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MURRAY PANTIRER April 23, 1990

Q: Would you tell me your name please?

A: Murray Pantirer.

Q: And where were you born?

A: In Krakow, Poland.

Q: When?

A: I was born on June 15, 1925.

Q: Tell me something about your family, Murray. What did your father do?

A: My father had a little store that sold milk and eggs, hardly eked out a living. My mother was watching the children. We were seven kids. And my father also was a baltfele (ph). That means a step lower than a cantor. And he was earning some money during the high holidays.

Q: What was your childhood like? What city are we in first?

A: We are in Krakow and I was a religious boy. I was one, when the war broke out in 1939 I was only fourteen years old. It was a year after my bar mitzvah...

Q: Let's let's back up a little. I want to go... I don't want to get to "39 yet. Tell me about growing up. Uh, what was your childhood like, growing up in...

A: A very happy childhood. We were seven children, and one was watching the other ones.

There was always a competition, who would say better at the tonight. Who would bring home a better report card? Who would be better at the... There were always in the family an uncle or another person that always will test you on a Saturday night what you learned in school during the week. And your reward was a five cents that was that was good to buy an ice cream cone. For ten cents you can buy a chocolate bar. So if we ...if I made by mine... It was my mother's uncle; if 1 made by him a dime, it was uh really a big winning.

And for we our day start off like early in the morning we would go to the synagogue to pray with the people to with my father and older brother and doing uh we will come home say like if we would start at seven, seven thirty we'll be home, have breakfast. And by nine o'clock we start our school day. So we, I went to a , a Hebrew school, and from nine to twelve we learned strictly only to talk Jewish . From twelve to one we had lunch, but lunch in Europe was like dinner time. We had a full-course of meal from twelve to one.

At one we went back to school. We had to be there like one fifteen, and from one fifteen till four o'clock, the same school, they start teaching us history, geography, math, and so on. And at four o'clock, we only had like a five minutes break to buy a little something like a chocolate or a candy, or... And we went back to - it was in the same building - went back to school and learned from four "til six. And at six o'clock, my mother would give me like a nickel or a dime and I would buy myself a roll of butter with a piece of herring, some nights with cheese, and go back to the synagogue. It was like a ..... (ph), and there we will try to do our homework. Work mostly in the Talmud what we learn in our , and then we drop them in the synagogue and we went home. there was no television. We did not have the radio in our house. I recall we had like a three room apartment. In the three room apartment we slept uh two in one bed, and there was beds that was, they opened up. One child will sleep, one brother with the head one side and the other one will sleep with the head the other side, so their feet will - so that was more convenient to sleep. And the rooms were a kitchen, then a dining room, and a bedroom and my father and mother slept in the bedroom with the younger children. We seemed always to have enough room if somebody else came over to sleep over. We did not have the toys that the uh - what we used to do, we couldn't even afforded to buy uh rubber ball, because I played soccer - when I had a little chance, I play I liked to play soccer, so we would take some rags, roll them them up, sew them up like in when it was finished looked almost like a baseball with the stitches - that's what we would kick around. Very seldom it has a bounce. But we had a very, maybe we didn't see anything better, but we were very happy childhood. And everything uh everybody was looking forward, we knew there were things getting bad in Poland cause since uh when I start to recognize and understand certain things, that in 1935, "36, when the Marshall of Poland, Marshall Pilsudski, had died, the anti-Semitism because maybe they wanted, the Poles want to be friendly with the Germans or maybe that was in fashion like they say, anti-Semitism had start growing in Poland to a very untolerable situation. But we lived in Krakow Kazimierz. And it was strictly... It was called the Kazimierz, after the Kazimierz, the great King Kazimierz who let the Jews come into Poland with so many hundred years back. And in , mostly was Jewish, Jewish stores, Jewish shopkeepers, Jewish synagogues, so I personally did not have any connection, special connection with gentiles. We had our own life. Of course we learned in school Polish but uh we did not come in any contact and we, our business and our daily life had no mingling with the Polish people. And there was, I overheard all our politicking was going on in the synagogue. And I overheard the, as a child 1 liked to listen that the uh some young people were and they were screaming to the older people that Hitler may be coming and conquer Poland - we have to do something about it. And I don't know from the olderies (ph) first of all we were told, respect the elder people.

When an elder person spoke, we were quiet. We only listened. We wouldn't dare even answer them anything. So they say that they remember the Germans from World War I.

They are cultured. They're intelligent and the argument was going with some, we would come and that after all, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and he's out to destroy the Jewish people. So they gave in. They say Hitler's a maniac, but the German people will definite not come to Poland. They will never hurt us. And then for what reason should they hurt us. We are Polish citizens. We are law-abiding citizens. And why would they hurt us?

So that was the, maybe now if for a Monday morning quarterback, maybe it's, it was their wishful thinking, because the average family was eight, ten and even twelve people in a family. Mostly, ninety percent or more, were very poor, hardly eking out a living. Nobody had a, they may had a little uh piece of ring or piece of gold, some silverware, but wealth, currency - very few Jews had because they had always to borrow when it came a sabbath or when it came a high holiday, or any holidays if they want to prepare a table they had to go out and borrow some money, so currency nobody had. And it was very hard for a family of eight or ten to go - nobody, no country in the world would take them, and of course we did not have the state or vision (ph), so there was uh their wishful thinking that uh maybe there would be no war and maybe they were sure that the Germans would not have the audacity, have the nerve to do those things that Hitler's asking them to do.

Q: What happened when the war did break out?

A: But in 1939, we were first worried that my father may be taken to the army. He was born in 1900, and he was only 39 years old. But a few weeks before the war broke out, they changed the slip of paper - the there were red cards, blue cards, white cards, and there was must have been that day because of having seven children - the youngest child was four years old when the war broke out - that they did not call him to the army. And the war broke out on September 1, 1939, on a Friday morning. To me, I didn't know what's in store. To me it wasn't the most uh important thing. To me it was more important we had uh a championship going to Macabi, the soccer team, and that was important to me, but on Wednesday morning I went out near the outskirts from the Wis_a [NB: the Vistula]. Wis_a is the lake [NB: river] that runs through Warsaw and Poland and Krakow. And I went over the bridge to Mos, Mostowa (ph) and I saw already Germans. So I ran back to my dad because my dad received then to go into the army, to be in the next few days near Warsaw at a certain post. So I screamed to and I told my dad don't go because the Germans are already here. And the Germans came into Krakow on Wednesday. That was September the 6th. And to say they didn't bother us, we didn't bother them. But the first brutality I saw on the high holidays - I liked to run from one shul, from one synagogue or one temple to the other temple to listen to the cantor singing, and as I was going in the street on the , most of our synagogues had open doors to the street, and Germans came in and they happened to be Wehrmacht.

They were not SS. I learned later about SS. Plain Wehrmacht. Went into the synagogue, pulled out the Jews, older people, took the thales, the skrols, throw it in the garbage, ripped it up and literally they say that they took out the Jews to shave their beards and their [side]locks, and literally I saw them ripping - blood was gushing from their faces from the people and they were laughing and they were smile and then I realized that something is wrong somewhere. That I couldn't believe my own eyes, what I saw, and we made up our mind at that time, in our house we had built-in closets so we built in a double wall, and we hide our father, because our father still had a beard, and we and he didn't want to shave his beard because of the high holidays. And we were afraid in case my father will go out in the street he will be recognized as a Jew. So we did all our, whatever work we, whatever little business, whatever to sustain our family, my older brother, myself and my younger two brothers, we did our dealings, and it was till maybe October or November when the first snow came on the on the , not only the snow on Ka...on our street - it's snowing all in Krakow, maybe in Warsaw too, but the first snowstorm - they closed off the streets and they start going door to door, only to Jewish families in their apartments and it couldn't go through my mind - there were calling us Jews with lice, Juden (ph), dirty Jews.

Yet so nice they asked if you have a ring. My mother had a little ring, a little candelabra for lighting the candles on shabbat, a little piece of - they took everything away. On some occasions, people said that they even give them a little paper that they took it, enough that they was going to give it back to them. But I was one of the boys that they took down to the courtyard and they make bundles - everybody makes for himself a bundle and roll down to his mother, the soldiers, yeah, to his mother - that that was already SS.

There was difference because normally the Wehrmacht will be the fighters and the SS will be the administrators. So I saw that they uh in here to rob us with everything we got, but yet we didn't, we didn't care so much. We were never hang up on, we didn't have wealth and we were not hanged up on the piece of stuff that we lost. To us it was important, the family. As long as we stayed whole. But every few weeks new laws came out. Laws that a Jew has to wear on his right arm an arm band with the Star of David. If you were caught without it, you were subject to being shot. We didn't pay too much attention. I was a blonde boy, blue eyes, spoke a perfect Polish, and I was little. I was never a tall boy. So I could pass for below twelve. I didn't carry no papers with me so I kept on screaming if somebody asked me why didn't you wear the star, I was saying I'm not Jewish. And again we worried only about our father and every time they passed a new law, a Jew has to do this, and above everything, when they came in they start confiscating Jewish stores. And I'm not talking about the Poppa and Momma store, little grocery or little luncheonette but stores of meaning - textiles, shoes, col...colonial - that is coffee and tea, some specialities and of course the Jewish factories.

And in most cases they took away Jewish out of the Kazmierz. They took out Jewish apartments and they took it away for them, from them. They tell them that they need it for their administrative group. And the more high ranked you were in the list by the Gestapo or by the SS, a bigger store or a bigger factory you receive. In that case, Oskar Schindler received the biggest factory in Krakow, the Patzenpen (ph) factory. I get back to that later on, but let me tell you about the family. In March of 1940, things start to go very bad in Krakow. My father had a brother in O_arew. That's near Lublin, and he wrote us food is better, you can get better food in the smaller town than in the big city, so he took his whole family and he moved to O_arew except myself. I stayed to watch the belongings in our apartment, and I stayed there for a few months and what's happening while those were coming out, then from time to time they fooled the people and they start loosen up a little bit.

So there was talk - we only lived by rumors, so there were rumors that the Jews in Krakow can come back. So by July, my parents and the children came back. In August, the beginning of August, they asked us to be, to register. If we register and they like the idea who we are, what we are, we will have the privilege to go in in March, it was already written down that in March of 1941 it will be established in Krakow a ghetto. And only if you worthy you going to stay in the ghetto. If you're not worthy, you'll be shipped out. My father registered, and that was a part of fooling the people. If you register, then they know you are, they know your place. My father registered and my mother registered and that was some papers that I found in the Warsaw archives after the war, and in 1941, like in February, I went out again to get some food for the family, and a Polish policeman grabbed me. And he said, "Why are you here so early? You must be Jewish." And I kept saying, "No, I'm not Jewish." So he took me to...he said, "Let's find out if you're Jewish or not." And he took me to the Gestapo and they pulled my pants down. And I... They start asking me where I live, and I didn't want to give up my family, give out my family. So I stayed and I said uh whatever will happen will happen; and one of the Gestapo came out and he says to the Polish policeman, there's a train in the train station full of Jews that they are being deported to a town, Bia_a Podlaska. That was on the east side, near the border in Poland where the Russians took part of Poland.

Lemberg, Lwow--near that side. And he even used the word: "Take that little scheiss and put him on the train." So I was on the train. I was very happy to be on the train. And I came to Bia_a Podlaska; and I wrote home a letter and saying, "Dad and Ma - I can escape because nobody's watching me. Should I come home? I'm coming home." So I immediately got back a letter not to come home, that they were already marked also to be deported. They were not accepted to go to the ghetto because my father had no trade. And very seldom do they took seven, a family of with seven, eight, nine people into the ghetto. They took to the ghetto young people with one child or two children and those who worked for the uh they can show papers and those special papers was called the , and if they got the , that means if you work, then you could go to the ghetto. Many people had signed up to work in the factory Emailia, NKF [NB: Neue Kiihler- und Flugzeugteile-Fabrik] by Schindler.

People paid, they signed out if they own a house, diamonds, whatever they could lay their hands on, to get those papers to be able to stay in Krakow. My father and mother and the six children was sent away to Miedzyrzec [Podlaski]. Miedzyrzec [Podlaski], from Bia_a Podlaska, from Russia is no more than twenty-one kilometer. That's about fifteen miles. And one morning, I'm walking in the street, and I see my father . [said to my father, "What are you doing here?" He said, "Come. I came to take you home. We are all in Miedzyrzec [Podlaski]." So we stayed in Miedzyrzec [Podlaski], and we were told then the reason we are sent in this direction of the east that the fields are more fertilized. It's easier to feed the people. And we were hoping that this is the case. And that was April, May; and my brother and myself were assigned to work for the Germans, to cut the furrows and to make roads for the aeroplanes, to make aeroplane fields. Because the Germans had in their mind to start to attack the Russians. And June 22nd in 1941, the war with Russians had started; and my brother and myself, every night we could go home. The fact is while we were walking home, about ten kilometers, we were stopping at a farmer, exchange - money was not worth anything - but exchange for little something. He would give us some potatoes, some corn, some food. And that's how we sustain ourselves. When the war broke out on June 22nd, they tell us we cannot go home. And they start putting wires around us and they said they are making a camp. And they need our work. They need to load up some stuff and one day, before they start putting the electric wire on it, my brother and myself escaped. And we ran in for five minutes to our father's home, and we said we're not going to stay in that camp. We running back to Krakow. We going to sneak in in the ghetto. We're going to be in Krakow.

Krakow is a big city. Maybe we can pass for Aryan. We're going to Krakow. So we start by foot. And when we came in like half-way, near the Wis_a; and I was stuck in in > Nowy Korczyn, in Polish. My brother was stuck in Staszow, by a family. I had no food to eat, so during that time, it was like in July, there were on the trees some green apples, and I ate those green apples and I have uh (ph)_ diarrhea and I got very sick, so I was going from place to place and finally near Nowy Korcezyn there was a Polish family who needed a shepherd boy. They had cows. And I said, "I will do it. I don't want no money. Only thing I want is to get a little better and get some potatoes, uh cooked potatoes, so...so my stomach will get better." And meantime, in...in Miedzyrzec [Podlaski], my family was starving. There was no food. There was no nothing. So my father put on clothes like uh...like a man [who] was a farmer, and he got himself a a paper that he is uh like a Polish farmer.

And he went back to his brother to O_arew. And my mother took five children, dressed like a peasant girl, took a train, and came into Krakow. And when she came back to Krakow, the gates for the ghetto was closed off. We had an uncle in the ghetto, so he sent out somebody.

And he said, "The best thing for you is to go like twenty-five, thirty kilometer. Near...there's a town, Proszowice. Near Proszowice. You can go there and get from a farmer a room for you for your family." So she did that. She had a few zlotys--that's Polish currency--and she rented; and the place was called Stagniowice. So in 1941, maybe it was September, October, she rented a one-room apartment. And my father couldn't stand uh being without his wife and children, so from O_arew he went to Staszow and collected my younger brother, and from Staszow they come to [Nowy] Korczyn. We wrote letters to each other into the ghetto to my uncle, Isaac Levenstein (ph), who was my mother's brother. He stayed with his wife and two children in the ghetto. He had...he happened to have in the ghetto a factory from before the war that was like Brillos, but without the soap, and he maked those Brillos for the soldiers, for the for the German army. So he had the privilege, him and another partner, to stay in the ghetto. So we had our con...contact through that uncle, so my father knew by which farmer I was uh near Nowy Korczyn, and it was after the holiday, high holiday, and he collected me and we all went and we finally hooked up together with my mother and she was there with five children. And we were all nine again together from 1941, by October; and was the happiest days of our life. In one room, nothing to eat. And the greatest pain that I can see, when my mother was cooking some food (crying) and she would say she's not hungry. We knew she was hungry, but she wouldn't allow herself to have a little food because she wouldn't take it away from her children. We...again we had to register in the Jewish because to get some rationing, some food. Without it we couldn't sustain ourselves, so towards the end of 1941, they say that for to feed our family, one, a male, especially the husband, the men in the house, has to go to a brick factory or a lager camp near Krakow. So my brother said he will go, to save our father. So my brother went. The end of "41 he went to camp. It was called U lag, near Krakow. In March of 1942, they said they need more men to go to a brick factory. So again we want to save our father. So I went. And in 1942 I came to a factory of bricks in Krakow. I could have escaped. Was easy to escape, but they hold our family hostage. If we would escape, they knew where our family lived, so for the love for our family, we gladly stayed in that camp. It wasn't so terrible. So we all always lived with the idea, the Russian...the Russians already fighting with the Germans, the British, the French, that an end will come very soon. And to sustain ourselves and to also help out the uncle in the ghetto that I mentioned to you, my two brothers and a sister also blonde, blue-eyes, will go by little train - that was a small train, not a regular train - will go from that town into Krakow and they will smuggle into the ghetto flour, bread, eggs sometimes - whatever they could lay their hands. Even sometimes a piece of meat, and they will bring it to the uncle. The uncle normally will have it for himself. Sometimes he will sell it in the ghetto, that stuff, and from that my parents lived. In 1942 they start liquidating all towns in Poland. And maybe it was luck and maybe it was not luck, they forgot about us. We were on the outskirts from Proszowice, and maybe nobody put up a list on it. And they...they made, it was called visedlenie (ph). That means taking the people out. There was always, they always take out some people and the rest they left over because they said we need you.

So the, now the hindsight, the Monday morning quarterback, I would understand that they took out the men so the women and the children could not put up the resistance. When they had us in camp where they make barbed wires already, and they change it from a regular camp to a concentration camp. Tell me you had no choice to fight. You couldn't fight. You couldn't escape. So in 1942, in the meantime, they open up a concentration camp, what's called in Krakow-P_aszow. It was old Ierozolimska (ph). It was a new cemetery and it was called Ierozolimska (ph) and that cemetery was a Jewish cemetery. So on that cemetery, they build barracks--factories, that they make shoes, uniforms, brushes, whatever they could get the work out from the Jewish people. The knit...knitting factories. They make sweaters, socks. And they prepared this camp. So from the brick factory and from U lag, I myself with my brother were united...with my older brother; and we stayed in that camp. In the first there was an Obersturmfiihrer Miller (ph). He wasn't so bad. And it wasn't so bad "til on a Friday in 1942, it must have been like September, when Amon Goeth took over that camp. In the first, it was on a Friday morning - I will never forget that. When he took over that camp, they took us from that place--it was called "appellplatz"--the place that they count us. Every day, they count us like we would be worth a fortune. And...and in that moment, Goeth took out...

There was, we was run by Jewish police. The SS was on the outside, and inside in the camp was only a few SS people. But most was run by Jewish police, and Jewish kapos. So they took out, he took out the leader from the Jewish police, Katz, and his second his in command, Goldberg, and they shot them both on the spot, Katz and Goldberg. So I start seeing the brutality of Amon Goeth, and he said I'm going to shoot every Jew if you're not going to obey, if you're not going to work diligently, so in that time I I saw that we are in for a lot a lot of trouble. In the meantime at home, in 1942 after the high holidays, they found out there were people hiding and they would start cleaning up when they had finished the big cities. The smaller cities, they start going to the outskirts, and my father saw from far away that some Germans are coming with some, that some people, there's a lot of horses and wagons, there's a lot of things going on, so he pushed out from the house a brother right after me and another one and and my sister. They pushed them out from the house, and he said tun. So they run into the ghetto, to Krakow. They knew their way to go into the ghetto so they run into the ghetto. My father and mother and the youngest sister and the youngest brother, they took to the town of Miechow. And in Miechow, they had at that time maybe eighty or ninety Jews altogether. So they asked the men to stay on one side, and the women and children on the other side. They didn't know what they're going to do, but my father will not have it. He said, "I will not leave my wife or with two children. Whatever will happen to her, will happen to me." They took the men out in the side and they asked one, always will ask the the commander, what should we do with them. So they said, "It's not enough people to make a transport. Shoot them on the spot." And they killed my father and mother. One was holding one child in the hand and one was holding the other child in the hand. I know it for a fact, because two days later the men who were segregated were brought into our camp, and they were crying like little babies, that they left their family. They felt the guilt. It was the murderers who put them to that position. Because after all, we are taught that life is so precious, that life with force you are born and with force you must die. You cannot take your own life, that life by Jewish people is very precious. But they knew my father. They knew my mother. And that was the beginning of that I lost my father and mother and a brother and a sister. And in the meantime, I was with my older brother in camp in P_aszow. In 194...and I building barracks. We were building factories. We were building barracks. It was, we were in two different groups. They normally separated so first we were in one group but then we were in separate groups. Every group had fifty peo...boys. And with fifty boys went a Jewish kapo. In 1943, in March, beginning of March, they liquidated Krakow ghetto. My two brothers and sister did not have papers. They they were not legally in the ghetto, so they hide. They hid and they liquidated the ghetto on a Saturday. I think it was March llth. And by Wednesday, and they brought in all the people. And one occasion I I will forget that - the women were coming out and one woman had in her knapsack a little baby. And the little baby was crying, and the German heard...heard the baby crying, and he killed the baby and the mother on the spot. Shot them on the spot. And our group from were taken to right on Sunday they start cleaning out those people who had no papers and those people who were hide, they were bringing up to P_aszow, and we, the boys, had to take them down - some of them were complete dead, some was not dead - in one case I saw a girl, a young child that wasn't dead, and we asked the German give the girl, give her ,aaa a thing of mercy, so we wouldn't bury her alive. So he said, shmutzige, shit (ph), he said, throw it just in the way it is and it's it's it's a shot (ph) to throw in, to waste a bullet on that piece of uh you know what I'm talking about. And my uncle was taken into the P_aszew (ph) and he left in in the ghetto his wife and two children to be hidden, for the children were not legal. And my bro...two brothers and a sister were there too, and every day, every night when I come back to the barracks, he would say did you see any familiar faces. And every day, every time I look at a corpse that looks a little bit similar, I turned it around to see if it's any of my family. Till on Wednesday that week, they brought in my brother and a sister. And I found out later that one brother escaped. How he escaped is beyond me, but he had escaped and he was walking around in Krakow. My brother and sister were, mind you, they probably were hungary so they left the ghe...the ghetto and they were on the road from the ghetto already on the bottom, and the ghetto was not watched anymore by the Germans. It was watched by the Poles because it was all quiet. The only thing they did in the ghetto is to look.

Maybe people put some wealth in the walls. They start looking and maybe they thought somebody was hidden. They took boys from P_aszew to look over and to check out the ghetto if nobody is there. But they themselves were finished with the all the brutal work that they done. And two Polish policemen killed my brother and sister. And I know it for a fact, because I... people told me that. "Cause people who work in the ghetto saw it. They maybe were for lookout for them. When you were working the ghetto, you look out for somebody.

You open up, you cut a piece of wire to let them out. And they could not escape. So I had lost another brother and sister. So we were left three in the family. I heard about my younger brother, that he is in Krakow working at the Wis_a by uh those ships and he he is sustaining himself, "til 1944, he was all in Krakow til October or November. October or November, when the Wis_a froze up they had no work for him on on the ships no more. He went, he had no money. And he went to sleep out __up the hills where they kept the salt hay for the cows and for the on the outskirts from Poland. And a Polish peasant caught him, and he said, "If you sleeping in during the winter in that uh snow outside, you must be Jewish." So he knew the prayers of uh the Catholic prayers as as better than any Catholic. And he said the prayers in front of him, but nothing helped him. And he received an award for that, twelve pounds--that's five kilo--sugar. For every time you gave out a Jew in Poland, you got a reward of five kilo sugar. I know it for a fact, because after the war I came to Krakow and people told me that. And I asked him to testify. He said, "There's no use of testifying. The man ran away." I'm positive surely he did not run away. But I didn't know who the man was, and I couldn't bring him to any justice. I was left with my brother in camp. In 1943, about...it could have been in August or September - it was already chilly a little bit - 1 worked in [the] Barrackenbau. We were fifty boys. And to Krakow came in a new commander in chief. His name was Frank (ph) and Amon Goeth tried to be friendly with him. So he took out all our fifty boys with, we loaded up loads of topsoil on trucks and we went near Krakovia (ph) place. There was a big beautiful villa and we made a garden for Frank. While we maked the garden on our way home, one of the boys escaped and when we got in we were forty-nine and our kapo. And the kapo didn't notice it that he escaped, so he started beating us over the head with his stick, the night stick that the policeman carries, and they wouldn't let us in.

They waited until Goeth comes down from his villa, and Goeth came in and he said, where's the fiftieth? We all say we don't know. We didn't even know him we said. Maybe we only went out forty-nine. So he said for that that one escape, he shot every second boy. A boy was shot next to me, to my right, and a boy was shot on the left of me. I cannot recall if it was twenty-four or twenty-five, but all we were left is half of our group. The other half of our group was shot right then and there. I saw it will be impossible to live and to be in the Barrackenbau. It was the worst work and was working outside and I, maybe I learned like the animal the necessity of survive. I recognize Goeth when he's ready to shoot people. He will have with him that the instinct of an animal. He would not eat his breakfast or sometimes lunch unless he saw Jewish blood. And he will wear three different hats. The officer's hat, the plain soldier's hat and a Tyrol like when you go yacht (ph), uh a Tyrol hat.

That Tyrol hat was the most dangerous hat. And by the way, Amon Goeth was an Austrian, and he was called in 1946 and people testified and they hanged him in Poland, uh Krakow.

So when he would go in with this hat, I would always sneak away, because regardless if you work hard or not, whenever it was convenient for him, for no reason at all, he'd while he was riding his horse, from the horse he will shoot, or even while he was walking. He will go over, behind the ear - that was his specialty. Go over to a man, behind his ear shoot him, and then scream and yell, then go back home. People testified and he was saying now you can give me my lunch or my breakfast. So it was, being in the Barakenbau (ph) was almost unbear...unbearable. So at night, after everybody finished their work at six o'clock, instead of going back to my barracks to relax, I would go to the kitchen and in the kitchen I would chop wood for the people who work in the kitchen. I will also wash for them their kettles. And I did a good job at it. And once I caught the eye of the SS man, and he said why are you working here. You're not working in the kitchen, cause I was shabby dressed. And I said I need food. I'm hungry. So he said, for you working so hard and I chopped the wood very good and I washed the kettles good, when we will enlarge, they kept constantly enlarging that camp from ten thousand to twenty thousand, there were the people to come from Hungary, I will give you, I will assign you to a kettle. And sure enough, even normally this was assigned by the Jewish police, so one morning I was called in to get a kettle in Krakow, in in the in camp, a kettle in the kitchen. And the Jewish policeman said, we didn't send you there. So the German said, I gave it to him. If he wouldn't say the word, I gave it to him, they would probably beat me. I thought they would probably kill me by beating me, so that was like the end of 1943, and my working in the kitchen, I had the opportunity to help myself, help my other friends and especially help my elder brother. And that was from 1944 in May - it was Mother's Day. They , Mutter, Mutter (ph), and Mengele came to our camp.

And again we were taken to the appellplatz, to be counted. And he put markers on small children, on elderly people, and we didn't know what the markers were for. I stood with my brother. We were holding hands. They marked my brother and they didn't mark me. I knew that something is wrong somewhere, that somebody going...something's going to happen. A week later we were called again, and our names were, the names were called out. My older brother's name was called out, and they took him to Auschwitz; and a day later he was killed in Auschwitz. So in 1944 in May, I was left only with that little brother that was running around still in the...and I told you already the story about it, but uh I was ahead of myself a little bit, but in 1944 in May I was left with a younger brother out in Krakow somewhere, hoping that he can survive, and myself. In August, I was ready to be shipped out. And I had in camp, in P_aszow, I had certain feelings not to go. And that time they took the people to Mauthausen. Who knows whether I would have survived. And a day later I came back to the kitchen and the SS man, Guntz (ph) was his name, Gunther (ph), Guntz Gunther said you supposed to be on the tra...on the to go to with the people on the train. What, what are you doing here? So for an excuse I told him I fell asleep in my barrack. So he called up to

(ph) and he said what should we do with uh one of my people in the kitchen, but he did say that I'm a good worker. He said if you need him, let him stay until the next transport.

And they start liquidating all small camps. They started bringing in people from our camp, and they liquidate the camp Amalia, and for the first time I heard about people talking about Amalia, that there's Oskar Schindler. In Oskar Schindler, in his camp nobody gets beaten.

Nobody is hungry and nobody is overworked, so I just couldn't understand it but when they took people from Amalia into P_aszow and they put them on a railroad track - it was like August and was the sun was unbearable, burning on on the cattle cars, and he bribed Amon Goeth. While I came from the kitchen with some, first to give them soup, and opened up the doors to get a little air. He helped people and I was uh asked to do the same thing. Water hoses and we hosed down with cold water the roofs of the cattle cars, and he was screaming to the Germans, Oskar Schindler, that the Jews are all mechanics, engineers, that the Germans need them, and he guarantees that nobody will escape, to open the doors for them again. So I looked at myself, I said like, is this a a German or this an angel? He wore civilian clothes. I had no idea who he was. I knew only that he received the factory from Amalia and he was the only one who did not throw out the Jews, the factory owner was Benks, that he not only took that factory, he took a lumber yard and he build barracks and he saved a few hundred Jews. My partner Ben Zuckerman was there and got and he was shipped away, also to Mauthausen, with that transport. In October of 1944 I was called among other people, that P_aszow was starting getting liquidated, cause the Russians are too close and that we going deeper into Germany, and I was sent to Gross Rosen. Gross Rosen, mind you, was East Ger...now it's East Germany. It's on the border Silesia. And Gross Rosen was a camp, I at least did not see any beds. It was a transit camp of five days was the most that they would let you stay in that camp. They complete undress you. You couldn't have nothing that belongs to you. They make you spread your your legs and and check, cut off your hair. Nothing that could belong to you that you could have it. All you got is uh pair of pants - no underwear, a shirt, a cap and a jacket and a pair of wooden shoes. That was, and a number on the things.

That's all, and for five days if somebody from the SS called that a factory needs a hundred people, five hundred people, a thousand people, then no no question was it, then they shipped them out there. If after five days nobody called you, dead. The first day we came in, they gave us showers and we didn't know if we going to get gas or we're going to get water.

We knew already about it, it was on under they had a that under doorway, on the doors that you walked into Gross Rosen, it said in German, here you enter, and then there was a big chimney and it says on the big chimney, and over there you go now. It's supposed to be a political camp. We sat in crutches (ph). Inside on the floor, spread our legs and one was sitting right into the other. If one, and we were so packed if one had to sneeze or move, everybody had to move. Like glued in like sardines. And we were taken to a doctor, and

the five days, I saw truckloads of young Poles who tried to take over Warsaw, make an , and they were taken and they immediately were given gas. Young, eighteen, twenty years old. And everybody was saying that the same thing works for us. The fourth or the fifth night they were saying that Oskar Schindler came to Gross Rosen with a list, and that people are on the list, and when I heard my name called out, Murray Pantirer, Moses Pantirer, sheet metal worker. Until this day I have no idea who put me there because to be, everybody knew that they making lists. People were promising, there was, the list was made with Schindler and also Marcel Goldberg, a Jewish policeman. People promised Marcel Goldberg diamonds, houses that after the war they will assign. I had nothing to give.

Was a very poor boy. And almost everybody was poor. What, at least some of it had maybe some belongings that they hid some place. I had no belongings I hid no place. Nothing. And to have my name in it, if 1 would be a kind of fanatic, I would say an angel flew down from heaven and wrote down my name. Maybe it meant to be that at least one of our Pantirer (crying) should survive. In October, the fifth day, they put us on cattle cars and I want to bring out a very important point right now. The Germans claimed that they didn't know. We knew, when we were walking from, to the train station, when we were in Germany we were pelted with stones and we called S Juden (ph). When we passed only from Germany into Czechoslovakia, the people were crying. The Czechs were throwing bread at us, and they were standing with such a sad faces that you can tell that they were with us, that the Czechs were with us. And when we came to uh Brnenc [Ger: Briinnlitz], Czechoslovakia, and some boys had to go out to work in the sand pit, every night there were potatoes and bread hidden in the sand pit by the Czechs, who they themselves had very little.

And they gave to us. They were the least collaborated with the Germans. They were most uh at least they they were insensitive what's happening to us. When we came to Bmenc, I was very lucky. I was assigned to clean by the Germans.

Q: OK. We're going to hold it, Murray. Let's hold it here. We need to change tapes. OK. TAPE #2

Q: OK, Murray. We're back on tape. Tell us what happened to you after you were put on Schindler's list. Where did you go?

A: I was called out in Gross Rosen among other people. They give us some food and they put us on a train, but we were all very excited because uh we knew that if Oskar Schindler came and brought in a list that somehow there's an opportunity of survival, that we may be able to survive. We knew that uh Poland was all occupied, almost occupied by the Russians. We knew that the Allied forces are doing good in Europe and France and Italy, so to us it was like a a new lease on life. The .... (ph), uh maybe it wasn't convenient but there's nothing what to complain about because we knew we're going to Brnenc. We came to Bmenc. It was a different situation. Was a few SS people. There were no barbed wires. There was an old factory, and we're supposed to fix up that factory. And Oskar Schindler was not happy that he took out eight or nine hundred Jews from Gross Rosen. He went a few weeks later to Auschwitz, and got out three hundred women, and he said in Auschwitz that he needs them to work. I can testify to you the only thing I saw them doing is getting wool and knit sweaters for their husbands or boyfriends or friends or socks or gloves. Very little work did they do. As a matter of fact we all did very little work. We always was scared that something's going to happen that he will be called, because we did not produce a single piece of ammunition, not a single piece. Once we were told that he bought a car load of ammunition from another factory and delivered that it is from our factory. Once we were told that he kept saying, Oh, I'm almost almost there. And I have to, and he alwa...he welcomed us and he said, you are the Schindler's Juden, and here you will survive. Nothing going to happen to you. And I was assigned to work in the areas where the Ger...the SS were living in their quarters. And I shined their shoes, so I always had a little extra piece of bread, had a piece of cigarette from the ends uh that I could come to camp and always share it, exchange it for a piece of bread because people looked for the cigarette even if they were hungry, they gave you a piece of bread to have that cigarette, because they were they were addicted to the cigarette. I didn't smoke. I was young, and I would do some work in Schindler's own house, so I had uh a matter of fact I could say that I walked out from camp a healthy boy. I never had uh those uh boils on my body and somehow I, how it happened I don't know but I have to give you a a story. In February of 1944, "45, a call came into the camp that on a siding not far from our camp the Germans left carloads of people just to die.

They need the locomotives, that's the engines, they needed for their own use. And the Czech who worked on the siding, on the railroad, asked his superior to call in to our camp that people are just laying there and dying, if our camp will accept them. And Oskar Schindler and his wife said yes, they will accept. They accept. That was mostly Hungarian Jews, and they brought us, brought them into our camp. They they send out an engine from our camp because we had an engine and it brought in, and I was among some young boys who learned with picks and shovel to open up the doors. The doors was so frozen from the human things, from the urine and the other stuff, so wet, that we couldn't open them up. So with hot water we opened them finally up and when we opened up and we saw the crying out of the people, we we were thinking we doing them a favor - one grabbed him by the shoulders and the other grabbed him by, and I grabbed him by the feet, and they were so frozen their behind that we ripped their skins. And the screaming was unbearable. So what we did we worked slowly, and we worked like almost impossible task. If we hold our fingers, if we put too hot water we will burn them. Too cold water, it didn't help. So we had to try to, and lift them up, and we lift up maybe about twenty-eight or thirty young men like skeletons. And we took them into our camp, and Mrs. Schindler was cooking cereal for them every day. They were in a separate barrack, cause the stink from them, the smell was just unbearable. And she would ask one of our boys, sometimes myself, to carry in the food and you had to feed them. And out of the twenty-eight a few people have died and a few walked out. I was on a gathering for the Yad Vashem to valey (ph) that we building now three years ago, and a man walked over to me and he said, are you Murray Pantirer? I live in Long Island. You are the one who pulled me from this car. So not only he didn't kill people, he has on his, he and his wife were the real righteous people that they help anybody they could have helped to.

Q: Tell us about them. What was Oskar Schindler like? What was what was Oskar Schindler like?

A: Oskar Schindler was, as a figure, kind of looks like our President Ford. Well dressed.

Sometimes I couldn't figure out why he's doing those things and maybe it's, I try to to explain it that he was such a powerful man that he did not have to knock anybody down to make himself so powerful. And I used to drink with him enough . He used to like cognac, so after the war, you say when a person is under alcoholic influence maybe he will talk and I kept on asking him, him, and he always said to me the same thing - he couldn't stand the killing. He he couldn't see that one human being should do the same thing toa human being. He said to me, I will never deny I was a Nazi. He was a Nazi. Let me give you a little background from as far as Oskar Schindler is concerned. He was born in Suddeten (ph), German. That was Czechoslovakia. Before World War I, that belonged to King Franz Joseph (ph), to Austria, but after the war it was given back to the Czechs, so he did not like the Czechs. His father and mother was Suddeten Germans. And when he was in the Czech army, he spied for the Germans. He gave uniforms from the Czech army to the Germans and the Germans up a lot of those uniforms and when they attacked in 1938 Czechoslovakia, they attacked with their uniforms. They camouflaged it that they, so they didn't loose people, and he was on hierarchy and he had a lot of friends, and he he went for the money. No question about it. He was happy to have this kind of life. At the, I used to call them the men with the three W's - wealth, women and whiskey. And we met him all the time. In 1972 when in January when mine wife and myself, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, before Christmas, we got him over to the United States. We always made him parties and "72, in January, he was at our celebration of the 25th wedding anniversary. I, we always met him in Israel, and was always the same thing. Like regardless how many schnopzs, how many cognacs he had, he always said he could not stand the killing. So when he was written up in somewhere in Berlin or he may have some friends, he was always getting himself in...he was plenty of times in trouble. He was put in jail a few times, but not for long. He always had somebody and he somehow somehow he managed. And after the war his best life was for him when he was in Israel. He will sit in the hotel and we will have a drink. Plenty of times he sit in my house, but he will always call us the Schindler Juden and my children he used to call kinder, his children. And it's, I II don't have no words to describe you the man, the niceness, the feelings that this man had for the Jewish people and always was the same thing. I'm not trying to say that uh he loved the Jewish people, but he just couldn't stand this this uh innocent people being killed. Then he turned against the Nazis.

But in the beginning he was working with them, and he also was a good business man. When the Germans would throw out the Jew who when they took over some factories, he stayed and he wanted to learn how to make money with the Jewish people, and he made, he made quite quite a bit of money, but he let it go through because uh he couldn't hold on to a dollar.

And when he passed away in "76, they buried him in Jerusalem, in the Catholic cemetery, and it's the only tombstone that it's written up, . That say that here lays aa righteous, among righteous people. He was the third tree (ph) for the righteous people and the of was given to Oskar Schindler. He received the Buben Prize.

Hebrew University supported him. And of course there's a book written up about him and I hope that someday a movie will be written about him.

Q: Let's get back a little to the camp, to the factory of of Oskar Schindler. Tell me a little more about what your day was like with him. What did you do there?

A: It was just passing by the days. Nobody worked hard. Would you believe that there was in April, in that factory Jews were baking matzos.

Q: How?

A: In the factory. They got some flour - either they asked him to bring some flour or he brought in some flour from the kitchen. Comparing to camps in, the last few camps that's why I I came out a strong boy. The last few months in the camp of Brnenc was like being in in a ina sanitarium. We were never hungry. He would go with some people from camp, go into the front where the Germans had no time to collect bread, potatoes, meat, and he would bring it to our camp. He would feed us like we would be his own children. For we received

. Everybody got a . For his birthday in April, he was born in April, he give us

and after the war, while he ran away - he couldn't, he told us, he got us together and

he told us - I have to go away. He didn't tell us the reason but after the war we found out - the Czechs had a death warrant out for him, so he took ten people from camp with his own car - he had a Mercedes uh sports car with two trucks, load up all the stuff, and he and his wife and some of the from camp were going, he said we going to get closer to the American side.

Most of Germans were afraid to fall into the Ivan. Ivan is the Russian. They all were going into the front, to the Americans. They knew that the Americans will treat them better. The spies were working for them very good, and he held the speech for us and he gave out ammunition. He wouldn't let the SS go in, and he give out ammunition and he said, defend yourselves. If the, if the SS will come in, there was only a few of them, if they will come in - defend yourselves, and also, he was afraid there were __ in Czechoslovakia from Vlasov of armies to Ukraine and the White Russians, and they will kill off some of people from camp and take their identification cards and pretend that they are from camp, so protect yourselves, but I hope to see you. And he left uh the beginning of May. The first few days in May or maybe the end of April, and then there was a little, a few days very quiet and on May 10th, everybody was screaming the war's over, and the Russians came in. We were liberated on May 10th, and he told us that he has a key from a factory with clothing and materials. He left it with one of our head men, and he said everybody as soon as he gets out from camp should get a package. We got a package for for clothes, for material for clothes, material for suits, material for shirts, for underwear. Everybody was made a package. He prepared packages. I, I myself am with with everyone maybe should felt maybe he could have saved another person of his family - that's the only grudge he can have against Schindler, but we owe our lives to Oskar Schindler.

Q: How did he keep the SS away from you all the time in the camp?

A: He, he was bribing them awful lot. He had an awful lot of wealth and he had papers that uh he's doing a good job, that he's working for the high ranking uh higher than the SS, Gestapo, whatever they call it. Maybe if the war would have been another few months, maybe you

would have bust. Nobody knows, but the bottom line is that whatever walked in in that man's camp, plus the Hungarian, mostly Hungarian Jews that I told you about, they walk out from camp. They're alive. They built families.

Q: Tell me about liberation itself.

A: When I was liberated, as I have told you, I was uh a healthy kid so I took with another couple friends who were also healthy, and we start our way back to Poland. And in Czechoslovakia, when we passed by train, by cars, by trucks, we hitch-hiked, we walked a little bit, horse and wagon - the Czechs treated us very good. And we didn't know Czech. We knew Czech a little bit because we knew Polish. It's a little similarity. On the train, if 1 was riding and I still had the uniform from camp, they would start to cry and they would give me not one seat mind you - they will stand up and they will let me lay down, and anything they had in their belongings, they would give it to me. And when we got to Poland, I'm sorry to say it but the fact is we felt the anti-Semitism immediately. And I couldn't understand it, but now that I'm getting a little older, maybe they were scared those who collaborated with the Germans. Maybe the they were afraid there were a lot of Jewish people who gave away everything they own to Polish people to hide for them. So they were afraid they're going to come back and get it back from them. And a and a Polish person, you don't want to give it back what you have already for three or four years, considered it your own. I came to Krakow and I walked in in mine apartment and I told the woman immediately I absolutely don't want nothing from this apartment. All, everything that was in that apartment belonged to us. I didn't care for it. 1 only want to write down a little note. If anybody from my family or by miracle somebody survived, I am the second son of Lester (ph) Pantirer. I survived and I'm registering myself in the Jewish community of Krakow. Where I'm going to be I don't know, but I - so she said sit down, have a cup of tea. She sent her son to the militia (ph). The militia came up and said, why did you come here to make trouble. I said, what kind of troubles did I make? I just want to put down on my address, my apartment, I want to put down my name and then we, as I have told you, we got some material so we start selling it on the street, so either they will say Jidan (ph), we don't buy stuff from a Jew, or they will say, look - they said they killed them. Look how many they are. So I was - among thousands, there were two Jewish boys or three Jewish boys trying to exchange uh for livelihood for stuff that they needed - they didn't want us. And in my ear they're constantly saying, Jid .... Palestina. Jew go to Palestine. So I saw, I came to that the commu...the community center was on . [wrote down my name with my papers and I told them I'm going to Palestine. I start going to Palestine. Literally going to Palestine.

I went by train, by hitch-hiking. Also I had a problem that I was twenty years old. I wasn't twenty years when the war ended, but a month later, in June, I was twenty years old, and the Poles start bothering me to go to the army. After being in camp, I have no , no feelings to go to the army, so I went to Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia, I will never forget. I was in Prague when Benes arrived back from London, and he, and his Czech I understood when he said, the Jews who survived are welcomed to stay in Czechoslovakia, but my advice to you is, build your own country. The sidewalks are f..., are f....is full of blood from your families and your friends. You have no future in Europe. You are welcomed to stay in Czechoslovakia, but build you...try to find and build a life for yourself. So I went to, from Czechoslovakia to Linz, Austria, and in Linz, Austria I was in a displaced persons camp for a while, and I heard that there's a Jewish brigade who fou...who fought with British and that they are in Italy and they are making arrangements to get you into Palestine. So I went to the Bremenhaufen (ph), Brem...Bremenhaufen (ph), to Innsbruck not, Bremenhaufen, Bremenpass and I went to Innsbruck. From Innsbruck I went by foot over the mountains into Italy, and from Italy the first time I came was Modena and Modena got hooked up with some...that was the end of "45. I was hooked up with some brigade from the...and they told me to move down all the way to Sicily, down at the bottom by the port and that ships will come and pick me up to go to Palestine. Ships came. There was not enough room for me. I was a single boy. People went down there with families and when I, I stayed there and wait for another ship. Another ship did not arrive, and I heard that the British intercepting the Jewish people. They take them to Cyprus. So I was scared. I said, where am I going to go to. Another camp again. So I went back to Austria. Back to Italy, from Italy back to Austria and I stayed in Austria. In 1946, in August, I met my wife and for - it was love at first sight. She's a beautiful person. She happens to be in Russia, and she was also on her way to go to Israel. But in the meantime there was, you couldn't go to Israel, so I stayed in that displaced person camp and I have to say something to you. I want to make two points very important that in my life I became an orphan twice. Once I lost my father and mother, and the next time I lost my country. Poland didn't want me. To Palestine I couldn't go, and a person without a country is like a child without a father and mother. I absolutely had no place to go. It puzzles me till today why nobody picked me up. They didn't teach us anything. I was on my...like five years of suffering, six years was not enough. I had to suffer another few years. But I was married to my wife and my wife had a mother, a wonderful person, and to me to ever been have, able to have a mother was a very important thing, and I was told to make myself a displaced person as . That's a displaced person cou...without a country. I was in Linz written up that I had survived, that I was less than twenty years old, that I was an orphan, but because I was married that statue, that uh quota fell through because I was married already. But uh lucky that in 1948 towards the end, Truman signed a two hundred thousand quota of displaced persons, and in "48 my wife became pregnant. When she became pregnant, I became terrible impatient. I didn't want a child of mine to be born in Europe. So I went from Linz to Salzburg to the American Consul and I asked the consul, there was always German girls working in the consul, when you get to the consul, so I would bribe them with some chocolate or some cigarettes and they would always say to me, Mr. Her Pantirer, your papers are a little bit higher, from the bottom a little bit higher, a little higher. And sure enough, at the end of "48, I was called with my wife from the very first on the quota to come to America, and in "49, January 17th, we stayed in "48 a few days in Bremenhaufen and from Bre...Bremenhaufen we took a ship, SS Marine Fletcher (ph) and January 4th or 5th happened to be our anniversary - I told my wife take out a suit.

We're going to dance on that ship, but I was so sick - she says that I was begging for a little dry ice, but I came to America, and I had, I had feelings in America that I I came to the right country. I saw in New York so many cars and if everybody who works can make a living, I pride myself that I can do anything and be able to make a living. And in beginning, in "49, of course in July 6th my son was born. My wife's mother and sister came to America in August, and I work in shops. I I was a floor boy on in garment center, but to help myself a little bit I used to go in in the factories for sweaters and buy off a few gross of sweaters and buying like uh two fora dollar, and I would sell one for a dollar. So [helped myself a little bit but I had no trade. Was very hard for me, so I had an opportunity and I decided in 1950 to become a builder. And I have to make a point here, that in the building trade I work harder in my business than I worked in the concentration camp. To show you the logic things from a person, regardless if you stand with a gun, if he has nothing from the work and you don't feel like working, nothing can make you. But with the work that I did in mine building business, I knew, I used to come home at night, like ten o'clock at night, and I was tired. I found out for the first time that when you're tired you cannot have your dinner, but I was happy. I knew I come home to my wife, to a child and I dedicated my life towards my children, to build a better home for my children. And that way I was awarded, I was rewarded that uh not only I get a better life for my children but for myself and I did it with all my heart and I'm very thankful to the country that gave me all that opportunity and I can only speak to the young people who never lost their freedom - guard your freedom very strongly. God bless America.

It's a wonderful country. Has certain faults but like everyone has, but it's a beautiful, a wonderful country and and I have to tell you that I was confused in the beginning. I didn't know bring up the children Jewish, not bring them up Jewish and I said to myself, if Hitler and his Nazi party, and they are still many Nazi guys, will say we tried to kill off Murray Pantirer. We didn't want nobody to survive from his family, but now that he survived, he killed himself. He didn't bring up the Jewish religion. He didn't bring up the Jewish family, so it's not a victory for me, but it's a victory for the Jewish people that uh I brought up my children. I've three wonderful children, a son and two daughters. They're married, three wonderful children, so I have six - I have no difference between mine son-in-law or daughter-in-law and of course they produced for me nine grandchildren that I'm very proud of them. They're very Jewish-minded, and I want to say if two things it's important to learn from the Holocaust - our President J. F. Kennedy said, if you fooled me once, shame on you. You are bad boys and you fooled me. But if you fooled me twice, shame on me that I'm going to let myself be fooled. So we, the Jewish people, always have to be vigilant and always like they saying in America of the best thing - nip it in the bud. Cut it, when immediately, don't make say , crazy guy does not pay attention. Be always alert. But above everything, we must have a State of Israel. I am convinced without, with all my heart and all my belief, had we had a State of Israel in "35, "38, "39, even "40, many, many of us could have escaped. Many of us would have survived. I watch now which country takes in their people without checking their health, their wealth, they, how old they are.

Israel opens up the doors for every Jew in the world. So this way we have to make sure that we learn and we teach our children about the Holocaust. As painful as it is and it's almost unbelievable - the story has to be told. And if the story for the sake of my suffering and my losses, if I can bring up a better world for one human being - never mind for a whole generation - it's worthwhile to teach, because on our skin we learned so make a better world for any other people, regardless of color, creed, religion - every human being. We see now how many doctors and lawyers, how ma...how we brought up our children, how many valuable people. So you never know. When you kill off a person, you kill offa generation.

And that, the free world should never allow it. And if uh if have a minute, if you permit me a few minutes, I want to talk a little bit about United Germany.

Q: No, not not on this tape. OK.

A: OK. Thank you.

Q: But Murray, thank you.

A: You're welcomed.

TECHNICAL CONVERSATION