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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: boleslaw none brodecki |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0040 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0040_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504542 |
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gender: m |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1921.0 |
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place_of_birth: warsaw |
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country: poland |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: pruzana |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: auschwitz-birkenau,auschwitz,mauthausen,flossenbürg,theresienstadt |
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camp: gräditz-bareza |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
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needs_research: none |
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data_entry: cl |
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accession: 1989.a.0335 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: boleslaw none brodecki |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0040 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0040_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504542 |
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gender: m |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1921.0 |
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place_of_birth: warsaw |
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country: poland |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: pruzana |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: auschwitz-birkenau,auschwitz,mauthausen,flossenbürg,theresienstadt |
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camp: gräditz-bareza |
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non_ss_camp: none |
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region: none |
|
needs_research: none |
|
data_entry: cl |
|
accession: 1989.a.0335 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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<meta charset="utf-8"/> |
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<title>Document</title> |
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<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">TECHNICAL CONVERSATION</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: OK.</sentence><sentence id="4">Uh, the tape is on.</sentence><sentence id="5">Bud, would you give me your name please?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: Sure.</sentence><sentence id="10">My name is Boleslaw Henry Brodecki [NB: American pronunciation], or Brodecki [NB: Polish pronunciation].</sentence><sentence id="11">I was born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="15">Q: What <span class="NPIP">year</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="17">A: March 1921.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="19">Q: Tell me about your family.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="21">A: I had a sister; her name was Roma.</sentence><sentence id="22">And my mother died when I was eight years old; and my father marry her sister, whose name was Helen.</sentence><sentence id="23">She was like a mother to us.</sentence><sentence id="24">And of course, got uncles and cousins and I don't know if you want me to tell about them but there is a whole bunch of them.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="29">Q: What did you father do?.</sentence><sentence id="30">What was his occupation?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="33">A: Well, he was accountant.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="35">Q: When you were growing up, tell me what it was like for you as a child growing up in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>.</sentence><sentence id="36">What kind of <span class="BUILDING">school</span> you went to, what were your friends like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="39">A: Well, I have to go back with my mind.</sentence><sentence id="40">I went to, uh, of course, at first I went to a <span class="BUILDING">public school</span> and in the meantime I went to a <span class="BUILDING">Hebrew school</span>, then I went back to <span class="BUILDING">public school</span>, then I went to we called <span class="BUILDING">gymnasium</span>, which is a <span class="BUILDING">high school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="41">And the <span class="BUILDING">school</span> I went was actually a <span class="BUILDING">Catholic school</span>, but we had...uh...uh... The ones who are Jewish faith had a Jewish teacher; because all <span class="BUILDING">high schools</span> have a religion.</sentence><sentence id="42">They were teaching a religion to kids.</sentence><sentence id="43">And if you were Jewish in a <span class="BUILDING">Catholic school</span>, then a Rabbi were...a teacher was coming.</sentence><sentence id="44">And I don't know if it was an hour in a week or two or three hours, he was teaching Jewish history and so on.</sentence><sentence id="45">And uh after I graduate, I supposed to go <span class="BUILDING">college</span>.</sentence><sentence id="46">But the war started and it never materialize.</sentence><sentence id="47">My sister, she graduated from <span class="BUILDING">high school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="48">Because she didn't ask me about it; and then she was studying <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">piano</span>.</sentence><sentence id="49">And...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="61">Q: What did you like to do as a child?</sentence><sentence id="62">Did you have favorite games, favorite sports?</sentence><sentence id="63">What did you do?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: Oh, yeah.</sentence><sentence id="68">Yes.</sentence><sentence id="69">Sport was bicycle racing and playing hockey on ice.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="79">Q: You played hockey?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="81">A: Yeah.</sentence><sentence id="82">Not hookey, hockey. (</sentence><sentence id="83">Laughing) Now I play hookey. (</sentence><sentence id="84">Laughing)</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="89">Q: Were there...tell me about the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">teams</span>.</sentence><sentence id="90">Were they all Jewish teams, or were...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="93">A: There were mixed, and one team I was playing was Maccabee-- that was an organization-- and, of course, we were junior hockey players.</sentence><sentence id="94">And so we were usually playing late, like at 10 o'clock at night; because those are public skating and you couldn't get in after they closed.</sentence><sentence id="95">And during the day, we kind of instructing other people in skating as club members.</sentence><sentence id="96">We just go around with them and show them how to skate.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="101">Q: What about the holidays, the Jewish holidays?</sentence><sentence id="102">Did you celebrate those at <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, at <span class="BUILDING">school</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="105">A: Oh, yeah.</sentence><sentence id="106">Of course, we celebrate holidays.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="109">Q: Did the family all come?</sentence><sentence id="110">How...were those big affairs?</sentence><sentence id="111">Were they small?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="115">A: Well, I am a Zionist, you know.</sentence><sentence id="116">We got together and on the holidays, we just went to <span class="BUILDING">synagogues</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="119">Q: Was your family very traditional or pretty modern?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="121">A: We were, uh, we were more religious on the holidays than on a daily basis.</sentence><sentence id="122">We were not orthodox you see, but the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> was kosher.</sentence><sentence id="123">If anybody wanted to eat something that wasn't kosher, he better not bring it <span class="BUILDING">home</span>, you know.</sentence><sentence id="124">And there was like separate <span class="NPIP">place</span> for milachtig [NB: milchig; Yidd: dairy foods] (laughing) and fleishig [Yidd: meat], you know.</sentence><sentence id="125">But other than that, it was... While we were away from <span class="BUILDING">home</span> it was a little different.</sentence><sentence id="126">Some people stick with it, and some people might don't.</sentence><sentence id="127">I mean, there's no use fooling from that.(Laughing)</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="136">Q: What was being a Jewish boy in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span> in those years?</sentence><sentence id="137">Was your <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, for instance, in the Jewish quarter of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="140">A: In a way, yes.</sentence><sentence id="141">There was more or less concentration of...they were mixed...but I think it was a lot of Jews in the <span class="REGION">area</span>, you know, this was kind of far.</sentence><sentence id="142">Wasn't a trick to just to Jewish, but there was a majority of Jews.</sentence><sentence id="143">It was called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Jewish neighborhood</span>.</sentence><sentence id="144"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Neighborhood</span> was kind of famous.</sentence><sentence id="145">I don't know if you ever heard of Zamenhof who invented Esperanto.</sentence><sentence id="146">My father told me one time in his younger years he was sharing a <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> with him, and, uh, uh, they were just in the general area of this the <span class="DLF">street</span> was renamed to the name of Zamenhof.</sentence><sentence id="147">My father family was living in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pavia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="148">I think it was in the same <span class="BUILDING">house</span> where Benjamin Meed was living, I think.</sentence><sentence id="149">So you and Benjamin Meed have known each other.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="166">Q: So you and Benjamin Meed have known each other.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="168">A: No, we don't know each other.</sentence><sentence id="169">We don't.</sentence><sentence id="170">That was too long ago.</sentence><sentence id="171">I can't recall anything like that, but there was a funny incident.</sentence><sentence id="172">We went to--I don't know if you want to listen to that-- we went to the Holocaust survivor's gather in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Washington</span>.</sentence><sentence id="173">And one time, they had that meeting for the Warsaw Jews, which I am from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>; and Benjamin meet me.</sentence><sentence id="174">His wife--I think, Vladka-- somebody was sitting beside him or Vladka, and there was another lady sitting there.</sentence><sentence id="175">And I went and I asked...I know said....what you were living and I asked if she knew any of my family and she told me that there was a big <span class="BUILDING">apartment house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="176">She didn't know everybody or she didn't remember everybody.</sentence><sentence id="177">They had some kind of organization dispute and they were very nervous.</sentence><sentence id="178">I walked away.</sentence><sentence id="179">I put my name...they got <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">information desk</span> and they were taking names and different information regarding your relatives you never find on a computer.</sentence><sentence id="180">So I tell them everything I know and who I be looking for, and a few days later I had a letter in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Richmond</span> from a lady in Polish and in English.</sentence><sentence id="181">And she was my cousin.</sentence><sentence id="182">I mean, my father's sister's daughter.</sentence><sentence id="183">And what happened, after we got together...you know, she is deaf.</sentence><sentence id="184">I can hardly talk with her because I don't know what she is talking about.</sentence><sentence id="185">You just can't communicate.</sentence><sentence id="186">And she was sitting a couple of seats from Benjamin Meed when I was asking Vladka, but she could hear me and I couldn't hear.</sentence><sentence id="187">If I have any...you know, some people were walking around with a big sign "I am from so and so, I am looking for relatives."</sentence><sentence id="188">And they were looking kind of funny.</sentence><sentence id="189">I said I should have done this same thing.</sentence><sentence id="190">Hang a sign on me so she could hear what I say, she would recognize me.</sentence><sentence id="191">You don't recognize people 40 years later.</sentence><sentence id="192">You know, is a different set of wrinkles and (laughing) and you don't.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="218">Q: So you have found a long lost cousin!</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="220">A: Yes.</sentence><sentence id="221">I find a...and somehow they organize a meeting in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Los Angeles</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Barbic</span>, <span class="REGION">California</span>.</sentence><sentence id="222">That is where we went on the Fantasy show and we were in invited to a friend of ours to visit.</sentence><sentence id="223">She says she got tickets for the show and her husband, they are getting plans....</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="228">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="229">Let's pull it back.</sentence><sentence id="230">Let's pull it back.</sentence><sentence id="231">That's interesting, so you have really come full circle.</sentence><sentence id="232">Alright, so you have met some of the family.</sentence><sentence id="233">Let's go back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span> and tell me..you were now in the <span class="BUILDING">gymnasium</span>.</sentence><sentence id="234">What happened after the <span class="BUILDING">gymnasium</span> years to you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="242">When did the Germans come and how old were you?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="243">A: Well, I was just about 17.</sentence><sentence id="244">And, of course, you know the day the war started, I think it was 5th of September, and all of a sudden so quick you see <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span> in the <span class="DLF">air</span> and you see, you know, columns of smoke and detonations from bombs and everybody in those days were talking about gas, and everybody has a gas mask, and there was a big confusion and it was getting worse cause day by day because the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> were being destroyed and you couldn't even for a couple of weeks you couldn't even tell the <span class="DLF">streets</span> because if you walk you tell by landmarks, you know, where you are going.</sentence><sentence id="245">Here everything you live in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> all your life,</sentence><sentence id="247">you don't know you are at because there is nothing to indicate and those were... everybody had a lot of worries...no use talking about people laying dead on the <span class="DLF">street</span>, and running back and forth, and when they are running with dead children in their hands and we have another worry.</sentence><sentence id="248">We know that the Nazis were coming, so that was even worse than for average person because we knew that we gonna be pointed out, and there was about almost 30 days of bombardment and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span> was devastated.</sentence><sentence id="249">And we were running from <span class="BUILDING">shelter</span> to <span class="BUILDING">shelters</span>.</sentence><sentence id="250">Funny thing, we were living on the <span class="INT_SPACE">third floor</span>.</sentence><sentence id="251">Now our <span class="INT_SPACE">apartment</span> was not destroyed but we kept running back and forth because people wouldn't stay on the <span class="INT_SPACE">top floor</span>.</sentence><sentence id="252">Everybody was trying to stay under big <span class="BUILDING">building</span> <span class="NPIP">somewhere</span>.</sentence><sentence id="253">And there is quite a number of people got buried there, because <span class="BUILDING">building</span> collapsed.</sentence><sentence id="254">I see a lot of, like you take a tall <span class="BUILDING">church</span>.</sentence><sentence id="255">And <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span> came.</sentence><sentence id="256">There was an alarm, you know.</sentence><sentence id="257">Everybody heard; and we came out and the <span class="BUILDING">church</span> was gone.</sentence><sentence id="258">What happened, a lot of these <span class="NPIP">places</span> didn't use steel like they use in the <span class="BUILDING">buildings</span> today, and they had the <span class="INT_SPACE">basement</span> several floors down.</sentence><sentence id="259">So one gets hit, just crumbles right into the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="260">And it is just a devastating thing.</sentence><sentence id="261">It is bad.</sentence><sentence id="262">The whole thing...you come back, it is not there.</sentence><sentence id="263">I mean, (laughing) it just packed in the <span class="INT_SPACE">underground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="264">Well, uh I can talk about it.</sentence><sentence id="265">I don't know if you want me past that point.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="291">Q: Let's talk about what happened to you at this point.</sentence><sentence id="292">What happened to you when the Germans actually occupied <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="295">A: Well, they were picking up Jews and nobodies.</sentence><sentence id="296">Things just started and Germans really couldn't recognize.</sentence><sentence id="297">They ask you, "Are you a Jew?"</sentence><sentence id="298">You know, you had to tell them.</sentence><sentence id="299">And we escaped from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>.</sentence><sentence id="300">What happened, my sister had a fiance.</sentence><sentence id="301">He was from the part of <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> where the Russians came in.</sentence><sentence id="302">Where he was staying in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span>, he was going to <span class="BUILDING">Warsaw Polytechnic</span>--which is just like here, a <span class="BUILDING">university</span> or something.</sentence><sentence id="303">And they supposed to go with each other when he went back on his vacation and summer.</sentence><sentence id="304">You know <span class="BUILDING">college</span> started in September, he didn't get back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span> a year.</sentence><sentence id="305">So after the war, we got a note.</sentence><sentence id="306">You know, people were smuggling each other through the <span class="DLF">border</span> back and forth; and there was not the regular mail.</sentence><sentence id="307">And somebody brought a note.</sentence><sentence id="308">He asked my sister to go, now he asked the whole family to come over there.</sentence><sentence id="309">From two evils, the Russians were better than the Germans at that particular time.</sentence><sentence id="310">So my father decided that he lived in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> all his life and he's not gonna leave.</sentence><sentence id="311">He wants the kids to stay together.</sentence><sentence id="312">So we went to a <span class="BUILDING">train station</span>.</sentence><sentence id="313">And while we were saying goodbye to our father, we were separated by some German, push around; and we got up on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">freight train</span> and we went toward <span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="314">And we were told if we got caught... Only that trip can make a two hours story.</sentence><sentence id="315">But really, we were told if we caught on the <span class="REGION">German side</span>, tell them we came from the <span class="REGION">Russian side</span> so they throw you back on the <span class="REGION">Russian side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="316">If you get caught on the <span class="REGION">Russian side</span>, tell them you are going to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> so they chase you back.</sentence><sentence id="317">You know, just always tell them the opposite.</sentence><sentence id="318">And we had the nightman night, because we finally got on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> in a dark where was traveling some Christian people.</sentence><sentence id="319">They didn't know we were Jewish, they were talking about "Oh, the Jewish being murdered."</sentence><sentence id="320">One lady was telling them, "Hey, the Germans come and they shoot the whole Jewish family...shoot the Jewish."</sentence><sentence id="321">And that was a terrible conversation going on, and we were scared.</sentence><sentence id="322">Finally we went up in a little <span class="BUILDING">country place</span> close to the <span class="DLF">border</span> in order to</sentence><sentence id="324">cross, said the, uh, I guess you can call him a farmer.</sentence><sentence id="325">His name was Tom, and we told him what we want to do and he say he know some smugglers and he took us in and put us in the <span class="BUILDING">barn</span> and he was scared also, but we gave him some money something.</sentence><sentence id="326">So finally someday he says he is going to take us toward the <span class="DLF">border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="327">So they put me in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, cover me with straw; and my sister and another lady and the driver of the horse and <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>.</sentence><sentence id="328">And they were worrying why Sunday, because people were going to <span class="BUILDING">Church</span>.</sentence><sentence id="329">And so we mix with the <span class="BUILDING">church</span> crowd.</sentence><sentence id="330">We came to the <span class="DLF">border</span> and something didn't work out, we had to go back.</sentence><sentence id="331">Then we made the second trip.</sentence><sentence id="332">And finally two smuggler came and took us and put us over there in the <span class="BUILDING">barn</span>.</sentence><sentence id="333">And in the middle of the night they came and wanted to rape the women.</sentence><sentence id="334">So my sister and the other girl was together, and they told them to lay on the top of them.</sentence><sentence id="335">But they were not...they give up, they didn't rape them.</sentence><sentence id="336">Then they were trying to get money; because my sister sick and if you she got rings.</sentence><sentence id="337">You know, we give them all we had.</sentence><sentence id="338">And then they was smuggling sugar, so while we were working with them and the Russian said they got long bags with sugar.</sentence><sentence id="339">You know <span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span> knows for shortages.</sentence><sentence id="340">And we came to a little <span class="ENV_FEATURES">stream</span> and they were wearing the high boots; and they took us back in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carriage</span> on the other <span class="NPIP">side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="341">And they told us again, if you see any Russians you tell them that you are going to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> and they chase you back, you know.</sentence><sentence id="342">And we separated.</sentence><sentence id="343">Then we came to...I forgot what the <span class="NPIP">place</span> was--was some kind of <span class="BUILDING">bus station</span> or <span class="BUILDING">train station</span>.</sentence><sentence id="344">And everybody was sleeping on the <span class="INT_SPACE">floor</span>, because people really didn't have a <span class="BUILDING">home</span> or anything.</sentence><sentence id="345">Everybody was wandering around.</sentence><sentence id="346">And I lay down right on the <span class="INT_SPACE">floor</span> I went to sleep.</sentence><sentence id="347">And...and somehow we travel, and we found ourself in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pruzhany</span> [Pol: Pru_ana]--no, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.133" long="23.667">Brest-Litovsk</span>.</sentence><sentence id="348">That was the first stop.</sentence><sentence id="349">And we were sitting at the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span>, and talking about the war and everything with some of my sister's friends.</sentence><sentence id="350">And then we continue on to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pru_ana</span> which was closer to the <span class="DLF">border</span> uh where my brother-in-law was.</sentence><sentence id="351">So my sister got mad because the Russians came up with the...they call it paragraph 11, which you are...I don't know how to translate it.</sentence><sentence id="352">I guess, a refugee.</sentence><sentence id="353">You right in the same <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>, but being you came from the <span class="REGION">German side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="354">So they give you a passport, paragraph 11, and we stayed there.</sentence><sentence id="355">You cannot live in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="356">On my...1 know 100 kilometers from the <span class="DLF">border</span>, you cannot get cross; and there was about 50.And I think it said that you shouldn't live in a city of 100,000 population, some kind of a restriction.</sentence><sentence id="357">So I didn't like that.</sentence><sentence id="358">I say if I have to go...I say if I have to go, a 100.</sentence><sentence id="359">I was 17 and I was with my sister; and they tell me to leave.</sentence><sentence id="360">Go 100.</sentence><sentence id="361">Where do I go?</sentence><sentence id="362">So I went back to the <span class="BUILDING">Police station</span>, and I tell them I am not...1 want to go back to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="363">And that was terrible.</sentence><sentence id="364">And the police chief told me that I was a 10 code or something you know; and called me all kind of names and told the guys to arrest me.</sentence><sentence id="365">I jumped out of the <span class="DLF">window</span> and I ran and I hid.</sentence><sentence id="366">And my brother-in-law's aunt was a doctor and she got a lot of pull with the Russians.</sentence><sentence id="367">And her daughter was living in <span class="COUNTRY">France</span> during the... Before the war they sent a lot of... And she took a bunch of that stuff to the police chief and somebody else, and they give her my passport back.</sentence><sentence id="368">She told them I was a kid, and I didn't know what I was doing; and I was hiding in the <span class="INT_SPACE">attic</span> in the cold.</sentence><sentence id="369">And the police chief said he let me go, but he don't want to ever come face to face with me because he gonna arrest me.</sentence><sentence id="370">So in the middle of night I was smuggled out of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> and I was recommended to some friends of friends which were living in another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> which was beyond 100 kilometers from the <span class="DLF">border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="371">Then I had a terrible trip.</sentence><sentence id="372">We went and got this...they call it a <span class="BUILDING">Baalegole</span>.</sentence><sentence id="373">That is a Jewish fellow who has a horse and</sentence><sentence id="375"><span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, and that's the way he makes... And he got a couple of goats in the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>.</sentence><sentence id="376">They were very primitive.</sentence><sentence id="377">The goat was in the <span class="BUILDING">house</span>, and the kids and everybody; and I was sitting on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span> all night.</sentence><sentence id="378">And the only thing we were trying to get some food.</sentence><sentence id="379">You probably make it into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> 30 minutes we go all night with a horse and <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, so they try to get me food.</sentence><sentence id="380">The only thing we could get was leberwurst [NB: liverwurst].</sentence><sentence id="381">I don't like leberwurst.</sentence><sentence id="382">And we finally came to that little <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Roznau</span>.</sentence><sentence id="383">Like it was just day, and there was a lot of Jewish farmers over there.</sentence><sentence id="384">And this guy was working behind a bunch of cows and had a big... | was from a big <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>, and I never seen it.</sentence><sentence id="385">And he was collecting cow manure, you know, for fertilizing and I arrived in that little <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="386">And L..yah, my sister came too, I think.</sentence><sentence id="387">You know, it is kind of... My sister came, and then she went back because she had to marry...after you marry somebody then like he become citizen.</sentence><sentence id="388">So after she marry my brother-in-law, she could stay.</sentence><sentence id="389">I don't know, I don't remember if she came the first trip.</sentence><sentence id="390">I know she came...maybe she came visiting for a few days; but I remember she coming in, because in the <span class="NPIP">place</span> where we were staying there were no <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">beds</span>.</sentence><sentence id="391">There was one thing right across the <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> and everybody was sleeping on it. (</sentence><sentence id="392">Laughing) The whole family.</sentence><sentence id="393">And I remember getting up in the morning, because you had the cows, you know.</sentence><sentence id="394">You know, people don't talk about Jewish farmers alot.</sentence><sentence id="395">Everybody imagine they're business people.</sentence><sentence id="396">I have <span class="BUILDING">electronic shop</span>.</sentence><sentence id="397">You know, I repairs.</sentence><sentence id="398">And everybody asks me if I own a <span class="BUILDING">grocery shop</span>.</sentence><sentence id="399">So I don't know why. (</sentence><sentence id="400">Laughing) Just a stereotype.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="511">Q: So you are in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>, and you're living there now?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="513">A: Uh huh.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="515">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="516">How long did you stay there?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="519">A: Well, I couldn't tell you exact times, but you know with the Germans kept going toward <span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span> one more time.</sentence><sentence id="520">And that was in "41, when they started a new campaign going toward Russian.</sentence><sentence id="521">A couple of days... Coincidental, a couple of days before that, there was a draft board.</sentence><sentence id="522">They were drafting soldiers for the Russian army.</sentence><sentence id="523">Being I was on the <span class="REGION">Russian side</span>, we had to go to a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">draft board</span>.</sentence><sentence id="524">Of course, it was real strange because we were naked and most of the people were women, you know.</sentence><sentence id="525">And, uh, when they were measuring you and this and that, and they asked me what kind of education I got, I say I got <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> and I got electronics.</sentence><sentence id="526">And she said you be a lieutenant in the Russian army.</sentence><sentence id="527">And I think that was Friday or something or Thursday.</sentence><sentence id="528">Sunday morning, somebody knock on the <span class="DLF">door</span>, all the people who got drafted and say, "We got a meeting in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="529">Move your tail."</sentence><sentence id="530">We didn't know anything would happen.</sentence><sentence id="531">We get in the <span class="BUILDING">movie theatre</span>, the draftees.</sentence><sentence id="532">And this Russian general, whatever, come out and said that the German pig stuck a... What do you call?</sentence><sentence id="533">A snout in the Soviet...in the <span class="DLF">Russian garden</span>.</sentence><sentence id="534">That mean they attack the Russian.</sentence><sentence id="535">And that was Saturday night when this started; and that was Sunday morning.</sentence><sentence id="536">And would you believe while we were at the <span class="BUILDING">movie theatre</span>, there were <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span> coming and machine guns; and they start already.</sentence><sentence id="537">I was used to air raids at the time, but it was a terrible panic.</sentence><sentence id="538">And that was Sunday.</sentence><sentence id="539">And Monday, Russian...<span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German tanks</span> were coming in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>.</sentence><sentence id="540">You didn't even</sentence><sentence id="542">have time to run.</sentence><sentence id="543">So I stayed there for a little while, and then I went back.</sentence><sentence id="544">Because my sister and my brother-in-law were still in Pru_ana.</sentence><sentence id="545">So I hitchhike back on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German truck</span>; and I came back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pru_ana</span> and then they turn it into a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="575">Q: Tell me about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="577">A: Well, (sigh) food was getting short, and things like that.</sentence><sentence id="578">And I...we were beat.</sentence><sentence id="579">They were taking the young people everyday to work <span class="NPIP">outside</span> the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence><sentence id="580">We knew that one day will come when they gonna take us out of there.</sentence><sentence id="581">And they...uh, food started getting rationed.</sentence><sentence id="582">There was a lot of harassment; even by the police, you know.</sentence><sentence id="583">And a couple of times, I got arrested and my brother-in-law got arrested.</sentence><sentence id="584">One day, we were in <span class="DLF">line</span> for food.</sentence><sentence id="585">And then we see a pregnant lady.</sentence><sentence id="586">So my brother-in-law stand up for her.</sentence><sentence id="587">So policeman got after him, so I stand up for him.</sentence><sentence id="588">And there was another guy with us, he got in.</sentence><sentence id="589">The police was Jewish, but they working at the time for... So they drag all of us (laughing) to <span class="BUILDING">jail</span>.</sentence><sentence id="590">And a friend of ours, he wear glasses, you see.</sentence><sentence id="591">You couldn't get glasses.</sentence><sentence id="592">Anytime was anything dangerous, a German could slap you in the face anytime.</sentence><sentence id="593">So first thing, he was putting away his glasses, you know.</sentence><sentence id="594">So he look at the police chief; but without the glasses, he just like that.</sentence><sentence id="595">Said...the police chief said, "What are you making eyes at me?"</sentence><sentence id="596">So he says, (laughing) "I wouldn't make eyes at you if you had something on your nose."</sentence><sentence id="597">So he slapped him.</sentence><sentence id="598">He put them away.</sentence><sentence id="599">He wasn't actually arrested.</sentence><sentence id="600">He came around, and he got in the dispute you see.</sentence><sentence id="601">How humanly were the things that put you away for anything, you know.</sentence><sentence id="602">We stayed there, and we were let out.</sentence><sentence id="603">And eventually, one morning, they tell everybody come to the <span class="BUILDING">market place</span>, you know.</sentence><sentence id="604">And, of course, just like Germans did this type picking out, the people didn't want to go.</sentence><sentence id="605">Like he says, "Anybody sick, anybody's crazy or nuts, shot to death."</sentence><sentence id="606">And they put us on <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>.</sentence><sentence id="607">And at that time, we already knew about <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span>" and those <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">death camps</span> where you go for sure.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="639">Q: How did you know?</sentence><sentence id="640">This is 1941?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="643">A: Yeah, there were rumors.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="645">Q: Already in 1941?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="647">A: Yah, I think this was between 1941 or 1942.</sentence><sentence id="648">There were rumors.</sentence><sentence id="649">We were on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">freight trains</span>; and we didn't have an idea where we were going.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="653">Q: Describe that trip.</sentence><sentence id="654">What was it like inside that <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span>?</sentence><sentence id="655">What kind of a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> was it?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="659">A: Oh, we were [in a] <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">freight train</span>.</sentence><sentence id="660">And when they put us in...first we were in a horse and <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>; and in the snow, too.</sentence><sentence id="661">We come to some <span class="NPIP">place</span> where the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>--I am not familiar with the <span class="REGION">area</span>--and we were loaded in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">freight trains</span>.</sentence><sentence id="662">The <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cars</span>, that's what's called...<span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">freight cars</span>, " <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span> was finished in July 1942.</sentence><sentence id="664">were filled.</sentence><sentence id="665">I mean, there was just about <span class="INT_SPACE">standing room</span> on the <span class="NPIP">inside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="666">My sister was with a little baby.</sentence><sentence id="667">There was some Russians; but they somehow, they escaped during the night.</sentence><sentence id="668">They took towels and they wrapped around the head, so they don't bump their head.</sentence><sentence id="669">And through a little <span class="DLF">opening</span>, somehow, all of them get out.</sentence><sentence id="670">And the snow.</sentence><sentence id="671">They were young guys.</sentence><sentence id="672">But we were like... everybody was with a family.</sentence><sentence id="673">And, really, it was no <span class="NPIP">place</span> to go; because there was so much anti-Semitism there.</sentence><sentence id="674">Anybody point out a Jew out, you know.</sentence><sentence id="675">There was some people hidden by friends, but you didn't have a prayer if you ran away.</sentence><sentence id="676">Some people did; but then you had to play like you...not Jewish, you know.</sentence><sentence id="677">And it was kind of hopeless with snow on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="678">Cold, no food.</sentence><sentence id="679">There was...to escape was a hopeless thing.</sentence><sentence id="680">And many instances, there was helplessness... was really no <span class="NPIP">where</span> to go.</sentence><sentence id="681">Maybe in the summer was better.</sentence><sentence id="682">There was somehow a thing when we were getting out of there, I think it was January or something.</sentence><sentence id="683">That was wintertime.</sentence><sentence id="684">So on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> with no food, everybody got some bread or something in a package, you know.</sentence><sentence id="685">But that was in March.</sentence><sentence id="686">I don't... forgot how long we remained in <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transit</span>.</sentence><sentence id="687">And people practically dying--old people, children.</sentence><sentence id="688">They were doing it on themselves.</sentence><sentence id="689">And then everything...we developed this terrible thirst.</sentence><sentence id="690">And when the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> stopped in different <span class="NPIP">places</span>... Every time was an air raid, you know, whistles came off and the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> stopped; and some Germans, some Polacks came to the <span class="DLF">window</span>.</sentence><sentence id="691">And we said, "Water!</sentence><sentence id="692">Water!</sentence><sentence id="693">Water!"</sentence><sentence id="694">He said got a watch or something, so we give him a watch for a little dirty water.</sentence><sentence id="695">Didn't have water.</sentence><sentence id="696">They took it from the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">locomotive</span> or something...dirty water or some... So they were getting money, rings... But when you are thirsty and dehydrated, you give anything.</sentence><sentence id="697">I mean, you really...people really don't know that thirst is even worse than hunger.</sentence><sentence id="698">You know what I mean.</sentence><sentence id="699">Oh, it's devastating when you're thirsty.</sentence><sentence id="700">And they was giving away rings and anything, just for water; and a lot of time, they took it and didn't bring you water.</sentence><sentence id="701">Well, eventually we came to a <span class="NPIP">place</span> which was laid from all directions with spotlights.</sentence><sentence id="702">And we were not used to it, because due to air raids, you live in the darkness.</sentence><sentence id="703">While we were still in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Pru_ana</span>, we had during the night English or American...<span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German planes</span> going throughout the night.</sentence><sentence id="704">No, no...they was not American then.</sentence><sentence id="705">They were <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German planes</span>.</sentence><sentence id="706">They were going towards <span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span> to bomb.</sentence><sentence id="707">And during the night, you heard that noise...(humming) all the time.</sentence><sentence id="708">And this... Course, everything was dark.</sentence><sentence id="709"><span class="DLF">Windows</span> were...they had that tape across <span class="DLF">windows</span> so they don't break.</sentence><sentence id="710">That was everyday picture you see.</sentence><sentence id="711">When we came and see that little <span class="NPIP">place</span>, you know, and we didn't know what happened.</sentence><sentence id="712">We knew that it is the end of the <span class="DLF">road</span>.</sentence><sentence id="713">We were warned we were going there right away.</sentence><sentence id="714">And I think you call trestles; when the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> stopped, and we start to fall, like from that <span class="DLF">ceiling</span> to the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="715">Would you believe people were... They said, "Raus!</sentence><sentence id="716">Raus!Raus!"</sentence><sentence id="717">And a lot of people fall out.</sentence><sentence id="718">And the one who were gone were walking on the people who fell out, you know.</sentence><sentence id="719">And this "Andreten!" [</sentence><sentence id="720">Ger: "Line up!"]...you know: "Left, right, left, right."</sentence><sentence id="721">And we were surrounded by Germans with sticks.</sentence><sentence id="722">And there was uh, you know, a little contrast; because you know how neat the Germans are.</sentence><sentence id="723">How they shine the shoes and everything.</sentence><sentence id="724">They stayed there.</sentence><sentence id="725">And...and...and they started chasing us and beating us, and...And go in different <span class="DLF">lines</span>.</sentence><sentence id="726">And I got hit, because I got a crazy idea.</sentence><sentence id="727">I got a bag with something. [</sentence><sentence id="728">Oh, my friend and I took a long string.</sentence><sentence id="729">I pass by and all of a sudden a little thing comes by. (</sentence><sentence id="730">ph)] And so he said, "Come back, come back."</sentence><sentence id="731">Hit me with the stick.(Laughing) Then they were throwing children.</sentence><sentence id="732">And it was a devastating scene.</sentence><sentence id="733">You</sentence><sentence id="735">wouldn't believe the inhumanities.</sentence><sentence id="736">They were knocking people down, hitting with the stick, and finishing them off, and... And tearing kids from women, and throwing them in the <span class="DLF">air</span>.</sentence><sentence id="737">And the screams and the cries, that was just devastating.</sentence><sentence id="738">I have a bottle of cologne water.</sentence><sentence id="739">Going back in my mind, Russians used to drink that.</sentence><sentence id="740">Russians are big alcoholic.</sentence><sentence id="741">They used to come to a <span class="BUILDING">barber shop</span> and drink half the after-shave lotion, the tonic.</sentence><sentence id="742">I see them like poison themselves with it.</sentence><sentence id="743">So what do I have to lose?</sentence><sentence id="744">I was so... It's alcohol.</sentence><sentence id="745">So I drink the cologne.</sentence><sentence id="746">They should put that in there for drink; because when you burp, it smells good.(Laughing) Really!</sentence><sentence id="747">That is the truth.</sentence><sentence id="748">And a German came up to me.</sentence><sentence id="749">And I was kind of a little drunk; and he smelled.</sentence><sentence id="750">He says, "Those Asians!"</sentence><sentence id="751">You know, like "Ignorants!,"</sentence><sentence id="752">like "Drinking cologne!,"</sentence><sentence id="753">you know.</sentence><sentence id="754">And we were in <span class="DLF">line</span>.</sentence><sentence id="755">And they just take, of course, the ones who didn't make it.</sentence><sentence id="756">To give you a little idea, we were going in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transports</span> like a cow.</sentence><sentence id="757">There was 10,000 people came out of the particular <span class="REGION">area</span>, and this particular <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transport</span> going to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>.</sentence><sentence id="758">And I think, in a few days, we were only nine hundred.</sentence><sentence id="759">So we didn't know really what was happening to the others, you know.</sentence><sentence id="760">Nobody come and give you a daily report.</sentence><sentence id="761">You go this way, they go that way.</sentence><sentence id="762">You don't know anything.</sentence><sentence id="763">And why in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>, then being transferred to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="764">We felt that smell in the <span class="DLF">air</span>, and they said that was <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>.</sentence><sentence id="765">And they were experimenting with people.</sentence><sentence id="766">Like in the morning it's called the "antret" [Ger: lining up].</sentence><sentence id="767">They count the prisoners in the morning, you know.</sentence><sentence id="768">And a lot of time, two or three [SS] walking, and they looked somebody in the face: "Out!"</sentence><sentence id="769">Put them on the side. "</sentence><sentence id="770">Out!"</sentence><sentence id="771">You didn't know where the people were going.</sentence><sentence id="772">And they were taking them for experiments in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="773">Of course, there was a bunch of people laying down who die in the night or something on the side.</sentence><sentence id="774">And the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>.</sentence><sentence id="775">You see these <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>...pulled people.</sentence><sentence id="776">And the legs stick out here, and the head and a head.</sentence><sentence id="777">And they just thrown some on; they were naked, they were in prison outfits.</sentence><sentence id="778">And uh can you imagine...we went to <span class="BUILDING">work</span>, we came back was a band playing.</sentence><sentence id="779">A first class band.</sentence><sentence id="780">They were people...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="911">Q: Iam sorry.</sentence><sentence id="912">There was what?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="915">A: A band.</sentence><sentence id="916">You know, that <span class="DLF">gate</span> "Arbeit Macht das Leben Frei" [Ger: "Work Makes the Living Free"] You probably seen it in pictures.</sentence><sentence id="917">We marched through it.</sentence><sentence id="918">And on the right <span class="NPIP">side</span>, there was a big band playing marches and they were all....musicians from all over Europe.</sentence><sentence id="919">I mean, they were excellent.</sentence><sentence id="920">They were playing marches.</sentence><sentence id="921">And on the right side...on the left side--I don't know if everytime--there were people laying shot to death, bleeding...And they said, "They were trying to escape.</sentence><sentence id="922">See what happened to them?"</sentence><sentence id="923">And the day we came, there was a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span> and a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">chair</span>.</sentence><sentence id="924">And on top of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">chair</span>, there was a woman with her hands tied, bumps on the head.</sentence><sentence id="925">Oh, she was massacred!</sentence><sentence id="926">And there was a sign that her son escaped from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="927">And that was not for the Jews, because Jews don't leave any families.</sentence><sentence id="928">They were for the <span class="BUILDING">Polacks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="929">There is a misconception.</sentence><sentence id="930">They think everybody in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> was Jewish.</sentence><sentence id="931">There was all nationalities.</sentence><sentence id="932">And they said her son escaped from the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>. "</sentence><sentence id="933">And if you escape, that is what is going to happen to your mother."</sentence><sentence id="934">You see, if she was there.</sentence><sentence id="935">On the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span>, on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">chair</span>, lot of blood, broken up with bumps... Really fixed up for the show, you know.</sentence><sentence id="936">And when you march, they tell you to look to the left; and there were people laying shot.</sentence><sentence id="937">They say they tried to escape, and a lot of times it wasn't true.</sentence><sentence id="940">0 mean, we were working one time in there...one time in...they call it a...werkhalle [Ger: "workshop"].</sentence><sentence id="941"><span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">Train</span> comes through; and there was rails, you know, for <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span>.</sentence><sentence id="942">And those guys were walking back and forth; and a lot of time they took a stub from cigarette and throw it.</sentence><sentence id="943">We pick it up.</sentence><sentence id="944">So the guy threw the cigarettes on this side of the rails, so the prisoner wouldn't go.</sentence><sentence id="945">He said, "Go ahead and pick it up."</sentence><sentence id="946">So he go pick it up.</sentence><sentence id="947">And he reported the guy was trying to escape and they had another trick.</sentence><sentence id="948">If we were marching to work...a lot of times we were marching at night...somewhere on the <span class="DLF">highway</span> to a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, suddenly somebody sneaked out and escape.</sentence><sentence id="949">A lot of times was organized, like might been in cahoots with one of the guards.</sentence><sentence id="950">I was asked a couple of time to escape.</sentence><sentence id="951">They gonna help me.</sentence><sentence id="952">So what they did...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="994">Q: Don't leave that just yet.</sentence><sentence id="995">You said you were asked by a couple of people to help organize an escape?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="998">A: No, to escape.</sentence><sentence id="999">I didn't trust them.</sentence><sentence id="1000">I didn't trust them.</sentence><sentence id="1001">One of them was true.</sentence><sentence id="1002">Because after the war, I found out that he became a police chief in a certain <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> which I can't recall it.</sentence><sentence id="1003">He was always working with the <span class="INT_SPACE">underground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1004">He was a Polack.</sentence><sentence id="1005">But we were fooled and cheated so many times, I just didn't trust him.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1014">Q: Go ahead.</sentence><sentence id="1015">I'm sorry.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1018">A: Anyway, somebody, like I said, escape from the column; well, they might take 10 or 15 people and shoot them to death and make out a report that "16 people were trying to escape.</sentence><sentence id="1019">One made it, and I shot 15," you know.</sentence><sentence id="1020">Big hero.</sentence><sentence id="1021">So, (laughing) that's they way they were protecting themselves sometimes.</sentence><sentence id="1022">There was a lot of good souls during the war, even Germans.</sentence><sentence id="1023">Which I never want to forget, because I think if it wouldn't be for the good ones I wouldn't be alive.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1030">Q: Tell us.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1032">A: They were helping.</sentence><sentence id="1033">I remember when the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> was closed because we were going to get out...being transported.</sentence><sentence id="1034">At that time I was working...like you got a Coast Guard in the USA.Of course, this [wasn't] a Coast Guard; but this was a uh...like a border patrol, I would say.</sentence><sentence id="1035">And they got high ranking officers.</sentence><sentence id="1036">So one of them--I should remember his name--he was no more or less a high ranking officer.</sentence><sentence id="1037">And he came with a... You see, his idea was that after Hitler wins the war, they gonna make a special <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span> and all the Jews are just going to live there and prosper.</sentence><sentence id="1038">He wasn't very intelligent, but he knew it was wrong; so that was his idea.</sentence><sentence id="1039">When I was in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, he came and got in an argument with a guard.</sentence><sentence id="1040">He wants to get in, they wouldn't let him in.</sentence><sentence id="1041">So finally he sent a message...a messenger, and I came to the <span class="DLF">barbed wire</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1042">He threw me one [of] his best leather briefcases, with newspapers and food, you see.</sentence><sentence id="1043">Then another one was a Zollen... (ph).</sentence><sentence id="1044">He was a real high ranking person.</sentence><sentence id="1045">And he was very intelligent.</sentence><sentence id="1046">He would never say what this guy said. (</sentence><sentence id="1047">Laughing) I had to stop by his <span class="NPIP">place</span> every Saturday.</sentence><sentence id="1048">He gave me cigarettes, vodka.</sentence><sentence id="1049">While I am drinking, he says, "Elektriker,</sentence><sentence id="1051">1 kopf hoch, alles wird noch gut sein."</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1075">Q: Translate please!</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1077">A: "Electrician, keep your chin up.</sentence><sentence id="1078">Everything going to be good."</sentence><sentence id="1079">The future going to be alright, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1080">Then uh when I was working and in a <span class="BUILDING">werkhalle</span>, which is a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, there was one guard.</sentence><sentence id="1081">And he kept calling me and in the dark he would give me bread.</sentence><sentence id="1082">And one day he said he is scared to death, he told somebody seen him he gave me bread; so he says, "If I am a prisoner tomorrow, don't be surprised.</sentence><sentence id="1083">Because that is what they do with us when they catch us."</sentence><sentence id="1084">Which was true!</sentence><sentence id="1085">So I said, "I'll tell you what you do."</sentence><sentence id="1086">I say, "I am going to come up; you call me all kind of names, you kick me, and that's gonna help."</sentence><sentence id="1087">He says, "Are you not gonna be mad?"</sentence><sentence id="1088">I said, "No."</sentence><sentence id="1089">So, I say... came out there.</sentence><sentence id="1090">And he said, "You Schweinehund!..."</sentence><sentence id="1091">Insult me.</sentence><sentence id="1092">He kicked me, and I screamed.</sentence><sentence id="1093">And then he said everything is fine. (</sentence><sentence id="1094">laugh) He says... He also was kind of farmer.</sentence><sentence id="1095">He said, "After the war," he says, "I have a <span class="DLF">farm</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1096">You gonna be my Kutscher [Ger: "coachman, driver"]."</sentence><sentence id="1097">I gonna ride with his horses, he says.</sentence><sentence id="1098">There was a lot of good people.</sentence><sentence id="1099">But there was a lot of bad people.</sentence><sentence id="1100">You cannot just go...(laughing).</sentence><sentence id="1101">I think every <span class="COUNTRY">country</span> depends who is ruling, you know.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1127">Q: So you were in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span>...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1129">A: <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1130">I was in 8.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1133">Q: Which?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1135">A: At the end of the war, when the Russians were approaching, they keep transferring us.</sentence><sentence id="1136">I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Schwientochlowitz</span>.?</sentence><sentence id="1137">Then <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Graditz-Bareza</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.540245" long="14.100126">Leitmeritz</span>" and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.511" long="14.151">Theresienstadt</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1138">I think.</sentence><sentence id="1139">I know it was 8.</sentence><sentence id="1140">I must left something out; there were so many of them.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1147">Q: Let's go back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1149">A: Uh huh.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1151">Q: What happened?</sentence><sentence id="1152">How did you know you were going to be moved from there?</sentence><sentence id="1153">What happened?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1157">A: Well, first, they moved us to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Schwientochlowitz</span>; which was same in the general area, like from here to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Petersburg</span> [NB: Virginia].</sentence><sentence id="1158">Formally named <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Eintracthiitte</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1159">Subcamp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, located at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Swietoch_owice</span> in <span class="REGION">Upper Silesia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1160">3 Subcamp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Flossenbiirg</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1161">Located at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Litom</span>__ ice in the Sudetenland (<span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>).</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1174">Q: Excuse me.</sentence><sentence id="1175">I need to go back, and... I apologize.</sentence><sentence id="1176">You came in, you were with your sister in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1180">A: To <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>, right.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1182">Q: Tell us what happened to your sister at this point.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1184">A: Well, she wouldn't separate from her baby.</sentence><sentence id="1185">And there was a lot of people; and I couldn't control it, and... I didn't see her any more.</sentence><sentence id="1186">Only her...my brother-in-law was with me, but he went in about a couple of days.</sentence><sentence id="1187">You see they pulled this like they told us to take all our clothes off and go into a <span class="INT_SPACE">shower</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1188">And he tripped over a rusted pipe, and his foot got swelling.</sentence><sentence id="1189">And you know what they did with people which got sick.</sentence><sentence id="1190">They just pick him up and put him in a <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chamber</span>; and that's what happened to my brother-in-law.</sentence><sentence id="1191">I never see my sister again.</sentence><sentence id="1192">Then next day, I see the people, you know, in pajamas.</sentence><sentence id="1193">You know, you see the outfits.</sentence><sentence id="1194">And the <span class="REGION">area</span> over there was very muddy, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1195">Everything had big wheels.</sentence><sentence id="1196">You keep pushing <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span>, and back and forth, and doing a lot of unnecessary digging and work.</sentence><sentence id="1197">And stuff like that.</sentence><sentence id="1198">And eventually we were sent to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Schwientochlowitz</span>, which was a <span class="BUILDING">machine factory</span> over there.</sentence><sentence id="1199">They were making parts for <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">airplanes</span> and stuff like that.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1216">Q: How far was this from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1218">A: There's no way I could tell you.</sentence><sentence id="1219">That wasn't too far.</sentence><sentence id="1220">Like I said, might mean like here to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Petersburg</span> [NB: Virginia].</sentence><sentence id="1221">It was in the general <span class="REGION">area</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1222">I couldn't recall.</sentence><sentence id="1223">I know that it wasn't too far.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1230">Q: What did you do in the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1232">A: Uh, I finally wound up working on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">machine</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1233">And uh, I don't know where I had the experience from.</sentence><sentence id="1234">I was working on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">lathe machine</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1235">There was a lot of people.</sentence><sentence id="1236">And then, I had 2 or 3 people I had to cover for.</sentence><sentence id="1237">They didn't know nothing about the work, but they were very sick.</sentence><sentence id="1238">And if they go <span class="NPIP">outside</span>, they would die.</sentence><sentence id="1239">So I kept running back and forth and helping them.</sentence><sentence id="1240">And couple of them met me after the war, and tried to give me money.(Laughing) But anyway....</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1251">Q: Talk about this a little more.</sentence><sentence id="1252">How did you cover for them?</sentence><sentence id="1253">How did you...keep talking about this.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1257">A: Alright.</sentence><sentence id="1258">Recognizing you put a certain item on it, and it's a knife cutting.</sentence><sentence id="1259">Right?</sentence><sentence id="1260">So you put it on, and you just let it go and push the button when it's on this end.</sentence><sentence id="1261">And wave to me, and I put another piece on, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1262">There was something like, it takes time and...and...did... The guy who asked me if I wanted to escape, he was a civilian foreman.</sentence><sentence id="1263">He made me a prisoner foreman.</sentence><sentence id="1264">This is no like a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carpet</span>...this is work, you know what I mean.</sentence><sentence id="1265">This is not... So I was</sentence><sentence id="1267">3 covering for a few people as much as I could, but, uh... One was a Czech.</sentence><sentence id="1268">He was Jew.</sentence><sentence id="1269">He was a machinist, but he was so sick that he was breaking stuff.</sentence><sentence id="1270">So I made a special thing I made for him so nobody...when he was making the run...those, so.</sentence><sentence id="1271">I don't know how to explain.</sentence><sentence id="1272">And you had to go to the machine, run; and he was breaking it.</sentence><sentence id="1273">So I made a device to hold it.</sentence><sentence id="1274">You see, if he doesn't do good they put him <span class="NPIP">outside</span>; and when he is sick that is the end.</sentence><sentence id="1275">Then a bunch of people lift the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">crane</span>, you know, like this big long thing was laying.</sentence><sentence id="1276">And it fell down and broke about 20 people's legs.</sentence><sentence id="1277">They all got shot, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1278">They didn't care.</sentence><sentence id="1279">And, uh, we worked there and one day, of course, uh while we go back from work we had to watch hangings before supper.</sentence><sentence id="1280">They had 2 or 3 sets of wires--and electric wires--and the people to be hanged, they put them between the wires and they might stay there for three days with no food, urinating on themselves.</sentence><sentence id="1281">And they bring them up when we come from work.</sentence><sentence id="1282">And they put a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span> and a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">chair</span>, and they hang them; and they read some funny sentence and they kick the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">chair</span> out.</sentence><sentence id="1283">And a lot of them...I see one that was shot before he was hanged.</sentence><sentence id="1284">He started calling, "You murderers!</sentence><sentence id="1285">You are going to lose the war!</sentence><sentence id="1286">Hitler gonna die!"</sentence><sentence id="1287">And all that.</sentence><sentence id="1288">And the guy just...(making shooting sounds), and they hang them on top of that.</sentence><sentence id="1289">And we just got so cold, it didn't bother anybody anymore.</sentence><sentence id="1290">Looking at dead people, looking at people getting hung... You know, you get so...just like watching a movie.</sentence><sentence id="1291">And you feel like after the war, how do you react to things, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1292">But for some reason, you get back to normal.</sentence><sentence id="1293">You see somebody hit by a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> or something; and you...I think, with time you come back to your own self.</sentence><sentence id="1294">You know what I mean.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1335">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="1336">Let's break it here and give them time to change the tape.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1339">A: Oh, sure.</sentence><sentence id="1342">4 TAPE #2</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1347">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="1348">So you were the prisoner foreman in this <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> trying to help people from being killed basically.</sentence><sentence id="1349">What happened to you?</sentence><sentence id="1350">What were the living conditions like for the factory workers?</sentence><sentence id="1351">Where did you live?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1357">A: We live in <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> and every day, I don't know what time it was, but was usually dark...we marched...that was the guard was helping me.</sentence><sentence id="1358">He would be walking beside me, put a piece of bread in my pocket.</sentence><sentence id="1359">A lot of time was dried out, but it was terrific.</sentence><sentence id="1360">I mean you was starved.</sentence><sentence id="1361">You know what I mean?</sentence><sentence id="1362">And we walk every morning to the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1363">I don't know how far.</sentence><sentence id="1364">It took awhile and at night we walked back, and before you do anything, they were always counting the prisoners, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1365">They say: "Antreten!</sentence><sentence id="1366">One, two, three..." And even the dead ones had to lay dead to make the figure going.</sentence><sentence id="1367">And we came to the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, and then we get like 30 minutes or 5 minutes break.</sentence><sentence id="1368">And we fall asleep instantly and then we get up, run to the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">machines</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1369">And the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">toilets</span> were <span class="NPIP">outside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1370">That was the scariest part, to go out in the dark.</sentence><sentence id="1371">First you didn't know if somebody was <span class="NPIP">inside</span>, was completely dark.</sentence><sentence id="1372">Sometimes you just open the <span class="DLF">door</span>, and you do it, and somebody scream, hey you did it my face, you know, and you run in the dark, and that was a every day situation, and, uh, food was any better than anybody else's you know.</sentence><sentence id="1373">They were giving the same garbage to eat.</sentence><sentence id="1374">And I don't remember we have any day we didn't work really.</sentence><sentence id="1375">I couldn't recall.</sentence><sentence id="1376">And, uh, a lot of time, they wake us in the middle of the night, and the start beating everybody, like somebody did something, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1377">We had to watch hanging, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1378">And that went pretty quick day by day, the same situation, and you felt yourself fortunate that you were working <span class="NPIP">inside</span> because people were in the snow and everyday you see the dead.</sentence><sentence id="1379">People were dragged around and put ont he <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span> and taken away, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1380">If you were sick, you didn't get any help, but I suppose you want to come to the end of that episode.</sentence><sentence id="1381">One day, the Russians start coming and we get evacuated, but before we do, we had to make the <span class="NPIP">place</span> spic and span.</sentence><sentence id="1382">You had to clean everything, because the Russians wouldn't think much of the Germans if we leave that behind as you know, so we had to clean it up.</sentence><sentence id="1383">Shine it up!</sentence><sentence id="1384">And then march us to a <span class="BUILDING">railroad station</span>, and we like cattle.</sentence><sentence id="1385">It was very cold.</sentence><sentence id="1386">I think it was in January.</sentence><sentence id="1387">It was very cold, and they left us all <span class="NPIP">outside</span> and they were <span class="NPIP">inside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1388">And you know, you might have a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">stove</span> one time when you take a chicken like a piece of chalk and go across her bill and she going to stay there.</sentence><sentence id="1389">She thinks she's tied down and it was the same situation.</sentence><sentence id="1390">We could get up and run, all of us.</sentence><sentence id="1391">Of course, they probably machine gun us.</sentence><sentence id="1392">But the guards, everything went <span class="NPIP">inside</span> because it was cold.</sentence><sentence id="1393">We just, you know, prisoners just get together like chickens and just holding on to each other.</sentence><sentence id="1394">And finally we took off and I don't know...it's kind of...I started developing typhus fever and, which came on on me, and we were like partial on <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span> and on <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> and eventually we were marching.</sentence><sentence id="1395">And anybody couldn't walk, they take him under a <span class="ENV_FEATURES">tree</span> and bingo.</sentence><sentence id="1396">And people started disappearing a little bit.</sentence><sentence id="1397">Because the Russians were getting close.</sentence><sentence id="1398">Sometime you heard explosions, and cannons from far away, and air raids; and we were laying on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span> when there were air raids.</sentence><sentence id="1399">And we marched.</sentence><sentence id="1400">And I remember like a woman was walking with a bucket to the <span class="BUILDING">barn</span> for pigs.</sentence><sentence id="1401">You know, they put bread and all leftovers.</sentence><sentence id="1402">And she walked a little too close to our column, and a couple prisoners jumped</sentence><sentence id="1404">5 and knocked her down.</sentence><sentence id="1405">And everybody got in on the top, eating from the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1406">We were terribly hungry.</sentence><sentence id="1407">We were out.</sentence><sentence id="1408">And the guards were hitting us with the guns.</sentence><sentence id="1409">And then several of them...I think some guards escaped.</sentence><sentence id="1410">Well, finally...I forgot what <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transportation</span> was used or how we did it.</sentence><sentence id="1411">I think we got somewhere to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>, or <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gusen</span>."</sentence><sentence id="1412">I told you I was going bad from typhus.</sentence><sentence id="1413">And one remarkable thing over there was that when "Antreten," when everybody lines up and some guys came--they were wearing German uniforms, but they were prisoners.</sentence><sentence id="1414">But they didn't have any insignias or anything.</sentence><sentence id="1415">And they say, "All the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">kapos</span>, come out."</sentence><sentence id="1416">You know what a Kapo was.</sentence><sentence id="1417">So they figured they going to get a new <span class="NPIP">position</span>; so they all lined up <span class="NPIP">outside</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1418">Said, "Take then first one."</sentence><sentence id="1419">He said, "Did he beat on anybody, or did he ever hurt anybody?"</sentence><sentence id="1420">So nobody say nothing funny.</sentence><sentence id="1421">While we were...at one <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> I think, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Dresden-Bariza</span>--oh, that's <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> I forgot--we came from the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> from work one night...one morning, and we were infestated by louse.</sentence><sentence id="1422">So they got big barrels of some kind of chemicals.</sentence><sentence id="1423">We all have to take our clothes off and dip them in there.</sentence><sentence id="1424">And then they wouldn't let us in the <span class="BUILDING">building</span>, because we were wet.</sentence><sentence id="1425">So we...everybody tied on the clothes; and we run around to try and dry it out.</sentence><sentence id="1426">Because the guards would not let you in while you wait.</sentence><sentence id="1427">And here it's January...is snow on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1428">And now and then, they were playing around.</sentence><sentence id="1429">And this boy's father...I don't know, he was a little clumsy.</sentence><sentence id="1430">So they told him to get in a barrel, and the guy put the arm around him and smoke a cigarette and wait until the guy die.</sentence><sentence id="1431">They killed him in the barrel.</sentence><sentence id="1432">So his son was young.</sentence><sentence id="1433">He come out and he say, "He killed my father!"</sentence><sentence id="1434">So the guard tell them, "Beat him up!"</sentence><sentence id="1435">So he beats him up.</sentence><sentence id="1436">He said, "Anybody want to help him?"</sentence><sentence id="1437">So they open up...he said, "This guy mistreat me, officer."</sentence><sentence id="1438">And all the Kapos were beaten by the prisoners.</sentence><sentence id="1439">One guy, he had his head split four times.</sentence><sentence id="1440">I swear, you can see it this way and that way--four splits.</sentence><sentence id="1441">And bunch of them die.</sentence><sentence id="1442">And in the morning, one got common sick. "</sentence><sentence id="1443">Could somebody help me?"</sentence><sentence id="1444">Said, "Oh, the dead ones.</sentence><sentence id="1445">Hang him in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">toilet</span>.""</sentence><sentence id="1446">We tell the Germans that he hang himself during the night.(Laughing) And they put him out.</sentence><sentence id="1447">We were surprised when they put him; and uh they said that they hang themselves.</sentence><sentence id="1448">That happened in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1449">But now before we got there, I think...I forgot the order of things, I had to read it myself now.</sentence><sentence id="1450">It's been many years.</sentence><sentence id="1451">We were [in] <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gusen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1452">And look like we came in and everybody over there was naked, because they got some typhus or something.</sentence><sentence id="1453">And so they took everybody's clothes away.</sentence><sentence id="1454">And they also kill a few people there, because their rations were very little.</sentence><sentence id="1455">So they were going by the morning count them; and after they deducted dead people, they say, "75 in this <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>, save 75 portions of bread."</sentence><sentence id="1456">So what the Kapos did: they went in the <span class="INT_SPACE">washroom</span> and see somebody weak or something, they killed them.</sentence><sentence id="1457">Hold their nose and waited until he died.</sentence><sentence id="1458">So they got extra bread.</sentence><sentence id="1459">It's kind of sad, isn't it?</sentence><sentence id="1460">But that's what actually happened.</sentence><sentence id="1461">And uh uh then, of course, we were at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1570">Q: Come back.</sentence><sentence id="1571">The incident at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1574">A: Where they were beating up <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">kapos</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1575">4 Subcamp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1576">Located in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Langenstein</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Austria</span> (Province of <span class="REGION">Upper Austria</span>).</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1586">Q: ..where they were beating up the Kapos.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1588">A: Yah, when we first came, they beat up a bunch of Kapos.</sentence><sentence id="1589">They told the prisoners to get even.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1592">Q: Did you ever find out how Jews got ahold of German uniforms, and had the power to attack the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">kapos</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1594">A: I didn't know if they were Jews.</sentence><sentence id="1595">I don't know if they were Jews.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1598">Q: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1600">A: The uniforms were, uh, sort of like the Schutzpolizei, but they didn't have insignia.</sentence><sentence id="1601">Just like you go here to a <span class="BUILDING">surplus store</span>, and you buy a uniform and don't have any... It's just wearing those uniforms.</sentence><sentence id="1602">They were kind of blue.</sentence><sentence id="1603">Because the soldiers were wearing green, and so I think they SS people.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1608">Q: So you never found out how these people got the authority to get to allow you to do this.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1610">A: I don't know.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1612">Q: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1614">A: And then, uh, uh, then one night we were told to pick up.</sentence><sentence id="1615">They were <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>...I think it was in the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">mountains</span>, and there was a lot of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">POW camps</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1616">And I think it was an outbreak when the Russians came.</sentence><sentence id="1617">You know, they were Russian prisoners and they shoot the heck out of them.</sentence><sentence id="1618">They shot the heck out of them.</sentence><sentence id="1619">And they called us to pick up the dead...dead Russians.</sentence><sentence id="1620">And uh they also had a thing in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.257331" long="14.50012">Mauthausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1621">They had a <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>, that they were burning the dead people.</sentence><sentence id="1622">We were cutting them up in front of the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1623">And the irony of it was when one it was like a lunch time, we sit on a dead body.</sentence><sentence id="1624">A lot of people had their clothes on, because they were deteriorated from blood and stuff.</sentence><sentence id="1625">After the finish with whatever you had, you look in the pockets.</sentence><sentence id="1626">If they got a little cigarette butt or something like that.</sentence><sentence id="1627">Now, I tell you another incident.</sentence><sentence id="1628">I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Graditz-Bareza</span> (ph) when my typhus really went out.</sentence><sentence id="1629">I know I hit the nurse in the head; and I don't know what was going on.</sentence><sentence id="1630">So I was in the night shift there working on the machine.</sentence><sentence id="1631">And the guards come to me and tell me to walk and walk back, and said, "Take him away."</sentence><sentence id="1632">So they bring me back to the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1633">That was a memorable night.</sentence><sentence id="1634">They brought me back to the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1635">I tried to lay down; and on every <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bunk</span> is about 4, 5 people and people get real mean.</sentence><sentence id="1636">So finally, I find a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bunk</span> in the <span class="INT_SPACE">bottom</span> with just one guy sleeping.</sentence><sentence id="1637">So I figure maybe he is a kapo or something special.</sentence><sentence id="1638">So I put my hands on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span> so I didn't disturb the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span>; and some kind of slipped on it, and I went to sleep.</sentence><sentence id="1639">In the morning, the guy say, "You better get away from there, because it is wet on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span> and they are going to think you pee under the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bed</span>."</sentence><sentence id="1640">So I jumped off, and I told this guy to get off too and they guy don't move.</sentence><sentence id="1641">He says, "That man is dead.</sentence><sentence id="1642">Don't bother him.</sentence><sentence id="1643">That's just when he die, he wet it."</sentence><sentence id="1644">I was sleeping with a dead man.</sentence><sentence id="1645">Now my typhus got worse.</sentence><sentence id="1648">7 couldn't eat.</sentence><sentence id="1649">Even the rubber bread.</sentence><sentence id="1650">So I give it to a guy and he was carrying me, you know, under his arm.</sentence><sentence id="1651">And the following night, I decided to hang myself.</sentence><sentence id="1652">I had the belt and the belt was cut in half, you know, because I need... I got wooden shoes to part of the belt and tied my shoes, so I don't lose it...and I don't know what to do.</sentence><sentence id="1653">So I went on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">upper bunk</span> and I put it around my throat and I tie it; and I jump off.</sentence><sentence id="1654">That's all I remember.</sentence><sentence id="1655">The next thing I open my eyes and I am on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1656">And a guy standing over me, he says, "You going to miss the bread.</sentence><sentence id="1657">Come on!</sentence><sentence id="1658">Come on!</sentence><sentence id="1659">Come on!"</sentence><sentence id="1660">I said, "Whose bread?"</sentence><sentence id="1661">He said, "Come on!"</sentence><sentence id="1662">Because I was giving it to him.</sentence><sentence id="1663">So he finally gave up and he ran, because he would miss his too.</sentence><sentence id="1664">You know they were giving out the bread.</sentence><sentence id="1665">So I remember when I was laying, some Russian got to me and stole my shoes...he stole my...everything.</sentence><sentence id="1666">When I was laying down, we were like a homeless people.</sentence><sentence id="1667">I got a little metal box in my pocket and I got...I don't know, a nail and a half a razor blade and a couple of cigarette butts.</sentence><sentence id="1668">I say, "I know what I am going to do.</sentence><sentence id="1669">I am going to take that little blade and cut my wrist."</sentence><sentence id="1670">Was stolen. (</sentence><sentence id="1671">Laughing) My pockets were empty. (</sentence><sentence id="1672">Laughing) The Russian [who] stole it saved my life, because I suppose if I slice it that it would be the end of it.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1734">Q: You never found out who cut you down or who took you down?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1736">A: Yah.</sentence><sentence id="1737">The guy took me down who I was giving the bread.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1740">Q: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1742">A: Because he was holding on to me.</sentence><sentence id="1743">You have to see some bread.</sentence><sentence id="1744">I think it was steamed.</sentence><sentence id="1745">I wouldn't even beg.</sentence><sentence id="1746">I mean, it was a mess.</sentence><sentence id="1747">The guy, finally, after the war...he wants to give me money because he was one of those guys I kept alive in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Schwientochlowitz</span> on a machine, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1748">He didn't know a machine from a <span class="DLF">hole</span> in the ground.</sentence><sentence id="1749">I kept 2 or 3 of them going, because I was keeping that thing running, so...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1758">Q: So what happened?</sentence><sentence id="1759">You are lying on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1760">You have discovered that you failed at hanging yourself.</sentence><sentence id="1761">You don't have a razor?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1766">A: He took me down, so he don't lose the bread.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1768">Q: I see.</sentence><sentence id="1769">Your pockets are empty.</sentence><sentence id="1770">You've been stripped.</sentence><sentence id="1771">You can't cut your wrists.</sentence><sentence id="1772">What did you do?</sentence><sentence id="1773">What did you do?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1780">A: I did nothing.</sentence><sentence id="1781">I just got up, I guess, and I just went on and.. I tell you whatelse happened.</sentence><sentence id="1782">In a few days, we will have evacuate, and I was still have trouble walking.</sentence><sentence id="1783">Friends of mine were holding on to me.</sentence><sentence id="1784">So they say, "We going to be going, wherever.</sentence><sentence id="1785">And the ones who can't walk, we are going to put them on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span>."</sentence><sentence id="1786">So the first thing, people stepped out.</sentence><sentence id="1787">I make a step, and my friend says, "Don't be a..." I don't want to say the language. (</sentence><sentence id="1788">Laughing) "Don't be..." you know what. "</sentence><sentence id="1789">Stay here."</sentence><sentence id="1790">Sure enough, they had <span class="BUILDING">shelters</span> where the Germans were coming in, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1791">Everybody was worrying about the Yperite gas, and</sentence><sentence id="1793">8 they all got gas masks.</sentence><sentence id="1794">So they have <span class="BUILDING">shelters</span>, and the <span class="BUILDING">shelters</span> have some kind of air coming in there, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1795">Is separate from the <span class="DLF">outside air</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1796">They take all the people that couldn't walk and put them in there and throw Zyklon or gas.</sentence><sentence id="1797">And we had to dig <span class="DLF">graves</span> and they put them in the <span class="DLF">graves</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1798">And you know they even...all day they just spewed that white stuff...chloro somehow.</sentence><sentence id="1799">And they wouldn't even cover up.</sentence><sentence id="1800">And then when they marched us to <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1801">And...oh, I think there was a thousand of us; and I think maybe a hundred made it.</sentence><sentence id="1802">I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="1803">They were shooting people on the way, and guards were disappearing.</sentence><sentence id="1804">They were escaping.</sentence><sentence id="1805">Prisoners were escaping.</sentence><sentence id="1806">I couldn't go any <span class="NPIP">place</span>, because I was hardly moving.</sentence><sentence id="1807">And I finally got to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.540245" long="14.100126">Leitmeritz</span> [NB: Litomerice].</sentence><sentence id="1808">I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.540245" long="14.100126">Leitmeritz</span>, a friend of mine from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.233028" long="21.017">Warsaw</span> recognized me here.</sentence><sentence id="1809">And he went up to me and he said, "Come on this <span class="NPIP">side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1810">They don't know I am a Jew.</sentence><sentence id="1811">I am a Polack.</sentence><sentence id="1812">I can get you on the other <span class="NPIP">side</span>."</sentence><sentence id="1813">I refused to go.</sentence><sentence id="1814">I was... My age, I was 21 at the time.</sentence><sentence id="1815">So I refused to go.</sentence><sentence id="1816">I said, "No, I am going to be here and I am going to die like a Jew.</sentence><sentence id="1817">I am not going."</sentence><sentence id="1818">He said, "You are an idiot!"</sentence><sentence id="1819">And I stay with all the people.</sentence><sentence id="1820">And sure enough they were taking people to Final Solution, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1821">Well, I was trying to say, there's just rumors, the Red Cross told the Russians that we all going to murdered in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.511" long="14.151">Theresienstadt</span> and this is a rumor.</sentence><sentence id="1822">And they asked for volunteers, because they wasn't agreeing with the military plan.</sentence><sentence id="1823">And they asked for volunteers, and a lot of Jews and other people came and we got liberated.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1871">Q: Iam confused.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1873">A: I know it.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1875">Q: Back it up.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1877">A: We were walking from the last camp toward <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.540245" long="14.100126">Leitmeritz</span>, which is next to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.511" long="14.151">Theresienstadt</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1879">Q: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1881">A: And when I got there, there were <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1882">A guy was trying to save me, and I wouldn't go in for it.</sentence><sentence id="1883">I didn't care anymore.</sentence><sentence id="1884">And they said that they gonna kill everybody, you know.</sentence><sentence id="1885">So that's why he was trying to save me.</sentence><sentence id="1886">He says they're going to take all the Jews now and finish them off.</sentence><sentence id="1887">So they said that the Red Cross carried that to the Russians, that we all going to be destroyed over there.</sentence><sentence id="1888">So the Russians asked for volunteers because that didn't agree with the military plan.</sentence><sentence id="1889">But this is just what I heard.</sentence><sentence id="1890">And one of the divisions or outfits or battalions went and liberated us.</sentence><sentence id="1891">We were liberated by the Russians.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1903">Q: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1905">A: And after the Russians liberated us, we gain a few people.</sentence><sentence id="1906">There was a few Jews in the Russian Army, and they didn't want to be in the Russian Army.</sentence><sentence id="1907">So they got in with us as war prisoners; and that's funny but that's what they did.</sentence><sentence id="1908">Polish citizens were drafted in the Russian army, and they escaped.</sentence><sentence id="1909">They got mixed in with us.</sentence><sentence id="1910">And, uh, and right after that,</sentence><sentence id="1912">9 there was a terrible typhus epidemic.</sentence><sentence id="1913">I think I had typhus.</sentence><sentence id="1914">What saved me was walking.</sentence><sentence id="1915">That's what they tell me.</sentence><sentence id="1916">Me keep on walking would save my life.</sentence><sentence id="1917">And we were in a <span class="BUILDING">kaserne</span> [Ger: <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>].</sentence><sentence id="1918">How do you call it?</sentence><sentence id="1919">Like a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span>, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">military camps</span> over there.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1937">Q: What was it like?</sentence><sentence id="1938">The Russians had taken you and put you into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">military type camps</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1941">A: That was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.511" long="14.151">Theresienstadt</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1942">I think it was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> before, but original, I think, was a military place.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1945">Q: How did the Russians take care of you?</sentence><sentence id="1946">Did they feed you?</sentence><sentence id="1947">What did they do?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1951">A: Well, we were kind of, more or less, free.</sentence><sentence id="1952">We were kind of feeding ourselves.</sentence><sentence id="1953">We went out and we pick up peaches and this, and they let us go.</sentence><sentence id="1954">But the remarkable things...when we first came was still Germans.</sentence><sentence id="1955">And one night, we were waking up, the Germans are capitulate, you know, and the Czechs were running up and down the <span class="DLF">streets</span>. "</sentence><sentence id="1956">The war is over.</sentence><sentence id="1957">Long live Bene"!"</sentence><sentence id="1958">Whoever was the President [of <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>].</sentence><sentence id="1959">And next morning, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> came with prisoners.</sentence><sentence id="1960">And they didn't know the war was over.</sentence><sentence id="1961">And we hollered to them, "You are free!</sentence><sentence id="1962">The war is over!"</sentence><sentence id="1963">And the Germans stayed there, and nobody was doing nothing.</sentence><sentence id="1964">We were like the chicken with the chalk.</sentence><sentence id="1965">We just...officer and there was a bunch of people came with arm bands, whatever you call them.</sentence><sentence id="1966">And they picked up all the Germans and take the guns away, and they marched them off.</sentence><sentence id="1967">And we tell the prisoners, "You are free!"</sentence><sentence id="1968">And a lot of them didn't believe it.</sentence><sentence id="1969">And then a night burst started because people were used to eat.</sentence><sentence id="1970">You see dead people in the <span class="BUILDING">public places</span> like <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">toilets</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1971">They were laying on the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">ground</span> and there was dysentery.</sentence><sentence id="1972">Oh, those first moments after the war, they were horrible!</sentence><sentence id="1973">I was in a <span class="BUILDING">kaserne</span>, you know, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.511" long="14.151">Theresienstadt</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1974">And we had dead people piling every morning, and <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagons</span> were picking them up, picking them up, and that was after the war was over.</sentence><sentence id="1975">And that was terrible.</sentence><sentence id="1976">People were dying because of the after affects of the war.</sentence><sentence id="1977">And then we went through different kind of things like... I tell you a incident, and I keep my hand out.</sentence><sentence id="1978">We went to a...you know they got <span class="INT_SPACE">public baths</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1979">I never been to one in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1980"><span class="BUILDING">Public bath houses</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1981">I think they have...1 was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Minneapolis</span>, I see one.</sentence><sentence id="1982">And they took us to those <span class="NPIP">places</span> to get us cleaned up and dressed.</sentence><sentence id="1983">And, of course, all the clothes-- I don't know where they came from--you never got anything to fit you.</sentence><sentence id="1984">And there was a number of women.</sentence><sentence id="1985">And we all had to take the clothes off, but was nothing to look at.</sentence><sentence id="1986">Everybody looked like...1 was 80 pounds.</sentence><sentence id="1987">And uh...uh well, there was a certain process.</sentence><sentence id="1988">They were going under a magnifying glass; because some people got different bugs.</sentence><sentence id="1989">I don't know what they call it.</sentence><sentence id="1990">They were checking your body.</sentence><sentence id="1991">But the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">washing machines</span> or whatever...who was washing the clothes, they couldn't keep up with it.</sentence><sentence id="1992">So they put us in an empty <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>, like 100 at a time.</sentence><sentence id="1993">And all of a sudden, like women dressed like nurses come and tell us to turn the face to the <span class="DLF">wall</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1994">You know, a hundred of us, naked.</sentence><sentence id="1995">All of a sudden they come out; and a hundred naked women on the other <span class="NPIP">side</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1996">Well, in today's times, that would make a nice X-rated movie that, wouldn't it?</sentence><sentence id="1997">But nobody had any thought in that direction.</sentence><sentence id="1998">One boy turn around and recognized somebody.</sentence><sentence id="1999">So everybody got curious.</sentence><sentence id="2000">You say, "Where you from?"</sentence><sentence id="2001">People were running around naked.</sentence><sentence id="2002">Nobody know naked, you just</sentence><sentence id="2004">0 see up to here. "</sentence><sentence id="2005">Where you from?" "</sentence><sentence id="2006">What happened to my mother?" "</sentence><sentence id="2007">Are you from my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>?" "</sentence><sentence id="2008">Are you from my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>?"</sentence><sentence id="2009">And the women were shaved.</sentence><sentence id="2010">And the whole <span class="NPIP">place</span> got all mixed up, and all you heard: "Where you from?" "</sentence><sentence id="2011">Is my mother alive?" "</sentence><sentence id="2012">Are you from my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>?" "</sentence><sentence id="2013">Are you from my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>?" "</sentence><sentence id="2014">Did you...are you been with my father?" "</sentence><sentence id="2015">I think you...are you from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="53.083" long="25.317">Slonim</span>?" "</sentence><sentence id="2016">Are you from here?"</sentence><sentence id="2017">People forgot they were naked.</sentence><sentence id="2018">And those nurses come up and said, "Oh, my God!</sentence><sentence id="2019">Would you all get back in your <span class="NPIP">places</span>?" (</sentence><sentence id="2020">Laughing) You know, people were running around like that; and... and nobody even noticed that people were naked, you know.</sentence><sentence id="2021">They were so overcome, looking for relatives, and...and something from <span class="BUILDING">home</span> that just... The scenes like that, they will stay with you the rest of your life.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2095">Q: You told me before the interview that you were in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">DP camp</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="2097">Tell me about that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>...and I believe it's there you met your wife.</sentence><sentence id="2098">Tell us about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> first, and then about meeting your wife.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2099">A: Well, that was...I assume that was a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">displaced person camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2100">It was run by American.</sentence><sentence id="2101">I don't know.</sentence><sentence id="2102">There was a... You heard of IRO, International Refuge Organization.</sentence><sentence id="2103">It was run by the IRO.</sentence><sentence id="2104">Of course, we were in <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2105">Maybe in one <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> was two guys.</sentence><sentence id="2106">Were not too many families, because everybody came out of the war and today, you see a guy and tomorrow he disappeared because you know, they said the biggest freedom is when you have nothing.</sentence><sentence id="2107">You're really free (laugh), and that's happened to people.</sentence><sentence id="2108">They were free.</sentence><sentence id="2109">Like you talk to him, the next day he see a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> or a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span>, he jump out, he goes to the next <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2110">Nobody really was binded to an <span class="REGION">area</span> or to a <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2111">You know a lot of people thought they would go back to <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2112">Other people want to go here or there.</sentence><sentence id="2113">So it took awhile to settle that situation, you know, and people started getting married.</sentence><sentence id="2114">Me and my wife was about the first marriages in this particular <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> because we got married in 1945.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2131">Q: Back up.</sentence><sentence id="2132">How did you meet her?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2135">A: You really want to hear that?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2137">Q: Yeah, I really want to hear it.</sentence><sentence id="2138">You are where in this?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2141">A: I had to put a little beggar into it.</sentence><sentence id="2142">I like electronics, you know; and I went looking for a job in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2145">Q: You are in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2147">A: In <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>, a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">displaced person camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2148">The chief of police and the man in the <span class="BUILDING">employment office</span> had the same name.</sentence><sentence id="2149">So I walked in the <span class="BUILDING">police station</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2150">So guys in there--friends of mine--said, "Hey, join the police force."</sentence><sentence id="2151">And after the bad taste during the war with the police, you know, that stuff, I said, "Forget it."</sentence><sentence id="2152">He says, "It's not like the police you know.</sentence><sentence id="2153">Nowadays, you watch <span class="BUILDING">warehouses</span>."</sentence><sentence id="2154">You know, we got <span class="BUILDING">warehouses</span> from IRO with stuff.</sentence><sentence id="2157">1 You get a suit, and you can eat in the <span class="BUILDING">cantina</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2158">You get cigarettes, you know.</sentence><sentence id="2159">So I joined it.</sentence><sentence id="2160">My wife was 16 at the time.</sentence><sentence id="2161">She came with a girlfriend.</sentence><sentence id="2162">And they went to a dance, you know, that was...and some guy falls in love with her--a Greek--and follows those two <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2163">And get in a <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> with them and put a knife on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2164">And he says, "You gonna marry me or I'll kill you, kill myself."</sentence><sentence id="2165">And I don't know, we got...somebody call the police.</sentence><sentence id="2166">And I was the heel who arrest him.</sentence><sentence id="2167">And the next day (laughing)... This is a true story.</sentence><sentence id="2168">The next day, I came checking out; because I thought she was cute.</sentence><sentence id="2169">But I was 22, so I kept check on her and I got myself in the biggest trouble in my life because ...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2194">Q: How?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2196">A: I had a date with her.</sentence><sentence id="2197">And we were walking, and this Greek showed up.</sentence><sentence id="2198">And he knew I was the guy who arrested him, separated them; so he wanted to fight me.</sentence><sentence id="2199">So this other policeman...he got a beating.</sentence><sentence id="2200">So he went and got the whole Greek colony trying to attack me, and broke head into it, tore my ear.</sentence><sentence id="2201">That was a big fight, you know. (</sentence><sentence id="2202">laugh).</sentence><sentence id="2203">We were in the 20s.</sentence><sentence id="2204">So...well, eventually, we got married.</sentence><sentence id="2205">We knew each other for about... Basically, she had a fiance in <span class="COUNTRY">Holland</span>; and I was doing everything trying to help the girl back to him.</sentence><sentence id="2206">He was a wonderful guy, believe me.</sentence><sentence id="2207">He came visiting us in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2208">He met an English lady, a doctor.</sentence><sentence id="2209">He die.</sentence><sentence id="2210">He's dead.</sentence><sentence id="2211">He stay with us a few days.</sentence><sentence id="2212">Wonderful guy.</sentence><sentence id="2213">He saved her life.</sentence><sentence id="2214">He brought her food to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and everything.</sentence><sentence id="2215">She just told me, "He's a wonderful guy, but I don't love him enough to marry him, you know."</sentence><sentence id="2216">So she didn't get married.</sentence><sentence id="2217">And we got married, and...well, you know, she's...but that was some kind of traditional wedding.</sentence><sentence id="2218">I think the whole <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> came, because that was one of the first wedding.</sentence><sentence id="2219">And I had 300 people, which 275 I didn't know from Adam.</sentence><sentence id="2220">And there was like a covered dish...everybody brought apples and food, and somebody got together a band.</sentence><sentence id="2221">And the band was terrible! (</sentence><sentence id="2222">Laughing) Half of them didn't know how to make music.</sentence><sentence id="2223">But that was nice, and...and we got married.</sentence><sentence id="2224">We had to get married two more times.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2254">Q: Why?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2256">A: Because in order to go to <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>, they didn't recognize certain marriages.</sentence><sentence id="2257">We got married in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span> [NB: the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">DP camp</span>], a religious wedding.</sentence><sentence id="2258">Then we got married in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span> [NB: the city], in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>; and went to the <span class="BUILDING">Justizpalast</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2259">To the <span class="BUILDING">Palace of Justice</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2260">We got married over there.</sentence><sentence id="2261">Over there, you advertise it for 3 days.</sentence><sentence id="2262">If nobody come around.</sentence><sentence id="2263">Then before we went to <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>, we got to get married by...I think it was a clerk or something.</sentence><sentence id="2264">Wearing an American uniforms.</sentence><sentence id="2265">They didn't recognize the other <span class="BUILDING">marriages</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2266">So we already had the little boy! (</sentence><sentence id="2267">Laughing) So we got married 3 times.</sentence><sentence id="2268">We said that's why we never divorced.</sentence><sentence id="2269">We had to do it three times. (</sentence><sentence id="2270">Laughing)</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2286">Q: Tell me about trying to get to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2287">You are still in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">DP camp</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2290">A: Yeah.</sentence><sentence id="2291">And the first time, they caught us; because we were playing like we were Greeks or Italians.</sentence><sentence id="2292">And I don't know how we got out.</sentence><sentence id="2293">We talked to a Jewish Rabbi in American</sentence><sentence id="2295">2 uniform that we didn't have the food, and we trying to get to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2296">And the first thing you know, we were surrounded by <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">jeeps</span> and everything, turn around and going back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2297">Now in 19...1 think "46 or "48, we were from some kind of underground organization in connection with the Irgun or Haganah.</sentence><sentence id="2298">Our job was steal arms from American forces and send them to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2299">So like I was a police officer.</sentence><sentence id="2300">When I was standing guard at night with the American soldier, I usually tried to get rid of his rifle or something.</sentence><sentence id="2301">And he was so sleepy when they took him send the other guy he got up without it.</sentence><sentence id="2302">So I put it aside.</sentence><sentence id="2303">And then...now and then the brought a whole <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trucks</span> with weapons like the___.</sentence><sentence id="2304">They were organized.</sentence><sentence id="2305">They came to Newport News [Virginia] and bought a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">ship</span>, and things like that.</sentence><sentence id="2306">One day we had an assignment to throw...you know...pamphlets or fliers.</sentence><sentence id="2307">So I ask...I went down to the switch where you turn off the lights, and we turn the lights out.</sentence><sentence id="2308">And when the lights came back on and every move you take they was flooded with pamphlets and stuff and by <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> (laughing)... And one day I had occasion to talk to Ben Gurion.</sentence><sentence id="2309">He wouldn't talk to me.</sentence><sentence id="2310">He came...he was wearing a dirty shirt, you know...that was... And everybody got it together...putting him on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, and he was talking to his aunt.</sentence><sentence id="2311">And I was trying to send a note with him to some relative; I wrote it.</sentence><sentence id="2312">And he says, "Got to be in Hebrew."</sentence><sentence id="2313">I said, "I don't write Hebrew." "</sentence><sentence id="2314">Forget it!"</sentence><sentence id="2315">So I went...while he was talking, I was running around trying to get somebody to write it for me. (</sentence><sentence id="2316">laugh) He put it in the pocket, but he was... You know, when he came to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>, we were trying to get him uh, uh, a royal welcome.</sentence><sentence id="2317">And we didn't got nothing to do it with.</sentence><sentence id="2318">We have a old <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">police car</span> which was smoking and making a lot of noise and some old <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">motorcycles</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2319">And some guys got the idea that the driver is going to sit like this, and the guy in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">back seat</span> is gonna turn the other way.</sentence><sentence id="2320">We got funny.</sentence><sentence id="2321">And the Germans, I think, were laughing when they see that <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">parade</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2322">And first thing, I think, he says that day, "The <span class="DLF">gates</span> of <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> are open.</sentence><sentence id="2323">You all can come."</sentence><sentence id="2324">He says, "Don't ask where you gonna eat or where you're gonna live.</sentence><sentence id="2325">We don't know.</sentence><sentence id="2326">But you can come." (</sentence><sentence id="2327">laugh).That's what he told us.</sentence><sentence id="2328">Then he went on talking.</sentence><sentence id="2329">Oh.</sentence><sentence id="2330">I think.</sentence><sentence id="2331">I am all mixed up some.</sentence><sentence id="2332">That might be...[ know it was Ben Gurion; but the guy who said that I think was the first ambassador from <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> came to talking to that thing.</sentence><sentence id="2333">That was because I remember Ben Gurion got on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">wagon</span>, but we went to pick up from the <span class="BUILDING">train station</span> the first ambassador.</sentence><sentence id="2334">And I think that is when we made that funny calvacade with broken <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bicycle</span> and old <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">motorcycles</span> and <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cars</span>, and the Germans were laughing, you know.</sentence><sentence id="2335">They are used to real parades, and here this is just like a comedy carrying the guy in.</sentence><sentence id="2336">And that's who said that...he said...because when Ben Gurion talk to us, there was no <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> that time.</sentence><sentence id="2337">That was before.</sentence><sentence id="2338">And this guy was the first ambassador, and he says that the <span class="DLF">gates</span> are open.</sentence><sentence id="2339">He says, "Just don't ask me where you gonna eat and where you gonna live.</sentence><sentence id="2340">The <span class="DLF">gates</span> are open."</sentence><sentence id="2341">So we were going to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>; and the war started, you see, with the Arabs.</sentence><sentence id="2342">So I was...we had a outfit and one of us became a general, a lieutenant.</sentence><sentence id="2343">No, I never made it.</sentence><sentence id="2344">So we had a difficult getting out of <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> too.</sentence><sentence id="2345">We had to play Italians due to the English intelligence.</sentence><sentence id="2346">You know what happened to the Exodus, you know.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2407">Q: What happened to you?</sentence><sentence id="2408">You were trying to get out now?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2411">A: Being that we never left yet, I keep running back because we were a couple hours away from</sentence><sentence id="2413">3 my wife, from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.073341" long="10.908635">Landsberg</span>, you see.</sentence><sentence id="2414"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="48.133" long="11.567">Munich</span> wasn't that far.</sentence><sentence id="2415">So, I came back a couple of times.</sentence><sentence id="2416">And the neighbors jumped me.</sentence><sentence id="2417">And my wife was crying. "</sentence><sentence id="2418">You are not going to leave her here, in a strange <span class="REGION">land</span>.</sentence><sentence id="2419">There's enough young people to go.</sentence><sentence id="2420">You don't leave a wife with a child."</sentence><sentence id="2421">You see.</sentence><sentence id="2422">So, I didn't go anymore.</sentence><sentence id="2423">They convince me.</sentence><sentence id="2424">She was crying, you know.</sentence><sentence id="2425">Of course, I felt kind of bad; because all my buddies were going, and we were going together so...and so I stayed behind.</sentence><sentence id="2426">Then the war was over, and we came to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2445">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="2446">Alright.</sentence><sentence id="2447">Is there anything you want to add?</sentence><sentence id="2448">Anything you want to say?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2453">A: Well, I hope maybe someday we can find some people which... maybe they're not dead.</sentence><sentence id="2454">Just like I find my aunt after 4 years.</sentence><sentence id="2455">And for some reason, my son do whatever he is doing now in the <span class="BUILDING">Holocaust Museum</span>... I wish that he be a success, because he said to me he is born in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">displaced person camps</span>, we are Holocaust survivors.</sentence><sentence id="2456">So he says he wouldn't trust the job to anybody.</sentence><sentence id="2457">That's exactly what he told me.</sentence><sentence id="2458">He says he wouldn't trust that to anybody.</sentence><sentence id="2459">He's real...I hope he's doing it with his whole heart.</sentence><sentence id="2460">He doesn't do it like a job.</sentence><sentence id="2461">And if anything else you want to know, I'll be glad to tell you.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2471">Q: I think we are done.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2473">A: We are finished?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2475">Q: I think so.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2477">A: Okay.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2479">Q: Thank you very much.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2481">A: Oh, I thank you for taking an interest.</sentence><sentence id="2482">I mean, you know...</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2485">Q: It's a very moving story.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2487">A: Like they say, there's a thousand of stories like that.</sentence><sentence id="2488">I mean, I wasn't by myself.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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