- --with Theresienstadt, too.
- So listen, I came into the camp in '41.
- So so I happen to know.
- You could not live if you were six years old.
- It's impossible.
- It's impossible.
- But when you see the numbers when
- they're marching out on the--
- Well, they lived, because they were also part
- of these hospital experiments.
- How do you say this?
- Wroclaw
- Wroclaw.
- That's where you--
- I was born there, right.
- Wroclaw.
- OK.
- Right.
- In Germany, it's Breslau but I go by the name when I was born.
- Right.
- We're rolling?
- Yes.
- Of course, because now I can hear the saw.
- I just wanted to tell the tape people that we
- are with Simon Rozenkier.
- And it is December the 12th, 2002, Thursday.
- And this is tape one of our interview.
- You tell me when.
- Yeah.
- OK.
- I actually want to start with the movement from Wroclaw
- if I'm saying it right--
- into the ghetto.
- When did that happen?
- And what was that experience like, and who did you go with?
- This is what happened in 1939, when the Germans marched
- into Poland to Wroclaw.
- And two weeks later, what they did
- is they forced us to go to the ghetto,
- but that was out of town.
- But before that, they closed all the stores, closed
- all the stores owned by Jews.
- In the beginning, I had to--
- my two brothers left.
- We didn't know where they went.
- So in the beginning, I had to go over the Vistula River
- and get some food for my family.
- When I got some food--
- with somebody, but I didn't know that his father was
- a German descent.
- As I got across to the river, Vistula River,
- and I walked up the hill, and I found a place
- where they gave me kielbasa.
- I paid for it--
- in zlotys.
- And I got some brown sugar, and I got a loaf of bread.
- On the way back, I was approached
- by police, German police.
- And one was a translator.
- He was an SS man.
- But he must have been Polish or Ukraine.
- I don't know myself.
- And he asked me in Polish, [POLISH]---- if I'm a Jew.
- Now, I wouldn't answer that.
- [POLISH] And I wouldn't answer that.
- So they took me to [? Lahat, ?] and then start beating me.
- One hit me in the back, so I fell to the front.
- So the other guy hit me in the front, so fell in the back--
- like playing football.
- You know what?
- They beat me to a pulp, and they took me down in the cellar.
- Now, in the cellar--
- in Europe, they didn't have no frigidaires.
- They had like keep some food to be not to get spoiled.
- That's where they had me.
- Finally, when I was bleeding and everything, they took me--
- they dragged me to a top of the hill--
- on the peak, on the top of the hill--
- and then they threw me down.
- And I was rolling down to the Vistula River.
- But I was not going in deep, just to the end of it.
- And they believed I was dead, but I was not.
- I washed my blood and everything,
- and then I tried to get home.
- There was a kayak there, but it was filled with water.
- So I emptied it.
- And I had a bloody shirt.
- So I tried to--
- what would you say--
- to try to-- and there was a hole in that kayak.
- So I had to, with the shirt, I tried to--
- how would you-- what?
- You tried to fill the hole?
- Yeah, fill the hole with the shirt as much
- I could, but I didn't have anything to paddle with.
- So I did it with my hands.
- But the Vistula River was not far from one end to the other.
- But then I came home.
- And they looked at my face, and my mother fainted.
- She had never seen a face like this from beating.
- And how soon after that were you taken to the ghetto?
- Oh, after that they came to the house.
- We didn't know.
- It was kind of very, very, very quiet.
- It was kind of--
- you could hear something in Jewish or praying, oh, my God,
- help me.
- But we didn't know what happened.
- Because, you know, something--
- we realized that something is going wrong.
- Something is going wrong.
- So finally, finally, my father said, let me shut the lights
- and put a candle.
- It didn't take long.
- They knocked on the door.
- Juden?
- We say, yes?
- He says, come raus.
- Come out.
- When my father had to go with them,
- so we all start to cry-- you know,
- little kids five years, seven years,
- six-year-old start to cry.
- So he says [NON-ENGLISH].
- It means, don't worry about him.
- We will bring him back.
- So as they opened the door, they hit
- him so hard that he fell from all the steps down.
- There broke his bones and everything.
- So my sister-- when they hit him, my sister got very mad.
- And she said something in Polish, a very bad word
- in Polish.
- Why are you hitting my father?
- He didn't do nothing.
- So they shot her.
- They shot her.
- And then in the corridor was kind of a window, you know?
- I don't know what happened.
- She was thrown down or something,
- because I couldn't find her after they took my father.
- I was looking, and I couldn't find her.
- But the problem is they could never find the house--
- never.
- It was so hidden all the way in the back,
- but somebody must have snitched on us
- and showed where the Jews live.
- My father, they took my father to the--
- oh.
- They marched my father to the jail, Polish jailhouse.
- Early in the morning, I went to see what happened.
- And I was a little boy.
- So probably blond and blue eyes.
- They probably wouldn't know I was Jewish
- or not except the ones I lived with.
- And what happened now, so my mother
- wanted to know what happened to my father.
- So there was sitting in a bending position,
- and then you could see baskets all around.
- And they want him to throw a watch.
- My father had those watches with the chain.
- He threw in one basket.
- And everybody, whatever they have, the rings and this.
- Then they asked for ransom.
- But half of the people in Wroclaw
- already left, and the poor people didn't have any money.
- So finally, they took him to a-- they marched him to a place
- where the Polish soldiers used to station.
- We have to--
- I want to go, again, to talk about the deportation
- to the ghetto, the movement of your family to the ghetto.
- Yeah, OK, but I want to tell you what I did.
- When he was marched away--
- my father had those big scissors.
- He was a master tailor.
- And I cut the wires so I could let him out, and I let him out.
- So a lot of people came out.
- With big scissors, I cut it.
- And I said, come on, Dad, let's go.
- He hardly could walk.
- His bones and everything was broken.
- A few days later, they asked, we have to move out.
- So we moved out not far.
- I would say about maybe two miles from the house.
- There was little shacks, little homes.
- I don't know who lived there before.
- But it was next to a Jewish cemetery.
- And 20 people in one room was much too much.
- You know, we had little kids.
- There was a problem.
- But I decided not to be home.
- Because I had to feed the family.
- And when I have extra food, somebody else got it.
- But I didn't live there for too long in the ghetto.
- My mother came to Wroclaw as a young girl.
- She was maybe 15, 16.
- She had a sister who had goiter.
- She came to see a doctor, and her sister died.
- So she was buried in that cemetery.
- Her name was Tanenbaum.
- So she gave me a big coat, put on, and says--
- well, in those days, they didn't have stone and so.
- They had-- what you call it--
- like a piece of plywood in the name.
- And she told me, you sleep there,
- and she's going to watch you.
- And I listened.
- I don't know.
- The only thing I could hear is the boots
- going around the ghetto.
- But I kind of--
- I don't know.
- I cannot explain to you if I was scared or not.
- But I had the chance to go to the city, get some potatoes,
- tie up my pants on the bottom, get some bread,
- and whatever I could get.
- Even I worked for the Germans in the kitchens.
- You know why?
- They didn't know I was Jewish, except somebody recognized me.
- That's what happens.
- And then finally-- and this was going on and on.
- In 1941, I believe in the beginning of '41,
- one of each family has to go to work.
- So my father couldn't go, because he
- was in terrible condition.
- Hold on one second.
- Yeah.
- Two things-- why don't you take a drink of water.
- Is the banging on the table a problem,
- or are we OK with that?
- It didn't bother me.
- [INAUDIBLE] be aware of it.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I mean, we've seen it a fair amount,
- but now I'm a little bit tired.
- [LAUGHS]
- All right.
- Now, the thing I want to know-- can you cut for a second?
- Yeah.
- The thing I want to--
- --whenever I had a chance.
- But I did not, I did not, want to go into the ghetto.
- I just had a place where I could bring food.
- And my sisters are the ones who were
- waiting for me and take away from me.
- whatever I can give them.
- But you would go into town and work?
- Yeah.
- And get food?
- Get food.
- The Germans--
- And you passed as a Polish?
- Oh, yeah, definitely.
- You know, listen, I was blonde.
- And except nobody recognizes me, because I don't believe
- the Polish people worked there.
- Let's start up again.
- Yeah.
- Finally--
- Wait.
- Before you start, what I need to know
- is I want you to tell me, explain to me,
- how you were living outside the ghetto, and passing as a Pole,
- and taking food back here to your family,
- and that sort of thing.
- Well, listen.
- They had stores that they wouldn't sell to Jews,
- but they would sell to the Polish people.
- Some butchers used to make the kielbasa and different kind
- of bloodwurst, whatever, and have
- it cooled outside the store.
- So I picked up some.
- I'm talking about I tried to do whatever
- is possible to feed my family.
- You see, they used to-- they had wurst.
- They used to cool it off in the--
- what do you you call it.
- If you're in the back, in the back they had a yard, whatever.
- They used to leave it there.
- And then bread-- I used to get some bread
- from the Polish people.
- But whatever I did, you see, everybody, they was hungry.
- And so my mother had to share.
- But I couldn't-- there was times I couldn't do it.
- There was times I did.
- But I make sure that they have something to eat.
- But when I left them, I just didn't
- realize what I was doing.
- And this broke my heart when they took me to a camp.
- OK, well explain to me-- you were going to explain to me,
- and I interrupted you, about how they took one person
- from each family to work.
- Yes.
- They took one family to each person, or sometimes
- two-- whatever.
- And they gave you a list and so much, so many,
- like a couple hundred.
- I'm talking about, over 100.
- I don't know.
- And they marched us to railroad.
- And we-- it took us about two days, so a day and a half.
- And we arrived to Poznan.
- It was a big city.
- But we marched up the hill.
- And then we see Gestapo, SS men.
- Before we marched up the hill he says,
- we appreciate, because you're going to work
- for us so we can win the war.
- And he spoke to the people outside the Poland.
- He says, thank you.
- Look, we have people--
- Jewish people want to help us to save the war.
- This was like the beginning.
- I didn't know what he's talking about.
- But we marched into a fortress.
- You know what a fortress is?
- Surrounded by water, and maybe 100, 200 years ago
- they used to fight between, I don't know, other countries.
- I don't know what it is-- because it was so huge.
- And this wall, well, maybe five feet thick-- you know,
- a fortress.
- From there we went to work.
- We had to wear a star--
- a star on the front and a star on the back--
- a Jewish star of David.
- And then we walked to work, and we're digging--
- I don't know.
- We're making-- we're just shuffling to the little cars,
- railroad cars, very little ones.
- And a little machine was there pushing it.
- And every day, marched back and forth,
- and back and forth, and we're working.
- And this was taken quite a while till an epidemic.
- People were dying of typhus.
- People were dying so much of typhus
- that it was unbelievable.
- They were thrown down from the window.
- They're thrown down, and it's something shocking when
- it comes to my mind what I did.
- And I had, too, typhus.
- I had typhus, and I was coughing.
- And I didn't know I ever going to make it.
- I had like a bronchitis, whatever,
- and I was trying to walk and walk, come back to myself.
- But I lost everybody.
- All my school kids who were with me, they died.
- It's unbelievable what I did, and maybe 25%
- survived from a few thousand.
- 2,000, 3,000?
- I don't know.
- I didn't count them.
- And then after, they closed up the fortress.
- And we had to walk to another railroad
- and back in the box cars, and we were going to another camp.
- From there, from that camp, we were staying for a while.
- Finally, somebody came over to me and says,
- you know something?
- There is a camp here, [Place name] [Place name]
- and your sister is there.
- I says, my sister?
- How could she get there?
- She's young.
- She's not even 11, 12 years old.
- She's there.
- Her name is Leah.
- And this guy used to be--
- this guy used to--
- the commander was on a motorcycle.
- I don't know.
- It has nothing to do with it.
- And finally, when I left, I didn't stay too long
- in the camp.
- Only my two friends went to work like cut grass and everything.
- They disappeared.
- That was [Personal name] one friend of mine,
- and then was Sam, Samik [INAUDIBLE]..
- They disappeared.
- And I was kind of upset, because they were neighbors
- of mine, especially Samik.
- And he didn't tell me anything.
- Because I didn't look Jewish, and he didn't look Jewish.
- But [Personal name] looked like four Jews.
- That's unbelievable.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- But they scared us.
- They showed us dead people laying there.
- They said, we got him.
- This was just baloney.
- I didn't realize after I've seen him alive.
- And from there, they shipped us to Krasnik.
- Now, let me explain you about Krasnik.
- Now, Krasnik was a camp.
- The commander from Krasnik was a very bad man.
- He used to hang people for nothing.
- Just if you grab--
- if he sees you have a carrot in your pocket,
- you already want to overthrow German government.
- You're a criminal.
- But then we started to build--
- the Russian prisoners were there, too, next to us.
- And they built, I would say, a big, big, big, big project.
- And then I worked on the railroad.
- We have to move, and measure, and everything, with a hammer.
- They were making aeroplanes--
- not the whole plane, but some of it.
- And the number on that plane, I will never forget,
- was 109 Focke-Wulf.
- Latter on, I realized, but I had no idea what it is.
- But it used to come out from the factory on box cars, I mean,
- flat cars.
- They used to move them out.
- So I worked for this company on the railroad.
- And we worked on the railroad.
- And I got in touch with my sister.
- She came once with a guard.
- And I could not get close to her.
- He says, I should say away from her.
- She wanted to kiss me.
- He says, Nein, nein, nein.
- Because if they catch him, he gets killed.
- You know that?
- You're not supposed to.
- And she gave me like this--
- she gave me tomatoes, flour, bread.
- And she says, don't worry.
- Soon the war will be over.
- So she was smarter than me.
- I didn't know who was fighting.
- She's smarter than me.
- I didn't know who was fighting.
- Physical work, she didn't do over there.
- She was cook, as a cook, and she took care of their commander.
- She cleaned the house, because she was too little.
- She was too little.
- Leah was too little.
- And she had a good job.
- You know, the people I just met recently
- in Florida in Marco Polo.
- So one girl, one woman, said to me, if not your sister,
- I wouldn't be around here.
- I says, OK, thank you.
- Because she used to help with food and everything.
- So how did you come to be deported to--
- was it Auschwitz?
- Was that the one?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, let me explain something what happened.
- This was in 1943, in 1943.
- Oh, before that, I was--
- my job was to, when I worked for them--
- and then I don't know what happened.
- He punished me and says, I have to bury some.
- They didn't have a crematorium over there
- in their labor camps.
- So I had to bury some people who died.
- So we had-- what you call-- two-wheel pushcart, whatever
- you call that, right?
- We go outside.
- And we--
- I'm sorry to interrupt-- just one second.
- What camp was that?
- That was Krasnik.
- And there was a--
- we have to dig a pit and then throw them in,
- like sometimes 10, 15, 20.
- Their heads were hanging like this.
- You know why?
- They died I don't know of what.
- Maybe of typhus.
- But to me, it was not--
- to me, was that I was immune to it.
- I have no-- I didn't pay attention.
- But finally-- I have two brothers over there with me.
- Finally, I looked to the left and then I see a little house.
- And I see smoke coming out.
- I says, let me-- so the guy says, you know something?
- He says, [? Shimek, ?] let's find out who it is.
- So who is going?
- Me.
- I'm easily influenced.
- I knock on the door.
- She has two kids.
- And she tells me in Polish that her husband
- got killed in some places, I don't know, in Danzig,
- or whatever.
- And she's alone.
- And I says, I'm going to bring you some fuel next time.
- If you have something to eat, we appreciate it.
- We're two guys with us.
- So she was cooking potatoes.
- So they were half raw, but we take it.
- I said, give me some of it.
- Believe it or not, as I opened the door, police,
- those police have two--
- what do you call it--
- the German police with another Volksdeutsche,
- another one who translates.
- That tied my hands with wire, and I had to march to the camp.
- But then they put me in a confinement by myself.
- But two days later, they came to shave my hair.
- So then they called my name.
- And you see, for hanging, it looks like they hang laundry.
- You know something?
- You know, the gallows.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- And they marched me out.
- OK.
- Those young Gestapo, maybe 20, I would say 19.
- Now, I know with the ropes.
- From the suitcase, they take them out and just
- hang them one by one.
- There must have been about 20 of them,
- and they had the German doctor, a Jew,
- which is ready with this--
- what do you call it--
- with the [INAUDIBLE] of the dead, where they wear--
- [INAUDIBLE]
- [INAUDIBLE],, right, to check with the dead.
- After, I realize.
- And they called my name.
- He says, Simon Rozenkier-- that I went over to the German
- [INAUDIBLE]---- and you are convicted to hand.
- But I didn't have the rope on me yet.
- Five minutes later, the commander comes in.
- He says, Rozenkier-- they didn't know pronounce my name.
- I says, yes?
- [GERMAN] from the bench.
- I come down.
- He says, [GERMAN].
- You know what that means?
- "You have to work and die working."
- That was a kind of gimmick to show, right?
- And by punishing, I had to go around the gallows
- like this, jump around.
- The two brothers were hanged.
- And when they put the rope on them, both of them he says,
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- It means, today, I'm hanging, but tomorrow you're
- going to be hanging, and spit on them.
- And they both lost their lives.
- I think they both were from Lodz.
- I'm not so sure.
- And I was spared by a pimple.
- It was by a pimple.
- But finally, finally, I did meet my sister once more.
- And sometimes she would send some food to somebody.
- His name was [? Fpepsinski. ?] I couldn't even pronounce it--
- with an F.
- I know his wife.
- His wife was named Tesha or something.
- He was delivering shoes to the woman.
- He was in charge of something that he
- could get in touch with them.
- So I used to get-- so he probably
- got in touch with my sister, now I'm going to hang or something.
- Something happened by an hour, you know?
- But I would say maybe in the middle '43 or maybe--
- I don't know what's it called.
- No, what's not that called?
- Oh, I was, at that time, around the factory.
- We were making-- what do you call it?
- We're digging air raid shelters.
- We're digging air raid shelters.
- And finally, I see a horse and buggy approaching.
- The called, Shimek, Shimek, Shimek-- called my name.
- So a girl, a beautiful girl, comes out.
- And she says-- now, I know she was nice-- my name is Sabina.
- And she gave me a ring and a note,
- and it just broke my heart.
- And that note says, I'm going to meet you very soon.
- And I could not live without you.
- And this, I just fell apart.
- And she didn't meet me.
- We were ordered out from the--
- Who is the note from?
- The note from my sister, that you're going to be moved out,
- and we're going to meet you soon.
- We'll be together.
- And then finally, the screaming over there--
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- We had to-- something.
- They lined us up, you know?
- And we're walking to the railroad.
- They put us on the train, those boxcars.
- It was terrible.
- They urinated.
- Hang on one second.
- We're hearing a lot of noise outside.
- Six, actually.
- Yeah.
- Channel six.
- Five, too.
- All right.
- Yeah, OK.
- So, you were going to tell me about being put on the boxcars
- and being deported?
- Right, deported to Auschwitz.
- Where?
- Deported to Auschwitz.
- And we came to Auschwitz.
- We came at night.
- Tell me about how they took you to the train
- and what it was like--
- Well, they marched us to the train.
- We were march to the train.
- You know, they count to make sure that everybody is there.
- And we marched to the train.
- And as we come into Auschwitz, there was this scream,
- that commander, [NON-ENGLISH],, this scream, crazy,
- like I never heard in my life.
- Outside, so many kommandos over there, you know.
- And that was late at night.
- And as we marched--
- Auschwitz was a little bit higher.
- You walked up a little bit.
- You can see commander Hoss whatever his name is,
- Hoss with the full collar.
- When he said something, I didn't want to listen then.
- He says, [NON-ENGLISH].
- That's a joke.
- He says, this is Auschwitz.
- Arbeith macht frei.
- [INAUDIBLE] you have a [NON-ENGLISH]..
- You know?
- But I was kind [INAUDIBLE].
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- If you cannot walk, we have trucks.
- And that says I never go on that truck.
- I never go on that truck because I'm an old timer.
- I knew all the tricks already.
- Those who went on the truck, I never seen them.
- Finally, as we walk into our barrack--
- I didn't even know which barrack it was.
- In our barrack, we were marched in
- to take a shower, like you take a shower.
- German are calling the badehaus of whatever, badehaus whatever.
- Take a shower and not too many, probably 100 at the time.
- You take a shower.
- But we can't get no water.
- Which, you know something?
- We wait, and wait, and wait, and wait,
- and wait till the morning.
- And there's no shower.
- Because when people would tell you--
- listen, let me interrupt a minute.
- When people tell you-- if you go to the left,
- you die, or you go to the right, you lived-- that's baloney.
- You don't know where you go.
- That's nonsense.
- They take you from whatever place they want to take you.
- Whenever they make those kind of remarks, that's nonsense.
- So as you walk into the place, you're in the nude, right?
- You have nothing on you.
- And if you had something to tell your [NON-ENGLISH]..
- Leave this.
- I have nothing with me, especially the ring.
- I know I cannot keep it.
- So it must have been my mother's wedding ring or something.
- It was a very little, tiny something.
- In the morning, and we still had nothing, we're tired.
- And this guy over there got a convulsion.
- They know some of them.
- They know why he's scary this.
- Then finally, you can hear, in German, screams.
- See, I spoke German very well, and I understand.
- He says, [SPEAKING GERMAN].
- You know it means?
- They have no Zyklon.
- [SPEAKING GERMAN]
- Let the dogs out.
- We have no Zyklon.
- We can do nothing with them.
- What's Zyklon.
- Zyklon means Zyklon B, the gas, to kill us.
- You know, right?
- So unbelievable.
- I just-- thinking about sometime at night is this, how the hell
- I survived that?
- We haven't got the Zyklon.
- They didn't have the Zyklon B, whatever.
- I used to work for IG Farben.
- And out.
- When they open the door, listen, you don't need nothing.
- Everything is closed on you so everybody is weak.
- So I fell to the ground.
- And a guy looked at me.
- He says, give him a number.
- He tried to be--
- but maybe I had a--
- I was young.
- And probably, he had pity on me.
- He had pity on me and says, give me a number.
- And my number was 143 or 511.
- And this arm, in the army, I just
- covered it up because of certain reason.
- I shouldn't, I made a mistake, but it's covered.
- I put the 101 Airborne Division that's a signal here.
- How did they put the number on you?
- I don't even know now.
- They just-- with a needle, they poke it.
- I don't know how they're going like this, whatever.
- You cannot scream.
- Forget it.
- They put the number on you, and that's all.
- Not one-- many, many, and all our prisoners, too.
- I don't remember.
- I think they marched me to camp C10.
- And that's why I met--
- Dr. [? Hodes ?] was there, I remember.
- And that's why I met [? Thurenberg ?]
- in the Air Force [INAUDIBLE] field, whatever.
- That's why I seen him over there.
- And over there, that was terrible, unbelievable,
- the smell and everything.
- I don't know-- the smell.
- But finally, I got a slice of bread.
- Six loaf of bread, finally I got.
- When they give you the bread, and if the guy thinks
- that you're not going to live too long,
- they hold your two fingers in your throat so you die,
- so they can take your piece of bread away.
- This is dog-eat-dog.
- What do you want me to do?
- Dog eats dog.
- That's what they did.
- To me, Auschwitz was something new.
- I've never seen.
- They give you a stripe, and they give you a number
- here with a red arrow that says, I'm a political prisoner.
- I want to overturn the government.
- I notice something, you know.
- Finally, what they gave me entsprechung When I ask him
- what they're giving me, they give me
- an extra piece of bread.
- They say I should have strength to work.
- And guess where they send me after a while?
- They gave me typhus but I had typhus.
- OK, wait.
- Wait a second.
- Yeah.
- Can we get into giving you the typhus shots.
- Right
- So what was this Camp 10.
- What--
- That block 10 was a terrible camp.
- I think there was some woman over there.
- I don't remember anymore because nobody pay attention.
- They had their machines over there with the X-rays,
- whatever.
- There's a lot of things.
- What my luck was they needed 25 people to another camp,
- and they grabbed me.
- They grabbed me to a camp.
- I don't know.
- It's Auschwitz three.
- They're called Monowitz.
- And over there, my job was I was supposed to be a schlosser.
- A schlosser is somebody who is a mechanic.
- You know, fixes the--
- [LAUGHS] Every time they ask me, I fix bicycles.
- I knew how to work with bicycles, with the spikes,
- and how to center them.
- This was I learned when I was a kid.
- From stores, I used to go after school.
- How to put spikes, how to make sure they're even.
- So I was a schlosser already.
- But my job was to carry pipes.
- The pipes was-- let me explain something.
- What a pipe--
- Wait, before you tell me about the pipes,
- you were going to tell me about the typhus shot.
- Was that in block '10 or--
- That's on block 10.
- Everybody got shot.
- OK, well, you have to explain that to me,
- because you didn't tell me that.
- Yeah we should get shots. entsprechung they call it.
- All right, I want you to start over and tell me.
- In block 10, one of the things that they did was--
- And tell me the things they did.
- I know one.
- I'm not sure, 1 or 10, I can't remember.
- Or was it 1 or 10?
- But by a pimple, this is what happens.
- I'm so lucky.
- I've told you about the 25 people,
- and they shipped me out on a broken down pickup truck.
- And I went to Monowitz.
- I don't know how--
- Yeah, you told me about that.
- But you didn't tell me about the typhus shots--
- I don't know what kind of shots.
- I have no idea.
- They gave me one needle, and they took out another.
- They give me a shot and then take our blood.
- I want you to start over.
- Yes
- Because I'm losing the story.
- OK, go ahead.
- You have to help me.
- Yeah, I will help you.
- I'm in block 10.
- You're in block 10.
- You have to tell me that you're in block 10,
- and you have to tell me what sorts of procedures
- they did on you there.
- They took me to a place where they had all kinds of machines,
- like X-ray machines.
- Now I know X-ray.
- Before, I don't know what an X-ray--
- what is it for.
- You know why?
- I had no idea.
- And a lot of kids were there.
- Not only twins in that block.
- There were young kids-- my age, some a little bit older.
- And [? Thurenberg ?] and Schumann they
- were not such a good people.
- They were definitely Jew haters.
- Because you ask me-- you know why I know?
- You ask me.
- [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].
- You know [NON-ENGLISH] means?
- Are you a German Jew?
- You know, because I'm blond.
- I don't answer.
- I answer him in Polish.
- I say, I don't understand, in Polish.
- But I never look to the eyes.
- I always put my head down because they shouldn't pick me
- for something else.
- So I always look down.
- You know why?
- Not to face them, so maybe they'll let me go.
- That's why I always--
- since I was liberated, all the time
- I did whenever I was find that I'm going to get hurt,
- I always look down.
- And then, I don't know.
- Those-- [? Thurenberg ?] and Schumann,
- they went to another camp.
- But I didn't know was another camp, Birkenau.
- I just learned after.
- I had no idea about Birkenau.
- So they shipped me to--
- what do you call it?
- To Monowitz.
- But they didn't call Monowitz.
- They called Auschwitz III.
- Huge, huge.
- They had the [INAUDIBLE] over there.
- They had--
- All right, hang on a second.
- Yeah.
- You still haven't told me the part--
- unless it hasn't happened yet in the story,
- you still haven't told me that they were shooting you with
- typhus, and you didn't get sick because you had already had--
- Right, that's what they did.
- Well, you have to tell me that.
- We don't know that.
- The cameraman--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- That's what they did.
- OK.
- But you have to tell me that story.
- They're shooting me with typhus.
- I always had-- no problem.
- Start over
- Yeah
- I want you to tell me how--
- [INAUDIBLE] actually--
- The Kapo came, and put your head in there,
- and beat you up with a stick.
- When they come in the morning and everybody
- is outside in sitting, kneeling position, right?
- And then when the commander comes over--
- hauptsturmfuhrer, he wants to know how many.
- So we have hats, right?
- We got up, and he screams that your hats got to be down.
- We look at him in the count, [SPEAKING GERMAN]..
- You know what I'm talking about?
- [GERMAN], you know?
- And then he says [GERMAN],, 20 dead.
- He says, that's all?
- You know what I'm talking about?
- More than is the [? fieldman. ?] He says,
- tomorrow, you want to see more dead than this?
- Otherwise, the Kapo gets--
- whatever they do with him, I have no idea.
- Listen, I know exactly in German whatever they said.
- But I kept to me.
- He says [INAUDIBLE] 20.
- He says, that all?
- And then I had no--
- you ask me about the typhoid shots.
- I got typhoid shots.
- They give you a syringe.
- They don't even give you--
- they break the top.
- They give you a syringe, and they let blood out.
- And I didn't even feel it.
- All my friends could not hold the-- what you call it?
- Could not hold the feet.
- They were toppled.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- All those where I was with them for a while--
- not for a long time.
- So I know they--
- yeah.
- But I was lucky.
- When I got to that pick up truck and going to Monowitz,
- you know something?
- I almost didn't make it.
- I was kind of fainting spell.
- And they grabbed me by the arm.
- They throw me on their truck.
- Some inmates like me.
- When I got to where--
- Now, why-- let me ask you something.
- Why didn't you get typhus, like the others?
- Well, because I had one already.
- Well, you have to tell me that.
- People don't know--
- Oh, I had to typhus in [INAUDIBLE]..
- I was learning how to walk.
- You know that.
- I'm learning how to walk.
- And it took me a long time.
- I walked like a baby.
- And on top of it, I had the bronchitis, you know, coughing.
- Yeah, but I need you to tell me, because people
- don't hear my question.
- Yeah, OK.
- So I need you to tell me--
- Go ahead.
- --that other people in the barracks got typhus,
- and you didn't because you had already had it.
- And--
- Right, right.
- I don't know that everybody didn't live.
- I know that I survived from the needles with the rest of them,
- because I was not too long with them.
- When you stayed too long in one place, your chances to survive
- is nil.
- You cannot be Auschwitz, or later, I know, Birkenau.
- You cannot be too long with them,
- because they like henchmen.
- You know why?
- They're looking-- and God forbid,
- if all the SS men come together, they're brutal.
- They tell more people--
- Are you, or aren't you going to tell
- me that you didn't get typhus--
- I didn't get typhus.
- --because you had already had it.
- Yes
- I want you to tell me that, OK?
- OK, OK.
- I didn't get typhus because I already had it.
- OK.
- I want you to start over, and tell me
- that they gave you typhus shots.
- You think they were typhus, and you didn't get it
- because you had it before.
- Yeah.
- You need to explain that.
- I had typhus shots, and I had it before, and I was immune to it,
- and I didn't get it.
- OK?
- That solved the story?
- Yeah.
- OK, let me repeat again.
- It sounds like they're protecting you.
- So explain to me that they--
- just explain what happened.
- When I came into the barracks, there was a lot of kids.
- A lot of kids there.
- And they were in the nude.
- And some of them were laying on the floor.
- And so some doctors came over.
- They were prisoner doctors, and the SS men were watching them.
- And they gave me shots.
- And then I found out they gave me typhus
- shots, which I had already.
- I had those shots already, and I was immune to it.
- So I wasn't feeling so bad.
- But they were giving you shots, too,
- so that you would get typhus?
- Yes.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- They were giving me shots to get typhus,
- but I was immune to the shots because I had already typhus
- in [Place name] So I did not--
- whatever you say.
- It did not-- what's the word for it?
- You didn't get typhus.
- No.
- I had typhus shots by the doctors over there
- in Auschwitz, but I was immune to those shots they gave me,
- and it did not take.
- So finally, I was moved away from over there.
- Thank God, I was moved away.
- And they sent me to Monowitz.
- Monowitz was a huge, huge camp.
- Very huge camp.
- I would say, my God, there's so many factories over there.
- I don't even know-- that Siemens name, I remember.
- I know Goering [? Werke. ?] They were making howitzers.
- You know, howitzers?
- They're making guns.
- Howitzers is on the two wheels, I know.
- And then the IJ Farben in there.
- And there's some other names, which I cannot remember.
- But as a schlosser they gave me pipes to carry.
- So the shape of the pipes like an S. The next one
- was like a T. You know what I'm talking about?
- All different shapes and types.
- And then I don't know.
- And they were building, and they were putting into a structure.
- You understand?
- So probably it must have been for something chemical
- or whatever.
- Then after a while, I lost all my friends from typhus.
- There was straw.
- I was sleeping three in a bunk, three.
- But everybody is dying, destroyed,
- because he was lifted from the lice.
- You know why?
- He was lifting me up, too, next to the guy.
- He doesn't move.
- You know, everybody's dying on him, you know?
- And then they said that barrack has to be closed.
- So they put me--
- I don't know whether I was 27 or 1.
- And from there, they gave me another job to carry cement.
- Visualize me to carry cement.
- I'm very short.
- I know I'm a midget, and the cement is about 100 pounds.
- So on top of that, listen what happened.
- When I toppled, the bag broke, so I took the paper,
- and I tried to put it under my in the back to keep me warm.
- Gestapo passes by with a Panzer car.
- With a Panzer car means they have those--
- it's not a Jeep, it's a car with the metal,
- with steel, those steel automobiles that they had.
- They called it Panzer.
- And he says, [SPEAKING GERMAN],, sabotage I did or something.
- You know something what they did?
- I believe they had a crematorium over there.
- I'm not too sure, but I was shipped, loaded with Gestapo,
- loaded.
- I don't know what's inside, but I
- think it was cans with Zyklon.
- I'm not so sure.
- Because I've seen this and I know this dead.
- And they ship me to guess where?
- To Birkenau.
- They ship me to Birkenau.
- And I never knew about Birkenau.
- I have no idea but on the gypsy camp.
- Gypsy camp.
- There was a lot of other kids, a lot of kids over there,
- a lot of kids.
- But each time I was on the Gypsy camp, and I got--
- someone would speak Polish.
- Some of them were German Gypsies.
- Some were Romanian, Yugoslavian.
- All different nationalities.
- And they're nice kids, you know?
- And I got acquainted.
- When they came in and they took 40 out, and then didn't
- come back, it bothered me.
- Because in the meantime, the smell, the stench,
- you know, and the screaming in the crematoriums.
- I didn't know it was a crematorium,
- but you see the flames.
- It was unbelievable.
- It was scary a little bit.
- And then it came back.
- Oh, and then they say to them, you're coming back,
- but they never showed up.
- Then they take another 40 or 50, because the barrack
- takes about 500 kids.
- And they never come back.
- Finally, they grabbed me, and they took me out.
- And Schumann says--
- Schumann or [? Thurnberg ?] was at that time there.
- He says, Deutsche Juden, I'm a German Jew,
- blond with blue eyes.
- Take care of them to Mengele.
- I don't know where I'm going.
- I think I was going to block 14 or block 12,
- where he lived there.
- Block 14.
- It must be block 14, but we lived in 15.
- They gave us better food.
- And as I'm coming to that place, there is a wooden table,
- you know?
- But man, the smell over there.
- You would never believe it.
- I never seen in my life.
- Wooden table.
- And you can see a blue eye, a green eye,
- and they were trying to put to one eye
- to another eye, changing eyes.
- There were twins there.
- But not everyone was twins.
- There were twins, but they had so many kids
- that were not twins.
- But they take the mothers and their fathers away,
- and they take the kids in a different barrack.
- Because I seen it coming with the train.
- Like they came from--
- what you call the Salonika?
- It's written on each train, Salonika.
- Let me ask you something.
- Tell me again why you were there.
- Now I don't know what they want to do with me.
- And I'm standing there, standing there,
- and then finally Mengele comes in.
- Mengele with that-- he had what you call not a sword,
- but like a little knife on the side with boots.
- Tall, very tall man.
- And looked at me, and looked at me.
- And then I didn't realize what they're doing under the table.
- What they're doing under the table,
- they grabbed my testicles, and they gave me shots.
- I had to take off everything.
- I had to be nude, and they gave me shots.
- They put me nude because they figure
- that, if I'm going to die, there's
- a kommando take you away right away to the gas chamber.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- Because they didn't do it right away to me.
- They did it to others.
- That's how I understand what's going on.
- Because I didn't do it right away from me, you understand?
- So I understand that, when kids go
- like this, what is the white stuff come out
- from their mouth?
- Sometimes they want them to die.
- He gives them a syringe in the heart right next to me,
- and the kid falls.
- And the kommando takes him out.
- They grab him, and they'd fall.
- So this was quite a while, because this was not so soon.
- And I don't know what they're going to do with me.
- But then I was told by the kids that they took their testicles
- out with a wire to tie up, and they move you,
- and they sterilize you this way.
- Take the testicles.
- But to me, didn't do it.
- They just grabbed me.
- When they grab your testicles, and they give you a shot,
- you must not scream.
- You scream, you're dead.
- You just must bite like you don't feel nothing.
- You understand what I'm talking about?
- That you just don't make any move or aggravate them.
- Otherwise, you're gone.
- So I had no choice.
- I had no choice.
- But this was going for a while.
- They used to give me a little better food,
- and nourishment was not too bad.
- Some kids, he brought chocolate to some kids.
- To some kids, he was good, Mengele.
- But I don't know how good he was.
- I don't know how good.
- To someone, he was good.
- To someone who is bad, I have no idea.
- But one woman over there was very, very good to me.
- Her name was Magda.
- She asked me like this, [SPEAKING CZECH]
- like this if I speak Czech.
- And I told her, Polish.
- In the meantime, she'd give me a piece of bread, better food.
- And she asked the Gestapo, asked Mengele,
- there's a shipment going someplace.
- Get him out of here.
- She saved my life.
- I would kiss her rear end 24 hours a day.
- You don't know what it means to go out from Birkenau,
- from this zoo camp.
- You know they called it?
- Zoo camp.
- That was a zoo.
- You have no idea.
- You see a hunchback that they cut it off,
- leave it on the table.
- This was unbelievable.
- And I had to go to through all that.
- I was an old timer.
- I came down an old timer, and I realize--
- but I still was-- well, let me put it this way.
- I still was--
- I didn't have a mind.
- I did not feel.
- I didn't-- I didn't--
- that was my life, you understand?
- This was my life.
- I don't know nothing else.
- I go through these kind of procedures.
- I had no idea that's the kind of life this is.
- In order to kill you, they shoot you,
- and then I see people jumping on the wires
- outside on the electric wires and laying there on the wires.
- I was afraid to go to the toilet.
- The toilet is so long.
- The guy from upstairs, from the guard, shoot you like a joke.
- And your body lays on this side, body lays on this side.
- My mind was not there, you understand?
- I had no mind to realize.
- What other things do you remember
- from-- how much time to have?
- Two minutes.
- So at two and a half.
- Let's change it.
- OK.
- OK?
- Check my mark [INAUDIBLE]
- Camera roll seven, side three for Simon Rozenkier.
- OK.
- I still want to stay in the--
- before you left.
- Before Magda got you out, I want to ask you again
- what other things you remember happening in there
- to you or to anybody else.
- OK.
- Did you know what was going on?
- I knew it, but I didn't want to know it.
- I knew that they do something else to one
- and something else to the other.
- I knew that.
- But I didn't want to know.
- I just wanted to where I'm going to be,
- what's going to happen to my life, right?
- And I didn't want to look in his face.
- But I just looked around.
- Where am I?
- Is there a chance for me to go out from here or not?
- Do you know who the doctor is?
- Yeah, I know.
- I knew one doctor.
- I know Kramer.
- He was a bastard that you have ever seen.
- You know?
- He killed kids as he walked, Dr. Kramer.
- A terrible person.
- A terrible doctor.
- And then I know Dr. [? Hunts, ?] but I don't
- know his second name.
- They said, [INAUDIBLE] [? Hunts. ?] That's all I know.
- That's it.
- You know, let me tell you something.
- They had the students who were young people
- with those doctors.
- You know why?
- And there are a lot of nurses.
- But most of them are doctors.
- You see, some doctors overdid.
- If they're Jewish doctors, you had Polish doctors,
- from all over.
- But some of them were showoffs, overdid.
- You know what I'm talking about, overdid?
- They could save somebody but they
- proved they're very sufficient.
- Right.
- But some doctors I see commit suicide.
- I know a lot of doctors committed suicide.
- Because they were wearing the uniform, the stripes.
- And they didn't want to live.
- They didn't want to do what they're told to do.
- They don't want to period live.
- You know?
- They walked like this.
- Go ahead, shoot me.
- [LAUGHS] They wouldn't do it.
- But some of them, I don't know.
- It depends.
- You know listen from so many thousands of people
- there was good people and bad people, bad doctors and good.
- But one time I watched when we were
- marching from the barracks--
- this I gotta tell you.
- That's very important.
- They had those buses.
- I don't know what color, green or something.
- And I didn't know what happened.
- Then all of a sudden, they open the doors and everybody's
- on top of the other, dead.
- Do you know what I'm talking about?
- Everyone is on top of the other.
- They've died.
- You know?
- And I just wonder what happened over there.
- They shot them or something.
- I didn't know.
- They put gas?
- I had no idea.
- This is unbelievable, you know?
- Like to crush together.
- That's--
- And I had to live with it.
- I didn't know.
- I didn't know.
- Sometimes I'll walk out, I'll go out from the barrack.
- And I look and I'll see trains coming.
- Bialystok, Bialystok.
- Russia, Russia.
- I see their trains come.
- Or Amsterdam, you know?
- Francia.
- They don't say "France."
- They say Francia.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- [LAUGHS]
- I see the trains come.
- And watch when they come down with this dress,
- such beautiful coats and everything.
- And they talk to them nice.
- And they show they have a ticket.
- [LAUGHS] This is unbelievable.
- This was kind of show, you know?
- And I say, maybe those people are Germans.
- They're going to live here or something.
- Because beyond that, they had commanders and lagerfuhrer,
- you know?
- And then all of a sudden, they take everything away and ride
- away to the crematorium.
- They-- this something that--
- Did you know when they were giving you
- the injections in your testicles, did you know
- what they were doing?
- No, I had no--
- Did you know what was happening to you?
- I didn't feel it.
- I know I was bleeding from my penis.
- And it swelled up.
- That's how I know.
- I was hard for me to bleed sometimes.
- I was swollen.
- They seen it, that I had some problems.
- Were you in pain?
- I don't know what pain is.
- [LAUGHS] I had pain all my--
- since I was there, I was in pain.
- What is pain, you know?
- But I was thinking about myself and my family,
- if I ever going to see them.
- Sometimes I cry.
- I lay on the bunk and cry.
- I say ma and [? sister, ?] I want to see you.
- And you know how it is, you know?
- I says, you know, I hope you are alive
- and I'm coming to see you.
- And I cried.
- When they took me out from that barrack, I told you,
- I don't know what's going to happen to me.
- To my mother, I was talking.
- I don't know what's going to happen to me.
- I don't know if I'm going to ever see you again.
- Because of all my friends are not coming back.
- And this, you know, you see tears.
- You cry and cry and cry.
- And family was dear to me.
- And I don't know--
- I don't know if I am ever going to see them.
- And I didn't, none of them.
- When I was in the--
- oh, OK.
- You tell me what you want me to say.
- I was shipped to--
- when I was shipped on a pickup truck to a place.
- They called it coal mine.
- And they called it--
- Is just when you went out with Magda?
- Yeah.
- She tried hard for me to get it.
- She said-- Czech and Polish is not--
- words are almost, is sometimes the same.
- And when a truck went to [Place name] It's
- near Gleiwitz, I think. it was.
- And then I worked for a coal mine.
- There were British over there at coal mine.
- The company I worked for, the name
- was [INAUDIBLE] Duesseldorf.
- They were making pipes.
- Same thing as in Monowitz by IG Farben and Bayer.
- They're making the same thing.
- But after that-- you know what I see it after that?
- I just kind of didn't believe it.
- I seen planes very high and their--
- not a flame, but like a--
- I could see it from the tail.
- It came out like a trust or something like from heaven.
- The cloud, cloud.
- Right?
- So it's just stripes.
- And I didn't know who they are.
- They were passing by in the [? hundreds. ?]
- Very, very, very high.
- Very high, they were going one by one.
- And I'm surprised they didn't bomb that place.
- They were going-- so many.
- Each time I see them going, you know, [HUMMING]..
- You hear the noise, you know?
- Planes moving.
- How long were you in the hospital, the Zoo camp?
- How long?
- It must have been about three months.
- In Auschwitz-- in Birkenau, it was a long time.
- About two or three months.
- Because I came with two kids.
- One was named [Personal name] and one [? Meyer. ?] And one
- was from [Place name] and the other one was from [Place name]
- or Budapest, I don't know.
- They were my age.
- Probably younger, maybe, a year or two.
- And I got close to them, very much.
- And we went to [INAUDIBLE].
- They came with--
- I was a long time in Auschwitz because they
- came with Eichmann's transport.
- You ever heard of Eichmann transport?
- That transport came from Hungary.
- You know, and those two kids came.
- I don't know how they let them go.
- You know?
- They'll get with me and we went there.
- If I worked in a coal mine, but sometimes I
- fix the bicycle, like a flat for the guy who used to take care--
- used to take us to back to work.
- At night, they used to put chains on our feet
- and our hands so we cannot escape when we walk
- to the mine.
- But what about, again, the Zoo camp is my main focus here.
- Oh, go ahead.
- Any other memories from that of the things that happened
- to you or to other children?
- Well, I don't know.
- It's a dream.
- It's hard to tell, it's very hard
- to tell what they did over there.
- Because you know, it was like killing chickens.
- [LAUGHS] And that's why they called it a Zoo camp.
- Unbelievable.
- You know, when I see a green eye and a blue eye.
- See, and they measured this and that.
- Oh, there were places that they don't want you to live anymore.
- You were too short.
- You know?
- They measure you.
- You know something?
- You wouldn't believe it what they did.
- They measure you to see how high you are.
- But not me.
- I would put bricks on my shoe.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- So I would be taller, even though it was uncomfortable.
- I knew all the tricks what they did.
- Those newcomers didn't know, but I knew already
- what they're doing.
- And I was told by the nurses over there,
- watch out for this, watch out for this.
- They liked me very much, you know?
- So if you-- anybody who comes out from those camps is lucky.
- You understand?
- Luck.
- Not because-- I've seen a rabbi sitting on a chair
- from a transport and they're burning the beard.
- And I just looked, I says, is his face going to be burned?
- You know, I'm talking to myself.
- You know, and they're laughing, Gestapo, around the chair.
- He's a rabbi or whatever.
- Now, I know.
- Before, I don't know rabbi or this or rabbi with the beard.
- So if you go out from those kind of camps, you're a lucky man.
- I mean, you have a second chance to live.
- Because, you know-- well, second chance, yes or no.
- I don't know.
- I would expect second chance because you're not
- finished yet.
- You still wear the stripes, you know?
- After I fix the guy's bike, he says
- don't work in the coal mine.
- I want you to come up and work--
- One second.
- I'm sorry.
- You have a little bit of--
- Have to a drink.
- Right.
- There's a lot of nerves, I have.
- I don't blame you.
- [LAUGHS] You tell me what you want to know.
- I want to know how you finally--
- when the war was coming to an end,
- how were you finally were liberated?
- No.
- So let me go on.
- OK.
- When they bombed the kitchen in [Place name] so
- we had no food to eat anymore.
- So we had to leave.
- So when they bombed, we have to leave.
- So in the snow in 1944--
- end of '44, maybe?
- There was so much snow, you have no idea.
- Maybe it's up to your neck over the field.
- That's all snow.
- But those, we had--
- everybody got a loaf of bread.
- With a loaf of bread, and they gave you a fake honey.
- You know what fake means?
- Not real honey, it's unofficial.
- Is that what you say?
- OK, unofficial honey.
- And we marched.
- We marched-- it start night and I don't know where I walked.
- But some of the guys did escape to the woods.
- But I didn't know where to go.
- I would not take a chance.
- But marching, marching in the snow.
- And if you could not march, then you raise your hands.
- And you get two bullets.
- And you fall down the side.
- And the Gestapo make sure that you're dead.
- Do you understand?
- Those who could not go on had to raise their hands.
- You know why?
- And we marched and marched and marched.
- We passed Auschwitz, Gleiwitz, Auschwitz.
- We marched for days.
- And each time we go into a barn--
- you know what a barn is, right?
- Where they have the horses there, right?
- And we sleep overnight because they have to take a sleep too.
- And the Gestapo were not youngsters.
- Older men.
- Now I'm thinking, how stupid could we be?
- Let those guys march--
- let those guys-- how we let them take--
- we couldn't take care of them.
- You know, we were marching, marching.
- And you couldn't take care of them,
- because you know-- but some of them did.
- Many, many escaped.
- But let me put it this way, where do I go?
- I go in the woods, maybe?
- Maybe you find some soldiers and probably they're
- going to kill you.
- So where am I--
- there's no place for me to go.
- We walked.
- Finally, we got into Gross-Rosen.
- You ever heard of camp Gross-Rosen?
- And I was told that Mengele was there a half hour ago
- and he disappeared.
- We come in Gross-Rosen and we stayed there for a while.
- And then we go and march.
- We marched to Blechhammer.
- I don't know which comes first.
- I think Blechhammer is the end.
- And we marched into Blechhammer.
- We marched into Blechhammer.
- And then nobody's there.
- We're liberated.
- Yeah.
- But not so soon.
- You know, we hear artillery fire over our heads.
- So my friend David says to me, you know something?
- Go to a place where they have potatoes.
- Like for the winter, they're covered up with straw.
- What do you call that in English?
- They're covered with straw, shouldn't freeze.
- Like the-- I don't know.
- They keep it for the for the winter.
- So they're covered up with straw.
- Bin, Simon.
- What?
- It's a bin.
- Yeah, they're covered up.
- It's a storage bin.
- Yeah, they kept it up.
- Like they keep the corn in the north over there.
- Yeah.
- And you know something?
- And then I go, as I go and get some potatoes
- and to make-- you know I have a little-- and start to cook,
- to make a fire.
- It was a lot of things over there, you could do it.
- You know, the have a fire ring.
- And I said to Dave, you get me a place to sleep.
- And they fired-- look what luck it is.
- Unbelievable.
- I lost such a good guy.
- And they fired the incendiary bomb to the barrack.
- And it killed my friend.
- Would you believe it?
- It came from someplace, you know?
- Finally we're marching, finally we're marching.
- They tell us to go out.
- So we go out.
- But listen to what they did.
- To save themselves, the SS, they had to--
- they put us as a shield around the barracks.
- Hang on one second.
- I'm sorry, Joan.
- We can hear that.
- We can hear that, when you're going through your purse.
- I'm sorry.
- I'm putting it away.
- We'll wait for you.
- OK, done.
- Thanks.
- You know, to save their lives-- now I realize.
- Before, I didn't know.
- All of us had to shield the barracks
- so the Gestapo could escape, because they
- were firing artillery.
- And a lot of shrapnels hit my friends.
- And some of them died.
- But one friend of mine--
- you know, I liked him very much.
- His name was [Personal name] He developed gangrene in his arm.
- And I told him, like, the only thing you can do
- is-- or march wherever you want to go.
- Or if not, go into a hay.
- You know, cover yourself up in hay.
- And he did.
- He listened to me.
- He says, when you walk, you're going to die anyway.
- You know, it's swollen like this.
- So I threw him in the hay.
- And I know his first name, [Personal name]
- But I don't know.
- Finally, they took us on a train, open flats.
- And we'd crawl.
- When I got to Buchenwald, I was, like, black.
- But we got-- not to Buchenwalk.
- We got into Weimar.
- It's before Buchenwald.
- Because you couldn't go into Buchenwald because all
- the railroads were bombed.
- You know, it looked like bracelets.
- We walk upstairs to Buchenwald.
- They have no room for us.
- Finally, they pick up the youngest
- and they put you in a young camp in the back
- by [? Gustav ?] over there.
- Way over in the back.
- And finally, I was there--
- I must have been there for about--
- oh, I was liberated in April.
- April 11 in 1945.
- So I must have come in end of the year to Buchenwald.
- Got to be end of the year.
- Terrible snow, terrible weather.
- And from there, I was sick.
- I had dysentery.
- I was on a--
- they put me on a clinic over there.
- They gave me a little bit of those, kasha I don't know.
- They helped me a lot.
- It was not a--
- Buchenwald was not-- towards the end, it was not a bad camp.
- And then I went, I came back.
- But as time went on, and the bombing we
- could hear and everything, so finally, we
- are ordered-- all the Jews have to go forward to the gate.
- Only the Jews had to go to the gate.
- Because probably the American is coming, they're coming.
- Right?
- So I did.
- I went to the gate, you know?
- And guess who came in?
- Americans.
- [LAUGHS]
- They didn't want us to see Americans.
- They wanted to push us-- we're supposed to go to Mauthausen.
- They wanted to take us as far as Austria, Mauthausen.
- But Mauthausen would not accept us.
- But it was no plot.
- No-- so I met some soldiers, you know, and this.
- I met a lot of soldiers.
- And then I met a man who was my friend.
- And they let us sleep-- you know where?
- --in the Gestapo barracks.
- You know, barrack where the Gestapo sleeps,
- in the barracks.
- You know, and I see German doctors taking care
- of those who are very sick.
- They were told by the Americans, right?
- That they have to take care of it, take care of it.
- So when I see a man, say the doctor
- says I have tuberculosis.
- Don't touch him.
- And since then, I didn't say a man.
- I know what happened to him.
- Maybe in Israel.
- Most of them went to Israel with the Rabbi Schacter.
- You ever heard of Rabbi Schacter?
- No?
- Rabbi Schacter took them all to--
- I was supposed to go to Marseille.
- But I followed the soldiers.
- You know, when I got a little better,
- I followed the soldiers.
- And all the soldiers went to Heidelberg.
- And those-- one Jewish soldier, he's
- named [? Avi, ?] says that he met some girls in Wolfenbuttel
- or [Place name] I think Wolfenbuttel.
- And about 10 of them.
- I should take care of them.
- He asked me, you ride on a bike?
- I says, yes.
- Take that motorcycle from the Germans.
- You know, we walk into the house in Germany.
- You open the closet.
- You see a SS hat hanging.
- He said, where is your man, your husband?
- In Russia, they killed him.
- I says, you want to sell it?
- She says, no.
- You could take it.
- So it was not a big motorcycle.
- Good for me.
- And I was--
- I commute from Heidelberg to the girls.
- 10 girls were there.
- And I used to bring them food.
- I see the girls once in a while.
- I've seen the girls once in a while.
- [Personal names] and this and that [Personal name]
- But this sergeant who liberated me-- do you know?
- He married one of the inmates.
- Her name was Bella.
- My wife met her too.
- And I was his best man in Heidelberg.
- I was holding the chuppah.
- Yes!
- Holding the chuppah.
- He married her.
- But God wasn't good to him.
- He worked for Grumman aircraft as an engineer.
- He died of cancer very young.
- I have another question for you.
- Yeah, keep going.
- What happened to your family?
- What happened to my family, I tried to ask--
- I call the Red Cross.
- In 1947 when I came here, I was in a DP camp in Stuttgart.
- From Heidelberg to go to America,
- you have to go to Stuttgart DP camp.
- Which I was there with my friends, you know?
- And from there, I was--
- Avi, the sergeant, he worked with the United Jewish Appeal,
- right?
- And he sponsored me, his name.
- So when I came to America, I went
- to Brighton Beach [? seven. ?] His father was a barber.
- [LAUGHS] His father was a barber.
- But I didn't go to live there.
- I wanted to see where Avi is.
- So Avi was in Bethpage, Bethpage Where
- Grumman and them come Bethpage You know, married to the--
- he was married.
- He was married there, but she came maybe six months later.
- Before me, she came.
- Not much.
- Maybe '46.
- Could be '47.
- I don't remember.
- And I met Jimmy and I met Bill.
- Nice guys from north.
- You know, Jimmy and Bill?
- When did you come to this country?
- '47, in March three my birthday.
- You have to say it in a full sentence.
- Tell me--
- I came to America in 19--
- Sorry, start over.
- Yeah?
- I came to the United States in 1947.
- And the ship where I came, name was Marine Marlin.
- I never forget.
- You know, it was my birthday.
- And I was sick from--
- the water didn't do good for me, the ocean.
- But the captain called my name and says have some oranges.
- [LAUGHS] When I get back, the guy--
- I have a suitcase.
- I have a striped suit, you know, from the camp.
- I didn't want to--
- because, crazy ideas.
- Maybe I'm going to use it sometimes?
- I don't know.
- And then nothing with me.
- I don't believe that.
- He said to me, where's your stuff?
- I did not speak so good English.
- I learned from Avi a little bit.
- I says, come in.
- You know, he's coming from Europe.
- [LAUGHS] You know, I'm the only guy who had just a shirt.
- I don't believe it.
- And then this nice lady, when I came to the ship and I never--
- and I don't know.
- She said she wants to take somebody to her home.
- Her name was-- oh my God.
- [LAUGHS] So many years ago.
- Her name was--
- Molly Kearnes.
- Kearnes yes.
- Nice lady.
- What was her name?
- Kearnes.
- [? Kearnes. ?]
- I have to ask him.
- [LAUGHS] Her name was Kearnes.
- She picked me up from the transport
- where we came in there by the pier.
- And says, you come to my house.
- I'm going to take care of you.
- You know, I was--
- I have pictures.
- I was a little.
- I was not that big.
- And she took care of me for a while, took care of me.
- And I stood with her.
- And then my friends came with the same ship.
- And they moved to Flushing.
- And I seen them.
- And then my friends, my sister's friends
- which were in the same camp, lived in the Bronx some place.
- [INAUDIBLE] parkway?
- Where's that?
- I don't even remember where it is.
- Lived in the Bronx.
- I went to see them.
- I have another question.
- Yeah, Have it.
- I'm going to just jump ahead.
- Yeah, go ahead.
- When did you-- when you were married,
- did you expect that you would be able to have a family?
- Oh, definitely.
- You have to tell--
- Yeah.
- I would-- definitely.
- I said, I'm going to have a big family when
- I married Joan, my wife.
- I said, I want to have a big family.
- Definitely.
- And then when--
- She could not conceive.
- You understand?
- So I went to a lot of doctors.
- Dr. Katz.
- Usually on Ocean Parkway was a lot of Jewish doctors.
- Now they've moved away or whatever.
- In [Place name] there were Jewish doctors over there.
- And they took a sperm test.
- And they say, there are a few sperms, but they're dying.
- They're like poisoned, whatever.
- You know?
- So then I said to my wife, listen,
- I don't want to hurt you.
- Take a sperm from some young people who go to college
- and this and that.
- And she did a few times.
- And I don't know what happened, why we stopped.
- What's happened to our light?
- Well--
- OK.
- Don't look at this.
- It's a secret, OK?
- Tell me when we're rolling.
- OK.
- So--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Tell me about--
- About having babies.
- Camera roll eight.
- About marrying Joan and your expectation for a family
- and then finding out you couldn't.
- Go ahead.
- When I married Joan, you know, and we waited for a while.
- Then we said we're going to have a big family.
- You're not going to work.
- I'm going to have a good job because they're--
- Somebody offered me a job in the garment center.
- No more mechanic.
- And I worked as myself--
- Hang on a second.
- I don't care about that.
- Right.
- We only care about--
- OK.
- The issue of the children.
- OK.
- All right.
- Is that on or not yet?
- It's on.
- Yeah, so what I'm trying to tell you this.
- I said I want to have a big family or something,
- and I want to put all the names which I lost, you know?
- I have biblical names in my family.
- And we decide to have a family, but nothing happened.
- We tried and tried.
- We went to a million doctors.
- Finally, I came to the conclusion
- that let's call up the German government, the consulate, Park
- Avenue.
- They gave a response, and they says
- they're going to send a doctor, which they did.
- They send a doctor.
- We were examined-- with the doctor.
- We had an appointment, and we went to Harlem Hospital,
- I had to go.
- And I was there for two or three days.
- And it was a Ger--
- The doctor took a biopsy.
- When he took a biopsy, is in the beginning, he scared me.
- He says, I know you're a sergeant,
- you're a sergeant in the Korean War,
- but I was a captain in the Panzer division in Russia.
- And my wife got so scared, she says,
- let me sleep in the closet.
- He might kill you.
- This is true.
- And as he's taking the biopsy, and I
- ask him to give me a copy.
- They wouldn't give it to me.
- So after so many years, so I know nothing.
- So we tried, we tried, you know, and nothing happened.
- So we finally we came to a conclusion
- to adopt a child, which we did, Allison.
- And we could adopt another child, a boy,
- but she was so hyper, my little one, so hyper.
- She broke her arm.
- She broke her leg in the crib, right?
- So they thought I beat her up.
- Let's stop for a second.
- Our light changed.
- OK.
- And that wasn't probably [INAUDIBLE]..
- I'm still going on?
- We're back.
- [INAUDIBLE] I can't look--
- It looks like.
- We got our light back.
- OK.
- I want to ask you--
- Keep going.
- When did you find out that the reason you couldn't conceive
- was from what happened at the camps?
- Yeah, then I realized--
- Then after a while, I was reading in the papers
- how people were sterilized, you know?
- I didn't know about it.
- How people were sterilized by the Germans,
- and they showed pictures and this and that.
- I said to my wife, you know something?
- They did it to me.
- And I didn't realize.
- And when I went to the doctors and I told them, sterilized,
- you know, Auschwitz-Birkenau, he says, forget it.
- You better adopt a child.
- And they gave us letters, permission to adopt,
- recommendation.
- So we went to where is our commendation.
- But we needed money.
- In the beginning, it's very hard to adopt, money.
- But I worked for a good company, and they helped me.
- I went to-- I drove to--
- I think we have enough information.
- Yeah.
- What other lasting side effects physical, emotional, mental,
- do you think you have or had from the camps?
- I had mental very much so.
- I had-- you know, I was a--
- I had to get some treatments.
- I got good treatment for a long time,
- and I'm still having right now, too.
- I'm going to a place to the Fort Hamilton, you know,
- to the veterans hospital.
- And I go once a week because I have
- a guilty conscience about my family when I left them.
- You understand?
- Hang on a second.
- I hate to stop you there, but our light just changed.
- OK.
- (technical adjustment in filming)
- Yeah.
- So we have to start over, and I want
- you to tell me again about what the side
- effects, the lingering, the lasting effects that you've
- had from your experiences during the war in the camp.
- Well, the experiences, didn't come after I came out the army.
- That was the experience I have, very bad.
- I used to get palpitation and I used to dream.
- And I used to speak to to my mother.
- A lot of things happened in my life, you know?
- And I had to get--
- I had to be tranquilized.
- I'd be in the hospital every second day because I had--
- my heart was going too fast.
- So they tried to put the finger right my throat to stop it.
- I was in a very bad shape because I realized
- what it did to my family.
- And it's unbelievable.
- And I had to take treatment.
- You also tell me about the psychiatric treatment.
- Yes.
- And why are you undergoing that?
- I had to take a lot of treatment from different people
- like Stein, Dr. Stein, Garr, you know?
- I don't understand.
- You're saying treatment, but I don't--
- the people--
- What treatment means that some were with a social worker,
- some were with a psychiatrist, and I
- had them both, Dr. Weiner.
- Lieberman.
- So I still go to Dr. Lieberman to now go
- for some because my conscience bothers me
- where I left my family.
- Yeah, I did right or I did wrong?
- But look what I lost.
- I lost so much.
- When you lose-- We were 10 people and I'm alone now.
- OK?
- People are telling me, look how far you have ridden.
- Yeah, I would say to myself sometimes, too,
- how did I go that far?
- And then with all the problems I had, you know?
- And thank God that we adopted the beautiful child, Allison,
- you know?
- And she's very dear to us and very good to us.
- And we're happy to have her.
- And I hope that she gets married and have her own children,
- which we couldn't have it.
- They gave me a no no, the Veterans Administration,
- private doctors, and then German doctors.
- His name was [Personal name] His first name I forgot already,
- but his name was Dr. [Personal name] And he--
- and he-- I gave to Peter Rose, I gave him
- the report, what he gave us.
- He says that is no question in his mind
- that the Social Republic of Germany,
- I don't know how you pronounce it, whatever
- of Germany is at fault.
- OK.
- I'm sorry.
- OK.
- Want me to stop?
- So the doctor, the doctor told you what?
- Dr. [Personal name] when his report came out,
- it says the sperms are there, quite a few,
- but they don't last too long.
- The production, the way you call it.
- The-- Your words, the words from the producer is damaged.
- So I'd rather get some money from the German republic,
- and adopt a child.
- We didn't wait that long.
- We waited long enough, but we went to ask an agency.
- I was recommended, and we adopted the child.
- Tell me what did happen to your family.
- Well, in 1942, or could be the end of '41, she was--
- All the little ghettos was shipped to Lodz.
- You ever heard?
- The city Lodz?
- And I still got--
- from my mother, I got when I was in the labor camp,
- somebody came over and looked for--
- asking my name, and then he gave me a shirt
- and he gave me those shoes made out
- of wood, like the Holland have those wooden shoes.
- OK.
- Sorry.
- I'll wait.
- I'll wait.
- OK.
- We have the light.
- So what I want to know, because this will
- be a more concise answer, who--
- Of your family, who survived?
- My brother survived.
- He was a major.
- First tell me how many people you had in your family.
- Eight.
- Eight.
- Start with-- OK.
- OK.
- You asked me how many people I had in my family.
- We are four sisters and four brothers.
- I want you to say it in a complete sentence.
- Yeah.
- What I need you to do this because they don't hear
- my question, you have to say--
- Yeah, go ahead.
- You tell me again.
- In my family I had--
- Yeah.
- Are we OK?
- I had a big family.
- We were four sisters and four brothers
- and my father and my mother.
- And when they were shipped from one ghetto to a bigger ghetto,
- I believe that they perished or in Treblinka or Sobibor,
- some of them.
- They never take a family together.
- They split them, the children separate.
- Or Auschwitz could be, but I have no knowledge of it.
- And that's the last time--
- I didn't see my family since 1941, beginning of 1941.
- And I tried so hard to look for someone alive, like my sister,
- but in vain.
- There was nothing.
- We tried so hard, but I found my brother--
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Two brothers I found through Red Cross.
- OK.
- So tell me about that.
- Now can go on?
- Yeah.
- I found my brother through Red Cross.
- He wrote a letter to the Jewish press that he's alive.
- He's in Warsaw, and he's going to stay for a while.
- And he asked the American people and asked the Jewish press,
- please, take care of my only brother I have left.
- And that was heartbreaking when you
- write a letter to the Forward.
- You have heard of Forward, right?
- It's the Jewish press.
- And then they-- and we communicate with the letters.
- He got married.
- He got married in, I believe, in '51 or '52, I don't remember.
- He got married because he waited till the girl was going to be
- of age so he could marry her.
- And he lived there and you stayed
- in a place called Bydgoszcz.
- That's where I wrote him.
- He was a major, battalion commander.
- One second, please.
- Of course.
- You have to tell me where Bydgoszcz is.
- That's-- Bydgoszcz is not far from my home town between
- Germany and Poland, in the middle maybe, in the middle,
- yes.
- And I wrote him all the time letters,
- and I sent him some things that he didn't accept it.
- But my brother-- my brother had a problem.
- When I went to war in Korea, he was arrested
- because I wrote him a letter.
- And they said that he was communicating with the United
- States Army, and they put him under house arrest.
- He went on trial.
- They found him not guilty because he
- won the Congressional Medal of Honor.
- And he says, I'm going to leave the country
- and please send me to Israel.
- And he left Israel, I think in 1957, Poland to Israel.
- And finally, I went to Israel to see him the first time.
- I think I didn't see him for about 20 years.
- When I came down the plane, I didn't know this is my brother.
- I couldn't recognize him, but my wife was screaming, That's him!
- That's him!
- That's him!
- Hug him!
- Hug him!
- I said, you're crazy.
- It couldn't be.
- He's holding a flower.
- I said, this couldn't be him, you know?
- And it was torture, you know?
- And then my other brother came later,
- maybe a year or two, you know?
- When was your other brother?
- Did you know he was alive?
- Yeah, he was alive.
- Tell me when you first--
- I wrote to him.
- I wrote him a letter.
- He was working by the Communist, whatever you call it.
- And the communists don't have--
- you don't work private.
- They have like cooperation, whatever they call it,
- and you work for the government.
- So yeah, I think he was a presser or something.
- He was pressing garments.
- But how did you find out that he was alive, your other brother?
- From this brother.
- OK, start over and tell me in complete sentences.
- OK.
- I find out that Abraham is alive through my other brother,
- through Aaron, the first brother, when
- we corresponded with him.
- So I found out they are all alive, and I was very happy.
- But he was very sick.
- He insists, where's my sister, Leah?
- He loved her so much.
- What happened to her?
- And I explained to him that she didn't make it.
- To deal with it.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- Then I want you to tell me very concisely--
- Go ahead.
- After the war, you found out that you
- had two brothers alive.
- Right.
- How did that happen?
- Not too much detail.
- Right, right.
- Through the Red Cross I found one.
- After the war.
- After the war, through the Red Cross I find one.
- Oops.
- We got to tell Allison to call later.
- Tell me what else you want to tell me.
- What I want you to say is that after the--
- start with after the war.
- [INTERPOSING VOICES]
- After the war, we wrote a letter to the Red Cross.
- We're looking for our families.
- I had little sisters and little brothers.
- They're very little, you know?
- Little brother was only five years old
- and this sisters must have been six, seven, eight those days,
- no?
- And I gave them the names.
- So they found my brother, an officer of the Polish army
- And I wrote to him a letter.
- And then he wrote back.
- He send his picture to the Jewish press in America.
- He says, thank you, America for keep my brother safe.
- You know?
- And through him, I found the other brother is alive
- working in a Polish company.
- All I know-- they have, they have those--
- I don't-- I don't know.
- I can't explain it to you, but they don't work private.
- They work for the government.
- I don't need to know that.
- OK.
- Good.
- Tell me what happened to the rest.
- You found them.
- What about the rest of your family?
- Well, I tried to get the rest of my family,
- and I and I wrote letters and then
- I got a letter from the Red Cross.
- Give us a chance, we're looking.
- And somebody told me that my sister, Leah, might be
- with her friend in Yugoslavia.
- And I tried in Yugoslavia.
- I tried everything I could, and nothing happened.
- It was just--
- I lost them all.
- And this was shocking when you lose such a big family.
- And you didn't lose them all.
- You lost them all except--
- I lost most important things in my life is my four sisters.
- And this is more-- and my little brother.
- It's unbelievable that I cannot--
- My mother was so dear.
- My mother was very young.
- My father married-- my father was older than my mother.
- She must have been about 34 or 36 years old when they--
- when they-- when they took her.
- I don't know where she was.
- Where did they take her?
- Must have been Auschwitz, Sobibor,
- there's so many places they did.
- Sometimes Chelmno was a big crematorium place.
- Chelmno.
- Have you ever heard of it?
- It's a big, big--
- Yeah.
- OK, one more question.
- This is a big experience, but you
- have to make it as short as possible.
- Yeah.
- Tell me how you came to be drafted to Korea
- and about your service there.
- I was-- every young man, every young man if you're a teenager
- or you you're of age, they send you--
- not a draft card, the classification
- that you are eligible, when they call you, to come for--
- to come in for an inspection or they call you to examine you,
- whatever.
- One day they called me into Whitehall street.
- There was--
- Hold on a second.
- OK.
- OK.
- OK.
- One day, they wrote to me that I should come into induction
- center, Whitehall street.
- And there, they examined me and examined me again.
- I tried to explain to them that I'm from the ashes of Europe.
- But they don't understand what I'm saying.
- They don't know about the concentration camps, not
- all of them.
- Only those who understand about the concentration camps
- are those who went to war in Europe.
- And those young men probably from the state or from
- the South, and I was qualified 1A ---
- They said that I'm in good condition to be inducted.
- But I say--
- Hang on a second.
- Joan, we can hear that.
- We can hear that noise.
- We're almost done.
- If you give us five minutes, we'll be done.
- Oh I'm not rushing you.
- But we can hear the sounds.
- We're asking you not to move.
- Oh, OK.
- Thank you.
- When they didn't--
- When you told them you had been in a concentration camp,
- didn't that matter to them?
- They don't know what's concentra--
- I had not--
- They had no place to talk to.
- They just want me.
- But I had one thing on my mind, and this was very important.
- Listen, America gave me a second chance.
- Those soldiers lost their lives, right?
- And I-- and I decided I'd go with destiny.
- If I survive, I survive Korea.
- And-- and-- and--
- You're in the shot.
- I know.
- And I survive Korea.
- I come back to the States, and I'll be free
- and nobody has to carry--
- and nobody has to be behind my back with a gun,
- and I go to Coney Island and have my hot dogs by Nathan's
- with sauerkraut, the mustard.
- But I-- what I--
- I was not--
- While I had knowledge, but not educated.
- I had four years elementary school, you know?
- And I was taking training--
- Hang on one second.
- If you want to sit down, go ahead.
- I want you to make pictures of my family.
- I'll be very upset.
- We'll make them.
- Yeah.
- Want to know about the army?
- No, actually this is the last question about the army.
- Go ahead.
- Tell me what those medals are.
- Well, this is--
- I'm a top sergeant.
- You can see, I have four stripes.
- OK?
- Korea, two brown stars, tank.
- I'm a lighting division.
- This is a division you hit and run.
- You know what I'm talking about?
- Like a Delta Force, whatever you call it.
- I don't know.
- And that Purple Heart.
- I was hospitalized in Pusan, and they
- said that all my records were burnt
- in St. Louis, Missouri in 1973.
- But I got this from the hospital,
- but I did still came out the hospital
- and I still went back to finish my time in Korea.
- But to be a sergeant.
- So I says-- they wanted me go to officer school.
- I didn't even finish elementary school.
- So you know what the commander says?
- Education without knowledge is a boat put on a dry dock.
- But you still have got to have education anyway.
- You know, I had education probably from Germany.
- How to survive.
- You know?
- That was my goal, and I tell you,
- I never lost no one except, some by accident.lo
- I was a good tank man.
- I was a sergeant with Sherman tanks.
- When you were in Korea, did you ever stop and say,
- I went through all of this--
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Well, sometimes-- Well I'm ashamed to say it,
- but I have to tell you.
- Sometimes I felt so bad.
- Why I was come out of the hospital,
- I was assigned in something which I didn't expect
- that they're going to do to me.
- I was assigned that I have to get the tanks out,
- the boats, the Korean did it, and bring them up North
- so the GIs have new equipment to defend himself.
- But the eyes in your carry you know the flat decks you
- carry four five tanks and sometimes--
- I lost everybody.
- Where I'm going?
- Are you understand?
- I lost everybody.
- What I'm doing here?
- So came moments that I jumped to a river over there the creek,
- and the guy says, the driver, hey Polak,
- what did you just did?
- I said, no, I tried to--
- I says, your brakes didn't work, so I tried to jump.
- Yeah, there was moments that I--
- that came to my mind just like this.
- I don't know why.
- That I wanted to go.
- And I don't know why.
- It's just, just--
- This is-- you know, the war was bad over there, but--
- I don't know what to tell you.
- There sometimes comes to a person moments
- that you don't want to be around no more because you
- lost so much, you know?
- Where are you going from here?
- Right?
- You have no family.
- Where do you go?
- You understand?
- You're alone.
- So there came moments.
- And I-- nothing I could say anymore.
- OK.
- We're done.
- We're going to record silence for 30 seconds.
- We're just going to all be silent for 30 seconds.
- Room tone.
- End room tone.
- Can we make picture?
Overview
- Interview Summary
- Simon Rozenkier, born in Poland, discusses his deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau; medical experimentation under Dr. Mengele; his forced sterilization; his transfer to Buchenwald; and his liberation by American forces.
- Interviewee
- Simon Rozenkier
- Interviewer
- Stephen Stept
- Date
-
interview:
2002 December 12
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
4 videocassettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
- Copyright Holder
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Eugenics--Germany. Euthanasia--Germany. Human experimentation in medicine. Involuntary sterilization--Germany. Jewish children in the Holocaust. Jews--Poland. National socialism and science. National socialism and medicine. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland--Oswiecim. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Poland.
- Personal Name
- Rozenkier, Simon. Mengele, Josef, 1911-1979.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum produced the oral history interview with Simon Rozenkier in preparation for its exhibition "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race." The interview was transferred to the USHMM Oral History Branch from the Museum's Institutional Archives in April 2013.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:29:12
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn60518
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