- Mr. Wulc, when and where you were born?
- I was born in a little town called Lask--
- L-A-S-K. There I was born up to-- and I was there in that
- little town up to until I was about 16 years old.
- Then we went from that little town, we went to the big city.
- I went to the big city to work, because I
- wanted to get more knowledge, and more work, you
- know what I mean?
- So I worked in the city of Lódz.
- And then, when I worked there--
- Excuse me, first tell us about Lask, your parents.
- My parents-- Lask?
- Name.
- In the little town of Lask where I was born,
- there was my father and my mother.
- I have my grandfather.
- He had seven sons, one daughter.
- My mother was the only daughter who she was in the family.
- And we were a group, like a family, together.
- We made a shul together, and we lived together.
- My father was also a tailor.
- My grandfather was-- he was a businessman, which
- he sold grains.
- He went to the villages to buy grain for the people
- to bring into the town.
- And sometime a little sheep, and sometime a little calf.
- And From.
- That he made a living.
- And my father, as a tailor, he was a very religious man.
- He was more to God than to make a living, you know what I mean?
- So we were very poor people, very poor people
- in the old country, in that little town.
- What I said, there's no future for me in that little town.
- So I went away to be in the city to work, which I made my money.
- And I come home for every Saturday.
- I come home to parents in the little town.
- And this was up till 1932.
- 1932, I say it's a little bit too hard
- for me to travel every week.
- So I-- we rent an apartment.
- And I brought my parents to the city of Lódz.
- And I worked there.
- My father worked there.
- And we made a little living, you know, to live.
- And later on, I met my wife.
- We went to a place.
- It was a place that we dance three four times a day--
- a week.
- A group, girl to boys.
- And we danced there.
- And I met my wife.
- And I went with my wife already about four years.
- And we figured out that we were going to get married.
- I worked, she worked.
- And we started to save the money to get together for the future,
- for the life when you want to get married.
- Finally, we worked and worked--
- What year?
- And this was up till 1939.
- This was the year that we was supposed to get married.
- And my wife has a brother.
- So he has a factory with--
- how do they say it?
- They made material.
- They maid materials for suits and for--
- Cloth.
- Cloth, yeah.
- And this was-- he had a big factory.
- So he said it, in tailoring its very hard to make a living.
- And so he said to me, I'm going to take you to my factory,
- and I'm going to teach you how to make--
- to learn the trade in that place, in the factory.
- And it was fine.
- And that's what I was supposed to go through.
- And we saved every penny.
- We worked.
- And I worked, my wife.
- And we saved up the money.
- It was wonderful during--
- then can you do it.
- But all of a sudden, in 1935, the war broke out.
- But when the war broke out, nobody knew what kind of a war
- this is.
- We didn't knew that the Germans are animals, not human beings.
- They didn't let nobody in on the street.
- They grabbed people.
- They grabbed people to go to work.
- They didn't want them to work, but they wanted just
- to kill the people.
- And I got beaten up all the time we went down to work.
- One day I saw something that I wouldn't
- believe this in my life, that you and me can do something
- like that.
- They made a grave.
- It was a little park that people were sitting around.
- It was like time or something, in the summertime, to cool off.
- And this was a place that they call
- it the old garden, the old place, you know what I mean?
- And they made a grave, a big grave.
- And they grabbed the rabbis with beards, long beards, payos,
- the tallis.
- And they asked to put on the tallis, the tefillin.
- And they put down those people, about two or three rabbis,
- in that grave, and they folded that grave up to the neck.
- Later on, there was two, three Germans standing there.
- They grabbed out the hair of the head.
- I saw it.
- I start crying.
- I wouldn't believe it.
- I wouldn't believe it this is going to happen.
- What do I have to tell you?
- We saw that it's a war.
- That's impossible.
- So we started running out of the place.
- Everybody said, run out of here.
- Run out to Warsaw.
- In Warsaw the Germans are not going to come.
- So we were starting to run it, me and my brother.
- But on the way there, half the way, almost, we ran there,
- and there was the fire on the houses.
- They bombed it-- they bombing--
- they bombed the houses in the little towns.
- And the houses were still coming together.
- We couldn't go through.
- So my brother says to me, [PERSONAL NAME],,
- we go back home.
- We go back home.
- I say, Heniek, where are we going to go?
- He said, never mind.
- We're going to go home.
- I got home, and we were going.
- My feets were swollen, bruises from that running,
- you know what I mean?
- Running and falling and running and falling.
- Well, the bomb, the bombs was falling down.
- Finally, we got back to the city of--
- to the house, to our homes.
- And later on, they made us a selection.
- The older people, they took away from the town of Lódz.
- And you're going to the little town.
- They thought that the little town is going to be better.
- So my parents were one that they--
- and my wife's, their parents were there.
- All of a sudden, they took out all the people from that place.
- Came.
- They put-- send it be another place.
- So the Germans come to me.
- They say-- they saw that I'm young.
- They ask me, how old are you?
- I said 20 years.
- What are you from beruf, from trade?
- I said, a tailor.
- A tailor.
- So they turn me on the other side.
- And my parents, with their sisters,
- with the little sisters, with the little brother,
- they took away from me, and I was alone.
- And my wife was there too.
- So they went home to town, to Lódz.
- And while they were town back, I had to get somebody
- to take me home, which he knows the road to go back,
- because it was very dangerous.
- They was killing people.
- Everywhere they'd come, they killed right away.
- Then start, we get back home to the town.
- My wife was already home.
- And I got to the house.
- But I was-- I learned later on I lived myself.
- I lived for myself-- no parents, no nobody, nobody but myself.
- So my grandfather-- my wife's father, he was a religious man.
- And in the old country, it was never
- allowed to be a boy the same house that a girl that I will
- married.
- I have to get married.
- There was another danger.
- We are not allowed to get married.
- If the Germans find out a place they got it--
- if you get married, they shot everybody, killed everybody.
- Momentarily.
- They killed everybody.
- Finally, the wife has a-- my wife's father was--
- my father-in-law had a cousin, a rabbi, very religious man
- with a long beard.
- So that man married me and my wife.
- The windows was closed, the blankets.
- The doors, it was closed up.
- And there was no other to be allowed light.
- So only on candle, we got married.
- You can imagine.
- It was a dark marriage.
- That's why I say today, my marriage that I was--
- [INAUDIBLE] it was dark.
- Thanks God we got through with it.
- We didn't get killed.
- Later on, my parents, my father died,
- and the mother-in-law they took away to the crematoriums.
- They took my wife too on the same wagon.
- I remember, they took her to the same wagon.
- But she got down from the wagon.
- And she got back.
- And I worked in a shop which I was a mechanic.
- And I was a more, the more respected.
- People didn't know the knowledge,
- you know what I mean, at work?
- So I got left in the shop.
- And she took me away.
- And I protect my wife through the director of the shop.
- But this was-- how long we worked in that shop?
- Maybe about six or seven months.
- And finally--
- This was for the Germans already?
- Correct, for the Germans.
- We worked only for the Germans.
- No private.
- And they did not collect all of the people from the town?
- No.
- Whoever was able to work, they left in the town.
- The elderly people, there was no such a thing.
- Everybody got killed.
- They took them away.
- They put them away to Auschwitz, Treblinka.
- We didn't know what happened to the people.
- Because the propaganda of them was so big.
- They said everybody who goes away goes to work.
- They have a good life.
- They live, they work, they eat.
- But this was not true.
- This was not true, but we didn't know it.
- Finally, so it happened that you worked--
- you saw that they started to close-- it was coming
- to the end in 1945, it was.
- 1944, by the end of 1944 until 1945.
- In 1945 they start closing the shops.
- In 1944 they closed the shops, and they took all the people
- away to Auschwitz.
- All the working people?
- All the working people they took.
- And until '45, you were working on--
- I was working till in '35 this was the ghetto.
- The ghetto in--
- In 1944 we worked in that shop.
- In 1944, this was the ghetto.
- There's only young people.
- No elderly people were there.
- This was the Lódz, the Lódz Ghetto.
- Yeah, Lódz.
- Yeah Lódzer Ghetto.
- There's only a few elderly people,
- which is they're needing, you know
- what I mean, like directors, or mechanics, engineers,
- that they need him for the work that they have to do.
- But otherwise, you will see a child.
- You didn't see a human being, an elderly man, an elderly woman.
- Like a bubbe or a zayde, you didn't see something like that.
- That one, I have to go back for a moment to tell you a story
- what I saw--
- [INAUDIBLE] I saw.
- But we saw what those Germans did.
- In the same factory that I worked,
- this was a hospital, a big hospital in Lódz.
- This was the biggest hospital in that place, that it was--
- they called it the [NON-ENGLISH] hospital.
- So I will take-- later on, after that hospital,
- they made a shop.
- But before they made a shop, there was a hospital.
- They took to get in all the child, babies.
- They grabbed away the babies from the mothers.
- They called one day.
- They took several.
- Every mother and every father has to come out on that street
- and bring with the children.
- They took the children away from the parents.
- And what do I have to tell you?
- This hollering was so high that I don't
- know how God didn't hear it.
- I can't even imagine taking away children from a mother.
- I had a cousin, and she had three boys.
- They were so beautiful, like the sun in the sky.
- And they took away those three son what had.
- One was two years to six years, something like that.
- You know what I mean?
- And they took all the children up in that hospital.
- This was on the fourth floor.
- Taking on the bottom, like in the ground,
- there was something with trucks.
- They took those children, and ripped them apart,
- ripped them apart, and threw them on the truck.
- What do I have to tell you?
- The hollering of the people was so unbelievable.
- Unbelievable.
- The parents saw this?
- The parents saw that.
- But if a mother wanted to run to the child,
- they hit her with a stick, or with a gun,
- and killed her right away.
- Nobody was allowed to go out to the trucks.
- And they stay special space made it
- that the parents would see-- the parents should
- see what happened to the child.
- But what can you do?
- Finally we saw what's going on, that we
- don't have to do [INAUDIBLE].
- People was with animals.
- Nobody would have believed that human beings could
- do something like that, that human beings are
- ready to do it, especially the German people, which
- was saying before the war.
- They are knowledgeable people.
- They are educated.
- They're highly, highly educated, highly professionals,
- highly poets, musicians.
- Everybody think of Southern Germany.
- Who in the world would believe that those
- soldiers, that those people are going to be animals like that?
- Nobody would have believed it.
- But they closed the shop.
- So we send away everybody to Auschwitz.
- Everybody.
- There was not one day.
- But in a certain time, till every shop
- was closed, till it comes to my shop.
- This was the biggest shop.
- When they closed that shop, we saw that this
- is the end of the town.
- And we didn't know what it is.
- And they said, you have to come in that place.
- And they send us away to Auschwitz.
- So it was the end of it.
- Could you tell me how you were transported to Auschwitz?
- Yes, I'll tell you.
- I'll tell you that.
- It was a man which they call him the oldest-- the man
- who was like the president of the town.
- He had everything in his hands.
- He did everything that he wanted.
- The Germans made him to do it.
- He lived a wonderful life.
- They gave him a home.
- They gave him a--
- there a time there was no cars, but a coach with two horses.
- He was going around in the city.
- He told everybody what to do.
- By the end of it, it was in July,
- I think, in 1944, in July of 1944,
- August the 1st of something.
- I don't remember exactly.
- This was the end of the ghetto.
- They start to make an end of the ghetto.
- And they left maybe about 2,000 people, or 2,000 or 1,800
- people in the ghetto which was supposed
- to clean up that ghetto.
- But the people who worked in the shop,
- they get them to gather in a place.
- And every day they took out 300 or 400 people.
- Where did they gather them?
- They gathered to the center from--
- like for instance, in that hospital, a nurse place,
- a school, which they have big rooms, you know what I mean?
- Big places that everybody get together.
- Everybody fit in together.
- I was with my wife to get in.
- And my wife had a brother.
- The children's alive with a baby.
- And we went, from that time, they took us
- on trucks, 50, 60 people.
- And whoever went, was able to go on the truck,
- and they transferred away to-- they take us away to a train.
- We didn't know where we're going.
- We didn't know what's going on.
- Absolutely nothing.
- How long were you in the train?
- See, they, from that time, from Lódz to Auschwitz,
- it takes maybe about four or five hours
- in a train on a regular basis.
- They took us around two days, especially that we shouldn't
- know where we're going.
- Two days, in one night, we got in four night.
- Before it got dark, we got out.
- We come to Auschwitz.
- And when we come to Auschwitz, what do I have to tell you?
- What we saw, it was unbelievable.
- People got beaten to death.
- And the younger people, they took away.
- This is on one side, the other side,
- when we come to that place where you hear about Mengele.
- [NON-ENGLISH] Mengele.
- He was that guy who everybody got through his selection.
- I was there.
- My brother's brother was there.
- I didn't know.
- They took away we from the woman separate, men separate.
- And I didn't know where my wife is,
- and my wife didn't know where I am.
- And we didn't know nothing about it.
- Finally, when we come to Auschwitz,
- and we go in that selection by that Mengele,
- my wife has a brother.
- This is when he was a tall guy, over 6 feet.
- Beautiful dressed.
- But that child, what he took with, was blind.
- He was blind, not that he was born blind.
- He was born a beautiful boy.
- He was four years old, or four years old,
- and he got blind, completely, because not--
- he didn't get the food to give him, get him nourished,
- to live.
- So he got blind.
- It was miserable.
- And my husband-- my wife-- excuse me.
- My wife and my brother-in-law had a child.
- My brother-in-law had a child before.
- Then he gave it to my wife.
- And we were standing together in the line.
- I saw that people that they knows us from before it,
- they know what's going on.
- And they start hollering, young womans,
- give away the babies to older womans,
- because if you are not going to give away the baby,
- you're going to go to the crematorium
- just like the others.
- And I stood in the line with my brother, and I hear that.
- When I hear that, I run out of that line.
- And I-- and there was a man who said to give away
- the babies in order to live.
- So I run out to my wife.
- And I grabbed that baby.
- She says, Alter, what are you doing?
- She says to me, what are you doing?
- I said, never mind.
- Give me the baby.
- So I took that baby, and I run to an elderly woman.
- And I give that woman that baby.
- I said, Busia, please, take that child,
- because that's what they say, to give the babies
- to the elderly woman.
- So she took the child.
- On the way back, run to that line, I got from--
- I don't know if it was a German or it was a kapo.
- He gave me with a stick over my head.
- The blood start running.
- Unbelievable.
- I took my hand in my head, and I had a full hand of blood.
- But at that time, it's such a situation
- that I didn't feel that he hits me.
- And I run back to them with my brother-in-law, the line.
- He let me in the line there.
- And we come before that Mengele.
- So he looked at everybody.
- He asked the names, and questions, questions and names,
- trades and everything.
- And I was behind him, to brother-in-law.
- My brother-in-law was so tall, and I was a little boy.
- They come to that brother-in-law of mine.
- They ask, yes, man, I am asking you, how old are you?
- He didn't answer it.
- [NON-ENGLISH] He didn't answer.
- He asked him [INAUDIBLE] that men got so scared,
- he got so hysterical, that he lost his voice.
- I see that he said with his finger.
- He point his finger to him, go to the left.
- And I was behind him.
- And that was my line.
- I'm next.
- I come to him.
- He asked me, [GERMAN].
- How old are you?
- I said, 20 years.
- [GERMAN]
- What are my trade?
- Said a tailor.
- A tailor.
- [GERMAN]
- because you didn't know tell in German.
- So I said a Schneidermeister.
- This means a tailor.
- And he looks at me and says, you go on the right side.
- So I start hollering to the brother-in-law.
- And they beat me again, I shouldn't holler.
- Just mind your own business, like they say.
- And my brother-in-law going to the other side, to crematorium.
- And I went on the other side with the rest of it to work.
- I was there with a friend, two brothers,
- which we lived in our house.
- And it was such an hysterical moment.
- Two brothers, which we lived together,
- they were both tailors.
- The older brother was a wonderful mechanic,
- a wonderful tailor.
- And he got so hysterical himself.
- And [INAUDIBLE],, he becomes ill, they die real.
- And he was screaming, and crying, and hollering.
- So I went to him, and his brother went to him, and says,
- Chamel, come on.
- Come on.
- Come together.
- Nothing happened.
- He died right away at the place.
- He died right away, a young man, 25- or 26-year-old.
- Beautiful guy.
- And that's what's happened.
- Later on, I said to his brother, I said, come on.
- Let's go.
- What can you do?
- [INAUDIBLE] I told him, you see what's going on here.
- Everybody goes dying.
- So we went out.
- And so they took us to a place, a long hall, big hall.
- And they tell us to take off all the clothes.
- All the clothes what you see to stand there just naked.
- That clothes, they took away because they
- knew that everybody's got hiding something,
- like watches and diamonds.
- And I had a watch from my father-in-law, and an Elgin.
- It was worth a lot of money for at that time.
- They took it away, because they had all the clothes.
- And they gave all the clothes.
- The people took the special clothes.
- They gave me a jacket with the sleeves was up to the floor.
- The pants were so big.
- I said-- they told me right away, don't say one word.
- If you're going to say one word, you'll get killed right away.
- So I'd say I rolled up the sleeve, and I went there.
- And we went there.
- We were there in that barrack.
- This was called your barrack.
- This was called a [INAUDIBLE].
- They called it in Germany a barrack.
- And we got together that day, what do I have to tell you?
- My dear, [NON-ENGLISH],, that hollering was so big that we
- didn't know what's going on.
- We didn't know what's going on.
- If somebody did something wrong, the kapos,
- they beat them to death.
- They had sticks like that thick.
- So I was laying down on a pritsche.
- And I said we're going to hell, what's going to be,
- it's going to be, and so on.
- But we're OK.
- Finally, when this was over, they put--
- took us in another place.
- They took us in another place.
- And there was places that--
- 50 men in one place.
- Put 50 men in one barrack.
- And we were there in that barrack in Auschwitz.
- What I saw what's going on in Auschwitz,
- I said, I'm not going to be here.
- Rater die than to be here.
- Finally, in that same barrack was a friend of mine--
- a friend of mine.
- And he, his sister, his sister married my cousin, my cousin
- from the little town of Lask.
- Can you give us the name?
- Yeah, the name was Avrum Lieb.
- So that friend of mine, he says to me--
- he was a day or two before in Auschwitz.
- That cousin of mine accidentally,
- they went to the gas chamber.
- By the end of it, the gas chamber was full,
- and there were two or three boys which they couldn't go in.
- They let them live.
- They took them away right away.
- That cousin was lucky.
- And they took him to a place which
- they were to close for the workers, for the workers,
- like a laundry.
- In the meantime, he had a lot of food.
- We had a lot of food to eat.
- So that friend of mine, he--
- Did he sell the clothes, or--
- No, no, no, not to sell.
- Sell it for food.
- Give it out from the workers, for the bigger [? rank. ?]
- You know what I mean?
- How did he manage to get food?
- That's what I said.
- You see, there was one--
- they had all protection one for another.
- The guys which work here, they give them jobs in here.
- And they, the guys who were work,
- they give him something there.
- So he had to connection with the food.
- So that friend of mine who told me, Alter,
- you go tomorrow to Avrum Haram.
- That's his name-- Avrum Haram.
- And he had already a package for you.
- Don't worry, you're not going to be hungry.
- All right.
- I wait till the morning.
- After the Appell, they count.
- It was cold.
- And I started-- and he told me where to go.
- We were not allowed to go on the side,
- but you had to go in middle of the road.
- So I went to the middle of the road, to that cousin,
- that I should get something to eat.
- This was more than anything in the room.
- And I didn't know from behind me comes
- the German, that whole Kommando of Auschwitz.
- And he went behind me.
- And I didn't know.
- I didn't-- we was not allowed to look, nothing.
- Let's go.
- I went like that.
- And he comes behind me.
- And he took the stick, and he went in.
- And he gave me one, and two, and three over my head.
- My head was open.
- It was bleeding unbelievable.
- I fell down on the floor.
- And he went straight.
- He didn't care.
- If I'm dead or alive, he didn't care.
- Finally, there was two Hungarian men.
- And they saw what happened.
- And they grabbed me.
- They put me up on the floor.
- And they were so afraid also that they were running back
- to the barrack that I was.
- I come to the barrack.
- And they saw that I was bleeding.
- So they took a piece of cloth from the-- from what
- they had on them, and they put it on my head.
- And they stopped the bleed.
- And I didn't go out.
- I didn't get nothing to eat.
- While I set myself, I don't wanting nothing else.
- I don't wanting nothing.
- I'm going out of here.
- But you couldn't go out of Auschwitz.
- You see, they didn't send you.
- And so I said, I don't care.
- I'm going to go without food.
- I just want to go out of here.
- So the second day, I went to the line that they want to put--
- send away people to work.
- In concentration camp, they like to send it away people to work.
- Was this during Appell they--
- Yeah.
- Can you tell us a little bit how the Appell--
- After the Appell, they let them loose.
- They let you loose.
- So you can do yourself what which you want.
- Tell us how they did that during the Appell.
- So you see, after, and we still in the Appell.
- We got out at 5 o'clock in the morning.
- And we stood.
- And they count, or everybody is out, or everybody--
- they didn't missing nobody, that nobody run away.
- So when they saw that everything is in order,
- they said, dismissed.
- So we were running around.
- And I said to myself, I'm not going to stay here.
- Yeah, one thing I forgotten was, see, some things are miracles.
- That war, everything is a miracle.
- Everything that's happened was a miracle.
- I was in that same barrack.
- A day, before it comes to me that the whole--
- the kapo that-- from that barrack, he says to me,
- who is a tailor?
- And I was laying there.
- And I said, I'm a tailor.
- He says, all right.
- You're going to make me a vest.
- I bring you a coat, a blanket, and you're
- going to make me a vest.
- And you're going to get two suits, two wheels.
- Instead of one, you get two.
- And this was a big thing.
- So I didn't know.
- I said, all right, I'll give you some [INAUDIBLE] when
- you give me a needle and thread, and I do it.
- And a scissor.
- And I said, all right.
- Said, all right, you get it.
- In the meantime, another guy was laying beside me,
- and he hear that.
- He run to that kapo, and he said,
- I'm a better tailor than he.
- Don't give it to him.
- He's not a good tailor.
- So he didn't know, so he gave to him to that blanket
- to make him a vest.
- But that blanket was big.
- So he made one for him and one for himself.
- Listen to the story.
- He made a blanket for himself, the vest for himself.
- In the morning they knew that the people
- got the blankets on them got so cold.
- And they said, everybody not allowed
- to go out from the blanket from the barrack.
- You're not allowed to go to the blanket.
- But they didn't believe it.
- So they said to take off the clothes
- and show them that you haven't got a blanket.
- And while that man took off that blanket,
- they saw that he has a vest underneath.
- And he will come 25 strikes.
- By now, what would I tell you.
- I said to my God, I said to God, I don't know what the heck--
- what do--
- it was a miracle for me.
- If I'd had do it, maybe I'm doing the same thing.
- Maybe I would have made a vest of myself,
- and I would have put it out, and I would
- have get it from the 25 too.
- That man was laying three days.
- The touch, the swollen, you're swollen,
- his legs and his behind and everything.
- I don't know what happened to that man, but I run out.
- I said to myself, that's it.
- This is it for me.
- I'm not going to stay here.
- No matter what, I'm not going to stay here.
- So they took people away, about 1,000 people.
- It was a train staying.
- And they put him on the [INAUDIBLE],, the people.
- And there was a line.
- And they count the people.
- Wherever I saw that somebody comes together, I went behind,
- I went behind, I went behind.
- By the end of it, I go on the other side,
- and I come to the door to the train.
- But the people, the people which they send away,
- they gave each body a bread.
- And it was salami, because it was taking two or three
- days to go there.
- A bread and a salami, and a little [NON-ENGLISH] that they
- had, a little with them a little--
- Container.
- That's it, yes.
- So I didn't get it.
- I said, I don't care.
- I am going-- I don't want a bread,
- and I don't want a salami.
- I want to go away from me.
- And I was on the train.
- On that train, again, we come to a concentration camp.
- They call it a camp.
- How were the conditions on the train?
- Don't ask.
- The condition in the train was terrible.
- First of all, you didn't go where to make--
- you didn't go where to--
- to do nothing.
- So everything was in the train.
- It was unbelievable.
- Two nights and two days.
- It was impossible to live there.
- But the will, that the power of the human being
- was so big, so strong.
- There were young people, young, 19, 20, 19, 20, 21,
- 22 years people, they will take everything.
- Finally, we come to that place.
- They called that place Lager IV.
- This was a place that they brought everybody
- from Auschwitz, and from that Lager IV they send away people
- to work, like on a farm, a factory,
- or in a place that they make cement or something like that.
- You know what I mean?
- All that the-- needed people that work.
- In that place, they called it Lager IV.
- We were there--
- I was there maybe about five or six days, maybe,
- I think about five or six days, maybe a week.
- And we didn't have nothing to do.
- You know what they did?
- They gave us the push carts, like a farmer had,
- like you have to fertilize, like you fertilize the grass.
- That little wagon.
- In a little wagon, they had a bunch
- of stones laid in one way, like a cloud, high, tall stones.
- And we took a wagon of stones from this place
- to the other place.
- We threw it out.
- And we had to take again the stones
- and bring it to the same place.
- But we didn't have nothing to do,
- so they have to do something.
- And if somebody didn't do it--
- Did you get any food?
- Yes, we get food in the morning.
- We get food at-- in the night.
- Finally, we were there, and we're there.
- And they saw that I send away people.
- They called out-- every time they called out 150 people,
- they put them in a line, and they asked them their trade,
- you know what I mean?
- The German is all.
- And this was from another barrack.
- Two days later, they come to our barrack.
- There was 50 people, Poles, and 50 was Hungarian,
- and 50 was Lithuanians.
- There was 150 people.
- And they took out all the 150, and put us away.
- And they-- we stood in line.
- And they come to everybody else and ask them their trade.
- I told them the same thing.
- I'm a schneider.
- I'm a tailor.
- But after this, OK, they took 50 people from us
- and put it to the side, put us in the side.
- And we went to a place to work--
- 50 of us.
- There was 50 of us, just Polish people from the city,
- from the city of Lódz, always to the same town,
- you know what I mean?
- And maybe if they were from the smaller towns,
- but the all the city from the bigger town, Lódz.
- It was everybody was sent to Lódz.
- When we got to that camp, when we were there, it was not bad.
- We were 50 Polish people.
- And there were 150 litwiny, Lithuanian Jewish people.
- They were not so--
- they were not so worked out.
- They were not in such bad condition
- that we were because we were in a ghetto.
- They didn't have a ghetto.
- And they were strong.
- Finally, we were there a day.
- We got two meals right away.
- And we saw that this is heaven--
- according to Auschwitz.
- According to the other places, this is heaven.
- Tell us how your barracks and how much food got.
- That's what I'm about to say.
- So we were in that barrack.
- In that barrack, in each barrack there was 25 people--
- 25.
- And there were maybe about 10 or 15 barracks like that.
- it was 200.
- There was 150 people altogether.
- 50 was Polish.
- The next day, we went out to work.
- So we cut trees in the woods.
- We cut trees.
- And the trees were big.
- Those Lithuanian people, they grabbed two people
- from that-- took a tree.
- They run with the tree.
- But we Polish people, we was weak, like that.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- And we went to a tree, three or four people, five,
- we couldn't-- and we couldn't take the place from the air--
- from the ground.
- So they start beating us.
- They start beating us with whips, the sticks.
- Whatever they would have had.
- And those Lithuanian people saw that we didn't
- want to-- that we can take.
- But they want to make themselves heroes.
- So they said that the Polish [GERMAN]..
- And I said to him, litvak, I said to him,
- listen, when you're going to be here another six months,
- another two or three months, you're
- going to see what it was.
- That's what happened.
- They were-- they got so weak.
- What they were used to eat what they didn't.
- They get only a soup in the morning and a soup
- at night, with a little water.
- No coffee in the morning.
- It was only water.
- Nighttime they gave us black coffee.
- What did that coffee was made from?
- I don't know.
- I'm not-- I didn't know.
- So we worked in the place.
- And it was all right.
- This was already-- we were in that camp.
- We were there about six or seven months in that camp.
- There I had a story to tell you.
- You're not going to believe it.
- I worked.
- There was on a place in the woods,
- and they were digging dirt on the ground, and making holes.
- Everybody got another work to do.
- My luck was they sent me, only one Jew,
- to a place which they made blocks of cement.
- A block of cement was big.
- They made bunkers or something from the block.
- They were big.
- And there was one German.
- He was the leader of them all, all the leader of all of them.
- His name was [PERSONAL NAME].
- Was a very nice man.
- He gave me a broom.
- He says, you're going to sweep together.
- Because they made the cement of the cement machines.
- It fell out pieces.
- And by then there were pieces worth something.
- So I went with a pail and with the broom,
- and I grabbed together those cement,
- and I put them together in the pail,
- and I put them together with this other cement.
- All right.
- This was all right.
- So I was working there--
- I don't know, maybe a month or two--
- in that place.
- And those guys, they didn't know where
- I am, because I was the only Jew who worked with the Germans.
- And the German start feeling a little sorry for me.
- They saw that I was so weak and so skinny and so.
- So every morning, every morning they come to work,
- they brought me something.
- Somebody brought me a little skin from a bread,
- you know what what I mean?
- The skin of the bread.
- And somebody brought me the skin from the potatoes.
- And this was, for me, was absolutely--
- and another thing about.
- It was so funny that one German, a German,
- hide it in another corner, that one
- shouldn't know from the other.
- And they told me, Alex, [SPEAKING GERMAN]..
- I brought you something, but be careful.
- That's how they were.
- They were afraid.
- One of them were not were afraid to do something,
- to give a Jew to eat or something.
- All right.
- Then it turn away, weeks and weeks, month and month.
- All of a sudden, I stay with the broom, and I work, that hero,
- the guy who was over everybody, he was like a [NON-ENGLISH],,
- like the big man, like a foreman over everybody.
- And he comes to me and he says, Alex, [SPEAKING GERMAN]..
- What is your trade?
- I didn't know what he wanted from me.
- I said, I'm a tailor.
- Bist du a good tailor?
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]?
- Are you a good tailor?
- I say, yes, I'm tailor meister.
- I was a good tailor, really.
- Then he went away.
- He didn't tell me nothing.
- So it went to a week or two, a few days a week.
- One Monday morning, I come to work like everybody else.
- And I go to my place.
- He grabbed me by the hand.
- He said, Alex, come up.
- He goes, these two, they come with me.
- They come with me.
- I go with him.
- I start crying.
- I didn't know [INAUDIBLE] me.
- He's got two guns on the sides, you know what I mean?
- And he grabbed me.
- This was in the wood.
- And I was going--
- I will start crying.
- And I fell onto my knee.
- I said, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- I didn't do nothing wrong.
- What do you have to kill me for?
- Why?
- I didn't do anything wrong.
- I was crying.
- And he schlepped me, and grabbed me.
- He said, don't worry, he said, don't worry.
- I'm not going to kill you.
- I didn't know what it's going to be.
- Finally, we went out maybe about a mile or two.
- And I come to the place in the woods.
- There was such a tight woods.
- But one tree was with the other.
- That man built a little shed, like a shed.
- It was tall, the shed.
- All around is woods.
- With little holes-- holes.
- Not windows or nothing.
- Two holes.
- And he goes in with me in the shed.
- And I didn't know what it's going to be.
- Again, I start crying.
- I said, Alex, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- You got to do something for me.
- If your are a good tailor, I'm going to see.
- So I said, I'm going to bring you material,
- and you going to make me a pelt. You know, a pelt--
- at the top is the [? deal, ?] on the bottom--
- underneath was fur.
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- Underneath.
- I say, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- I give you everything, but don't worry.
- And that's what it was.
- He brought me a scissors with a needle, thread, everything.
- And I was sitting at that barrack.
- It was dark already, but no table, nothing.
- I had to cut.
- I took-- I went.
- I said to him, you got to bring me a measurement.
- I have to take a measurement.
- I took his measurement, and he gave me the material,
- and he bring me the fur.
- He bring everything.
- And I made him that coat.
- As a German, he grabbed me around he
- kissed me on the head.
- He said, I don't believe it, that I--
- you know, everything by hand.
- It took me maybe two weeks.
- But for me, it was like heaven.
- I didn't [INAUDIBLE]---- I didn't [INAUDIBLE] the place that we
- worked.
- It was snowing and raining.
- No matter, what you have to work.
- Couldn't go away from it.
- I was a little bored.
- I get to eat three times a day food.
- He brought me bread and food.
- One day, he brought me two bags of that little tomatoes.
- I brought this to the barrack, to the place.
- They're all [INAUDIBLE] where did you get it?
- [NON-ENGLISH] You'll get killed.
- Where did you get it?
- I said, don't worry.
- I gave everybody peas and everyone this.
- I didn't need the food already from that bag.
- I didn't need it, because I had plenty of food.
- And I worked there until the end.
- You know what was the end?
- There was an epidemic in some barracks, diphtheria.
- So they grabbed you.
- He grabbed you away right away, because they afraid.
- They were so afraid the Germans, that from that diphtheria,
- that it was--
- they start giving shots.
- And they took us away from that place.
- And I didn't go to-- he didn't go to work for two months.
- For two months he didn't work.
- We were all together in the barrack.
- He didn't took.
- We were allowed to go out.
- And we didn't go-- it was allowed to go one to the other,
- to get clothes, because they were afraid.
- They were scared to death.
- Finally, he start seeing it comes to an end.
- The German, they was talking.
- You're not going to be long here.
- The war is coming to an end.
- But we didn't believe it.
- We didn't do it what they say, you know what I mean.
- Finally, there was one day they took
- to get all the people in the barrack, all their workers.
- And we have to go.
- And we start marching.
- We start marching.
- We didn't know where we go.
- Finally, there was one guy that he was close with a German.
- He told him that we are going to the Tyrol Mountains.
- Tyrol Mountains are the worst mountains in Germany.
- The [INAUDIBLE] is 50, 60 below zero there.
- When we got there, we can only live an hour or two,
- and that's it.
- And that's what they were planning to us to get there.
- So God was good at the time.
- And we were standing.
- And way it was going to be.
- Finally, we start marching and we come to Dachau.
- And they come to Dachau.
- How can you-- remember how--
- And something else.
- You mentioned the--
- Shh.
- So you see, we went on a march.
- On that march, they maybe went out about 60,000 or 70,000
- of people from all the camps.
- They took together and we were marching.
- We were marching.
- So like I said before, they said that we are going to Tyrol
- back, to Tyrol Mountains.
- The whole world knows about those mountains.
- And we know what there goes on.
- We know that if we come there, that's the end of it, all over,
- all of us.
- Finally, we were working, walking
- a day, two days without resting, nothing.
- Just walking and walking and--
- What about food?
- They gave some food, but they gave nothing.
- Nothing.
- Almost nothing.
- I have a piece of bread for a day with water,
- that we had those little pots that we had.
- That was it.
- And we were walking.
- And there was thousands of people falling down and dying.
- How was the weather?
- The weather was no good.
- The weather was--
- I'll tell you something.
- The weather was-- this was in May.
- Not in May, but in April, April 28, 29, 30.
- 31 of April, they let us in in the woods.
- We were walking.
- And sometime a horse--
- they were horses and dogs which was ran under the table.
- And the horse, you should fall down, and he died.
- The people fell on that horse, and they grabbed him apart,
- the pieces, to eat.
- I saw that.
- I come into my mind that I'm liable to come,
- because there were so many thousands of people.
- And they took apart that horse to pieces.
- In a half an hour, there was nothing
- left there from the horse.
- Them Germans, they didn't care.
- Let them eat the horse again.
- Finally we come, this was 9th of April 1944, yeah, it was.
- It was working, to work.
- It was, yeah, April 1945.
- So at the end of the war.
- [INAUDIBLE] almost the end of the war.
- And they had-- it come night time.
- And they saw that's the end of it.
- They saw that the American airplanes
- and the English airplanes they bought,
- they put those bombs on their heads.
- So they were afraid.
- They were scared.
- Used to put us in in a wood.
- That's the Germans who were scared.
- The German.
- They put us in in a wood.
- There was a forest.
- The forest was so big and so tight.
- It was snowing unbelievable.
- That was the 1st of May, the 1st of May I went there.
- In the 1st of May, and we were into that woods,
- during the day.
- It was almost night.
- And people were hollering so bad.
- And they put the guns, the guns on the top,
- to put the gun that we should run faster through that wood,
- but they wanted to run away.
- So we didn't understand what the hollering is.
- What is the screaming?
- What is the crying?
- The woman from before from the camp went in the same forest.
- And the men get together with the womans.
- And they got so hysterical.
- They were screaming, but we didn't know what.
- We know one thing, that they are killing people
- before we go into the forest.
- Finally, it took us over an hour or two, it got quiet.
- It got completely quiet.
- So it was nighttime.
- It was dark.
- So we were tired from walking.
- So we fell down on the floor.
- And the snow was-- snow going.
- We were laying 10 minutes, we were covered with snow.
- So we didn't care nothing.
- I remember myself the friend.
- I was one with four men.
- And one friend.
- And we were so close, like two brothers.
- We were laying the same bridge in the concentration camp.
- We were laying on the same bed.
- And we were together, everything together.
- So we both fell, lay down.
- In the morning, it was about 6, 7 o'clock in the morning,
- we start getting light.
- But we were covered with snow.
- Finally, we get out of the snow, and we stood up.
- And they start hollering, we are free, we are free.
- Because the people from before are now in the woods.
- The American soldiers come with the trucks.
- And they was marching.
- There is no words to describe the moment, that moment,
- that when we got out of that woods.
- I was so, like I myself, I was thin like a finger.
- And I weighed for 45 pounds when I was liberated.
- This was May 2, 1945.
- That was the day that we were liberated.
- We run out.
- We run out from the woods.
- The American soldiers saw what's going on.
- They left the trucks, with the tanks, with the food,
- with everything.
- They start throwing chocolate with cigarettes and everything.
- But the soldiers couldn't stand it to see the people.
- Some of them fainted.
- Some soldiers fainted.
- They fell on the floor and fainted.
- They couldn't-- saw what's going on here.
- How are those people alive?
- Some people got sick.
- There's some people got sick.
- And there was Americans, doctors, between the army.
- And they took a place.
- They were like a barn, like a barn, you know what I mean?
- And they brought in straw that--
- they brought in straw from--
- bundles of straw, and they put it on the floor.
- And they put everybody on the floor, all the sick.
- And also they made me shots.
- They gave them pills.
- And I myself, it was painful through and through.
- I thought it I had their money or something.
- I didn't know nothing.
- So also a soldier coming to me.
- They saw that I'm hollering.
- I couldn't stand on my feet.
- They gave me a shot, and I was laying an hour sleeping.
- And I come up, it was all right.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- We were now to the trucks to get something to eat.
- What do I have to tell you?
- It was impossible to come to the truck.
- Everybody on the truck.
- I'm never going to forget.
- There was a box of butter.
- The box maybe was a feet long, two feet long.
- And about half a feet, a feet wide, full of butter.
- And those people, those men, those womans,
- they fell on with their heads, and with everything,
- on that butter.
- I didn't know what to do.
- The soldiers start hollering, get away, get away, from that.
- Get away.
- We don't do it.
- You're going to die.
- A lot of people died.
- A lot of people died.
- They ate so fast, because these American soldiers,
- they threw chocolate and threw cans with food.
- They threw-- whatever they had, they
- threw, give away everything.
- Finally, they got us together and everybody together.
- And they threw out the Germans from their houses.
- And they put into everybody in a house.
- In that time we saw that we are freed.
- But that was a freedom.
- We start running to find out if somebody is alive.
- They put us, later on, they put us in a camp.
- And they called the camp Feldafing.
- They were all together the people, womans and mens.
- But the womans got separate barracks, homes.
- And the men get separate homes.
- And we were living there.
- And we start running to the hospitals, to the camps,
- to find out somebody is alive.
- Finally, finally, one woman, her husband was in Bergen-Belsen.
- Her husband was with me together in the same camp
- in the same place.
- Had his wife come from Bergen-Belsen.
- She find out that her husband is alive in Feldafing.
- And she comes to the husband.
- What do I have to tell you?
- The happiness was so big that that man got to find out--
- got together with his wife.
- So I went to that woman, and I asked the woman,
- maybe you hear something of [NON-ENGLISH]..
- She says, wait a minute.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- And then she asked me, what's my name.
- I said, Alter, Alter Wulc.
- [INAUDIBLE] Your wife is alive.
- But she is not Bronia.
- She's Bronka.
- She called himself Bronka.
- Bronka Wulc, Bronka Krzepicka.
- My God, when I hear that, I collapsed on the floor.
- And I was in Feldafing, and she was in Bergen-Belsen.
- At that time there was no trains, no nothing.
- So we walked.
- I walked.
- We walked.
- We got a train with-- a train that we carried not human
- beings, but coal, to stones, and all that, that heavy--
- on the train.
- And we went on.
- And here they stood.
- Here I was knocked out.
- I couldn't go over there.
- So we run down.
- It took me 11 days.
- And me and the same friend and another friend, three of us.
- And we went from that place, from-- this
- was from Germany, in Bayern.
- And Bergen-Belsen was the south.
- This was a [INAUDIBLE].
- Like an entirely different state.
- Like the southern and the northern, you know what I mean?
- That was a separate thing, would take us any day 11 days.
- I come to the place.
- Finally, I come to the place.
- When I go to the bureau, check all the names and everything,
- I ask about her.
- They told me she's dead.
- She died in the hospital.
- What can I do?
- And we went out from that hospital,
- from that place, that bureau, me and the other friend.
- And all of a sudden, his wife run into him.
- And my wife and that woman were so close friends,
- like from childhood to school together, up to the war.
- They were so close.
- No, she's alive.
- I said, Andzia, where is Bronia.
- She says, Bronia lives.
- Don't worry.
- Don't worry, she's alive.
- But she's not here.
- Her friend of yours was here.
- And he saw what she had--
- how she looks and everything.
- He was here with a motorcycle.
- And he took it away with that motorcycle down
- to [NON-ENGLISH].
- How do I go to [NON-ENGLISH]?
- Yeah, before, they said that she--
- before, we saw their friends.
- Somebody told me that she went to Sweden.
- And I was ready to go on a truck.
- There was truck going from that camp to Sweden
- to get the wives and the woman together, men
- and woman together.
- But finally, when that Andzia] comes
- and told me that she's alive.
- She went to Bergen--
- to Gardelegen, the place they called Gardelegen.
- Nope.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- We have to go to Gardelegen. How do we go to Gardelegen?
- Oh my God, we had a girl going to Gardelegen.
- This was on the Russian--
- not this place.
- They were liberated from the American.
- Then the Russians took over.
- And when she was there, that Gardelegen. It was still
- American, you know what I mean?
- The American treated like kings.
- And I mean the Germans.
- They give us a few refugees left in that place,
- and they treat them like kings.
- So that friend of mine, he grabbed the other motorcycle
- to his place.
- And he said to me, Bronia, he said to her,
- Bronia, if your husband is going to be alive, you belong to him.
- If he is not going to be alive, you belong to me.
- And he gave her from A to Z. They took her into the place.
- They dressed her up.
- They gave her medicines and they gave her the whole thing,
- and she's come to be alive.
- Finally, they decided they're going to go to Poland.
- When I come to Gardelegen, I was happy that she's alive,
- I'm going to find then the lady.
- I come to that place in Gardelegen. I come there.
- She said, well, she went to Poland.
- Oh, what I have to tell you?
- We would have to go through a border, the Russian border,
- me in that friend.
- And we are going.
- And all of a sudden, bingo, the Russian soldiers with the guns.
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- Where are you going?
- With the guns like that.
- And we told them we are refugees.
- We told them we are looking to place here for finding out.
- But they didn't know nothing.
- They took us to the--
- like a police station it was, like a station.
- And they ask us question, what they saw that we say it too.
- So they took us and they let it go.
- And finally, we come to that Gardelegen,
- and I come to that Gardelegen. They told me
- she went to Poland.
- So I said to my friend, Avram, we have to go to Poland.
- What can we do?
- All right.
- This was going to Poland.
- So we had to go--
- to have to walk from that place to Berlin, to Berlin.
- From Berlin, they had trains went to Poland.
- How far would you say that was?
- How far from the--
- From Gardelegen to Berlin.
- From Gardelegen to Berlin was about two days walking.
- And we walked.
- There was no such a thing that you can do it.
- It was so strong, like--
- In that time already we ate already.
- We had food.
- It was no problem.
- And we come into a German house, they give away everything,
- that he should kill it, they was afraid.
- They were scared to death that they're going to kill him.
- So we start to come.
- We come to Berlin.
- And finally we got a train.
- But there was no place where to go.
- There was no place where to go on the train to sit,
- because it was full.
- Finally, me and my friend, we grabbed ourself the bench.
- We went on the roof on the train.
- About 15, 20 minutes the train goes.
- I had a little package of clothes, shirts and everything.
- But when I fell on that trip on the train,
- we were going through the night, and I fell asleep.
- Finally, how do we fell down on that troop, I don't know.
- And finally, we come to the-- went through with the train.
- We come to this place, Lódz.
- This was our town.
- I came down, and I went in to the bureau of Lódz.
- Also was a bureau that they know everybody.
- And I come to the bureau.
- And my wife was there with my brother.
- My brother, we were four brothers and three sisters--
- four brothers and four sisters.
- Can you give me the names of your brothers?
- See, my name--
- I was the oldest.
- I was the oldest, and my name was Henek--
- Alter.
- My sister's name was, she after me, was Mania.
- Then was one of them was middle, Mendel.
- And this fourth one was Freida.
- Freida, you know.
- The brothers, one was Henek, Yossel, and Avrum, me, four.
- Finally, when I come to the place,
- and she saw me, before I come to Lódz, when
- my wife come to Lódz, she didn't know that I'm alive.
- She doesn't know absolutely nothing.
- But my brother, which come back from Russia,
- he knew that I'm alive.
- He survived in Russia, not in a concentration camp.
- He survived in Poland.
- He survived-- no, he was not into a concentration camp.
- He went-- he run away to Russia.
- And when he-- on the way back from Russian,
- he was driving the truck, with truck driving.
- So that truck-- it's almost a miracle.
- That truck was bombed, with the shrapnels and that.
- So finally, that truck was falling apart completely,
- because they have two of those grenades.
- And the truck fall in that all.
- There was a general.
- There was a captain.
- They all got killed in one.
- And with my brother got alive.
- My brother got knocked up in eye.
- He was crippled on an eye.
- Finally, he come to Lódz, and he saw my wife.
- He says, where is Alter?
- Here's Alter?
- Where is Alter?
- She said, I don't know.
- I don't know.
- What do you mean you don't know?
- He's alive.
- No.
- She know that I'm alive.
- So took some time I'll get to Lódz.
- And I've got to get in, I saw her, and I saw my brother.
- And that how we got together, me and my wife and my brother.
- And we stuck even together.
- And I told him right away.
- I said, [NON-ENGLISH],, kids, we're not going to stay here.
- This is not a place for us.
- We have nothing to look for it.
- Finally, we went around.
- We were every cemetery.
- We couldn't find nothing.
- Yeah, I have to make another statement.
- When I was in Poland-- why I was in Poland--
- so I went to my little town with my brother to see who is alive,
- to see maybe somebody there.
- I have uncles and aunts, kids.
- They were maybe about 90.
- The town where you were born.
- Yeah, the town Lask.
- The town name was Lask.
- And we were-- got to that name of Lask.
- And we got together, all the people
- which were alive from the training camp.
- There were maybe about 25 or 30 people-- woman and men.
- And we didn't find nothing.
- No relatives.
- No relative, no nothing.
- Nobody.
- My family was maybe over 100 people,
- seven brothers, one sister.
- In every family there were 10, 12 and 13 kids.
- None of them alive.
- Was one cousin which was alive because he was in Paris.
- His name was Borek.
- There were two brothers in Paris.
- So they went to Auschwitz.
- One survived, and the other one died in Auschwitz.
- And he went back to--
- went back to his hill.
- To make the story short, we got together.
- And he says, we have to go on the cemetery
- to make a prayer for all the people that were alive.
- And while we were going to the cemetery, those Polish people,
- which they were all Jewish people, all Jewish houses,
- all Jewish property, all Jewish everything,
- they had the courage to go out of their places
- and to the Poles, and they say, [SPEAKING POLISH]..
- So many Jewish people still alive?
- There was only 30 or 40 of us together.
- And there was a little town where we
- were 2,000, the Jewish people.
- And they was hollering that they didn't believe that [POLISH]..
- They didn't believe that so many Jews are still alive.
- They already, those Poles, they were just like the Germans.
- Maybe better-- more than the Germans.
- The German people, when they come into the towns,
- they didn't know where a Jew lives.
- They didn't know who was a Jew.
- But there was Polish people that go with them.
- And they say to every house, he is a Jew, he's a Jew,
- he's a Jew.
- And they went in the houses, and they took everything out,
- and they grabbed and shoot and killed everybody to death.
- All those people [INAUDIBLE].
- So we saw what's going on.
- So we went away.
- The next day, we went out from that little town,
- and we went back to Lódz, me, and my brother, and my wife,
- and that friend what I said before.
- Avram was his name.
- We were close.
- He was with us up to the end.
- He went to Israel.
- Finally, we were in Poland, maybe a week, two weeks.
- And we said, we're going out of here.
- We were no-- nothing to look here, not to find here.
- So we went out from Lódz.
- And we went from Lódz to Germany.
- We had to go to the borders.
- They caught us in Austria.
- They put us in jail.
- You know what I mean?
- They put us in jail.
- But we were not afraid of them.
- We know that they're not going to do nothing to us.
- They only thought that we are spies, Russian spies
- or Polish spies.
- They kept us a day or two.
- This was Yom Kippur, before Yom Kippur,
- two days before Yom Kippur, our highest of the High Holidays.
- And they find out, and they let us out.
- Then from there, we went out for maybe two or day.
- And we go to Germany.
- We wanted to go to Germany because we
- knew that everybody in Germany.
- All the refugees who survived, all are in Germany.
- So we went to Germany, me and my wife and my brother.
- And my brother was still in the Russian uniforms.
- So he had no privileges like anybody else.
- You know what I mean?
- So he went, like a black market, and handled this and that.
- And he brought us plenty of food.
- There was no [INAUDIBLE].
- We were in Lódz.
- We were a day in Germany.
- So my brother, we were in Germany.
- Israel was a country, and we were dancing and happy
- that we have a country where to go.
- But they didn't let her go to Israel today.
- So we didn't know where to go.
- My brother had a girl there what she has relatives in America.
- And she said, Henek, you will go meet up.
- If you want to marry me, we will go to go to America.
- He said to my--
- [PERSONAL NAME],, I am not going nowheres.
- We have a homeland, and I am going over there.
- I am going-- I am not--
- I don't want to be in a [NON-ENGLISH]..
- You know what a [NON-ENGLISH]?
- A [NON-ENGLISH] meaning a place that the Jew has no place
- to live.
- The only place that the Jew had to live is Israel.
- This is our home, and I'm going there.
- I'm not going.
- So he didn't want to marry that girl.
- And he didn't want to go to America.
- But he got married in Germany to another girl,
- and they had a child, a boy.
- At that time, it was later-- it is easier to go to Israel.
- This was already 1948.
- 1948 was it.
- Israel took in all the refugees which they want to go.
- So he went there, and he took with everything.
- And he said to me, I'm going to take everything with me.
- When you come to Israel, we're going to show you
- everything what you have.
- So I said, fine, it's all right with me.
- He come to Israel.
- And the life in Israel [INAUDIBLE] it was very bad.
- Very bad.
- It was just the beginning.
- The war started, Israel.
- They didn't have food.
- They didn't know a place where to go, where to live.
- So he wrote me a letter.
- I had a cousin in America, New York, which I didn't know.
- I knew that I have, but I didn't know where she is.
- So he wrote me a letter that he didn't
- wrote me the letter that I should
- come to Israel, because there was not allowed to do it.
- Because Israel wanted the people from here there, not from out.
- So he wrote me a letter, before I go to Israel,
- I should go and see cousin Helen.
- And I know what he meant.
- You know what I mean?
- So I went.
- At that time it was very easy to go.
- Took two months' time.
- And we arriving in there.
- And we-- I registered myself.
- And I was working with UNRRA also, what they gave out food.
- I worked there.
- So I went into the man, and I said, I want to go to America.
- He says, go, register.
- And I registered myself.
- It took only four weeks, and we were in America.
- Look, when we come to America, we
- come to New York, Ellis Island.
- You know what I mean?
- We went to Ellis Island.
- We went through.
- I was healthy.
- My wife was healthy.
- We had no problem.
- And we come to America.
- And I was staying in New York in a hotel.
- And I saw the living in New York, I didn't believe it.
- It is something in a world like that.
- The buildings, their cars, oh, my God,
- I was wondering what's going on here.
- Finally, I had a contract in Germany.
- Everybody who went away from Germany
- had to have a contract where he goes.
- Because each city in America took in so much refugees,
- like Chicago, like Boston, like New York,
- like Philadelphia, California.
- My luck was to go to Providence, Rhode Island.
- No.
- And I couldn't go nowhere else.
- So I went to that bureau in the New York.
- Was right away I have a cousin.
- I had friends in New York.
- I begged him that they should leave me in New York.
- They said, I can't do that.
- You want to stay in New York, you got to be on your own.
- Otherwise, you have to go to Providence, Rhode Island.
- I didn't have any money.
- I didn't have nothing.
- I said, all right, [INAUDIBLE].
- So we'll go to Providence.
- So we went away to Providence, Rhode Island.
- It was a little-- a province, it's
- the smallest state in the United States.
- And I come to the--
- and I come Wednesday.
- And Friday I went to work.
- There was a social worker, a woman.
- And she said to me, are you a sailor?
- I said, yes.
- And She.
- Said, tell me the true.
- I take you to the place that they
- were taking people already.
- They couldn't want to stay there.
- But because you know why?
- In Germany, before we went away from Germany,
- if you signed a contract, you have to sign a trade.
- People don't have trades.
- Do you have a trade, [INAUDIBLE]??
- Nobody had trades.
- So they signed up shoemakers, tailors, carpenters.
- What they haven't got a trade, but they
- had to sign it for something.
- In that place, when she took me to work,
- and she brought me into that place,
- there was three brothers from Boston.
- Tall guy.
- They had a fur shop, only furs.
- And I come into the place.
- And when I-- when she brought me into that place,
- he said another tailor of the paper?
- Just like that.
- Because they were one time 30, 50 people [INAUDIBLE]..
- So he asked me, am I a tailor.
- So two-- there were three brothers.
- Two of them didn't understand a word of Jewish.
- There was one brother only who understands
- a little bit of Jewish.
- So he told me that [NON-ENGLISH]..
- At that time I didn't know one word of English.
- I didn't know nothing.
- And I said, all right, we see.
- And I worked that one Friday.
- All right, I saw that I can do it.
- Monday, I come to work.
- I will work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, till up till Friday.
- Friday he calls me in in the office,
- and he says to me, [? Mojek, ?] you
- are the man that we're looking for.
- And you have the place here to stay to work.
- They was working maybe about six, eight people, Italians
- and American, womans and men.
- When I was there, and they saw my knowledge what I did,
- like that, all of them that they worked there,
- they were nothing.
- According me, they were nothing.
- So he was to me right away, the next two or three weeks,
- he was to me like a father.
- He took me out of the car.
- He brought me this, he brought me
- that, he brought me this, whatever we need.
- And I still worked there.
- I made $35 a week.
- And I was the richest refugee in town, but I made $35 a week.
- I would have made probably have made $5, $10,
- but they had no knowledge.
- They went to work in the factory.
- They have no knowledge.
- And I was there and worked there.
- I worked overtime.
- And I made a nice few dollars, the beginning
- of [INAUDIBLE], a life.
- I [INAUDIBLE].
- I blessed America 10 times a day.
- Did you have an apartment for your wife?
- We got an apartment.
- I don't have to tell you about it.
- The apartment was just a miracle, over a story.
- They gave us an apartment.
- That apartment was like, you know, a barn
- in America for the horses.
- And naturally, and I had the apartment.
- Cockroaches, still thought it's unbelievable.
- Finally, and we were young.
- I painted, and we work out of [INAUDIBLE]..
- We have an apartment, $5 a month rent.
- Do you know what I mean?
- But I had a friend in Chicago.
- And he wrote me a letter.
- Alter, this is not your place.
- You'd better come to Chicago, and there you make a living.
- All right.
- I'll go do it right away.
- So I was two years we were in Providence, Rhode Island.
- Finally, I went to--
- I have to tell you a story which happened
- to me before I went to Chicago.
- I had a friend in Washington, DC.
- I don't have to tell it.
- I'd better not tell it that.
- That's a shame.
- I'll tell you.
- It's a bit later story.
- You can tell it.
- Yeah?
- You can tell it.
- Doesn't matter?
- I went to Washington, DC.
- There was a man, a landsman of mine, a friend.
- We worked together in one place for years, that tailor.
- And that man was visiting me, and said,
- Alter, you come to me, we're going to make money.
- He worked in a cleaning store as an alteration man.
- And he said, we're going to go out.
- I'm going to buy a store.
- And you're going to make an alteration store with renting
- tuxedos and dresses.
- In Washington, you can rent.
- In some places you can rent a wedding dress or tuxedo.
- Here you can rent it.
- So I said, fine.
- Wonderful.
- So we went out.
- We were looking out this and this and this--
- He didn't know where it is, because I didn't know nothing.
- Finally, we got in in a building, a big building.
- There were six or seven floors.
- One floor was commercial, is this.
- Only business, the one floor.
- The rest of them were senators, and governors,
- and all the politicians.
- And they gave us one place empty.
- And he-- that man says to me, Alter,
- this is the place that we're going to buy,
- definitely going to rent.
- And I said, Mike, you don't know nothing.
- What are you doing?
- He said, come on.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- So he asked for the manager.
- And they took us to the manager.
- And we got to that manager.
- And we said that he were at that place.
- He says, all right.
- Here is our deposit.
- So we give him to $500 deposit.
- He said, you have to wait two days till I find out
- your references.
- Those day-- two days went by.
- The third day we get there.
- And we go into the manager.
- And he says, well, do we have the place.
- He says, no, I'm sorry.
- You didn't get it.
- He says, why can we get it?
- That floor is not allowed for Jewish people.
- Do you understand what I mean?
- Yes.
- Can you imagine what's happened to me?
- It was like giving me a knife in my back.
- And I went down.
- They give us back right away the $500 deposit.
- They said, I'm sorry.
- It's not-- I'm just a janitor here-- the manager.
- I told him.
- So the friend of mine says to me, come on.
- Let's look for another place.
- I say, you can have it.
- You can have better janitors.
- You can have in Washington with everything.
- I am not staying here anymore.
- That's all.
- I don't want it.
- So you went to Chicago.
- So I went back to-- listen to this.
- So I went back to [INAUDIBLE] that place that I worked.
- And I took maybe two or three days more
- than I had time to go.
- So the boss said, you're fired.
- I said, why am I fired?
- Because I didn't tell him the truth,
- that I want to rent a tailor and move to Washington.
- So listen, I didn't mean nothing.
- I didn't do nothing.
- I say, all right.
- You can fire me.
- You can take-- you can fire me.
- But I don't care.
- One thing that I have, you can't take it away.
- You see these two hands?
- This you don't take away from he.
- So he knocked me in the back, and he says, [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Don't worry.
- You still going to drive a Cadillac with your knowledge,
- with your hands.
- You're going to drive a Cadillac in America.
- Thanks God I come to Chicago.
- I packed every-- I didn't say nothing to my friend.
- And we packed up, we went to Chicago.
- Come to my friend in Chicago.
- And we couldn't get-- it was very hard to get
- to an apartment [INAUDIBLE].
- So I was going there with my cousin,
- with my friends in his house, two or three days.
- Finally, we find an apartment, with an apartment.
- In Providence, Rhode Island, I made $35 a week.
- In Chicago, I went to the shop right away
- where your father was working.
- Because I have a friend, Abe Freimann.
- His brother was the [INAUDIBLE] in the union.
- And I have [INAUDIBLE],, because without him, I wouldn't
- be able to go in that shop.
- So I went in that shop.
- The first week, I couldn't get to a machine, like an operator,
- like a person.
- So he gave me to sew by hand to make [INAUDIBLE] with by hand.
- After a week, I come home with a check for $75.
- When my wife saw the check, she said, what happened?
- You know what I mean?
- All right.
- I worked a season in that shop.
- And I went down, when the season ends, that's it.
- [INAUDIBLE] you have to go out with those [INAUDIBLE]..
- And I went down the street.
- And a man, he then says, Al, what's happened?
- [INAUDIBLE] already?
- Already slow?
- I say, yes, slow Joe.
- He says, Al, I got a good job for you.
- So went the job, and he says, yes, it's on the south side.
- South side.
- You want to go with me, come on tomorrow morning
- I will go with you.
- And I went over there to that shop, that place.
- And I got the job.
- And this was a job, a lifetime job.
- Wonderful.
- I made a wonderful living there.
- But two or three weeks later--
- and I mean two or three weeks, I was the foreman there
- in the shop.
- I knew how to open the [? wall, ?]
- and I knew how to run it, and I knew how to cut it, everything.
- Then the boss threw out everything on my head.
- I had to fire people, firing people, you know what I mean?
- All I knew about finally, a fire broke out.
- Everything went in the ground.
- No, nothing to do.
- So my boss says to me, Al, don't worry.
- You're not going to work for nobody.
- From now on, you're going to work for yourself.
- Come to us.
- He says, do you see the machinery?
- Everything you've got here is yours.
- He was like a father to me.
- I was the horse for him.
- It was to him, to me, he was like a father.
- And since that day at that time, the fire
- broke out, and couldn't help nothing.
- So I went into business myself.
- I have the two daughters, you know what what I mean?
- When did you have your children?
- The children mine?
- My first daughter was born in Germany.
- My first daughter was born in Germany.
- What year and--
- It was in 1949.
- Well, no.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- No, no.
- In 1946.
- Yeah, in 1946.
- So she was my first child.
- She was born in Germany before we came to America,
- you know what I mean?
- When we come to America, she was two years old.
- She went out to the street.
- She was crying.
- The kids didn't want to play with her.
- The only language she knew, it was Germany.
- And she come to the house, they say, they [GERMAN]..
- They want to play with me.
- I don't know.
- They can't talk to me.
- I said to her, Helen, don't worry.
- I wish in my life that I'm going to be
- able to talk the language like you going to talk.
- All right, that's what happened.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- My other daughter was born in Providence.
- And we went to Chicago with the two kids.
- And I rent a store to myself.
- They open up a shop.
- Then things got to make a living.
- I always says, God bless America.
- This is a land that you can live.
- The only thing that you can have to pray is to be healthy.
- After we went through everything--
- Do you feel that your health was affected from the concentration
- camps?
- In the beginning, yes.
- Oh, yes.
- I had to, sometime, dreams that I fell out of bed.
- I was screaming.
- I thought that the Germans are grabbing me,
- the dogs are running after me.
- They've been hitting me.
- All the time.
- That took years.
- Then sometime today too.
- If you talk about like I had today,
- I'm going to have a dream, that I bring it out.
- That's why I don't want to bring it out so much.
- Then things start to go awhile.
- And now I was 75 years old.
- When I was liberated, if somebody would have come
- and told me that I'm going to live till 75,
- I would have think that the person is crazy.
- How could we live after what we went through?
- And after what we have it, to live to that late.
- So thanks, God.
- Thanks God.
- I'm alive.
- And I only hope and pray to God the same thing
- with my children.
- I have two wonderful children.
- I have one son-in-law.
- He's a judge in Chicago.
- One son-in-law is in California.
- He's a computer manager.
- And they live wonderful.
- Thanks God they don't need nothing from me,
- I don't need nothing from them.
- I only hope God to be-- good to God,
- and this shouldn't happen again.
- For our children, for our children's children,
- our grandchildren and grandchildren,
- that this should happen like happened to me then too.
- But God bless America.
- This is a land that everybody can live.
- Everybody can live in happiness as long
- as he is healthy and can work.
- That's all.
- Do you think this could happen again?
- Yes.
- I'll tell you why I think.
- History repeats.
- It could happen, because it's going on.
- I'll tell you the truth, that we didn't know.
- I myself-- I'm not going to talk about nobody else.
- I myself is a religious man.
- I go every day to shul.
- And I believe in one thing--
- that this is a country, that this land is the world, is
- such haters with such an antisemitism,
- for the little few Jews that were alive, they survived?
- What are they worth to them?
- What?
- There's so many millions and millions of Christian people.
- They have everything what they want to.
- What do they want with a few Jews?
- Did they do anything to them?
- They didn't do nothing to them.
- They just trying to live.
- But I hope this it not going to come to it again.
- Thank you very much.
- You had a wonderful story to tell.
- And--
Overview
- Interviewee
- Al Wulc
- Date
-
interview:
1987 November 17
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
1 videocassette (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Wulc, Al.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Al Wulc was conducted on November 17, 1987, by the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association in affiliation with the Cline Library of Northern Arizona University as part of a project to document the testimonies of Holocaust survivors in the Phoenix, AZ area. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in 1989.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:09:52
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512544
Additional Resources
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
- Available for Research
- Plan a Research Visit
Contact Us
Also in Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association oral history collection
Oral histories conducted by the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association
Date: 1987-1992
Oral history interview with Ella Adler
Oral History
Ella Adler, born in 1924 in Krakow, Poland, discusses her childhood; the beginning of the war; life in the ghetto; life in various concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau; life in labor camps; liberation; returning home; and her immigration to the United States.
Oral history interview with Harry Adler
Oral History
Harry Adler, born in 1924 in Berlin, Germany, discusses his childhood; moving with his family in 1932 to Paris, France; attending school in France; moving with his family to Poland in 1938; his return to Paris, where he lived with a friend’s family; his parents’ return to Paris after the Germans invaded France; immigrating to the United States; settling in the Bronx, NY; graduating in 1942; joining the army in 1942; military training; being assigned to the V Corps Headquarters in the 1st Army; going to England; arriving in Normandy, France one day after D-Day; going to Germany; being in Weimar when he heard about Buchenwald concentration camp; visiting Buchenwald the day after it was liberated; going to Berchtesgaden, Germany; returning to New York in November 1945; going into the fur business with his father and attending New York University at night; getting married in 1951; his work in the US and abroad; moving to Phoenix, AZ; and his children.
Oral history interview with Esther Bash
Oral History
Esther Bash born in 1928 in Czechoslovakia, discusses her childhood experiences; the Hungarian occupation; being sent to live in a ghetto; life in Auschwitz and other work camps; liberation; and her immigration to the United States.
Oral history interview with Joseph Bash
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Been
Oral History
Oral history interview with Aaron Bendetson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Erna Bindelglas
Oral History
Erna Bindelglas (née Stopper), born on November 13, 1930 in Amsterdam, Holland, discusses her childhood experiences; life in German occupied Holland; life in the underground system; the experiences of her mother and sisters in Bergen-Belsen; liberation; moving to Israel; and immigrating to the United States.
Oral history interview with Fred Blau
Oral History
Fred Blau, born in Vienna, Austria, discusses his family’s background in Vienna; his childhood experiences; life in Vienna following Hitler's invasion; the deportations of Jews from Austria; leaving Vienna and relocating to Switzerland; and his immigration to the United States.
Oral history interview with Marsha Botwinik
Oral History
Oral history interview with Solomon Cukier
Oral History
Solomon Cukier, born in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his parents and siblings; his childhood experiences; the beginning of the war; being forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto; getting married in 1941 (his wife lived in the non-Jewish part of Warsaw); the deportation of his parents to Treblinka; being sent to work in Sedziszow, Poland; his experiences in work camps; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp; liberation; living in displaced persons camps in Germany from 1946 to 1949; his children; immigrating to the United States; and his life in the US.
Oral history interview with Joseph Dattner
Oral History
Joseph Dattner, born in Austrian-controlled Żywiec, Poland in 1907, discusses the fate of his seven brothers and one sister; his father, who was a tailor; moving to Lvov (L'viv, Ukraine) when World War II began; working with his hands and sleeping in parks at night in Lvov; being put to work by the German Army to collect papers and bottles for no pay; leaving Lvov when the Ukrainian police came after him; fleeing to Warsaw, Poland, where he and his future wife Gerda purchased false Aryan identity papers; bribing police in Warsaw with a piece of fabric after they discovered that they were Jewish; being picked up by Gestapo officers but talking his designated murderer out of killing him; trying to enter the Lvov ghetto through a small hole but being caught and bribing the Gestapo officer with his rucksack; supporting Gerda and their child Barbara through various tailoring jobs; having a close call with his landlady once when one of his brothers arrived at their apartment; having his daughter baptized and inviting Jews pretending to be Aryans; and Gerda’s early death because she smoked so much out of stress during the war.
Oral history interview with Meyer Dragon
Oral History
Meyer Dragon discusses his family; his childhood experiences; moving with his family to Warsaw, Poland; working for the Jewish Committee in Warsaw; the German occupation; life in the Warsaw ghetto; escaping from the ghetto; his life in other ghettos before being sent to Auschwitz; being sent to other camps including Flossenbürg, Buchenwald, and Theresienstadt; liberation; and immigrating to the United States.
Oral history interview with Sally Dragon
Oral History
Oral history interview with Rae Freisinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Geslewitz
Oral History
Anna Geslewitz (née Charoltte Gersten), born on September 17, 1923 in Lwow, Poland (now L’viv, Ukraine), discusses her childhood experiences; the Russian occupation of her town; the German occupation in 1941; life in a ghetto; working in tailoring shop for the army in the ghetto; escaping from the ghetto with her sister; registering to go to Germany for work; passing as Christians; never seeing her father again; traveling through Krakow, Poland and going to an employment agency in Regnitz, Poland; working in homes while her sister worked on a farm; being taken to dig ditches in a forced labor camp; working in an office because she could speak German; being liberated by the Russians; going east to Jarosław, Poland; finding her sister and moving to a town on the Baltic Sea; opening a store; continuing to pass as Christian; going to West Germany; getting married in 1948; immigrating to the United States in 1950; living in Brooklyn (NY), Pennsylvania, and Newark (NJ); her feelings on antisemitism; and her current views on American Judaism.
Oral history interview with Daniel Geslewitz
Oral History
Daniel Geslewitz (né Gedoliah Geslewitz), born on August 14, 1924, in Lódz, Poland, discusses his siblings and parents; his childhood; the beginning of the war when he was 15 years old; the restrictions placed on Jews; life in the Lódz ghetto; starvation in the ghetto; his father’s death from starvation; the deportations; being deported with his family to Auschwitz in August 1944; the murder of his family except for himself and his three brothers because they were chosen for work; conditions in the camp, including the meager food and beatings; being sent after a week to Germany to do forced labor as a metalworker in camp Braunschweig; working in a village in a small factory that was making parts for trucks; being marched to the main camp; his brother Myer’s death from being forced to drink overly salted soup; being transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp; being sent to camp Wöbbelin, where they were liberated by American troops; recuperating in a German house with his brothers for many weeks; staying in a German town in the British zone for five years; immigrating to the United States in 1950; his life in the US; living in New York, NY and Phoenix, AZ; and his thoughts on Germans and Poles.
Oral history interview with Adele Goldberg
Oral History
Adele Goldberg, born in July 1921, discusses her childhood experiences; life in Lódz, Poland; her father’s diabetes; her father going into a diabetic coma and dying on December 31, 1939; life in the Lódz ghetto; being forced to work in German factory in Lódz; being deported with her mother to Auschwitz in 1944; the train journey with her mother; being separated from her mother when they arrived at the camp; working in a munitions factory; being sent to work in numerous camps; liberation; finding her brother in Italy; getting married; visiting Israel; and her immigration to the United States.
Oral history interview with Hyman Goldberg
Oral History
Oral history interview with Irving Goldstein
Oral History
Oral history interview with Helen Handler
Oral History
Helen Handler discusses her childhood experiences in Hungary; life in the ghetto; being deported to Auschwitz; the train journey and arriving at the camp; being sent to Stutthof concentration camp; seeing numerous dead bodies in the camp; being sent on a forced march; being liberated by Russian soldiers; recuperating in a Polish hospital and then a hospital in Budapest, Hungary; going to Prague, Czech Republic and then France; having tuberculosis; going to tuberculosis hospitals in France and Switzerland; her four-year recovery from bone tuberculosis; receiving assistance from various Jewish organizations; immigrating to Canada; getting married; her son; getting divorced from her husband; immigrating to the United States; and giving talks about her experiences during the war.
Oral history interview with Sam Hilton
Oral History
Sam Hilton, born on September 23, 1929 in Warsaw, Poland, discusses his childhood experiences; his mother’s death when he was 5 years old; his father’s remarriage; the bombardment of Warsaw and the German occupation; being forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto; conditions in the ghetto; the birth of his sister in 1942; deportations from the ghetto; the song in the ghetto about Treblinka; hiding in a basement bunker during one round up; the loss of his stepmother and sister; the ghetto uprising in 1943; being deported to Majdanek with his father; the selection process and lying about his age (he claimed to be 16 when he was only 12); being in Majdanek for three weeks; being sent to Buchenwald in June 1944; being sent to a work camp in November 1944; the liquidation of the camp in March 1945; being sent on a march; going to Theresienstadt; liberation; going to Prague, Czech Republic; going to Rotterdam, Netherlands and then Windermere, England to recuperate; going to Los Angeles, CA; and studying accounting at UCLA.
Oral history interview with Rose Jaloviec
Oral History
Oral history interview with Pauline Killough
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gertrude Klinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Koenig
Oral History
Oral history interview with William Koenig
Oral History
Oral history interview with William Koenig
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec
Oral History
Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec
Oral History
Oral history interview with Berga Lechowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Judith Lederman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leon Lederman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Stephen Lerman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lena Levine
Oral History
Oral history interview with Sarah Marwick
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marion Migdal
Oral History
Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leon Nelson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Mollie Nelson
Oral History
Oral history interview with Carl Ofisher
Oral History
Oral history interview with Jacques Rajchgod
Oral History
Oral history interview with Hy Roitman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Robert Ronay
Oral History
Oral history interview with Esther Rosen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Rosen
Oral History
Oral history interview with George Schiffman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Wella Schiffman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Fanny Schlomowitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Samuel Soldinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Henry Sontag
Oral History
Oral history interview with Anna Spitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Arthur Spitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Harry Spitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Heddy Spitz
Oral History
Heddy Spitz, born in 1920 in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (Mukacheve, Ukraine), describes her family’s business running a grocery, a dance hall, and a restaurant; being driven out of their homes with 30,000 other Jews to a ghetto area for three weeks in May 1943; being sent to Auschwitz, where her mother and two of her sisters were immediately gassed; marching with her sisters to the East where they were able to separate themselves from Nazi marchers by hiding in a barn; being saved by Russian workers who allowed them to stay in their homes and because they had no numbers on their arms and could speak Russian; working in the fields until the Russians liberated them; registering in Germany to go to the United States after the war; opening a business in Phoenix, AZ; and having four children.
Oral history interview with Agnes Tennenbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Larry Weidenbaum
Oral History
Oral history interview with Magda Willinger
Oral History
Oral history interview with Bertha Wulc
Oral History
Oral history interview with Blanch Robin
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gertie Blau
Oral History
Oral history interview with Lillian Feigen
Oral History
Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski
Oral History
Oral history interview with Gisella Fry
Oral History
Oral history interview with Shirley Lebovitz
Oral History
Oral history interview with Marion Katzman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Frieda Radasky
Oral History
Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky
Oral History
Oral history interview with Maria Segal
Oral History
Oral history interview with David Silver
Oral History
Oral history interview with Leo Smilovic
Oral History
Oral history interview with Risa Stillman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Adele Weisman
Oral History
Oral history interview with Paul Weisman
Oral History