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--- |
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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: thomas none buergenthal |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0046 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0046_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504546 |
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gender: m |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1930.0 |
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place_of_birth: lubochina |
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country: czechoslovakia |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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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: 1990.341.1 |
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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: thomas none buergenthal |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0046 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0046_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504546 |
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gender: m |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1930.0 |
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place_of_birth: lubochina |
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country: czechoslovakia |
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experience_group: survivor |
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ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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ghetto: none |
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camp(s)_encyclopedia: none |
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camp: none |
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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: 1990.341.1 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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--- |
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<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">THOMAS BUERGENTHAL January 29, 1990 [PRE-INTERVIEW TECHNICAL CONVERSATION]</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="4">Q: Okay, The camera's on.</sentence><sentence id="5">Would you tell me your name please?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="8">A: Thomas Buergenthal.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="10">Q: And where and when were you born?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="12">A: I was born in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Lubochnia</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, in 1934.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="14">Q: Would you tell me something about your parents, please?</sentence><sentence id="15">Where did they come from?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="18">A: My mother came -- well, my -- actually, my -- both of my parents came to <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span> from <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="19">They got, came there when Hitler came to power; and I was born there shortly after they got to <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="22">Q: Tell me about growing up.</sentence><sentence id="23">Did you grow up there?</sentence><sentence id="24">And your very early years, before the Nazis came.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="28">A: What little I remember, really, in that period: I grew up in <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>, very uneventfully; a small <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">resort town</span>.</sentence><sentence id="29">From what I remember, what little I remember, a very pleasant environment.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="32">Q: You moved at one <span class="NPIP">point</span>.</sentence><sentence id="33">Where did you move to, again, before the Nazis?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="36">A: Well, we moved from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Lubochnia</span> to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Slovakia</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Zilina(ph</span>).</sentence><sentence id="37">The--my, my father had bought a <span class="BUILDING">hotel</span> in, in this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Lubochnia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="38">It was a <span class="BUILDING">hotel</span> that was designed to be for German political refugees awaiting the fall of Hitler.</sentence><sentence id="39">My father thought that Hitler would not last more than four years, and he wanted to be nearby and have his friends there.</sentence><sentence id="40">Well, by, by 1938, very few people could come out of <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="41">So the <span class="BUILDING">hotel</span> wasn't going very well.</sentence><sentence id="42">And at that point, we left the <span class="BUILDING">hotel</span> and moved to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Zilina(ph</span>).</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="50">Q: All right.</sentence><sentence id="51">What happened there, when by 1938, "39?</sentence><sentence id="52">Did things change?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="56">A: Well, the -- in <span class="COUNTRY">Slovakia</span>, the Hlinka, Hlinka Guard, which was a fascist group aligned with the Nazis, began harassing Jews and looking for certain people, and my father was one of the people they apparently had on, on some list.</sentence><sentence id="57">It became clear to us that if we didn't leave the risk -- at least, the risk to my parents -- that the risk was very great.</sentence><sentence id="58">And that at some point, shortly before the German invasion, we tried to cross the <span class="DLF">border</span> into <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="59">It took about a week to cross the <span class="DLF">border</span>, in, in no-man's-land between <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> and, and <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="60">The last time when we -- in no-man's-land, when we went -- were shipped back to <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, then the Germans were already there, in <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="61">And it was curious that it was the Germans who actually helped us get into <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> at that point.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="68">Q: How do you mean, helped you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="70">A: Well, the Germans didn't realize who we were.</sentence><sentence id="71">And my father told them that he was Polish, and that the Poles wouldn't let us in.</sentence><sentence id="72">And so they actually carried our suitcases and told the Poles that they had to let us in.</sentence><sentence id="73">And that's how we entered <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="78">Q: Okay, Okay.</sentence><sentence id="79">But you entered <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="80">And where did you go?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="84">A: Well, we had political refugee status, my father, and we went to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Katowice</span>, in southern -- in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, to await our entry, or the right to leave for <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>.</sentence><sentence id="85">My father had papers that would have allowed him to go to <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>.</sentence><sentence id="86">We registered in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Katowice</span> with the British Consul and waited there until we were supposed to be called up to, to leave for <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>.</sentence><sentence id="87">And it was really on the day when the Germans moved into, into <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, on September first that we were supposed to be leaving for <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>.</sentence><sentence id="88">And we actually left.</sentence><sentence id="89">What happened was that the British Consul -- there were quite a number of refugees in our position -- were put on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> chartered by the British to take us to the, to the <span class="REGION">Balkans</span>, and hopefully, from there to <span class="COUNTRY">England</span>.</sentence><sentence id="90">But the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">plane</span> -- the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> -- never got very far; because we were bombed by <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German planes</span> and had to abandon the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> not, not very far from the <span class="DLF">Russian border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="91">And at that point, the question was: "What do what do we do next?"</sentence><sentence id="92">My, my father actually went and crossed into, into the Soviet Union, across the <span class="ENV_FEATURES">Bug River</span>; and came back and decided -- actually, he had crossed over to see whether we should go to the Soviet Union -- crossed over and decided that we weren't going to be much better off there than if we stayed in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="93">So he came back.</sentence><sentence id="94">And we then marched with the refugees on the, on the <span class="DLF">roads</span> and were actually taken over by <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">German tanks</span> on, on the <span class="DLF">roads</span> near some <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">village</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="95">After a while, we ended up in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> more or less in <span class="REGION">central Poland</span>, called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>, and eventually ended up in the ghetto of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>, and so forth.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="108">Q: Tell us -- by then, you are five.</sentence><sentence id="109">Tell us, if you can --</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="112">A: No.</sentence><sentence id="113">By then, I'm -- yeah, five.</sentence><sentence id="114">Yes, six.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="118">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="119">Tell me what you remember of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="122">A: Well, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> was, was -- at least from what I remember initially, or maybe in retrospect -- it's often very hard to keep these things apart.</sentence><sentence id="123">I had never se -- <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> really had a very large <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Jewish community</span>, and I've since found out that there were more than twenty thousand Jews in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> -- a long tradition.</sentence><sentence id="124">There were a lot of very religious Jews.</sentence><sentence id="125">There were <span class="BUILDING">Jewish schools</span> and everything -- things I had never seen before in -- in <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, where, where we were.</sentence><sentence id="126">There were -- let me see, what else do I remember from the initial period?There was another language -- two languages, in fact: both Yiddish and Polish.</sentence><sentence id="127">Initially -- again, until things, until 1941, "42, things were not all that bad.</sentence><sentence id="128">It was when the when the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> was established, all the Jews were herded into one part of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">city</span>.</sentence><sentence id="129">Food became very scarce.</sentence><sentence id="130"><span class="BUILDING">Housing</span> became very scarce.</sentence><sentence id="131">We lived in, in one <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span> that my father and mother and I shared.</sentence><sentence id="132">And food was very difficult to come by.</sentence><sentence id="133">A lot of, lot of hunger, but still not as serious.</sentence><sentence id="134">There were still a lot of people who lived quite well, who had, had ways of getting food into the, into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, especially in the beginning.</sentence><sentence id="135">Things gradually became harder and harder.</sentence><sentence id="136">And the, the <span class="DLF">walls</span> were -- protection was built up much heavier than initially.</sentence><sentence id="137">Initially, it was still possible for people to go in and out, I remember.</sentence><sentence id="138">But after a while that became more difficult.</sentence><sentence id="139">Then, of course, in 1942, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>.</sentence><sentence id="140">Most of the people in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> -- I would think about some close to 20,000 people -- were shipped to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span>," and that included my grandparents as well.</sentence><sentence id="141">That was sort of the first really serious killing experience that, that I had.</sentence><sentence id="142">During -- I should note, though, that in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> itself there were -- ifnot daily, certainly sporadic -- killings going on by Germans of people, German guards of Jews on the <span class="DLF">street</span>.</sentence><sentence id="143">At the same time, there appeared to be some sort of normalcy that, that reigned, but then in "42, all of that came to an end.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="167">Q: Can you describe the deportation?</sentence><sentence id="168">What did you see?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="171">A: Well, the, the--one morning we were awakened with screaming and shooting <span class="NPIP">outside</span> -- orders in German: "Everybody out!"</sentence><sentence id="172">And whoever wasn't to be out would be would be shot, and apparently a lot of older people, others who couldn't move, were shot.</sentence><sentence id="173">My father, who was, was a very cool person -- that's sort of the, the memory I have -- wasn't going to move until he had shaved and had time to think what to do.</sentence><sentence id="174">And -- actually that's what saved us because he took a group, he took us and a group of people out and marched us to -- he had been in charge of a <span class="BUILDING">shop</span> -- and marched us out to the <span class="BUILDING">shop</span>, saying that he had orders to protect the <span class="BUILDING">shop</span> and keep the, the people in.</sentence><sentence id="175">And that's -- and safeguard a number of people, about twenty people, protecting the <span class="BUILDING">shop</span>.</sentence><sentence id="176">And actually, that's how I was not initially shipped out.</sentence><sentence id="177">The -- we did, however, at the end -- when the, when the Nazis finally caught up with us -- we were all lined up, as everybody else.</sentence><sentence id="178">And you had most of the people marching in, in one direction, and maybe a few hundred people being saved.</sentence><sentence id="179">And we were in that group to : The <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> was established in April 1941.</sentence><sentence id="180">> This event, which constituted the liquidation of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span>, took place from August 20 to August 24, 1942.</sentence><sentence id="181">end up in another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> sort of a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camp</span>, also in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="182">I'm compressing all of this a great deal.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="196">Q: It's okay, we have time, we have time.</sentence><sentence id="197">Can you tell us about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camp</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="200">A: Well, that was basically -- when you, when you think of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">ghetto</span> as a substantial section of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">forced labor camp</span> was basically one <span class="DLF">street</span> that was surrounded with barbed wire and, and other -- or maybe two <span class="DLF">streets</span>.</sentence><sentence id="201">And most of the people worked -- were taken out from there to work in various, various jobs.</sentence><sentence id="202">I didn't do anything.</sentence><sentence id="203">I was there with my mother.</sentence><sentence id="204">And matter of fact, my mother had saved two other children from the--whose, whose parents had --were shipped out in, in "42.</sentence><sentence id="205">Two children had been left, and she took them in.</sentence><sentence id="206">So we ended up then in, in one-half <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>, I think, with, with two other children yet.</sentence><sentence id="207">And -- but life still, put it -- given what was to follow, was still more or less livable, but very -- under very difficult circumstances.</sentence><sentence id="208">Here the killing increased.</sentence><sentence id="209">Every so often, or anybody tried to escape, there would be executions and beatings and other things.</sentence><sentence id="210">The, the worst thing that happened in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was towards the end, when the -- when -- I think it was in, in "43, or the beginning of "44 -- and I'm -- my dates are wrong -- when there was another Selektion", Basically, you know, when people were shipped off to be killed.</sentence><sentence id="211">What happened there was that all the -- they lined us up on a sort of like a <span class="DLF">playground</span>, and separated all the children, and that became the, the famous massacre of the children in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="212">I was the only one to survive -- at least of the group that was, was visible.</sentence><sentence id="213">Two other children saved themselves by hiding in the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> where the children were taken.</sentence><sentence id="214">But what happened there was that the, the children who were taken out, ended up -- were taken to a <span class="DLF">cemetery</span> and killed with hand grenades.</sentence><sentence id="215">The <span class="DLF">Jewish cemetery</span> in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>; I, I survived that one.</sentence><sentence id="216">That was the worst part in that, that episode.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="234">Q: How did you survive?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="236">A: Very curious.</sentence><sentence id="237">They had us lined up on the <span class="DLF">field</span>.</sentence><sentence id="238">The German, the commander of the, of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> was standing in the middle making the decision who was going to live and who was going to die, and they pulled tried to pull me out, and my mother and father more or less pulled the other direction.</sentence><sentence id="239">And finally, they -- my mother, my father and I deci -- went up to the German commander; and I said, in German, that I -- to let me live, because I could work.</sentence><sentence id="240">And in German.</sentence><sentence id="241">And I, I think what, what I saw happen in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> a number of times was that they were somehow shocked to find that somebody looked very much like their own children, who spoke the same language the way their own children would speak, was there.</sentence><sentence id="242">They had -- I think they believed a lot of their own propaganda.</sentence><sentence id="243">And he looked at me and 3 Nazi term for the selection of prisoners for transport.</sentence><sentence id="244">said in German, "Well, let's see," and let me go.</sentence><sentence id="245">The whole thing may have lasted two seconds.</sentence><sentence id="246">And that's how I stayed.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="259">Q: What happened to you after that?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="261">A: Well, after that we ended up in, in a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, in -- still in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="262">The surviving people in this group -- I think about two hundred -- were split up, half taken to one <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, another half to another <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>.</sentence><sentence id="263">My parents and I ended up in a, in a -- and, incidentally, the two children who were younger than I that we had then died in that also.</sentence><sentence id="264">We, we ended up in a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> where they were making <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carts</span> for -- wooden <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">carts</span> -- for their <span class="REGION">Eastern Front</span>.</sentence><sentence id="265">At that point I had a very interesting job and assignment.</sentence><sentence id="266">The feeling was that, that to survive there, it was important to have something to do; and, and I wasn't even 10 years old.</sentence><sentence id="267">So I went to the commander, commander of the German -- of that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp;</span> and told him, asked him whether he needed an errand boy.</sentence><sentence id="268">And he looked at me, and he said, "Fine."</sentence><sentence id="269">And so basically, my, my job in that, in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> consisted of sitting outside his <span class="DLF">door</span> and doing chores that he needed to have done, like getting his <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bicycle</span> or taking something to one <span class="NPIP">place</span> or another.</sentence><sentence id="270">The, the job had great advantages because I could hear what was going on and could report back, and I could also alert people to his coming because I would be going ahead of him, running, announcing his coming.</sentence><sentence id="271">And so we had the signal that I would signal.</sentence><sentence id="272">He had -- he wore a hat with a feather; and if 1 went like this to people [gesturing], then he was coming.</sentence><sentence id="273">And -- because if people were seen not working, they would be beaten very badly.</sentence><sentence id="274">One interesting episode in that connection is that I could listen to the radio.</sentence><sentence id="275">He would listen to the radio, and I would sit <span class="NPIP">outside</span>, and I could hear.</sentence><sentence id="276">And I heard the, the capture of Mussolini," reported it.</sentence><sentence id="277">Of course, nobody believed me.</sentence><sentence id="278">We had no access to radio or any news.</sentence><sentence id="279">But that was -- and the fact that I worked there actually enabled us to have some food, and my father and mother both worked in that <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>.</sentence><sentence id="280">But it was one way of, of surviving, and giving me a cer -- certain amount of protection, as well.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="301">Q: Did things change at some point?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="303">A: Well, what changed at, at some point was that in 1944 the decision was made, I guess, to ship everybody in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="304">And we were, we were shipped to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>."</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="307">Q: Can you describe the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">transport</span>?</sentence><sentence id="308">What was that like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="311">" In September 1943.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="313">In early August 1944.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="314">A: We were in, in open <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cars</span>, <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">railroad cars</span>--put in.</sentence><sentence id="315">Interestingly enough, the Germans--we, we, of course, everybody was worried; and I remember people asking, "Where are we going?"</sentence><sentence id="316">and so forth.</sentence><sentence id="317">The Germans told us we were being shipped to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="318">And we once -- one believes what one wants to believe, and I suppose for a while we thought that's where we were going.</sentence><sentence id="319">Again, I remember my father saying initially that the direction of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> was going to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>, and then suddenly it, it changed.</sentence><sentence id="320">And that's when he knew that we were, we were going to someplace else.</sentence><sentence id="321">And he knew then we were going to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="322">Some people jumped out of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>.</sentence><sentence id="323">The way those <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">trains</span> were set up, the, the Germans had machine guns at the end of the, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span>, and if anybody jumped out, they would just try to lull the people, and I think a number of people jumped out of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> on the way to -- and I don't know, know whether they were, were hit or not.</sentence><sentence id="324">The, the most memorable thing was to arrive in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="325">It was, you know, from a child's perspective, it was just like having driven into an <span class="BUILDING">insane asylum</span>, with people walking back and forth, doing things.</sentence><sentence id="326">We, we saw a group carrying bricks from one <span class="NPIP">place</span> to another and carrying them back.</sentence><sentence id="327">And we, we expected to be met by machine guns, so we had no idea what the, the arrival in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> -- apart from, from this total view of people in these <span class="BUILDING">prison</span> -- those prison garb carrying, running different ways, with Kapos(r) with sticks.</sentence><sentence id="328">Was, was a certain calm.</sentence><sentence id="329">We arrived.</sentence><sentence id="330">We were, we were lined up and told we were going to go to, to a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">laundry</span>.</sentence><sentence id="331">Had our hair shaved.</sentence><sentence id="332">At that point, we expected that things would happen as in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Treblinka</span>, where we would be immediately executed.</sentence><sentence id="333">What happened was that since our <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> since our transfer came from these two <span class="BUILDING">factories</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>, it was assumed that everybody there was capable of working.</sentence><sentence id="334">And there was no Selektion.</sentence><sentence id="335">That's really the way I came into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="336">I would never have -- as a child, would never have gotten in because they would have selected me right out, at my age, at the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="337">But there was no Selektion.</sentence><sentence id="338">We actually went through the, the <span class="INT_SPACE">sauna</span> -- and I mean that they shaved our hair, disinfected us, and eventually, tattooed us; but I don't think right at the, at the arrival and sent us to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="339">And we ended up -- this is, of course, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span> -- ended up in what used to be the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gypsy camp</span>, and was still known as the Zigeunerlager, the, the "<span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gypsy camp</span>.""</sentence><sentence id="340">That's how I got to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="368">Q: Okay.</sentence><sentence id="369">Describe where you were taken and what you did, what the <span class="BUILDING">barrack</span> was like where you lived.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="372">A: Well, the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> were very much like the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> you see in pictures that one sees.</sentence><sentence id="373">These big three story <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">bunks</span>, very broad, with about ten people fitting into them -- just wooden, wooden boards, very crowded.</sentence><sentence id="374">The first night on arrival, that was, was probably one of the : Overseers (German).</sentence><sentence id="375">7 Birkenau section B-IIe.</sentence><sentence id="376">worst in, in my experience because this was the night when one or two of the people who had been collaborators in our <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and had shipped some people to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> were beaten very badly.</sentence><sentence id="377">So this was by people who had -- whom they had shipped to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> who in the meantime themselves had become Kapos.</sentence><sentence id="378">The world never changes.</sentence><sentence id="379">But, that was sort of the first, the first night, that experience.</sentence><sentence id="380">That's, you know, the, the sort of initial thing I remember of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="381">We -- there were some people that I. -- my father knew, who had been shipped out before.</sentence><sentence id="382">There again, my father and some friends thought that the way for me to survive was to try to find something to do.</sentence><sentence id="383">And I went -- or rather, I don't know who went.</sentence><sentence id="384">But at any rate, I managed to get to be the errand boy for the Kapo in the, in the laundry and sau -- I don't know what they called it.</sentence><sentence id="385">A <span class="NPIP">place</span> where people... The <span class="INT_SPACE">wash rooms</span>.</sentence><sentence id="386">And that, again I think, helped because I, I had a certain protection by being there and also knowing when the Selektion process was going to, to happen.</sentence><sentence id="387">Because you could -- in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, the Selektion of people, the Selektion out to the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>, to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span> would usually happen every six weeks.</sentence><sentence id="388">The Germans, with their efficiency, would never repeat things immediately or do things irregularly.</sentence><sentence id="389">So, you could expect things to happen every four to six weeks, and it usually happened with certain people arriving in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="390">And if you knew that was going to happen and if you were where I was, it gave you a certain amount of protection because you could hide and get out of, out of the way.</sentence><sentence id="391">And that certainly helped me, in some instances, to survive.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="413">Q: Can you tell me what working in a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">laundry</span> consisted of?</sentence><sentence id="414">I mean, you survived this way.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="417">What did you do there?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="418">A: One of the things that I had to do was to go and fetch gas.</sentence><sentence id="419">Not very often, but I think two or three times -- the same gas that was used for the gassing of people -- this Zyklon C gas(r) --to pick it up, for disinfecting purposes, from the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span> to the, to the laundry.</sentence><sentence id="420">And that was, and that actually enabled me to go to get out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="421">But basically, just go deliver a piece of paper from one <span class="NPIP">place</span> to another, and hang around.</sentence><sentence id="422">I certainly didn't work very hard.</sentence><sentence id="423">It wasn't, it wasn't a full-time job.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="430">Q: In carrying the gas, did you know that it was the same kind of gas?</sentence><sentence id="431">Did you make a connection?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="434">A: Oh, yes.</sentence><sentence id="435">You, you couldn't, you couldn't live in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span> without knowing what the gas was for.</sentence><sentence id="436">You have to visualize it.</sentence><sentence id="437">In the, in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gypsy camp</span> -- that is to say, in the--each -- there were a number of camps in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Birkenau</span>.</sentence><sentence id="438">They were basically <span class="DLF">streets</span> with <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> on each side surrounded by barbed wire, and there was <span class="DLF">Camp D</span> and C and B, and so forth.</sentence><sentence id="439">The, the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span> and <span class="BUILDING">crematories</span> were at one side.</sentence><sentence id="440">You could stand, for example, outside your <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> in my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> and see the smoke billowing out from the, from 8 Zyklon B. the <span class="BUILDING">crematory</span>.</sentence><sentence id="441">And not only the smoke, and even almost fire, but also the stench that would come out.</sentence><sentence id="442">So you couldn't be in any <span class="NPIP">place</span> in that environment and not know what was happening.</sentence><sentence id="443">And, of course, it was close enough almost to hear the screaming of, of people "cause what happened usually, unlike in my case, people would come to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> at the <span class="BUILDING">railroad station</span>, at the -- would be unloaded and there separated -- one group going into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> being allowed to go into the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> and the others going directly to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span> and the, and the <span class="BUILDING">crematory</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="455">Q: Did you watch this often?</sentence><sentence id="456">Were you in a position to see this process?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="459">A: You --I could see it.</sentence><sentence id="460">To say that I watched it... You, you couldn't help but know what was going, going on.</sentence><sentence id="461">And as a matter of fact, towards the end, when I was -- at the very end, when the <span class="BUILDING">crematory</span> no longer functioned, we were struck at one point that that suddenly there were birds and other things.</sentence><sentence id="462">There, there was nothing before.</sentence><sentence id="463">It was really sort of a, a cloud hanging over the over the <span class="NPIP">place</span>.</sentence><sentence id="464">I was at one point, I was -- later on -- sort of taking the story forward -- I was in a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> that was even closer to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span> and the <span class="BUILDING">crematory</span>, where you could really hear the screaming almost on a...on a regular basis.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="471">Q: Tell me about your parents at this point.</sentence><sentence id="472">You're in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="473">You were with your father?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="477">What happened to your parents?</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="478">A: When we came into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, my father and I were separated from my mother.</sentence><sentence id="479">My mother was sent to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">women's camp</span> in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, and my father and I were sent together to the, to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gypsy camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="480">I saw my mother once during that, that period.</sentence><sentence id="481">I was able -- I was sent on some -- or had to go for something to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">women's camp</span>; and went just so I could, could see my mother, and we had -- there were systems in which you could get some messages through from one group to the other.</sentence><sentence id="482">But otherwise there were just my, my father and I. We were, we were separated, I think, in October of 1944 or, or later-- when there was another, when there was a Selektion.</sentence><sentence id="483">And that was the only time when I wasn't able to escape.</sentence><sentence id="484">I -- there were many instances where | avoided the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span> throughout that period of stay in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>; but that was the only time when, when I lost.</sentence><sentence id="485">I'd always taken this as sort of a battle between them and us.</sentence><sentence id="486">And I'd always won; because I was never caught up in any Selektion.</sentence><sentence id="487">I was always able to escape.</sentence><sentence id="488">But in the last one, my, my father and I, we -- there was a Selektion of people to be sent out to another <span class="NPIP">place</span>, another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> for work purposes.</sentence><sentence id="489">And Mengele" and a group of, of doctors were lined up.</sentence><sentence id="490">And they saw me as a child, and they motioned me to go one way, and my father go the other way.</sentence><sentence id="491">And that's the last I saw of my, my father.</sentence><sentence id="492">I was retained in the, in the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, where we were supposed to then be taken from there to the, to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chamber</span>.</sentence><sentence id="493">I knew that you deg Josef Mengele (1911-19797), extermination camp doctor at <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="494">couldn't -- you develop all kinds of expertise as a, as a child growing up.</sentence><sentence id="495">I tried to escape a number of times -- couldn't, was caught, was beaten and gave up.</sentence><sentence id="496">At that point, I figured there was, there was no way.</sentence><sentence id="497">And I'd tried my best, but it was the end.</sentence><sentence id="498">What saved me was the fact that there weren't enough people to take to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chambers</span>.</sentence><sentence id="499">They made a decision to take us to the <span class="INT_SPACE">sick ward</span>, instead, until they had a larger transport.</sentence><sentence id="500">And that's what they did.</sentence><sentence id="501">They took us to, to <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> in another <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, which is the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> closer to the <span class="BUILDING">crematorium</span>," where all of the people had this serious skin disease.</sentence><sentence id="502">It was -- in, in German it was called "Kritze""."</sentence><sentence id="503">| don't know what it is in English, and I didn't develop it.</sentence><sentence id="504">There was a young Polish doctor, who kept giving me alcohol and other things, and told me what to do.</sentence><sentence id="505">One morning, I, I woke up.</sentence><sentence id="506">I -- it was very difficult in that <span class="NPIP">place</span> to sort of separate nightmares from reality, because you heard the noises all the time.</sentence><sentence id="507">One morning, I woke up and the people I had come with were all gone.</sentence><sentence id="508">And what had happened was that the Polish doctor had torn up card with my name on it, which had a ""X" in back, which meant that I was supposed to go.</sentence><sentence id="509">All the other people were taken out to the <span class="INT_SPACE">gas chamber</span>, and I -- he had written a new card for me, and I was saved.</sentence><sentence id="510">And so...From there, then, I went -- was able to get out of that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp --</span> with the help, curiously enough, of a German--to, to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">work camp</span> back in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="545">Q: How did a German help you?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="547">A: I saw a German, and I approached him in German.</sentence><sentence id="548">Told him that I wasn't sick, I shouldn't be here, and I was afraid if I stayed here I would catch something -- couldn't he help me get out?And he did.</sentence><sentence id="549">And I went to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> -- the D Lager" -- which was, which was sort of the major camp.</sentence><sentence id="550">And there was actually there were <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> that sort of <span class="BUILDING">children's barracks</span> kids.</sentence><sentence id="551">I think all of them were older than, than I was.</sentence><sentence id="552">I, I was about ten at the time.</sentence><sentence id="553">There was a, a <span class="BUILDING">Kapo</span>.</sentence><sentence id="554">Not really a Kapo, but it was what is known as a Blockiiltester"* -- the head of the, of the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, who had actually sort of indi -- protected the children, saying that they could work.</sentence><sentence id="555">And he had a whole group of, of young kids.</sentence><sentence id="556">TECHNICAL PROBLEMS - LONG PAUSE - TECHNICAL CONVERSATION</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="568">Q: We were in Lager D.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="570">w Birkenau section B-IIf.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="571">" Scabies (German).</sentence></p><p><sentence id="572">a Birkenau section B-IId.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="573">iB "Block elder": The head of a <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> row in the slave-labor and <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camps</span>, who was almost always a non-Jewish criminal.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="575">A: We were in Lager D, with a, with a group of, of children, and I really don't remember what we did there very much.</sentence><sentence id="576">But it -- that the treatment on the whole, given how bad it had been in various other <span class="NPIP">places</span>, was not, not all that bad.</sentence><sentence id="577">We -- there were two of us -- three of us -- who became friends.</sentence><sentence id="578">And we had to do all kinds of chores.</sentence><sentence id="579">I remember once we, we broke into the <span class="INT_SPACE">SS kitchen</span> and I drank my first glass of milk in a, in a long time.</sentence><sentence id="580">If they had caught us, I suppose they would have beaten us to death.</sentence><sentence id="581">We did those things.</sentence><sentence id="582">We had to, I think what I remember we had to pick up garbage, and engage in those activities.</sentence><sentence id="583">But then that really didn't last very long because, in Janu -- by January, the liquidation of, of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> happened.</sentence><sentence id="584">They lined us all up.</sentence><sentence id="585">They came in to announce that the ca -- <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was being liquidated.</sentence><sentence id="586">Lined us up, gave us some food, and began to march us out of, out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="587">And that started the famous death march out of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>.</sentence><sentence id="588">We were marched first for about three days, to a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> in <span class="REGION">Upper Silesia</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gliwice</span>.</sentence><sentence id="589">The, the, the three of us kids were together.</sentence><sentence id="590">The kids were put--the, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">children's camp</span> group was put in front when we first marched out.</sentence><sentence id="591">But it was -- Polish January is cold, and we didn't --we carried blankets.</sentence><sentence id="592">But after about a 10, 12-hour walk that we began to, to be very tired.</sentence><sentence id="593">The children began to, to fall back.</sentence><sentence id="594">People from the back were pushing, that we weren't going fast enough.</sentence><sentence id="595">And whoever sat down was, was shot, within, within our view, by the guards who were on each side of the <span class="DLF">road</span>.</sentence><sentence id="596">The three of us developed a system of resting which was to run up to the front, and then sort of stop almost, until we reached the back.</sentence><sentence id="597">And by that time, we had, we had rested, and then we could run up again and we would stay warm.</sentence><sentence id="598">And I don't know how long we did this, but at -- suddenly in the evening there was -- they stopped the column and asked for all the children to, to come forward, that they were going to be put in a <span class="DLF">farm</span>, on a <span class="DLF">farm</span>, and they didn't have to march anymore.</sentence><sentence id="599">Well, we had had experience.</sentence><sentence id="600">And we didn't go.</sentence><sentence id="601">And all the children from that group then were, were taken away and apparently shot.</sentence><sentence id="602">So we were the only three that, that stayed.</sentence><sentence id="603">We -- and it wasn't easy.</sentence><sentence id="604">There were all kinds of--we, we carried bread, and people kept pushing to get the bread.</sentence><sentence id="605">And everybody had a slice of bread, food, clothes, blankets; and we, we couldn't carry them.</sentence><sentence id="606">After a while, we didn't have anything any more.</sentence><sentence id="607">After three days, we, we came to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gliwice</span>, where they did another Selektion out.</sentence><sentence id="608">But the three of us managed to, to run.</sentence><sentence id="609">The, the test was whether you could run across some square, or something.</sentence><sentence id="610">And we together held each other up, and, and made it.</sentence><sentence id="611">That's in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gliwice</span>.</sentence><sentence id="612">They put us on a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> which took I think twelve days or so to get to the destination -- my destination.</sentence><sentence id="613">The <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> stopped at another <span class="NPIP">place</span>, but that was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.748639" long="13.236928">Oranienburg</span> -- which is near <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> -- where the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span> of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span> was.</sentence><sentence id="614">I suppose what is noteworthy about the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> ride: again open <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cars</span>, January 1945, Polish winters.</sentence><sentence id="615">The <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> was packed with people.</sentence><sentence id="616">You couldn't breathe.</sentence><sentence id="617">And if you were small, as, as we were, it was very difficult.</sentence><sentence id="618">By the time we arrived, you could walk in the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span>.</sentence><sentence id="619">People died in tremendous 1 numbers of exposure, of hunger, everything else.</sentence><sentence id="620">And whenever somebody died, they were thrown overboard as the as the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> moved.</sentence><sentence id="621">I think, in my, in my <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span> alone there were no more than about ten people or so, when we when we arrived for the first time at the <span class="BUILDING">railroad station</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>.</sentence><sentence id="622">There you might have an interesting footnote to that experience: in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>, when we arrived, I heard a German woman say, "Es stinkt so wieder nach Juden" -- which means, "It smells again of Jews."</sentence><sentence id="623">At the same time, a, a German -- our German guard, who was sitting on our <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> -- gave me a cup of coffee, which was the first warm thing I, I had had on this entire trip.</sentence><sentence id="624">We -- well, the, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">train</span> eventually ended up in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.748639" long="13.236928">Oranienburg</span>, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Heinkel</span> -- where there's a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>, <span class="BUILDING">airplane factory</span>, where we were kept for about two weeks, I, I think."*</sentence><sentence id="625">By that time, I -- the cold was so bad I, I lost some -- my, my legs were totally frostbitten, my hands.</sentence><sentence id="626">Eventually, the toes, some toes had to be amputated.</sentence><sentence id="627">But, you know, <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.748639" long="13.236928">Oranienburg</span>, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Heinkel</span>, I remember taking off my shoes and never found my shoes again.</sentence><sentence id="628">They were, they were good shoes.</sentence><sentence id="629">We were there and nothing much happened.</sentence><sentence id="630">Then after two weeks, we were taken to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span> of, of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span> -- which was a German Musterlager,"deg which had been there already in the in the "30's.</sentence><sentence id="631">And was a-- you came in, there was a big sign saying "Arbeit Macht das Leben Siiss" -- all of which, which is, "Work Makes Life Sweet."</sentence><sentence id="632">We were put in, in <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> there, after actually marching.</sentence><sentence id="633">And it was very difficult at that point for me to, to walk from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Heinkel</span> to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="634">German kids were throwing stones at the group that was, that was marching.</sentence><sentence id="635">It was almost a relief to end up in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="636">I don't know how long I was there before I couldn't anymore, with my feet.</sentence><sentence id="637">My toes had turned totally black.</sentence><sentence id="638">And the, the -- it wasn't pain; but the nerves were -- I just, I couldn't sleep.</sentence><sentence id="639">I, I could feel everything.</sentence><sentence id="640">I then went to -- they had a <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span> there.</sentence><sentence id="641">And because it was a model <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> it was actually a well set-up <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>.</sentence><sentence id="642">I went there, went into a <span class="INT_SPACE">room</span>.</sentence><sentence id="643">They looked at my foot.</sentence><sentence id="644">And before I knew it, four people grabbed, stretched me out on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span> and operated right there on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span>, with the I think chloroform or some other thing.</sentence><sentence id="645">They had to operate again because they hadn't -- but the person who operated was a French military doctor, who was very good and very kind, and actually saved my leg, because gangrene would have set in.</sentence><sentence id="646">It was black.</sentence><sentence id="647">He saved my other foot -- I didn't loose any, any toes on, on my other foot.</sentence><sentence id="648">My, my hands were, were fine.</sentence><sentence id="649">And then I ended up in the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>, which, again, was a <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span> where usually, after a few weeks, you would be -- you would be cured only to be to be killed.</sentence><sentence id="650">But it was coming to the end of the war.</sentence><sentence id="651">And actually the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> the Russians came to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> in, in April of 1945.So I was, I think, in the, in the <span class="INT_SPACE">hospital ward</span> for about four to six weeks; and was, was helped a lot by, by Norwegians, and others, who so saved my life.</sentence><sentence id="652">The <span class="DLF">Heinkel facility</span> was a subcamp of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="653">8 "<span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Model Camp</span>."</sentence><sentence id="654"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Camp</span> after which other <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> were modeled.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="738">Q: Tell me, if you would, about your stay in that <span class="BUILDING">hospital ward</span> and your meetings with the Norwegians.</sentence><sentence id="739">What -- first, what was the <span class="BUILDING">ward</span> like?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="742">A: Oh, just a big <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> with, with <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">beds</span> where people -- some were dying, some had...had minor injuries.</sentence><sentence id="743">A lot of people -different thing.</sentence><sentence id="744">Every so often, people would be taken out, people would be released.</sentence><sentence id="745">The Selektion was made of people who were actually taken out and, and killed, without most of us knowing what was going on.</sentence><sentence id="746">They were called out.</sentence><sentence id="747">The Norwegians received packages from the <span class="BUILDING">Norwegian Red Cross</span>, or the <span class="BUILDING">Swedish Red Cross</span>.</sentence><sentence id="748">And befriended me and helped me immensely, with -- especially a man by the name of Fridtjof Nan -- Odd Nansen -- the son of Fridtjof Nansen"(r) who was in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> -- helped me with -- both with food, and also I think with giving food to the people in the ward to, to protect me.</sentence><sentence id="749">It was curious.</sentence><sentence id="750">The, the one thing that I remember from that ward is something which we -- which people who haven't been in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camps</span> don't realize.</sentence><sentence id="751">That when all of this terrible tragedy and terrible conditions that were going on, people still had a great sense of humor.</sentence><sentence id="752">It, it didn't leave us.</sentence><sentence id="753">Let me give you one example: in this <span class="INT_SPACE">hospital ward</span>, we had as a ventilator just a <span class="DLF">hole</span> in the <span class="DLF">roof</span>, which was plugged up with a piece of wood.</sentence><sentence id="754"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span>, as I said, was about twenty kilometers outside of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>.</sentence><sentence id="755">And when the Allies bombed <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>, the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">planes</span> would fly over <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="756">There's another story to this, which I can tell you later.</sentence><sentence id="757">But at any rate, the bombing, of course, the bombs would fall pretty close.</sentence><sentence id="758">And one day, there, there was a very severe bombing attack, and people were getting out of their <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">beds</span> because of the fear that the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span> would be bombed.</sentence><sentence id="759">And, and there it was all <span class="ENV_FEATURES">wood</span> and would have been burned.</sentence><sentence id="760">And suddenly there was a tremendous crash of a bomb falling, and a man screaming he's been killed by the bomb.</sentence><sentence id="761">But what had happened was that the piece of wood that had plugged up the ventilator had fallen down, and just fallen on him.</sentence><sentence id="762">And, you know -- despite this environment we were in -- that whole block of people, maybe a hundred dying people, burst into a roar of laughter which I still remember to this day -- about the fact that this poor man thought he had died already.</sentence><sentence id="763">There were many instances of that going on.</sentence><sentence id="764">The other thing which, in which we took great pride and joy was that when the bombing raids came, the, the German officers" families and influential Germans would hide in the camp from the bombing attack.</sentence><sentence id="765">Because the bo -- the the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was known to the Allies; and they avoided bombing it.</sentence><sentence id="766">As a matter of fact, at night they would drop flares around the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>, in order not to bomb it.</sentence><sentence id="767">And so it was really the safest <span class="NPIP">place</span> nearby.</sentence><sentence id="768">And that, to us, we were beginning to feel that the war, that we were maybe winning.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="796">Q: This is a good moment to change tapes, I think.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="798">A: Uh-huh. "</sentence><sentence id="799">6 Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930); Norwegian explorer, Nobel peace prize winner.</sentence><sentence id="800">3 TAPE #2</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="804">Q: Okay, in the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>, you tell me that you were befriended by Norwegians -- particularly Odd Nansen.</sentence><sentence id="805">Can you tell me something about him, and about your relationship with him?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="808">A: Well, he, he would come and visit various Norwegians in the, in the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>; and that's how we, we met.</sentence><sentence id="809">He, he was writing a diary in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="810">I, of course, didn't know about it at the time.</sentence><sentence id="811">I found out after the war.</sentence><sentence id="812">So he, he came by, talked to a lot of people; and then, when he found out that I was there and that I'd come from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span>, he befriended me.</sentence><sentence id="813">And came and visited me almost every week, or maybe even more often and would bring me cookies and try and make sure that I was all right.</sentence><sentence id="814">And brought me ex -- as a matter of fact, brought me paper and a pencil to draw.</sentence><sentence id="815">And what, of course, I didn't know was that he wrote down a lot of things about my experiences at the time.</sentence><sentence id="816">He was a wonderful man, who had -- really a great humanitarian; very much in the tradition of his father, who was Fridtjof Nansen -- the High Commissioner for Refugees during the League of Nations time, after whom the, the Nansen Passport is named.</sentence><sentence id="817">But he, he helped me immensely.</sentence><sentence id="818">I, I think he, he saved my life.</sentence><sentence id="819">He was then shipped out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> shortly before the, the end of the war, when Count Bernadotte"" was able to get the Norwegians and Danes out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> and get them to <span class="COUNTRY">Sweden</span>.</sentence><sentence id="820">At that point we, we didn't see each other again.</sentence><sentence id="821">And after the war, when having survived I, I tried to, to find him, couldn't remember his name -- only knew that he, that he had a very famous Norwegian name.</sentence><sentence id="822">But wanted to find him and wanted to thank him.</sentence><sentence id="823">I didn't find him until about 1947 or "48, when my mother read in the newspaper that a book had been published.</sentence><sentence id="824">It was a diary of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">concentration camp</span> that, among other things dealt with <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="825">And that it was a Norwegian who had published it.</sentence><sentence id="826">At that point, we, we wrote to him, asking whether he knew that, who that Norwegian might be who helped me in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp.</span></sentence><sentence id="827">And, of course, it was he.</sentence><sentence id="828">There's a great story to this because I -- mail, of course, was very slow in those days, after the war.</sentence><sentence id="829">Food was very scarce.</sentence><sentence id="830">We didn't hear from him for -- we didn't receive an answer to the letter for about four or six weeks.</sentence><sentence id="831">And one day, there's a knock at the <span class="DLF">door</span> in the <span class="BUILDING">house</span> where we lived in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> -- in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gottingen</span> -- and up pulled a <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">Norwegian military truck</span>.</sentence><sentence id="832">And the soldier came out, and asked whether this was our <span class="BUILDING">home</span>.</sentence><sentence id="833">And we said, "Yes."</sentence><sentence id="834">And he said he had a little package for us.</sentence><sentence id="835">And so we said, "Well, give it to us."</sentence><sentence id="836">And he said, "No, no.</sentence><sentence id="837">It's, -- we need to carry it."</sentence><sentence id="838">And they -- then a group of Norwegian soldiers jumped out of the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">car</span>, and brought this tremendous crate -- wooden crate -- of food that had been collected by Norwegian children, with a letter from him.</sentence><sentence id="839">And shortly thereafter, he came and actually took me to <span class="COUNTRY">Norway</span> for a few weeks.</sentence><sentence id="840">And -- because he had thought that I had died in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="841">And the book, in fact, that he published about the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> -- the diary -- was dedicated to me, among other people, on the assumption that I hadn't survived the -- the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp.</span></sentence><sentence id="842">So it was a wonderful reunion when we when we finally got together.</sentence><sentence id="843">u Folke Bernadotte (1895-1948); Swedish statesman, Count of Wisbourg and nephew of King Gustav V. 4</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="880">Q: Okay, let's go back to you in the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>.</sentence><sentence id="881">When were you released from the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="884">A: I really wasn't.</sentence><sentence id="885">The <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp --</span> the Germans lost the war before I was released from the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span>, or rather, they had to leave the, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp.</span></sentence><sentence id="886">Again, this <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was to be liquidated, and people were lined up to march out of the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="887">We, we really couldn't walk, and the people in the <span class="INT_SPACE">hospital ward</span> were left behind.</sentence><sentence id="888">And we assumed that they would come in and shoot everybody in our <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">beds</span>, and it was extremely -- I remember the day when people lined up, and then it became extremely quiet.</sentence><sentence id="889">And you couldn't hear anything.</sentence><sentence id="890">You only -- and we waited, basically, on the assumption that any minute now they would, they would come in.</sentence><sentence id="891">Nothing happened.</sentence><sentence id="892">And of all the people in that, in the <span class="BUILDING">barracks</span>, I probably could move better.</sentence><sentence id="893">By then, I had a crutch; and I could move on, on one leg.</sentence><sentence id="894">And finally, I went out to look.</sentence><sentence id="895">With all this silence.</sentence><sentence id="896">And the machine gun on the <span class="DLF">gate</span> of the--overlooking the, the sort of <span class="DLF">plaza</span> in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span> was empty, for the first time.</sentence><sentence id="897">And the Germans had left.</sentence><sentence id="898">You -- by then, you could hear already the rumbling of artillery in -- in the background.</sentence><sentence id="899">And there wasn't a soul to be seen.</sentence><sentence id="900">Nothing happened for a while, except, you know, we, we realized that maybe we were, we were going to live.</sentence><sentence id="901">The shooting came closer.</sentence><sentence id="902">Eventually the <span class="DLF">gates</span> swung open and Russian troops came in.</sentence><sentence id="903">And they began ringing the, the camp bell to say that we were free.</sentence><sentence id="904">There was -- that, that was freedom.</sentence><sentence id="905">And the first thing, of course, that happened then was that anybody who could move stormed into the German, where the Germans kept provisions, and tried to grab as much food as, as possible.</sentence><sentence id="906">I had eaten so little in that time that I couldn't eat.</sentence><sentence id="907">I remember the only thing I took was a pickle.</sentence><sentence id="908">I found a pickle, and, and I ate it.</sentence><sentence id="909">And maybe that's what saved me, actually, because people died by simply eating too much, and not having eaten for a long time and not being used to, to the food.</sentence><sentence id="910">As a matter of fact, I'll come back to that later.</sentence><sentence id="911">I couldn't eat for anything very much, for weeks after my, my liberation.</sentence><sentence id="912">Just couldn't.</sentence><sentence id="913">Could barely eat anything more than a piece of, of dry bread, but a lot of people ate and got extremely sick.</sentence><sentence id="914">The Russians did nothing, really.</sentence><sentence id="915">There was no -- unlike from what I hear about the camps that were liberated by the British or American troops, or French troops, there was no doctors sent in.</sentence><sentence id="916">No first aid.</sentence><sentence id="917">No supplies.</sentence><sentence id="918">Nothing.</sentence><sentence id="919">We were just simply told we were free, and we could go.</sentence><sentence id="920">And the direction we should go was away from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>, because <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> was still not, not captured.</sentence><sentence id="921">This was about April 20th or so, 1945."*</sentence><sentence id="922">And so whoever could move, went.</sentence><sentence id="923">And there was with me in, in the <span class="BUILDING">hospital</span> a, a Pole who he and I got up, and we decided to try to...to move, to...to go, leave the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="924">And we got out into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Sachsen</span> -- into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.748639" long="13.236928">Oranienburg</span>, the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> where <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span> was, and there the <span class="BUILDING">houses</span> were empty.</sentence><sentence id="925">The Germans had, left their <span class="BUILDING">homes</span>, left food almost on the <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">table</span>, and, and had left, and we sort of 8 <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.767083" long="13.261825">Sachsenhausen</span> was liberated April 27, 1945.</sentence><sentence id="926">5 moved from one <span class="NPIP">place</span> to another, from one of these <span class="BUILDING">homes</span> to another, until we came upon a group of the -- a Polish division under Russian command -- the First Division Kosciusko".</sentence><sentence id="927">And by then we had accumulated a group of people, about five or six people, all from <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="928">The -- the Polish soldiers saw me, assumed I was Polish.</sentence><sentence id="929">I, I spoke Polish.</sentence><sentence id="930">And didn't --they had to speak German at the time, of course.</sentence><sentence id="931">And asked me whether I was from <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>; and I said, "Yes."</sentence><sentence id="932">And then they said, well, they'll take me to <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="933">And so what they did was take me along in with their group.</sentence><sentence id="934">And their -- this particular group was the scout company of the First Polish Division.</sentence><sentence id="935">And I became the mascot of the, of the Division.</sentence><sentence id="936">I was given a horse and a, a little <span class="SPATIAL_OBJ">cart</span>.</sentence><sentence id="937">As a matter of fact, they had, they had captured a German circus, and this was a small pony.</sentence><sentence id="938">I had my pony, and moved with the troops.</sentence><sentence id="939">And actually, I always say I helped capture <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> with my troops because we actually moved on <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>.</sentence><sentence id="940">And I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> before <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> fell, because the, the troops came in.</sentence><sentence id="941">The Russians had already advanced, Russian troops had already moved in.</sentence><sentence id="942">But I was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> before <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> fell, on the outskirts of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> -- actually, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> with Polish, troops.</sentence><sentence id="943">It's never mentioned that Polish troops were in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span> among the conquerors, and it, it's true.</sentence><sentence id="944">We, we were there.</sentence><sentence id="945">We, actually, until <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> surrendered I was -- we were still following German troops beyond <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.4546411" long="13.3818501">Berlin</span>.</sentence><sentence id="946">After the fall of <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>, the Polish troops were being moved back to, to <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>.</sentence><sentence id="947">And I was moving back with them.</sentence><sentence id="948">And we initially moved to a, to a <span class="BUILDING">military garrison</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> called <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.15" long="22.267">Siedlce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="949">It's a <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> in, in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, where I've spent some time until a, a Jewish-Polish soldier in my company took me out one day and took me to a <span class="BUILDING">Jewish orphanage</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="52.117" long="21.267">Otwock</span> and left me there, and there were a lot of Jewish children in that in the <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span>, that we -- for the first time, I sort of began to live something of a, of a normal life.</sentence><sentence id="950">The period in the <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span> is interesting -- again, as a sort of historical footnote -- because our <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span> was an <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span> run by the Jewish Bund, which was a socialist communist Jewish organization that didn't want people to go to <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span> then.</sentence><sentence id="951">At the same time, the Zionist group -- the Ha-Shomer Ha-Za'ir(tm)" -- had more or less infiltrated the <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span>.</sentence><sentence id="952">And there was one counselor who got all of us who wan -- those who wanted to go to, to <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span> -- it was then <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span> -- put the names on a list.</sentence><sentence id="953">And would then run away, one by one, to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Zionist kibbutz</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, or <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="954">And from -- and would be shipped from there to <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span>, and I signed up for this group.</sentence><sentence id="955">Problem was that, that I was the only one who had been in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Auschwitz</span> and in other camps.</sentence><sentence id="956">And so the decision was made that I should run away last because I would be interviewed on newsreel and on radio about my <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp, and</span> they thought that if I ran away it would blow the @ The Tadeusz Kosciusko Division appeared in July 1943 and was comprised of Polish patriots under Russian command.</sentence><sentence id="957">Alexander Werth.</sentence><sentence id="958"><span class="COUNTRY">Russia</span> at War. (</sentence><sentence id="959"><span class="POPULATED_PLACE">New York</span>: Carrol and Graf Publishers, Inc., 1964), 653. *</sentence><sentence id="960">deg Zionist youth movement directed at educating Jewish youth for kibbutz life in <span class="COUNTRY">Israel</span>.</sentence><sentence id="961">6 whole operation.</sentence><sentence id="962">So I was put on to, on the list.</sentence><sentence id="963">The list was sent to the Jewish Agency for <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span>, to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Jerusalem</span>, but I was told that I would be told when to run away, but I would be the last person.</sentence><sentence id="964">In the meantime, something unbelievable happened.</sentence><sentence id="965">My mother had survived the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp</span>.</sentence><sentence id="966">And my brother, my mother's brother was here in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="967">And they began looking for me all over, of course, after the war.</sentence><sentence id="968">And they couldn't find me.</sentence><sentence id="969">My mother never gave up hope that I was alive.</sentence><sentence id="970">Everybody told her, "It's impossible that he survived."</sentence><sentence id="971">But she believed that I survived.</sentence><sentence id="972">And among other <span class="NPIP">places</span> where they looked, of course, was the Jewish Agency for Palestine.</sentence><sentence id="973">Somebody in the Search Bureau of the Jewish Agency for Palestine noticed that there was a child in an <span class="BUILDING">orphanage</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> who was going to be coming to <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span>, who met the description of the child that the woman was looking for in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> and notified my uncle in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="974">And that's how they, how I was eventually reunited with my mother.</sentence><sentence id="975">What happened was that, the, the -- it wasn't all that easy to leave <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span>, you know, I had no papers or anything else.</sentence><sentence id="976">And my mother was in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> at the time, in the, in the <span class="REGION">British zone</span>, so the American Joint Distribution Committee basically smuggled me out in December of 1946 from <span class="COUNTRY">Poland</span> to <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span>, <span class="COUNTRY">Czechoslovakia</span> to the <span class="REGION">American zone</span>, and then the <span class="REGION">American zone</span> to the <span class="REGION">British zone</span> in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>, until I was reunited with my mother.</sentence><sentence id="977">And there was the Joint operated with the Brichah" |, which had bribed a lot of people on the <span class="DLF">border</span>.</sentence><sentence id="978">And that's how I got to <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> in "46.</sentence><sentence id="979">That was really three years after I'd been separated from my mother.</sentence><sentence id="980">But the -- I think the most telling thing is, is the faith that my mother had that I was alive.</sentence><sentence id="981">And there was no way for anybody to shake her in the belief that, that I was alive.</sentence><sentence id="982">And I, I really never looked.</sentence><sentence id="983">I assumed that if my mother or father were alive, they were going to find me.</sentence><sentence id="984">And --</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1088">Q: Can you describe that meeting?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1090">A: It's emotionally a little hard, except to say that, that we met on the <span class="BUILDING">railroad station</span> outside of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">G6ttingen</span>, which is in <span class="REGION">northern Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1091">She had gone to a, a <span class="BUILDING">station</span> earlier, and I recognized her, yeah.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1094">Q: Where did you go once you and your mother were reunited?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1096">A: You'll be surprised to hear it when I say to <span class="BUILDING">school</span>, as a good academic.</sentence><sentence id="1097">No, what I -- what we did was <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gottingen</span> was my mother's <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">home town</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1098">My father and mother had a, had different meeting places that they had agreed upon if they survived the war.</sentence><sentence id="1099">One was in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1100">My mother had actually gone back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> -- walked from <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1101">She was liberated out not far from <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Ravensbriick</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1102">Walked, got back, mainly walking, into <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> looking for us; escaped out of <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span>, left <span class="POPULATED_PLACE" lat="50.873" long="20.632">Kielce</span> just a few days becau -- before the pogrom after the war, 2 Literally "flight" (Hebrew).</sentence><sentence id="1103">The attempted movement of around 250,000 Jews from Eastern and <span class="REGION">Central Europe</span> to <span class="COUNTRY">Palestine</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1104">Yehuda Bauer.</sentence><sentence id="1105">Flight and Rescue: Brichah (New York: Random House, 1970), vii. "</sentence><sentence id="1106">The pogrom to which he refers took place on July 4, 1946.</sentence><sentence id="1107">7 got back to <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gettingen</span> because that's where, where she had grown up, where my great grandparents lived, and waited for my father.</sentence><sentence id="1108">I came, and I had really no schooling whatsoever, and we lived in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gottingen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1109">So I was put -- I was taught a year of private tutoring, and then enrolled in the <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Gottingen</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1110">And was the -- the only Jewish kid in -- in <span class="BUILDING">school</span> in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span>, and the only Jewish kid that anybody in that <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> -- at least, the children -- had seen.</sentence><sentence id="1111">Which was, in itself, an experience because they always expected to find somebody with a long nose, and, you know, all the caricatures out of the Stiirmer and other German newspapers.</sentence><sentence id="1112">Initially it was difficult.</sentence><sentence id="1113">One, one is -- ort of comes with a certain hatred to the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> of the people who did all of this.</sentence><sentence id="1114">And initially, I had this desire of sitting on my <span class="INT_SPACE">balcony</span> to take a machine gun and shoot everybody who -- then, gradually, you meet the children and their parents; and the abstract of the Germans becomes the reality of human beings.</sentence><sentence id="1115">And you sort of gradually shed the hatred, and you integrate in the <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">town</span> and in the <span class="BUILDING">school</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1116">It helped to -- we spoke about Nansen before.</sentence><sentence id="1117">One of the things that I didn't mention was that when Nansen's book was published in German he gave the proceeds for that book to German refugees.</sentence><sentence id="1118">And his whole approach to the Holocaust and to the problem was one of reconciliation.</sentence><sentence id="1119">And that made a great impression on me, living in that environment and seeing people who hadn't participated in these killings.</sentence><sentence id="1120">But I, I never really felt at <span class="BUILDING">home</span> in any sense, in, in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>; although I was treated well.</sentence><sentence id="1121">Made a lot of friends.</sentence><sentence id="1122">Then, in 1951, I, I came to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1123">I came initially alone, just to stay for one year.</sentence><sentence id="1124">Came to live with my uncle, who lived in <span class="REGION">New Jersey</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1125">And never went back.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1157">Q: What did your mother do?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1159">A: My mother remarried; stayed initially in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span>, but really remarried.</sentence><sentence id="1160">And she and her husband, who had been also in, in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">camp,</span> in some of our camps, went to <span class="COUNTRY">Italy</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1161">He had some relatives in <span class="COUNTRY">Italy</span> who were in business, and he went to live in <span class="COUNTRY">Italy</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1162">She never came to the United -- I mean, she came to visit often, but she never came to live in this <span class="COUNTRY">country</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1163">She had this strange notion that if she came to the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span> she'd have to work in a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1164">And having worked during the war, she wasn't going to -- despite the fact that we tried to disabuse her of this, it never worked.</sentence><sentence id="1165">She still comes to visit only.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1173">Q: And when you came here, you did work in a <span class="BUILDING">factory</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1175">A: Yes, but -- I, well, I came.</sentence><sentence id="1176">I had a wonderful -- my uncle and aunt were wonderful to me.</sentence><sentence id="1177">They took me in.</sentence><sentence id="1178">Was just living as a -- I mean, obviously it was my family; but they, they weren't wealthy.</sentence><sentence id="1179">They were, they were people who themselves worked in the <span class="BUILDING">factory</span> and <span class="BUILDING">stores</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1180">They took me in.</sentence><sentence id="1181">They had one daughter, and they treated me like a son.</sentence><sentence id="1182">And I came in December.</sentence><sentence id="1183">In January, I was in <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> in <span class="POPULATED_PLACE">Paterson</span>, <span class="REGION">New Jersey</span>, and became a <span class="BUILDING">high 8 school</span> student like everybody else in the <span class="COUNTRY">United States</span> and enjoyed it very much.</sentence><sentence id="1184">I, I liked it.</sentence><sentence id="1185">I was treated very well.</sentence><sentence id="1186">They -- I was tremendously impressed with the very different atmosphere in the <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> from the German environment.</sentence><sentence id="1187"><span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> was academically higher.</sentence><sentence id="1188">The <span class="BUILDING">American high schools</span> are a wonderful laboratory of democracy in so many ways.</sentence><sentence id="1189">I liked it very much.</sentence><sentence id="1190">And the teachers, I felt, were very good.</sentence><sentence id="1191">And they helped me immensely.</sentence><sentence id="1192">And they helped me get into <span class="BUILDING">college</span>, and so forth.</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1211">Q: Is there anything you'd like to add?</sentence><sentence id="1212">Any part of the story you want to fill in?</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1215">A: Well, you know, I, I think I, I should go on with the, with the college story, in a sense because it, it's sort of relevant I think for Americans too, in many ways.</sentence><sentence id="1216">It's almost part of Americana in its, in its true sense.</sentence><sentence id="1217">I-- when I went to <span class="BUILDING">high school</span>, of course, I knew nothing about what one does from there on on.</sentence><sentence id="1218">All I knew was that I wanted to go and become a lawyer, and, and, and write.</sentence><sentence id="1219">And, of course, to many people that seemed totally outrageous.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="1220">For somebody who had just come, that you'd be able to go to <span class="BUILDING">university</span>, being an immigrant, and so forth.</sentence><sentence id="1221">But I had a wonderful advisor -- college advisor--in, in <span class="BUILDING">high school</span>, who gave me a list of, of ten <span class="BUILDING">colleges</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1222">And she said all small <span class="BUILDING">colleges</span>, that I should write to.</sentence><sentence id="1223">And she told me what to write, asking for a scholarship and admission, and that's what I did.</sentence><sentence id="1224">The problem was that most of the <span class="BUILDING">colleges</span>, on seeing my record looked at it and saw that here was this kid who had had no <span class="BUILDING">school</span>--except basically two and a half years of <span class="BUILDING">school</span> in, in <span class="COUNTRY">Germany</span> and about a year of <span class="BUILDING">high school</span> in <span class="REGION">New Jersey</span>, and he wanted to go to <span class="BUILDING">college</span> and he wanted a scholarship.</sentence><sentence id="1225">So the reaction from most of them was: "Well, we'd admit you, but we can't give you a scholarship until we see how you perform in the first year."</sentence><sentence id="1226">Well, I couldn't, couldn't afford it.</sentence><sentence id="1227">One <span class="BUILDING">college</span> I'd written to for a catalog -- which was the sort of the first step -- was <span class="BUILDING">Bethany College</span> in, in <span class="REGION">West Virginia</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1228">And <span class="BUILDING">Bethany College</span>, I received the catalog.</sentence><sentence id="1229">I opened the catalog, and it said, "This is a Christian college."</sentence><sentence id="1230">Coming from Europe, with my experience, I thought that meant that, that they didn't want me.</sentence><sentence id="1231">So I didn't apply.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="1232">And time went by -- a number of weeks, or months.</sentence><sentence id="1233">One day I get called to the, my <span class="BUILDING">counselor's office</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1234">And she says that "There is somebody here from <span class="BUILDING">Bethany College</span> who would like to meet you."</sentence><sentence id="1235">And I'm introduced.</sentence><sentence id="1236">And the first thing the person says to me is, "Why--you, you, you wrote to Bethany, we sent you the catalog.</sentence><sentence id="1237">Why didn't you send in your application?"</sentence><sentence id="1238">I hemmed and hawed, and didn't quite know how to explain this.</sentence><sentence id="1239">Finally, I told him the truth.</sentence><sentence id="1240">And he said, "Oh, this isn't the case at all!</sentence><sentence id="1241">I can tell you that if you apply to <span class="BUILDING">Bethany College</span>, we'll give you a scholarship and a job.</sentence><sentence id="1242">And you can -- you won't need a penny in order to graduate from <span class="BUILDING">school</span> if you, you know, do well."</sentence><sentence id="1243">And that's where I went.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="1244">And they were--this, this is a <span class="BUILDING">school</span> that's founded by the Disciples of Christ.</sentence><sentence id="1245">I found it to be an extremely liberal school.</sentence><sentence id="1246">Nobody cared what religion I had.</sentence><sentence id="1247">They treated me wonderfully.</sentence><sentence id="1248">I got a good education.</sentence><sentence id="1249">I went on from there to <span class="BUILDING">New York University</span> and to <span class="BUILDING">Harvard Law School</span>.</sentence><sentence id="1250">And -- but they were the ones who gave me this, this wonderful break.</sentence></p><p><sentence id="1251">The <span class="BUILDING">schools</span>, the, the supposedly "better" <span class="BUILDING">schools</span>, in quotation marks, weren't going to take a chance.</sentence><sentence id="1252">And I've always been extremely grateful to, to <span class="BUILDING">Bethany College</span>.</sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1254">Q: That's quite a story.</sentence><sentence id="1255">That's -- thank you.</sentence><sentence id="1256">Very much.</sentence><sentence id="1257">That's it.</sentence><sentence id="1258">TECHNICAL CONVERSATION</sentence></p></dialogue> |
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