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Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1989.228.68 | RG Number: RG-50.060.0068

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    Oral history interview with Solomon Radasky
    Transcript
    Sam, I am very pleased to meet you and do this interview.
    It's a pleasure to have you, and I'm
    very glad that you are willing to devote the time
    and give us the story of your experience.
    If you would start out with your name and the place
    you were born.
    My name is Solomon Radasky.
    I'm born in Poland, in Warsaw, and raised in Warsaw.
    My real name is Radoszynski.
    In Polish.
    Szlamek Radoszynki in Polish.
    And what year were you born, Sam?
    I'm born 1910, May 17.
    Wonderful.
    Could you give us, the members of your family.
    Were there sisters and brothers?
    Yes, we used to be six-children home, three boys and three
    girls.
    And my mother and my father, they
    never is going to the gas chambers.
    They got killed.
    My mother got killed 1941 in January.
    There was-- that time was we have
    to give away all the furs and gold to the Jewish Federation.
    And some of it-- and I was working
    for the SD, the SD, the Sicherheit police,
    with the Germans.
    Their winter was very cold, a lot of snow.
    And they catch me in the street--
    not me.
    There's many people.
    And was going out to the railroad tracks,
    clean up the snow, the trains they can run in.
    When I was coming back that day--
    I cannot remember exactly which day the war was,
    or which week the war is, in that month, in January.
    But I think was maybe the last week in January in '41.
    And when I was coming in, my older sister and my mother
    was killed, shot in the house, because they
    asked had jewelry or furs.
    And my mother said, in the heaven.
    And they killed the two, my mother and my sister.
    My father got killed 1942 in April.
    He was gone buying a bread to the wall
    where the children used to smuggle them
    over some bread, some potatoes, carrots.
    And when he gathered the bread, and a policeman told a German
    he got a bread from a boy there.
    And he shot him in the back.
    And my-- the rest, my two sisters, my two brothers,
    they was gone to Treblinka when it was the ghetto--
    and there was a ghetto.
    Judenrein.
    Judenrein bestowed it in 1942, July the 22nd.
    The first transport was 20,000 people were going to Treblinka.
    See, there was, from the first transport
    or the last transport, I don't know,
    because I was working for the Germans.
    I'm a furrier.
    And we used to make the shop where Tebbins
    was the name from the fur shop.
    We used to make the little jackets,
    lamb jackets was there like, in lambskins.
    Like--
    For the soldiers?
    Like the Eisenhower jackets, the American, the short one.
    We used to make them.
    So, lamb jackets for the Germans.
    And I never know how they was going to Treblinka
    because I never saw nobody no more from my family.
    As a matter of fact, before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,
    was April 19, 1943, somebody told me--
    he's a man.
    He saw mines, a sister there in the other shop by Schultz.
    And I was away about 3 kilometers, 3 kilometers,
    like you say here 3 miles.
    And I want to go and see her.
    I don't know how.
    But a Jewish policeman, he say, I
    can get you somebody, a soldier, a German soldier,
    what he's going with you and he bring you back.
    But have to cost money.
    I say, how much money I have to cost?
    He say 500 zlotys.
    500 zlotys, like to say $500.
    And I say, OK.
    He put me in handcuffs.
    And I was worked before, and he was behind me with a rifle.
    And when I was coming over there, and I was coming,
    I never saw nobody, and not he can find my sister.
    Not they can find them.
    And I went going back, and I didn't come back no more,
    because the whole area in the ghetto
    was surrounded around with the soldiers,
    and it started next morning, started
    the uprising, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 19.
    And I was stick--
    I was stick there.
    And I was not-- you can't going back.
    And the May 1, I got this shot in my right ankle.
    There.
    See?
    All the way-- all the way there, through.
    And I was going to the Umschlagplatz.
    And it was going to go Majdanek.
    And I was coming to Majdanek and it's coming to Majdanek.
    I'm coming to the block.
    I was lucky.
    Was a doctor from Paris, from France.
    And before I was coming, I have to go and take off my clothes.
    And they give me their clothes.
    And they give me a shirt, and they give me
    a gown, a nightgown, you know.
    Because I didn't have no medication, nothing,
    no bandages, no nothing.
    And he cut it up, and they show it and make some bandages.
    And next morning, I got some friends the next morning
    to help me after the Appell.
    We have to work hard.
    We're going 3 kilometers to work.
    I just have to walk out through the gate
    myself, straight, not limping.
    When I'm limping, they took me out, and in Majdanek,
    and never shot.
    They hanged.
    For any little, they hang the people.
    They never bring that to the gas chambers.
    They regarded as something to hanging,
    and they hang the people.
    And I was scared.
    And I don't know how I broke out and how I broke in.
    It was most--
    I don't know.
    It's coming something from sky, from God, something
    to help me see coming back in.
    Did the doctor treat you at all?
    The doctor got it how when I'm talking about that,
    I cannot understand.
    I cannot see from where he got a little pocket knife.
    See, when you come, and they have to go on in there,
    take off their clothes, put--
    if ever got somebody, got some money, put in separate.
    I didn't separate.
    Even the shoe string where the shoe
    is, taking off, putting in a separate little box, underwear
    separate, shirts separate, pants, everything, the belt
    separate.
    And we come in this door and go out the other door.
    And over there, they get us their clothes.
    The shirt, the pants, the stripe, you know.
    And the wooden-- the wooden--
    Shoes.
    --shoes.
    And then, when I come to there, block,
    and the doctor got there.
    And the doctor say, I going to help you.
    And he operate me.
    He took out the bullet?
    He took out, yeah.
    He took out there.
    And he operating that's--
    the most got in the leg, you know?
    And it was no medication.
    That's the one thing.
    Excuse me from other expression, just you and me.
    That's all.
    Whenever I can.
    And I help myself.
    It's a miracle.
    That's real a miracle.
    Well, I don't know.
    Wherever I make it, I was lucky.
    I was lucky.
    I was looking in ghetto.
    I was lucky.
    I was lucky in the shop I used to work.
    What happens, there was one time a selection was,
    and everybody was back in in the shop to work.
    They call us out, or say something.
    They pulled me out.
    There was the-- that was the name, the shop, was Tebbins.
    Was two, one Schultz, one Tebbins.
    I was by Tebbins.
    And there was a selection, there was,
    that nobody from the workers was pulled out.
    They pull me out.
    They pulled me out.
    And I don't know what to do.
    I had nobody.
    Everybody want to help me.
    I got some friends.
    But was one guy.
    He was, like they say, the Volksdeutsche.
    He come from the generation--
    From Germany?
    --from Germans.
    Then they called it a Volksdeutsche.
    And a young man.
    And he was very nice to us.
    And he was going to there, and tell the--
    he is a good worker.
    He's a poet.
    He's a good worker.
    He make the production.
    And we need him.
    And he pulled me out.
    And I was going back to the shop.
    In the shop, did you have a little more food
    because you were working there?
    Yeah, they give us a piece of bread in the morning,
    and they give us some soup lunchtime.
    And in the evening, they give us another slice of bread,
    with coffee they give us.
    Well, we still got some a little money at that time too, before.
    And it was the Polacks was coming in.
    They got their papers.
    They can go in and, like I say, a Volksdeutsche.
    And they come in and see who want to sell us something--
    a suit or a coat, something.
    And they bring in some food.
    And we give them-- let's see.
    I got some lot of shirts.
    They got them.
    I say, bring me a bread.
    Bring me a piece of salami or what,
    and I give you a some, a few shirts.
    But how long can it last in there?
    But bring me some potatoes.
    Then I can cook me a soup to make in that day.
    Well, we have and we got it.
    Later on, they have nothing.
    They have to live.
    We have to live wherever we get it.
    But in Majdanek, you couldn't do that anymore.
    No, no, no, no, no.
    Not in Majdanek.
    Majdanek was a death camp.
    For any little, there was hanging.
    We got the wooden shoes, and we have to come out to the Appell,
    wear the shoes.
    And then we walk out of the gate,
    we have to tie up with a piece of string
    and put it on the shoulders and walk in bare foot
    to work, in bare foot, to walk in the highway.
    There was the little stones.
    How you call that?
    Gravel?
    Gravel?
    Gravel, yeah.
    And the gravel cut the skin.
    And the blood was running.
    And many people, many people, how long
    we can working like there.
    And in the morning and in the evening coming back,
    a few days.
    And then they kind of fall down there.
    The person going behind us with a rifle.
    You cannot get up, they shot them.
    They shot them.
    And there was, laying down there in the highway
    till he was coming back, when he was coming back from work,
    we were have to carry the deads back in.
    That's if it's gone out 1,000, have to come back 1,000,
    dead or alive.
    Have to coming back.
    What kind of work did you do in Majdanek?
    Just dirty work.
    Dirty work.
    Dirty work.
    Just go on the fields there, digging.
    Were not special work for the military.
    No.
    Just dirty work.
    You know, and that see, when I was coming to Auschwitz,
    was a difference.
    But I was in Majdanek, I was, about 10 weeks.
    After the 10 weeks, they was coming and taking
    out some of the camp.
    Where we going, we don't know.
    They took out just three groups.
    Is 750 people there.
    And I was in the second group.
    Why I say that I was in the second group,
    because I got some friends, and got some--
    one in New York who was, and one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
    My number is 128,000, and one is 26 and one is 29.
    Do you have your number on your arm?
    On mine arm, yeah.
    Can I show-- he want to see.
    He say stop there.
    We'll show it later.
    Yeah.
    I'm going to show you my number.
    And I'm going to tell you what's the number.
    But the number later on saved my life.
    This is my number 128,232.
    I think maybe you should sit down because it may not
    show on the camera.
    Oh.
    OK, now.
    My number is 128,232.
    This number saved one time my life.
    And I'm commented there how the number saved my life
    with my name, Radoszynski.
    Where did you get the number?
    In Auschwitz.
    In Auschwitz, when I was coming.
    And I was coming in Majdanek.
    We was coming to Majdanek 700, 750 people.
    And we were staying of the Appell, of the Appell ground
    there, to wait till next morning to go on.
    We don't know if we're going to Auschwitz, to where we going.
    And we were staying within hundreds.
    I was staying in the second hundred, in the second fifty.
    And one from there, 100, what smoking a cigarette
    in the back.
    I don't know it is a cigarette.
    Some people was heavy smokers.
    They used to find a piece of paper and roll in there,
    and lighten just to feel they're smoking a cigarette.
    And this must be the same day, must be,
    where we never can get no cigarettes in Majdanek.
    And there was the German, how you called it, the Lagerführer.
    And he was riding of a big horse,
    a tall horse, a black horse with a white pass
    on the front of the head.
    And the horse got it four white legs, a beautiful horse.
    And he was riding there.
    And he over us.
    He was a monster.
    And he held a whip in his hand.
    And he looked, and he see, because this was in July.
    And he see when the sun is down, he
    can see the steam, the smoke.
    And he saw there.
    And he comes over to us.
    And they call us dogs.
    Why they call us dogs?
    We got a number and a piece of metal with a piece of string,
    like you put it on a dog.
    A dog tag.
    A dog tag there.
    And I still remember my number.
    My number was 993.
    And he said, who smoked that cigarette?
    Nobody answer nothing.
    And there's nothing.
    He can turn around and see, turn around
    and see one, the other one, he must stay in the line.
    We have to stay straight, like with the Appell.
    And we didn't say nothing.
    And he say, he give us three minutes.
    He give us.
    And the three minutes, we're not going to say--
    I'm going to hang 10 dogs.
    Never took it three minutes.
    Never took it two minutes.
    He left, and he come back, and take the whip.
    And as soon as he throw the whip,
    he cut it off, the first two-fifths.
    And I was between their 10.
    Who want to go up first in the bench?
    You have to go on up, self in the bench.
    No blindfold, nothing, and putting in the rope
    on the neck.
    Well, he beat us.
    And, well, he beat me so much-- not just me, all of it.
    And my blood was running from the head.
    Well, I was in the first three.
    But this [INAUDIBLE],, what was, what he selected the 750
    people, he was going to Lublin, to the office,
    and taking out our papers, I got to take, you know,
    the papers from the main office.
    And he was riding a motorbike.
    And when he saw that he was coming back,
    he started the hollering in German.
    Stop.
    Halt, halt, halt.
    And he asked this, what's happened there?
    He say something, that dog smoked a cigarette,
    and they wouldn't say nothing, I'm going to hang 10 dogs.
    I'm going to hang.
    He say, who is that dog?
    He said, that's yours.
    He said, uh-uh, I cannot--
    I got the papers.
    I cannot bring in dead dogs.
    I have to bring you all alive.
    When I going to see who going to be dead.
    He start us the beating before we took off the rope
    because the rope was already tied up to the neck,
    just to kicking the bench.
    It takes a few seconds to tie up.
    We get it, discuss it, you know, what to do.
    And he beat us til we jumped down there.
    And we going back in the line.
    He even come back in the line.
    He took us out to the railroad tracks
    and put us in the trains.
    And we were staying the next morning.
    The morning we left Majdanek.
    And it took us maybe about a night and a day, two nights
    and a day till next morning to come in there.
    No food, no food.
    No nothing.
    To come to Auschwitz.
    Yeah, and we come to Auschwitz.
    When we was coming to Auschwitz, we was coming.
    He helped make the selection.
    Was many was running in in that group
    because they wanted to run away from Majdanek.
    They was already swollen from hunger, from [? thirst. ?]
    And in nine weeks, I never got a shirt changed in Majdanek.
    The lice there.
    And men who run away because they got the swollen already.
    And he made a selection, over 300.
    And he calls some more help.
    And they bring some machine guns.
    And they never bring them to the gas chambers.
    And killed there in the field like they're
    shaking grass, with the machine guns around there.
    And he killed all the 350.
    And then, from there, I was going get there my number.
    Many got to have from the David Star, the Magen David,
    and I have.
    I don't have it.
    You don't have that.
    No.
    Why they have it, that when they get the number,
    they get a potato, a boiled potato.
    And I was so hungry, I grabbed that potato and run away.
    And I don't have it there.
    Well, when I was in Auschwitz that time--
    yes.
    And then I was coming to the blood--
    no, they send me to Buna.
    I come to Buna.
    And I was in Buna not long, I was.
    And where I come one time from work, when I come,
    there was a selection before.
    And I don't know.
    From all the people who was a few thousand people in Buna.
    What is Buna?
    Is that the factory?
    Buna, no-- Buna is a factory, yeah.
    They make all the different irons.
    They're building the railroad tracks.
    And I was working in the railroad tracks.
    I was working.
    And the kapo from Buna, where I was waiting, was a murderer.
    He selected a tall one before I short one.
    Let's see.
    I'm short.
    He get a taller from me to go in front of me.
    And we were scattered.
    10 people was carrying the iron from the railroad tracks.
    And it's very heavy.
    Not even 20 people cannot carry that.
    Because this is 15, 20 feet long.
    And 10 people, that time.
    Now, but there is tall, he make him carry.
    How he can carry?
    He have to bend knee.
    He told him to bend in.
    And he bend in.
    He don't carry nothing.
    Everything was on my shoulder.
    And one time, I fall down there.
    I cannot carry that.
    And he started to beat me.
    You know, but I get up.
    And when I was coming back from work, was a selection before.
    And all the people was in a shed already.
    And I don't know.
    It was a few thousand people by the Appell.
    And they're looking, they're looking, they're looking.
    They come to my group.
    They pull me out.
    Pull me out.
    And I was-- have to go out--
    I never get the piece of bread already
    with the little coffee--
    and told me to go in their shed, and come in their shed,
    and told me to take off their clothes.
    And we stay a whole night, till next morning,
    next morning, was coming a little truck, Red Cross truck.
    We're coming.
    And push it in, us.
    I don't know that 10 people can go in that little truck, one
    on top of the other one, and bring us back to Auschwitz
    to the gas chambers.
    We come back to Auschwitz.
    One man comes out in a building--
    a Polack.
    Of course, he was speaking Polish to us.
    And he call us all the numbers.
    When he call, come to me, and I told them my number,
    he looked in--
    in the paper, and he asked me in Polish, what's my name?
    I say, Radoszynski.
    He asked me where I'm from.
    I say, from Warsaw.
    How long you've been staying?
    I say, I was born and raised in Warsaw.
    And he started to cuss me.
    I never heard in my life something like that.
    Never heard in my life.
    And he took me out from the line and put me
    in a corner between two walls.
    He say, stay there, and he was going inside.
    And he bring me piece of blanket.
    He say, cover around about.
    Cover around.
    Then I will stay there about 15, 20 minutes, I think.
    I were freezing to death there.
    And he come back and take me inside.
    And he take me inside.
    I get a mattress.
    I lay down there.
    I don't know what the date is, where I am.
    I turn around there, and I see a young guy stay by me.
    And he looked at me.
    He say, hey, I know you.
    I say, who are you?
    He told me his name.
    I say, you know me from where?
    I know you from Majdanek.
    You see, my bridge was close to you.
    I say, what is here?
    He say, here it's bad.
    Where Jews come in here, the Polacks, Dr. Mengele,
    he comes twice a week here, comes.
    But this week he not coming because today is Tuesday.
    That's I remember that day was Tuesday when I was there.
    And he say, you have not to worry about today.
    And he left.
    He comes back in a few minutes.
    He comes back and bring me a piece
    of bread, pumpernickel bread, with jelly on the top.
    And I eat there.
    You know, I eat no since Monday, when I get it,
    a little soup, when I was working on the shop there.
    And he say to me, I let you know what's going to be,
    where was some news.
    And I say, come here.
    What's your name?
    He told me his name.
    Told me, my name is David Ehrlich.
    I am from Kraków.
    I said, how come-- how long you're here?
    He say, I'm five weeks here.
    I was coming the same day like you.
    But here is two doctors that used to know my grandfather.
    And my grandfather used to be the rabbi in Kraków.
    And the two doctors know my grandfather.
    If ever it comes out, they hide me.
    That's why I'm here five weeks.
    I say, why are there doctors here?
    Because the doctors tried to help the Jewish people.
    And some, when the neighbors was told,
    and the SS was coming, and took it out,
    the Jewish people, and they killed there,
    and they bring the doctors to Auschwitz.
    Well, Thursday, the same boy come back to me.
    He say, get out of here.
    I say, what you talking?
    I say, how I can get out?
    Jumping from the second floor, jumping down
    through the window?
    I cannot even move.
    Well, in the afternoon, he say, do what you want.
    You have to get out.
    But tomorrow you'll be dead.
    I see about 3, 4 o'clock, the same man sit by a little table,
    and holler loud, who want to go out and work?
    Well, the others, the Polacks, they're not worried.
    Why I have to go out to work?
    They got it-- they got it to eat.
    They got their packages from the home, from the Red Cross.
    They were staying.
    I get up in their [NON-ENGLISH] I going back to their desk.
    And I say, I want to go out to work.
    What's your number?
    And I show them the number.
    He started to cuss me again.
    And I started to beg him, I want to get out.
    I cannot stay here.
    I like to work.
    And I got some friends there.
    They're going to help me.
    Please, let me out.
    And he let me out.
    He give me a piece of paper where
    to go next morning to work, and the number
    from the block, Block 6.
    And OK, I'm coming to the Block 6.
    I get the blockova the piece of paper.
    And he give me a bridge.
    And I sit down there.
    I cannot lay down, because you cannot messen up,
    till you go to bed, 9 o'clock at night.
    And I stayed there by that bridge
    till the other guys coming back from work.
    All the guys coming back from work, some guys, young guys,
    coming to me.
    They say, oh, you are new here.
    I say, yes.
    Where are you coming?
    I told them from where and what.
    And they say, where are you from?
    I say I am from Warsaw.
    You're from Warsaw?
    What you did in Warsaw.
    I say I'm a furrier.
    He was-- I'm from the fur business.
    Where you used to live?
    I told them.
    And one asked me, do you a name, they called our name.
    You know this and this man?
    I say, yes.
    I say he and his father used to have a store, a business,
    in this and this place, in this name,
    from this and this street.
    And they all want a shoe.
    And they say, what else they call this man?
    And I say, he got a nickname.
    He got-- what's his nickname?
    I say, in the left ear when he was born,
    he was born with a little piece of meat hang down there.
    He was born there.
    And that's the nickname, and I called the nickname.
    I call.
    In Polish.
    No, in-- I talked to them in Jewish.
    And I told the nickname.
    In Jewish, that nickname, they call him the [YIDDISH]..
    [LAUGHS]
    Was a little piece of that.
    When I say this, they started to help me right now.
    They give me a piece of bread.
    And one say it, where are you going to work?
    And I give him the piece of paper.
    They say, oh, no.
    I don't know you can make it over there eight, 10 days.
    The job was to go in a coal mine, digging coals.
    And they say over there, who goes over there, the longest,
    two weeks.
    After the two weeks, he going in the crematoriums.
    You come with us?
    I say, no.
    I'm scared because my number is registered.
    There was no-- he didn't have no names.
    He got that number.
    They're going by the number.
    He say, my number is registered, but I'm not going there.
    I coming back, I'm going to be hanged by the kitchen.
    And 61,000 people, prisoners, going
    to watch me while I'm hanging.
    I want to say, don't worry.
    Give me that piece of paper.
    He's going back today, kapo.
    You see, he is a manager.
    But that was a kapo they called it.
    And they talked to that kapo, and the kapo was a murder,
    [NON-ENGLISH].
    Was he a German or a Polack?
    But half and half.
    [NON-ENGLISH] is not German, half and half.
    He got a green, a green star the green star
    it was, that they was.
    When the war broke out, the Germans
    opened the jails for all the criminals.
    And they bring them there.
    And there was our bosses.
    You can imagine that.
    Criminals.
    Yeah, criminals.
    And that was our bosses.
    Was Germans too.
    No, he was.
    And [NON-ENGLISH] was there, you know, some there, a tall guy,
    strong.
    But that boy is--
    what helped me, they used to work in the Kanada.
    The Kanada was mean where all the transports used to come,
    and where people was--
    had to put it on, the gold separate, everything separate,
    in the boxes.
    And they risked their life.
    And there, every day they bring him something.
    They bring him cigarettes.
    They bring him salami.
    It was a kapo.
    Like for the kapo, yeah.
    And he was good with there.
    And he say, yes.
    Next morning, they wake me up and say, come with us.
    I say, no.
    They grabbed me down to their line.
    They put me in the middle.
    They say, look.
    Soon as we walk out of this gate, you'll be saved.
    Nobody leaving us, see we're going out
    over 6,000 people every day with a orchestra, with 200 people.
    It was a beautiful orchestra.
    And before me walked out nobody safe,
    because nobody don't know whose morning going to be.
    As soon as we walked out to, we say
    the same thing in the evening.
    When we comes in, the same orchestra, nobody
    don't know whose night there is till after the Appell.
    After the Appell, you go back to the block,
    you are safe to overnight the next morning there.
    And then there's hold me fast that they'll
    let me go on to the other job.
    And I walk out with that their mornings.
    When I walk out, I was staying with there
    till the last minute, till Auschwitz was liquidated.
    And that boy is always used to help me
    with a piece of bread, a little soup.
    One time, the boys, he come to say, you don't know.
    Maybe somebody can make a cap.
    I say what's a cap.
    They got the a jacket, the stripe there now.
    We want to make it for the top kapo a cap, a nice cap.
    I say, I going to do it.
    I used to make them full caps.
    I gonna do it.
    So, OK.
    I took a piece of paper, and I taking the measurement
    around there.
    He got a big head.
    [LAUGHS] Maybe a 7 and a 1/2, I took around there.
    And then I took up his--
    I's happen to have me some thread, a needle.
    They bring me a thread and a needle and a little scissors.
    And I make the cap.
    The cap took me maybe about two hours, but I make the cap.
    When we go out to work, you got a little booth,
    passanger paper need to go in the day.
    I was sitting there for two days.
    And that kapo bring me-- send me in some food.
    And I make him they cap.
    And I put them in.
    It was very nice.
    And I got some to put it on the top, had to have
    the stiffness, the canvas.
    I putted on some paper from the Zeman bank.
    He make doubled material, the top and the inside,
    so hold the stick.
    And he put it end.
    And he never got--
    I kept like that.
    He liked that.
    He liked that.
    When he was liking that, I was his guy.
    He never touched me, he never beat like he beat other ones.
    He never beat me, never, the whole time.
    And he give me a good job, a job.
    But I was staying there the whole time there,
    till Auschwitz was liquidated.
    We was digging sand in a sand mine, 10 guys.
    And young guy from the Breslau, he make aim--
    he make him for the supervisor, a small guy.
    He was staying in the top, watching
    is come somebody from the SS, from the soldiers.
    And we was down about 20 feet down.
    We was-- we make some steps, make to coming down.
    And we digged some up.
    And we load it in a wagon.
    And we were pushing there to Birkenau, to the crematoriums
    to cover the ashes.
    We was making 4 and 4 is 8, and 8, 15 kilometers a day.
    16 kilometers a day, is over 10 miles.
    Pushing a wagon with sand.
    And so, I was two times a day by the crematoriums and the gas
    chambers.
    And I saw what's going on there.
    Oh, yes.
    One day we stay a Saturday.
    And we was working.
    And we don't know how important it turns out then.
    We take a look.
    We see a soldier stay with a rifle.
    And we started to working so fast.
    He said, in German, he say, slow down, slow down.
    We were scared.
    And he say to us, today is Shabbat.
    Slow down.
    And we slowed down.
    And he talked to us.
    He say he is from Hungaria.
    And he know we going twice a day down there to the crematoriums.
    He said, I am from Hungaria.
    And this is my window there, closest in from the barracks,
    where they used to stay the soldiers.
    This is my window.
    And every day, 4 o'clock, when I get a whistle,
    either one or all of them, one, every day, another one--
    not the same guy--
    to come in.
    And I going to have my little bucket with trash.
    And under the trash is going to be 11 pieces bread.
    And I want everybody to get a piece of bread.
    When I finding out that somebody got a two and the other one
    nothing, nobody not going to get it no more.
    And he did it maybe for two or three weeks.
    And then he say he wants some--
    some bring him some money.
    And we bring the money from the guys
    who were working in the Kanada.
    And we bring him some money.
    He bring him.
    And he used to continue every day.
    With the bread.
    With the bread.
    Yeah.
    One day, with this, you know, whistle, he disappeared.
    He used to tell us all the Jewish holidays, all the names
    and all the holidays he used to say.
    He kept track of the time.
    Yes and he disappear.
    Well, after that, we used to come in the transport
    from Lódz, Lódzer Ghetto.
    Used to come in.
    Their transport in Lódzer Ghetto was tragic,
    because we never saw the light we saw, because now I
    can understand why they rush like that, because the Russian
    push back the Germans in Stalingrad.
    It was closed.
    Children, little children, they grab our arm,
    by the hair, my leg.
    They throw in in the crematoriums alive.
    They throw in.
    And there was a group for young people
    what they want to destroy the crematoriums.
    Was four crematoriums in Auschwitz and two gas chambers.
    And it was four girls and two boys there.
    They got the help, because the ammunition
    factory was in Birkenau, was.
    And they'll destroy it, just one crematorium.
    And the guy, the two girls and one boy.
    And they're going to be-- and they
    was hanging, not in Birkenau.
    They hanged them in Auschwitz.
    They hold there till all of them was coming back from work.
    Their people where they was in Birkenau,
    they never got nothing to do with Auschwitz.
    We was in Auschwitz.
    We got in our barracks in Auschwitz,
    and we saw the hard, they hanged the two girls and the two boys.
    As a matter of fact, I'm from [PLACE NAME]
    We got our men from our, when we making the Yizkor every year,
    and a man was coming and slides.
    And he show for one girl how she got the hanging.
    And I talk to that man.
    I say, how come you got the one slides when I was there,
    and I saw there it was two girls and a boy, young people.
    Well, he say, I don't know.
    I cannot answer that.
    I just gotted this one.
    And this is proof.
    If you say two, I believe you.
    But I hold by this, and I tried together, and I never get it.
    That's the one slides.
    And he showed it, the screen, the different things
    in Auschwitz.
    Like was the crematorium and the gas chambers.
    And the Kanada, with everything there, you know.
    And he showed it.
    He has the slides, uh-huh.
    And he say one slides from one girl, was she got a hanging
    there.
    And when they destroyed the crematorium.
    And The life was going on again, every day something else.
    Every day's all the trouble, till January 18.
    When the Hungarians-- when the Hungarian people was coming,
    was a little man, a midget, was.
    And Mengele, Mengele, he wasn't all the time in Auschwitz.
    He got his people.
    But he was that time.
    And he used to have a office there.
    And he saw the little midget, and he pull him out
    in the line, that the same after all the selection.
    He said they bring a barrel with some medication.
    I don't know what.
    The acid or what.
    And they put in the little man in the barrel alive.
    And the acid eat up his skin, the meat, everything.
    Just a skeleton.
    And they took out the skeleton, with the a pick, the knife,
    and the rifle.
    Bring it out.
    And they say, bring this to my office,
    and hang that up that, you know, has souvenir there.
    Well, it's so much to say about Auschwitz.
    It's people-- the first time, when I was coming,
    yes, you go, people never going to believe it.
    I wrote that we are men, sad.
    There's own sister.
    He the man was coming in 1918 or 1920 the United States.
    And he's had his own sister.
    That you be not my sister, I've been not believe it
    what's happened there.
    What's happened.
    And in 1945, January 18, was about 7 o'clock.
    And the bells started ringing.
    Everybody out in the barracks.
    Out.
    That started-- this was the first transport where they
    liquidated Auschwitz in the 18.
    And I was between there.
    We was working a whole night.
    Yeah, was a rabbi in Auschwitz in block 2.
    I think he was from Sosnowcy, when the--
    and it was-- in block 2 was the guys what
    they work in the tailor shop.
    In the tailor shop, [INAUDIBLE] was coming close.
    People used to hide some money, or gold, or diamonds
    in their shoulders in there.
    And they find it.
    And there saved the rabbi.
    They give the man, the blockova so much gold, diamonds,
    to save their rabbi.
    What did they did?
    We make a closet, and paneled the wall.
    And nobody now can see it's a closet, with a toilet there.
    After 6 o'clock in the morning, they kept it, the Appell.
    This man was going in till 6:30 in the evening.
    And when the Appell, whee the people coming from work,
    and the people coming to work, they coming out.
    We give them then some food, some bread, some water there.
    In 5 o'clock every morning, 5 o'clock, somebody
    want to praying saying Kaddish.
    I was many times there saying Kaddish
    after my parents in the morning.
    Not in the evening.
    The evening was scared.
    Only in the morning, 5 o'clock in the morning.
    And when we walk out from Auschwitz,
    the same young boy from Belgium, he
    was with me and another man, and another man.
    And we saw their rabbi fall down there.
    Nothing can fall in snow.
    And we was scared.
    And we watched it with a-- seen the-- the soldiers was going
    behind his-- whenever somebody fall down, they killed,
    they shot them.
    And we pick him up, and we took him in the middle,
    and we walked.
    There come a soldier with--
    I don't know how you called it.
    A sledge?
    A sledge, yeah.
    And he got his rucksacks, and shoulder bags,
    and everything full.
    And we has pulling the rabbi, was one side there
    in the middle.
    I hold him.
    And the other one.
    And we pull the sledge there behind
    till it was getting daylight.
    In daylight, we come in a small town.
    Where, I don't know.
    And they let us in.
    Was farmers there.
    And let us in in the stables with the horses,
    with the cows, the pigs, till the evening.
    In the evening, we have to go out.
    We was walking again to the railroad station.
    And we were going in the trains.
    And we was there maybe about two days there.
    We're going to Gross-Rosen.
    I never saw no more the rabbi.
    We're going to Gross-Rosen.
    We was in Gross-Rosen a few days.
    And over there was murder.
    They let us in in a shed, just country.
    And we lay down at night.
    Our whole days, we cannot sit down.
    They have to stay.
    No food.
    Once a day, in the evening, a slice of bread
    and a little coffee or water.
    And we cannot sit down.
    We have to stay there.
    In this shed was between 1,500 and 2,000.
    And at night, for the Ukrayina, we have to lay down.
    And they put us down.
    Had the legs like this.
    Let's see how tall.
    And I got to show the man with me.
    He wanted us, his head to reach my head.
    He showed them.
    They walk around with pieces, pipes, 1/2 inch pipe,
    3/4 inch pipes, iron.
    And that's they hit us.
    One day they say, [INAUDIBLE],, we have to--
    we're going out of there.
    They're making a Appell.
    And they look at the numbers.
    I don't have-- not to have the star.
    I happen to have a star that I'm not Jewish.
    They don't let me out.
    And this was downstairs.
    This was upstairs.
    This was downstairs, the barrack.
    And I see I'm going to be dead over there.
    I got a feeling as it's close to the end.
    As a matter of fact, I left Auschwitz the 18th.
    In seven days, the 5th, the Russian occupied Auschwitz.
    In seven days, the seven days, it cost me five months
    suffering, because--
    and I was going.
    And I jumped out through the window.
    I run in, and all the people was staying there.
    I want to say, no, don't take my place.
    I say, look.
    I told them about this.
    They used to know me, men who used to know me.
    Well, I got some friends.
    They cover me till we walk out from Gross-Rosen.
    Walk out from Gross-Rosen, going to the station.
    And we got some trains.
    And took us from Gross-Rosen till Dachau three days.
    And walking?
    No, be in the trains.
    Yeah, it's not too far.
    They pull up and pull it back.
    They pull up and pull it back.
    Pull up and pull it back, in the open trains.
    The snow fall.
    We was eating snow for water.
    There was a man with a son.
    And the boy got crazy for hunger.
    And he follow over the daddy.
    The daddy hold him and cried.
    And they both grab him by the neck
    and choked the father to death.
    He choked them.
    Well, then we will come into Dachau.
    When we come to Dachau, there was some blocks, typhus blocks.
    Many, they make a selection.
    And many they put up and put in the blocks, the typhus blocks.
    And people were dying.
    I got the one man, I got the one man what I got close to him.
    He's from Poland, from Radom, he was.
    And he was strong.
    We can make-- they took him out and put him
    in in that typhus block.
    As a matter of facts, he, when we was in Auschwitz, he saved--
    through him, I saved my friend's life, that where
    he is now in New York.
    When he was going out from Majdanek.
    And then he was coming to Auschwitz in '43 in November,
    to go to the gas chambers.
    How he run away from there, I don't know.
    But I saw him.
    And he said-- and when I saw him, he say to me,
    you got something to eat?
    I never eat for three days.
    I say, cover me.
    I got one little piece of carrot here,
    because when we was coming back from work,
    we never had all the [GERMAN].
    And they look at us.
    I took a piece of string and tie it up the sleeve here.
    When I put in the carrots and tie it up here,
    when I raising my arms, nothing fall out.
    And it was dirty.
    And I was giving to him.
    And if he eat them with the dirt, with everything then.
    You found the carrots in the field somewhere?
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    I used to go to the garbage cans.
    I used to go gather the skins from the potatoes,
    and bring them with, me and wash there.
    Next morning, I took it back to work and put it
    on a piece of paper with a Zeman paper in the sun
    and let it dry in there, and bring it back in the evening.
    I got something to eat.
    That's- I find it there.
    You see.
    So you found a carrot.
    Find the carrots.
    And I save his life.
    And this man, what I saved [? a letter, ?] he never--
    he never got a job where to go.
    And I used to know a guy what he got a green star.
    It was a Jewish guy, or he was on arisch papers
    in the arisch side.
    And they caught him.
    They bring him to Auschwitz.
    And they put him down in green.
    The green is like a criminal.
    And I told him his name.
    He was named Kowalski, Adam Kowalski.
    And a nice young man.
    And I say, look at them.
    You know somebody, my friend there, need a job, a Nazi.
    He going to the gas chambers.
    Look at him.
    He's just came out.
    And I don't know how he was run away.
    Well, we have to have something to tip him.
    And I say, you know me.
    I don't have nothing.
    And the man from Radom, he was working outside by the people,
    where they coming from the transport the Kanada,
    he say, if you'll help this man, I bring something.
    The next day, the man risk his life,
    and bring a little change, a gold change,
    not from the inside.
    He find it the outside.
    He find it.
    He find it the outside.
    And he bring in.
    And I give it to him.
    And I see, can you give us a bread?
    Well, of course, he was there not a Jew.
    He was like, a Polack or what.
    I don't know what kind of nation he was.
    But he told me he's Jewish.
    As a matter of fact, I saw him after the war.
    I saw him in Germany, in Landsberg I saw him.
    But people used to know him from before.
    He say, OK.
    He bring us two bread.
    He bring us to bread.
    The next morning, he--
    my friend gotted the job.
    He was working in Birkenau in the ammunition factory.
    He was working.
    Was a hard life, not an easy life.
    So tell me, when they evacuated you, you were--
    and so how far-- yeah, they took you to--
    what was the camp?
    Gross-Rosen.
    Yeah, Gross-Rosen.
    Was then in Dachau.
    And from Dachau I was going to Mühldorf.
    How long were you in Mühldorf?
    In Mühldorf, I was till the end.
    Till they invaded-- who, the Russians are the Americans?
    The Americans.
    Americans.
    This is tragisch was before we got liberated.
    It was then, when we was in Mühldorf
    in Mühldorf was no barracks.
    Mühldorf was, from the ground, they
    make some tunnels with steps, two steps to going down there.
    And then they make in the ground a bridge to say down.
    Was a little straw with a piece of blanket.
    There we was sleeping there.
    I was over there.
    I left from Dachau in March.
    That was in March till April, April, maybe by April 26, 27.
    Why I say that, because the 1st of May we got liberated.
    In that few days, from the 26, from the 16,
    was was in the trains.
    We was in the trains by Tutzing, before Feldafing, 4 kilometers
    before Feldafing, a small town, Tutzing,
    where the road going to Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
    with the people skiing, you know.
    But was over there very big mountains.
    And the Germans cut it off, the mountains divided.
    And they made a railroad track.
    They make a railroad track.
    And we was there a few days, four or five days.
    Every days, six days, we was in that trains.
    We're going back and forth and back and forth.
    One day, one day they opened the doors, and they say out.
    Out.
    And we run out.
    And it was high a mountain, maybe 20 feet,
    over 20 feet high.
    And we started.
    And we coming close up there.
    We want to see what's the other side.
    And German soldiers was staying there with machine guns,
    and started to fire.
    And we was-- many got killed, and we running back down, back
    to the trains.
    The next day we hear some another,
    airplanes throwing bombs.
    We can hear the whistles from the bombs.
    About a couple hours later, some soldiers
    come in and open the door from there, from where I was.
    And they said, they needing a few for work.
    And we was scared to go because we saw
    what was before, a day before.
    Nobody want to go.
    And they was in and say you, you, you, you,
    out, out, out, out, out.
    Well, they call me too.
    Then I say to myself, they walking up,
    and all the floor in the mountain,
    they come in the other side.
    And I say to me, oh, my God.
    Now I think it's the end.
    When there so many years, so many years.
    Saw ghetto.
    Ghetto.
    And so much trouble, and lost everybody.
    And now it's the end.
    It's the end.
    And now, who going to say where my whole family is gone?
    We was 78 people in our family, and not one is alive.
    After all the years, through all the years.
    I had a [INAUDIBLE] in Israel in '81.
    I was ready to go, because my daughter
    born a baby, the first baby.
    I have to cancel.
    I was in '83 in Washington.
    I was in '85 in Philadelphia.
    I just was there last year in Los Angeles.
    For the gathering.
    For the gathering.
    And wherever I was, I was writing the papers
    through the radio, through the television,
    and through the HIAS.
    And nobody call me or write to me.
    I looking for somebody, for somebody family is alive.
    And I say to myself, now I'm going off Kiddush HaShem now.
    Well, I say, I have no choice, but I
    like to have my decent piece of bread
    before they're going to kill me there.
    And when I'm come up the other side the mountain,
    I see a little railroad station.
    And they say there was [INAUDIBLE]
    now, was a bomb fall there, and the damaged
    help me cleaning up.
    And they give me a pick.
    The other guys give them a shovel.
    One got a broom, whatever there is.
    And I take the pick, and I see a little counter there.
    And I going around, and I look inside.
    I see bread.
    I grab a little bread, a pumpernickel bread.
    A little dark bread, and maybe some
    [? pants, ?] whatever it is, and grab it in the jacket,
    and hold there, and started to eat.
    And that postman hit me with a stick, like a baseball bat.
    Hit me.
    And I pulled down there.
    And he kicked me.
    Get up, get up.
    I was get up till I got finished the little bread.
    And I say to myself, oh my God.
    When I got the-- my wish, I'm going to live.
    I'm going to live.
    As a matter of fact, what's her name?
    The lady was written a book.
    And she was coming maybe about in '85 or '86,
    when the war ends.
    And I was sitting with her about two
    and a half, about three hours, and told her all about that,
    from the beginner to the end, in Warsaw ghetto.
    She want to know.
    And she send me the book.
    What I say from Auschwitz, when they get them, there's nothing.
    She mentioned how I was survive with their bread in their
    [INAUDIBLE].
    A little post, maybe about this size,
    it's written down my name.
    But how it's about what I asked for the bread
    for my [? dead. ?] It's in their book there.
    And then, when we was coming back, when we was coming back,
    we stay overnight.
    They moved the trains out to Tutzing.
    And then one morning we hear, in the highway,
    we hear in the highway some heavy.
    Was still dark, it was.
    Like military running.
    And when we looked out, it's get a little dead--
    daylight.
    And we look out, was thinking that's the Russian.
    We never saw American soldiers.
    The uniforms.
    And we stored [? at the house. ?]
    And we was 40,000.
    We was over 5,000.
    And 40,000 was left in the--
    And it's coming up to the fence, is coming up
    a American Jeep with two soldiers.
    One was from the MP.
    MP.
    A little short man.
    Military Police.
    Yeah.
    A little short man.
    And he was speaking German very, very good.
    He was speaking German.
    And he say to us, Who are you?
    And we say we in concentration.
    He see the stripes, with the numbers.
    He turn around a Jeep.
    He come back, and come back with a captain,
    and took out a pistol.
    And all the soldiers coming up.
    And first, they arresting all the Germans, the person
    what they watching us.
    And the captain say to cooking some food for us.
    Many has run away.
    Many run away, we run away.
    Where there was running, I don't know.
    Maybe it's gone-- the Germans started
    to get scared that time.
    They were scared.
    And I find it out later, as they was got a strong to run away,
    they was going and knocking on the doors, the Germans.
    And the Germans took the end.
    They give their bed to stay, and the clothes, and food.
    I not can eat food.
    And when they cooking their food,
    they was cooking rice, fat rice.
    And there, same man there, the American there, MP, he saw me.
    But I was working, see, there.
    And he gather some rice.
    He looked at me.
    He stopped me.
    He say, don't eat that.
    I say, look at them.
    Look at me.
    I'm going to die.
    You're not dying till now.
    But you going to eat this, you're going to die.
    In German, he talked to me.
    You eat this, you die.
    I say why?
    Men-- look at that.
    They're eating this.
    They're going to die, and I cannot--
    I cannot talk to all of them.
    This is fat.
    Your people is shrinked in.
    The stomach is shrinked in.
    And You're going to get it, the diarrhea.
    And you're going to sit, and you're going to die.
    And I say, so what I going to do there?
    How I going to live?
    He say, we going to get you a bed to stay now.
    And every day, and you gather a piece of bread, toast it there,
    and get a little boiled water with a little bit sugar,
    every day a little more, till your stomach
    gonna be stretched there.
    I said, toast?
    What is toast?
    He say, make the bread hot.
    They're going to do it.
    Well, anyway, he cannot stay with me.
    He told me what to do.
    It's enough.
    I follow him.
    I took the piece of bread every morning,
    and I'm going out with--
    they bring us to Feldafing.
    They bring us, when they get us the barracks,
    from the soldiers, then we staying 18 people in one room.
    And I take the piece of bread and put it down in the sun,
    and I stay and watch there for the day.
    And I take a little boiled, that little sugar, for two weeks,
    till my stomach was stretched there.
    And a while later we didn't had no clothes, nothing.
    They give us a pajamas.
    They give us like a maize color.
    No shoes, no socks, no underwear, no clothes.
    Nothing.
    One day, I was walking in the street
    barefoot with another guy.
    What he helped me, I help him.
    When he wash my pajamas, I was staying in the bridge,
    and he ain't got that to get dry, I bring you back.
    And I did it for him too.
    And we walked-- in July, we walked
    in the street in Feldafing barefoot in pajamas.
    And the same guy passed them with a Jeep, and he stop us.
    He was thinking, and we anxious Germans was coming from Russia.
    And he started to talking to us.
    And I recognized him.
    And I told him.
    I say, you the one where you give us
    the freedom there in May 1.
    You tell us it's May, May 1.
    He say, yes.
    We say, why you work there?
    And I say we didn't have no help, nothing.
    Nobody come to us, see us.
    Nobody.
    We live the same way like in Auschwitz--
    again, in the morning, a piece of bread,
    7 o'clock a little soup.
    In the evening again a piece of bread and a little coffee.
    No clothes, no shoes, no socks, no nothing.
    No underwear.
    He say, what?
    We say, yes.
    He say to us, to me and the other guys, he say, look.
    I'm 3 kilometers away from here.
    What you coming tomorrow morning, 7 o'clock, not before.
    Don't come in the front.
    Come with the back, come.
    In the back was hills maybe about 10 feet high.
    And he say 7 o'clock.
    We was over there at 6 o'clock we was.
    And he say, 6 o'clock.
    We was.
    And we going there around there.
    And we see when the soldiers come around.
    And stay in the line, staying, and gather the breakfast.
    When we saw him coming out, and we get a signal,
    we started to coughing.
    And he looked up.
    When he looked up, when he looked up, he saw us.
    He's going to the captain, and told the captain,
    I got two refugees there from the concentration camp.
    Maybe he told the whole story.
    And the captain said, bring them in.
    And we come in there, and he saw us mostly naked.
    And he gave us a paper, and say, bring that to the PX.
    He give us shoes, and socks, and underwear, and shirts,
    and pants, and jackets-- everything.
    And the captain said, if you want it,
    you can come at lunchtime again.
    And we're saying, OK.
    We was coming not just lunchtime.
    We was coming three times a day for weeks.
    And he bring us back to the--
    to Feldafing, to the camp.
    And it's that time started to coming many people transport.
    And through their men, what I was with him,
    he got a nephew there.
    And a nephew comes one time, and he say,
    is a girl from their town is in the hospital.
    She see-- she asked for a piece of white bread.
    Maybe he can bring her.
    I bring her a whole bread and butter.
    And then we bring some oranges.
    How we got the oranges.
    We opened the boxes with the oranges,
    and we saw a few oranges is spoiled.
    Then we took the good one and rub it and put it in the side.
    And the American, they see that, they said, oh, no,
    that's no good.
    You want it, take it.
    You see, one say they make some hamburgers for lunch.
    One say, the hamburger is no good.
    I don't want it.
    They put it back.
    The other soldiers never eat that.
    One time I bring two big hamburgers for this size.
    And he told us, it's good.
    You see, the American, they got it too much to eat.
    They say it's no good.
    And he bring us to Feldafing back.
    And I gather all the other kind people to eat.
    The same girl.
    When she got well--
    I help her a lot.
    Oranges, whatever she need.
    And she got well, she was come and see me.
    She was come and see me.
    And she looked at me, and she looked at me,
    and I see she turn around, and go around by me.
    And I don't say nothing.
    A few days later, she bring me a pair of white linen pants.
    She bring me.
    I say what is this?
    I say, that's a gift.
    You help, you saved my life.
    If not you, I will be dead.
    And I say, where you get the material?
    I say, I got a big double sheet for my bed.
    I cut it off in half, and I washed there,
    and I made you a pair of pants.
    Well, the whole life, it's amazing.
    It's amazing.
    It's hard, hard to describe how we got to survive.
    Very, very hard to describe how we got to survive.
    It's terrible.
    And how long were you in Feldafing after--
    I was in Feldafing till August.
    You were liberated in April or in May?
    Yeah, in May.
    Yeah, my friend was [INAUDIBLE] in New York.
    He and other two ladies would come and looking for somebody
    was there.
    You see, in Germany, Feldafing, it got a big name
    because all the transports used to come into Feldafing, people,
    and orphan, and all the way around.
    The liberated people.
    Liberated people, yes.
    Did they have some kind of a center there for them?
    Yes, yes.
    And used to be signs, papers in the walls with the names,
    who comes in.
    And then we will come and looking for people.
    Maybe we know somebody, or somebody, relatives.
    And I saw him.
    And I saw him end of the month of July
    with two like this, what one I know,
    and the other one was from the same town,
    what I am, from Warsaw, from even from the same street.
    The other one was my wife's friend.
    There was the ghetto in Majdanek.
    There was the ghetto in all the camps.
    And there was liberated the ghetto.
    She is in Brazil now.
    Sofia, she is in Brazil.
    And she say to me, oh, you from the fur business?
    My girlfriend, Kamilla, was from the fur business.
    I say, what's the name?
    She say, Galena.
    I say the Galenas?
    I used to deal with that.
    She say, come on let's go to.
    Come the third time.
    But then it's the life better.
    You get a room by the Germans.
    Not here.
    So on and so.
    Well, I say, I gonna see.
    Next month I got a friend what I used
    to be together with him in concentration camp,
    in Buna, and in Auschwitz.
    He was from Lódz.
    I say, Solomon, it's not life.
    Let's go, and come on.
    You wanna?
    He say, yes.
    We have nothing to lose.
    We don't have nothing.
    We don't have no clothes, no nothing anyway.
    One was, where I was in the room, from the 18 people,
    was two brothers.
    I don't know if from Lódz or from elsewhere,
    there was tailors.
    And I feed there three times a day.
    I feed there.
    Wherever I can, I bring a lot of food, lot of.
    And I never took from nobody nothing,
    and God knows the truth.
    I never took nothing from nobody.
    And there, two brothers make me a suit
    from a blanket, a little gray, light gray blanket, a very thin
    one.
    With two pair of pants.
    One pair of pants long ones, and one
    was the style that the Germans weared,
    coming over pants and a coat first with pleats,
    a sport coat with pleats--
    very nice.
    That's how I used to have, and the white pants
    from the young girl, what I feed on the hospital.
    I say, that's I have it.
    And he don't have it too much too.
    And I say, let's make one package,
    and you and me, you, let's go out
    in the road and hitchhiking.
    And we go on to Türkheim.
    It was not too far.
    Was from Feldafing was far, was about 80 kilometers.
    Well, we gotted the one truck stopped, a army truck.
    And stopped and took us, and let us down in a place up the road.
    We don't know.
    Then we stay.
    And he told us, stay there.
    The other trucks coming, and go till he was coming.
    He was coming.
    And then I saw my friend.
    He was staying in a nice house.
    And I saw the--
    Sofia was-- she is in Brazil.
    And the other one.
    And when I was with my friend in the house,
    my wife then stay, my wife comes.
    And she called her friend, Sofia.
    Sofia?
    Sofia had gone to the window looking down.
    She said, Frieda, come up.
    She said, no, I'm not going.
    But she was shy.
    She called me to the window.
    She say, [INAUDIBLE] I'm going down.
    I'm come to the window and I looked down there.
    She say, no, I want to come up.
    I was going down.
    And I bring her up.
    And since then, I always say the story, the people,
    they ask me how I met her.
    And I say, I was, and I looked down,
    I looked down through the window,
    and she got a fishing rod, and fishing hook,
    and a fishing rod, and fishing, and she got me.
    She got you because you liked her.
    You liked the way she--
    No, no, no, no, no.
    See, I never know her.
    I never know her.
    But one thing is, she was from the same town what
    I was, raised.
    And I used to know her family.
    I used to know.
    I used to deal before the war with her family.
    I used to deal.
    I used to have my own shop, fur shop.
    And from town, it's a different feeling.
    It's a different feeling.
    Because--
    It's like family.
    Like a family.
    That's right.
    I saw others.
    I saw others got marriage, and they call us name.
    From your town, that this, their name
    is their name, from the small little towns.
    It's a difference.
    They got the nicknames.
    They call nicknames.
    We didn't have no nicknames.
    We didn't have a nicknames.
    We didn't have it.
    So after you met Frieda--
    is that her name?
    Yeah.
    So you did you get married shortly after that?
    Well, I met her in '45, and we got marriage in '46,
    in November.
    We got marriage.
    And we was very poor.
    She never got a dress in wedding.
    I never got a suit.
    I got a little suit.
    The friend what I got in Milwaukee.
    His wife was from Hungaria.
    But she got sick.
    She passed away in '62.
    Cancer.
    Wonderful person.
    And he's still in Germany?
    Huh?
    We're still in Germany, still in--
    Yes, yes, yes.
    --in Türkheim?
    Yes, yes.
    No, I was living in Türkheim.
    There I was living in Milwaukee.
    When I told you about used to run and looking for people,
    maybe I finding somebody.
    And she said to her husband, when you find it
    now a person from Warsaw, and you say he is your friend,
    he is my friend.
    And that time we have to have cards to buy something,
    or, let's say, buy a suit, or a piece of material,
    or the wools.
    And she is going up right away to the Burgermeister.
    The Burgermeister is the--
    The mayor.
    The mayor.
    The mayor from the city hall in Germany.
    And she gotted the coupons.
    And she give me.
    And she show me where to go and get a suit.
    But I got no the money.
    Was a very little.
    Even with the coupon, you had to have--
    With the coupons, yeah.
    But then I come back there.
    You see, my wife and Sofia used to get
    the coupon, some a little money that they used to live private.
    They used to get it in the city hall
    where I used to live in Türkheim,
    little money every month, every week, every day is.
    And I bought her from that.
    And then I bought a suit.
    And that suit, my friend, I got a friend what
    we raised together from Warsaw.
    He used to live in Landsberg.
    There's a DP camp too.
    And when he got marriage, he wear that suit.
    A year later, he got a suit, a nicer suit.
    I took it, his suit.
    I took it.
    But let me tell you some funny.
    She didn't have no dress.
    And we get marriage Saturday night.
    Saturday in day, are knocking the door by a German woman,
    by--
    used to met her sometime in the streets, say good morning.
    And she stopped me.
    She talked to me a few times.
    And she used to have a daughter the same size.
    I didn't have none.
    I got her two packs cigarettes, two pieces Hershey's chocolate
    candies, and a little can coffee, 4 ounces.
    I got her.
    And I put it on a little paper bag.
    And I go up to her, and I talk to her.
    And she say to me in German, she say, oh, I
    saw your list that you're going to get marriage,
    because we have to go into the city hall, get out some papers.
    I say, yes.
    And I call her by the name and I say I'm sorry.
    My bride have no a dress.
    And when the daughter go there, she
    say, oh, no, she saw that She got nervous.
    She jumped to the ceiling.
    And the mother say, he don't say nothing but you, what you want?
    Oh, no, that's here is.
    He want a dress, I say, yes, I want a dress.
    And I told the lady.
    I say, look, I'm not coming here to rob you.
    I'm coming to here, and I asked you to help me.
    And before I show her what I have there,
    she got a [INAUDIBLE].
    I was in the kitchen.
    In the other room the [INAUDIBLE] was close the door.
    And I stand up, and I go to the [INAUDIBLE],,
    and I open the door, and I see a dress, a sky-blue dress,
    beautiful color.
    And I took out that dress, and I say, that's what I wanted.
    And I hold the dress with a hanger.
    I say, that's one.
    And the door, they crying.
    And I take that little back.
    And I turn over in the kitchen table.
    I say, this I have it.
    That's the money.
    I didn't have no money.
    I have no other thing.
    That's why I have it.
    And I want to pay you for this.
    Later on, when I'm going to having something,
    I'm going to pay you.
    But that's I pay you.
    And the mother look at me.
    She say, take it.
    And I think her.
    And I walk out, and I roll on another piece of paper,
    and I roll them on my arm.
    And I walk out.
    And the daughter was crying, howling.
    What's happened later on between the mother and the daughter,
    I don't know till now.
    But later on, when I built up myself,
    I never gone back to their house.
    No.
    They wanted the daughter to get angry.
    Yeah, Carl, excuse me.
    Would you stop it for a minute.
    You were saying about the dress, yeah?
    Yeah.
    And I never come back there, because I didn't wanted mother
    and daughter to get angry.
    But a while later.
    And when I saw a few times the mother on the street,
    I told her, I'm coming to see you.
    But I don't want to come up to your house
    because I know your daughter is angry with me.
    You know what I did it.
    I didn't had no choice.
    I didn't want to tell her what you people did it to us.
    But if you need something from somebody,
    you have to be gentle.
    But later on, I pay you enough.
    Yes.
    I pay you enough for that.
    It's small, but the dress was worth it.
    And we you got it.
    You got married.
    And we got marriage there, 1946, November the 11th.
    It's made for the--
    Did you have some friends that came to the wedding?
    Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    All the greener, we used to be in that town.
    And my friend there, what I say from New York, he brings some--
    he left by very early the same night, Friday.
    And he brings some fish, alive, carps.
    Yeah.
    There.
    And we got some ducks, and goose, and cakes, toasts.
    It was a very nice wedding.
    It was very nice.
    Yeah, a lot of people.
    Excuse me.
    Is--
    But one thing-- one thing was missing.
    What?
    Relatives.
    Relatives, was nobody.
    That's the one problem.
    In Türkheim, was this a DP camp or was this--
    Was a DP camp too.
    Was Abteilung from Dachau.
    Yeah.
    Were you in the DP camp?
    No, no.
    My wife was.
    She was.
    I think she was coming there from [PLACE NAME] or where,
    toward the Türkheim.
    She was in Mauthaussen or [PLACE NAME] she was.
    And she was coming to Türkheim.
    I was coming to Türkheim, like I told you, yeah,
    with my friends.
    So it's coming.
    And I met them in Feldafing.
    And then so I was coming.
    That was after the war.
    I was coming to Türkheim.
    So you stayed in Türkheim for a while?
    Till I was come-- not far out.
    Till I was coming to United States for four years.
    Four years.
    Yes.
    Were you able to work in your field,
    in the furrier field there.
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    I got a chance to make the examination
    in [INAUDIBLE],, what I had to bring them with me
    and left there.
    One thing I got when I was working for the Americans,
    there in the kitchen.
    And when they moved, they kept--
    give me a piece of paper, how I was a good working, a refugee,
    and so on and so on.
    And I got it.
    So that helped you.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    So if I remember correctly, your son was born in--
    My son was born 1948.
    In Türkheim.
    In Türkheim, in May, May 13.
    That time was the Israel Independence Day.
    Was.
    And there was a Mother's Day.
    [LAUGHS] Same day.
    Israel was born.
    Born.
    Israel was born there.
    And he was born.
    Wonderful day.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    Yeah, for just a moment, I would like to backtrack,
    if you would name your six--
    your three sisters and three brothers, their names,
    so we will have it on record.
    I just got it on the telephone, I got the two brothers.
    What I said, we was six children at home, three girls
    and three boys.
    I'm between the three boys.
    So then it's two boys and three girls.
    And three girls, yes.
    And none of them survived.
    Nobody.
    I know, I'm sure, I know they're all in Treblinka.
    Plus my mother and one sister.
    Like what I told you before, my father.
    Would you please, for the record, name, give their names,
    if you remember their names.
    Sure I know their names.
    What do you want it first?
    It doesn't matter which order.
    Just start--
    How you want it, in Jewish or in English?
    Both.
    Give the Jewish name and the English name too.
    OK.
    And the brothers, one is Moishe, is Morris.
    And the other one is Boruch is Bennie.
    And my name you got there.
    And the sisters, one is Sarah, is Sora.
    Rivke is Rebecca.
    Laye is Leslie.
    And she-- my granddaughter, her name, the older ones,
    is Leslie.
    Yeah.
    And that's--
    And your parents' names?
    My parents, my father, Jacob is Janke.
    And my mother, Toby, is Toby.
    Oh, you're daughter's named after Toby.
    Yeah, yeah.
    That's the family.
    What kind of livelihood did your father make?
    What was he in?
    Was he in business or--
    he was a merchant.
    Merchant.
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    Did you attend public school?
    Yeah, sure.
    See, in Poland the schools was not
    so too much for Jewish people, you see?
    Then we was-- the boys would have gone.
    The morning was going the girls from-- they
    started at 8:00, till they started lessons till 12:00.
    And then we was coming 1:00 to 3:00,
    boys separate and girls separating.
    And then you also probably studied Hebrew in the cheder.
    Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
    When you were growing up, did you feel comfortable
    in public school?
    Did you feel--
    Well, we was used to there.
    You see, when you're in a country, you're born.
    Not everybody gotted the same life.
    Some of them got it better.
    Some of it got worse.
    So some of it got it good-- very good.
    What made it very good, very good, was that somebody,
    let's say, he got a good job, or they
    got a business, make a little more money,
    he lived a little higher.
    And wherever somebody can make a living, got used to that,
    and was satisfied, because we didn't have no other choice.
    They have no other choice.
    Let's say when I was young, I'm the one in my family
    what I am a furrier.
    Nobody.
    Was no tailors in my family.
    Was no shoemakers.
    All of us business.
    I'm the one.
    But I started my life nice.
    I was on my own.
    I used to have a shop my own.
    I used to make some--
    summertime I used to make some fur
    coats I used to make, and then sell them
    when it come to wintertime.
    I got some people who used to come.
    And they say, I know--
    see, in Europe was some, like, people.
    But they never can afforded to pay, but they wanted.
    Use some people for the coming, they used to pay for that.
    Let's say somebody wanted a fur coat.
    They come to me.
    They cannot afford it.
    They pay.
    They got that somebody will pay me, and pay them by the week
    or by the month, and that charges so much interest.
    And installments.
    Yeah, And charges so much interest.
    Not everybody, he can't afford to taking out $100 or whatever
    there is and buying something.
    Now here, you got a credit card.
    You can get it what you want.
    Did you feel any discrimination actually before the war,
    before, let's say, 1939?
    Did you ever feel any discrimination?
    Sure, was a lot.
    Was a lot in Poland, sure.
    Sure.
    Was a lot.
    Sure.
    Was a time where you see, in Warsaw,
    it was a park, the nicest the park in the whole Poland.
    In park Skaryszewski, we used to go summertime in May.
    We used to go early in the morning.
    Like you called it majówki And then in May it
    was the [? Luft. ?] The air was so nice.
    Or later on, now you can't go.
    It's coming.
    And then later on.
    And then in '36, '37, '38.
    But antisemitism was very strong then.
    So Jews wouldn't-- you wouldn't go because you were afraid
    to go.
    No, you see, we don't want to fight to death, you see?
    Because the Jews, the Jews, they have not too much right,
    even it comes out, you go-- you're going
    to-- going to police station.
    You going to a police station.
    They have no-- they have no right.
    They have no.
    That's why we stay away.
    We stay away.
    Well, we was used to their life, was used in the life.
    It's trouble, but it's come the holiday, a Jewish holiday,
    we used to know it's a holiday.
    We know what's a Jewish holiday.
    We know.
    We was closed.
    All the stores was closed.
    And people were going Saturday to the synagogue
    or the holiday, going to the synagogue.
    We know it's a holiday.
    One gotted better food, one got a--
    but--
    You did live in a district with a lot of Jews,
    where a lot of Jews were.
    No.
    No, no, no, no, no, no.
    Not where I was living.
    You didn't live on Mila Street.
    No.
    No, no.
    Wherever I was living, I was living the other side ocean.
    They called it Praga.
    There was more gentiles than Jews.
    I see.
    Yeah.
    But the ghetto was in Warsaw, was 350,000 Jews,
    and there's not too many left.
    I don't know if they got 5,000 Jews left in the 350,000.
    But it wasn't only Warsaw.
    It was also from the surrounding area.
    Was it only Warsaw?
    No, Warsaw and Praga was 350,000 Jews before the war.
    Not in the small countries.
    Had nothing to do with Warsaw, no.
    The small towns.
    Well, I think, Sam, that we have covered pretty much everything.
    And I thank you very much for giving us your story.
    You're very welcome.
    I'm sure appreciate it.
    And I'm sure appreciate it, what both of you
    did it there for me.
    It's very important for me.
    It's very, very important for me,
    because maybe someday, someday maybe somebody
    will know their name, going to look in their name.
    That's right.
    This is very important.
    But we need it for future for history, we need it.
    That's what I say.
    That's what I say.
    Well, I don't know how long I'm going to live.
    But that's for the future.
    That's what I say.
    Maybe somebody's going to see there
    in a few years, or five years, or 10 years,
    and say, oh, I know the name.
    I used to know.
    That's right.
    I think.
    That's why I say, I appreciate it very much.
    Thank you.

    Overview

    Interviewee
    Solomon Radasky
    Date
    interview:  1992 January 12

    Physical Details

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

    Rights & Restrictions

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    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Radasky, Solomon, 1910-

    Administrative Notes

    Legal Status
    Permanent Collection
    Provenance
    The interview with Solomon Radasky was conducted on January 12, 1992 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 1992.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:09:56
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    Oral histories conducted by the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors Association

    Date: 1987-1992

    Oral history interview with Ella Adler

    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 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 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 interview with Joseph Bash

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Been

    Oral history interview with Anna Been

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Aaron Bendetson

    Oral history interview with Aaron Bendetson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Erna Bindelglas

    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 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 interview with Marsha Botwinik

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Solomon Cukier

    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 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 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 interview with Sally Dragon

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Rae Freisinger

    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 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 interview with Hyman Goldberg

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Irving Goldstein

    Oral history interview with Irving Goldstein

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Helen Handler

    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 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 interview with Rose Jaloviec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Pauline Killough

    Oral history interview with Pauline Killough

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Klinger

    Oral history interview with Gertrude Klinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Koenig

    Oral history interview with Anna Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral history interview with William Koenig

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral history interview with Michael Kopiec

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Berga Lechowitz

    Oral history interview with Berga Lechowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Judith Lederman

    Oral history interview with Judith Lederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Lederman

    Oral history interview with Leon Lederman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Stephen Lerman

    Oral history interview with Stephen Lerman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lena Levine

    Oral history interview with Lena Levine

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Sarah Marwick

    Oral history interview with Sarah Marwick

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marion Migdal

    Oral history interview with Marion Migdal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern

    Oral history interview with Abe Morgenstern

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leon Nelson

    Oral history interview with Leon Nelson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Mollie Nelson

    Oral history interview with Mollie Nelson

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Carl Ofisher

    Oral history interview with Carl Ofisher

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Jacques Rajchgod

    Oral history interview with Jacques Rajchgod

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Hy Roitman

    Oral history interview with Hy Roitman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Robert Ronay

    Oral history interview with Robert Ronay

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Esther Rosen

    Oral history interview with Esther Rosen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Rosen

    Oral history interview with Samuel Rosen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with George Schiffman

    Oral history interview with George Schiffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Wella Schiffman

    Oral history interview with Wella Schiffman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Fanny Schlomowitz

    Oral history interview with Fanny Schlomowitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Samuel Soldinger

    Oral history interview with Samuel Soldinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Henry Sontag

    Oral history interview with Henry Sontag

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Anna Spitz

    Oral history interview with Anna Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Arthur Spitz

    Oral history interview with Arthur Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Harry Spitz

    Oral history interview with Harry Spitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Heddy Spitz

    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 interview with Agnes Tennenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Larry Weidenbaum

    Oral history interview with Larry Weidenbaum

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Magda Willinger

    Oral history interview with Magda Willinger

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Al Wulc

    Oral history interview with Al Wulc

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Bertha Wulc

    Oral history interview with Bertha Wulc

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Blanch Robin

    Oral history interview with Blanch Robin

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gertie Blau

    Oral history interview with Gertie Blau

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Lillian Feigen

    Oral history interview with Lillian Feigen

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski

    Oral history interview with Nancy Fordonski

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Gisella Fry

    Oral history interview with Gisella Fry

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Shirley Lebovitz

    Oral history interview with Shirley Lebovitz

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Marion Katzman

    Oral history interview with Marion Katzman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Frieda Radasky

    Oral history interview with Frieda Radasky

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Maria Segal

    Oral history interview with Maria Segal

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with David Silver

    Oral history interview with David Silver

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Leo Smilovic

    Oral history interview with Leo Smilovic

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Risa Stillman

    Oral history interview with Risa Stillman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Adele Weisman

    Oral history interview with Adele Weisman

    Oral History

    Oral history interview with Paul Weisman

    Oral history interview with Paul Weisman

    Oral History

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