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layout: transcript |
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interviewee: bela none blau |
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rg_number: rg-50.030.0029 |
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pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0029_trs_en.pdf |
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ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504458 |
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gender: m |
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birth_date: none |
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birth_year: 1910.0 |
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place_of_birth: bratislava |
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country: czechoslovakia |
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experience_group: soldier |
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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: 1990.407.1 |
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revisit: none |
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tags: transcripts |
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<body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">BELA BLAU June 11, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Mr. Blau, could you tell us your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Bela Blau. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And, Mr. Blau, where were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Pressburg</span> [NB: German name], in <span class="populated place">Pozsony</span> [NB: Hungarian name], in 1910, in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy--later <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Could you tell us a little about <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> from your early memory? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> is one of the really wonderful <span class="populated place">city</span>, beautiful <span class="populated place">cities</span> along...next to the <span class="env feature">Donau</span>, <span class="env feature">River Donau</span> [NB: the <span class="env feature">Danube</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="14">And as most of...like everyone likes his <span class="populated place">hometown</span>. </sentence><sentence id="15">I was grown up there, went to <span class="building">school</span> there; and uh lived there "til my..."til I was twenty- seven, when I married and I left <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> to live in another uh <span class="populated place">city</span>--in _ilina, in the <span class="region">northern part</span> of <span class="country">Slovakia</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="19">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="20">During uh these early years, tell me a little about your parents and the family that you grew up in. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="23">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="24">My father was a <span class="building">furrier</span>. </sentence><sentence id="25">And I was the eighth child in the family; so that means a big family. </sentence><sentence id="26">We went through the First World War. </sentence><sentence id="27">This was very hard time. </sentence><sentence id="28">When I was five years old, I had to still get up early--five o'clock in the morning--and stand in the <span class="dlf">queue</span> to get bread or milk, or whatever was available. </sentence><sentence id="29">It...I started to go still in the <span class="building">Hungarian schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="30">Then later on...and actually later in...in the grade uh nine and ten-- what you could call here nine, uh grade nine and ten--I went to, in a commercial <span class="building">Schule</span> [school]. </sentence><sentence id="31">That's a <span class="building">school</span>...and had my education mixed German and Hungarian. </sentence><sentence id="32">When I was sixteen, I started to uh... went as apprentice in a <span class="building">business</span> to be trained as a salesman. </sentence><sentence id="33">And it was a <span class="building">textile business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="34">I worked there from 1926 "til 1930. </sentence><sentence id="35">Then I was called up to the army for the service. </sentence><sentence id="36">I did my eighteen months. </sentence><sentence id="37">After eighteen months service, I started to work as a commercial traveller [NB: a salesman], which I did "til uh 1942--with certain interruptions, because I was representing the firma...the company AGFA, photo company. </sentence><sentence id="38">And in 1938, I was dismissed because of my Jewish origin. </sentence><sentence id="39">After that, I had different jobs--whatever I could find to feed my family--because I married in 1930 uh...37, in January. </sentence><sentence id="40">We had a son in November [1937]; and in...(cough) we lived this time already in _ilina where I was travelling around a lot. </sentence><sentence id="41">We choose _ilina as a point to live because that was more or less in the center of the <span class="country">country</span>, my <span class="region">region</span>.... How you call it? </sentence><sentence id="42">Where...where I had to work, and I could be more often with my...with the family. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="63">Q: And if we were to think now about the time when the war broke out, could you tell us your memory of the actual beginning of the war, as it affected you and your family? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="65">A: The first uh...that was already before the war, that I lost my job. </sentence><sentence id="66">And the second thing was affected me personally is, when the new <span class="country">Slovakian state</span> was established we was thrown out from our <span class="interior space">apartment</span> what we had in a quiet uh good uh <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> and had to move out in the outen [NB: outer] uh reg...<span class="region">region</span> of that...of the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="67">So this been actually only everything personally. </sentence><sentence id="68">Then I had different jobs and worked around. </sentence><sentence id="69">Then ...when the...the day-to-day life naturally was always full of uh fear and uh...tension; because every...every night or every day, when you heard somebody walking by under your <span class="dlf">window</span>, you never knew if he is coming to pick you up or what...what is he will. </sentence><sentence id="70">What is tense, the way if the sound of the <span class="dlf">steps</span> will stop in front of you, or if they are going further up. </sentence><sentence id="71">So in...1940, 1941, we been once picked up from the <span class="building">Hlinka Guard</span> to taken away to be deported. </sentence><sentence id="72">Through some unknown uh reasons, we been...after a few days we been released, and we came back. </sentence><sentence id="73">But before, when we been taken in...in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, in these <span class="populated place">camps</span> where there are concentrated uh people, they took away half our belongings. </sentence><sentence id="74">Which...which we didn't get back when we have been released, naturally. </sentence><sentence id="75">So that made our lives even again very hard, because no income but needs was here. </sentence><sentence id="76">So we struggled through "til the second uh time. </sentence><sentence id="77">One day after Yom Kippur in 1942--it was the 21st or 22nd of uh September--a knock on the <span class="dlf">door</span> for two men in civil clothing, two men in the...in the Hlinka Guard uniform. " </sentence><sentence id="78">You have a half an hour time. </sentence><sentence id="79">Pick up your belongings and follow us." </sentence><sentence id="80">So they took us to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> where we arrived. </sentence><sentence id="81">They let us stay in in front of the <span class="building">office</span> on the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="82">I didn't know what is going on inside, because it was a big excitement. </sentence><sentence id="83">After a while, a man came out with a bundle of uh papers which later ... which I found out later was the list of the deportees, every where going forty...forty names of every list. </sentence><sentence id="84">So when he came out, he said, "Take your belongings and follow me." </sentence><sentence id="85">And the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was already prepared, standing there not far away...about hundred twenty, hundred fifty meters away. </sentence><sentence id="86">That was a small <span class="building">railway station</span>. " </sentence><sentence id="87">Go up!" </sentence><sentence id="88">And a few minutes after that, the <span class="dlf">doors</span> was closed. </sentence><sentence id="89">Yeah, and they put into every <span class="spatial object">carriage</span> they put in a list. </sentence><sentence id="90">One man was the responsible for the order in the ...that special <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> in which, how I mentioned before, forty people was uh...only forty people. </sentence><sentence id="91">Because they from other <span class="country">countries</span>, from <span class="country">Poland</span> and from <span class="country">France</span>, and from <span class="country">Greece</span>...there came up to hundred twenty, hundred fifty forced in. </sentence><sentence id="92">So we had a very luxurious uh travel comparing to them. </sentence><sentence id="93">So when the <span class="dlf">door</span> was closed, I went to the man whom I know and ask him, "Let me see that uh piece of paper what you got. </sentence><sentence id="94">Give it to me." </sentence><sentence id="95">So I saw forty names typed with a <span class="spatial object">typewriter</span>; and during the forty names, five names was uh...four names was crossed out, and our four names--I myself, my wife, my son and my mother-in-law--put in with pencil. </sentence><sentence id="96">That was the machination of that people who run the <span class="populated place">camp</span>; and they been the real collaborators. </sentence><sentence id="97">And they got what they deserved. </sentence><sentence id="98">Because then in 1944, they came to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> where some of them have been thrown against the <span class="dlf">electric wires</span> and some of them have been killed by the inmates, just who remembered what they have done. </sentence><sentence id="99">So we ca...we arrived in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="100">The usual uh selections: women and children and olderly [NB: elderly] on this side; <span class="building">Arbeitszwang</span>, how they called it--the people who was able to work--on this side. </sentence><sentence id="101">So these people went to the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>, and we went to the uh <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="102">I don't know for what reason we have been registered in a different place like the usual. </sentence><sentence id="103">We been taken straight away in a {<span class="dlf">Struhutstamm</span> (ph)] [to] <span class="populated place">Lager Auschwitz</span>, where we got a <span class="spatial object">shower</span>. </sentence><sentence id="104">We had to throw everything on a <span class="spatial object">heap</span>. </sentence><sentence id="105">Our luggage we had to leave on the on the <span class="dlf">ramp</span> in the <span class="dlf">railway</span>...in the <span class="building">railway station</span>. </sentence><sentence id="106">And...somehow, I don't know what happened, they said everybody can keep his shoes. </sentence><sentence id="107">Anything else...not socks, nothing. </sentence><sentence id="108">Only shoes. </sentence><sentence id="109">And I got, after the <span class="interior space">shower</span> what we got...they didn't gave us any towels. </sentence><sentence id="110">They gave me a shirt which was two numbers too small. </sentence><sentence id="111">So "til I was working myself into that shirt, I had my shoes between my legs. </sentence><sentence id="112">I got from somebody, from one of the old Haftlings who had something...something to work there, a push. </sentence><sentence id="113">I lost my balance. </sentence><sentence id="114">He grabbed my shoes and ran away. </sentence><sentence id="115">And I knew very well the shoes are life there. </sentence><sentence id="116">So again by accident, I had still my watch on. </sentence><sentence id="117">I don't know why I had still my watch on. </sentence><sentence id="118">A Polish man, I know his name. </sentence><sentence id="119">They called him "Bogdan." </sentence><sentence id="120">He was working in the <span class="building">Politisch Abteilung</span> [Trans: "Political Department"]--that was the <span class="building">Lager Gestapo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="121">And he told me, "Give me your watch." </sentence><sentence id="122">I told him, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="123">I give you my watch, because I know what is going on. </sentence><sentence id="124">But I see you have to...it seems to me that you have here some kind of a influence. </sentence><sentence id="125">That what did happen with my shoes. </sentence><sentence id="126">Bring me a pair of shoes." </sentence><sentence id="127">So he did. </sentence><sentence id="128">He did. </sentence><sentence id="129">So when we was uh...we got the normal stripped clothes, and we was taken to our <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="130">This time we was uh placed in the <span class="building">Barrack number 10</span>. </sentence><sentence id="131">This <span class="building">Barrack number 10</span> has... has a special history; because there used to be woman in that <span class="building">barrack</span>, and later on it was the <span class="dlf">experimental block</span> again--the same <span class="dlf">block</span>. </sentence><sentence id="132">Next to it was a <span class="dlf">block</span>--Block number 1 1--which was the <span class="dlf">execution block</span>. </sentence><sentence id="133">And the <span class="dlf">windows</span> on the <span class="interior space">Block 10</span>, in between <span class="interior space">Block 11</span> and 10, was all uh covered up, boarded up. </sentence><sentence id="134">We could sometimes peep through little <span class="interior space">space</span> with little <span class="dlf">cracks</span> and...and see what is going on. </sentence><sentence id="135">So I been this uh <span class="dlf">block</span> a few days when the first...shock was big naturally. </sentence><sentence id="136">The first even bigger shock came when one when one of these uh Kommandos--in which one of my friends went out--came <span class="building">home</span>, and they brought him <span class="building">home</span> dead. </sentence><sentence id="137">That was about the fourth or maybe fifth days...day what we been there. </sentence><sentence id="138">So I started to ask questions: how did that that fellow uh was killed. </sentence><sentence id="139">What...what has he done? </sentence><sentence id="140">So, nothing special; only his Polish Vorarbeiter [Trans: "foreman" or "gang boss"] came to him and said, "Listen, if you promise me that you'll give me your ration in the evening then I will keep you alone...uh, leave you alone. </sentence><sentence id="141">I won't uh beat you." </sentence><sentence id="142">And he sometime...he get got angry. </sentence><sentence id="143">He had still a little bit cour...courage. </sentence><sentence id="144">And lifted his spade against that fellow. </sentence><sentence id="145">He was a prisoner, too. </sentence><sentence id="146">And naturally that was [in]subordination. </sentence><sentence id="147">A few German colleagues of his saw. </sentence><sentence id="148">So they beat him to death with the <span class="spatial object">spades</span>. </sentence><sentence id="149">That was...and a few different...uh, similar experiences, what I... what we went through in the first day. </sentence><sentence id="150">The endless standing and Schikanieren [NB: chicanery] what they had. </sentence><sentence id="151">Twelve o'clock in the night they woke us up: "Alles andrehen!" </sentence><sentence id="152">For say the "<span class="building">Appell</span>," for no reason whatsoever. </sentence><sentence id="153">Sometimes they...they chased us down to the...the front of the <span class="building">building</span>. </sentence><sentence id="154">Sometimes they let us stand for hours in the <span class="interior space">rooms</span> that we're standing next to our <span class="spatial object">beds</span>. </sentence><sentence id="155">And...so, like naturally everybody had to work. </sentence><sentence id="156">Nobody could and should stay at <span class="building">home</span> without special permit. </sentence><sentence id="157">If somebody was caught up in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> from SS man or from anybody who ask him, "What you are doing here in...in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> during the day?" </sentence><sentence id="158">When you didn't have the proper excuse, it was finish. </sentence><sentence id="159">Straight away into the <span class="building">Block 11</span> this times; and the next <span class="spatial object">transport</span>, <span class="building">crematorium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="160">Regardless your health, stand [NB: state] of health, or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="161">So I...we worked in different uh <span class="building">Kommandos</span>, different <span class="building">work places</span>... </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="259">Q: What kind of <span class="building">work place</span> were you assigned to? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="261">A: In uh in one stage I was uh working in one group with that builded uh...build a <span class="dlf">bridge</span> above the <span class="env feature">River So_a</span>. </sentence><sentence id="262">That was a tributary of the uh <span class="env feature">River Wis_a</span>. </sentence><sentence id="263"><span class="dlf">Vistula</span>, if you heard about these names. </sentence><sentence id="264">That they planned there a <span class="dlf">bridge</span>, a <span class="dlf">wooden bridge</span>. </sentence><sentence id="265">My first job to cleaning the big <span class="env feature">pine trees</span> from the uh...to clean it up that the [people (ph)] should be absolutely clean. </sentence><sentence id="266">That was my job. </sentence><sentence id="267">And how with a spade, just to scratch it. </sentence><sentence id="268">And later I came their <span class="building">building company</span>...company. </sentence><sentence id="269">That was the Un...later on, it was the Union uh <span class="building">ammunition factory</span> out of it. </sentence><sentence id="270">I started to dig the <span class="dlf">foundations</span>. </sentence><sentence id="271">And the German Kapo, who was a [kaminlog (ph)]-- somehow because I spoke a very perfect German, he talked somehow to me. </sentence><sentence id="272">And he talked me in, because he was more or less analphabet, you know. </sentence><sentence id="273">You know what.. illiterate. </sentence><sentence id="274">Illiterate. </sentence><sentence id="275">So I did the writing jobs for him; and he looked so far after me that he organized for me clean clothes. </sentence><sentence id="276">That was something what saved later--in a few weeks later--my life, when we are coming to it. </sentence><sentence id="277">I worked there with til about beginning of January of "43. </sentence><sentence id="278">One evening, we are marching in from the...from work. </sentence><sentence id="279">I was already quite weak from three month nothing. </sentence><sentence id="280">Just the exact rations, and no source sometime...somewhere to get something extra. </sentence><sentence id="281">We marching through...through the <span class="dlf">door</span>; and we uh...SS is standing at the <span class="dlf">door</span> and screaming, "All the Jews to the parade ...to the parade place." </sentence><sentence id="282">The <span class="interior space">Appellplatz</span>, where they.... That never sounded very well, but what we had to do? </sentence><sentence id="283">We went there. </sentence><sentence id="284">We didn't know what the reason was. </sentence><sentence id="285">And one of the Kommandofiihrers--[Stibbitz (ph)] was his name--came and started to count and sort out from these...I don't know how many thousand people...uh, and put and told them, "Go here. </sentence><sentence id="286">Go here." </sentence><sentence id="287">And he came to me, and I was the last one. </sentence><sentence id="288">Looked at me and told me, "Oh, you look quite good. </sentence><sentence id="289">You uh...you.... Du bist gut aus." -- " </sentence><sentence id="290">You look quite well." </sentence><sentence id="291">Uh, and that I was the last one. " </sentence><sentence id="292">Turn left. </sentence><sentence id="293">March!" </sentence><sentence id="294">I didn't know where. </sentence><sentence id="295">And it turned out that was the <span class="building">Kommando Kanada</span> where I was uh uh assigned to. </sentence><sentence id="296">So next day morning, we marched out. </sentence><sentence id="297">We went to <span class="populated place">Kanada</span>. </sentence><sentence id="298">We saw what is going on. </sentence><sentence id="299">We could get some food, changed underwear... </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="339">Q: Let's go back just a moment. </sentence><sentence id="340">You say you saw what was going on. </sentence><sentence id="341">What was going on? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="345">A: It was going on that...that all the effects, all the effects from the people who came with the <span class="spatial object">transport</span> was brought to us and we had to sort them out. </sentence><sentence id="346">And what was uh uh useful for them, that was sorted out and sent everything to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="347">We had daily a few <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> of different type of uh goods which went to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="348">I, for instance, I was working in a <span class="building">magazine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="349">I packed the spectacles, the glasses, the cutlery, the...the shaving brushes and differents...these small things, in big <span class="spatial object">baskets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="350">I don't know if you remember these old pleated <span class="spatial object">travel baskets</span> from heavy...from heavy uh cane. </sentence><sentence id="351">So we had to pack them full, close them up. </sentence><sentence id="352">I had to write on "<span class="populated place">KL Au</span>," which mean <span class="populated place">KL Auschwitz</span>, the number what...what was on the [to goes (ph)] would be the papers, wind it...wind strings around it, and up it goes. </sentence><sentence id="353">Hundreds and hundreds of these <span class="spatial object">baskets</span> with uh brea...with uh spectacles, with everything--items what I mentioned before--went there. </sentence><sentence id="354">So when somebody is coming today to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> in the <span class="building">museum</span>, and sees a heap of uh spectacles and shav...shaving uh uh brushes, he thinks whatever. </sentence><sentence id="355">But that was only a ver...that is only a very, very small percentage of that what went, that effects we went through. </sentence><sentence id="356">So, in beginning of 19...in about mid-April in 1943, I got typhus. </sentence><sentence id="357">So naturally I didn't went in the beginning to the so-called <span class="building">hospital</span>; and I went every day to work with ninety degrees temperature. </sentence><sentence id="358">That was three kilometers there, three kilometers back. </sentence><sentence id="359">Maybe a little bit less. </sentence><sentence id="360">You know, actually...I'm sorry. </sentence><sentence id="361">I am mistaken. </sentence><sentence id="362">It was less; because this time uh the <span class="building">Kommando</span> was still in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="363">And...wait a minute...I have to rectify myself. </sentence><sentence id="364">Something is wrong. </sentence><sentence id="365">End of January, one day when we went from the <span class="building">Kommando</span> instead to go to back to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, they turned us to the right and they took us to <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="366">Which was...that was more than three kilometres coming in. </sentence><sentence id="367">We went to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="368">We got the uh...we been relocated there. </sentence><sentence id="369">We had to come everyday these three kilometers from and to, to work. </sentence><sentence id="370">And then happened that I got the uh typhus, and with ninety degree I had to walk this three kilometers every day, now and back. </sentence><sentence id="371">In about end of May "43, something...I can't remember exactly what happened in the <span class="building">Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="372">And uh our Hauptscharfithrer, who was our uh supervisor there, took us--about five or six of us-- brought out from one of the <span class="spatial object">magazines</span> the heaviest fur coats what he could ever find. </sentence><sentence id="373">The heavy Russian fur coats, what the Russian peasants used to wear in winter. </sentence><sentence id="374">The lambs wool. </sentence><sentence id="375">I mean, sheeps...sheepskin, not lambs" wool. </sentence><sentence id="376"><span class="env feature">Sheepskin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="377">Such a coat was at least five, six kilogram heavy. </sentence><sentence id="378">That's means ten, twelve pound; and that was a very, very hot day. </sentence><sentence id="379">I had ninety degrees. </sentence><sentence id="380">And he commanded us to "make sport"--that was express what they used. </sentence><sentence id="381">Run, lie down. </sentence><sentence id="382">Up, run, up, run...and so on. </sentence><sentence id="383">He did it with us one hour long, the whole so-called lunch time. </sentence><sentence id="384">Naturally, I was extremely exhausted after that when we finished. </sentence><sentence id="385">So I went uh...I said I can't go back to the next day; so I went in the evening to the so-called "Revier"--Krankenbau [NB: the "<span class="dlf">sick bay</span>"]. </sentence><sentence id="386">So when I came there, I saw the <span class="building">Krankenbau</span> is nearly empty. </sentence><sentence id="387">And a friend of mine who was working there said, "The <span class="building">Krankenbau</span> was taken to the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span> yesterday. </sentence><sentence id="388">You have a few days time. </sentence><sentence id="389">You can rest here." </sentence><sentence id="390">So I had been there about five or six days. </sentence><sentence id="391">The <span class="building">Krankenbau</span> filled up, so the danger came always closer. </sentence><sentence id="392">I decided to tell him, "Listen, check me out from here." </sentence><sentence id="393">What he did; and really the next day the whole <span class="building">Krankenbau</span> went to the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="394">Again a brush with death. </sentence><sentence id="395">So I came uh out, back to the <span class="building">work force</span>. </sentence><sentence id="396">How you say it? </sentence><sentence id="397">And for some reason, they didn't want to do...to take me back to the <span class="building">Kanada</span>. </sentence><sentence id="398">So I started again and going out for manual work. </sentence><sentence id="399">And then...just a moment, I remember now something which was before what was actually the reason from...for that what they made the sport. </sentence><sentence id="400">I had a friend in uh...in <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> who was a dentist. </sentence><sentence id="401">And I had one of my tooth hurted, so I went to him he should pull me it out. </sentence><sentence id="402">So I wanted to uh show my appreciation for it. </sentence><sentence id="403">So I brought him a little bit of a...of Tabak, cigarette Tabak [NB: tobacco] what I found in the Kanada. </sentence><sentence id="404">And on the way back, they let us...undressed us, naked, and they found the cigarette. </sentence><sentence id="405">And for that I got a two month...two months in the <span class="building">Straf company</span> [NB: Strafkommando = "punishment brigade"]. </sentence><sentence id="406">The <span class="building">Straf company</span> is the...everybody knows what a <span class="building">straf company</span>...company is. </sentence><sentence id="407">So it was very hard. </sentence><sentence id="408">When we work, our work was there. </sentence><sentence id="409">We was digging uh a <span class="dlf">channel</span> to...to let off the <span class="env feature">water</span>; because that was <span class="region">swamp area</span>, a canalization. </sentence><sentence id="410">And we was digging it to the...down to the <span class="dlf">banks</span> of the <span class="dlf">Vistula</span>, that it shouldn't be the...the <span class="env feature">terrain</span> should be dry, the possibility to dry out. </sentence><sentence id="411">I was working up "til here in <span class="env feature">mud</span>. </sentence><sentence id="412">On the end of the work, my colleagues had to pull me out; because by myself, between the <span class="spatial object">cane</span> what was going there, I would never came out by myself. </sentence><sentence id="413">Only with help. </sentence><sentence id="414">I did it...to our good luck, we...we have been released for some reason not in two months [but] after six weeks. </sentence><sentence id="415">So I came out. </sentence><sentence id="416">So I turned to a few friends for help. </sentence><sentence id="417">So they helped me a little bit--here a piece of bread, here a little bit something to eat, something else. </sentence><sentence id="418">And naturally that was the time when we came back to workforce. </sentence><sentence id="419">Meantime, I had already a few people whom I know. </sentence><sentence id="420">So I started to work; and again thanks to my knowledge in German, I got different uh jobs more or less...at least part Schreiber [Trans: "scribe"]. </sentence><sentence id="421">And now I work, say two hours; and two hours I worked in one small <span class="building">Kommando</span> as Schreiber. </sentence><sentence id="422">In the afternoon, again I worked two hours, and went two hours this so-called clerical work. </sentence><sentence id="423">So that...what I made my life a little bit easier; because as a reward for my Schreiber work, I got a little bit of a soup extra from the kapo of that <span class="building">Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="424">Then...one of my...a friend of mine, he get...uh got a position in the <span class="building">Kanada Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="425">He some...somehow was uh promoted there. </sentence><sentence id="426">And I go...go to...went to him, and told him, "Listen." </sentence><sentence id="427">Uh, Carl was his name. " </sentence><sentence id="428">Say, Carl, can you do something for me? </sentence><sentence id="429">Look how I am. </sentence><sentence id="430">Look how I look. </sentence><sentence id="431">I would need a little bit to recover. </sentence><sentence id="432">Take me back to the <span class="building">Kommando</span>." " </sentence><sentence id="433">Oh, yes, I will arrange that you are coming tomorrow to the <span class="building">Kommando</span>." </sentence><sentence id="434">So I have been there a couple of weeks; and some jealousy and intrigues started against that man who brought me back. </sentence><sentence id="435">So say the...the...the Haftlings, the prisoners, uh claimed that I was working for him. </sentence><sentence id="436">That mean, I was stealing goods from the <span class="building">Kommando</span> and carrying it for him. </sentence><sentence id="437">It wasn't true. </sentence><sentence id="438">The only thing what I ever "organized"--that was the slang expression for stealing--I organized only food. </sentence><sentence id="439">For myself, and for a few friends for whom I could help with what I brought <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="440">I could share with them. </sentence><sentence id="441">So it went so far that they started to uh work against me. </sentence><sentence id="442">"Til one day, one of the fellows came to me and told me, "When you are coming tomorrow morning to work, you are not going <span class="building">home</span>." </sentence><sentence id="443">So naturally I didn't came. </sentence><sentence id="444">This time a new <span class="building">Kommando</span> started to...came in existence. </sentence><sentence id="445">Our job was to dismantle <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span> which has been shot up around that <span class="region">area</span>, regardless German, English, American. </sentence><sentence id="446">And I befriended myself with that <span class="spatial object">kapo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="447">I knew him from before. </sentence><sentence id="448">We worked always...already sometime together. </sentence><sentence id="449">He knew about my knowledge of the German language. </sentence><sentence id="450">So I started there as a Schreiber. </sentence><sentence id="451">We started there with about a hundred uh prisoners, and slowly it was built up to about thirteen hundred. </sentence><sentence id="452">So the responsibility was quite big, because we had to have very exact evidence--every single number who was in the <span class="building">Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="453">In one case, I had a case when two Russian prisoners uh tried to escape. </sentence><sentence id="454">I don't know if they succeeded or...or not. </sentence><sentence id="455">But the fact was they didn't came in to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="456">Big excitement. </sentence><sentence id="457">"Schreiber from [<span class="populated place">zelligbatterie</span> (ph)], nach voraus!"--"To the front to the <span class="dlf">gate</span>. </sentence><sentence id="458">Give me the numbers uh from these two men who are missing." </sentence><sentence id="459">I didn't have that on me. </sentence><sentence id="460">I turned around to go back; and I saw my assistant was already running behind me waving the piece of paper where the two numbers have been written down. </sentence><sentence id="461">Because that what happens in the morning before we went out. </sentence><sentence id="462">Every group of twenty had to be...uh their...his...their numbers had to written down on a piece of paper. </sentence><sentence id="463">And they had to be compared during the day, if he was yesterday in at <span class="building">work</span> or not. </sentence><sentence id="464">So a lot of uh unnecessary scribbling. </sentence><sentence id="465">But he...so he came. </sentence><sentence id="466">He gave up that piece of paper to the <span class="building">SS</span> in the front. </sentence><sentence id="467">They look at that are the numbers. " </sentence><sentence id="468">Hor auf!" </sentence><sentence id="469">That mean, "Disappear!" </sentence><sentence id="470">So we went back with no consequences whatsoever for us, because we been right. </sentence><sentence id="471">If I couldn't have produced the two numbers, that would be the end of...of me. </sentence><sentence id="472">So I just want to mention that what uh kind of job and what...what the...what uh dangers in there...have been there everyday. </sentence><sentence id="473">Every moment was dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="474">Having a assistant this time, the new <span class="spatial object">transport</span> arrived on the same uh <span class="dlf">track</span> where we got the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> where we unloaded the remnantses [sic] and the raw material from the <span class="spatial object">planes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="475">The aluminum and every usable part was uh sorted out. </sentence><sentence id="476">The old aluminum what went in the <span class="building">mills</span> or in the <span class="building">factories</span>, that was recycled. </sentence><sentence id="477">So...and sometime on the same <span class="dlf">track</span> came new <span class="spatial object">transports</span>. </sentence><sentence id="478">And in <span class="building">the Kanada</span>, they had the duty...when a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> came, they had been on the <span class="dlf">ramp</span>; and when they threw away their belongings, they had to collect it, pick it up and throw it on the <span class="spatial object">trucks</span> which took them to the working place of the Kanada. </sentence><sentence id="479">But they been quite experienced already to sneak out where is something to eat. </sentence><sentence id="480">So one of my friend--his name was [Juri (ph)] Fried. </sentence><sentence id="481">I don't know where he exists today, and looking for him in <span class="country">Israel</span> now when I've been there; but I couldn't get any uh news about him, where he exists. </sentence><sentence id="482">So he...I have to mention that on the end of this place where the newcomers has to disembark from the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was a little <span class="building">hut</span>. </sentence><sentence id="483">I went there when I saw from afar that the <span class="spatial object">transport</span> is coming. </sentence><sentence id="484">So I went there, hide myself in the <span class="building">hut</span>; and [Juri (ph)] Fried came with...always with bags full of food. </sentence><sentence id="485">I was staying there and waiting "til everything was over with, "til the <span class="dlf">ramp</span> was empty. </sentence><sentence id="486">So I took my harvest what I had and went back to the main <span class="building">Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="487">And here in one day I had a quite a good harvest. </sentence><sentence id="488">I called up all the Kapos. </sentence><sentence id="489">I had uh twenty-six of them; because thirteen hundred people...every hundred had two <span class="spatial object">kapos</span>. </sentence><sentence id="490">I called them up and told them, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="491">I want your sticks what you are using to beating the people." </sentence><sentence id="492">Very big surprise. " </sentence><sentence id="493">What is this?" " </sentence><sentence id="494">You are getting from me food for it. </sentence><sentence id="495">I don't mind if you have a small vine from some of the <span class="env feature">bushes</span> here in your hand. </sentence><sentence id="496">But the big heavy ones I want to have, because I need it as heating material for I will let cook for you something to eat. </sentence><sentence id="497">I have the raw material." </sentence><sentence id="498">So that was one of my biggest deeds, in my opinion, what I did in the interest of my uh friends and prisoners. " </sentence><sentence id="499">Specially I didn't know everybody personally. </sentence><sentence id="500">But if only one was saved from two or three uh hits through a day, that was already something. </sentence><sentence id="501">So slowly, slowly they got used to it; and the beating let up. </sentence><sentence id="502">Screaming, yes. </sentence><sentence id="503">Screaming doesn't hurt to anybody. </sentence><sentence id="504">So then one day in August 19 uh...44, we been on the march <span class="building">home</span> uh from the.... We worked on Sundays too. </sentence><sentence id="505">Coming uh <span class="building">home</span>, coming in front...one of my duties was to arrange the hundreds that they should be at the long march. </sentence><sentence id="506">We had about nearly four kilometer march, and thirteen hundred people are walking tired. </sentence><sentence id="507">They are not walking like soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="508">So in front of the uh came about hundred fifty, two hundred meters--and that was exactly opposite the <span class="dlf">Lager C</span> where my wife used to be this time. </sentence><sentence id="509">And I stopped there, without looking back what is going on behind my back. </sentence><sentence id="510">Just at that moment, I saw a group of girls standing there around. </sentence><sentence id="511">I didn't know how they came there, what they did there. </sentence><sentence id="512">And during the time I was ordered...making that order, the SS man who was in charge in front of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> in a wooden <span class="building">barrack</span>, he called my wife in. " </sentence><sentence id="513">Come here." </sentence><sentence id="514">She went there. </sentence><sentence id="515">She made the procedure that uh how she had to report. </sentence><sentence id="516">And that...and he was drunk. </sentence><sentence id="517">He hardly saw (laughter)...and he hardly knew what he is doing. </sentence><sentence id="518">And asked her, "Do you have a boyfriend?" </sentence><sentence id="519">She was surprised about that question, and said, "No, I haven't got one." </sentence><sentence id="520">And he asked, "Why?" " </sentence><sentence id="521">Because nobody wants me," she said to him. </sentence><sentence id="522">And he said, "I will take care that somebody should want you. </sentence><sentence id="523">The first man who is passing here by, they had to want...have to want you." </sentence><sentence id="524">So the first one who came by was myself. </sentence><sentence id="525">So he told me, "Talk to her!" </sentence><sentence id="526">So, naturally, on her number I recognized right away that she is a girl from <span class="country">Slovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="527">And uh, naturally, I ask, "What is your name? </sentence><sentence id="528">What...where are you from?" </sentence><sentence id="529">And about one or two such trivial questions. </sentence><sentence id="530">When she said, "I can't talk like this..." To the SS man. " </sentence><sentence id="531">I can't talk to this...to a man whom I never saw before like this on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="532">And except [NB: besides], he has other duties to do." </sentence><sentence id="533">And he said, "Yes, yes. </sentence><sentence id="534">You are...you are right." </sentence><sentence id="535">He called me. " </sentence><sentence id="536">Come here!" </sentence><sentence id="537">I told him, "Yes, what you want?" </sentence><sentence id="538">He said, "Tomorrow morning you are reporting here. </sentence><sentence id="539">And you have to come to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>." </sentence><sentence id="540">And to her, she [NB: he] said, "You will be here in the morning, and you will stay here in the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="541">And when he cames, you will write his number in in the book." </sentence><sentence id="542">Because everybody who came in or out was registered in a book, to keep it very exact and clear. </sentence><sentence id="543">So with that episode finished in that moment. </sentence><sentence id="544">So I, I did my job further; and I joined to the last five people who went in uh... went into the <span class="building">barrack</span>. </sentence><sentence id="545">So straight away, when I came in, I went to my close friend, Erich Kulka--who is now here as a historian, he just recently got his doctorate for something--with whom we are still in good friendship. </sentence><sentence id="546">So I went to him. </sentence><sentence id="547">He was one of the maintenance men in the <span class="populated place">camp,</span> and one of the few who had a pass to go everywhere in the different <span class="populated place">camps</span>, when if something was broken down he was the man who had to repair it. </sentence><sentence id="548">He was working there as a engineer. </sentence><sentence id="549">They call in English "engineer," but a Schlosser [Trans: locksmith, mechanic or fitter]-- he was a fitter, or something like this. </sentence><sentence id="550">So he...I knew that he went quite often in the <span class="populated place">womans camps</span>, too; and I knew that he knows Magda. </sentence><sentence id="551">So I went straight to him and asked him, "Listen, Erich. </sentence><sentence id="552">What is your opinion about Magda? </sentence><sentence id="553">Do you know her?" " </sentence><sentence id="554">Yes, I know her very well." " </sentence><sentence id="555">And what is your opinion?" </sentence><sentence id="556">He said, "I will tell it to you in one sentence. ( </sentence><sentence id="557">Pause-choking up) She is one...she is one of the few woman or persons here in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> who manage to be still human." </sentence><sentence id="558">I mean, I couldn't ask for a better information. </sentence><sentence id="559">So I started to run around; I organized again a...a bottle of schnapps. </sentence><sentence id="560">Because that was definitely the best uh currency between <span class="building">SS</span> and <span class="populated place">Haftlings</span> what you can imagine. </sentence><sentence id="561">Better than today the American dollar or the Fren...or the Japanese yen. </sentence><sentence id="562">So I got it through my connections. </sentence><sentence id="563">The next day in the morning, really, I went in. </sentence><sentence id="564">When I came to the <span class="dlf">gate</span>, I took out from under my arm where I have hidden the <span class="spatial object">bottle</span>, put it on the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="565">And really Magda was there. </sentence><sentence id="566">She write down my name. </sentence><sentence id="567">I mean, we didn't have names. </sentence><sentence id="568">Uh, my number; and uh so I could go in. </sentence><sentence id="569">She was very uh embarrassed. </sentence><sentence id="570">She...because she wasn't expecting that I will come. </sentence><sentence id="571">But for curiosity, I wanted to find out what is going on, wanted from her certain in...information. </sentence><sentence id="572">So we went in. </sentence><sentence id="573">She was running away, hiding somewhere. </sentence><sentence id="574">After few uh time...because in after short time, we met. </sentence><sentence id="575">We had uh the opportunity to talk a few words. </sentence><sentence id="576">So when I uh came in her <span class="interior space">room</span>, because as in her functions she had the right to have a small <span class="interior space">room</span> which was about two by four meter big. </sentence><sentence id="577">That her own...she had her own <span class="spatial object">bed</span>. </sentence><sentence id="578">And when...when I saw her belongings, the few belongings what she had. </sentence><sentence id="579">So she reminded me somehow of my wife. </sentence><sentence id="580">And later on she was uh still very uh embarrassed, and a little bit out of shape; so she turns, she had a small <span class="spatial object">mirror</span> there hanging on the <span class="dlf">wall</span>. </sentence><sentence id="581">She went there and started with her fingers to arrange her hair. </sentence><sentence id="582">When I told her, "Listen, it is quite a few years that I saw a woman standing in front of a <span class="spatial object">mirror</span> and getting, combing on her hair." </sentence><sentence id="583">And that somehow touched her, too. </sentence><sentence id="584">I was very touched, and she was very touched. </sentence><sentence id="585">And that somehow brought us close. </sentence><sentence id="586">Closer. </sentence><sentence id="587">And in the next few weeks, now and then I asked permission from my Oberkapo that he let me one or a few times to go and visit her. </sentence><sentence id="588">Just harmless talk, because everything else was dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="589">And it was because the fact was, I didn't want to be somehow too much uh interested; because when you are not uh.... I don't know how you said that. </sentence><sentence id="590"><span class="dlf">Fallstrick</span> [Trans: pitfall, <span class="dlf">trap</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="591">When you are not careful enough, it can can bring you in trouble; and that is what we... nobody needed. </sentence><sentence id="592">So the whole relationship, all the time what we went in, was absolute platonic. </sentence><sentence id="593">So the time went by. </sentence><sentence id="594">I saw her about five or six times. </sentence><sentence id="595">And I started to like her; because I saw what she's doing, how's she's doing, how.... And I knew her reputation in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="596">Because everybody knew all about her, everybody in the <span class="populated place">men's camp</span> knew about her and knew about her deeds--what she is doing and how she is doing. </sentence><sentence id="597">She had a wonderful reputation in the...in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="598">And naturally I was very much impressed with that. </sentence><sentence id="599">And later on, end of November or so, "44, some difficulties started on in my <span class="building">Kommando</span>. </sentence><sentence id="600">I had that...I was already one and a half years there. </sentence><sentence id="601">So she arranged somehow that I could join to a small <span class="building">Kommando</span> which came regularly every day to her <span class="populated place">camp</span> to do some maintenance work. </sentence><sentence id="602">There was a small <span class="building">magazine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="603">There been a small, uh a few old <span class="spatial object">sewing machines</span>. </sentence><sentence id="604">It was our duty to clean them and bring them to shape. </sentence><sentence id="605">But we always was talking and never did real, some real work. </sentence><sentence id="606">So then came the 18th of January [1945]. </sentence><sentence id="607">The 18th of January was the day when the death march from <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> started. </sentence><sentence id="608">So we, we...uh we marched late afternoon from <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="609">We was taken over to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="610">I tried to hide there, to stay there what maybe I hoped. </sentence><sentence id="611">But then the rumors went around [that] the whole <span class="populated place">camp</span> is undermined, that there exist a plan that <span class="populated place">camps</span> uh will be bombarded from all sides with artillery and with the <span class="spatial object">planes</span>, to make it to disappear. </sentence><sentence id="612">And...but still I went up in one of the <span class="dlf">blocks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="613">I was very tired; because the whole day, we...the stress. </sentence><sentence id="614">We had to "antrehen, abtreten, antreten, abtreten" [report, get dismissed, report, get dismissed] about five or six times during the day. </sentence><sentence id="615">So I went in one of the <span class="dlf">blocks</span> which was already empty. </sentence><sentence id="616">I hide...I hid myself under...in one of the <span class="spatial object">beds</span>, and I fell asleep. </sentence><sentence id="617">Around midnight, all of a sudden I am woken up from the absolute quietness what was in the la...what was it in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="618">And I was very curious what is happening. </sentence><sentence id="619">So I went down, opened the <span class="dlf">gate</span>; and in that moment two of my friends with whom I used to work together in <span class="populated place">Kanada</span> passed by. </sentence><sentence id="620">They saw me. </sentence><sentence id="621">They say, "What you are doing here?" " </sentence><sentence id="622">I want to stay here. </sentence><sentence id="623">I don't want to...I have enough. </sentence><sentence id="624">I tried...." "No, don't stay here. </sentence><sentence id="625">That will be blown up everything. </sentence><sentence id="626">It is dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="627">Come. </sentence><sentence id="628">Come. </sentence><sentence id="629">We are going. </sentence><sentence id="630">Come with us." </sentence><sentence id="631">So I went. </sentence><sentence id="632">So I did it, that death march. </sentence><sentence id="633">We walked through uh three uh nights, days and nights. </sentence><sentence id="634">And in one <span class="dlf">intersection</span> we collided with the woman. </sentence><sentence id="635">We came from ...from a different...they came from a different way than we. </sentence><sentence id="636">And the woman, they looked for men. </sentence><sentence id="637">The men looked for woman, if somebody's there. </sentence><sentence id="638">Relation, friend or something. </sentence><sentence id="639">The woman... the girls went to the SS woman asking for permission, if they could give them a permission to talk to us; because somebody recognized me there from one of her friends and told that "Bela is there. </sentence><sentence id="640">Try what you can do." </sentence><sentence id="641">But meantime a big crowd started; because such a mass of people, two or four SS woman or men couldn't keep uh back even if they would start to shoot or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="642">So they started a big crowd; and we somehow came close to each other and we spoke a few words, and then...to each other. </sentence><sentence id="643">And I told her, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="644">We are now in a situation we know the war can't keep very long any more. </sentence><sentence id="645">So if we are coming <span class="building">home</span>, I want to meet you." </sentence><sentence id="646">And she told me, "Ah! </sentence><sentence id="647">Who knows how we will meet?" </sentence><sentence id="648">I...we...somehow we been so uh used to that not to have names but we had only numbers. </sentence><sentence id="649">But I wasn't thinking on it that when we are coming <span class="building">home</span> and we will be registered somewhere that I won't register under names, but under numbers. </sentence><sentence id="650">And I told her, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="651">I tell you...look when you...when you are coming <span class="building">home</span> and you are coming <span class="building">home</span>, look for my number." " </sentence><sentence id="652">Oh, I never will remember your number." " </sentence><sentence id="653">You will. </sentence><sentence id="654">I will explain to you how." </sentence><sentence id="655">And I showed her: "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="656">I have 65066, is my number. </sentence><sentence id="657">Your number, 2318. </sentence><sentence id="658">These your four numbers are included in my five." </sentence><sentence id="659">She asked how. </sentence><sentence id="660">I said, "Look, 5 - 6 - 11 - 12 is 23. </sentence><sentence id="661">Three 6 is 18. </sentence><sentence id="662">Simple as that." </sentence><sentence id="663">You know? </sentence><sentence id="664">Good that we haven't been registered, thank heavens, on the numbers but on the names. </sentence><sentence id="665">She came some where in East...to <span class="region">East Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="666">I came to <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="667">I was in one month in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, in the so-called quarantine. </sentence><sentence id="668">Naturally, when we arrived we been uh...stripped what we had. </sentence><sentence id="669">I had relative good clothes. </sentence><sentence id="670">And in my pocket--to our bad luck, Magda got from a woman from <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> a check to the uh...to one of the <span class="building">English banks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="671">I don't know where that woman had transferred before the war big money from <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> to that...I think it was the <span class="building">Barclay Bank</span>. </sentence><sentence id="672">I am not sure any more. </sentence><sentence id="673">And that woman came to Magda one day and told her, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="674">I see what you are doing here. </sentence><sentence id="675">I am a very rich woman. </sentence><sentence id="676">We have a lot of money in...in uh <span class="country">England</span>, and all over the world. </sentence><sentence id="677">I have a little chance to survive. </sentence><sentence id="678">I am older than you. </sentence><sentence id="679">Maybe you will survive. </sentence><sentence id="680">As a gratitude for that what you are doing here, I give you that check of thousand dollars, thousand pounds." </sentence><sentence id="681">And when we met on that place what I mentioned before, she [NB: Magda] told me, "You are a man. </sentence><sentence id="682">Take that check to you. </sentence><sentence id="683">Maybe it is safer with you." </sentence><sentence id="684">Unfortunately, it worked out if it would stay with her she could keep it. </sentence><sentence id="685">I couldn't; because when we came to <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, they stripped us. </sentence><sentence id="686">They stole all our uh better clothing what we had. </sentence><sentence id="687">And I didn't had...I wasn't thinking on it; and even if I would think it on it to take it out from my <span class="spatial object">pocket</span>, I had not the where to hide it. </sentence><sentence id="688">It was written on a thin paper. </sentence><sentence id="689">If I put it in my mouth, it would be dissolved; and go through the <span class="interior space">shower</span> and save it, such a piece of paper.... So.... But I honestly admit, I wasn't even thinking on it. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1035">Q: You were then in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> until what time? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1037">A: In <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, we been about one month. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1039">Q: And after that? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1040">A: From <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, we was taken over to <span class="populated place">Gusen</span>,! </sentence><sentence id="1041">which been an <span class="building">ammunition factories</span>, partly. </sentence><sentence id="1042">And <span class="building">Gusen I</span> and <span class="building">Gusen II</span> was uh <span class="building">factory</span>...one of the <span class="building">factories</span> was the <span class="building">Messerschmitt uh Werke</span>, for the <span class="spatial object">Messerschmitt planes</span>--<span class="spatial object">war planes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1043">So I was uh assigned. </sentence><sentence id="1044">Because when they asked my profession, I told them I am an engineer. </sentence><sentence id="1045">I thought it doesn't do any harm not to be a laborer, or a accountant or a doctor or a solicitor, whatever. </sentence><sentence id="1046">So, OK. </sentence><sentence id="1047">So they registered me as an engineer; and when it came to that uh <span class="building">Gusen II</span> needed people, they sended us there. </sentence><sentence id="1048">And I was assigned to work in the part to uh fix the <span class="spatial object">petrol tanks</span>, the <span class="spatial object">gas tanks</span>, in the uh <span class="interior space">wings</span> of the <span class="spatial object">Messerschmitt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1049">I don't which number was it-- 87, or the 111. </sentence><sentence id="1050">I don't...can't remember anymore. </sentence><sentence id="1051">But we didn't do a lot of work, because we didn't got any raw material. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1052">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="1053">If those were the final days of the war, how did the liberation come to your <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1056">A: On the first of May; and to tell that when we got up in the morning, and instead to take us back in the <span class="building">Messerschmitt uh factory</span>, they took us to a place in the name <span class="populated place">Gunskirchen</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1057">That's supposed to be one of the new <span class="populated place">camps</span> in that <span class="region">area</span> which Hitler in his fantasy and in his dreams thought he will keep the last resistance "til his [wonderritens (ph)] will be completed. </sentence><sentence id="1058">And he can uh resist there in that <span class="region">area</span> ad infinitum. </sentence><sentence id="1059">But this <span class="populated place">camp</span> was in the beginning <span class="building">stadion</span> [NB: stages]. </sentence><sentence id="1060">That it what was a <span class="populated place">camp</span> the Germans put in middle in the <span class="env feature">forest</span> a big uh <span class="spatial object">saw machine</span>, driven with a...uh petrol engine. </sentence><sentence id="1061">They cut off the <span class="env feature">trees</span>, put it on the <span class="spatial object">machine</span>, made boards out of it and [brewed (ph)] the bark. </sentence><sentence id="1062">When we came there it was the First of May. </sentence><sentence id="1063">Accident...accidentally, I remember the day exactly; because on the way, when we went on the...uh <span class="dlf">road</span>, a old uh Wehrmachts man who was called up--he was this time about fifty--started to talk with me, and he still believed that Hitler will win the war. </sentence><sentence id="1064">It was the First of May "45. </sentence><sentence id="1065">So...so when we came in...in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, the <span class="building">barracks</span> wasn't ready. </sentence><sentence id="1066">No <span class="dlf">windows</span>, no <span class="dlf">doors</span> and no <span class="dlf">roof</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1067">The <span class="dlf">roof</span> was only the main <span class="dlf">pillars</span>; but empty in between, so that water, snow, everything could go through. </sentence><sentence id="1068">Luckily the rain stopped just a few days before we.... And the nice, very nice spring weather started. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1082">Q: Excuse me, but at that time who...which army liberated you? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1084">A: American. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1086">Q: The <span class="building">American Army</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1088"> 4 Subcamp of <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1089">> Another subcamp of <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> located in <span class="country">Austria</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1090">From his subsequent description, it is clear that he was sent to the <span class="dlf">Waldwerke I section</span> of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1091">A: American. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1093">Q: How did you first see them come in? </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1095">A: I didn't saw them at all. </sentence><sentence id="1096">I just heared...heard them. </sentence><sentence id="1097">I mean, in the beginning uh.... It was the 7th of May in the afternoon. </sentence><sentence id="1098">I was wandering around in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>; because in the same <span class="populated place">camp</span> arrived a lot of Hungarian uh men who came from the Don and from the <span class="building">Dnieper</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1099">From these <span class="region">area</span>, from deep in uh...in <span class="country">Russia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1100">And from the <span class="country">Ukraine</span>, there came a forced march. </sentence><sentence id="1101">And being Hungarian, and I had relatives in a certain <span class="populated place">township</span> in <span class="populated place">Hungaria</span> [<span class="country">Hungary</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="1102">So I went around in the hope that I will find somebody whom I know. </sentence><sentence id="1103">So I went in one of the <span class="building">barracks</span>; and a fellow came out. </sentence><sentence id="1104">And I ask him, "I hear uh people from <span class="populated place">Szombathely</span>...." That is the place where I had an uncle. </sentence><sentence id="1105">And I knew...know he had four sons and three daughters, or whatsoever. </sentence><sentence id="1106">And somebody told me, "Yes, there are here. </sentence><sentence id="1107">Whom you think?" </sentence><sentence id="1108">I said, "I would like now if one of the Blau boys are here." </sentence><sentence id="1109">I couldn't tell the name, which of them could be, because there are four boys. </sentence><sentence id="1110">He told me, "Yes, they are here. </sentence><sentence id="1111">One is here." " </sentence><sentence id="1112">Where is he?" </sentence><sentence id="1113">Indeed I ask. </sentence><sentence id="1114">I...he looked back. " </sentence><sentence id="1115">Yes, he's coming here. </sentence><sentence id="1116">That is him." </sentence><sentence id="1117">So we came, we started to talk a few words with each other. </sentence><sentence id="1118">Because I never saw him in my life before. </sentence><sentence id="1119">One of his brothers I knew, his father I knew, one of his sisters I knew.... Because this time from <span class="populated place">Bratislava</span> to <span class="country">Hungary</span> to travel wasn't so easy. </sentence><sentence id="1120">And uh only by very special occasions could somebody come over. </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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<dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1147">Q: Mr. Blau, I have to interrupt you now at this point, because technically the tape has run out. </sentence><sentence id="1148"> </sentence></p></dialogue> |
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