit of a difference.
    And in some cases, we actually may make it so.
    Therefore, what is my alternative?
    Not do anything, or become a crook, or howl to the wolves?
    That's one-- these are alternatives.
    Or, do something which will set a precedent,
    or will produce some sort of a role model out of me,
    which will be taken more seriously.
    And in some way, I think I may have succeeded in doing that,
    in accomplishing that, in a minor sort of way.
    Do you know of any--
    What sort of difference it will make
    is another question in practice.
    But I think, in terms of my own recognition,
    my own insight I think has altered my life somewhat
    in the way I conduct myself.
    I think I've become more accountable.
    And I think I've become more mindful.
    I'm far from being what I would like to be,
    but I think I've made some progress.
    Yes.
    Do you know of any instances in which, say, a member of the SS
    took on some of these notions of the undoing?
    Oh, yeah.
    Well, we've talked about it.
    We've talked about it.
    I've talked about it with a lot of people.
    And to some extent, I also motivated them to work with me
    or talk and respond to questions,
    and said, hey, that's the way to your restitution, that's
    restitution.
    So that we better--
    and they understood it and said yes.
    And particularly, one of the hangmen of Buchenwald,
    I became like--
    he was older, of course, so considerably older than I--
    but I became a very significant other to him, a kind of a role
    model to whom he looked up.
    And it was not just simply because I
    rendered support of sorts and even send him money,
    but simply because he understood the message.
    And wrote me-- that by itself would
    be a book, in terms of all the letters
    which he has written to me.
    And he is an individual who was condemned and, indeed, infamous
    at the concentration Buchenwald, which includes [Personal name]
    And people who were there, I talked, and all that, and said,
    you deal with him?
    Tell me where he is.
    I'm going to murder him.
    No, really.
    And this person was a well-known physician whom I got to know,
    a Jewish physician I got to know in Germany
    through a friend of mine.
    And he was in Buchenwald and said, what?
    This fellow needs to be killed.
    So he got the message, this Buchenwald hangman,
    he got the message.
    And--
    Was he able to act on it?
    --understood that some restitution has to be made.
    And I think he's made some, in terms of-- well,
    he tried to in his relatively limited way,
    because he was in prison.
    He had many times life sentences.
    So what-- I mean, in what kinds of ways did he act that out?
    Well, that he just tried to tell me about his motivations,
    about-- talk in-depth psychology, by any means,
    if that wasn't in-depth psych, I don't know what was.
    And so he wrote me several autobiographical accounts.
    He's submitted to interviews on many occasions.
    He wrote me letters, probably hundreds over the years,
    and taped the interview before he died.
    He was a cripple, couldn't walk.
    He was a wheelchair type, totally crippled,
    with open wounds which never healed
    and all that terrible stuff and really suffered and all that.
    And so what they did, they took him out of the prison
    where I met him, because I was involved there.
    And some other people-- this Bach-Zelewski was in the same--
    the General Bach-Zelewski was in the same--
    von dem Bach-Zelewski was in the same prison.
    And that's where I met him.
    And then they removed him and put
    in some sort of a nursing institution
    because the prison couldn't take care of him.
    He needed medical attention.
    So they put him there, but he was in confinement,
    in confinement.
    And it was not easy to see him.
    Well, I managed and all that, because I cut all the red tape.
    So Wolff and other people, I always got to the people
    I wanted to talk, whether they were in prison or elsewhere,
    and we talking dozens of people.
    So he was very limited in what he could do?
    Oh, yeah, very limited.
    Were there any other examples of SS people
    who did such things as speak out openly, or teach, or--
    Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
    And this is one fellow who was the witness--
    who witnessed the destruction in one way or another--
    was an eyewitness of the destruction of the Warsaw
    Ghetto, because he was in the vicinity and all that.
    What sort of hand he had in it, you
    know, that still is something he's very reluctant,
    because that could finish him.
    So I'm not quite sure what sort of role he actually played.
    He said he was a bystander.
    He happened to be in the vicinity there
    and was stuck there and so he was present
    when these sort of things happened.
    I'm not necessarily buying that altogether.
    But maybe-- he wrote down a very detailed account
    which by itself should be published because it's unique.
    There's no one else who has done anything which would even
    come close, other than description
    on part of the Jewish people.
    But none of the SS people have described it
    in the detail and the reflections what was going on
    at this particular time.
    So I really think that this is a very unique sort of--
    Is it likely to be published?
    Well, I mean, I don't know.
    I mean, I've-- so far, we've heard oral history,
    talked about all sorts of things.
    But you see, most people talk more than they can deliver.
    And so I have a new lead maybe that the Holocaust Museum
    or Foundation, they may-- they have
    a publishing sort of situation, which they're interested in.
    So I'm going to pursue that.
    We have to call and see what's going to happen.
    I've got the number.
    I was given that by what's his name.
    But then, one particular person, as I said,
    was the eyewitness of the destruction of the Warsaw
    Ghetto.
    He came out at a publishing press company, publishing
    company, and he came out with a book
    to publish the contribution of German Jews to German culture.
    And very well done, very well done,
    and I have a copy of that.
    And so they all-- the list of all the people, German Jews,
    who've made a major contribution to German culture.
    All right.
    And then he opposed it and argued the point
    that, yes, there are gas chamber,
    yes, it happened, against those Nazis
    who are even further to his right, who are deniers,
    who were just revisionists.
    And he got into things, and they virtually destroyed him.
    He is also a person who said, yeah,
    I regret that I've been a member of the SS and all that.
    Yeah.
    So that's what I call-- he has had a tremendous hard time.
    And I almost got killed once when we got into an argument
    while he was driving a car.
    We were going to some specific place.
    He did a lot of things when he was physically better off.
    Now, he's got lots of serious illnesses
    and hardly can walk around anymore.
    And so we were in the car and we started
    discussion and disagreements and all this and that,
    and he got a red head and drove like a maniac.
    I thought I was going to get killed, you see,
    because he got so upset.
    Red head, immediately red head, and so either he had a stroke,
    or I'll get killed because he was driving like a maniac,
    and all these sort of things.
    Now, he's much calmer, in spite of the fact that he's worse
    off physically, much worse off.
    And you can argue your point differently
    and he won't get upset and will accept many things which he was
    not prepared to accept before.
    Now, I went to with him to interview very important people
    no one ever has interviewed and who were actually the SS
    ideologues and published the SS weekly, the Black Corps which
    was translation Black Corps.
    And that was a weekly, which had an edition of one million
    a week.
    And so these were the two publishers, both SS people
    in relatively high rank.
    One was a colonel, and the other one was a captain, his deputy.
    And so we went to--
    I got them to interview, because of his-- so
    he was very willing.
    And now, next summer, when I'll go to Europe-- if I go,
    which is most likely--
    we already have arranged that regardless
    whether it will be broadcast or televised, we get
    a number of SS people together.
    And we'll have a table talk, which may or may not
    be publicized at this particular time.
    I certainly will tape it, because I've
    got the equipment now-- which I haven't used--
    but the equipment, too late professional equipment,
    to tape, and stereo.
    So we're going to have a discussion with them.
    And I'm looking forward to that, because--
    and so it may or may not be developed into a broadcast.
    Because, again, very many people are totally blind.
    So I have to call one of the persons in Germany
    and remind her because she was interested.
    And I could have stayed a little bit longer--
    they would have paid me the difference, penalty
    difference-- but I had to go see my son, so I just didn't do it.
    So I have to remind her, because I sent her material
    and she has not acknowledged or not done anything.
    I think we're coming to the end today, but one more question.
    Was the plans of the final solution
    and the internal workings of the camps known to all the SS?
    No.
    No?
    Because you see, that is something
    which I also learned very directly
    from Hitler's secretary.
    And she said Hitler had one idea, which she absolutely--
    and she gave me a copy of the original document in which it
    is said that people only need to know what they need
    to for the role they played within that organization,
    or Nazi--
    any Nazi organization, and not go beyond that.
    So there was a very severe penalty.
    Any person who was caught that he talked about, SS person, who
    knew about that and all that-- and that's also
    one of the reasons why they gassed periodically
    those people were helpers in the mass destruction.
    So whether it was in Auschwitz-Birkenau, people
    who worked in Canada, every six months, they're gassed
    and a new crew came because, precisely because, they
    were witnesses to mass murder.
    And that the same thing was in where they had also a gas
    chamber, in Mauthausen.
    And so that was--
    they replaced it.
    So anyone [INAUDIBLE] some people--
    so therefore, it was top secret.
    It was just top secret.
    And any sort of communication which I've seen
    and all that regarding the final solution
    was stamped top secret.
    And so even among those SS that knew,
    the knowledge was contained.
    Yeah.
    Well, I mean, that's something interesting,
    why I don't accept that.
    Wolff said, I didn't know about the gassing.
    Now, I have absolute proof that the man went to--
    own admission, mass destruction, the Einsatzgruppen
    where he saw--
    actually, Himmler was in that situation,
    where Einsatzgruppen were.
    So he admits that, and says, yeah, I
    know that that happened.
    He does not deny the gassing.
    Said, but I didn't know about it.
    He doesn't deny it, never denying that, not for a moment.
    But he said, I don't know about it.
    Well, that may be.
    But so the funny thing is, yes, that he
    admits that he was present with Himmler
    when the Einsatz commandos were killing people.
    And he admits that.
    But then, when we talked about gassing and all
    that and that Hitler gave that order, he denied it.
    And when I pressed him-- and I still have that taped telephone
    conversation--
    I say, hey, look, I've been waiting now,
    and it's just about time.
    I have documents to show you and all that.
    I showed him.
    He said, well, if you say so.
    If you say so, I'll have to accept it.
    But it was very difficult for him.
    And then when he was dying, the devil was after him.
    Well, we'll stop here today.
    I guess so, at the devil.
    John?
    Probably a [INAUDIBLE].
    And you can start in with that one.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan, continuing the interview with John Steiner
    on his work with the Nazis.
    Today is April 1, 1994.
    This interview is being done for the Holocaust Oral History
    Project, and John Grant is our producer.
    I wanted to continue by reviewing
    this notion of the authoritarian personality.
    We had both heard Professor Zimbardo talk of Milgram's work
    and make a reference to the notion
    that you didn't need to have an authoritarian personality
    to evoke the kind of behaviors that we saw in the Nazis.
    What do you think of that?
    Well, I think, in essence, he's right except what
    I'm trying to do, define his theoretical concept
    a little bit more.
    And I still feel particularly due to the research I've done,
    which was published and was one of my first major publications
    in which I interviewed about 600 people who
    sent in questionnaires, I thought
    that there was a tremendous difference,
    significant difference between former members of the SS
    and the average members of the German armed forces
    in their authoritarian personality, characteristics,
    and profile.
    And there was no question about the fact
    that there must have been some sort of very specific reason
    for that.
    And I specifically came out with various notions
    how they assessed some degree of deviant behavior
    and how they judged it and how judgmental they were
    and to what extent, indeed, they in these particular references
    reflected a very authoritarian view.
    And there was no question that there
    was a significant difference in some of the items
    which we questioned them about.
    So the leadership and some of the other members
    of the lower echelon of the SS were very high
    in authoritarianism.
    Now, if that is a coincidence, I would be very surprised.
    So I think it's a relationship.
    Of course, it is from my very many theories
    this notion of authoritarian personality has been criticized
    and has been reviewed and there are ways in which it is
    considered to be significant.
    There is really some very important information
    to be had from the authoritarian or so called F-scale.
    And some other theorists say that it is insignificant.
    Now, Philip Zimbardo is of the opinion
    that it's not very important.
    I gave him my publication on that particular thing where
    I have interviewed about and questionnaires
    were filled in by about 600 people
    and let him just look at the data.
    And that was a type of research which
    is quantitative, so-called quantitative research.
    And so in these figures, you just can't manipulate unless
    you swindle, and we didn't.
    So I let him look at it.
    So I think it is an important, significant outcome
    that these people happen to be authoritarian who
    were members of the SS.
    And I don't think it's a coincidence.
    Along these lines, we have talked some
    before about the notions of Alice Miller
    in the sense of the Germanic or Prussian style of child
    rearing.
    What do you think?
    Do you think that the German population as a whole
    would rate higher on an F-scale because of that child rearing
    than some other?
    Well, I mean, I would not jump to the conclusions.
    I would certainly consider that as a possibility.
    But I really can't come out with any conclusive notions
    other than perhaps reach some sort of a guess
    that this may be reflected.
    A guess that I would assume that as a possibility,
    particularly since I've traced the sort
    of Prussian authoritarian notion ever since the two
    Fredericks of the 18th century, particularly
    Frederick the Great.
    And there was no question about that,
    that the man instilled and had a tremendous influence
    in instilling the sort of obedience towards authority.
    And I've traced that and documented it
    with the historic writings, which
    I think are very accurate and very reliable
    from that particular time.
    So it's not just in retrospect, but from that particular time
    of participant observers of the time, which had not
    been published, which was published
    from that particular source of a book which was published
    during the 18th century and were observations
    of a British educated person who was traveling
    with a duke in these various countries
    and a doctor, a medical doctor.
    And so there is absolutely no question
    that this Prussian spirit of obedience,
    which was created particularly during the 18th century
    by the two Fredericks and particularly
    Frederick the Great, had a very important impact on the future
    and set a tone which was enforced and accepted
    as a frame of reference by Hitler
    himself, because he was one of the greatest
    admirers of Frederick the Great for very specific reasons.
    Yes, namely unconditional, unquestioning obedience.
    And that's what he expected of his subordinates.
    And so obviously that was a very important influence in Germany,
    which was not just an influence of a given time
    but became a tradition.
    Now, specifically about certain SS behaviors,
    it was noted that several, I presume, members
    of the SS committed suicide shortly after the war.
    Was this because fear of punishment or remorse
    or any other kinds of reasons that you know of?
    Well, there is a number, I'm sure there is a combination.
    I don't think one can pinpoint it just one reason.
    But the entire belief system in which they had invested,
    their existence, so to speak, had broken apart.
    So that was one thing.
    Another thing is that, yes, indeed, some of the people
    were tainted with mischief by being perpetrators.
    And these perpetrators, of course,
    were brought to court, German courts.
    And first, of course, they had Nuremberg,
    the international Nuremberg courts.
    And so that was another reason.
    And then they, of course, had to start anew
    in an environment with which they
    did not necessarily [INAUDIBLE],, democracy and all that.
    And they did something which in my questionnaires
    came out very loud and clear.
    When asked what sort of preference
    they had in terms of a monarchy, dictatorship, and democracy,
    there was no question that most of them,
    since they didn't want to declare themselves
    as favoring a dictatorship because that was an ill repute
    and tainted with all that horror and bad things.
    So many said monarchy but certainly
    were not for democracy.
    And that came out loud and clear.
    That was one of my questions in that questionnaire which
    was answered.
    And so to adjust to a type of a political system with which
    they didn't agree to begin with and all that,
    they adjusted to it eventually, but to begin with that to them
    was a change, which was very threatening.
    So that was another additional reason.
    And then also they were not prepared
    for what they were supposed to do existentially
    what sort of occupation to assume,
    because the SS no longer existed as an organization,
    as an institution.
    So they had to make a living in one way or another.
    And so the interesting thing is that the next best
    they were able to do is become involved
    in some sort of business, in sales and occupations which
    required a degree of aggression and that I too
    was able to pinpoint in my questionnaire.
    So many of these people who, of course,
    were very high up and a tremendous influence and power
    and were rewarded for whatever they were doing
    for the national socialist system
    came to face a end of an era in which they
    had invested everything and didn't know how to continue.
    And that may have triggered their decision to rather die
    than to go on living.
    And yes, that happened.
    And so many other people who were perhaps very fanatic,
    fanaticists in terms of national socialism decided
    to continue simply because they didn't necessarily
    feel that threatened.
    And some of the people, and that is
    something which ought to be said, changed their names
    and even though they changed their names were discovered.
    And then because they were tainted with mischief
    decided to commit suicide, because they would have
    faced very severe sentences.
    Although one has to remember, and that
    is something particularly of interest in the United States,
    that after World War II in Germany,
    the death sentences was discontinued.
    So there is no death sentence ever since the end
    of World War II in Germany.
    And so none of these people actually
    would have been executed, with the exception,
    of course, the international tribunal of the Allies.
    And they indeed sentenced people to death and killing them.
    Although, some of them were pardoned, too.
    Given that, as you say, they surprisingly voted in numbers
    for a monarchy and you speculate that they were perhaps high
    on this F-scale, did they tend to--
    Well, I don't speculate.
    I know.
    It's not a speculation.
    It's something which is reflected in hard core data.
    Did they tend to try to find work
    after the war in structured organizations?
    I mean, it seems that sales might not be
    a very structured organization.
    Well, sales are usually very structured because business
    is structured.
    And so I would say no, that certainly is structured.
    And they provided their own structured organization,
    which they started immediately after World War II.
    Changed names on several occasions.
    A organization in support of each other and former members
    of the SS.
    And they joined an organization which
    was called a mutual assistance organization of sorts,
    Organization for Mutual Assistance.
    In German, [SPEAKS GERMAN],, and which abbreviation, HIAG.
    And so they had a very structured organization
    which functions to this day in which they supported
    each other ideologically and otherwise
    and which is closely structured, because you have
    various cells in different parts of Germany
    headed by one SS veteran.
    And then they meet periodically and also
    have large annual rallies.
    And this is one of the rallies also
    I was invited, apart from some other things.
    I was invited to other organizational things.
    And it was just unbelievable how well and very closely
    structured they were.
    And also when they sort of during the Christmas, which
    was the solstice type of celebration which coincides
    with Christmas, to which I was invited as guest of honor,
    this senior general with whom I came about 10 minutes late,
    they all stood up with the exception of some
    of the children and women.
    They all stood up in attention and all that.
    And I'll never forget that type of moment which I experienced.
    It was just really uncanny.
    And I was a former inmate and survivor walking in
    with a SS general and all stood up, all these former SS people,
    stood up when we came in.
    I'll never forget that.
    I also, of course, published that particular thing
    which took place.
    Were they standing up for you or for the general?
    For the general, for both of us.
    But primarily for the general, of course,
    because he was the senior commander.
    He was at that particular time the senior SS general,
    period, surviving SS general.
    And that was an unbelievable experience.
    The power that he still had over--
    Oh, absolutely.
    And also the influence here, because he
    was a very popular general.
    And I should point out that although he was an SS general,
    he was not tainted with mischief because he
    was cited in the Nuremberg trial publication as one
    of the few SS generals and generals
    in general who adhered to the Geneva Convention.
    And I found that as a matter of fact and I
    helped him with some of the research of the book he wrote.
    And I came across it and it was published in his book.
    Because I felt it was an interesting sort of thing.
    So anyway, very tightly organized,
    although it was structured on a different, still seniority.
    But then when the older people died,
    the senior officers had died, then of course it
    was taken over by some other people,
    and then it changed its format, this organization.
    But it exists and they have the monthly publication,
    which is an illustrated publication, a very expensive
    journal, so to speak, with pictures and what have you.
    And that continues to be published, of course,
    until the time these people will be around.
    And it's not going to be much longer,
    because most of the people are getting in an age
    where people normally die.
    Apparently there were during the war executions of SS people
    for crimes they had committed.
    Well, that is something we know, because Schindler's List is so
    popular because of the movie.
    Amon Goth, who was the commandant,
    and Schindler's List come out, in the book
    comes out very accurately that the SS had their own judiciary
    and their own SS court.
    And people who did things which only
    could have been done by way of orders from above
    were brought before the court, if indeed it
    was detected, brought before the court and sentenced.
    And Amon Goth was one of them.
    He was stripped of his command.
    He was I don't think degraded, because he didn't
    have that much of a rank.
    He was a First Lieutenant, in all actuality.
    First Lieutenant, I think, or maybe later Captain.
    I forget exactly.
    But he was I think a First Lieutenant, not a Captain.
    And that's right.
    And so I don't think he was stripped of his rank,
    but he was stripped of his command
    and jailed for quite some time.
    And if the war had not ended in time,
    he certainly would have either been more severely punished
    and just by jail.
    He was let out again but jailed on several occasions.
    And he would have been in very deep trouble
    for sure, because the people of very much higher rank
    were shot.
    Another commandant called Koch, the commandant of Buchenwald,
    was shot simply because of corruption
    and because he did things which were not
    based on orders from above.
    And he was shot.
    During the war.
    Oh yeah.
    He was brought before the SS Corps and shot.
    And he was an SS Colonel, which was a pretty high rank.
    So some line was drawn between brutality and excess brutality.
    Well, that's right.
    Excess brutality.
    So they were not permitted to simply kill without a reason
    or without an order from above.
    There was one thing.
    And of course, if they stole, and many people did of course,
    but they are not detected, because many people did.
    I mean, that you can hear from all the various accounts
    by inmate survivors and accounts SS people and all that.
    And I've got quite some few stories along these lines.
    And one of them I shouldn't forget,
    because that might be interesting to mention if I
    have not mentioned it before.
    But anyway, so if they are corrupt and stole.
    And Himmler was very clear cut in one of his speeches
    and said anyone without any pardon is going to be shot,
    regardless who it is, whatever rank and all that if they would
    put what was taken from the inmates,
    confiscated and all that, would put in their own pocket.
    So that was a very clear cut situation everyone knew about.
    But it will still, because temptation was unbelievable.
    So I remember also when I was in Auschwitz, I had a relative.
    Actually, she was a distant aunt of mine
    who was married to a well known Czechoslovak non-Jewish
    politician.
    And she was sent to Auschwitz but because of the backlog not
    gassed immediately.
    And for some reasons which escaped me,
    I was able to get into this camp because of some work detail
    and find her and talk to her.
    And she told me that some of the inmates
    were able because they are not sent to the gas chamber
    and searched directly but put into this camp
    to wait until their turn would come
    to be gassed, which I knew at that time,
    but of course didn't tell her, because I didn't want to face
    up to all these things myself.
    So she told me that there are very many people there
    who simply threw $1,000 bills, and at that time
    they had $1,000 bills, into the latrine or simply buried it
    or just did something so that it would not get--
    because many people actually knew that they
    were going to be killed.
    And she told me, that poor woman.
    And I loved her.
    She was a very special person.
    Her name was C-H-O-C, Choc in Czech, Choc.
    And he was a very well known politician who had died.
    If he had not died, she probably would have not
    been sent to the camp because by virtue of the fact
    that he was non-Jewish, he could have protected her
    from being deported.
    Was she murdered also?
    She was gassed in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    I mean, that was the camp where she--
    I went to the camp where they were waiting to be gassed.
    And she was an old lady.
    She was an old lady.
    What was her first name?
    Her first name was I think Sophie.
    I know we mentioned also once before the question
    of whether there were any symptoms
    or exhibitions of problems for SS people after the war,
    like mental illness.
    Or we you talked once about nightmares,
    and you were talking about I know
    one person who was screaming in the night at the end,
    toward the end of his life.
    Well, but you see, that was more because of his illness
    and also because of nightmares, indeed.
    And he used to be one of the most senior SS generals
    period in the whole outfit and a former right hand
    man of Himmler and a person whom Hitler favored,
    because he was in his immediate environment
    until the time he was sent to Italy, Karl Wolff.
    So I mean, I know about that simply because his woman
    friend, lady friend, whatever you want to call her,
    told me about that.
    I was not privy to that myself.
    But I mean, there is no question what she told me.
    There is no question that she would have possibly made it up,
    because it was not in her interest to say that if it
    did not mean the truth.
    And he was particularly concerned about the fact
    that the devil was after him.
    And he was howling, actually howling of fear.
    Because she said, why are you howling?
    And he was able to very clearly say, well,
    because the devil is after me.
    And that was a very interesting sort of thing to find out.
    But I mean, no one else told me.
    And I think it made perfectly clear that no one else told me
    about nightmares other than some of the Auschwitz people
    whom I've interviewed in prison back in Germany who told me
    that due to the fact that I interviewed them,
    they had a hard time because all of what had happened just
    came up again, which they had repressed.
    And therefore, couldn't sleep and said
    you are responsible for I'm unable to sleep in peace
    and all this sort of thing.
    And some of them, as I said before, I think
    one of the interviews just simply broke down
    and cried like babies.
    And in a way from a therapeutic point of view,
    it was probably a very good thing for them to do.
    But it sounds like you don't know
    hardly any outright mental instability
    in those early years after--
    I don't know.
    Oh, well, there is one person who was in prison.
    One person who was in prison whom I interviewed
    who was obviously unstable.
    And this mental situation caused him
    to come into prison for unrelated things,
    not because he was an SS officer, which he was,
    but simply because certain things
    he had done after World War II, which got him into the conflict
    with the law.
    But he's the only one I know.
    And so you don't know of any other kinds of--
    I don't think it was a problem, no.
    Other control kinds of things like alcoholism
    to where they couldn't function.
    Well, I mean alcoholism no.
    You see, again, but I don't think
    this would be SS or not SS.
    Well, a lot of drinking.
    I mean, the first interviewee I've had General Felix Steiner.
    In order to talk to him and all that,
    I just simply had to drink with him, because he
    enjoyed drinking wine.
    He didn't drink any hard core liquor
    but preferred to drink wine.
    So when we discussed things up to 2, 3 o'clock in the morning,
    I mean, he was drinking like crazy.
    And I somehow had to keep up, although I'm not
    a person who enjoys it at all.
    But fortunately, I don't respond to it.
    It just doesn't seem to affect me at all.
    But the result was that I couldn't
    sleep because it keeps me up.
    When I drink some alcohol, more the only reaction
    is not that I'm somehow tipsy or whatever,
    but I just simply can't sleep.
    It just keeps me awake.
    But clearly this was a person, and I
    suppose others, who was still functioning in his life.
    Oh, absolutely.
    I mean, very much so.
    I mean, he [INAUDIBLE].
    And I'll never forget that.
    I mean, that would be really some movie a la Spielberg.
    Really might be interesting for him if anyone would get to him
    and suggest that.
    I still remember his apartment, General Steiner's apartment
    where I used to go very many times very frequently,
    because I saw him periodically.
    And so he was very functioning.
    And his calling card, which he wrote
    himself longhand in front of the doors, Felix Steiner, author.
    Not general.
    Author.
    Yeah, sure, because he was a writer.
    He was writing books.
    And books which were very well sold.
    But he was not interested in money.
    But along these lines, I want to say
    that what happened with him when I visited him, one day he
    showed me a map of an SS treasure and said,
    John, do you want it?
    I'll give it to you.
    And I said, my God, I don't want to touch it.
    I don't want anything to do with it.
    And I really regret it.
    I'll never stop regretting it.
    It was just a very stupid thing to do.
    Well, why I say that, simply because they had amassed
    unbelievable riches in terms of what
    they took from Jews and other victims and what have you.
    And so many things they buried during the end of the war.
    And I don't know what was in this treasure.
    Because one of his subordinates said,
    well, you are the commanding general.
    And talking about obedience and how they still
    functioned after the war, said because I'm answerable to you,
    continue to be answerable, I have
    to give you this thing where this treasure is buried.
    And so he gave him this map.
    It was in Austria.
    The only thing I remember.
    I don't even know.
    I'm not sure.
    It must have been around Salzburg.
    I'm not sure.
    I'm just no longer clear.
    Anyway, so I didn't want to have anything to do with it.
    He was ready to give it to me, because he was not concerned
    with anything of that nature.
    He was not interested in it for whatever reason.
    He only asked me about, what do you think, John?
    Do you think I should buy myself a toy?
    You know I have enough money now to buy myself a car.
    But do you think I should buy myself a car?
    I always wanted a BMW.
    And I said, why not?
    Buy yourself a toy.
    Why not?
    You got the money.
    Buy it.
    He never did.
    But it sounds like in your experience of the ones
    that you interviewed, they all made
    some kind of a relatively successful adjustment.
    No, no, no.
    Are they not relatively successful.
    As a matter of fact, that also was
    part of the questionnaire in which I compared
    the former members of the SS to former members
    of the German armed forces.
    And the interesting thing was, which was very uncanny to me,
    it certainly was, that they are much more successful, the SS
    people.
    They're more successful.
    More successful in making an adjustment.
    Yes, so they did make-- yes, that's what I meant.
    Yeah.
    Yeah, right.
    They did make a relatively successful--
    Not relatively, no.
    No, not relative.
    Absolute.
    Yeah.
    OK.
    And that to me was a very interesting piece
    of information.
    What do you think about the current strength
    of the neo-Nazis and how do they have a relationship
    with the old guard Nazis?
    Well, I mean, I think it's something which I said,
    and maybe I'm repetitious when I say that again.
    When I invited American Nazis from the very active
    at that particular time in the Bay Area
    to give presentations at the university,
    I mentioned that I've had contact
    with former members of the SS and all that.
    And these people were disgruntled individuals who
    didn't quite make it in life.
    In some ways, they suffered what is
    called frustrated expectations.
    And therefore, they're susceptible to the sort
    of deviant notions, ideological notions which
    they felt could help them to have a better self image
    and improve their identity.
    And that is something which I consider
    to be very interesting, because all these people are
    marginal in one way or another and felt that
    in this particular group, the neo-Nazi,
    and they call themselves American Nazis,
    in the Bay Area.
    And the leaders I invited to the college,
    at that time college, now university.
    And so when they found out that I
    had good contacts with former members of the SS,
    they asked me if I would give them
    the message that they would be very interested in cooperating
    with them.
    And the interesting thing is said that the SS
    people absolutely laughed.
    Not only laughed, but said, we are not
    crazy to do this sort of thing and refused
    to cooperate or even participate.
    No.
    Second step.
    They have distanciated themselves totally.
    And I've talked to one of my closest collaborators,
    a also SS officer who wrote an account
    on the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto,
    which I hope to publish eventually.
    And that's going to be a very important piece, which
    would be a key situation, because none of these things
    exist other than what he has written.
    And so I've asked him about what he thinks about the neo-Nazis.
    And I found out that they said that,
    and he said, that we are of the opinion
    that now these thugs, neo-Nazi thugs who
    are totally undisciplined and unkempt
    and the sort of bizarre appearance
    would be totally unacceptable to anything
    we've done in the past.
    And we absolutely reject the way they behave.
    There are more anarchists than anything else.
    And so for all practical purposes,
    what is now called neo-Nazi and all
    that is certainly not in terms of the actual original national
    socialist acceptable.
    And they reject them in every respect,
    simply because they don't adhere to the laws.
    They don't behave in a way which is disciplined
    and to them appealing.
    And so they dissociate themselves
    totally from these people.
    The German neo-Nazis as well, the German neo-Nazis?
    I'm talking about the neo-Nazis.
    Right.
    But you were talking about American neo-Nazis at first.
    Oh, yeah, well, same thing.
    Same thing.
    They just simply they feel they're ridiculous.
    And there is nothing which they have in common
    with the actual Nazis.
    So, OK, that's one thing.
    And the young generation really don't
    know, because they were born years after World War II
    and haven't read very carefully and all that and just simply
    appeal.
    What appeals to them is now that since they
    claim to be superior, feeling inferior,
    that this type of ideology with which they identify
    helps them to feel better about themselves.
    And yes, that's I think the major reason.
    Apart from the fact that they tend to be unemployed and not
    properly occupied.
    And because of the economic situation
    which has arisen because of the now united Germany.
    Whenever you have economic strife which
    changes the level of expectation and the lifestyle
    to which you have become accustomed to
    or which you hope to attain because that's what you expect
    will produce types of organizations
    which will be deviant.
    And that's just one of those things.
    I don't think there would be a problem
    if the economic situation in Germany
    will be normalized again.
    If it should get worse, think I think it may be a problem.
    As it stands now, and it should not deteriorate further,
    I don't particularly think they are a major problem at all.
    Because they don't have that many followers,
    and I don't think they've got the type of influence and ideas
    which would produce for those disgruntled people
    much of a hope, because they don't have any substance.
    Do you know if they have been attempting to follow
    the original ideology?
    The original?
    Well, I mean, obviously they haven't--
    they are not dreadfully clever and sophisticated people,
    and they are not going to generate something new.
    Certainly they haven't so far, as far as I know.
    So yeah, they adhere to the old Nazi cliches.
    And that's all they have, because they are not
    capable of really formulating something new or interesting,
    because they don't have their minds.
    In terms of class situation and unemployment, et cetera,
    is this so called pool of neo-Nazis
    different in any way than the people
    who were drawn to the SS Nazi party in the '30s?
    Well, the times are different.
    So today Hitler as we remember him would not be a draw.
    And today someone else.
    Look at what we have in the United States.
    They're into rock people and idols who are the role models.
    Certainly not people like Hitler, for sure.
    And certainly not people who talk like Hitler.
    So whatever was an appeal he had during his time
    no longer is something which really
    would be a very viable draw for people
    who look for some sort of a redeemer,
    some sort of a prophet, some sort
    of a charismatic personage.
    I don't see it.
    I don't see.
    Have you changed your thinking at all
    over time about the whole interviewing process that you
    did or anything you learned from the SS?
    Well, I mean, hopefully I do, because you
    learn by experience.
    And the more you know, the less secure you are.
    Knowledge is limited and it needs to be built upon.
    So yes, I continue to learn.
    And there is one thing, however, which I have developed skill
    in is to interview people.
    And I've developed the method which to a large extent
    we can call client centered, very
    Rogerian type of approach, which has been very successful.
    Because I don't go and call people names and reproach them
    but simply use some sort of a looking glass in which they
    can see themselves and ask questions on that basis
    and then take those answers and use them
    and formulate new questions so that I'm
    being as non-threatening as I possibly can,
    because I'm not interested in punishing them.
    I'm interested in getting the information which I need
    or which we need in order to better understand
    what took place.
    So yes, and I define that, this method.
    And I've had just an occasion last summer
    when I was in Germany.
    This one mentor, a considerably, well, quite older professor
    who was very supportive of me when I was in Germany,
    a very well known criminologist and psychiatrist both.
    And so when I visited him at Luxembourg, which
    is what I would call a bistro culture because many
    of the conversations and meetings and conversations
    take place in the sort of bistro types of pubs, which I find
    very uncanny, because we get into a conversation
    with the minister, minister of state
    and all sorts of people who just come and everyone is the same
    and it's a very kind of very egalitarian sort of setting,
    which is just to me amazing and ought
    to be studied more closely.
    And so I was introduced to some people
    within acquaintances, because I was interested,
    and I started to ask questions.
    And he was sitting back and observing my way,
    my method of questioning.
    And he said, I really am amazed.
    And coming from him, that is really
    something that is a real praise.
    He said, I'm amazed.
    You really masterfully questioned this
    in order to get all the information
    in the shortest possible time, and I really admire that.
    You're really great in the method
    in which you've developed to get the information you
    are seeking.
    So that to me was a really interesting sort
    of praise, which you can't get from anyone else who doesn't
    know the methods and has impacted himself,
    because he himself has written books based on questioning
    people and researching things in which he
    had to develop the skills which I'm trying to develop.
    And what do you think about the power of the revisionists?
    Well, you see, let me just give you an example.
    Revisionists and neo-Nazis are very closely related.
    And I think also in our lecture series, we had one come up.
    And we probably had more than one.
    Yes, we had more than one.
    And so what you do, you respond to them,
    but some of the response then becomes--
    that attitude becomes redundant, because it's
    a no win situation.
    Because how do you reason with unreason?
    And so at times there comes a time
    when you simply have to ignore them,
    because there is no logicity.
    They are not interested in facts and evidence.
    They simply adhere to certain notions
    which apparently make them feel better, whether they
    are right or wrong.
    And so they are not after the truth at all.
    They are after being right or after somehow justifying
    whatever feelings they may have towards Jews
    or towards national socialism or whatever.
    And to that end, this serves their purpose.
    Some of them, and I would also not exclude those people,
    some of them may be so disturbed about the carnage which
    was caused by the national socialists
    that they don't want to face that reality.
    That's also a possibility.
    Not because they are necessarily bad people,
    but simply because they can't accept the fact
    that such a dreadful thing as the Holocaust
    could have occurred.
    And so I think one has to judge and respond
    to these people case by case, individual by individual
    rather than have some sort of a preconceived notion.
    And that's what I've done whenever
    I came across these people.
    And I've come in Germany more than here,
    I've had contact with these people
    and went to some of the meetings and what have you.
    And I don't at times feel that there is any point in arguing,
    because they are not interested in the truth, period.
    And if you are not interested in the truth,
    so then the discussion ends, because you
    don't have a dialogue.
    There are those that seem to think
    that the revisionists will have a growing influence or they
    fear that they may have growing influence.
    I doubt that.
    Personally I doubt that very much,
    because I don't think they've got a leg to stand on.
    And overwhelming.
    Look, I've got written autobiographical accounts.
    I've got tapes of interviews with people
    who were directly connected with the gassing Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    I mean, how on earth will they negate it?
    I didn't give them any money.
    I didn't bribe them.
    I didn't change their predicament, what have you.
    So I mean, the whole thing is absurd,
    and I've got plenty of evidence, which is so hard core evidence,
    including that of the fact that Hitler gave the orders.
    And it's all over the place.
    If you want to look at documents,
    it's all over the place.
    So whatever they say, well, they were fearful of you.
    So in order to be rewarded, they told you lies.
    Or they said, well, these documents are falsifications.
    And so, I mean, they'll come out with the most absurd responses.
    So I mean, they are not interested in the truth.
    They can't accept it, don't want to accept it
    regardless whether you stand on your head or do anything.
    It's a no win situation.
    So why bother?
    And I don't think they've got a leg to stand on.
    And to me, I think one should not give them
    too much attention, because if you give them
    attention, a response, and that's
    what I found out with the neo-Nazis,
    they do all sorts of things.
    And some of the less sophisticated ones,
    but they are not stupid either, they will tell you
    that we can get by behaving in a very deviant sort of way which
    will draw attention to us, we will get free publicity.
    And if you take them seriously and respond to them,
    you produce a reality.
    And I would say that in many cases,
    it may be preferable to ignore them,
    because if they don't get a response,
    they are not successful, and they won't get any attention.
    And then things will dissipate.
    And that would be my policy rather than to validate them
    by recognizing them as a group or as a movement which
    has something to say which we need to respond to.
    There are those who might say that it's
    necessary to deal with this potential danger
    and its incipient stages, as people
    felt they didn't deal with the politics in Germany
    early enough.
    Well, yes, but I mean, you see, they
    don't have a really viable movement at this point.
    And if they would have an organized, viable movement,
    then I think it's a different thing.
    But I don't see it.
    They're more scattered.
    That's right.
    Not only are scattered, they're very loosely organized
    and they don't really have the sort of following.
    Hitler had a very, very closely knit following ever since 1923
    and even possibly a little bit before, but primary since 1923.
    And some people in 1925 indeed recognized his potential danger
    and spelled it out.
    And I published it also, because I've
    come across a book in which a minister of state,
    Bavarian Minister of Interior, has published a book on so
    called secret societies.
    And there was a passage on the National Socialists.
    And that was uncanny.
    It said, if this person Hitler should come to power
    and goes into very specific and said, we can expect a disaster.
    And that was in 1925.
    So yes, there were people who recognized the danger.
    And yes, they said something need to be responded.
    But so many people didn't, because primarily,
    and that is something which very frequently, and that includes
    myself, I underrated the economic situation
    of the times which contributed towards the success
    of the National Socialist propaganda
    and promises which they made and gave
    people hope who were hopeless.
    And that is something which I have underrated.
    So the economic process in a given time,
    the economic situation in a given time,
    is something which has to be taken into account,
    because it stimulates the type of people
    who will be disgruntled and dissatisfied,
    discontented who will flock to movements of that nature.
    And that will apply to the present and the future.
    And that's why it is very important to very closely watch
    the degree of frustrated expectations and to what extent
    you have a distance between what people expect
    and what they get.
    And the greater the disparity between these two,
    the more the greater the likelihood
    that people will be susceptible to charismatic ideologues
    and ideologies.
    I'd like to go on talking about how
    you have applied all the research that you
    did in your work.
    But before doing that, I'd like to ask you
    whether there was any other things that you can think
    about adding, things that you learned from your research,
    per se, about the SS.
    Well, first of all, question authority, number one.
    And not be a believer.
    And that's what I said.
    I can't believe something.
    Either I know something, as Carl Gustav Jung said,
    either I know something or I don't know it.
    And if I don't know it, I can't believe
    for a second believe in it.
    So that's what I--
    you have a possibility, but you see,
    I'm not going to accept something on faith
    and believe it.
    That's a very important thing.
    And then I will see that I am accountable
    and develop what is called moral and social intelligence
    and an emphasis on moral intelligence.
    And if that is not developed early in life,
    the chances that it will be developed later is remote.
    And so that is something which I apply to myself,
    apply to those whom I try to teach.
    The question is how successfully.
    But I'm working and refining my methods as much
    as I can with all my limitations.
    And certainly try to apply to myself.
    And that is very important for me too
    and my immediate environment.
    But that doesn't necessarily make me very popular,
    because I'm not a person who will
    bend to all the various forces and so
    to speak go with the wind.
    And I have my principles.
    You have to have principles and say yes, I understand,
    I may be intolerant, but if you want
    me to do something which goes against my moral grain,
    I'm not going to do it.
    And we have that situation, for example,
    at the university where people have turned
    against my assistant and coworker
    and they expect me to sell out.
    And I say, hey, I've got a degree of loyalty.
    She doesn't deserve to be betrayed
    and a person like myself whom she
    had confidence in that I would be supportive and have
    been supportive.
    And she's been supportive of me.
    I'm not going to sell her out merely
    because it may be advantageous to me.
    And this is where you have to put your foot down and say,
    I'm not going to do that.
    Even if I have to pay a price.
    And it may be a very high price, because it may mean money.
    It may be friendships.
    It may be positions of influence and power
    and all this sort of thing.
    Well, you have to simply, that's the choice.
    And I think we all have a choice.
    And that's what I've said I think last time,
    and that is my latest which I've developed.
    But most of us look at the roles we play in life
    rather than the role margin, which
    is integral part of the role.
    And the role margin gives me a choice to act in a certain way,
    because that's my individual freedom to make decisions.
    That is I have a discretion, a margin of discretion.
    And this margin of discretion I can use.
    And I look at the margins of discretions in people,
    because it tells me something about their moral fortitude.
    It tells me about the personality characteristics,
    a lot of other things.
    But for some reason in research, it
    has been dreadfully neglected, this thing.
    And that was part of the thing which
    was part of my lecture at Stanford
    just recently when I was asked to do.
    That's something which is to me very, very crucial
    and has been somehow not focused upon sufficiently, if at all.
    So once I understand that, the more understanding I have
    or a person has in general, anyone, the more obligated
    you are to live accordingly.
    Now, you can't ask the person who
    is ignorant to live a life based on insight,
    because the insight is very limited.
    But people who have developed insight,
    and I think that's precisely what I expect, people
    who have been victimized and reflected
    upon that to behave more responsibly
    and be more accountable than people who have not.
    That's what I expect of people.
    If they haven't done it, that's why the world has also--
    and that should be said loud and clear--
    expected a great deal from Israel,
    because Israel is made up by people
    who suffered for centuries, for thousands of years.
    And therefore, they should reflect that in the way
    they treat the minority, because they used to be a minority.
    And if they don't treat them properly and responsibly,
    there is absolutely no excuse.
    Actually, there's less excuse than if people
    behave that way who have not suffered themselves.
    And the more I have suffered, the more accountable
    I should be and responsibly I should behave.
    And that to me is very important.
    I've tried to do that.
    I'm not a popular person because to very many people,
    these sort of notions you will pose a threat.
    Because they don't want to change.
    They don't want to be accountable.
    They don't want to be accountable and behave
    in a way which will be based on satisfying their basic needs
    and live a life which is based on insufficient responsibility
    and hedonism.
    And I can't accept that in view of what is in store for us
    and what happened in the past.
    Because from that, if we don't learn from that what,
    what is there left?
    There's nothing left.
    So that's the only thing we can do.
    And that's why we have interviews.
    That's why we talk about the Holocaust, I hope.
    And not just in order to fill the pockets of people
    who haven't been any farther than to
    smell their mother's cooking and simply use that in order
    to satisfy some of their basic needs.
    Hopefully we do it in order to help assist people to develop
    the insight so that they will become more
    accountable and responsible in the future
    and thereby prevent immoral behavior.
    So I know one of the main avenues for you
    to be doing this is your work teaching at the university.
    When did you begin to teach at Sonoma State?
    I just came there, for better or for worse, in 1968.
    And before that?
    Before that I was a guest at the University of Freiburg.
    And before that I was at UC Berkeley teaching there
    and working on my doctorate.
    And in the Freiburg or Berkeley, were you teaching any Holocaust
    related courses?
    I mentioned it perhaps in passing, but Freiburg,
    yes, I certainly worked along these lines, very much so.
    But at Berkeley, I did not other than in passing,
    because I was teaching something.
    I could have used it more, but at that particular time,
    I had not developed the understandings which
    I needed in order to even start to think about teaching
    these things, because I don't teach something
    I don't know enough about.
    So at that particular time, I was doing still my research,
    and I was very far removed from being in a position where
    I would have had enough insight and understanding of all
    these intricacies which would have enabled or permitted
    me to teach.
    So I just mentioned some things occasionally, maybe in passing.
    There's just some sort of use illustrations or examples.
    But I mean, no, I didn't teach it.
    When did you first start teaching
    Holocaust-related subjects?
    Well, I would say I started to discuss these things on a more
    formal level probably in Germany in Freiburg,
    at the University of Freiburg.
    And then, of course, the very moment
    I came there, not the very moment,
    but I very soon started to teach the sociology and social
    psychology of the Holocaust at the university.
    And usually it was very poorly attended.
    One of the things you attended yourself
    and you know that it was just a handful of people.
    And some of them are pretty strange and not at all too well
    suited for this sort of difficult task, program
    and task.
    And then we developed this lecture series,
    which turned out to be quite successful.
    Could you talk about how you began
    that and what response you got?
    Well, I mean, I was there teaching these courses.
    And then the community group came
    and suggested that we would have this lecture series.
    And for that, they needed faculty.
    And since most of the faculty didn't
    know beans about the Holocaust because of their age and lack
    of experience and very limited knowledge, with one exception
    perhaps, I felt that I had to step in and make something
    out of it which was not just superficial and
    sensationalistic and what have you.
    And that was in the--
    I don't know exactly what year we started.
    Just early '70 something.
    Early '80s I think, not '70s.
    '80s.
    About '82, '83.
    And so that's when I took charge of the faculty
    and started this lecture series, which
    was a very painful experience.
    Not just simply because of the subject matter,
    but simply because the people we had to work with
    had very many personal problems and flaws, character flaws,
    and very difficult to work with.
    And it has been probably one of the worst experience
    in my teaching experience.
    What was the response of the university hierarchy?
    Well, they were pretty much indifferent.
    I mean, they let us do pretty much what
    we consider to be right.
    But they didn't support.
    They didn't necessarily hate us, but they didn't particularly
    support us either.
    So certainly we had no funds to speak of,
    and these funds were primarily provided for speakers.
    Paying speakers was primarily provided
    by the Jewish community group.
    And that was besides their problem,
    because it was a struggle for power,
    and they wanted to have a say.
    And the thought that they knew everything, merely because they
    gave them money.
    But they didn't know beans about things
    and still don't know very much.
    But they just simply felt for whatever reason individual
    needs, ambitions, power, whatever
    to do this sort of thing, because they felt that this
    would give them some sort of an outlet for whatever
    needs they met.
    And so this sort of dependency on particularly these types
    of people turned out to be a very bitter and unpleasant
    experience.
    Struggle uphill all the way.
    What was the response of the students?
    Did you get--
    The students, the students I think by and large
    and especially a broad, large number
    of students, which increased because we
    started very few to begin with but ended up
    with quite a number.
    It just grew with the years in size.
    And I think the response we had from the students
    was excellent by large, with few exceptions to the rule.
    But I think it was by large a very, very good response.
    Did you feel satisfied that you were able to put out
    your message to the students?
    Well, yes.
    I think that part, I think, was satisfying.
    Yes.
    I think that part was satisfying except we had to overcome
    obstacles all the way.
    And that made it very arduous and very painful.
    And if I look back at it and say, well, was it worth it?
    I'll probably say it was worth it.
    But the price was very high.
    Were these obstacles the personal difficulties
    you referred to?
    Oh, yes, absolutely.
    Also the individuals who simply were driven by ambition
    and not for really reasons which would further humanity
    or because of concern for the well being but simply
    because of personal ambition more than anything else.
    And that was reflected all the way.
    So that so many people do it not in order to genuinely bring
    about some sort of sociopolitical
    or academic insight change but simply
    in order to satisfy their ambitions, whatever
    they may be.
    And that shows too, because we very frequently
    dealt with people who were totally unfeeling.
    The university itself never totally absorbed or took on.
    Well, why?
    Because they didn't simply because they're ignorant.
    They don't know beans about that.
    They were not that fully understood.
    It was just another subject which was taught,
    another subject for which people got credit and was taught
    and people were paid for.
    And just with all the other stuff,
    they didn't particularly see that's important.
    And even people in my own department in sociology,
    they were very opposed to it and did everything
    in order to prevent us from being successful.
    Why were they opposed?
    For whatever reason.
    Distaste.
    It's a horrible thing.
    And most of the people are Jewish
    and none of these people who were in my department
    were very helpful, supportive.
    On the contrary.
    And simply because it was a subject which
    they didn't want to face up to.
    They felt that it had nothing to do
    with sociology, which is the height of ignorance to say
    that.
    But there wasn't one particular person said that and said,
    well, reproached.
    What do you have to do?
    Nothing to do with sociology.
    The height of ignorance.
    And so with these sort of people we had to deal with.
    And it was a very, very difficult situation.
    And these people are supposedly qualified to teach
    and responsible pedagogues.
    The whole thing is just--
    Do you think this was similar to the kind of reaction
    that many survivors met when they
    wanted to talk about their experiences after the war?
    Yeah.
    Bearers of bad news.
    And who knows?
    Because that's something which people want to not only
    not face up to but sweep under the carpet, repress.
    And they don't want to hear that.
    It's too threatening, because they
    don't know how to deal with it.
    And you talk about professional people.
    And same thing happened to me in Germany
    when I suggested that I had too much material
    to work with by myself.
    They said, well, you have to do it.
    We can't do it.
    And people who were really nice human beings, people
    I've respected and certainly very capable academicians,
    they said, John, you can't count on me.
    Just very recently a person who received
    his degree, a doctorate in psychology
    from Stanford University.
    He said, I'm sorry.
    I can't help you.
    I can't work with you, because I get too disturbed.
    And he started.
    He tried.
    And I took him to some of the interviews
    with me, to the Auschwitz perpetrators.
    And he came and asked questions.
    They're not the best questions, but he
    was present and all that.
    And he just couldn't take it.
    He just couldn't take it.
    And I've had in my seminar back in Freiburg, a person who
    was a psychiatrist and professional psychologist,
    and they all refused to work with me because they said,
    we can't take it.
    You have to do it.
    Were you the only person at Sonoma State teaching Holocaust
    subject?
    Yes, of course.
    Who else?
    Of course.
    Sure.
    Let's talk about Carol Hurwitz.
    Normally she has been present at every interview up to now,
    but she wasn't able to be here today.
    Can you please talk about the evolution of your relationship
    with her in all this?
    Well, Carol, I got to know Carol Hurwitz when
    she was a student of mine, a graduate student.
    And I don't know exactly the year.
    It must have been about '83, '84, something like that.
    She attended my sociology of the Holocaust.
    And at that particular time was a fairly large group.
    Very bright people.
    Very bright people were selected.
    Some of them just working on their doctorate.
    Some of the people, the professional people already
    with doctorates and what have you.
    And so that was a very good group.
    So we didn't get along at all in terms of because she
    couldn't relate to the teacher.
    Was not satisfied with the theoretical perspective part
    of my research and all that.
    It felt that it was somehow didn't do very much
    with emotions well.
    And in a way, that is very true, because if you
    deal with a research subject, is it primarily
    intellectual and not emotional.
    I did mention emotions and all that in any way,
    but still in a very academic way.
    So somehow she felt that this did not do justice
    to the feelings people had who were
    either victims or people who were
    to learn about the Holocaust.
    Well, that's a problem.
    I don't think it has been resolved.
    Anyway, so we've had quite a number of discussions
    and some of them were not exactly very pleasant.
    And especially because her response to my published
    material, and I used that particular book of which I
    am a co-author as one of the texts,
    she didn't quite appreciate it.
    Also because of the fact that after all, she
    is not a person who was educated in the social sciences
    and had problems with some of the terminology
    which she didn't very correctly understand
    and all this, which is because my level of teaching that
    was probably a little bit too abstract for some
    of the students.
    That's a good possibility.
    But other people really understood me well.
    So I mean, it just depends.
    So she had problems.
    Anyway, so I had to deal with some
    of her disturbance because of that class, because the course.
    And she had to walk out at times because she
    was so distraught by the material,
    for understandable reasons.
    And she was not the only one.
    But she reacted particularly strongly.
    And so we developed a dialogue but which was purely based
    on my getting across what I understood and related to her
    so that she would benefit from it.
    And I don't know whether we were very successful in that.
    But anyway, she was sufficiently and very strongly,
    I should say, stimulated by that particular course
    and developed an interest in continuing.
    And so that led to her willingness
    to participate in structuring some things
    and helping and doing volunteer type of work until the time
    she became more as an integral part of the Holocaust lecture
    series.
    And she did that simply because of a very strong motivation
    and interest in that particular subject.
    Now, then it reached some sort of--
    she spent so much time and identified so much
    with what we were doing there that she spent
    a great deal of time for which she
    didn't get any compensation.
    And then I pushed to get some for her,
    which was very difficult, because she was not a faculty.
    She was a graduate student and marginal in so many ways status
    wise.
    And so finally she received $5,000
    for which some of the administrators
    expected-- $5,000, which was virtually for two semesters.
    Almost $5,000, a bit more maybe, grant money and all that.
    But I mean, just nothing, because she
    is a qualified nurse practitioner who was
    able to earn $45,000 a year.
    And $5,000, 6,000, $7000 at most.
    And it was not more than that altogether.
    It's nothing.
    And so they felt that she should be very grateful,
    but they were not at all appreciative of the energy
    she has invested into all that.
    And that became a very unpleasant situation,
    because they reproached her and behaved in a way towards her,
    and then because of my loyalty towards her said, hey,
    you can criticize, but you also need
    to recognize in terms of what-- but they are not
    willing to do that.
    Just only to criticize, and from Jewish circles
    and administrative circles and all that, simply
    because she's a person who gets things done
    and removes roadblocks which are unnecessary and cuts
    bureaucratic red tape.
    So that then led to a situation where
    people couldn't accept her because they
    felt that she overstepped her authority
    and portrayed herself as a faculty, which
    is kind of ridiculous.
    But she's assertive, and there's nothing wrong
    with that, because without being assertive,
    you don't get things done.
    And so the people then turned against her,
    criticized her for all sorts of reasons,
    and behaved towards her in a way which
    is totally unacceptable, morally and otherwise.
    And led to very unpleasant situations.
    And she suffered a great deal, because she dedicated
    many years of her life to that endeavor, which turned out
    to be something for which she was
    punished rather than praised.
    And to me, it's kind of nightmarish.
    It just reflects on something.
    And I'm a little bit confused myself
    in terms of how this is possible among people
    who want to be accepted as educated,
    sophisticated academicians and enlightened Jewish groups.
    And to me, this is just not only outrage but devastating.
    Because I said all the things we do
    and then with what we do instead of saying, my God, we
    need to behave more civilly towards each other
    and be supportive of each other, they tear each other apart
    and behave in a manner which is totally and utterly
    unacceptable.
    So after all the years of working there,
    we will most likely be leaving.
    And she for sure and I probably also, because I
    can't work in this sort of atmosphere.
    And it's a dreadful disappointment.
    Not in terms of what we actually produced, because with that,
    we are very satisfied.
    But the obstacles which have been put in our way
    and which we had to overcome, which were totally unnecessary,
    and the energy which went into that and the frustration.
    And there is absolutely no excuse for it.
    And I'm glad you asked that, because I
    think it ought to be recorded.
    I know that there was a point in which I believe
    that you had hoped that Carol would
    be able to carry on your work with the passion
    that you worked with.
    Absolutely.
    I haven't quite given it up, except in this institution,
    it will be virtually impossible.
    Because the lack of sophistication
    and the immaturity of these people
    we had to deal with by large is so unbelievable
    that anything which would have any sort of future
    and be substantive enough to really have a future,
    I don't think it's realistic under the circumstances.
    Also the ignorance, because people were unwilling,
    faculty I'm particularly talking,
    willing to familiarize themselves
    to some extent with the material but simply accept
    superficial notions, very superficial understandings as
    sufficient and on that basis espouse things which
    were of very little substance.
    And at times also misinformation and misunderstandings
    which only confuse rather than enlighten.
    Also I know along with your teaching,
    you have written many books and articles over time.
    Would you talk about--
    here you have quite a stack of books.
    Well, I mean, I have not simply because,
    in retrospect unfortunately, I've
    been associated for too long a time with an institution which
    does not sufficiently emphasize publications.
    Because my notion is that I can't be a viable instructor,
    whatever, teacher, if I'm not creative myself.
    So that's the basic.
    The other extreme is I also don't accept and don't think
    that it is a good idea to publish or perish,
    which exists in some other institutions.
    I reject that because people ought to work and develop
    their own pace, which will produce
    quality type of products rather than produce
    because I'm forced to produce.
    And the products will reflect that.
    So the publications were kind of above and beyond the call
    of duty, because we are fully occupied
    in teaching people in terms of units we need to teach.
    So that any publication is something
    which is, in addition to that, because time is not
    provided for and it's not emphasized either.
    So it is something that you do on top of all
    the other assignments you have.
    Is it acknowledged?
    Oh, well, to some extent, in your promotion.
    Or tenure, for what I know.
    Tenure and promotion will be honored.
    But some people have not published a shred
    and had no trouble in being promoted to full professors.
    And some people only have doctorates
    and failed doctorates.
    They have not been able to do that.
    They failed it and they are full professors and all that.
    So I mean, you have all sorts of people
    who have not been productive but simply blow up
    their activities by virtue of the fact
    that they have said some few things
    and sat on some usually very sterile and unproductive
    committees and all that.
    And so they use that as some credential
    to be recognized for promotion.
    And they are the majority, because not very many people
    are scholars and not many people have published.
    All right.
    So I've published but not enough,
    because quantitatively speaking, I have not,
    because I need my own space and I need my own pace
    and I need to do things which are reflected
    and which I can identify with.
    And that takes time, and it's not something which--
    and also I may not have enough talent
    to really be a person who publishes in quantity.
    Can you talk about what you have published?
    I mean, these are different things
    which usually relate to my research with the Nazi thing,
    broader and more narrow.
    My first book is based on--
    I've used the basis for my first book my dissertation
    I used and developed it further and refined it
    and what have you.
    And what's the title of that?
    That is Power Politics and Social Change
    in National Socialist Germany.
    And then I co-authored a book which
    with a Harvard psychiatrist called
    Joel Dimsdale, which is called Survivors, Victims,
    and Perpetrators, Essays on the Nazi Holocaust.
    And then I've had chapters in books and articles.
    Numerous things in German, in English, some in Czech.
    And that's what I've done.
    And they've been published in all
    sorts of different textbooks and one
    which has had the largest publication was on the National
    Socialism in German.
    And I don't know how many editions there were.
    Which is very well accepted and popular and well reviewed book.
    And so that's what I've done.
    All I can say I've done what I could, but it's not enough,
    and I hope to do some more.
    You have also had a number of, well, many, many newspaper
    and magazine articles and interviews
    as well as television documentaries.
    Right, right.
    That's very true.
    And somehow I lost tabs on that, because they're so numerous.
    But I think some of them, if they are not too distorted,
    and usually that's one of the problems with journalists
    who interview you.
    They are not very--
    they are not, first of all, they have to really understand
    the subject matter.
    And if they really are not too well versed in that
    and they misunderstand and distort and all that.
    And so there are quite some inaccuracies.
    The exception to the rule are those
    which are really accurate and insightful and go into depth.
    And those also exist.
    And so yeah, it was Newsweek and some other things
    which were important.
    And important papers like the Boston Globe and Los Angeles
    Times and Bay Area Chronicle and Examiner
    and some of those things which were interested off and on
    in some of the things which I did, which by no means
    are just merely exclusively Nazi stuff, but also
    things which deal with deviant behavior.
    And one of the things which was published
    that got much more attention than any
    of my Nazi publications was on price tag switching
    where people switch price tags on items not to outright steal
    but simply reduce the price of an item which they want
    but don't want to pay the full price for.
    How did you come to be talking about that?
    Oh, simply because I'm interested in these things.
    And I I'm an eye person.
    I use my eyes and a keen observer,
    probably sensitive observer.
    And I saw that being done.
    And I got interested in that and followed up.
    And I was the first to describe that.
    And it just entered into criminological literature
    as the name price tag switching.
    And now of course, the new methods
    when you just go through the item which is just being--
    still price tags are used still widely, but most of the more
    up to date stores use the screening
    and go through the electronic screen.
    And of course, you can't price tag switch anymore.
    But so for example, the self destruct
    price tags were developed because of my research.
    And people use that.
    I didn't get a dime for it.
    But I mean, they used my research
    in order to develop new price tags
    so that when you try to remove them,
    and so they self-destruct.
    I still can do it in a way which will not [INAUDIBLE],,
    but because simply because I've developed
    expertise in these things.
    And yes, I also went, for example,
    and price tag switched and went to the manager and said,
    you've got a problem here.
    And some people, oh God, don't just take it.
    I don't want to have anything to do with that.
    So let me price tag switch and not want to hear about it.
    And some other people in Germany,
    for example, led myself, I was apprehended.
    And when I was price tag switching
    and because I was doing that only
    to have some international sort of thing
    and how people feel and all that and really examine that.
    So I was apprehended in this and led myself.
    And I explained it to the management
    and they laughed, Oh yeah, we read a piece other day.
    You also had some all sorts of interesting excuses.
    So then I was arrested and a police station and interrogated
    and then I went to the public prosecutor and said,
    that's my name.
    I've got these credentials.
    And then they did research and said,
    well, we've had a lot of people claim things and all that.
    So of course, I had this mentor of mine
    who knew about my research on price tags, which
    were very interested.
    And they called him because he was one of the leading
    criminologists in Germany.
    And he verified my research and all that
    and I gave them also some--
    at that time it was not published,
    but it was in the process of being published,
    and that's why I needed some more data.
    So then they called me in, and said, well, next time,
    and they laughed, said they thought
    it was exceedingly funny.
    And of course, I got off the hook.
    But they said next time you do this sort of research
    and experiments, be sure to come to us first before you do it
    so that we are informed, because otherwise you get into trouble.
    And I said, well, I can't go and inform you,
    because then I won't understand the emotions which are--
    and they somehow felt it very difficult to accept.
    Because if you do certain things,
    you have to feel just like someone
    who actually does it psychologically
    and emotionally.
    And they had very little understanding for that.
    And of course, I didn't do it obviously.
    And by that time I was finished and it was published
    and closing the circle here.
    It just was United, UP, what is it called?
    United--
    Press International.
    Press International and all over the things.
    Canada, United States.
    And I remember when I went to Maui,
    the Maui people said front page things about me,
    and some people knew me and say hey, you were in the papers.
    So it was such a popular item which actually
    hit all the papers in the United States
    and articles and just numerous interviews and all that.
    And I'll say similar things I did,
    which not related to the Holocaust at all.
    Was the bulk of the interviews and newspaper articles
    on the Holocaust?
    Oh, yes, I would say.
    Oh yes, oh yes.
    Oh yes, I would say so.
    And also about communism and some
    of the things, because I've done some things on that too,
    and dictatorships and various articles which
    deal or used the National Socialist dictatorship
    but have reference and relationship
    to any type of dictator, which at that time included Soviet.
    Have you been associated with any other kinds
    of media on the issues of the Holocaust
    like individual lectures in places or presentations?
    Oh yeah.
    Well, off and on, yes.
    Over the years, yes, of course.
    Back in all over the place in Germany
    and here too and radio interviews.
    And not so much television, but in Germany, television, yes.
    Major things, major radio presentations.
    But lately it was not that much anymore for some reason.
    Now it's just being revived because of Schindler's List.
    Why do you think that Schindler's List has
    made such an impact when there's been
    such avoidance of Holocaust subjects for so many years?
    Why?
    Because it appeals to emotions in a way
    which apparently is acceptable to the masses.
    It has a certain appeal which enables people to face up
    to it to some extent.
    Although some people get very disturbed in spite of that.
    And for example, I have a wife of a colleague
    with whom I work very closely on the Japanese stuff
    and other things at our university,
    happens to be a daughter of survivors.
    And she went to see with her husband Schindler's List
    and got terribly disturbed and called me and wanted
    to talk to me and wanted to find out
    from me if there was a group, some support group for children
    of survivors and all that.
    So people respond to it in different ways.
    But people who have some sort of a distance
    and not personally involved in what
    happened during the Holocaust, simply
    because no one who was close to them was directly involved.
    They now have the type of information, which apparently
    is presented in a way which can be digested
    or they can relate to without being overly threatened
    and find interesting and stimulates some degree
    of awareness which is not going to be repressed
    but will be dealt with.
    And that, I think, is the positive thing
    of that particular movie.
    But also one has to remember in spite of all the shootings
    by the commandant, it does not really
    reflect on the worst type of things.
    Because the Schindler Jews were very privileged.
    And they had, relatively speaking, a very, very good
    life, relatively speaking, and better life than those people
    who were not protected by a person like Schindler.
    And that is something which is a very important piece
    of recognition, because it is not as nightmarish as some
    of the real nightmarish things which people simply cannot
    accept without dealing with it by being to some degree
    disturbed or to the degree disturbed that they will
    instead of facing up will repress and therefore put it
    aside.
    And Schindler's List is presented
    in a way which can be digested, which
    can be integrated and dealt with more easily
    than some of the horrible documentaries which I at times
    show during the lecture series.
    And there are state documentaries.
    And of course, I have a feeling which
    is very strong, because there are lots of small but still
    important enough points with which I disagree
    the way that Schindler's List was presented,
    because there are a lot of mistakes in it
    and improvements and things which are misleading
    and whatever.
    But I prefer, for that very reason,
    I prefer documentaries in order to portray
    things which are closer to reality and less distorted.
    All your work seems to speak of an optimism
    that you can reach people to teach them, as you say,
    a moral intelligence or make an inroad in what we
    might consider human nature.
    Do you feel this to be the case?
    Well, if I would not do what I'm doing,
    I would have no hope left.
    So it is my conviction that human nature,
    as difficult it may be to change it, can be influenced.
    And that the momentum of choice, discretion, and insight
    is still very much present with which
    we can work and improve and become better people.
    And this is my perspective.
    And with this sort of attitude, I'm
    working because if we would give up and throw our hands up
    in despair, what's the point?
    Because there's no purpose.
    There is no hope, and there is virtually nothing left which
    would be worthwhile living for.
    And that's my attitude.
    Therefore I have not given up.
    And yes, I do believe that we can change.
    Yes, I do believe that we can improve.
    And yes, I do believe that we have a responsibility
    to make a contribution towards that end.
    And as long as I can function, I hope
    to continue to do what I can.
    You are officially retired from Sonoma State at this point,
    although I know you immediately were back involved again
    in the lecture series.
    Are you teaching a course also?
    Well, I'm teaching a section, yes.
    And we have sections because now we
    have three units and one unit.
    Two units are devoted to the lecture series
    and one unit is in sections in which the material is discussed
    which needs to be clarified.
    People need to talk about their feelings, talk about the texts
    which we have chosen.
    All these sort of things are very
    important to have some sort of outlet for.
    And so until this time we've had only two units
    without this third unit, and we thought
    that it might be useful to have a third unit.
    To what extent this will have proven to be useful
    will be seen at the end of the semester,
    and we will disseminate questionnaires
    and get the student's response and see to what extent
    it is they are more satisfied.
    This may or may not be the case.
    But I thought, and most of us, I guess,
    agreed that it would be worthwhile trying.
    So do you plan to continue to teach as long as you
    are interested and able?
    Well, I don't know whether I'll be staying
    at the same institution.
    I don't know whether I'll be teaching all the time.
    I think I will have to devote more time in order
    to have something on paper and record it.
    I will have to devote more time to writing and publication.
    But yes, I love to teach.
    Although teaching has become much more difficult,
    because so many people who come to institutions
    of higher learning are really not qualified.
    They should be better off doing something else.
    And so then they become a tremendous problem and that
    has increased within the last few years
    and has become more difficult to do teaching
    on a level of sophistication which indeed can
    be defined as higher learning.
    And that to me was a source of frustration to no end,
    because so many people are bothered
    by the tremendous resistance of some students who have turned
    to be having problems in dealing with abstract texts
    and those retention span and attention
    span has become very small.
    So that they no longer have the ability
    because of all the media and all the other things.
    This unbelievable need for so called entertainment
    and addiction to entertainment have shown increasing problems
    in dealing with abstract thought and reflection
    and dealing with things which they haven't learned.
    Not that they are not capable.
    They haven't learned it.
    It somehow became buried.
    And to deal with these people has
    brought so many other psycho emotional problems which
    now have become more numerous in so many students, which prevent
    them from really being capable of learning as they used to,
    let's say, some time ago.
    Becomes a different type of work and a different type of problem
    for which most of the academicians
    are utterly unprepared.
    So rather than dealing with these things
    and spending their time and energy and frustration
    for practical purposes with individual students,
    they simply give them good grades, passing grades,
    and avoid dealing with very conflicting situations.
    And I can't do that.
    I can't do that.
    And I can't lower my standards.
    So in a way, I would say that as far as my age is concerned,
    as far as my degree of frustration is concerned,
    it's the timing.
    It's right to retire.
    Which is not to say that I've given up
    or that I would not be prepared if it's
    the right situation where I can teach.
    Just as I've had a great deal of satisfaction
    when I was asked to just a few weeks
    ago, about three weeks ago, to give a lecture at Stanford.
    It was a different ballgame.
    Although there too they tell me that times have changed
    and it's reflected in the students' response to learning.
    Well, you have been extraordinarily
    generous in giving your time to the series of interviews
    here at the Oral History Project, both of your work
    and of your personal life.
    Are you in the process or have you ever
    written for publication about your personal life,
    your autobiography?
    Well, I've done some.
    I've done some.
    Probably not enough, but I've done some.
    And that is primarily concerned with my experience in camps.
    And whatever I've written is now being used as one of the texts
    in the lecture series, which has been exceedingly successful.
    And some people feel that it is well written.
    I don't know.
    I can't be my own judge.
    I don't want to be.
    But it's just merely one third of what it really should be
    when everything will be done.
    And I will and certainly intend to devote more time to it,
    and I hope to finish that.
    Whatever way it may lead, I have no idea.
    But yes, I think it is something I want to do
    and I've been urged to do.
    So I hope that I will complete that plus so many other things
    unless I'll kick the bucket before my time,
    before I've had enough time to complete all that.
    And since we never know when we will be in that position,
    so I'm kind of getting a little bit anxious
    that I'll get things done.
    And beginning to feel also that a very strenuous life and a lot
    of deprivation and in so many different ways,
    I've put several nails into my coffin.
    And so I have to accept that as part of the reality.
    For example, I know you've had high blood pressure?
    Yes, I have high blood pressure.
    And I've been very distraught about my divorce
    and the absence of my son, with whom
    I have a very excellent relationship
    and which is very rewarding and I think well
    matched in so many ways.
    Of course, you never know.
    He's in his puberty, so people change during that time.
    Change throughout life, but particularly
    during the puberty, something else
    may come out which was not there before.
    And so it has taken its toll.
    And I'm sure that I've aged because of that and because
    of all the other experiences.
    So I have to do whatever I can in
    order to make the best with what I'm left.
    We want to go on and record the photographs.
    But before we do that, I want to ask you first
    if you have any more information you would like to add.
    And second, if you have any thoughts, messages,
    or anything of that nature that you would like to include.
    Well, I think our discourse or our dialogue
    has been dispersed with all sorts of information which
    gives or reflects on my personal views,
    convictions, and maybe also ambitions.
    And so I don't know what there is left for me to say other
    than that what I'm concerned with
    is that I leave some sort of legacy which will justify
    my survival from the Holocaust.
    And so that when I pass on that I will not
    be accused of having squandered my time with useless doings.
    Because one of the strong motivation from doing what I do
    is I feel a very strong obligation towards those
    who have not survived.
    And feel that since I have survived,
    for better or for worse, I'm not at all so certain that it
    has been a blessing.
    I certainly haven't experienced it as such.
    I feel that I have to use my--
    or at least a part of my energy to do
    things which those friends of mine, those who were people I
    admired, and many people who were role models to me
    including and including some of my or most of my relatives
    who were--
    I was blessed with tremendous family relationships
    and support system, which was the best thing which
    could have happened to me in my life
    and happened to me in my life.
    It's something which sort of the experience which I've had
    and the satisfaction I gained from that I
    need to use in order to make a contribution for other people
    that they too can somehow make the best of their life
    and avoid some of the pitfalls into which we have fallen
    during the Holocaust.
    Well, thank you very, very much, again,
    for all your generosity of time and energy to do this.
    Well, it's my pleasure.
    Well, thank you again.
    John?
    Yes, well, this is an interesting photograph
    because of Adolf Hitler, because this
    was given to me and another one by Hitler's senior secretary.
    And I worked with her for very many years
    because my so-called doctor-father and mentor
    suggested that I take over the discussion and dialogue
    with her, because both of us agreed that it would be very
    important for her to write her memoirs,
    which she refused to have published
    and it was very difficult for us to make her work on.
    And so in conjunction with my discussion with her,
    she gave me a number of kind of artifacts, if you will,
    or if you will, memorabilia.
    And this happens to be Hitler in his favorite hotel, Dreesen
    in Bad Godesberg, and I stayed there myself
    and retraced his steps when I was
    doing some filming, a movie, documentary on Hitler,
    with a crew from the United States.
    And so I put myself into this.
    So indeed, it's one of the most beautiful hotels in that area,
    and this was his favorite picture of himself,
    and that's why she gave it to me.
    So it's not just the setting, which is beautiful,
    but the fact that this was his favorite picture of himself.
    And very few people own it.
    I own it from the horse's mouth because--
    and I did something important--
    because I had a part in writing the memoirs which
    were, after the war, posthumously published.
    Yeah, well, that's the same photograph.
    It's apparently a blow-up of the photograph he liked best.
    This is Hitler's secretary.
    She was the second senior secretary, and with a distance,
    the most intelligent.
    I interviewed two of them, and she knew most
    and was a person who was a very, very interesting individual.
    And I'm glad I was able to encounter her,
    because I got inside for stories about her work with Hitler.
    And she started to work for Hitler in 1932
    until the very end, and had to be in readiness
    for virtually 24 hours a day.
    Her name is Christa Schroeder, and she never married.
    And the person she was interested in marrying
    was a Yugoslav of all nationalities,
    and she was engaged to him.
    And Hitler simply said that I can't permit that.
    I can't allow it simply because of political considerations.
    So he interfered with her private life,
    absolutely, so that she didn't have any freedom, so to speak,
    to live a life of her own, by virtue
    of the fact that she was one of one of four of Hitler's
    secretaries, and the most efficient,
    and not necessarily most attractive,
    but the most intelligent with a distance, no question.
    So I presume she was a member of the Nazi Party?
    She was a member of the Nazi Party,
    but was marginal because ideologically, she did not--
    and we've had long discussions about it-- she did not
    very much identify with the ideology,
    but she certainly was an active Nazi Party member by virtue
    of the fact that she was in the immediate entourage of Hitler,
    and certainly admired him.
    It was kind of-- it was conditional admiration
    to a point, because she also, of course, was
    privy to his shortcomings, which were numerous.
    So she was not an uncritical admirer
    of Hitler by any means, which made
    her more interesting to me.
    But obviously, her loyalties were with him.
    But it's amazing how quickly these loyalties
    changed after his demise and after World War II.
    But she still felt that, you know,
    that he was an important personage,
    and I don't think that she regretted being his secretary,
    because as such, she had unbelievable and virtually
    unlimited privileges on one hand.
    But on the other hand, she was handicapped,
    because as I said before, she didn't
    have any private life at all.
    And if she wanted to marry someone,
    not only did she have to get permission,
    but she didn't get permission with the person, this Yugoslav,
    who happened to be a diplomat.
    She was not permitted to marry because he
    was a Yugoslav and not a German, number one.
    And even if there would have been some German,
    well, it would have been a problem, which is not
    to say that some other secretaries didn't marry,
    but they married within their circle,
    and married people who were in the immediate entourage
    of Hitler.
    And that was of course then not too much of a problem,
    because these people were accepted by Hitler.
    So why, you know, would he not permit
    a marriage between people whom he accepted?
    According to her, what were his shortcomings?
    Well, they're too numerous to say in this sort of thing,
    but the shortcomings were simply his unbounded ambition
    and his ruthlessness, that he could switch from warm to cold,
    and accept you and be very interested and attentive
    and concerned about a person, and could let them--
    just drop them in no time in the next second,
    and be devastating, and send them to camps or whatever,
    or have them killed.
    And so that was this, from one extreme to the other.
    He was totally utilitarian and pragmatic,
    but the interesting thing, she said, and all the people
    I've interviewed who were in his entourage,
    was that he was capable of concern, and apparently
    authentic concern, while he needed these people.
    But when they were no longer useful to him,
    he lost interest and dropped them like a hot potato.
    OK, that would be just, you know, apart
    from his bizarre sort of lifestyle and all that.
    But that would be a lecture or whatever,
    a presentation by itself.
    Do you know what year this photo was taken?
    This was taken in the early '80s,
    and not too long before she died, because the last time
    I talked to her was in '83.
    I trust '83, and she was dead in '84.
    Or was it '82?
    Well, I don't know exactly.
    I'm never been very good with specific dates,
    but I have that, of course, recorded exactly.
    So I think she died in '83 or '84.
    '83, I think, and the last time I
    saw her must have been one year before and all that.
    And she still wrote--
    I have quite a few letters from her
    in which she describes many things
    about her illness and all that.
    And very, very charming letters, and very warm, very, very
    caring letters, she wrote.
    And she was very appreciative of--
    she knew, of course, about my background.
    I mean she knew that I was--
    of my background, the concentration camps.
    So she knew that.
    So this is a picture when they celebrated something.
    I don't know exactly what, and I don't remember anymore.
    It was a party at her place.
    I think so, or maybe not at her place.
    But what is important is that these people who
    were members of the inner circle met very periodically
    and regularly, and somehow provided
    for each other's support group.
    And the person in the center, I think,
    is a mister called Schonhuber, former SS member and leader
    of the Republican Party, if I'm not mistaken,
    if I see that correctly.
    And for that reason, she gave that to me.
    I mean, it's something which she sent me and all that.
    And I probably have a more accurate description
    in one of her letters.
    So he still is a very important leader
    in the rightists, former SS member.
    Used to be in broadcast and TV, and then
    turned politician after he had published
    a book, Schonhuber book about his experience in the SS,
    which was very much criticized.
    And then he was dismissed from his TV as an anchorman,
    and then started his own party and whatever.
    And I think that Mr. Schonhuber.
    I'm not 100%, but just about 90% certain that's what he is.
    And he is now the leader of the fairly successful Republican
    Party, which is a far-right party.
    And who is on the left?
    I don't know.
    And do you know what year this photo was taken?
    That was quite a while ago.
    That must have been in the '70s, late '70s.
    One of the best things which happened in my academic life,
    and also perhaps in so many terms of associations
    and relationships, when I was in Germany in 1963,
    I was given an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship,
    which is just probably like something
    like Rhodes Scholarship, something on a similar level.
    And that enabled me to finish my doctorate
    and do research and publish some things,
    and this was one of the most fantastic things.
    I could live very well, not in luxury, but very well.
    And so I was given that because of people
    who were in the leadership, very sensitive to my background
    and very supportive.
    And if I had a lot of money, by God,
    I would give it to them, because it's
    the further international cooperation among academicians
    and the international research which they then fund,
    and people come to Germany and work
    at various different universities
    on different levels of sophistication
    on their research projects.
    So one of the features which is a very interesting one
    is that annually, the group of 200,
    300 people, Fellows who are in Germany at that time,
    are invited to the German equivalent of the White House.
    It happens to be also white.
    And there I am in the group of people, in the center,
    pretty much, getting to President Lübke of Germany.
    He was a very controversial figure.
    We won't go into that because he was tainted with mischief,
    because he was working on building,
    the places in concentration camps for inmates.
    And he was accused of that.
    I had a long discussion with that which
    I've published in my book.
    But anyway, so during one of those occasions, so every time,
    every year, we went to see whoever
    was president of the German Republic,
    Federal Republic of Germany.
    And that was always very interesting
    because you met all the other people who
    were recipients of these fellowships,
    and had nice discussions.
    We were hosted and wined and dined
    and just had a tremendous time dialoguing.
    OK,
    so that's one of the occasions which was, I think--
    and I'm pretty sure it was 1964.
    Now, that is a very important picture,
    because it's the favorite picture of General Karl
    Wolff when he had his birthday.
    And he was at that time the liaison
    between the SS and Hitler's headquarters.
    And so that was his favored photograph,
    when Hitler congratulates him on his birthday.
    And at that time, he was a full general, that is to say,
    in an SS rank, Obergruppenführer of the SS,
    and stationed at Hitler's headquarters.
    And because of his appearance, and because he
    was very glib and very easygoing and rather diplomatic,
    and kind of an interesting person nevertheless,
    a very colorful person, he was one of Hitler's favored SS
    generals and had a very rapid, rapid, very rapid promotion.
    So at that time, he was general, and he
    claims that on April 20, which was Hitler's birthday, in 1945,
    he was promoted to colonel general, which was the highest
    possible rank in the SS.
    There were only for people who attained
    that rank within the SS, of about close
    to one million people.
    So that's a very high rank, so he gave that to me
    with a dedication, not only that,
    but when my son Ingmar was born, he
    gave him the picture with a dedication
    and with best wishes for his future life.
    Now, important thing in terms of why he did the things,
    gave me some of these things--
    simply because he viewed me as a very close friend, simply
    because I was a very good listener,
    and I could discuss things with him and question him
    and challenge him in a way where he didn't feel cornered.
    And he considered me a very close friend
    to the extent that I stayed with him when I visited him,
    and he came and picked me up at the railway station,
    and didn't have any money at that particular time.
    So I always invited him for some meals,
    and his current girlfriend came in and did things for us,
    and I interviewed him, and taped,
    of course, the interviews.
    I've got all the tapes of the interviews, which
    will one day, if they are not already,
    prove to be exceedingly valuable and insightful.
    And by the way, that's in Hitler's headquarters
    during the war.
    And I don't know exactly.
    I can find out which one it is, which headquarters,
    because he moved from one headquarters
    to another during the war.
    Right.
    The person in the center, the general,
    is Colonel General Jodl, and he was
    one of the main military leaders in Hitler's headquarters.
    Jodl, Alfred Jodl.
    There were several people whom I consider
    to be key interviewees.
    Most of them were SS generals, and this one was an SS general.
    And he was a general--
    now, Wolff was, for example, a political general.
    He was not a military general in the real sense,
    but he was a political one.
    And these were the ones who were very dangerous.
    And this one, in contrast, was already
    an officer during World War I and a pilot,
    and an active military career, military person.
    And because it was very difficult to get
    into any other situation during the assumption of power
    by Hitler after 1933, he entered into the SS, as I think,
    he was major.
    And then subsequently, because of his prowess
    and military leadership talents, very rapidly had risen in ranks
    and became general of the SS,
    And that is after the war, of course, retired.
    And I interviewed him extensively,
    and we developed also a relationship
    which he considered to be very important to him.
    And I saw him very shortly before, you know,
    very shortly before he actually died of old age.
    And that was in a conversation with someone
    of his subordinates--
    I forget the name, but a person who was very devoted to him--
    in his home in Bavaria.
    So that is, again, the same person
    in SS uniform, General Willie or Wilhelm Bittrich.
    And he insisted to give that photograph to me,
    and signed it, "In friendship!
    Yours, Bittrich."
    And you can see there is even an exclamation
    mark after "friendship."
    And at that time, he was one of the commanding officers
    of the Division Deutschland, which
    was a division in Germany.
    And as I said, he was not a National Socialist,
    which is very interesting.
    He was absolutely very antisemitic,
    no question about that.
    But I would say that in terms of degrees,
    his antisemitism was not exceeding the bounds of simply,
    have a dislike for Jews.
    But he totally and utterly condemned all the atrocities
    which took place and which he found out about, and rejected
    Hitler as a person, and otherwise
    was exceedingly critical of Himmler and the leadership.
    And the fact that I taped it all and all
    that was to the great concern of the fellow SS people who
    still survived, because they felt that it could be misused.
    And yes, I've used it, in their eyes,
    probably misused, what he said about his experience
    as SS, with the leadership and all that.
    It was one of the SS generals who
    was most vocal in his criticism of National Socialism, Hitler
    and the SS, which is an irony, because after all, he had
    the same rank as Karl Wolff.
    How did he survive?
    Not easy.
    With a great deal of difficulty, because he got a lot of threats
    from Himmler personally threatening him
    that he would send him to a concentration camp,
    pressed him, you know, said, why don't you have any children.
    You should have children.
    Why don't you divorce your wife--
    because they couldn't have children, for whatever reason.
    And also, because he was very pro-Russian.
    He admired, and because of his experience in the Soviet Union
    shortly after the war where they were
    trained as pilots, because they couldn't do that in Germany.
    So they sent to the Soviet Union--
    very few people know that--
    and were trained in whatever military branch
    they needed to be trained.
    And he developed a great liking for the Russians,
    and that was known because, of course,
    Himmler had files on all his steps
    and whatever background he had.
    And so he periodically threatened him,
    but they didn't do anything to him
    because as you can see what he's wearing there,
    it was at the time when he was given the Knight
    Cross for his military success, as military leader.
    And he was a very interesting man,
    and we've had a lot of fun together, I really must admit.
    And I teased him and he teased me,
    and he had a good sense of humor,
    a very dry sense of humor.
    He could have been a British general without any great deal
    of problem.
    And he was also named by the Allies the "Hero of Arnhem."
    The British parachuted at Arnhem, Holland,
    in order to take over.
    And then the SS, under his leadership and other peoples,
    they decimated the British, took them hostage, imprisoned them
    and took them as prisoners of war.
    And he was known as the "Hero of Arnhem"
    because he insisted on treating them in a very
    humane and camaraderie fashion.
    So he became very well known, and books
    have been written about and films
    have been done because of his humanistic behavior
    towards the British prisoners of war,
    which he took because he prevailed for a while
    at Arnhem.
    So here, which I did not attend, and I
    am sorry because I was not in Germany
    at that time of his death.
    And I saw him shortly before, relatively shortly before he
    died, and visited with him.
    And he gave me several mementos to take with me,
    and it was a kind of interesting sort of experience.
    And there, the same person with whom you saw him before,
    that was sent to me after his death by this individual
    because my name was known and my address and he
    sent it to me as some sort of a memento when he was buried.
    And these are some of the highest declarations
    he received.
    And there, you can see the Knight Cross.
    And after that, he got the Knight Cross
    with second and third grade and with clusters and swords.
    That's what it was, which was just as high as you could get,
    and then some other decorations for his military prowess.
    And that was his funeral in this local little village
    where his wife was buried.
    And he was subsequently buried next to her.
    This is Christa Schroeder with another secretary, Hitler's
    secretary, during the war.
    And at the moment, I just have a block
    in terms of the name of the other secretary, whom I did not
    interview.
    And I may have met her, but I have not interviewed her.
    And so it's just how she looked when she was Hitler's secretary
    during the war.
    The name of the photo was Daranowski.
    And then she married actually an SS man
    who was in an employ-- of Hitler's employ entourage--
    immediate entourage.
    Dara.
    OK, that's the other person in the last photo?
    The other in the last photo.
    Now, there we see Christa Schroeder
    and I was given that after her death by the person
    who was her heir and who inherited whatever she left.
    And she gave that to me, or I'm not sure whether--
    yeah, she gave it to me because I think Christa Schroeder did
    not give that to me.
    And she for whatever reason, let me him have it.
    And Christa Schroeder is--
    I wonder where she is.
    I'm not sure.
    I think she's the one on the right, standing up on the right
    when she was still very young.
    Yeah, in this picture I know exactly where she is.
    She's the one standing up on the left in the second row.
    And that was Christa Schroeder when she was young,
    also in the very old photo.
    And I think it may be actually there may be the year there.
    They may have written it.
    I'm not sure if it is on the other side,
    so I don't know offhand when it was taken.
    No date on the other side.
    Now, this is a very interesting curiosity
    because these are original patches
    of the highest rank in the SS.
    And I showed that, to verify its authenticity,
    I showed it to Karl Wolff.
    And when he saw it he just was beside himself with joy
    and said, John, you need to do one thing if you possibly can.
    If I can have it, and when I die you'll get it back.
    And so he wrote on that envelope into which
    it was put the documentation that after his demise
    it would be returned to me.
    Why he was so interested, because that was his ambition
    to attain the highest rank in the SS which existed.
    And I already explained that, namely that of what was called
    in German Obergruppenführer, which means in military terms
    equivalent of Colonel General.
    And so he claimed, but it was never found in writing,
    that the Hitler when he saw him on the 20th of April '45
    promoted him to that rank.
    I have my doubts about it.
    Anyway, so that and he really it was so important to him
    that he said I need it.
    So you can see that he drove out to California, USA, '65.
    So that was the contract which he wrote where he just
    wanted to keep that.
    And I gave it to him, of course, because I had more
    to gain than to lose.
    And yes, and after he died it was returned to me
    by his heir and this lady friend of his.
    How did you come by those?
    Oh, yes, well I'm of course a collector.
    And with another SS officer who knew
    that there were some Nazis, or what you call nazistica,
    National Socialist memorabilia in an antique shop
    which had all sorts of interesting things.
    But they also specialized under the counter
    these sort of things.
    He said, well, we'll go there.
    This Nazi officer was a very interesting person
    who wrote an account, the eyewitness account,
    of the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto,
    which I hope to have published hopefully soon.
    And so I went with him there and that's where I looked at things
    and bought some things and saw that.
    And I bought it for nothing because that person who
    was the owner, although had some expertise in National Socialist
    memorabilia, did not recognize that this was the highest rank.
    And this is something I couldn't buy.
    I paid about 50.
    Today, I would not be able to buy
    for it because of its actual value of collector value.
    And so I bought it for 50 marks or something, 40 or 50 marks,
    which is nothing considering how rare it is.
    Because there are four people who had this
    rank in the SS of almost one million people.
    Well, this is a bank note produced
    in the satellite camp, which was established,
    it was Mauthausen I trust.
    And I can pinpoint it, but there are so
    many camps and some of the smaller satellite
    camps of the various large camps,
    I don't exactly remember the names.
    Which was a institution which was very highly guarded,
    employed most people were Jewish, artisans,
    people who were highly skilled people whose task it was
    to produce counterfeit money.
    And this counterfeit money were most frequent these pounds,
    they did not quite--
    I don't think they've been able to counterfeit
    the dollars at that particular point, but they worked at it,
    I trust.
    And so these were in a special sealed case
    emerged in one of the lakes and retrieved.
    And I went into some detail and research,
    and in some of the Austrian lakes
    they simply submerged some of the things which
    they didn't want to fall into the hands of the Allied
    occupation troops.
    And these were the pounds and some other things
    which they had millions of.
    Now, they are very skillfully made
    and were only recognized as counterfeit after World War II.
    They were used to pay debts in foreign countries
    and pay spies and people outside Germany.
    Because they are not used in Germany,
    only in connection with imports and primarily spying
    and services rendered outside of Germany.
    And I was given that by a good acquaintance who
    said, by the way, I have something
    which might interest you.
    This really, I was given a number
    because when these people uncovered them then
    they are supposed to give it all and put that
    into specific very closely guarded places in Austria.
    But those people who uncovered them,
    they always took some and put them in their pocket,
    and then they gave it to some friends.
    So in other words, they took something
    they are not supposed to take and distributed it
    to certain friends.
    And this person received quite a few of them.
    And that was his [INAUDIBLE] and said,
    well I know because you are such a scholar of all these things,
    and it is important to you.
    So why don't I-- and I had problems in accepting it
    because I know that this has and will rise in value,
    because there is much more--
    counterfeit has more value than the real thing nowadays.
    Five to 10 pounds you can sell it for a great deal of money.
    So that was done by inmates, by inmates, produced by inmates.
    And all these people then, from what I understand,
    and I don't want--
    from what I have been able to research,
    they all have been killed.
    They didn't want to have any witnesses.
    But I wouldn't vouch for it.
    But from what I understand, yes.
    This is a very important shot which
    I took after a very important SS rally to which I was invited
    and was a guest of honor.
    And that is the usual thing, they usually
    go to cemeteries where former SS people were buried.
    And so I was part of that, and I took snapshots
    and behaved very improperly.
    But because I was an accepted guest of honor,
    they trusted me and let me take all these shots.
    They are very rare shots, because you
    can see all these people are SS people, former SS
    people during a rally when they went and the speech and sang.
    Speech was at a cemetery to commemorate
    the people who had died in combat or of old age
    or whatever and were buried there, SS people.
    And you can see that there is a memorial, the thing which--
    the Iron Cross.
    And this?
    Same thing from a different perspective.
    Now, it's important that they took that were there, the SS
    people and their families.
    They always came with their families,
    and I got to know their wives and daughters and all that.
    And they came from all different parts of Europe
    and the world for that occasion.
    And I had the address them during that
    rally because I was the guest of honor.
    And I couldn't get out of it.
    I tried, I squirmed, did all I could to get out of it,
    and then I had the address them.
    And that was one of the most, I sweated blood to do that.
    It was just very, very, very difficult
    for me to say things which I could identify with and not
    be attacked on the other.
    So I just was just really treading on very thin ice.
    Did you have to say positive things about the SS?
    No, I didn't say anything positive.
    I said what I was saying that people
    who research and want to find out about the SS
    should talk to them.
    And I've written it down, and one
    of the things which I'm doing for John and Lani,
    the experiences of-- and that's practically finished.
    It needs to be the last thing needs to be typed up.
    I already have 30 pages.
    They wanted I think three pages, now it's 30 pages.
    Same thing here, same thing here, and that too.
    You can see the multitudes, because you talk
    about 1,500 or 1,600 people.
    And some of them came from South Africa and whatever, and just
    all places, including the different countries,
    people who were Dutch and all that,
    and they also joined the SS.
    And one I have met a medical doctor during that time
    was a Dutch SS officer.
    And he was still raving about that time
    and was a medical practitioner and all that.
    And didn't seem to be that fully disturbed about the fact
    that he had this background.
    Not very much happened to him.
    See, that is someone just at the cemetery just giving
    this speech.
    It was all very official.
    And you can see the crowds up there.
    I just stand behind these people taking the photographs
    and hoping that no one will-- that I won't
    draw undue attention to myself.
    But by that time I was pretty much accepted as persona grata.
    And god, I really must have had a very high blood pressure
    then when I was doing all this.
    So you see that they even had I mean, a lot of money.
    These people were very well-to-do.
    So it's not a question of money.
    They just could spend on these having a people play
    for them there whom they hired.
    And this is just this stone that's
    the our dead comrades of the first Panzer Corps,
    loyalty for loyalty.
    Well, so all these people, SS people, '39 to '41,
    all these people SS except it's not
    clear to people who don't know any better.
    All these things they the wreath were given,
    put there, during the time I was there and all.
    It was a big thing and you can see them still there.
    So I took that in order to have what
    was the centerpiece of the whole thing, namely this First Panzer
    Corps and loyalty for loyalty.
    And some of the kids, they're young,
    the other generation who came there.
    And of course, by virtue of being in this community
    and being interacting the way they did,
    of course inadvertently they are also
    indoctrinated by those who commemorated
    something which should really be condemned instead.
    But to me, that was just an unbelievable experience
    and these kids were all elated and had a good time, of course.
    And they saw to it that they would have a good time,
    and therefore associated a good time with the event.
    And so that was a way to indoctrinate them.
    I don't know whether they thought it through,
    but it was a gathering, a support group, a support
    system, which of course sustained
    them to have tremendous.
    And not only that, but validated their activity during World War
    II.
    Now, same thing, a different aspect, different perspective
    of it all.
    And we mustn't forget, and that's to me very important,
    that this is absolutely legal.
    They can do that legally.
    They have a legal organization, everything is not undercover,
    but it's legal, except they are very careful whom they let in.
    And there are some people who wanted to disturb
    that, they kept them out.
    And it's just like during the early times
    when they protected their speakers, you see.
    So only people get in who are elected and screened,
    so to speak.
    And it was just an unbelievable experience.
    I'll never forget it.
    It was a terrific experience, and I'm not at all sorry
    that I've done it that.
    I thought it was a tremendous, tremendous learning experience,
    and I'm very glad I've done it.
    Except I had to be very, very careful, because they could
    have clobbered me.
    Now, this quote unquote, "gentleman"
    is Gerhard Martin Sommer, and he was the Hangman of Buchenwald.
    One of the most cruel people, and when I was--
    by the way, he also was sentenced by the SS court.
    That's an interesting thing, Sandra.
    Because he was sentenced by the SS court for excessive cruelty
    and sabotage, and his kommandant, Koch, was shot.
    That's the man who was his superior.
    And in connection with the Koch affair,
    he was investigated, found guilty,
    and sent instead of being punished,
    he was sent to one of the worst a battle battalions,
    combat battalions to which he could be possibly assigned.
    And as a consequence, he was totally crippled,
    totally crippled and by miracle not killed.
    Anyway, Gerhard Martin Sommer has been written up
    as one of the worst persons about whom
    the inmates, survivors, have written.
    And when I visited Karl Wolff, General Karl Wolff in prison,
    with a Swedish Countess who was a relative to the deceased wife
    of Hermann Goring, he said, by the way,
    you got some-- she said that, not Wolff.
    There is someone you really might interview
    and that's the Sommer fellow.
    And he had I don't know how many times
    life sentences, because he killed just
    messes of people in cruelty.
    And so I was very interested, and I
    developed a relationship, interviewed him, taped.
    And have a stack of letters which by themselves would
    make up a book.
    Because to him, I became the father confessor or brother
    confessor.
    Of course, he was much older than I.
    And I was, because his wife divorced him,
    he was written off by all his relatives and friends,
    so he didn't have anyone.
    So I became the substitute family
    and came and visited him and sent him letters and responded
    to his questions and whatever.
    And he in turn, wrote me his autobiographical account, which
    I published in my first book, continued
    to write about details in terms of his experience
    and explaining his feelings, and also
    how he adjusted to post-war Germany
    as prisoner and as inmate in a prison.
    And then, because he was totally I mean,
    he was crippled totally, and you'll see the pictures
    in a moment, he had to be moved to a special institution
    for people in that state, in some sort of a nursing home,
    if you will, in which they could care for him,
    because they couldn't care for him in prison.
    And that's where I visited him whenever I had a chance
    and talked to him.
    And he died several--
    so there you can see was a Nazi member and then
    had a very high rank, probably attained
    one of the highest ranks as not officer
    but as Sergeant Major, something like that, Gerhard Martin
    Sommer.
    And I talked to people who were in Buchenwald
    and said my god, tell me where he is.
    I'm going to kill him.
    And one of them was a Jewish friend
    of mine, medical doctor, who since died who
    was a survivor of Buchenwald.
    And he said tell me where he is.
    I'll go there and kill him with my bare hands.
    OK, so that is Sommer when he was
    married in civilian clothing.
    What year do you think this photo was taken?
    Let me see, that was after the war actually probably.
    Shortly after the war, before he was sentenced,
    before he was brought to trial and sentenced.
    That was after the war, because already he's
    considerably older.
    And that is his wife, and she divorced him.
    They all ran, they all abandoned him.
    And that's why he was latched on to me
    and he wrote to me so many letters.
    As I said, it's a stack of letters
    which by themselves so numerous that you could make a book out
    of them--
    regularly and with unbelievable devotion.
    And there also comes to mind Zimbardo's notion in terms
    of the situational pressures which bring out in people,
    or my concept, which I prefer, is that of a sleeper,
    that he couldn't have been more attentive.
    He sent me letters with flowers, with dried flowers on that.
    And vicious-- about my health concern,
    about Ingmar, about the marriage and all that.
    And I said, how is that possible?
    And I visited him, and he was very concerned and caring
    and said here you are, Hangman of Buchenwald.
    And after the thing it was just totally innocuous, totally
    nice, concerned, writing letters, loyal,
    and telling me all the things I needed to know,
    writing to Ingmar and putting in all these sort of stickers
    on the letter just to somehow--
    it's very hard to understand how these people change color.
    And the man would not hurt a fly at that particular point.
    He was not aggressive at all.
    He was complaining about the way he was treated,
    totally non-aggressive, did all the things properly,
    had civil behavior, and all that.
    Search me, that's exactly the mind,
    and that's what really motivated me
    to do all that sort of research in order to get
    to the bottom of these things.
    The Hangman of Buchenwald, Gerhard Martin Sommer.
    Well, this is again the person who is big brother, in a way.
    That's probably the appropriate word I was or had become.
    And these pictures, of course, I took myself
    when the man was totally crippled
    because of war injuries because he
    was sent to this sort of penal battalion
    because he was sentenced by the SS court.
    And he was very--
    he never was very clear about why and what,
    because he was actually ashamed of it.
    And as I said, his master was shot, Koch.
    Now, all these writers have written about him, Kogon,
    for example, in his very famous book which has
    become one of the famous book.
    Which he read very carefully, by the way,
    Sommer did, and said that many of the things he said
    were inaccurate and untrue.
    He writes about him extensively, Eugen Kogon.
    And so there you can see him and just posing for me
    during a visit in that nursing home.
    See, he could not even--
    couldn't get up properly himself,
    so he had something where he had to hold on to in order
    to even be in that position.
    And there was an organization, which is important,
    a political kind of women's organization
    which was also not just merely headed by women,
    but former high Nazi officials.
    And I penetrated these people and found out
    about the details and all that, which I won't go into now.
    And so they supported all the so-called political prisoners.
    In other words, who were there because of their affiliation
    during World War II or because the concentration
    camp charges, what have you, captains, whatever,
    people of the concentration camp crew.
    And so they went there and I encountered them and talked
    to them and all that.
    Went to all these various people who
    were in prison because of that reason
    and gave them special food and presents and books
    and simply cared for them.
    And so he was one of the recipients.
    That's the same, similar shot.
    Right, that's a similar shot.
    And that's black and white.
    They've been taken also during different times.
    That was taken earlier.
    The other ones were more recent.
    And that's also in this nursing home,
    except he was moved from one nursing home to another,
    and that may have been in the previous one.
    So I wanted him to--
    I wanted to be sure that I had how he looked
    and how this thing.
    And his wounds never healed.
    I mean, he was really I mean, the punishment, I
    felt that the man was punished for whatever,
    because he always had some poison in his body
    which did be a lot of terrible stuff
    and the pain and all that.
    And somehow, in a way, he complained to some extent,
    but he was fairly stoic about his condition
    and really never complained too much.
    He complained somewhat, not because of his pain,
    but the way he was treated.
    He found it very difficult because he was isolated.
    He was immobile anyway, he couldn't run any place,
    so I mean, so there was no question for him to run away
    But he felt that he was not properly treated
    and that he was discriminated against.
    Now, that's the irony of the ironies.
    Now you've got the Hangman of Buchenwald
    explaining to a former inmate that he
    was discriminated against.
    I mean, just if you really take that and look
    at it a little bit objectively, I mean, it's really a parody.
    So I think this card, which is a photograph with the swastika
    as the sun, is indicative of what people,
    what was a popular postcard from Salzburg.
    That's Salzburg there.
    And so instead of the sun in the sky
    you got the sun is now the strength, the feature,
    the beauty, the warmth and all that, now the sun has
    developed it's now symbolically depicted with a swastika.
    And I think it's hilarious because people
    accepted all that thing and sent this postcard.
    And the other side it's written and all this
    and that, which is an interesting text, but we
    don't have to go into that.
    But this to me, that any rationally thinking
    person, critically thinking person
    can accept it and buy that and send it to their relatives
    or friends, other than if you would say it's a joke.
    But no, but it's not a joke.
    This is how seriously they accepted
    Nazi ideology and its symbols and went along with it.
    OK, well this is an interesting storm trooper, brown shirt ID
    card, which I bought in one of those antique shops.
    They just actually I think one of the people
    from whom I bought old books and Nazi books and all
    that, he gave it.
    As a matter of fact, I don't think
    that's June, 1934, so that is a very interesting thing because
    of the time.
    And the name of this person is Ernst Calmbach,
    and nothing distinguished.
    It just tells to what sort of section, what sort of battalion
    he belongs or whatever.
    And Southwest and Brigade 54, and it
    was given to him, that is to say,
    it was a given him on June 1, 1934.
    And he has no charge.
    He's just a basic SA man.
    And then it's signed by a Oberscharführer,
    which is not even--
    not even an officer.
    It's some sort of a sergeant.
    Calmbach Ernst.
    This is the other side of the same thing.
    Yeah, it just says SI ID card number 74.
    So he joined relatively early, 74 in that particular region.
    And it just says his activities, he is active in this battalion,
    and has been assigned on April 1st,
    '34 to the SA battalion R in whatever number
    six, whatever, nothing remarkable.
    This is a Hitler Youth ID card which I also
    received from one of those people
    from whom I bought books.
    You can see that I bought it in Freiburg.
    It was sent there.
    And this fellow actually, the interesting thing that this
    Gerhard [Personal name] something like,
    it's not very clearly written--
    is born in Freiburg 1929.
    So he's a fairly young chap.
    And I just took it because it was of interest so that people
    know how these sort of ID cards looked,
    and also because it's Freiburg.
    That's the backside of it.
    This is the backside, which had to be
    certified because they always had to renew it every month.
    They had to be certified.
    So that's exactly what it was certified up to September,
    and then it stopped, probably because of the war or whatever.
    But he was too young to be even drafted.
    OK.
    Now, this is a rather interesting picture
    because there is an SS adjutant, Hitler's adjutant of the SS,
    who then voluntarily went into combat,
    wanted to be sent to combat.
    He was a fairly high rank for his age, which
    was that of at that time I think of an SS major,
    equivalent major.
    And so I interviewed his brother.
    He died in combat, by the way, and was Hitler's favorite SS
    adjutant.
    And but he died in combat and his brother took his place.
    And his name was Schulze.
    And his brother, whom I interviewed extensively,
    and who gave me this fellow's name
    was Richard Schulze-Kossens.
    And he was a lieutenant colonel last rank,
    and was in the combat SS, but highly political
    as you will find out.
    And he was a very interesting person.
    He came to the United States, was
    invited by a Jewish professor to give lectures.
    And he enjoyed doing that and liked to do it.
    I wanted to invite him, but I didn't have the money
    to do that, to come to Sonoma State
    because that sort of money, flight and all that,
    was not available.
    And he came to the East Coast to a small college
    where he gave lectures and told me quite about him.
    I was very enthusiastic because he was very well received
    and asked questions and all that,
    and felt that it was a very interesting experience.
    He was a very strange individual because
    for all practical purposes, he had not changed any colors,
    but he was very interested in talking about it
    and had many interviews and all that.
    And he married a very rich lady who permitted
    him to live in splendor.
    He died of cancer a relatively young person.
    That was the brother of this person whom you will see later.
    This fellow died in combat and was
    the older brother, who was the first adjutant to Hitler, SS
    adjutant, favored adjutant of Hitler.
    We're talking about the gentleman in the middle?
    The middle.
    The one just reports to then, and this fellow
    whom talks to Hitler is a sergeant
    of sorts reporting to Hitler.
    And he is an army sergeant, not an SS.
    So here you've got this brother of the person who
    deceased when he came to the headquarters and shaking
    hands of Hitler.
    We were very proud of these pictures,
    and he thought that he was doing a tremendous favor giving
    these things, the description very meticulous.
    He described when and what and all that.
    It's all on the other side.
    And so he played a very interesting and colorful role
    in Hitler's headquarters, and then
    was in charge of a SS cadet school subsequently.
    Yes.
    Now, this is the same person, Richard Schulze-Kossens
    about the time I visited him and how he looked in civilian
    after the war.
    And typical so, he's always very well-dressed,
    and lots of money, and an excellent host.
    And he also introduced me to, I think,
    it was Daranowski, the other secretary, Hitler's Secretary.
    Whom he invited when I came to visit him
    and to discuss things and interview him.
    And this?
    This is the cadet school, SS cadet school he was in charge.
    And he gave me that.
    Now, this is a very interesting picture which he also gave me.
    In the background you have this Richard Schulze-Kossens
    in civilian clothing with a Nazi emblem, the party badge,
    which probably was the golden Nazi badge.
    I'm not sure.
    I don't see the bit, but probably was
    a golden Nazi badge.
    And when they came there to sign the non-aggression treaty
    with old Stalin, and the person shaking hands
    he was the adjutant at that time of Ribbentrop,
    the Reich's minister of foreign affairs von Ribbentrop,
    in Moscow during the signing of the non-aggression treaty
    with Stalin, shaking hands.
    All of a sudden, the Nazis and the communists became friends.
    And that's just a very rare, and again,
    a very valuable, very interesting
    sort of piece of information.
    And he played a very important role there,
    because he was Ribbentrop's adjutant.
    He always played this sort of very nefarious roles.
    And this?
    This is again in Hitler's headquarters,
    Richard Schulze-Kossens, when Hitler know
    touches him affectionately.
    And there he was already in this thing
    he was lieutenant colonel.
    Let me see, yeah, I guess he was already--
    I'm not sure.
    I can't see the--
    see, these are the two things which I showed you
    earlier in front of the on his lapels,
    and that was the real lapel rank.
    And so--
    You're referring to these right here?
    That's right, these two things.
    Yeah.
    And anything was a general's rank and all
    that, or actually as of colonel then you didn't have the SS,
    but you had the same things on both lapels.
    And so at that time, I think it looks like he was a lieutenant
    colonel already.
    But I can't see very specifically, because they
    had these four dots and then beneath the four dots
    see they had silver lining, and I don't
    know whether this is just--
    but I think he was a lieutenant colonel.
    And Hitler affectionately touches him there and all that.
    So this man was, of course, very enamored with Hitler.
    I think when he got some decoration or something
    for some event.
    This?
    This is in the Reichstag, in the Hitler's Reichstag
    where he addresses the members of the Reichstag.
    And because he was already at that, it was during the war.
    And he was Hitler's adjutant.
    You can see that Richard Schulze-Kossens is behind him
    and was very proud of the role he
    played in immediate Hitler's entourage.
    And you can see Hitler already kind of very much aged.
    Next to him is his chief adjutant, left to him.
    And he was with him virtually from the very beginning.
    And so you can see Hitler already
    doesn't look healthy at all and kind of face is puffed up
    and all that.
    And that was pretty much towards the end of the war addressing
    the Reichstag.
    So there you've got these two brothers together.
    And the right is the one brother who
    was Hitler's first adjutant until when he went back
    to combat.
    Not back to, but wanted to be in combat and then was killed.
    And next to him is Richard Schulze-Kossens
    who then took his place, but that is also in combat.
    So they are actually in the field,
    and these are the two brothers while both of them--
    while the one is still alive, I should say.
    Yeah.
    And this?
    This is a photograph in Hitler's headquarters.
    And I'm not quite sure why I was given that,
    because some place--
    yeah that is Richard Schulze-Kossens
    also in this white thing.
    That's why he gave it to me.
    Shaking hands with the generals.
    Richard is this gentleman here?
    That's right.
    And then Goring there too on the left.
    Here?
    That's right.
    And he gave that to me simply because he's
    in the picture prominently portrayed in the picture when
    he was an SS major.
    At that particular point, he was an SS major
    and Hitler's adjutant.
    You had these whole things without silver underneath,
    so that means he's just critical.
    Very high decoration, he's got a golden cross
    on the left thing, which was not cross,
    the golden very high decoration, and the Iron Cross on the left.
    But you can see that Goring was a pretty small chap,
    fat and small.
    He was not-- because I tried his ring,
    Karl Wolff was able to obtain Goring's ring.
    And I just put it on the finger and it just
    fitted me perfectly.
    Well, that's an interesting picture
    with Karl Wolff when he was Hitler's adjutant.
    That is to say, no adjutant, but liaison officer,
    which is more than adjutant.
    And next to it is Bormann, the infamous Bormann,
    the small chap there.
    And the other person, I don't know
    exactly who is, I don't know.
    But Wolff gave that to me because he's
    in that prominently and still then looking very young, which
    he was because we're talking--
    I don't know, we talking--
    This is Wolff here?
    Wolff here, yes, yes.
    And Martin Bormann next to him, Martin Bormann on his right.
    This?
    Well, that's a kind of interesting sort of thing.
    Again, just like so other people,
    and I didn't ask for it, gave me that was
    his favorite portrait, Wolff's favorite portrait.
    And he wrote a dedication again to my dear friend
    and all this and that.
    And with all some of the highest decorations
    he had, not all, but some of them.
    And prominently, up on his right pocket on my right side pocket
    is the golden party badge.
    And that to me is very important,
    because in Schindler's List, that's right,
    in Schindler's List, Schindler supposedly
    was portrayed as having the golden body badge, which is
    totally and utterly ridiculous.
    Because he never could have been-- only the highest
    people and a very select group of people
    had the golden party badge.
    I happen to have one which I was able to buy
    some place for my collection.
    So then beneath that then he was a full general in the SS.
    And beneath it he says, "To my dear friend Professor John
    Steiner," with admiration or something, I can't-- no, no,
    no.
    "To my dear friend Professor John Steiner,
    cordially, Karl Wolff."
    Now again, these sort of things these people
    gave me because they wanted, not because I've asked.
    Of course, I didn't say no thank you because now we
    have use for that.
    A lot of things can be documented with it.
    So that was his--
    why did he give this to me?
    Well, he gave that to me because that
    was his favorite photograph of himself.
    Now, this is Karl Wolff with his most faithful girlfriend,
    who was with him until the end.
    But she was one of several, but she
    was the most faithful and stuck by him
    even though he had affairs with others.
    Now, when I came to a visit on one particular occasion,
    she was with him in his bedroom.
    And actually, they were in one bedroom
    and I was sleeping in the other one, which actually
    was in his bed and his real bedroom, beautiful bed, very
    antique bed, beautiful thing.
    I slept there very well.
    So one day, he comes when I was there and said John,
    I mean, because you are such a good friend of mine
    and we are going to get married with her
    very shortly, which they never did,
    I want to offer you that any time you
    want to have a relationship with her,
    and I won't go any further to call it the baby by its name,
    I'll move out into the other bedroom
    and you two can have a relationship.
    And so he was offered and I said it's very kind of you.
    I said, Karl, that's very kind of but,
    I don't think I will avail myself of that.
    And I discussed it with her after the war
    because she didn't have a say in it.
    And said, well that's the Germanic custom
    to offer the bride to a very close friend.
    And I just had problems in just responding
    to that because it was totally unexpected, unanticipated.
    And what do you do with such an offer?
    Well, you can accept it or refuse it gracefully,
    and I hope I refused it as gracefully as I could.
    And after he had asked here, why didn't you say anything?
    Did you want to do that?
    Didn't you have a say in it?
    Talking about authoritarian personality.
    She said, well, I mean he knew that I liked you
    and that I would not object to it.
    That it wouldn't be something very bad.
    I would have done it, it's all right.
    And I didn't have any serious objections.
    If he wanted me to do it, I would have done it.
    And I just was speechless, I was absolutely speechless.
    So that was Karl Wolff.
    Well, that's actually the last photograph of Karl Wolff.
    And I was given that I think already during his lifetime.
    He didn't live much long after it.
    And that was a very typical sort of portrait, the way
    he actually looked.
    It's very realistic.
    And you can see he's got this very friendly features,
    and he could be very different, to be sure.
    But in most times, that's how I saw him
    and that's how we behaved pretty much towards me.
    This type of expression behaved towards me.
    And so he died in 1984, I trust.
    I have the exact date.
    Now, this is a very important photograph.
    On the right hand side, and I don't
    have very many photographs of Steiner after World War II,
    but this is one of them.
    You can see he was fairly corpulent
    individual, heavy set.
    And when he brought me and introduced me,
    took me, and that was a tremendous strategy which
    worked out that he was my first interviewee.
    And then he handed me, because he liked me,
    because we got along and he could
    see that I was sincere in my whatever he thought I was in,
    you can see that third glass is where I stood up
    and the other ones have there.
    He introduced me to Karl Wolff.
    And at that time, he was still living in his mansion
    at his so-called-- so Starnberg, a city in Bavaria.
    And that's right on the-- right in the middle is his wife.
    And she's his second wife.
    And that was a story by itself, because Himmler
    opposed his divorce because he wanted to marry her.
    And she was very much 150% National Socialist,
    which was a good thing, except she was
    known she was sleeping around.
    And but he was enamored with her, and so was Felix Steiner.
    And he told me all about the fact
    that he was going to pick her up on a railway station
    and there instead of she coming by herself
    with flowers in his hand wanting to pick her up.
    And there was Wolff with her, and he
    had to withdraw because Wolff won her over.
    And Steiner never married, and she married him
    in his second marriage.
    In spite of he went straight to Himmler--
    straight to Hitler over the head of Himmler,
    and that was the beginning of the breaking
    the relationship broke at that particular time
    between Wolff and Himmler, who's right hand he was.
    Because of that marriage, because he went over his head
    straight to Hitler, and he okayed that marriage
    because all these marriages had to be approved in the SS.
    They had to be approved regardless of rank.
    Now, there again you've got Steiner and Wolff.
    They both were pretty tall people.
    And Wolff, of course, Stalin and Steiner,
    and so because Wolff didn't want to be just photographed
    in a shirt I gave him my coat to wear.
    And which was, of course, too small because then
    I was much slimmer than I am now.
    And so I took them and because I wanted them two together.
    So I did things which, if I think back,
    I was able to do things which I can't believe myself anymore.
    But I pulled it off.
    I pulled it off.
    So that's close to a railway station with Wolff.
    When Wolff picked me up from the railway
    station, which he always did.
    And then we went to his place where
    I stayed and then continued the interviews, which
    are dozens, dozens of hours.
    Same thing in his flat in Darmstadt.
    Now, this is a very interesting photo,
    and I purposefully did it precisely where
    he had this portrait in his gala uniform
    as SS general, a painting which was done for him in Italy when
    he was the commanding highest police and SS general in Italy.
    And that was his favorite portrait,
    and I wanted to be sure that this
    is going to be in that thing.
    So you can see he just takes me under the arm and all
    that, which reflects the kind of trust he had in me.
    Then I will say you can see I was also
    a little bit slimmer then.
    Yes?
    Now, this is the cemetery where Wolff buried.
    And so I wanted to see it, and his ex-girlfriend,
    that is to say his quasi-widow, took that.
    And you see there all the dates there specific
    when he was born in 1900 and died in 19--
    I can't read it, 1980.
    I think it was, as I said before, '84,
    but we have the exact date.
    There you can read it better.
    It is '84, isn't it?
    Yes.
    Can you read it?
    I think it's '84.
    Now that is his quasi-widow.
    She took me first and I took her at his grave.
    Blonde, very Aryan, unbelievably antisemitic for our time,
    in spite of-- and I had lots of discussions with her over that.
    And the Jews, the Jews, and all this sort of stuff.
    Well, then it should be, I think it's 1984.
    Can't you read it?
    I can't.
    Yeah, well it's 1984 I think.
    Yeah.
    That is at the place where he-- when
    I'm a guest at their place, which was in Bavaria,
    they moved from Darmstadt to Bavaria.
    And that's where I stay always when I come to a visit,
    or came to a visit.
    And so they took my snapshot.
    Same thing.
    Now, there is one important thing,
    as you observe that it was during the summer
    I'm there most of the time.
    Of course, when I come there it's during the summer.
    And you can see that I have a long sleeved shirt.
    And I have a long sleeve shirt for a very specific reason,
    and guess what?
    Right.
    So they wouldn't see your tattoo number?
    That's right.
    Yeah this is a selection scene at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    And I think that, to me, this is perhaps
    the most well, the realistic one I can because you can see
    this mother with this child.
    And I have problems in looking at that, just tears you up.
    And this you don't see as frequently,
    but this is one of the best I've ever seen.
    It's just terrible.
    It just tears you up.
    I mean, it really conveys the situation
    and the atmosphere which prevailed during these times.
    It's just very realistic.
    I think that's fairly interesting
    because that's the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    I think it is Birkenau, or Auschwitz in any case,
    by the Soviet troops.
    And you can see the expression on the inmates and also
    the Soviet officers.
    It's a remarkable picture, I think,
    which shows the liberation and the response to liberation.
    The interesting thing of this picture
    is that that was taken when--
    was given to me by Wolff, where he is next to Martin Bormann
    and Hitler in the center.
    And then he had all the people sign it who are present there.
    And that I think is Goring, man called Julius Schaub,
    is the fellow who was the most permanent and highest Himmler's
    adjutant, permanent ever since the beginning, more or less.
    Then beneath that is Bormann, Martin Bormann's signature.
    The first one above is Adolf Hitler's signature, then comes
    Wolff's signature.
    Then this one I can't quite, and then Bauer,
    Hans Bauer was Hitler's pilot.
    And we interviewed him when I was in Germany with him.
    Hitler is this one?
    That's right.
    OK.
    And the other one I would have to take some time to decipher,
    because I don't know.
    It's one of the generals.
    Can you tell us what that little caption says?
    Is that legible?
    No, it isn't.
    OK.
    They don't give their ranks.
    It's just the names.
    So and he was very proud of that,
    because obviously he must have had the original
    and he gave me a copy.
    So what I used to do, when I had more motivation and energy,
    whenever we had a lecture series I had some sort of an exhibit.
    And I loved to do that because you
    have to put some artistry into it and all that.
    And it's not very, it's kind of blurred a little bit
    and so that the students can relate to some of the more
    important "symbol-ry."
    And as you can see, some of the things which you
    see the copies of use including books, including
    the Jewish star of my aunt, and the military thing of World War
    II and money.
    All sorts of stuff so that people
    could see things in a broader context.
    And I found it to be always very functional.
    Particularly the way we've done it,
    the way I put it together with the help one of the librarian
    who was a very supportive person of our activities,
    and so that people get a little bit of a feel in terms of some
    of, as I said, "symbol-ry" of what took place during World
    War II in connection with the Holocaust and World War II.
    And this is one of my artistic, quote unquote.
    On that upper left is the mask sculpture John did.
    It's amazing.
    It's beautiful.
    Yes.
    And you can talk about other sculptures that you have made,
    Holocaust related sculptures.
    Well, I made Holocaust related and other types
    of sculptures, which are not Holocaust related.
    And that gives me some sort of and outlet of something which
    cannot be described or cannot be reflected in writing.
    And so I do that and it gives me a great deal of satisfaction.
    And so what I have in this picture on the left hand
    side, above the whatever sculpture, whatever you want
    to call it, is a photograph which this General Bittrich,
    Wilhelm Bittrich gave me, running out of his house.
    When we already have left with one of my associates,
    who was a very interesting and beautiful woman,
    and I took her there for a purpose
    because he related to beautiful and interesting women,
    and that was the right thing to do at that time.
    So he ran after me and said, Professor Steiner,
    I forgot give to you.
    It was in the middle of winter, as a matter of fact.
    And he gave me this sort of picture, which hung in his room
    with the highest ranking SS general on the left hand side
    and Bittrich on the right hand side.
    He was an actual colonel general,
    but he was already a general immediately after World War I.
    So he was the senior general in the SS, Hausser,
    and they called him Papa Hausser.
    And then Bittrich.
    And below that is the book on Dachau
    and it's called Christ in Dachau.
    And on the right hand side, you've
    got the full circle, which is one of the only one written
    by remark, which had its premiere a theater
    piece of remark, which was translated
    and it's called Full Circle.
    And I was able to get a poster because I thought
    it was which talks about the full circle
    where the swastika is actually replaced by the sickle
    and hammer.
    So when Berlin, which was Nazi, was taken over
    by the communists.
    And the whole thing goes on this person
    is caught in this totalitarian circle.
    Well, there are various flags and other things
    but what I think is important that people just
    get a little bit of a feel of media,
    different types of thing which then somehow portrays
    some sort of symbolism.
    OK.
    Well, that's a decoration I received
    from the Czechoslovak Republic in whatever
    for being in the concentration camps and behaving bravely
    and what have you.
    Can see the Czech line there and all that.
    And I was quite proud when I was given that by a high
    some sort of an official for bravery and whatever
    things, the cross for bravery and heroism or whatever.
    It's all kind of, don't take it seriously,
    but I think kind of I'm glad that I got it.
    And I didn't get much recognition for anything
    in my life, so might as well get something.
    What year did you get this?
    I got that in 1947.
    This is a favorite photograph of my son, Ingmar Michael Augustus
    Steiner when he was a baby, and I really loved that.
    It's just I really think that really portrays
    his type of personality.
    He was at that particular time just very cute
    and just a terrific cute baby.
    So that's one of my favorite.
    What year was that taken?
    That was-- he was about god, I don't know, two years old.
    So that would have been what year?
    That would be '80, '81.
    And that was in Bonn taken at some sort of a church
    festivity.
    And then he was about six years old, roughly six,
    seven years old, I guess.
    And that was in 1989, and then he was 10 years old.
    And I like that also.
    It's kind of nice.
    And this?
    And that is when he was also around that time, at around 11.
    10, 11.
    That's it.
    And he's showing his tooth and he retained his first teeth
    for a very long time.
    And then he's just displaying this one tooth which is just
    on the verge of coming out.
    And that's it.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan.
    I'm here interviewing John Steiner.
    This is the final interview of your work.
    Today is the 11th of July, 1994, and we're
    doing this interview for the Holocaust Oral History Project.
    Today we are focusing completely on published works,
    works that you have either published in the whole book
    form or articles or other parts of books
    in which your work is featured.
    So let's begin with the first one.
    And you have several documents there.
    Could you hold up one, and then you can--
    and you can please read the title and discuss it.
    Yes.
    Well, what I consider to be one of my more important
    contributions to the study of perpetrators
    was published in 1970, and in two languages, actually two
    versions, one in the so-called [SPEAKING GERMAN],,
    which means Cologne Journal of Sociology and Social
    Psychology.
    And that dealt with a very elaborate study
    of an interpretation of about 700,
    600 to 700 questionnaires in which I compared members
    of the SS to members, former members of the armed forces
    who were serving in different parts
    of the German Nazi armed forces, and studying
    their authoritarian and ideological attitude
    and come out with whatever findings I have had.
    And that came, as I said before, it came out in 1970.
    And it's a study of only one kind
    because no one else did that.
    Many people who participated in the study
    and filled in questionnaires have
    died since so that anyone who would
    like to continue that and all that couldn't do it anymore
    because these people, most of these people are dead by now.
    And certainly, those people who helped me with it and the
    person without--
    whose, without his help, I couldn't have done it,
    was an SS general who was my first interviewee.
    And the name was Felix Steiner.
    And he wrote a letter of recommendation,
    which was sent to the various former members of the SS
    with the questionnaire.
    And without this sort of letter of recommendation,
    the chances are, no one would have filled that in.
    And that guaranteed the success, and we've
    had a very high rate of returns of about--
    between 60% and 70%, which is a very, very excellent rate.
    So that then was translated, and with the help of some Dutch--
    a Dutch senior colleague of mine, who was also my mentor.
    And that was translated-- the German title
    of that particular thing was translated
    to the following remarks of the authoritarian attitude
    and formal members of the SS and the armed forces, a study
    by questionnaire.
    And I've had a friend of mine, colleague,
    a professional clinical and research psychologist,
    professor at the University of Freiburg work with me
    and help me, assist me with publishing that.
    So he's my co-author.
    Where was that published?
    That was published-- that was published,
    this one was published in, the English version
    was published, I think, in Holland.
    And in the abstracts on criminology and penology
    in 1970, and the other one was, as I mentioned before.
    The Journal of Sociology in Germany, the Cologne Journal
    of Sociology and Social Psychology.
    Can you please hold up the Cologne Journal?
    Because I really couldn't see the printing in that.
    Oh.
    Yes, that.
    And the other one, the English version.
    Can you just hold it again, because she needs to focus?
    For her to scan.
    Thank you.
    And this is the English version, which was
    published in the Netherlands.
    And then I've had several other publications which
    were either chapters in books or actually articles in journals.
    And one of these is "Totalitarian Institutions
    and German Bureaucracy, a Process of Escalation
    into Destruction."
    And that was published in, actually before that,
    in 1968 in the excerpt of Criminologica.
    And that is a British, there was a British journal.
    So this is just one of these, just an sample.
    And then I've had this thing here, which came out in 1973.
    It's about ideology and political crime.
    And that was published in the International
    Journal of Criminology and Penology
    in England in, as I said, 1973, and became rather well known
    and was reprinted on several occasions
    as a chapter in a book.
    Do you know what the title was?
    I have no idea that at this point.
    No, that's not true because I have an idea.
    It was reprinted in--
    see.
    Yeah, it was reprinted in Readings
    in Contemporary Criminology, which
    for the first time in any of the textbooks
    deals primarily with political crime, which
    at that particular time, it never had
    been published about anything.
    So that-- they took that.
    I didn't ask that to be done.
    But a man who since has died, a professor, Stephen Schafer,
    is the person who approached me and asked me
    if that could be redone a little bit
    and be published as a chapter in Readings
    in Contemporary Criminology.
    And that was published by Prentice Hall and in 1976.
    And Professor Stephen Schafer, as I said, who has died since,
    was a professor of criminology at Northeastern University.
    Could you hold that up too, please?
    I'll do that.
    But then when I was a Alexander Von Humboldt fellow,
    which was in from 1965 to '68--
    no, '64 to 67, I already had worked extensively
    on the topic of my choice, namely perpetrators, and was
    asked to give a lecture, which then became
    a chapter in a book regarding the belief system of the SS,
    and I was the first one to talk about
    the metaphysical ideological background of the SS.
    And Himmler, who was the man in charge of the SS, Heinrich
    Himmler, wanted to replace the Christian faith
    with a pagan, new updated ideology and a ritual, which
    was to be started in the SS and then be applied and adhered
    to universally by Germans.
    And so I picked it up by, virtually, accident
    after I had interviewed extensively an SS general man
    called Karl Wolff who asked me to--
    when he was in prison, I went to visit him
    in prison, who asked me to have a chain with a hammer repair.
    It had broken the chain, a silver chain,
    or could have been platinum, but I
    think it was silver, to have that repaired.
    And he said that that was his most treasured talisman, which
    he wore around his neck.
    So I looked at it and went to do some research, talked
    to some leading German historians who
    could not help me and said, doesn't make any sense to us.
    We really don't know what it means, this hammer.
    And so then I discussed it with him when I returned it to him
    and did some more research.
    And he told me that this was the hammer of the god, Thor, Thor,
    T-H-O-R, and that this was part of the new belief system,
    which was in preparation but didn't get off the ground
    because of the demise of the Nazis in 1945 by virtue that
    they lost the war.
    But that was in preparation and already
    practiced among the SS people in some as a circle,
    not all of them, but it became the practice of the SS people
    and the dominant creed within the SS at that particular time
    already.
    And so that somehow--
    this hint certainly motivated me to do more research.
    And I found out that indeed, they prepared a new belief
    system, a new creed, a new religion,
    which was to replace the Judeo-Christian religion.
    And that is the article, which I published
    the results of my research.
    And that was the first publication of the kind,
    dealing with the more mythical and religious aspects of Nazi
    and, more specifically, SS ideology.
    And do you know when that was published?
    That was published in 1975.
    OK, and could you read the title of that book
    please, as hold it up?
    In German?
    Yes.
    The title of that book is [SPEAKING GERMAN]..
    And what it means, Tradition and New
    Beginning International Research Concerning
    German History of German History of the 20th Century.
    And that was edited by people [Personal name] man called
    Reinhardt [Personal name] and was published by a rather
    well-known Munich publisher called Carl Heymanns Publishing
    Company, which is quite interesting in an irony
    because they used to be known for, during the Nazi--
    during the Third Reich, used to be known for publishing
    National Socialist literature.
    We were able to get--
    could you hold it?
    Yeah.
    These articles that are appearing in Germany,
    did you write them in German in the first place?
    Yes.
    Now, this then was picked up by a Swiss journal of, quote,
    Journal of--
    History Journal, Historical Journal.
    That's what it's called.
    History-- Historical Journal, which
    was published in Switzerland.
    And they came out, with my help, with another version,
    similar version of what had been published in that book
    with illustrations, with excellent illustrations.
    And they helped me with that.
    And that's the article.
    They picked it out because they felt
    it was the most interesting to them in the book.
    And what is the translation of that article?
    Well, it's pretty much the same as I've mentioned,
    except you have just simply printed differently.
    There are some minor deviations.
    And it is illustrated.
    But the title is basically the same as the one--
    Basically the same.
    And the illustrations are really a tremendous choice.
    And I couldn't have done it without the help
    at that particular time because I didn't have the access to all
    the archives, but they've done a terrific job, really
    terrific job.
    And it was read by most of the SS people I've interviewed.
    And that created some problems.
    What were the problems?
    Well, the problems is it was highly embarrassing to them
    that, indeed, they had deviated from Christianity.
    Embarrassing to them because national socialism had failed.
    And so had the to be religion.
    And now these people had offsprings, had children.
    And they simply couldn't continue in that.
    So they had to put them someplace.
    And they certainly didn't put them in the synagogue, right?
    So they had to revert back to the Christian faith.
    And that, to them, was an embarrassment,
    that indeed these people were developing a heathen
    religion which, without Jesus Christ,
    without the Old Testament, based on racial superiority
    and then trumped up things, which fitted
    into the general Nazi ideology.
    So other than that, that's interesting
    because I've had the response, which I've
    had to this sort of thing was primarily
    by SS people who were very unhappy with me.
    That you exposed this.
    That's right.
    And also question, of course, the accuracy and all that.
    But I've done so much research so
    that the accuracy of that particular research writing
    is pretty high, which doesn't mean
    that I may have perhaps overemphasized
    one or the other.
    But by large, it was a very objective and non-inflammatory
    writing of a person like myself with a social science
    background and so forth and so on.
    Did that, in any way, affect your access
    to the SS [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, to some extent, yes, because some people
    were disappointed in me because so many people whom
    I had interviewed felt that I was sympathetic or open
    to their background.
    And now they read something which
    was a critical analysis of what they had believed in,
    and they're taken aback.
    So I had a problem mending some of the problems which
    had been created by my writing.
    And in most cases, I succeeded in telling them, so asking
    m about, what do you think was wrong,
    and then talking to them about that and listening to them.
    And once they got it off their chest,
    the conflicts were pretty much resolved.
    And next.
    This is something which has come up,
    which is a little bit different because I
    was very interested in the literature and the writing,
    which was done in Theresienstadt.
    And I had-- I was very fortunate to be
    surrounded with young, brilliant people, to geniuses.
    And I was kind of embarrassed not to be as creative,
    not to be as nearly creative in any situation
    as they were at that particular time.
    And one particular person came to my notice,
    and that would be a chapter by itself to describe that.
    And as I said, that took place in the ghetto
    of Theresienstadt was a 13-year-old Czech, partially
    Jewish fellow called William [Personal name] Jewish name.
    And he was very advanced for his age.
    He was not at all a 13-year-old as we know them.
    He was very advanced and exceedingly sophisticated,
    introspective, reflective, and very well read.
    And he wrote amazing, awesome poetry.
    And he read that to me because we all
    were sleeping, existing in one room,
    which is perhaps as large as this one, a little bit larger,
    where we had bunks and story bunks,
    and doubled up as people.
    And they're crowded in that particular small room.
    And he was one of them.
    13 was kind of interesting number in that particular room,
    and he was one of them.
    And he was the youngest of all of us.
    And he wrote this unbelievable poetry.
    And I've read or listen to most of what he had written.
    And also, I'm so impressed that I
    said my god, what can be done in order to save that?
    Of course, I had no way of saving that because he
    went to a different camp.
    And I went to another one and so forth.
    So we lost each other because we all eventually
    were deported from Theresienstadt
    to destruction camps, and so was he,
    and perished in one, along with some other people who happened
    to be also part of that group of people, 13,
    and perished under dreadful circumstances.
    So after the war, I came across some friends who
    also were in Theresienstadt and said, by the way,
    I was able to save two or three poems by William
    [Personal name]
    And I said, I really would appreciate
    if you would give it to me because I'd
    like to publish it and write something about it.
    So that is that publication, which
    is a very short one, the small, minute collection of some
    of his writing, which helps the reader
    to develop a taste for it, which I published in Czech
    and English in one of the journals,
    intellectual journals, which was published in--
    was published for many, many years, tens of years actually,
    which is called The Witness.
    In Czech, translation is The Witness.
    And it's a quarterly for politics and culture.
    And that was published in 1964 and contains
    those poems, which were--
    which we could save.
    And the name of that, in Czech, name of that poem is "I Saw,"
    "I Saw."
    And it tells the experience in concentration camps
    in a way which I've never read before, probably never
    will read again.
    You say there was an English translation of that?
    Yeah, there is an English translation,
    but this happens to be the original in Czech.
    I see.
    I was going to ask you--
    And it's one of the most moving things
    I've ever read in my life, written
    by a 13-year-old who perished.
    So you wouldn't have the English translation?
    No, I don't think I have it here, no.
    Ah.
    So he wrote-- he was able to write,
    he started to write when he was about 13 until--
    he stayed about two years in Theresienstadt,
    so he wrote about for two years.
    And some of the things which were written in Theresienstadt
    could be saved.
    And that is what I got.
    There may be more, but that's all I got.
    And I wrote a story about that in that particular, very short
    publication.
    But it's very powerful.
    And these people published it in '64.
    So that is actually older than all the other ones
    we have discussed up till now.
    Could you possibly give a rendering of that poem
    in English?
    Be very difficult, because it's very complex and fairly long.
    And it is very complicated symbolry.
    And I don't think I could do it justice by simply describing
    it.
    It's much too-- it's much too involved and complicated
    to really--
    what it actually says in just a few words,
    maybe just to hint, merely hint, insinuate in some sort
    of a most delicate way one can possibly do it without doing it
    injustice, it talks about people who have suffered
    and those who have not suffered and are bystanders.
    So it is actually an attempt to start
    a dialogue between those people who have not survived
    and those people who have survived without really having
    understood the dreadful things which took place
    in death camps.
    And so it hints upon what has happened there
    and also what their response to all that suffering, people who
    have survived and have not suffered,
    what their response would be to their suffering
    and tries to relate it to them so that they understand,
    comprehend, appreciate what took place in these death camps.
    And that is done in such a way which
    is just one of the most remarkable things I've
    read in the form of a poem.
    Would you hold up the book please, so I can see?
    OK.
    Now, we worked on that translation
    for a very long time.
    But the translation doesn't do any justice to the original,
    as most translations don't.
    So then, again, in the International Journal
    of Criminology and Penology, some
    of the things which I wrote was just picked up.
    And "Power Ideology and Political Crime"
    became a very important research article
    in this International Journal.
    of Criminology and Penology.
    And I was asked to be a member of the editorial board,
    but that was not the reason why my article appeared
    in it because it was selected by some other people.
    I had nothing to do with it.
    And that was one of the leading criminological journals
    of that time, published in London and by Seminar
    Press in London and New York and was exceedingly successful.
    What year?
    And that year is 1973.
    Did you become a member of the board?
    Yes.
    And how long did you serve?
    For about, just about seven, seven years,
    just approximately.
    And they published some other things in it
    as well, which has nothing to do with actual Holocaust matter,
    but deals with deviant behavior, which
    is typical in the Western world, namely price tag switching.
    And price tag switching is something
    which people, and I've seen them by accident,
    I came to witness that by accident, had not
    been described in professional literature at all.
    And I'm the first one who described it and defined
    it, namely that people--
    nowadays it's no longer done-- but at that time,
    it still was and to some extent also today it's been done,
    that you simply unpeel--
    you peel off a label, a price tag, from an item
    and replace it with one of the lower value.
    Or you take another one and stick it over the existing
    price tag and then go to the counter
    and pay whatever amount says on it because most people are not
    familiar with the prices, so you really
    can save a great deal of money.
    And that to me was an interesting sort
    of novel way of fraud.
    And so I described that, and that became
    one of the most successful--
    not necessarily in terms of my estimate or assessment,
    but most successful because it was United Press brought it,
    and it was in virtually all places in Canada,
    United States, in all peoples, Hawaii, in some parts in Europe
    and all that, and actually made front page news.
    And so the irony is that I don't particularly
    feel that this is very important, although it's
    interesting and original, but none of my things
    which I think are considerably more important
    made the front page news.
    The Holocaust.
    The Holocaust.
    And so also in the same 73 publication,
    there was one thing which, because I
    was a member of the editorial board of editors,
    I asked Philip Zimbardo to give me his simulated prison
    research writing.
    And I had it published in the International
    Journal of Criminology.
    And that is being widely cited, although this is not,
    by any means, the last writing on that subject.
    He wrote one which is much more complete.
    Did you ever pursue more research on such topics
    like price tags, would you?
    Oh, yes, yes, yes.
    And I did that and some few things, which
    were published, yes, in field of criminology,
    and another one which I don't have here because it was
    on a topic which, what was it?
    Was on internal politics in the United States
    and deviant behavior of politicians.
    And that was published in Europe in a German criminological
    journal.
    Right.
    So this was my first book called Power Politics and Social
    Change in National Socialist Germany.
    And the subtitle is A Process of Escalation
    into Mass Destruction.
    That has been fairly successful.
    It came out-- fairly successful, not that fully successful,
    unfortunately.
    And that was the two versions, actually, pretty much
    the same thing.
    One was published in Europe by one
    of the leading German-Dutch publishers
    and one which was published here in the United States.
    And that was in 1975 was the European edition,
    and the American edition was published in 1976.
    Was the European edition published in German?
    No, the European publication was actually published in English,
    just as you see now because that's the European publication
    and with a lot of German in it because I'm quoting extensively
    German original texts for two purpose--
    so make it more accessible to German
    reading public on one hand and also
    showing the original documents in German language
    so that I could not be accused of having translated it
    in a way which was inaccurate.
    So of course, most of the German has
    been translated into English, but I
    have the German and the English text.
    And that's kind of unusual.
    Makes it a little bit cumbersome reading, but on the--
    it's not for the general public, but has
    been written for people who are more
    interested in the scholarly aspects of this analysis.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Oh, well, it was--
    two people have-- foreword has been written by my friend
    Philip Zimbardo.
    And the cover of the book has been
    written by Dr. Eric Fromm, who wrote some very nice things
    about it on that paper cover.
    And I know you've talked at length
    in our previous interviews, but I
    presume this book contains the major findings of all
    your research with the-- well, I think I went beyond that.
    But at that particular time, it certainly
    did and still is valid.
    There are very few things which are-- actually
    would have changed if I had to rewrite it.
    There are some few things, but very minor things.
    And so that the contents of that particular book
    is, to me, the type of recognition
    which I developed at that particular point in time
    but hasn't really appreciably changed since.
    I still would say that most of it, I adhere to and think
    is accurate and has validity even today.
    And I know this book has been used, I don't know,
    earlier, as a text?
    No, this one has never been used as a text.
    It was never used as a text?
    No.
    Only once-- only in my courses, which I taught,
    the Sociology of the Holocaust and Genocide.
    Right, that's the course.
    That's right.
    And that may have been a mistake because it
    may have been a little bit too difficult for undergraduates.
    You mean, using this book as a--
    That's right.
    Although it has basic things in it, starts with fairly basic,
    but the basic things are already on a level of sophistication
    which is not necessarily relatable for people
    who are undergraduates.
    Maybe you want to read the titles from chapters
    to give the person an idea.
    I don't know, I don't know.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Well, I don't know whether this will--
    I'll do it, but it's just--
    Well, we can see if it seems useable.
    OK, well, so the book is divided into four parts, five parts.
    And the first part is power ideology and political crime.
    And the first part of that first chapter part
    is "Towards a New Conceptualization of Power,"
    and the second one is "The Historical Setting
    of National Socialist Rise to Power and Its Sociological
    Implications."
    Part two is "Sociological Factors
    in the Development of the National Socialist Party
    Bureaucracy."
    Part three is "Devoted to the SS--
    an Example of a Totalitarian Bureaucratic Institution,"
    because the SS was indeed a very bureaucratic institution.
    And then this is the original, subdivided
    into original and early history of the SS--
    "Himmler's Rise to Power-- the Emergence of the SS
    as an Independent System of Power
    and the Role of Its Subsystems."
    Then another subchapter, "Promulgation and Application
    of Racial Doctrines in the SS."
    Number five, "Racial Criteria for Selection
    of Personnel into the SS," "Ideological Criteria
    for Selection, indoctrination, and Training,"
    which was number six.
    Seven, ""[INAUDIBLE]---- An Example of Any Social Institution."
    Eight, "Jewish and Non-German Descent in the SS,"
    which for the first time deals with members of the SS who were
    tainted with, quote, unquote, "non-Aryan" blood,
    Jewish blood.
    10, "Consequences of Hitler's Influence on National Socialist
    Ideology in the SS."
    And 11 is "The Perception of God in the SS," which
    was the basis for the other things, which I showed you
    before.
    Discussion and, conclusion and then we
    have part four, "Totalitarian Institutions and German
    Bureaucracy--
    A Process of Escalation into Destruction."
    And that's fairly long.
    And I have a discussion and a conclusion of part four.
    And part five is "Sociological Implications
    of Deviance and Accountability in National Socialist Political
    and Bureaucratic Institutions."
    And that is subdivided into one, "The Sociological Vision
    of Walter [Personal name] Concept of Social Change,"
    and two, "National Socialist Aggression and Psychoanalytic
    Theory."
    And then we have notes and references, appendices,
    bibliography, and all that.
    And they take up quite a bit of the book because I have many,
    many original excerpts from Nazi documents, SS specifically,
    SS documents , I should say, and Nazi, but primarily SS.
    And some autobiographical notes, one, for example,
    an autobiographical note written by Hitler, Goering,
    and Goebbels, and some of those people, Ribbentrop,
    and Kaltenbrunner and all that.
    And that also are very original writings,
    which were gathered by a psychiatrist, who
    was a psychiatrist to the major, major Nuremberg people who
    were, before they caught them, so the major Nazi perpetrators.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Oh, this is a book here, Criminology Between the Rule
    of Law and the Outlaws.
    And there is another version of my price tag switching in that.
    And that was published by a publisher,
    well-known Dutch publisher [INAUDIBLE] in the Netherlands
    in 1976.
    And you want to hold that up too, please?
    OK.
    So that is one of the books which
    had very, very many editions and was edited
    by a very well-known German historian,
    man called [Personal name] and another political scientist
    fellow called Jacobson, all of them
    from the University of Bonn.
    And they've asked me to deal with the--
    take pretty much as it existed already,
    the SS chapter on ideology, the belief system of the SS.
    And they came to me and asked me if they
    could publish that because by that time,
    it had become fairly well known and that's
    part of the leading overviews of National Socialist
    dictatorship.
    That's what it's called, in German [SPEAKING GERMAN] 1945,
    which is from 1933 to 1945, National Socialist dictatorship
    from 1933 to 19--
    and overview [INAUDIBLE].
    And that has become a very well-known text,
    which is also given for free to major schools, universities,
    and all that by--
    not this one.
    This is the normal edition, but there is
    another edition which has been funded by the German government
    and distributed to anyone--
    organizations, schools, and all those
    who would be interested in this because they
    felt it was one of the leading things
    and has been reviewed in the major German papers
    and on all that and has been exceedingly
    successful because leading people of the German historians
    and political scientists and other people of that kind
    have been published in that.
    And it was, to me, very gratifying
    that they selected me.
    I didn't sell anything to them.
    They came to me and asked me to.
    And so that was one of the most satisfying things
    which happened to me in terms of my research
    and its recognition.
    Did you ever receive any revenues from this book?
    Oh, yes, I received some revenues,
    which would amount to about roughly $100.
    But I gave that to the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation,
    just about 150 because they made it possible
    for me to do that research and write that and was rightfully
    theirs, actually, I felt. So--
    Right, and then this one is--
    this one was published in 1980, and I sweated blood over that.
    And that's what I consider to be perhaps the most important
    contribution as far as my assessment is concerned.
    And I'm obviously biased.
    And I was also asked by a Harvard psychiatrist
    by the name of Joe Dimmesdale who had--
    who graduated, also, from Stanford,
    got his undergraduate degree from Stanford and I think his
    master's--
    happened to be also a sociologist.
    And for some reason or another, he
    heard about the other book, which I showed you
    just a moment ago, the Power Politics and Social Change,
    and apparently was impressed because it was very well
    reviewed by some Harvard social scientists
    in one of those, whatever, where they review some books.
    And he had read it and asked me if I would write a contribution
    to what he wanted to write.
    And we decided, I'll work on the title and I'm a co-author
    of that book, although he's the initiator and editor of it--
    Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators--
    Essays on the Nazi Holocaust.
    And they asked me to write a chapter on the SS.
    And that has been the most successful work
    up to this point because it has been cited by very, very
    many people in particularly psychology and history,
    not so much by-- oh, yeah, sociologists too, particularly
    those who are interested in genocide.
    So that's called The SS Yesterday and Today--
    A Sociopsychological View.
    And as I said before, that was published after a great deal
    of delay in filing 1980.
    And that is the book.
    All right.
    OK, next.
    The next thing that I wanted to bring
    is the German version of the Stanford prison experiment,
    done by Philip Zimbardo.
    And what we have done--
    this colleague of mine, a man called Guenter Bierbrauer
    a professor at the University of [Place name] because I've
    been asked to give lectures when I was a Fulbright research
    scholar back in Germany at the University of Freiburg,
    I went around and gave lectures on the stimulated prison
    experiment, Phillips, because I considered
    that to be that important and try to make the points which
    were made and just simply agreeing
    to help some German social sciences be acquainted
    with that.
    And so much of that I had to translate,
    of course, into English.
    And then I came across this--
    [INAUDIBLE] was there when it actually happened here in '71.
    And we became friends.
    And so he then suggested that he would
    develop a more organized translation
    and go through that.
    And as a consequence, we have come out with a--
    or he has come and I have come out
    with a terrific manuscript, which then has been published
    in some sort of a strange--
    it's neither book nor chapter nor journal,
    but simply deals very specifically
    with the Stanford prison experiment, which includes
    the text, the text and interpretation,
    which is fairly substantive, although it is only about 53,
    54 pages.
    But it includes, and that's a novel,
    it includes a videotape of that experiment.
    And so that these two go together
    and being sold for ungodly money.
    It's still being sold, but only institutions and organizations
    can afford it, very rarely individuals
    because in American money, it would be over $300.
    Why is it so high?
    Well, I have no idea.
    And I think other than that it would really published.
    And that is very important for German,
    but a very important publication because it's done very well.
    And it's novel in its form and could be actually--
    I could easily say that's just kind of a book.
    But I won't because I don't think it would be accurate.
    It could be misunderstood.
    Anyway, so that's what it is.
    And that came out--
    that came out in, let me see, 1984.
    Is this used as a text in the schools?
    Oh, yeah, well, it's being used very widely, except,
    as I said, because it's prohibitive cost,
    not many people own it.
    But it's being sold all the time.
    Do you receive revenue from it?
    Oh, yeah, we split them.
    And just recently, I got about--
    the enormous sum, which has changed my lifestyle, of $40.
    Yeah.
    This paper?
    No.
    No.
    This is-- oh, wow.
    OK, makes no difference what we--
    so because of my archival research,
    this is just an example of documents which I found
    and then distributed.
    It was my fault that I was very generous
    with this particular document, which
    I had found many years ago in one
    of the German archives, which is a response
    to a statistical overview of killed, or whatever,
    killed Jews, and a statistic of how many Jews were killed
    in death camps.
    And that was sent to Himmler and Hitler's chancellery.
    And as a response, they wrote in a top secret, Reich's secret,
    only two copies, only two copies,
    this particular one-page long document in which the response
    is, "The Reichsfuhrer-SS has read the statistical overview
    of the final solution of the European Jewish question.
    "And he asks you, he orders you or he wishes"--
    more exact translation" --"he wishes that in no place
    in these statistical reports there should be the word
    'special treatment' of Jews should not be used
    as a phrase."
    And it said on page 9 and 0.4, should
    be "transportation of Jews from Eastern
    parts to the Russian East, or Eastern provinces
    to the Russian East.
    "And they were processed through camps in the general government
    and the camps in the so-called [INAUDIBLE],","
    which is the part of the general government.
    "A different formulation is not to be used,
    and I'm sending the document sent to the Reichsfuhrer-SS--
    I'm returning the document of the Reichsfuhrer-SS with
    the wish to--
    with asking you to make the changes as
    suggested before you send it."
    Now, these things will also send to the Reich's chancellery,
    to Hitler and all that.
    And then Bormann also has written--
    it's not that one by Bormann, but by Himmler, and response.
    So that's quite interesting because it
    talks about the secrecy which was kept,
    which was kept by those perpetrators,
    or desk-chair perpetrators, to keep mass destruction secret.
    And that's an evidence for it.
    And that was 1943 when this was in full sweep.
    So I've found it because of my research in archives.
    I think I found that one in Koblenz,
    if I'm not mistaken, and showed it
    to other people who, of course, jumped to the occasion
    and then made copies and all that.
    And this is the original one, which
    I got from the federal archive in Koblenz, when I found it.
    Now-- so this is just one example
    of many other documents, which I found, which point to the fact
    that, indeed, the highest circles not only were
    privy and knowledgeable of what happened
    but were receiving reports.
    And absolutely no way that, number one, Hitler
    couldn't have known about it, and number two,
    no way that anyone would have initiated
    an action of that magnitude by themselves
    other than responding to the wishes or the orders of Hitler.
    And I've discussed it with the secretary,
    and said yes, anything of that magnitude he
    never gave in writing.
    But he always said verbally in order to cover himself.
    So that's just one of those things which
    I've been working on the way I've researched the material,
    went to the archives, and looked for material
    of that sort, which really got me much closer to the truth.
    Let's have the counting thing, yeah.
    So this is something which I have named reflections
    on experiences in Nazi death camps, which is just about,
    probably 25%, 30% of what it really
    should be or will be even when I finish it, if I finish it.
    I hope I will.
    And that-- actually, this version
    was started in 1953 when I came to the United States.
    That was the first time I started writing these things.
    A friend of mine, considerably older friend of mine, who was
    herself a writer and author, and she
    suggested that I should put these things down, which I did.
    And she wanted me, and almost happened,
    wanted me to publish these things
    after my arrival in the United States
    and had good connections, good contacts with publishers,
    and almost happened.
    And if I had not started my at the University of Missouri,
    my graduate studies, the chances are
    I would have completed the things which they wanted
    me to write and publish in New York,
    let's say in a year or two.
    But I did other things which were more important.
    So I wrote down some of the things, which
    I consider to be-- to me-- the most important,
    so that actually my memory, in terms
    of most of the stuff which I wrote
    in this experience in this booklet
    here, started in 1953, updated later on
    and published in just about three,
    four years ago, so that the final version has,
    of what has been written up to date,
    has appeared in this sort of thing.
    And I included the documents which
    pertain to that, the fact that, indeed, I
    have a certificate that I was indeed in proper Dachau camp
    because so many say they're in Dachau
    and were not even close to it.
    So there's a lot of interesting sort of deception among people
    who are survivors for reasons which I really
    don't have any answers for.
    But anyone who survived in Dachau proper
    got a certificate of this nature here, saying
    that he was released from Dachau,
    and those people who claimed, for example,
    who were interviewed by some of the people
    here in Oral History, claiming that the survivors of Dachau
    don't have that, and were not in Dachau because if they
    were in Dachau, they would have had to receive that.
    And there are some other documents in it,
    for example, that I conducted myself
    at all times in concentration camps in a proper manner
    and did not cause any unpleasantness
    or betrayal to the cause of people,
    moral and Democratic and all that.
    And that was signed by fellow inmates, one of whom is the,
    we'll say, former Cardinal of Czechoslovakia and Archbishop
    of Prague and personal friend of mine, Joseph Baron.
    And so he's one of the signatories.
    Of that document which says you had been in Dachau?
    That's right, that I will behave myself in a proper way,
    and I did not do anything undo, which
    should have been immoral, whatever, or irresponsible
    or whatever.
    And the document that says that you were
    in Dachau, who issued that?
    Who issued that?
    The person who was the camp secretary of Dachau,
    a man called Jan Domagala who is known in literature,
    has been cited in literature.
    He was the official camp secretary of Dachau
    at that point, at the time of the liberation.
    And that document was issued on June 12, which
    is quite interesting by the way, which is just,
    we're talking 45.
    So today we have July, so it's just almost--
    so we talk now we will be talking 50 years ago.
    And then also the official register
    of the concentration camp, Dachau, Dachau, and my name
    appears and my number and where I came from,
    plus some other things, and plus a picture of while I
    was in Dachau and showing some American colonel around.
    And so this is that also.
    So this-- we had that in the picture.
    Oh, you did, yeah.
    This was a publication that you had published yourself.
    Well, I mean, I didn't publish it myself.
    I produced it myself, but I wouldn't call it a publication.
    It's a manuscript.
    It's still in manuscript form.
    And that, by the way, has been the most lucrative
    of all the things because I get it for about 250,
    every printed for about 250 or 300, and I sell it for 700.
    So the proceeds, which I read, I partially gave--
    part of them I gave back to the center for many years
    until I no longer was paid.
    And then I used that to cover some of my expenses
    and pocketed what it was.
    But I'm making more money on that
    than on any other publications, which is a kind of an irony
    because that's not even properly published.
    But you do use this as part of your teaching material?
    Yeah.
    Well, I've used that as teaching material for the lecture series
    as one of the texts, introductory texts because
    for students, it is interesting to read that,
    particularly since I'm used to be,
    or whatever, active in being the director
    of that whole enterprise.
    And so to them--
    and that may change, but most of the people who
    work with us don't understand these finer
    points and don't appreciate it and, therefore, will
    do things which will become not the same,
    and put it nicely and politely.
    Do you want to read the names of the two studies?
    If you want to.
    Well, it's just-- it's, again, divided into subchapters,
    "Slave Labor at the Blechhammer and for Synfuel Plant,
    Synthetic Fuel."
    And the second is, on a death march from Blechhammer
    to Reichenbach."
    And the third chapter is, "In a cattle wagon to Dachau."
    And the whole thing is about 50, 49 pages.
    K, next.
    Yeah, well, and then we can talk about the lecture series.
    No, well, let's talk about the things which I have done.
    In addition to publications, I've
    been a consultant to a number of documentaries
    and the foremost of which was a very
    analytical and sophisticated movie on Reinhard
    Heydrich, in which I was a consultant by virtue
    of the fact that I had interviewed people who were
    very close to him and, therefore, had understood
    his personality a little bit more
    than other people who just looked at documents and not
    at people who were close to him.
    Then I've done a number of broadcasts,
    which were based on my interviews
    of former members of the SS.
    And that was the first type of broadcast
    ever in Germany, which lasted longest also, which
    lasted close to three hours, two and a half to three hours.
    Then I did a documentary on my research,
    which was a movie made of--
    a TV movie made out of that.
    And a crew came from Germany, and people
    came to interview me.
    And so that was done.
    What was the name of that one?
    The name was-- the name of that was, let's see here.
    This was Adventures in Research, was part of the series
    Adventures in Research--
    Interviews, Experiences, and Insights
    Gained through Dialogues with Former Members of the SS.
    And what was the name of the Heydrich?
    And the Heydrich was Reinhard Heydrich.
    And unfortunately, it didn't--
    it appeared only once and then disappeared.
    I thought it was just a fabulous movie.
    I tried to get it here somehow.
    They promised me to send me a copy,
    but they never did, as it happens.
    As a matter of fact, the person who
    was in charge of that particular enterprise
    happened to be an Israeli employed by the West German TV
    people--
    a strange person too.
    Anyway, so then-- and that came out-- that came out in 1989.
    And then there is another one which came out in 1988,
    I trust, or also in '89.
    And it's called the so-called Steiner Tapes--
    Interviews and Dialogues with Former Members of the SS
    Interpreted and Commented by John Steiner and Klaus
    [Personal name] And this Klaus [Personal name]
    is a well-known anchorman, TV anchorman in Germany.
    And yes, it was two and a half hour documentary radio
    production by the so-called Sudwestfunk which
    is the Southwest broadcast station in Baden Baden, which
    is covering the Southwest of Germany
    and part of Switzerland and Austria.
    Then I did-- was a consultant to what I consider to be a very
    well done TV documentary called Hitler--
    Myth and Man.
    And that was shown even Australia, Canada,
    and some other places.
    Some people even call me from Australia on that.
    And so I was a consultant and was
    asked to travel with the crew to Germany
    and get them the people--
    I had contact with former members of the SS
    who were then interviewed in my presence.
    And then I read the scripts and made
    suggestions and corrections.
    And so that-- and that was also a very nice thing
    because of the very interesting experience
    I wouldn't like to miss because that was a primer for me.
    And I was very spoiled because they had a lot of money,
    and we stayed in the most expensive hotels
    and ate the most expensive food and did a lot of other things.
    We won't go into detail here.
    You appeared in it too.
    Huh?
    You appeared in it too.
    Yes, and I appeared in it too, for just a minute
    or so, probably not even that.
    And so that also received two Emmy Awards,
    which is kind of nice, and made me feel better
    about some of my activity.
    And it was very lucrative.
    They paid very well, except that was
    during the time of my divorce.
    So most of it went either to the attorney or to my wife,
    so that--
    my ex-wife, and so that I got relatively little out of it,
    other than the benefit of the experience.
    So--
    Before we go to some of the current events,
    do you want to mention your work on either the Warsaw Ghetto
    Diary translation or the Hitler Secretary?
    Well, so because of my interview techniques,
    which apparently were not too bad, I made very many contacts
    and was able to penetrate into the circle of people
    who were close to Hitler.
    And so I took advantage of that as much as I could.
    And one of these people was one of Hitler's senior secretaries.
    And I not only interviewed her, but developed some sort
    of friendly relationship with.
    And she somehow wrote me letters about some of the problems she
    had and some of the things she --
    So I also helped her and suggested things
    for her to write down, and which now
    has become a book years ago.
    And she died of cancer in 1983 or '4.
    And she didn't want that book to appear before her death.
    And although she had tremendous offers,
    she didn't have any money, didn't have any hidden money,
    because whatever she had of valuables--
    and she had considerable valuables--
    were taken from her when she was in American internship, when
    she was interned by Americans.
    And so she was very bitter about some of the things
    because I know what--
    they just simply stole things.
    Said, well, we'll keep it for you, safekeeping and all that.
    And then they stole it and all that.
    I know the people and all that.
    And it was pretty awful.
    Anyway, so that's a story by itself.
    So she shared that all with me.
    And then because of one of my mentors and professors
    in Germany, I got to know--
    because he wanted me to continue what he had started,
    namely see to it that she would write her memoirs.
    And she did to a large extent until the time
    she had a dreadful case of arthritis,
    had no one who could type, and she
    was, of course, a professional typist and a secretary--
    very, very, very capable person and very intelligent.
    So it was very easy and most interesting to talk to her.
    And so finally, I go to her.
    She had a manuscript, and that was
    published after she had died.
    And I'm still trying and tried for many years,
    unsuccessfully, to have it translated and published
    in English.
    And so far it has not.
    A lot of people made promises but didn't keep any of it.
    So I've not been successful.
    So all right, so then I, of course,
    of my interviews of dozens of people,
    of SS people, so some of the people wrote to me,
    wrote accounts for me, their accounts,
    which are exceedingly unique.
    And one of them is an SS officer, lieutenant,
    first lieutenant, who was a witness of the destruction
    of the Warsaw ghetto.
    So he has written and eye account of that for me.
    And that has been translated by one of the professors
    at the University, German professors in German language.
    and it needs to be reviewed again and all
    that because there are still some bugs in it.
    But Carol and I and some other people looked at it
    and corrected some of the things which needed to be corrected.
    But there are still some things--
    I looked at it just not so long ago
    and said there are some things which need to be changed.
    Now, he also edited a little bit and left out
    things which he considered unimportant,
    but he left out things because he didn't understand them,
    because he doesn't know beans about the Third Reich,
    and is to be my successor and we are not particularly happy
    about that.
    So--
    Do you expect to publish this at some point also?
    So this is going to be part of a book which we have planned
    to do, Carol and I, we've planned a book which we would
    want to do on different perspectives
    on the Holocaust, which would include survivors, rescuers,
    perpetrators, contemporary students,
    how they respond to the Holocaust.
    Then-- what else?
    Some other people who have different
    perspectives and put that together
    and see the perspectives on the Holocaust.
    And I would like to be clear that your colleague Carol
    Hurwitz is here today who always accompanies you
    in these interviews.
    Yeah, because of her, identification
    with what I'm trying to do, and she
    felt it was important to her, not that she was
    recognized or rewarded by that.
    Perhaps we will be rewarded by--
    The next life.
    Next life.
    OK, I think that--
    Then we have this Holocaust lecture series, which is--
    for reasons which do not escape me--
    many things do.
    But this one doesn't.
    I'm the director, still director,
    officially director of the Holocaust Studies Center.
    And the major activity is not just
    have courses, which I indeed had courses
    before we've had the Holocaust lectures--
    Why don't we review that first because that is the background?
    Right.
    So when did you begin teaching Holocaust?
    Well, I tried to teach it very long against tremendous
    resistance because some of the colleagues in my department
    didn't particularly feel that it was of sociological relevance--
    genocide and Holocaust-- and simply put roadblocks
    in my way to really teach that.
    So actually, I started to teach that sometime
    in the '70s, the first one.
    When did you begin teaching at Sonoma State?
    '68.
    You taught in the sociology department--
    That's right.
    --the whole time.
    Right.
    And so from '68 to '70s when you began Holocaust work,
    you were just teaching--
    Well, I started Holocaust work much earlier,
    before I came to Sonoma State.
    So the Holocaust work, or particularly--
    yeah, I started in the end, about the end of the '50s,
    you know, I mean, I already started
    my interviews and all that.
    Oh, your research, but I mean the teaching.
    Well, the teaching, I started--
    of the Holocaust, I actually started, that would be--
    well, I've done some teaching at the University of Freiburg,
    actually, which was a little bit,
    but not strictly that, by virtue of the fact that I
    was a visiting professor or assistant professor, visiting
    assistant professor at that particular time
    at the Institute of Criminology, so
    in terms of deviant behavior and all that.
    So I lectured and also brought in political crime and all
    that.
    But the more systematic teaching I started at Sonoma State
    in the early '70s.
    So after you were able to surmount these obstacles
    and this resistance--
    I was doing that also--
    although still resistance state, but I simply
    overcame the resistance and still taught it.
    And then the Alliance for the Study of the Holocaust
    initiated the Holocaust lecture series.
    When did the alliance form?
    The alliance formed--
    '83.
    --just about '73 or '77, yeah.
    In the '80s.
    '83?
    Yeah, '83.
    That's right, '83.
    That's right, that's right, '83.
    And so they started.
    They send in, of course--
    it had only one person who knew something about that.
    No one else did at that particular time.
    And so he gave his lecture, which is always the same,
    about the American aspect of immigration policy,
    of letting in people who were persecuted,
    Jewish persecution of--
    persecution of Jews.
    And so he gave that lecture, but they
    didn't have many other people who knew anything.
    So I was then brought in, and I brought other people in.
    And then we started the lecture series
    where we invited people outside of the campus, people
    who were well known or less well known,
    and experimented for many years before it really got off
    the ground because the alliance made a selection of speakers,
    to a large extent, and many of these speakers turned out
    to be not too hot, actually, were not at all very good.
    And so then I, more or less, took over,
    and then we made selections which were better,
    and then we improved even further because we
    learned from our mistakes.
    And I also lectured in the various Holocaust lecture
    series on different topics in which I've had some expertise.
    And that, in spite of all the obstacles, was very successful.
    But--
    And the format-- the format is usually
    a speaker on either a scholarly subject or personal accounts.
    Then I started this sort of--
    rather than having a Holocaust lecture series, which were not
    at all systematic or anything, just simply
    hodgepodge of things, then I started on themes,
    you know, to concentrate on themes.
    So we have for example here in this thing, we have 92--
    no, I don't know, there are 93 here for reasons --
    It's OK.
    --is Holocaust learned and unlearned lessons.
    So that was the theme, and around that theme,
    we've selected the lecturers.
    And I've had a thing here, who gave a lecture, researching
    the Holocaust film, liberation documentary,
    and researching the Holocaust.
    So I told them something about my research, in which I
    learned a few lessons, a few.
    And then we got the last thing here,
    which is 94 Holocaust lectures, which
    is the making of a Nazi, emergence
    of the genocidal society.
    And around that topic, around that theme,
    we then have invited speakers, and they somehow gave us
    a feeling for the students-- it is a feeling--
    of different aspects, different perspectives,
    interdisciplinary aspects of the making of a Nazi.
    In addition to that, we always have an introduction,
    which gives the students an overview of contemporary, more
    contemporary German history.
    And then occasionally we've also added
    someone who gives a lecture on the political, scientific,
    political science aspect of Germany,
    not necessarily Holocaust.
    And so that has become usually an integral feature as well as
    a panel of survivors so that the audience develops
    some sort of an emotional, motivational tie
    with the subject.
    And that has been most successful.
    And then also, in more recent years,
    we also included rescuers and usually end with rescuers
    because it's an alternative.
    There were rescuers who understood
    what was being done and had sufficient courage to respond
    to that and save lives, the people who
    were known as philanthrops, and philanthropic, and liberators.
    This is also unique in that the lectures are
    open to the public on a free basis as well as the students.
    And you have always had a number of different departments
    in the university involved.
    Right.
    Could you name those, please?
    Well, just the ones which usually involved people
    in the history, political science, English literature,
    then Hutchins School, which is a school
    by itself, a college, Hutchins, and psychology
    whenever we have someone who can make a contribution.
    What else?
    We've done women's studies once.
    Women's studies.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    German [INAUDIBLE].
    German.
    German.
    Communications.
    Yes.
    Drama.
    Yeah.
    That is more recent.
    That's in more recent times.
    Yes.
    And philosophy, yes.
    And philosophy, that's it.
    Could you hold that up, please?
    Ah, did you not have biology also?
    No.
    No.
    No, we can't.
    It's mostly social science involved.
    Yeah, primarily social science.
    We also gave credit in video department
    because we always had some people involved
    in the videotape and film on the series.
    And you were also continuing to teach your sociology
    of the Holocaust outside this.
    That's right.
    That's right.
    Off and on, but with very varied success because usually
    we didn't draw many students.
    And it was on a level of sophistication which actually
    should have been a graduate course because it assumed that
    they had some sort of background,
    which most of them didn't.
    And the alliance, how was that funded?
    The alliance simply is able to obtain money via donations.
    And that's what they--
    that's how they finance the lecturers who
    come outside, from outside, and not
    part of the university faculty.
    And so they are getting about $3,500 to $4,000,
    between $3,000 and $4,000.
    And this finances the people who will come from the outside
    and lecture.
    How long have you been the director of--
    Well, ever since the beginning actually.
    Ever since the beginning.
    And exactly what is your status today?
    My status today is in this organization
    that because I have officially retired,
    they feel that someone should be in charge who is still
    an active faculty, at least that is their version
    and are looking for a possible alternative and someone who
    would succeed me.
    But I still am supposed to stay there
    as senior scholar in residence, what they call that.
    And to what extent this still needs
    to be approved, I've got some-- a few thousand dollars
    to finance my research, which we will need
    because she needs to be paid.
    And I hope to get a little bit of a pocket money out of it.
    And whatever other people will type and all
    that should benefit from that.
    So all of that money, whatever help we can get
    will be financed.
    And yeah, so that's just in a nutshell.
    When did Carol join you?
    Carol joined in '75, when was it?
    You're in the wrong decade.
    '85?
    Actually, I took your course in '84.
    '84.
    Began to help and volunteer already that year,
    but didn't really take an active,
    defined role until about four years ago,
    about four years ago.
    You know, I would love if Carol would
    sit there and talk about her role for a few minutes.
    Right.
    I think that would be very useful.
    And we can have a discussion all together, whatever that comes.
    OK, great.
    Did I comb my hair properly?
    Yes.
    OK, Carol Hurwitz.
    So you began as a student--
    Mm-hmm.
    --in the Sociology of the Holocaust course.
    Right.
    And I guess you became very interested.
    And as you say, you volunteered, even during that year.
    And then how did you become, more or less, a professional?
    I actually was recruited initially as a community member
    because I was not even officially
    a student at that point.
    By the Alliance, I began to volunteer
    in whatever roles were needed, whatever
    jobs needed to be done.
    And that began to grow and grow.
    I saw how much the center and Dr. Steiner
    needed help in many different capacities.
    I began to do editing, research.
    I took on organizing a conference called Women
    in the Holocaust, which was the first West Coast
    Conference on women's experiences of the Holocaust,
    which was in November of '87.
    And I also taught a course at that time.
    And by '87, had begun to matriculate
    as a re-entry student.
    What course did you teach in '87?
    Women and the Holocaust, along with the conference.
    I taught a seminar course through women's studies
    on women and the Holocaust.
    So that was the first time I taught
    a Holocaust-related course.
    And I also was working as a student assistant
    with Dr. Steiner, grading papers in his courses, the lecture
    series, and began to just take over
    roles that needed to be done.
    About four years ago, I began to informally act
    in the function of program coordinator,
    where I began to do a lot of the work of the center.
    Also was working doing--
    editing manuscripts with Dr. Steiner.
    And about two years ago, had an official function
    in the university where I was paid as lecturer and program
    coordinator for the last two years
    to assist Dr. Steiner in presenting the Holocaust
    lecture series, and other auxiliary functions
    of the center, which include publicity, community
    and student information, large number of small jobs
    that have to be done on an everyday basis
    to run an academic center.
    You also taught that evening course.
    Yeah, that was, I think, '92, I believe
    it was, I taught a full semester course on women
    and the Holocaust, which was quite successful.
    We had about 20 students.
    And it was a very gratifying experience, indeed.
    Yeah.
    Yes, it was excellent.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Thank you.
    And what is your status today?
    My status is non, in that, given the circumstances that
    were presented to us with the limited budget,
    the complications and obstacles of university structure
    right now, there really was no clear role for me
    unless I continued in a low-paid, mostly volunteer
    position.
    And I felt that at this time in my career and life
    that this was no longer feasible to be giving away
    all of my time and energy, even though I completely support
    the cause, I will always be interested in studying
    Holocaust, and hope to teach it again and research it again
    at some other point in my life.
    But I could not--
    I could not any longer carry on, having
    gotten so little remuneration and having gotten so much,
    what shall I say, resistance, resistance,
    from the organizations and the university administration who
    would support us in word but not in deed because in fact,
    all along, they have not supported us
    in a way which could sustain us adequately.
    And this is in spite of our having developed the largest
    public community lecture series that the university has ever
    had and which is probably not renowned at this point,
    but it's definitely unique.
    We don't know of one anywhere else
    that exists that is cross-disciplinary in 12
    departments, that has the kind of depth and breadth
    that people can attend every year in a lecture series.
    So we're on to new digs and to new projects and new--
    other possibilities, perhaps in the Bay Area.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    I know you were talking about this book collaboration.
    Yeah, we've--
    Please talk about it.
    Is there anything else?
    We have actually several book possibilities
    that we're interested in attempting, including finishing
    his account and expanding his excellent three
    experiential accounts into a whole book, which
    we have some idea of how to do.
    It's a matter of time and fitting it in
    and also making a living at the same time, which
    is of difficulty for both of us if we stay in Holocaust work.
    And I think it's difficult to express adequately
    the sense of frustration that we feel from having given so
    much of our life energy and commitment
    to a cause which is so worthy, so evidently worthy,
    but yet we somehow could not succeed in getting support
    adequately, either financially, psychologically,
    administratively, whatever.
    We simply could not succeed.
    And even though both of us, I think,
    feel very satisfied, to some extent,
    in terms of what we've given to the cause,
    to the work of Holocaust in the world,
    to not have achieved the kind of recognition,
    the kind of acceptance, the kind of support that we've needed.
    It's ubiquitous to other Holocaust workers.
    Talk to Lanny, talk to Joel, talk to different people.
    It's certainly a problem broader than ourselves.
    But in terms of our own life experience,
    it's terribly frustrating and does not--
    it's not something that we can logically
    pinpoint as to why this might have occurred.
    Perhaps it's because we're too early.
    The for instance his work on SS perpetrators
    is pioneer work and that the world really
    isn't quite ready for it, at least
    not in a mainstream enough way that you
    can get supported for it.
    Maybe the politics of Holocaust work
    are too complex at this point in time
    that without particular kinds of leaders or vision,
    people are unable to cut through the bull of competition
    between individual organizations and so forth.
    In any case, we have not been successful on the scale
    that we would like.
    And I'm speaking for myself, but I
    think that he can contribute more too.
    I keep grappling with it on some kind of moral, spiritual plane
    where I imagine that the world just isn't ready for us
    and therefore can't see who we are
    and what we're trying to accomplish
    and that, at some point, they may.
    But it may be posthumous for him,
    or it may be post-professional for me
    and that, since I can't make enough money doing this,
    breaks my heart, but I have to go
    do something else because in fact, I can't get help.
    I simply can't get help.
    Well, I think there's also insufficient recognition
    of relevance.
    And what Carol had said, that somehow
    the contemporary colleagues or people who work with
    have not recognized the relevance of what we're doing.
    So they just don't take it that seriously,
    don't think it is important.
    A good example of that is that we've
    been fairly shocked by the difference between how
    the students are impacted by his account-- for instance,
    they're deeply impacted, they're profoundly
    moved by seeing their survivors speaking to him
    and then reading his account.
    And this is a very natural and human response
    that they're having and understandable.
    Then we have a faculty, the administration, and community
    organization leaders who read the same account
    or are familiar with the same story
    and are either completely indifferent,
    have no questions or responses, and many of them
    are not even interested enough to read it.
    And this is profoundly disturbing to have
    a strong leader in their midst in this field of study
    who they're completely disinterested in, that they
    have absolutely no connection to for whatever reason
    psychologically academically, professionally,
    whatever, that they would take the interest
    to read it or, having read it, have any response.
    Do you think it's just sort of the general tenor
    of bureaucracy, or--
    I think it's deeper than that.
    And I think that is one of the problems.
    But I think that the field is still
    too disturbing for some people.
    I think that it--
    this is my own observation.
    It's the kind of subject, like many other ones,
    that deal with some kind of human trauma
    or human destructiveness that in order to face it,
    you have to face yourself.
    And if you don't, then you lack integrity
    in having looked at the subject at all,
    so that people, rather than having
    to face themselves and their own sense of morality or lack
    thereof, turn away altogether from the subject.
    And you can find this a lot of other subjects sexual abuse,
    physical abuse, you know, crime, a lot of other subjects
    that people have difficulty with.
    I think Holocaust is near the top of the list in terms
    of causing a sensation of personal threat and existential
    anxiety in people, that they simply either have to turn
    and face it head on, in which case
    it brings up all kinds of issues for them
    which are very painful or difficult,
    or which a lot of society does is just turn their head.
    So for practical purposes, though, you
    have now to proceed, more or less, on your own.
    To some extent, yes, and decide our own agenda,
    which will probably include working more
    on manuscripts and books.
    I'd like to see him become much more
    of a national or international consultant, which he's
    certainly qualified to do if we could figure out who to contact
    and how to network, how to network for a Holocaust
    consultant.
    In my case, I'm trying to finish my master's, which I
    hope to be finished with soon.
    And right now I'm saying I have no future
    because I can't figure it out.
    But--
    It's becoming.
    Yeah, my future is becoming.
    You're pregnant.
    I'm pregnant with the future, yeah, the possibilities.
    So--
    Well, the important thing is, which should be added,
    that it's very difficult to become known if you're not
    affiliated with an institution.
    And having recognized that, I'm pushing
    for being accepted to some other institution which possibly
    might evaluate and appreciate us more than Sonoma State has.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    And so that's what I'm working on.
    We are actually working on now on something which
    we are not discussing because--
    Yeah, it's premature.
    But we are working on that because we
    feel that this would be, I think,
    a very viable alternative to move
    to some other institution which would respond in a little bit
    more mature way to what we are trying to do.
    Yes, and I think that highlights one of the other problems
    is that Sonoma State is a very provincial, suburban, laid-back
    kind of university, where serious issues
    tend to be of too much of a problem,
    you know, that they're not really considered.
    What might be very helpful is what Ronnie has told us today
    that we might get some sort of recognition
    from some official--
    Office.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    Right.
    Right.
    --in California.
    Politics and all that.
    And so that I think might help us to legitimize what we have
    done because when I retired, in spite of all the things, all
    the various things which were to be obtained,
    I got a piece of wood.
    Yes, the I've heard, congratulations.
    Famous because of things, a piece of wood
    thanking me for 25 years of devoted services.
    I had two Fulbright, two Alexander Von Humboldt
    scholarships and all that.
    And that is not recognized because very few people
    have that in that particular institution.
    And I don't like the fact that someone who gets it,
    then they won't be able to get it.
    So there is a great deal of envy and unpleasant about anyone
    who puts out something which is of value
    and may make a contribution of some significance.
    And so that is looked at with one or two jaundiced eyes
    and responded to with negativism.
    I'd like to say, maybe if you have any more comment you'd
    like to make and then we can come back and talk more
    about this.
    Do you have--
    Yeah, I would just want to say one more comment,
    and that is that whenever he or I go out,
    outside into the larger circles, we have
    a very different reception.
    But we're not in a position to be
    able to go gallivanting around either the country or the world
    garnering support.
    When he goes to Europe, he has much more support,
    much more understanding of what he's trying to accomplish.
    And when I go to national Holocaust organization
    groups for instance, or network with other people
    with a larger sensibility, we find a great acceptance
    of what we're doing.
    Thank you very much, Carol.
    You're welcome.
    [INAUDIBLE] of it all, and why do we do what we do?
    And what I think is important that, as individuals, we
    can make the difference by our conduct,
    being accountable and behaving in a morally-responsible
    fashion.
    But that by itself is not enough.
    This can only be done by someone who is enlightened by knowledge
    and has some understanding, intellectual understanding
    of how, for example, genocide can come about,
    or how the Holocaust could have come about.
    And that is one of the most studied genocides of all.
    And we know that in contemporary times, in our time,
    we have many genocides taking place right now.
    And for that very reason, our purpose
    to educate the students along these lines
    was to develop the type of insight which will turn them
    into activists, so that they will stand up
    when the need will arise and say no to something,
    and will support those movements which
    will prevent another Holocaust.
    And that was a major reason why we
    have done, at least that's what I've
    seen, my major reason for having done all this rather
    difficult work, as Carol has, I think,
    very adequately and appropriately explained,
    which is very difficult work and a very thankless job.
    So we've done it because of that.
    And I think in that, we may have succeeded to some degree,
    in some measure.
    Do you think that the real popularity of the lecture
    series attests to the impact that you
    have had as an educator?
    Well, you see, it's very difficult for me,
    and I feel very uncomfortable to assess it myself.
    Because I don't want to blow my own horn, in a way,
    which may not be adequately objective and appropriate.
    But certainly, I think one thing can
    be said, that people who are survivors
    and reflected on the time of suffering and dreadfulness
    and the ghastly situations in which survivors
    found themselves and reflected on that adequately, and have
    come out with some sort of insights.
    And insights which they can relay to students, I think,
    is invaluable.
    Because they are eyewitness accounts,
    people who have gone through that themselves,
    rather than them reading a text, which
    may be very informative and very meaningful, but simply
    is not a substitute for some experience which
    enables them to listen to survivors talking
    about their own predicament during that Nazi Holocaust
    situation.
    And that is very valuable, and that's not
    going to be with us forever, because we are all
    getting older and more decrepit, and what have you.
    So this is also one reason which we haven't mentioned,
    why we have videotaped most of our major lectures.
    And they are on file until the time, I think,
    we will be discovered.
    Because what Carol has very, very correctly said,
    we have not been discovered yet.
    And much of the work we have done
    was perhaps a little bit ahead of its time.
    And in my case, I can say-- and I'm
    fairly confident-- that people will recognize me posthumously,
    but it may not be during my lifetime.
    I would like to do that.
    I'd like to see that, because I think my son would enjoy that,
    and I think would appreciate that.
    But I'm very pessimistic about that because
    of the experience we've had.
    And I think, again, I only can say
    that Carol has really summarized it exceedingly well, very
    precisely.
    And I certainly share the feelings,
    the way she has described it.
    And it has been a very useful thing for us to do,
    but the price was exceedingly hard.
    And obstacles, and I really would
    say unbelievable, unbelievable obstacles
    which were put in our path of activity.
    And frankly, we don't quite understand it,
    other than in depth psychology probably
    would explain that best.
    But it is difficult to take, and it's
    very discouraging, has been very discouraging for us.
    I was just going to say that Carol is the outstanding one,
    but you certainly have the devotion and dedication
    of several people who have been your students over the years.
    Well, of course, these people disperse.
    And some keep in touch, and some people also
    have been great disappointments who,
    when they were supposed to stand up, did not stand up,
    and then sold us out in so many ways because
    of opportunistic reasons, or whatever.
    And so, yes, there are people who stay in touch
    and appreciate, and it may have made
    a difference in their lives.
    There's no question about that.
    And I think they will stand up and will understand, then,
    to become active and what to do when they have an opportunity,
    or seek opportunities in which they
    can become active and contribute to prevention
    of carnage of that nature.
    And so, yes, there are quite a few.
    And we have letters, and these letters one day
    may be of importance, and perhaps might
    be publicized in one form or another.
    But right now, because of the problems we've encountered
    and the difficult times we've had,
    we are in a mood in which somehow, we
    need to remove ourselves a little bit
    and develop a different type of perspective.
    Because it has been very destructive for us,
    which is something which we certainly haven't reckoned
    with when we started our work.
    Because we felt that some people would give us sufficient
    support and appreciate it so that it would give us
    additional strength and motivation to go on
    and do the thing which, by itself, is very difficult
    to teach.
    How do you teach such a dreadful thing,
    such a dreadful catastrophe to people?
    Monumental catastrophe, as I like to call it.
    And that is very difficult, because people
    don't want to face up to a reality of that kind.
    It's a very threatening thing.
    And so I don't think we've been psychologically and emotionally
    sufficiently prepared to deal with all that.
    And since we don't have anyone else who really has seriously
    worked, we have a lot of people who
    crave to be in the limelight, but very few people who
    have done more than be agents of hot air.
    And those people talk a lot and try to put us down,
    minimize our contribution without having made
    any contribution to speak of.
    So the whole road has been difficult from the beginning
    to end.
    That's right.
    Absolutely.
    But it seems that up until this past year,
    you at least were able to plod forward.
    With considerable difficulty.
    With considerable difficulty and with a great deal
    of sweat and blood at all times.
    But now it's practically impossible.
    Now it's becoming even more difficult than before,
    because people want to take over,
    not in order to work, but to reap
    some sort of recognition and limelight
    for just very pure ego purposes.
    They want our program and not us, at this point.
    But it's questionable, wanting our program,
    whether they really even want Holocaust.
    Well, that's right.
    As far as the subject.
    And also they are not particularly
    interested in working hard, which we have.
    We've been there at times until 11, 12 o'clock at night,
    and Carol having her family and her responsibilities
    and financial worries.
    No one has recognized that.
    They said, you should be, you got a substantial sum of money
    for two semesters, which was about $4,000, not quite.
    $4,800.
    $4800.
    And then [INAUDIBLE].
    And had the gall to rub that under her nose.
    That I should be quiet now.
    That she should not, yeah, she should really
    be grateful for this substantive amount
    of money she received for her little, quote-unquote little
    work.
    Well, when you retired, did you retire by choice,
    or is it an age thing, you got to retire?
    No, no, no.
    You see, what we did, I could have stayed there
    until I was totally senile and had other sort
    of physical breakdowns.
    But I chose to take what they call a golden handshake, which
    gives you four years in the four years
    credit towards your retirement, so an additional four
    years of credit.
    And since I felt that I'm not going
    to teach four years anymore, in terms
    of my choice and my feelings, in terms of what I should do,
    and I've been also advised by my physician
    that I really should think of retirement.
    Because if I don't think of retirement now,
    I may not enjoy anything which comes with retirement.
    But that's a question of [INAUDIBLE],, because I'm not
    a person to retire anyway.
    I don't feel well if I don't do anything.
    So that was one of the reasons also,
    and to be free from all these sort of ludicrous problems
    which are an everyday occurrence.
    And I was getting very tired of this sort of pettiness
    and people who want to be educators
    who want to profess something without really having
    the substance, and who are, for practical purposes, what
    I would define, or one of my students has defined for me,
    buffoons.
    And so I was getting very tired of that,
    and I felt that my level of tolerance
    was getting rather thin, and I needed
    to get out if I really wanted to have some enjoyment.
    Also if I wanted to continue to write,
    because to do all the things plus be very active in writing,
    be very productive is exceedingly
    difficult under the circumstances.
    Because we have to teach 12 hours
    a week, plus office hours, plus useless committee work
    and so many other things which take up your time
    without really producing anything.
    And I just felt that I was no longer willing to suffer that.
    So while you're not teaching, very clearly, your life
    is filled with much work, as you say,
    that the writing, the projects that you have in mind,
    the Holocaust-related projects.
    So do you have any sense of the direction in which you
    plan to go with this?
    Well, the sense of direction is just
    to develop proper strategies, which
    we have not developed, or were unable
    or were prevented to develop during the Sonoma State
    situation.
    And as I said earlier, my plans are very simple.
    I think we need to be affiliated with a viable institution,
    number one.
    Number two, find enough time to be productive in terms
    of writing and continuing research and all that,
    which I am doing as much as I can,
    and then come out with products which simply cannot be ignored,
    so that we get the type of recognition which, so far,
    we have not been able to receive.
    And that is my immediate goal, and also maybe enjoy
    life a little bit for a change and have some fun.
    Really?
    And laugh a few things.
    And we've had some of it, you know, recently,
    yesterday and all that.
    And I think that's exceedingly important.
    I think we were pretty much burned out
    in the process of doing all this.
    And it's not because we don't have
    to give something which is worthwhile,
    but simply the response, the echo, the echo
    was so bad that we didn't have any reinforcement,
    no reinforcement and no support, moral support or other support.
    And we're not really talking that much money, only.
    We're talking moral support, and that
    was totally missing, absolutely missing,
    with very, very few exceptions.
    Yeah, and so think that, for example,
    when I wanted to teach the sociology of the Holocaust,
    which is, this is the syllabus here, which I have here--
    I'm going to show it to you--
    is something which was very difficult to put together.
    Because it just was not really getting
    the type of support which it deserved.
    And then what we have not mentioned,
    we have been very successful with working
    with the Oral History Project, the Holocaust Oral History
    Project, and especially along the lines
    with the Japanese-Americans and their redemption.
    And I think that was, I think, very successful,
    and I was very gratified with some
    of the lectures I was permitted to give outside the university,
    as well as within the university.
    And I think it made a difference,
    and I think that is something to build upon and work
    with in the future.
    And I think what [? Lenny ?] and John and all
    the other co-workers have been doing, such as yourself,
    Sandra, is invaluable, and I think will be recognized
    and has been already recognized by very many people, which,
    of course, includes us.
    Because we are more sensitive to recognizing things
    which are solid and have a basis and a foundation to build upon.
    Well, I will say the same, that despite the reaction
    and attitude of your university colleagues, your body of work
    remains itself, the research with the perpetrators,
    the teaching, whose ripples you may never know,
    that still stands and always will stand.
    Well, that's what we hope.
    And that's one thing, talking about strategies and looking
    back, and looking back at the present and in the future,
    is that what you publish cannot be unpublished.
    And therefore it's very important
    to put things on paper, because words
    may fall on fertile ground, but doesn't necessarily
    have to fall on fertile ground, and then it will vanish.
    It will disappear.
    It will evaporate.
    But anything which is written down and has been printed
    will not, and I think that's an important thing for us
    to do in the near future.
    So as I said before, just two things,
    be affiliated with a vital institution as number one,
    I think, very important, so that we don't just
    hang in midair without any proper ground and foundation.
    And then work on those publications
    which will receive recognition.
    Because things which were of lesser magnitude
    receive recognition, so things which
    we consider to be major contributions
    might receive the type of recognition which they deserve.
    Is there anything else that you would like to add?
    Well, I hope that we all survive, that's all,
    we all survive in some degree of satisfaction, equanimity,
    and peace, peace.
    Agreed.
    Is there some other message you might like to leave?
    Be accountable, and have compassion.
    And do something.
    Understand and be motivated to do something,
    what you have understood.
    Make a difference.
    I want to thank you very, very much for all the time
    and energy you have poured into this long series of interviews,
    and to say that you have done something.
    Well, very many thanks for your not only response,
    but also for the work you put in,
    being an excellent first-rate interview.
    Thank you.
    Who stimulated my responses, or our responses,
    and I'm talking for Carol as well.
    And that is very much appreciated,
    because so many people we talk to never asked us
    a single question which had any meaning,
    or depth, or consequence, was of consequence.
    And that was one of the very painful aspects of our work,
    that we dealt with people who were so ignorant that they
    couldn't even ask questions.
    And I'm talking about faculty.
    I'm talking about people who were mature,
    and people who confessed or whatever, all sorts of things,
    and professed and all sorts of things.
    But when it came to action, they were just absolute failures.
    And a big thanks to you, too, Carol, not only for, obviously,
    all your work that you've done over the years with John,
    but so devotedly coming to every single interview
    and writing notes, and getting simulation and questions,
    and thank you.
    It's all of her hide, above and beyond the call of duty.
    Yes.
    Well, let me just say that, in spite of the fact that it
    is some of the most difficult work
    you can do, facing the shadow of humanity and your own shadow
    in doing this work, it's a privilege.
    Well, I'm glad you feel that way.
    And thank you again.
    Yeah, I'm glad you feel.
    Thank you both.
    I don't know whether I do, but that's all right.
    If that takes a wrong insert in about 10 seconds,
    I'll let you know.
    Any time.
    I'm Sandra Bendayan.
    I'm here with John Steiner.
    John is being interviewed today on the subject
    of Otto Springer.
    We're doing this interview for the Holocaust Oral History
    Project.
    The date is the 25th of July, 1994.
    Josh [? Mac, ?] who was an intern here,
    is sitting in as the second today.
    And John Grant is our producer.
    John, could you begin talking about Otto Springer,
    who I know--
    Right.
    --you're well-acquainted with.
    Well, I've come to know Otto Springer in connection
    with our work at the University, Sonoma State University,
    where he came and was invited as a rescuer, an altruist.
    And he and [? Knut ?] [? Diaby, ?] who are very close
    friends, came together for the first time at Sonoma State
    to be interviewed because they're rescuers.
    Because what we like to do at Sonoma State,
    when we have the lecture series, is
    to bring in something positive which
    is not destructive, but also constructive.
    And because of that, we just simply
    bring in rescuers because we all, in so many ways,
    in everyday life and also when the going gets tough,
    can become rescuers if we are conscious,
    if we have developed our moral intelligence
    and if we are socially conscience.
    Our conscience and social consciousness
    has been developed.
    And that is something which is not automatic.
    It has to become-- it has to be developed in--
    within our environment socialization process.
    So that, to me, was very important, that people--
    students, in this case, and the general population--
    who come to these lectures don't leave
    with some notion of desperation and hopelessness.
    Because there is a silver lining in all that
    by virtue of the fact that we all can become rescuers
    if we respond to the occasion, to the moment when
    our services are needed and we are
    willing to do something for expecting
    very little in return.
    And so these people then, in so many ways, become role models,
    and also gave hope to the students, and said,
    well, we don't have to be bystanders.
    We can indeed become active supporters
    and not allow anything which then can develop into genocide,
    Holocaust-like development.
    We don't have to allow that by the stance which
    we take, being united and take action rather than be passive
    and let things happen.
    So Otto was--
    Otto was one of the people who was a rescuer.
    However, it should be said that he was motivated,
    in addition to being the person he was, by virtue of the fact
    that he was married to a Jewish woman.
    And they married in spite of the fact
    that it was not a very prudent thing
    to do at that particular time to marry a Jewish woman.
    Because that happened after the Nuremberg
    racial laws, 1935, 1936, where the bulk of them
    was developed, the basis.
    And that meant that was a mixed marriage.
    And the offsprings of such a marriage
    would be then be viewed by the Nazis,
    who then occupied Czechoslovakia subsequently,
    would be viewed as mongrels, mongrels.
    And as such, there was a chance that not only they
    would have been sent to forced slave labor camps,
    but they, under certain circumstances,
    could have also been sent as second grade mongrels
    to concentration camps, and under certain conditions,
    as I have witnessed, because I was a little bit
    of a mongrel myself--
    be sent into a gas chamber.
    All right.
    So because Otto refused to--
    although, he was pressured to do so--
    to be divorced, he was able to save
    the life of his Jewish wife.
    And did they have children?
    They had two children, two daughters.
    And-- but at that particular point, they were not born.
    So that was not an issue.
    Now Otto, by the way, also was brought up
    by an upper middle class family of a professional person, who
    was a professor of medicine at the Charles University
    and came from a very affluent, well-to-do home.
    They lived not in a mansion.
    It was virtually a small castle close to Prague,
    and had the best of the schooling and all that,
    and then developed--
    not only just finished his gymnasium,
    but also went to the University, Technical University,
    and became an engineer, a university-graduated engineer.
    Were they a native Czech family?
    Well, that's an important question.
    Because when I've asked Otto-- who, by the way, spoke perfect
    Czech, totally perfect Czech, just like
    if it had been his native language.
    He always felt that he was German.
    He always identify myself as a German.
    Although, I always quarreled with him and said,
    you don't really.
    He was born in Bohemia and all that.
    But he viewed himself as a German.
    And also, he even said that he was not
    a Sudeten German, which, for all practical purposes, he was.
    So what he has done, Otto, apart from helping his wife--
    because that was a vested interest by virtue of the fact
    that she was his wife.
    He also helped many other people and developed close contacts,
    surreptitious contacts with the Nazis,
    and manipulated the situation so that he
    was able to support and help many other people.
    In addition to that, he also worked
    for the British intelligence and risked his life
    in so many different ways.
    Now what he actually achieved may be a question.
    But however, he was risking his life
    and was active in the underground
    as an agent of the British Intelligence.
    Exactly how did he help his wife?
    Exactly how did he help?
    Well, he helped his wife by simply being married to her
    and refusing to be divorced.
    Although, pressure was exerted on all the German people
    because he was a German citizen by virtue of the fact
    that Czechoslovakia, at that particular time
    the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was a satellite.
    More than that, was enacted to the German Greater Reich.
    And all the German speaking people of former Czechoslovakia
    became German citizens.
    So he was a German citizen, no longer
    a Czechoslovak citizen which used to be,
    but a German citizen by virtue of the fact
    that it was incorporated.
    And so by virtue of the fact that he was a German,
    pressure was exerted on him to divorce a Jewish wife.
    And some did, for example, yield and said,
    well, in order to live a better life
    and have better chances in employment,
    and promotion, and all that, I'll divorce myself.
    Because that meant a great deal of risk.
    Now Otto refused that and also wound up, as a consequence,
    in a slave labor camp.
    What year was that?
    That was around 1943, I believe, roughly.
    And what happened to his wife at that time?
    Well, his wife stayed at home.
    And they had a relatively safe life and--
    which is the incredible thing.
    Now very interesting story he told me.
    He actually didn't say that to many people
    because he thought it would not be of great interest.
    But to me, it was very--
    of great interest.
    That is why he told me that he had
    a cousin whom he met by accident in one
    of the streets in Prague.
    And this man was in SS uniform and was an SS general.
    And so he had some deal of trepidation
    by finding out about the fact that, yes, he was an SS,
    and also that he had a Jewish wife.
    And he didn't know how he would respond.
    Because if-- SS people are not exactly anti-Nazis.
    So he brought him home and reluctantly told him
    that he had a Jewish wife.
    And his response, this SS general's response
    was that he congratulated him for his bravery
    or whatever he stands, which he took not divorcing his wife,
    but protecting her.
    And he felt it was an act of courage,
    and respected him even more for that, and was very supportive,
    and embraced her, and all that, and behaved
    in a way which, of course, was totally in contrast
    to what would have been expected by a Nazi SS man, SS
    officer of a general rank.
    How did Otto explain this?
    Well, Otto explained it, Joseph, by the way,
    I have to tell you something.
    My wife is Jewish.
    And she still-- we are still together.
    And we are not going to be divorced.
    And that's the response--
    Otto's response was-- that is to say,
    the SS general's response was, I congratulate you and--
    How did Otto understand the behavior of this SS relative?
    Well, it was an act of humanity, which
    is to say, the better part of this person's characteristics
    came up, very--
    a response to the situation.
    And so Otto was taken by surprise.
    And when he was sent off to slave labor, who then became
    the protector of the wife?
    Well, precisely those people with whom he had contact.
    And one of these people was his former--
    the not formal, yeah, former employer,
    who continued to pay a salary to Otto in spite of the fact
    that he no longer worked for that outfit,
    and paid it to his wife so she had ample funds
    and could continue to live under very, very
    reasonable conditions.
    So the German and/or Nazi regime did not
    pursue the wife as a Jew?
    Well, simply because of the context
    and simply because of what he was able to do to protect her.
    And she indeed had the protection
    of so many influential people, who saw to it that nothing
    would happen to her.
    And she was a full Jew.
    She was not a mongrel or anything of that nature.
    But she was actually a full Jew.
    But those influences didn't save Otto.
    Those same protectors weren't able to keep him from the camp.
    Well, not really.
    Because he went to the camp because he refused--
    one of the major reasons why he went to the--
    was sent to the camp, that first he was not
    sent to the battlefield.
    He was not-- they didn't draft him.
    And also because he refused to divorce her.
    So it was a punishment for him personally that he
    stayed married to a Jewess.
    Let's--
    That was one of the reasons.
    All right.
    I was going to say, let's stop for a minute here.
    Right.
    You know what?
    Can you stop the--
    This motion, kind of--
    It's self-conscious.
    Yeah, I know.
    [INAUDIBLE]
    There we go.
    All right.
    Live video Yeah, we're all set.
    So you can continue.
    What I was wondering was, exactly who was it
    who was giving the pressure, putting the pressure on Otto?
    Well, the German authorities, just then
    on their Nazi authorities, German authorities,
    which is identical with Nazi authorities.
    And they put pressure on all their people
    who were married to a Jewish partner, regardless of one.
    So you're still supposed to gesture.
    [LAUGHTER]
    Yeah, that's right, yeah.
    And--
    So why wasn't he drafted?
    Well, why he was not drafted, only two reasons.
    First of the three reasons, it may
    have been his health, which I am ruling out
    because I have no indication that he was not healthy.
    Two, that he was needed for war industry, which I believe
    was the reason.
    Or three, that there were some other circumstances which
    prevented him, namely being married to a Jewess.
    So for this defiance of the German authority,
    he was sent to slave labor?
    That's right.
    That's exactly the reason.
    And this actually was worse than being a Jew.
    Because she didn't get sent off anywhere.
    Well, she was not sent off because he saw to it that she
    was being protected and cared for,
    and had sufficient contacts with a Gestapo
    to see to it that it would be deferred.
    His-- her removal would be deferred indefinitely.
    Or some people would have intervened on her behalf whom
    he had slated.
    But for his own punishment.
    He was not able to do that, for sure, yeah.
    He was not able to do that.
    Did they have--
    And it is all part of that book, by the way, because he
    describes these things.
    Did he have any children by then?
    At that particular point, I don't believe
    he had any children, no.
    Because his children were born after the war.
    Do you have any sense from his history, the background,
    his family you're talking about, whether they
    had liberal values?
    Yes.
    To get someone like Otto to create the-- a Nazi general
    [INAUDIBLE].
    Yes.
    That's-- they're intellectual.
    They're academicians.
    They're well-to-do.
    And there is no question about the fact
    that they had a very liberal attitude.
    And they were not anti-Semitic.
    They have absolutely no question about that.
    Because they would have prevented--
    they never would have liked him to marry
    a Jewess to begin with.
    They certainly would have objected, at least,
    or interfered in one way or another.
    And they did not, from what I understand.
    Were they any source of support to him throughout those times?
    Well, that's something-- you see,
    one amazing thing is-- and I don't understand it.
    I never discussed it.
    Unfortunately, I didn't discuss it with him.
    In our conversations and the stories
    he told people and in general--
    not just to me, but in general--
    he never spoke very much about his parents
    for reasons which are not clear to me.
    And I don't know why.
    Because, obviously, I'm not aware of any conflict,
    or serious conflict, or any conflict for that matter.
    So it is not very clear to me why on earth he did not talk
    more about his parents, who must have played a very important
    part-- as anyone else's-- important part in his life.
    And I failed to ask him.
    Because that's something which only
    occurred to me after his death, in a way, when I thought more.
    But since then, it's an interesting pattern,
    that he really didn't mention his parents or didn't speak.
    Or unlike so many other people myself, the parents to me--
    I talk to many close friends about my parents.
    It's an integral part.
    And it's important for me to enter
    into any dialogue which covers or which deals
    with more intimate subjects.
    Do you know if he had any brothers, or sisters, or--
    Otto had a sister.
    Otto had a sister.
    And the sister is still alive in Hamburg
    and is insane, is mentally ill in Hamburg.
    Do you know if she had any influence?
    Well, that I don't know.
    Because I never talked to her.
    He doesn't mention it though?
    Oh, he mentioned it.
    He mentioned her sister.
    He mentioned his sister, all right.
    And any political connection?
    And was very--
    And any political connection?
    No, no, no, no, not really.
    Or at least, whatever he may have told me escaped me.
    So it's not part of my memory.
    I don't remember it.
    Well, could you talk about some of the other people
    whose lives he influenced?
    Well, he influenced all the people, remarkably,
    who became acquainted with him.
    Because he was a personage.
    He had some special, if not charisma,
    an appeal which was unusual.
    And he was not only charming.
    He was a very kindhearted, warm person
    who was not obsessed with himself,
    but was able to listen, and respond
    to the needs of other people, and be a very excellent friend,
    and had a tremendous sense of humor.
    If there was one weakness or error, he just liked women.
    And he is not the only one who does.
    And so that was one of his perhaps weaker points,
    that he liked women to the extent
    that it interfered with his marriage.
    What about in the-- during the war days?
    You said that he had a great deal of influence to protect
    other people besides his wife.
    Well, see, if one talked about his life during his activity
    during World War II, he deemphasized his role
    as a rescuer but emphasized his role as agent, as a spy.
    That, to him, was more important than that.
    And he never took himself very seriously.
    He never went to brag about the fact that he was a person who
    helped other people and intervened on their behalf
    by the Nazi authorities, simply because his position
    as an engineer, and because of the people he knew,
    and the way he was able to influence them.
    So he indeed did that to quite some extent,
    but not in a way which he considered
    to be important enough to deemphasize the role he played
    as British agent--
    Do you know of any--
    --which he considered to be more important, personally, to him,
    and also more significant in terms of his activity.
    Do you know--
    That was my very specific impression.
    Are there any individuals that you know of,
    other than his wife, that owe their lives to him?
    Well, you see, his wife ended in some bad situation
    because they got divorced.
    And his children were, I think, very much affected
    by that fact.
    And so what you really are asking me
    is to respond whom he influenced.
    That's what you are now trying--
    Who he influenced.
    Or if there was any specific individuals
    who could say they owed their life
    or their protection to him.
    Well, more specifically, I have not met anyone other--
    and I have not met his wife, to be sure.
    I am not--
    I have not talked to any person whom he saved the life.
    So I can't really tell you that.
    And one of the reasons, perhaps, why
    he became a little bit more well-known
    was simply because his role he played in connection
    with his wife.
    What about his role, as you say, in the British--
    what underground [INAUDIBLE]?
    Well, his role was that he simply
    conveyed messages which had some importance for the war effort
    and strategy.
    To what extent is another thing he writes about it in his book.
    And to what extent it really made a difference,
    he was one of quite a few.
    I think what it really connotes is his resistance
    against the Nazis.
    So that he was willing to risk his life even
    doing things which may not have been
    major in terms of agent work, or spying, or what have you.
    But that he indeed resisted with all he could do.
    Now that was written in later.
    After the war, he then was working with the CIA.
    And that was his preoccupation.
    Because when people met him first, so the first thing,
    it was better they understood the circumstances
    or had some notion of history.
    It didn't make much difference to him.
    But he always, somehow, talked about his role
    as a spy in the CIA, and his exploits
    during the war, and this connection
    rather than that role of a rescue.
    Because as I said before, it was more significant to him.
    Do you know, what were his experiences in the slave labor
    camp?
    About-- he had a very important role.
    Because he was what you call the camp senior.
    That is, he was in charge of the camp for quite a while
    simply because he was very levelheaded and not corrupted.
    And so I think, in terms of his role in the slave labor camp,
    he just was an excellent choice.
    By the way, this labor camp was not run by the SS,
    but members of the Organization Todt.
    And the Todt was an organization which, for example,
    among other things, was building structures,
    including the highways, the famous German Autobahn.
    And so that was the Organization Todt
    which was primarily engaged in construction of sorts.
    And then during the war, of course,
    they were told they were working on war-related construction.
    And that was done in these camps of which he was a part,
    and then later became a leader of that camp.
    Do you think he might have been sent to that camp because
    of his engineering facility?
    Well, that's very well possible, that he sees his capabilities.
    His expertise, certainly, was used.
    So he applied it.
    There is no question about that.
    So then he may not have been one of the actual construction
    laborers?
    Well, not just some plain.
    He was more than that.
    Because he was an engineer.
    He was a university-educated engineer.
    So obviously, that came very handy.
    Because these people were needed and very much in demand.
    Do you know how long he was in the camp?
    I think about--
    I think over two years, roughly speaking, yeah.
    And his wife remained in Prague?
    She remained in Prague all the time.
    So what happened, then, when he was liberated from the camp?
    Well, he went to--
    well, first of all, by virtue of the fact that he was German,
    he had to somehow prove that, as a German, he was not a Nazi.
    Because otherwise, he would have been deported.
    Because virtually immediately after World War II,
    all Germans were rounded up and treated
    in a similar vein as the Jews.
    They, in other words, were reduced
    to powerless individuals without right, and disenfranchised,
    and what have you.
    And they were put into camps, or put into jails or prisons,
    or put to death, depending where they were sent.
    And so for example, one of the places
    is the small and close to Theresienstadt,
    the small fortress, so-called small fortress
    which was next to the ghetto.
    And they sent people there and--
    the Czechs after the war, and killed by the dozens.
    And that used to be a Gestapo prison where people
    were killed by the Nazis.
    And then the Czechs took over and killed the Nazis.
    So even people like him who had been imprisoned themselves
    as slave labor.
    And they still had to prove themselves.
    Oh, well, yes.
    Well, they had to prove that they are not
    working for the Nazis or they didn't know Nazis.
    Well, he did that.
    And then he also then worked against the communists.
    He stayed there until the communists were already
    in power.
    And then with the help of the American authorities,
    he was able to get out of the country.
    Because if he had not, the chances
    are that the communists would have taken him and treated
    him very harshly if--
    they could have even could have killed him.
    Let's stop here for a moment then, please.
    So I think it's--

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    John Steiner discusses his childhood in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); his assimilated family life; his education in a German primary school; the antisemitism he experienced in school; his family's attempts to get him out of the country; the changes he experienced after the German occupation began in 1938; being deported to Terezin (Theresienstadt) in August 1942; the work he performed; the people he met in the camp; being deported to Auschwitz in the spring of 1943; the cruelty and kindness of the guards; the conditions in the camp; his illness; being transferred with his father to Blechhammer in early 1944; the conditions in Blechhammer; the work he performed; the brutality of the guards; his experiences on a death march to Dachau beginning in January 1945; the long walk, the cattle cars, and his arrival at Dachau; being liberated by the US Army in April 1945; his work as an interpreter for the Americans; his return to Prague in July 1945; his life after liberation; the emotional impact of his experiences that he felt while living in Prague; his decision to immigrate to Australia; his subsequent journey to the United States; his education; his dissertation research in Germany that led to a series of interviews with German SS perpetrators; his work as a lecturer and university professor; his interviews with the perpetrators, including the things he learned and his emotions surrounding the research; his thoughts on the human capacity for good and evil; his appreciation of the work of Dr. Viktor Frankl in psychotherapy; morality during difficult times; responses to authoritarianism; and his nuanced view of perpetrators as individuals.
    Interviewee
    Dr. John M. Steiner
    Date
    interview:  1991 March 27
    interview:  1991 June 06
    interview:  1991 August 22
    interview:  1991 November 19
    interview:  1993 December 02
    interview:  1993 December 17
    interview:  1994 February 04
    interview:  1994 April 01
    interview:  1994 July 11
    interview:  1994 July 25
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

    Physical Details

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

    Rights & Restrictions

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

    Keywords & Subjects

    Topical Term
    Antisemitism in education. College teachers. Concentration camp guards. Concentration camp inmates. Death march survivors. Death marches. Ex-concentration camp inmates. Forced labor. Historians. Holocaust survivors--United States. Holocaust survivors' writings. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Psychological aspects. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Research. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Study and teaching. Jewish families--Czechoslovakia. Jews--Persecutions--Czechoslovakia. Men--Personal narratives. National socialism--Moral and ethical aspects. Nazis--Interviews. Sociologists. Translators. Universities and colleges--United States. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Liberation. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Czechoslovakia.

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project conducted the interview with John Steiner on March 27, 1991, June 6, 1991, August 22, 1991, November 19, 1991, December 2, 1993, December 17, 1993, February 4, 1994, April 1, 1994, July 11, 1994, and July 25, 1994. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from the Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project in December 2002.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Related Materials
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0498
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0363
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0244
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0267
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0245
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0288
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0496
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0499
    Additional Record Group Number: RG-50.477.0227
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:45:28
    This page:
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    Additional Resources

    Transcripts (20)
    Summary (English)
    Time Coded Notes (14)

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    Oral history interview with Ileana Farkas

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    Oral history interview with Clara Markovits

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    Oral history interview with Lily Spitz

    Oral history interview with Lily Spitz

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    Oral history interview with Melvin Suhd

    Oral history interview with Melvin Suhd

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    Oral history interview with Bernard Benjamin Broclawski

    Oral history interview with Bernard Benjamin Broclawski

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    Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

    Oral history interview with Julius Drabkin

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

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    Oral history interview with Renee L. Duering

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

    Oral history interview with Werner Epstein

    Oral history interview with Werner Epstein

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

    Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

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

    Oral history interview with Lore Gilbert

    Oral history interview with Lore Gilbert

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

    Oral history interview with Rita Goldman

    Oral history interview with Rita Goldman

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mala Holcberg

    Oral history interview with Mala Holcberg

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Kate Kaiser

    Oral history interview with Kate Kaiser

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner

    Oral history interview with Tatjana Khepoyan-Viner

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Vera J. Lieban-Kalmar

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nadine Lieberman

    Oral history interview with Nadine Lieberman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral history interview with Bernard Offen

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with William Pels

    Oral history interview with William Pels

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ruth Plainfield

    Oral history interview with Ruth Plainfield

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Thomas Schneider

    Oral history interview with Thomas Schneider

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Shlyapochnik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Gisela Spigel

    Oral history interview with Gisela Spigel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erika Weingarten

    Oral history interview with Erika Weingarten

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Max Weingarten

    Oral history interview with Max Weingarten

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Herman D. Wiener

    Oral history interview with Herman D. Wiener

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Liza Avrutin

    Oral history interview with Liza Avrutin

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Aleksandr Belfor

    Oral history interview with Aleksandr Belfor

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshteyn

    Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshteyn

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

    Oral history interview with Lev Dumer

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Anisim Dworkin

    Oral history interview with Anisim Dworkin

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Ernest Feld

    Oral history interview with Ernest Feld

    Oral History

    Ernest Feld discusses his childhood in Lucenec, Slovakia, close to the Hungarian border; the occupation of his town by Hungary in 1938; the onset of anti-Jewish restrictions and curfews; his removal to a ghetto; being conscripted for forced labor in 1944; being able to continue his apprenticeship in a bakery; the advance of the Soviet Army and the ensuing confusion; his return to Lucenec in November 1945; his reunion with his mother; their move to Prague, and then Karlsbad; their decision to immigrate to Israel; the boat trip to Israel; the detention of the group in Cyprus by the British; his life in Cyprus until 1949; emigrating from Cyprus to Israel with his wife, whom he met in Cyprus; his successful bakeries in Israel; his later move to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Lya Galperin

    Oral History

    Lya Galperin discusses her childhood in a small town near Kishinev, Romania; her family's flight after the German invasion; the gang rape of women by Romanian soldiers; her family’s imprisonment in the local synagogue; her experiences in the ghetto of Beshard, in the Ukraine, from 1943 until her liberation in 1945; her postwar life in the Soviet Union; her marriage and life in Riga; her mother's attempts at helping the family immigrate to the west; and her eventual immigration to San Francisco in 1981.

    Oral history interview with Mae Lopatin Herman

    Oral history interview with Mae Lopatin Herman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Inna Kagan

    Oral history interview with Inna Kagan

    Oral History

    Inna Kagan, born in 1937 in Kharkov (Kharkiv), Ukraine, discusses her childhood in Kharkov; being a descendant from Khazars; the evacuation of her family in September 1941 to Khazakstan; her father's later evacuation to Perm, Russia; her family's move to Bukhoro, Uzbekistan; and the family's reunion in Kharkov in December 1944. She dicsusses the destruction of the city and learning of the death of her paternal grandparents at the hands of the Nazis. Ms. Kagan describes the increase in antisemitism that she experienced after the war, and emigrating with her family to the United States in 1989.

    Oral history interview with J. Daniel Khazzoom

    Oral history interview with J. Daniel Khazzoom

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Vilem Kriz

    Oral history interview with Vilem Kriz

    Oral History

    Vilem Kriz discusses his experiences in the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in the late 1930s and under Nazi occupation; his observations, as a journalist, of the unfolding events of Nazi aggression; an encounter with Reinhard Heydrich in 1936; the mobilization of a small national army in 1937; the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by its allies in 1938; the grief of the Czech people after Nazi troops occupied Prague in March 1939; demonstrations against the Nazis by university students and reprisals that came after; his experiences as part of the Czech underground; and conditions in Czechoslovakia during its occupation and after the war ended.

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Lapan

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Lapan

    Oral History

    Mikhail Lapan, born on March 9, 1920 in Bobruisk, Belarus, discusses his childhood in Bobruisk; his enlistment in 1941 at the age of 16 in the Soviet Army; the German attack on Bobruisk; his hospitalization in 1942 in Stalingrad (Volgograd); the invasion of Stalingrad by the Germans; an incident in which the German troops removed the hospital patients and selected Jews and Communists for execution, and that by using the name of a fellow patient who had died earlier that day, he was able to escape that fate; being forced to work in a salt mine in Peine, Germany; having his Jewish identity betrayed; his escape, recapture, and removal to Braunschweig concentration camp; being liberated by US troops; being returned to the Soviet Union; his work in a coal mine in Harlov; his marriage; his return to Bobruisk, where he discovered that he parents had died during the war; and his eventual immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Sofiya Manoylo

    Oral history interview with Sofiya Manoylo

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Shaya Neys

    Oral history interview with Shaya Neys

    Oral History

    Shaya Neys, born on June 28, 1927 in Liepaja, Latvia, discusses his childhood in Liepaja; the arrest of his family in June 1941 by the Russian security agency NKVD, and the family's transport to a military port, where the men were separated from the women and children; traveling by train with his mother to Krasnoyarsk, Russia; their experiences of forced labor and misery in various locations in Siberia until the end of the war; difficulties in returning to Latvia after the war ended and his return in 1956; his reunion with his son and their lives in Riga, Latvia; learning that his father died in a labor camp, and that many of his relatives from Liepaja perished; and his reflections that their deportation to Siberia probably saved his and his mother's lives.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Sieradzki

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Rahilia Sirota

    Oral history interview with Rahilia Sirota

    Oral History

    Rahilia Sirota (née Aizenman), born in 1913, discusses her childhood in Chemirovits (now Chemerivtsi), Ukraine; the Nazi occupation of her town in the summer of 1941; her move to a nearby village; learning that the Jewish community of Chemirovits had been taken to the Kamentsk Podolsky ghetto, where 80 of her relatives were killed days after their arrival (this included her parents and younger brother); living in fear in the village she had moved to, and being rescued by two brothers, Nikolay and Pavlo Kuchman [PH], who hid her and then her boyfriend throughout the remaining years of the war; living in holes in the corn fields and caves; moving from village to village; living in barns and hiding from the Ukrainian SS; the assistance she received from the Kuchman brothers and other Ukrainians; learning of the liberation of the Chemirovits in March 1945; her reunion with her boyfriend; finding that everything they had was gone; getting married; the birth of her son; her life in post-war Ukraine until her immigration to the United States; and her enduring gratitude to those who hid and save her during the war years.

    Oral history interview with Tom Szelenyi

    Oral history interview with Tom Szelenyi

    Oral History

    Tom Szelenyi discusses his childhood in Budapest, Hungary; his assimilated family life; his education; his religious upbringing; the antisemitism he experienced while growing up and the increase of antisemitism after the war began in 1939; his family's deportation to the ghetto in Budapest; the anti-Jewish laws; being deported to a Hungarian military labor camp in 1944 and the changes he experienced after the Germans occupied Hungary; his experiences on a forced march in October 1944 from Budapest to Wiener Neustadt, Austria; his journey to Buchenwald by train; the conditions there; the cruelty of the guards; his transfer to Colditz a month later; the work he performed; his experiences on a death march in April 1945 to Terezin (Theresienstadt); his liberation there by the Soviet Army and the conditions after; his return to Budapest; his reunion with his mother; his work with the American Joint Distribution Committee; his experiences in the DP (displaced persons) camp in Ulm, Germany; his immigration to the United States in 1948; his life in the US; his family; and his work.

    Oral history interview with Irving Zale

    Oral history interview with Irving Zale

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tamara Albukh

    Oral history interview with Tamara Albukh

    Oral History

    Tamara Iosifovna Albukh, born on December 21, 1918 in Minsk, Belarus, describes her childhood; having to leave school after six years to work and contribute to her family financially; getting married and having two daughters (Sara born on May 5, 1940 and Gena born on August 31, 1942); not being able to evacuate once the war started; the German occupation of Minsk; her husband being taken into the army; moving into one of the Jewish ghettos in Minsk; pogroms in the ghettos; doing forced labor in the ghetto and the murder of her daughters one day while she was working; being moved to Trostinetskiy (Maly Trostinec) concentration camp and having to work for the Germans; the murder of inmates every day in the camp and ghetto; escaping the camp on July 29, 1944; the intensification of antisemitism during the war; hearing Russians scream the slogan “Kill Jews, save Russia” which continued even after the war; and having two daughters after the war in 1946 and 1949.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Broclawski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral History

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

    Oral history interview with Audrey Doughty

    Oral history interview with Audrey Doughty

    Oral History

    Audrey Doughty, born in San Diego, California in 1921, describes her mother, who died when Audrey was three years old; her father, who was a naval officer and a member of the diplomatic core; going with her father to Berlin when he was stationed there in 1938; transferring from Stanford University to the University of Berlin; being in Berlin during Kristallnacht and taking photos afterward; writing a journal entry describing that night; having little notion of what was really happening in Germany apart from Kristallnacht as well as the antisemitic and anti-American sentiment from the Germans; how soon after arriving in Berlin, she and her father were invited to review the troops with Nazi officials; sitting in the stands three feet from Adolf Hitler, watching endless waves of troops pass underneath; going with her grandmother on a tour of Germany and neighboring countries in 1939; working at the American consulate after she turned 18; her duties, which consisted of convincing refugees applying for visas to leave the country; being evacuated to Copenhagen in 1940; returning to the US after the war ended; graduating from Stanford University; working as a war correspondent in Honolulu and then went to work for the San Francisco Chronicle; working in the Office of War Information and then working as an Associated Press correspondent in China; leaving journalism and pursuing a career as a social worker; becoming the director of the International Institute in San Francisco from 1975 to 1983; spending two and a half years as the director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation; founding and directing the AIDS Benefits Counselors; directing AIDS Indigent Direct Services; her plans to write a book about her family's history; writing many editorials on possible fascist trends in American society; and her thoughts on Germans [note that artifacts relating to her experiences are shown at the close of the interview].

    Oral history interview with Sara Gelender

    Oral history interview with Sara Gelender

    Oral History

    Sara Gelender (née Buzyn), born circa 1927 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses her childhood in Warsaw; her memories of the bombing and burning of Warsaw in September 1939; her family's escape to a farm near the Russian border; hiding there for several months; being part of a group of Jewish refugees sent to Siberia in June 1940; the primitive conditions in the labor camp; the work she performed in the camp; getting married in the camp; leaving the camp with her husband for a small town; her continual state of hunger during those years; moving with her husband to Ukraine in 1944; returning to Poland in 1946; the antisemitism they encountered in Poland; escaping to Czechoslovakia, Vienna, and then to a displaced persons camp in Germany; moving to Paris, France, where they lived until 1951; their immigration first to Canada, and then to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Sofia Ginzbursky

    Oral history interview with Sofia Ginzbursky

    Oral History

    Sofia Ginzbursky (born on December 27, 1915 in Asipavichy, Belarus) describes her mother, who died at the age of 27, soon after she gave birth; going with her siblings to live with their grandfather, who observed Jewish traditions; studying at a technical school in Gomel (Homel), Belarus; living in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), working as a nanny and secretary; getting married and moving to Gomel; moving later to Belostock (Białystok), Poland; being left alone with their two children when her husband was called up for military duty at the beginning of WWII; evacuating from Belostock by train to Zlobin (ZHlobin, Belarus) and then to Baranovichi, Ukraine; destroying all her documents to hide her Jewish identity; witnessing the persecution of Jews in Ukraine when locals helped the Nazis find Jews; how speaking German helped her find a job at a food exchange center where she received food to feed her children; obtaining false papers with a new last name that showed she was Russian and not Jewish; returning to Gomel to look for remaining family members and being captured by the Nazis and was humiliated by Politsai for several days; being released and living with a woman named Nadia Lisitskaya; passing as a gentile refugee from Poland; washing clothes for the German army in exchange for soap and kerosene; seeing the deportation of hundreds of Jews from the Gomel ghetto; traveling with her friend, Sonia, as well as all their children to Oryol (Orel), Russia; finding a new place of stay every night so no one would suspect them of being Jewish; living with Sonia and the children at the house of a Latvian lady for two years; choosing to not wear the Star of David as was requried for the Jews by the Nazis; passing as Russian Orthodox; having a Russian lady teach her son how to pray to an icon when bombings occured; working small jobs while in Oryol; being liberated and moving to Leningrad; getting a new passport and stating her nationality as “Jewish” again; reuniting with her husband in Chkalov (possibly Orenburg, Russia) with the help of her sister; experiencing even more antisemitism after the war; and becoming more observant after the war.

    Oral history interview with Genia Likwornik

    Oral history interview with Genia Likwornik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mark Malamud

    Oral history interview with Mark Malamud

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Annemarie Roeper

    Oral history interview with Annemarie Roeper

    Oral History

    Annemarie Roeper (née Bondy), born August 27, 1918 in Vienna, Austria, describes her childhood in Vienna; her parents' progressive boarding school; her memories of the Nazi ascension to power; her mother's move to Switzerland in 1936 with Annemarie’s siblings; remaining behind to graduate; her father selling their school; the family's reunion in Switzerland; her psychoanalysis studies in Vienna with Anna Freund; her husband-to-be's warning to flee; immigrating with her family to the United States in 1939; moving to Vermont, where they opened a school; her marriage and move to Michigan with her husband; and opening a progressive school for gifted children there called Roeper School.

    Oral history interview with Irina Rozhanskaya

    Oral history interview with Irina Rozhanskaya

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

    Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

    Oral History

    Ilse Sternberger (née Naumann), born in 1914, discusses her childhood in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland); her assimilated family life; her education; her marriage and her decision to move to Belgium with her husband in 1933; her life in Belgium; her husband's success as a photographer; their decision to move to London, England in 1936; returning to Germany in 1939 in an attempt to help Jewish children leave the country, and being stymied by the bureaucracy; immigrating to the United States with her husband and children in July 1940; her life in the US; her work as a teacher and writer; and her curation of books and exhibits of her husband's work.

    Oral history interview with Clara Tsukerman

    Oral history interview with Clara Tsukerman

    Oral History

    Clara Tsukerman discusses her childhood in Chisneau, Romania (now Chișinău, Moldova) and her experiences after the war began in her region in 1941; her experiences during her family's journey on foot to Vasylivka, Ukraine; their efforts to evade the advancing German front; and their life in hiding in an unnamed village after the Germans caught up with them; the help and protection they received from the villagers, as well as her experiences during and after the war.

    Oral history interview with Sam Weiss

    Oral history interview with Sam Weiss

    Oral History

    Sam Weiss, born in 1928 in Ricka, Czechoslovakia (now in Ukraine), discusses his childhood in Ricka, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); the occupation of the town by Hungarian soldiers; the conscription of Jewish men for forced labor; his father being sent to Germany for forced labor; the institution of anti-Jewish restrictions such as yellow stars and in March 1944, the deportation of the Jews of Ricka; his arrival at Auschwitz; being separated from his family and sent first a children's barracks; being sent to Camp Four in Munich, Germany; being sent to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau, where he was liberated by American troops in 1945; his return to Ricka, where he was reunited with his sister; his attempts to escape Czechoslovakia; his imprisonment by Russian soldiers; his escape to Munich; his immigration to the United States; his service in the United States military; and his family life and career in California.

    Oral history interview with Edith Wertheimer

    Oral history interview with Edith Wertheimer

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Laszlo Vass

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jakob Atlas

    Oral history interview with Jakob Atlas

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Isaac Silber

    Oral history interview with Isaac Silber

    Oral History

    Isaac Silber, born in 1913 in Złoczów Poland (now Zolochiv, Ukraine), discusses his childhood in Złoczów; the occupation of Złoczów by German troops; the violent and terrifying conditions of the Nazi occupation; his escape from murder by German troops; being conscripted for forced labor in a brick factory; returning to Złoczów to learn of the murder of family members; his experiences in the Złoczów ghetto and in work camps; giving up his baby daughter to be cared for by a non-Jewish family; escaping with his wife and finding refuge in the farmhouse of a Polish man who hid them; and the gratitude he feels to his rescuer.

    Oral history interview with Lotte Grunwald

    Oral history interview with Lotte Grunwald

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anne Marie Roeper

    Oral History

    Anne Marie Roeper describes her childhood in Vienna, Austria; her parents' progressive boarding school; her memories of the Nazi acsencion to power; her mother's move to Switzerland in 1936 with her siblings; remaining behind to graduate; her father's selling of their school; the family's reunion in Switzerland; her psychoanalysis studies in Vienna with Anna Freund; her husband-to-be's warning to flee; immigrating with her family to the United States in 1939; moving to Vermont, where they opened a school; her marriage and move to Michigan with her husband; and opening a progressive school for gifted children there called Roeper School.

    Oral history interview with Janina Swift

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Polya Liza Pekker

    Oral history interview with Polya Liza Pekker

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Nebenzahl

    Oral history interview with Paul Nebenzahl

    Oral History

    Paul Nebenzahl, born August 9, 1921, discusses his childhood in Long Island, New York; his career in advertising; enlisting in the United States Army in 1942; his experiences as a sergeant in the Signal Corps; being part of a secret OSS operational group; working with the French underground movement in southwestern France to hinder the German retreat in 1944; his military service in India and China for the remainder of the war; his life after the war; marrying; having children; and his leisure activities.

    Oral history interview with Meier Lichtenstein

    Oral history interview with Meier Lichtenstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Janice Auerbach

    Oral history interview with Janice Auerbach

    Oral History

    Janice Auerbach, born August 7, 1934 in South London, England, describes her childhood in London; the bombings and fear she felt during World War II; her evacuation to a farm in Cornwall; the discomfort she experienced while there; her reunion with her family after the war; her various employments around the world; and her marriage to a Jewish man in 1962.

    Oral history interview with Helmut Kobler

    Oral history interview with Helmut Kobler

    Oral History

    Helmut Kobler, born on January 18, 1928 in Vienna, Austria, discusses his childhood in Vienna and Pohorelice, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); his experiences growing up with his Jewish father and Catholic mother; his experiences after the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938; his mother's decision to move herself and her son to Brno, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); the conditions they lived under; the Nazis' search for his father; being deported to a camp near Ivancice, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) in 1939; the camp’s transformation from a concentration camp to a forced labor camp; working as a coal miner at the camp; the camp’s liquidation in June 1942; being transferred to another labor camp near Oslavany, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); the work he continued as a coal miner; the conditions at the camp; the brutality of the Czech and German guards; being transferred in the summer of 1944 to a labor camp near Postoloprty, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic); working to construct an underground fuel pipeline; an accusation against him of sabotage; his subsequent imprisonment in Saaz, Czechoslovakia and Karlsbad, Germany (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic); the brutality of the guards; the poor conditions there; his escape from Karlsbad while out on a labor detail; being recaptured in Brno; the executions he witnessed while imprisoned there; being transferred by cattle car to a prison in Mirosov; escaping from Mirosov in May 1945, a few days before liberation by the United States Army; the aid he received from refugee organizations after the war; reuniting with his mother; being educated as a mining engineer; defecting to the west with a sample of uranium ore; moving to Canada; and immigrating to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ellen Leeser

    Oral history interview with Ellen Leeser

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anne Marie Yellin

    Oral history interview with Anne Marie Yellin

    Oral History

    Anne Marie Yellin (née Feller), born on December 6, 1928 in Chemnitz, Germany, discusses her childhood in Chemnitz; her family life; the changes she experienced after Kristallnacht in November 1938; her father's arrest and release; her parents' decision to leave Germany; her journey with her parents to Belgium in September 1939; her experiences after the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940 and her father's decision to hide her in a convent; her experiences in the convent; moving between institutions to avoid capture by the Nazis; her conversion to Catholicism; her reunion with her parents after liberation in September 1944; their immigration to the United States at a later point; her life in the US; and the emotional aftermath of her wartime experiences.

    Oral history interview with Adele Silber

    Oral history interview with Adele Silber

    Oral History

    Adele Silber discusses her childhood in Warsaw, Poland; her education in a Catholic school; her family's religious practices; her experiences during the German invasion in 1939; hiding her young daughter with a Catholic family; living in hiding on a farm with a group of partisans; her experiences while in hiding, including the lack of food and the necessity of living in the woods near the end of the war; her reunion with her daughter; her decision to immigrate to the United States with her husband and daughter in 1946; and their life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Sylvie Marshall

    Oral history interview with Sylvie Marshall

    Oral History

    Sylvie Marshall (née Bedel), born on July 1, 1923 in Paris, France, discusses her childhood; her older brother Michel Bedel (born 1918) and her younger brother Alain Bedel (born 1926); her father, who was the president of the largest moving and storage company in France before the war; her adolescence in Paris; being raised Catholic; the participation of her father and brother Michel in the French Resistance; her life with her mother in south central France; the liberation of Paris; the story of her father and brother's arrests by the Gestapo and her father's subsequent death in Buchenwald.

    Oral history interview with Elena H. Javor

    Oral history interview with Elena H. Javor

    Oral History

    Elena H. Javor (née Gross), born December 15, 1914 in Martin, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia), describes her childhood in Martin; her siblings; her medical education and practice; the birth of her three children; the threat of deportation in 1942; her escape from deportation due to her husband's exemption; Allied bombing in spring 1944; the Slovak national uprising in August 1944; her husband's enlistment to fight; fleeing with her children to a monastery, where they were sheltered; joining her husband in Banska Bystrica; her arrest in October 1944; her husband's disappearance; her liberation in April 1945; her reunion with her three children; learning of her husband's, sister's, and parents' deaths in Auschwitz; her return to Martin with her children; her life after the war; how she studied dermatology; her remarriage; and her family's immigration to the United States in 1968.

    Oral history interview with George Denes

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Welgreen

    Oral history interview with Joseph Welgreen

    Oral History

    Joseph Welgreen, born in 1918 in Sosnowiec, Poland, discusses his childhood in Sosnowiec; his family life and education; the work he performed; the antisemitism he experienced; the changes he experienced after the German invasion of Poland in 1939; being deported to Annaburg in late 1940, and his subsequent transfers to several other labor camps, including Breslau and Klettendorf (both subcamps of Gross-Rosen); the conditions in these camps, his experiences there, the work he performed in highway construction, and his experiences with the guards and Kapos; being transferred to Bunzlau in 1943; the work he performed as a machinist and the conditions there; his experiences on a death march to Dora in February 1945; the work he performed there and the conditions; his liberation at Bergen-Belsen; his journey to Hannover, Germany; the business he established there; and his immigration to the United States in 1947.

    Oral history interview with Frank Weinman

    Oral history interview with Frank Weinman

    Oral History

    Frank Weinman, born on July 9, 1914 in Vienna, Austria, discusses his childhood in Vienna and Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia); the introduction of restrictive anti-Jewish laws in Vienna after the Anschluss in March 1938; the family's definitive move to Bratislava soon after; his marriage; his and his wife's forced move to a ghetto camp after Nazis took control of Czechoslovakia; their experiences there doing manual labor; their fortunate escape through a German baggage firm, HAPAG, to Budapest, Cuba, and finally the United States; his parents' escape to Cuba where his father died; his reunion with his mother in October 1942; the assistance he received from his brother who had immigrated to Chicago, IL in 1938; and the success and prosperity he experienced in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Morris Rosnow

    Oral history interview with Morris Rosnow

    Oral History

    Morris Rosnow (né Moishe Raznov), born on January 7, 1927 in Zdzieciol, Poland (now Dzyatlava, Belarus) discusses his experiences during World War II while hiding in the woods as a member of a Jewish partisan group operating under the organization of the Russian partisans; liberation in 1944 by the Soviet Army; his return to his hometown in Poland, where he remained with his sister until the death of their father; moving to Munich, Germany; earning a degree in engineering; immigrating with his sister to join their other sister in the United States; and earning a degree in pharmacy and raising a family.

    Oral history interview with Gary Schoofs

    Oral history interview with Gary Schoofs

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

    Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

    Oral History

    Gerta Wingerd (née Alper), born on September 23, 1923 in Bеrhomet, Romania (now Berehomet, Ukraine), discusses her childhood in Czernowicz, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine); the increase in antisemitism in 1938 after fascist rule was established; the occupation of her town by Soviet forces in 1939; the retreat of the Soviet forces; her two brothers' escape toward Russia; the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; the establishment of a ghetto; her family's release; their eventual internment in a ghetto camp in Transnistria until 1944; the conditions, difficulties, and disease that were prevalent there; the family's liberation by Soviet troops; her return to Czernowicz; her escape from Romania to Vienna, Austria, where she worked for the United States Army; being sponsored by the Joint Distribution Committee to immigrate to the United States in 1949; and her experiences in New York, Minneapolis, and Great Falls, Montana before marrying and settling in Mill Valley, California.

    Oral history interview with Ilse Eden

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Genirberg

    Oral history interview with Sam Genirberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eva K. Breyer

    Oral History

    Eva Breyer, born on August 18, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary, describes her parents, who converted from Judaism to Catholicism after the death of her grandfather; being christened Catholic; her brother, who was born Jewish and converted when he was about a year old; attending Catholic religious classes; antisemitism in Hungary before the Germans invaded; the laws passed against Jews in the 1930s; the bombings after the war started; the drafting of non-Jewish men for the military and Jewish men for labor service; her father being called up for labor service near Budapest; how her mother was able to keep her father from being sent to the front in 1943; the German occupation, at which time the Jewish laws grew worse; having to move to Jewish houses with other families; the round ups led by the Arrow Cross and police in the summer of 1944; her aunt saving her mother from deportation; moving into an apartment building that was under the protection of the Vatican; her brother, who was sent to a monastery for extra protection; being sent to the hospital where a doctor diagnosed her as sick so she could hide with terminally sick children; going to a convent outside Buda; seeing people being shot into the Danube; going to a Swedish house and finding it empty; the arrival of the Russians; her family, who went to the ghetto while she was in hiding; her father’s death from pneumonia in March after the liberation; the mistreatment of the Hungarians by the Russian soldiers; life under the communists; escaping to Austria and then the United States in 1956; and how she identifies as Catholic.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Levi

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Nebenzahl

    Oral History

    Paul Nebenzahl discusses his childhood in Long Island, NY; his career in advertising; enlisting in the United States Army in 1942; his experiences as a sergeant in the Signal Corps; being part of a secret OSS “operational group” working with the French underground movement in southwestern France to hinder the German retreat in 1944; his military service in India and China for the remainder of the war; his life after the war; marrying; having children; and his leisure activities.

    Oral history interview with Frank Weinman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Olga Nepomyashy

    Oral history interview with Olga Nepomyashy

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Floyd Dade

    Oral history interview with Floyd Dade

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Peter Oppenheim

    Oral history interview with Peter Oppenheim

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ellen Van Creveld

    Oral history interview with Ellen Van Creveld

    Oral History

    Ellen Van Creveld, born in 1933 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Amsterdam; her assimilated family life; her lack of awareness of her Jewish heritage; the changes she experienced after the German invasion of Holland in May 1940, including the new restrictions and her transfer to a Jewish school; her relationships with her non-Jewish friends during this period; the fear of arrest and deportation; her family's decision to go into hiding in November 1943; her experiences while living in hiding; her family's move to Brussels, Belgium with the help of the underground; the false identities they acquired; her experiences in Brussels under false papers, her education; the betrayal of the family and their arrest; her reprieve from deportation due to illness; her experiences in the Jewish hospital and orphanage; her subsequent time spent living in hiding on a farm and in an abandoned castle during the winter of 1944-1945; her reunion with one of her brothers after the end of the war and the fates of her other family members; her postwar life in the United States and Holland; the challenges she faced; her marriage and family; her permanent immigration to the United States in 1956; and her life in the US.

    Oral history interview with Lola Welgreen

    Oral history interview with Lola Welgreen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Semyon Berenshtein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sara Gelender

    Oral History

    Sara Gelender discusses her childhood in Warsaw, Poland; her memories of the bombing and burning of Warsaw in September 1939; her family's flight to a farm near the Russian border; hiding there for several months; being part of a group of Jewish refugees sent to Siberia in June 1940; the primitive conditions in the labor camp; the work she performed in the camp; marrying in the camp; leaving the camp with her husband for a small town; her continual state of hunger during those years; moving with her husband to the Ukraine in 1944; returning to Poland in 1946; the antisemitism they encountered in Poland; escaping to Czechoslovakia, Vienna, and then to a displaced persons camp in Germany; moving to Paris, where they lived until 1951; their emigration first to Canada, and finally to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

    Oral history interview with Ilse Sternberger

    Oral History

    Ilse Sternberger (née Naumann), born in 1914, discusses her childhood in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland); her assimilated family life; her education; her marriage and her decision to move to Belgium with her husband in 1933; her life in Belgium; her husband's success as a photographer; their decision to move to London, England in 1936; returning to Germany in 1939 in an attempt to help Jewish children leave the country, and being stymied by the bureaucracy; immigrating to the United States with her husband and children in July 1940; her life in the US; her work as a teacher and writer; and her curation of books and exhibits of her husband's work.

    Oral history interview with Jenny Friedlander

    Oral history interview with Jenny Friedlander

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leonid Bobrovsky

    Oral history interview with Leonid Bobrovsky

    Oral History

    Leonid Bobrovsky, born on May 4, 1937 in Odessa, Ukraine, describes being only three years old when the war began; his father who fought with the partisans during the war; the Nazi invasion of Odessa, at which time he and his family were in an underground hiding place (“Kotokloomba”) reserved for partisans and their families; hiding with his mother while his older brother and father helped the partisans; getting sick because the hiding place was very wet; the Nazis discovering various entrances to the hiding place and using poisonous gas to force the people out; escaping from the hiding place along with his mother and older brother; getting caught by the Nazis and taken away to the city jail where there were many other Jewish residents; being separated from his mother, who was later murdered by the Nazis; being moved with his brother to a different jail; his brother’s attempted escape and then suicide; being taken to camp Ombarova where he remained until liberation; working even though he was so young; attributing his survival in the ghetto to the women who protected and took care of him; liberation; being taken to an orphanage where he stayed until his father’s return; his father, who remarried after the war; attending school and studying construction at a college; being married twice and having two daughters; and naming his younger daughter, Polina Bobrovskaya, after his mother.

    Oral history interview with Sam Genirberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Joseph Schein

    Oral history interview with Joseph Schein

    Oral History

    Joseph Schein discusses his childhood is Sosnowiec, Poland; his experiences with antisemitism, and how his plans to immigrate to the United States were disrupted by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany; being sent to his mother’s hometown Brzostowica-Wielka, Poland (now Vialikaia Berastavitsa, Belarus); avoiding forced labor in Russia by returning to Sosnowiec; being conscripted for forced labor by the Germans in October 1940; his experiences in several forced labor and concentration camps throughout the war years, which included Geppersdorf, Gross Sarne, Kleinmangersdorf, Wiesau, Waldau, Casper Bowder, Gintersdorf, Rostitz, Hundsfeld, Hirschberg, Gross-Rosen, Dachau, and Buchenwald; the conditions in these camps and the various labors he was forced to perform; being witness to medical experiments at Hundsfeld; enduring a death march from Buchenwald; being liberated by American troops; being hospitalized; his marriage to his childhood sweetheart and their stay in a displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany; immigrating to the United States in June 1946; being the only member of his family that survived the Holocaust; immigrating with an accordion, which was his only possession at the time; and his experiences in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Nicholas Nagi-Talavera

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Edith Eva Eger

    Oral history interview with Edith Eva Eger

    Oral History

    Edith Eger (née Elefant), born on September 29, 1927 in Kosice, Hungary (now Slovakia), describes her father (Lajos), who was a tailor, and her mother (Helen Klein), who worked for the Hungarian ministry; her two sisters, Magda and Klara; her favorite memories are of her mother's cooking; her childhood, during which she trained in ballet and gymnastics; preparing to compete for the Olympics for Hungary but being disqualified because she was Jewish; her sisters, who were gifted musicians; the story of how her sister Klara was smuggled out of Hungary when the war began by one of her professors from the music academy in Budapest; the German occupation of Hungary; being taken to a brick factory; being deported with her sister, parents, aunts, and uncles to Auschwitz in May 1944; being separated from her parents, and thus spared the gas chambers; being selected to dance for Dr. Josef Mengele; using her talent for gymnastics and dancing to help survive in Auschwitz; conditions in the barracks; how she helped Magda survive in the camp; being liberated from Gunskirchen on May 4, 1945, at which time she had five types of typhoid fever, pneumonia, and no hair left; going to a displaced persons camp, where she met her husband and became pregnant; immigrating to the United States in 1949, going first to New York, and then to Baltimore, where she worked in a factory; moving to Texas, where she had two more children and attended the University of Texas at Austin; earning her doctorate; moving to San Diego, CA and working as a family therapist; and how her grandchildren are her world and how she lives every day for them. Ms. Eger, her parents, aunts and uncles, and her eldest sister Magda, were deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. Ms. Eger was separated from her parents; she and her sister Magda were spared the gas chambers. Because of her talent for ballet, Ms. Eger was selected to dance for Dr. Josef Mengele. She was able to use her talent for gymnastics and dancing to help survive in Auschwitz. Ms. Eger was liberated from Gunskirchen on May 4, 1945. While in a displaced persons camp, she met her husband and became pregnant. She emigrated to the United States in 1949; first to New York, and then to Baltimore, where she worked in a factory. She, her husband and her daughter Marianne moved to Texas, where Ms. Eger had two more children, and attended the University of Texas at Austin where she ultimately received her doctorate. She settled in San Diego and works as a family therapist and with battered wives and abused teenagers.

    Oral history interview with Otto Springer

    Oral history interview with Otto Springer

    Oral History

    Otto Springer discusses his German upbringing in Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic); his education; his family life; the antisemitism he witnessed in Prague in the early 1930s; his marriage to his Jewish wife and the discrimination he experienced as a result; his arrest in 1941; his sentence of forced labor; the help he received from a Gestapo officer; his activities in the Czech underground including the rescue of Jews, aided by two members of the Gestapo; his experiences in another labor camp near Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) beginning in October 1944; the work he performed; a forced march he underwent in January 1945; acts of vengeance by Czechs that he witnessed after the war ended; the suspicion he fell under because of his German heritage; the assistance he received from a Czech military commander; and his immigration with his wife and children in September 1948.

    Oral history interview with Greta Stuehler

    Oral history interview with Greta Stuehler

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Magda Silberman

    Oral history interview with Magda Silberman

    Oral History

    Magda Silberman, born on August 17, 1928, discusses her childhood in Pavlovo, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine); the occupation of her town by the Hungarians; antisemitism that she and her family experienced; the occupation of her town by Nazi troops; the gathering of the Jewish citizens and their deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1944; her arrival, the selections, and her experiences while at Auschwitz; the death march she endured in January 1945 to Ravensbrück and Leipzig; her liberation in May 1945; and her immigration to the United States in 1948.

    Oral history interview with Eric Willgott

    Oral history interview with Eric Willgott

    Oral History

    Eric Willgott, born on February 12, 1925 in Vienna, Austria, discusses his childhood in Vienna; his family life; his Orthodox religious upbringing; his involvement with a Zionist youth organization; his education; the increased antisemitism he experienced after the German annexation of Austria (Anschluss) in March 1938; his experiences during Kristallnacht in November; his family's decision to send him to Great Britain with the Kindertransport in December 1938; his experiences in London during the Blitz; his work with the United States government in Germany after the war; his immigration to the United States in 1948; his marriage; his life in the US; and his work.

    Oral history interview with Cecilia Kornbluth

    Oral history interview with Cecilia Kornbluth

    Oral History

    Cecilia Kornbluth (née Cilli Mehlman), born on October 11, 1920, discusses her childhood in Vienna, Austria; her early experiences with antisemitism in elementary school and gymnasium; her memories of the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss, Chancellor of Austria, by Austrian Nazis in 1934; the Anschluss in March 1938; the changes that occurred for Jewish Austrians afterward; her two older brothers fleeing to France and to Switzerland; the arrests of her younger brother, father, and mother; her father's eventual deportation to Auschwitz; her brother's incarceration in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps for 11 months, and his release and move to England; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; being sent for by her brother in Switzerland; her illegal crossing into Switzerland; hiding because she lacked legal papers; being questioned and released; living and working in a refugee camp for single Jewish girls in Basel; living there throughout the war; marrying another refugee who was living in a single man's camp in 1942; having a son; being supported by the Jewish community during this period; her immigration to the United States in 1947; and her family and work life in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ruth Steiner

    Oral history interview with Ruth Steiner

    Oral History

    Ruth Steiner discusses her childhood in Dresden, Germany; her well-integrated family life; her education; the changes she experienced after the Nazis came to power in 1933; the necessity of attending a university outside of Germany due to her Jewish heritage; her studies in Geneva; her family's decision to leave Europe in 1939; their immigration to Brazil; their move to the United States in 1940; her life in the US; the work she performed as a librarian; and her husband and family.

    Oral history interview with Trudy Lyons

    Oral history interview with Trudy Lyons

    Oral History

    Trudy Lyons discusses her childhood in Vienna, Austria; the family's assimilated life; the changes that occurred after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March 1938; having to leave school, and witnessing abuses against Jews. Ms. Lyons describes the family's flight to Czechoslovakia, and their successful immigration to the United States in November 1938; the family's adjustment to life in the US, eventually settling in Indiana; and her education, marriage, and family life in Detroit, MI and San Francisco, CA.

    Oral history interview with Margrit Schurman

    Oral history interview with Margrit Schurman

    Oral History

    Margrit Schurman, born on April 1, 1925 in Essen, Germany, discusses her childhood in Essen; her memories of antisemitism; the flight of her sister to Switzerland and her brother to England; the events of Kristallnacht; being sent with her sisters to a Catholic school in England; their conversion to Catholicism; her life and experiences in England during the war, including her brother's deportation as an enemy alien to Canada; her separation from her mother, who had married an Italian and spent the war years in Italy; her immigration to the United States; her marriage and life in Berkeley, California; being reunited with her family in California; and her return trip to Germany.

    Oral history interview with Edith Deutsch

    Oral history interview with Edith Deutsch

    Oral History

    Edith Deutsch, born on January 21, 1925 in Arnswalde, Germany (now Choszczno, Poland), discusses her childhood in Arnswalde; her father, Fritz Abrahamowsky, and her mother, Lotte Gradnauer; living in a large home and being raised as a young child by servants, rarely seeing her mother or father; her family's move to Berlin, Germany in 1933; the difficulties experienced by her family when Hitler rose to power; going to the Olympic Stadium with her class and seeing the No Jews Allowed signs; having to leave public school after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; fleeing Germany with her family in April 1939 for Thailand; traveling by ship to Singapore; abandoning their plans to travel to Bangkok and instead opting to go to Shanghai, China; staying in a camp in Shanghai for a week; her experiences in Shanghai; working as a sales girl and as a beautician; her marriage in 1946 and the birth of her son in 1948; immigrating to Australia in 1949; living in a boarding house; moving to the United States in 1951; living in Oregon and then San Francisco, CA; and her efforts to socialize with other refugees over the years.

    Oral history interview with Francis E. Cappel

    Oral history interview with Francis E. Cappel

    Oral History

    Francis Cappel (né Franz Erwin Cappel), born on June 2, 1916 in Cologne, Germany, discusses his childhood in Cologne, Germany;his parents, Dr. Paul H. and Meta Cappel (née Braunschweig); growing up in an apartment flat near a synagogue in a mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish) neighborhood; antisemitism in Germany; the beating of his lawyer father by Nazi storm troopers (Sturmabteilung) in April 1933; the boycott of Jewish business; moving in October 1933 to France, where he worked in the textile business; concealing his Jewish origins as best he could, always carrying French or English newspapers with him; befriending a man who brought him to the German Reich secret headquarters where he got to see rare German stamps (Mr. Cappel was an avid stamp collector); moving to Hamburg, Germany in 1935; immigrating to England in 1937; serving as a corporal in the British Army; his success in obtaining transit visas for his father and mother, thus rescuing his father from Dachau concentration camp; getting married to his wife Margo in 1944; leaving the Army in April 1946 and returning to London; immigrating with his wife, children, and parents to the United States; and settling in San Francisco, CA.

    Oral history interview with George Wittenstein

    Oral history interview with George Wittenstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Thomas Trier

    Oral history interview with Thomas Trier

    Oral History

    Thomas Trier, born December 27, 1930 in Frankfurt, Germany, discusses his childhood in Frankfurt; his family's roots in the city; his integrated family life; his education in a Jewish school; his experiences in Nazi-era Germany; the economic difficulties his family faced; their decision to immigrate to the United States; the journey to New York, NY and then Chicago, IL; his experiences as a young immigrant in America; his feeling of isolation among his peers as a boy; his education through graduate school; his life after school; the work he performed; his feelings about his German and Jewish identity; and his marriage and family.

    Oral history interview with Rita Grunbaum

    Oral history interview with Rita Grunbaum

    Oral History

    Rita Grunbaum (née Rita van Leeuwen), born on April 9, 1910 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, discusses her childhood in Holland; her career as a social worker in the Hague; her marriage in 1936;the onset of World War II in September 1939; the bombing of Holland; the German occupation beginning in 1940; the birth of her daughter in 1942; the family's arrest in September 1943; their transport to Westerbork concentration camp; her experiences in Westerbork; receiving papers for Palestine from her in-laws who had fled to Mexico; being selected as part of an exchange program with German prisoners-of-war held in Palestine; being sent with her family to Bergen-Belsen in February 1944; being transported from Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 on the Lost Train (also called Lost Transport); her liberation in Troebtiz, Germany; the deaths of her family members during the Holocaust; and her post-war experiences.

    Oral history interview with Lily Robinson

    Oral history interview with Lily Robinson

    Oral History

    Lily Robinson (née Lily Solomon Leibovitch), born on June 29, 1939 in Sofia, Bulgaria, discusses her childhood with her mother and sister who had been deported to Haskovo, Bulgaria from Sofia in 1940; her experiences there as a young child; her family's return to Sofia in 1945; immigrating to the United States in December 1946; her life in California; and the emotional aftermath of the Holocaust that she witnessed in her brother.

    Oral history interview with Herman Apteker

    Oral history interview with Herman Apteker

    Oral History

    Herman Apteker, born on October 9, 1915 in Dresden, Germany, discusses his childhood in Dresden; his Ukrainian parents; his father (Elieser), who was in business and died when Herman was only four years old; his mother, who started a wholesale business selling clothing out of the family's six or seven room flat; his four older siblings (three brothers and one sister); his male "guardian" (this was a German requirement for children whose fathers had died) Dr. Avraham Borg, who took Herman to synagogue and was the primary source of Herman's religious education; his experiences with antisemitism at public school; his strong desire to leave Germany once Hitler rose to power; his trip to Czechoslovakia in 1933 as part of the Young Macabees, in preparation for immigration to Palestine; spending 10 or 11 months in Slovakia, taking part in agricultural training; his arrival in Palestine in April 1933; becoming very ill with dysentery and malaria; his experiences in Palestine; the immigration of his mother and brothers to Palestine; his work in Haifa; riots that occurred in 1936; becoming a temporary policeman before a British officer offered him a job in the immigration office; his marriage in 1938; the beginning of WWII and his work for the British army (in an office) until he was conscripted into the Israeli Army; working as a commission officer at the Lebanese border; his unique relationship with an Arab officer on the Lebanese side; his divorce and remarriage; his immigration with his second wife to the United States in 1953; and settling in San Francisco, CA.

    Oral history interview with Hanna Cassel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nicholas Nagy-Talavera

    Oral history interview with Nicholas Nagy-Talavera

    Oral History

    Nicholas Nagy-Talavera, born on February 14, 1929 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses his childhood in Budapest; his time in a Transylvanian ghetto in 1944; his subsequent deportation to Auschwitz; the work he performed in Josef Mengele's medical complex; the experiments he witnessed; his impressions of Mengele; and his subsequent experiences at Mauthausen, Gusen II, and Ebensee.

    Oral history interview with Semyon Veyber

    Oral history interview with Semyon Veyber

    Oral History

    Semyon Veyber, born on December 20, 1927 in Tomashpil, Ukraine, discusses his childhood in Tomashpil; his religious upbringing; the changes he experienced after the German Army invaded in June 1941; his family's attempt to evacuate, their capture by the Germans, and the help given to the Germans by the local Ukrainian people; his escape from an Einsatzgruppen action; being deported with his family to a ghetto in July 1941, and his experiences there; the work he performed and the conditions; the fear he felt as the German Army retreated that he and his family would be killed before they were liberated; the arrival of the Soviet Army in March 1944; the charges of collaboration that he faced; his life after the end of the war; and his immigration to the United States in 1989.

    Oral history interview with Chaya Fuhrman

    Oral history interview with Chaya Fuhrman

    Oral History

    Chaya Ash-Furhman (née Averbuch), born March 19,1920 in Kishinev (now Chisinau), Moldova, describes her childhood; her parents’ involvement in Yiddish theater; her own involvement in theater at a young age; the outbreak of war in June 1941; hiding with her family in the basement of a theater in the Russian section of Tiraspol, Moldova; being transported to cooperative farms in Ukraine and Uzbekistan; being underfed; her father, who suffered from mental distress and dysentery and was taken to a courtyard and shot; how the people who were murdered were then covered in lime, so as not to spread disease; the hardships she and her family endured working on these farms; becoming sick with malaria; working as a seamstress in a nearby town where conditions were better; meeting her first husband; antisemitism that was rampant after the end of the war; her leaving for Poland with her mother and husband, who was Polish by birth; their decision to leave Poland in 1947 while she was pregnant; the family's experiences in a displaced persons camp in Linz, Austria; and their immigration to Israel, where she continued her involvement in Yiddish Theater.

    Oral history interview with Peter Mueller

    Oral history interview with Peter Mueller

    Oral History

    Peter Mueller, born on December 30, 1926 in Hannover, Germany, discusses his childhood in Hannover; his family's decision to leave Germany after Kristallnacht in 1938; his life with his father in England; his decision to immigrate to the United States in 1943; his service in the US Army with the medical corps as an instructor in Texas; and his life after military service.

    Oral history interview with Eva Cohn

    Oral history interview with Eva Cohn

    Oral History

    Eva Cohn (née Eva Maria Rhee), born in 1923 in Dortmund, Germany, describes her parents, Max Rhee and Else Heinemann; experiencing a warm family life and peace in her early childhood; not experiencing antisemitism until 1934 when her friend shunned her, teachers began to treat her unfairly, and Aryan students were being separated and taught antisemitism; being prohibited from attending public schools around 1935; moving to Cologne, Germany, where she attended a Jewish school while staying with a Jewish family; her family’s experience during an anti-Jewish “Aktion” in 1938, during which German soldiers threw rocks at their windows and burned their synagogue; returning to live with the family in Cologne, while her parents moved to Baudin and stayed with a friend; leaving Germany with her family circa 1938 and going to England just before the ill treatment of the Jews became worse; a law in England that prohibited immigrants from working, which meant her family could not make any money; spending one year in England, before being allowed to immigrate to the United States; settling in Los Angeles, CA; attending Whittier College and majoring in English; working at a school as an instructional supervisor; her father’s death in 1941 from a heart condition; meeting and marrying Hans in Salinas, CA in 1949; having three children and moving quite frequently; and her life in Palo Alto, teaching German, participating in the German association, and leading the Bridge to Understanding, which takes a group to Germany each summer.

    Oral history interview with Fred Baum

    Oral history interview with Fred Baum

    Oral History

    Fred Baum (né Efriam Dovid Boymelgreen), born in Slupaianowa, Poland (possibly Nowa Słupia, Poland), on October 1, 1921, describes his childhood; his one younger brother; his parents, Majlech and Miriam Nhuna, whom he lived with until 1930 when their mother died; being raised religious, and studying before the war at a yeshiva in Otwock, Poland; returning home from school after the war started, and seeing Jews being rounded up for forced labor; working in various government factories, and how the situation got worse and worse; his memories of shootings, confiscations, and deportations; how Jews were not allowed to go to school or to religious services and there was no electricity; his memories of several events including a memory of the rabbi of his town being tied to a horse and forced to run after it until he died; being put into Starachowice with his father and brother in August 1942; suffering from typhus and his father’s efforts to keep him out of the "hospital" so he wouldn't be shot; their transfer in July 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau; his father’s death in Birkenau around January of 1945; being sent with his brother to Buna (Monowitz), where they were given striped uniforms; being transferred with his brother to Lara Hut; being moved in early 1945 to Mauthausen and then to Gusen in Austria; spending a week there and then four days without food in an open train to Hannora, where they worked on an unfinished concentration camp; being separated from his brother on April 5, 1945 and sent to Bergen-Belsen; being liberated by the British on April 15, 1945; spending six months in a hospital unit recuperating, and then staying in Bergen-Belsen for five years; meeting his wife, Helen Wiesel, there; getting married in 1946; never returning to Poland; reuniting with his brother, who was his only surviving family member; immigrating in 1950 with his wife and young daughter to the United States; having two more children; and his brother, who also immigrated to the United States and started a family.

    Oral history interview with Fred Baum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fred Baum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Cantor Hans Cohn

    Oral history interview with Cantor Hans Cohn

    Oral History

    Cantor Hans Cohn, born in Berlin, Germany on May 31, 1926, discusses his childhood in Berlin; being forced to leave his public school after the passage of the Nuremberg laws in 1935; antisemitic propaganda; his feelings of exclusion from social and athletic activities; the 1936 Olympic games; the events of Kristallnacht; the long wait for a visa to the United States; the family's decision to leave Germany for Shanghai, China; his impressions upon arrival in Shanghai; the life of his family and the Jewish community in Shanghai; his mother's death; the difficulties and illnesses he endured; moving into the Hongkew ghetto when the Japanese took control of Shanghai in 1942; his experiences there; the Allied bombings of Shanghai that took place in the spring of 1945; his life in post-war Shanghai; stowing aboard a ship to Australia in 1946; living as an illegal immigrant in Australia; his immigration to the United States in 1948; being drafted into the military; volunteering as a cantor in a San Francisco synagogue; returning to school and obtaining a cantorial diploma; working as a singing waiter in the Borscht Belt in New York while he was attending Hebrew Union College in New York; being reunited with his father in 1952; and his later experiences.

    Oral history interview with Gilbert L. van Mourik

    Oral history interview with Gilbert L. van Mourik

    Oral History

    Gilbert L. van Mourik, born June 27, 1930 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, discusses his childhood in Rotterdam; his family life; his Protestant upbringing; the changes he experienced after the German invasion of Holland in May 1940; his experiences during the bombing of Rotterdam; his father's efforts to gather and store food; his parents' decision to become part of the resistance; his family's activities, which included hiding a Jewish child in their home for the duration of the war; and the dangers his family experienced and their efforts at self-preservation as well as the moral challenges they faced.

    Oral history interview with Bernard Broclawski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sam Zelver

    Oral history interview with Sam Zelver

    Oral History

    Sam Zelver, born in 1935 in Kalisz, Poland, discusses his childhood in Kalisz; fleeing with his family to the Soviet Union after the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939; the attempts of his father, who was in the Polish Army, to join them; the family's journey across Russia to Siberia; his mother doing hard labor in return for housing and food; the hardships they endured for a year and a half; the journeys the family took, which ended in Kazakhstan, where they lived with other Jewish refugees; discovering a relative nearby with whom they stayed from 1942 until the end of the war; the family's post-war journey to Germany, where they lived in a DP (displaced persons) camp; his immigration with his sister in 1947 to San Francisco, CA, sponsored by an uncle who died before they arrived; their stay in the Jewish children's home, Homewood Terrace; his reunion with his mother and stepfather, who emigrated in 1952; his education and service in the United States Army; his work as a salesman; his marriage; family; and religious life.

    Oral history interview with Asya Grunkina

    Oral history interview with Asya Grunkina

    Oral History

    Asya Grunkina, born on March 2, 1936 in Odesa, Ukraine, discusses her childhood in Odesa; her memories of the occupation of Odessa by Nazi troops on October 16, 1941; the orders for Jewish families to identify themselves in preparation for deportation; hiding with her family in their home to escape deportation; the family fleeing with the assistance of a local Russian man in January 1942; hiding in the catacombs and caves nearby; the assistance of their rescuer and his family who brought them food at great risk; the terrible conditions and privations they endured; and leaving their hiding place in April 1944.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Mostny

    Oral history interview with Kurt Mostny

    Oral History

    Kurt Mostny, born on March 3, 1919 in Linz, Austria, discusses his childhood in Linz; the antisemitism he experienced growing up; enlisting in the Austrian army and being posted in Vienna; the Anschluss in March 1938; serving as part of the honor guard surrounding Adolf Hitler when he arrived in Vienna to oversee the transfer of power; evading the roundup of Jews in Linz; escaping from Austria; going to Egypt to join his sister, who was pursuing a doctorate in Egyptology; their subsequent move to Belgium; his mother's friendship with a woman from Chile; her success in obtaining visas for Mr. Mostny, his sister, and herself; the entire family's immigration to Chile in 1939; his experiences in Chile; his work and family; his immigration to the United States with his wife and five children in 1964.

    Oral history interview with Hanna Cassel

    Oral history interview with Hanna Cassel

    Oral History

    Hanna Cassel, born on December 6, 1914, in Berlin, Germany, describes her father Arthur, who owned a shoe store and her mother Rebecca, who helped run the store; her one brother, Werner, who was six years younger than her; her mother's parents, who were very religious, and spending during many holidays going to the temple with them; her parents, who were not religious; attending a private elementary school and then a girls' high school, which she was not able to finish because about a year and a half before she would have graduated, she lost her scholarship (because she was Jewish); her father's business ending because he was Jewish; not experiencing much antisemitism when she was younger, and how at first most people thought Hitler was crazy and he would never amount to anything; her very good non-Jewish friends, especially at school; her family home and her childhood and her love for reading; not having many options after she dropped out of school; her desire to go to Palestine with some of her friends, which her parents did not want her to do; moving to Rome, Italy and working as a nanny for several different families; how by 1939, Hitler had influenced Mussolini's policies and foreign Jews were required to leave Italy; the popular sentiment in Italy about Germany; the government-sponsored persecution growing worse; being arrested in December 1940 and put into a women’s concentration camp (she had avoided the first roundups); living with about 65 other Jews, Roma, and Yugoslavian partisans; conditions in the camp, the people there, and the flourishing black market; the German occupation of Italy and how the villagers in the town around the concentration camp helped free the prisoners because they knew the women of the camp would be killed or deported immediately by the Germans; hiding in the fields and then walking back to Rome, which took her about ten days; eating vegetables she took from nearby fields during her journey; being given fake papers by the police in the concentration camp’s town (the papers identified her as Anna Castelli; she told anyone who asked that she was an Italian fleeing the Allies); hiding with various friends in Rome; how most people at this time were surviving on the black market; the destruction of the synagogue in Rome right after she returned and the liquidation of the ghetto; the deportation of thousands of people; how several years earlier her parents and brother had gone to Shanghai, China, where her brother and father both died; having very little correspondence with her family while she was in Rome; getting some information from listening to the radio, which was illegal; living in hiding on the outskirts of the city when Rome was liberated on June 5, 1944; the euphoria at that moment and the difficulty of life after the liberation; how food was hard to come by; getting a job at the American Joint Distribution Committee; getting a visa to the United States and arriving in the US in December of 1948; her mother’s death and Hanna’s depression; working nights while taking classes at San Francisco State College; earning a BA and wanting to become a librarian; becoming a teacher after earning her Master’s degree; returning to Italy almost every summer once she was a teacher and visiting friends; returning to Germany for the first time in 1972 to visit a cousin; her hesitation to return to Germany; having a Bat-Mitzvah in 1983; experiencing antisemitism in the US, especially at the high school where she worked; and never marrying or having children.

    Oral history interview with Vera Korkus

    Oral history interview with Vera Korkus

    Oral History

    Vera Korkus, born in 1928 in Vienna, Austria, discusses her childhood in Vienna; the onset of World War II, and the opportunity that she and her sister had to go a Kindertransport, which they both refused; the forced move she and her family made in 1940 to Jewish ghetto in Vienna; their transport in October 1942 to an unnamed camp, where her father died of lung cancer; being sent with her mother to Auschwitz two years later; being separated from her mother; her reunion with her sister; the terrible conditions at Auschwitz; her encounter with Dr. Josef Mengele; being transported to Kurzbach, a subcamp of Gross-Rosen, where she endured forced labor and a 3-day march to Bergen Belsen; her escape from the march; finding protection from the Germans with Russian soldiers; the sexual assaults that occurred; her life after the war; moving to Bohemia (Czech Republic) then Vienna; and her immigration in 1949 to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Steffi Black

    Oral history interview with Steffi Black

    Oral History

    Steffi Black, born on October 17, 1920 in Berlin, Germany, describes her childhood; her Polish parents Charlotte Pink and Felix Israel; her father’s factory in Berlin and his work with his brother, Leo, installing electricity in the city; her complex family dynamic; her lack of a Jewish identity; her parents' divorce; her mother's remarriage to Otto Goetz in Switzerland; her separation from her father; her father's involvement in the Spanish Civil War; spending the summers of 1932 and 1933 in Poland with her grandparents; attending a Jewish school for about nine months, but feeling left out since she was not Jewish; her reunion with her father and their immigration first to Cuba and then to the United States; her father's death in 1946 in Nevada; her marriage and life in the US; visiting Germany in 1980; and her three children.

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Parket

    Oral history interview with Benjamin Parket

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ann Burger

    Oral history interview with Ann Burger

    Oral History

    Ann Burger (née Anni Rosalie Rautenberg), born in 1920 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), discusses her childhood; her father Arthur Rautenberg, who was the manager of department stores; being raised religious but not Orthodox; attending private school and then public schools; her experiences with antisemitism in school after Hitler's rise to power in 1933; her Jewish friends at school; the loss of her father's business; the family's move to Berlin, while she remained in school; her move to Berlin after her graduation in 1936; her cousin's immigration to Palestine; the family's decision to flee Germany; the efforts of their American family members to obtain visas for them; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; training as a nurse; a job opportunity for work in Sweden, where she remained during the war years; her parents’ journey to Spain, Cuba, and then to the United States; her reunion with them in the US in 1946; and settling in San Francisco, CA, where she married and had a family.

    Oral history interview with Volf Gershaft

    Oral history interview with Volf Gershaft

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Klara Garmel

    Oral history interview with Klara Garmel

    Oral History

    Klara Garmel (née Pleshivaya), born on February 17, 1926, discusses her childhood in Yarun’, Ukraine; her parents' work on a collective farm; her memories of Jewish school as well as participating in a pioneer Ukrainian youth organization; the onset of war with Nazi Germany in 1941; the confusion that ensued; the enforcement of anti-Jewish laws; hiding from a roundup; witnessing brutal acts perpetrated against her grandfather; escaping, with the assistance of non-Jewish friends, to Poland; encountering her mother and sister, who returned to Ukraine; her experiences moving, hiding, and passing for a non-Jew; her conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith; marrying a widower far older than she; the advance of Soviet liberating forces; reclaiming her Jewish identity; leaving her marriage; working until she had sufficient funds to return to her home; learning that all but a sister and brother had perished; remarrying and having a daughter; and immigrating to the United States in 1992 due to the antisemitism she experienced in Ukraine.

    Oral history interview with Polina Sorkin

    Oral history interview with Polina Sorkin

    Oral History

    Polina Sorkin (née Britavskaya), born on November 25, 1931 in Krutye, Ukraine, discusses her childhood in Ukraine; her brother and father's service in Soviet Army; the German invasion and seeing troops in her town; her family's unsuccessful attempt to flee; an incident in which all the Jews were rounded up and marched to a barracks where they were imprisoned; escaping the barracks; traveling from village to village; being sheltered by relatives and strangers; her reunion with family members in a ghetto; traveling to an orphanage in Balta, Ukraine, where she remained until the end of the war; reuniting with her family; her life after the war; and her immigration to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Blank

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Blank

    Oral History

    Mikhail Blank, born on April 22, 1930 in Bershad, Ukraine, discusses his childhood in Bershad; the family's experiences on a collective farm; his memories of antisemitism; the family's move from Bershad to a nearby camp after the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; an incident in which his father and brother with other men were locked in a stable from which they escaped and returned to Bershad; the occupation of the area by Romanian troops and the establishment of a ghetto in September 1941 in Bershad, where he and his family lived until the end of the war; his escape attempts; illnesses he endured; the forced labor his father and brother performed; his father's death; the liberation of Bershad in March 1944 by Soviet troops; his brother joining the fight against the Nazis and his death in battle in July 1944; his life in Bershad after the war; his military service; and his immigration to the United States in 1991.

    Oral history interview with Kurt Gronowski

    Oral history interview with Kurt Gronowski

    Oral History

    Kurt Gronowski, born on July 16, 1923 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood in Berlin; the antisemitism he experienced; the destruction of his family's business during Kristallnacht, November 1938; the family's escape to Shanghai, China; his experiences while on board the ship from Italy; the family's arrival in Shanghai and the assistance they received from the Jewish community; life in the Jewish ghetto in Shanghai; conditions during the Japanese occupation; the improvement of conditions after the war ended; immigrating to the United States; the difficulties he encountered while living in Indiana; and settling in San Francisco, where he became a successful businessman.

    Oral history interview with Rosa Wigmore

    Oral history interview with Rosa Wigmore

    Oral History

    Rosa Wigmore (née Adler), born September 8, 1923 in Ulic, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), discusses her childhood in Ulic; her family life; the changes she experienced in 1939 following the Hungarian annexation of the region; her experiences during her deportation with her family in 1944 to a ghetto in Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine); their deportation to Auschwitz; the selection she survived with her sister; her illness; her experiences in the infirmary and the help she received from a doctor who arranged to transfer her to another camp; the work she performed; the assistance she received; her lingering health issues; being liberated in May 1945 by Czechoslovakian partisans; her postwar experiences in Prague; her reunion with her sister; their immigration to the United States; and the fates of her other family members.

    Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

    Oral history interview with Gerta Wingerd

    Oral History

    Gerta Wingerd (née Alper), born on September 23, 1923 in Bеrhomet, Romania (now Berehomet, Ukraine), discusses her childhood in Czernowicz, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine); the increase in antisemitism in 1938 after fascist rule was established; the occupation of her town by Soviet forces in 1939; the retreat of the Soviet forces; her two brothers' escape toward Russia; the occupation of the area by Nazi troops; the establishment of a ghetto; her family's release; their eventual internment in a ghetto camp in Transnistria until 1944; the conditions, difficulties, and disease that were prevalent there; the family's liberation by Soviet troops; her return to Czernowicz; her escape from Romania to Vienna, Austria, where she worked for the United States Army; being sponsored by the Joint Distribution Committee to immigrate to the United States in 1949; and her experiences in New York, Minneapolis, and Great Falls, Montana before marrying and settling in Mill Valley, California.

    Oral history interview with Evelyn Lowen Apte

    Oral history interview with Evelyn Lowen Apte

    Oral History

    Evelyn Lowen Apte (née Eveline Loewenberg), born in 1929 in Goerlitz, Germany, describes her brother Gerald; her father Herman Alexander Lowen, who was a cavalry officer during the First World War; her mother Else (Gradnauer) Lowen, who had a great interest in art and attended an art school in Berlin; how her family did not consider themselves religious but when the war began the Jewish holidays became more culturally significant to the family; having a happy childhood; her father’s desire to emigrate as soon as Hitler came to power; getting around the quota system by becoming property owners in the United States; traveling through Paris, France in 1937 and taking a ship to New York, NY, arriving on February 22, 1937; the fate of her extended family; settling in Portland, Oregon; learning English; the difficult transition to American life, especially for her mother; feeling like an outsider in high school, but beginning to feel American in college; visiting Germany in 1966; how she does not enjoy speaking German with people her age, but is willing to speak German with the younger generation; attending Reed College in Oregon for two years, and then transferring to the University of California at Berkeley, where she did her undergraduate and some graduate work, finishing her education in London; becoming a social worker; considering herself an atheist, but still feeling close to the Jewish culture and traditions; the large community of Jewish refugees in Portland; and her reflections on her experiences as a refugee.

    Oral history interview with Annette Herskovits

    Oral history interview with Annette Herskovits

    Oral History

    Annette Herskovits discusses her experiences as a young child during the Holocaust, including her infancy in Paris, France; the occupation of Paris by Nazi troops; her father's decision that the family should go into hiding; hiding with her older siblings with occasional visits from their parents; the arrest and deportation of her parents in June 1943; her brother's efforts to find a safe place for her outside of Paris; being fostered with a couple in an unidentified location; being visited by her siblings during this period; and understanding that she would never see her parents again.

    Oral history interview with Guta Zlotlow

    Oral history interview with Guta Zlotlow

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Alfred Cotton

    Oral history interview with Alfred Cotton

    Oral History

    Alfred Cotton (né Baumwollspinner), born on December 29, 1925 in Hamburg, Germany, discusses his childhood in Hamburg; his Polish parents; his father’s wholesale wine distribution business; his memories of the antisemitism after the Nazis rose to power; his parents' selling their business because of the anti-Jewish boycotts; the expulsion of his father to Poland in 1938; the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938; the arrests of the teachers at the Jewish school he attended; his parents' decision to place him on a Kindertransport; leaving Germany for a boy's camp in Suffolk, England; the arrest and internment of all boys over age 16; being moved to Sheffield, England and living in a camp run by refugee women; attending a public school; learning that his parents and grandparents were deported in 1942 from Poland where they were living; his immigration to the United States in the early 1950s; and his involvement in Kindertransport reunions.

    Oral history interview with Marion Mostny

    Oral history interview with Marion Mostny

    Oral History

    Marion Mostny, born on May 22, 1927 in Berlin, Germany, discusses her childhood in Berlin; the changes she experienced during the 1930s; her parents' decision to leave Germany; her family's immigration to Santiago, Chile in April 1939; the community of Jewish refugees there; the fates of family members left behind in Germany; her life in Chile; her and her husband's decision to immigrate to the United States in 1963; their life in San Francisco, CA; her decision to write her memoirs; and the importance of Holocaust remembrance. [See her memoir titles, Conversations with my grandchildren : a journey through three continents.]

    Oral history interview with Roy Calder

    Oral history interview with Roy Calder

    Oral History

    Roy Calder describes his early life in an assimilated family in Berlin and Dresden; his invovlement in Jewish youth groups; his awareness of increased antisemitism after the Nazi rise to power; his parents' decision to send him to school in Switzerland in 1935; his attempts to convince his family to leave Germany; his regret that they did not; his decision to immigrate to Great Britain; the jobs he held in Birmingham, England; the beginning of World War II in 1939; his internment as an enemy alien in Sherbrooke, Canada; his return to England in late 1940; why he volunteered for the British army; his six year service in Scotland, Nigeria, India, and Burma; his marriage to another Holocaust survivor; his decision to immigrate to the United States in 1953; his Jewish identity; and the effects the events of the Holocaust had on him and his wife.

    Oral history interview with Alfred Batzdorff

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mikhail Felberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sandor Hollander

    Oral history interview with Sandor Hollander

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abraham Jaeger

    Oral history interview with Abraham Jaeger

    Oral History

    Abraham Jaeger, born on March 13, 1916 in Vel'ký Bočkov, Czechoslovakia (now Velykyi Bychkiv, Ukraine), discusses his childhood; his career as a salesman; his escape in October 1939 to Palestine, where he was imprisoned for six months; his experiences serving in the British Army in Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus; joining the Israeli Army in 1948; his career and life in Israel, where he lived until 1958; his immigration to the United States; and the death of his parents and three of sisters in the Holocaust.

    Oral history interview with Judy Kirkham

    Oral history interview with Judy Kirkham

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rita Kuhn

    Oral History

    The interviews describe Ms. Kuhn's childhood in Berlin, Germany, her life as the daughter of a Jewish father and non-Jewish German mother as the Nazi regime rose to power, and her growing awareness of antisemitism and change. Ms. Kuhn describes the dismay she felt after the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938, and the privations her family suffered as a consequence of the Nuremberg Laws and her father's unemployment, living with meager ration allotments, detainments, and forced labor. She discusses life trapped in Berlin during the war years, bombings, and forced labor in a small factory. Ms. Kuhn remembers the round-up of Jews in Berlin in February 1943 and her release, because her mother was German. Of particular note, Ms. Kuhn discusses the Rosenstrasse Protest of 1943, when a group of Aryan women protested the imprisonment of their Jewish husbands and children, in which her mother participated. Ms. Kuhn describes the occupation of Berlin by Russian troops, and her family being asked to identify Nazis to them. She recalls her first exposure to information about the concentration camps and the Holocaust, the time she spent in a displaced persons camp, her desire to leave Germany and her immigration to the United States in 1948. Ms. Kuhn describes her return to Berlin for the 50th year memorial of Kristallnacht, when she participated in a silent march from the a synagogue to Rosenstrasse in commemoration of the protest there.

    Oral history interview with Greta Reisman

    Oral history interview with Greta Reisman

    Oral History

    Greta Reisman, born on January 6, 1927 in Mattersdorf (Mattersburg), Austria, discusses her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany; her religious upbringing and assimilated education; the changes she experienced after the Nazis came to power; the increasing antisemitism as well as her family's decision to relocate to Yugoslavia and Hungary; her experiences in Yugoslavia; the actions her grandmother took to allow them to remain there; her decision to join the rest of the family in Hungary; and immigrating to the United States in 1940.

    Oral history interview with Joseph Schein

    Oral History

    The interviews describe Mr. Schein's childhood is Sosnowiec, his experiences with antisemitism, and how his plans to immigrate to the United States were disrupted by the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. Mr. Schein describes being sent to his mother’s hometown, Brzostowica-Wielka, near Volkovisk, in Russian Poland, and eluding forced labor in Russia by returning to Sosnowiec. He discusses being conscripted for forced labor by the Germans in October 1940, and his experiences in several forced labor and concentration camps throughout the war years, which included Geppersdorf, Gross Sarne, Kleinmangersdorf, Wiessau, Waldau, Casper Bowder, Gintersdorf, Rostitz, Hundsfeld, Hirschberg, Gross-Rosen, Dachau, Buchenwald, and possibly others. Mr. Schein describes the conditions in these camps and the various labors he was forced to perform, being witness to medical experiments at Hundsfeld, and enduring a death march from Buchenwald. He discusses his liberation by American troops, his hospitalization, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, their stay in a displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany, and their immigration to the United States in June 1946. Mr. Schein relates that he was the member of his family that survived the Holocaust and his only possession when he emigrated was an accordion. He also describes his experiences in the United States.

    Oral history interview with Dan Dougherty

    Oral history interview with Dan Dougherty

    Oral History

    Dan Dougherty, born May 30, 1925 in Austin, Minnesota, describes being drafted into the United States Army 17 days after his high school graduation; transferring from the 44th Division to the 45th Division; seeing combat on the Sigfried Line and experiencing a slight injury; returning after his recovery and fighting at Aschaffenburg, Germany; the surrender of Germany seven days later; taking part in the liberation of Bavarian US prisoner of war camps and concentration camps; going towards Nuremberg, which had already fallen to the Allies; arriving in Dachau, where they found thousands of emaciated corpselike inmates; coming upon Allach concentration camp; and going to Munich, which they occupied on May 1, 1945.

    Oral history interview with Max Erlichman

    Oral history interview with Max Erlichman

    Oral History

    Max Erlichman, born in November 1931 in Caracas, Venezuela, describes his parents Tobias Erlichman and Bella Galinskaja; spending his childhood years in Amsterdam, Holland until he was taken to Westerbork with his brother and father in mid-November 1942; the deportation of his mother to Auschwitz in September of 1942; the deportation of his older brother Zacharias to Auschwitz in October of 1942; never seeing either Zacharias nor his mother again, and finding out after the war that they were both killed in the camps; being sent with his brother and father to Bergen-Belsen, where they stayed for nine weeks; being sent to a camp in Wülzburg, Germany and remaining there until they were liberated in March or April of 1945 by the American Army; recuperating along with his father and brother in a house provided to them by civilians in the town of Weissenburg in Bayern, Germany; being sent to a displaced persons camp in Würzburg for a week before being sent back to Holland; his father’s travels between Holland and the United States for a few years after the war; and immigrating to the US with his brother.

    Oral history interview with Marianne Gerhart

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rose Herskovic

    Oral history interview with Rose Herskovic

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Eugene Katz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Tillie Molho

    Oral history interview with Tillie Molho

    Oral History

    Tillie Molho, born on December 25, 1926 in Salonika, Greece, discusses her childhood in Salonika and Athens, Greece; her experience of the Italian and German invasions of Athens; living in hiding for two years with a Christian family; the scarcity of food and the fear of discovery; her reunion with her family after the liberation of Athens; her family's attempt to reclaim their home from German collaborators; her life after the war; and her immigration to the United States in 1951.

    Oral history interview with Edith Newman

    Oral history interview with Edith Newman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Agnes Allison

    Oral history interview with Agnes Allison

    Oral History

    Agnes Allison (née Agnes Suzannah Halàsz), born on October 28, 1926 in Budapest, Hungary, discusses her childhood; her younger sister, Judy; her mother, Ilona Gero and her father, Robert Halász; attending a private German school established for the children of diplomats; the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, and the arrival of Polish refugees; the Hitler Youth movement at her school; her family’s conversion to Catholicism in 1939 and her awareness of the anti-Jewish laws in Hungary; the German occupation of Hungary beginning in March 1944 and the increased restrictions imposed on the Jewish community; her family being forced out of their home; working for the Germans for a short time in exchange for protection; becoming friendly with a German officer's chauffeur, Fritz, who told her that the German soldiers kept watch at night to protect everyone in the apartment from the Hungarian Nazis, the Arrow Cross; going into hiding in December 1944 with the help of a priest, Father Reile; remaining in hiding until the liberation of Budapest in April 1945; learning the fates of family members; and her belief that the Arrow Cross was responsible for the deaths of Budapest Jews.

    Oral history interview with Ann Gabor Arancio

    Oral history interview with Ann Gabor Arancio

    Oral History

    Ann Gabor Arancio, born on September 2, 1926 in Gyula, Hungary, discusses her childhood in Gyula; her childhood experiences with antisemitism; her experiences passing as a Christian with false identity papers; being captured in November 1944 by Nazi troops; doing forced labor in a brick factory; her escape with her mother and sister; going into hiding in several locations; the liberation of Hungary; studying in Holland; immigrating to the United States with her husband in 1950; and her divorce, remarriage, and family life in the United States. [Ms. Arancio was featured in the book, A Time to Flee: Unseen Women of Courage.]

    Oral history interview with Valerie Balint

    Oral history interview with Valerie Balint

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Yanina Cywinska

    Oral history interview with Yanina Cywinska

    Oral History

    Yanina Cywinska, born on October 28, 1929, describes growing up with her Ukrainian family, including her parents, Wladyslaw and Ludwika, and her older brother, Theodor; traveling a lot as a child; living mostly in and around Warsaw, Poland; attending ballet classes; being raised Catholic; her father’s Jewish friends; being taught by her parents to not look down on Jews or ever make an antisemitic comment; her father, who was a doctor and was asked by the Nazis, once they had invaded Poland, to perform some medical experiments on Jewish twins; his refusal to conduct the experiments and his subsequent imprisonment in jail for a short period; the Warsaw Ghetto, which was constructed in 1939; her father’s realization that he had a moral obligation to help the Jews and his failed attempts to get the local priest to help; her family’s participation in the underground movement; making several trips a day through tunnels and sewer lines into and out of the ghetto; carrying ammunition, jewelry, furs, medicine, and poison for the black market; witnessing executions and other violence; the various tunnels that they used to get in and out of the ghetto; being arrested and sent to a detention center; being taken out in the middle of the night with other people into the forest, where they dug ditches and then were lined up and shot; surviving the massacre because she was behind another woman, and she fell into the pit and pretended to be dead; climbing out of the pit and hiding in a haystack, where a farmer found her; reuniting with her parents at the detention center; her aunt, Stasha, paying the Gestapo to get Yanina and her brother out of the detention center; returning to her aunt’s house; being beaten and abused by her aunt for being a “Jew-lover”; her brother, who ran away; working as a servant for her aunt; ending up homeless and wandering around the streets of Warsaw for a while; staying for a few weeks with a couple she met at the detention center; reuniting with her parents at the detention center; being sent with the other prisoners to Auschwitz in cattle cars; the journey; arriving at Auschwitz; surviving a gas chamber after being revived by another inmate; being given a uniform; the shaving of her hair; being tattooed with a number; working in various places, including a factory, a kitchen, in the labs, and at the crematorium (note that it is generally thought that only men worked in the Sonderkommando doing the jobs that Yanina said she did); her methods for survival; being forced on a death march to Dachau; being liberated by American soldiers; staying in a displaced persons camp for a while, where she was sexually assaulted and impregnated by a soldier; her two abusive marriages after the war; meeting her third husband; the effects of the war on her emotionally; giving up on God; and her long recovery from her traumatic experiences.

    Oral history interview with Yanina Cywinska

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Ilse Lewy

    Oral history interview with Ilse Lewy

    Oral History

    Ilse Lewy, born on February 26, 1920 in Wuppertal, Germany, discusses her childhood in Wuppertal (now part of Elberfeld); her memories of the increase in antisemitism after Hitler rose to power 1933; being forced to leave school and move with her family; working at a factory until 1936; her move to a children's school in Sweden that prepared students for immigration to Palestine; her travels there by train and her experiences in the school for the next two years; being summoned back to Germany to immigrate with her parents and sister to the United States; the voyage on a ship through the Panama Canal; arriving in San Francisco, CA; returning to school; her attempts at and final success in being admitted to nurse training; her experiences with antisemitism in the United States; volunteering for the United States Army; being stationed in the Philippines where she met her future husband; and their marriage and family life.

    Oral history interview with Esther Kemeny

    Oral history interview with Esther Kemeny

    Oral History

    Esther Kemeny, born on August 19, 1912 in Michalovce, Slovakia, discusses her childhood in Michalovce; attending law school and graduating 1936; incidents of antisemitism; her disbarment in 1939 because she was Jewish; meeting her husband and their marriage; the escape of her brothers and father to the United States in 1940; being deported with her husband to Auschwitz in 1944; the deplorable conditions at Auschwitz; the birth and tragic loss of her son in Auschwitz; her work in the hospital at Auschwitz; the death march she endured; her experiences at Ravensbrück concentration camp; being liberated by Russian soldiers; the assistance she received from the Red Cross; her return to Slovakia and her reunion with her husband who was in the hospital in Bratislava; their immigration to the United States in 1949; their move to New York and then Ohio; her husband's medical practices; and the birth of her daughter in 1952.

    Oral history interview with Ray Redel

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Roma Barnes

    Oral history interview with Roma Barnes

    Oral History

    Roma Barnes (née Rosenmann), born on March 15, 1930 in Demblin (Deblin), Poland, describes being subjected to a lot of antisemitism in school when she was growing up; the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939; the roundup of Jews; fleeing the roundups several times; her parents, who were caught in the first roundup and sent to Sobibor, where they were killed immediately upon arrival; returning to her town, where she met up with her uncle and stayed with him; her uncle’s preparation of fake passports for all of them to go to Switzerland; watching as her uncle was captured by the Nazis and shot; being caught and sent to a work camp, where she witnessed such atrocities as watching the hanging of her friend; being sent to Chesokova, where she was liberated; and staying in Egland after the war before going to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Margot Braun

    Oral history interview with Margot Braun

    Oral History

    Margot Braun (née Feibush), born January 28, 1923 in Berlin, Germany, describes growing up in a suburb of Berlin, where there were very few Jews; being forced to go to a Jewish school in Berlin when Hitler came to power in 1933; her family’s experience of a "pre-Kristallnacht" in June of 1938, at which time she and her family were awakened and forced to leave their businesses and move in with their relatives; her father’s many siblings, including his brother who was an extremely wealthy businessman in San Francisco, CA; leaving with her family for England in March 1939; the arrest of her parents at the beginning of the war; living with her cousin in a foster home in England; her parents’ eventual release; and her family’s immigration in October 1948 to the United States.

    Oral history interview with Ted Ellington

    Oral history interview with Ted Ellington

    Oral History

    Theodore “Ted” Ellington, born in February 1928 in Vienna, Austria, describes being an only child; growing up around antisemitism and being defensive of his Jewish identity; the religious nature of Vienna schools and having to attend Christian educational activities; being also required to go to Jewish education sessions; how there were about eight Jewish students in his elementary school class of 35 children; his father, who made a living selling foodstuffs for livestock; the economic inequality in Vienna and his family’s practice to provide lunch for an unemployed family once a week; the violence that erupted in Vienna in 1934; the Anschluss in 1938; seeing tanks in the streets and army planes flying overhead daily; the Nazi flags and swastikas all over Vienna and the pro-Nazi sentiment of many Austrians; the Nuremberg laws; being forced to attend an all-Jewish school, where Nazi children would gather outside and taunt the Jewish students; the burning of synagogues and the destruction of his grandfather's store; his memories of Nazis entering their family home and beating his father after he asked the officers for paperwork stating that they were allowed to conduct the search; how the officers took virtually everything the family owned, including his cherished stamp collection; his parents’ desire to relocate to the United States; his parents’ decision to enroll Ted in a program that was run by the Quakers that took children from Austria and placed them temporarily with a family in England; going to Belgium in April 1939 to live with his uncle; going to England in May 1939 and staying with a family there until 1946; being treated well by the English family; attending school in London; his parents’ migration to San Francisco, CA in 1940; traveling to New York, NY in 1946 and a train to San Francisco, where he reunited with his parents in May 1946; attending San Francisco City College for one year and then UC Berkeley; earning his degree in accounting in 1950; joining the US Army for two years and then becoming a CPA; getting married in 1965; and his two daughters.

    Oral history interview with Anna Hollander

    Oral history interview with Anna Hollander

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Theo Joseph

    Oral history interview with Theo Joseph

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Katz

    Oral history interview with Elisabeth Katz

    Oral History

    Elisabeth Katz (née Rosenthal), born on April 23, 1920 in Fürth, Germany, discusses her childhood in an assimilated Jewish family; her mother's conversion to Judaism and reversion to Lutheranism; the ambivalent position that she felt placed in because of this difference; having to change schools once Hitler rose to power in 1933; attending a Jewish boarding school; entering nursing school in Frankfurt in 1938; her memories of the events surrounding Kristallnacht in November 1938, including the arrest of her father; immigrating to London in late 1938 to work in a hospital; being interned as an enemy alien; returning to London and working as a nurse during the Blitz; visiting her parents in 1947 in Germany, where they had remained throughout the war; her father being one of the three Jews in Furth who survived the Holocaust; immigrating to the United States in 1949; moving to San Francisco, CA; and marrying a fellow refugee.

    Oral history interview with Jim Sanders

    Oral history interview with Jim Sanders

    Oral History

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