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Interview with Morris Kornberg September 27, 1999 Beginning Tape One, Side A

Q: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jeff and Toby Herr collection.

This is an interview with Morris Kornberg, conducted by Margaret West, on September the 27", 1999, in Waldorf, Maryland. This is a follow up interview to a USHMM videotaped interview conducted with Morris Kornberg, on March the 15", 1990. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gratefully acknowledges Jeff and Toby Herr for making this interview possible. This is tape number one, side A.

Mr. Kornberg, I wonder if you'd start by telling me your -- your name, your parent's names, the details of your birth, and your siblings.

A: Okay. My name -- oh, you are holding it?

Q: Yes.

A: My name is Morris Kornberg. Actually, f-- at home they used to call me, because I come from an Orthodox home, Moshe, Moshe Kornberg. And I was born in Poland, in Chadbush. My father's name was Menachem Rafar Rafael. Menachem Rafael. My mother's name was Yentla. Her maiden name was Malkavietska. My -- the oldest in our family was my sister Sarah. She was married. Her husband's name was Moshe Alexander. They had three kids, the oldest was a girl, and she had two boys. Then was my oldest brother, his name was Haim. He was managing -- my father was semi- retired, and he took over the business, and he managed the business until -- as long as I

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 3 remember, until the war started, and I didn't see him any more. Next I have another brother, his name was Ayah. He left Poland, he was in a kibbutz in Poland, he left Poland, he went to Israel to build Israel up. And this was probably in 1933. Then next I have a sister, she was still single, and her name was Miriam, in Polish used to call it Manya. She was at home, living with the family. Then I had another brother, his name was Abraham, and he was still single, he was three years older than me, and I was the youngest in our family.

Q: So there were six of you altogether?

A: Right, six brothers and sisters.

Q: I'm correcting that because much of the Holocaust material said seven.

A: Any time that you have any question, I'd be glad to answer it.

Q: And both your parents were -- were Jewish, and brought you up in -- practicing a sort of Orthodox Jewish faith.

A: Right, exactly, yes.

Q: I was interested in the fact that you were educated privately --

A: Right.

Q: -- and I wonder if you'd tell me more about -- more about that, and also the fact that after the age of 14 or 15, you were given more freedom?

A: Yes, that's correct. I -- I was raised in a strict Orthodox family, more or less my father belonged to Hassidim. And -- but the only difference was, he was not a fanatic either. We had been home -- three brothers and sister, we always brought home Zionist

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 4 organization's books. We had to do always -- parents, my father's j-job was to keep us busy. So we could do anything. Our education, he never rejected it, or tell us he want us to read. And actually, what we used to bring home, always books, and all those brothers and sisters, he practically read all books, although he was more a model Orthodox person.

Q: And was it usual to give young men much more freedom when they reached the age of 14 or 15?

A: More or less. I think this what it was. Til 14 - 15, actually, we had to go along always, like the services, special on Shabbas, on holidays, we always went along with my father, and it would be not nice for us not to go along, so we went along. But after we had been 15 years old, we still went for education, Jewish religion, and higher learnings. But my father had enough, was wise enough to see that the world is changing, and you cannot stay always in -- how he would like it, so he gave us more -- all brothers and sisters, freedom. After fif -- 15, we could d -- go our way.

Q: I wonder if you'd also tell me how you viewed your family's position. In the -- the videotaped interview, your -- you cover your family history, but would you tell me whether they should be regarded as urban or rural? As middle class, as a better off family?

A: Oh, our family was a very great family, with lots of love. Kids for parents, and vice versa, parents for kids. Our economical status was fairly good, better than average.

And the most of all, it cannot go higher with regards in us to our parents, and vice

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 5 versa, the parents to us. I feel that love like this cannot be greater, and will never be greater, at the times what I spent home, and close the circle with our family.

Q: And I assume that it's that family background that enabled you to -- to cope with life.

A: This is a question actually, I cannot answer too good of it, because under the circumstances, I practically gave up life the day when I was arrested. This was in January, must been around July or August, and I was integrated for Gestapo, and beaten unmerciful, but I was -- the most fear was, for me actually, beating, because they used to beat me when I was interviewed by Gestapo, til I passed out. When I passed out, they didn't have running water, over there at the police station, they dragged me out to a well, where they poured water on my head, and I was revived, dra -- dragged back inside, and again beating, and beating. And this was my biggest fear of it was beating. And I begged the officer who interviewed me to shoot me on the spot.

He laughed, and he told me, "You don't have to worry about this. You don't nec -- you don't have to expect tha -- that you will live. But we finish you off not when you want it, we finish you when we want it." This was the answer.

Q: Did you ever know why they were questioning you, and what information they wanted to get from you?

A: Yes, it's a big story, I gonna try to -- just to tell you in more details. We had business, all kind of bus -- my parents started actually, with a grocery store, good business. But when my mo -- my oldest brother, Haim, when he was more or less in

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 6 his 20's, early 20's, and he slowly took over business by our parents, and he always looked at a food store, little grocery store, we could make a living, he made a living, but he couldn't make money all the -- actually for a better life. So he started it, he -- he was a representative -- in our town, small town in Chadbush was four smaller factories. They all produced the same product, more or less, like knives, forks. And the mostly of it, it was not expensive, it wasn't the most cheapest actually, tableware, what you can have it. And this used to be shipped to Galeetsia, farther down near the Russian border where we had it. And my brother used to supply raw materials, and apparently, I don't know exactly, but he made always so much percentage on the supplies profit. And this got better and better every time, with more -- and the season mostly in those factories, smaller fat -- f -- smaller factories was about four or five months of the year, where business were real good, and about six, seven months were slack. And they had a rough time to meet payrolls for the workers what they kept on.

And my buth -- my brother used to borrow money, actually to those factories, not for a favor, but actually to make some money, too. So they paid so much percentage per month, or whatever, I was not familiar, I was too young to know about business. Then finally he invested in one particular factory, it belongs to a Gentile in out town, his name was Rochinsky. And he had a little bit rough time to repay it, whatever he owed us, so he took -- he proposed my brother to be a partner in the factory. And this went on til war time [indecipherable]. In 1939, when the Germans came in, my brother realized it's another -- a different era already. We -- as being well and everything, but

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 7 we realized that we shouldn't show that we had any interest in the factory, because we know it, that Jewish property was confiscated right from the beginning. Nobody went down, because before the war, since 1937, my brother send me over to the factory to get the fa-familiar with the procedures, how to deal with the people who worked in the factory, and how to deal with customers who buy -- bought our merchandise; to get familiar with it. But since -- when the Germans came in, this stopped, so my brother said, "Don't mention any more, you stay home like anybody else." And take -- in 19 -- the end of "39, we had to go in to live in a ghetto. So we lived in the ghetto, and life got terrible expensive because Jewish people never got any rations, because rations for Gentiles -- they used to get the food cards every month, but didn't got. So the Black Market was very high. If you want buy a loaf of bread, you have to buy -- you have to pay 10 times the value, and so any other products. Well, life got to get very expensive until 1940. In 1940, they arrested the owner, Rochinsky was arrested for Gestapo, because he was more or less a intelligent person. They had been scared, the Germans didn't trust the more intelligent people. And he was taken in the 40's, to Auschwitz.

After two, three weeks -- we didn't know much about the Auschwitz in 1940, but after two, three weeks, came a telegram that he's not any more alive, and his clothing was sent back to his widow. And my brother said -- we have been three brothers at home, and the oldest brother, he had already like a green band, instead had the white arm band with the Star of David, he used to have a green band with the Star of David. The green band meant actually that you are privileged. A Jew was not allowed to dry -- to

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 8 ride the train, or go out after seven o'clock from the ghetto, to be seen on a street.

They had still curfew for Jews. And everywhere, wherever, you couldn't move freely, but if you had a green band, you could ride the train, you had been -- you could move freely, you could go out after seven o'clock actually. And this was a -- of course, the German government required if you would supply some metal products, even scaret of metal. So many pounds, was -- I don't know exactly, they gave you a green band that you are privileged Jew, and you could go more or less freely, wherever you wanted.

He saw it that my -- otherwise we have it -- used to be any Jew from 18 til 55 was a -- forced to perform some labor for the city, otts -- clean cities, or whatever. I was assigned in a quarry, a stone quarry, actually, and was very -- pretty hard work, but it - - in the evening, after eight hours, or 10 hours, I don't know exactly either, how many hours we worked, we could go home and spend with our family at home. This went on, but still my brother said that he going to see a very -- that I get a green band, too, that I will not have to go to the slave labor every day, to the quarry. True, he had some connections in a larger city with some Jewish, more or less, leaders from the Jewish community, and they had connection, they had been able to bribe Gestapo, and SS.

Bribing, if you gave money or some products what they wanted it, you could get favors from them, and they did it. When my brother arranged the same way, he had to pay money for it, that I will be assigned, to start to be as -- to go every day to labor in the city, that my assignment will be to put in labor in the factory, to work in the factory, to perform labor, whatever it was [indecipherable]. At this time the factory

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 9 was idle, because Mrs. Rochinsky, she was -- she had three girls, and she was not able to manage a factory, she didn't know it. Besides this, when the German came in, they right away, they froze all salaries. Practically anyplace where s -- they had [indecipherable] employees, they couldn't pay any higher wages than -- than pre-war wages. And this was a problem, because whatever they have to buy, food for themselves, even with rations, or you wanted to buy something better, was sayvay four or five times as much as pre-war, [indecipherable] nobody wanted the war. When I -- when I had the permission to go down perform my job in the factory, my brother set me up, that I should get in contact with the employers who used to work before the war, and tell them if they come to work, they will be able to earn three times, or four times as much as they earned b-before the war. And they should be -- come to work to do their job, and we will pay them real good. I started to organize, and this -- people started to come back, until I opened the factory and started to produce. But, it was a problem. You had to have books, because you never know when the German government going to come to check your books. So e -- we have been forced to have double bookkeeping. One set of book was actually what we did pay them. Same way we used to get -- we used write [indecipherable] what we sold to dealers, we sold mostly to Jewish merchants, and we gave them a bill, the price like before the war, and they paid us the same way, two, three times this amount. But the point was we still had to keep double bookkeeping, until one of those days, and this was apparently in deg41, one of the employee, he was not mad at me, he work over there a long time already,

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 10 and he knows me, and he saw me before the warm I was in the factory involved. And he got a -- with a disagreement with the owner in -- in the place, and he went to Gestapo, and he told them that the factory actually belongs more to us than it belongs to her, it's a Jewish factory, and he told all kinds. For example, we used to have, when we finished merchandise before, we shipped it out to those merchants who bought our merchandise, we always had been afraid that someday the Gestapo will come, and they will confiscate everything. And where we used to keep finished merchandise, not far away from the factory in a village, and it used to be hidden aboll where we could always ship this merchandise, because we never know if -- when they will come to confiscate the factory. And he told the Gestapo everything, what is going on, that the merchandise is in a aboll in the next village. And finally, one day, like I said, must have been July or August, a policeman came to our home, and he said that I should come down to this jontamarie, where they had their headquarters. Normally, our town was a small town, we didn't had, actually, Gestapo, SS in our town, only jontamarie we had it. But once in -- every few weeks, two, three weeks, what I don't know exactly, they used to come in a larger town, SS, they -- if they had any complaints to take care cases, this when they come in to take care the -- of those business. And iva the policemens told me I am called to the jontamarie, to come down. And I remember, and I can remember it exactly like today. I looked at my mother, and I saw her face, and it didn't help me that I have to go down, but it help me the suffering in my mother, and so my father, too. I went down in a sleeveless shirt --

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Q: Let me go back and ask --

A: Sure.

Q: -- ask you to describe your mother's expression. Because that would be something that's always stayed with you.

A: Expression of my mother was -- it's unforgettable, because like I just said, it's exactly -- I can see it with my eyes right now, how her expression was -- she felt scared. She didn't know it -- what it will happen to me. And I could read anything what she had in her mind, I saw it with my eyes. I saw my father -- I was sleeveless, I didn't took even my jacket, and I told them, I ha -- I practically shivered, and I said, "Please don't worry about it, I will be back in a couple hours." But --

Q: Also, have you thought about why they -- why they took you? Was it because you were younger, and might speak more freely? Why they took you, and not your older brother.

A: Because I was in the factory.

Q: And your older brother, Haim?

A: My older brother, he was still traveling around, and he dealed with raw materials.

Yeah, but I was in the factory [indecipherable]

Q: I see, so you did know more.

A: -- actually. And so the -- everything -- whatever he mentioned it, he mentioned me as a -- you know, the double bookkeeping, and everything that I was involved. And so this why they called me. And I went down, it was a pretty warm day, and I came down

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 12 over there, and I was called in in a room, where I saw a very high officer. I couldn't tell his rank, I'm not familiar, but he was a very high officer. And I looked, he had a stack of papers, maybe two, three inches high, and he start to ask me questions, if I am in the factory over there, if I help manage the factory. And right away I realized, when I saw this stack of papers, I realized what the questions are, that he knows more than I myself know, because of | realized that it's no use to lie, and I start to tell anything fully -- fully to cooperate with them. But this was not a big deal, cooperation did not help to save me. He called in two strong guys from the Gestapo. Young guys, strong guys. And they had like a special chair, like to lay down on it, not to sit, but -- on my belly to lay over there, that my back, everything is exposed. And they came in with -- the -- the SS and Gestapo, they used to carry, when they went on the street, made from leather -- I don't know even how they call this in English, I don't recall, exactly, whatever. You know, for beating somebody, just on the street. They saw a Jewish kid, or whatever, they beat over the head with it, something like this. And they told me to lay down on my belly on this chair, whatever it was, it was built special for this purpose, actually. And in both sides, right and left, kept on pounding in my body, actually. And actually, it's impossible. I was young, and strong at this time, maybe, but beating like this, I don't think any human can take it. And I used to pass out. When I passed out, they dragged me out to the well, they pumped water on my head. As soon I came back, they dragged me back in, and again and again and again. And I always was more on the floor anyway, especial with the beating, I couldn't stand straight any

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 13 more. They didn't give you a chair to seat, and so you had a choice, all to be on your all four on the floor, or actually -- you know, to stay, you couldn't stay. I was always on the floor. I went -- he was sitting at the table, he had very polished, high boots on it, and I remember I practically was very -- pretty close to his boots. And I told him in German, "Please shoot me. Please finish me off." And he laughed, looked in my eyes, he said, "You don't have to worry about this, but we finish you off when we want it, not when you want it." And this went on hours and hours. This was actually -- End of Tape One, Side A Beginning Tape One, Side B

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number one, side B. I have a question about an earlier time, and that is that when the Germans invaded Poland, and you fled to the woods for a few days --

A: Right, right.

Q: What would be the reason why your home was spared, when much of the town was burned?

A: This is a -- this is the same way, this -- you cannot ans -- for a question like this, this just happened to be that the -- first was burned the synagogue, what this was once in the -- famous all over the world, not in Poland, but all over the world, was a famous for art, and beauty, and anything what is possible, actually, to describe this synagogue.

And the reason was actually the synagogue was near a river what it went through our

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 14 town, the Pilitsa. And it was a bridge, and the bridge actually was a wooden bridge. It was not a heavy structure, a wooden bridge. And when the Germans invaded, I remember it was on a Friday, the first of September was on a Friday when they c -- yeah, it was a Friday, and Saturday they have been already over there. And so the first thing what they did, they tried to secure the bridge, they -- they can come in and cross wherever they wanted with their armies. So they put the bridge on fire, after they went in, and this was near the synagogue, and because the structure was a wooden structure, apparently -- I don't know, maybe they put bombs -- firebombs actually on it before -- this i -- I don't know either, because I actually, myself, and so the -- mostly of the town, the whole town, run away in the woods. So we didn't know exactly, but we know it right away the next day, that the synagogue was burned. Actually, it was nothing left over from the synagogue. This -- this all as I can recall, actually.

Q: I should say on tape that we -- we -- I changed the subject abruptly, but I should let listeners know that your detailed story of your arrest and beating by the SS officer, is told on the March 1990 videotape --

A: Right.

Q: -- at the Holocaust museum.

A: That's correct.

Q: And I want to fill in some gaps from that earlier interview.

A: Okay, go ahead, whatever you ask, I will -- if I can answer [indecipherable]

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Q: Yes. One of the questions was when you were living in the ghetto, was that in Chadbush?

A: Chadbush, the main place, actually, was Chadbush it was the name, but Chadbush was the -- a divided. On one side of the river -- of the Pilitsa, where the bridge was, was the one side was Chadbush, when you crossed the bridge, they called it Vidamma.

Actually, it was the same town, but it still, this was Chadbush, and this was Vidamma.

In the ghetto, when they had to leave everything, the houses, and anything, and go, the ghetto was actually made in Vidamma. The reason was because it was already a little bit out of the town, and it was easier to petition it off with wires, or whatever, to make it that you cannot just walk out of the ghetto as a free person. And this was the easiest thing, cause of the German decided that Vidamma wi -- will be the ghetto, and this actually where all Jews, including my family, lived. In Vidamma, in the ghetto.

Q: I want to fill in another -- another gap, or clarify something, and this is moving ahead to when you were in -- I think it's pronounced Javishavitz.

A: Yavishavitz. This is actually -- I was four weeks -- probably it's mentioned the same way, my first tape. I went -- after the beating, they took me down, back to the factory, and I didn't know it even at this time, that the widow from the owner, actually, she was a -- she was not Jewish, a Gentile, and she was arrested too, for the same crime like me, that we had double bookkeeping, that we had hidden finished merchandise, whatever. So she was arrested, and I never knowed it -- that -- til he -- until four weeks later. But I -- I was -- first they put me in a jail in Chadbush. And

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 16 Chadbush was not a official -- a big jail, was a very small -- in fact, they used to call it -- I don't know the name, accosa. A big jail is like jeminale, you know, but this was a small -- it was just for drunks, or whatever. Not too much, you know, criminals. And they hold me overnight. When I came to this jail, -- oh the first -- this was the first time in my life I came in a jail, but we used to hear stories, if you have been a newcomer in a jail, they made jokes with you, all kind, a lot of time even beating, or whatever. This was the fun -- this how -- it used to be a custom, and -- when you was a newcomer in a jail. When I came in over -- to this jail, actually, they probably realized I couldn't walk straight, and mine back, everything, was black practically. But for some reason, they didn't perform all those jokes, what they used to do it for a newcomer. And they felt more or less like sorry for me, you know, that I was all beaten up, so they let me alone. Little bit later on, came in the one who was like a policeman, he was in charge of this small jail. And he knowed my parents, or he knowed me, too. So he came over to me, he wa -- they was P-Poles, not a -- not Germans, but a Pole, and he came over, and he asked me if I want write home something to m -- to my parents about me. At first I hardly could even take a pencil, my hand to write any words, but I -- I said it's necessary to write home. And I wrote home in the same way I think on the ID cards what they distributed in the Holocaust museum, what I took part those -- they have this saying in sayvay things like this you cannot forget. I wrote home, and I said in my few words what I was writing, I told them please -- twice I said please, please forget about me, I be all right. Go on with

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 17 your life, noble. Just forget about me. This was in Chadbush still. This was my last word to my parents and family. The next morning they took me -- they brought me -- it's just 40 kilometers from Chadbush, and the name is Koinsket. This is a larger town, and they had over there a -- a large -- a k -- prison -- a prison for the -- for -- mostly for people who don't obey the law, whatever, but it was much, much larger. I was brought in over there, first they took me to Gestapo in Koinsket, and I was real -- really concerned. I-I didn't care, I was afraid just for more beating, that I couldn't take it any more. So I -- every minute I was over there, I just kept on looking when they start -- going to start to beat me again, but they never did. They brought me over to the jail.

When I came into the jail, I was released, that -- at least I wasn't beaten any more, I came in over there. And the same thing, I know the procedure again, that those all in jail gonna make -- have fun, whatever. And they saw me coming in, and the same way they felt sorry for me, and they know it that I'm not a criminal, and they realize that -- why I am over there, because it was involved for politics too, because the bookkeeper from our factory used to always to give me a -- handle over some mimeographs that used to come from the underground, from the -- England, to tell you how the front goes on over there. And so he told them that I -- I have knowledge about the underground, too, was a -- this was part why I was arrested, actually. And they kept on coming, talking this over, how I behaved, and -- and I did whatever they told me. We have been in a cell, probably was over there the same way, between 30 and 40 people, and everybody has a -- like in a corner, in a straw sack he had over there where you

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 18 rested overnight to sleep, actually. In the same way it was no modern facilities in this jail. We used to have a large can, real huge, and everybody -- what a human has to do it, or -- they did everything the whole night, in this large kettle -- can, whatever. And in the morning it was always they changed it. Two people, they used to carry out, and take care, and then was to sc-scrub the floors, to keep it clean, everything. I recall after a f-few days that -- certain the third day, the fourth day, it was -- I was in the line to carry this out, and scrub the floors, and so far. And I went over to do it, I didn't look that somebody should do for me any favors, I went over like any other prisoner. And then one Pole came, and pushed me away, and he said he will do this for me. I -- I didn't want to fight it, I let him do it. And the same way, after a few days, maybe after a week, the one who was in charge, like the warden in jail, he was not German, he was Polish, too. So he called me in his office, he came to me, I went down from that cell in his office. And he told me, "Don't be upset, you probably -- your brothers are working for you that you going to be released. You will probably be -- be released if not this week, is next week, a third week. But they work for you, to release you." It meant that they going to bribe the Gestapo for it. And he says, "I know -- they are in contact with me, and I will see that you get food. You don't have to eat that food from the jail.

Somebody will bring in every day, food for you. And so you going to have private food, not from jail. But," he said, "just -- this is a secret." This is a very dangerous thing, I should never tell nobody what happened, what had happened. He will see that I will be supplied with food. And I noticed that actually that it changed a little bit, you

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 19 know. I felt more comfortable, and so were all those other in the cell, the other person thas this -- they didn't know it, where I was exactly, but -- this was a secret when I called into the office, to this warden. But they saw something goes on, so I didn't say a word, but they felt that I am better treated like anybody else, more or less. And so they tried, actually, always, what I had to do, they jumped in, pushed me away, and they used to do it for me. And we got along fairly well. This was -- actually, in jail over there, in Koinsket, I was four weeks. I remember one day they brought in two Jewish people, because I was the only Jew on the -- in this cell. But they brought in a couple Jewish people, I know them. They have been in Vidamoff, in the ghetto, they lived in the ghetto. They used to be butcher -- butchers, and they got caught by the German authority that they butchered a cow, or whatever. They took them, they put them -- they brought them over to the jail. And I can recall normally they have not been so religious people, a butcher, whatever, but one had along with him a prayer book, and the whole night he didn't do nothing else, except he kept on praying from the prayer book. Prays -- was it -- to me it was not strange, it was familiar, everything. And I ask myself, he's not such hot religious person, why does he pray so much? What is happen, early in the morning, maybe five o'clock, still was dark, they called off their name, they took them out, and we heard a few shots. The others in the cell told me, "You know, they got shot. They killed them." Over there, outside the jail. I didn't know now -- think I didn't know it, if they are dead, if it's true what they told me, but I know it -- it's fa -- was not just calling off a name. We heard shots.

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Q: Do you know why they were killed?

A: Yeah, because the same way, it was not allowed to butcher anything, especial on the kashrut you know, by a rabbi, and everything, this was their things, you -- this was not allowed. In fact, it was those -- the ghetto was so crowded, if a Christian, a Pole, start to bring in food to sell on -- for -- for profit, on the black market, whatever, and he got caught by gendarmarie, whatever, they put them in jail, too. R -- they didn't dare to -- even to bring in food, even to make money, they been scared for their own life.

Q: You said something that inter -- interested me earlier, which was that the Gestapo may have felt you had knowledge of the underground.

A: Yeah, they did.

Q: Tell me more about that.

A: The bookkeeper in the factory, he was probably -- oh, probably eight or 10 years older than me, because he was married, and had I think, two, three kids already. And he used to like, you know, to drink a little bit. He was -- he was a brilliant man, a brilliant mind, very brilliant. His name was Levandoski, and he for some reason, he liked me.

Q: Was he a Gentile, or a Jew?

A: A Gentile, yeah, a Gentile. He liked me, and they didn't know it at home, he used to take me along to restaurants, where he used to buy -- h-he -- he da -- was not so well off, you know, but he used to buy me that I drink with him together, and I used to do

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 21 it, actually, because he wasn't much older than me, and young people -- young boys like me, I was at this time 20 -- 19 years old, so it was for me a privilege. I used to come home, my parents used to think that I am sick, because they served dinner, and I didn't eat it, I was not hungry, because I ate with him in the restaurant. And the ta -- same way that he had touch with the underground, actually. He used to take me home, even home, what is not allowed heah to foreign language -- foreign countries, and he used to, on short wave he get always, he got BBC, and plus he used to get once a month, a mimeograph, a little thing, they told you on the front what is going on. And he always shared with me, he really kept me -- I don't know why, but like I would be his closest buddy. And he actually was arrested, too, before me. They send him to Auschwitz, the same way, after a week, two, he came a telegram, he's not alive any more. We didn't know really what Auschwitz means, what Auschwitz is, but we always was thinking, okilly, as soon you go over, a week later comes a telegram you dead, so it's -- must be more than what anybody knows about Auschwitz.

Q: So, in fact, you wouldn't really know for sure who told the SS about -- about you?

A: Oh yeah, yeah, I know it.

Q: It was the disgruntled employee?

A: It was a -- an employee, I knowed him very well. His name was Novokowski. He knowed me well, we got along real good. I don't know -- he didn't meant actually to hurt me, so much. He was trying to hurt the widow in the factory, because he was mad at her.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 22

Q: Yes, but the -- the widow, in fact, sounds as if she always was very honorable in her dealings with you.

A: Oh yeah, she respect us, she respect our family. She knows how much money we have in -- it's involved -- what we have over there in the factory. Plus, she felt at this time, you have been a woman, a lady, something, you have not got involved in business. You was involved to raise th -- your family, the three girls, nobody's home.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: And so she was happy to see that I take over the duties.

Q: Yes, I wondered if that good relationship was unusual? I know that there was much anti-Semitism in Catholic Poland, but perhaps because they were somewhat part of the intelligentsia, she and her husband?

A: Normally, actually, what it is, sure the anti-Semitism was a real great big, big, and every day got bigger actually, the anti-Semitism. This actually why br -- mine brother left in deg33, he saw it -- what is coming, more or less. And he say he doesn't want to stay in Poland, doesn't want no part, so he just -- and he was a patriot to build Israel, this was the reason. We thought he is not normal, he goes away from the -- from the good home, and he used to say he's ashamed that we are making money easy, you know, he believe more you have to work for your money, not just from business. So far -- he was very, very much patriotic, but the -- with me, actually, I didn't know it, I was over there four weeks in jail, and then suddenly, about -- after four weeks, I remember, yeah, somebody called my name. And I recognize right away this was the

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 23 widow from the factory, Mrs. Rochinski, and she in Polish calls me, you know, and -- and so if she's -- and she -- I responded, "Yeah, I am here, in this cell." I don't know if -- where she know it, or apparently she know it. And so she told me that she is released, she --after four weeks -- she was four weeks in jail, and she said she -- they released her, she goes home. She told me that I shouldn't worry, I will go home. They had already the release for me, but they need a signature from a higher officer, and they have to go to another town for this high office signature. "So you probably will be released tomorrow," she told me. And they all -- the other inmates in the cell where was -- I was with them, they all heard it, and everybody was happy for me, I going to go home tomorrow. And they gave me addresses to go to their families, and their wives, tell them how they are, what they this. It was a -- like a holiday already, the day when she called us. But the next morning, early in the morning, this what the procedure [indecipherable] in the morning, they called off my name, they called off other inmates name, but I -- something didn't sound to me right, because they kept on calling too many names. Because they used to do every few weeks, every month or two -- but I don't know the same way, exactly how often they did it. They emptied the jails for new inmates. In other word, they took those jails, and they send them to concentration camps, like Auschwitz or whatever, and -- but when they took us, they tied our -- our hand to the back, and -- just with a piece string, like, actually, nothing, and they put us on trucks, and they drove, I don't know how many kilometer -- I never know even til today where I was. I think -- I assume it was Kelsa, because from

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 24 Koinsket, biz -- Kelsa was not so far, and took about a couple hours in a truck. And then they brought us to a market over there on the -- we have been told -- we saw all around SS, with machine guns, rifle gu -- whatever, circled around us, and they kept on bringing to another jail, so I don't know [indecipherable] else, until they get it, a large quantity of people the same way and it -- it must have been several thousand, actually. Took quite a number of hours, until when we all have been, and you have -- lay on the floor, on your knees, you could not raise your head, if you raised your head, your -- they told us, then you will be shot. You know, your -- right away they watched with rifles around over there, or machine gun. Well, we all laid on the -- on the f -- on the ground over there on this market, until actually they had the amount of people, or whate -- what they expected to have it on the jails, and they put us on cat -- those cattle wagons, in the same ways. We used to see the one who guarded some of them have been Wehrmarkt, and so we have been more friendlier, because you couldn't just talk to one from the SS, he finished you on -- off on the spot. But we saw [indecipherable] they ask him where they take us, where we going to go, where we going. "Oh," they used to say, "oh, you go probably where you going to have to | -- be over there, do some work, labor." [indecipherable] all, and we didn't know it until we arrived around midnight, probably, over there, and the first thing I saw it when they brought in, they opened the gate, and it said, the gate said abait bakt fry. And I didn't know that this was a g -- in Auschwitz a gate, didn't know it. But as soon we -- we got off in restraints, although it was guarded off -- they have a bi -- large ramp -- ramp, and both

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 25 sides have been guarded by SS. And they had sticks, irons, all kind things, and when they chase you out, and everything was schnell, schnell, fast, fast. And so you got -- wherever you move, wherever you go, it didn't make any different. They hit you over your head, or your back. It depends how lucky you have been, and we had to keep on moving. And this what we did, and then we saw people, like kapos in uniforms, striped uniforms. We didn't know it -- they start to talk, and they said, "Here's Auschwitz," you know? And some of them have been only over there from those kapos what they -- they want to kill you practically on the spot. Any move, whatever it was, it didn't make any different. It was only, you know, to make you so miserable, that you will give up li -- living. The truth is, I gave up right away the first day when I was arrested.

I figured this is the end. And I could see it right away, wherever I was, that it's nowhere in the world -- you know, the dreaming that I will go home, see my parents, see my family, or be free. A lot of -- the first thing when I gave up, I figured what's the use to fight? You cannot fight this, and why suffer? So you -- no use to suffer either.

Q: Well, what went wrong, do you suppose, in the plan that your brothers were working toward? It seems you came so close to being freed?

A: Yeah, this is -- I don't know. In fact, Jewish people have not been allowed to visit a jail if they have somebody -- like some other -- if you have been Gentile, you have been allowed, I don't know, every two weeks, or every -- to see some relatives or friend, but for Jewish people was not allowed. One time, the warden from the jail

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 26 arranged that my older brother from me I was the youngest, but next to me, his name was Abraham, that he come to see me, he can speak with me. So I wait, he called me out to come to his office, took me out from the cell. There I was in his office, and he told me, look, this a -- End of Tape One, Side B USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 27 Beginning Tape Two, Side A

Q: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number two, side A.

A: And he said he does it, but it's not legal, it's not allowed for a Jewish person to have any visits [indecipherable], but he says, "Your brother gonna come to this window," and he hold me over there by the window, and he said, "You talk to your brother." And I went in the window, I saw my brother, and he said, "Moshe." And I said, "Avrum." We called each other's name. And then the warden, he watched it pretty careful, and he saw through the window that a s -- ess -- SS car coming closer, and he didn't know where they come, but right away he said, "Back -- quick, back to the cell." I went back to the cell, and I never saw nobody any more.

Q: Too great a risk for the warden.

A: Yeah, and the next day, this when they called off and they brought us to Auschwitz.

And --

Q: [had wanted to ask, after you were -- you had been moved to Auschwitz, would your family have been able to trace where you were?

A: Probably not. No way, I mean you -- this was so secretly arranged, that nobody could trace nobody. No, this was not -- never -- impossible. This I know it.

Q: Mm-hm. And your information about your family after that, were you able to find out anything?

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 28

A: [never heard it, and I never met -- I never saw nobody, not s -- ever. Nothing. In the same way, even when I was in the Auschwitz, and I saw this is the end of the w- world, and everything, but I never could forget not that I'm suffering -- this was out of the question, I just felt for their suffering, sorry you know, but it didn't help me much.

Q: So, despite much questioning, I -- I know that you've checked whether any Jews had survived in Chadbush, and there were --

A: None.

Q: -- there were none left.

A: None. Zero.

Q: So, of your family of six, only your brother in Israel --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- is known to have survived?

A: Right.

Q: Do you have any other -- any other information at all about members of your family?

A: I checked when they had one time -- the Red Cross arranged one time a reunion with other who have been with me in Auschwitz. And so I had left all names, and all whatever the questions what they gave me to fill out, and for awhile they send me a letter that they have everything, they keep on checking. Then, maybe six months later, or a year later, they send me another letter, they did their best, but they can never could place it -- any -- any of the names that I requested.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 29

Q: Mm-hm. In the years since then, have you ever gone back to that area, or ever felt a wish to?

A: You mean my birth home?

Q: Yes.

A: Yes. This was in 1945. Finally, I was -- the last dead march -- I -- I made more than one dead march, that was made in the end of December, between Christmas and New Year. The first dead march was from Auschwitz over Yaveeshavitz to Buchenwald.

Then, from Buchenwald I'd say where I was in a subcamp from Buchenwald, the name was Traylitz, this is near Leipzig. And around early April, or the end of March they say the -- the allied forces start to get closer. Well, the first thing, they put us for a recreation, too, they kept on. They kept us in two weeks what is -- you know, I don't want go into details, because y -- it -- I will never be able to even finish, even if you stay a whole week. It was -- I did survive the dead march. They kept us on trains, we used to go in the woods for a day. I just found out later that they used to, every day, from one place to the other place was maybe 10 - 15 kilometers, th-the -- they have been -- our train was on a one track line. We didn't go nowhere, we just went from one place, and the next day we went back to the other place. And we thought -- we didn't realize that this is the same place, we didn't go nowhere. And I have been, for two weeks -- not me only, but all of us who survive what actually -- in a few thousand they started off when they evacuate us, until to the end, maybe was 50 - 60 left. In thousands, the all other been on the -- on the roads and the ditches, their bodies was ontectnetonancedjushetnoey for ther biormatberaboutfisotecion

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 30 laying because they have been shot, they have been exhausted from walking, whatever, and automatically, if you couldn't walk, automatically the guard shot you.

Doesn't make any difference. But I survived over there. So the last thing, I arrived in Theresienstadt. And this was -- the same way, you know, I -- I -- must be early of April. And at this time, when I arrived in Theresienstadt actually, I was probably 99 percent point nine dead, actually. I have very little signs that I'm alive, actually. And in fact, it was in -- a coincidence that -- even that I reached Theresienstadt, because in Litenritz, one night, when they -- those all who -- who still have been alive, they brought us first the night before -- we have been in I think the camp called Litenritz, and this was terrible condi -- conditions. And being two weeks without food, without water, even the little food what we used to get, but without this [indecipherable] it didn't -- we have not been far away in 100 percent to be dead. And what had happened in this Litenritz actually, that they said in the morning they going to serve us coffee, a hot, liquid something, whatever. And over there the barracks didn't had even floors, and laying in mud, you didn't had no bunkbeds, nothing. If you laid down for the night to rest, or to sleep, how you call it, you laid in the mud. But nothing to -- less, and nothing more but in the mud. And this was a terrible things, without everything, but a human, if you have anything, any instinct being a human, you know that this doesn't go farther. I didn't slept even the whole night, but probably I would have been fall asleep, and waited actually that I'm going to get -- I know it would be a little bit dark, mud, whatever they called it, they called it coffee, but we get it. And we used to carry

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 31 always a can, a rusted can if they found it, if somebody going to give us something, that we have a can to take the food. And early in the morning, they called you, coffee.

And I was trying to be from the first, because I know it if I don't go to the first, I will never reach any more what they gave you. I was among the first, and they gave me the amount what -- in my rusted coffee, and I just pour it in -- in my body, whatever they gave it to me. I -- I don't know til today what it was. I just poured it in. And took a few hours, and they told us that the guards will come, they will take us to the next camp.

We heard about Theresienstadt, we know that Theresienstadt is not actually a concentration camp, it's a model camp. We -- we had not been afraid, we cannot go -- we cannot lose now, see, it cannot be worse than it is. And we have been happy that finally -- that we will -- we will reach Theresienstadt, but not always what you think is happening. For some reason, after this, I got diarrhea, and this was outside, actually, I didn't -- I don't think they even had toilets in this camp, wherever. And I -- I was dehydrated, I could tell, I mean, I didn't had it before because I was two weeks without food, without water. I was fairly dehydrated and I couldn't get up. My friends, what we -- I know them from Auschwitz still, they came by and they said good news, [indecipherable] you know, we going to come to Theresienstadt in the next hour or two. And I told the one that I know them very well, w-was intimate friendship in Auschwitz, in Yaveeshavitz. His name was Yankey. And I told him, "Yankila, it's too late for me." And he said, "In the all suffering what you know what you had in Auschwitz, in the coal mine, and everything," he said -- he said, "don't make me leave

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 32 you here." And they actually risked their lives, two of them, and they practically carried me in to Theresienstadt. But still I never had any hope that I will be able to walk, or for freedom. I realized it's too late even to have any hope. [indecipherable] show it, actually, when we came to Theresienstadt we look like animals, we act like animals. Those who still could walk were -- whatever they start to give us some rations, some of them who have been stronger, they used to see that -- used to pass by wagons that went to the kitchen for the supplies, and they used to highjack those wagons and steal everything out, bread, or potatoes, or whatever they have over there.

And those people from Theresienstadt, those inmates, they have been scared of us like wild animals, and it's not just [indecipherable], we have been. We look like animals [indecipherable] but after they too start to get help more or less, that some ladies, nurses came in, and they start to clean us up, because I still had the same clothing, the same shirt, or whatever, when I left Auschwitz, this was the end of -- of December.

And I never had another -- never changed nothing, and this was already practically the end of April, where they took everything what we took off they burned it on the spot, and they gave us some clothing, more or less. And they bathed us, and shaved us. I mean, they cleaned us up, they disinfect us, more or less. And then we heard it already, that bring in in Switzerland, in Schwietz, they used to send food o-over to Theresienstadt. Not only food, [indecipherable] the best food, you know, white bread, and cheeses, and -- and ham, sausage, oh, the best from the best practically. But people -- people kept on dying like flies, actually. When they start to eat, this was the end of

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 33 it. I actually, the beginning, I -- I felt that I ate, and I could take food, and I got -- felt that every day I'd get stronger and feel better. And for some reason too, I don't know why, they picked me over there in Theresienstadt to be in charge of the food supply.

To give out, to see how many rations to prepare were there -- for the people who have been over there. There a certain amount of barracks, you know. One barrack was also - - they called it a hospital, but the truth is it was like a dump. It was a matter, you know, they put you in, you couldn't walk any more, they put you in in the bed. They know it, not in a matter of a day, but in an hour, you will be dead, so they throw you out, and they put in another body in the bed. And so went on -- actually 99 percent all died, actually. Was no doctors, no nurses, and -- and I could feel that I get better and everything, but suddenly, I don't know what went bad, or what went wrong, or maybe because I was in close contact, I used -- I had to go in in this barrack every day and count people who have been still alive. And the -- to know, you know, we need for this hospi -- the hospital, they called it a hospital. We need 50 rations, 60 rations. I used to, you know, the dead have been on the g -- floor already, on the ground, I don't know even if it was a floor over there. On the ground, and the living -- so I count the living so there's how many rations to prepare. And I don't know, in a matter of in a week or two, I just caught something like a th -- a disease, but I -- I cannot explain it, I don't know, and I will not know even, what had happened. For some reason, if it's good food, whatever it was over there, and I could have as much as I desire and everything.

It was in a certain day, was like my mole was sealed off everything. I couldn't take it, I

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 34 couldn't look it. I used to go ahead, and take a nice roll, white roll, and put down all kind cheeses and sausage, whatever. And I told them -- this was -- not far away was a park over there, I says I going to sit on the bench in the park, and I will get an appetite, eventually, I believe. Nothing helped. So I start to go right away, backwards, and it doesn't take long. Whatever I gained, I lost much, much quicker than it took me to gain. And I couldn't walk any more either. And [indecipherable] say well, you have -- said you -- you go to the hospital. I know it, what it is, but it was not -- it didn't matter to me, it was no difference. I realized whatever it is, it's too late for me. I went to the hospital, as I mentioned. It was no nurse, it was no doctor, I mean nothing. I just laid, the same way, waiting, until they dump me out right there on the floor with the dead.

Why and what [indecipherable] behind my understanding, and how to tell, how to explain, I did got over it. I did survive.

Q: When you were close to death before, and your two friends saved you --

A: Yes.

Q: -- your friends from Auschwitz. Was there anybody who could assist you at this time in the hospital, and keep you going [indecipherable]

A: No, I never saw them any more. I mean, they came. I -- later I heard about it, that they -- they lived in Munich, around, they -- they did a lot of business like -- like now, whatever, they've been fairly wealthy. They made money already, but I never did. I -- I don't know. To be honest, I was too naive, or too spoiled. I didn't -- if you have been from a family, a needy family, and been poor, actually, you had ambitious to go try to

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 35 make some money, to have a nicer life. But us, I know it, it went from generation to generation, the kids get older, the parents are tired, and you know, you take over. And I didn't realize, you know, that you have to work, even, for a living. I -- I thought it -- it comes automatically, like this -- and special when I saw what had happened to our family, and to our wealth, and to our money, I practically hated money, and I didn't want to have no part of it. I was not smart enough. And later, when I came to the United States, I regretted it, I saw it, I made a mistake.

Q: We'll get to that, but when you -- when you were close to death in Theresienstadt, there were -- really, you just recovered on your own.

A: Yeah.

Q: You became able to eat. There was no friend to help you, or to keep you going?

A: There's nothing what you could help it. Over there was like I mentioned it, it was strictly a matter of waiting until actually you disappeared, you know, you -- you died.

Q: Or, as in your case, you slowly gain strength.

A: In my case, I don't know how you -- I don't know why, I just didn't drop dead.

Q: What kept you going, do you think? You must have thought a lot about this during all --

A: To be honest -- to be honest, and I ha -- I was asked qu-questions, the same questions which you ask me right now. As far as I can recall, I try a lot of the time to recall things from home, the normal things, until I was arrested, until I -- I came to Auschwitz, and I could never figure out, and I don't think I did ever actually fight for

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 36 my life. And actually what I had experienced, after I was liberated, I suffered more when I was liberated, and -- and I -- I am alive, than being actually in Auschwitz, and working in the coal mine. Because over there you didn't -- you didn't think about nothing else.

Q: What did that feel like? You've mentioned that before, that feeling, the realization that you'd survived, and that you'd lost everyone else. I don't know whether it's guilt, or coming to terms with it?

A: Very, very bad. Very bad. I have always questioned why me. I have brothers, an other one have been much nicer in anything, you know, with feelings, or poor people, whatever, and I, to be honest with you, I was not as smart as my brothers, you know, with feelings. And this bothered me, questioned me, why did I survive?

Q: Did you come to terms with that in any way, sort of feeling, well it -- I'm -- "m here, and can tell the story, or --

A: No, no. No, in fact, when I worked, I worked here in the same company since I came here to the States, and I worked 38 years, and -- and -- in the office is management, was a lot of Jews, but in the factory where I worked actually, was very few Jews, and later when I -- in the beginning I couldn't speak English, but actually it was maybe a favor for me. But later used to come people who know it a little bit about the Holocaust, and the concentration camps, they used to ask me if I was mistreated, or if I didn't had enough food. And I always told them no, and the reason was simple. It's in mine character, this actually how I was raised. I hate to see that somebody has

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 37 sympathy for me. I rather see somebody will help me, and have physical feelings, than somebody will tell me he has sympathy for me because I suffered. This I cannot take.

Pains I can take it, but not this sympathy, no.

Q: Now, you spoke of Mr. Wolfe, who was the -- the boss, I think, of the company.

A: Yeah, he was the boss, yeah, mist --

Q: Is he still alive?

A: He is alive. I know, more or less like friends. He treat me like in the family. On all occasions, Jewish holidays, if he makes anything for his family, we always on the list.

In his home, or in a hotel, or whatever. In fact, when I got sick, he didn't hear it from me -- I used to come visit the factory every few weeks. He didn't heard from me, he called home, he mentioned it right away, I know it's not right. And finally I told him the story. But i -- it cannot be a nicer person than Mr. Wolfe is.

Q: We -- we should perhaps move forward to that -- to that time when --

A: That's all right.

Q: -- would be 50 years ago, almost -- almost to the day.

A: Yeah, it -- that's right, in October, I think the 26" of October, 1949, I arrived in Germany, on a military boat. The boat's name was SS General Howe. It took us 16 days from Bremen to touch the soil of the United States. And I remember when I was in Germany, I -- I worked -- I always -- I did -- I mentioned it. When I got in touch that I found my brother, he is in Israel, and he kept on writing me letter, don't do foolish things, don't play the black market. Don't do nothing, cause it's not legal, he

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 38 warned me. He says, "You come here, you going to have everything. You don't have to worry now, think about nothing. You come here." And finally, I was prepared, actually. I bought things -- necessary things, because in Germany I worked for the ira - - UNRRA. | always made fairly good money.

Q: That's the United Nations relief agency.

A: Right, right. I made money, and I didn't made money, you know, just to have extra money. I made real nice, and I bought up -- if I go to Israel, to be established there, have things necessary, electrical things, or whatever. And I had, I think, three cases, three large cases already nailed up to go along, and I was, the last year actually, in deg48 -- before I was in a sanatorium, in Dagaloff, this is the outskirts of Stuttgart, a very beautiful place, but later they liquidated this camp, and the Stuttgart was a camp in the Reinspookstrasser, which is famous. I have a book they actually gave it to me, you know, the whole thing, the activities, what it was, in sh -- Reinspookstrasser. And there have been respectable people, and because the other [indecipherable] was liquidated, so they called me, and they ask me if I want to take over food supply, and to be in charge like a chef, they call it a boss, over there on the Reinspookstrasser. I -- I didn't know, you know, to deal in black market, but I know it that I have to ha -- get a job. So I accepted it, and I was very respected by them, and they tried to do anything, whatever possible, to satisfy me. I was [indecipherable] alone. Finally it happened one Sunday. I was not working, but I came -- I used to live -- I lived still in Dagaloff, and I came down to the Reinspookstrasser, but this was the DP camp in Stuttgart, and I

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 39 notice what I didn't like. I noticed that they -- they have over there, in every DP camp, they have their own police. It was Jewish policemen, what been -- like you had a job, whatever it was necessary to keep everything in order. And they -- End of Tape Two, Side A Beginning Tape Two, Side B

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number two, side B.

A: They used to take boys from 18 years, even mine age. I was at this time 26 year, 25 -- 26 years old, and they used to I-like round them up, get them, they put them in a room like a -- in a jail more or less, took them away, and the next day trucks from the Jewish brigade come, and they took you to Bremen, whatever, to send them to Israel.

And this I didn't like it.

Q: Oh, they were involuntary?

A: Involuntary, exactly. Involuntarily.

Q: And I -- didn't know this went on, so --

A: And when I saw this, it reminded me too much of it.

Q: They were in fact giving them a good life, and these were displaced persons, but why --

A: No [indecipherable]

Q: But why did they do it?

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 40

A: -- they have been told. From the -- you know, from the Israeli government, whoever was, you know, that this is the only way to get the young people away from the black market, you know, just to bring them to Israel, they needed soldiers, I -- I don't know why. But when this -- I saw it then on the spot, I said, "Force, that's -- it's out of the question." And then I tried to think -- I almost was ready to leave to go to Israel, and then I came -- you know, when you think about this, come to you other things. And I know it that my brother is not a ha -- a wealthy person, he worked for the government, he had a good job, a high position, everything, but far from saying, you know, he's able, yes, like he wrote in the letters, you don't worry, you'll be taken care of, everything. And in -- they had already at this time, they had a boy maybe four or five years old. He was born in deg40, actually he was six year -- no, older than this, seven, eight years, right? Yeah, he was born in "40. And -- and they keep on th -- my thinking -- yeah, I said, "If I will come over there, you hadn't bought even a bed already, where I gonna sleep?" He said he gonna take away from his wife, and his kid, you know, and try to give it to me. And I said no, this will not work. I'm not the type.

Q: Did you at the same time long to be with him, since you'd lost all your family?

A: In one way, yes, in the other way I was afraid he gonna think that he owns his life for me. I got scared, I said there's no way in the world, it will not work. And then I figured another thing. If I come to Israel, and Israel was a lot like my brother from my home town, what that lived over there, so they knowed me, and they knowed the family. And I figured, you know, I was not -- I didn't had no trades. I was not educated

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 41 practically, nothing. And I said whatever I going to do, you know, you should be -- and especially you come from a small town like me, that this job is suitable for you, this is your -- if in a too good home, to take a job, you know, like cleaning, I don't know streets, or other thing. I said, the best thing is maybe to go to the United States, nobody knows me, I don't have no relatives, and I don't [indecipherable] this to be over there.

Q: But that was scary, too.

A: And how. This was more scary, and what more was thinking -- I thought to myself, what will I do over there? I cannot speak a word of English. I don't have no trade.

Yeah, what? Again go for charities -- you know, Jewish organizations to support? I said, I'm not the type for it. I -- how can I do it? But I had a friend, he left in deg46 already. He wa -- I was with him in Buchenwald down in Traylitz, actually, and he survived. He --

Q: And what was his name?

A: Bernard Fedderman. I was with him in Traylitz all the time. In fact, later even in Theresienstadt, when survived, and then he came to Stuttgart also, and Dagaloff, and then we used to live together. He -- he wrote me -- he was constantly in contact with me. We w -- we have been actually -- we had a room, both of us together. So he already had a kid, a first kid was born. You -- he -- he left, she was pregnant. He had had already a kid. And he was a bookbinder here, because his parents had a bookbinder shop in Leipzig.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 42

Q: He -- when di -- when did he marry in Europe?

A: Oh, he married in Stuttgart, actually, I was his witness, actually. His best -- we have been the closest friend, actually. You know, we both survived the impossible. He married in "45. I remember a chaplain in the army and everything. And just [indecipherable] called the name [indecipherable]

Q: Did he -- did he marry a survivor?

A: Yeah. Yeah, he married a survivor. In fact, he ask me -- he is a very naive person, honest, naive -- I -- to compare, was a crook. Things that he did a little bit here and there, I was -- he send me, you know, he wouldn't do it, the things. He was something [indecipherable]. And so he -- he ask me what I think, if he should marry her. When I okayed, this when he married her. He had a ver -- very naive person. Very nice, decent, person. Really, it's hard to find a person like him.

Q: Now, in that time, immediately after liberation, and during the time people spent in displaced person's ca-camps, many marriages took place.

A: Right, right.

Q: It was very natural. But you were unusual in -- perhaps because you were shy, in waiting a while? Or you just had not met the right person?

A: It's a -- okay, I had -- this I answer for you -- can answer in -- really nice, and I answer for you with honesty what it was. I come from a good home, and to be honest, a lot of maybe special survivors who survived will not like it. But I didn't do nothing, I didn't made money in Germany, and if any girl from a better home, you know, was

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 43 plenty boys who had a lot of money and everything. They bought them clothing, jewelry. They took practically the -- the best of the crop, you know? Just to tell you in plain words. I was falling behind, and because I was raised, and how it was, and I didn't want the -- to go a little bit too deep in, you know, where -- where normally -- in normal circumstances, I would never be associate, so I hold myself back. This is the reason, you know, I was not married, actually. I didn't look. If a Jewish girl what I actually -- she came from a better home a little bit, you know, like me, I didn't look for nothing more. She had the better offers than me, you know, financially speaking.

Q: Do you think, too, that you wanted to begin to rebuild your life before you settled down, was that part of it?

A: I -- to be honest, I didn't know it, what to do, what not to do, where to go, where I will not go.

Q: It was just what happened.

A: Yeah. One thing, actually, I was scared about America, wh-what will I do. But my friend Bernard Fedderman, he kept -- I mean we -- we lived together for over a -- he left in deg46, in beginning. We lived together, actually, for a whole year, so we know each other very well, and he know that I'm not a lazy type, you know, I'm willing to do anything. And I will learn anything, although he kept on writing me, you don't have to be afraid for the United States. If you have [indecipherable], if you come here, if you want to work, you can always find work. So he in -- is the one who encouraged

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 44

me to come, and I think this actually why I did come, actually, his [indecipherable]

encouragement, yeah.

Q: And did he help you when you were here? Was he in this area?

A: came -- I was sponsper -- sponsored from the HIAS in Baltimore, and actually

when I came to the States, right away somebody, you know, from the HIAS, they

waited for us with the boat when we landed, then they took us on trains, and they

shipped us -- and the train embarked us in Baltimore. I had been in Baltimore, and it

was, for me, you know, special where I was -- I was living in Dagaloff, the outskirts of Stuttgart. And, you know, I was used to nice, clean, life. And to me it felt -- Baltimore

-- filthy, very bad. And I -- come to my mind I did make the biggest mistake.

Q: And this -- in Baltimore you were in the care of the --

A: Right, right.

Q: -- immigration and naturalization service.

A: Right -- I mean -- no, the HIAS, actually [indecipherable]

Q: Oh. Explain what that is.

A: The HIAS is a Jewish relief organization. They took care of Jewish immigrants, no,

and this had nothing to do with naturalization, only Jewish immigrant, if you didn't

had nobody to sponsor you, and so they sponsored, and they took the responsibility.

And they have been real, unusually nice, you know, when we got off in the trains, they

waited for us, and right away they took us to hotel, you know. Not the best, hi -- but

still a hotel, and -- and they came every day, they ask you what you need, what you USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 45 don't need. And they offered me, you know, you need clothing? And I told them no, I don't need clothing, I have two suitcases, big suitcases. I have clothing, I had tailor made suits in Germany, over there. He said, "Shoes?" And then he told me, "Over here, you know, there's a li -- clothing is a little bit different. Why don't you -- you know, we give you money, go buy yourself." I says, "No, I don't need to buy, and I don't take." They offered me s-schooling, I can go -- they know that I don't speak English, and so they said, "How about we gonna give you -- not in the hotel, we gonna rent you a room in a house, you live over there in the house. We will pay all expensive -- all what you need, food and everything, we will pay. You go to school and learn English." I said, "No, I don't want to go to school. I -- ""m not educated, and I will not -- I will not -- not looking to get educated in the United States." [indecipherable] what you wanted. I says, "I want a job." Well, they took me to several places here and there, and it didn't worked out. And a lot of places even the owner was Jewish, he said all his employees are non-Jews, and they don't think it will work out. And so di-didn't get.

They kept on -- said oh you be pensh -- patient, we take care of everything, you just stay over there. And I disliked everything. Baltimore, and the du -- whatever they asked me, I refused to take it.

Q: How long did --

A: I never took it, and I'm proud of it.

Q: And how long did this period go on?

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 46

A: This went on actually, like for two weeks. And then my friend, Fedderman, he was

already established, they had one kid, a boy, and all this. And he lived already in a

house. He made fairly good money already, you know, for me, I thought, you know, I-

I'd be a king if the -- if | be able to make as money -- much money as him. And no --

he came over to Baltimore, and he realized that I am miserable, and he said, "Why

don't you come with me to Washington?" And he says, "We have a extra room." They

had a three bedroom house. He says, "You can live over there in the house with us,

you eat with us, and every," -- he say, "until you get a job, and you have some

money." He say, "You can pay me later, whatever you feel to pay me for -- for this,"

to live over there. So actually, I lived over there with them for more than a year,

actually over a year.

Q: And where was that?

A: In Washington.

Q: I was just wondering what part of the city, and --

A: Oh, he used to live -- the first house where he had, that he lived was on Shepherd

Street, northwest. Was not far from Georgia Avenue, Shepherd. Sh -- I think Shepherd,

and let's see, 12 - 13, maybe Seventh Street was Georgia Avenue. Around nine -- ninth

s -- Ninth Street, north Shepherd, nine northwest.

Q: A sort of tree lined streets, Washington neighborhood.

A: Yeah, yeah, and I thought he's a king, you know. I would never expect, you know,

that he has such nice life, you know, he married, and he has a kid, and he has a house, ontackreferaneedaushriarg er hither btrmedortabnat fielder

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 47 and he has a job. In the beginning, actually, he told me if I wanted, he said, "You don't have to do nothing cause I tell you." But if I wanted, he can tell -- take me where he was by this bookbinder. And he will ask him ahead of time if he can bring in, you know, somebody, a helper, or -- I didn't know nothing about bo-bookbinding. And so he took me along where he worked, and the owner was Gentile. And he was a elderly person, probably in the upper 70's. But he was very, unusually nice, and friendly, and he showed me things to help around over there, all kind jobs, and --

Q: You were a nice looking young man in a very good suit.

A: This -- this I don't know. This I couldn't tell. But he was very, very pleased.

Whatever he told me, I -- I tried to do it the best what a human can do, tried to please him. And he recognized this, and so he right away, he had the respect, you know, that I'm not just coming in. What had happened was over there a big [indecipherable] actually he paid me well, like paid me actually in 1949, about a dollar an hour, what this was a -- a lot, actually, it was good money. But it got slow. I couldn't speak English, and I was over there a day, and so he told me to clean up the supply where they kept, and this probably was never cleaned. So I really did a job what nobody would do, you know. [indecipherable] or not, I don't know, it doesn't make any difference, but nobody would do it, something like this. I took everything out, and dusted, and I ate -- my dust choked me, but I did it. And when he came, it was clean.

His face was smiling, he looked at me. Tha -- si -- comple -- he didn't recognize even, but it was, I cleaned it out so. And it was on -- very slow other days. I told my friend, I

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 48 said, "Bernard, tell Mr. Gruver that I don't want that he pays me if I don't do no work." If I don't work, I don't want it that he pays me money I didn't deserve. Well, he went over, and told him, and he came back, and he laughed and -- and he said, "Oh, don't worry," you know, "you'll be slow another day, it will be here plenty work for you, come and work." I was over there maybe a whole week longer, and it didn't come in too much work, and I was still doing nothing practically, here and there something.

So I told him I don't want him that he pays me if I didn't work for it. And I left. And then I went to the Jewish social organization, actually they used to be not far away from Shepherd Street, even over there. I forgot the street, but it was pretty close. And I told them I want a -- a job. So they called up the American Wholesale where Mr.

Wolfe is. He was -- at this time, his brother-in-law -- he married to the family from the owners. His name was Krepshaw, David Krepshaw. And he called up them if they have an opening, and they told him yes. They told me how to get there, and whatever.

So I went over there, they used to be located on Rhode Island Avenue, Fourth Street.

And I went over there, and they had somebody, an American who is Polish descent, so he -- he translated here, because I didn't -- couldn't speak a word of English. So right away, the -- the same way, whatever I did, I tried to do my best because somebody would tell me to move a house, and it wouldn't be hard for me, I would probably move it. I did my best, and they had recognition. They saw it was right. They start right away to advance me. They told me that I will be a foreman, a working foreman, and they

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 49 will learn me cutting. Course, it's a mattress company, you know, Serta, and they will learn me to be a cutter. It sound to me all right.

Q: Cutting metal?

A: No, mattress fabrics.

Q: I see.

A: For mattresses, covers.

Q: Oh, yes.

A: I was, and they assigned me the sewing room, what most of them have been women actually, worked over there. Well, they learned me do the cutting, and they told me all the -- they start me off with 75 cents an hour. You know, he told me that s -- 75 he does only because I'm in a concentration camp, you know, a refugee. Because he pays -- he start off the people normally, with 50 cents an hour. So he gave me 75, and -- and from time to time he told me -- he came over there, they liked it, what I did, whatever.

And he gave me like full charge, he says, "You can work overtime in the evening. You want stay, stay as long as you want. I'm going to have one and a half, you know. And if you want come in Saturday to clean up the place, so you come in Saturday, and clean up the place." And I really cleaned, really, not like these other people. And I made myself [indecipherable] even at 75 cents, by p-putting in extra hours. Every day an hour, and Saturday five, six hours. It was alright, but I never figured anyway that I will stay in a factory. It was a little bit out of my line, I would never use, you know, a brain thing, and I have to work for somebody. But what can you do? I -- I couldn't do

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 50 nothing better, either, so I kept on staying here, but they kept on raising always a little bit here, a little bit there, this holiday. And [indecipherable] I figured I start from the beginning, start again from the bottom, I don't know, so I -- I tried to stay with them.

And I stayed with them until actually -- took a little while, and they made me a supervisor over there, the -- the sewing room was under my charge completely. And they let me do anything that I wanted to do, you know, and well, this made me feel better, too.

Q: So you were in -- supervising a number of other people as time went by?

A: Yeah, about 25 people, yeah. Men and women.

Q: A fairly responsible job.

A: It's not easy. But I know it, you know, if you have to do it, it doesn't make any different.

Q: And is that where you s -- you spent your w -- your career, with that same company?

A: Yeah, I retired after 38 years, 38 years I was with the company, never worked for nobody else, except a couple weeks in the bookbinding shop where my friend Fedderman worked.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: Mm.

Q: It's quite a story, really. They were -- they were lucky to have you, and I'm sure you --

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 51

A: Yeah, they have been very pleased, especially Mr. Wolfe was at this time, like a manager in the division, they had other divisions, too. They used to have appliances distributors.

Q: And with the group -- the area you were with, that was called American Mattress?

A: Wholesaler.

Q: Oh, I see, American Wholesale Company.

A: Yeah, yeah, American Wholesaler, because they have several divisions in -- well, the management was pretty smart, very, very smart, because if one division didn't do business, then the other division covered. And this was very well organized.

Q: And your -- your comfort in English just developed over time?

A: Lused to go to the Americanization school, nights, over there, and in the beginning I thought I will never learn. But you know, I always used public transportation, like I used to go with streetcar to work, and back, and always people tried [indecipherable] say it, and I used to tell them I cannot speak much English, what it all, it's true, oh and they made me compliments, oh you speak so good, so nice. I -- I know this was a compliment, this was not the truth. But eventually, it took a few months, then suddenly, you know, what more I tried to talk English, the more I realized I -- it comes. You have just to be patient.

Q: And you moved out of your -- your room in Bernard Fedderman's home in time?

A: Yeah, they bought another home, and it was a little bit smaller. So I moved out, I did appreciate, you know, I stayed with him this time, and meanwhile, I got involved,

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 52 you know, I had my wife, she's actually from Stuttgart. And she was like a girlfriend, but we always have been in contact with each other, we all glad to see each other.

Q: You met at a -- at a -- at a bus stop. Is that right, in 19 --

A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q: -- w-would that have been in 1940 -- "46?

A: Six, yeah, in 1946 I met her. You know, I was lonesome. Nothing even -- you know, I had a job what I was pleased, I was the chef in the supplies, and everything, but I still was alone, you know. I di -- didn't had no relatives. I didn't have nobody, just some boys, you know from the concentration camp, we used to be friends, this was all. And when I met her, actually, she was a -- more than just a g -- really good looking girl.

Q: Actually, tell me -- tell me that -- your wife's full name, and more about her family background.

A: Her full name is Herta, and her birth name is Nagel, N-a-g-e-l. And -- I mean, I didn't know it actually, until went a little bit longer. We had a date here, and there, and then she invited me to her home, and right away her mother was paralyze -- par- paralyzed, she had a stroke. But, win -- wonderful people, real nice. Her father was very much involve anti-Nazi. He was picked up, e-even was jailed, he almost went to Dachau, the same way, for talking, you know. If you talk there too much --

Q: And were they a -- were they a Jewish family?

A: No.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 53

Q: Oh. I had assumed they were. So this is interesting.

A: No, no, no, isn't a Jew, but very decent people. And I come over there, I felt a little bit, you know, what I was missing. A home, more or less. And in fact, she used to take care like even my shirts, underwear, whatever, she took it home, and washed it, and they pressed it, and brought it back. They got the touch.

Q: Tell me what they felt like, because you would be so desperately alone, I would think.

A: Oh yeah, I was very desperately alone, no doubt about it. And when I was here, in the beginning I came -- I used to go to the Jewish community center, and I used to meet the Jewish girls, too. And I went out with them here and there. Was one time I remember I went out with a Jewish girl -- no -- yeah, it was in the Jewish community center. And we talked, and talked, and you know, it's almost was time to leave the center, and she asked -- she ask me, "Where's you car?" And this right away gave me a pretty bad feeling, an impression. I was happy I had to pay a token, not [indecipherable] a car. And I didn't felt right, actually. And li -- End of Tape Two, Side B USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 54 Beginning Tape Three, Side A

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number three, side A. Continue to tell me the story of your meeting your wife, and your marriage.

A: Oh, well actually, I kept on -- have more feelings from time to time. When I left Germany, actually, I figured I don't want to take responsibility to be married over there, bring here somebody, you know, because I didn't know to -- how -- even being alone, how I will be able to get along. But later, I felt that I'm missing, actually, I missed her very much, to a great extent. And the beginning actually, they said in the Americanization school, they used to help me, the principal over there, he ask me, you know it, and I told him I have over there a girlfriend, she's in Germany. So he used to write to the consul about it, and especially Cy Wolfe actually, he wrote letters to the consul too. And she ha -- was registered already, you know, she had a uncle here in Long Island that she wanted to co -- times were bad in -- in Germany, wa -- so she wanted to come here, so finally with the help and Cy Wolfe, well, she had a chance.

She came two years later. When she came here, she had -- right away she got a job, and she made more mon -- better than me. She worked in the House office building.

Q: You -- that was -- she would in fact herself be -- being so brave to make that trip, to start a new life.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 55

A: Oh, sure. You know, she had a -- her father was a older -- I mean, elderly person.

You know [indecipherable] stayed because they have to take care of their parents. Her mother was paralyzed, and everything.

Q: Did she have brothers or sisters? Did she have brothers or sisters?

A: Yeah, she had one sister, and she was 18 years older than her, you know, she had a -- one sister. But in the beginning they didn't like it that she leaves, but eventually -- you know, her mother knowed me, and everything, and she thought with somebody else that she wouldn't know it, she wouldn't let her go. But because she knowed me, so she agreed, you know, that she can go.

Q: Mm-hm. Did either you, or your wife's family have any reservations because you were -- she was Gentile, and you were Jewish?

A: I wrote this to mine brother, and -- about it, and he answered me, he said in -- you know, we are from a strict Orthodox family, he wrote me this letter, as much suffering I had to go through, I can do whatever I feel, he feels, you know, that it will be justified [indecipherable]. And then when she came here, actually, I got in touch -- what do they call them? The -- the Hebrew congregat -- you know, the Reform synagogue, actually. And I met over there sh -- he was assistant rabbi, Rabbi Schiff, I don't know if he's still alive. He was teaching in the -- I think Harvard School, too, as a professor, you know, a nice person, he was from Germany. And I met him, and Rabbi Gerstenfeld too, you know, he was the main rabbi. And Rabbi Schiff married us, actually, in there.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 56

Q: 1951.

A: 52, I think.

Q: Oh, *52.

A: Yeah, "52 [inaudible]. She came in "51.

Q: And you'd corresponded during that time?

A: Oh yeah, yeah, constantly, you know. We write [indecipherable] she right away, second week she came, she went, took a job, actually.

Q: And did she speak any English when she came?

A: No, but she did all this -- a -- a lot of -- she did typing, and typing actually, this for her -- she was trained in Germany. In Germany, actually, if you are trained, you know what you are doing, too.

Q: They are really good training.

A: It's not here. And [indecipherable] respected her work, actually, he liked it very much. And she had a chance, because she typed the whole day, which she learned [indecipherable] coming home, you know, watch TV. Yeah, she didn't go to the Amer-Americanization school, I did.

Q: Yeah, and by then, you we -- you were speaking English --

A: Oh yeah.

Q: -- the language --

A: Yeah. I don't speak good English today, but I still am speaking.

Q: Tell me more about the things that you and your wife shared in common.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 57

A: Oh, in the beginning was pretty hard life. I mean, we didn't had nothing, but we didn't felt, you know, that it will not be hard. We both shared. She was working, and I was working, and tried to save. And the reason for saving was not so much that I liked to save to get -- to put a lot of things was I wanted, and fe -- and have feelings that I cannot afford to satisfy this, but I know it can come a time when are -- you are not able any more to do work, whatever it is, and you fall -- want to fall a burden or nothing.

But this was mine strongest point for the -- that it is necessary to save. When the time comes that I cannot afford, that my health does not allow me, that I still have to look for my savings to support me. And we actually, this way, thanks God with savings, we got adjusted to a nice life, not to waste, or not what -- what it was necessary. So we did some saving. And I'm proud to say, actually, that since I was involved with the Holocaust museum, and I was -- I felt that the museum is a great institution for -- not only for survivors, but for human -- humanity, for everyone. And I never dreamed that I will -- we will be able to afford to contribute, but thanks God we did contribute hundred thousand dollars to the Holocaust museum. This, at least, makes me proud of myself.

Q: That's -- I didn't know that, and that's really quite wonderful that you --

A: Yeah.

Q: -- that you -- that you could. Cause I can think of -- [indecipherable] I -- I really think that is -- think the museum performs this wonderful role --

A: I think so, too.

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 58

Q: -- of making sure it won't happen again.

A: I think it's the best institution, actually. It's a safeguard for the next generations.

Q: Yes. Now, both you and your wife, although you had different faiths that you've grown up in, probably --

A: Yes, she has -- she actually accepted the Jewish faith, actually.

Q: Yeah -- no, I meant that your -- your childhood would have been spent in different faiths, but you would -- you would ha -- after your marriage, you've shared the same faith, and also a -- probably both of you had known some degree of hardship. Even your wife had experienced the war. So probably your values were similar.

A: She was very cooperative, actually. She had feelings, you know, to follow myself, so we never had any complications. Even we have not been the same faith, in the beginning, but she accepted to follow me.

Q: Yeah. I'm -- I'm asking these questions, too, knowing that a great many of the survivors with experiences something like yours, perhaps for shorter periods, tended to marry survivors. And that's really why I'm probing with these questions.

A: Right. Yeah, this is true, but like I mentioned, actually, I had bad experience when I had a friend to me what -- she was devoted to me, and this -- and I miss her very much, so this makes a strong friendship, and this why actually I was waiting until she had a chance to come over here, and to share a life together, that we do share, because we have been married in "52. It's actually 47 years actually are married.

Q: Yeah. Now did you -- you don't have children, is that right?

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 59

A: Unfortunately, my wife was one time pregnant, but we didn't have the experience, you know, how to be careful, whatever, in the pregnancy. She had a miscarriage, and it upset us both, but in the other hand, it didn't change our life, either, actually. I always figured, if something doesn't go our way, we have to accept it, because we never look -- she was trying to get medical help, and everything, but it didn't succeed, and so finally we gave it up, to take it as it comes.

Q: Mm-hm. I ask that only because I -- I understand some survivors have, because of their suffering, not wanted to have children, and you don't seem to be one of those people who --

A: No, it was not our intention. We wanted, actually, very bad. In the beginning, the first years, we couldn't afford to have it. We didn't feel, well if we gonna bring ina life, and we have hardship to survive, but we always figured, when the time get better, we save a little bit more, then we start it. And then we started, and it was too late, or whatever it is, it just did not materialize.

Q: Mm-hm. Tell me about reli -- what your religion means to you, and do you go to synagogue regularly?

A: About religion, as I mentioned before, I was raised Orthodox, and I always felt in my heart that the Jewish religion is the only practically religion, that you can believe in it, it has a ground to -- to believe in it. I -- b-but I respect any religion. I respect any person who can hold up his custom, his religion, I respect very much. I am right -- no I am not a particular -- I wouldn't call myself I'm a religious person, but I am very

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 60 traditional. In the past I remember the nice holidays, [indecipherable] and other things, in a clean, nice life. And I still try, you know, to resume those things. And to be honest [indecipherable] I was asked by kids in the school, and I lecture to them about the Holocaust, and they ask me if I believe in God. To answer this, it's very hard. In one way, it's pretty hard to believe, if --

Q: L interrupted. You were telling me about the children asking do you believe in God.

A: Yes. To answer you straight, what -- what the Jewish people -- nation, suffered, it's actually hard to believe in God, but I take mine whole strength in to believe, and I'm not so highly educated to be able to say that -- to believe, or not to believe, though I acc -- I accept that the easiest thing actually to believe, and continue believing.

Q: And you followed all the traditions? They're part of your -- of your marriage and your life?

A: More or less. To tell the truth, more or less I follow it, and I enjoy it, but we don't run constantly to the synagogue, but on the high holidays, we always attend the services.

Q: Mm-hm. What about friendships in your life? You spoke of different ones during the years when you were in camps. Have th -- have your friendships been enormously important?

A: Oh sure, it's important, actually, when -- I cannot lie, because I don't have nobody left. And so friendship is actually the most what we still have left over. I continue to be

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 61 in friendly terms with old friends [indecipherable] around here. I feel I'm blessed that we have friends.

Q: In the early years --

A: Excuse me.

Q: Yeah, in -- in the -- in your first years in this country, were you -- was your social group very much a group of survivors?

A: More or less, yes, but we have a -- a lot of friends, you know, they're not been survivors, and a lot of Gentile families, what are very nice people, and decent people, and we enjoy very much to spend time with them together.

Q: I was -- in -- in thinking about how you, I think, managed to -- to endure those years of suffering, of extreme brutality and so on, and yet to come out of it and be able to be a sort of loving, warm person, I'm guessing -- I -- I'd like you to -- to tell me whether you've thought about how you were able to do that? Was it the -- the upbringing you had? The friendships? I -- I mean, there must be things that you thought of.

A: As far as I know -- it's a very good question, but for me it's actually easy to answer it. They are up there, I think, my whole family, all brothers and sisters, how we have been raised by our parents. My parents, especially my father was very strict in behaving, but I'm really thankful for his -- that he raised us in a strict way, that I can have the -- to understand, and to know the difference between good and bad. And we have been raised -- and I think all my brothers know in our family, have been more or

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 62 less actually, raised the right way, and to respect where we supposed to respect. And I feel that I was blessed with a family like this.

Q: Lasked that question, too, knowing that many -- many survivors have found it difficult to adjust to -- to life because of how much they suffered. Others too, have had full and rounded s -- remarkably successful lives, but do you think that you often suffer because of your earlier suffering? I was thinking about, does it show up in great anxiety, about your wife, for instance? If she's late coming home, do you feel, do you think, more concerned than somebody else might be? Are you more anxious?

A: It's no doubt any survivor, I don't care who it is, who had to go through so much humiliation, and suffering, and taking away the dignity from being a human being, if we want it, or we don't want it, something is missing in us, and -- and I mean not in myself, but in any survivor. And this can never be fulfilled, even if you are successful in business, and family life, and everything, always will come to haunt you about your past, about your suffering. But in other hand, I accept it, the philosophy, if I want it, I don't want it, I have to go on with my life, either way. If I think too much about my past, and those all good things what I lost, is the only way to bury myself alive, not to know. But the -- so long I keep on continuing with my life, I have to be strong enough to take life and accept life as it comes.

Q: Do you find that in the -- decades ago, in the early years, that you had to deliberately block out those thoughts, and -- and look to your future in order to cope? I

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 63 ask that question because I know that you've given interviews like this in latter years, but not -- not earlier.

A: The same thing, actually. As much that I remember those old horror stories, and they can never be told, but not a human being, I -- but my past from the suffering, but I have always thinking, not of a great deal about future success, but accept life how it comes. And I think this holds me going the way how I do.

Q: I wonder if when you and your wife were first together, would you tell her at great length of -- of what had happened during those earlier years?

A: Yeah, with my wife, I always discussed, and I always used to tell her. And she was trying to protect me, like for example when it used to come the worst horror stories, and documentary on TV, she was trying, and not succeeded that I shouldn't watch it.

But for some reason, I tried never to miss nothing. And to be honest, when people -- strange people, or friends even, who were not -- had those horrible experience from being in a concentration camp, I watched them constantly, and -- and most of the time, I don't know why, this is actually, it's a sickness, I hardly was moved by it. I felt "m more like a piece metal, a stone. But now in -- nothing ca -- can move me, actually to those old, horrible memories from the past.

Q: Do you think that's because that's how you coped then, by -- by -- by becoming numb?

A: Laccepted that I cannot choose my life -- things what is coming to what is not coming. I lost everything, the best and the dearest. I lost everything. And then I

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 64 actually made up my mind, and realized that this is only a way not to complain, and not to think too much about it, but you cannot forget, but to keep on going, as long as possible with my life I had, and take it as it comes.

Q: Have you, in your -- your 50 years now in America, are there been -- are there particular causes, and interests that you've had? You've told me how you supported the Holocaust museum, that would be more recently, but are there other political or social things that are dear to your heart?

A: No, I never was a political person, and I realize, you know, even if you want get involved, you cannot change. You have to accept how it comes, and I didn't have no problem, actually, in accepting, and behaving myself, actually, to be a good citizen, and to obey all rules, whatever a citizen should obey. I -- I cannot give you much more about this, than those things. I try to be the right way. See a lot of things -- in every country, and the United States is not an exception, it's good things, and bad things, but you still have to obey, as a good citizen, the law of in the land.

Q: When you came here, did you experience any discrimination?

A: Sure, I felt discrimination. I remember in 1953, when we had been married -- or in deg52, and at this time went out to get an apartment. We lived in a furnished room, we lived in [indecipherable] an apartment, so finally we decided that we -- we going to get an apartment, buy our own furniture, establish our own. And the first experience was we looked at an apartment, and we liked it over there, and when I made an appointment with the lady, the owner, and I came in, and she asked me questions, so

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 65 she realized that I am Jewish, and I'm not an American, cause I couldn't speak good English yet, and actually she refused to rent it me. But this didn't discourage me, and I was not mad. I felt this is her apartment, she -- and she has hundred percent, full right, to choose to whom she rented, yes or no, I never -- I -- I didn't feel I was discriminated because she didn't want to rent me the apartment.

Q: But of course, that's one thing that would have changed today.

A: Ida -- I don't think it will change. You cannot force nobody to love you, to like you, or to do whatever. Some people have their own way, and I feel they have their right to do their own judgment, and even without in-interference from a government or force you to rent to the person even if you don't like it. I feel this what a free country should be. If you are the owner of it, you have any right to choose who want to rent your apartment, and not be told by the law -- you know, but the government, he has to -- you have to rent them. If he doesn't want it, there's plenty other apartments.

Q: Were there a lot of other instances of -- that were of that kind?

A: No more or less -- I never had any. In fact, I used to socialize with Gentile people in America, and they didn't have to go through a Holocaust, and most of the time I behaved with good manners, and this how -- I behaved how I was raised to behave to be among people. And I got always the biggest respect. The other people who hardly know me, and they always respect me, and they wanted to socialize with me.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 66

Q: Now, wha -- I wonder if your wife ran into any dis -- problems of discrimination?

Was there anti German sentiment in those years after the war, or would that have been negligible?

A: Yeah, it was anti sentiment, and -- during the war, and you cannot blame them, I think it's a good things, actually. Because whatever the world did anything, had feelings about German brutality, that it was more than justified. And I actually couldn't see that Germany, whatever they did it, I don't say everybody, but wa -- the majority -- and they didn't know it, and they claim they didn't know it, but they did know it and everything, should deserve to have it [indecipherable] the nicest life.

[indecipherable] Europe actually, was in Germany. But normally things like this, it will happen if you want it, or you don't want it, but if you don't make an issue of it, it just goes away. It comes, and it goes away in no time.

Q: Do you think that this society had improved in it's sort of acceptance of different faiths?

End of Tape Three, Side A Beginning Tape Three, Side B [Side B blank] USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 67 Beginning Tape Four, Side A

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number four, side A. My question was, do you think there is less anti-Semitism in 1999?

A: I don't know exactly, you know, how to answer this question, but my mind is if somebody want to be anti-Semitic, then I don't -- I don't think actually, if you have tules, regulations from the government, you -- you -- about discrimination, but if you - - somebody doesn't want to get friendly with you, it's no use -- if you try to force it, it just backfires on you. And then you really -- you can increase anti-Semitism. I was always in my vi -- my thinking, if somebody doesn't like me, I going to have nothing against this person, he doesn't have to like me, and I will find somebody else who will like me.

Q: So it's not something you can --

A: No.

Q: -- im-im-impose.

A: No, not -- not -- nothing, I mean, I don't like to be imposed, or to -- if somebody to you is imposing, you know, to like you, or whatever -- I don't go for it, no. I think if it doesn't come freely from you inside, it will never get the person the knowledge I -- to -- to change. They only change if you show your respect, that somebody doesn't want you, just leave him go, that's all. Not particular fighting.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 68

Q: Earlier in the interview, when you were talking about those years of the Holocaust, you mentioned getting news through the BBC, and I --

A: This was in Poland [indecipherable]

Q: Well, this was still in Poland, yeah.

A: Yes.

Q: My question was -- I -- I wanted to ask you more about that. Did you continue ever, to get BBC news in those years when you were in the camps? I assume there would be no way then.

A: No, no, it was impossible. No, this was impossible, and in fact, even I worked in the coal mine, we have been with Poles, Gentiles, together always, but it was not allowed, apparently, and never had a chance even to hear news, or even to look in a piece -- a newspaper piece, or even what it was months or years old. No, we never knowed much. We know it only -- in the camp we used to have feelings, if they treated us bad, beatings, or really torturing, well, we felt this a good things, that they have losses on the front. This -- this was our policy, you know, to know what is going on.

When they have been nice to us, we felt they have too many successes on the front.

We like rather to suffer, and to be humiliated by the guards, and beaten by the guards, kicked by the guards; then we had hope that maybe a change can be soon. But we never expect to be free people, or be in -- humans any more, anyway, but this gave us some hope that eventually, sometimes, that maybe will be a survivor. You never figure that I will be the survivor.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 69

Q: Was there any basis, though, for your accepting that when you were suffering, things must be going badly?

A: Oh yeah, I mean, this was the truth, actually. Yeah we -- you -- you get used, and you realize, you know, when they treat you bad, that they have losses on the front. The front didn't go bad, and we never made any mistakes, and this was true. Sooner or later some of the conversation with guards, actually, what has not been too nasty, and then we realized they had big losses, and we realized why th-they treated the inmates so bad. [indecipherable] discuss the policy, this was the newspaper, how we have been treated.

Q: Yeah. Then i-in 1945, would you be getting news then of what was happening, and that liberation may be close?

A: In 1945, [indecipherable] liberated, if anybody who could walk, or move around, whatever, the only thing what we as -- as survivors in camps, we only thought about, you know, how to get food. And another that you -- you are able, if you feel hungry, that you can slice a slice of bread, and eat as much as you wanted. Otherwise the whole world didn't exist yet, and our -- we still have been numb like you mentioned it, numbness. We have been numb, we didn't come to realization that we survived, and we are humans, and we had to go on as a human being. No, we never had anything else to think, only about hunger was about all.

Q: And when you had no food, you'd mentioned having fantasies about it, tell me what that was like.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 70

A: It -- it's not a pleasant things. We used to get a ration of bread, where we used to discuss with each other, what -- how is the best thing to digest the ration? To eat up, and make you feel that you satisfied your hunger, or take a bite now, and save it, and take a bite later? This -- we always have discussion what is the best. But a lot of times we realized if you don't eat it up, you never know somebody will steal from your pocket, or when you go to bed you have been hiding, somebody steal away, so you didn't -- never satisfied, y -- and you don't -- cannot expect to get a ra -- other things, actually, wherein normally, 99 percent -- I was among those 99 percent, when we got a ration, we had a chance, we ate what we got, and we didn't had no worries to save it, to keep it in a safe place, or whatever.

Q: Mm-hm. And you'd -- you'd have fantasies, is that right, about -- you'd be -- sort of dream of wonderful foods when you were close to starvation?

A: Not about fancy food, never had any fantasies, we just had fantasies how to satisfy the hunger. Not suffering.

Q: Right. Now, I wonder to what extent you've been left with a hatred of any waste in food.

A: Yes, still today. I cannot see waste of food whatsoever. I myself, where we live we have extra acreage, and I have a -- a large garden, and I have the garden, thanks God, not for income, whatever, I can afford buy seeds, or whatever labor it's involved. It costs me money, and whenever I have to harvest, I just hated to see that anything goes to waste, at home, or in the garden, cause a lot of times, if nobody comes to pick up

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 71 some vegetables from the garden, I will go out of my way, and even travel hundred miles around trip, to give some friends from the garden. This hurt me, to see food go to waste hurt me very, very much, and this will never change.

Q: And y-your land, perhaps, has that extra meaning for you, as a kind of security?

A: Not only about security very much, the land means for me actually that since I retired -- I'm already 10 years retired, that I don't sit on a chair, just keep on resting. I always loved to work, and physical work even when it's hard for me to be more physical, I still love it, and I do it, and I think this keeps me alive.

Q: You know, there's a pattern too, of your surviving in prison, in slave labor camps, in Auschwitz, of you're always, perhaps being helped to survive by the fact that you could work and work.

A: Actually, some work even in the coal mine, their heaviest work. This is like being a human, actually. If you see you accomplish, even for your biggest enemy, it give you satisfactory. If you could accomplish -- if you have been able to do it, where actually, if you work, the satisfactory is larger than the hard work.

Q: And do you think that -- I wonder if you have health problems today because of the -- all that heavy labor, or has that -- or is that the reason that you're in such good health?

A: This is a very hard to answer, but one thing actually. When I was liberated in Theresienstadt, this was probably the end of April, or beginning of May, in "45, and I was so sick and ill actually, what I never expect to be alive, and I never saw a doctor,

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 72 whatever, to check me if I'm healthy or I'm sick, until I came to Prague, Czechoslovakia where they accepted me in a sanitorium. This was the first time a doctor examined me and check whatever they -- the sanitorium over there, the management, they strictly took in only DP's, Displaced Persons who had been in a concentration camp. And they treated us -- royalty is maybe the proper word to say.

And the first medical doctor, he examined me, and he examined me, he told me that I have an enlarged heart. Even without knowing any medical terms, or whatever, I don't know, I just happened to be that I asked this doctor, "Will this stay with me forever?" And he said in medical terms, it's hard to tell. Sometime, if you live a normal life, it goes back to normality, it will disappear, and a lot of times it's will stay with you your whole life. So far, thanks God, I felt if I worked physical, it helps me to stay alive, more or less. So I continually -- my doctor told me that fairly I'm in good shape, and whatever you do, he told me not to change the formula, keep on doing the same thing.

And well, I'm doing it.

Q: How would you get news today of world affairs and so on? Do you follow particularly carefully, or are you not interested in papers, TV news, radio news?

A: I'm interested, and I follow it, but I know not me even, because popular people, what know the politics and everything, it's politics, to be honest, personally, I think it's a dirty trade. Nobody's honest. Very rarely you can find somebody who tells you the truth, whatever. This how I feel. And in the other hand, as a little, ordinary person, you cannot change those things, either, so you just let them go.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 73

Q: I -- I wondered, you know, wh-what -- what your attitude was, because you can argue the opposite viewpoint, and say that what happened in the 1930's was because -- I think you can argue this -- was because the people who should have been involved in politics were standing by and allowing the, you know, things to change, and --

A: We showed you actually, that the -- not people, but countries, and I hate to criticize the United States, United States did a great deal for me, whatever, and -- and I -- I feel that I try my best to be a good citizen, actually, but on the other hand, you read about the past, and you call it a world of civilization. In the whole world -- I don't want to mention name, but this is including the United States, where I'm a citizen, and I try to be a honest, good citizen, that the whole world could stand by and see those horror, brutalities -- I don't have the proper word to mention about it, and I don't think the dictionary has even the proper words. And I don't think you can express the proper words to -- to express about those past, and doing nothing, this actually, you lose the belief in any civilization. There's a part of me, it's hard for me to believe that a civilized world exists.

Q: Do you find it -- do you find it hard in relationships with people to trust them? Do you think you're -- you're different? I've known no suffering, and that trust -- trusting other human beings might be easier for me, or whether, in fact, you're just the same?

A: To me, actually, you know, trusting or not trusting, it's har -- very hard to trust people in general, but you feel more trusted when you come along to a Holocaust survivors, what they had the same experience as me, and then I realize they

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 74 understand. But a average person, if you're Jewish or Gentile, it doesn't make any different to me. But I realize right now, after 50 years, being more or less a normal person, that it's hard to believe that it was so much suffering for those people who have been in concentration camps. And -- and even somebody would say, you know, it never existed, it's just a hoax. A lot of times I -- I feel I'm not mad about it, but I feel as a normal person, with normal thinking, you have to believe it's a hoax, it's not true.

Q: Because it's unbelievable?

A: Th -- th -- exactly.

Q: Yeah.

A: It's unbelievable, I mean, this is the proper word. A lot of times I will in po -- in ger -- in English, and hard to express me the proper words, but like you said, it's unbelievable, in the same way, with as much as you talk, or videos you interview, but the true story will never come out. And I hope that we never come to a point where the true stories of new sufferings comes.

Q: Because it goes on and on. You know, I wonder if you'd talk a little about the length of time that you were imprisoned, or in a camp. The term survivors used for people who were briefly in hiding, it's a term that covers many different cases, and I think you're unusual in the period of time that you were held, or -- or suffered. Would you talk a little bit about that?

A: I can talk as much as possible for me. I mean, those things you don't forget actually. I was actually, when I came to Auschwitz at this time, being Jewish was 100

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 75 percent impossible to s -- to live a day or two. Gentiles who come to Auschwitz in "41, a maximum, I would say, you know, you could live a day or two, and because the horrors were so great, was impossible. But in my case, actually, in fact this is actually why I survived; I was in Auschwitz only -- direct in Auschwitz, I was only one day.

The second day the Germans needed real bad -- around Auschwitz is a lot of coal mines, and they needed real bad people to go to the mines, but they didn't trust Poles, who came to -- to Auschwitz actually, because you have to work with Poles, civilian Poles in the mine, they smuggle you out, or whatever, so they never took Poles to the mine. The only who they took to the mines was Jewish, or Germans -- not Jew -- Germans we -- we were -- who have been the same way, have been prisoners in the camps. And the second day, actually, the same eight people who wa -- we have been stepped out being Jewish, we have been called again to be on the appelleplatz. And we came back, and a doctor came in Auschwitz, and we have been in Auschwitz, a doctor came and told us to take off our clothing, and everything, and examined us, our health, our -- and then he said, "You going to be sent to Yavishavitz," and Yavishavitz was a coal mine camp. And this was a brand new camp, and at this time when we went to Yavishavitz, we couldn't believe it that we are in Auschwitz. Even Yavishavitz was a subcamp of Auschwitz. But it was no kapos, we have not been mistreated too bad. And the director from the coal mine came, and he spoke to us, and he says he's only interested in one thing, this is to be good workers in the mine. And he promised us if we will behave, we will do good work in the mine, he will look into it that we are not

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 76 mistreated, and we will be getting proper food. We'll be able -- I was night shift, and he said, we -- you'll be able to sleep during the day. And in the beginning, was actually true everything, it was not so terrible, I mean, you could survive. The only thing was the hard work in the mine, but I used to talk to the one that was in charge in the mine, he was a Pole, and I used to ask him how long can you live in the mine? He said, "Oh, people work here 20 and 25 years." And he told me you can survive you working in the mines. And he showed me how to hold the shovel proper, what is actually -- make it much easier to work on it. And it was good until actually, til deg42, when they start with Jewish transport. And then when they start with Jewish transport, they had so many people -- Jewish people, actually, and the most highly intelligent people fen Germany, French, Poland, Belgium, Italy. They come, they've been professional doctors, professors, very high tech people, and they send them in the mine, they last a day or two, this was all. And they looked only a way how to dispose people. They didn't look any more for workers, because they had too many of them. In the camp when I came to Yavishavitz was maybe 300 people. When the Jewish transport come, the -- in the same camp, in the same barracks, they had 3000. And actually every week, used to come a truck in the crematoriums in Auschwitz, and picked up those who broke down. It didn't took too long, actually for people, highly intelligent people to break down. I don't know even it took a week, took days. They all got to the point of not being able any more to work, and -- and the rule of the camp, especially in Auschwitz was, if you are not able to work, you don't have a right to live,

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 77 and so you -- they automatically -- you know it, if you cannot work, you go to the crematoriums.

Q: You know, I read that -- and this I think was in some museum materials, that those who had been in the ghettos, and had experienced longer periods of hardship, seemed to --

A: Survive longer.

Q: -- survive longer. I mean, wha -- wha -- you found that to be true?

A: Exactly. It's exactly this, the full truth. Number one, you know, I was in the 20's, and I was fairly healthy, and even at home, you know, I'm raised in a home, even we had the -- and enough money and everything, you know, being this 20 year old boy, to enjoy life, maybe I been raised really restricted, that the same way is nothing, just run around, you have to do to get the feeling and understanding if you are a human being, alive, you have to perform something. It doesn't mean anything but physical work. If you read books, was okay with my parents, but doing nothing was not all right. So I was used, actually, to let -- not coal mine labor, but I still was used to keep myself busy --

Q: Pulling your weight.

A: -- and to do work. And later, when actually I came to Yavishavitz and worked in the coal mine, and somebody explained me how to manage to have it easier, this helped me a great deal, and this actually -- this made me survive. Later on actually, you know, when Jewish transport came, everything finished, but they used to get the

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 78 rations for 300 people, it's 3000. It was just too bad, you know, those rations have been distributed among 3000 people. And it started getting rougher and rougher and rougher. They didn't even looked any more for labors, for good labors, they just looked how to dispose those people who -- without a bullet, without the crematorium.

This how it went on all the time.

Q: Mm-hm. Wasn't Auschwitz itself quite new when you were there?

A: Yeah, exactly. Brand new, practically. The ausch -- when I came in 41, was only existed -- I don't think a year old even, less than a year old, practically, yeah.

Q: What are your thoughts about that, when you see the -- the map of Auschwitz, and the -- the many, many subcamps? This sort of mankind making this giant killing machine, you -- i -- i -- i -- course, you said it before, it's unbelievable, but --

A: Ibe honest, I mean from the beginning we didn't know it, actually, what had happened. Later we heard stories a little bit from here, and from there, and then we realized what is going on. And automatically we know it, you know, like our parents didn't had a chance, you know. We know it, they have been destroyed in the crematorium before we even -- if you have been young age, you know, between 18 and 30, you had a chance maybe, they put you in for working, that you will work. But things actually, to thinking about the Germans, they have been so organized, everything. People who read the past about concentration camps, they think it's just came by accident. It didn't come by accident. I realized now even, you know, before when I was there, I didn't think about it, but now I can recall, and I realize that

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 79 everything was so planned. As soon as you come to Auschwitz, they took away your identity, you didn't had a name any more. You been like a dog, you got a tag, a number, and you wear uniform, and they don't call you anything no more, and they -- they call you -- they call you by the number. I remember even myself, when I got the number --

Q: That's the number on your arm?

A: Yeah -- no, I didn't -- was not tattooed when I came to Auschwitz, I was a political prisoner, so my clothing went in a bag like any other person. I was photographed I don't know how many times, several time, you know, turn your head and bumps here and there. And -- and another thing, whoever was documented -- they called us, you know, like we come from a prison, and we came, they have document, you know, like the transport had a list. You know, some kept the list, and some throw it away the list, because know it -- they know it -- End of Tape Four, Side A Beginning Tape Four, Side B

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number four, side B. You were documented?

A: Yeah, and being a document, I don't know why -- why they have been afraid, those SS or Gestapo. Normally, as a rule in every camp like a -- I mean, I can tell only where I was in Yavishavitz, that had they called it a ravia, it was like first aid. You know, I mean, sickness didn't exist, I never heard in a camp that somebody got sick. Not

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 80 [indecipherable] you never heard of it. Oh, you dropped dead, so -- a -- a normal thing, actually, that's all. But sick, this didn't exist. I never was sick. Neither other thou -- other thousands that is, but if you went in for some help, in this ravia, there are doctors, you know, they all have been prisoners, also haftlinger, and okay, they kept you til one night. If yo -- the other day, you have not been able to go out -- go to y -- to the coal mine, or other commanders what they have working commanders, if you have not been able to go, th-then, it was no more time left, so the next day come a truck from the crematorium and picked you up, and -- and this was the end, or so you -- this more or less, everybody was afraid to go in the [indecipherable] been sick.

Q: And that's why one person might help someone else to -- to get back from the mine and hand in their lamp. Anything to keep going.

A: Oh, this is a -- with the last strength, whatever you had. I remember one time, he was from -- from Bendine, Paul Oberslazin, more or less, a Jewish middle aged, he was much older than me. He must have been in the late 40's. And every second week, I think, there used to come from Auschwitz a doctor -- and you have been told to take off your clothes, and -- and he examined you, he looked at your body, how your -- how your are with your health or whatever. Not examined, but he just looked at the body.

And normally what they looked is on the --

Q: Bottom.

A: -- bottom, like, yeah. And if it was in, you know, you're not been out --

Q: Yes.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 81

A: The bottom got in.

Q: Yeah.

A: Well, they called it a musselman.

Q: Oh.

A: And they said --

Q: I never understood the musselman [indecipherable]

A: Musselman, yeah. This meant that you're not capable to work.

Q: You're so malnourished.

A: M-Malnourished, or whatever, you're not capable to work, and they put you -- took your number off, and they put you on the list, and the next day the wagon come from the crematorium, and they have to go. At this time, because I was over there, one from the oldest prisoners, inmates, and you know, you're always have been already prefare - - pre -- you know, prepared, actually -- more privileged than a regular person, you know, they know it. I was over there in "41, you know, so everybody looked me. And one time I had a chance 0 -- the one who took the -- put down the numbers, the same way, you have been forced to put down the number on the list, whatever they have to know it. I know him, I was with him together. So he came over to me, he knowed me by name, he called me with -- by name, he says, "Please help me." And he was on the list to -- | don't remember even his name. He says, "I'm a rich man, you know. I have a lot of wealth, and everything. I'd do anything in the world if you can save my life." I

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 82 told him, "How can I save your life?" He says, "See that they take me off in the list." And nobody dared to do things like this, you know. Anyway --

Q: Whatever wealth --

A: He couldn't -- he saw I cannot help him, so he tried -- for some reason he smuggled himself in to the day commander, you know, who march to the coal mine. He smuggled himself in -- they counted always, they saw it, they know how many people they have to send to the mine, how many. If it was too many, they -- they didn't let out nobody, they waited until they got straight. I don't know how he did it, but he did it, he smuggled himself, and he went in the coal mine. You know what those beasts did?

When the wagon came, he picked up those all from the list, and they saw he was missing, and apparently wherever they realize, you know, they had a plus, and they knowed exactly in which mine he is, whatever. They took the wagon -- the truck, and they went in the mine, they brought him up to the -- in the mine, and took him to the crematorium. This how a -- and you know what else, how accurate they have been, how planned everything was? This is unbelievable. As little they fed us, but -- but it belonged, you know, for every prisoner, a ration of bread, if you got a hundred grams, 200 grams, whatever, this -- they have been responsible, this belongs to you. They have those people on the truck, and they gave everyone a ration, what it belonged. He still was alive, and so he was entitled to the ration. They gave him the ration. This how, you know, [indecipherable] comes to me how well everything was organized.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 83 And whatever it came, it didn't come just happening, you know? Everything was planned.

Q: It's really the sort of -- I think this is much written about, but the -- the nature of evil, it's like --

A: It's a little bit more than evil.

Q: Yeah.

A: It's a little bit more. And they -- the first step in the Nazis was actually when you came to a camp, they dehumanize you. They took away whatever you could. The physical, and then they went mentally, and they realized the only way, you know, they will not give you enough food, and so your brain cannot think nothing else except food. And then they con -- control you, they don't have to afraid that somebody will run away, or somebody will stand up, you know, and say I'm getting killed anyway, I kill a -- a -- a guard, or whatever. It didn't make any different. They know that the next hour he will get killed, so what's the different? But they took everything away what a human being have inside in him. And then they know it, we will follow all this, and everything what they ask. They don't have to watch you, even. And this was everything planned, you know.

Q: Yeah, so that you're broken, really.

A: Exactly, broken is the proper word. Yeah, they broke down you completely.

Q: Yeah.

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 84

A: Physical because you have to work hard, and they don't give you enough food. This they broke right away, this was easy. Mentally was a little bit harder, but if they keep on breaking little bit and little bit, then mentally you lose everything, too.

Q: Mm-hm. You know, I wonder other everyday things that give you sort of traumas.

I'm thinking of coffee, and the fact that that would be the only way you could wash at sa -- at -- at some stage. I think of another time when you could barely stand, and you were given raw carrots, and s -- almost miraculously --

A: [indecipherable]

Q: -- you had the strength to stand. But s -- do you sometimes find that some little -- some material thing you'll see in front of you nowadays that will bring back a flood of horrible memories.

A: [indecipherable] in general, actually, even if I can't afford, I just like being too much comfortable, a luxury. Even if I can't afford, I just -- I feel suffering a little bit release in -- in myself, you know, that I'm survived. Even if I go to a doctor, you know, doctors trying to give you -- I never want to take medicine, everything, and whenever it comes to anesthetic, I tell the doctor, don't worry, pains I can take, you don't have to worry. They have me all on record, Morris refused to take medication, or something to relieve pains. Yeah, they have me on the record [indecipherable] and this how actually I -- I feel actually, if I suffer, it feels me a little bit release from the pressure what I lost. I-It's hard to explain, but this how he is.

ontackreferaneedaushriarg er hither btrmedortabnat fielder

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 85

Q: Yeah. I-I -- I -- I just -- you have -- do you sometimes have disturbed nights, when dreams come back?

A: Comes back pretty often. You trying to ignore, you talk yourself in, you know, just keep on going.

Q: Was the -- is that -- if you look back over 50 years, does that happen -- does it happen more recently, or ki -- have you -- I wondered, have you been able to bury it for parts of your life?

A: It's no -- no way -- I can speak for myself what I think this is for anybody who survived. It's no way in the world that you can bury it. If you want it, or you don't want it, it will surface. If it doesn't surface hundred percent, it surface 50 percent, 60 percent. But just to ignore it, no way.

Q: It's too -- too profound a part of your life, I would imagine.

A: Probably, yes it is.

Q: Actually, it's a question I should ask. You know, looking back, what was the best time of your life?

A: All my family, and feeling the love, that I was loved. And we, all kids, all of our brothers and sister, we had sense enough respect our family, and try to give back our love the same what their love was to us. This is a way -- you cannot forget those things. And this what [indecipherable] you know, what makes life so miserable, why I don't want to enjoy life, even I can afford. I just don't feel proper.

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 86

Q: Mm-hm. Also -- also, I think you'd -- you'd see how material things are so -- sort of flippant.

A: Yeah. I -- I never believed, and I never expected to material things, actually, until I come to the United States, and then I realized if you have money, you treat it better, y - - and anyway -- and I saw I missed the boat. I didn't do it like some other did, but I still don't regret it. It's [indecipherable]

Q: Lhope we're not completely materialistic. But that makes me think of those young, Jewish women, who sounded as if they were so materialistic just after the war, when their -- they --

A: [indecipherable]

Q: -- they go after the boyfriends who could provide well for them.

A: Yeah, this is mostly, actually, people. People who didn't had [indecipherable] nothing, you know, had been poor and everything. And they looked out, and they succeeded. It was a chance, this was the only chance after the war to succeed. If you missed, you missed the boat.

Q: Yeah. You know, you spoke earlier in -- in -- in telling a story, y -- but you mentioned the can that you carried, that I think all -- all of you would have on you, so that if there were any food --

A: Oh, yeah.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 87

Q: -- you could get it. And I just felt that was especially meaningful to me, and I wonder if you'd -- d -- do you remember the years that you had that, and what it looked like, and -- and when you no longer carried it with you?

A: What, the can?

Q: Yeah.

A: Oh, this was in the camp all the time. I mean, in Auschwitz, we was more organized actually. You know, they looked at you that you are -- kept yourself clean.

They killed you if you didn't kept yourself clean. But later, in the later camps, actually, in Buchenwald, where you have been in [indecipherable] was so filthy and dirty, I never had a -- another shirt when I left Auschwitz til actually I was liberated, you know. And I mentioned actually in the tape to -- we didn't have no water, you couldn't wash yourself actually. The same way it was just organized to make your life so miserable actually, that you will give up life, and this what did happen, this was true.

Q: Did you ever, after the Holocaust, have any counseling? I think most -- a-any sort of psychotherapy, or anything?

A: No.

Q: I understand most survivors have -- yeah --

A: No, never [indecipherable]

Q: -- you know -- never had any formal --

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 88

A: Never had anything. I know it one thing, that counseling will not help, you have to have the strength to help yourself. I never believed it -- too much in the counseling.

Q: Yeah. That's -- that was what I thought, but I -- Ij -- I just thought I would ask it.

You told me that you had returned to your birthplace. Would you tell me a bit more about family --

A: I tried to go back.

Q: Yes, you tried to go back.

A: It was 30 kilometers from my hometown, and I came by train over there, and I figured, because I had brothers -- I was the youngest, but I still had brothers that had been pretty young, and my oldest sister had three kids already. The oldest girl was at this time -- before "39, she was probably 11 years old. In "45 she was 17. And I figured maybe because we had been respected by Gentile people, too, you know, maybe they're -- somebody hid them, or wherever. I had hope that I find somebody. I -- parents we didn't dream, we know what had happened, so we -- we gave up automatically, but -- but the brothers and sisters, we always had any hope. And as soon I was able to walk in Theresienstadt, I took a train, and traveled to the home, to the nearest hometown -- like I mentioned, we didn't have the railroad station. The closest railroad station was Rodonsko. And I got off in Rodonsk, and I ask those people, any Jew survivors? They -- they didn't s -- know it exactly, whoever I ask, I don't remember, even. So they told me the only way is you have to go out on the road and see where -- if the road leads n -- to Chadbush, be there, and just ask to take you along.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 89 It was no -- at this time was not too many cars, a car was a novelty, very hardly saw it.

We saw buses, maybe, to take passengers, but the most -- the other way was by horse and buggy. And I went on the road, and stood over there, and suddenly see somebody with the horse and buggy comes, and I looked, and his face looked familiar to me. So finally, what closer he got, the more I could see who it was, and I called him by his name. Bentkofsky was his name. I said, "Bentkofsky." And he looked, and looked, and he stopped the horse [indecipherable] and looked at me. And he says, in Polish, "Ti zheerz?" It means, you are alive? You know? And I realize how he greet me. And then, you know, then he ask me if I know that those eight people who survived not the camp, who survived, they have been hidden somewhere, whatever, that they all have been killed. They lived all Jewish home, and they all have been killed. I didn't know nothing, this was the first time. He told me about it.

Q: And he told you the names?

A: He told me the name, and I knowed every one of them, whoever they told me. And I got really hysterical. I start to cry, and -- and I told him in Polish, I spoke in Polish.

And I said, "You know why I went through Auschwitz. I didn't go as a Jew." He know it probably, because he wa -- he worked in the factory, you know, like I told you, he used to carry finished merchandise to be shipped. He took it to the railroad [indecipherable] he was -- he knows me, and the family. He knows everything about it.

I said, "You know I didn't go to Auschwitz as a Jew."

Q: But as a Pole.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 90

A: As a Pole, yeah, political reasons. Probably he know it about the factory with the double bookkeeping, cause that was in. And I was so moved, I couldn't take it any more. | think I spit on him. I didn't know what to do, what not to do, but I think it this was I did. And then came out a woman, was near a building also, and she came out and I -- she must have been -- told me that she was Jewish -- she is Jewish too. And she ask me what's going on, what's happened. She saw me, I was crying. I told her the story. She said, "Please, one thing. You cannot go back to Chadbush. Go to Ledz, Warsaw, larger town. Over there goes some Jewish people, you meet survivors, not survivors. Go over there more or less you safe. But the Chadbush," she said, "you don't go to Chadbush, no way in the world." And she told me about the same thing.

Q: Yeah. Why? Because she feared if this could happen once --

A: Because [indecipherable] for my life.

Q: Yeah, in -- that's what I meant, if this horror could happen once --

A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q: -- it could be repeated.

A: Exactly. And she figured, you know, I thought actually I come over there, and maybe I stay in Poland. I didn't had nobody in any country, relatives or not, where should I go? I was born over there, we had houses over there.

Q: Had hopes that your brothers were alive kept you going?

A: Yes, I did. I did.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 91

Q: So which -- so you know, on -- at that moment, it was as if y -- this was like a final blow, I assume.

A: Sure, it was the final blow, and the woman took me into her house, and she told me I should stay overnight over there, and say the next day, go wherever you wanted, but you have to go to a large city. A small town is not safe for you to go. She begged me, I remember, I don't know if she gave me food. Well, a poor woman, too, actually, I remember. But I slept over there, and the minute I saw daylight, I just walked off, out the door, I didn't thank for nothing, I didn't say goodbye, or not goodbye. I just walked out. And I went straight to the railroad station, and I didn't know -- I didn't know where to go or what to do. But finally I said I'd try to go back maybe, to Theresienstadt, or whatever, see other friends, and where they go, I will go. I -- I didn't know what to do. And I took the train, I went back to Czechoslovakia, and came to Prague, actually.

Q: Why Prague? Was -- or was this really just it could have been anywhere?

A: Anywhere, yeah, exactly, I mean Prague meant the same like I don't know, like Brazil, or you name it. I didn't know it. I was -- never was in Prague, and I never traveled too much in Poland, and so I didn't know it -- the different between one country and the other country.

Q: Except that you mentioned having a dislike of the thought of going to Russia, or -- or -- or being in the care of Russians --

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 92

A: Well this -- this I left. I -- I was raised -- we have not been -- our -- our whole family, actually, because being business people, we never have any sentiment or likeness for Russians.

Q: What was that based on?

A: That Communism was as bad as Nazism, that's all. Over there you are told what to wear, what to eat, and what this. You know, the Nazis, you know, it was another --

Q: Yeah.

A: -- it was no different between each other, they're just a different color is about all [indecipherable]. This was actually bef -- when I came back to -- to Prague, and I didn't know nobody in Prague. It happened to be on the railroad station the same way, by accident, I see a familiar face. He was with me -- he c -- he was from Belgium, from Antwerp. And he came from the first transport, came actually from Belgium, Holland. And he came in "42, maybe spring deg42, or this I don't know either, exactly, but he was from the earliest Jewish transport, he came with the Jewish transport. And we used to be in the same barrack. And I remember, and I said -- I said, "Julius?" And he says, "Yeah, Kornberg." Well, we recognize each other, and so we talked about it.

He was in Buchenwald, too, but during the march, when they took us away from over there, he had a chance, one from the guard told a reichsdeutsch, a German, you know, that he should go, organize, take away a couple horses, and -- and over there, you know, they needed horses. So he took him along, so they just took off, they disappeared. So he saved himself a lot of things in his life probably, because 80, no

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 93 more, 90 percent, or even 95 percent didn't made it, you know, after those marches and this -- everything. [indecipherable] ask me where you going. I told him [indecipherable] I says, "I don't know." "What you going to do?" "I don't know." And he ask me, "Did you go back home?" I told him I tried it, and they tell me I shouldn't go in this town. Well, he looked -- and he was a very nice guy -- and he's still, you know, because we meet together, the Red Cross gets us together. Julius Bear is his name. He's originally from Hamburg, but when the Germans kicked out those [indecipherable] in Germany, they send him to a border, you know, and so he ended up, his parents and him, they went to Antwerp in -- in Belgium. And so he said that they go back to Belgium, to Antwerp, and he had a whole group was Jewish boys, too.

He said, "Come along." I said, "Why not? I don't know where else to go." I went in, but you had to go in to the council first, to pass, you know. Well, he told me, you know, where Antwerp lays, near Antwerp, where this town -- I don't recall even the town, but he told me. He said the council probably will ask you a few questions. And if he ask you, you know what is next to Antwerp, and that city. Okay. So I waited over there until I was called in, I called in to the council. He ask completely things, you know, that I didn't know, weren't familiar so he right away -- he was very polite, he smiled at me, and he kindly touched my back, he says, ""You're not from Belgium." And he says, "I'm sorry I cannot let you go. You're not from Belgium." I came back out, and I told him, "The council don't let me go through, he recognize that I am not from Belgium." Well, he told me that they stayed, they came a night before, and they

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 94 stayed where in Prague, in a sanitorium. Mostly in the sanitorium, he said there's people from concentration camps over there. And he said it's a very good place, they take good care of you, and I should go over there to the sanitorium. You know, he gave me the address, how to go, whatever, I didn't know nothing. Well, he went to Antwerp, an-and I went over there to the sanitortum. Yeah, he warned me not to tell that I am from Poland, they have skirmishes, the Czechs and Poles. He said, "If you say you're from Poland, they will not take you in." Well, said all right, we didn't had no ID's anyway, nobody knows, you could tell anything. Well, I came over there, and they ask me where I am, I told them I'm from Germany. Which city? I told them Hanover. I didn't know even where Hanover is, I didn't know it. Okay, so they document me over -- over there, I had no other identification that I am from in Hanover. And the first thing is this was the first time I saw a doctor. It was a beautiful, clean place, good food and everything. They gave me a number on the second floor, a room to stay over, everything unusually clean. But even for somebody from a concentration camp, but in general, you know, was a nice place. A nice section, too, it was almost outside Prague. In the morning, around 10 o'clock, a doctor came, and examined me. I was not used -- I never was examined before.

Q: Except to see if you were capable of labor.

A: Yeah, oh. And examined me, and I -- I think I mentioned already, and then he told me I have a enlarged heart, and he called the nurse, and he told her --

Q: Right.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 95

A: -- that I should not go up on the second floor, they should give me a room downstairs, that I -- End of Tape Four, Side B ontectnetonancedjushetnoey for ther biormatberaboutfisotecion USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 96 Beginning Tape Five, Side A

Q: This is a continuation of a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg. This is tape number five, side A.

A: I was over there, and they actually saved my life, because I was still in very bad shape when I came to the sanitorium. But they fed us so good, and the friendship from the Czechs was so great. Used to come for entertainment in the evenings, didn't do nothing except ate, and sit around. They used to send them young girls in school, kids, beautiful kids, beautiful girls, and they came in, they talked to us, and I -- I know how I looked, you know, shaved and everything, and terrible, shaved and everything. They used to tell how beautiful I am, I mean I know the truth, and I knowed why they do it, make me feel good.

Q: Human again.

A: Yeah, they made -- tried to do, they tried to do anything, you know, to make you comfortable, and they did. And til today I ca -- will never forget that they actually -- the Czechs in the sanitorium saved my life. So I stayed over there about four weeks.

But later, you see, go out in the streets, and you saw those Russian soldiers, and -- you know, I -- like I mentioned, I was raised and I had none -- much sympathy for Russians. And I saw how they're dressed, you know, on one foot he had a shoe, on one foot a boot. You know, terrible. And I start to dislike, you know, being over there in Prague. And one time I met a couple boys, they came from Germany, actually. They

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USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 97 did business, you know, they bought up clothing in Germany, they were -- sold it in Czech -- or vice-a versa, I don't know. They made money, that's all. And --

Q: So there was an awful lot of that going on.

A: Oh yeah, sure.

Q: [indecipherable] keeping.

A: Oh yeah.

Q: Yeah. And probably fulfilling a useful role.

A: They have been smart enough to realize that they don't had nobody any more who will look at them. They did the right thing. A la -- they know what they have to do on their own to make money, and they did made it. They ask me -- we met each other, and they ask me from where I am, which camp I was. And I told them everything about it, and that I couldn't go back home to my hometown. And they said -- I told them, I don't like -- that everything is good, clean, food, everything, but I feel of -- fairly all right, but the only thing is I don't like to see Russians next to me [indecipherable]. Told me why don't you go to the American zone, the English zone.

They take care of you, they do this, it's much better, you ge -- if you want, we can try to do business, you know. Th -- you have more freedom. I listened to him, and in Prague were used to be office where the -- they did the deportation to where you came, you know. They organized, and they had buses, you know. And certain days, even they went this direction, this direction. And I came over there to this office, and I say I want to go home. They ask me where, and sh -- I told them Hanover. "Oh," she said,

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 98 "Hanover is bad. We very rare have a bus go to Hanover. A lot of times you could have to wait for it two, three weeks." Then was a German in the office, I don't know what he did, and he says, "Oh, you know what? I drive tomorrow to Stuttgart." And he says, "If you wanted, I can take you to Stuttgart, and Stuttgart you going to be closer to Hanover than in Prague." He says he just meet me here and here.

Q: What was that journey like? What was that journey like with the German?

A: Didn't bothered me, you know, I felt that he's a very polite, decent person. He offered me a -- you know, a ride, he takes me along.

Q: Yes.

A: He know that I don't have money, and I cannot pay.

Q: I just wondered if there was close -- if you talked, and -- and whether --

A: Oh yeah, sure.

Q: -- whether he found out you weren't really from Hanover, or --

A: Oh no, no, just my -- no, he didn't, and he just want to do a favor for me, and I figured -- you know, I appreciated the favor. No, we didn't think about nothing else, except -- and true enough, he told me in the morning, meet me here and there, and he took me with his car. Took a long time, you know, and I think in the evening even, they still had curfew at this time, you was not allowed to travel for private, excepts, you know, military. Finally, in the morning, when -- whatever, he arrived in Stuttgart, and -- and he said this is as far as he go. I -- he let me off. First thing the -- I don't know who told me, this I don't remember even, that I should go over -- where he let USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 99 me off was not far away was a school. The name of the school is Yakob Shula. Yakob School. And he said, "Go over there, over there most people come home from concentration camps, they stay over there until they know where to go, or what." So I went in, this was -- must be a Friday I arrived in Stuttgart, yeah. And I went over there, was a big room, a school, real huge. It was maybe 20 beds, or whatever. They gave you a bed, you know, to sleep in, and they gave you always a slip, across the street was a restaurant where they gave you a slip for breakfast, or dinner, supper, whatever. Oh, this is all right, I mean, I didn't feel nothing wrong in -- you know, about this. I mean, it was great. I went over there overnight, and in the morning, I didn't know Stuttgart, but I went down in the center of the Stuttgart, and looked around. And then I notice a couple boys, and they looked at me, and I looked at them. You know, this was not hard to recognize. Finally we get closer a little bit, I went their way, and they came my way, and finally they ask me in Hebrew, Amahoud? Means if you are Jewish, you know. I told them yeah, I am Jewish. And they said they're Jewish, too. They ask me the story where I was, I told them, you know, in Auschwitz I worked in a coal mine, and I just come from Prague where I was in a sanitorium, and I -- somebody brought me to Stuttgart. Well, they told me, oh -- he says -- yeah, this what they told me first, they ask me where I stay. I told them the Yakob Shula. They say, "Oh, Jewish people don't stay in the Yakob Shula." This is maybe for Germans, other nationality, not Jewish people.

Q: This is where you should go, they told you.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 100

A: And I said, "Very well, where do I go? I mean, I don't have nobody." Oh see, they told me go to Dagaloff. Dagaloff is the outskirt of Stuttgart. This is 90 -- 90 percent villas, and the most beautiful area ever see, you know, landscaping, beautiful. It's on higher ground, Stuttgart is in. They call it castle in the lower part. And they said, "You go over there, it's a sanitorium." And over there where Jewish people go, you know, come from the concentration camp. And I come over there, actually, a beautiful villa, sanitorium, re -- the grounds, everything, gardens and all kinds. Was a sanitorium before the owner -- it was his name, Katt sanitorium. He was a Nazi apparently.

Eisenhower, all the -- the biza -- the troops who were occupied to kick him out from the sanitorium, and let all [indecipherable] camps -- in concentration camp live in the sanitorium. I -- I didn't had -- the eyes kept on looking, and looking, wherever, how beautiful and everything. And same way, they had to -- the German government was forced to supply the best foods. The occupation -- the soldiers used to tell them they don't care from where they get it, but they want for -- for those who camp in camps, the best, nothing less than the best. And this what they had to do. Anyway, I came over there, and then I met Fedderman, he was with me in -- in Buchenwald, in Traylitz. And we have been together where I met him, and so we -- we shared the room together.

Q: You mentioned when you were talking earlier, about your family member who went back to Stadbush.

A: Chadbush.

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 101

Q: Chadbush, your hometown. This is much more recently, but I wonder if you'd briefly tell me, on tape, about that visit.

A: Oh, this was my niece. She's a professor, a doctor professor, she teaches in Rowland University in -- in Florida, Orlando, near Orlando. They live in -- in Winter Park, Florida. And she just made up -- then this was the plan. She's -- normally she goes all over the world from the university, always with conferences, nofa. So she decided, and her husband, she wants to go into the hometown where I was born, this is a -- a daughter of my brother from Israel, she's a Israeli, too. And she ask me if I want to go along, I -- I told her I don't think I f-feeled for it, to do it. She said she still wants to see it. They went along in July. They visited the hometown, and she was very nice greeted. She had a letter to the mayor of Chadbush from the mayor from Winter Park.

Sh-She had it translated, actually. And he really was a -- he looks a very pleasant person, a nice person, the mayor from the town, from Chadbush. He is more or less a younger generation, too. He's -- he's maybe in the 40's, something like this, and he was very, very nice to her, and everything. And she -- she's very excited about it, and they made a video. She send me a copy, the last night we watched it, actually. I was not excited about it, you know. She ask me before if I want to go along, and I told her, I don't think so. When I saw the video, or even before I saw the video, and she told me over the phone, I realized it would tear me apart to step in, you know, where I lost everything, to step in those stones. I don't know, you know, a lot of times, I'm not human, I'm like a piece steel, or a stone, you know, I don't have no feelings for

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 102 nothing. On the other hand, you know, if -- I'm very easy to get emotional, too. I think it's a sickness, or it came in the suffer -- I don't know, it's not normal, you know. I can get emotionally depressed.

Q: Mm-hm.

A: I try my best, I know that I have to help myself. I don't believe in any doctor, or any consultation will help something like this. The only way how I know, is to help myself, and just don't give in, just be strong enough to fight it, to make you forget, even if you don't -- cannot forget, and you will not forget, but talk yourself in that you did forgot, you have to keep on going on living.

Q: Mm-hm. You know, I read -- I -- I think it was just yesterday I was reading different Holocaust materials, and I read that some people, survivors, have asked, strange though it may seem, to be buried at Birkenau. And I wonder if you've heard of that, and whether -- i -- i-it's really -- you spoke earlier of your -- one of the hardest things was coming to terms with having survived.

A: That's right.

Q: But what is the -- what i -- what i -- have you thought about your own plans for where you'd want to be buried, and -- my guess would be it's a --

A: I -- I don't know, everybody can has it's opinion.

Q: Sure.

A: And what -- I will not agree or disagree. I think this is private matter, you know, to do how you feel. But personally, I don't think, you know, it's a great idea, something

USHMM Archives RG-50.549.02*0061 103 like this. It's too much Jewish blood in Birkenau, what it will never get over it, actually. Still boiling, you know, because so many people --

Q: Yes.

A: -- innocent people, kids, men, women, who have been so brutally killed, murdered.

Q: You know -- is there -- thank you.

A: You're welcome.

Q: I just -- if there's anything else that, in this hours of taping that I've left out that's important --

A: I don't know what, I -- I -- this I cannot tell you. This I don't know.

Q: This concludes the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interview with Morris Kornberg.

End of Tape Five, Side A

Conclusion of Interview