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Oral history interview with Gershon Yelin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2018.155.1 | RG Number: RG-50.030.0967

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    Oral history interview with Gershon Yelin
    Transcript
    I think it's a joke.
    This is a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    interview with Mr. Gershon Yelin on May 4, 2018 in Durham, North
    Carolina.
    Durham.
    That's it.
    That's where we are.
    I know.
    Thank you, Mr. Yelin, for agreeing
    to speak with us today.
    I'm going to start with really basic questions.
    And then from there, we'll develop and ask
    more complicated questions.
    But the very first one is, can you
    tell me the date of your birth?
    April 9, 1928.
    April 9, 1928.
    Where were you born?
    In Poland.
    In Warsaw.
    In Warsaw.
    I'll never forget it.
    You remember it?
    Sure.
    I remember it not because I was there,
    but because my aunt came--
    an aunt.
    To help your mother?
    Not just to help my mother, but she was playing me--
    up and down, up and down.
    And then she panicked, because she
    hit a light that wasn't a light like you have now here.
    But it burnt me a little bit.
    She panicked, and she put me down, and that burned it.
    And that remained a good kind of memory.
    She, of course, didn't make it through the war and all that.
    So did all--
    We'll come to those things.
    Yeah.
    Right now, what was your name when you were born?
    What were you called?
    I think it was Gershon.
    Still the same as today.
    Yeah, unless there were names that were made up by people.
    OK, because some people change their names.
    Cuckoo this, and Tata that.
    No, some people change their names,
    but yours has remained the same, yes?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    Did you grow up in Warsaw?
    Grow up in Warsaw?
    I would say not very long stay, because my parents
    moved everything to Danzig.
    Did they move to Danzig after your birth?
    I would say yes, after.
    OK.
    Was the family originally from Warsaw?
    Warsaw-- yes, because I remember grandparents who lived.
    On your mother's side or on your father's side?
    Both.
    My mother had a father, and he was a rabbi.
    And it was of a small kind of place.
    When the father went out to do something, he was a rabbi,
    and he never came home because somebody killed him.
    And this was probably, when, at the turn of the century?
    Yeah.
    So this would have been your grandfather.
    It was in a way, yes, because it was the grandmother too.
    OK.
    And I remember that well, because--
    Tell me about it.
    My mother took me.
    She took you to see your Grandmother meet
    To meet my grandmother.
    And I got all upset because she was in the bed sick.
    And my other people there had little boys and girls,
    and they were making fun of my--
    not my mother, but my grandmother.
    She was sick in bed.
    And they were teasing her.
    Oh, she wanted the pot, and she would bring it, and pull it
    away.
    And I couldn't take it.
    That's very mean.
    It's very thoughtless for children to do that.
    I guess they didn't have much else.
    So they amused themselves that way.
    It was a very poor place and dangerous, I guess.
    What was your grandmother's name?
    Hava.
    Hava?
    And her last name?
    I don't think she had one.
    Your mother--
    I'm serious, because nobody cared those days--
    who is living there, who is not living there.
    What was your mother's maiden name?
    Hava.
    Hava was your mother's maiden name?
    And what was her first name?
    Her first name-- mommy or mother.
    Do you remember whether she had brothers and sisters,
    your mother?
    I'm sure she had brothers and sisters.
    Most of the time I remember her being home taking care of us.
    And she was interested in time or what's
    happening to the Jewish people.
    She took me to meetings.
    Oh really?
    Yeah.
    I was a little older already, and there
    was trouble in the wind.
    I want to talk a little bit about the earlier years,
    though, to get a sense of who your family was.
    So your mother came from a religious family,
    if her father was a rabbi.
    Were they orthodox?
    Were they Hasidic?
    Can tell me a little bit about what tradition they followed?
    Were they very religious?
    They were religious-- women more than men maybe.
    And I wouldn't say that they were all very religious.
    Sometimes they were even not very nice.
    I'm talking about a synagogue, you know?
    My own father was there with me, and he
    was a very not always nice man.
    And there was a man sitting behind us in another row
    there in the synagogue, and my father sort of
    put up his leg on something in the seats
    there so he would be comfortable.
    And it made him also turn around to see who was behind us.
    And there was an old man there, and my father
    refused to take his leg off the seat--
    can't tell me what to do, kind of.
    So this old man behind us didn't give up--
    take it off, he said--
    in a nice way.
    And my father sort of slapped him.
    In the synagogue.
    In the synagogue, yes.
    Let's talk about your father a little bit.
    What was his first name?
    Well my father would say--
    No, what was his real first name?
    Joseph, I think.
    Joseph?
    And your mother's first name?
    Hava.
    OK.
    And her maiden name?
    I don't know if I ever heard that maiden name.
    My father probably married her after they
    had somebody who did this.
    The matchmaking.
    Matchmaker.
    OK.
    So it's not so--
    Do you know anybody from your father's family?
    My grandfather.
    One time, my father took us to see as a grandfather once.
    Once.
    My whole life.
    And he was an old man, my grandfather.
    When we got there he was sitting.
    And we were little boys that he would have liked.
    But my grandmother, his wife, she died of some disease,
    I don't know what.
    I only know my older brother went from time to time
    to take care of them.
    I see.
    And he wasn't sort of a softie.
    He was almost a Nazi.
    I'm just comparing it, because he learned
    how to fly a plane and things.
    And he would take us children out to the wilderness--
    And this is your older brother?
    Yeah.
    He was the man who also went through trouble
    when he joined the army--
    the British army.
    And he fought for the British army,
    who wasn't worse [INAUDIBLE].
    That is when--
    That came later, yeah.
    That's when you were in Palestine.
    But when your brother takes you to visit your father's father--
    Yeah.
    Where did he live, your father's father?
    In Warsaw?
    Outside Warsaw.
    OK.
    You went there, and you probably had
    to take another car or something to get--
    my grandfather was called the redhead.
    The redhead.
    He had red hair, yeah.
    And at the end, the Nazis came to visit him,
    and you know what happened, I guess.
    Did you visit him more than once?
    Or--
    No, it was one time for me that I was taken to see him.
    But how old were you?
    Oh, maybe eight years old.
    So this would have been like 1936?
    Could be.
    OK.
    And maybe it was even younger, but not really young
    like a baby.
    Yeah, yeah.
    Because it's got to me, yes.
    My grandmother, who isn't there.
    My brother used to go to them more often
    to see how they are doing, especially when my grandmother
    got sick and didn't make it.
    What was your grandfather's name?
    Joseph.
    Also Joseph, like your father?
    I think so.
    OK.
    And did your father have brothers and sisters?
    Sure did.
    Who were they?
    If I would know some.
    He had a brother who was his real--
    I really couldn't say he got along with,
    who lived in Warsaw, Poland.
    And he had a nice business there--
    not my father, but the brother.
    And he was sort of relatively elegant.
    And he was selling nice clothes to people there.
    Was he a tailor?
    Or was he--
    No, he had merchandise.
    OK.
    People came to him.
    And when I came there, I was pretty little,
    and they didn't have children.
    So when I came there, oh my god, I was the hero of the day.
    Of course.
    And they pampered me, you wouldn't believe.
    I was still a kid, so I slept in their bed,
    because it was a small place.
    They had me in their bed.
    And once I'd they lost it there, you know what I mean--
    the peepee.
    Oi.
    Oi.
    And they couldn't care about it.
    Of course.
    When you love children, then that's part of childhood.
    They didn't have any.
    Yeah.
    Unless I visited them.
    What was this uncle's name?
    Oh my-- I know all that, and then--
    I know.
    I know.
    It's sort of like all of a sudden-- it'll come to you.
    It never left I guess.
    It's at the top of my tongue and I can't get it out.
    Probably can't get it out because of the Russians.
    If you think of it later, we'll come back to it later.
    I ask these things, but I know that sometimes--
    Sometimes it just takes over because it's
    a memory that is not gone yet.
    Yeah.
    And if I can, I would just say why it happened to me now.
    It's because when the Nazis came in to Poland,
    my uncle went to the border of Russia,
    and he came back right away because I think
    he thought he could take the family to Russia
    and they would be safe, which was a mistake.
    But he did it by himself, and he came back.
    Why am I saying all this?
    Because I was asking about your uncle.
    I was asking who he was, and what was his name,
    and what are your memories of him.
    So that is why.
    Very nice.
    And did your father have more brothers and sisters
    or was this the only one?
    No, he had brothers and sisters.
    I guess what I meant was that I have brothers and sisters.
    OK.
    Yeah, I had brothers and sisters.
    Well, let's talk about them then.
    Start from the oldest.
    Who was the oldest sibling in the family?
    Seems to me like none of them were old.
    No.
    I was the youngest, that's sure.
    The only one that I sort of see every time I see my pictures
    is my sister.
    What's her name?
    Concentration camp.
    She died in the Holocaust.
    What was her name?
    What was the name.
    It's an easy to say, and I can't say it.
    Hang on, let's cut the cameras.
    I can see her, but I can't--
    We're going to cut.
    To Jerusalem.
    She was accepted to the school there.
    This is your sister who died in the concentration camps?
    Yeah.
    I think we said her name was Luba, is that right?
    Yes.
    Maybe we called her something else too,
    but I can't think now about that.
    I can't think about the fact that she could have been alive
    if somebody who worked in Jerusalem
    was the boss of girls or men would go to study in Jerusalem.
    Like the admissions office.
    Yeah.
    And a very powerful man, because after she
    lost her promise of going to Jerusalem and study there,
    this man just canceled it, and he told her, well, in Germany,
    there's some young person who is a bigger problem, trouble,
    danger than you are.
    You can wait till next time.
    And it was too late.
    And she was-- she, and my uncle, and my aunt--
    she joined them.
    From Danzig, she went to the family that was there.
    And this is the uncle and aunt who loved you very much?
    Your father's brother?
    Yeah.
    So my sister never made it.
    And they also perished, your uncle and your aunt?
    Yes.
    Do you know any of the details of what happened to them?
    The one in Poland?
    Mmhmm.
    Well, they were not exactly treated well in Poland.
    So there's plenty of Polish people
    who probably welcomed even the Germans.
    And when I was there, I went to my parents'.
    My mother took me to the movies.
    She did that-- nice movie.
    Well, I wanted to find out, though,
    what happened to your uncle and your aunt?
    Do you know any of from their place in Warsaw
    when he comes back from the Russian border, what
    happens to them?
    Yeah, well, it was too late to do anything.
    The German armies came, and that was it.
    Were they in the Warsaw ghetto?
    Do you know?
    I can't say.
    I got a letter that was very hard to read--
    or we got a letter, really, from my sister.
    It's like saying goodbye.
    Really?
    Yeah.
    I have it if you want to see it.
    I would very much like to see it.
    I hope I--
    Not right now.
    Later on.
    She wrote a letter.
    I have a hard time reading it, because it's not
    her real handwriting.
    I can see she wrote it with--
    and also at the end of the war, so to speak--
    I have to think.
    It's not easy now to think.
    So let me see what I wanted to say.
    OK, let's see one thing--
    she had a boyfriend when things were normal.
    And he decided I guess he didn't really know
    how bad it would get there.
    But he decided to leave and come to the United States.
    Before the war?
    Yeah.
    OK.
    Sort of the beginning of--
    Mmhmm.
    We were kids, and we ran down to the sea
    the German warships coming.
    No, about the boyfriend.
    Yeah, that's what I mean.
    He made for me before he left two wooden kind
    of like copies of what we saw--
    the German warships came.
    Yeah, and he left that.
    And then he went to this country,
    and he joined the army here.
    And after the war, he was looking for--
    Your sister.
    Yeah.
    And I guess he knew it wouldn't be easy.
    But he let us know that he tried to find her and save her
    and all that-- in a uniform, he was a soldier.
    Do you remember his name?
    No.
    OK.
    I might in time, but right now I can't
    say I really know his name.
    I know him, because before he left,
    he made two little ships for me.
    That makes an impression on a child.
    Oh yeah.
    He made a very nice thing, yeah--
    must have been an artist to make that.
    Let's go back to Danzig.
    That's another's story of a ship at close to the end, really.
    The schools weren't very good to us anymore,
    but there were two ships in the port of Danzig.
    And two schools took us for going on the ship,
    and having a good time on the ship, and coming home.
    This is when you were still in a normal school, right?
    No, it was a really tough time.
    But for some reason, these people
    made up for it or something.
    Were these ships belonging to the Polish government
    or the German government?
    I think they were more German than anything else--
    Danzig really.
    And I guess the people in Danzig,
    they better become Nazis or they wouldn't live a day.
    Tell me-- why did your parents move to Danzig?
    I guess this was good business for my father.
    Yeah, what was your father's business?
    Oh, everything.
    Wholesale, fruit.
    OK.
    Apples.
    Potatoes.
    Name it.
    He was dealing in it in great quantities.
    So food stuff.
    He supplied businesses that needed all that.
    So he was a wholesaler that, let's say, wood supply
    grocery stores or restaurants?
    I think so, yes.
    OK.
    And he would go for trips to Poland and other countries
    that I'm not sure of whether he was selling stuff
    or he'd come back with more orders.
    And he did pretty well.
    Yeah, was he pretty well off?
    Yeah.
    Did he own the business he worked at?
    I would think so.
    OK.
    He had even a horse or two instead of car.
    And I enjoyed riding with this German man who
    was the one who took care of the horse, which was called Max.
    Max.
    Max, yeah.
    And I liked to go with him because he was a good man--
    German, but good.
    Did your father have many employees?
    A few-- three, four in the store.
    And he had somebody coming in pretty often
    to do the books, whatever that they needed.
    And he also would leave something,
    and I thought it was something to drink, and I drank it,
    and it wasn't.
    But it didn't kill me.
    I didn't even tell my parents.
    So you found something that you shouldn't
    have touched in his stores.
    Yeah.
    I wasn't forbidden to do it, but once in a while something
    is under desks.
    Another time, I burned--
    my parents' bought me these really wonderful winter
    clothes, and I came from school, and I got too close--
    they had this thing that my father was working,
    and kept it warm.
    And I burned a part of my coat simply
    by being too close to the--
    To the fire.
    Fire.
    And I didn't tell anybody, and I got away with it.
    I think I told them somebody stole it from me in school.
    Those are the sort of things that kids get scared about--
    that they'll get in trouble.
    Oh yeah, I was so impressed by this coach
    that they bought me, I thought, oh my god.
    It was also winter, and the winter was winter.
    Yeah, real winters.
    Snow, and that's why the fire was
    burning that burned my coat--
    not terribly bad.
    Were you the baby of the family?
    Baby?
    Yeah, the youngest?
    The youngest.
    I think it was me.
    OK.
    All right.
    Who was the oldest?
    Who was the oldest of your brothers and sisters?
    The oldest.
    At this time?
    At that time.
    My two sisters, really.
    OK.
    And what were their names?
    And my brothers.
    So how many--
    My sisters, I think, were older.
    How many sisters did you have, just two?
    Yes, two.
    And how many brothers?
    I think two.
    So you were five kids?
    Mmhmm.
    OK.
    What were their names?
    Their names.
    Well, the names even changed.
    My older brother was--
    I don't know.
    I know and I can't get it out.
    I know he was called Sano.
    Sano.
    Which is a Polish name.
    And my next brother--
    what gets into my head now when you ask me that was we
    didn't get along--
    not because of little things, because of what
    they were thinking and doing about the future--
    things--
    Were their personalities very different?
    Or was it their politics that was very different?
    I would say politics.
    OK.
    And they were very serious about it.
    OK.
    My older brother, the oldest brother,
    he was a different type.
    He was strong.
    He was boxing.
    He was flying a plane.
    Oh, this is the one who was the tough guy?
    Oh, yeah, the toughest I ever knew.
    OK.
    And he was also very good to young people,
    maybe because he wanted to train them to be like him.
    He took them out into the field, and including me, we
    were running, and jumping, but almost
    like military kind of things.
    He would take us out into the woods, which were really
    trees, and trees, and trees, and trees to sleep there at night.
    Kids love that.
    Yeah.
    And then the snake came, and he just took out his knife,
    and went through, and the snake was dead.
    Was this still in Danzig he did this?
    Outdoor to Danzig-- it wasn't the city,
    it was more where the trees were growing.
    I've heard there were a lot of pine trees, a lot of pine tree
    forests around there.
    Probably, yeah.
    The trees were good ones.
    Did you enjoy those things?
    That he took us out?
    Oh, yes.
    I was jumping over.
    You had to compete with the others, who
    was jumping best, and running best, and all kinds of things.
    He didn't give us weapons or anything
    to learn how to defend yourself or kill--
    it was good sport.
    And for himself, as I said, he used
    to get one of these really seemingly cheap planes,
    and he would fly.
    Around Danzig?
    Yeah.
    Wow.
    That's an accomplishment.
    It came at time when he couldn't do that, I guess,
    but he did that.
    So why didn't you get along with your other brother?
    Politics.
    So what kind of politics did this one have?
    Well, the oldest one, he was sort of more military.
    OK.
    So there's a problem, we take care of it.
    And that happened, really.
    I don't think it killed anybody.
    He and my father went to, when the times were really bad
    for Jewish people, especially, my father and he
    went to the meeting of many Jewish men.
    And when that came out from the meeting,
    which was very important, and lots of men
    did come to this meeting to hear the bad news--
    when they came out, the Nazis were there.
    And he and my father, they just beat them up
    till they got away.
    That wasn't the military, I guess,
    it was more like the ones who just have a uniform.
    Like the brown shirts.
    Yeah.
    So they gave up, and they left.
    And my father had his business keys in his hand,
    and he just pumped away with this.
    And my brother, he was a good boxer.
    He didn't need metal to fight the enemy.
    And they came home.
    And they managed for some more time to live and work there.
    So what about the other brother?
    What was his nature like?
    My other brother, Mosha was his name.
    Mosha was his name.
    OK, so one was Sano, and the other was Mosha.
    Yup.
    And one was the tough guy, and Mosha was more of a--
    what do you call it, when you work with your head, I think.
    He was more intellectual.
    Intellectual, yeah.
    Except sometimes she did silly things with me.
    Yeah?
    There was a movie, an old movie, I
    think, about people who were stuck in the desert.
    And I was a kid, a little kid, and he took me
    to the movies I think.
    And then at night, he started to scare me--
    water, water.
    This was in the movie, and you brought it home.
    That's mean, but it's the sort of thing
    a big brother will do to a little one.
    I never forgot this.
    Water.
    Sometimes I joke here maybe with somebody--
    water.
    That was in the movie.
    So we kept the movie going.
    Water.
    Water.
    And there was, of course, a picture
    of the people in the desert in the movie.
    Yeah.
    And so we got a double dose.
    Yes, you did.
    You got a double dose.
    So you couldn't forget it ever.
    What about your sisters?
    Were they older than the brothers?
    Or were they younger than the brothers?
    Maybe somewhat older, yeah, because they used to become--
    well, my older daughter was--
    Your older sister.
    She was sort of liked to be my mother, practically.
    And my other sister too--
    What was the one who would like to be like your mother almost?
    What was her name?
    What was her name?
    My sister.
    Oh, the names.
    I know the names, but for some reason, they are hiding today.
    So I could tell you more than a name.
    They do that sometimes.
    Well, I didn't plan to do that.
    It's OK.
    It just seems so well-- sure, I'll
    say everything that I know.
    That's OK.
    That's OK.
    I know that one was Luba.
    That was the younger one.
    That was the younger one.
    That's the one who perished in Auschwitz.
    Yeah, after she was almost like a mother at home.
    That's maybe not the right way to say it.
    Yeah, but the other one was--
    She was already in Palestine.
    Ah.
    She left before you did?
    Yeah, that time of what was going on,
    she was already in Palestine and in school
    for treating things in the field, so to speak.
    Was she working on a kibbutz?
    It was a school, really, to start with,
    and then it was a kibbutz.
    Yeah.
    Can we cut for a second?
    So that was--
    Hang on just a second.
    And I think my brother also went to Israel
    and stayed there, but not in order
    to make bananas or something.
    But he was more on the military side.
    So this was Sano.
    Or was this Mosha?
    Which of the brothers went to Israel--
    Mosha.
    Mosha.
    OK.
    And my other brother, he came to Israel later.
    One book wouldn't be enough material to go through,
    among many other refugees who came back
    to try to come to Palestine.
    And the British army, which didn't
    do so well in their fields of battle, they were always there.
    We'll come to those parts.
    Right now, I still want to stay in Danzig for a while.
    It came to me.
    I know.
    It's part of it.
    I know.
    I know, forgive me.
    No, I didn't go into details.
    I was careful not to overdo it.
    Just is part of it.
    I wanted to say I had a brother there who had quite a history.
    Back in Danzig, do you remember who
    ruled, who was in charge of Danzig
    when you were growing up?
    It was called--
    The man in charge?
    Was it Germans or Poles?
    Poles were nobody there.
    They sold maybe a few needed to send a letter,
    you would get something to put them a letter too.
    So they just ran the post office?
    Barely.
    Barely.
    OK.
    Nobody went there.
    OK.
    And they didn't care, apparently.
    What was your first language at home?
    My first language was probably la la boo boo buh da da da.
    And after that?
    I guess I shouldn't have done that.
    That's OK.
    They had all kinds of names.
    It depends who was coming to visit and who was--
    What language did you speak with one another--
    your parents, and your brothers, and your sisters?
    Well, it was sort of strange, because in the long run, when
    I went to school already of any kind,
    I was speaking German pretty well.
    OK.
    And Polish was never my interest even.
    Did you have to study Polish in school?
    Not much, if any.
    OK.
    German-- or let's say some Jewish kind of.
    So Yiddish.
    Did you speak Yiddish?
    I did, yes.
    OK.
    From time to time-- it wasn't like I had nothing else.
    OK.
    So it was German--
    And I learned languages pretty quickly.
    So German-- I learned that.
    It wasn't because the Nazis forced me.
    That came later.
    I had German friends.
    We all had little, I guess it was a sign of our times,
    we all played with little toy guns.
    I must confess I Stole one toy like this from a store--
    a Jewish store--
    a big store.
    Did anybody find out?
    I didn't plan-- no, I just was so into this game
    that we played, not just played, but we were always
    on the roofs.
    And we never fell down.
    Roofs of the houses?
    Roofs of the houses.
    Oh my goodness.
    Nobody cared, so we had a great time.
    That would give any mother a heart attack.
    Not really.
    Really?
    Well, then it's a change in generation.
    Maybe she didn't know always what we were doing.
    She was a busy woman.
    And we didn't tell, we just played all the games
    that we heard of or saw maybe in a movie once in a blue moon.
    Oh, and my mother used to take me to shop for clothes.
    For some reason, these remind me of her,
    because my wife bought me these shoes.
    And she said they are made in Germany.
    So right away, I think I got a little kind
    of wondering why do I have to get choose from Germany.
    And then I said, well, they're not Nazis anymore.
    Tell me about your mother.
    Well, before that, can I say something?
    Sure.
    When I went to medical school, I was close to Germany.
    But I never went to Germany.
    Where were you when you went to medical school?
    In medical school.
    Yeah, but what city was that in?
    I don't know.
    I know, but I can't think.
    Was it Vienna?
    Vienna, yes.
    OK.
    OK.
    So you never went--
    My head is overloaded.
    I'm sorry.
    It's OK.
    I know what it is.
    I'm not nervous, but it just doesn't click fast.
    Yeah, I went there.
    And I finished there.
    And the finish was some story if you want to hear it.
    Is this in the post-war years?
    Would this be after the war is over?
    After the war, yes.
    I do want to hear the story, but I'd
    like to hear it a little later if you can hold that thought.
    Later, you mean another time?
    I mean after we finish talking about other things, but today.
    Oh.
    Yeah.
    I want to do it now.
    All right, let's do it now.
    Let's do it now.
    I just want to say how I got there maybe.
    OK, tell me how you got there.
    I'm still in Palestine.
    You're in Palestine, yes.
    In Palestine, and I was dying to go and study medicine.
    OK.
    Maybe it sounds stupid now, because where did I pick it up,
    this need to study?
    Did I plan to be a doctor right away?
    Maybe yes, maybe no.
    But I was determined to do it.
    And it was from a few books of the neighbors.
    It was an old man each time I visited him.
    He was really old.
    And he probably escaped from Germany.
    That's why he was in Israel near where I lived
    and my parents lived.
    So anyway, where was I?
    It was why you went to school in Vienna,
    and it was because of the neighbor who had some books.
    And not just books, but he talked about the books.
    And he was very good and very old.
    But I couldn't skip anything when I went to see him.
    Was he interesting, then?
    Yes.
    He was the best teacher I had.
    And he wasn't teaching me because he had a plan for me,
    but because he was very wise.
    And I think he came from Germany to save his life in Palestine.
    That's what it was.
    Do you remember his name?
    No.
    That's OK.
    That's a long time, really.
    And his wife was always there, and also an elderly woman.
    And she was always working in the garden.
    So it was very nice, because Palestine wasn't exactly
    the nicest place in the world, especially when you didn't know
    if you'd go out, you come back home alive,
    or if you went to sleep--
    I used to sleep with a pistol under the pillow
    for a long time.
    But let's go back to the track about Vienna.
    Why is it that you chose Vienna to go to medical school?
    Why?
    Because nobody else was there to let
    me go to one of these famous places that taught.
    And I was debating it with myself, yes--
    where should I try?
    Well, Jerusalem, the medical school wasn't there yet really.
    And wherever I turned, impossible
    because it was a time when the soldiers came home--
    or not just home, but they also got first--
    Preference.
    Preference, because they had to catch up as what they lost.
    So time went by, and time went by,
    and I just sort of decided if not now, when?
    So what did I do?
    My younger brother, he got me a job.
    You have a younger brother?
    No, the one that's number two that we talked about.
    The older brother-- so Mosha or Sano?
    Mosha.
    And so where was I?
    Your brother Mosha got you a job.
    Yeah.
    What is it called-- these people who fight for you if you
    have trouble with something.
    Right no I don't know why I'm thinking about Trump.
    And all the people who are working for him or against him,
    they get money for--
    Let's keep to your medical school in Vienna.
    What year did you enter there?
    What years were these when you were studying in Vienna?
    It was a year after I arrived there.
    The first thing I did, I went to seize the building--
    not because I was a builder and I had to know the building.
    But the first thing I felt I had to do--
    well, it's again the Nazis.
    When the Nazis marched into that part of the world--
    Yeah.
    Well, the students who were there-- not Jewish students,
    but the other kind--
    they became Nazis.
    And there were Jewish mainly girls who were studying there.
    I guess they were local.
    Their parents probably lived there and their grandparents.
    And there was peace.
    And suddenly, there wasn't peace.
    And these German young men, they took these girls
    and threw them down to kill them.
    Out the windows or just out of the school?
    Not even the windows, just off the balconies, kind of high up.
    I had this commitment to myself, before I would study there,
    I would go to see that.
    These weren't girls I knew.
    And then I started to study.
    And then one day after I was already
    in this situation of studies, I saw these famous doctors
    looking at the wall where I usually
    had to work in order to get to a place you would go.
    And I wonder--
    Let's cut for a second.
    And I wondered, what's going on?
    Why isn't the music playing?
    So before we cut the camera, you were
    talking about these German doctors or the Austrian doctors
    looking at a wall.
    Oh yeah.
    And pointing to it or something.
    Yeah, that was the day I gave the man that people usually
    don't like very much-- a Jewish man who lived there,
    and he saw and treated patients who had problems.
    Guess who that is?
    I'm confused now.
    We were talking about--
    There was a famous doctor who was Jewish, and he lived in--
    where was I?
    You were in Vienna.
    Vienna, yeah.
    And many, I think, women went to him for treatment.
    You mean Sigmund Freud?
    Right.
    And he lived right across the street
    from where I was studying--
    the real place.
    This was just like a regular home.
    And all I had to do was cross from one side to the other,
    and there he was.
    Except he wasn't there anymore, he was gone.
    But it was just a regular house.
    And there we'd come to the police
    I wasn't exactly a young kid anymore,
    so I had a girlfriend who lived in that house
    that I just talked about.
    And well, I guess it wasn't so abnormal,
    I guess that I met her, and we went out,
    and we had coffee together.
    And then it turned out she was married.
    Except the married man, he was in the army
    fighting for Germany.
    And he was a policeman when I was there.
    That's awkward.
    I knew it was something else, because he was never home.
    But it was the same building where Freud was.
    That's why I thought it I'd tell you
    that because it's sort of a little crazy, I would say.
    It's unusual.
    It's unusual.
    It was mainly because when I came there, it was very lonely,
    really.
    Yeah.
    I used to take long walks in the beautiful city.
    It is beautiful in most places.
    Then I saw places that weren't so pretty, where
    when the workers didn't want to work,
    the government of the city sent cannons, and they were killed--
    not in my time, but earlier.
    And then I saw when I went for some time,
    I had to go to take a bath in a special place.
    And I went in there right away, you
    saw all these young men who fought for probably
    for Hitler--
    Nazis.
    They had no legs, they had no arms.
    I guess you don't get the picture.
    Was this a sauna--
    Yeah, a sauna.
    But it was reserved for ex-soldiers that were damaged.
    And I guess I didn't have much sympathy for them either.
    But it gets to you no matter what somehow.
    And then-- where was I?
    What years were you in Vienna studying?
    Was it after 1950?
    1950.
    I can't be sure.
    Was it in the 1950s?
    Sort of close, yeah.
    OK.
    So do you remember how old you were?
    My passport must be somewhere.
    I'm serious, I probably have a passport.
    But I can't be sure.
    Was it after Israel's independence?
    Was it after independence--
    if that ever happened in my time, I'm not sure.
    Was it maybe 1952?
    For some reason, it tells me--
    it's been so long there that I left 1924.
    We already had planes.
    OK, so 1950-- your wife is telling me it's probably 1952.
    OK, maybe she is right.
    Today I'm sort of overwhelmed, so I'm not the best--
    cause I used to know these things like nothing.
    Not everything maybe.
    No, you're still telling us quite a bit.
    So about going to studies there.
    We ended up there.
    I wanted to still talk about things in Danzig.
    OK, Danzig.
    I wanted to find out a little bit when
    you're just growing up in Danzig about your family
    circumstances.
    Did you have your own home?
    Did you live in an apartment?
    Can you describe it for me?
    Oh for some time, we lived in an apartment
    in one of those houses that people lived in.
    Like the stone apartments?
    Nothing special.
    Nothing that I remember, oh, this was so beautiful.
    But the second one later that I can tell--
    Tell me about that.
    This was a regular sort of almost like poor family
    kind of house.
    OK.
    And I remember the smell when my mother used to make a wash.
    She had to help a woman usually.
    There was a lot of washing to do.
    I can still smell it sort of--
    don't believe it, but it's there still.
    And if you wanted to be warm in pretty tough winters,
    you had to make a fire.
    How was the place hated?
    Was it cold?
    Fire, I would say.
    It was cold, yeah, when you went out.
    Did you use wood or coal to heat the house,
    to heat the apartment?
    I think a combination of these.
    OK.
    Whoever brought something that will do something.
    And my mother very often hired help
    who would help with the wash, which was endless all day
    and all night-- they were pulled and put.
    Where would they hang the wash to dry?
    I think it was a fire that was doing its part to dry it fast.
    And the smell, it's almost like--
    it wasn't a bad smell, but the same smell.
    Did you have electricity?
    I would think so.
    No, I wouldn't think so.
    I think it was still gas and--
    Kerosene?
    Something to start the fire, and then
    to put me down and burn my behind.
    Well, that's something I told you.
    Yeah, you told me.
    Out of love, because there was no electricity, really.
    It was all risky business.
    Did you have indoor plumbing?
    Probably very limited.
    OK.
    Had to stand in line [INAUDIBLE] if you had to.
    OK.
    How many rooms did the apartment have?
    Not anything to be proud of, I guess--
    two, three at the most.
    For seven people-- your mother, your father,
    and all your brothers and sisters?
    It was tight.
    Well, I would think there was always like for two.
    So my brothers--
    I don't know, really, how they manage.
    Did you say that you moved to another place after that?
    Oh yeah.
    That was when times got worse.
    OK, what happened?
    But it wasn't the total reason why we
    were moving out and moving in.
    It was, I think, because we could afford
    to live in a better place.
    OK.
    Better apartment.
    And the warnings about moving in there,
    there was no warning, really.
    I guess we didn't believe yet that there
    was this big danger coming.
    How old were you?
    So my parents I think thought it's
    good to get this new apartment.
    The only thing was, it was bought
    from a family that left for another country,
    I don't know where.
    He was a chemist, and he had a family maybe.
    His wife was helping him.
    It was a very nice apartment.
    So my parents bought it, and we moved in there.
    And it was sort of close to the railroad and the other ways
    of traveling.
    Do you remember the street address?
    I don't think so.
    I know it was close to the railway.
    OK.
    And I often went to my school when
    the school was a Jewish school and out of the country,
    practically.
    So I had to take the train.
    And there were other things.
    It was already maybe close to all this trouble we had later.
    And the school took us to one of those performing places
    where children can run around.
    And they can drive a car--
    not really a car, but it was like a car,
    and do all kinds of things and have a good time.
    And shortly after that was too late.
    Tell me a little bit about school.
    Did you start in a regular public school?
    I would think so.
    Do you have memories of it?
    Sure, I do, mainly because I had this teacher who was just
    something I never forgot.
    OK, tell me about him.
    He was the best teacher anyone can believe in.
    One-- it was really two.
    One was Jewish--
    OK.
    But not the typical Jewish person.
    He was teaching us in the school.
    To give you one example I remember so well--
    he used to come and teach us in the school yard.
    One day, he said, I want you to draw something.
    He'd draw something.
    OK.
    And he didn't tell us what--
    just do what you think.
    And I was sort of, oh my god, how do I do it?
    I don't know nothing.
    And then I decided, well, I look out of the window,
    there I saw two trees.
    And I wrote a story about the two trees.
    And my teacher got all--
    I think he never forgot that.
    Something special.
    I mean, my favorite, and it sort of was explaining why I did it.
    He praised it, really.
    It was so great and so on.
    I don't know if you want to hear it now.
    But later, he was in the war time already.
    It was late.
    And I thought, he must be dead.
    Then I found out that he is not dead.
    Well, first of all--
    Was this the Jewish teacher or the non-Jewish teacher?
    A good question.
    If you would meet him, you wouldn't know
    if he is Jewish or not Jewish.
    He was Jewish, because I have some pictures of him somewhere
    and his little daughter.
    And he's sort of a special kind of man.
    I looked up to him.
    Like in the synagogue, he was sitting in a special place
    by himself.
    He wore this hat, black hat, and I
    used to sit there with my mother,
    and I used to look at him and look at him.
    I was always thinking, that's how God must look like.
    Oh.
    You really liked him.
    Oh, yeah.
    He was the kind that you liked.
    And somebody asked me why I didn't
    write about the synagogue that wasn't so fancy.
    My mother used to take me, but not where
    my father used to take me.
    He liked regular people more.
    So your parents used to take you to different synagogues?
    In a way, yes.
    My mother liked this temple, and my father liked--
    it was almost like you had to hide underground.
    But that's how these men felt good about it, being there,
    speaking of not the fancy languages I guess--
    sort of took me time to figure out
    why are they not joining this building that is so famous.
    It was destroyed by the Germans.
    Before then.
    Before that, it was like a palace, really.
    And my teacher who had his own seat, and he wore this hat--
    top hat.
    I'm going to ask you-- do you remember his name?
    I do and I don't.
    It's like something happened to them, and--
    Poof.
    Don't tell anybody.
    OK.
    This is too holy or something, don't tell it.
    But you did tell me that he survived the war.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Well, he was given permission to bring
    a building of 25, 30 children from Europe to England.
    So he was part of the Kindertransport?
    Yes.
    I didn't know that till I saw him again.
    I see.
    I thought about it a lot during the war, but who would tell me?
    So yeah.
    We were talking about your schooling.
    And did you start out going to a German school?
    Or was it a Jewish school?
    We spoke German, yeah.
    These teachers who were Jewish, they
    would teach us-- our gymnast not teacher,
    did you ever hear that?
    I probably didn't tell anybody, but I told some people.
    He was a great teacher for real activity,
    and running, and sports.
    And when this whole trouble started in Germany,
    he faced us children, and he started to act like a monkey--
    to hit himself.
    And he yelled sort of pretty loud,
    and we were surrounded by all this equipment
    to do some exercises.
    With this chest, I'll defend the German Reich.
    With this chest, I'll defend the German--
    He was the worst Nazi I ever saw,
    and he was a Jewish person.
    Oh my goodness.
    That sounds so strange.
    And he was so different before that.
    Maybe he just lost it.
    Huh.
    We liked him.
    We were always looking forward to doing
    what we were doing there.
    We had the equipment for it.
    It was the good old days.
    And he sort of to this day, I can hear it, I can see it,
    I cannot believe it.
    It's really hard to understand.
    Yeah.
    Maybe something scared him so much that he lost something.
    Yeah.
    Did your father have a successful business in Danzig?
    Yes, he did.
    He did.
    For Danzig, it was really good, yeah.
    Do you remember the name of the business?
    Not really.
    It was more like he got orders, and he
    used to travel to Poland and lots of places.
    And he had a lot of customers.
    And these were major sales--
    enough to fill a big horse with a wagon to deliver it.
    That was my fun to go--
    I think I mentioned it before.
    There was this nice man who was a German, but my friend.
    We laughed together, we went together, we ate together.
    Did he change after the politics became more difficult?
    Did you find that to happen with your friends or the people
    that you knew who were German, not Jewish?
    They probably had to in order to live.
    But I didn't see it for some time.
    I had a friend who invited me to come to his home.
    We were young.
    And it wasn't like he was older or something.
    And I went to them, and we had to go downstairs.
    And there was I think his father sitting and fixing
    shoes for customers.
    OK.
    And his mother, who was nice, pleasant--
    and that was a very friendly, if not a very nice, place to be.
    But I know it now, but I liked it.
    In what was it not a nice place?
    Watching him fixing shoes for the customers, and his mother
    maybe feeding us this or that was--
    it wasn't easy, because it was really underground.
    We had to go downstairs.
    But it was interesting.
    They weren't Jewish?
    No, they weren't Jewish.
    Not to be Jewish, all I had to do was go downstairs.
    And the Nazis were marching with the music, and uniforms,
    and their weapons.
    And they would have nice songs like, with this knife,
    we'll cut the Jews--
    Throat.
    Throat.
    And they were singing it, and people applauded.
    And then they passed from one place to the other.
    And it was quiet again, and then the police came.
    And they picked up men and put them in big baskets, because--
    What kind of men?
    The ones who were passing by singing those songs?
    They just picked people and put them in these--
    Did they shoot them or something and put them in the baskets?
    No, they put them in bags--
    not bags, really, but you could fit a man into it
    and ship him off to someplace that you never saw him again.
    And I think it was probably because the Nazis were
    in charge, and these were communists--
    not very like these by then.
    OK.
    So that was so obvious I was standing there and wondering,
    why did they put them in the basket?
    And then the police came and explained it
    by picking it up and moving it away.
    OK.
    So that was something that I can still see anyway.
    What about school?
    When you started school-- if you're born in 1928,
    you start school in '33, '34, right?
    Possible, yeah, because it took time to get to school.
    So Hitler has already come to power
    by the time you start school.
    Could that be a fair assumption to make?
    It was the other way around.
    Hitler was gone.
    Germany wasn't gone.
    I always thought, well, maybe I'll
    take a look what's doing in Germany.
    You're talking about your medical education.
    Oh yeah, that's what I thought you meant.
    I'm talking about your very, very first school--
    your primary school when you're a child.
    When I was a child, yeah, I went to school.
    Yeah.
    When you went to school, was Hitler already in power?
    Maybe not as much as it became later
    when he had his armies ready and his tortures.
    But if you want my school, the first school I thought--
    Oh, can you sit down, please?
    We can do this later.
    Hang on just a second.
    Because I'm banging my head?
    Hang on a second.
    Let's cut the camera.
    Oh, I have stories and stories just
    occurred to me if you want to hear about my older brother.
    Yeah, what about your older brother?
    He was the hero.
    Now we come to the subject of people escaping from Europe.
    I wanted to come to exactly that subject.
    Tell me-- did you experience Kristallnacht?
    I probably did walk by maybe even and not know what it was--
    a broken window.
    Later, I think I knew that there was more to come.
    OK.
    And I think that's when we probably left.
    So tell me about the older brother who was the hero.
    Oh the hero-- that was more--
    well, it was Germany, but more was England.
    Are you talking of Palestine?
    Yeah, England ruled us, and they were cruel.
    I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt,
    because that's Palestine.
    I'd like to still stay in Danzig for the time being--
    OK.
    And find out how you leave.
    That's my question now is that you're in Danzig,
    you see those soldiers, you're downstairs in your friend's
    father's shop where he's repairing shoes,
    things start to get uncomfortable.
    When does your father lose his business, do you know?
    How does he lose it?
    Well, he and my mother went to Poland
    for some reason or other.
    And the police came to arrest my father and my mother
    probably too, claiming something about business or whatever.
    And then my brother and sister were there.
    When the police came.
    Yeah.
    Or maybe more than police.
    I wasn't there, so I couldn't really judge.
    And anyway, they took everything out-- the furniture.
    It must have been a nice apartment, because now I
    remember my father buying himself a fancy to write with--
    A pen.
    One of the famous--
    I can't remember the name now, but a very special--
    and my mother bought some nice furniture
    before all this became dangerous.
    All this was right away taken out.
    Were you home at the time when that happened?
    No.
    Where were you?
    Where could I have been?
    I know I wasn't in Poland.
    I remember, school I used to take the train
    every morning because these were now
    emergency Jewish kind of outdoor school, where I got
    slapped by the English teacher--
    a woman, because I was eating something.
    So this was still in the Danzig area when you lived there?
    Yes.
    Because when I got sick in school,
    my mother was able to come.
    I'm sure that it was still--
    I have pictures of it too some place.
    Then we had an English teacher too
    who came from England for some time.
    And I used to draw cartoons in this time of teaching.
    But he was the kind who was laughing with us.
    Yeah I became sort of the funny guy in school
    until I left school.
    You don't remember where you were when the police came
    and all of the furniture from your apartment was confiscated?
    Maybe I was in Warsaw with my parents or something already.
    OK.
    Now I remember when we came to Poland,
    my parents rented a small apartment.
    In Warsaw.
    In Warsaw.
    And I think that was a time when my parents applied already
    for England to give us permission
    to move to Palestine.
    And you said your sister and your brother
    were already there?
    Yeah, they went before us, because they
    had some different kind of--
    my sister, she was learning how to deal with plants.
    OK.
    My brother was something similar,
    like he went there to help the people or something.
    And then my sister, well, she got sick
    because the Arabs attacked her bus.
    She was being driven home.
    I think she got very sick and didn't live
    very long with two children.
    I used to visit her in her home a lot.
    That's when you got to Palestine already, yes?
    No, that was when she married, yeah.
    And they had a child too.
    And my sister got sicker, and sicker, and sicker.
    And I think I was already in medical school.
    OK, so that's after the war.
    When you're in Warsaw with your parents--
    When was it after the war?
    It seemed like there was a time you were never
    sure it's after the war.
    Yeah.
    When you were in Warsaw with your parents, that is,
    and they rent a little apartment in Warsaw,
    were any of your other siblings still in Danzig?
    Did they still stay in Danzig?
    Or did everybody come to Warsaw?
    Everybody come to us, I don't think so.
    It would have been very easy if it
    would have happened for them.
    No, this was difficult. A certain time,
    you didn't know where to go and how to survive.
    Who was the one who wanted to leave the most?
    Was it your father or your mother?
    Oh, one or the other.
    I think my mother was strong about that
    and started to tell us, and especially my father,
    she sees what's coming.
    So she was right.
    She used to go to meetings with other people, mainly women,
    I think--
    some probably didn't want to believe
    what is about to happen.
    Others did.
    So some waited until the last minute and missed it.
    And others like my mother, she was in the right way
    of handling this.
    So in the '30s when your sister and brother had already gone
    to Palestine, it was just the three of you left--
    yourself, your sister, Luba, and which of the brothers-- was it
    Mosha or Sano who was still with you?
    I would say they weren't with me a lot last time--
    from the time when things were still OK.
    Yeah.
    And they didn't like each other--
    not because they didn't really like each other,
    because a different outlook on how to run the world,
    particularly.
    And when I was little and they were all much older than me,
    I used to be ordered to bring the messages from one
    to the other.
    Oh good god.
    Yeah.
    They didn't speak to each other?
    No, they hurt each other, especially my older brother.
    If he'd punch you in the face, it hurt like hell.
    That's what happened.
    And the blood was flowing.
    And then I was told by them, bring this to your brother
    there.
    It was like the Nazis.
    And it wasn't Nazis.
    It wasn't.
    It wasn't.
    But there was friction between the brothers.
    Political, kind of.
    And my younger brother, maybe I mentioned it already--
    he liked me.
    I was sort of hanging out with him.
    In the evening, I would sleep there in his room.
    This was Sano or Mosha?
    Mosha.
    And he started to scare me.
    He really scared me.
    What was it now?
    I was so sure I had it in my head, and I did.
    But--
    What, the movie?
    Why is it here?
    Are you talking about the movie?
    Oh, water.
    Water.
    Did I tell you that already?
    You told me that.
    Not so easy to keep up is it?
    Water, water.
    I got nervous more and more, water.
    And he took me to the movie, too at the beginning,
    so I though it all was happening, you know,
    all these soldiers who died in the desert in the movie.
    And that's what I saw once or twice maybe.
    Tell me, how did you get from Warsaw to Palestine?
    What was the sequence?
    What was--
    Money.
    Well, yeah, that'll do it.
    No, this was special money.
    OK, tell me what happened.
    Well, we got permission by the King of England, really.
    OK.
    My father had to pay, I don't know,
    something 10,000 British sum.
    Very important name of the government of the King
    of England.
    And we got it very quickly.
    It was easy if you had a lot of money.
    I don't know where it came from really,
    but my parents apparently had the money.
    So your daughter told me that you left in December of 1938.
    Could be.
    How did you go?
    How did you go to Palestine?
    What was the route that you took?
    To Palestine from where?
    Warsaw.
    Well, Warsaw wasn't much of a help, that's sure.
    They had all kinds of anti-Jewish.
    Did you experience that?
    Not in a way that I would get upset.
    Like they suddenly didn't allow Jewish people
    to eat certain meats, didn't allow them to slaughter.
    Suddenly they were considerate of the animals.
    Not the Jewish, but--
    No, they were--
    OK, but did this affect your family and your ways
    to get out of Poland?
    Not as bad as some other things.
    To get out of where?
    Poland, to get out of Poland, to get to Palestine.
    No.
    That was easy.
    We had to get on a train.
    And now I see my sister waving to us and--
    and crying.
    That was the last time I saw.
    Was this the sister who was supposed to study in Jerusalem?
    Mm-hm, and didn't.
    It was taken away from her a long time.
    And we hear everything.
    My parents thought that she'll join us
    once she would get accepted to the medical--
    not medical really, different kinds of
    studies that she really wanted to study.
    I think I read somewhere it was humanities.
    She wanted to study the humanities.
    Yes, that's what it was.
    But she never got a chance.
    And many years later I went up to the same place
    where she was dealing with in Jerusalem
    by this Jewish man who probably told her, well,
    you have to wait.
    We have this dangerous girl in Germany, a Jewish girl I guess,
    that we have to take care of.
    And then afterwards when I was sort of in Jerusalem,
    because I wasn't really in Jerusalem, I went up to him
    and sat down with him and I told him some things.
    But could do to him?
    I couldn't.
    Did he react?
    I wouldn't.
    He sort of, well you know, I had no choice,
    and defended himself.
    And I just wanted to let him know that it's not over.
    Yeah.
    And it wasn't just because he was who he was,
    but the people who really ran all this,
    you couldn't trust them.
    Maybe they were more interested in making money and whatever.
    You think he might have been paid better?
    Maybe money talks in this kind of--
    I couldn't judge them all, but some foreign people
    in Jerusalem I was more feeling good so to speak.
    They came from different countries
    and they weren't Jewish.
    But I used to sort of always admire
    how they walk in the street and do their religion.
    And we even had the Russian building
    that they left and we used it for training our--
    What was it training for?
    The same building, as I was saying, to learn really.
    So when--
    And there's also the dignity of some people who
    came to not just to live but to worship and the way they
    dressed and the way they behaved on walking
    and get out of your way if you were a lady.
    So civilized.
    In some way civilized.
    Well, I admired it.
    And now what did I have--
    I still wanted to find out.
    You leave Poland by train.
    Yes.
    And what countries do you go through?
    Oh, there was one country, a nice place for whatever they
    offered to ride in to take us to some port that would lead us--
    Was it Romania?
    I think so.
    It was one with the husband and wife who were monsters.
    Oh, you're talking about the Ceausescus, the ones who
    ruled Romania after the war.
    Maybe I'm wrong, but sort of--
    Ceausescu, I believe, is who you're referring to.
    What do I remember from that trip?
    We got a trip.
    I remember going down early in the morning and I saw something
    and I thought it's a sweet something.
    I bit into it and it was not.
    What was it?
    I forgot already.
    I think I read that you bit into an olive
    and you had never eaten one.
    Yeah, that's true.
    Was that the thing?
    I guess it was.
    I'd never had an olive.
    I didn't know and it tasted terrible.
    And I was down at the ship where they probably left it.
    There was nobody there serving us.
    I said, well, I'll eat something.
    Blech!
    Do you remember the ship that you were on?
    It was a nice ship.
    Was it?
    Mm-hm.
    It was new.
    White.
    Were there many people on there going to Palestine?
    Can't say many.
    In the movies maybe you'll see a few more.
    There's a movie about people who escaped from Germany
    and then they had to go back by order of our government.
    The US government.
    Mm-hm.
    Oh, that's the St. Louis.
    Yeah.
    Quite a show to see.
    Do you remember your first impressions
    when you get to Palestine?
    I was happy.
    It's like something I always wanted.
    And I was sort of, oh, the oranges are terrific.
    All kinds of little things suddenly became like a blessing
    from heaven.
    What a change.
    And even going to school when I saw this nice lady.
    We really had a school that was the worker's school.
    And she was so patient and nice, and in six months
    I spoke Hebrew like I was born there.
    Wow, that's an achievement.
    Yeah.
    Then funny things happened too.
    Maybe I mentioned it already.
    When the time came and Russia was celebrating
    and our people were sort of the communists suddenly,
    and the children too, the students my age,
    they had us march with the people who were singing
    Russian songs in the streets.
    And people were watching us and applause and everything.
    And then we had a further kind of can't really
    explain it to you.
    In a big building they took us and we were singing some songs.
    So it was much more of a leftist kind of environment.
    Yeah.
    It didn't last, but it was in my time.
    Right when you arrived, or about a year
    or two later do you think?
    It was close to when I arrived, when I got in the school that
    had these tendencies.
    Because if you're leaving in December '38, during that time
    Russia's still allied to Nazi Germany.
    The Soviet Union is still allied and it's
    only five months later, in the beginning
    of '39, the first half of '39, in June,
    when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union.
    And I would think that it would have
    been a celebration after that time but I don't know.
    Not in my time.
    Yeah.
    I would say at this point let's cut the camera.
    My time it came later when I went to study in Europe.
    That's when I ran into all tjese people.
    Who had been in the celebration?
    Not that celebration, but Nazi celebrations
    where they were marching there day after day after day.
    And after the Germans left, who was marching?
    We did.
    We and the French and the four powers and driving around.
    And the weird thing was when I was there
    and I heard the Russians march--
    In Vienna.
    --in Vienna, now the music was really something
    that you couldn't even get if you go and pay money
    to see an opera or something.
    I couldn't believe it.
    And the officers, the regular soldiers, Russians,
    were part of the four.
    When they marched, they were singing.
    You thought you missed the best opera in the world.
    Singing in the streets.
    Marching and singing.
    And it was that impressive?
    Oh yeah.
    I never forget it just listening to their voices and the way
    they sang.
    And the men, if you walked with your girlfriend,
    the officers would always bow down and make room
    for me and somebody to walk.
    So they were very well behaved.
    It's sort of a little crazy because you
    didn't feel safe for some time, especially with the Russians.
    I have remember that.
    It's like let's not start trouble with them.
    Yeah, it's contradictory types of impressions.
    Yeah.
    Because you knew a lot about them before all that.
    Then there was an adjustment for them to be nicer,
    or they were forced to be nicer.
    I had a landlady.
    She used to tell me about her experience
    when the Russians came into the country.
    She told me like, you know these Russians are terrible.
    They came, they didn't know anything about water.
    They washed their head by sticking it into the toilet
    and flushing.
    And of course, what they did to the girls and women,
    I heard plenty of that too.
    The Russians were not the nicest people really.
    But who was?
    I don't know.
    Let's beak now.
    Let's break now.
    So you're coming back tomorrow?
    No.
    What we're going to do is continue
    from what we were talking about before the break.
    And before the break it was your very first impressions
    of coming to Palestine.
    And I want to look back to another moment that's
    very close to that one but that I want to correct.
    I was under the impression that you had been together
    with your parents in Warsaw and that you
    traveled from Danzig with them.
    In fact, your daughter told me that you went on the train
    by yourself.
    Do you remember going on the train from Danzig to Warsaw?
    I don't remember my daughter?
    Who was the daughter who is telling
    you things that she probably doesn't know a thing about?
    That I don't believe.
    You can't tell me that.
    Who is this?
    Who is this person?
    She's sitting right behind me.
    That's already a bad sign.
    Behind you.
    Yeah.
    So what's the problem?
    I can--
    OK, come on in, Amy.
    Come closer.
    Amy is hiding from me, oh my.
    Oh no, she's not hiding.
    [CRASHING SOUND]
    It's hard to walk.
    These are just marbles for the camera.
    Sounded more--
    Amy, you're not on the mic.
    It sounded to me like a hand grenade.
    Amy, you're Gershon's daughter.
    What is it that you wanted to say?
    So my understanding was that his oldest brother put him
    on a train to go to Warsaw to meet his parents,
    who had already arrived in Warsaw.
    His father and mother fled there and they did,
    I think, take a train from Warsaw
    to Romania together to get to the ship.
    I see.
    That's where they took a train together.
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
    It's not correct.
    Because on the way there was a stop in Greece.
    And I was mad as hell because the flies were eating me.
    And all the beauty of that beliefs
    that it's so nice there wasn't there yet I guess.
    So I was glad when we left there and we went to where we ended.
    Why did that even come up?
    Well, what I wanted to know right now,
    do you have ever any memories of taking a train by yourself
    from Danzig to Warsaw?
    No, not to Warsaw.
    I was put on the train by my brother, yeah, get out of here.
    He was not trying to scare me, but it was urgent that I left.
    And the people on the train, even German people,
    they were so nice.
    We had a nice time.
    You were 10 years old?
    Yeah.
    Would it have been the first time you had been on a train?
    This kind of train, yes.
    I haven't been by myself.
    But last strain I had was from my school, one of my schools.
    They had these little things like cars
    and we were driving it around.
    It was outside of town.
    You had told me about that.
    Yeah?
    You had told me about that.
    OK, so let's go to Haifa now.
    Is that where you landed, in Haifa?
    Or when you get to Palestine--
    Many times I ended in that place.
    So where are we now?
    We are now in the very beginning in Israel.
    You went to a school where there were some Soviet holidays that
    were celebrated, or Russian holidays,
    you said that were celebrated.
    And there were songs that were being sung.
    You talked about that.
    Now this is still 1938, '39.
    Are there efforts for your sister Luba to come out?
    Is there an attempt to get her to Israel
    for the rest of the family--
    to Palestine, excuse me.
    What time was that?
    Before the war.
    Now, or when she was--
    After you leave her in Warsaw, do you hear from her again?
    That's a tough one.
    Do I hear from you again?
    Every day practically.
    Except it's not--
    Somehow it doesn't--
    I don't know.
    Can perform miracles almost like All I know is my sister
    was left there.
    You know, what do I remember about my sister?
    She is the one who sort of introduced
    my mother to make birthdays.
    Really?
    Yeah, and she used to buy the cake.
    My sister used to buy a cake or make a cake because she
    didn't have that for a long time till it was close to that time.
    They didn't have the celebration of birthdays?
    Not for a long time.
    When you got to Israel, did your father
    find a way of supporting the family?
    He sure did.
    What did he do?
    He bought something like a farm and he made some income
    from that.
    Everything else, of course.
    Did he know how to be a farmer?
    I think he did.
    He probably might have been one when he was a young man
    and his father was directing him to work.
    So he knew his business.
    And he was so good that I had to worry
    about snakes that were in this farm and generally in the area.
    And he would one, two, three and the snake was--
    Done.
    Yeah.
    Where was this farm located in Palestine?
    This farm located in Palestine.
    I had a picture of it here.
    My head is so overwhelmed today I can't even think now
    anymore unless I have some--
    Where is it now?
    I thought I had it.
    Did your brother Samech come with you
    when you left for Palestine?
    No.
    How did he get there?
    Do you have two days to listen?
    I'll be happy to tell you.
    He left what they called on, oh, I can't even think of it.
    He made sure everything was safe for everybody who
    was involved with this place.
    Anyway, he went and joined--
    I know what he did and why he--
    but one thing is sort of getting in my way is
    the way he came back.
    He was gone.
    He was on a ship that tried to get to Israel.
    But it never did, because the British and the Syrians,
    I think, they didn't let it go ahead.
    It made it there but they were not free.
    And again the Americans here wrote in the newspapers
    about the people on the ship.
    The ship is full of people.
    They have no food, they have no this.
    It's terrible.
    And my brother was one of the leaders
    because he was young and healthy but he was stuck there.
    And they suffered.
    And then I think the United States sort of made an end
    to it and they let the ship go.
    And my father and my mother and me, we always
    took a walk in the evening at the water, the ocean.
    My father always came with us.
    He was looking, and he sees my brother come.
    It sounds surreal.
    It became real, but it took time.
    And I think it's, again, the Americans finally
    put an end to this keeping these people on this ship.
    You know the name of the ship?
    I should know it because I used to know it.
    Well, the story is really the ship finally moved
    to watch Palestine.
    And whoever was sinking, it was an American young man
    who brought it there.
    And we were close to the place of it which
    sort of beached itself, really.
    Was this before World War II started?
    World War II?
    I would think so.
    OK.
    So my brother jumped off the ship right away.
    And about 8:00-- we had an apartment near the water,
    not far from the water.
    We had a nice place.
    But 8:00 in the evening or 9:00, maybe it
    was, somebody ringing the doorbell.
    And we opened it, and somebody asked us
    just a simple question, if we lived there
    with the Yelland's he said.
    And we said, yes, and when they heard yes,
    my brother was hiding behind them.
    When he heard he was at the right place,
    he was jumping out, and we were jumping
    just because we saw him again.
    And the next day, we saw him and the day
    after that for about 100 days.
    It sounded like he wouldn't even meet anybody, not even
    relatives because it was too dangerous.
    It was.
    It was mainly because of the people who ran the world with--
    Was that the British you mean?
    Oh, yeah.
    It's always the British.
    Really.
    The British, they used to take the people who
    came without permission from the King,
    and they would put them into cages like animals.
    And many committed suicide and children died,
    and there are movies about all that and what it was.
    Did you see such things?
    Oh, yeah.
    I saw.
    First, what I saw or later what I saw
    was I going down to the ocean to take my usual habit of jumping
    into the water.
    And I saw hundreds of people.
    There was, near the water, not far from the water,
    was not a hospital, like a hospital, but a place
    where people can live for some time.
    A hotel.
    Hotel.
    Yeah, a hotel.
    Hotel, OK.
    And everybody was happy, grownups singing and dancing
    in the morning.
    And what was the big cause?
    England and France declared war on Hitler or Nazis.
    People were so happy.
    And the next day, we were bombed from the air.
    That went on again and again.
    We had to dig big deep places to jump
    in in case of an emergency.
    So that wasn't the Luftwaffe?
    Was it the German Luftwaffe that was bombing?
    Probably.
    They did a lot of bombing.
    Did you ever think that the German army,
    that the Wehrmacht, would get to Palestine?
    Yes.
    They simply promised they would because the idea was
    from Africa to go all the way through Egypt and on.
    And I remember, the older people used
    to stand [INAUDIBLE] and practically cluck, cry.
    And they used to that--
    you heard about Palmach?
    What is Palmach?
    Tell us.
    It just is the young people who were protecting us
    from different reasons.
    Was that an underground organization?
    Not sure, well, you had to be secretive as
    long as the British was there.
    And you were not allowed to have weapons.
    And my brother used to send me to buy pepper,
    and I had no idea why I was doing it.
    Big bag.
    Well, at that time, that I went and shop
    and bought it and brought it to him.
    They put it on the rails of the road.
    It's not a road really, it's a--
    Railroad track?
    Railroad track that came from somewhere.
    I can't remember exactly the country.
    And their job was to blow it up.
    Not with dynamite or thing, but just stop it
    from rushing and losing--
    So what was the purpose of the pepper?
    What was it supposed to do?
    So after this was done, the pepper
    would prevent all the dogs that would
    be sent out to catch them.
    To hide their scent?
    Yeah.
    So that was sort of a trick.
    So were your both brothers in underground resistance
    activities?
    Yeah, if you want to add to.
    My mother may be force, too.
    Was she really?
    Not really.
    No.
    She worried about.
    Did you want to do that as well?
    Do what?
    Be part of that?
    Even though--
    I was.
    You were?
    Yes.
    How were you?
    I mean, I didn't go just shopping for powders.
    I was old enough to carry a rifle
    and protect people from getting killed.
    How old were you when that started?
    How old?
    I was born to do it, I guess, when it started.
    Were you 12?
    Were you 13?
    I think it was like 1945.
    So you would have been about 17 years old.
    Maybe, it was.
    And I remember sort of vaguely because I had to go and present
    myself to the people who were in charge of us protecting
    ourselves from other and so on.
    Do you mean leaders of underground organizations?
    I don't know if I would call it underground.
    We had to be careful not to get arrested, you know.
    And which one did you belong to?
    Which one?
    It wasn't like a luxury.
    It's hard to say because I was from less getting orders,
    and I was the same time to giving orders.
    Let me ask you this.
    Were the years of World War II different in Palestine
    than the years following World War II?
    World War II.
    So the years the war is going on in Europe,
    was life in Palestine different than what
    followed when the war ended?
    I think it had sort of a life of its own in Palestine.
    It's hard to say because the British finally got fed up
    and they left.
    And another trouble starts, but nothing like Britain.
    Did you have allied forces in Palestine
    that you may remember seeing or hearing about?
    Mm-hmm.
    When the war was still on, like the British,
    like the Poles coming through various places?
    I would start with the Persian people.
    OK.
    There once was the oil and all that--
    and, of course, they had to leave their country because I
    guess everybody wanted the oil.
    They came also to Poland.
    They came, and they were sort of giving food again
    and things to wear.
    So when they were ready, they joined the British army
    that was fighting, not in Israel necessarily, but all
    through the world.
    Yeah.
    So they helped Poland, other places
    that were fighting the enemy.
    Like one church in England.
    England, nothing.
    I think I'm losing it.
    The big church in the Holy Land, what's it called now?
    I can't even remember that, it's weird.
    Are you talking about Italy?
    Italy.
    Oh, you're talking about the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome?
    Maybe it was called that.
    All I remember, it was all the armies--
    Or is it Monte Cassino you're thinking of?
    The Battle of Monte Cassino?
    Monte Cassino's a battle where the Germans were holding it
    for a long time.
    Yes, that's the place.
    And the Jewish, what was it called, the army,
    but to the Jewish.
    They finally got permission from the King to have their own
    and to fight with same time with King's people, so to speak.
    So with the British army, then?
    The British army, yeah.
    But there was a Jewish high degree kind
    of country management who managed
    to give the Jewish fighters almost equal kind of permission
    to fight and shoot.
    That's where my brother was, my older brother.
    What battles was he in?
    Oh, my.
    I'll go to jail if I tell you.
    He was fighting like every other soldier was fighting.
    And he was also managing, not managing,
    he was using one of these big not simple shooting,
    but you could control it by sending all kinds of damaging--
    they were actually mainly fighting
    at church, holy church.
    Very strongly built, and the Germans were in it.
    And they always managed to keep--
    ones who came to attack the Germans, almost
    always managed to keep them from doing it.
    OK.
    It sort of sound like my brother did it.
    I don't think he did.
    But after certain times, Germans left us.
    What do you call this, it's not a simple church,
    it's one of these old--
    Cathedral?
    Was it a cathedral?
    I think so, yeah, something of the sort.
    Because nobody fought for it.
    Holiness, it was just there to protect themselves.
    And pretty dirty things happened to wrong people.
    So my brother was in charge.
    I wouldn't say it's a cannon, but you'd drop it in and flies
    and it kills.
    So that was a British thing.
    And after sometimes, the Germans gave up
    or they couldn't fight anymore, whatever.
    Was this in Italy?
    In Italy, yeah.
    Now, I don't think it was my brother,
    but there were many by the Jewish--
    many of the Germans were taken prisoners.
    And they stayed a while in prisons, outdoor prisons.
    Got this and that, I guess.
    And then, they took them in trucks, supposedly
    because they were supposed to be delivered and kept
    under real protection till they were allowed to leave
    or not allowed to leave.
    So yeah, they did that.
    This was a Jewish drivers and soldiers or whatever,
    and they took these Germans.
    And they drove down the mountain.
    And some spot wherever they stopped, and they
    let the Germans come out.
    But they didn't make it.
    They were really forced to drop down and die.
    Now, at the time, it didn't seem so terrible,
    but it was against the rules, really.
    And it could sink well.
    These Jewish ones, they can get mad, too,
    and do something terrible.
    And then, he showed up in Poland.
    Now, he wasn't allowed to go to Poland or any place
    without permission.
    This is [INAUDIBLE]?
    Yeah.
    So he went to Poland without permission
    all the way from Italy.
    How did you get there?
    I don't know, but everything was a mess.
    He went there, and he let us know how terrible everything
    is, destroyed, dead.
    So we got a report like that from him.
    And then he found two of our relatives, two women,
    that he knew because he was older than I.
    And I don't know how he found them in Poland.
    And they came to England, not England,
    to our place, what's it called?
    Palestine.
    No, they didn't come to Palestine.
    To the US?
    The United States?
    Yeah.
    Yes.
    One was to women.
    And I think, for a while, two husbands.
    I don't know if they met while my brother was
    looking for somebody to save.
    So when your brother was in Poland,
    was this towards the end of the war when he was in Poland?
    Yes.
    He was in Poland for a short time
    because he was still in the British army
    and still in uniform and still not getting permission to--
    I don't know how he went there, how he got there.
    OK.
    But I guess he was the kind to don't tell me,
    for if I have to do it, I'll do it.
    Well, you said he was tough.
    Oh, yeah.
    And did he come back to Israel later?
    Did he come back to Israel later?
    Good question.
    Did he come back at all?
    Yes, he came back sick.
    It's maybe not very nice, but I remember I came to visit him.
    He was already out of the army, I guess.
    And his wife, what do I remember?
    I remember him sitting on the toilet and opening the door
    and starting to talk to me.
    There was something wrong with him
    already because he was never like that.
    OK.
    And some time later, I was in my office, not in the state,
    not in a big city, but I had an office at home.
    And he called, and I was happy to hear him
    because he was supposed to be somewhere in Palestine,
    they was there.
    And they used to get letters from doctors about his brain.
    Yeah, so I knew that he had big trouble.
    This is after you become a doctor?
    Yeah.
    And the first thing when I heard how sick is, I decided I'll
    give him all the money for treatment,
    but it never came to it.
    I didn't even have much, really, but I meant it,
    I would get the money somehow and give it to him
    because he did so much.
    And what happened then?
    Hmm?
    What happened?
    Well, one letter, two letters, three letters,
    the doctors were all--
    they examined him, too, and they treated it,
    but I guess they had no choice.
    What was his affliction?
    What was wrong?
    Brain damage.
    They didn't give some kind of--
    I have it somewhere, but it's nothing that really is unusual.
    Well, he spent a lot of his energy, almost all of his life.
    Yeah.
    And I'll never forget the day I was in my office.
    And the phone rings, and it's him.
    I was happy it's him.
    I asked him, where are you?
    Oh, I'm in the airport.
    I asked him, why are you in the airport?
    Well, I have to fly home.
    That was the last time I saw him.
    And he visited, I think, just two women who
    were saved from trouble in Poland,
    and they lived somewhere in New York with their husbands.
    So this is well after the war?
    This is when you already live in the United States.
    Yes.
    OK.
    Well, war and war and war and war.
    Not just one war, but a couple of wars.
    Yeah.
    So he just said, then it hit me, he just
    came to say goodbye for good, forever.
    And he did.
    What about Moshe?
    What happened with him?
    What was the destiny about Moshe?
    You know something?
    I never could find out.
    Really?
    He was here in this part of the world.
    In the US?
    He stayed with us before he went off
    to do his job for different places
    where he was accepted by I don't know exactly who, they were
    just Jewish people who were stationed here to do something,
    I don't know what.
    So he seemed to me like he was like to see how they're doing.
    Was he part of the Israeli military, Moshe?
    For some time, yes, and for some time even more.
    Ah, was he in part of Shin Bet?
    Probably.
    And also, he did things like, he was
    in charge of all the planes that they be ready and well kept
    and things like that.
    It wasn't so much running around with guns,
    it was certain important things, I believe.
    So his visits to New York, he stayed with us here.
    But almost always, he had to go and visit some other young men
    or maybe not so young.
    He knew things that he had to transmit, I guess, to somebody.
    And how he died, I never could find out
    because I had nobody to ask.
    Really?
    It was just a simple announcement
    that he died like some people who are not
    in all these risky businesses.
    They also not--
    Did he have a family of his own?
    Yes.
    Did both of your brothers have wives and children?
    Yes.
    They did.
    My brother, who was such a big shot, not so much with weaponry
    and bombs over there, more kind of important things.
    Moshe, that is?
    Yeah.
    Moshe.
    Moshe, OK.
    Yeah, so, he was very smart.
    He was also very well trained in schooling and all that.
    He was a good brother, even if he scared me sometimes.
    Yeah.
    When I was a little boy.
    Water.
    Water.
    Water.
    Help, water, Please stop already, please.
    [LAUGHTER]
    And your sister Leah, the one who had gone to Israel earlier?
    Yeah, she really died from some condition
    that didn't even have a name.
    It just destroyed her life.
    And I know it because a few times she came to the hospital
    I worked in already.
    And I always asked the doctors who treated her
    with all kinds of chemicals.
    To this day, I don't know what it was, really.
    I know we went to the movies.
    I know that we apples.
    I know I met her children.
    Two daughters I think she had.
    Her husband, I knew already.
    He was teaching overseas.
    Hebrew, I think, Jewish or something.
    And I asked him to send me a motorcycle.
    Hi did.
    No, this wasn't him.
    It was another young man who fell in love
    with one of the daughters of this woman who
    died in the hospital that I worked in.
    That's all.
    Tell me, why did you decide to come to the United States?
    Your path is so different from your brothers.
    Why did I?
    Because I think it was mainly the medical part.
    OK.
    And anything in the United Nations, not Nations.
    Everything that was going on in that place
    seemed more familiar and more important and more reachable
    and possible.
    So I checked how much I would have to own to pay off my--
    And also, I also knew I can speak pretty well English,
    and I can also speak German.
    Sprechen sie Deutsch?
    Ein bisschen.
    Ein bisschen?
    Ein bisschen, yeah.
    Eine junge Frau, why it was only ein bisschen?
    I wish you would add a little more.
    That's all in English I took.
    Did you ever go back to Danzig?
    Nope.
    Was this a conscious decision?
    I had so much of Danzig that I didn't
    want to go back any time.
    Did you ever go back to Poland?
    No.
    Or Germany?
    No.
    So the closest you got was Austria?
    Vienna?
    Yeah, Austria was sort of--
    you could pretend that you were in all these places I wasn't.
    Most what I did there was climbing up to the snow
    with friends who were sort of familiar with it.
    The first time I went, I thought I'm dying.
    Not because I fell down or broke something, just because I ate.
    And my system wasn't ready yet for the height.
    Are you tired about being in Vienna?
    Yeah, from Vienna where my friends in Vienna
    used to invite me to come with them to see the country.
    So I did, and the first time was not pleasant.
    But it passed once I was lower down.
    I was safe.
    And after that, what did I do?
    Oh, we went to the salt--
    you know about the salt--
    they were big, I guess it was all
    done by somebody to dig not just a trench,
    but you could walk in it and see all the white not snow, no,
    salt.
    So was this in a cave or something or the forest?
    Yeah, it was a long one.
    You could walk and walk and walk so they gave you
    some almost a uniform, a white uniform and a white hat.
    You had to pay something.
    And they let you go down underground
    and walk and walk and walk.
    OK.
    Then I did that, yeah.
    And then one night, I was sleeping under the roof.
    It was sort of this very close knit kind of--
    several of my friends were sleeping.
    So when I went to sleep, I was under the roof.
    And I woke up, I was nervous.
    So I went down, and there was always a policeman outside.
    You're still talking Austria, yes?
    In Austria, yeah.
    An Austrian policemen.
    I used to sit with him and talk with him.
    I don't think I even went back to sleep.
    Climbing up and under a roof, you
    feel like you're really being smashed.
    But the beginning, when I went down to these salt--
    Mines.
    --mines, It was a big adventure.
    It was really amazing to see how it was built.
    Did you feel comfortable in Austria
    when you were doing your medical studies in the '50s?
    Yeah, I felt comfortable because I had
    friends who came like I did.
    OK.
    I wasn't having trouble with the local people--
    oh, yes, I did.
    You did?
    Not that they gave me trouble, some of them were so,
    I hate to say, dirty, smelly, even if they were not dirty.
    Something was wrong with them.
    They probably had no way of taking care of themselves
    if they came from Germany.
    So on the other hand, when we came there, and we found out
    we had a Jewish place where they eat
    after being for years trouble in other countries.
    And were they happy when we walked in.
    Can't forget it.
    In Vienna?
    In Vienna, yes.
    It was a very simple place, very simple food,
    and the people there were--
    some were already discussing things
    that they didn't even know what they were talking about,
    politics.
    Sometimes, they was a little angry about,
    but they loved us when we came.
    Mm-hmm.
    And we didn't come in like, oh, well, now we'll feed you
    or something, but they just knew where we came from.
    And we also did everything else as far as we could.
    So they were still from Europe, not having lived in Palestine,
    and you had come from Palestine to study there,
    and there was a difference.
    Is that what I'm understanding?
    I'm not sure.
    I don't know, I was just doing blessing, hoping
    to do it as best I could, but I didn't expect any kind of,
    no pats on the head, oh, you're a good boy.
    What kind of things were you doing?
    What kinds of things?
    Well, one was quite complicated to tell.
    There was this Jewish important man
    who had nothing to do with us.
    I mean, he wasn't part of us, the young ones.
    But he was the one who did a lot to find Jewish people
    and save them from all kinds of things.
    I forgot his name already, but he was even famous here
    and known here, really.
    He had an office, and we used to go and help him when he there,
    writing things, explaining things, not explaining things.
    What was his name?
    I can't think of it now.
    And I didn't use it already for many years
    because I didn't hear from him, anything.
    Well, I knew sometimes had his name on,
    but I guess he was not with us anymore.
    All I know is he stayed in the same place
    and was doing all kinds of writings and lectures
    about how the Jewish people, mainly, should live to be safe
    or to go to Palestine.
    Did you want to live in Israel when it became Israel?
    I sure wanted.
    Yeah?
    You mean when they finally had a meeting,
    and they decided that the Jews, Jewish people
    should have their own country.
    State, yeah.
    I was there.
    Yeah.
    I was there, and I was waiting for them to make the decision.
    And when they did, and everybody was singing and hollering,
    and I was home really.
    And I went outside to where the grapes were growing,
    and I dug up the place where we had our weapons and hand
    grenades and all that stuff.
    I think I was all by myself, yeah, at night.
    But it was so happy.
    Those people were singing and dancing.
    There's no problem going down and collecting all the stuff
    that I could use now free and--
    Without hiding it.
    Without hiding it or getting punished for having it.
    It was hand grenades, I took up the pistols and bullets and--
    and, and, and.
    We've covered a lot of really momentous occasions.
    Yeah.
    You know, the Nazi growth in Danzig, your parents' flight,
    fights in Palestine, underground activities, your brother's
    activities.
    Of these types of occasions, these big historical moments,
    which one stands out as the most important ones in your life
    that affected you the most?
    Affected me the most?
    There was so many things that I can't really say.
    Like what?
    Like what, that I was there was there
    when I was ready and needed and tried to live myself.
    Well, I mean events that stand out in your mind.
    Was it the beginning of the war?
    Was it the end of the war?
    Was it when Israel was founded?
    It was just the war.
    It was like that night where you went
    to sleep, my mother, my father, and I were probably was home,
    I slept there, too.
    And then suddenly, we were attacked late at night.
    We didn't see who attacked us.
    What I knew was that our man who was like a cowboy, I mean,
    if you would see it, it was a good movie for cowboy.
    And girls were after him because he was so manly
    on the horse and his equipment.
    And he used to make some rounds at night, mainly Jewish people.
    That night, he was simply shot dead.
    And before you knew it, they were at every house killing.
    Who?
    The Arabs.
    Arabs came, and this was going on
    for about 10 different places where people lived.
    And this is what year?
    Oh, what year?
    Bad year was it.
    I can't really say exactly the year.
    '47?
    '46?
    Earlier?
    Later?
    Yeah, sounds right in that neighborhood,
    but I didn't have a report that I could say this.
    It was sort of a moving kind of killing.
    It ended at the end of a road which was pretty long.
    And that's what sort of stopped me from going crazy, I think,
    and doing something crazy.
    Because where he-- well, I don't know,
    it was the Arabs who got to that area and did their thing,
    kill, kill, kill, kill.
    And the last house was one was it for an elderly man who
    survived the Holocaust.
    And his wife, I think, was there,
    and she was also a survivor.
    And there was a young little girl
    who came to visit grandpa and grandma,
    and they didn't touch her.
    They could have killed the little girl, too.
    And that's when I stopped myself.
    Even the killers have a heart sometimes.
    But they killed the grandparents?
    I have to be sure.
    No, I don't think they killed the grandmother.
    No, I don't even think they killed him.
    Maybe, they gave him some, I don't know,
    something to not feel too good.
    He was an older man, and he came, also, from being at risk
    if he would have stayed in the Holocaust kind of situation.
    What part of the country was this taking place in?
    What part of the country?
    Basically, it was a part of the country where we lived.
    And we had a house.
    And that day when all this happened I
    was rarely at home at night.
    I used to sleep somewhere with every thing we needed.
    Not just me, but I had, what?
    10, 12, 15 young men usually who worked with me.
    I said work with me.
    You know, all the time, and I was active there,
    I always thought I'm like safe from everything.
    Everything I saw, and I didn't die, I thought God is with me.
    And it lasted.
    On the other hand, it's like I was tested.
    Like, we once came back from doing our rounds
    with our weapons.
    And we were tired, so we went into a place that
    used to be, in the daytime, showing pictures.
    So you could go in at night when nobody was there
    and rest there.
    And nothing worked, so there was no noise
    from the machinery that would run the entertainment
    kind of thing.
    So my people, some reason, the younger ones set to cross me.
    Then there was another one here, another one there,
    another one here that was me.
    I was leaning against the wall, resting.
    Then suddenly, a rain storm.
    Now, the rainstorm was nothing but bullets riding around me,
    above me, through me.
    I mean, they didn't hit me.
    That's what I mean.
    And I start to say to the other one, first of all,
    I got him hell for playing with this beautiful machine
    gun he had made in Italy.
    And the Italians make everything beautiful before they kill you,
    I guess.
    So who was doing the shooting?
    So I got furious.
    I didn't shoot back and try to kill this young man who
    made a mistake.
    But I started sort of to talk to God,
    thanking him for not killing me this way.
    Well, that comes to a question that I've got.
    Yeah?
    When you were little, your father
    took you to one synagogue and your mother
    took you to another.
    Yeah?
    Did you have a belief in God then?
    Did it matter to you?
    Or were these just religious rituals?
    Well, I was sort of that age or a year later,
    I wasn't sort of kind of--
    from time to time, yeah, I think when
    I wasn't killed by 20 bullets in one blow, I would thank God.
    Did you begin becoming more religious?
    Did you begin to be more of a believer?
    Not really, I just believed it, and I wouldn't make it
    like I can't talk to you, I can't
    do that because I have to go and pray my heart out or something.
    It was just a wish.
    OK.
    And sometimes, I used to tell people
    that I knew that, yeah, that I had this religious belief
    for some time.
    You know--
    I didn't become fanatical, because you
    can do horrible things when you get too, let's
    say, this young kid, practically,
    who played around with his rifle and almost killed me.
    I could have gone and shot him dead,
    too, because he is a risk to everybody,
    like 31 people that were there with me that night.
    Yeah, I could yell at him, but nothing else.
    You know, we've come close to the end of the interview.
    There is no end.
    Well, that's true, too.
    Yeah, I know.
    We have to take a little time off here.
    Is there something you really think
    is important that we have not covered that you would
    like to add at this point?
    I don't believe that.
    I think I got a lot from it.
    And there's probably more to come,
    because I don't think we got everything in one day.
    It's so fast.
    You know, it's absolutely true.
    You never get everything.
    Yeah, so--
    But if there's something that you
    would want to leave with people, some kind of thought
    or reflection or advice, guidance, belief?