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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: francis none akos
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0006
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0006_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504524
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+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1922-03-30
9
+ birth_year: 1922.0
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+ place_of_birth: budapest
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+ country: hungary
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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: 1990.412.1
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">FRANCIS AKOS June 18, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2">A: Would you tell me your name please. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="4">Q: My name is Francis Akos. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="6">A: Where and when were your born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="8">Q: I was born in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, 1922 -- March 30th, 1922. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: Tell me about your parents and your family. </sentence><sentence id="10">Will you, as a child? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: My father was a salesman, sometimes a traveling salesman. </sentence><sentence id="14">My mother used to play the violin and that's how, how it started that they discovered maybe that I had some musical talent, but by the time I was three and a half years old I had a little violin and I had teacher. </sentence><sentence id="15">And my mother practiced with me until I passed her level. </sentence><sentence id="16">And that was my line of work from there on. </sentence><sentence id="17">I became a violinist and a musician. </sentence><sentence id="18">Went to <span class="building">school</span>, but I also went to the <span class="building">Music Academy</span> and I was sort of "non-child" prodigy, because everybody was afraid of that word, so I didn't have that kind of a push from <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="19">But I grew up as a student of the <span class="building">Academy</span> and music was my <span class="dlf">line</span> all of my life. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="27">Q: Tell us what it was like for a young Jewish child in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> going to the <span class="building">Music Academy</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="29">A: Well, it was not as frightful as some of the young Jewish people who had to go to the <span class="building">university</span> because the Numerus Clausus, that was called the 10 percent, was very strictly observed in the <span class="building">universities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="30">In the <span class="building">Academy</span> that was kind of equivalent to the <span class="building">universities</span>, we did not have regular 10 percent Numerus Clausus there. </sentence><sentence id="31">But we had problems. </sentence><sentence id="32">And when the Nazis -- the Hungarian Nazis, the Pfeil Kreuzler" -- Nyilasok -- I don't know how to, how to say this in, in English -- When they started, there were bashing. </sentence><sentence id="33">Head bashing and violin breaking on, on some of the Jewish kids" heads and so we felt it. </sentence><sentence id="34">But we could still get to the point that -- I was one of the prize winners at age. </sentence><sentence id="35">I think I was, I was maybe 17, and I won the Remenyi" Prize. </sentence><sentence id="36">That was the <span class="spatial object">violin</span> that was offered to the so-called best student of the fourth grade of the <span class="building">Academy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="37">And they let me win it. </sentence><sentence id="38">In other words, it wasn't like many places where you, you couldn't even participate. </sentence><sentence id="39">But * Arrow crosser (German) ? </sentence><sentence id="40"><span class="building">Ede Remenyi</span> then later, of course, when they started the so-called Jewish laws, according to the Nuremberg Laws, the Hungarian laws were much worse than the, than the Nuremberg Laws and that's well, that's a well known fact, I think, at this point. </sentence><sentence id="41">Everybody knows about that. </sentence><sentence id="42">They were creating more Jews than, than there ever were because second, third, fourth generation. </sentence><sentence id="43">They were starting to go back and if they found one Jew, Jewish great-great-great-grandparent, you suddenly became a Jew. </sentence><sentence id="44">So some of the aristocrats were really surprised when they suddenly became Jewish -- they were not. </sentence><sentence id="45">But in the <span class="building">Academy</span> this also started to bad, to be bad, but by then I was gone because I finished in "41, and by the time "43 came around I don't think there were in Jews at the <span class="building">Academy</span> either. </sentence><sentence id="46">So when, when I finished, I got teachers diploma and artist diploma and I was Concert Master of the <span class="building">Jewish Community Orchestra</span>. </sentence><sentence id="47">We couldn't play anywhere else, but in the <span class="building">community cultural center</span>. </sentence><sentence id="48">And there was some very high class concerts there, and opera and we kept up with, with ourselves and with the music. </sentence><sentence id="49">I do remember there was a concert that I played when Kodaly" came. </sentence><sentence id="50">And Kodaly was a very outspoken anti-Nazi and he waited until everybody was seated and then he came through the <span class="interior space">hall</span> and sat down in the first <span class="interior space">row</span>. </sentence><sentence id="51">And we played Janos Starker and myself played the Kodaly Duo. </sentence><sentence id="52">That's why he came because he knew we were going to do that. </sentence><sentence id="53">So those, those things happened, but basically the trouble was -- the handwriting was on the <span class="dlf">wall</span>. </sentence><sentence id="54">And when we got drafted like anybody else at age 21, the Jewish kids got the shovels and the arm band, the yellow arm band but we had to go through the drilling and we just didn't have any guns. </sentence><sentence id="55">And that's how it, it happened that after having been on the front and pushing <span class="spatial object">carts</span> across the <span class="env feature">Carpathian Mountains</span>, the -- some of us were sent back to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> to get some clothes, because we were wearing our own clothes and they were in rags by then. </sentence><sentence id="56">So being in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> October "44 when the big change-over happened, they deported me with many others, November four, I think. </sentence><sentence id="57">November four they started us out in the <span class="building">Synagogue</span> in the <span class="building">Dohany Synagogue</span>, the biggest in <span class="country">Europe</span>. </sentence><sentence id="58">That's where I was Bar Mitzvah by the way when I was 13. </sentence><sentence id="59">Now I was 21 and I -- they collected us there overnight, and then they marched us across the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> and we saw the six <span class="dlf">bridges</span> all in the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> already. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="93">Q: Can you, can you go back a little? </sentence><sentence id="94">Can you tell us -- I'd like to get a sense of what it was like in the <span class="building">synagogue</span> as you were being rounded up. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="97">A: Well, it was just a, a melee because some people were trying to leave -- I mean to, to escape through the <span class="dlf">windows</span>, and outside were the Nazis, the Hungarian Nazis, with the guns. </sentence><sentence id="98">And not just Nazis but military people. </sentence><sentence id="99">And they there --I think they killed a few, and they were just pushing them back until -- we had no idea what they're trying to, you know, do with us because we were just several thousands. </sentence><sentence id="100">I couldn't tell you how many, &gt; Zoltan Kodaly but we were there. </sentence><sentence id="101">And, and nobody knew what's going to happen. </sentence><sentence id="102">And when they started us marching across the, the <span class="env feature">Danube</span>, we still didn't know that before and after they were shooting people into the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> from, from the other side of, of the <span class="dlf">bridge</span>. </sentence><sentence id="103">But the lucky ones arrived in this big -- what, what, what would you call it? </sentence><sentence id="104">Like, like a <span class="building">stadium</span>, but it wasn't a <span class="building">stadium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="105">It was some kind of a <span class="building">factory</span> outdoors. </sentence><sentence id="106">And that's where they collected us first and then they started marching us along the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> all the way to <span class="populated place">Vienna</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="118">Q: Tell us about it. </sentence><sentence id="119">Tell us what the March was like. </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="122">A: And some of those people -- there were always some who tried to escape. </sentence><sentence id="123">They got shot. </sentence><sentence id="124">Some got lucky and they did escape. </sentence><sentence id="125">I know one of my friends who -- at that time friend, I don't know what happened to him. </sentence><sentence id="126">He came back to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> and was in hiding, so when I came back I met him and we were rounded up at the same time. </sentence><sentence id="127">So that forced march I think lost a lot of lives, but those who survived. </sentence><sentence id="128">I don't know how we survived because they certainly didn't give us anything to eat. </sentence><sentence id="129">But everybody had something because you always carried a <span class="spatial object">rucksack</span> with whatever we had because that's all, that's all we had, what was on our back. </sentence><sentence id="130">And it was a well known fact that the Jews arrived in the <span class="populated place">German concentration camp</span> with all the values they had. </sentence><sentence id="131">And that was their -- the Germans great achievement that they could collect all the, all the gold and everything else what this so-called Jews had, whether it was German or Hungarian or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="132">Anyway, we arrived in <span class="populated place">Vienna</span> and I didn't know it was <span class="populated place">Vienna</span> until I saw some German writing. </sentence><sentence id="133">And then they put us in the <span class="spatial object">cattle cars</span> and we arrived in <span class="populated place">Hamburg Neuengamme</span> on the Ilth. </sentence><sentence id="134">So the march was, was, I think, four days and then another week before we got to <span class="populated place">Neuengamme</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="148">Q: Will you tell me about that ride in the <span class="spatial object">cattle cars</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="150">A: That ride in the <span class="spatial object">cattle car</span> is exactly what you...what you heard from everybody else. </sentence><sentence id="151">The dead! </sentence><sentence id="152">The dying! </sentence><sentence id="153">The excrement! </sentence><sentence id="154">The no <span class="env feature">water</span>! </sentence><sentence id="155">The no <span class="env feature">air</span>! </sentence><sentence id="156">That's all true. </sentence><sentence id="157">1 mean that's all true until, you know, some of the survivors can -- could tell about it. </sentence><sentence id="158">But there were plenty who didn't survive that trip. </sentence><sentence id="159">I was together with, with two people who I knew that one of them was a father of a friend of mine who went to <span class="building">school</span> with, I went to <span class="building">school</span> with. </sentence><sentence id="160">And another friend who I got lost -- I mean I got -- when we got to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> which we didn't know what it was, you know, they stopped the <span class="spatial object">cars</span>. </sentence><sentence id="161">They herded us into a <span class="building">building</span> and we had to undress and all that. </sentence><sentence id="162">That's where I lost him. </sentence><sentence id="163">But with the father -- it happened that the father of the other friend -- as it happened, I was, I was together with him in this -- in the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> block, <span class="dlf">block</span>. </sentence><sentence id="164">What, what you call this -- the <span class="spatial object">Khazen</span>" and he died right in my hands. </sentence><sentence id="165">And when I, when I went back I had, I * cantor (Hebrew) had to tell, tell him that his father died while I was holding him. </sentence><sentence id="166">That was -- the first three weeks were, were pretty gruesome. </sentence><sentence id="167">And then I got lucky and one of these Kapos?who, who were the commanders of these <span class="dlf">blocks</span>, got hold of a violin. </sentence><sentence id="168">For whatever reason, I don't know how it happened. </sentence><sentence id="169">I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="170">That he knew that I am playing the violin and they were sitting at night when the <span class="spatial object">bombers</span> went by to, to go to bomb <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> and <span class="populated place">Hamburg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="171">While it was blackout, they were singing, singing songs. </sentence><sentence id="172">There were Polish people, Russian people, Germans, Hungarians; so there was a lot of folks, folks" tune singing because they were not only Jews who were in there. </sentence><sentence id="173">So I led a lot of those folk tunes because I was playing the violin when -- while they were singing. </sentence><sentence id="174">That was my, my rescue, you see. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="202">Q: The Kapo had given you....? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="204">A: The Kapo organized the violin. </sentence><sentence id="205">That's the -- organisieren(r) that's the word in German. </sentence><sentence id="206">That he happened to find somewhere or, or paid with cigarettes or whatever for a violin. </sentence><sentence id="207">And I had a violin. </sentence><sentence id="208">I didn't have a-- my own violin. </sentence><sentence id="209">So I had a violin and a bow, and, and I learned these songs and, and I was playing these songs with, with this -- with these people who were, you know, just my <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> comrades basically. </sentence><sentence id="210">Only, you know, there was no -- not real camaraderie because there were Ukrainians who hated the Jews, and Polish people who hated the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="211">We were just in the same <span class="populated place">camp</span>, but not for the same reason. </sentence><sentence id="212">Anyway, this guy who, who, who helped, who actually saved my life, he was no, no criminal and he was no, no anti-Nazi as far as I can tell. </sentence><sentence id="213">He was a barber who, who was doing abortions in the back of his <span class="building">barber shop</span>. </sentence><sentence id="214">And they found him and he became a criminal. </sentence><sentence id="215">So he was in the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> and being a German, he rose on the <span class="dlf">ladder</span> of, of becoming a Kapo, which means -- what, what does it mean? </sentence><sentence id="216">What did it mean? </sentence><sentence id="217">Kapo? </sentence><sentence id="218">Constant -- he was he leader of this <span class="dlf">block</span> of the -- what would I say? </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="234">Q: That's okay. </sentence><sentence id="235">Most people know what a Kapo is. </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="238">A: What a Kapo is, is the commander of -- command, commandant of this <span class="dlf">block</span>. </sentence><sentence id="239">So I was helped by, by the <span class="spatial object">violin</span>, but when they evacuated the <span class="populated place">camp</span> no, no violin helped anybody. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="240"> And I got lost. </sentence><sentence id="241">I mean I, I, I was one, one of the others. </sentence><sentence id="242">One of all those people who, who got into <span class="spatial object">cattle cars</span> and, and was transported. </sentence><sentence id="243">We didn't know where to, but then, then they put us on <span class="spatial object">ships</span>. </sentence><sentence id="244">They put us on the -- in the hull of some kind of a <span class="spatial object">cargo ship</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="245">That is very well described in that book. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="246"> deg Forman (colloquial German); term used for inmates appointed by the SS to </sentence></p><p><sentence id="247"> head a labor Kommando of prisoners. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="248"> 6 Organize (German); term used in <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span> for the process of </sentence></p><p><sentence id="249"> acquisition through bartering. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="250">Q: I'd like -- would you just never mind the book right now. </sentence><sentence id="251">What I'd like you to do is describe the book -- the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="252">A: The description of that, that <span class="spatial object">ship</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="254">Q: The <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="256">A: That <span class="spatial object">ship</span> is -- was just a small <span class="spatial object">cargo ship</span> that had a <span class="dlf">hull</span>, and we climbed down and it was dark. </sentence><sentence id="257">And nobody knew what's going to happen, but once in a while they opened up the light and they threw down a little bread and some, some people had to climb up to, to get a <span class="spatial object">kettle</span> down. </sentence><sentence id="258">And there was some hot water that they called soup and there was no facilities for, for sanitary reasons. </sentence><sentence id="259">Absolutely nothing! </sentence><sentence id="260">And we were in there, I think, for two or three days and, of course, nobody knew how many days. </sentence><sentence id="261">And that was the time when the Swedish Banadot -- Bernadotte", Prince Bernadotte tried to, to get some, some special treatment for the, for the Swedish -- for the Danish police and the Norwegian students who were in the same <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="262">And he did get some agreement I think. </sentence><sentence id="263">Anyway, they were not on this evacuation. </sentence><sentence id="264">They, they were sent somewhere else and then these, these <span class="spatial object">ships</span> -- there were two or three of these -- were sent out to the middle of the <span class="env feature">Litibeck</span>, <span class="env feature">Liibeck Bay</span> and there was this gigantic <span class="spatial object">ship</span> which turned out to be the <span class="spatial object">Cap Arcona</span>. </sentence><sentence id="265">It was the <span class="spatial object">Hamburg South American liner</span>, 37,000 tons <span class="spatial object">luxury ship</span>, <span class="spatial object">luxury ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="266">And they put us up in this <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="267"><span class="building">Cabins</span> -- I was in a <span class="interior space">cabin</span> that had three <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> and I think we had 12 or 14 people in that little <span class="interior space">cabin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="268">And, of course, again very little to eat. </sentence><sentence id="269">And again we didn't know what happens. </sentence><sentence id="270">The rumors -- you know, by then most of the guards were old German soldiers who, who got drafted at the last minute. </sentence><sentence id="271">They ran out of younger people so they got all these old, older people to be guards that they were not SS. </sentence><sentence id="272">The, the commander and the higher officers, they were all SS people. </sentence><sentence id="273">And the rumors through these older German guards was that there is no gold on the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="274">So if there is no coal on the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>, why did they put us on that <span class="spatial object">ship</span>? </sentence><sentence id="275">So all kinds of rumors right and left until May third came around and at two o'clock -- a little after two -- we heard bombs falling on the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="276">And the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> started to burn. </sentence><sentence id="277">And panic and -- you know, on, on a big <span class="spatial object">ship</span> like this, there are steps going up from the "<span class="interior space">B" deck</span> to this "A" deck and from the "C" deck to the "<span class="interior space">D" deck</span> and -- I can't describe it because first of all, the guards were, were not no where. </sentence><sentence id="278">And there was a open <span class="dlf">door</span> that you could see the <span class="env feature">sea</span>. </sentence><sentence id="279">And I was on that, I think "C" <span class="spatial object">Deck</span> must have been. </sentence><sentence id="280">So I jumped just like most, most of the others who, who happened to be able to get to that <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="281">And I was in the <span class="env feature">water</span>, and the, the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> was burning, and we were trying to get away. </sentence><sentence id="282">Was swimming a little bit, and there was a little <span class="spatial object">ship</span> that must have been tied up to the big <span class="spatial object">ship</span> -- the morning they brought some bread and other food stuff for, for the, the guards I suppose because we never saw that kind of food -- anyway, somebody got this little <span class="spatial object">ship</span> and started to get it away from the, from the burning <span class="dlf">Cap Arcona</span>. </sentence><sentence id="283">And I was one of the lucky ones who got on this little <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="284">And there were hundreds of people in that -- in the <span class="env feature">water</span>. </sentence><sentence id="285">And what happened some people couldn't make it because there was no more <span class="interior space">room</span> on this <span class="spatial object">ship</span>, on this little <span class="spatial object">boat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="286">7 Count Folke Bernadotte And so they were pushed back in the <span class="env feature">water</span>. </sentence><sentence id="287">And then they said on the right side of the <span class="env feature">bay</span>, there was some Hitlerjugend(r) and supposedly there was some sign, sign from the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> going -- saying, "Don't pick up anybody," and they started machine gunning the people in the <span class="env feature">water</span>. </sentence><sentence id="288">And I was lucky, on this little <span class="spatial object">boat</span> we went to the left side of the <span class="env feature">bay</span> and there was a <span class="building">U-Boat Schule</span>" -- now, what is that? </sentence><sentence id="289"><span class="building">Submarine school</span>, <span class="building">submarine school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="290">And we tied up this <span class="spatial object">boat</span> and we were naked and drowning and no shoes and no nothing. </sentence><sentence id="291">Hardly any, any -- you know, maybe some kind of a shirt but -- not even shirt. </sentence><sentence id="292">We didn't have shirts. </sentence><sentence id="293">We had a -- the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> garb which was the blue and white marking and the numbers and so, who ever had that on you. </sentence><sentence id="294">So we got on <span class="env feature">ground</span>, firm <span class="env feature">ground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="295">We --I don't know who. </sentence><sentence id="296">I was one of them. </sentence><sentence id="297">I don't know who, who the others were. </sentence><sentence id="298">Old, old prisoners from the <span class="populated place">Neuengamme camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="299">And the <span class="spatial object">British tanks</span> were coming down. </sentence><sentence id="300">And one of the first <span class="spatial object">tanks</span> stopped and pulled down the flag, the <span class="spatial object">German Hakenkreuz</span>"". </sentence><sentence id="301">They pulled down the flag and here were this, this people coming out of the <span class="env feature">water</span>, and of course, this was the first troops of the British. </sentence><sentence id="302">They had no idea what's, what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="303">What-- who were these people? </sentence><sentence id="304">I spoke a little English and there were other people, so we, we made it clear to them what, what happened, but we didn't know what happened -- what bombed the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="305">So until much later until we found out that it was the British who bombed the <span class="spatial object">ships</span> and that was not just our <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="306">There was three <span class="spatial object">ships</span> in the <span class="env feature">Liibeck Bay</span>. </sentence><sentence id="307">And they were all bombed, and there were about 8,000 people who were killed in -- during those last few, few hours of, of the war, because that was May three. </sentence><sentence id="308">At that part of, of <span class="country">Germany</span>, the war ended on May 3rd. </sentence><sentence id="309">The whole war ended on May eighth, so five days later, everything was over. </sentence><sentence id="310">But over here on this you know, the <span class="region">northern part</span>, the idea was that the British didn't know that they there were <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> prisoners on these <span class="spatial object">ships</span> and since <span class="country">Germany</span> was always going to try to, to win the war, they were still trying to, to push, push troops up north through <span class="country">Denmark</span>, etceteras, so they figured there are <span class="spatial object">ships</span> going -- this troops whatever, so they just bombed the <span class="spatial object">ships</span>. </sentence><sentence id="311">In spite of supposedly, because of the Bernadotte mission, they were supposedly informed that there are <span class="spatial object">ships</span> with prisoners, <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> prisoners, in the <span class="env feature">Bay of Liibeck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="312">Now, whether this got screwed up somewhere and, and the right people didn't get the, the message, you can't tell. </sentence><sentence id="313">But 40 years later, in 1985, a serialized book appeared in <span class="building">Stern magazine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="314">And that was a very researched long article and at that time a friend of mine sent me a clipping from <span class="building">The London Times</span>. </sentence><sentence id="315">The pilots of this bombing raid 40 years earlier now they found out from this Stern magazine article that they bombed <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> prisoners and they caused 8,000 of them to be killed at the last 8 Hitler Youth (German) <span class="building">deg school</span> (German) 1deg Swastika (German) minute of the war. </sentence><sentence id="316">They did not know it for 40 years who they were bombing on May third, 1945. </sentence><sentence id="317">And since then, of course, there are books written about, about -- No. </sentence><sentence id="318">German -- a German book that is written, a well documented, with all kinds of documents in the book, that describes everything what happened. </sentence><sentence id="319">And I don't think that too many people know -- English speaking people, know about what happened to the prisoners of <span class="populated place">Neuengamme</span>, because the camp <span class="populated place">Neuengamme</span> was outside of <span class="populated place">Hamburg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="320">And the lives of, of people who survived in that <span class="populated place">camp</span> until April 20, most of them were extinguished on May third by the British by mistake. </sentence><sentence id="321">So that's, that's the story of -- that's the short story of the <span class="building">Cap Arcona</span>. </sentence><sentence id="322">That was a, a fantastic <span class="spatial object">luxury ship</span> as, as we found out afterwards. </sentence><sentence id="323">It used to be. </sentence><sentence id="324">Now the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> got burned out. </sentence><sentence id="325">In the <span class="dlf">hull</span>, of course, there were thousands of dead. </sentence><sentence id="326">It was half as wide as the depths of the <span class="env feature">water</span>, so the <span class="spatial object">hull</span> -- half of the <span class="spatial object">hull</span> was sticking out there until, I think, eight or 10 years later that they -- I don't know on what basis and who -- the Germans, of course, took it away. </sentence><sentence id="327">But all those who died in there stayed in it. </sentence><sentence id="328">There was no way of, of getting the dead out. </sentence><sentence id="329">But there were some washed ashore while I was still in this little <span class="populated place">village</span> two days later. </sentence><sentence id="330">The British gave us clothes. </sentence><sentence id="331">The British came with, with us and made, made the Germans open their, their <span class="building">houses</span> to, to give us food, give us clothes and I remember I, I went into a, a <span class="building">home</span> of, of -- I think he was either a <span class="building">butcher</span>, <span class="building">butcher shop</span> or some kind of a <span class="building">food shop</span> -- and the Tommy not the "Tommy," but -- is that what they call it? </sentence><sentence id="332">The Tommy?Yeah -- came with me and he said, "Clothes." </sentence><sentence id="333">He was holding the gun and this guy didn't know what was going on because it was the first time in his life that he saw a British soldier, and the British soldier came with, with a, a guy in wet rags who, who had nothing on. </sentence><sentence id="334">So they gave us clothes and food and two days later the British had an honor, honor guard shooting in the <span class="dlf">air</span> because there was so many coming -- I mean fished out of the <span class="env feature">water</span>, all those, those poor dead people. </sentence><sentence id="335">By then they, of course, knew that these, these were not, not German soldiers, that, that they bombed. </sentence><sentence id="336">So there was some pictures that were taken and I happened to have kept some and in the book. </sentence><sentence id="337">In this <span class="populated place">Cap Arcona</span> book, they, they got reprinted and so that's how, how life went on, starting with nothing. </sentence><sentence id="338">Starting with absolutely, not a document, not, not a identification, not a piece of clothes. </sentence><sentence id="339">That's, that's how we, we started life after, after the war. </sentence><sentence id="340">At least I did and, and the survivors. </sentence><sentence id="341">And the British was -- were very helpful and very trusting, trusting. </sentence><sentence id="342">If I would have said I'm "XYZ" from, from <span class="country">Holland</span> and I don't speak German, they would have had to believe me because I had -- nobody had anything to prove. </sentence><sentence id="343">I told them who I was. </sentence><sentence id="344">I told them where I came from. </sentence><sentence id="345">I told them I want to go to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, and they, they believed me. </sentence><sentence id="346">And they, they wrote out documents to that effect because there was no other way to, to, to prove anything. </sentence><sentence id="347">So we did not know much what was going on. </sentence><sentence id="348">I was lucky because I spoke a little English so I got, I got a job in the <span class="building">British Officers" Mess</span>. </sentence><sentence id="349">I played their tunes, now. </sentence><sentence id="350">Now I started to learn English tunes, because they -- you know, they -- the war was getting to be over. </sentence><sentence id="351">For them, it was over. </sentence><sentence id="352">And I remember we were sitting -- not sitting, standing, because they were playing the, the "God Save the King," and the King was announcing that the war is over and on the radio in <span class="populated place">Ltibeck</span>, the <span class="building">Officers" Mess</span>, it was May eighth when the war was declared finished. </sentence><sentence id="353">And they really got drunk. </sentence><sentence id="354">I think I got drunk too. </sentence><sentence id="355">It was very interesting because I had no idea what happened at <span class="building">home</span>, what happened with my parents, and what happened with whoever was left at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="356">And I thought, you know, you can, you can just maybe get some connection, the British soldiers, British officers. </sentence><sentence id="357">Nothing! </sentence><sentence id="358">They couldn't, the <span class="building">UNRRA</span>, <span class="building">U-N-R-R-A</span>, was not in existence yet. </sentence><sentence id="359">The <span class="building">Red Cross</span> was, was doing as much as they could. </sentence><sentence id="360">But I had an uncle living in <span class="country">Turkey</span> during the war, and I remembered his address. </sentence><sentence id="361">So I wrote this postcard and one of the British officers took it back <span class="building">home</span> to mail it. </sentence><sentence id="362">And he did get it. </sentence><sentence id="363">After a long time I found out that he did get it, and then he tried to contact my parents to tell them that I'm alive. </sentence><sentence id="364">And I don't remember exactly whether, whether he succeeded in contacting them or not. </sentence><sentence id="365">But it took me till, till September to get back <span class="building">home</span> because the French sent their, their special <span class="spatial object">buses</span> for the French people, and the Dutch did. </sentence><sentence id="366">| And, and I happened to be lucky enough to, to get I had a few friends who -- Czech friends, and I got on a <span class="spatial object">Czech transport</span> and got back to <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence><sentence id="367">And then from <span class="populated place">Prague</span> I went on some kind of a <span class="spatial object">cattle car</span> again, but on -- that was my own will that I wanted to get back. </sentence><sentence id="368">And there was, of course, no, no luxury transporting from <span class="populated place">Prague</span> to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, but I did get back in, in September. </sentence><sentence id="369">It was a long time after the so-called liberation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="488">Q: What did you find when you got back? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="490">A: I did find my, my mother and my father. </sentence><sentence id="491">They were both there. </sentence><sentence id="492">And a pretty, pretty badly ruined <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> that I, that I didn't expect to see. </sentence><sentence id="493">But I saw the, the <span class="dlf">bridges</span> on the way to <span class="populated place">Vienna</span> that they, they -- the Germans -- what do you call it? </sentence><sentence id="494">They didn't bomb it. </sentence><sentence id="495">They, they just blasted it -- blasted them into the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> so there shouldn't be any connection between <span class="populated place">Buda</span> and <span class="populated place">Pest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="496">That's the way they wanted to stop the Russians from coming -- from occupying <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="497">It was, well, nightmarish -- a little light weight word. </sentence><sentence id="498">I didn't, didn't collect these thoughts for, for a long time you know. </sentence><sentence id="499">I, I was one of those happy survivors who, who got over it, and I, I was lucky nothing to happened to me, to my hands and I could go back, start to play again. </sentence><sentence id="500">And I was happy that I survived and didn't give it too much tragic thoughts, but when you start talking about it, you remember all kinds of tragic circumstances. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="512">Q: When and how did you come to the <span class="country">United States</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="514">A: Well, I, I was -- after <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> I was in Guteborg(ph). </sentence><sentence id="515">I was Concertmaster there. </sentence><sentence id="516">Then I went to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="517">That was my rehabilitation. </sentence><sentence id="518">I considered it my rehabilitation. </sentence><sentence id="519">I was Concertmaster of the <span class="building">Stidtische Opera</span>"! -- </sentence><sentence id="520">the municipal opera from "50 to "54. </sentence><sentence id="521">And in the meantime I -- my application to come to the <span class="country">United States</span> was, was being processed very slowly because the quotas were filled and filled and filled. </sentence><sentence id="522">And in "54, I got my, my permit -- my quota and I had some very good friends in, in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> -- an American radio and the American newspaper and so I had a friend who, who was vouching for me, but you know, you had to have a sponsor. </sentence><sentence id="523">But basically I got my, my permit and I came in "54. </sentence><sentence id="524">And that's how it all started in the <span class="country">States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="525">A new life! </sentence><sentence id="526">But from "45 to "54, there were, there were several new lives being started. </sentence><sentence id="527">Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="542">Q: Can you go back a little bit? </sentence><sentence id="543">I'd like to go back to the war and I'd like to go back to 1942, "43. </sentence><sentence id="544">The war had started. </sentence><sentence id="545">In "42, you were in a <span class="populated place">work camp</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="550">A: Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="552">Q: And by "43, things had begun to change. </sentence><sentence id="553">Were you still in a <span class="populated place">work camp</span> or had you come into <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> by that point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="556">A: No, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="557">I was, I was still in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="558">Forty-one, "42 I was playing in the, in the <span class="spatial object">orchestra</span> and solos and stuff like that in the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="559">I got drafted in "43 and with between "43, fall of 43 and fall of "44 I was in this in the army -- the Hungarian army with the, with the shovel. </sentence><sentence id="560">That was the work. </sentence><sentence id="561">That was the, the forced labor, you would, you would call, I think. </sentence><sentence id="562">That's, that's what it was because we had to work with a <span class="spatial object">shovel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="563">And we got, we got plenty of not just bad language, but bad hits, too, on, on the neck and the back of the neck. </sentence><sentence id="564">That hurts. </sentence><sentence id="565">You know, when that peasant boy from, from some <span class="dlf">farm</span> who has two stars means he's one further up than the one who has only one star. </sentence><sentence id="566">We had no stars, and we were the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="567">We were the "dirty communists," "stinking Jew." </sentence><sentence id="568">So you can imagine how many hits you got on, on the head if, if you didn't look right or if you, you happened to, to start with the left foot in, instead of the right foot. </sentence><sentence id="569">And if the whole -- it looked to them that the whole world hangs on whether these Jews are going to make good soldiers or not, with the <span class="spatial object">shovel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="570">So it was all incongruous. </sentence><sentence id="571">The whole, the whole idea of, of us being, being in the army was absolutely meaningless. </sentence><sentence id="572">It was just a torture. </sentence><sentence id="573">And you know, the, the army discipline meted out with not just with swear words, but with hits and, and kicks and the worst kind of, of punishment for nothing! </sentence><sentence id="574">Because we were not soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="575">We were supposed to be soldiers, but we were not. </sentence><sentence id="576">And, and they had to show -- when we were in the <span class="country">Ukraine</span>, we were out side of the <span class="region">Hungarian territories</span> fighting the, the Hungarians and the Germans were the Axis. </sentence><sentence id="577">They were fighting the Russians and we were supposed to be helping. </sentence><sentence id="578">And we were helping aa <span class="building">municipal opera</span> (German) because we had to, otherwise, you got shot. </sentence><sentence id="579">So for helping pushing those <span class="spatial object">carts</span> there were no -- very few <span class="spatial object">cars</span> or <span class="spatial object">trucks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="580">These were horse-drawn big <span class="spatial object">carts</span> that were pulling the gun -- the, the big guns on, on wheels and the, the <span class="env feature">mountain</span> was steep. </sentence><sentence id="581">And either the snow was too deep or the, the <span class="env feature">mud</span> was too deep. </sentence><sentence id="582">So we had to help push. </sentence><sentence id="583">That was our work. </sentence><sentence id="584">That's, that's how we, we were supposed to be, be soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="585">And we got nothing to eat. </sentence><sentence id="586">I mean at that point, we were in the <span class="country">Ukraine</span> when it was summer. </sentence><sentence id="587">We ate what we found on the <span class="dlf">fields</span> that was not harvested. </sentence><sentence id="588">Raw cabbage, and that was delicacy. </sentence><sentence id="589">We found other stuff that wasn't so delicate. </sentence><sentence id="590">Because all we got to eat was a little piece of, of komisz"" bread that they called komisz bread that, that they called komisz bread which, you know in Hungarian means "very, very bad." </sentence><sentence id="591">That's <span class="building">komisz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="592">And soup that has had nothing, nothing in it. </sentence><sentence id="593">And that was -- those were the worst times during the, the <span class="building">retreat</span> because now we had to push the <span class="spatial object">carts</span> the other way because the Russians were pushing. </sentence><sentence id="594">And, and the Germans were coming with their <span class="spatial object">Stuka" planes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="595">I didn't use that word for about 40, 50 years, so I suddenly remember it. </sentence><sentence id="596">And, and then the Russians were coming. </sentence><sentence id="597">And we were in between because we were digging <span class="dlf">ditches</span> on the side of the <span class="dlf">road</span> so that the, the <span class="env feature">water</span> could run down so that we don't have to -- wouldn't have to go through the <span class="env feature">mud</span> that badly. </sentence><sentence id="598">Anyway, it was work for, for animals and we were treated like animals. </sentence><sentence id="599">And that passed too, but quite a few didn't survive it because from dysentery and, and from hunger, they were dying right and left. </sentence><sentence id="600">And these were their own people. </sentence><sentence id="601">These, these were the 21, 22 year old Jewish kids, you know. </sentence><sentence id="602">So that was -- I was one of the lucky ones who got to be sent back to get some clothes because we had just rags by then and -- to collect clothes from the Jewish organizations in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> -- and then we didn't get back to the, to the troops because we were deported by the, by the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="603">Not really Germans, it was Hungarians who deported us, but we ended up in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="653">Q: What was <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> like at that point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="655">A: <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> was -- well, it was not bombed, and it -- there was no, no -- there were no, no street fight yet. </sentence><sentence id="656">So it was just like it was a year earlier when I left. </sentence><sentence id="657">You know, the, the blackouts in the, in the evening, not much food in the <span class="building">stores</span>, but still life was going on fairly normal like under, under the same circumstances, same similar circumstances like a year earlier. </sentence><sentence id="658">There were quite a few people who, who were benefiting by the war but most of the people were just struggling along and, of course they, they did not see too many Jews because the, the, the Jews were either in, in the Swedish -- or no, the <span class="building">Swiss Protectorate buildings</span>. </sentence><sentence id="659">You know, certain <span class="building">buildings</span> -- then <span class="building">Wallenberg</span>"* comes in the picture, sooner or later. </sentence><sentence id="660">Not at that time yet, but still the, the Swedish started to give out these protectorate papers and the Swiss and I don't know -- Portuguese? </sentence><sentence id="661">I think they had some too. </sentence><sentence id="662">But in any case they were not concentrated in the, in the so-called "<span class="populated place">ghetto</span>." </sentence><sentence id="663">That was, that was then designated later. </sentence><sentence id="664">They were still in their <span class="building">buildings</span> but people io vile (Hungarian) "S <span class="spatial object">dive bomber</span> (German) (tm) Raoul Wallenberg were moving from one to the other in case they got this protectorate. </sentence><sentence id="665">So, there was -- I wasn't there, so I don't know exactly what it was -- what, what life was like when I was back there, because I was just be happy to be sitting in, in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> instead of on the <span class="dlf">field</span> and to be able to, to take a <span class="spatial object">bath</span> in a <span class="spatial object">bath tub</span>. </sentence><sentence id="666">But it didn't last long because two weeks later. </sentence><sentence id="667">You know, we tried to collect the clothes and we tried to get back, and in the meantime the big, big switchover happened and we thought maybe, maybe this is the end. </sentence><sentence id="668">So the end came by being collected and, and deported. </sentence><sentence id="669">And of course that had gone on much earlier and in a much larger -- on a much larger scale in the <span class="country">country</span> when they, when they took all the Jews from, from <span class="region">northern Hungary</span> and from the <span class="country">country</span> and most of them ended up in, in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="670">So, the story of the <span class="dlf">Cap Arcona</span>, I think, is, is very important because it wasn't just a Jewish story. </sentence><sentence id="671">And that's why I'm so surprised -- I was always surprised that nothing was known about it in, in other than the close-by <span class="region">German area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="672">I think this book -- that Cap Arcona book was, was researched and printed in, in <span class="populated place">Hamburg</span> because all this <span class="populated place">Ltibeck</span>, <span class="populated place">Neustadt</span>, <span class="populated place">Hamburg</span>, this, this is the whole <span class="region">area</span> that was connected with, with the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span> of that <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="673">So at least there is one supposedly I don't know if they built it already, but they were going to have some kind of a <span class="building">museum</span> built in <span class="populated place">Neustadt</span> itself which was the place that was closest to the bombing of the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> in the <span class="env feature">Bay of Ltibeck</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="696">Q: When they took you down to the <span class="spatial object">ship</span>, can you tell us something about the people that were with you as you were being herded into the <span class="spatial object">Cap Arcona</span>. </sentence><sentence id="697">What was it like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="700">A: It's a very difficult thing to remember because you know when you are being herded you are in the middle of, of a group of people. </sentence><sentence id="701">It was normal -- the regular SS type of, of "Push, push, go, go." </sentence><sentence id="702">The, the words they, they used I, I can't even remember. </sentence><sentence id="703">It wasn't anything special. </sentence><sentence id="704">It was going from -- on the <span class="dlf">plank</span> from one little <span class="spatial object">ship</span> into this big, big <span class="spatial object">ship</span>, one little <span class="spatial object">boat</span> really into the big <span class="spatial object">ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="705">I don't think there was any, any special significance. </sentence><sentence id="706">I, I can't really remember how it was. </sentence><sentence id="707">I remember that we were, you know, distributed into these <span class="building">cabins</span> that, that used to be <span class="spatial object">luxury cabins</span> with three, three <span class="spatial object">beds</span>, but we had 14 people in there so it wasn't so pleasant. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="716">Q: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="717">Is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="720">A: Not at this time. </sentence><sentence id="721">I really have to think. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="724">Q: Okay. </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="726">A: Okay? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="727">Q: Okay. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="728">A: Can we rest? </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="730">Q: Fine. </sentence><sentence id="731">Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="734">A: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="735">Thank you. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="736"> [Dispaying documents and photographs] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="737">A: This is the identification card that they gave us after we were -- this is a German identification with a British stamp on it, showing the name and which <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> the person came. </sentence><sentence id="738">At the bottom, you can see "<span class="populated place">Neuengamme</span>" and my number "65437." </sentence><sentence id="739">This is at the <span class="env feature">seashore</span> where they fished out hundreds of dead were fished out and the British are giving an honor guard and honorary burial to some of these. </sentence><sentence id="740">This is the <span class="dlf">town square</span> in <span class="populated place">Neustadt</span> where we came <span class="dlf">ashore</span> and this is the British going down to the <span class="dlf">seashore</span> to give the Honor Guard. [ </sentence><sentence id="741">Conclusion of interview] </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: agnes grossman aranyi
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0008
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0008_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504526
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1936-05-02
9
+ birth_year: 1936.0
10
+ place_of_birth: budapest
11
+ country: hungary
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1990.429.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">AGNES GROSSMAN ARANYI July 18, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Will you tell me your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Agnes Grossman Aranyi. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where and when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, <span class="country">Hungary</span>, May 2nd, 1936. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Will you tell us something about your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: I actually had a large extended family, but the nuclear family only con...consisted of my mother, my father and myself. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="15">Q: What did your father do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="17">A: My father...I uh...he was in the <span class="building">textile business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="18">He was a merchant of sorts. </sentence><sentence id="19">He really didn't have a <span class="building">shop</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">He worked out of the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="21">I really never understood what he actually did, but he was selling uh cloth. </sentence><sentence id="22">He was...I guess in between a <span class="building">wholesaler</span> and a <span class="building">retailer</span>...a middle man, and he worked out of the <span class="building">home</span> a lot. </sentence><sentence id="23">He was a salesman basically I think. </sentence><sentence id="24">And my mother, of course, those days she was a housewife when I was first born, but of course when my father uh was drafted in the <span class="populated place">forced labor camp</span>, she had to take over my father's business and then after the war subsequently she had a <span class="building">jewelry store</span> and uh after the communists took over she went to work for the government. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="33">Q: What was your childhood, your early, very early childhood like before the Nazis? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="35">A: I have a very very few recollections of my early childhood. </sentence><sentence id="36">Actually I uh just remember flashbacks of my father who was...uh started to go away in 1939 and kept being drafted in <span class="populated place">forced labor camps</span> and uh he begin...he began to disappear for three to six months and then it became longer and longer. </sentence><sentence id="37">When they would draft him, it would take eight, nine months before he would return and then one time he was away for ten months, and finally in 1942, that was the last time he was drafted and he never came back. </sentence><sentence id="38">And uh remembering my mother who was a very bright woman and was able to take over and be the head of the family...I don't mean just the nuclear family but head of the extended family. </sentence><sentence id="39">In fact she was instrumental saving my grandmother and myself and a lot of my cousins during uh the war and the Nazi occupation. </sentence><sentence id="40">I remember that the whole family used to gather at my <span class="building">house</span> and we used to have Friday night and Saturday night dinners at my <span class="building">house</span> and uh maybe because my grandmother was living with us, that so...we were the gathering place for the whole family, and that's what happened. </sentence><sentence id="41">That's what I remember. </sentence><sentence id="42">I have pretty good memories of trips. </sentence><sentence id="43">We used to have a <span class="env feature">lake</span>, <span class="env feature">Lake</span> : We used to go there in the summers and it was just a very...what I remember was a very uncomplicated, very nice life before my father left in 1942. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="53">Q: What do you remember about uh <span class="building">school</span>, playmates, friends during that period? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="55">A: Actually I don't remember an awful lot. </sentence><sentence id="56">1 remember that about 1940 we used to have quite an elegant <span class="interior space">apartment</span> in the middle of the <span class="populated place">city</span> and I remember that the Nazi party decided to have their <span class="building">headquarters</span> there, and uh we were evicted from the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and we had a hard time finding another <span class="interior space">apartment</span> being Jews and finally we found a less elegant but an OK <span class="interior space">apartment</span> uh in a in another part of the <span class="populated place">city</span> and I remember asking my mother to take the <span class="dlf">walls</span> with us because I really was very happy in that particular <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, but we were evicted and we moved into a much smaller <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and uh we were there until uh the Nazis occupied <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="59">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="60">Tell us, if you would, you started talked about 1940. </sentence><sentence id="61">So let's go on. </sentence><sentence id="62">Let's...tell me, as the war broke out indeed, uh in addition to the move, what happened to you, to your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: Well, in uh...as I remember and the dates may escape me...as I remember 1944 when all our troubles... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="69">Q: Let's let's back up a bit. </sentence><sentence id="70">Let's stick with, if we could...I don't want to jump to 1944 just yet. </sentence><sentence id="71">Let's let's talk a little about 1940, "41, and "42...the the early years. </sentence><sentence id="72">What, what was your life like? </sentence><sentence id="73">What did you as a child do to ? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="79">A: I think the early years were comfortable years for me in spite of my father not being there. </sentence><sentence id="80">I uh remember uh good times with my extended family. </sentence><sentence id="81">I remember vacations. </sentence><sentence id="82">I remember having a German governess whom I couldn't stand, whom I had to go out uh walks with and the lady only spoke German to me and I had to answer her in German and I did not like her and I did not like the idea not being with my mother who had to work, but having some other people taking care of me. </sentence><sentence id="83">But I don't remember anything horrendous from these early years. </sentence><sentence id="84">I have to add that my mother had two brothers, and they were also taken to <span class="populated place">forced labor camps</span> and they never returned, but the early years when uh my father kept coming back and we had the extended family around, they were fairly happy times. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="91">Q: What did you for <span class="building">school</span>? </sentence><sentence id="92">Let's talk a little about.....? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="95">A: In uh...I was four years old in 1940. </sentence><sentence id="96">I remember going to <span class="building">nursery school</span> - "40, "41, and then I started first grade in the <span class="building">Jewish school</span> in <span class="country">Hungary</span> in 1942 when I was six years old, and uh that was uh...I remember that being a good year. </sentence><sentence id="97">However the following year I remember in the second grade we only went to <span class="building">school</span> for two, three months, and I thought that was terrific (laughter) because then the war broke out and we stopped going to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">But uh actually the early years in <span class="country">Hungary</span> for the Hungarian Jews were fairly pleasant, uh if I remember correctly as a child. </sentence><sentence id="99">I was also thinking being an only child and my cousins being only children, the families really could not, did not feel comfortable having more children because they could see the handwriting on the <span class="dlf">wall</span>, and my mother herself decided to have an abortion. </sentence><sentence id="100">She told me that later, because she just couldn't bring another Jewish child to this world, our crazy mixed-up world as it was. </sentence><sentence id="101">But the early years as far as I was concerned were pleasant and they were alright. </sentence><sentence id="102">The difficulties started when we had to start wearing the yellow star. </sentence><sentence id="103">That really, my self- esteem just plummeted and that was a very difficult period when a big yellow star was on a young child with uh the inscription of Jude, which meant I guess in German, Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="104">And then that was already beginning of being marked as being different and less...oh what's the word I want to use...maybe not quite as competent as the other children were. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="115">Q: Go on and tell us about that. </sentence><sentence id="116">Tell us more about those years as things now began to be very difficult. </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="119">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="120">Things are begi...began to unfold at this point. </sentence><sentence id="121">We started to wear the Jewish star and we also had to be at the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> at a certain time. </sentence><sentence id="122">There was a curfew, but we still were able to go out and go shopping and buy food with uh the Jewish star on. </sentence><sentence id="123">We had to wear the Jewish star all the time whenever we left the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="124">It was sewn on our clothing, and we were marked as being different from the mainstream and psychologically I'm sure I really suffered from this distinction. </sentence><sentence id="125">And then afterwards uh we were told we had to leave our second <span class="interior space">apartment</span> because we had to move to a <span class="building">house</span> which was designated for Jews, and of course we left all our <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> at the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and just took a few belongings and moved over to a <span class="building">house</span> which was designated to be a <span class="building">Jewish house</span> where Jews could live at that point. </sentence><sentence id="126">And uh we moved in with a sister of my father's, my paternal aunt. </sentence><sentence id="127">There was my grandfather, my aunt and her two children in one <span class="interior space">room</span>, and my grandmother and my mother and I in another <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="128">It was a <span class="interior space">two room apartment</span>, and we had to...we were there for a few months. </sentence><sentence id="129">I really can't remember how many months it was, but we were there for a few months and that's when things were starting to really get bad for us. </sentence><sentence id="130">First of all, we had very little food. </sentence><sentence id="131">When uh there were a lot of air raids we had to rush down to the <span class="interior space">cellar</span>. </sentence><sentence id="132">At times we just didn't even bother to go. </sentence><sentence id="133">My mother says if we have to go__, we'll just go, and that's when things really started to go downhill. </sentence><sentence id="134">I remember a couple of episodes which are quite painful while we were living there. </sentence><sentence id="135">Well, my mother several times was rounded up and she had to march to different <span class="building">factories</span> where the Jewish women were collected and were sent to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, and for one reason or another she was always able to come back, but as a child the fear was just tremendous. </sentence><sentence id="136">If she's not going to come back, who's going to take care of me. </sentence><sentence id="137">I felt very very very lonely at those days and very isolated, and I remember also the whole family once was rounded up uh <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> and then we were...something happened. </sentence><sentence id="138">We were able to go back to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="139">Another painful episode was when my mother was rounded up and uh she decided that she's not going to go to the <span class="building">meeting place</span> and she was all dressed in heavy winter suits. </sentence><sentence id="140">In <span class="country">Hungary</span> the winters were quite severe, and heavy boots and heavy winter clothes. </sentence><sentence id="141">She was all dressed up and she decided just to go <span class="spatial object">bed</span> with her clothing on, and uh uh she said whatever happens, happens. </sentence><sentence id="142">She's just not going to go and what happened, a German soldier came up to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> looking around, making sure that all the young women were <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> and ready to go to <span class="populated place">camps</span>, and my mother was covered up in the <span class="spatial object">bed</span> and I was with my mother and I lied to the soldier. </sentence><sentence id="143">I told the soldier that my mother was sick and she could not go anywhere and she couldn't move, and I told the soldier...as a child I learned survival skills very early on...I told the soldier I have a doctor's certificate. </sentence><sentence id="144">If you just wait a minute I will get the doctor's certificate for you. </sentence><sentence id="145">Six years old and uh...seven maybe. </sentence><sentence id="146">And uh what happened was that uh...there was no doctor's certificate of course...I kept looking and looking and opening <span class="interior space">drawers</span> and started to really search for the doctor's certificate and the German soldier who could have been sixteen years as I was told, just left. </sentence><sentence id="147">He could have shot us. </sentence><sentence id="148">He could have forced my mother to go, but by the stroke of luck he just left so I was told that I saved my mother's life at that point, which was probably true. </sentence><sentence id="149">But I also lived with that the rest of my life...that I am able to save people. </sentence><sentence id="150">And uh after that there were more roundups of Jews and the janitor one time who was a Christian woman my mother befriended...befriended and of course she also kept happy with various pieces of jewelry, came up to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> to tell us that now you just have to go. </sentence><sentence id="151">This is it. </sentence><sentence id="152">Everybody's going to be taken to the <span class="populated place">camps</span>, and you just have to disappear. </sentence><sentence id="153">Well, we didn't know what to do at this point and somehow or other...this is where <span class="building">Wallenberg</span> comes into the picture. </sentence><sentence id="154">Somehow or other we gota __ they called. </sentence><sentence id="155">Somehow that afternoon my mother paid somebody off or somebody was willing to help. </sentence><sentence id="156">We got a to be able to go to a <span class="building">Swedish house</span>, but of course by the time the arrived, mysteriously arrived, we couldn't go out anymore with our Jewish stars because it was after the curfew and we knew the next morning everybody's going to be taken, rounded up and taken to the <span class="populated place">camps</span> from this particular <span class="building">Jewish house</span>, so somehow they got this Christian woman who after the war turned out to be Jewish herself, working at the <span class="interior space">underground</span>...somehow they got this Christian woman to come and take us to the <span class="building">Swedish house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="157">We had the but that of course didn't mean very much, but we were able to...this woman came and uh we took, we tore our yellow stars off and uh pretended we were Christians, and I remember to this day, I never forget that, that this young woman who came to get us and my mother who was also fairly young at the time, and myself, without the Jewish star started walking. </sentence><sentence id="158">It seemed to me that we walked four or five hours. </sentence><sentence id="159">We we probably only walked a half an hour to forty-five minutes, and I remember these two young women started, when the soldiers would come up, these two young women started flirting with the German soldiers and I also remember them speaking German, not Hungarian, during this journey. </sentence><sentence id="160">Of course we didn't have any belongings. </sentence><sentence id="161">My mother had a <span class="spatial object">pocketbook</span>. </sentence><sentence id="162">I had nothing, and the trio was just walked while this the young women were flirt...flirting with the soldiers and somehow we got to the <span class="building">Swedish house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="163">We had a hard time getting into the <span class="building">house</span>, because the janitor did not want to get...let us in, but uh the women were able to convince the janitor in the <span class="building">Swedish house</span> that we did have the documents and we belonged to the <span class="building">Swedish house</span> and we're going to be...we are entitled to go in. </sentence><sentence id="164">So what happened they finally let us in. </sentence><sentence id="165">We arrived at the <span class="building">Swedish house</span> and uh we went into an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="166">It was full of people. </sentence><sentence id="167">I remember it was a <span class="interior space">two bedroom</span>, <span class="interior space">two room</span> or <span class="interior space">two bedroom apartment</span>...I can't remember that...but we...people on all on people...it was just a horribly busy place. </sentence><sentence id="168">I...if 1 remember correctly there were sixty people in this little <span class="interior space">apartment</span> with and of course they weren't very happy that three additional persons ) arrived, but they did let us in and uh we made a little nitch in the <span class="dlf">corner</span> somewhere and we went to sleep at that point. </sentence><sentence id="169">It was a very...it...l remem...I can't remember whether we were sleeping on <span class="spatial object">mattresses</span> or just on the <span class="interior space">floor</span> but we were so tired and emotionally exhausted that it didn't matter. </sentence><sentence id="170">We had a safe, quote safe unquote place to put our heads down. </sentence><sentence id="171">Somehow my mother...we stayed there for could be a month to six weeks in this <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, and it was pretty exciting because people were coming and going. </sentence><sentence id="172">We would listen to...play wegie (ph) boards of what's coming. </sentence><sentence id="173">We would listen to the the American broadcasts and uh somehow the rest of my family one by one found out that we were in the <span class="building">Swedish house</span>, my mother and I, and my cousins kept coming and since my mother told them since she had the it belonged to the whole family, so she managed to have all my cousins come and stay with us in the <span class="building">Swedish house</span> and I think she paid somebody off because my grandmother appeared on the scene who was at that time in her late seventies, and somehow somebody brought my grandmother over. </sentence><sentence id="174">Since we had this uh __ she could come with us as well and uh she had the prime place in the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="175">She would sleep in the <span class="interior space">bathtub</span> because that was the only <span class="spatial object">bed</span> in this whole <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, and since uh she was the oldest person, she was able to stay with us for a while. </sentence><sentence id="176">I need to take a glass of water now. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="236">Q: We'll pause for a minute. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="238"> PAUSE - TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="240">Q: We're talking about your grandmother and the.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="242">A: Right. </sentence><sentence id="243">Right. </sentence><sentence id="244">We were in this...I was one of the Wallenberg kids. </sentence><sentence id="245">Because of <span class="populated place">Wallenberg</span>, I was able to stay in this <span class="building">Swedish house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="246">I was able to have the ___as we all know today didn't mean anything, but in those days in <span class="country">Hungary</span> it meant an awful lot because it did get uh a person into a protected environment, a seemingly protected environment where people could just stay for a while and I...really and truly I know more about <span class="populated place">Wallenberg</span> since I've been in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="247">I had no idea who he was in <span class="country">Hungary</span>, and uh but our happiness in the <span class="building">Swedish house</span> did not last for an awful long time because uh finally the Germans decided that they're going to invade the <span class="building">Swedish houses</span>, so they came in after a while and rounded us up and marched us to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="248">The march for me... </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="256">Q: What was that...excuse me...what was it like? </sentence><sentence id="257">Can you tell us what that scene was like when the Nazis came? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="260">A: Very frightening, very...didn't understand what happened. </sentence><sentence id="261">Could not comprehend that we were in a protected <span class="building">house</span>...how can they round us up and invade us. </sentence><sentence id="262">It was a very very frightening experience, but of course none of the Jews had any repence or probably even if they did have any they couldn't have fought off the German army, so we had to be obedient and do whatever we were told and survival depended on our obedience we felt at that point. </sentence><sentence id="263">So when they rounded us up to take us to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, they marched in and we had to leave again all our belongings. </sentence><sentence id="264">We had ten minutes to pack our stuff and leave. </sentence><sentence id="265"> I was uh...my mother and my grandmother, myself were getting ready to go on this march which again as a child it seemed to me was endless. </sentence><sentence id="266">I was in charge of the <span class="spatial object">photo albums</span>, to carry them to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and my mother carried of course whatever she could and my grandmother could never carry anything. </sentence><sentence id="267">She had heart problems and she hardly could walk. </sentence><sentence id="268">During this march they were shouting and shooting at Jews and we would just step over corpses like it was nothing. </sentence><sentence id="269">We just were psychologically numb and we were just walking around, walking along and did what we were supposed to do and I I dropped a photo albums and that's why I have very few photographs left before the war era and uh my mother yelled at me not to stop and bend over and pick them up. </sentence><sentence id="270">I can, in my mind's eye I can still see those pictures all over the <span class="dlf">street</span>, and uh I just had to leave them and march on. </sentence><sentence id="271">We were marching on for a little while, and then my grandmother said during the march...and this was really my most frightening experience in the war...my grandmother said she couldn't walk anymore, so the whole <span class="spatial object">transport</span>, the whole group had to stop. </sentence><sentence id="272">It was about two hundred people in this march, so everybody had to stop and the German soldiers came and told us that they're going to shoot my grandmother. </sentence><sentence id="273">She's too old. </sentence><sentence id="274">She can't can't march. </sentence><sentence id="275">They're just going to shoot her to death, and we should all go on, and my mother said she's not going to go. </sentence><sentence id="276">If they're going to shoot my grandmother, let her let them shoot us all and we're just not going to leave an old lady. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="277">But I remember the guns pointing at my grandmother and subsequently the guns pointing at me and my mother and they were ready to shoot us, but then my mother saw a child in a <span class="spatial object">stroller</span> and we were so so...we we hardly have had any food at this point so we were all so thin that uh she picked up my grandmother and put her in the <span class="spatial object">stroller</span> and took the child out of the <span class="spatial object">stroller</span>, put my grandmother in the <span class="spatial object">stroller</span> and we marched on. </sentence><sentence id="278">And we got away with it. </sentence><sentence id="279">So what happened, when we had to go to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> my grandmother was wheeled in a <span class="spatial object">stroller</span> into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, and we all made it. </sentence><sentence id="280">But I I'll never forget that scene and I'm still very frightened of any kind of violence and any kinds of guns because of this experience. </sentence><sentence id="281">It's just... when a young child has a gun pointed at her...just something happens and one never gets over this experience. </sentence><sentence id="282">But anyway, we were able to march into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and everybody was able to...everybody survived at that point and uh we did march into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="283">Of course the circumstances were terrible. </sentence><sentence id="284">I had lice all over me, not just in my hair. </sentence><sentence id="285">Body lice. </sentence><sentence id="286">We couldn't bathe. </sentence><sentence id="287">We couldn't eat and we were in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> for about two weeks before the Russians came in, and what I had heard about uh...the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> days are very hazy as far as I'm concerned because I kept fainting from the lack of food and my mother told me that I didn't have food for three, four days before the Russians came to liberate, so my recollection of the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> days are very hazy. </sentence><sentence id="288">I remember being in <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> in a <span class="interior space">cellar</span> sitting and not having any food and I remember other Jews eating chocolate while I was just starving and I had no food at all and nobody ever offered us some food, so it wasn't...it was survival of the fittest. </sentence><sentence id="289">It wasn't really let's all survive, at that point and again I think because of <span class="populated place">Wallenberg</span>...the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> was undermined and we were going to be blown up at any minute, but I think because of <span class="populated place">Wallenberg</span> we were saved and the Russians did...of course there were a lot of air raids and a lot of fighting, but we were so happy to hear the guns because we knew that liberation couldn't be too far off. </sentence><sentence id="290">And that's how I survived those years. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="291">Q: Tell us, tell us what happened at liberation...what was it like and what did you and your family do? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="292">A: What I remember of liberation...the Russian soldiers came into the <span class="interior space">bunker</span> and uh somehow a few hours later there was some muddied soup which they gave to all the survivors. </sentence><sentence id="293">We got some food at last and little by little we were able to...I mean after being really singled out as Jews, able to be free and take our yellow stars off was just a very exhilarating, exciting and frightening moment at the same time. </sentence><sentence id="294">But little by little life got back. </sentence><sentence id="295">Of course we still didn't have food, but it was easier to obtain some foods later on and we were able to get back to our <span class="interior space">apartments</span> and uh try to resume life, and life was very difficult after...between 1948..."45 and 1956. </sentence><sentence id="296">I lived under the Russian oppression for about ten years and again food was very scarce. </sentence><sentence id="297">It wasn't very fashionable to be Jews again and in fact I had to change...in order to obtain a job...<span class="building">college</span> was out of the question for me because I came from a capitalistic society and uh it was really out of the question for me. </sentence><sentence id="298">I had to change my name. </sentence><sentence id="299">I did attend a <span class="building">Jewish high school</span>, <span class="building">Jewish school</span> and <span class="building">Jewish high school</span> and uh I was singled out again as a Jew. </sentence><sentence id="300">I had to change my name from Grossman to , which was a Hungarian name so I wouldn't be singled out as a Jew and I remember having very little food in those years as well. </sentence><sentence id="301">Food was always a problem. ( </sentence><sentence id="302">Laughter) And the survival...we really didn't have the...what we really needed. </sentence><sentence id="303">We had a very...we had an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="304">Sometimes we didn't have fuel. </sentence><sentence id="305">We didn't have food. </sentence><sentence id="306">I remember it was sin to have any napoleons (ph), uh gold coins, so we were so afraid of deportation that my mother flushed a couple gold coins down on the <span class="spatial object">toilet</span> because we were so afraid that if they, if we're going to be found out we're going to have to go outside of the <span class="populated place">city</span> and...uh I'm struggling for the wor...word...I don't know what happened with capitalists during the communist uh regime. </sentence><sentence id="307">They were forced to leave their <span class="interior space">apartments</span> and they got a sub-standard <span class="interior space">apartment</span> in the <span class="country">country</span> and they had to survive the best they could there. </sentence><sentence id="308">So we didn't want that to happen to us and that's why we flushed those gold coins down the <span class="spatial object">toilet</span>. </sentence><sentence id="309">I'll never forget that. </sentence><sentence id="310">And uh again life was very difficult, being singled out as Jews, so when the revolution came about in 1956, we were very happy to be able to leave <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="311">PAUSE - TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="332">Q: Tell us about that escape. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="334">A: Since I uh lived with the idea that my father would have been alive if my mother did not want to stay with her family but left for <span class="country">America</span> in 1938, I subconsciously knew that when the opportunity rises, I'd best leave <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="335">So in 1956 during the revolution, I was then twenty years old and I had a Hungarian fiance who was also a survivor. </sentence><sentence id="336">He was hidden during uh the war years. </sentence><sentence id="337">I uh...it was really my decision to leave the <span class="country">country</span> and escape. </sentence><sentence id="338">Of course 1956...I experienced another war during the revolution and again we were sitting in the <span class="interior space">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="339">We were sitting in the <span class="interior space">cellar</span> and uh the <span class="spatial object">Russian tanks</span> came in and there were a lot of shooting, a lot of killing. </sentence><sentence id="340">Again we would step over corpses. </sentence><sentence id="341">I mean it was psychologically numbing again. </sentence><sentence id="342">Survival was the main thing during those revolutionary years. </sentence><sentence id="343">My husband then was a college student in <span class="country">Hungary</span> so he partook in some of the demonstrations and uh we decided after, when the Russians came back, we were best to escape <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="344">Of course by then we both were survivors. </sentence><sentence id="345">We knew how to survive, so we took a <span class="spatial object">train</span> to as close to the <span class="dlf">border</span> as possible when we decided to leave and uh we stayed with some peasants near the <span class="dlf">border</span> until we found a guide who could led us over the <span class="dlf">border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="346">The <span class="dlf">borders</span> were watched by Hungarian and Russian soldiers and uh it was very difficult to escape. </sentence><sentence id="347">Again we had to...oh we found this...I'm getting a little fuzzy here. </sentence><sentence id="348">The memories are just rushing back into my head. </sentence><sentence id="349">We escaped with my cousin and her husband and two small children ages three and five. </sentence><sentence id="350">And uh what happened was that the kids were scared and crying, so before when we paid off the guards in order to get across the <span class="dlf">border</span>, we had to get some rum and had to give it to the kids so the kids were drunk and fell asleep and my husband carried uh one kid and uh the kid's father carried another kid. </sentence><sentence id="351">We had to walk in the <span class="env feature">snow</span>. </sentence><sentence id="352">The winter's are very difficult and heavy in <span class="country">Hungary</span> and we dark winter clothing on and we had to walk in this dark clothing in the snow at night to be inconspicuous. </sentence><sentence id="353">When the Russian or the Hungarian soldiers were shooting at us, we had to lie down in the snow with our dark winter clothing in order not to be seen. </sentence><sentence id="354">We walked across...we had to walk a good twenty miles until we got to the <span class="dlf">border</span> and the walk again was very very frightening. </sentence><sentence id="355">It was like deja vue. </sentence><sentence id="356">What happened as we were marching uh to escape...to go to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, because they were shooting us at us from <span class="building">watch towers</span> and we had to know where to walk, where the <span class="dlf">border</span> wasn't undermined. </sentence><sentence id="357">Finally we got to a <span class="env feature">creek</span> which led us to <span class="country">Austria</span> and this is where I just knew I'll never make it. </sentence><sentence id="358">I was just ready to give up and die. </sentence><sentence id="359">I was so tired after...and scared...after walking for several hours at night in the <span class="env feature">snow</span> that I was just ready to give up. </sentence><sentence id="360">There was a <span class="spatial object">log</span> between uh <span class="country">Austria</span> and <span class="country">Hungary</span> and people walked across the <span class="spatial object">log</span> but I wasn't coordinated enough and I wasn't...I was so tired I knew I'll never make it. </sentence><sentence id="361">So finally people told me to sit on that <span class="spatial object">log</span> and I was able to just crawl over to <span class="country">Austria</span> on that <span class="spatial object">log</span>, and I was very fortunate because we made it over. </sentence><sentence id="362">A lot of people were taken back to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="363">They could not escape, but we were again very fortunate to be able to manage to get out. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="394">Q: Indeed. </sentence><sentence id="395">What did you do when you got to <span class="country">Austria</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="398">A: Well, in <span class="country">Austria</span> we stayed in uh...subsequently we went to <span class="populated place">Salzburg</span> and a Jewish organization was very good. </sentence><sentence id="399">They put us in a <span class="building">hotel</span>, <span class="building">the Pathenon</span> really, and we stayed in the <span class="building">Pathenon</span> for two, three weeks, trying to come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="400">We were planning to go to <span class="country">Australia</span>, but there was a real <span class="dlf">iron curtain</span> in <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="401">We had no news from the <span class="region">west</span> at all, and we thought <span class="country">Australia</span> would be wonderful because we would be as far from <span class="country">Europe</span> as we could be, so we decided to go to <span class="country">Australia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="402">But my husband had a relative who sent us a telegram from <span class="country">France</span>...don't go to <span class="country">Australia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="403">Go to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="404">Life is good there. </sentence><sentence id="405">So OK. </sentence><sentence id="406">We decided to go to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="407">This is how the decision was made. </sentence><sentence id="408">And uh however we were applying to come to <span class="country">America</span> but the American Jews, the HIAS organization didn't want us because they didn't want to be responsible for us and they turned us down. </sentence><sentence id="409">Finally we were able to find an organization which brought over three thousand refugees regardless of religion, and this was the Tolstoy (ph), the granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy had an organization bringing refugees over and uh by the Tolstoy organizations we were able to come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="410">And again of course we felt very alienated and not belonging and it usually takes an immigrant five years to really get into the mainstream, to learn the language, to learn the culture, to learn the customs, so again we had to forget and relearn new ways of relating to people and new...uh how to live ina <span class="region">new land</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="424">Q: What was your adjustment to <span class="country">America</span> like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="426">A: [had a very difficult time. </sentence><sentence id="427">I didn't expect all this difficulty, but I...thinking back I think I was pretty depressed. </sentence><sentence id="428">I felt alienated. </sentence><sentence id="429">I didn't speak the language. </sentence><sentence id="430">I didn't have any skills then. </sentence><sentence id="431">I didn't have any education then. </sentence><sentence id="432">I used to...uh the early years were very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="433">I...after arriving...upon arriving to <span class="country">America</span> we were sent to <span class="populated place">Camp Kilmer</span> (ph), and at <span class="populated place">Camp Kilmer</span> they were sending uh people all over the <span class="country">country</span> and we were told that we should go to <span class="populated place">Norfolk</span>, <span class="region">Virginia</span> because they, the Jewish community wanted some refugees there and we spoke some English. </sentence><sentence id="434">It will be a good place for us. </sentence><sentence id="435">So we moved to No...so we said fine. </sentence><sentence id="436">We'll go anywhere. </sentence><sentence id="437">We didn't care. </sentence><sentence id="438">We didn't know anything about anything, so we went to <span class="populated place">Norfolk</span> which is a <span class="populated place">southern town</span>, not really wonderful for an immigrant, but uh the reason we went there because they told my husband that he could finish his schooling. </sentence><sentence id="439">He was an architectural student. </sentence><sentence id="440">We moved to <span class="populated place">Norfolk</span>. </sentence><sentence id="441">There were no <span class="building">school of architecture</span>. </sentence><sentence id="442">So we had to move on. </sentence><sentence id="443">We moved to <span class="populated place">Raleigh</span>, <span class="region">North Carolina</span>, where he did finally finish his schooling and I was working at <span class="building">Woolworth's</span> in <span class="populated place">Raleigh</span>, <span class="region">North Carolina</span>, really not speaking English very well and not being able to...I really wasn't employable. </sentence><sentence id="444">And so the early years were very difficult for me, and uh learning a language, learning a culture...it takes a good five years for a person to really feel at <span class="building">home</span> in a new <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="464">Q: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="465">Is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="468">A: I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="469">I think when I go <span class="building">home</span> I'll remember a thousand other things to add, but right now I think this is my story. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="472">Q: What do you think the effect of the Holocaust has been? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="474">A: This is a difficult question to answer. </sentence><sentence id="475">I've been struggling with it for fifty years. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="476">(Laughter) My self-esteem was non-existent. </sentence><sentence id="477">I had to really work on developing some sense of worth. </sentence><sentence id="478">I think that sense of worth...I think that's what's the...I felt less than equal for years because of the Holocaust, because of escaping of <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="479">I had a very very...I think the biggest problem is that you just don't feel quite as good as the other guy. </sentence><sentence id="480">I think that was one of the major problems. </sentence><sentence id="481">Until you really feel good about yourself and who you are and you can accept who you are, it's just very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="482">Self-esteem is the name of the game I think. </sentence><sentence id="483">And that was really just can't and it just negated who I was, what I was all about. </sentence><sentence id="484">I was very ashamed of who I was. </sentence><sentence id="485">I didn't feel good about myself...for a long time. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="486">Q: Tell us what you're doing now. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="487">A: Well, I became...in order to help myself to feel worthwhile I became a psycho-therapist and working with other people, helping them to realize who they are, what they are all about and help them to develop a healthier self-esteem. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="489">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="490">Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="493"> END OF INTERVIEW </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ </body>
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+ </html>
RG-50.030.0011_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: lore none baer
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0011
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0011_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504454
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1938-08-26
9
+ birth_year: 1938.0
10
+ place_of_birth: amsterdam
11
+ country: netherlands
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1990.403.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1"> <span class="building">LORE BAER</span> June 8, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Please tell us your name. </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Lore Baer. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And where and when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, <span class="country">Holland</span>, August 26, 1938. </sentence><sentence id="10">And, uh, my parents had come to <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> from <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="11">Uh, my mother was born in <span class="populated place">Erfurt</span> which is the <span class="region">eastern sector</span> of <span class="country">Germany</span> and my father was born in <span class="populated place">Frankfurt-am-Main</span>. </sentence><sentence id="12">And, uh, in 1933, my, my parents came to <span class="country">Holland</span> to avoid, uh, and evade Hitler. </sentence><sentence id="13">Uh, it was no no longer safe for Jewish people to be in, in <span class="country">Germany</span> at that time and they thought that they would be safer in in <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="14">Uh, a friend of my father's had started a <span class="building">butcher shop</span> in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, uh, on a <span class="dlf">street</span> called the <span class="dlf">Van Baerlestraat</span> which is a main <span class="dlf">street</span> right across from the <span class="building">Concertgebouw</span>. </sentence><sentence id="15">It's still...it, it's still a big <span class="dlf">street</span> in in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> today and, uh, he opened up a <span class="building">butcher shop</span> and although my father didn't have any background in, in, in that business at all, he felt that that was the only way he could really leave <span class="country">Germany</span> and have an income so he, uh, went into a partnership with this friend of his and, uh, was in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> for several years before my mother joined him there. </sentence><sentence id="16">My mother and, uh, my grandfather, uh, came to <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and, uh, joined my father and I was born, as I said, in 1938, and at that time things seemed to be going fairly smoothly. </sentence><sentence id="17">We didn't have a tremendous amount of problems. </sentence><sentence id="18">I grew up pretty much like any young, uh, kid would in, you know, in <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="19">I learned how to speak the language. </sentence><sentence id="20">Although my parents were German, they also learned to speak the language, which probably wasn't that difficult for them. </sentence><sentence id="21">They were still pretty young and, uh, I went to <span class="building">nursery school</span> and my mother helped my father in the <span class="building">store</span> because, uh, it was growing and so she and, uh, and he and ran the <span class="building">store</span> and my grandfather took care of me, and he was pretty much the one who was in charge of, uh, my growing up and he and I went walking together and I have very fond memories of my, as I called him my opa" and, uh, he was my mother's father and the only grandparent that I ever knew. </sentence><sentence id="22">Uh, my other grandparents had died before I was born and, uh, he was just very dear to me and very special and, but he became ill. </sentence><sentence id="23">He was quite a bit older, uh, than my grandmother had been, although she died when my mother was sixteen and, uh, my grandfather was not too well and, but he lived with us in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> in, uh, in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="24">Uh, I'm not exactly sure of the, the <span class="dlf">street</span> although my mother has said that it's the <span class="dlf">street</span> called <span class="dlf">Wauwermanstraat</span>, uh, which does exist today as well. </sentence><sentence id="25">Uh, I don't recall a great deal about my very early childhood except that my grandfather was very, very dear to me and that I had a little playmate called Harold who, uh, was the son of, uh, my father's partner. </sentence><sentence id="26">Unfortunately he died when, before my childhood friend Harold, uh, was born, so he never knew his father and so we were quite a large extended family. </sentence><sentence id="27">Uh, " Grandpa. </sentence><sentence id="28">this young boy Harold, his mother Erna, and my mother, my father, my grandfather and I and we, we were very close and, uh, again I don't remember a great deal of what was happening, uh, in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> at the time except I knew that the climate, what the climate was like and there was a tremendous amount of tension and I saw that my parents worked very hard and were very serious and I just remembered that and I remember my mother being very nervous a lot and crying a lot and I remember my, uh, my grandfather, a tremendous amount of concern about my grandfather and I only found out really much later that, uh, the reason there was this concern was because the Germans were beginning to round up old people in <span class="country">Holland</span> and they were beginning to round them up to take them to <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="29">And when I was about, I guess it was four or five, somewhere in that <span class="region">area</span>, uh, my grandfather was in fact, uh, taken away by the Gestapo and I remember that very well. </sentence><sentence id="30">I remember, I remember him being in a <span class="spatial object">wheel chair</span> and I remember standing next to him and I remember there was a knock on the <span class="dlf">door</span> and and my mother was screaming and I don't know what she was screaming except something like they're coming, they're coming. </sentence><sentence id="31">Uh, so, you know, for opa...they're coming for opa...and I think up to, up till that time my father did what ever he could, uh, to, uh, either bribe the Germans and with, with salami and meat and because the <span class="building">butcher shop</span> was a very desirable thing but I guess it, it reached the point where that could no longer be done and so these two uniformed men...that's all I remember...they were very tall...they knocked on the <span class="dlf">door</span> and my grandfather was in a <span class="spatial object">wheel chair</span> and there was really nothing to be done. </sentence><sentence id="32">They just took him away and and I never saw him again. </sentence><sentence id="33">And they took him to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span> and and that was the last I ever saw of him, and shortly after that, uh, things just started turning very bad. </sentence><sentence id="34">I think that that was when they were rounding Jews. </sentence><sentence id="35">It was in 19, uh, 43 or maybe before that already. </sentence><sentence id="36">Uh, they were starting to round up Jews and deporting them and my father had, uh, made friends with this very nice couple. </sentence><sentence id="37">They were called Elsa and Sam Izaaks, uh, and they lived somewhere in near <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> I think in a place called <span class="populated place">Zandvoort</span> which is Am..a <span class="populated place">suburb</span> and, uh, she was Gentile and he was Jewish and she worked for the...they both worked for the underground. </sentence><sentence id="38">They both tried to help place, uh, families with, with, uh, Dutch Gentile families. </sentence><sentence id="39">They tried to help Jewish families and, uh, and so my father asked if there was any way that they could, uh, try to find a place for them and it was told to me that it was not safe for, uh, for us to be together, so, uh, we had to be separated and my mother and father had to leave me and find...and the <span class="interior space">underground</span> had to find a place for me and they had to find a place for them as well. </sentence><sentence id="40">And I guess I really...I don't really remember how I felt, but I must have felt or what I think now, what I think about and how it must have felt to, you know, to leave your child must have been pretty unbearable for my parents and it was probably very difficult for me too, but again I don't remember that very, very well. </sentence><sentence id="41">Uh, again it was told to me that I had been placed by this couple with, uh, one other or maybe two other families in, uh, Gentile families in <span class="country">Holland</span>, but that I didn't like them and I didn't want to stay with them and I cried a lot and I was very unhappy so they, uh, they found this wonderful family for me who I lived with for two years and they were the Schouten family and they lived in, uh, Oosterlokker which is about forty miles outside of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and they had a <span class="dlf">farm</span> and it was Ma and Pa Schouten," and they were I guess in their fifties. </sentence><sentence id="42">Uh, and they had five children. </sentence><sentence id="43">They had two daughters...uh, Triene [Catheriena] and Cornelia, and three sons and that was Jan [Johannes], uh, Kees [Cornelius] and Cor [Cornelis], and they were all in their twenties but the one that I was the most attached to was Cornelia. </sentence><sentence id="44">She was twenty-five at the time that I was five and placed with her and she was just very special. </sentence><sentence id="45">She sort of took me under her <span class="dlf">wing</span>, uh, and when I cried for my mother and father, she just... she was just with me. </sentence><sentence id="46">She Just comforted me and at night when I cried she would sleep with me and she would hold my hand and she would tell me stories and, uh, they were very religious Catholic people and, uh, they went to <span class="building">church</span> regularly and of course before I left, my mother had told me that my name would not be the same. </sentence><sentence id="47">I would be living with other people, not with them, and I should never divulge my real name because it would not be safe and I should not divulge that I was Jewish and I should just remember that that they loved me very much and that hopefully they would see me again and, uh, they were, uh, and I, I just remember that this family was very special and warm and and good and I just really loved them and, uh, I liked being there and they had, uh, because they had such a large family they had a lot of children in the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> for me to play with and from what Cornelia tells me now, while I don't remember it, I didn't cry very much after the first week and I didn't seem to miss my parents very much after that and I sort of just fit in and played with the children in the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> and one of the things I thought about was how I fit in with them, because I had always pictured that I would...this is in going back and thinking what it might have been like then ..and I had always pictured that all Dutch people had blonde hair so I had fantasized that I had had my hair dyed blonde and I asked Cornelia on this trip whether I in fact had my hair dyed blonde and she said no, it wasn't necessary because her father, uh, had dark hair. </sentence><sentence id="48">In fact he was called, uh, the black Schouten because there were others with that name but they all had blonde hair and he was, uh, and he had dark hair so it's not as though I didn't fit in, uh, in terms of, you know, hair coloring. </sentence><sentence id="49">I did. </sentence><sentence id="50">And there were a number of things that I probably fantasized in terms of, uh, coming to terms myself with what happened at the time and how I might have been protected by these people. </sentence><sentence id="51">Uh, from I, I seem to have remembered clearly that by because I was Catholic now and living with this family that I had a rosary and that I, I prayed with this rosary every day and Cornelia doesn't remember that at all, so I would think that if she doesn't remember it, it probably never happened but this is probably how I sort of resolved my being Catholic and also, uh, I thought that I was brought up by the nuns in the <span class="building">Catholic school</span>, and again I don't think that that...Cornelia doesn't seem to think that there were any nuns in the <span class="building">school</span> that I went to. </sentence><sentence id="52">Uh, I was, uh, a very stubborn child and I...it was told to me that I was, when I went &gt; Martha Schouten-Stam and Theodorus Schouten. </sentence><sentence id="53">to <span class="building">school</span>, uh, I was really, uh, I was not very...uh, what's the word I'm looking for...empathic with people who weren't religious Catholics and that if I saw people that weren't, or kids that weren't that weren't, uh, saying their prayers or doing their homework I would point them out as not being good Catholics like I was. </sentence><sentence id="54">Uh, and when I came to the <span class="populated place">Shoutens</span>, my name as I said could not be Lore Baer. </sentence><sentence id="55">It was <span class="building">Lora Kruk</span> and, uh, I hated that name and because it meant that I wasn't anything. </sentence><sentence id="56">I wasn't Baer and I wasn't Schouten, so I really, uh, begged them to have me, name me Schouten so after a lot of cajoling, I guess, they agreed that I could call myself Lore Schouten. </sentence><sentence id="57">Now, uh, the Schouten family, uh, Ma and Pa were also very stubborn, uh, Dutch people. </sentence><sentence id="58">They, they lived in a <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> that seemed to be very sympathetic to, to people who were, uh, discriminated against in any way, not necessarily Jews, and I was under the impression that the two other people who they harbored...there were two other people living with me, uh, underground on the <span class="env feature">farm</span>...I was under the impression that they were Jewish but it turns out that neither of them were Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="59">They were, uh, young men who, who were to be conscripted into the German army and they did not want to, uh, join the army because they didn't want to have anything to do with the Germans, so they were also fleeing and they were also in hiding and, uh, they did not...and they were sympathetic to this as well as the other neighbors in the <span class="region">area</span> were sympathetic to the same, uh, to Jews as well as to Protestants as well as to conscientious objectors or people who just didn't sympathize with the Germans, which there many of and it seems to me that my, my memories of this family and my life there were really, uh, very good memories. </sentence><sentence id="60">I don't remember a great deal of, uh, bombing of that <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="61">I don't remember a great deal of, uh, hardship. </sentence><sentence id="62">In fact that particular <span class="region">area</span> was very fortunate because it was a <span class="region">farm area</span> and everybody, uh, in the <span class="region">area</span> was either a dairy farmer or a vegetable farmer and the Schouten family had a <span class="dlf">dairy farm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="63">In fact, Cornelia tells me that her father was supposed to deliver a certain quantity of, uh, milk to the German army and he was greatly opposed to doing this and he refused. </sentence><sentence id="64">He, in fact, he felt that if he was going to produce milk he wanted to give it to the Dutch people and he was called, uh, in to, uh, by the Germans to come to <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="65">Again, this was told just to me this week, which I didn't know about...uh, to explain his actions and it, it seems that, uh, in order for the Germans to, uh, to ma...to scare him, he was supposed to read when he came to <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> a list of, uh, the names of all the people who had been killed by the Germans for doing the same thing, and he knew that if he was to do this and he claimed that he couldn't read any German so... mean that he couldn't read ...and that, so he didn't have to do that but that's an indication of how stubborn this man was and how...but also how he risked his, you know, his life and his ideals not only for the Jewish people but just for humanity and, you know, just for doing the right thing. </sentence><sentence id="66">He felt so strongly that this was the wrong thing that, you know, his actions in every way indicated that you must do what is right and listening to what the Germans tell you to do is not the right thing and, uh, he, uh, he obviously...his children obviously felt very much this way too. </sentence><sentence id="67">Uh, because and his grandchildren, because last year when I went back to, to, uh, to the <span class="dlf">farm</span> with some friends of mine, my friend asked one of the grandsons, uh, how...what he would have done in a similar situation and his grandson said, is there any choice? </sentence><sentence id="68">How could I act differently? </sentence><sentence id="69">And it, it's to me incredible that a young person today who is now twenty years old would say that when obviously there were many choices and there are many people who did other things and not what this family did. </sentence><sentence id="70">So my memories, uh, are that I that I led a fairly normal childhood there and and I, uh, helped on the <span class="dlf">farm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="71">I didn't have any <span class="spatial object">toys</span> really because on the <span class="dlf">farm</span> you, you know, you play outdoors and I played outdoors a lot. </sentence><sentence id="72">I went bicycling a lot and, uh, and it was my impression that when the Gestapo came around, uh, I hid with the two other undergrounders and there was a <span class="dlf">trap door</span> in a <span class="interior space">closet</span> that led to a <span class="interior space">hayloft</span>. </sentence><sentence id="73">Now the way the, the <span class="building">house</span> is constructed, the <span class="building">farmhouse</span> is a <span class="building">house</span> with the actual <span class="building">barn</span> and <span class="interior space">hayloft</span> attached to it. </sentence><sentence id="74">It's all one <span class="building">building</span>, so that the <span class="dlf">trap door</span> of the <span class="interior space">closet</span> that you would, you know, it was the whole, basically the floor boards of the <span class="interior space">closet</span> lifted up and led to a <span class="dlf">staircase</span> which led under the <span class="env feature">ground</span> and up to a little <span class="interior space">room</span> in the <span class="interior space">hayloft</span> and the little <span class="interior space">room</span> was covered over with hay and there was a <span class="dlf">window</span> in this <span class="interior space">room</span> which, when you push away the hay, you could see out but of course you didn't push away the hay because you didn't want anybody to see you, so this was like a <span class="interior space">room</span> within the <span class="interior space">hayloft</span> that you got to, and this was the secret hiding place where we would remain, uh, when the Germans came. </sentence><sentence id="75">Cornelia tells me that they came, when they did come, very often instead of hiding in the <span class="interior space">hayloft</span> she would, uh, <span class="spatial object">bicycle</span> with me to another <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>. </sentence><sentence id="76">We would just...she would say to me let's just go for a <span class="spatial object">bicycle</span> ride and she would bike down the <span class="dlf">road</span> with me to another <span class="region">area</span>, uh, so that I wouldn't be so scared because she, I gather, was felt that I would be very frightened by having to hide, so she thought it would be better if, if it was a more normal kind of a situation where we would just go bicycling together and she would try to distract me. </sentence><sentence id="77">And I don't recall that, but I do recall spending a lot of time with her and I remember a lot of the things that I really had forgotten came back to me last year when I went back to, to the <span class="building">farmhouse</span>, which I didn't recognize at first because they had changed the front of it, but as I <span class="spatial object">bicycled</span> away from the <span class="building">house</span> and I looked towards...looked over my shoulder, I saw the <span class="dlf">farm</span> the way I had remembered it and the part that had not been changed and then the, you know, just the visuals came back to me and then I went back into the <span class="dlf">farm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="78">Her brother lives in...Cornelia's brother still lives on the <span class="dlf">farm</span> now and it's pretty much intact the way it was when I was there, except the <span class="interior space">room</span> that I lived in is now, uh, a <span class="interior space">stall</span> for animals and, uh, but other than that nothing much has changed, and I've taken some, some photographs. </sentence><sentence id="79">I took some photographs last year, uh, of that and the <span class="interior space">living room</span> and the <span class="interior space">dining room</span> and the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span> are pretty much the way it was when I was there and it was interesting because when we sat down and had lunch together, the thing that I remember was the soup and the way they made little meatballs and the smell of the soup and the way it was served and the prayer that they said before the meal are all things that I remember. </sentence><sentence id="80">It wasn't, uh...it was all the good things that I remembered, and still remember, you know, just the warmth... churning butter with Cornelia in the <span class="interior space">back</span> and learning how to make cheese and learning how to bake, because a lot of that was done and Cornelia did a lot of that with me. </sentence><sentence id="81">Uh, that's what I remember. </sentence><sentence id="82">I remember just the warmth, uh, and that's, you know, to me the important part of things. </sentence><sentence id="83">Uh, I don't remember, uh, the Gestapo coming except for one time and I seem to recall, although Cornelia doesn't remember but her nephew Dick does have some memories of this, that there was also a manhole cover in the <span class="interior space">garden</span> in the...or not the <span class="interior space">garden</span> but the <span class="dlf">pasture</span> in back of the <span class="building">house</span>, uh, where we would also go down into it was like a <span class="dlf">sewer-like hole</span> that would lead to, uh, into a a <span class="region">dark area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">Now I may be confusing that with, uh, with the <span class="dlf">stairs</span> and the <span class="interior space">closet</span> that we walked into. </sentence><sentence id="85">I don't know, because she doesn't re... recall it. </sentence><sentence id="86">Uh, and my recollection was that we were staying down in that <span class="region">area</span> for about a week, but she said it was more like an hour if at all, so I guess, you know, time plays funny tricks on you. </sentence><sentence id="87">Uh, the things that I remember too were the many people, uh, uh, that came to the <span class="building">house</span> always. </sentence><sentence id="88">There was always a great deal of activity at the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="89">Uh, the many relatives, the aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters and family and the busy <span class="building">work place</span>...you know, the milking of the cows and, uh, and I remember making wreaths out of buttercups for my hair, that Cornelia taught me how to make too. </sentence><sentence id="90">And, uh, very often she would make me a little wreath that I would put around my hair and although I've tried to do the same with my own children, I've forgotten how to do it. </sentence><sentence id="91">And again when I went back to <span class="country">Holland</span> last year and I went biking through the <span class="dlf">fields</span>, through the, through the <span class="region">countryside</span>, through the <span class="region">Dutch countryside</span>, it was really the memory that I have of the stillness and the sort of the flatness and the beauty of those buttercups that I remember and sort of the <span class="spatial object">cows</span> grazing and just that sort of peaceful time and, uh, sometimes now that I think back I remember the green uniforms...the khaki colored uniforms of the Gestapo, but I think it must have been difficult for the Gestapo in that <span class="region">area</span> because the neighbors were very, very close with each other and told each other when they were coming, when someone from the Gestapo was coming by. </sentence><sentence id="92">And as I said earlier, I was fortunate to be in that particular <span class="region">region</span> because when there was a famine in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, I think it was in "44, people came for vegetables and potatoes and milk because there was no food to be had in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="93">The only place where you could get food was in the <span class="region">farm country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="94">What I remember is--I don't remember a tremendous amount of hardships or famine, I don't remember doing without. </sentence><sentence id="95">I remember things were good. </sentence><sentence id="96">When I think back how, what it must have been for my parents, its very different. </sentence><sentence id="97">Living with another family, and they moved around a great deal before they found a family that took them in where they felt comfortable. </sentence><sentence id="98">They were with people for about, at least four or five different families, and many of the families took in a lot of <span class="dlf">borders</span> and a lot of them took in Jews and got paid for it. </sentence><sentence id="99">It was very dangerous for a lot of people because they, for people like my parents, so when they felt uncomfortable in a <span class="building">house</span>, when they felt there were people who might talk, and who might divulge that they were Jews, they had to move on, and they were very fortunate also the last year and a half before the war ended to live with a family, as it turned out, only ten miles from where I was living but unbeknownst to me and unbeknownst to them because it wasn't safe for them to know where I was because if they knew they would want to find me, and if I knew I would want to probably find them as well. </sentence><sentence id="100">So that was never spoken about and Cornelia tells me that her family did not know where my parents were, didn't know my real name, didn't know where I came from. </sentence><sentence id="101">But after the war the family that my parents were with knew where I was living. </sentence><sentence id="102">They had know that; somehow they had found out. </sentence><sentence id="103">But my family lived in very tight <span class="interior space">quarters</span>. </sentence><sentence id="104">They lived with a couple who had one daughter and in a <span class="populated place">town</span> not far from <span class="populated place">Oosterblokker</span> called <span class="populated place">Berkhout</span>. </sentence><sentence id="105">I went, I went back there last year and unfortunately the <span class="building">house</span> is not standing the way it was. </sentence><sentence id="106">It's now a <span class="building">garage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="107">It was a very small, humble <span class="building">home</span> and these people shared whatever food they had; they were not farmers, with my mother and father. </sentence><sentence id="108">You know they did the same thing that the Schouten family did, but my mother and father did not, were not able to leave the <span class="building">house</span> and go bicycle riding and play outdoors. </sentence><sentence id="109">They had to stay in hiding in their <span class="building">house</span> all those years. </sentence><sentence id="110">And it wasn't safe because no one in that <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> could really know about them. </sentence><sentence id="111">I think maybe one other couple knew about them, but that was it. </sentence><sentence id="112">So when the war did end and my mother and father came for me, I really didn't want to go back with them. </sentence><sentence id="113">Probably it was a combination of being worried that they would leave me again, maybe it was that I had a new family name, I had friends, I was in <span class="building">school</span>, I was comfortable, and it was very difficult for me. </sentence><sentence id="114">I think it was more difficult for me after the war than it was during the war. </sentence><sentence id="115">I just, I just felt very much alone when I left because I didn't have any friends and my mother and father really didn't know any people anymore in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="116">They had no family. </sentence><sentence id="117">My grandfather, we never heard from again. </sentence><sentence id="118">And, so after, when my parents did come for me, I really didn't want to go with them at all. </sentence><sentence id="119">I claimed that I didn't recognize my father. </sentence><sentence id="120">I had remembered him as very, very tall, and he wasn't all that tall and it was a very difficult thing for my mother and father whose only hope and only wish was to be reunited with me. </sentence><sentence id="121">For me not to want to go with them must have been a really horrible thing. </sentence><sentence id="122">I mean, I think back to what would happen in my situation, how it would feel. </sentence><sentence id="123">I mean it must have been awful. </sentence><sentence id="124">But I was just a kid, I was seven years old and I was interested in playing and, you know, in my friends. </sentence><sentence id="125">So that's all I could think about. </sentence><sentence id="126">So we went, after the war, my father was able to get his <span class="building">store</span> back, his <span class="building">butcher shop</span>, which had been taken away by the Germans in 1943, when all Jews had to give up any of their property and any of their belongings and their <span class="interior space">apartments</span> and whatever they had that belonged to them, they had to give up. </sentence><sentence id="127">But after the war he was able to reclaim his <span class="building">butcher shop</span>, which he did, and he worked there for another two years, waiting to get a visa to come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="128">And the only way we could get that really was through my father's brother who was living in <span class="country">America</span> and he helped us with the formalities of getting to the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="129">And I went back to <span class="building">school</span> in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and had a very difficult time in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, in the <span class="populated place">city</span> and the <span class="building">school</span>, and missed the <span class="dlf">farm</span> a great deal. </sentence><sentence id="130">I remember I was very sad and I was very nervous at night. </sentence><sentence id="131">I remember not sleeping well at all because I was so scared that my parents would leave me again or that the Germans would come and I guess I just couldn't really understand the concept of the war and the end of the war, and that it was all over and now I would be with my parents again forever, and I really missed my playmates. </sentence><sentence id="132">I remember that very well and, uh, we lived in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> that...it's sort of vague to me, but it was an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> that I think while our...while we couldn't get our our original <span class="interior space">apartment</span> back we lived in this, uh, <span class="interior space">apartment</span> that one of the Germans had lived in during the war who was quite wealthy, and I remember the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> as being quite luxurious and the kind of a place where you couldn't touch anything and and so different from the <span class="dlf">farm</span> where, you know, everything was so comfortable and I could just run around and here I felt I had to be this proper lady and everything had to be kept perfectly because the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> didn't belong to us and the <span class="spatial object">furnishings</span> didn't belong to us and nothing really belonged to us and, uh, I just felt uncomfortable, and, uh, I don't remember anything about <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="133">I remember that there was a young boy who I was friendly with who lived in this <span class="interior space">apartment</span>...uh, it was a <span class="building">brownstone</span> on the <span class="dlf">Amsteldijk</span> in, in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="134">And I remember befriending him and I remember being close with him and I remember again then having to come to <span class="country">America</span> and being uprooted from from him as well, and I don't remember seeing my family, the farm family, at all after that. </sentence><sentence id="135">Uh, and I remember when I came to <span class="country">America</span> living in the <span class="populated place">Bronx</span> with another family because we didn't have any money and they took us in for about a year and I started to learn English and they were very good to us. </sentence><sentence id="136">They had three daughters and one of them took me under her wing and taught me English and, uh, we lived with them in their <span class="building">house</span> for about a year and again, I felt, you know, this sort of constant uprooting and this not knowing where I was really going to be. </sentence><sentence id="137">Will I ever be permanently in any one place and always the fear, you know, of, of leaving but I really had...I I was eighteen before I went back to <span class="country">Holland</span> again to see the <span class="building">Schoutens</span> and it was very difficult for me. </sentence><sentence id="138">Uh, I was very, very nervous because I didn't speak Dutch anymore. </sentence><sentence id="139">I never kept it up because my parents didn't speak Dutch at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="140">They spoke only German because their friends were were friends that they had from <span class="country">Germany</span> that came over to <span class="country">America</span> before the war and they had a circle of German friends and they wanted to forget the war. </sentence><sentence id="141">They wanted to forget the time and so for them, uh, I mean Dutch just wasn't a language that was spoken. </sentence><sentence id="142">My mother wanted me to become Americanized as quickly as possible. </sentence><sentence id="143">She wanted me to speak English. </sentence><sentence id="144">I didn't want to speak German because I hated the language. </sentence><sentence id="145">I hated the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="146">I hated everything that represented that time. </sentence><sentence id="147">So I didn't, uh, speak German and I didn't speak Dutch and when I went back to <span class="country">Holland</span> when I was eighteen, uh, I wanted to I wanted to, uh, you know, thank these people for the wonderful thing they had done for me and how they had saved my life but I was kind of tongue-tied, you know. </sentence><sentence id="148">I just didn't have the words and I had heard that the Dutch people really hated, uh, if they hated the Germans and they hated people who spoke German and while I didn't speak German I I understood German perfectly and when I spoke whatever Dutch I knew, I kept mixing my Dutch and German, and I was really afraid that I was going to offend them that by speaking, you know, Dutch with a, with German mixed in and it really took me all these years to realize that they wouldn't care what I spoke. </sentence><sentence id="149">They really had no, you know, uh, I mean it didn't really matter. </sentence><sentence id="150">I think it took me up till last year to realize that...that I could have spoken to them in gibberish...it would have been all right, uh, you know, because whatever connection I felt, they must have felt too. </sentence><sentence id="151">So I feel very...feel very sad that I hadn't kept up a connection with this family all these years. </sentence><sentence id="152">I really, uh, only started thinking about <span class="country">Holland</span> and what I went through again when I was fifty last year, and that's when I felt that I had to go back and make a connection again, even though the parents that, uh, kept me were no longer alive, uh, and the only real connection that I felt that I had there was <span class="populated place">Cornelia</span> and, uh, again the problem of the language, but luckily there were many people in <span class="country">Holland</span> that spoke Dut...uh, English that were able to interpret for me so when I went back to see <span class="populated place">Cornelia</span> last year, it was a very short visit because again I felt like it would be very uncomfortable not being able to speak the language, uh, but it, you know, gave me time from last year to this year to think about what these people had done and to what it means, uh, not only to me but I think to to my children, to my family, to my friends...uh, that they have risked their lives at a time when it was very dangerous to go against what was told to them to do which was that all the Jews were being rounded up and and they must, you know, follow the dictum of the government of <span class="country">Germany</span> which had occupied <span class="country">Holland</span> at that time, and I really feel that for people to do what they did without any, uh, I mean to them what they did was what they feel every human being should do. </sentence><sentence id="153">They really feel that it was nothing. </sentence><sentence id="154">They feel like what they did was only the right thing, that it's not something unusual for them and when I think about how, when I think back now what I would have done, I don't think I would have done the same thing. </sentence><sentence id="155">I think that if I had a family and if there was a threat that my family might be killed or if my family would, uh, be hurt or that I might be, I don't think I could have made that decision and now I will think differently because I lived through that, but I, I hope that people don't have to live through that to make the decision to help another human being, to save another human being, and, uh, so that's why I think it's so important, you know, people like this, uh, talk about their experiences so that other young people and our children and, uh, my friends" children and future generations will think about what it is to do the right thing and what it is to save human life and what it is to risk your own life, and that's I guess all I can say. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="316">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="317">Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: niels none bamberger
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0013
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0013_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504448
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1928-10-21
9
+ birth_year: 1928.0
10
+ place_of_birth: wurzburg
11
+ country: germany
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
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+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
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+ non_ss_camp: none
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+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1989.h.0361
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">NIELS BAMBERGER December 26, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Could you tell me your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Niels Bamberger. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And where and when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in October 1928 in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="10"><span class="populated place">Wiirzburg</span>, <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="11">And I was born, as an infant, my parents fled <span class="country">Germany</span> to <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> in 1932, where my mother originally had come from. </sentence><sentence id="12">And, uh, she lived in...in <span class="country">Germany</span> for nine years, ten years. </sentence><sentence id="13">Then she went back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="19">Q: Why had she lived in <span class="country">Germany</span> for ten years? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="21">A: Because she got married. </sentence><sentence id="22">She grew up in <span class="country">Denmark</span> and lived in <span class="country">Denmark</span> and then she married my father who lived in <span class="country">Germany</span> and they were married in 1923 and then they went back to <span class="country">Denmark</span> when it started to get...uh...with Hitler, and it started to get too hot in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="23">Then they went back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="24">And that's where I actually grew up and lived half of my life. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="29">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="30">Tell me about...what did your father do? </sentence><sentence id="31">What was his occupation? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="35">A: Well, in <span class="country">Denmark</span> he had an <span class="building">antique store</span>. </sentence><sentence id="36">He had an <span class="building">art store</span>; and they started that like in 1935-36 in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>, "til we fled to <span class="country">Sweden</span> in 1943. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="39">Q: Tell me if you would about growing up in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> before the Germans came, in the "30s? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="41">A: I went to a <span class="building">non-Jewish school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="42">I was... wouldn't say I was the only Jew in <span class="building">school</span>, but we were probably two or three fellows and the <span class="building">school</span> was from 8 to 2 every day and then in the afternoon, we went for Hebrew...for Hebrew lessons or <span class="building">Hebrew school</span> for another two, three hours. </sentence><sentence id="43">So we came back...we came <span class="building">home</span> like 5:30, 6:00 every night and did our homework. </sentence><sentence id="44">And that was the same routine. </sentence><sentence id="45">Of course, we had no <span class="building">schools</span> Saturday or Sunday. </sentence><sentence id="46">Then we were off and we went to football games and bicycling and things like that. </sentence><sentence id="47">Whatever we did with my friends. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="55">Q: What was yout...your parents" <span class="building">home</span> like. </sentence><sentence id="56">Did you practice...? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="57">A: Well, we had a <span class="building">house</span> in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>, in the center of <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="58">We had our own <span class="building">house</span> that had belonged to my grandfather and great grandfather. </sentence><sentence id="59">It's still standing there now. </sentence><sentence id="60">And it's probably two or three hundred years old. </sentence><sentence id="61">And we had a big <span class="interior space">apartment</span> on the <span class="interior space">second floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="62">There were other people living in the <span class="building">house</span> and then there were <span class="building">stores</span>. </sentence><sentence id="63">There were <span class="building">stores</span> on the <span class="interior space">ground floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="64">And we had a <span class="building">synagogue</span> that had been there for more than one hundred years also started by my great-grandfather on...in the same <span class="building">house</span> we had that. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="65">Q: In the same <span class="building">house</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="68">And it's still there. </sentence><sentence id="69">It's not anymore there today because it was given to the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="73">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="74">Tell me how that worked? </sentence><sentence id="75">That is were you...you must have been heavily...your family was heavily involved in that <span class="building">synagogue</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="79">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="80">We were very...I was brought up very Orthodox; and, of course, my parents were too. </sentence><sentence id="81">My grandfather was a Rabbi, and my brother is a Rabbi today. </sentence><sentence id="82">So that's the way we grew up. </sentence><sentence id="83">We...we had a very good life. </sentence><sentence id="84">Like Tove said. </sentence><sentence id="85">And uh...we had no problems whatsoever all the time. </sentence><sentence id="86">Not money-wise or economic or we had no problem until it started in October "43, and the Germans had been in the <span class="country">country</span> for three years from "40 to "43. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="95">Q: Hold it for one minute. </sentence><sentence id="96">Before we get to the Germans, I would like to know a little more about your being Jewish in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="97">And you were so closely involved in the <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">What...what did your Jewish life consist of? </sentence><sentence id="99">What kinds of things did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="105">Holidays, services, what? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="106">A: We had services every day in our <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="107">And, of course, we had the sabbath, the Jewish Sabbath every week, and we had the Jewish holidays. </sentence><sentence id="108">And uh...the reason our <span class="building">synagogue</span> was started originally of...by my great grandfather or grandfather was that he didn't think that the big <span class="building">synagogue</span>--they have a beautiful, large <span class="building">synagogue</span> in Copenhagen-- but that wasn't Orthodox enough hundred years ago. </sentence><sentence id="109">They started with, uh...different reformed things; and they cut this prayer out and they cut this one out. </sentence><sentence id="110">And that's when my grandfather started his own <span class="building">synagogue</span>, so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="111">And like I said, it still...it still can be seen. </sentence><sentence id="112">It's in the <span class="building">museum</span> in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>...the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="113">You see them in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="114">They have...they removed everything when the <span class="building">house</span> was sold a couple of years ago. </sentence><sentence id="115">It...like I said, it's a very old <span class="building">building</span>, and it's in the heart of the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="116">And there was no money to pay the taxes and the <span class="dlf">roof</span> was falling apart so to speak and...uh...then it was sold. </sentence><sentence id="117">The <span class="building">house</span> was sold, and the <span class="building">synagogue</span> was removed. </sentence><sentence id="118">And that's the story. </sentence><sentence id="119">Today, it's just an old, uh...landmark <span class="building">building</span> in the center of <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> that's being owned by a private man or corporation. </sentence><sentence id="120">I don't know who has it today. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="121">Q: Uh, in growing up in such a very...in a <span class="building">Orthodox Jewish home</span>, did you feel differently? </sentence><sentence id="122">Did you feel you were treated differently than your Christian neighbors? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="123">A: Not at all. </sentence><sentence id="124">They were my friends. </sentence><sentence id="125">And, uh...we went together for this or for that and we had birthday parties and we went to ball games and things like that, I said before. </sentence><sentence id="126">And, uh...there was no difference. </sentence><sentence id="127">Nobody ever mentioned anything about Jewish or non-Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="128">We were all the same. </sentence><sentence id="129">We were citizens of <span class="country">Denmark</span> and that's all they cared about. </sentence><sentence id="130">Nobody said you are Jewish or you are not Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="131">That made no difference to us. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="141">Q: When the Germans invaded in 1940, you would have been 12 years old? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="143">A: Right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="145">Q: Uh, what can you tell me about, uh...the invasion itself? </sentence><sentence id="146">What do you remember? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="149">A: Well, we know that, uh, there were soldiers all over. </sentence><sentence id="150">And they threw out leaflets all over the <span class="populated place">city</span>, all over the <span class="country">country</span> that people could just go now and don't make any uproar. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="151">Everything will continue the way it was. </sentence><sentence id="152">Of course, everything became rationed or rationed whatever. </sentence><sentence id="153">And...uh... we were in <span class="building">school</span> that day. </sentence><sentence id="154">We saw loads and loads of <span class="spatial object">planes</span>, <span class="spatial object">bombing planes</span> coming one after...1 mean hundreds and hundreds of <span class="spatial object">planes</span> coming in and Germans on <span class="spatial object">motorcycles</span>, horses, dragging cannons and the big <span class="spatial object">tanks</span> all over the place. </sentence><sentence id="155">It didn't take more than a couple of hours "til they took over the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="156">Like I said they [the Danes] couldn't resist. </sentence><sentence id="157"><span class="country">Denmark</span> was a very small country. </sentence><sentence id="158">And, uh...life went on as before, except that that you are not allowed to walk on this side of the <span class="dlf">street</span> in front of the <span class="building">bank</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="159">They would post soldiers with, uh...guns and...and steel helmets and things like that in front of the <span class="building">banks</span> and the <span class="building">hotels</span> and important <span class="building">institutions</span> that they wanted to guard. </sentence><sentence id="160">But besides that nothing happened really. </sentence><sentence id="161">The police was in force and the Danish Army was...although they were there, they had not much to say or to do, but they were all...life was continuing the way it was. </sentence><sentence id="162">Everything got rationed and we had to buy butter and bread and gasoline, all the things. </sentence><sentence id="163">You couldn't go out and buy whatever you wanted, but there was plenty of it around. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="164"> The Germans took away whatever they needed, but there was still plenty. </sentence><sentence id="165"><span class="country">Denmark</span> is a <span class="region">dairy country</span>, so there was plenty of food for everybody. </sentence><sentence id="166">And then in...uh...in 1943, they took the...they arrested all the police and the Army. </sentence><sentence id="167">They took them away in August of "43. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="168">That's when we know...knew something was going to happen. </sentence><sentence id="169">They took them away and interned them all in <span class="populated place">camps</span> and took their weapons away and then they said that it was the police's fault and the army. </sentence><sentence id="170">Then all of a sudden they switched over and they said that it's all the Jews" fault. </sentence><sentence id="171">I mean they didn't say it, but we knew that something was going to happen. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="172">Q: How? </sentence><sentence id="173">Tell me what your life had been like in those three years and then we will continue. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="174">A: The same thing like before. </sentence><sentence id="175">We went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="176">We had food. </sentence><sentence id="177">We had all holidays. </sentence><sentence id="178">And...uh...we went to <span class="building">Hebrew school</span>, went to regular <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="179">There was no difference so to speak except that...uh...we saw the Germans all over. </sentence><sentence id="180">And...uh...everybody despised them. </sentence><sentence id="181">They still do today. </sentence><sentence id="182">When the Germans go to <span class="country">Denmark</span> with their big <span class="spatial object">cars</span> and so on, nobody likes them there. </sentence><sentence id="183">But otherwise, everything continued the way it had been til "43. </sentence><sentence id="184">I think it was August "43 that...uh...they took, the Germans...they took the police force and the soldiers and interned everybody and...uh... August...and October Ist, I believe it was Rosh Hashanah, they had been in to pick up the...all the files from the Jewish... uh...community. </sentence><sentence id="185">They had all the names, all the addresses of everyone in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>, which was about 6,000 Jews and they had.... They knew where they lived, what they did, their business. </sentence><sentence id="186">They had everything. </sentence><sentence id="187">And we were informed in the <span class="building">synagogue</span> on Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we were informed that nobody should go <span class="building">home</span> because the Germans are going to round you up the night between the Ist and the 2nd of October. </sentence><sentence id="188">And those who believed it, which most of the people did, we were all scared. </sentence><sentence id="189">They...uh...didn't go <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="190">We all had made arrangements with some non-Jews, some Danish where we could stay or where to sleep. </sentence><sentence id="191">Those who didn't believe it. </sentence><sentence id="192">They were taken, which was a very small percentage anyhow. </sentence><sentence id="193">And they all came back after the war. </sentence><sentence id="194">So we went to our <span class="building">grocer</span> who was a bachelor and he said, "Come to my <span class="building">house</span> and I'll take care of you." </sentence><sentence id="195">So after the <span class="building">synagogue</span>, we went to him and he bought us, or he had in his <span class="building">store</span> bread and butter and cheese and milk and eggs, whatever we needed. </sentence><sentence id="196">He took care of us for a week til we found a connection how to get out of the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="197"><span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> is on the <span class="env feature">seashore</span> and we went up to <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>, same place and where most of them went from. </sentence><sentence id="198">Everybody went to <span class="country">Sweden</span> from there because it's the narrowest point between <span class="country">Denmark</span> and <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="199">It's like three, four miles wide. </sentence><sentence id="200">That's the whole thing...the <span class="env feature">waterway</span>. </sentence><sentence id="201">But it is very heavy <span class="dlf">stream</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="202">It's a very heavy...uh... <span class="env feature">waterway</span>. </sentence><sentence id="203">So we stayed in his <span class="building">house</span> and.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="234">Q: In whose.... Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="235">How...first of all, how did you get to <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="238">A: How did we get there? </sentence><sentence id="239">Well, he called up every day. </sentence><sentence id="240">He called up somebody that he knew from the resistance movement and he didn't say...we went with...I went with my parents and my two brothers and a sister. </sentence><sentence id="241">We were six people altogether. </sentence><sentence id="242">And he wouldn't say that he has some people to send. </sentence><sentence id="243">He didn't know if this <span class="spatial object">telephone</span> was...uh...what do you call it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="250">Q: Tapped? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="252">A: Tapped! </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="254">Q: This is your <span class="building">grocer</span> calling? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="256">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="257">So he called up. </sentence><sentence id="258">He said, "I have six tons of potatoes. </sentence><sentence id="259">Could you come and pick them up?" " </sentence><sentence id="260">Til he finally got a connection. </sentence><sentence id="261">And uh...it took us about a week, until the day before Yom Kippur. </sentence><sentence id="262">And then we got a <span class="spatial object">taxi</span>; and the <span class="spatial object">taxi</span> took us up to that place up in <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>, where everybody had been collected, so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="263">All the people were there. </sentence><sentence id="264">There were two or three hundred people there everyday, four hundred people maybe in somebody's <span class="building">home</span>, in a <span class="interior space">basement</span>. </sentence><sentence id="265">And I remember as a child that...uh...we were covered up in the <span class="spatial object">taxi</span> with...uh...a blanket in case the police would stop and say, "What's wrong? </sentence><sentence id="266">What do you have in there?" </sentence><sentence id="267">He would say, "I have a sick person. </sentence><sentence id="268">Just close the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="269">I have to go to the <span class="building">hospital</span>." </sentence><sentence id="270">So we were covered up and he went up there. </sentence><sentence id="271">It's not more than 30, 40 minute ride by <span class="spatial object">taxi</span>. </sentence><sentence id="272">We went up there. </sentence><sentence id="273">We came to that <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="274">And...uh...we met somebody from the resistance movement who took us down to the <span class="dlf">pier</span> at night, and we came down there and we were told that the <span class="spatial object">boat</span> we were supposed to go with had been taken by somebody else who paid more money for it. </sentence><sentence id="275">He paid a big sum of money, so he took this man out by himself...the <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="276">So we had to wait til the next day and...uh...the next day, luckily for us it had been organized this way that the resistance movement had a big <span class="spatial object">schooner-like</span>; and they took two or three hundred people aboard. </sentence><sentence id="277">We went all down...down below <span class="interior space">deck</span>, and uh...we went out there by <span class="spatial object">row boats</span>. </sentence><sentence id="278">It wasn't far out to the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> and when they had all the people there, first we paid them money. </sentence><sentence id="279">We paid like 2,000 krone a person. </sentence><sentence id="280">That was the going rate. </sentence><sentence id="281">Which was a lot of money at that time; but we were told if you come to <span class="country">Sweden</span> the money is worthless. </sentence><sentence id="282">You can't do anything with it. </sentence><sentence id="283">You might as well leave it here, number 1, and number 2, whatever money you give now will help those people who are poor or sick and can't afford it. </sentence><sentence id="284">They will also get out. </sentence><sentence id="285">Everybody got out, whether they had money or not. </sentence><sentence id="286">They were all helped to get out. </sentence><sentence id="287">And we got aboard that <span class="spatial object">ship</span> and, uh... we got off. </sentence><sentence id="288">We sailed also...uh...for an hour or so at midnight and in the middle of the <span class="env feature">ocean</span> we had this big <span class="spatial object">Swedish torpedo boat</span> or <span class="spatial object">gunboat</span> coming towards us. </sentence><sentence id="289">We all thought it was the Germans, but it was the <span class="spatial object">Swedish boat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="290">They had the same kind of uniforms and they helped us all off, on the <span class="spatial object">Swedish ship</span>. </sentence><sentence id="291">We got aboard the <span class="spatial object">Swedish ship</span> and they gave us coffee and candy or whatever, and then we went into <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="292">And we were saved. ( </sentence><sentence id="293">cough) So when we arrived in <span class="country">Sweden</span>, we were all listed by names. </sentence><sentence id="294">They wanted to know who is coming and here that they didn't have any German helpers or whoever. </sentence><sentence id="295">We were all listed by name and address and age and so on. </sentence><sentence id="296">And we came there on the night of Yom Kippur or the day before Yom Kippur, which was very unpleasant for us. </sentence><sentence id="297">We got food. </sentence><sentence id="298">We got clothing. </sentence><sentence id="299">We had nothing along except what we wore. </sentence><sentence id="300">We had no...we had nothing along with us. </sentence><sentence id="301">Just what we had on! </sentence><sentence id="302">And...uh...[ remember that we went to...we were in a <span class="populated place">camp</span>, a big <span class="populated place">camp</span> that was guarded by the Swedish soldiers, and we could go freely. </sentence><sentence id="303">We could go in and out the way we wanted. </sentence><sentence id="304">We wanted, of course, my father wanted to go to the <span class="building">synagogue</span>--which was like 10, 12 miles away. </sentence><sentence id="305">And we all walked in there, on Yom Kippur morning, into <span class="populated place">Halsingborg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="306">We walked in there to <span class="building">synagogue</span> and we.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="358">Q: You walked 12 miles just to go to <span class="building">synagogue</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="359">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="360">And we attended the services, a full day of services, without food. </sentence><sentence id="361">And uh...in the middle of the afternoon, a girl came in with a <span class="spatial object">bus</span>, a big <span class="spatial object">bus</span>; and they interrupted the services. </sentence><sentence id="362">And they said that all the people from <span class="country">Denmark</span>, all the refugees who are here in the <span class="building">synagogue</span>, should immediately come out to the <span class="spatial object">bus</span> and go back to <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="363">They had left the <span class="populated place">camp</span> and we should go back. </sentence><sentence id="364">So my father said, "Now that we have been saved from the Germans, we are not going to go on a <span class="spatial object">bus</span> on Yom Kippur." </sentence><sentence id="365">We were not used to that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="373">(Laughing) So we waited until after the services were over at night, and then somebody took us <span class="building">home</span> from the <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="374">Somebody drove us back to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="375">And when we came back to <span class="populated place">camp</span>, we were told, "You have to leave tonight. </sentence><sentence id="376">Because you didn't come back with the girl that was sent with the <span class="spatial object">bus</span>, so you have to leave tonight." </sentence><sentence id="377">And uh...we had no money or anything. </sentence><sentence id="378">So we went to the <span class="building">railroad station</span>; and somebody bought us the tickets to <span class="populated place">Malme</span>, where my father had a cousin. </sentence><sentence id="379">So we came there in the middle of the night, 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. </sentence><sentence id="380">But we were very lucky. </sentence><sentence id="381">We were saved. </sentence><sentence id="382">We were happy. </sentence><sentence id="383">And uh...then we got an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> there eventually. </sentence><sentence id="384">Little by little, my parents started a <span class="building">restaurant</span>. </sentence><sentence id="385">On the card I gave you, you can see that from that time. </sentence><sentence id="386">My parents started a <span class="building">restaurant</span>, because my mother felt if she makes food for other people--she was a very good cook--then there'll be enough for us to eat, also. </sentence><sentence id="387">And we all got jobs for October, November, December; and in January, the <span class="building">school</span> opened...a <span class="building">Danish school</span> for the...for the refugees-- children, or so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="388">And we went to <span class="building">school</span> there where we had left it off in <span class="country">Denmark</span> and continued in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="389">We...it was in <span class="populated place">Lund</span>. </sentence><sentence id="390">We went there by <span class="spatial object">train</span> every day, which was a 20, 25-minute <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride and we got the <span class="spatial object">train</span>...the, uh, tickets from the government, and we got pocket money. </sentence><sentence id="391">Each one got pocket money; and on Sunday, in order to make something extra for us, or to help our parents, we made...I remember that I delivered flowers. </sentence><sentence id="392">I worked in a <span class="building">flower shop</span>, and delivered flowers as a boy. </sentence><sentence id="393">I was 15 years old, so I made extra money that way. </sentence><sentence id="394">And we were very happy there. </sentence><sentence id="395">We had all the goodies that we didn't have in <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="396">They didn't have bananas and oranges and chocolate and chewing gum. </sentence><sentence id="397">We didn't have in <span class="country">Denmark</span> anymore at that time, so we could buy that in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="398">Not that it was so important, but, uh...there was plenty of everything. </sentence><sentence id="399"><span class="country">Sweden</span> was neutral, and they kept on importing whatever you wanted. </sentence><sentence id="400">They had everything. </sentence><sentence id="401">And that's actually what happened to us in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="402">We were there for...we were there for close to two years, "til May "45. </sentence><sentence id="403">Everybody went back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="404">We were very happy. </sentence><sentence id="405">On May 4th, when we [were] told that the Germans gave up in <span class="country">Denmark</span> and <span class="country">Norway</span>, <span class="country">Holland</span>, <span class="country">Belgium</span>...uh, we went back.... Everybody was celebrating. </sentence><sentence id="406">And the 28th of May everybody went back on the <span class="spatial object">ferry boats</span> to <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="407">And when we came back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>, each one...there were all the Danes were there, and we all got money. </sentence><sentence id="408">Not a lot of money, but we got some money. </sentence><sentence id="409">So we could take a <span class="spatial object">taxi</span> or <span class="spatial object">bus</span> or whatever <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="410">Each person got some money from the Danish government. </sentence><sentence id="411">And I remember we came <span class="building">home</span> to our <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and found everything the way we had left it--except, of course, there were mice and spiders and all kinds of things. </sentence><sentence id="412">But the food was on the <span class="spatial object">table</span>, in the <span class="spatial object">pots</span>. </sentence><sentence id="413">Nobody had been into the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="414">Everything was the way we left it. </sentence><sentence id="415">And the <span class="building">synagogue</span> that I mentioned before, our lawyer had taken away the torah scrolls and hidden them in a...what you say, in a <span class="interior space">vault</span>? </sentence><sentence id="416"><span class="interior space">Safety vault</span>, ina <span class="building">bank</span>. </sentence><sentence id="417">And they were all...everything was left the way, the way...uh...everything came back the way we left it two years earlier. </sentence><sentence id="418">What else? </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="465">Q: Was your father involved at all in...uh...the <span class="building">brigade</span>? </sentence><sentence id="466">When you were in <span class="country">Sweden</span>, was your father involved at all in the <span class="building">brigade</span> that was being formed? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="469">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="470">I applied for it, but I was only, uh...15 years old, or going on 16, and I was too young. </sentence><sentence id="471">They wouldn't take anybody below 18. </sentence><sentence id="472">And my father was actually too old. [ </sentence><sentence id="473">In] "43, he was almost 60 at that time. </sentence><sentence id="474">So they had enough young people and what they actually needed them for.... There was no fighting when we came back. </sentence><sentence id="475">What they needed them for was to clean up after the Germans, and take the weapons away and count this and count that. </sentence><sentence id="476">And the uniforms...whatever they had. </sentence><sentence id="477">My father was too old, and I was too young, so to speak; so they didn't take me. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="487">Q: What did you do when you came back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="489">A: I went back to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="490">I continued <span class="building">school</span> where I had left off and...uh...there was no... I shouldn't say hard feelings. </sentence><sentence id="491">Everybody was...they were all helping us, all the time in <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="492">All the non-Jews were helping the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="493">There was no difference; and I am sure today they would just say, "You are Danish citizens. </sentence><sentence id="494">You are the same as we are." </sentence><sentence id="495">Nobody would ever ask, "Are you Jewish? </sentence><sentence id="496">Are you black? </sentence><sentence id="497">Are you Chinese?" </sentence><sentence id="498">They don't care. </sentence><sentence id="499">And they helped everybody there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="511">Q: What kind of help did you receive? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="513">A: Pardon me? </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="515">Q: What kind of help did you receive as a family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="517">A: Well, we had to get back on our feet. </sentence><sentence id="518">We had to...uh...get back to <span class="building">school</span> and clean up in the <span class="building">house</span> and buy new clothes and <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> or whatever we needed there. </sentence><sentence id="519">And my parents got back in their <span class="building">business</span> which had been rented out to somebody while we were away, and the same business they got back again when we came back from...when we came back from <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="520">They continued that. ( </sentence><sentence id="521">long sigh) I had my friends. </sentence><sentence id="522">They were all very helpful to me. </sentence><sentence id="523">And we spoke about <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="524">And they told us what had been going on in <span class="country">Denmark</span> during the war. </sentence><sentence id="525">The <span class="building">synagogue</span>...the big <span class="building">synagogue</span> in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> which is one of the most beautiful one in the world had been used for the German refugees. </sentence><sentence id="526">They had taken everything out and put <span class="spatial object">beds</span> or <span class="spatial object">cots</span> in there and they had all the Germans who were invalids and sick people. </sentence><sentence id="527">They put them in there. </sentence><sentence id="528">That had to be cleaned up. </sentence><sentence id="529">And the <span class="building">synagogue</span> was brought back into order in a very short time. </sentence><sentence id="530">And while this was going on, they used our <span class="building">synagogue</span> in...in my parents" <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="531">That was used as the big <span class="building">synagogue</span> so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="532">So we have pictures from that also...from that <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="533">Should I mention about that <span class="spatial object">pin</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="551">Q: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="552">Please do. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="555">A: This <span class="spatial object">pin</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="557">Q: Tell us about the pin you are wearing? </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="559">A: Well, this is made by...it was made during the war by George Hensen. </sentence><sentence id="560">It was made in silver and this one was made in gold and enamel. </sentence><sentence id="561">It was made for the King Christian X who was one of the biggest heroes, I would say, during the war. </sentence><sentence id="562">Uh... whatever money it cost to make it...the excess money that was left over, went to the resistance movement. </sentence><sentence id="563">That's the way...almost every Dane had it or supported it this way. </sentence><sentence id="564">There are not many left of them today. </sentence><sentence id="565">It was made in 1940 for the King's 70th birthday. </sentence><sentence id="566">There are not many left because first of all, people needed money and they sold them for the value of the silver or gold during the war, but they are back in style today, and I have this from my father. </sentence><sentence id="567">That's why I wear...that's why I am wearing it now. </sentence><sentence id="568">The King Christian the Tenth, they always told stories about the King, about the Jewish Star, that first of all, he was riding around on a horse everyday unescorted by himself. </sentence><sentence id="569">Every morning he would take the same <span class="dlf">route</span>. </sentence><sentence id="570">Anyone could have killed him as easy as nothing, but he was not afraid. </sentence><sentence id="571">And the King said if the Jews ever have to wear the...uh...the Jewish star, the six-pointed Jewish star where it said Jew on it, he would be the first one to wear it, but it never materialized during the war. </sentence><sentence id="572">It never happened. </sentence><sentence id="573">What else can I... </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="589">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="590">Is there anything else you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="593">A: Well, I would say that the Danes are great people. </sentence><sentence id="594">And one of the few <span class="country">countries</span>...one of the few <span class="country">nations</span> that did more than their share to help the Jews all over the world and they... am sure they would repeat the same thing and do it today again if it happened, if it should happen that they would be willing to help with money, deeds and everything. </sentence><sentence id="595">They are very unselfish and they are not asking for any thank you or anything in public by anyone. </sentence><sentence id="596">They never did. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="602">On that note, I thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="605">A: Not at all. </sentence><sentence id="606">My pleasure. </sentence><sentence id="607">That's it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="611">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="612">Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="613">I am glad we got in about the pin. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="614">A: I think it was important. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="615">Q: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="616">I think we do actually. </sentence><sentence id="617">Okay. </sentence><sentence id="618">Ifyou sit still, they are going to bring the <span class="spatial object">camera</span> in and they'll take a picture of the pin and then maybe we'll have Arnold take a picture of it as well. </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="623">We have a gentlemen who is going to take your photograph. </sentence><sentence id="624">The film has stopped. </sentence><sentence id="625">We have a gentleman who will take your photographs. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="626">A: How long did this take? </sentence><sentence id="627">45 minutes? </sentence><sentence id="628">I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="629">I don't remember everything together at one time. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="634">Q: Well, it all came together very neatly. </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="636">A: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="637">As long as you are satisfied. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="640">Q: Iam very happy. </sentence><sentence id="641">Okay. </sentence><sentence id="642">We need you to be very still. </sentence><sentence id="643">They are going to bring a zoom lens in and...uh...take picture just of the pin. </sentence><sentence id="644">You don't move for a few seconds and they will... </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="650">A: Now? </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="652">Q: Yal. </sentence><sentence id="653">Just don't move for a little bit, and they got a different lens on the <span class="spatial object">camera</span> and they are doing funny things to it so that... They are doing fancy things to the zoom lens so they can get a close up of that pin. </sentence><sentence id="654">It's a wonderful story, that pin...and...uh. </sentence><sentence id="655">Okay. </sentence><sentence id="656">If you would explain the story of the <span class="spatial object">pin</span> now. </sentence><sentence id="657">Don't move. </sentence><sentence id="658">Just explain it because we are right in on that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="666">A: The pin was made in 1940. </sentence><sentence id="667">It was made by George Hensen, silversmith, for the King's--who was Christian the Tenth--70th birthday, and all the money, the excess money above the cost of the pin went to the resistance movement. </sentence><sentence id="668">The <span class="spatial object">pin</span> was made in gold and it was also made in silver and enamel. </sentence><sentence id="669">And it was sold almost by any silversmith or <span class="building">silver shop</span> in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="670">I should say in <span class="country">Denmark</span>, all over <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="671">It was sold for raising, in order to raise money for the resistance movement. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="678">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="679">Could you point to the pin please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="682">A: Point to it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="684">Q: Just point to it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="686">A: This one here? </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="688">Q: Uh, huh. </sentence><sentence id="689">Okay. </sentence><sentence id="690">That's it. </sentence><sentence id="691">All right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="696">A: That's it? </sentence><sentence id="697">Thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="698">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence><sentence id="699">I am delighted. </sentence><sentence id="700">It went very well. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="701">A: Iam glad you have it now. </sentence><sentence id="702"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ </body>
92
+ </html>
RG-50.030.0014_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: tove schöbaum bamberger
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0014
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0014_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504451
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1934-10-08
9
+ birth_year: 1934.0
10
+ place_of_birth: copenhagen
11
+ country: denmark
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1989.a.0362
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1"> TOVE BAMBERGER December 26, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell me your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Yes. [ </sentence><sentence id="6">am <span class="populated place">Tove Bamberger</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: Where were your born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: When? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: October 8, 1934. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: Tell me about your family, your parents. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="19">A: Well, I have a mother and sister, one sister. </sentence><sentence id="20">Mother and father and one sister. </sentence><sentence id="21">She is five years older than me. </sentence><sentence id="22">She leaves in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> still. </sentence><sentence id="23">She is married. </sentence><sentence id="24">She has two children. </sentence><sentence id="25">And | lived there until I got married. </sentence><sentence id="26">Then we moved to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="35">Q: Tell me about when you were very little, growing up. </sentence><sentence id="36">What was it like to be a little child in that family in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="39">A: Well, I have very pleasant memories. </sentence><sentence id="40">I remember, well I was very young, and I remember when the Germans came-- </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="43">Q: Let's do before. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="45">A: Before the Germans came? </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="47">Q: Let's back up. </sentence><sentence id="48">You were very little. </sentence><sentence id="49">You were a child. </sentence><sentence id="50">What did your father do? </sentence><sentence id="51">What was his business? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="57">A: My father had a <span class="building">business</span>, <span class="building">men's clothing business</span>, on the main <span class="dlf">street</span> in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="58">We were -- he was -- we were what you call pretty well-to-do. </sentence><sentence id="59">And, my mother didn't work, and I was little and my sister I think she was in <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="60">Yeah, we were both young. </sentence><sentence id="61">It was a very pleasant life. </sentence><sentence id="62">We had a maid. </sentence><sentence id="63">We lived in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and I just have very good memories. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="71">Q: Tell me, did you have lots of friends? </sentence><sentence id="72">What did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="75">A: Well.... You talking about before the war? </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="77">Q: Uh-huh. </sentence><sentence id="78">Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="81">A: I was just four years old. </sentence><sentence id="82">I don't -- I just remember going <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> and playing with a <span class="spatial object">tricycle</span> on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="83">People weren't afraid of letting the children out alone, and I have only good memories. </sentence><sentence id="84">I don't remember the other friends. </sentence><sentence id="85">It is a long time ago, but just pleasant memories. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="91">Q: What do you remember of when the Germans came? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="93">A: Well, I know that my uncle called up -- my, my mother's brother called us up. </sentence><sentence id="94">I remember that. </sentence><sentence id="95">And he said, "Go <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> on the <span class="dlf">street</span> and look up in the <span class="env feature">sky</span>. </sentence><sentence id="96">The Germans are invading <span class="country">Denmark</span>." </sentence><sentence id="97">And I remember very -- like it was yesterday going down with my father and my mother and my sister looking up and all of a sudden seeing <span class="env feature">sky</span> was full of black <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">That was April 9, 1940 -- 1940, April 9th, and the Germans were coming and -- like a little kid was excitement. </sentence><sentence id="99">I didn't realize what will happen. </sentence><sentence id="100">And the Danes fought for, I think, two hours and then they were occupied. </sentence><sentence id="101">They were taken over. </sentence><sentence id="102"><span class="country">Denmark</span> is a small country. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="113">Q: Was there any change in your life once the Germans occupied? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="115">A: Not that I can remember. </sentence><sentence id="116">No. </sentence><sentence id="117"><span class="country">Denmark</span> went on as usual. </sentence><sentence id="118">Nothing happened to the Danes or the Jews and <span class="country">Germany</span> was sort of a friendly takeover. </sentence><sentence id="119">The Danes cooperated. </sentence><sentence id="120">The police was still -- I mean they hated the Germans, but they didn't, you know they didn't fight them because there was still Danish police stay -- still stayed for few years. </sentence><sentence id="121">And the government stayed. </sentence><sentence id="122">It was really like sort of a benign takeover for a few years. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="131">Q: Did you go to <span class="building">school</span>? </sentence><sentence id="132">By that time you would be six? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="135">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="136">I went to first grade. </sentence><sentence id="137">I went to <span class="building">Jewish school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="138"><span class="populated place">Carolineskolen</span>, it was called. </sentence><sentence id="139">I think I went to first grade and second grade before we fled. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="145">Q: Tell me about it. </sentence><sentence id="146">Tell me about that <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="147">What was it like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="151">A: It was only Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="152">We were girls and boys in the <span class="building">class</span>. </sentence><sentence id="153">And I liked it. </sentence><sentence id="154">It was a nice <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="155">I just, I just remember now that it was Chanukah time. </sentence><sentence id="156">I remember learning the "Ma'oz Tzur"!in <span class="building">class</span>. </sentence><sentence id="157">And I remember just one instance that -- you know, although we weren't religious, but it was still when you sat in <span class="country">Denmark</span> in those days, you had to sit with your hands folded like when you were quiet. </sentence><sentence id="158">But being it was a <span class="building">Jewish school</span> and we shouldn't make a cross, "Ma'oz Tzur Yeshu'ati [Stronghold and Rock of My Salvation] (Hebrew); popular Chanukah song. </sentence><sentence id="159">we sat with our hands without, without folding them, like this. </sentence><sentence id="160">It was just a, a little memory, but it was interesting. </sentence><sentence id="161">And we went to <span class="building">school</span>, I think it was from eight to two, like all other <span class="building">schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="162">And I don't know if we learned Hebrew. </sentence><sentence id="163"><span class="country">Denmark</span> is really not a religious -- even the Jews weren't religious in those days, but it was a <span class="building">Jewish school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="164">I, I remember some of my friends. </sentence><sentence id="165">I remember one friend from the class kept saying -- this was only in like 1941 or "42 -- that she heard rumors that the Germans were going to do something to the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="166">But that was like a year before it really happened that there were big <span class="spatial object">boats</span> waiting in the <span class="dlf">harbor</span> to take the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="167">But we sort of didn't believe her. </sentence><sentence id="168">It proved to be right in the long run, but this was like a year before. </sentence><sentence id="169">One of my classmates-- </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="192">Q: What was your impression, as a child, of the Germans? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="194">A: Well, nothing at all oppressive. </sentence><sentence id="195">I have no -- we didn't know what was going on the world and the Germans did nothing to the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="196">My father had an open <span class="building">store</span> with our name. </sentence><sentence id="197">My maiden name is Schonbaum, which is sort of Jewish or German. </sentence><sentence id="198">And he had a, you know, <span class="building">store</span> with his name on and it was going on, and nothing at all happened to the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="199">We went to <span class="building">Jewish schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="200">All, all <span class="building">Christian schools</span>, whatever <span class="building">public schools</span>, whatever. </sentence><sentence id="201">I mean maybe because I was so young. </sentence><sentence id="202">Maybe my husband has different memories, but I don't remember anything negative at all about the occupation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="212">Q: What did you and your friends do to play, say after <span class="building">school</span>? </sentence><sentence id="213">Did you go to ballet lessons? </sentence><sentence id="214">Did you take piano lessons? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="218">A: I did, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="219">But I don't know now if I am thinking if it was after we came back from <span class="country">Sweden</span> or before. </sentence><sentence id="220">But I did a lot. </sentence><sentence id="221">I went to tap dancing, acrobatics -- yes, acrobatics in Danish. </sentence><sentence id="222">I took dancing lessons after <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="223">We went skiing. </sentence><sentence id="224">You know there are not that many <span class="env feature">hills</span> in <span class="country">Denmark</span>, but we went with a <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="225">We went to small <span class="env feature">hills</span>. </sentence><sentence id="226">I had a very good childhood. </sentence><sentence id="227">I played tennis. </sentence><sentence id="228">My father was an avid tennis player so we would always rent <span class="building">houses</span> at the <span class="env feature">beach</span> where there were <span class="dlf">tennis courts</span>. </sentence><sentence id="229">And we always had a maid and I just remember everything as being very pleasant and nice. </sentence><sentence id="230">Some of the memories are, I am sure, from when we came back, because you have to remember I was young when we fled. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="244">Q: When did you get a sense of something changing? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="246">A: Only the day we heard that we shouldn't go <span class="building">home</span> that night. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="248">Q: Tell me what happened. </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="250">A: Well, we were told, I think it came from the <span class="building">synagogue</span>, from the Rabbi. </sentence><sentence id="251">He had heard that the Germans were going to round up the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="252">It was on a Friday night and we shouldn't -- none of us should go <span class="building">home</span> to our <span class="interior space">apartments</span> or <span class="building">houses</span>. </sentence><sentence id="253">And I remember we had a maid and she just took care of the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="254">She stayed <span class="building">home</span>, and we went. </sentence><sentence id="255">I remember, my father, mother, sister and I and an uncle who was married to a non-Jew, he also wanted to flee with us, and his wife stayed <span class="building">home</span> -- stayed in their <span class="interior space">apartment</span> because they wouldn't -- they weren't going to touch, touch the non-Jews. </sentence><sentence id="256">So the five of us -- 1 remember, I -- we put on two, two dresses and a toothbrush in the pocket. </sentence><sentence id="257">That's all we fled with. </sentence><sentence id="258">And we went and....Would you like to hear about how we fled? </sentence><sentence id="259">We went to the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="260">No. </sentence><sentence id="261">First -- I remember -- first, we knew it would cost to flee. </sentence><sentence id="262">We would have to pay. </sentence><sentence id="263">We knew that fisherman were going to charge about 2,000 crowns a head. </sentence><sentence id="264">That's what we were told. </sentence><sentence id="265">So my father took a <span class="spatial object">cab</span>. </sentence><sentence id="266">On the same day in <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> he went to the <span class="building">bank</span> and he took money out and I remember he brought my mother also. </sentence><sentence id="267">We were told that we shouldn't take money to <span class="country">Sweden</span> because we weren't going to use them. </sentence><sentence id="268">And he bought a bracelet, as a matter of fact, for my mother. </sentence><sentence id="269">And when I was 50, she sent me -- she send it to me. </sentence><sentence id="270">And this is the one that she sent me. </sentence><sentence id="271">And that is what he bought and I saw it had gotten smaller, narrower, but I thought maybe as a child I remember it as being bigger. </sentence><sentence id="272">But now that my mother passed away two years ago and I inherit the other bracelet which is exactly the same, but just much wider. </sentence><sentence id="273">I have that at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="274">But I remember that. </sentence><sentence id="275">He went to the <span class="building">bank</span>, took the money, bought bracelet for my mother and the rest of the money he took in his pocket to pay the fisherman. </sentence><sentence id="276">And then he went <span class="building">home</span> and we all got dressed and like I said, we had two dresses on. </sentence><sentence id="277">It was October so I guess a <span class="spatial object">coat</span> you would wear. </sentence><sentence id="278">Remember was two dresses instead of one. </sentence><sentence id="279">And my father probably had two <span class="spatial object">suits</span>. </sentence><sentence id="280">That I don't remember, but my sister and I had two dresses on and a -- we each had a toothbrush. </sentence><sentence id="281">We bought new toothbrushes and put in our pockets and then we went to the <span class="building">train station</span>. </sentence><sentence id="282">And strangely enough, nobody stopped us. </sentence><sentence id="283">Not the Germans either. </sentence><sentence id="284">I mean you could see people coming out on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and there was no, no, no--nobody stopped us and we went up from <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> to <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>, which is a place that's closest at the <span class="env feature">seashore</span> to <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="285">I mean, my father took care of everything. </sentence><sentence id="286">We were kids. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="326">Q: Sure. </sentence><sentence id="327">What do you remember of that <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="330">A: I remember sitting there and being a little scared, but I didn't really know what being scared meant because we hadn't experienced anything bad. </sentence><sentence id="331">So it was a little bit of an excitement for me. </sentence><sentence id="332">And I also think we did have one <span class="spatial object">suitcase</span> along, but I am not 100 percent sure. </sentence><sentence id="333">But I just knew that nobody stopped us. </sentence><sentence id="334">Nobody came over and there were no Germans on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> to inspect it. </sentence><sentence id="335">Later on, you see all these stories of people being asked to show passports. </sentence><sentence id="336">It wasn't -- didn't happen. </sentence><sentence id="337">The only thing that happened was, while we were away that they would -- they came to our <span class="interior space">apartment</span> to ask for us. </sentence><sentence id="338">That I know and I know that our maid said when she opened the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="339">They knocked, Friday night, on the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="340">We weren't <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="341">This is just what we heard. </sentence><sentence id="342">They knocked on everybody's <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="343">They had a list from the <span class="building">synagogue</span> about all the Jews, where we lived and she said -- when she opened and asked for us, she said, "They wouldn't be so stupid to stay <span class="building">home</span>." </sentence><sentence id="344">And she just closed the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="345">They didn't go in. </sentence><sentence id="346">They didn't -- maybe they went in to look, but they didn't take anything from the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="347">They left everything intact. </sentence><sentence id="348">And as a matter of fact, I don't know if I am wondering if I should continue. </sentence><sentence id="349">My father had bought a <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="350">We lived in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> in the <span class="populated place">suburb</span> of <span class="country">Denmark</span> [<span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span>], and he had bought a <span class="building">house</span> meanwhile. </sentence><sentence id="351">But we didn't get to move into it and when, when we came back from <span class="country">Sweden</span>, we moved into the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="352">It was furnished and everything and he rented it out to a woman before we left, and that woman married a German soldier or Kommandant." </sentence><sentence id="353">So when we came <span class="building">home</span> from <span class="country">Sweden</span> -- my memories are coming back now -- there were Hitler's picture all over the <span class="dlf">wall</span>. </sentence><sentence id="354">And the movers were, you know, like the Danish movers, they kicked and it was like they kicked all the pictures down from the <span class="dlf">wall</span> and you know they were very angry. </sentence><sentence id="355">But otherwise the <span class="building">house</span> was standing and, you know, a lot of <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> was there and then we moved into when we came back from <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="383">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="384">Let's go back to the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="387">A: Meanwhile, let's go back to the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride. </sentence><sentence id="388">We were on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride. </sentence><sentence id="389">It takes about 30 minutes, the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride from <span class="populated place">Copenhagen</span> to <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>. </sentence><sentence id="390">I don't know why my father knew to get off at from <span class="populated place">Snekkersten</span>. </sentence><sentence id="391">He didn't know anybody there except that he was closest to <span class="country">Sweden</span>, and we got off the <span class="building">train station</span>, went down the <span class="dlf">stairs</span>, you know, out off the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and a man comes to us. </sentence><sentence id="392">Tall, I don't remember his face exactly. </sentence><sentence id="393">He was -- he looked he would be about 40 years old at that time. </sentence><sentence id="394">And he said, "I know why you are here. </sentence><sentence id="395">I am Mr. Bagge, Herr Bagge.* </sentence><sentence id="396">Please come with me." </sentence><sentence id="397">And we just followed him and we came into a big white <span class="building">house</span> and he said, "Just stay with me. </sentence><sentence id="398">I'll take care of you "til we find you a <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> to take you to <span class="country">Sweden</span>." </sentence><sentence id="399">And he took about a week. </sentence><sentence id="400">We stayed there and you know, we had -- it was <span class="interior space">upstairs</span>. </sentence><sentence id="401">We stayed in his <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="402">And everyday -- my father's blond so he didn't look Jewish, so he and Mr. Bagge would go -- I mean my mother and I were dark or I wouldn't have gone. </sentence><sentence id="403">But my father was blond and he went with Mr. Bagge every day down to the -- to see if you could get a <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> to take us to <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="404">You know, you had to get a man that would take us and pay and everything. </sentence><sentence id="405">And it was hard because everybody was trying to flee at the same time. </sentence><sentence id="406">And one day my father came <span class="building">home</span> and said he got a <span class="spatial object">rowboat</span> instead. </sentence><sentence id="407">He couldn't get a <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="408">He got a <span class="spatial object">rowboat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="409">So we would go that night. </sentence><sentence id="410">And we all got dressed and were ready to leave and then he didn't come to pick us, the man. </sentence><sentence id="411">And they said that --I think he did come and he shows his hands and they had big blisters on it from the night before and he couldn't row again he said. </sentence><sentence id="412">So we couldn't go. </sentence><sentence id="413">And then, I think it took one or two more days, my father came back and he said -- I mean, he came back every time with Mr. Bagge -- that they found somebody would take us the next day at three o'clock. </sentence><sentence id="414">It was during the day, which itself was strange that we were able to flee during the day, but I was told later on that the Germans were paid off. </sentence><sentence id="415">So, the Germans that were guarding the <span class="dlf">harbor</span>, it was a <span class="dlf">harbor</span>, wouldn't say anything. </sentence><sentence id="416">So that day we just walked down from Mr.Bagge's <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="417">I remember when we left, I remember his <span class="interior space">kitchen</span> had a big <span class="dlf">picture window</span> &gt; Commander (German) &gt; Mr. Bagge (Danish) and he turned around and he cried and he just hoped we would get over there safely. </sentence><sentence id="418">He was such a wonderful man. </sentence><sentence id="419">I mean he risked his life and he didn't do it just for us. </sentence><sentence id="420">He did it, lots of people went through his <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="421">And every October second -- we fled October second, and that day my father would always send him a present in silver to commemorate the day. </sentence><sentence id="422">I just heard that he had died now. </sentence><sentence id="423">But I don't know when, but he died an old man. </sentence><sentence id="424">But he really saved many, many people. </sentence><sentence id="425">So we walked down to the <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> and I remember was the going down -- you know this <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> has where the fish is usually <span class="dlf">square opening</span>? </sentence><sentence id="426">We went way <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> and we were with 14 people. </sentence><sentence id="427">It took more than us, and it was a family that I knew and I met the children. </sentence><sentence id="428">They were the same age as me. </sentence><sentence id="429">I just met them in <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="430">Their name was Marcus. </sentence><sentence id="431">I remember and they had an old aunt along and she -- I remember her putting her foot down, in the <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> to go down and she said, "Oh, I forgot my <span class="spatial object">umbrella</span>. </sentence><sentence id="432">I have to go <span class="building">home</span> and get it." </sentence><sentence id="433">And my father took her leg and pulled it down and said, "You are not going back <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="434">We are leaving." </sentence><sentence id="435">And, and then we all sat around, you know, was very dark down there, and they closed up the, the opening of the <span class="spatial object">boat</span> and then the fisherman came on board and we left. </sentence><sentence id="436">And I remember everybody being seasick and I was a little child. </sentence><sentence id="437">I mean how old I was in "40? </sentence><sentence id="438">Six years old? </sentence><sentence id="439">And I remember I was so proud of myself. </sentence><sentence id="440">I was the only one not being seasick. </sentence><sentence id="441">And we stayed very quietly and the <span class="spatial object">boat</span> went out. </sentence><sentence id="442">And when we were in the middle of the <span class="env feature">ocean</span> between <span class="country">Sweden</span> -- it was about 30 minutes into <span class="country">Sweden</span> -- between <span class="country">Sweden</span> and <span class="country">Denmark</span>, a big <span class="spatial object">boat</span> came and we were afraid it was Germans because there were soldiers on it. </sentence><sentence id="443">They were dressed -- they looked just like Germans. </sentence><sentence id="444">But it was a <span class="spatial object">Swedish patrol boat</span> that came to pick us up. </sentence><sentence id="445">They came in <span class="env feature">Swedish waters</span>. </sentence><sentence id="446">They were allowed to go out and the Germans couldn't.... And then we were safe. </sentence><sentence id="447">The Germans couldn't do anything. </sentence><sentence id="448">They came a big <span class="spatial object">boat</span> and they helped us up from the <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> and we stayed on the <span class="interior space">deck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="449">Then we were, we were saved. </sentence><sentence id="450">And we went into a little <span class="dlf">harbor</span> in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="451">I think it was right outside of <span class="populated place">Helsingborg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="452">Yeah, <span class="populated place">Helsingborg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="453">And, you know, they're welcoming us; and they all look like Germans because the Swedes -- they were wearing the same dresses and we came in and we got coffee, tea and they told us where we could stay. </sentence><sentence id="454">They put us actually in the <span class="building">Grand Hotel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="455">It's called the <span class="building">Grand Hotel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="456">They paid for the <span class="interior space">suites</span>, paid for everything and they said we could stay there "til if we had any relatives in <span class="country">Sweden</span> we could go to them. </sentence><sentence id="457">I think we stayed about a week. </sentence><sentence id="458">Every day my parents would go down to the <span class="dlf">harbor</span> to see if my grandparents had come. </sentence><sentence id="459">They will still -- and an old aunt I had, my grandfather's sister, they were still in <span class="country">Denmark</span> when we fled. </sentence><sentence id="460">And a few days later, four, five days later they came on another <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="461">I am not sure where they came from, but I know that everyday my parents went down to hear if they had come. </sentence><sentence id="462">And we were all saved. </sentence><sentence id="463">And we stayed in the <span class="building">hotel</span>, until my father -- my mother had relatives, an uncle in <span class="populated place">MalmG</span>, so we went to them. </sentence><sentence id="464">And I remember in that <span class="interior space">apartment</span> there were lots of other Danes, relatives and I remember we slept on one of these <span class="spatial object">beds</span> you pull out for two, and we slept all four in them. </sentence><sentence id="465">And, and the only sad thing I remember from there was -- remember I was only six or seven -- that the other children that were there, they had some relatives that bought them a little doll and I didn't get a doll. </sentence><sentence id="466">I remember still that I was very unhappy I didn't get that doll. </sentence><sentence id="467">But we stayed with this family. </sentence><sentence id="468">You see my father was young. </sentence><sentence id="469">My father must have been at that time when he's born in 1906 so he was 30, 40 years old at that time. </sentence><sentence id="470">He got out and got a job. </sentence><sentence id="471">First, he got an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> for us, "cause he had some money along, and he got us an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> -- "Vastergatan," small <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="472">I remember we had to buy it furnished with real junky, <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> we bought it and we stayed there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="564">Q: Where did your father get the money? </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="566">A: Well, he had money. </sentence><sentence id="567">Well, he had taken some money along, but actually it cost 2,000 for every -- we paid 8,000, 10,000 crowns for the five of us. </sentence><sentence id="568">I remember my uncle was there too. </sentence><sentence id="569">But I think that they did give us money. </sentence><sentence id="570">That's right. </sentence><sentence id="571">The Swedes gave us money. </sentence><sentence id="572">They gave us coupons to eat so we could go into a beautiful <span class="building">restaurant</span> to eat. </sentence><sentence id="573">And they gave us money, pocket money until we got ourselves -- I mean they were wonderful, the Swedes -- "til we got ourselves established. </sentence><sentence id="574">My father got a job right away selling artificial teeth. </sentence><sentence id="575">He would travel. </sentence><sentence id="576">I remember the little package with the teeth and he would travel and come <span class="building">home</span> and he got, you know, salary for that. </sentence><sentence id="577">My mother got a job in a <span class="building">store</span>. </sentence><sentence id="578">What is that called? </sentence><sentence id="579">With women's clothes, lingerie? </sentence><sentence id="580">These were Swedish people either that we knew before. </sentence><sentence id="581">I think that my parents must have known them. </sentence><sentence id="582">And my sister got a job. </sentence><sentence id="583">My sister was five years older. </sentence><sentence id="584">I think she was watching children, little children. </sentence><sentence id="585">And I, I just played and we lived in that <span class="interior space">apartment</span> the whole -- in <span class="populated place">Vastergatan</span> -- during the war we lived. </sentence><sentence id="586">We moved and then we moved away from our relatives moved into the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="587">Now I know my father -- the first job was not with the artificial teeth. </sentence><sentence id="588">The first job was in a chocolates -- <span class="building">chocolate factory</span> called <span class="building">Mazetti</span>. </sentence><sentence id="589">It is a very famous <span class="building">Swedish chocolate factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="590">And they would always give him chocolate when he left to go <span class="building">home</span> to us every day to the -- you know they always call us the "flykting,*" in Swedish. " </sentence><sentence id="591">Flykting," which means, "the refugees." </sentence><sentence id="592">And they were very nice to us. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="620">Q: What did you do as a child at this point? </sentence><sentence id="621">You are in <span class="country">Sweden</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="624">A: In <span class="country">Sweden</span>? </sentence><sentence id="625">Well, the first -- I don't remember when they made the <span class="building">Swedish school</span>, but I would say at the first half year I just played. </sentence><sentence id="626">I didn't -- my best friend I remember had another <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="627">Her parents had another <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="628">At the same <span class="dlf">street</span> they rented another <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="629">We would get together to play and -- so, I didn't do anything "til they started opening a <span class="building">school</span> in <span class="country">Sweden</span>, a <span class="building">Danish school</span> in <span class="populated place">Lund</span>. </sentence><sentence id="630">I think it was after we had been there a few months or maybe even half a year. </sentence><sentence id="631">They opened the <span class="building">school</span> and I would go and I went into third grade. </sentence><sentence id="632">And my sister was five grades ahead of me. </sentence><sentence id="633">And then we would go everyday to <span class="building">school</span> like in <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="634">They would make it with the Principal was Danish. </sentence><sentence id="635">Her name was Lachman. </sentence><sentence id="636">And there was another very good teacher. </sentence><sentence id="637">His name was Bertelsen. </sentence><sentence id="638">He * Refugee (Danish) wrote a book later on about it. </sentence><sentence id="639">He wrote a book called October 2, 1943. </sentence><sentence id="640">Aage Bertelsen. </sentence><sentence id="641">He was a head teacher, the headmaster. </sentence><sentence id="642">And she was the Principal. </sentence><sentence id="643">And we went to a little -- I went to a little <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="644">It was like a <span class="building">school</span> and a big <span class="building">school</span>, probably like <span class="building">elementary</span> and more of a <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="645">And it was very pleasant. </sentence><sentence id="646">It was a 20-minute ride with a <span class="spatial object">train</span> to <span class="populated place">VAstergatan</span>, from <span class="populated place">Malme</span> to <span class="populated place">Lund</span>. </sentence><sentence id="647">And we had regular <span class="building">school</span> -- we work. </sentence><sentence id="648">And my sister, of course, stopped working also. </sentence><sentence id="649">She went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="650">She went to -- it's called <span class="building">mellemskole</span>,deg the <span class="building">middle school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="651">Probably like ninth or 10th grade. </sentence><sentence id="652">And I remember for lunch, they had a place where we all would go to eat. </sentence><sentence id="653">It would be for kosher and non-kosher. </sentence><sentence id="654">A big place! </sentence><sentence id="655">And I also remember I had piano lessons in <span class="country">Sweden</span> after hours, I remember. </sentence><sentence id="656">So we lived a pretty regular life. </sentence><sentence id="657">And then my father got this other job, which was better paid, I guess, working for his friends selling teeth. </sentence><sentence id="658">That he did the rest of the, of the occupation. </sentence><sentence id="659">And, I mean, life went on. </sentence><sentence id="660">It was a very good time for us. </sentence><sentence id="661">There was nothing, no hardship. </sentence><sentence id="662">We, you know, they -- like they gave us money "til we could -- very soon my father, you know, got the job, and my mother. </sentence><sentence id="663">We didn't need to get any money from <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="664">And also a very strange thing is that my father's business in <span class="country">Denmark</span> continued, with a Jewish name, continued going, and they sent us money over. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="708">Q: How did they do that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="710">A: I don't know how they sent the money. </sentence><sentence id="711">I just know that the Germans did not touch any <span class="building">Jewish store</span>, any <span class="building">Jewish home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="712">Everything stood intact and went on as before, which is very strange even after they, you know, so to speak got rid of all the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="713">I don't know how they sent money over, but they did. </sentence><sentence id="714">Curious. </sentence><sentence id="715">I really don't know. </sentence><sentence id="716">And I know that it went on and my father's -- all his employees -- he had like about 20 people working for him -- and they all took care of it and they were very honest. </sentence><sentence id="717">They sent money over or kept it. </sentence><sentence id="718">| mean there was no stealing, no looting. </sentence><sentence id="719">You know, wasn't -- the Danes are good people. </sentence><sentence id="720">They didn't only save us. </sentence><sentence id="721">They saved our things. </sentence><sentence id="722">Saved our things. </sentence><sentence id="723">So, like I said, it was, it was not a bad life in <span class="country">Sweden</span> for us. </sentence><sentence id="724">It was a good life </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="740">Q: Did you hear at all about what was going on in <span class="country">Denmark</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="742">A: In <span class="country">Denmark</span>, not so much. </sentence><sentence id="743">We didn't know the bad things that were going on in the world or.... No, I don't think anybody believed it or knew it. </sentence><sentence id="744">No. </sentence><sentence id="745">That's why we weren't really afraid either when the Germans were occupying <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="746">We weren't scared because we never.... I don't think we knew or maybe because I was so young, I didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="747">But I don't think we knew what was going on in the world at all. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="754">Q: What -- you are in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="755">You are going to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="756">By then you would have been seven, </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="760"> &gt; <span class="building">Middle school</span> (Danish) </sentence></p><p><sentence id="761"> eight, nine. </sentence><sentence id="762">You didn't hear anything about what was happening, about even in terms of <span class="country">Denmark</span>, their attempts to round up the Jews? </sentence><sentence id="763">You didn't know about any of that? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="764">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="765">No. </sentence><sentence id="766">Well, we knew they were going to -- that they were attempting and we knew that 99 percent of the Jews were saved, because we knew -- you know, we met people and, and the only ones that were taken were the ones that didn't believe it and stayed <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="767">Which was about 400 people. </sentence><sentence id="768">And those 400 people were all sort of taken care of specially. </sentence><sentence id="769">I don't know if you want to hear about that, but they weren't.... No. </sentence><sentence id="770">Where they went -- no, that's not- </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="778">Q: No. </sentence><sentence id="779">What we want is just your story at this point. </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="782">A: Right. </sentence><sentence id="783">Well, I mean my whole family was saved. </sentence><sentence id="784">My grandparents, they also went to <span class="populated place">Malme</span>. </sentence><sentence id="785">They lived there in an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="786">My mother's parents and my mother's brothers and sisters with their family. </sentence><sentence id="787">Everybody was saved and they all lived either in <span class="populated place">Malm</span> or in <span class="populated place">Stockholm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="788">Somebody lived near <span class="populated place">Lund</span>. </sentence><sentence id="789">And we got together with them, and we had like a normal life there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="798">Q: Did your parents or did any member of your family that you know of have any connections or involvement with the resistance or with any groups that were? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="800">A: Well, my father became a brigadier. </sentence><sentence id="801">| think it's called a brigadier -- Brigade(r) in Danish. </sentence><sentence id="802">He was 40 years old and they, they trained them in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="803">They trained them to go back when the <span class="country">Germany</span> -- when they, when they capitulated. </sentence><sentence id="804">When they knew that it was going towards the end of the war and they were going to send them back to help round up the Germans and so my -- the minute the war was over, my father left with the whole battalion of soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="805">And we stayed in <span class="country">Sweden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="806">We didn't go back to <span class="country">Denmark</span> "til May 28th. </sentence><sentence id="807">The war was over May fifth, I believe. </sentence><sentence id="808"><span class="country">Germany</span> gave up. </sentence><sentence id="809">But we stayed "til, you know -- I guess we all, all the Danes went back on one big <span class="spatial object">boat</span> to <span class="country">Sweden</span> -- to <span class="country">Denmark</span>, on May 28. </sentence><sentence id="810">And I remember that very well. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="822">Q: Describe that trip. </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="824">A: That trip -- I just remember standing on this tremendous <span class="spatial object">boat</span>, being very happy going back. </sentence><sentence id="825">You know, this was just my mother and my sister and I. And I remember when we came towards the <span class="env feature">shore</span>, all the Danes -- millions of Danes, thousands of Danes were standing there with red and white flags, the <span class="spatial object">Dannebrog</span>" waving, welcoming us back. </sentence><sentence id="826">And they were wonderful all the way. </sentence><sentence id="827">And I just remember we went to, to the <span class="building">house</span> we had my father had bought before the war. </sentence><sentence id="828">And that's why I remember all, all these pictures that were broken on the <span class="interior space">floor</span> from German soldiers and, and I also know my sister stayed back because she deg Brigadier, general (Danish) T Danish flag (Danish) stayed for another month to graduate. </sentence><sentence id="829">She was in a <span class="building">middle school</span> where you had "til --I guess it's like <span class="building">high school</span> here. </sentence><sentence id="830">So, in order to graduate they had to finish the year. </sentence><sentence id="831">So they -- she stayed. </sentence><sentence id="832">I think they went to <span class="populated place">Lund</span> and stayed there. </sentence><sentence id="833">It was like about 30 people, from that class, that had to stay. </sentence><sentence id="834">And when she came back her classmates from <span class="building">school</span> came to welcome her in the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="835">I remember that. </sentence><sentence id="836">She -- in our <span class="building">house</span> and they came all over to welcome her back. </sentence><sentence id="837">And-- </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="855">Q: What was the--? </sentence><sentence id="856">You came back to <span class="country">Denmark</span>. </sentence><sentence id="857">You found this <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="858">Did you go to your <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, as well? </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="863">A: No, because my father had bought it before and I think that the maid probably had moved all the <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> or I am not sure. </sentence><sentence id="864">But we never went to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="865">That was rented out. </sentence><sentence id="866">But all our stuff was completely where we -- nothing was stolen. </sentence><sentence id="867">And I know my father had a <span class="spatial object">car</span> before the war. </sentence><sentence id="868">It was still standing there. </sentence><sentence id="869">And his <span class="building">business</span> was still running, with the same foreman and same people working there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="877">Q: Did he get his business back? </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="879">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="880">He just, he just started back. </sentence><sentence id="881">And it was just running as if he had been there, there all the time. </sentence><sentence id="882">Which was strange, that they -- it was strange that the German's didn't close down the <span class="building">Jewish businesses</span>. </sentence><sentence id="883">They didn't. </sentence><sentence id="884">And I started <span class="building">school</span>, and then I must start in a new <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="885">I went to a <span class="building">public school</span> then, in the fourth grade. </sentence><sentence id="886">Fourth, fifth grade I stayed there. </sentence><sentence id="887">And, you know, everybody was asking us, "What happened in <span class="country">Sweden</span>? </sentence><sentence id="888">How were you're experiences?" </sentence><sentence id="889">And everybody was curious. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="901">Q: Did you either before or after the war, what did it feel like being Jewish particularly in <span class="country">Denmark</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="903">A: Well, there was no-- the way I look at it, there was no difference between being Jewish and not Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="904">And I did not come from a religious background so maybe I never felt anything and I remember very -- I mean today I feel differently, but I remember standing outside our <span class="building">house</span> with some friends. </sentence><sentence id="905">We had just been going to <span class="building">dance class</span> and we were discussing whether one should marry -- one should stay and marry only Jewish people, and they all felt sure, and they were not Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="906">I remember they were saying that they felt that Jews should marry Jews. </sentence><sentence id="907">And I say, ""Why you marry? </sentence><sentence id="908">You are in love with them." </sentence><sentence id="909">This is my background I guess. </sentence><sentence id="910">You don't marry for religion. </sentence><sentence id="911">You marry. </sentence><sentence id="912">But we really did not feel any difference, there was -- of being Jewish or not Jewish in <span class="country">Denmark</span> didn't. </sentence><sentence id="913">My husband might tell you different stories. </sentence><sentence id="914">I don't know -- because he comes from a religious background. </sentence><sentence id="915">So it's different. </sentence><sentence id="916">But I, I didn't feel any discrimination ever. </sentence><sentence id="917">Never heard the word "Jew" said. </sentence><sentence id="918">And I went to -- well, the first few years I went to <span class="building">Jewish schools</span> and when I came back, I was -- there was one more boy that was Jewish in the class. </sentence><sentence id="919">When I went to the <span class="building">higher schools</span>, there was another girl. </sentence><sentence id="920">I went to an all girls" <span class="building">school</span> then from sixth grade "til I graduated. </sentence><sentence id="921">And there were two Jews in the <span class="building">class</span>: me and another girl. </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="942">Q: Did you feel any difference because there were only two of you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="944">A: No, I never even thought -- it's just that I knew her and I knew her family, that I know she was Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="945">But no, I never felt anything different between being Jewish and not Jewish. </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="948">Q: What was it like immediately after the war in <span class="country">Denmark</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="950">A: How I remember that, we couldn't get chocolate. </sentence><sentence id="951">Because I knew my father would buy things that nobody could get, so he would like buy -- you know, it was rationing, and he would get it for us. </sentence><sentence id="952">But it was not a hard life. </sentence><sentence id="953">We went to <span class="building">school</span> and just <span class="spatial object">classes</span> -- 1 know people didn't have as many <span class="spatial object">cars</span> as we do now. </sentence><sentence id="954">I would go by <span class="spatial object">bicycle</span> to <span class="building">school</span> always, like everybody else. </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="960">Q: Is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="962">A: No, not really. </sentence><sentence id="963">Except that I love the Danes and I think the best part that happened to me, is that I'm Danish. </sentence><sentence id="964">I've always been -- I feel very fortunate to be born there and I love the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="965">What they did for the Jews, the way they -- later on I realized what other <span class="country">countries</span> had done to their people, and I realized that it was not that the Germans were better in <span class="country">Denmark</span>, it was because the Danes were better. </sentence><sentence id="966">So, I think that should be known always, never forgotten. </sentence><sentence id="967">Alright? </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="974">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="976">A: You're welcome. </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="978">Q: That's it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="980"> [Conclusion of interview] </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ </body>
104
+ </html>
RG-50.030.0015_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: helene none baraf
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0015
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0015_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504452
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1927-07-24
9
+ birth_year: 1927.0
10
+ place_of_birth: antwerp
11
+ country: berlgium
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.361
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1">Q: Please tell us your name, where you were born, and when you were born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="3">A: My name is Helene Baraf, named <span class="populated place">Zupnik</span>. </sentence><sentence id="4">I am born in <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span>, <span class="country">Belgium</span>, the 24th of July 1927. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Tell us about your family and your childhood before the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: Uh...I will start to tell you a little bit about my...uh... ancestors. </sentence><sentence id="10">Uh...1 come from two very famous branches... uh...of...uh...the Jewish religion. </sentence><sentence id="11">My great grand uncle was...uh...Rabbi Meisels (ph) who has a <span class="building">synagogue</span> named ... uh...after him in <span class="populated place">Prague</span> and on my father's side I have Rabbi Dovelando (ph), who was very famous too, who has another <span class="building">synagogue</span> named...uh...after him. </sentence><sentence id="12">Uh...my mother came from a very religious family. </sentence><sentence id="13">She had four brothers and four sisters. </sentence><sentence id="14">And...uh...she was the only who survived the Holocaust, and they all had many, many children because that was the way of life in that time. </sentence><sentence id="15">And...uh...she was already...uh...an older person when she met my....my father who came from <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> and she accepted to...to marry him after refusing many, many suitors. </sentence><sentence id="16">And...uh...they lived in <span class="populated place">Krakow</span> for one year...uh...where my brother was born in 1924, in July 26, 1924. </sentence><sentence id="17">And after the...they stayed uncast. </sentence><sentence id="18">That means that....uh...her brother was...uh... keeping them for a year where my father...when my father was studying. </sentence><sentence id="19">And then after the time was gone, they came to <span class="country">Belgium</span> where I was born the 24th of July 1927. </sentence><sentence id="20">Uh... grew up there, and we lived...uh...nicely. </sentence><sentence id="21">My father and my mother...in the beginning were working in the <span class="building">diamonds business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="22">She was a Schleifer which means she was, I don't know how to say that in English...she...they were...he...she was not a cutter. </sentence><sentence id="23">A Schleifer is what a polisher...a diamond polisher and...uh...little by little my father became...uh...courtier. </sentence><sentence id="24">Is that an English word? </sentence><sentence id="25"><span class="building">Courtier</span>? </sentence><sentence id="26">Uh...He was selling for other diamonds and...uh...uh...life became easier and...uh...I was going as a child in...uh...in the...and my first language was French so I went to <span class="building">grammar school</span> in <span class="country">Belgium</span> and on Wednesday afternoon and Sunday morning I went to <span class="building">Jewish school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="27">My brother went to a <span class="building">Jewish school</span> for...uh...the whole day where he learned Hebrew and Jewish and...uh...French and Flemish. </sentence><sentence id="28">Uh...in..in 1940 when I finished...uh...no...let's go back to 1937...uh...when I came to <span class="country">American</span>. </sentence><sentence id="29">To tell you the story why we came to <span class="country">America</span> is because...uh...by great grandfather died here in <span class="country">America</span> in 1936. </sentence><sentence id="30">They came, I think, after the First World War here with all the children but my grandmother was already married in...uh...in <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> so she was...uh...I think she was the oldest daughter. </sentence><sentence id="31">So she remained with her husband and her children there in <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="32">This is why I have...uh...in reality I am a third generation already American because... uh...my family is here. </sentence><sentence id="33">So my father came here to <span class="country">America</span> to...for the question of the inheritance. </sentence><sentence id="34">And he liked it so much because he found all the family here that he didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="35">His cousins, his uncles...uh...it was...uh...very happy situation for him. </sentence><sentence id="36">So he wanted to immigrate. </sentence><sentence id="37">And we immigrated really to <span class="country">America</span> in September of 37. </sentence><sentence id="38">For me as a child it was a shock because it was in the depression era and...uh...we lived in the <span class="region">low east side</span>. </sentence><sentence id="39">This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="40">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="41"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection We...compared to what...how we lived in <span class="populated place">New York</span> or...in <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span>, was a big difference. </sentence><sentence id="42">It was a misery compared to that. </sentence><sentence id="43">And...uh...although I...I loved to be with all these cousins that I didn't know but...uh...unfortunately they send me to <span class="building">school</span>...uh...as a....with the beginners. </sentence><sentence id="44">I was already 10 at the time and it was very hard for me because I didn't spoke the language. </sentence><sentence id="45">My brother, who was three years older, and finished already <span class="building">grammar school</span>, immediately entered to <span class="building">high school</span> and instead to be in the sixth...I don't know...in the first year, they sent him immediately in the third grade. </sentence><sentence id="46">I don't know to compare that with the American. </sentence><sentence id="47">So he was very happy. </sentence><sentence id="48">I was very unhappy here, and I cried a lot and...uh...it...because it was a very difficult time at that time with the depression and my...my mother and father had a lot of difficulties making out. </sentence><sentence id="49">So we came to the conclusion that...uh...maybe it would be easier for my father if we send...we went back...uh...to <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span> and...uh...this is what they decided to do. </sentence><sentence id="50">We went...me and my brother and my mother, we went back to <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span> and my father stayed here in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="51">My mother was from...uh...the...from <span class="region">Galicia</span>, and she spoke a beautiful Polish and beautiful German and she was great admir... admirer of...uh...of German poetry from Heine and...uh...and she sang German Lieders to me, so I... never studied German, but I do speak and I do understand it. </sentence><sentence id="52">And...uh... she never believed that...uh....German with their culture could do anything to the Jews she said. </sentence><sentence id="53">Although we saw all the people coming from <span class="country">Germany</span> in 1939, she said...but...it's not so terrible. </sentence><sentence id="54">My father was very scared because he heard all the rumors and he came to bring us back to <span class="country">America</span> in September of 39. </sentence><sentence id="55">And my mother refused to go back to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="56">She said, "Not back and forth. </sentence><sentence id="57">You come back to...to <span class="country">Europe</span>." </sentence><sentence id="58">My father said, "No," so he stayed in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="59">So unfortunately because of this..-uh...dispute between them we stayed in <span class="country">Belgium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="60">Uh...The German invaded <span class="country">Belgium</span> in the beginning of May. </sentence><sentence id="61">I think...uh...around the 10th of May...I cannot know exactly...uh...and 10 days later we...my mother decided we cannot stay. </sentence><sentence id="62">Uh...It was the war. </sentence><sentence id="63">So we took some of our possessions and we took the <span class="spatial object">train</span> direction of <span class="country">France</span>. </sentence><sentence id="64">The <span class="spatial object">train</span> was stopped at the...uh...I don't know how you say that. </sentence><sentence id="65">At the <span class="dlf">frontier</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="125">Q: At the <span class="dlf">border</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="127">A: At the <span class="dlf">border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="128">And...uh...we couldn't take...uh...although we had little...few <span class="spatial object">suitcases</span> and we started to go across the <span class="dlf">border</span> and walk in...because we didn't know where we wanted to go, but as far as possible. </sentence><sentence id="129">And we started to walk through <span class="populated place">Moucron</span>. </sentence><sentence id="130">I remember the <span class="dlf">border</span> was <span class="populated place">Moucron</span>, and we walked with the <span class="spatial object">suitcases</span> and with a lot of other people who were stopped there too who...and we went to <span class="populated place">Amiens</span>, to <span class="populated place">Cambrai</span> and...uh...it took us about two weeks under the bombing...the uh...the German with...uh... How do you say that their...their <span class="spatial object">planes</span> they were...uh...shooting at us and we were...had to run in the...uh...in the <span class="dlf">ditches</span> for...for protection and a lot of people were killed in front of us. </sentence><sentence id="131">But...uh...finally we arrived in <span class="populated place">Lille</span> where they put us in a <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="132">No, it was more a <span class="building">college</span>, a <span class="building">college</span> where they had <span class="building">dormitory</span> and where we slept and we stayed there for a month. </sentence><sentence id="133">And...uh...then the German occupied all <span class="country">France</span>, so we had to go to...towards...uh... normal life. </sentence><sentence id="134">So we...my mother rented an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> in <span class="populated place">Lille</span>. </sentence><sentence id="135">I remember it was <span class="building">rue Solferino 142</span>. </sentence><sentence id="136">It's funny how my memory can remember certain things and ___ others. </sentence><sentence id="137"><span class="dlf">Rue Solferino 142</span>, and not far from there, I had my <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="138">And my husband went to his <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="139">And...uh...my mother had a little This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="140">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="141"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 3 money so for a time things were alright. </sentence><sentence id="142">We lived...uh...and...uh...and days went by and the years went by because it was from May 40 til...[ cannot say exactly when the Germans started to do all the miseries. </sentence><sentence id="143">I think it was from...uh...the beginning of <span class="populated place">42</span>. </sentence><sentence id="144">Uh...they asked us to register as Jew. </sentence><sentence id="145">We were forced to wear the...the Jewish...uh...star and...uh...we obeyed what we were...uh...uh...we're supposed to do and...uh...life went on. </sentence><sentence id="146">Unfortunately, my...my brother had a birthday in July 42 and for his birthday my mother bought...brought... bought him...uh...a trench coat. </sentence><sentence id="147">And...uh...this trench coat, unfortunately, cost him his life because...uh....the Jews were forced to...couldn't go where they wanted in a <span class="building">cafe</span>. </sentence><sentence id="148">There was one <span class="building">cafe</span> where the Jews could go and where they gathered. </sentence><sentence id="149">And...uh...my...uh....my brother was a very quiet boy and very shy and very straightforward, very honest...uh...no haughtiness. </sentence><sentence id="150">Uh...he played there...him with his friend, he played chess there. </sentence><sentence id="151">And one day when he was playing there...uh...the guy of the Gestapo came and asked...uh...to whom does belong that trenchcoat. </sentence><sentence id="152">And my father..my brother stupidly answered, "It's mine." </sentence><sentence id="153">And...uh...there was no Jewish...uh...cross...uh...Star of David on it, so they took him to <span class="building">jail</span>. </sentence><sentence id="154">My mother immediately went to the <span class="building">Gestapo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="155">She saw the guy of the Gestapo, and begged him to release him and say...telling him it was his birthday. </sentence><sentence id="156">It's a mistake. </sentence><sentence id="157">He had it on his suit, the Star of David, but not on the coat so. </sentence><sentence id="158">But nothing doing. </sentence><sentence id="159">They...they wouldn't release him. </sentence><sentence id="160">Uh...he stayed in <span class="building">jail</span> in <span class="populated place">Loos</span>. </sentence><sentence id="161">It's a section of <span class="populated place">Lille</span>, and from there they sent him to...through <span class="country">Belgium</span>, to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="162">There were a few of them that were taken at the same day. </sentence><sentence id="163">And I know well that he was in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> because one of the guys who was taken together with him came back, and he told me that he was well liked with the German...they liked him because he...he has such a serious...uh...he was a serious nature, so he did whatever he had to do. </sentence><sentence id="164">And he was alive til July 1944 because...uh...he saw him at that time and then he...they were separated, and he doesn't know what happened to him. </sentence><sentence id="165">He was in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz- Birkenau</span>, and he gave me his number, but I cannot remember it. </sentence><sentence id="166">He...uh...I know that for a fact that he was waiting because he was born in <span class="country">Poland</span>, but he was very little...a baby when he came to <span class="country">Belgium</span> so he didn't know the family. </sentence><sentence id="167">So he was waiting... uh...all the family there, and he introduced himself to the family so he...he learned to know his family...and between them was a cousin who...who...to whom he told that he came from <span class="populated place">Lille</span> and...uh...and that we...me and my mother, we were there. </sentence><sentence id="168">So after the war, this cousin by accident met...uh...a girl from <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span> and...uh...uh...he himself was the son of a very extremely rich man who had <span class="building">buildings</span> and...and...uh...uh...<span class="dlf">petroleam pit</span>.... I don't know how you call that...uh...so he sold something and...uh...because he...he couldn't take the money so he bought some gold and put it in his shoe and because he didn't want to go directly to <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span>, he came through <span class="country">France</span> and was looking a way to go through the...uh...<span class="dlf">frontier</span>. </sentence><sentence id="169">And when he passed <span class="populated place">Lille</span>, he remembered...he remembered that he had an aunt there, so he went to the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> and asked if there was a Mrs. Zupnik here. </sentence><sentence id="170">And he found us. </sentence><sentence id="171">And he told us that he saw my brother there in the concentration, but he lost him also in 44, and he doesn't know what happened to him. </sentence><sentence id="172">Uh...and he went to live in <span class="populated place">Antwerp</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="221">Q: Tell us what happened to you and your mother after your brother was taken. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="223"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="224">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="225"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p><p><sentence id="226"> USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 4 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="227">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="228">Because...uh...my mother went to the <span class="building">German Gestapo</span>, she was scared to do anything because she thought if she would escape...she would run away, there would be retaliation against him. </sentence><sentence id="229">So we stayed. </sentence><sentence id="230">We continued for one month our life and on the evening of Yom Kippur in...uh....in very early in the morning, two men of the Gestapo came into our <span class="building">house</span> and...uh...took us. </sentence><sentence id="231">My mother put some stuff, some money away, and gave it to the...the lady...uh...where we lived to put it way in case...uh... uh...we escaped...uh...we wouldn't be without anything. </sentence><sentence id="232">So, but the story that happened is really like a miracle. </sentence><sentence id="233">We went to the...uh...<span class="dlf">railroad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="234">The German took us to the <span class="dlf">railroad</span> where there were about 3,000 families...Jewish family were there and...uh...from the early morning. </sentence><sentence id="235">It was a very hot day. </sentence><sentence id="236">We stayed...uh...there at the <span class="dlf">railroad</span> waiting what the German would do with us. </sentence><sentence id="237">And I saw a lot of people because it was the eve of the holidays, they went to their <span class="building">homes</span> and brought back chicken and food and it was like an entertainment party, and suddenly I see my mother and she said, "Come. </sentence><sentence id="238">Come. </sentence><sentence id="239">We have to go somewhere." </sentence><sentence id="240">And she says...and I said, "No, I...I have my friends here. </sentence><sentence id="241">I want to stay here." </sentence><sentence id="242">Said, "Come. </sentence><sentence id="243">Come. </sentence><sentence id="244">Come. </sentence><sentence id="245">You have to come." </sentence><sentence id="246">So I followed my mother and we were taken to a <span class="interior space">room</span>...uh...a very tiny <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="247">We were about 13 persons there. </sentence><sentence id="248">And the <span class="dlf">door</span> they put wood on the <span class="dlf">door</span> so the Germans wouldn't know that <span class="interior space">room</span> existed. </sentence><sentence id="249">After awhile, we heard...uh...the <span class="spatial object">train</span>...uh...leaving and the whole place was very quiet because...uh...3,000 people do a lot of noise. </sentence><sentence id="250">And we stayed there and it was a very scary night because we had a few...a few men who were very nervous. </sentence><sentence id="251">There was a <span class="dlf">window</span> and we heard the Gestapo walking back and forth. </sentence><sentence id="252">And...uh...I was...uh, I was already 14 at the time. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="279">Q: Who...who came to your mother? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="281">A: A man...a man of the <span class="interior space">underground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="282">And he asked her, "Do you want to be saved?" </sentence><sentence id="283">And my mother said, "Yes." </sentence><sentence id="284">And as a matter of fact I asked my mother later, "How come that you decide to...to be saved because you were scared...uh...that something would happen." </sentence><sentence id="285">Well...then she answered me, "I realized at that time there was nothing any more to be lost because they were taking us so I wanted to save you and myself." </sentence><sentence id="286">And so we were...uh...put in that <span class="interior space">room</span> and men are men...very selfish...some people start to...want to smoke cigarettes and they put the lights and the matches and we were scared...uh...terribly because...uh...they could see the lights. </sentence><sentence id="287">So we stayed...uh...in..uh...all night there. </sentence><sentence id="288">I think around | o'clock men came through the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="289">They put a <span class="spatial object">ladder</span> at the <span class="dlf">window</span> and they took us out. </sentence><sentence id="290">And since that time we were taken over by the <span class="interior space">underground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="291">They took us...which is...uh..very curious story. </sentence><sentence id="292">And it is an explanation. </sentence><sentence id="293">They took us to a <span class="building">whore house</span> because this where people who were...the whores. </sentence><sentence id="294">I didn't know, but they have very big hearts. </sentence><sentence id="295">They (pause)...they are known for that...that...that they will do lot of things for...to save people. </sentence><sentence id="296">And we stayed in a <span class="building">whore house</span> for a few days, and we saw the <span class="interior space">underground</span> coming back with guns and all things and it was a very scary story. </sentence><sentence id="297">And then they came back with ...uh...false identification for me and my mother and for the other peoples and we were separated. </sentence><sentence id="298">And I, as a girl, young girl, I could go to a <span class="building">convent</span>. </sentence><sentence id="299">My mother could not, unfortunate, for her. </sentence><sentence id="300">So she had to go on her own and...uh...it was very painful. </sentence><sentence id="301">She told me that many times she slept in the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="302">She had no where to go. </sentence><sentence id="303">She was in the hiding and for her, the situation was worse This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="304">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="305"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 5 because she went to the Gestapo and they knew her face. </sentence><sentence id="306">And she had the false identification. </sentence><sentence id="307">Uh...they gave me the name... kept my...uh...my...uh...real date of birth because I was scared to...uh...to be mixed up, and I became Helene Delcombre. </sentence><sentence id="308">And...uh...I went to the <span class="building">convent</span> and...uh...they were very nice to us and L...uh...my mother was...uh...worried because I was going to <span class="building">high school</span> and for her the studies was a very important thing so she made me...uh... subscribe at a <span class="building">school</span> where you could send..uh...<span class="building">correspondence school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="309">But it wasn't working. </sentence><sentence id="310">And I stayed there from...from September til...I think a little bit after the Easter holidays. </sentence><sentence id="311">Then from...and...uh...I heard a lot of times that the German were coming in...uh...the <span class="building">convent</span> looking for Jewish children. </sentence><sentence id="312">There I met a lot of other Jewish children and I met a girl that I knew and I know a lot of babies were taken. </sentence><sentence id="313">A lot of people of saved that we don't know about it but...uh...uh....one person were telling the other. </sentence><sentence id="314">Just by ear we found out that..uh...that the French people were extraordinary. </sentence><sentence id="315">And...uh...to them when they...when the people say that they were anti- Semites, they didn't even know what it was to be Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="316">They thought we were....uh...like...uh...des <span class="populated place">Auvergnats</span>." </sentence><sentence id="317">They were cheap with the money. </sentence><sentence id="318">It's a part of section of <span class="country">France</span> where people are very... don't know the right expression...one penny is a penny. </sentence><sentence id="319">They don't want to spend it. </sentence><sentence id="320">So they thought Jews are like these people. </sentence><sentence id="321">So to say that they were anti-Semite, it's the wrong thing because they didn't even know that...uh...what exactly is a Jew and physically the Jews looked like I and my mother who comes from an extremely religious fam...family. </sentence><sentence id="322">She looks like a Polish girl, like a Polish peasant with..-uh...the cheeks and the nose. </sentence><sentence id="323">Uh...it's amazing. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="371">Q: What was life like daily in the <span class="building">convent</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="373">A: In the <span class="building">convent</span>? </sentence><sentence id="374">I was supposed to have the normal life from the children. </sentence><sentence id="375">I was not supposed...I didn't tell no one that...uh...only one girl that I knew from the outside. </sentence><sentence id="376">I recognized her. </sentence><sentence id="377">The other children didn't know that I had to conform to the rules. </sentence><sentence id="378">I had to go everyday to <span class="populated place">Mass</span> with the...I...l was doing except I didn't take...uh...I don't know...the...uh...1 didn't take the whole __ because I didn't go to <span class="building">confession</span>. </sentence><sentence id="379">But except of this, I was doing exactly like the...uh...the other girls because...-uh...I didn't want to attract attention...uh...to whom I was. </sentence><sentence id="380">I was normal to do exactly like the other children. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="389">Q: And what did you do during the day? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="391">A: Well, early morning we went to Mass. Uh...They were children that...uh...uh...uh...our Lady of the Good Shepherd...that was the <span class="building">convent</span> that I went..and there were children that...uh...had thing...they were children how...I don't know how to say that. </sentence><sentence id="392">That did things that were not right. </sentence><sentence id="393">They were...or vagrant or children that did things that were not...uh...right for children to do. </sentence><sentence id="394">The rebellious children...uh...were...but they were very young. </sentence><sentence id="395">Some...uh...some were from...uh...the age of six til...uh... til..uh...16 because...uh...16 you are...in <span class="country">France</span> you could work. </sentence><sentence id="396">So.... " People from the <span class="region">French region</span> of <span class="populated place">Auvergne</span> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="397">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="398"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 6 </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="409">Q: How did you get along with the other children? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="411">A: Very well because...uh...why not? ( </sentence><sentence id="412">Chuckle) I am a French girl like every French girl and I don't look Jewish at all. </sentence><sentence id="413">Nobody could...uh...guess...uh...anything and I...and I was smart enough...uh...not to talk about this things. </sentence><sentence id="414">Uh... went to Mass. I ate. </sentence><sentence id="415">I...uh...L..uh...we had...uh... religious... uh...blessings...uh...1 did whatever the other children...we did...uh...some work...uh...some hand knitting, some...uh... embroideries. </sentence><sentence id="416">Whatever the other children did, I did. </sentence><sentence id="417">And...uh...a little bit I did some <span class="building">school</span> by correspondence, but it wasn't good. </sentence><sentence id="418">So my mother decided that I had to go back to <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="419">So then we were taken over by the <span class="building">Protestant community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="420">Uh...I remember the name was Mr. Pausch, and this was in...I was staying in <span class="populated place">Lille</span>, and this was in <span class="populated place">Roubaix</span> which was... uh...there were three <span class="populated place">cities</span> around <span class="populated place">Lille</span>, <span class="populated place">Roubaix</span>, <span class="populated place">Tourcoing</span>, which were about...uh...half an hour distant one of the other. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="431">Q: Did you see your mother often? </sentence><sentence id="432">How did you get from the <span class="building">convent</span> to the <span class="populated place">Protestant community</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="435">A: I never went out from the <span class="building">convent</span>...uh...unless I had an operation from the <span class="dlf">amigdales</span>. </sentence><sentence id="436">How do you say that? </sentence><sentence id="437">How do you say that. </sentence><sentence id="438">I had to have the...uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="443">Q: Tonsils? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="445">A: The tonsils removed. </sentence><sentence id="446">That's the only time I went out. </sentence><sentence id="447">My mother came to see me and brought me food. </sentence><sentence id="448">I don't know how she did it, but...uh...she still found the time to and the money to give me...uh...because it was...uh...very very hard time. </sentence><sentence id="449">We were eating bread with...uh...sawdust in the bread. </sentence><sentence id="450">It was...uh...very bad bread. </sentence><sentence id="451">The food was terrible. </sentence><sentence id="452">It was war, and many times we had...uh...we heard <span class="spatial object">English plane</span> coming and bombing. </sentence><sentence id="453">It was war. </sentence><sentence id="454">It wasn't... uh..easy time for no one and... So she decided I should go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="455">So she...I don't know how she found out the <span class="populated place">Protestant community</span>, and they gave us some lodging somewhere outside of <span class="populated place">Roubaix</span> and I was enrolled in the <span class="building">Roubaix High School</span>. </sentence><sentence id="456">It was very difficult thing because in that <span class="building">school</span> I met a girl that I was in <span class="building">school</span> in <span class="populated place">Lille</span> and she knew my real name. </sentence><sentence id="457">And suddenly from <span class="building">Helene Zupnik</span>, I became Helene Delcombre. </sentence><sentence id="458">And I didn't know how to do it. </sentence><sentence id="459">I was young. </sentence><sentence id="460">I was 15 years old and I was very childish at the time. </sentence><sentence id="461">But then I had an idea. </sentence><sentence id="462">I knew she was...uh...a scout. </sentence><sentence id="463">So I took her on the side, and I told her, "You know I want to tell you a story, but you have to tell...to swear me on your scout's honor that you will not tell nobody...uh ...what's the true story. </sentence><sentence id="464">I am a Jewish girl, and I have false identification paper and nobody's supposed to know it." </sentence><sentence id="465">She said, "Don't worry. </sentence><sentence id="466">I will not tell anyone." </sentence><sentence id="467">And the irony is that I didn't know that at the time, but that girl herself was half Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="468">And so...uh... uh...I stayed in that <span class="building">school</span>...uh...til the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="469">But I didn't stay...you see the thing is that every day life to be in...uh...people get tired to be...uh...helpful to others. </sentence><sentence id="470">You know it's not easy to take the...uh...uh...the mother and the daughter. </sentence><sentence id="471">They live and after awhile, the cohabitation with that person was difficult so we had to move and my This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="472">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="473"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 7 mother found a place in <span class="populated place">Tourcoing</span>. </sentence><sentence id="474">She found a lot...a very miserable place, but we didn't have where to go so we were happy to go there. </sentence><sentence id="475">And I continued to go to <span class="populated place">Roubaix</span>. </sentence><sentence id="476">And...uh...1 spoke to that girl because...uh... she...she...she was the only knew...one who knew her...my identify and I told her, "You know, we are living in <span class="populated place">Tourcoing</span> in a miserable place and with the bombing all the time and the cold. </sentence><sentence id="477">We didn't have what to heat." </sentence><sentence id="478">So she came her...her parents were very rich, extremely rich. </sentence><sentence id="479">Uh...uh...Her father was a kind of...uh...nobility and she said...she spoke to her parents and she said, "You know what? </sentence><sentence id="480">I have an idea. </sentence><sentence id="481">I will take you in my...uh...we have the <span class="building">gardener's house</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="482">And she presented me to her mother and her father who were very nice and she took me out...in their <span class="building">house</span> where we stayed til the liberation. </sentence><sentence id="483">And they never told us what they really were. </sentence><sentence id="484">After the war in December of 44, I had the surprise of a cousin who came and found me there. </sentence><sentence id="485">His name was Jerry Balomich from...uh...he lives in (pause)...at the time he lived in <span class="populated place">Brooklyn</span>. </sentence><sentence id="486">And he found me. </sentence><sentence id="487">By miracle. </sentence><sentence id="488">How he found me, he first looked at the first <span class="building">high school</span>, and he met somebody that I met a few days before who I told I was going to the Lycee of <span class="populated place">Roubaix</span> and it's unbelievable, but he found me. </sentence><sentence id="489">Then...uh...he could report to my father that we were alive. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="537">Q: Had you had no contact with your father at this point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="539">A: I received...uh...a letter of the <span class="building">Red Cross</span> in...in 1941 from my father. </sentence><sentence id="540">That's the only contact I had. </sentence><sentence id="541">So he knew we were alive in 41, but afterwards he didn't know. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="545">Q: What happened after the liberation? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="547">A: ..happy time and we were waiting that...uh..my brother would come back and my father was writing. </sentence><sentence id="548">He said we should come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="549">And my mother said, "Yes, but I have to wait first that my...uh...son comes back." </sentence><sentence id="550">And we went to <span class="populated place">Paris</span> to the different organization...organization to find out if...if he was still alive and he was coming back, but we never...uh...we never got any news about him and we never knew except by...by these two witness who came back who told me that they...he was in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz-Birkenau</span>, where he was alive til July 44. </sentence><sentence id="551">Then I have no...no other news and...uh...he never came back. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="557">Q: You said your husband was in <span class="building">high school</span> with you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="559">A: My husband. </sentence><sentence id="560">No. </sentence><sentence id="561">My husband came from <span class="populated place">Rumania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="562">How could he come here? </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="567">Q: No. </sentence><sentence id="568">That's what I wondered. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="571">A: No, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="572">No, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="573">Uh...no no. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="577">Q: Okay. </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="579">A: Do you want to know more about my life afterwards? </sentence><sentence id="580">This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="581">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="582"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 8 </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="588">Q: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="589">Tell me about the...the early years after the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="592">A: After the war I continued to go to <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="593">And...uh... my father was much younger than my mother. </sentence><sentence id="594">And he was a very religious Jew and...uh...because he lost his son he wanted to have another son. </sentence><sentence id="595">So it was very important for him so and because she couldn't bear any children, he divorced my mother and...uh...I remained...uh...in <span class="country">France</span> and he remained in...in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="596">And it was a terrible shock to me. </sentence><sentence id="597">I went into a deep depression because of that and...uh...1 couldn't study anymore. </sentence><sentence id="598">And...uh...I got married very early. </sentence><sentence id="599">In 19...in December 1948 and I had a daughter and in 51...uh...when my father died, I couldn't stand my husband anymore. </sentence><sentence id="600">And I divorced him. </sentence><sentence id="601">And in 56, I met my second husband who came from <span class="country">Israel</span> and...uh...we moved to <span class="populated place">Paris</span> and we start a new life. </sentence><sentence id="602">Unfortunately, in ...uh...June 18, 1959, a <span class="spatial object">car</span> struck my daughter and she died the same day. </sentence><sentence id="603">And life goes on. </sentence><sentence id="604">And...uh...my husband always dreamed of <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="605">Uh...As soon as he became French in...uh...in 66, the first thing he did, he came to visit <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="606">He had...he...he also was a third generation of <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="607">His grandfather came here from <span class="populated place">Rumania</span> to...to <span class="country">Israel</span> where he wasn't successful and then he came to <span class="country">America</span> and <span class="country">Canada</span> because it was difficult at that time to come to <span class="country">America</span> from <span class="country">Canada</span>. </sentence><sentence id="608">They went to <span class="populated place">Philadelphia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="609">And...uh...he loved <span class="country">America</span> too when he came to visit in 66. </sentence><sentence id="610">And...uh...in <span class="populated place">69</span> we came. </sentence><sentence id="611">In June, as a matter of fact, the same day as my daughter died. </sentence><sentence id="612">June 18, 1969 we came to <span class="country">America</span>, and we became American citizens. </sentence><sentence id="613">My husband died in...uh...May 29, 1980, and...uh...I remained alone. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="636">Q: Have you...uh...made contact with your family. </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="638">A: Oh sure. </sentence><sentence id="639">Oh sure. </sentence><sentence id="640">I was...uh...accept{ed] with open arms. </sentence><sentence id="641">I'm _ the...prodigal...prodigal child...uh...because...uh...coming back to the...they knew me as a child. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="646">Q: Do you have family here? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="648">A: Unfortunately, most of them died now and...uh...now I am alone...uh...and it's very hard. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="650">Q: All right. </sentence><sentence id="651">Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="652">Was it so hard as you thought? </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="656">A: When you start you...it goes, it flows. ( </sentence><sentence id="657">laughter) It is...uh...something very funny that...uh...it's tragic comedy at the same time. </sentence><sentence id="658">Uh...the lady who accepted her... us to stay in her gardener's <span class="building">house</span> was very nice to us and said goodbye to us when we moved away and we lived in another section of <span class="populated place">Lille</span>. </sentence><sentence id="659">And...uh...over the years we lost contact with her. </sentence><sentence id="660">But when I got married, my mother got very ill, and she couldn't stay by herself and in <span class="populated place">Paris</span> we lived in a very small <span class="interior space">apartment</span> and we couldn't...uh...keep her with us. </sentence><sentence id="661">So she went to the <span class="building">Rothschild Institution</span> and she was accepted there. </sentence><sentence id="662">There she met a gentleman that she liked very much because he was a German Jew and she spoke a perfect German, so she found her alter ego. </sentence><sentence id="663">And...uh...it was a little love affair. </sentence><sentence id="664">He was (laughter) already 84 and she was in her...in her early 60s, so she was a beauty for him. </sentence><sentence id="665">And...uh...it This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="666">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="667"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*15 9 was by an irony...by a twist of fate, this gentleman was the uncle of the mother of my friend in <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="668">So then I found out...uh...10 years later that the mother who received me in her <span class="building">house</span> herself was a Jewish lady. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="684">Q: And that was the first you knew that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="686">A: That's the first time I found out. </sentence><sentence id="687">They never told me. </sentence><sentence id="688">Montaigne was the name of her husband. </sentence><sentence id="689">I can't remember the name of the gentleman who was very good to my mother because...uh...she had Parkinson Disease. </sentence><sentence id="690">And...uh...she broke her ankle, and she was...uh...taken to the <span class="building">hospital</span> and he sustained her very much. </sentence><sentence id="691">But the irony is that he was the uncle of the lady who saved her...us in her <span class="interior space">garden</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="698">Q: Do you have any other memories of the war years? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="700">A: Like what? </sentence><sentence id="701">What kind of memories? </sentence><sentence id="702">What we did through...during the war or...it was war time. </sentence><sentence id="703">Uh...but life goes on. </sentence><sentence id="704">Uh...I am a young...uh...girl...uh... I went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="705">L..uh...L..1 lived a normal life, but with false identification papers. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="712">Q: What was...what were the nuns like in the <span class="building">convent</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="714">A: Very nice. </sentence><sentence id="715">They...uh...they behaved with me...they knew who I was, but...uh...they behaved very nicely. </sentence><sentence id="716">They saved my life. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="720">Q: Were there a lot of Jewish children? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="722">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="723">A <span class="dlf">lot</span>. </sentence><sentence id="724">But...uh...there were so many different places...uh...but I suppose from...uh...most of the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> was wiped out...uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="728">Q: Did...did you ever see the nuns again? </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="730">A: After the war, I went to...to find them. </sentence><sentence id="731">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="732">I went to see all these people who thanked me naturally, but...uh... LIfe goes on...uh...and you are taken by many occupations and preoccupation and...uh...you forget and...uh...1 thought that it was important to tell these things because many people say it never happened so before I die I want to bear witness to these things because I...I suffered them and...uh...unfortunately I lost so many people because of it, and people say it never happened. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="736">Q: And that's important for us. </sentence><sentence id="737">Thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="740">A: You're welcome. </sentence><sentence id="741">This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="742">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="743"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ </body>
84
+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: kate none bernath
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0023
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+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0023_trs_en.pdf
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+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504450
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+ gender: f
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+ birth_date: 1927-08-27
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+ birth_year: 1927.0
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+ place_of_birth: szikszo
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+ country: hungary
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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: gg
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+ accession: 1990.366.1
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
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+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection KATE BERNATH March 22, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Will you tell me your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Kate Bernath. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where were you born and when? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born August 27, 1927 in <span class="populated place">Sziksz6</span>, <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Tell me about your family and and your life in <span class="populated place">Szikszo</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: Uh, I come from a family of three children. </sentence><sentence id="14">I had two brothers and I was the youngest, a girl, and my father was a businessman and we were sort of middle-class Jews in <span class="populated place">town</span> and, uh, I look back on my childhood as quite happy and, uh, even though there were a lot of dark clouds on the <span class="env feature">sky</span>, we children were always protected and and, uh, shielded sort of and, uh, had quite a happy life. </sentence><sentence id="15">| we thought so anyway. </sentence><sentence id="16">Until the... it really began to get bad and we started to hear all the the different rumors about, uh, what's happening all around us but we thought that maybe some people are exaggerating it and, uh, it would never happen to us. </sentence><sentence id="17">We are loyal Hungarian citizens and, uh, nobody would harm us. </sentence><sentence id="18">Our father, grandfathers fought for the <span class="country">country</span> and, uh, and, uh, it's really just scaring us with these things. </sentence><sentence id="19">But then in, uh, April, March actually, 1944, when the Germans came in, we had to put on the yellow star and Jews were not allowed to leave leave their <span class="building">houses</span> actually and, uh, we were not allowed to travel, have <span class="building">businesses</span> or go to <span class="building">school</span> or do anything. </sentence><sentence id="20">I mean we knew that it is happening. </sentence><sentence id="21">It is happening. </sentence><sentence id="22">And, uh, within a few weeks we were all rounded up and sent to a <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> in, uh, the nearest bigger <span class="populated place">town</span> named <span class="populated place">Kassa</span>" where we were in, uh, very bad circumstances already. </sentence><sentence id="23">No money was allowed to brought with, only certain amount and we had to leave all our possessions at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="24">Just everybody was allowed, uh, uh, backpack of some little clothes and and no food and no money and then we didn't, no, no future. </sentence><sentence id="25">Didn't know what's going to happen to us. </sentence><sentence id="26">As and surely enough, uh, we were, uh, there four weeks maybe in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> when the Germans took us out from the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Before we get to that, were you seeing a young man in the middle of all this? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Oh yes. </sentence><sentence id="44">I, I was, uh, quite, uh, popular (laughter) and, and, uh, seeing we were ri...as I said we had a very social life and, and, and very happy life ina way. </sentence><sentence id="45">When we were not, we " <span class="populated place">Ko8ice</span>, <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="46"> https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection couldn't go to, we couldn't go to, uh, the movies so we entertained ourselves at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="47">I mean we tried to make the best of a bad situation and, uh, this certain young man was, uh, more attentive than others and (laughter) we sort of became semi-officially engaged. </sentence><sentence id="48">Uh, he had to go off to the <span class="populated place">forced labor camp</span>, but, uh, we promised each other that if we both come back, we going to get married someday. </sentence><sentence id="49">But that was, uh, a very iffy situation of course because you really didn't know what was going on, but but when you're young you don't really think that way. </sentence><sentence id="50">Imean you don't really think you're going to die. </sentence><sentence id="51">You may say it, but, but it doesn't feel like, you know, you don't feel it. </sentence><sentence id="52">You don't realize it what the word really means. </sentence><sentence id="53">So we (pause) going back to back going back to <span class="populated place">Kassa</span>, one, one, uh, day the Germans brought in these, uh, <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and we were rounded up, I think eighty of us in a <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, old and young and and sick and, uh, crying and and, uh, even whatever little we had they took away from us. </sentence><sentence id="54">No food. </sentence><sentence id="55">And the <span class="dlf">doors</span> were locked on us and was, everybody was looking out under little <span class="dlf">windows</span> in the <span class="dlf">cracks</span> which way we're heading, because nobody told us anything. </sentence><sentence id="56">I mean we, everything was rumored but no...nobody said you're going here or you're going there and we thought we're going to work. </sentence><sentence id="57">Everybody said, oh, you're going to work so it's not the worst thing. </sentence><sentence id="58">We're going to work but, uh, my father sort of, uh, he was, uh, we called him a pessimist. ( </sentence><sentence id="59">laughter) He he felt that he knew what that that it's going to be terrible and, uh, he said that we're heading for the, out of the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="60">I mean because if we were going to work, they would have bring us to the other direction. </sentence><sentence id="61">The <span class="spatial object">trains</span> would go to the other direction. </sentence><sentence id="62">And, uh, sure enough, in three days time--it took us, wait a minute, three days--yes, three days to arrive to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="85">Q: Tell me about that trip. </sentence><sentence id="86">What was the trip like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="89">A: Well, you hardly could sit down in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and, uh, and, uh, I don't even remember having any food. </sentence><sentence id="90">We must have some food with us but, uh, I don't really recall recall it. </sentence><sentence id="91">And, uh, some people were sick, really out of their mind, old people, senile people and they were crying and yelling all night long and if somebody had to go to the <span class="interior space">bathroom</span>, then then there was a little, uh, little <span class="spatial object">pail</span> there, and everybody, men and women together, everybody, uh, seeing that you're going to the <span class="interior space">bathroom</span>. </sentence><sentence id="92">It's, it was just so humiliating, humiliating and, and, uh, horrible. </sentence><sentence id="93">So all they can do is cry or pray or or or try to soothe each other and, and sitting down on the <span class="interior space">floor</span> and and mothers with their children and, uh, resting in their heads in their lap and it was just an awful trip. </sentence><sentence id="94">And, uh, little did we know that at least we were together. </sentence><sentence id="95">As soon as we arrived to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, uh, they were waiting for us. </sentence><sentence id="96">We didn't know what <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> was or where we were and was all of a sudden they opened the <span class="dlf">doors</span> and these these, uh, men with, uh, striped uniforms started to drag us out and the Germans, uh, patrolling with their German Shepherds and and yelling, " ; , schnell, schnell." </sentence><sentence id="97">Everything has to be done "schnell" all the time. </sentence><sentence id="98">And as soon as we got off, even our backsack what we could carry with us, uh, we tried to get it. </sentence><sentence id="99">They threw, they threw it all out on the side and we didn't need it anymore actually, but we didn't know that. </sentence><sentence id="100">And, uh, and men and women were separated right away. </sentence><sentence id="101">Separate <span class="dlf">lines</span>. </sentence><sentence id="102">And, uh, when we were going in the <span class="dlf">lines</span>, uh, this this, uh, German officer in a uniform, he was just telling which way to go for everybody, left or right. [ </sentence><sentence id="103">remember him asking my mother how old she was https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection and she said, "<span class="populated place">Vierzig</span>" [<span class="country">GER</span>: forty] That's all she was. </sentence><sentence id="104">And he sent her to the other side.(Crying) But at that point we thought we going to see each other yet. </sentence><sentence id="105">I mean we had no idea of, of, uh, what was waiting for us. </sentence><sentence id="106">And then they told us that you're going to see them later, that you're going to see them at night. </sentence><sentence id="107">They're taking the young people to work and, uh, at night or or on the weekend you're going to be together. </sentence><sentence id="108">Uh, first they asked for the twins, if we had any twins between us. </sentence><sentence id="109">I remember some who were twins and they took them out and then they were asking for other occupations, uh, to step aside. </sentence><sentence id="110">They wanted. </sentence><sentence id="111">The rest of us were marched to the <span class="interior space">bath</span>, to, to take a <span class="interior space">shower</span>, to a <span class="interior space">bath</span>. </sentence><sentence id="112">We had to take all our clothes off and put them nicely in a pile when we come out to find them, and they brought us into this huge <span class="interior space">room</span> where the <span class="interior space">showers</span> were overhead and they locked the <span class="dlf">doors</span> on us and, uh, and, uh, hot steaming water came out. </sentence><sentence id="113">Little did we know that our parents got the same <span class="interior space">showers</span> with the gas on. </sentence><sentence id="114">Uh, when we came out from the <span class="spatial object">showers</span> we came out on the other <span class="dlf">door</span> so we never got our clothes back, our shoes or anything. </sentence><sentence id="115">Even the last pin from my hair was taken out and, uh, we got a a dress, a grey cotton dress. </sentence><sentence id="116">No underwear. </sentence><sentence id="117">I got a pair of shoes which was three sizes too big on my feet, wooden shoes. </sentence><sentence id="118">And we were marched into a <span class="building">barrack</span> where there were these, uh, so-called <span class="spatial object">bleachers</span> (ph) what we were sleeping, uh, lay ourself, uh, <span class="spatial object">bunks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="119">Twelve of us on one, so if one turned around, all twelve had to turn. </sentence><sentence id="120">Uh, one bow! </sentence><sentence id="121">of, uh, soup without a spoon or cup or anything for the twelve of us, so each took one sip and and handed to the others. </sentence><sentence id="122">And, uh, these, uh, Jewish girls, uh, were Czechoslovak, from <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>, were our Blockiltesters. </sentence><sentence id="123">They were the overseers. </sentence><sentence id="124">And they were telling us, tried to orient us of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> routine, what, how, what was waiting for us and they told us that, uh, you'll never see your parents again. </sentence><sentence id="125">You might as well forget about it because they are already in the, marched into the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="126">We just couldn't believe them you know in our wildest dream that that something like this could happen. </sentence><sentence id="127">We thought they were just, uh, being tude to us. </sentence><sentence id="128">They they wanted to punish us for, for not being here the same way like they were for so many years already. </sentence><sentence id="129">And, uh, we just shrugged it off. </sentence><sentence id="130">We we, but in the meantime they told us if there will be a selection, just volunteer, volunteer for anything. </sentence><sentence id="131">Go out of here. </sentence><sentence id="132">This is a <span class="populated place">death camp</span>, and, and, uh, the farther you get away from it the better it is. </sentence><sentence id="133">So happens after three days we were shipped, uh, the, the <span class="spatial object">transports</span> were coming in day and night from <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="134">Actually I was in the first <span class="spatial object">transport</span> to leave <span class="country">Hungary</span> to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, and, uh, day and night they were bringing in people and even the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span> couldn't work fast enough for it, so they had to make <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="135">We had to make <span class="interior space">room</span> for the newcomers. </sentence><sentence id="136">We were sent to, uh, <span class="populated place">Cracow</span>, <span class="populated place">P_aszow</span> the <span class="dlf">Lager</span> was called. </sentence><sentence id="137">It was the most horrible place on earth. </sentence><sentence id="138">I think it was worse than <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, even though it had no <span class="building">crematorium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="139">But we worked very, very hard there. </sentence><sentence id="140">Four o'clock in the morning we had to get up to for Zahlappells, uh, counting of the rolls, and stay there for hours under the <span class="env feature">stars</span> in our one piece of clothes and it was freezing cold. </sentence><sentence id="141">This was in May, https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection but it was in the <span class="env feature">mountains</span>, and we had no clothes on and we had no food and and everybody was cold. </sentence><sentence id="142">And, uh, staying there after after the Zahlappell we were marched out to work. </sentence><sentence id="143">The <span class="populated place">camp</span> was situated on a, on a <span class="env feature">mountainside</span> and our work was to carry these big wooden planks up on the steep <span class="env feature">mountain</span>, that we we stood like three girls or five girls on there, one of these big wooden plank and carried it on our shoulders up on the <span class="env feature">mountains</span>. </sentence><sentence id="144">And, uh, German...of course like I said everything had to be done "schnell" and, uh, and, uh, they were coming with the German Shepherds to chase us to go fast. </sentence><sentence id="145">Now when you have a three size too big pair of <span class="spatial object">shoes</span> on your feet and the mud, and it's muddy and and go up on the <span class="env feature">mountainside</span>, it's, it's terribly hard, and we were doing this work all day long. </sentence><sentence id="146">And by the time we came back <span class="building">home</span> on the other side of the <span class="env feature">mountain</span>, uh, sometimes the food ran out already. </sentence><sentence id="147">Uh, the last people didn't get any or or else we got some soup with, uh, some barley, barley soup. </sentence><sentence id="148">That was our mainstay for three months, every single day. </sentence><sentence id="149">Barley soup. </sentence><sentence id="150">And, uh, lot of, uh, after a while we were issued some clothes because it was, like I said it was very cold there in them. </sentence><sentence id="151">We had some sweaters and, and coats and by the time we realized it, it was full of lice, this clothes. </sentence><sentence id="152">So, so whenever we could escape a little, hide from the work, our pastime was to kill the lice, the, the; it was, uh, we suffered a lot there from, from, uh, from the other people. </sentence><sentence id="153">From the other camp-mates who were, who were not, uh, not good to us because they felt that we were, uh, spoiled or, or we just coming from, from our, our, uh, <span class="building">homes</span> and they were already suffering for years and years and they thought we're not even Jewish, Jewish, uh, prisoners because you don't speak the language. </sentence><sentence id="154">We don't belong. </sentence><sentence id="155">But nevertheless, uh, we settled down sort of a routine until until the partisans began to really raid on the, make a lot of raids around the <span class="populated place">camps</span> and, and the front was coming closer I suppose, so, so one day we were evacuated from there. </sentence><sentence id="156">And we were sent, we were sent back to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="157">Of course we didn't know we're going there and this is, uh, uh, maybe a three-hour trip <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> betwe...between <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> and <span class="populated place">Cracow</span>, the distance should be three hours. </sentence><sentence id="158">It took us three days to get back in the hottest summer, August Sth I remember. </sentence><sentence id="159">Hundred and thirty us of us in one <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="160">It was so hot that I remember one night I, I must have dozed off and I, the <span class="spatial object">train</span> stopped so I woke up and it was raining and water was coming down on my head. </sentence><sentence id="161">I thought to myself I must be losing my mind because I know that we started out with a <span class="spatial object">covered wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="162">How can it be raining? </sentence><sentence id="163">Until I found out that the humidity in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> was so high that it was coming down in drops from the <span class="interior space">ceiling</span>. </sentence><sentence id="164">We had absolutely no <span class="env feature">water</span>, no food, no <span class="env feature">air</span>. </sentence><sentence id="165">After three days when we finally arrived in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> and they opened the <span class="dlf">wagon doors</span>, we give thank God, thanks to God that we are in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> and we're perhaps going to the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>, and this will be the end of our journey. ( </sentence><sentence id="166">Pause) Uh, but we didn't go to the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="167">We went back to another lag...uh, <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="168">I think it was the <span class="populated place">C Lager</span> they called it. </sentence><sentence id="169">And, uh, our, we were full of lice I told you, so our hair https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection was shaved. </sentence><sentence id="170">Before they didn't have time because usually when a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> arrives, the women are all shaved. </sentence><sentence id="171">Their hair is shaved off but when I first came there, it did...it didn't, they were such, in such a rush that they didn't, they didn't do it to us but when we fir...came back to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, they shaved our heads which was good because we were full of lice, like Itold you. </sentence><sentence id="172">And, uh, they tattooed me. </sentence><sentence id="173">This was just another...we really didn't care at that point. </sentence><sentence id="174">We didn't think that that we, we, we really ex...ceased to be human beings. </sentence><sentence id="175">We were just a number already but who care...mean it was beyond us already. </sentence><sentence id="176">And, uh, in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> I didn't work. </sentence><sentence id="177">It was just a transport <span class="spatial object">Lager</span> alread...an an an experimenting <span class="spatial object">Lager</span>. </sentence><sentence id="178">We...we didn't have to work. </sentence><sentence id="179">But, of course, the food was very, uh, skimpy and, uh, and also we had to stay in li...in, uh, <span class="populated place">Zahlappell</span> for hours long in the cold nights, so much so that I remember we used to, a group of us used to huddle together and keep each other warm. </sentence><sentence id="180">And, uh, I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="181">The rest of our times just, uh, went by, uh, without doing anything. </sentence><sentence id="182">Just...just waiting, and...and... and...and uh (pause) they kept saying, uh, there were constantly selections. </sentence><sentence id="183">Selections from us, but we didn't, uh, know where the selections were going. </sentence><sentence id="184">So everybody was trying to avoid it. </sentence><sentence id="185">But nevertheless these, uh, inmates who were there a longer time kept telling us, "Just try to get out from here. </sentence><sentence id="186">Because it's, uh...here it's, uh, the <span class="building">crematorium</span> is always working. </sentence><sentence id="187">Uh, if...if you go away, maybe you'll be lucky and, uh, survive." </sentence><sentence id="188">So one day, when there was a selection in our <span class="dlf">block</span>, uh, I was together with a cousin of mine. </sentence><sentence id="189">We decided that, uh, "Let's...let's go for the selection." </sentence><sentence id="190">They needed five hundred girls for this selection; and, uh, I was the four hundred and ninety-ninth and she was the fifth...fifth...five hundred[th] to be selected. </sentence><sentence id="191">And there was two more girls with us--also cousins--who were cut off, and they remained in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="192">They never came back alive. </sentence><sentence id="193">We were...we were, uh, really lucky ones. </sentence><sentence id="194">We were sent to, uh, a <span class="building">factory</span> to work in <span class="populated place">Augsburg</span>, <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="195">Uh, I believe the <span class="building">factory</span> belonged to <span class="populated place">Messerschmitt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="196">That's what I was told. </sentence><sentence id="197">It was, uh, situated on <span class="dlf">Ulmerstrasse</span> in <span class="populated place">Augsburg</span>; and it was not a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> in the regular sense, becau...we were locked up. </sentence><sentence id="198">I mean, we were not allowed to leave the <span class="building">buildings</span>; but, uh, we were living in the <span class="building">factory building</span>. </sentence><sentence id="199">It was a huge L-shaped <span class="building">building</span> and we were living in one on one side of it with the Ger...with our German guards and, uh, we were working in the other side of the <span class="building">building</span>, so we never left the <span class="building">building</span>. </sentence><sentence id="200">We went through the <span class="interior space">basement</span>, up to the other <span class="region">side</span> to work and, uh, our food was a little better than if we were not working. </sentence><sentence id="201">And our guards were not hitting us like they were in <span class="populated place">Cracow</span> with the, with the leather--uh, I don't know what you call them--and there were plenty of beatings there and and so we were, uh, handled more humanely. </sentence><sentence id="202">Nevertheless, uh, we were hungry constantly but, uh, there was five hundred of us. </sentence><sentence id="203">Five hundred Hungarian girls and, uh, we were working hard for the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="204">The German civilians worked in the same place but not together with us. </sentence><sentence id="205">Separate, separate departments. </sentence><sentence id="206">Uh, had a lot of air raids in those days in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="207">The Americans came constantly. </sentence><sentence id="208">Every night we could set https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection our clock by it that what time the air raid is going to be and we were happy about it. </sentence><sentence id="209">We were glad. </sentence><sentence id="210">We were wishing they would bomb the place down and, uh, with us together (laughter) whatever but, uh, the Germans didn't--we had to go to the <span class="building">air shelters</span> every night because the Germans wouldn't leave us up there. </sentence><sentence id="211">They were afraid we, we might signal the <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="212">One day there was a bomb fell on our <span class="interior space">courtyard</span> and it never exploded. </sentence><sentence id="213">The German workers said that it's because the Jews are here. </sentence><sentence id="214">They, they already felt that they lost the war. </sentence><sentence id="215">Actually the Germans felt it. </sentence><sentence id="216">They knew it. </sentence><sentence id="217">But of course everybody was afraid. </sentence><sentence id="218">They were afraid. </sentence><sentence id="219">We were afraid. </sentence><sentence id="220">They wouldn't talk to us, uh, but, uh, they they they knew that, uh, it's getting out of hand. </sentence><sentence id="221">Don't forget this was toward the end of the war and, uh, we tried we tried to do our work so we should sabotage a few of their <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span> but I don't know if it succeeded or not (laughter) but uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="361">Q: How did you do that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="363">A: Well we were we were I was working in the they called it where our job was to, to these <span class="region">parts</span> we were dipping into these chemicals so they shouldn't oxidize because when they put them in the <span class="spatial object">planes</span> they're, you know, rusty, they're not treated, uh, good enough so we tried to manipulate a little that it shouldn't be so good but I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="364">It was just a hope that maybe we did some good. </sentence><sentence id="365">And, uh, I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="366">Our, uh, German the, the Hauptscharfihrer (ph) who was, uh, the after a while he became very mean and we, we heard rumors that his son was killed at the <span class="region">Russian front</span> and he took his frustrations out on the Jews of course and, uh, but we were, we were--uh, in the midst of all our troubles we were trying to cheer each other up. </sentence><sentence id="367">If one was feeling very low, we, we tried to tell them, we, we dreamed about things what we were going to do when we got liberated. </sentence><sentence id="368">We were all...we never thought for a minute, I never thought for a minute that I'm really going to die. </sentence><sentence id="369">I, it just did not sink in. </sentence><sentence id="370">I mean with all these horrors around me I, I always thought that we were dreaming of, of things--when I got <span class="building">home</span> I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and I just want to see this, this war end and just live for the day when we see the Germans defeated. </sentence><sentence id="371">And that kept us alive. </sentence><sentence id="372">Never to lose hope. </sentence><sentence id="373">If you lost hope that was the end of it. </sentence><sentence id="374">It was so easy in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="375">All you had to do is reach out for the <span class="dlf">barbed wires</span>. </sentence><sentence id="376">They were electrified. </sentence><sentence id="377">We will not do them the favor. </sentence><sentence id="378">We said if they want to kill us, they'll have to kill us. </sentence><sentence id="379">We are not going to die (laughter) becau...because it's, it's, uh, if we knew that our parents would be alive or, or we said we, we, we fight. </sentence><sentence id="380">We can do it. </sentence><sentence id="381">We, we, we are going to stay alive. </sentence><sentence id="382">But of course it, it became more and more heated the the war. </sentence><sentence id="383">It it, uh, to us, uh, middle of, beginning of April we had to leave <span class="populated place">Augsburg</span> because the bombings were unbearable and, uh, I suppose the <span class="building">factory</span> shut down for whatever reasons. </sentence><sentence id="384">They, they put us back into the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and, and, uh, we were headed for wherever <span class="populated place">camp</span> would take us and we were taken actually to several <span class="populated place">camps</span> where they had no <span class="interior space">room</span> for us. </sentence><sentence id="385">And finally we wound up, uh, a https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection place called <span class="populated place">Miihldorf</span>. </sentence><sentence id="386">At this time we belonged to, we were under <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> jurisdiction I suppose. </sentence><sentence id="387">Uh, this, this belonged to the <span class="populated place">camps</span> <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> already and, uh, we stayed in, in <span class="populated place">Miihlidorf</span>. </sentence><sentence id="388">When we arrived there we saw people there who were in much worse shape than we were. </sentence><sentence id="389">I mean they really looked, uh, walking corpses. </sentence><sentence id="390">And, uh, we had to go out to work, uh, mostly these bombed out places. </sentence><sentence id="391">They took us to the <span class="populated place">town</span> of <span class="populated place">Miihldorf</span> I suppose and, uh, cleaning, uh, bricks of the <span class="building">house</span> that were bombed out and uh ...the middle of the <span class="region">area</span> was such a bombing... that my ...cousin was laying next. </sentence><sentence id="392">We were laying on, uh, on the <span class="env feature">ground</span>, uh, during the attack, next to a <span class="env feature">tree</span> and and we couldn't see each other from from the smoke. </sentence><sentence id="393">But, uh, nevertheless, we didn't care about the bombs. </sentence><sentence id="394">I mean we were happy that there were bombings. </sentence><sentence id="395">One, uh, I just you, just didn't think about, uh, living or dying or whatever may come or, or you were a fanatic just to see the Germans defeated. </sentence><sentence id="396">That's all we lived for. </sentence><sentence id="397">And we knew it full well it, it will be done but the question was will we see it. </sentence><sentence id="398">With all our dreams and our deep-down each and every one of us knew that they're going to kill us in the last minute. </sentence><sentence id="399">They're not going to let us live to, to come and testify. </sentence><sentence id="400">It was just by accident. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="440">Q: What happened to you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="442">A: What happened to me? </sentence><sentence id="443">This <span class="populated place">Miihldorf</span>, <span class="populated place">Mihldorf</span> was evacuated. </sentence><sentence id="444">About six thousand people altogether I suppose. </sentence><sentence id="445">I'm really not good at, uh, these things because I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="446">I was just shoved here and I was shoved there. </sentence><sentence id="447">Nobody told me anything and, uh, and, uh, we were in, as I said put into <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> again and, uh, supposedly, I heard rumors we were heading to <span class="populated place">Innsbruck</span> which was, uh, exterminating pla...uh, <span class="populated place">Lager</span> again to to finish us all off. </sentence><sentence id="448">But, uh, the Ger...the the front was over more, all around us, the fightings and, uh, there were more important things for the <span class="spatial object">locomotives</span> than to transport us. </sentence><sentence id="449">So we were stranded for days here and days there. </sentence><sentence id="450">I mean the <span class="spatial object">train</span> didn't move. </sentence><sentence id="451">We were just left, uh, left there on the <span class="dlf">tracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="452">And, uh, one day, one day somebody noticed that all our guards left. </sentence><sentence id="453">And, uh, somebody, I don't know how, some man or broke out of their their <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and opened all the <span class="dlf">wagon doors</span> and they said, "Uh, we have no guards. </sentence><sentence id="454">The war is over. </sentence><sentence id="455">You're free." </sentence><sentence id="456">Let's go wherever. </sentence><sentence id="457">So where should we go. </sentence><sentence id="458">You know, we were a group of, uh, girls together who were all the time sticking it out and, uh, finally we saw everybody is running away from the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>. </sentence><sentence id="459">We started to walk. </sentence><sentence id="460">This was, uh, <span class="dlf">fields</span> there and, uh, finally we came to a <span class="building">farmhouse</span>. </sentence><sentence id="461">Uh, came to this <span class="building">farmhouse</span>. </sentence><sentence id="462">Uh, somebody who spoke German told the German man there that we are from a neighboring, uh, <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> and we were left on our own, and we were very hungry. </sentence><sentence id="463">Could he please give us something to eat? </sentence><sentence id="464">So he said to go up to, for us to go in the back and, uh, he's going to try to find us something to eat. </sentence><sentence id="465">A little later he came back and brought some, some food and no sooner we started to eat, this SS soldier came with his machine gun pointed at us and tells to the German guy that uh Juden so and uh Raus, Raus, everybody. </sentence><sentence id="466">Raus. </sentence><sentence id="467">They brought these these, uh, https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this <span class="spatial object">collection trucks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="468">They rounded up all six thousand people back to the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>, but it was beating and shooting and and, uh, it was just a terrible, uh, situation. </sentence><sentence id="469">On top of all there was a big thunderstorm and, and, uh, we were pulled back and and bleeding and, and, uh, wounded and pushed back into the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>. </sentence><sentence id="470">No sooner we were back in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>, the <span class="spatial object">American fighter planes</span> came and started to bomb all around us. </sentence><sentence id="471">So much so that there were a lot of, lot of casualties at that point and, uh, and, uh, in the middle of the night finally the wag...the <span class="spatial object">train</span> started to move again. </sentence><sentence id="472">We, we were going to, to, uh, we were on our way. </sentence><sentence id="473">People were crying and, and, uh, it was a hopeless situation. </sentence><sentence id="474">After a couple of days one night when we were standing on the <span class="dlf">tracks</span>, the, somebody opened the <span class="dlf">door</span> and asked if we had any wounded or dead in our <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>, because they are from the <span class="building">Swiss Red Cross</span> and we were liberated. </sentence><sentence id="475">We were near the <span class="dlf">Swiss borders</span>. </sentence><sentence id="476">We couldn't believe it. </sentence><sentence id="477">We were so, so we didn't care anymore and, uh, and, uh, the girls started to shout they're not moving out of this <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> anymore. </sentence><sentence id="478">Come what may, we're staying there. </sentence><sentence id="479">And, uh, so we stayed the night and in the morning we saw the American soldiers coming by with the <span class="spatial object">trucks</span> and, and, uh, and they started to bring us some food and, and, and, uh, then we knew that that the war was over and this was May Ist, 19467 and, uh, from then on and, uh, from then on, uh, they took us into a neighboring, uh, place called <span class="populated place">Feldafing</span> which was, uh, it originally a <span class="populated place">Hitlerjugend camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="480">It was a beautiful place. </sentence><sentence id="481">It was on the <span class="dlf">Starnbergsee</span>. </sentence><sentence id="482">It's a big <span class="env feature">lake</span>. </sentence><sentence id="483">And, uh, they they disinfected us. </sentence><sentence id="484">They took us, took away all our clothes whatever we had. </sentence><sentence id="485">They gave us, they didn't have any clothes for us, so they gave us pajamas, whatever they could find and, uh, fed us and, uh, from then on it was, uh, much easier. </sentence><sentence id="486">But of course, uh, we didn't know what happened to our families and, and, uh, anybody around us and it's just, uh, you couldn't think. </sentence><sentence id="487">You couldn't, uh, do anything and it, it took many, many months before we became human again. </sentence><sentence id="488">It's, uh, (pause) I, I of course I skipped a lot of things over, over a lot of things which, uh, which was, which was worse than the <span class="populated place">camp</span> itself, all the dehumanizing, all the suffering, the not- knowing what happened to, to our loved ones, whether we're going to see them again or not, and our properties, without we're left without everything and anybody and and it was just a horrible horrible experience. </sentence><sentence id="489">But uh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="541">Q: Did you go, did you go back <span class="building">home</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="543">A: Yes, I went back <span class="building">home</span> after after a good while because the <span class="spatial object">transportation</span> was very bad. </sentence><sentence id="544">I mean there was none. </sentence><sentence id="545">There was none, and we just had no way of, uh, turning. </sentence><sentence id="546">There was no papers, no money, no, no <span class="spatial object">transportation</span>. </sentence><sentence id="547">So I remained in this <span class="populated place">camp</span> for, uh, three, four months I believe after the liberation. </sentence><sentence id="548">No, well in September, September when we heard there were some <span class="spatial object">trains</span> going already back to <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="549">I went back to <span class="country">Hungary</span> and I found * 1945. </sentence><sentence id="550"> https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection the brother who was already <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="551">He was, survived the <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="552">My other brother who was with him was killed in the last days of the war. </sentence><sentence id="553">And, uh, he was on one of these marches uh--they were, they were together all the time and and, uh, and this younger brother of mine became sick so he was taken to another <span class="populated place">camp</span> and my older brother thinking that he was going to go that <span class="populated place">camp</span> to be with my younger brother again, he went on this march and he never came out from there, in the last days, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="567">Q: Did you meet up with your fiance again? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="569">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="571">Q: Tell us about it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="573">A: Well, he was, uh, waiting with open arms (laughter) and he was waiting with open arms, but, uh, we were not ready to get married. </sentence><sentence id="574">I was, uh, there was no, uh, nothing and nobody and we really had to get ba...back to normal life to get adjusted. </sentence><sentence id="575">We, we didn't know what, uh, was happening to us. </sentence><sentence id="576">And, uh, but after a few months back in <span class="country">Hungary</span> we, we felt that this is not the, we could not live here any longer. </sentence><sentence id="577">All the feelings what was in us made it impossible to, to readjust to life in <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="578">With all the hatred and all the non-caring what we received from our Hungarian friends and neighbors, we just did not see life possible there anymore. </sentence><sentence id="579">So we decided to try to get back to <span class="country">Germany</span> and there, from there as displaced people we were going to be able emigrate either to <span class="country">Israel</span>, uh, <span class="country">Palestine</span> or <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="580">He had relatives in <span class="country">America</span> who wanted him to come here and, uh, so we went back. </sentence><sentence id="581">We became engaged in <span class="country">Hungary</span> and, uh, started out on our journey and, uh, finally we got married in <span class="country">Germany</span> in <span class="populated place">Leipheim</span> . </sentence><sentence id="582">This was <span class="populated place">DP camp</span>, and on the way we got of course a lot of help from Jewish organizations, mainly from Joint, United Jewish Appeal and, and, uh, UNRRA kept these <span class="populated place">camps</span> open. </sentence><sentence id="583">Of course the life was very harsh in these <span class="populated place">DP camps</span>, but, uh, I suppose, uh, we had our freedom. </sentence><sentence id="584">Our freedom to go nowheres because actually nobody wanted us until finally the Congress passed an act in 1948 or 9 and we were allowed to come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="585">And we're ever grateful because we found that, uh, we had a good life, uh, with all our memories and all the, even even more so because we appreciate it more, whatever we got and, uh, whatever we achieved, uh, we are, we are allowed to achieve, we're very thankful for it and we see the contrast, how people are. </sentence><sentence id="586">It was really unbelievable to us that, that it could happen that, uh, that, uh, of course the German people paid for, for their mistakes and everybody does for the mass hysteria what swept through Europe. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: But you, you have been happy now? </sentence><sentence id="602"> https://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="605">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="606">We are, uh, I mean happy. </sentence><sentence id="607">Of course, we miss our families terribly and we, we never forget about them. </sentence><sentence id="608">We always talk about them. </sentence><sentence id="609">It's became part of our lives. </sentence><sentence id="610">No matter how much we don't want to, whenever I get together with my friends or relatives, the subject comes up. </sentence><sentence id="611">We always wind up in the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="612">But, uh, we somehow we learned to live with it. </sentence><sentence id="613">I suppose it's, uh, some...uh, sometimes you don't believe it yourself that, uh, you really went through all this and you are, you, you still are a human being. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="623">Q: Is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="625">A: Uh, what I want to add is that, uh, people should be vigilant all the time not to, not to think that, uh, this really doesn't matter. </sentence><sentence id="626">All these all these, uh, hate mongrels what come up in the world and and people, if they're not personally marked they think that it's nothing. </sentence><sentence id="627">It will pass by. </sentence><sentence id="628">It will blow away. </sentence><sentence id="629">But, but if you let it go out of hand, then this, this can happen. </sentence><sentence id="630">Also I want to add that never lose hope. </sentence><sentence id="631">Until there is life there is always hope. </sentence><sentence id="632">If I, if | wouldn't give two cents for my life. </sentence><sentence id="633">I, like I said, I always felt that no matter how much, uh, front we're going to put up, they, they at the end they're going to kill us. </sentence><sentence id="634">And and but we did not give up hope. </sentence><sentence id="635">We didn't go around--I'm going to lay down and die. </sentence><sentence id="636">At the end, uh, some of us survived. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="649">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="651">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="652"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: bela none blau
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0029
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0029_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504458
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: none
9
+ birth_year: 1910.0
10
+ place_of_birth: bratislava
11
+ country: czechoslovakia
12
+ experience_group: soldier
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.407.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">BELA BLAU June 11, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Mr. Blau, could you tell us your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Bela Blau. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And, Mr. Blau, where were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <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>
37
+ <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>
38
+ <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>
39
+ <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>
40
+ <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>
41
+ <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>
42
+ <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>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="259">Q: What kind of <span class="building">work place</span> were you assigned to? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <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>
45
+ <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>
46
+ <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>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1035">Q: You were then in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> until what time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1037">A: In <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, we been about one month. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <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>
50
+ <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>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1082">Q: Excuse me, but at that time who...which army liberated you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1084">A: American. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1086">Q: The <span class="building">American Army</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1088"> 4 Subcamp of <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1089">&gt; 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>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1093">Q: How did you first see them come in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <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>
57
+ <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>
58
+ </body>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
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+ interviewee: regina hamburger bomba
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0034
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0034_trs_en.pdf
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+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504459
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1920-06-05
9
+ birth_year: 1920.0
10
+ place_of_birth: lodz
11
+ country: poland
12
+ 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: gg
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+ accession: none
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">REGINA HAMBURGER BOMBA September 18, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="4">We're on. </sentence><sentence id="5">The tape has started. </sentence><sentence id="6">Will you tell me your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="12">My name is Regina Bomba, from <span class="building">home</span>, <span class="populated place">Hamburger</span>". </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="15">Q: Where uh when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="17">A: I was born in <span class="country">Poland</span>, <span class="populated place">Lodz</span>, on the 5th of June, 1920. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="19">Q: Will you tell me, Regina, what happened to you, please, when the Nazis came in to <span class="populated place">Lodz</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="21">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="22">When the Nazis came into <span class="populated place">Lodz</span>, we were still on this place, a <span class="building">summer home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="23">It was name <span class="building">Wisniowa Gora</span>, and we decided that we going to go back <span class="building">home</span> to the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="24">When we got into the <span class="populated place">city</span>, our <span class="building">home</span> was taken away by the Nazis, so we stayed in a <span class="building">house</span> of a brother of ours, of my oldest brother, Rubin (ph), who at that time was in the Polish army fighting in <span class="populated place">Warsaw</span> and his wife and a six-month old baby was with us. </sentence><sentence id="25">And after that we stayed with my brother in my brother's <span class="building">house</span>, and I'm not going to say how it happened that my brother came <span class="building">home</span> from the army and he took his wife and a six-month old baby and he said he wants to go to <span class="country">Soviet Russia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="26">That's the only place he said where the Jews could survive, and he went. </sentence><sentence id="27">My father, my mother, my sister and one brother, sister younger one, a brother older one than me that were staying in this <span class="building">house</span> until March 1940, 10th of March 1940 when the Gestapo came into the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="28">We thought that we're going to go to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="29">They already made it for the Jews, the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="30">They took everyday from certain <span class="dlf">streets</span> to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="31">The fact that my mother had a sis...a brother in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and he said uh bring every...all the stuff here because when you're going to go, all you can do take is a valise. </sentence><sentence id="32">This way bring over stuff to me and when you come to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> you'll have everything. </sentence><sentence id="33">So that's what we did. </sentence><sentence id="34">When the the Nazis came in to take us down...it was during the night...one o'clock at night...my mother forget that she went down in the <span class="building">house</span> shoes. </sentence><sentence id="35">And we went down...we thought we're going to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="36">And we said alright. </sentence><sentence id="37">We're going to have everything over there in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="38">For us the soldier said wouldn't you let me go back. </sentence><sentence id="39">My mother is cold and she would like to have some shoes. </sentence><sentence id="40">He said oh, it's going to be soon summer. </sentence><sentence id="41">You can go barefoot. </sentence><sentence id="42">She can go barefooted. </sentence><sentence id="43">So instead to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, they took us to a place and they told us that we're going to be going out from the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="44">They took away our money, our possessions. </sentence><sentence id="45">They took off a ring from my mother...she had a fat finger...and they couldn't take it off...with the flesh and they sent us to a small <span class="populated place">town</span> near <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> named <span class="populated place">Nowo Radomsko</span> and they put us in a burned <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="46">That <span class="populated place">town</span> that <span class="populated place">town</span> <span class="populated place">Radomsko</span> was " maiden name bombarded very, very badly and they had already a <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> over there. </sentence><sentence id="47">But I must say the Jews from the <span class="populated place">town</span>, especial there was a man named Burger (ph)...he was the oldest from the <span class="populated place">town</span> and he brought some food special for the children. </sentence><sentence id="48">I still have my little sister...was a still a small little girl and uh I always....1 younger...I always looked older, and my mother said, well, we have to do something to make something to eat. </sentence><sentence id="49">What we going to do? </sentence><sentence id="50">My mother was washing <span class="interior space">floors</span> for people, because my father got ill right away when...he was a very delicate man, long, very tall, and uh from the nature he was not...my mother was the stronger one, for everything for father, and he...from the beginning he said right away I don't want to live. </sentence><sentence id="51">I cannot live like this, and I don't want to live. </sentence><sentence id="52">From mine...seven children I brought up, from my <span class="building">home</span>, for everything what I worked, I'm here in a burnt <span class="building">synagogue</span> and strolling and a (indecipherable), and on the top of it, his foot got very swollen and very ill. </sentence><sentence id="53">So we decided that...there was no <span class="building">hospital</span>, no <span class="building">Jewish hospital</span> and in the <span class="building">Polish hospital</span>, Jews were not allowed. </sentence><sentence id="54">In <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> was a <span class="building">Jewish hospital</span>, so we hired a Polish (indecipherable)...a Polish...that was a horse and <span class="spatial object">carriage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="55">Called in a Polish (indecipherable), a horse and <span class="spatial object">carriage</span> and we... took my father and we went to <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> and there we arrived in the <span class="building">Jewish hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="56">That's the time that I came...the first time in my life to <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="57">My mother was behind in that <span class="building">synagogue</span> with my sister and my brother and I decided...my father was out out of the <span class="building">hospital</span>...how...where is he going to go back to that burnt <span class="building">synagogue</span>, so I was looking around a way to to remain in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="58">I had 50 Polish zloty...what the Germans give...1 took away...we...our Polish...our <span class="populated place">town</span> in <span class="populated place">Lodz</span> belonged to the <span class="country">3rd Reich</span>, <span class="populated place">Litzmannstadt</span> they called it. </sentence><sentence id="59">So L..and that <span class="country">Poland</span> and <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> was <span class="region">Protectorate</span> for us for that's where they give us the Polish money, so with that money I rented an apar...uh a <span class="interior space">room</span> by a family, and I brought over my sister and my brother and my mother so we stayed together. </sentence><sentence id="60">In 1942 I said I'm going to make a brief...before Yom Kippur, and that's the first time of our life that comes this kind of a holiday. </sentence><sentence id="61">The saddest time of my life. </sentence><sentence id="62">I guess all the lives from <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> Jews, and maybe for other <span class="populated place">towns</span>, that was a day that their Gestapo came and they took out the people for the liquidations. </sentence><sentence id="63">They call it the akti...the aktions. </sentence><sentence id="64">I don't know how it is...akt...aktion... aktion in Polish. </sentence><sentence id="65">And before that all it was the holidays and they took out from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and made another <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, so we did not have an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="66">We were the refugees so we didn't know so many Czestochowans, people...so many...you know, that protects you, how you say, that we should get an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="67">So the (indecipherable) rabbi from <span class="populated place">Radomsko</span> invited my father with his family for the holidays, and I was left behind to wait for an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, so they went and I was left behind. </sentence><sentence id="68">I stayed there for a little while and I said no...1 am going also going there, so I went back to <span class="populated place">Radomsko</span>, just for a few days. </sentence><sentence id="69">Stayed with them and then I decided since I don't look so Jewish, I am going to go back on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and I went into the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, bought a ticket, and I went back to <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> to wait for the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="70">In meantime in <span class="populated place">Radomsko</span> was <span class="building">judenrein</span>...you know what that means, <span class="building">jJudenrein</span>. </sentence><sentence id="71">Clean of the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="72">Only a few I think were left behind because two of them came back, two sisters. </sentence><sentence id="73">They came back to <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> later on, in a <span class="interior space">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="74">They were hid in a <span class="interior space">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="75">And I stayed there...1 met a fellow in that <span class="building">hospital</span> while my father was laying there in the <span class="building">hospital</span>, and he took me into his <span class="building">house</span>...he had a father and a mother and a sister, but the mother said it's not nice that a girl should stay in the same <span class="building">house</span>, one <span class="interior space">room</span>, with a fellow, so they decided that I should get married to him. </sentence><sentence id="76">He was much older than I was. </sentence><sentence id="77">He was fifteen years older. </sentence><sentence id="78">I got married by myself, and I even...somebody borrowed me a little veil and a dress and I got married, and if you don't want to have children, then you have them sometimes, and I become pregnant. </sentence><sentence id="79">I called up my mother and I told her about it. </sentence><sentence id="80">It was May 15, 1942. </sentence><sentence id="81">And I told her, and she said I'm sorry. </sentence><sentence id="82">I would like to come, but I can't because we....they were not allowed, the Jewish people, to travel and that was the last time I spoke to my mother. </sentence><sentence id="83">I spoke to her by <span class="spatial object">telephone</span> through the <span class="building">Jewish komitet</span> in <span class="populated place">Nowo Radomsko</span> and in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">Now after that, my husband was working in a <span class="building">hospital</span>, in that <span class="building">hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>, so he took me into that <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="85">His parents were sent away with the whole family, sisters, two sisters and a niece and his parents, and we stayed behind. </sentence><sentence id="86">After that we were...I was washing the bloody wash from the people. </sentence><sentence id="87">I didn't know what else to do but I wanted to help. </sentence><sentence id="88">They left us for the next ones to go. </sentence><sentence id="89">After that they send us to a <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="90">The <span class="building">factory</span> was named <span class="building">Factory Iskovitch</span> (ph), and across the <span class="dlf">street</span> was another <span class="building">factory</span>...I don't know the name...where my husband was near the <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="91">All of a sudden when I was in the <span class="building">factory</span>...I hadn't mentioned his name. </sentence><sentence id="92">His name was Shlomo Muskovitch (ph). </sentence><sentence id="93">And somebody say hey, Muskovitch (ph) is outside, and I looked it out and I saw him taking his <span class="spatial object">rucksack</span> and his head down...he didn't see me. </sentence><sentence id="94">I saw him through the <span class="dlf">window</span>, and that's the last time I saw him. </sentence><sentence id="95">They were shipped to <span class="populated place">Treblinka</span> because they needed another hundred men for the <span class="spatial object">transport</span>, so this they sent him away. </sentence><sentence id="96">And here I came into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>...they sent us to a small <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and pregnant, alone, not from a strange <span class="populated place">town</span>, without any family, without nobody. </sentence><sentence id="97">So everybody was making groups to take a <span class="interior space">room</span> in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">It was <span class="interior space">rooms</span> in the ho...in <span class="building">houses</span>. </sentence><sentence id="99">That's what they give us...a few <span class="dlf">streets</span>, and uh I was sitting outside on my <span class="spatial object">rucksack</span> and my things...I took a few things because I was thinking we weren't going to have some place the baby. </sentence><sentence id="100">In fact the doctor wanted to make an abortion right away. </sentence><sentence id="101">And I said what, my father would...he was a religious man. </sentence><sentence id="102">That would be the worst thing that anybody could have done. </sentence><sentence id="103">It's a sin. </sentence><sentence id="104">So I didn't want to do it. </sentence><sentence id="105">But by the time we came to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, by the time think it was late...so we were in...eight people in one <span class="interior space">room</span> and there was a wo...a lady...at that time to me she was an older lady. </sentence><sentence id="106">Maybe she was forty-five years old and she had a daughter my age and she said, believe me, Regina, you'll see...make an abortion. </sentence><sentence id="107">Otherwise you're not going to live because she said you're young. </sentence><sentence id="108">You'll get married again. </sentence><sentence id="109">You'll have children. </sentence><sentence id="110">And I went to one doctor to make an abortion. </sentence><sentence id="111">He he wouldn't do it. </sentence><sentence id="112">He thought it's too late. </sentence><sentence id="113">Then we went to another <span class="building">doctor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="114">I even remember her name...her name was Dr. Grunwald (ph), a woman doctor. </sentence><sentence id="115">In middle of abortion, she said I think you're going to die...the head is so big. </sentence><sentence id="116">You are very far...you must be having the fifth month already. </sentence><sentence id="117">I said yes I am. </sentence><sentence id="118">She said why I didn't ask you any questions. </sentence><sentence id="119">She said I've assumed that you're in the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="120">I didn't...I didn't show so much. </sentence><sentence id="121">I'm I'm tall, so I didn't show so much. </sentence><sentence id="122">I said no, I I...you didn't ask me what it is. </sentence><sentence id="123">And she said well...and the abortion was made on a small, tiny <span class="spatial object">table</span>, holding my own legs because there was no <span class="building">hospital</span> or anything, and of course we they didn't want to wait any longer because it was pretty late and I listened to that older lady, what she said. </sentence><sentence id="124">She said if you don't go and make an abortion now, a little bit soon it's going to show and then they're going to send you away for the <span class="interior space">gas chambers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="125">We want you to live, and that's what happened. </sentence><sentence id="126">I had an abortion and I was...after that had to go to <span class="building">work</span>, bleeding, and go to <span class="building">work</span> and I was working and uh after one year they made another <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="127">They made three <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="128">The young, the girls that we had no husbands like me, the men, and married couples where they also had a <span class="dlf">street</span>, so there were three <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="129">Everything in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="130">We were going out to work. </sentence><sentence id="131">What happened...a lot of things what with my husband even said I was listening there about uh that uh Vislovich (ph) that they killed him laying right before my feet. </sentence><sentence id="132">But like I said, we're going to make it short. </sentence><sentence id="133">They sent us to this...1 was working in a place named <span class="populated place">HASAG</span>". </sentence><sentence id="134">I worked...got up in the morning, five o'clock <span class="spatial object">appel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="135">Seven o'clock we went to work and seven o'clock we returned, and we worked there until June 1943. </sentence><sentence id="136">That day we didn't go back to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> anymore. </sentence><sentence id="137">We prepared to go back to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> like every day and all of a sudden and to this day I don't know how that happened...all of a sudden we looked around by the <span class="dlf">gate</span> of going out from that <span class="building">HASAG</span>, from the <span class="building">factory</span>...it took us an hour to walk to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="138">All of a sudden thousands of Ukrainians with their machine guns to us and from where they come from until this day I don't know how that happened so quick and they said, halt. </sentence><sentence id="139">And a <span class="spatial object">table</span> was put up and at that <span class="spatial object">table</span> went up a man...he was some kind of director from that <span class="building">factory</span> and he said...this this was exactly his words, because I was there: "In eure gewesenem <span class="dlf">Lager</span> geht ihr nie mehr guriick." </sentence><sentence id="140">That means in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> you don't go never back again. </sentence><sentence id="141">You're going to stay here until we're going to let us live. </sentence><sentence id="142">That was exactly his words. </sentence><sentence id="143">Women were fainting because they had children, mothers...the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> still had, you know, a lot of people and I had...knew Abraham...I had him and I (inaudible). </sentence><sentence id="144">What I'm going do? </sentence><sentence id="145">So my uh two cousins of mine, two sisters...there were three but one of the sisters was working by sor...sorting buttons from the people from the <span class="building">stores</span> who left behind, so they had a thing, the job was to put buttons to buttons. </sentence><sentence id="146">They found a sock with buttons for a Pole...for a Polish man, and he said that the people from the <span class="dlf">Garibaldiego street</span> where they working with the buttons, they give him the buttons. </sentence><sentence id="147">So they took my cousin, a first cousin, my mother's sister's daughter...the two sisters have survived. </sentence><sentence id="148">They're here in too in <span class="country">America</span> and living in <span class="populated place">New York</span>, and took her...her name was the beautiful Paula. </sentence><sentence id="149">She was such a beautiful girl...I I cannot ex...there's pictures 2 <span class="building">Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft-Metalwarenfabrik</span>, <span class="populated place">Leipzig</span> from her too. </sentence><sentence id="150">The sisters have pictures from her, and they took her and other eight people, nine, and a child nine year old because there was a couple with a child...and other seven...nine people. </sentence><sentence id="151">They took them to the <span class="dlf">cemetery</span> and they put a <span class="dlf">ditch</span> and they killed them and she had a ring and she had a little uh how you call it...a chain, a golden chain, and there was a German standing and he said she was so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off of her, and she said listen. </sentence><sentence id="152">You're looking at me. </sentence><sentence id="153">Do me a favor. </sentence><sentence id="154">I have two sisters in that <span class="building">factory</span> <span class="building">HASAG</span>. </sentence><sentence id="155">Could you give this to my sisters? </sentence><sentence id="156">I'll give you their name, and he came back and he gave it to them. </sentence><sentence id="157">They still have this. </sentence><sentence id="158">My husband saw this girl...you ask my husband what a beautiful girl she was and uh we we come in and he came on the <span class="spatial object">table</span> and he told us that we don't go no more to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="159">My cousins said to me, the two sisters said you talk pretty good German. </sentence><sentence id="160">Why don't you ask him what's going to happen to the people in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence><sentence id="161">From <span class="env feature">nature</span> I am not a shy person like my husband. </sentence><sentence id="162">I walked over to him and I got my courage and I said I would like to ask you, do me a favor. </sentence><sentence id="163">Please Mr., what's going to happen to the people in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence><sentence id="164">He said they're going to come tomorrow to that to that place here. </sentence><sentence id="165">For a minute we were very happy that that he said that but we didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="166">The next day...Abraham came and another couple of people came...I don't know how many exactly but quite a few young people came in. </sentence><sentence id="167">Was no children, not older people, plenty of young people didn't come in. </sentence><sentence id="168">When I left that day in the morning...I saw Abraham at night and I told him, Abraham, you know I had a pair of earrings of my grandmother's put it on on me when I was only three days old. </sentence><sentence id="169">I said I'm going to give you these earrings. </sentence><sentence id="170">It's very dear to me, and I had a watch and I had a wedding band and I had pictures. </sentence><sentence id="171">That was the most important for my family, a lot of pictures and he...I said I'll leave this with you after and you take care. </sentence><sentence id="172">He said oh, of course I'm going to take care of that, but when they took them out from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> to the to the uh <span class="building">market place</span>, they told them to put all their valuables...they didn't know they're not going to go back, so everything was left in there. </sentence><sentence id="173">But I was so happy and pleased and that he came to the place, and we told him look, they made a place for all the women, one on top of the other, and a place for the men. </sentence><sentence id="174">And then they stopped making <span class="building">barracks</span> and they made for about...we were about six hundred in each <span class="building">barrack</span> and what I wanted to tell you that the police..my husband mentioned it already...that the police were taken with hammers over the heads, knocking them down and then taking them to the <span class="dlf">cemetery</span> for burial, and the wife of one policeman...her name is Mrs.Kohn (ph). </sentence><sentence id="175">She lives now I believe now in <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="176">She was left alone with a young baby sixteen months old. </sentence><sentence id="177">Her name, his name was David. </sentence><sentence id="178">We called him Doodoo (ph), and she came in to that <span class="building">HASAG</span>, in that <span class="building">factory</span> with him. </sentence><sentence id="179">She put him in a <span class="spatial object">sack</span>, give him a sleeping pill, put him in a <span class="spatial object">sack</span>, and how shocked she was, and she brought him over. </sentence><sentence id="180">But later on when she sit down on the <span class="spatial object">chair</span>, in that <span class="building">HASAG</span>, she could not talk and she was like you know not herself. </sentence><sentence id="181">She didn't know she had a child, like you call it crazy. </sentence><sentence id="182"><span class="populated place">Mishkoiradich</span>* (ph). </sentence><sentence id="183">Regardless of how you say it in English, like like...not like crazy running around but quiet, very quiet. </sentence><sentence id="184">We had a doctor and he said that nothing he can do for her, so we gave her a broom in her hand and that she is the one who cleans the <span class="building">barracks</span> and that...with that broom she was sitting all the time in those <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="185">What we going to do with the child?We made it a little <span class="interior space">bunker</span> on the bottom under mine where I was sleeping on the first one. </sentence><sentence id="186">Then there were three like the <span class="spatial object">bunk beds</span>, and this child they made it a little draw...<span class="interior space">drawer</span>...<span class="dlf">door</span> and inside they made for him a little <span class="spatial object">bed</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">He got very tiny and he didn't grow and he was there. </sentence><sentence id="188">Whatever we could, you know...everybody from us gave him a little tiny whatever we got from bread or a spoon of soup. </sentence><sentence id="189">We had enough. </sentence><sentence id="190">He was so smart and so quiet. </sentence><sentence id="191">He didn't show himself. </sentence><sentence id="192">He didn't...he knew when he saw Nazis or Germans, he knew. </sentence><sentence id="193">He run away. </sentence><sentence id="194">Opened like a little <span class="dlf">door</span> and ran in there, and one day he couldn't make it. </sentence><sentence id="195">That Nazi saw him and they called the...Mr. Kurlon (ph) I think was the man from the Jewish uh elders and he called him and he said what's this. </sentence><sentence id="196">He said listen. </sentence><sentence id="197">I lost my family but I cannot, I couldn't have the heart to give this child. </sentence><sentence id="198">I'll do with him whatever you like. </sentence><sentence id="199">He said you know what. </sentence><sentence id="200">Give him a portion bread and a soup. </sentence><sentence id="201">Let him stay. </sentence><sentence id="202">You know, it...like who knows tomorrow what's going to be with all of you, and would you believe it or not, he stayed with us until 1945 when we were liberated. </sentence><sentence id="203">The only child. </sentence><sentence id="204">He didn't grow. </sentence><sentence id="205">He's in <span class="country">Israel</span> today. </sentence><sentence id="206">Uh his father had a brother there in <span class="country">Israel</span> and she's met...she's married. </sentence><sentence id="207">She got well in <span class="country">Israel</span> and she got married. </sentence><sentence id="208">I don't know exactly how at this moment it is with them. </sentence><sentence id="209">You're not interested in everyone but this is the episode that I wanted to tell you that I thought it was interesting. </sentence><sentence id="210">We stayed in that <span class="building">HASAG</span>. </sentence><sentence id="211">I was working very, very hard. </sentence><sentence id="212">I was working so hard because they took away...every time a couple of hundred of people and they send them to the <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> or Tre...1 don't know wherever they sent them away from us. </sentence><sentence id="213">We didn't know exactly where they were sending people, so like I had one <span class="spatial object">machine</span>...we were making ammunitions. </sentence><sentence id="214">Then I had to have three <span class="spatial object">machines</span>, so if one <span class="spatial object">machine</span> made Schmelz*...Schmelz means when the Rohstoff did not come out too good, so he...it was punishment, so I I I couldn't be at once on all the three <span class="spatial object">machines</span>, that was for three people. </sentence><sentence id="215">Abe called me I'm a dancer, I'm dancing from one <span class="spatial object">machine</span> to the other, and at the top of it they made it very hard for us. </sentence><sentence id="216">Why? </sentence><sentence id="217">We used to take the <span class="spatial object">Rohstoff</span>, put it in a very high, big <span class="spatial object">machine</span> inside and that <span class="spatial object">machine</span> was going this way and it came out at once in a big <span class="spatial object">box</span>, the <span class="spatial object">Rohstoff</span>, and this was only uh we called it Matrizen(r). </sentence><sentence id="218">That means that the the bullet goes in &gt; in a stupor (Yiddish) * melted metal (German) * raw material (German) deg mold (German) in that. </sentence><sentence id="219">I don't know how you call it in English. </sentence><sentence id="220">We call it in German the <span class="building">Matrizen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="221">And the bullet goes in in that. </sentence><sentence id="222">The bullet was a different place where people were working. </sentence><sentence id="223">So one day I had <span class="building">Schmelz</span> down but the work was not done. </sentence><sentence id="224">He said why did you do that? </sentence><sentence id="225">I didn't do it, nothing. </sentence><sentence id="226">I said I have for this <span class="spatial object">machine</span> then that happened. </sentence><sentence id="227">You've got to call up <span class="populated place">Heinrich</span> (ph). </sentence><sentence id="228">That means the man who's fixing the <span class="spatial object">machine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="229">I said I did but I couldn't do it while I was on this <span class="spatial object">machine</span>, so I got "strafe...punishment. </sentence><sentence id="230">Punishment...it was my twelve hours work regular. </sentence><sentence id="231">The other twelve hours was the "strafe and then it was again my time to work and it was at night time. </sentence><sentence id="232">For thirty-six hours without nothing, eating, standing what we got to eat, so I was so tired so I sit down. </sentence><sentence id="233">I don't know a German walked over... where he got such a foot I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="234">I was not such a little girl. </sentence><sentence id="235">I'm tall. </sentence><sentence id="236">He picked me up with his foot and he he...I 1 got up, with his foot, while I'm sitting and eating. </sentence><sentence id="237">I'm not going to tell you how many times we got beaten up for things that was...a minimum we got beaten up. </sentence><sentence id="238">As long as we were not shot, and then on the top we had a very bad time. </sentence><sentence id="239">What happened? </sentence><sentence id="240">There was another <span class="populated place">camp</span> uh <span class="populated place">Skarzysko</span>. </sentence><sentence id="241">They had liquidated that <span class="populated place">camp</span> and they sent the people to our <span class="populated place">camp</span> in that <span class="populated place">HASAG</span> in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="242">With them came the <span class="building">Meisters</span>. </sentence><sentence id="243">Means the the German Herrschaft". </sentence><sentence id="244">They came and they were the...if ours were very bad, theirs were ten time worst. </sentence><sentence id="245">They didn't talk. </sentence><sentence id="246">They went with the <span class="spatial object">guns</span> like that. </sentence><sentence id="247">There was special one man...his name is so good for him...his name was Bartenschlager*, and he had...he didn't go...he didn't talk to nobody. </sentence><sentence id="248">If he did see something he didn't like it, he shot you. </sentence><sentence id="249">And I had the pleasure once to see him next to my <span class="spatial object">machine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="250">I figured that seven o'clock we're finishing and at five to seven I made my <span class="spatial object">accord</span> everything was finished. </sentence><sentence id="251">Five minutes before I'm going to clean up my <span class="spatial object">machines</span>. </sentence><sentence id="252">Everything had to be spotless. </sentence><sentence id="253">They're very clean, the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="254">That that you can't take away from them. </sentence><sentence id="255">I cleaned up my <span class="spatial object">machine</span> and he came over and he said, "Wieviel spat ist es?" </sentence><sentence id="256">What time is it now? </sentence><sentence id="257">And I said, Herr Meister. </sentence><sentence id="258">Seven. </sentence><sentence id="259">He said seven? </sentence><sentence id="260">He looked at the watch and it was just maybe a quarter second after seven. </sentence><sentence id="261">He hold that gun, "Pass" mal auf." </sentence><sentence id="262">Because he saw my <span class="spatial object">machine</span> was clean already, and I was so lucky that he didn't shot me. </sentence><sentence id="263">He must have liked my face. </sentence><sentence id="264">I don't know, because he didn't do...he didn't talk. </sentence><sentence id="265">He'd have shot right away. </sentence><sentence id="266">That was another luck I had. </sentence><sentence id="267">And then again, I had a cousin and she was working in a place named <span class="populated place">Augenschein</span> (ph). </sentence><sentence id="268">That was the bullets...they had to make the bullets so nice and so clean cause any tiny little scratch, the bullet doesn't shoot out, so it had to be done very...and she was a very beautiful girl, a face like a doll, with with big lashes but when she looked up the lashes went until here and if you looked down the lashes went until here. </sentence><sentence id="269">So she couldn't see so good. </sentence><sentence id="270">Every day she went...there was Wache"". </sentence><sentence id="271">There was a <span class="building">Wache</span>...but the Germans took you. </sentence><sentence id="272">Somebody signed it for you and the Ukrainians beat...resumed the beating on the behind. </sentence><sentence id="273">They take off everything. </sentence><sentence id="274">Bend down T control, mastery (German) 8 <span class="populated place">Bartenschlager</span>, <span class="populated place">Georg</span>, <span class="building">SS# 77325</span>. </sentence><sentence id="275">Sources: <span class="building">Berlin Document Center</span>'s List of SS Officers; <span class="populated place">Churban Czenstochow</span> by Benjamin Orenstein, p. 271-274. ; </sentence><sentence id="276">colloquial translation = "Hold on" (German) 8 guard, watch (German) and with those pages whatever it is..beatings...she got twenty-five everyday on her behind. </sentence><sentence id="277">And then I also remember one thing. </sentence><sentence id="278">It didn't do to me, but it did it such a thing to me that I'll never forget as long as I live. </sentence><sentence id="279">There were five brothers Leibermann (ph). </sentence><sentence id="280">Four of them survived. </sentence><sentence id="281">I don't know if you ever heard of them. </sentence><sentence id="282">You did? </sentence><sentence id="283">And one took away...I don't know if he...from where he had a piece of leather because those those big belts from the <span class="spatial object">machine</span>, it was from leather, so he must have, you know, cut off a piece because there was something wrong with it and another piece and they found a piece on one of the brothers. </sentence><sentence id="284">And they beat the one of the brothers two hundred...he had it...until he died on to under that thing and didn't say it was his brother. </sentence><sentence id="285">He didn't want...he knew they're going to kill me maybe anyway. </sentence><sentence id="286">I don't want to to in...implicate my brother. </sentence><sentence id="287">In fact I had something to do with the liberation of his brothers. </sentence><sentence id="288">I said something in in like a novi! .. </sentence><sentence id="289">you know what a novi means...somebody who knows to say it something is going to happen. </sentence><sentence id="290">What I said in it and the four of them survived. </sentence><sentence id="291">I always meet them when there's a gathering, uh memorial for the <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> people. </sentence><sentence id="292">We're always there so we always meet. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="573">Q: You... </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="575">A: Yeah, and that was... </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="577">Q: ..Slow down a little bit. </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="579"> A. Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="580">No, it's OK. </sentence><sentence id="581">I I can go on. </sentence><sentence id="582">I'm strong. </sentence><sentence id="583">I can go on. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="589">Q: You had a story about the woman who fought with the Nazis? </sentence><sentence id="590">You had a story about a woman who fought with the Nazis? </sentence><sentence id="591">Was that interesting? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="595">A: This girl...you want me to tell you about her. </sentence><sentence id="596">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="597">That was uh still when we were in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="598">That was not in the <span class="building">HASAG</span>. </sentence><sentence id="599">We were working in a place named <span class="building">Ausbahn</span> (ph).Ausbahn (ph) means the the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> were going to...out of the <span class="country">country</span> to like to <span class="country">France</span> or other places, and I remember <span class="spatial object">trains</span> passing by with Jews and there must have been Litvak Jews because they were talking Jewish in <span class="populated place">Letish</span> (ph)...must be from <span class="country">Latvia</span> some place. </sentence><sentence id="600">They begged us to give them a little bit snow so the <span class="spatial object">train</span>...while the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> were rolling, not standing, we were making very hard uh balls from snow and throwing. </sentence><sentence id="601">They were killing each other to get that piece of that snow. </sentence><sentence id="602">They must have been very very thirsty, and they also asked us where they are and we screamed it's <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>, so I was working... don't "" prophet (Yiddish) know to say that English...but in in German we call this a kilof"". </sentence><sentence id="603">It's like a big hammer with a stick that you cut the <span class="env feature">ice</span> with it, with a spit. </sentence><sentence id="604">This...1 was working like a man and we were cutting the <span class="env feature">ice</span> from the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, near the <span class="spatial object">train</span> but the <span class="spatial object">train</span> should, you know, could pass by and in the summer we were making uh uh <span class="dlf">ditches</span>. </sentence><sentence id="605">So one day we were working by the <span class="dlf">ditches</span> just like that and that one of the foremens...actually he was from the uh <span class="spatial object">train</span>...a foreman, from <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="606">He was a tall man. </sentence><sentence id="607">I believe that man must have been seven feet big. </sentence><sentence id="608">Such a tall man I never...we had to look up. </sentence><sentence id="609">I am not so small...had to look up looking like that to see him. </sentence><sentence id="610">His name was Lajzer (ph). </sentence><sentence id="611">I don't know the second name...the second name was Lajzer (ph). </sentence><sentence id="612">I know he had a wife, no children, because she had a <span class="building">home</span> right next to the <span class="dlf">tracks</span> and she used to take in two blond girls, you know...friends of mine also from <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>, two sisters to warm up a little bit and they...she used to give them socks to mend that they should rest a little bit. </sentence><sentence id="613">I never had that uh luck to go in there. </sentence><sentence id="614">I used to go in to the little <span class="building">booth</span> sometime from the uh uh conductors from the <span class="spatial object">train</span> to warm up but they had a fire going and it was bitter cold in January, February, but working outside and we didn't...we were not clothed so uh all of a sudden he he said uh he opened a <span class="building">tent</span> and he took in our...one by one asking questions. </sentence><sentence id="615">When the people came out, each boys and girls, we asked them what did he say. </sentence><sentence id="616">What did they want? </sentence><sentence id="617">They said we're not allowed to say anything, so until I didn't go in I didn't know what was going on. </sentence><sentence id="618">When I went in he asked me a question. </sentence><sentence id="619">He called me by my name Regina. </sentence><sentence id="620">I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="621">For some reason he liked me. </sentence><sentence id="622">He said Regina, you tell me the truth. </sentence><sentence id="623">I said of course Herr Meister, I'll tell you everything...in German. </sentence><sentence id="624">He said, did Paula said something about me. </sentence><sentence id="625">I said oh no. </sentence><sentence id="626">Never. </sentence><sentence id="627">You walk with her to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> everyday in five...we were walking five. </sentence><sentence id="628">I said we're walking every day but she never said one word and the woman was sitting with him was a Jewish woman, and I said to her...Rosa was her name...Rosa, what do you want me...you better tell she said. </sentence><sentence id="629">I said what do you want me to tell? </sentence><sentence id="630">I don't know what it's all about. </sentence><sentence id="631">She said well, they're talking that I am in love with Mr. Lajzer (ph) and that I am have business with him and they took him to the <span class="building">Gestapo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="632">She told me that and that they're making a big uh investigation about him, because this is not allowed. </sentence><sentence id="633">A Jewish woman with a German is not allowed. </sentence><sentence id="634">So I said believe me that's the honest truth...and all of a sudden they told me to go out. </sentence><sentence id="635">When I went out, they called her in. </sentence><sentence id="636">She was the next one to go in and as she went in, she went out. </sentence><sentence id="637">That same minute. </sentence><sentence id="638">And he behind her with a gun, just like that. </sentence><sentence id="639">Shooting. </sentence><sentence id="640">And she did like that...and all of a sudden he grabbed her and she grabbed him and they were twisting. </sentence><sentence id="641">I don't...like I said she was a small woman, not a big woman like me. </sentence><sentence id="642">A girl, a young girl, maybe sixteen or fifteen. </sentence><sentence id="643">She throwed him down, that big man, fat man. </sentence><sentence id="644">He throwed down...she was rolling with him...he was all...his his clothing, you know...the German was full with <span class="env feature">sand</span> and with mud and she didn't let herself killed. </sentence><sentence id="645">All of a sudden, like I said...we walked over. </sentence><sentence id="646">We begged him, and then there was a like man who used to be a neighbor of his in in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="647">He was sent to the <span class="populated place">Lodz ghetto</span>, the <span class="populated place">Litzmannstadt</span>, and then from there to <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> and he walked over to him. </sentence><sentence id="648">He grabbed him by his arm and he said listen Mr. Lajzer (ph). </sentence><sentence id="649">You're such a good man. </sentence><sentence id="650">You've been my neighbor. </sentence><sentence id="651">Please, you're going to be sorry later on. </sentence><sentence id="652">She's a young kid. </sentence><sentence id="653">Maybe she didn't mean it. </sentence><sentence id="654">Don't kill her, please. </sentence><sentence id="655">About that time she ran and she ran away. </sentence><sentence id="656">2 pickaxe (note: "kilof" not found in German dictionary, rather in Polish dictionary) 0 She ran away very, very fast, far as she could and she walked into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="657">She's all been to a different group from people working also out but they walk into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and she got in back to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="658">The next...she had a husband this one young lady. </sentence><sentence id="659">But she got married a short time before and his name was Stefek (ph). </sentence><sentence id="660">I don't...cannot remember the second name but my husband has a picture in uh the <span class="env feature">mountains</span> from his <span class="dlf">grave</span> because there's massen-grave'deg there. </sentence><sentence id="661">They called them they called them twenty-seven at once and he was working in a different place and she took him to this place because he should have easier for him, but at that time she didn't know that she's going to be in love with this. </sentence><sentence id="662">One thing she did tell me when I asked her...I said your husband is complaining that you're going out to dinner. </sentence><sentence id="663">Not...I didn't say with Paula. </sentence><sentence id="664">I said your husband. </sentence><sentence id="665">And said that you're going out to dinner with a German and he is jealous. </sentence><sentence id="666">So she walked over and she said to that to that German, you know Herr Meister my husband is eiferstichtig. </sentence><sentence id="667">That means he is jealous, and and he said no, you pass my love. </sentence><sentence id="668">I have nothing to do with your wife. </sentence><sentence id="669">He was very very jealous and she told him that and she didn't think anything, you know, and he didn't think anything, but when we went back to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and he said Regina, she's not coming <span class="building">home</span> to sleep anymore. </sentence><sentence id="670">She cannot say that she is not going out with him. </sentence><sentence id="671">Of course I...my mouth was sealed, not allowed to say anything. </sentence><sentence id="672">I said oh don't say that. </sentence><sentence id="673">Maybe she is working with him. </sentence><sentence id="674">Maybe, you know, there's a lot of things to work...she's a foreman. </sentence><sentence id="675">She's a Jewish foreman. </sentence><sentence id="676">All of a sudden when we come back the next day for work, they send us a different job. </sentence><sentence id="677">He didn't come back, the German, and not did Rosa. </sentence><sentence id="678">They disappeared, both of them. </sentence><sentence id="679">What happened...later on when we were working this husband of hers...1 remember Stefek (ph)...that I remember. </sentence><sentence id="680">He was a blonde, fairly young, maybe twenty-five, twenty-four. </sentence><sentence id="681">Beautiful, good looking, tall and he went to work with another twenty-seven I think or twenty-eight or twenty-seven boys...or men. </sentence><sentence id="682">The women didn't work on that Saturday or Sunday or Saturday, and he went to work, and that man, that Lajzer (ph)...came and that partisans, a lot of partisans, walked into that group to go into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="683">All they wanted to go into that <span class="populated place">HASAG</span>. </sentence><sentence id="684">They needed uh ammunition, so I guess they must have wanted to go in to get some ammunition. </sentence><sentence id="685">They were taking big risks, and somebody from the Gestapo noticed it, or they were informed from the Polish partisans. </sentence><sentence id="686">We don't know. </sentence><sentence id="687">Somebody there informed the Germans that partisans are with this group, and they took that Lajzer (ph), the one that went away with her, with that Rosa, to take out every second to be killed and he took him out too. </sentence><sentence id="688">That Stefek (ph), and they were all shot and killed and they made a massen-grave in the <span class="building">Jewish cemetery</span> in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> and when Abraham was now in <span class="country">Poland</span> he took a picture of that grave. </sentence><sentence id="689">He he knew that I was very interested in him. " </sentence><sentence id="690">S <span class="interior space">mass grave</span> (German: <span class="building">Massengrab</span>) 1 I saw her once. </sentence><sentence id="691">I saw her once, this woman, after the liberation and then I saw her again a couple of years later. </sentence><sentence id="692">I saw her first in <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="693">She came back with her seventeen month old child and when we asked her what happened to him, she said he took her to the <span class="env feature">woods</span> and in the <span class="env feature">woods</span>, there is like...you know, in Polish they say (indecipherable)...I don't know how we Say it in English...a man who takes care in the for the <span class="env feature">woods</span>, and he was with a wife and he went in there with a gun to his head he said you must take care of her. </sentence><sentence id="694">She is pregnant, and this is my first child. </sentence><sentence id="695">I never had children before and I want her to have this child and I want her to be safe, and that's the way they survived in there. </sentence><sentence id="696">But in 1945 when the Russians liberated that place, that Polish Gayoua (ph) told him who he is. </sentence><sentence id="697">He knew that he is a Nazi and on the spot they killed him and her with the child... </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="803">Q: Who? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="805">A: ..the German, her husband, her lover, whatever he was at that time and they send her back and let her go. </sentence><sentence id="806">She's a Jewish woman with a child. </sentence><sentence id="807">She come in. </sentence><sentence id="808">She had a uncle and a aunt. </sentence><sentence id="809">I lived here and I saw through the <span class="dlf">window</span> and the uncle lived on this side, and I saw her walking with the baby on the end and then I know very well that that aunt, she still is alive. </sentence><sentence id="810">The uncle not, but the aunt. </sentence><sentence id="811">And the second time I saw her was at the <span class="populated place">Ischor</span>"*. </sentence><sentence id="812">That means when we had the Ischor after our six million departed, she came. </sentence><sentence id="813">I walked over there and I said like that I am not going to do nothing to you. </sentence><sentence id="814">I would not even open my hand to touch you because you're too dirty but I'm going to tell you one thing. </sentence><sentence id="815">Whom do you come to cry for? </sentence><sentence id="816">For your husband Stefek (ph) or for Lajzer (ph), for the German, and I said you have no right to come here whatsoever. </sentence><sentence id="817">And my husband says she has two brothers, very nice, fine people and she came from a good family, but that's what she told me during the war. </sentence><sentence id="818">I'd do anything to survive. </sentence><sentence id="819">That she did tell me once. </sentence><sentence id="820">He wants to help me, that she told me. </sentence><sentence id="821">He wants me to survive. </sentence><sentence id="822">She was not afraid for me to tell me, but that he's going to kill her husband I don't think that she knew that. </sentence><sentence id="823">I don't think so. </sentence><sentence id="824">I don't think she would allow that. </sentence><sentence id="825">He...he he was really lovely and good looking. </sentence><sentence id="826">She loved him but I guess she was so...wanted so much to live that she ran away with him. </sentence><sentence id="827">That that that is what happened. </sentence><sentence id="828">That's why he wanted to shoot this girl. </sentence><sentence id="829">That's what I said, but I told...just show you the pictures to show you that that's her I met after so many years and she knew then who I was and she, you know, that all the time we were not eating at that party...it was a New Year's party. </sentence><sentence id="830">We were just standing together holding hands and talking and she wants to find but her husband said no. </sentence><sentence id="831">She has in <span class="populated place">Baltimore</span> a <span class="building">restaurant</span>. </sentence><sentence id="832">I think she's very well off. </sentence><sentence id="833">She has one daughter who is married to a very, very nice uh educated man and uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="863">Q: Excuse me...at this point, when...just briefly...when were you liberated? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="865">A: I was liberated in January 16, 1945 in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span>. "* </sentence><sentence id="866"><span class="building">memorial</span> (Yiddish) 2 </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="869">Q: By then you were married...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="871">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="872">Of course with Abraham, yes. </sentence><sentence id="873">We were together and like Abraham told you, we ran away from the...the night before. </sentence><sentence id="874">That was for itself a thing that we could have been killed just like that. </sentence><sentence id="875">There was Offensive. </sentence><sentence id="876">The Germans were fighting with the Russians, and wherever we went, the Germans told us don't go here. </sentence><sentence id="877">They didn't know who you are, when we ran away from the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="878">But they told us to go in a side, over the side. </sentence><sentence id="879">Then all of a sudden I said to my husband, Abe, if the Nazis did not killed us, they they the bullets are going to kill us. </sentence><sentence id="880">Let's go in to any place we can, so we went into a place and there was Polish people standing outside and I went over and in Polish...I speak a very good Polish...and I said to them, please, couldn't you let us in just for one night. </sentence><sentence id="881">We are going <span class="building">home</span> from work and we don't seem...the Nazis don't let us go <span class="building">home</span>, go past. </sentence><sentence id="882">There were Germans all over tell us to go this way. </sentence><sentence id="883">So I said you know what? </sentence><sentence id="884">Go in here, on the <span class="interior space">ground floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="885">There's a Polish woman. </sentence><sentence id="886">She has only one son and she has a big <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="887">So we did. </sentence><sentence id="888">I walked in and I said in Polish, "Niech bedzie pochwalony Jezus Chrystus. </sentence><sentence id="889">""deg It's the truth. </sentence><sentence id="890">It's the honest truth and I said please, we cannot go <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="891">Would you...oh she so (inaudible). </sentence><sentence id="892">She said of course, of course, come in. </sentence><sentence id="893">In fact she said to me if we're going to have to run, if they're going to bombard our <span class="building">house</span>, you take...grab anything because you don't have anything. </sentence><sentence id="894">She was sewing on a machine <span class="spatial object">rucksacks</span>, you know, to put in stuff. </sentence><sentence id="895">She put a lot in stuff and she said you can take something and go. </sentence><sentence id="896">She gave us something to eat and to drink. </sentence><sentence id="897">Abe was so frightened with Jewish face that he all the time was holding his head down and like sleeping and uh there was another woman running after us, a blonde woman. </sentence><sentence id="898">I don't remember her name but she was a blonde, older lady and she was together with us and she went into the same <span class="building">house</span> with us and she was sitting also straight and she looked all the time at my husband, this woman but she didn't say anything. </sentence><sentence id="899">Uh there was another woman from the <span class="interior space">sixth floor</span> with a son, a daughter-in-law and a baby a couple of months old. </sentence><sentence id="900">The son had no hands...Polish_ people...because in in <span class="populated place">Warsaw</span>...they were from <span class="populated place">Warsaw</span>...but the bombardment...the bomb it dropped into the <span class="building">house</span> and cut off both of his hands, so he was normal only he had no hands, so uh I looked at him and she says that she lives on the <span class="interior space">sixth floor</span> and with a baby that during the bombardment she is afraid to be in the <span class="interior space">sixth floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="901">That's why she came down to that neighbor where we were sitting also. </sentence><sentence id="902">About five o'clock in the morning she said she's going to go up and make a bottle for the baby, the older lady, the grandmother, so she went up. </sentence><sentence id="903">She made a <span class="spatial object">bottle</span>. </sentence><sentence id="904">She came down with the <span class="spatial object">bottle</span>. </sentence><sentence id="905">And she said in these words. </sentence><sentence id="906">In Polish she said there's so many Jews outside on the <span class="dlf">steps</span> and they're all shivering. </sentence><sentence id="907">It was cold, in January...such a cold in <span class="country">Poland</span> January...even here in January it's cold in <span class="country">America</span>, but in <span class="country">Poland</span> it is ten times that much colder, and and they didn't have...they were not clothed. </sentence><sentence id="908">They didn't have too much clothes i "May Jesus Christ be blessed." </sentence><sentence id="909"> 3 on and she said this in Polish. </sentence><sentence id="910">She said maybe people from that <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> ran away because the bombardment is like that, so I said to myself let me go out and look on the <span class="dlf">steps</span>, so I opened the <span class="dlf">door</span> and I went out on by the first <span class="interior space">floor</span> and I see people that I was together in the <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="911">And I said what happened? </sentence><sentence id="912">What are you doing here? </sentence><sentence id="913">She said what are you doing here? </sentence><sentence id="914">I said well we ran away the night before and we were hiding in this <span class="building">home</span> for the night, and they said we don't know but all of a sudden, about three o'clock in the morning, we didn't see no Germans, so we were afraid because like I said there were (indecipherable) my husband says bombs, it was not bombs. </sentence><sentence id="915">It was hand grenades in a in a uh cover, a cotton cover. </sentence><sentence id="916">They were holding hand grenades. </sentence><sentence id="917">That's what they did in a lot of <span class="populated place">camps</span>, so when (indecipherable) you poisoned food, so we didn't eat that day and for the hand grenades we were afraid. </sentence><sentence id="918">That's why me and Abraham went out from the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="919">It wasn't so easy but we we left and uh so so they said we were afraid that they should throw the hand grenades so we ran away, and when we went to the to the <span class="dlf">gates</span>, nobody was there. </sentence><sentence id="920">The Germans knew that the Russians are coming, so they ran away, so my...Abe said three o'clock in the afternoon, Abe's sure that the Germans are running to the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> and the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> that are going fast, where they could drop. </sentence><sentence id="921">I said you know my father said 1914 there happened something like that, 1916, when the war was, you know, that his father told him that the Germans are running up. </sentence><sentence id="922">The Russians came in, you know, Ist World War...it looks like 1st World War, but the Germans are running away. </sentence><sentence id="923">But he wasn't sure. </sentence><sentence id="924">Then uh when I saw that I went out and what I saw...I saw...that picture I'll never forget as long as I live either. </sentence><sentence id="925">I saw <span class="spatial object">Russian tanks</span> coming up to the <span class="populated place">city</span>, waving to us and we asked them how are you. </sentence><sentence id="926">Thank God that you liberated us. </sentence><sentence id="927">They said, "Na"(r) <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, na <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, na <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>." </sentence><sentence id="928">They were so happy, so like like not to go for war...like it was a party. </sentence><sentence id="929">That hit me so hard. </sentence><sentence id="930">I said my God, look at those young boys how they're running na <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="931">And I went back to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, and I said to Abraham in Yiddish, Kim"". </sentence><sentence id="932">He opened his eyes. </sentence><sentence id="933">He said what what are you saying? </sentence><sentence id="934">I said baby,the Russians are here. </sentence><sentence id="935">We are free. </sentence><sentence id="936">We are liberated. </sentence><sentence id="937">He said I cannot believe it. </sentence><sentence id="938">I said believe it, believe it. </sentence><sentence id="939">And the woman took it up and all of them got up and all went out, but what I still cannot forget, the last minute because she said you don't have too much time but I'll tell you that anyway. </sentence><sentence id="940">The Polish woman, the one who had the son without hands, came over and said like that, and the other Polish woman, the the owner from that <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="941">He said what's your name, and I told him. </sentence><sentence id="942">He said to me, listen to me. </sentence><sentence id="943">Go to the Holy Mother and the Holy uh <span class="env feature">Hill</span>...that's the to (Russian) "7 Come on 4 <span class="populated place">Matka Boska Czestochowa</span>"... they're coming from all over the world, the Christian people by foot, walking and pray to her because she liberated us because you see when we were liberating this <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, that place was right nearby. </sentence><sentence id="944">Abe was now there when...he made a lot of pictures also uh from that place. </sentence><sentence id="945">That she told me. </sentence><sentence id="946">And with that we left. </sentence><sentence id="947">I want to tell you one more thing. </sentence><sentence id="948">When we left, we didn't know where to go. </sentence><sentence id="949">Nothing to eat. </sentence><sentence id="950">Nothing to drink. </sentence><sentence id="951">Nothing to wear. </sentence><sentence id="952">No place where to go, so we decided that we're going to go and see where is more Jewish people, so we found somebody that my husband took out in <span class="populated place">Treblinka</span>. </sentence><sentence id="953">He told you that he had this eyes, like, that didn't want...three times he took him out and said they wouldn't let him out but finally...he still...my husband just saw him. </sentence><sentence id="954">Of course he's very ill...he's eighty-five, eighty-six years old. </sentence><sentence id="955">He's in <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="956">He lost a wife and four children but he remarried a couple of times after that. </sentence><sentence id="957">He lost another two wifes then but he has two sons, very very fine sons. </sentence><sentence id="958">One is in a <span class="populated place">kibbutz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="959">The other one has a <span class="building">business</span> in <span class="populated place">Tel Aviv</span>. </sentence><sentence id="960">They're like my own children because their mother was very very dear to me. </sentence><sentence id="961">She died when one was eleven and one was six. </sentence><sentence id="962">And uh when when we went in to her <span class="interior space">apartment</span> were Christian men that my husband knew, an older couple, and he said...name was Gornik (ph) I think...and he said, oh Abraham, you survived. </sentence><sentence id="963">Come in to my <span class="building">house</span>, come in. </sentence><sentence id="964">We went in. </sentence><sentence id="965">He give us his <span class="spatial object">bed</span> and he gave us food and we eat. </sentence><sentence id="966">The next morning we looked out to the <span class="dlf">window</span> and what we saw one Katytisha"". </sentence><sentence id="967">I don't know what you name...it was like the bullet small what we made in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, that was a big one. </sentence><sentence id="968">Very very big. </sentence><sentence id="969">Bright like that and big one like that, very big one. </sentence><sentence id="970">I never saw such a thing in my life but he's looked at that that Pollack and he said, oh the Germans are coming back. </sentence><sentence id="971">Out <span class="populated place">Zydy</span>, Jude. </sentence><sentence id="972">Jews out. </sentence><sentence id="973">And he throwed us out. </sentence><sentence id="974">So he took us in. </sentence><sentence id="975">He knew Abraham. </sentence><sentence id="976">We went out and we're walking to a <span class="dlf">street</span> named <span class="populated place">Garibaldiego</span>. </sentence><sentence id="977">And there we met this man that is in <span class="country">Israel</span> I told you...that old man. </sentence><sentence id="978">He took us in. </sentence><sentence id="979">The <span class="interior space">kitchen</span> was only free. </sentence><sentence id="980">Only the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="981">So I had a toothache, all this time in that <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="982">After the abortion, that toothache started and I didn't stop after the liberation. </sentence><sentence id="983">And I was afraid to go to a <span class="building">dentist</span> because we didn't have nobody. </sentence><sentence id="984">If you go to <span class="building">dentist</span>, they just didn't give injection or just to take out alive, so I was afraid. </sentence><sentence id="985">So finally Abe said we have to go. </sentence><sentence id="986">And I went once to the <span class="building">dentist</span> in the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> and it was a woman was then. </sentence><sentence id="987">She took out a good tooth. </sentence><sentence id="988">Just like that. </sentence><sentence id="989">Without anything. </sentence><sentence id="990">I screamed and that's when the tooth got out, and that tooth was by...I told her...the other tooth. </sentence><sentence id="991">But exactly maybe I didn't know myself which one, so she took out the good tooth, so that explains. </sentence><sentence id="992">So my husband goes in the <span class="dlf">street</span>, and he meets a young man, a Jewish boy. </sentence><sentence id="993">He said I'm a dentist. </sentence><sentence id="994">Oh my husband...oh my wife has such a bad tooth. </sentence><sentence id="995">Couldn't you...he said I'm a barber. </sentence><sentence id="996">I'll cut your hair. </sentence><sentence id="997">So they made an exchange, and while taking out my tooth..-he didn't take out the tooth. </sentence><sentence id="998">He broke a vein and at night...I'm lost that that two days after the liberation almost all my "8 The picture of the Black Madonna in the <span class="building">Jasna Gora church</span> in <span class="populated place">Czestochowa</span> lorry-mounted multiple rocket launcher (Russian) 5 blood. </sentence><sentence id="999">I had uh hemorrhages...and Abe was such a shy man that when I I saw what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="1000">They give me a <span class="spatial object">pail</span> and the <span class="spatial object">pail</span> was full with blood, so I said to him, please call on for the dentist. </sentence><sentence id="1001">I don't know what to do. </sentence><sentence id="1002">He figured my God, how can anybody wake somebody out at night. </sentence><sentence id="1003">I said I think I'll never forgive him that, but he did. </sentence><sentence id="1004">Finally a woman called the dentist. </sentence><sentence id="1005">He come back. </sentence><sentence id="1006">He almost killed my husband. </sentence><sentence id="1007">Said why didn't you call me right away. </sentence><sentence id="1008">He give me a tampon and three times that tampax and three times I took that...the fourth time the blood finally stopped, but I was anemic for many, many, many years. </sentence><sentence id="1009">After such a condition I had to lose all all this blood, but little by little we uh...it is another story from 1945 until now which you can write a big book... </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1152">Q: OK. </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1154">A: Maybe I should write a book. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1156">Q: Regina, thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1158">A: You're welcome. </sentence><sentence id="1159">TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ </body>
56
+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: ruth none borsos
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0035
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0035_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504539
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1923-10-15
9
+ birth_year: 1923.0
10
+ place_of_birth: frankfurt
11
+ country: germany
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: bergen-belsen
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+ camp: bergen-belsen, westerbork
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+ non_ss_camp: none
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+ region: none
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+ needs_research: checked
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+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1990.417.1
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">RUTH BORSOS July 3, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Tell us your name and where you were born. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Ruth Borsos. </sentence><sentence id="6">I -- my maiden name was Moser, and I was born in <span class="populated place">Frankfurt</span>, <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: And when? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: Oh, when -- in 1923, the 15th of October. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: Would you tell us a little of your family life? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: OK. </sentence><sentence id="16">Sure. </sentence><sentence id="17">I had a rather normal childhood. </sentence><sentence id="18">I grew up in a middle-class family and my paternal grandparents lived very close to us and so did my maternal grandparents. </sentence><sentence id="19">And I went -- started to go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">It was a <span class="building">public school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="21">Jewish children went there, like any other children of the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> and in 1933 it was the time that Hitler came to power. </sentence><sentence id="22">Things started to change radically. </sentence><sentence id="23">Nearly overnight, when we came back to <span class="building">school</span> we were segregated in a sense that suddenly all the children knew who are the Jews and who are not the Jews, because we were received with words of "dirty Jew." </sentence><sentence id="24">They started to throw rocks at us. </sentence><sentence id="25">We had to -- every child had to learn to sing the Nazi hymn and -- but soon thereafter we were forbidden -- the Jewish children were forbidden to sing the Nazi hymn, so we were segregated and we felt it all the way from every morning that we came to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="26">It was towards the end of the <span class="building">elementary school</span> years that my parents took me out of the <span class="building">school</span> and entered me in a special <span class="building">Jewish school</span> with many other children who left the <span class="building">public schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="27">And I passed a few years in the special <span class="building">Jewish school</span>, then went on to the higher <span class="building">Jewish high school</span> and stayed there until 1938, and in 1938 the pogroms against the Jews of <span class="country">Germany</span> started. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Could you describe those pogroms? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Sure. </sentence><sentence id="44">The pogroms were only an excuse of what had happened. </sentence><sentence id="45">A young Jew in <span class="populated place">Paris</span> was very aggravated because his parents had been sent to <span class="country">Poland</span> and he took revenge by shooting a German diplomat. </sentence><sentence id="46">And, as you might know, in November the 9th, 1938, the famous Kristallnacht" broke out and it was because as a revenge, as a retaliation against the Jews, because this man had murdered a German diplomat. </sentence><sentence id="47">But what I know was that <span class="building">Jewish stores</span> were attacked. </sentence><sentence id="48">They were raided. </sentence><sentence id="49">The <span class="building">synagogues</span> were burning. </sentence><sentence id="50">They were raided. " </sentence><sentence id="51">Crystal Night (German); Night of Broken Glass. </sentence><sentence id="52"> People stole, demolished and in general most Jewish males were picked up and sent to a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="53">The duration during that time in the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> was relatively short from what happen -- will happen later on. </sentence><sentence id="54">After approximately two weeks most people were sent back to their <span class="building">homes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="55">Now this was in "38. </sentence><sentence id="56">Already between "33 and "38 a lot of Jews had lost their civil rights. </sentence><sentence id="57">As for instance my father, who was a lawyer, he was already debarred. </sentence><sentence id="58">He could no longer go to the <span class="building">courts</span> and he -- doctors had lost their privileges in <span class="building">hospitals</span>. </sentence><sentence id="59">Actors could no longer act on the, on the public stages, and so forth and so on. </sentence><sentence id="60">Also in 1935 with the Nuremberg laws, a lot of discrimination against Jews occurred. </sentence><sentence id="61">There was no longer inter-marriage possible. </sentence><sentence id="62">There was no longer relationship with non-Jews possible. </sentence><sentence id="63">You couldn't even visit a <span class="building">Christian home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="64">You no longer could have a maid. </sentence><sentence id="65">If you had one who was -- had to be over 45 years of age, because I think the Germans were horrified at the thought that their German race could be possibly defamed by some act. </sentence><sentence id="66">Anyway also just before that time, during all these years between "33 and "38, I recall for instance that a friend of mine who always played with me, who we always together -- one day she came and said, "I can no longer come to your <span class="building">home</span>." </sentence><sentence id="67">And I said, "How come?" </sentence><sentence id="68">And she said, "Well, my father told me I'm no longer allowed to play with you because you're Jewish." </sentence><sentence id="69">So this friend disappeared and I never saw her again. </sentence><sentence id="70">Other friends, Jewish friends, Jewish children who lived in my <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, left from one day to the next because they immigrated maybe with their parents or they went across the <span class="dlf">border</span> to another <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="71">Whatever, it was a terrible time of real turmoil and repression, and in 1938 after the Kristallnacht, my family in <span class="country">Holland</span> tried to get me to <span class="country">Holland</span> with a <span class="spatial object">children's transport</span>. </sentence><sentence id="72">My father -- my parents were divorced at that time already and my father was traveling in Europe and in <span class="country">Israel</span> and trying to see how they could establish a new place where we could live. </sentence><sentence id="73">When he came back from <span class="country">Palestine</span> in 19-- I believe it was 1932, he proposed to the family that we should leave immediately but my mother did not want to and she refused to go. </sentence><sentence id="74">So when he went later to the different <span class="country">countries</span> to see where he could get a permit to stay, it became already very, very difficult because each <span class="country">country</span> only let in so many so-called "foreigners." </sentence><sentence id="75">In 1938 at that time he had a permit to stay for six months in <span class="country">Holland</span>, and when I did not come with the children's <span class="spatial object">transport</span> because my papers were lost, he and my uncle went to the Dutch authorities. </sentence><sentence id="76">My uncle was a very energetic man who really pulled his weight -- went into a meeting and said he has to have papers to get me out of the <span class="country">country</span> and into <span class="country">Holland</span>, and he did get a permit. </sentence><sentence id="77">And he called us at night and my mother took me to the <span class="dlf">German border</span> and we -- my uncle's chauffeur was coming across the <span class="dlf">border</span> and picked me up and withered me through the German and the Dutch border guards and helped me cross the <span class="dlf">border</span> and so I came to <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="78">Now in 1938 life was pretty normal in <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="79">But we were, of course, strangers and first stayed with my family in <span class="populated place">Tilburg</span>, and later on I came to live in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="80">But, but because of the work of my father --he was very rarely there and we lived in a <span class="building">boarding house</span> and I -- there was really no good <span class="building">home</span> life to speak of. </sentence><sentence id="81">And we always played with the idea that we had to leave <span class="country">Holland</span> because there was really no good future for us. </sentence><sentence id="82"> My father worked at that time with the Dutch authorities who dealt -- Dutch Jewish authorities, who dealt with resettling refugees, Jewish refugees. </sentence><sentence id="83">He also played a role at that time in as a Dutch delegate to the <span class="spatial object">ship</span> <span class="spatial object">St. Louis</span>, who was not allowed to land in <span class="country">Cuba</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">And he went to, at that time, to <span class="country">Belgium</span> to help rescue the people and settle in so many only. </sentence><sentence id="85">Each <span class="country">country</span> tried to take a number of people. </sentence><sentence id="86">And <span class="country">Holland</span> took some. </sentence><sentence id="87">And so he was involved with this work, so he was really very rarely there. </sentence><sentence id="88">And towards 1940 we were able to get a permit to get to <span class="country">America</span> and in May 9th, 1940 we took the few belongings we had brought out of <span class="country">Germany</span>, we took those and took them to the <span class="spatial object">boat</span> in, in <span class="populated place">Rotterdam</span>, and we were supposed to sail with the <span class="spatial object">Veendam</span> the next morning, May the 10th, 1940. </sentence><sentence id="89">May, May 10th, 1940 came. </sentence><sentence id="90">I woke up in the morning and I hear these funny little sounds and I look out and I see puffy little clouds in the <span class="env feature">sky</span> and all the <span class="building">Dutch houses</span>, <span class="building">apartment houses</span>, have very flat <span class="dlf">roofs</span> and I see people on the <span class="dlf">roof</span>, and I wonder what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="91">Anyway I went up on the <span class="dlf">roof</span> and I see and I was told that <span class="spatial object">German planes</span> were flying overhead and they had invaded <span class="country">Holland</span> during the night. </sentence><sentence id="92">And I woke up my dad and I said, "I don't think we'll be going to <span class="country">America</span>." </sentence><sentence id="93">Well, that was it, we didn't go. </sentence><sentence id="94">And 19- May 10th, this happened, and five days later the Germans capitulated -- I mean the Dutch capitulated and the Germans occupied <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="95">And pretty soon the German occupation started of <span class="country">Holland</span> and of course with the occupation, all the repressions against the Jews started, started out. </sentence><sentence id="96">I cannot remember exactly how it started out but what happened was that you no longer could pursue your work in, in <span class="building">non-Jewish businesses</span>. </sentence><sentence id="97">Slowly things were taken away from you. </sentence><sentence id="98">Your civil rights were taken slowly away. </sentence><sentence id="99">It was really a repeat of what happ-- had happened in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="100">You had to wear a yellow star. </sentence><sentence id="101">Pretty soon you could no longer shop in the <span class="building">stores</span>. </sentence><sentence id="102">There were certain hours only between three and five in the afternoon. </sentence><sentence id="103">You could no longer go out as much as you wanted at night because you had to be in. </sentence><sentence id="104">There was a curfew. </sentence><sentence id="105">You couldn't even sit -- if you had a <span class="interior space">garden</span>, you couldn't even sit outside in your <span class="dlf">garden</span> after the curfew hours, so --. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="169">Q: What was this like for you as a young person? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="171">A: Well, it wasn't very easy to grow up as a young person like that. </sentence><sentence id="172">It, it was a very bad existence and the trouble was that each day something new happened and something more repressive happened. </sentence><sentence id="173">And the thoughts were always in the mind, "How can we escape from this and how -- what can we do?" </sentence><sentence id="174">The only possibility would have been to go <span class="interior space">underground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="175">But that was very difficult and it was very dangerous because you had to have the right connection to people who would hide you <span class="interior space">underground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="176">You had to have the right accommodations for <span class="interior space">underground</span>, because you couldn't live freely because we all had an accent. </sentence><sentence id="177">So, people who had an accent were immediately prone to be discovered, even with a false passport or false ID paper or whatever it is. </sentence><sentence id="178">So for a long time we were thinking how we could do that, how we could possibly find a <span class="building">refuge</span> this way. </sentence><sentence id="179">There were people hidden on the <span class="interior space">attic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="180">There were people hidden in <span class="interior space">cellars</span>. </sentence><sentence id="181">There were people hidden in <span class="interior space">back rooms</span> for years and years by Dutch peasants, by Dutch peo-people of good will and good heart. </sentence><sentence id="182">There were also people who were betrayed, but we really never reached that stage because it was not possible. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="195">Q: Had you made friends in <span class="country">Holland</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="197">A: I had a few friends. </sentence><sentence id="198">I did not have very many friends. </sentence><sentence id="199">I --- most of my friends were refugees themselves. </sentence><sentence id="200">I did go to a <span class="building">school</span> for refugees, a <span class="building">special school</span> because of the language problems but we did get some instructions and I finished <span class="building">high school</span> in <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="201">And my father worked at that time, as I had mentioned before, for a Dutch -- for a Jewish refugee organization which later on turned partially into the <span class="building">Jewish Council</span> and I later myself had a small job in the <span class="building">sewing division</span>, making clothes for people, for German people really as far as I know. </sentence><sentence id="202">We never knew exactly for whom we were working and so I had a -- also want to mention that during that during all this period I mentioned before, I believe it was in 1942, that we all had to wear a yellow star. </sentence><sentence id="203">This yellow star had to be on the left side of your clothing. </sentence><sentence id="204">If you wore three layers that day it had to be on three layers of your clothing. </sentence><sentence id="205">It had to be attached. </sentence><sentence id="206">There was -- you were not allowed to be able to put one finger through the behind between your clothing and the star. </sentence><sentence id="207">It had to be sewn on properly, and if somebody saw you on the <span class="dlf">street</span>, you had to have ID papers, the proper ID papers with a "J" in it and your yellow star and if something was wrong, you were arrested. </sentence><sentence id="208">And you didn't come back or maybe you were arrested and were sent on somewhere right away. </sentence><sentence id="209">Well, also during that time, as I had mentioned to you before, during the night many times the, the <span class="building">SS</span>? </sentence><sentence id="210">or the police -- not the Dutch police but the German patrol, police or whatever their designation was -- came to various <span class="building">homes</span>, looked for Jews, wanted to see their ID papers, wanted to see whether they had special permits to stay away from being sent for relocation in the <span class="region">east</span>, and these special stamps were sometimes that you had a -- you did quote, unquote, "a very important work" or that you had the possibility of getting a visa to get out of <span class="country">Holland</span> via <span class="country">Portugal</span> or that maybe you had instead of four Jewish grandparents you had only three Jewish grandparents. </sentence><sentence id="211">There were a variety of little stamps, which were possible in your ID card which would delay your <span class="spatial object">transport</span>, but it didn't prevent it. </sentence><sentence id="212">So we were -- I personally was arrested at least three times during the night, taken to a special place which usually was the place which at one time was a <span class="building">Jewish theater</span>. </sentence><sentence id="213">And you never really knew whether you would be released again, what would happen to you the next day. </sentence><sentence id="214">We were sitting around, we were wondering and worrying what would happen, but on July the 6th in 1943 was the biggest razzia, repression against the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="215">They, they -- big <span class="spatial object">cars</span> with SS were driving through the different <span class="dlf">streets</span> with the bullhorns on top of the <span class="spatial object">cars</span> and they were calling all the Jews to leave their <span class="building">buildings</span>. </sentence><sentence id="216">Now for weeks and weeks and months and &gt; Schutzstaffeln [Protection Squads] (German) months we knew that this day will come one day and we always had prepared ourselves in a sense by having a <span class="spatial object">backpack</span> ready with a few belongings to take with us. </sentence><sentence id="217">We knew that we were not allowed to take many things, but they would allow us one change, one sweater, a toothbrush, a pair of extra shoes, an overall and maybe a coat. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="240">Q: How did you know that? </sentence><sentence id="241">How did you know that would happen? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="244">A: It was known through the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="245">It was made known from the Germans to the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> that this is what is allowed. </sentence><sentence id="246">There is not allowed anymore. </sentence><sentence id="247">So you knew that your day will come and you didn't know when and you knew that this is if you ever have to go away, this is what you can take with you. </sentence><sentence id="248">That day when we were all called out of the <span class="building">houses</span>, we -- they marched us from wherever you lived to the central point. </sentence><sentence id="249">It could be around the corner. </sentence><sentence id="250">It could be a half an hour away, whatever it was, we were gathered all around. </sentence><sentence id="251">We are standing in the <span class="interior space">courtyard</span> of the <span class="building">building</span> for a whole day. </sentence><sentence id="252">We did not know what was going to happen to us. </sentence><sentence id="253">They didn't give us any food, no water, anything. </sentence><sentence id="254">Well, towards late afternoon one of the highest SS was coming to the <span class="building">building</span>, and he was doing the selecting of who would be sent away and who would not be sent away. </sentence><sentence id="255">And one by one we were called up to appear before him to show him our papers and he would decide. </sentence><sentence id="256">When my father's turn came, he said to him, "Mr. Moser, you have to decide whether you and your daughter will go on <span class="spatial object">transport</span> or whether you will stay behind." </sentence><sentence id="257">He would not dispense both of us from <span class="spatial object">transport</span> but he would -- considered my father to stay behind, so my dad decided that he would stay behind, hoping that, you know, he could do something for me, he would be able to get me out of this again. </sentence><sentence id="258">And we were -- those who had to leave right away were reassembled and marching in fours down the <span class="dlf">street</span> and I looked back and I saw my dad looking out the <span class="dlf">window</span> as, as we were leaving that <span class="dlf">street</span> and that <span class="building">building</span>. </sentence><sentence id="259">We were marched towards the <span class="building">stadium</span> where a big mass of people were already coming from the various <span class="populated place">neighborhoods</span> in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, reassembled in that <span class="building">stadium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="260">And in that <span class="building">stadium</span> were rows of <span class="spatial object">tables</span> with Germans sitting who were registering us by name, by ID, taking everything we had like watches, rings, whatever we had of any little value -- took it away from us. </sentence><sentence id="261">But they left us with that <span class="spatial object">rucksack</span>. </sentence><sentence id="262">They went through it, too, mind you. </sentence><sentence id="263">They looked through what was in it. </sentence><sentence id="264">So, then in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> at that time the <span class="spatial object">trams</span> were running but there was -- that morning there was absolutely nobody on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="265">They put us into the <span class="spatial object">trams</span> and the <span class="spatial object">trams</span> started to roll and we did not know -- we knew that we are going on transport. </sentence><sentence id="266">We knew that we were going to go to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> in <span class="country">Holland</span> which called <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span>, but we did not know by what means we were going. </sentence><sentence id="267">They took us with the <span class="spatial object">trams</span> and these <span class="spatial object">tramways</span> were accompanied on each side by huge <span class="spatial object">limousines</span> in which all filled with SS just so that nobody could leave the <span class="spatial object">tram</span>, nobody could escape. </sentence><sentence id="268">They were running over the <span class="dlf">pavement</span>, over the <span class="dlf">sidewalks</span> of the <span class="dlf">street</span> and if there were any people they had to flee up into their <span class="interior space">apartments</span> and <span class="building">houses</span> and, and <span class="dlf">roadways</span> -- I mean <span class="dlf">entrances</span> so that they wouldn't be just crushed on by, by these SS people. </sentence><sentence id="269">But we came to a small <span class="building">railroad station</span> in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> where the <span class="spatial object">cattle trains</span> were already waiting for us. </sentence><sentence id="270">Germans were standing around with big -- what do you call it? </sentence><sentence id="271">Big dogs, shepherd dogs, and pacing, pacing up and down the <span class="dlf">quays</span>, loading the people into the <span class="spatial object">cattle cars</span> and I sort of twaddled around, I was trying to hide first between some <span class="dlf">lamp posts</span>, a little <span class="building">house</span> and so forth, and I was seeing whether it's possible for me to escape from this, but I really wouldn't -- didn't know because even if I were able to leave that <span class="building">railroad station</span>, where was I going to go since I didn't know before where. </sentence><sentence id="272">But it was just sort of an instinct, "Maybe they can't catch me." </sentence><sentence id="273">Well they did and of course I was one of them in the <span class="spatial object">cattle trucks</span> and we went. </sentence><sentence id="274">They closed the <span class="dlf">doors</span> and we still were in a fairly cooperative spirit, you know. </sentence><sentence id="275">We try to sort of console our -- one another and late at night we arrived in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="276">We couldn't even really see the <span class="populated place">camp</span> -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="310">Q: Tell me a little bit about the trip, what it was like on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="312">A: That, that trip, contrary to the trip in the <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span> to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>, that trip -- I remember there were a lot of young people. </sentence><sentence id="313">I didn't know anybody. </sentence><sentence id="314">But I know there were a lot of young people in that particular <span class="interior space">compartment</span> I was in. </sentence><sentence id="315">The ride was maybe three hours. </sentence><sentence id="316">Contrary to the other trip I took -- for days in a <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span> -- there was a much better mood than there was later on. </sentence><sentence id="317">You had lived so long with the knowledge that you would be picked up one day, that you would be sent away one day, that you would go to <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span> one day, that now it happened. </sentence><sentence id="318">It was done. </sentence><sentence id="319">You were on the way. </sentence><sentence id="320">I mean it was nearly like no longer -- you didn't have to expect it any longer. </sentence><sentence id="321">It was there, which is really a terrible thing, but, but it was nearly like a relief because they couldn't -- they picked you up, but you knew this was it, it couldn't happen over and over again. </sentence><sentence id="322">So when we arrived finally at night in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, it was already dark. </sentence><sentence id="323">We, we didn't know exactly how that <span class="populated place">camp</span> would look. </sentence><sentence id="324">We knew it smelled when we arrived there. </sentence><sentence id="325">It, it wasn't a very pleasant smell. </sentence><sentence id="326">And we were given -- we had to go through another registration, mind you. </sentence><sentence id="327">That was the second one that day, but that was more that like a receipt, "Yes, these people have arriven," you know. </sentence><sentence id="328">And we were, were told to go to various <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="329">We came there. </sentence><sentence id="330">There was no light in front of it. </sentence><sentence id="331">There was only this terrible stench, and you entered the <span class="building">barrack</span> and you barely saw anything. </sentence><sentence id="332">You, you saw a lot of things that you knew something -- there was a lot of stuff toward the <span class="interior space">ceiling</span> but you didn't really quite realize what it was. </sentence><sentence id="333">Your eyes had to adjust for a long time, and you wanted to find -- what do you call it? </sentence><sentence id="334">Can you cut it a minute? </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="358">Q: A <span class="spatial object">cot</span>? </sentence><sentence id="359">A <span class="spatial object">bed</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="362">A: A <span class="spatial object">cot</span>. </sentence><sentence id="363">Yes, a <span class="spatial object">cot</span>. </sentence><sentence id="364">So we -- I found something on the <span class="interior space">third level</span> and I climbed up there with my <span class="spatial object">backpack</span> and I came to lay next to a woman. </sentence><sentence id="365">I didn't know her. </sentence><sentence id="366">She didn't know me. </sentence><sentence id="367">But I remember we talked long into the night of how we got there and what our experiences were and so forth and so on. </sentence><sentence id="368">And the next days in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> we were put to work, real silly work. </sentence><sentence id="369">We had to carry <span class="env feature">sand</span> from one place to the other. </sentence><sentence id="370">It didn't make sense, but we had to do it, and as time went by they organized us into a variety of tasks, what we had to do. </sentence><sentence id="371">Well, I was really delegated to a place where we were sewing clothing, again sewing clothing, for -- I'm not quite sure for whom it was. </sentence><sentence id="372">That was the whole day. </sentence><sentence id="373">Sometimes we would -- I worked at a Dutch, but this was a Nazi, a Dutch Nazi farmer's <span class="dlf">farm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="374">He had us clean out the <span class="spatial object">pig sties</span>. </sentence><sentence id="375">He had us work around his <span class="dlf">farm</span>, clean up certain things. </sentence><sentence id="376">He had us work in the <span class="dlf">potato fields</span>, or whatever, so that he didn't have so much -- we were slaves to him. </sentence><sentence id="377">He profited from, from the <span class="populated place">camp</span> being so nearby and from being a Nazi and collaborating with the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="378">And as a reward he would sit us with the chickens in the <span class="dlf">yard</span> and give us a watery soup. </sentence><sentence id="379">That was the meal for the day. </sentence><sentence id="380">And we had to wear the <span class="spatial object">Dutch klompen</span>,deg you know, the Dutch wooden shoes and if you're not used to it and you have no socks and you have nothing proper to protect you, these things are very hard and you had blisters every day. </sentence><sentence id="381">And every morning before you went to work there was somebody who took a needle and punched those blisters. </sentence><sentence id="382">It was not very good. </sentence><sentence id="383">Anyway, this time passed too and a lot of illnesses broke out already in this <span class="populated place">camp</span> and I remember that I got jaundice and I was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="384">I mean I was so nauseated and so ill. </sentence><sentence id="385">And I didn't say that before, but every Tuesday night -- every Tuesday the lists of those people who were going to be sent to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> -- we assumed it was <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, we didn't know one hundred percent, but the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> came back from <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="386">Usually the conductor or somebody would let on where they came from, to pick up more people and to send them off to away and towards the <span class="region">east</span>. </sentence><sentence id="387">Well lists were assembled during the day on Monday and on Tuesday they were read off in the <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="388">A Kapo* came to the <span class="building">barracks</span> and was reading off the names of those who were sent away. </sentence><sentence id="389">And as you can imagine this was some horrible, horrible times. </sentence><sentence id="390">People finding out that this was really probably the end or they -- we didn't know hundred percent what was going on in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="391">We, we knew it was terrible but we didn't know exactly how terrible it was. </sentence><sentence id="392">And everybody would help always those who had to leave the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="393">They would help them to assemble their stuff, to console them, to give them whatever they had, a little food left to give them on the way. </sentence><sentence id="394">And it was maybe four months after that I was in this camp -- the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> from the razzias, from the raids on the Jews from <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and other locations in <span class="country">Holland</span>, these <span class="spatial object">trains</span> came all the way into the <span class="building">camp compound</span>. </sentence><sentence id="395">So each afternoon we always heard by -- there was always an <span class="interior space">underground</span> kind of a communication. </sentence><sentence id="396">I don't know how one found out. </sentence><sentence id="397">There were people who had special permits, maybe, who went in and out of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="398">One got little messages. </sentence><sentence id="399">This day one got the message that a big raid on <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> had picked up the rest of the Jews, or nearly the rest of the Jews who still were in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and we went to meet the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="400">You could -- were able to do that, to go the <span class="dlf">quays</span> and sure enough my father and his wife were on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="401">3 Clogs (Danish) " Forman (colloquial German); term used for inmates appointed by the SS to head a labor commando of prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="402"> And of course it was the same story for him, you know. </sentence><sentence id="403">He was integrated into doing some kind of labor in the <span class="populated place">camp,</span> but end of the year 1944 -- I think it was early September -- we were all sent to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen concentration camp</span> in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="404">And we packed up our belongings. </sentence><sentence id="405">We went out to the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="406">There were the SS with the dogs. </sentence><sentence id="407">There was no escaping. </sentence><sentence id="408">There was no hiding. </sentence><sentence id="409">You -- there was no means. </sentence><sentence id="410">If somebody didn't step into the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, people were shot. </sentence><sentence id="411">That was the end. </sentence><sentence id="412">So we left. </sentence><sentence id="413">We came to another ride but that was at least two days if not longer in the <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="414">And compared with the first ride and experience in the <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span> going from <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> to <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span>, this was a much sadder story because we knew nothing good was expecting us, even worse than the <span class="populated place">camp</span> in <span class="country">Holland</span>, and that <span class="populated place">camp</span> had a -- I'm sorry, that <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span> had some <span class="spatial object">benches</span> in there. </sentence><sentence id="415">It, it was just a wooden plank. </sentence><sentence id="416">It was filled with people. </sentence><sentence id="417">You couldn't lie on the <span class="interior space">floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="418">You could stand up. </sentence><sentence id="419">You could maybe if you were lucky you got in between, you could sit on one of those <span class="spatial object">benches</span>. </sentence><sentence id="420">There was a big <span class="spatial object">vat</span> and that was the <span class="spatial object">toilet</span> for everybody for two and a half days. </sentence><sentence id="421">There was no food. </sentence><sentence id="422">There was no drink. </sentence><sentence id="423">There was nothing. </sentence><sentence id="424">They didn't -- the <span class="dlf">doors</span> didn't open. </sentence><sentence id="425">There was a little slit in, in the <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span> and you could look out sometimes, but you didn't know where you were. </sentence><sentence id="426">I mean you only knew you were rolling, rolling, rolling. </sentence><sentence id="427">When we arrived in at the <span class="building">station</span> closest to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, which was in <span class="region">northern Germany</span>, in the <span class="populated place">Ltineburger Heide</span>, the <span class="dlf">doors</span> finally opened and we were told to get out. </sentence><sentence id="428">Weakened and not very good condition already because of this days we pass in the <span class="spatial object">cattle truck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="429">And I'll never forget.... First of all I personally was kicked by an SS to get out, and so I really fell out of the <span class="spatial object">truck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="430">But when I got up on my, my legs, I looked up and I saw this <span class="dlf">bridge</span> going -- a <span class="dlf">street</span> really, a <span class="dlf">bridge</span>, a <span class="dlf">street</span> -- going across the <span class="dlf">rails</span> and there were children on this <span class="dlf">bridge</span> looking down on us and yelling "dirty Jews" and throwing rocks. </sentence><sentence id="431">And I always remembered this because after the war I was told so many times, "Well, we didn't know anything about anything." </sentence><sentence id="432">And I never forget these children standing there. </sentence><sentence id="433">How come they knew? </sentence><sentence id="434">How come they always -- they waited for these for these <span class="spatial object">railroad cars</span> to arrive. </sentence><sentence id="435">They knew. </sentence><sentence id="436">I know many more knew, but these children knew. </sentence><sentence id="437">Well, anyway we were then led to march towards the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, which was a long march, and I remember it was through a beautiful <span class="env feature">birch forest</span> and I kept looking at the <span class="env feature">birches</span> and I thought, "This is so beautiful. </sentence><sentence id="438">How can this be? </sentence><sentence id="439">How is it possible that here we are the way, like cattle, they are pushing us to march along?" </sentence><sentence id="440">Nobody was -- could stay behind. </sentence><sentence id="441">If somebody broke down, you had had gotten a kick, you know. </sentence><sentence id="442">When we arrived in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> we were assigned to certain <span class="building">barracks</span> and there the <span class="building">barracks</span> were much narrower, much higher, many more, more <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> closer together and instead of one person to a <span class="spatial object">bunk</span>, we were assigned two persons to one <span class="spatial object">bunk</span>. </sentence><sentence id="443">There was a little straw on the <span class="spatial object">bunk</span> and I ended up with Hannelore, who was my father's second wife. </sentence><sentence id="444">We shared a <span class="spatial object">bunk</span> and we also shared the <span class="env feature">water</span>, which was dripping from through the <span class="dlf">ceiling</span> into our <span class="spatial object">bunk</span>. </sentence><sentence id="445">So we had this tiny little <span class="interior space">space</span> to us where we had to put our belongings, whatever we had, plus ourselves. </sentence><sentence id="446">Two tall people in this little <span class="spatial object">bunk</span> with the straw. </sentence><sentence id="447">But we shared a raincoat and so we spread that raincoat at night over us. </sentence><sentence id="448">And in the morning you looked up and there was a <span class="env feature">puddle</span> in the middle of it between the two of us. </sentence><sentence id="449">And we had to somehow get rid of the <span class="env feature">water</span> if we didn't want to splash it just over overboard so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="450">Well, the food was minimal, to say the least. </sentence><sentence id="451">It was very bad. </sentence><sentence id="452">It was a watery soup as <span class="env feature">tutabagas</span>, the smallest portion of bread which had to last for a whole week. </sentence><sentence id="453">Some people ate it up right away because they were so afraid that that it might not be there when you went to work and you came back at night that somebody might have stolen it, the smallest amount. </sentence><sentence id="454">So some people ate it right away. </sentence><sentence id="455">Some people were hiding it in some ingenious way. </sentence><sentence id="456">Some people couldn't make -- couldn't, couldn't last for the whole week because it was really such a small portion. </sentence><sentence id="457">And the rutabagas were, were awful, too, because most of them were hard and if -- I have seen people who did not eat the -- you know, when it becomes real bad, sometimes dried out and gray, they took them out. </sentence><sentence id="458">And I have seen other people pick up those which were taken out and chewed over by other people and take it just because of the hunger cause they had nothing really to eat. </sentence><sentence id="459">How one survived this I -- to this day, when I look back I never understand this. </sentence><sentence id="460">I, I don't understand how we could have survived, but we did, with such a small amount of food. </sentence><sentence id="461">Anyway the work we had to do was another useless work. </sentence><sentence id="462">We were assigned to cut out from uniforms from German soldiers which were -- had either died on the <span class="region">eastern front</span> or were shot by -- I don't know by whom, but anyway and they were bloody uniforms, and we had to cut off all the buttons. </sentence><sentence id="463">We had to cut off all little pieces which were not blood-drenched and these were saved for whatever reason. </sentence><sentence id="464">The Germans needed the <span class="spatial object">buttons</span>. </sentence><sentence id="465">They needed the little pieces, because the war had also left them with very few material goods and, and they used it to repair other uniforms, to, you know, to whatever, make do. </sentence><sentence id="466">We had to work in this from morning to night. </sentence><sentence id="467">But the mornings in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> life started off that you had to go out on the <span class="interior space">Appellplatz</span>," which means the place where everybody had to assemble. </sentence><sentence id="468">A huge place. </sentence><sentence id="469">All <span class="building">barracks</span> had to come there at a certain hour, early in the moming after the Kapos woke you up very early, and two, three SS standing there and counting us. </sentence><sentence id="470">Every morning we were counted. </sentence><sentence id="471">Why we were counted I cannot tell you, but it had to be precise and if the numbers didn't come out, you had to be counted again. </sentence><sentence id="472">If it took one hour, if it took five hours, they didn't care. </sentence><sentence id="473">You had to be counted. </sentence><sentence id="474">Whether it was cold, whether it was raining, whether it was sunshine -- you had to be counted and during the same time that we were all standing out there, they would run <span class="spatial object">horse-drawn carriage</span> where they threw the bodies of those people who were either shot or hanged or had died from hunger, from whatever, and they wanted to make sure that we see each morning these <span class="spatial object">horse-drawn carriages</span> drive by. </sentence><sentence id="475">And I remember one time I looked out and I saw on the <span class="dlf">fence</span> two bodies hanging on the <span class="dlf">fence</span>. </sentence><sentence id="476">These people were hung * <span class="dlf">roll call grounds</span> (German) there during the night. </sentence><sentence id="477">Just -- they wanted -- and shot -- I mean they were no longer living, but they let them hang there so that we could see it -- what would happen to us if we maybe not obey. </sentence><sentence id="478">From the regular work you could be sometimes selected to do some special work like maybe cleaning the <span class="interior space">pit toilets</span> or, or doing something around outside the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="479">Like one time I remember I was picked out to go with one of the SS and a couple of other prisoners to the nearest <span class="populated place">village</span> of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="480">We had to pick up something and we had to load it on this <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, on this big <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="481">There was no extra food. </sentence><sentence id="482">There was no, not even a sip of water that we would get but we were asked to stand by as the SS was feeding the horse the sugars out of his hand and we could watch it. </sentence><sentence id="483">That was a treat for us. </sentence><sentence id="484">But it was very hard. </sentence><sentence id="485">It was very hard because you were always so hungry and there was, there was nothing. </sentence><sentence id="486">I mean that was one of the terrible things that not only were you mistreated but you also were so hungry all the time. </sentence><sentence id="487">And I didn't know because I didn't have a <span class="spatial object">mirror</span>, I didn't know how I looked. </sentence><sentence id="488">But my father always told me towards the end of the war, towards the end of <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>, he said I was very puffed up, that I had hunger, I had hunger-edema. </sentence><sentence id="489">You know, you've seen these little children from <span class="country">Asia</span> who were blown up. </sentence><sentence id="490">Well, I wasn't so little anymore but I was --had this and it, it was really very bad. </sentence><sentence id="491">If you were sick during that time, it was very bad because not like in, in <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span> where there was still the possibility of being in a <span class="building">barrack</span> specially you, you, you still were treated a little bit more humanely. </sentence><sentence id="492">But if you really got sick in <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>, that was a very bad thing. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="627">Q: What would happen? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="629">A: You were just left there. </sentence><sentence id="630">I mean it -- there was there was no medication to speak of. </sentence><sentence id="631">There was nothing. </sentence><sentence id="632">The, the Jewish doctors had no means of really helping you. </sentence><sentence id="633">I don't think there was an aspirin in that <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="634">I don't think there was a bandage in that <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="635">I don't, I don't remember any of this stuff. </sentence><sentence id="636">Tough luck. </sentence><sentence id="637">I mean it was not possible. </sentence><sentence id="638">I believe it must have been towards the end of -- either the very end of December of 1944 or in the first week of 1945, Fraulein(r) Doctor Slottke, Fraulein Doctor Slottke -- Miss, Miss Doctor Slottke from the <span class="building">Central Security Office</span> in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> arrived in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="639">And she called to her all those people who had passports either some foreign passports. </sentence><sentence id="640">Now our family had received through the auspices, and a wonderful deed, of an uncle -- who was really a cousin -- Max Weil. </sentence><sentence id="641">He lived in <span class="country">Switzerland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="642">He was not Swiss. </sentence><sentence id="643">He was also German refugee, German Jewish refugee. </sentence><sentence id="644">He had bought passports from us from the <span class="building">Paraguayan Consul</span> in <span class="populated place">Bern</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="645">These passports stated that we were Paraguayan citizens, parenthetically. </sentence><sentence id="646">After the war, it was found out that this man had done this on his own, trying to help people but at the same time I believe he pocketed all the money for himself, of paying these passports. </sentence><sentence id="647">But really I don't care, because these passports helped our -- us. </sentence><sentence id="648">And I assume this man wanted to help. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="649">These passports interestingly enough reached us during the German occupation already, so we were able to receive it already although it was occupied and there was a censorship and all that. </sentence><sentence id="650">But we appeared in front of this Fraulein Doctor Slottke and she told us that they -- </sentence></p><p><sentence id="651"> SS young woman (German) that she wanted to exchange us Paraguayans and many others who held other passports for Germans who were living outside <span class="country">Germany</span>, who were not able to return, who were caught in the war. </sentence><sentence id="652">Who were living outside <span class="country">Germany</span>, and who could not get back to <span class="country">Germany</span> unless there was an arrangement that they would release so many Jewish prisoners for Germans. </sentence><sentence id="653">She said that they, we couldn't help it that we were in the <span class="region">state</span> we were and that she.... Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="654">Can I just drink? </sentence><sentence id="655">That she, that she would arrange that we would leave by <span class="spatial object">train</span> and go outside <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="656"> She told us that the next morning we would have to go through a thorough cleansing job. </sentence><sentence id="657">By the way, we were many times taken to this "<span class="interior space">cleansing bath</span>," so to speak -- I want to back -- track a minute on that, and taken there because we were full of lice all the time. </sentence><sentence id="658">But we had to take off our clothes. </sentence><sentence id="659">They were put into a big <span class="spatial object">machine</span> or something like that, in a <span class="spatial object">container</span> and which supposedly was heated up so that it should kill these lice but they never were killed. </sentence><sentence id="660">They were only worse every time that when you got your clothes back. </sentence><sentence id="661">And meantime you went -- had to go to a <span class="interior space">shower bath</span> and the SS -- male and female -- were, we were totally naked. </sentence><sentence id="662">We were standing around. </sentence><sentence id="663">They was standing there talking to one another, laughing their head off that we were all standing there in -- with nothing on helplessly. </sentence><sentence id="664">And then they sent us out. </sentence><sentence id="665">I remember one time standing in the <span class="env feature">snow</span> with the shoes on, no clothes whatsoever. </sentence><sentence id="666">The snow was on the <span class="env feature">ground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="667">It was freezing cold; and we had to wait for those de-liced, so-called de-liced clothing, which always came back with the lice crawling more on it because they never heated it up enough; and they said they had to re-do it because the lice weren't killed. </sentence><sentence id="668">So we were standing for a couple of hours before we got our clothes back. </sentence><sentence id="669">Now we had this experience, and we thought, "Oh no, we'll get again the same story," which we really did. </sentence><sentence id="670">But at the same time they also wanted us to throw away all the -- whatever we had which could be used against the Germans as a document. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="671">For some reason I have few little documents left. </sentence><sentence id="672">They must have been in some seams or hidden away or in a pocket they didn't see because when I remember -- when I entered this, this <span class="interior space">hall</span> where, where the people were processed, it was littered with paper. </sentence><sentence id="673">It was littered with clothing, with lice crawling over it and we were supposed to keep only what was on our bodies and as we went off we left the <span class="populated place">camp</span> after this whole procedure and we thought, "Was she telling the truth?" </sentence><sentence id="674">We didn't know whether we could trust her or not and as we walked again through the little <span class="env feature">birch forest</span> and we came out and we saw-it was a cold month--we saw the steam coming up, this, this smoke rising into the <span class="env feature">sky</span> and sure enough.... We could not believe it. </sentence><sentence id="675">We could not believe that there was really a little <span class="spatial object">train</span> standing, which was apparently. </sentence><sentence id="676">We got into the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and every <span class="interior space">compartment</span> was heated. </sentence><sentence id="677">We were living in cold <span class="building">barracks</span> for so long we didn't even know what a nice comfortable <span class="interior space">warm room</span> felt like. </sentence><sentence id="678">I mean, in this case, the, the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="679">Well, we came into the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and we could not believe it either, because they came around and gave us something to eat. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="680"> And said that we would go towards the <span class="dlf">Swiss border</span>, that from there on we would be exchanged against the German prisoners -- not prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="681">I mean, the German people who were outside <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="682">And they wished us, so to speak, a good trip. </sentence><sentence id="683">Well, we were started to roll and roll and we came across <span class="region">areas</span> where just before we had arrived there was a bombardment. </sentence><sentence id="684">Because already during that time the Germans -- the Allies had advanced into <span class="country">Germany</span> and there were also occasionally bombardments of various <span class="region">areas</span> which was strategically important to the Allies. </sentence><sentence id="685">And we were held back at various <span class="building">stations</span> because the <span class="dlf">train rails</span> had to be repaired and so forth. </sentence><sentence id="686">And we, we made a terrible detour, I remember, because suddenly we saw that we were in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> and we couldn't understand it. " </sentence><sentence id="687">If we go directly to the <span class="dlf">Swiss border</span> how come we are going through <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="688">And we got very anxious and suspicious again. </sentence><sentence id="689">But, indeed, we, we came through <span class="region">southern Germany</span> and we were heading towards the <span class="dlf">Swiss border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="690">Well, as you can imagine, people who had lived through that were not -- their health was not the best. </sentence><sentence id="691">And there was one person in particular, I remember we stopped at a certain <span class="building">station</span>, and his body -- he had died during the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride and his body was taken off the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and probably taken to the <span class="building">morgue</span> of the <span class="populated place">village</span> where we had stopped. </sentence><sentence id="692">As we approached the Dutch -- the <span class="dlf">Swiss border</span>, the SS stopped the <span class="spatial object">train</span> at a certain point and called people who were responsible from the group. </sentence><sentence id="693">They assigned certain people -- one of them was my dad -- they called them out and told them that they had to tell us that only a small number of the people on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> were going really to <span class="country">Switzerland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="694">That we were in such a bad condition that we -- they did not want us -- to send us across the <span class="dlf">border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="695">I guess they had a little feeling of shame left or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="696">We ended up in a -- in the <span class="building">barracks</span>, <span class="building">military barracks</span> actually, and made one military person responsible for us. </sentence><sentence id="697">It was -- we were assigned actually there for a couple of nights. </sentence><sentence id="698">Quite nice <span class="interior space">rooms</span>. </sentence><sentence id="699">And we -- they gave us something to eat. </sentence><sentence id="700">It wasn't very much, but we, we didn't have to starve during that time. </sentence><sentence id="701">Wasn't too much -- it was good. </sentence><sentence id="702">It wasn't too much, because our body and stomach didn't tolerate any more food really. </sentence><sentence id="703">But what we were not quite sure of -- what were they going to do with us? </sentence><sentence id="704">Where were we going? </sentence><sentence id="705">We knew that the war was towards an end, but we did not know -- until the day we left we were not informed that they had negotiated with <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> to send us back to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="706">Because the reason <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> didn't say, "Yes, send them," they couldn't do it right away because the <span class="dlf">railroad tracks</span> were even further damaged and the communication -- <span class="dlf">lines</span> of communication were severed. </sentence><sentence id="707">So that it would have been an eternal ride on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, probably escaping from here to there. </sentence><sentence id="708">Instead, they decided they would put us into an <span class="populated place">internment camp</span> for the time being. </sentence><sentence id="709">And so we, we ended up in an <span class="populated place">internment camp</span>; and in that <span class="populated place">internment camp</span> were people from the islands of <span class="populated place">Guernsey</span> and <span class="country">Jersey</span> from <span class="country">England</span>. </sentence><sentence id="710">Germans had occupied <span class="populated place">Guernsey</span> and <span class="country">Jersey</span>, and had interned most of its citizens in, in various <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="711">One of them was that <span class="populated place">camp</span> where we were. </sentence><sentence id="712">During that time when we were in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> it was very close to the end of the war. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="713">Was more illness, more -- there was more help available for us because people had supplies from the <span class="building">British Red Cross</span>. </sentence><sentence id="714">They were trying to de-louse us, cut off the hair because we were just full with lice. </sentence><sentence id="715">They gave us some food. </sentence><sentence id="716">They had to share -- could share with us. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="717">We were getting a little more fed and a little oriented where we were, what happened to us; and on April the 23rd, 1945, the French Army liberated us. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="718">Q: What was that like? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="719">A: What was that like? </sentence><sentence id="720">It was unbelievable. </sentence><sentence id="721">We couldn't believe that this.... We had hoped always that the war would end and that this would happen. </sentence><sentence id="722">But when it happened, it was so, so unbelievable that we should suddenly have our freedom again. </sentence><sentence id="723">Although we were in <span class="country">Germany</span> and we didn't like that idea. </sentence><sentence id="724">But we were free. </sentence><sentence id="725">Free. </sentence><sentence id="726">And there were many -- quite a number of weeks went by when we had to leave that <span class="populated place">camp</span> and then we were, had to go to an <span class="populated place">UNRRA camp</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="735">Q: Let's stop here. </sentence><sentence id="736">We have to put another tape on. </sentence><sentence id="737">This is a good place to break. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="741"> End of tape 1 TAPE #2 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="742">A: --Iremember my cousin, my cousin, my aunt, my uncle and a little -- my, my little cousin. </sentence><sentence id="743">I mean, say little cousin -- my cousin was only three years old, one of them, when we were in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="744">They -- the boy lived with my uncle and the girl lived with my aunt, in the same <span class="spatial object">bunk</span>. </sentence><sentence id="745">I feel -- when I look back I feel that communication and relations between the individual people were really very rough. </sentence><sentence id="746">There was because maybe of the hunger -- I, I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="747">I always look back and I have always these horrible pictures in front of me. </sentence><sentence id="748">People stealing one another -- off one another the bread. </sentence><sentence id="749">It could mean life or death if you had enough to eat. </sentence><sentence id="750">But this didn't count. </sentence><sentence id="751">People were uninhibitedly stealing. </sentence><sentence id="752">I remember for instance there was only one <span class="spatial object">toilet</span>, and in the morning you had to stand in <span class="dlf">line</span>, twenty, twenty-five deep or something, to go to this one <span class="spatial object">toilet</span>. </sentence><sentence id="753">And people were screaming and yelling at one another and telling them, "You can't stay in any longer and I pull you out." </sentence><sentence id="754">It was terrible. </sentence><sentence id="755">It was because of their own terrible needs I guess that they became like animals sometimes. </sentence><sentence id="756">I, unfortunately I don't remember that it brought out the best in anybody. </sentence><sentence id="757">I don't remember that. </sentence><sentence id="758">I wish I would, but I don't. </sentence><sentence id="759">I remember, for instance, other things that people because of the hunger, because of this, for some reason they were standing together and exchanging recipes. </sentence><sentence id="760">There were imaginary cooking sessions. </sentence><sentence id="761">There were dreams about -- I remember with Hannelore, we were talking about if we're ever liberated, what would we do in terms of -- we would buy a loaf of bread, buy coffee, jam and butter and prepare all of this, lock the <span class="dlf">door</span> in a <span class="interior space">room</span>, and do nothing but eating this bread, butter, jam and jelly, and, and coffee. </sentence><sentence id="762">This was our dream. </sentence><sentence id="763">We repeated it. </sentence><sentence id="764">This was our hope. </sentence><sentence id="765">We had the strangest experiences in these <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="766">For instance, there -- one of the guards, she was called "The Blonde," she would come through the <span class="building">barracks</span> and there was one woman who had a baby -- who, of course, died, because a baby cannot survive at all under those circumstances. </sentence><sentence id="767">But she would have it the weakness, sort of, and told the woman that she also has a baby, and she would try and get her some food for the baby. </sentence><sentence id="768">And she visited her until the baby died, really nearly every day. </sentence><sentence id="769">Turning her around, she would come through the <span class="building">barracks</span> every second day or so; and you had to have your <span class="spatial object">bunk</span> made up in such a perfect manner, totally straight. </sentence><sentence id="770">There was not allowed that there was one little fold somewhere, one little wrinkle or anything. </sentence><sentence id="771">She would pull it away and she would make sure that your rations were cut out if, if she ever would find that this was not perfect. </sentence><sentence id="772">She also didn't mind to use her little whip on people. </sentence><sentence id="773">And here she was that she was so concerned about the baby because she identified with this woman and, and her own child -- strangest occurrences. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="806">Q: What personally enabled you to get through? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="808">A: Well, I, I think a couple of things that -- hope that you had sort of the -- way down something told you maybe, maybe we, we, we have to get out of this. </sentence><sentence id="809">We can't survive -- we, we have to survive I mean, somehow. </sentence><sentence id="810">That this something was telling you, you have to and hope that you will, and maybe that you were young and confident somehow that luck will be on your side. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="814">Q: Shall we backtrack from liberation. </sentence><sentence id="815">Apparently luck was on your side and you were liberated. </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="818">A: Right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="820">Q: Pick up there again. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="822">A: When, when we were in <span class="populated place">UNRRA camp</span>, it was -- it, it should have been a new beginning. </sentence><sentence id="823">It was a new planning. </sentence><sentence id="824">It was a new thinking. " </sentence><sentence id="825">Where do we go from here? </sentence><sentence id="826">What are our, our possibilities to go from where?" </sentence><sentence id="827">We could not go back to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="828">We did not want to go back to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="829">To go to <span class="country">Holland</span>? </sentence><sentence id="830">Yes, we wanted to go to <span class="country">Holland</span>; but we also knew that we had wanted to leave <span class="country">Holland</span> at one time. </sentence><sentence id="831">So we had to, to make a plan to use <span class="country">Holland</span> only as a temporary place of, of, of sojourn, that we had to hopefully get to <span class="country">America</span> or to <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="832"><span class="country">Israel</span> was not possible for us at the time. </sentence><sentence id="833">So <span class="country">America</span> was more, more likely for us at that time. </sentence><sentence id="834">It was a matter of time, everything, but we had already so much times waited and spent and suffered. </sentence><sentence id="835">We, we wanted already to arrive somewhere. </sentence><sentence id="836">There was a possibility for me to go much earlier than my father, because I was born in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="837">And the German quota to come to the <span class="country">United States</span> was much smaller because the Americans rightfully did not want the Germans to at that time to come to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="838">They had to be de-Nazified, or they wanted to make sure who it was so the only German-born people were essentially a few exception scientists and so forth. </sentence><sentence id="839">And the German-born Jews, because that quota was more open. </sentence><sentence id="840">My father, who was born in <span class="country">France</span>, <span class="populated place">Strasbourg</span>, had to wait much longer than I did. </sentence><sentence id="841">So I went back to <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="842">I was able to get to go back to <span class="country">Holland</span> in 194-- end of 1947. </sentence><sentence id="843">This was nearly three years after the war. </sentence><sentence id="844">Oh, longer -- more than three years after the war. </sentence><sentence id="845">And after a few months in <span class="country">Holland</span>, I finally was able to get a visa to come to the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="846">And the nice part of this was that when we had left -- when we tried to leave <span class="country">Holland</span> in 1940, we were going to go with the <span class="dlf">Holland-America line</span> to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="847">And we had booked the tickets. </sentence><sentence id="848">And the man who was in charge of the <span class="building">office</span> in <span class="populated place">Rotterdam</span>, for some reason because of my father's work he knew my dad. </sentence><sentence id="849">And when I came to <span class="country">Holland</span>, after I had gotten my visa in <span class="populated place">Rotterdam</span>, I said, "Well, let me see. </sentence><sentence id="850">I go by the <span class="dlf">Holland- America line</span>." </sentence><sentence id="851">I had no money, really, to come to <span class="country">America</span>, to go on the <span class="spatial object">boat</span>; but I went there, and I said, "Let me try." </sentence><sentence id="852">I said -- I go in there and I said -- I told my story, that I had left -- was supposed to leave that time, that I never used the ticket and is it possible to use it now. </sentence><sentence id="853">And so the clerk to whom I spoke said, "Just a minute." </sentence><sentence id="854">And he went into the <span class="building">office</span> of the head of this <span class="building">office</span>, the director; and the director was there. </sentence><sentence id="855">And he came out personally, and he called me into his <span class="building">office</span>. </sentence><sentence id="856">And he, he, he was absolutely fantastic. </sentence><sentence id="857">But he was so nice and so stunned about the whole story I had to tell him. </sentence><sentence id="858">He said, "There's no question that we will honor your ticket." </sentence><sentence id="859">And not only did he send me to <span class="country">America</span> on that <span class="spatial object">boat</span> with the ticket we had paid so many years before, he put me into first class. </sentence><sentence id="860">And so I came to <span class="country">America</span> on the first class, on the, on the <span class="spatial object">Dutch liner</span>. </sentence><sentence id="861">And he also honored, of course, my father's ticket. </sentence><sentence id="862">And this was a few years later. </sentence><sentence id="863">So when he came to the <span class="country">United States</span>, he also came with the same <span class="spatial object">boat</span>; and this was really a wonderful gesture of this man. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="906">Q: What happened to the other members of your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="908">A: Well, that story is -- my close -- those members who were really caught in, in this terrible storm were my grandparents from my mother's side. </sentence><sentence id="909">My grandparents never left <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="910">They never were able to, to get out or to escape it, and we know from letters we have gotten and from facts that my grandparents were deported to <span class="populated place">Lodz ghetto</span> in <span class="country">Poland</span> in 1942. </sentence><sentence id="911">And we also know that my grandfather died in <span class="populated place">Lodz</span>, because my grandmother wrote it to her sister in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="912">And since we lived in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> I, you know, I was able to, to get that message from, from this aunt. </sentence><sentence id="913">And what we later found out, my, my -- the brother of my mother, uncle I have and we went back to <span class="populated place">Frankfurt</span> and we went to this <span class="building">house</span> where my grandparents lived "til the end, before they were deported. </sentence><sentence id="914">We know -- from, from the engineer who lived in this <span class="building">house</span> -- they said that my grandparents were picked up and that day and put on one of those <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>, thrown on these <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>. </sentence><sentence id="915">My grandfather was over eighty at that time, and he -- his health wasn't very good. </sentence><sentence id="916">He never lived very long in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, in <span class="populated place">Lodz</span>; and my poor grandmother survived the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, but then was sent to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> and of course never came back from <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="917">And my father's family, my grandmother and grandfather were dead at that time. </sentence><sentence id="918">They died before Hitler even. </sentence><sentence id="919">My father had some cousins in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> who did not survive the war in <span class="country">Germany</span> and our family is rather small. </sentence><sentence id="920">My cousins in <span class="country">Holland</span> and, and their parents, my father's brother and his sister-in-law and their two children, survived the war in a similar fashion than we did. </sentence><sentence id="921">Except after the war, when they were liberated, they could go back to <span class="country">Holland</span> much earlier than we could because they were originally Dutch citizens. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="936">Q: But you went on to <span class="country">America</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="938">A: Yes, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="940">Q: And what was it like there? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="942">A: Oh, in the beginning it was very strange. </sentence><sentence id="943">It was very difficult for me. </sentence><sentence id="944">It -- because I, I was shocked, because I arrived and maybe an hour later people started to ask me, "How do you like <span class="country">America</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="945">I didn't know how I liked <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="946">How can I know how I liked <span class="country">America</span>? </sentence><sentence id="947">I mean, I was overwhelmed, with everything and I had to go out and find a <span class="interior space">room</span>, a job, had -- it was a cultural shock for me. </sentence><sentence id="948">It took me quite a while till I got adjusted. </sentence><sentence id="949">I was very depressed in the beginning when I came to America-- </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="950">Q: What <span class="populated place">city</span> did you come to? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="951">A: To <span class="populated place">New York</span>. </sentence><sentence id="952">I only really started to feel good when I went to <span class="populated place">Charlottesville</span>, <span class="region">Virginia</span>, where we had some wonderful cousins. </sentence><sentence id="953">And I went to <span class="building">school</span>; and slowly -- and I also found some friends there. </sentence><sentence id="954">One was actually another survivor, but I slowly got absorbed into -- learned about American society and about family life and all the good things which I did not really experience so much in <span class="populated place">New York</span>. </sentence><sentence id="955">I don't think it's a good -- it was the best place to come to being.... If I had been received in a family or if I had -- it, it wasn't so -- I had to struggle by myself mos-- mainly. </sentence><sentence id="956">I had one nice experience, you know, I lived in -- and a very strange experience -- I lived in a in a <span class="interior space">room</span> which I rented from also a refugee family and I got quite friendly with one of the girls. </sentence><sentence id="957">And years later, I think forty years later or something. </sentence><sentence id="958">I'm here in <span class="populated place">Washington</span> and I belong to, to an independent congregation. </sentence><sentence id="959">And one night -- it's a <span class="populated place">community</span> actually -- and one night over coffee different people tell one another their story and talk to one another. </sentence><sentence id="960">And I find out that the woman I'm talking to is the daughter of that family where I, where I had a <span class="interior space">room</span> when I first came to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="961">She's one of my very good friends. </sentence><sentence id="962">Then after <span class="populated place">Charlottesville</span>, I came to <span class="populated place">Washington</span>; and I was a member of the <span class="building">international student house</span>, where I met my husband and life started to get good. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="975">Q: And do you have any children? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="977">A: I have two children -- two boys, Michael and David. </sentence><sentence id="978">And they are both married, have both wonderful families; and I have two grandchildren now. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="981">Q: And what about your father? </sentence><sentence id="982">He came over, I presume, afterwards? </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="985">A: Yes, and he lived in <span class="populated place">New York</span>. </sentence><sentence id="986">He worked for a <span class="building">Jewish self-help organization</span> for many, many years. </sentence><sentence id="987">He remarried once more, and he died three and a half years ago. </sentence><sentence id="988">He was nearly ninety years old, and he was widowed just two years before he died. </sentence><sentence id="989">And during the last two years of his life, he, he went -- he traveled enormously and he was able to enjoy really everything more than he ever had before then, until the last six months of his life when he got very ill. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="995">Q: We're coming to the end of the tape, and I'm -- I'd like to ask you two things. </sentence><sentence id="996">One, if there's anything that you feel that you've left out, anything you'd like to add, and -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="999">A: I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="1000">I don't remember exactly. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1003">Q: You don't remember what you don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="1004">And two, in general -- can you formulate in general how your experiences in the war affected you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1007">A: Oh, I'm sure they affected me a lot. </sentence><sentence id="1008">I would say they certainly affected my self-confidence for years. </sentence><sentence id="1009">They certainly affected my own self-value for years. </sentence><sentence id="1010">I'm sure they affected me in relationships and trust in other people for years. </sentence><sentence id="1011">I'm sure they still affect me in terms of if I see police or uniforms or -- still do. </sentence><sentence id="1012">I think truly that if I have regained any of these it was really due to my husband, who has helped me a great deal in overcoming some of these fears, the self-value, and all of that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1019">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1021">A: Thank you. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1022"> [Showing photographs] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1023">A: OK. </sentence><sentence id="1024">These are my maternal grandparents, Alice and Louis Bloch, picture taken I assume when they were very young, marry picture perhaps. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1025"> [Technical conversation] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1026">A: This is a picture of my parents, Else and Alfred Moser. </sentence><sentence id="1027">I don't know when it was taken but I assume it must be very early in their marriage. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1028"> [Technical conversation] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1029">A: This is a picture -- family picture I should say, but my grandparents, my paternal grandparents are on this picture. </sentence><sentence id="1030">The man with a moustache is my grandfather Julius Moser and the lady with the deep-seated eyes my grandmother Bertha Moser and the man with the small moustache is her brother Max Weil. </sentence><sentence id="1031">The young girl standing is a cousin of my father's, Alice Sternheimer, and I'm not sure who the young boy is but I, I guess it's her, her brother. </sentence><sentence id="1032">I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="1033">But as I look at this picture, it's interesting -- this must be taken around 1915, I figure -- the <span class="spatial object">bowl</span> you see standing there with the cherries on it, painted on it. </sentence><sentence id="1034">| remember that my grandmother had that <span class="spatial object">bowl</span> when I was little girl. </sentence><sentence id="1035">I always admired that <span class="spatial object">bowl</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1036"> [Technical conversation] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1037">A: This is a picture of myself. </sentence><sentence id="1038">I must have been between four and five years old, ready to go to <span class="spatial object">masked ball</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1039"> [Technical conversation] </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1040">A: This is the <span class="spatial object">Star of David</span> we had to wear on our clothing starting 1942 in <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1041">It had, like I said in my interview, it had to be attached to your clothing on every piece of clothing you were wearing. </sentence><sentence id="1042">You see that it says, in Dutch, "Jew." </sentence><sentence id="1043"> [Conclusion of Interview] </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ </body>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: zelda piekarska brodecki
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0041
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0041_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504543
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1928-07-27
9
+ birth_year: 1928.0
10
+ place_of_birth: sosnowiec
11
+ country: poland
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1989.h.0336
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">ZELDA PIEKARSKA BRODECKI September 18, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell us your name and where and when you were born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Zelda Piekarska Brodecki. </sentence><sentence id="6">I was born in <span class="country">Poland</span>, <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span> [Ger: <span class="populated place">Sosnowitz</span>], July 27, 1928. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: Would you, can you tell us about your family life? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: My immediately family was my mother, mine father, my brother and myself. </sentence><sentence id="12">But I had a grandmother and a grandfather, uncle, aunts and cousins and family, very loving family. </sentence><sentence id="13">Very close family. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: Where did you go to <span class="building">school</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="19">A: In <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">Wait a minute. </sentence><sentence id="21">Let me see how I called [<span class="building">Pofsehna School</span> (ph)]. </sentence><sentence id="22">It's not a <span class="building">high school</span>; it's a <span class="building">middle school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="23">That's how you call it? </sentence><sentence id="24">See I was uh I went to <span class="building">school</span> until occupation, until the Germans came in. </sentence><sentence id="25">Then we couldn't go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="26">We were not allowed to go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="35">Q: Was it a <span class="building">Jewish school</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="37">A: No, it was not a <span class="building">Jewish school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="38">Was a...not a...it was for everybody, a <span class="building">public school</span>, yes. </sentence><sentence id="39">Was a nice <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="43">Q: Was your family observant Jewishly? </sentence><sentence id="44">Did they follow the laws, the customs? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="47">A: I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="48">I couldn't, I hope, I think, I think they did. </sentence><sentence id="49">I mean, we were Jewish but I couldn't tell you. </sentence><sentence id="50">Really, I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="51">I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="52">Mine grandparents were, that I remember. </sentence><sentence id="53">But about us I couldn't tell you. </sentence><sentence id="54">But we had always the holidays, and all those good days with our grandparents so I think and hope that one's true. </sentence><sentence id="55">When we were with them. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="65">Q: What kind of a <span class="building">business</span> was your father in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: We had, we had a <span class="building">candy factory</span>, two brothers, mine uncle, Uncle - I forgot his - Uncle - let me think - and mine father and we had a <span class="building">restaurant</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="69">Q: Can you tell us how your life began to change when the war came? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="71">A: I remember when the Germans occupied <span class="country">Poland</span> when they came to <span class="country">Poland</span>, I don't know which day it was, the third or the fourth day, mine father had, mine father had to leave because he was Polish officer and he went with mine uncle and I was just there with my mother and my brother, and the people who were working for us - that's what I remember. </sentence><sentence id="72">That's what I'm telling you. </sentence><sentence id="73">And we were at the <span class="building">store</span> and I remember the, the Germans came and rushed in, the Germans and the, and the armed <span class="spatial object">tanks</span> and mine brother was missing. </sentence><sentence id="74">He was not at <span class="building">home</span> and my - was shooting and I remember that my mother went to look for him and brought him <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="75">That's what I remember. </sentence><sentence id="76">And after two, two weeks my father came back <span class="building">home</span> with mine uncle. </sentence><sentence id="77">Many changes started happening. </sentence><sentence id="78">I remember I saw many people laying on the <span class="env feature">ground</span> in <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span> and I couldn't understand what's happen. </sentence><sentence id="79">I never saw things like that. </sentence><sentence id="80">And so I asked my mother what it is and she explained to me it's all killed and explained the nicest way she could to me. </sentence><sentence id="81">But you know children, they take in the way you explain to them everything and gradually everything started happening. </sentence><sentence id="82">We had to close up the <span class="building">shops</span>. </sentence><sentence id="83">We had to prepare to go to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, the <span class="building">Srodula</span> [Ger: Schrodula] and I remember that our, that they were attacking people on the <span class="dlf">streets</span>, young ladies, and they told them to dig <span class="dlf">graves</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">And later, they told them to take off clothes and they shot through the breast. </sentence><sentence id="85">.(PAUSE) Sorry. </sentence><sentence id="86">And tell them to dig the <span class="dlf">graves</span>, and the <span class="dlf">graves</span> were still being, you know, I just don't know how to express myself. </sentence><sentence id="87">The people are still alive there. </sentence><sentence id="88">This is before we were going to <span class="populated place">Srodula</span>. </sentence><sentence id="89">And I, we had a - I'm going to tell you about a young man who was extremely brave, and nobody talks about him. </sentence><sentence id="90">His name was Marek Lieberman. </sentence><sentence id="91">He was beautiful, blonde with blue eyes. </sentence><sentence id="92">Extremely good to people. </sentence><sentence id="93">A very wealthy person, helping everybody. </sentence><sentence id="94">Didn't care who you are or what you are. </sentence><sentence id="95">And somebody announce some about him. </sentence><sentence id="96">They came to the <span class="building">house</span>, knock on the <span class="dlf">wall</span> and took all the money. </sentence><sentence id="97">And we were called to come to the <span class="building">market</span>, and he was hung. </sentence><sentence id="98">I was five feet away from him, and it's engraved in my mind. </sentence><sentence id="99">I can't forget it. </sentence><sentence id="100">It's always with me. </sentence><sentence id="101">People should know about it. </sentence><sentence id="102">His name was Marek Lieberman. </sentence><sentence id="103">And in the same time, his wife give birth to a baby; and I was sent out to check, I don't know where, but this was our talking in the <span class="populated place">city</span>, and this stays with me. </sentence><sentence id="104">And I saw other incidents too. </sentence><sentence id="105">But this happened later. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="141">Q: Can you tell us about those? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="143">A: I...L..I saw a mother walking with her dead baby and crying and singing to her. </sentence><sentence id="144">You got, when, do you want me to tell you about the rest. </sentence><sentence id="145">When we were going, when we were going...this was in, in 1943, I don't remember which day. </sentence><sentence id="146">It was June, but I don't remember which day it was. </sentence><sentence id="147">I was standing in the <span class="dlf">line</span>. </sentence><sentence id="148">The Germans were standing withus (tortures) tortures, yes, and the mother was standing with her daughter and she said something to her daughter and the German soldiers, soldier came, came, came toward them and hit the little girl and the mother was protecting the child. </sentence><sentence id="149">You know, she took her in her arms and he took a gun and shot her. . </sentence><sentence id="150">How can you erase something like that? </sentence><sentence id="151">That's always with you. </sentence><sentence id="152">You don't even have to close your eyes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="163">Q: Can you tell us about life in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="165">A: I'm going to tell you about my...I mean, the children. </sentence><sentence id="166">The children had little <span class="building">schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="167">We went, we got together. </sentence><sentence id="168">We had teachers, I mean. </sentence><sentence id="169">The young men were sent out, the young men and the young women were sent out to concen...to <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="170">I don't know to what kind <span class="populated place">camps</span>, and I didn't...you know, when you are with your parents, it doesn't matter how bad it is. </sentence><sentence id="171">But if you still have somebody who loves you, cares about you, who look after you, even if you don't have nothing to eat, even when you don't have, when you live three or four families in two <span class="interior space">rooms</span>, you know there's somebody there who will protect you. </sentence><sentence id="172">So when you're a child you don't pay much attention. </sentence><sentence id="173">You play hop...hop scotch, you go to, I mean, there were no <span class="building">schools</span>, but we had little classes. </sentence><sentence id="174">People were teaching us. </sentence><sentence id="175">People, all the people were getting together, having meetings until somebody talk about them, tell the Germans; then when they start, because the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> was closed and they were watching us. </sentence><sentence id="176">Mine dad could go back to <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span> everyday to work. </sentence><sentence id="177">My mother was in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> with us children. </sentence><sentence id="178">I just had one little brother. </sentence><sentence id="179">Mine uncles, mine uncles, the Germans took them right away to a place and...I forgot how they called the place and I remember they were, they were hitting on the head of mine uncles. </sentence><sentence id="180">I know, because I went there because I was a little kid. </sentence><sentence id="181">I could run around every where. </sentence><sentence id="182">They didn't know who I was. </sentence><sentence id="183">They didn't caught me, so I just saw what's happening and report it at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="184">But they could not get them out. </sentence><sentence id="185">And they send them out to I know, they killed them right away there. </sentence><sentence id="186">Two of mine uncles. </sentence><sentence id="187">And one uncle they sent right away to a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="188">Many things coming back to me. </sentence><sentence id="189">I didn't thought...for many, many years I couldn't. ( </sentence><sentence id="190">I'm sorry.) </sentence><sentence id="191">I said, many things are coming back to my mind and I didn't talk about them for many years. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="219">Q: Please, share them with us. </sentence><sentence id="220">Would you like a glass of water? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="223">A: Yes, thank you. </sentence><sentence id="224">Thank you. ( </sentence><sentence id="225">PAUSE - pouring water.) </sentence><sentence id="226">This is my mother. </sentence><sentence id="227">This is mine father. </sentence><sentence id="228">And my little brother. </sentence><sentence id="229">This is myself. </sentence><sentence id="230">The picture was made in 1936 or "37. </sentence><sentence id="231">This is <span class="building">Joseph Piekarsky</span>. </sentence><sentence id="232">This is <span class="building">Miriam Piekarska</span>. </sentence><sentence id="233">And this is <span class="populated place">Lolek Piekarsky</span>. </sentence><sentence id="234">And this is <span class="populated place">Zelda Piekarska</span>. </sentence><sentence id="235">That's myself. </sentence><sentence id="236">That's...this is the only thing I have left from the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="237">I mean, I didn't have it. </sentence><sentence id="238">Mine uncles sent it to me from <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="255">Q: What...you said things were coming back to you from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="256">Can you tell us what's coming into your mind? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="259">A: Uh, the young girls like myself, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, had to go to work. </sentence><sentence id="260">And I was working in a <span class="building">factory</span>, I forgot, Dietrich (ph) I think, Dietrich. </sentence><sentence id="261">And I was working from seven in the evening to seven in the morning. </sentence><sentence id="262">And I remember at night I had to come back <span class="building">home</span>, going to the <span class="dlf">cemetery</span> by myself. </sentence><sentence id="263">But I wasn't scared. </sentence><sentence id="264">I was singing, and my father was waiting on the other <span class="dlf">corner</span> for me. </sentence><sentence id="265">I remember good, I remember good things too, because people were getting together. </sentence><sentence id="266">People were caring about each other. </sentence><sentence id="267">We didn't have much, because they took everything away from us. </sentence><sentence id="268">When then came to <span class="country">Poland</span>, right away they took, they came to the <span class="building">houses</span>, and you know, they confiscate everything. </sentence><sentence id="269">I remember when they came to mine <span class="building">house</span>; and uh my grandmother give my mother a silver something, silver tea and coffee set. </sentence><sentence id="270">And they took it away. </sentence><sentence id="271">And my mother went, she didn't allow them. </sentence><sentence id="272">And my father said, "Give it to them. </sentence><sentence id="273">I will get you new ones when, God permit, we leave here alive." </sentence><sentence id="274">Back of my mind too. </sentence><sentence id="275">Just a little thing, but when we went to...when we went to <span class="populated place">Srodula</span>, to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, just allowed to take so much and so much. </sentence><sentence id="276">Just a few pounds. </sentence><sentence id="277">And three or four families lived in two <span class="interior space">rooms</span>. </sentence><sentence id="278">We had three families living in one <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="279">I remember my father was singing to me at night. </sentence><sentence id="280">He was sitting by the <span class="spatial object">bed</span> and singing to me. </sentence><sentence id="281">And it was bad. </sentence><sentence id="282">Was very bad. </sentence><sentence id="283">And killings and beating people. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="309">Q: Can you tell us a little bit more about your father and his <span class="building">factory</span>? </sentence><sentence id="310">It was a famous <span class="building">business</span>, was it not? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="313">A: It was, I don't know how famous it was. </sentence><sentence id="314">It was a <span class="building">business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="315">It was, I don't know how big it was or how small; but it was a, you know, it was a <span class="building">factory</span>. [ </sentence><sentence id="316">Sinkevitz Ashedem (ph)] in <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="321">Q: Is that where he went to work when he went back out of the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> to work? </sentence><sentence id="322">Did he go to the <span class="building">factory</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="325">A: I don't know what he was doing when he went from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> to work. </sentence><sentence id="326">This I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="327">But he came <span class="building">home</span> every night. </sentence><sentence id="328">This I don't know, but the <span class="building">factory</span> was there; because even when I came back <span class="building">home</span> after the war, the <span class="building">factory</span> was there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="333">Q: What did it make? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="335">A: Candy and chocolate. </sentence><sentence id="336">I was always kidding...after the war I was kidding with my husband, I'm so sick because I was made . </sentence><sentence id="337">That's funny. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="341">Q: What...how did you get food in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence><sentence id="342">Could you buy food? </sentence><sentence id="343">How did people... </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="347">A: On the <span class="building">black market</span>, sometimes they were buying food. </sentence><sentence id="348">I really don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="349">I don't, I think they were getting stamps, food stamps. </sentence><sentence id="350">I mean, not the...mine father brought something from the <span class="populated place">city</span> somehow. </sentence><sentence id="351">I couldn't, don't ask me. </sentence><sentence id="352">I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="353">Because I really don't know. </sentence><sentence id="354">But what...what I remember, this what came back to me. </sentence><sentence id="355">Mine father in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> was working in the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>; and I remember when he was telling how to my mother that they were taking out children, sick children, because I wouldn't be... because when the Germans, when the Germans came, they dispose right away of sick, sick, sick children. </sentence><sentence id="356">Sick all the people. </sentence><sentence id="357">So they were carrying the children in <span class="spatial object">garbage cans</span> covered with vegetables. </sentence><sentence id="358">With whatever was left. </sentence><sentence id="359">Those things I remember. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="373">Q: They hid them there? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="375">A: They brought them from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> to <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>, and in <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span> somebody took them someplace else. </sentence><sentence id="376">But I couldn't tell you where. </sentence><sentence id="377">I don't know. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="381">Q: And that's how they moved them? </sentence><sentence id="382">In <span class="spatial object">garbage cans</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="385">A: They moved them in the <span class="spatial object">garbage can</span>. </sentence><sentence id="386">Because right away when they came in they eliminate, they...you know, they took, they called us all. </sentence><sentence id="387">And they said, "You go here, you go here. </sentence><sentence id="388">This one, you go to dead. </sentence><sentence id="389">You go to <span class="building">work</span>." </sentence><sentence id="390">And you go, wherever they want to they send you. </sentence><sentence id="391">But I was still with mine parents. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="399">Q: Were there other people that you adopted into your family at this time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="401">A: We had a little boy who was living in <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span> with us; and his parents were sent to <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> and he was with us. </sentence><sentence id="402">But I don't know what happened to him. </sentence><sentence id="403">Because his parents came after the war back from <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="404">And he was, he was not...he was with my father. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="409">Q: Were there any other people who stand out in your memory, from the time in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="411">A: I should, but I...I don't remember. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="413">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="414">What about your brother? </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="417">A: The last time I saw mine brother was June 26, 1943. </sentence><sentence id="418">He went...he was with my mother. </sentence><sentence id="419">My father was not with them. </sentence><sentence id="420">I don't know what happened to my father; but later I found out that they shot him, and I was with my mother and my brother. </sentence><sentence id="421">I remember it was raining and she had, was wearing a jacket. </sentence><sentence id="422">She put it around me so I wouldn't get wet. </sentence><sentence id="423">And I didn't want to go away from her. </sentence><sentence id="424">And she was pushing me. </sentence><sentence id="425">She said,"Somebody has to be alive to tell the story." </sentence><sentence id="426">And I didn't want to go away from her. </sentence><sentence id="427">I had long braids, and they were pulling me from one side; and she didn't want to leave my brother. </sentence><sentence id="428">She went with my brother. </sentence><sentence id="429">She was...she was a young woman; and my brother was two years younger than I was. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="443">Q: Where did this take place? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="445">A: In <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>. </sentence><sentence id="446">No, in <span class="populated place">Srodula ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="447">Because we were the last ones to go, the last Jews to leave the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="451">Q: Can you tell us about the liquidation of the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>? </sentence><sentence id="452">How did they take people? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="455">A: It's like I said. </sentence><sentence id="456">They put...they took us together in the <span class="building">market</span> and they were choosing people. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="457">"You go this way, and you go that way." </sentence><sentence id="458">And they were...like I said, I didn't want to go away from my mother; and they pulled me and I had to go away from her. </sentence><sentence id="459">I didn't want to, but I had to. </sentence><sentence id="460">And my mother said, "You have to go with them." </sentence><sentence id="461">And I went. </sentence><sentence id="462">And she went with mine brother. </sentence><sentence id="463">And it was whole place with young girls, with young people; and I remember the Germans said to me, in German, "[Eine puppe sehr giit (ph)]." </sentence><sentence id="464">They're going to be very good to us. </sentence><sentence id="465">We're going to have a wonderful time, all of us. </sentence><sentence id="466">And uh right from there they put us in those <span class="spatial object">cattle wagons</span>; and they picked up other people on the way from other <span class="populated place">cities</span>, and it was horrible. </sentence><sentence id="467">I'm still...I still don't like to go by <span class="spatial object">trains</span>. </sentence><sentence id="468">That was just... </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="469">Q: Can you describe it please? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="470">A: Was no...was no water, no <span class="dlf">windows</span>. </sentence><sentence id="471">We were closed up. </sentence><sentence id="472">People were praying. </sentence><sentence id="473">People didn't know where to go to use the <span class="interior space">bathroom</span>. </sentence><sentence id="474">They give us a <span class="spatial object">bucket</span>. </sentence><sentence id="475">And we were like little sardines put together. </sentence><sentence id="476">We didn't have place to move. </sentence><sentence id="477">I don't know if we were gone three days or four days. </sentence><sentence id="478">I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="479">People...people were dying. </sentence><sentence id="480">Holding hands, and just holding...holding hands. </sentence><sentence id="481">And we came to <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>--no, we came to [<span class="populated place">Guntebrecher</span> (ph)], to <span class="country">Germany</span>; and I remember they let us out, like you know, when you sit so many days, when you stand and you can move. </sentence><sentence id="482">And the Germans, the Germans was screaming and beating us with the guns and with those, with those...those.... I don't know how you call it, they keep them in , yes, <span class="building">clubs</span> ?. </sentence><sentence id="483">And it was just..(DISRUPTION) And I remember when we came to Guentherbriicke,| this was our first arbeit , <span class="building">arbeit lager</span>; which was bad too, but it was not like our death. </sentence><sentence id="484">And there were already some people and they were just giving us work right away then. </sentence><sentence id="485">And so many people, most of the people were very sick. </sentence><sentence id="486">They couldn't go to work. </sentence><sentence id="487">But they were afraid to say something. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="506">Q: Were you with anybody you knew at that time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="508">A: I met uh...you know, when you go, when young people go together, you just start talking to each other, and you meet. </sentence><sentence id="509">And I knew all of them. </sentence><sentence id="510">But came people from other <span class="populated place">cities</span>; and there were two ladies who knew my mother when she was a young girl. </sentence><sentence id="511">Their name was Kaufman (ph). </sentence><sentence id="512">And uh I just met them, and I didn't know that they knew my mother; but I was just going to everybody, and I was just touching and thanking and introducing myself. </sentence><sentence id="513">And they said to me, "Your mother, we worked with her." </sentence><sentence id="514">And so was a friendship, and so I knew right away somebody. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="522">Q: What kind of work did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="524">A: When I came to <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>, when I was doing...I was working with a shovel and uh, a laborer. </sentence><sentence id="525">Very hard work. </sentence><sentence id="526">But I was always dreaming, I was always pretending; and I wanted to , | went <span class="building">home</span> to my parents. </sentence><sentence id="527">And I was singing, you know, one of Jewish songs we sing, tell stories. </sentence><sentence id="528">And I was dancing, and tap dancing. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="534">Q: What were the living conditions like in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="536">A: What conditions? </sentence><sentence id="537">We were existing, not even existing. </sentence><sentence id="538">We, the food - I remember I took a piece of bread, a tiny piece of bread, and I took it to a lady. </sentence><sentence id="539">And I said to her, "Cut in very thin...very thin slices." </sentence><sentence id="540">So I would have it for a long time. </sentence><sentence id="541">And uh later I, I got a better job. </sentence><sentence id="542">I mean they sent me to put <span class="spatial object">boxes</span> together. </sentence><sentence id="543">We called it <span class="building">Sentung</span> (ph), sending ammunition and things to other <span class="populated place">cities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="544">And I had to put it together. </sentence><sentence id="545">And I was singing...I remember my father was singing German songs; and I knew a few, and I was singing. </sentence><sentence id="546">And there was one German " <span class="populated place">Forced labor camp</span> near <span class="populated place">Breslau</span> (Pol: <span class="populated place">Wroc_aw</span>). </sentence><sentence id="547"> who was...he said, "How do you know those songs?" </sentence><sentence id="548">I said, "Because my father was singing." </sentence><sentence id="549">And uh he like it so much he gave me a piece of bread. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="565">Q: Can you sing one of the songs for us? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="567">A: Oh, I can't sing, I can't sing. </sentence><sentence id="568">And uh later, I was sent out from this <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> to another one, to <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>. </sentence><sentence id="569">In <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>...let me think a minute. </sentence><sentence id="570">In <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>, for me was a <span class="populated place">man's concentration camp</span> and a <span class="populated place">woman's concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="571">And in <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span> when it was, I...[ became sick. </sentence><sentence id="572">I mean, I didn't have...I was malnutritious, and I was working very hard. </sentence><sentence id="573">And I was working, and uh I was a mechanic. </sentence><sentence id="574">I was supposed to be on <span class="building">mechanic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="575">The German who had the place wanted me to repair a <span class="spatial object">car</span>. </sentence><sentence id="576">What do I know about a <span class="spatial object">car</span>? </sentence><sentence id="577">So he took a piece of iron and put it on my coat. </sentence><sentence id="578">He's going to kill. </sentence><sentence id="579">And was there another German who said, " -" You know, "Leave her alone. </sentence><sentence id="580">She doesn't know how to repair a <span class="spatial object">car</span>." </sentence><sentence id="581">So he said something to him in German. </sentence><sentence id="582">But he didn't do anything to me, because the other one was a soldier. </sentence><sentence id="583">So he...and I told this when I came <span class="building">home</span>, you know, to...to the <span class="building">barracks</span>, to my , to the lady who took us to take care of us. </sentence><sentence id="584">So she didn't let me go to work anymore the next day. </sentence><sentence id="585">She said that I am sick or something happened, she needs me there, you know. </sentence><sentence id="586">And they send me someplace else; because I was afraid if I go back to <span class="building">work</span> I'm not going to come <span class="building">home</span> alive. </sentence><sentence id="587">That was horrible. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="609">Q: How many people lived in one <span class="building">barracks</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="611">A: Many people; because we slept on the <span class="interior space">floor</span> and we had uh straw, on the straw. </sentence><sentence id="612">We didn't have, we just had uh those things with , not really dresses, made like paper. </sentence><sentence id="613">No stockings, no shoes, just rags around our feet. </sentence><sentence id="614">And it was very cold, extremely cold. </sentence><sentence id="615">Oh, something burst into my mind. </sentence><sentence id="616">When I was in <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span>, I had prisoners of war...Russian prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="617">I remember once, and we just worked maybe ten or fifteen girls with some German who were taking care of us. </sentence><sentence id="618">And if they didn't see what you were doing, we...all the bread of...we didn't have nothing, but we sent all to the men. </sentence><sentence id="619">Because, I mean, we couldn't move without them. </sentence><sentence id="620">It was, it was horrible. </sentence><sentence id="621">And this, in same concen...in this same lager what I was, I met a guy...I met many guys, many Hollanders from <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="622">But to to the <span class="building">arbeit lagers</span> too; because they had Jewish professors in <span class="country">Holland</span>, as they want to prod the students to boycott the Jewish professors, and they didn't want to. </sentence><sentence id="623">So for the punishment, they sent them to concen...to the <span class="building">lagers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="624">And I met those guys, I met all of them. </sentence><sentence id="625">They were wonderful people. </sentence><sentence id="626">And one was Elias Kohn (ph), who's helping me out, who's helping everybody, who's wonderful, a wonderful human being. </sentence><sentence id="627">He risked his life to come...I mean, in this...in this <span class="populated place">Klettendorf</span> he didn't have to do, but then he was sent to another <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>, to <span class="building">ammunition factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="628">He risked his life, and he came and he made a picture. </sentence><sentence id="629">He made many pictures. </sentence><sentence id="630">This was made in 1945, uh 1944, the eleventh month. </sentence><sentence id="631">I was working in <span class="building">ammunition factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="632">We, my whole body was grey-blue. </sentence><sentence id="633">And I scratched myself; and being hungry, not having what to sleep, not having what to eat, being, you know, missing everybody the way I did, I got very sick. </sentence><sentence id="634">We didn't have any doctors. </sentence><sentence id="635">We didn't have any nurses. </sentence><sentence id="636">But we had uh a lady who was married to a doctor, who was kind and took care of me. </sentence><sentence id="637">He said for me to stay on the hot water, and when I felt...she took a razor blade because we didn't have any scalpels, and she cut me under my arm and she let the pus out and my whole body was.... And I was fainting; and she...somehow she took care of me. </sentence><sentence id="638">She said, she told me...I didn't know this because I didn't know then, but then I met her in 19...I mean, I met her ten or fifteen years ago in <span class="populated place">New York</span> at a wedding. </sentence><sentence id="639">She was telling my husband that she was nursing with me with little spoons with water, because we didn't have much to eat. </sentence><sentence id="640">And everybody contribute. </sentence><sentence id="641">All the guys were very supportive, helping each other. </sentence><sentence id="642">You know, everybody give something away, they don't have much; and this helped me back to life. </sentence><sentence id="643">And I was screaming, "I have to be alive because I have to go <span class="building">home</span>." </sentence><sentence id="644">I knew that I didn't have anybody, but I was hoping so hard that I believe in it. </sentence><sentence id="645">And when I come <span class="building">home</span>, I'm going to have a mother and a father. </sentence><sentence id="646">And that's what I told everybody. </sentence><sentence id="647">And everybody agreed with me. </sentence><sentence id="648">Nobody disagreed, and everybody said, "Of course, you will." </sentence><sentence id="649">I mean, the doctors didn't have to do anything. </sentence><sentence id="650">They just talked to you and told you, and you believed them. </sentence><sentence id="651">Maybe this will help you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="694">Q: How did this Dutch man help you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="696">A: He was bringing, bringing food for us. </sentence><sentence id="697">He was telling us what was going on. </sentence><sentence id="698">He thinks even when you don't, didn't believe it, it was your only hope. </sentence><sentence id="699">You grabbed it. </sentence><sentence id="700">And we loved him, all the girls loved him. </sentence><sentence id="701">Even came to see us after the war, too. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="708">Q: How long were you in that particular <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="710">A: I couldn't tell you. </sentence><sentence id="711">I went to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, was 1943; and I was...I was two years in the <span class="populated place">camps</span> together. </sentence><sentence id="712">But with the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> together, it was--the whole war, six years. </sentence><sentence id="713">You know, sometimes I sit and I don't believe it myself. </sentence><sentence id="714">But it's the truth. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="720">Q: Can you tell us more about the relationship between the young women together in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="722">A: We were very supportive of each other. </sentence><sentence id="723">I had four girl friends. </sentence><sentence id="724">These are Klara Kartush (ph) in <span class="populated place">Detroit</span>, Tonya, Tonya...I forget her maiden name--Jablon (ph). </sentence><sentence id="725">And Sara Stapler(ph).Those girls were wonderful. </sentence><sentence id="726">They even took care of me when I was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="727">Because they had a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> they sent out in 19...in 1945, before the war ended, they sent a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> of girls. </sentence><sentence id="728">I couldn't go because I was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="729">So they left me; and those girls didn't go. </sentence><sentence id="730">They said, "We're going to save you." </sentence><sentence id="731">| didn't want to ask. </sentence><sentence id="732">They said, "You have to lie down, because we're going...we're going close the whole lager." </sentence><sentence id="733">But what happened...the good thing happened that the Russians came the night before, and we were liberated the 8th of May. </sentence><sentence id="734">And they were supposed to kill us the 9th. </sentence><sentence id="735">Get rid of us. </sentence><sentence id="736">And you know, we were scared to tell them that we are sick because doesn't matter what. </sentence><sentence id="737">Right away, dead. ( </sentence><sentence id="738">PAUSE) I remember I was standing and I was dreaming, I was pretending; I was looking at everything was so beautiful outside green, and we were cooped up. </sentence><sentence id="739">And people were going to work, and taking, and couldn't understand this. </sentence><sentence id="740">In the morning, we had to go to <span class="building">work</span>. ( </sentence><sentence id="741">PAUSE) We had to go and march, too. </sentence><sentence id="742">And they were clubbing us. </sentence><sentence id="743">They were hitting us. </sentence><sentence id="744">Some people got, some people got...not hurt, but killed. </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="769">Q: Were you yourself ever hit? </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="771">A: Many times. </sentence><sentence id="772">One time I stole a potato. </sentence><sentence id="773">I was working in a <span class="interior space">garden</span>. </sentence><sentence id="774">I saw a potato and I put in my arm. </sentence><sentence id="775">Had a bandage, but I put the potato in my hand; and they caught me and I was beaten. </sentence><sentence id="776">Everybody was standing looking as they were beating me with - (PAUSE) - yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="783">Q: What happened after you were liberated? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="785">A: When I was liberated, I was with my girl friends. </sentence><sentence id="786">I was liberated with the girls in <span class="populated place">Ludwigsdorf</span>, in <span class="populated place">Ludwigsdorf</span> in <span class="building">ammunition factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="787">And I was uh very sick. </sentence><sentence id="788">I couldn't go any place; so we went to <span class="populated place">Walgenbuch</span> (ph). </sentence><sentence id="789">We took our <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, and we stayed there for two, three weeks. </sentence><sentence id="790">I felt better. </sentence><sentence id="791">And uh somebody brought me a letter from <span class="country">Poland</span>, from my cousin, to come back <span class="building">home</span>...to come <span class="building">home</span>. " </sentence><sentence id="792">We're going to teach, you're going to go back to <span class="building">school</span>." </sentence><sentence id="793">And I was very eager to do this. </sentence><sentence id="794">So three weeks later, I went back to <span class="country">Poland</span> without papers, with nothing. </sentence><sentence id="795">I went back to <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>. </sentence><sentence id="796">Hoping, hoping that I have somebody there. </sentence><sentence id="797">Can you imagine, I was sitting in the <span class="spatial object">train</span>...I was sitting with a priest with some girls. </sentence><sentence id="798">And I remember I didn't have anywhere to put mine head, so I put on his knee; and when he started talking about the Jews, I picked up mine head and said, "I'm Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="799">And I'm . </sentence><sentence id="800">I'm Jewish and I'm coming from <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>." </sentence><sentence id="801">And I said, "You better close your mouth, because you don't know what you're talking about." </sentence><sentence id="802">He got up...he throw me down, and he got up and went away. </sentence><sentence id="803">Coming back from...to <span class="populated place">Sosnowiec</span>, I didn't have any money. </sentence><sentence id="804">| didn't have any <span class="spatial object">baggage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="805">I just had whatever I was wearing. </sentence><sentence id="806">Mine heart was pumping. </sentence><sentence id="807">I was overwhelmed. </sentence><sentence id="808">I was very happy; but I was excited and I was happy and I was scared and I didn't trust. </sentence><sentence id="809">I was afraid to trust. </sentence><sentence id="810">And I went back when my cousin wrote me the letter to the <span class="building">factory</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="811">Was one of mine cousins and the people working. </sentence><sentence id="812">And he said to me, "This is yours. </sentence><sentence id="813">And stay with me, and we will take care of you." </sentence><sentence id="814">Didn't say anything about a <span class="building">school</span>, what he wrote to me. </sentence><sentence id="815">And I stayed a week. </sentence><sentence id="816">I stayed two weeks. </sentence><sentence id="817">I was, I was going around. </sentence><sentence id="818">I was going to the place where we were living. </sentence><sentence id="819">They didn't allow me to come in. </sentence><sentence id="820">I mean, to me they didn't say this, but to some other Jewish girls they said . " </sentence><sentence id="821">You are still alive; they didn't get rid of A Yes, I remember this. </sentence><sentence id="822">It was...see, this was...my girlfriend was telling me. </sentence><sentence id="823">Gisza Klein (ph) was born in <span class="populated place">Odessa</span>, but before the war they came to visit the grandmother and they couldn't go back. </sentence><sentence id="824">And what she told me when the Russians came, they opened the <span class="dlf">doors</span> and she greet them. </sentence><sentence id="825">She said, "<span class="building">Strastvitye</span>, <span class="building">tovarishi</span>." [ </sentence><sentence id="826">Trans: "Hello, comrades."] </sentence><sentence id="827">She spoke Russian. </sentence><sentence id="828">And she says they came in. </sentence><sentence id="829">That's what she was telling. </sentence><sentence id="830">And I remember that I went looking for food for this little... we had many sick people. </sentence><sentence id="831">We went looking for food to the Germans, and they refused to give it to us. </sentence><sentence id="832">They gave us a few eggs and a little milk for the very sick people with, with uh, what they had uh something with a long - (tuberculosis). </sentence><sentence id="833">Tuberculosis. </sentence><sentence id="834">No doctors. </sentence><sentence id="835">Sick people. </sentence><sentence id="836">And I remember they got...they got a few of those Germans. </sentence><sentence id="837">Not I, because I don't have the strength to do anything cause I couldn't walk. </sentence><sentence id="838">My legs were like , 1 think. </sentence><sentence id="839">Some...some of my friends said that I'm a miracle, that I survived what I survived. </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="896">Q: Did they grab some of the Germans? </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="898">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="899">But one was very nice to all of us. </sentence><sentence id="900">He always give us hope, all the girls; and the girls took care of him after the war by helping him. </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="904">Q: One of the Germans? </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="906">A: One of the Germans, a German man. </sentence><sentence id="907">He was always decent to.... He had a big family; and he...when he came, he was...he didn't give us...he didn't have anything himself. </sentence><sentence id="908">But he give us hope. </sentence><sentence id="909">So we still have good people. </sentence><sentence id="910">I believe that we have good people. </sentence><sentence id="911">And I still trust people. </sentence><sentence id="912">And I promise myself one thing in <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>: when I'm going to be alive and I'm going to get through, the first I'm going to grab I'm going to throw in the <span class="env feature">river</span>. </sentence><sentence id="913">The first I grabbed I hugged and I kissed and I give her all my clothes; and I give away my bread. </sentence><sentence id="914">You cannot do things like that when you're not brought up this way. </sentence><sentence id="915">It's instilled in you. </sentence><sentence id="916">Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="928">Q: Can you tell us how you met your husband? </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="930">A: I met my husband in <span class="populated place">Landsberg-am-Lech</span> in July when I, when I came to <span class="populated place">Landsberg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="931">I was liberated in June. </sentence><sentence id="932">I was in <span class="country">Poland</span> for three weeks. </sentence><sentence id="933">From <span class="country">Poland</span> I went next to <span class="country">Germany</span>; and I went traveling and I went to <span class="populated place">Landsberg</span>, to a <span class="populated place">DP camp</span>, <span class="populated place">displaced person camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="934">My husband was a policeman there. </sentence><sentence id="935">That's where I met him. </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="942">Q: Was he from <span class="country">Poland</span> also? </sentence></p></dialogue>
104
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="944">A: He's from <span class="populated place">Warsaw</span>, yes. </sentence><sentence id="945">And I know him three months, and I got married. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="946"> (PAUSE) </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="947">Q: Would you describe the incident when you first met him? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="948">A: Oh, I don't remember. ( </sentence><sentence id="949">Laughter) I met him because somebody wanted to hit me. ( </sentence><sentence id="950">Laughter) In our...in our ...he came to protect us. </sentence><sentence id="951">He was a policeman. </sentence><sentence id="952">It was a group of people from all <span class="country">countries</span>. </sentence><sentence id="953">We had people from <span class="country">Greece</span>, from <span class="country">Romania</span>, different people, diff... well, you know. </sentence><sentence id="954">Different men. </sentence><sentence id="955">So one just put a knife, and said if I don't marry him he's going to kill me. ( </sentence><sentence id="956">Laughter) So we called the police; and then my husband came. </sentence><sentence id="957">Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
105
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="969">Q: Where did you go after that? </sentence><sentence id="970">How long did you stay in. . .? </sentence></p></dialogue>
106
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="973">A: We stayed in <span class="country">Germany</span> - wait, let me tell you this. </sentence><sentence id="974">So Joe was born. </sentence><sentence id="975">Joseph, our first baby, was born in <span class="country">Germany</span>, in <span class="populated place">Landsberg</span> . </sentence><sentence id="976">He was born Decem--no, he was born 1946.And to us, you know, our children are more than children to us. </sentence><sentence id="977">This is our future, our hope. </sentence><sentence id="978">So you can imagine, this was mine baby and this was my doll. </sentence><sentence id="979">Not just him, but everybody. </sentence><sentence id="980">We care very much about each other. ( </sentence><sentence id="981">PAUSE) We had to...we didn't have anybody. </sentence><sentence id="982">Anyhow, all the Jews are kinship to each other. </sentence><sentence id="983">Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
107
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="996">Q: Tell me about where you went after the war? </sentence><sentence id="997">What you did? </sentence><sentence id="998">After how long you stayed in <span class="country">Germany</span>, where you went after? </sentence></p></dialogue>
108
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1002">A: I stayed...we stayed in <span class="country">Germany</span> for--"45 to "49--four years. </sentence><sentence id="1003">And uh we registered to go to <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1004">My husband registered to go to <span class="country">Israel</span> before he met me; but I don't know, he...he was telling me those things. </sentence><sentence id="1005">But it took such a long time, I forgot what he was telling me. </sentence><sentence id="1006">But we registered to go to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1007">And it took a few years. </sentence><sentence id="1008">They called us in, and we were sent to <span class="populated place">Richmond</span> in 1949. </sentence><sentence id="1009">Forty years ago. </sentence><sentence id="1010">That's when I was born--forty years ago. </sentence></p></dialogue>
109
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1020">Q: Tell me about your daughter. </sentence><sentence id="1021">When she was two and one half, in the <span class="building">supermarket</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
110
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1024">A: Maria? </sentence><sentence id="1025">Maria was stolen. </sentence><sentence id="1026">She was an import. </sentence><sentence id="1027">We brought her, too. </sentence><sentence id="1028">And she was born in <span class="populated place">Richmond</span>; and when she was two and one half, not quite three, whenever I took her to the <span class="building">grocery store</span> and she saw a lady, she asked her would she be my grandmother. </sentence><sentence id="1029">You know, I didn't mind; but she remembers. </sentence><sentence id="1030">My kids always asking, "Mama, why don't we have grandparents? </sentence><sentence id="1031">Why don't we have uncles? </sentence><sentence id="1032">Why don't we have cousins like other people have?" </sentence><sentence id="1033">And I was trying to explain. </sentence><sentence id="1034">I was sitting with them when they were a little bit older, sitting at a <span class="spatial object">table</span> and telling them. </sentence><sentence id="1035">But I always broke down, and I start crying. </sentence><sentence id="1036">I couldn't finish. </sentence><sentence id="1037">Even now I cannot tell everything. </sentence><sentence id="1038">But they don't ask too much, because they read and know and listen. </sentence></p></dialogue>
111
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1054">Q: Is there anything else you would like to share with us? </sentence><sentence id="1055">Any other memories that have come back as we've talked about any of your stories? </sentence></p></dialogue>
112
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1058">A: It's going to come back to me later. </sentence><sentence id="1059">Now I can't think, you know. </sentence><sentence id="1060">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="1061">Things like that should never happen. </sentence><sentence id="1062">People should care about each other. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1063">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1064">A: You're very welcome. </sentence><sentence id="1065">Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="1066"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
113
+ </body>
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+ </html>
RG-50.030.0042_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: charles none bruml
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0042
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0042_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn506766
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: none
9
+ birth_year: 1910.0
10
+ place_of_birth: prague
11
+ country: czechoslovakia
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: theresienstadt
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: auschwitz,bergen-belsen
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.344.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1"> CHARLES BRUML February 6, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Just tell us your name and where your born and what yout.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Born in <span class="populated place">Prague</span>, <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>--which was a main <span class="populated place">city</span> in <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="6">I went to <span class="building">school</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="7">My father had...he was quite in a in a way quite, behaved like American because he changed many different, during his life, his...his profession. </sentence><sentence id="8">Uh he started in in a small small <span class="populated place">town</span> in <span class="region">southern Bohe</span>...<span class="region">southern Bohemia</span>, went to <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence><sentence id="9">And in <span class="populated place">Prague</span>, he had--I don't...I don't recall anymore how many different uh profession, but he he had a small <span class="building">factory</span>, <span class="building">shoe factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="10">There were probably some four of those as I remember or five, which he did something like many Americans do. </sentence><sentence id="11">He moved around and tried to improve himself. </sentence><sentence id="12">And my my mother uh lived in a...was born in a small <span class="populated place">town</span> just the same as my father. </sentence><sentence id="13">And they came to <span class="populated place">Prague</span>, because generally all the Jews all over the world, they tried to go to improve themselves. </sentence><sentence id="14">They don't stay in in small <span class="populated place">towns</span>, but they go to the main <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="15">So therefore <span class="populated place">Prague</span> was a main <span class="populated place">city</span> when so many Jews existed, and under quite good conditions. </sentence><sentence id="16">Because it was a first Czech president who--there was a famous case against the Jews, and uh he did uh defend it. </sentence><sentence id="17">It was, uh, <span class="populated place">Herzna</span> (ph) case. </sentence><sentence id="18">He was accused, I mean uh he was accused that he was using blood to make to <span class="spatial object">matzahs</span>, and he defended him. </sentence><sentence id="19">And later on, it was...it was uh... He won, of course; but uh later on also he was quite uh popular as a uh as a as defender of <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>, uh of <span class="country">Bohemia</span>, because at that time it still belonged to <span class="country">Austria-Hungary</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">And uh later on, he became the president; and he was liked by by the whole population. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="37">Q: What was __ for the <span class="building">Jewish community</span> in <span class="populated place">Prague</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="39">A: The <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> at that time, of course they didn't have the same kind of privileges, officially uh under <span class="country">Austra-Hungary</span> it was of course if somebody would change his religion, they could become in the military a general or something like that, but the religion was quite important. </sentence><sentence id="40">Under <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>, under ...this was under...after 1918, uh the population whether they were Jewish or Christian, they were all equal. </sentence><sentence id="41">Of course, like everywhere else, there were certain anti-Semitic behav...it was some certain anti-Semitic behavior. </sentence><sentence id="42">They...they were not allowed to do some small thing; but in the long-run, there was, it was quite uh good society. </sentence><sentence id="43">I mean, toward to some in in a way uh the <span class="country">republic</span> - I am sorry, I should have mentioned the the <span class="country">Czechoslovakia Republic</span> was uh really under, was uh established not only under President Masaryk, but also uh who was another uh father of the <span class="country">country</span>, was uh was uh was uh President Wilson of <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="49">Q: As we learn more about the time that you're speaking of, and how was your family living through this early period before the war? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="51">A: Quite well, and the Jews did imp...did improve everywhere. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="53">Q: And in your particular family, did you have a sister or....? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="55">A: I...1 did have a sister and brother. </sentence><sentence id="56">My sister went to <span class="building">schools</span>, of course; and my uh my uh...when the, when the Germans came she was already about 19 years old. </sentence><sentence id="57">She had some <span class="building">business school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="58">And my brother studied uh on the <span class="building">University</span> to become a lawyer. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="63">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="64">Now you mentioned when the Germans came. </sentence><sentence id="65">Could you tell us a little about your memory of when the Germans came? </sentence><sentence id="66">Where you were for example? </sentence><sentence id="67">How old you were? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="73">What you were doing? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="74">A: At at that time the uh (ph) in the <span class="populated place">town</span> of <span class="populated place">Munich</span>. </sentence><sentence id="75">Before <span class="populated place">Munich</span>, the...our situation was: neither the French, nor...nor the uh...nor the British, they didn't uh somehow...They...they considered <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> as a small state, and there was no reason for them uh to interfere. </sentence><sentence id="76">They tried to save the world of World War. </sentence><sentence id="77">Which is something. </sentence><sentence id="78">I mean, this is known of course today through radio. </sentence><sentence id="79">So everybody knows how...how <span class="populated place">Munich</span> developed and what they had. </sentence><sentence id="80">But the first time <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> had tried to defend them...uh to to defend itself. </sentence><sentence id="81">Later on, it was...and when it was visible the Germans were going to help <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> uh they uh the Czech were very easily taken over by by German, by <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="82">Who...it was in the morning, perhaps, when I saw the...under the <span class="dlf">windows</span> where of our <span class="building">house</span> marching soldiers, these were German soldiers in these... Uh, prepared to shoot anybody who would would run or would try to to do uh to to defend <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="83">Now, of course, some people were killed; but in the long-run not that much happened. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="95">Q: But that was 1938. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="97">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="99">Q: Can you...how old were you at that time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="101">A: Uh, was some 20, 29. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="103">Q: And what were you doing for your livelihood at that time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="105">A: At...at that time I was working in a uh for a <span class="building">firm</span> which uh they were in ex...import and export different products to in <span class="country">Europe</span> and bringing again other things in. </sentence><sentence id="106">But I was also schooled as a painter; so this was my second profession. </sentence><sentence id="107">And what really happened, something what used to be a second profession...or really uh just uh it it was it was... Uh, pardon me...(stuttering) It was - I have to study - I think now uh this was my second profession; and now the second profession became the first profession. </sentence><sentence id="108">Because when they came, I got uh a group of people who who used to, uh whom I knew, they started to to paint uh pictures for for some Swiss uh company. </sentence><sentence id="109">Those pictures were pretty ugly but anyhow it was a hand-made product that and then I did something for for my and for myself I was painting cause uh for some company - uh it was a <span class="building">book store</span> and a uh and a <span class="building">factory</span> - it it was a <span class="building">book store</span> where where they were selling there pictures and ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="116">Q: During that time, were there any difficulties that you and your family experienced? </sentence><sentence id="117">This was after the German occupation in 1938. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="120">A: There were not too many difficulties. </sentence><sentence id="121">Only the difficulties were those that were imposed by the Ger...by the German that we couldn't walk after after six or after six or eight o'clock. </sentence><sentence id="122">I don't recall anymore. </sentence><sentence id="123">In the evening we couldn't go to the <span class="dlf">parks</span> because the <span class="dlf">parks</span> were not allowed for Jews and dogs of course and uh the the population remained of course the population I mean the Jewish population couldn't go around and buy uh uh whatever they would need immediately. </sentence><sentence id="124">They had to go after certain hours which, and there was the the best meats or what best products were sold out, then they could come and and buy whatever there was necessary. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="130">Q: But during this period of time - this was 1938 and "39... </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="132">A: Right. </sentence><sentence id="133">Right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="136">Q: What happened, then, to change that experience? </sentence><sentence id="137">When did the difficulties begin...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="140">A: The...the difficulties started immediately because when the German came the main thing was that uh we have to deliver <span class="spatial object">radios</span>, perhaps so we couldn't hear - we we wouldn't be informed what's happening. </sentence><sentence id="141">Then of course we had to uh of course not everybody had to uh obey. </sentence><sentence id="142">Of course if you were caught you went to <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="143">I used to go always in the evening to my friend who had a <span class="spatial object">radio</span> and listen there. </sentence><sentence id="144">What we did we listen uh uh radio uh uh radio <span class="populated place">London</span> and uh then what was also prohibited uh to possession of gold and silver and so on. </sentence><sentence id="145">What my father did, he bought some very cheap pieces of uh...of uh rings, and so on; and then, even those and the good one, he kept. </sentence><sentence id="146">It was uh...of course, it was again prohibited very severely; but uh what happened that uh our maid saved most of the gold. </sentence><sentence id="147">And...but what we had in gold or uh uh precious stone and so on, by uh...by the maid. </sentence><sentence id="148">And uh uh so ...so she kept everything until the end of the uh...until the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="149">Then I came back, and I got it back again from her. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="160">Q: But let's go back now to the time that uh we were speaking of before and please tell us about how you and your family were taken to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence><sentence id="161">What was the circumstance of that...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="164">A: The circumstances uh it was it was decided by the Jewish leadership - I don't anymore recall the official name of it - which families should go. </sentence><sentence id="165">They get their numbers and uh they left uh there <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence><sentence id="166">Of course it was very often also happened that uh like in everything certain people had a priority to go and or not to go. </sentence><sentence id="167">But the those things do happen. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="172">Q: And in your case, could you tell us how it happened? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="174">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="175">Uh we we got uh we got uh asked to to be to be prepared to have certain uh certain amount of <span class="spatial object">luggage</span> what we can carry with us. </sentence><sentence id="176">I think it was like forty kilos, something like that. </sentence><sentence id="177">And uh to be in in - it was a big <span class="building">building</span> and there the uh uh - I don't know, recall any more the name uh the name of it. </sentence><sentence id="178">Anyhow, we stayed there overnight, I think for two days - I I don't recall any more. </sentence><sentence id="179">And then we were then we left by <span class="spatial object">train</span> to to <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> [NB: <span class="populated place">Terezin</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="180">It was not everybody. </sentence><sentence id="181">My...my brother, he married at that time. </sentence><sentence id="182">He stayed still in <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence><sentence id="183">Uh my father, mother and sister--we left for <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="194">Q: Do you remember when that was? </sentence><sentence id="195">Not precisely the date, no not precisely the date, but more or less - was it in the wintertime? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="198">A: It was...it was in wintertime. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="200">Q: And when you got to <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span>, what what did you think of the <span class="dlf">entry</span>? </sentence><sentence id="201">What impressed you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="204">A: At that time, uh we were just what we uh we just carried our <span class="spatial object">luggage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="205">And we were actually quite uh happy that we were allowed to have uh that amount of <span class="spatial object">luggage</span>, what it was allowed to take with us. </sentence><sentence id="206">Uh, it was decided also by... I was...by sheer luck, I...I got to a into a <span class="building">barra</span>...Pardon me. </sentence><sentence id="207">I should say that <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> was <span class="populated place">city</span>, and there were <span class="building">military barracks</span>; and I uh, by sheer incident [NB: accident], these many... Uh, the men were separated far from women. </sentence><sentence id="208">And I got to <span class="populated place">Magdeburg</span> uh <span class="building">barracks</span>, and uh it was quite close where our <span class="interior space">room</span> where I was. </sentence><sentence id="209">And I uh was very close where the main leadership of the...of <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> lived. </sentence><sentence id="210">I uh the my my first occupation where I did, what I what I did, I joined uh OD. </sentence><sentence id="211">This was Ordnung Name (ph), or something like that. </sentence><sentence id="212">It was something like a <span class="building">police</span>. </sentence><sentence id="213">It was not a <span class="building">ghetto police</span>. </sentence><sentence id="214">It...it was a separate thing. </sentence><sentence id="215">This...this one was only kind of an organization. </sentence><sentence id="216">We should worry that people would work uh on the in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> in proper way or just a small...it was a...it was not the police, but something similar. </sentence><sentence id="217">Uh, luckily that I was...I got a <span class="interior space">room</span> where uh where there was a uh (pause) the leadership of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> - there there was at that time there was leader of the <span class="populated place">camp,</span> of <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> was [Dr. Jacob] Edelstein, and he went probably uh and also uh... Pardon me, I was where at the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> [wahe (ph)] it was winter, a very severe winter, and we we had to stand there for many hours in the uh uh in the <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="218">Of course, the <span class="env feature">water</span> was cold, and it was a very unpleasant situation. </sentence><sentence id="219">Luckily I, one day I was standing there. </sentence><sentence id="220">And which is a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> going through, I uh I met my again my uncle uh Fishel (ph), who who was an engineer. </sentence><sentence id="221">He got into the uh in in <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> by because he...as an engineer, he built <span class="dlf">railroads</span>. </sentence><sentence id="222">And at that time, there was nobody else above him as a specialist in that <span class="dlf">field</span>; and uh he got to <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> in a separate <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> with all his possession. </sentence><sentence id="223">And he helped me to get in in the <span class="building">Technical Department</span>, which was... <span class="building">Technical Department</span>! </sentence><sentence id="224">was a group of about uh a hundred painters, mainly hund...hundred. </sentence><sentence id="225">It was " This was probably the Aufbaukommando. </sentence><sentence id="226">about engineers, main... mainly these uh engineers and painters and draftsmen. </sentence><sentence id="227">So would...would be there in a way considered draftsmen and painters together; and uh uh what my job was to uh to uh to prepare everyday statistics...take statistics take for the <span class="building">Kommandatur</span> to uh... These were uh...we had to...on small <span class="dlf">strips</span>, we had to write down how many people did receive certain amount of food, how much and so on. </sentence><sentence id="228">Uh, statistics also who died, who didn't die, how many are living and under what condition and so on. </sentence><sentence id="229">Just statistics. </sentence><sentence id="230">But besides that, what we did: we painted. </sentence><sentence id="231">This was allowed by the...by the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="232">Nobody didn't know exactly why it was allowed, but it was. </sentence><sentence id="233">And many of those things which I at that time done were not pleasing to the Germans of course, but they didn't object. </sentence><sentence id="234">Un later on many of those things were hidden but uh at that time it it it was alright. </sentence><sentence id="235">The statistics had to be delivered and everyday on the <span class="spatial object">German Komandatur</span>; and uh at the time the the leader of the the German main, the uh the uh how could I say, the main leader of the Germans was uh was Seidl. </sentence><sentence id="236">But the uh unpleasant thing was delivering all of the of the <span class="dlf">strips</span>, the statistics to the <span class="building">Kommandatur</span>, to uh... And...and what happened one day, uh about seven people were called because uh they either got from outside some cigarettes, or they wrote letters. </sentence><sentence id="237">And those seven people were uh were hung. </sentence><sentence id="238">And uh I had at that time...in the morning, I... had to deliver the numbers with uh the uh uh Jewish leader, Edelstein, to the <span class="building">Kommandatur</span> and uh and delivered those numbers. </sentence><sentence id="239">You had to push them in the opening of the...you know, he had just a on the <span class="dlf">wall</span>; and, of course, the Germans were mad at us. </sentence><sentence id="240">I expect they were kicked us out, out of the <span class="building">Kommandatur</span>. </sentence><sentence id="241">But there were other uh quite interesting things which were happening in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> which are probably known today to everybody, uh that uh that the uh what they were concert given, they were uh they were also uh... What I want to say? </sentence><sentence id="242">Besides that, there were other different cultural things happening. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="284">Q: Could you tell us a little about the <span class="spatial object">paintings</span> that you were making, and those that your colleagues were making? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="286">A: The <span class="spatial object">paintings</span> uh actually today exist in...in <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="287">A whole department, a <span class="building">museum</span>, where they where they are showing all...all..many of those paintings which were saved among the people who (ph), and [Bed_ich] Fritta and [Otto] Ungar, and others who became to the... Under <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>, they became national painters. </sentence><sentence id="288">They were, of course, uh my, my... Pardon me, uh my father worked at that time also in the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="289">Just later on when my brother came, he was also working in the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="290">And uh, if I recall, my father was... he was a supervisor. </sentence><sentence id="291">But there was a...what was happening there was a big uh fuss because of many things they did disappeared from the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="292">People were stealing, and so on; and he was very much against it, so he was thrown out. </sentence><sentence id="293">Those people who did uh who did steal, of course, they stayed. </sentence><sentence id="294">Nothing happened to them. </sentence><sentence id="295">But what was happening was uh that the life in <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span> was, in a way, it was quite bad for elderly people. </sentence><sentence id="296">For the people who were still young and quite strong, it was not that bad. </sentence><sentence id="297">They could, they could survive, because the work was not that difficult. </sentence><sentence id="298">But it... the possibility of surviving for young people was quite a good one. </sentence><sentence id="299">With the elderly, it was a difficult situation because they were under the <span class="dlf">roofs</span> of the uh of the <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="300">In day, it was either cold or hot; and many of those people died. </sentence><sentence id="301">When the beginning the <span class="populated place">city</span> had some, let's say, some six thousand people. </sentence><sentence id="302">These either soldiers and many prostitutes too. </sentence><sentence id="303">The population was uh...of <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span>, was uh...was uh...send other parts of <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>; and all the Jews were, we were. </sentence><sentence id="304">They took over the highest, probably. </sentence><sentence id="305">There were about uh sixty, I think... don't...fifty or sixty thousand people living in the...in the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="306">Which was originally about for six thou...six thousand people before. </sentence><sentence id="307">Therefore, it was quite difficult uh...what quite difficult conditions for people to uh to uh to to exist. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="332">Q: How long were you in that <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="334">A: In the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, I was only from from the December [1941] "til uh..."til uh January...I think, 11th, "42. </sentence><sentence id="335">Something like three quaters of a year. </sentence><sentence id="336">And uh at that time, what happened uh that people who were in the...were indispensable, they could stay. </sentence><sentence id="337">They would stay, and save their family with them. </sentence><sentence id="338">Uh I tried that my... I gave my name just the same that I will go with my family uh if I can...| would go by my ____ there with my family. </sentence><sentence id="339">That way, my ...I saw that my job is so indispensable that they wouldn't take me, and save my family, too. </sentence><sentence id="340">But uh this was...it was that uh uh painter Fritta, who was my relative, that he tried all night...was standing there inside to get me out, and my family too. </sentence><sentence id="341">But it didn't work out. </sentence><sentence id="342">So I went...so I went to uh...with, with the <span class="spatial object">train</span> to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="352">Q: And in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, what did you find? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="354">A: In <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, uh the first...the first thing which was that the <span class="spatial object">train</span> in which we went...was...every <span class="spatial object">train</span> had a leader. </sentence><sentence id="355">I became one of those ... And uh took care of the...the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="356">And every, every <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> had their leader. </sentence><sentence id="357">And uh the first thing, the first impression was the <span class="spatial object">toilet</span>. </sentence><sentence id="358">There were only end of <span class="spatial object">barrels</span> there, you know. </sentence><sentence id="359">There were kids or grown- ups or whatever; and the first thing, was there was an old man who was sitting there, and he died just... We, we saw the first man died like that in the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="360">It was a very bad, horrible impression, for...for the elderly people, mainly. </sentence><sentence id="361">Uh, we travelled uh about two days to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="362">We did not know where we ...where we were; and uh after questioning where we were, he said ... Uh, the German soldier said, in <span class="populated place">Honolulu</span> - it's very very hot here. </sentence><sentence id="363">Then as the leader of the...of the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, I had to take uh care of to to get all all the people out of the...out of the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>; and the sick one or the dead one, to get them out. </sentence><sentence id="364">And this was the first time I lost my family, because I didn't see them. </sentence><sentence id="365">I saw only that they...that they had to get out, and this was the end what I saw. </sentence><sentence id="366">I tried, and still...because I did not know what it is, I tried to uh to carry my <span class="spatial object">rucksack</span> and my <span class="spatial object">luggage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="367">And I could only hear or saw some SS men, you know, beat people and try that they would leave the <span class="spatial object">luggage</span> there and...and run. </sentence><sentence id="368">Uh, L..I did not. </sentence><sentence id="369">L...I tried still to carry the <span class="spatial object">luggage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="370">And some SS men kicked me and ran me out, so II I did...I did uh fall. </sentence><sentence id="371">I had... I had to go where they were showing me. </sentence><sentence id="372">And there were two groups of people. </sentence><sentence id="373">There were the young...young men, and uh elderly men; and the same thing with women. </sentence><sentence id="374">And also there were some kind of a <span class="spatial object">truck</span> or what for, for people that were sick. </sentence><sentence id="375">So, uh L...I just saw the man standing there. </sentence><sentence id="376">So I I got in the group without really knowing what...what it meant, of course. </sentence><sentence id="377">And this was uh...then we had to march. </sentence><sentence id="378">We marched to the <span class="building">barracks</span> in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, and uh I had... Uh, we got uh the uh we got to the <span class="interior space">bathroom</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="379">Or two different kinds of...there were some different <span class="interior space">rooms</span>. </sentence><sentence id="380">There was a pandemonium, because uh people were scared and they were without uh ... They they felt that this is the end of the world, because because they were screaming and beating and so on. </sentence><sentence id="381">And also there was...it was there were inscription: whoever has any money, or or stones or anything--I mean precious stones--they should give it away. </sentence><sentence id="382">Uh I had some money, so the...if if I recall still, I didn't know where to put it. </sentence><sentence id="383">One couldn't throw it anywhere, so there were four sets in...one's a <span class="spatial object">toilet</span>. </sentence><sentence id="384">And I rolled all the money and pushed it in the <span class="spatial object">faucet</span>. </sentence><sentence id="385">Then we went also from from there on we went to the <span class="building">barracks</span> and uh where we should stay. </sentence><sentence id="386">We got some soup to eat. </sentence><sentence id="387">Of course, the soup was so horrible; and of course we didn't eat. </sentence><sentence id="388">We just . </sentence><sentence id="389">We give it to to to the other haftlings, meaning uh the prisoners, and they were very happy. </sentence><sentence id="390">They they told us we need don't worry about it. </sentence><sentence id="391">We are going to eat it very soon. </sentence><sentence id="392">Which was, of course, true. </sentence><sentence id="393">And in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, I stayed from uh quite... Actually, <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> as such was uh it was uh a <span class="populated place">city</span>, it was a <span class="populated place">city</span> by itself, more or less. </sentence><sentence id="394">There was <span class="populated place">Auschwitz No.1</span> and <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> No. </sentence><sentence id="395">2, 3, and <span class="populated place">Buna</span>, where I later was. </sentence><sentence id="396">This was uh <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> No. </sentence><sentence id="397">3., </sentence><sentence id="398">meaning <span class="populated place">Buna</span>...meant <span class="populated place">Buna</span> , they made other... What they wanted to do, they wanted to uh have a <span class="building">factory</span> uh to to make artificial rubber. </sentence><sentence id="399">And uh in uh <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> uh I stayed, as I said, almost about a week. </sentence><sentence id="400">Uh there was uh I worked on a...on this a a (pause) uh worked on on on the <span class="dlf">road</span> by using a big <span class="spatial object">roller</span>, the big roller. </sentence><sentence id="401">Then I was now in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="402">It's still standing there. </sentence><sentence id="403">It was enormous kind of a <span class="spatial object">roller</span> which had to be pulled or pushed by the people. </sentence><sentence id="404">Of course, who got underneath were killed very easily. </sentence><sentence id="405">And uh I stayed uh in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> uh about about a week. </sentence><sentence id="406">Every day, there was uh uh practically pandemonium because nobody didn't know what really happening more or less. </sentence><sentence id="407">Everybody was out of his wits. </sentence><sentence id="408">And nevertheless, then after...after a week we were put again in a group; and we were marched to to uh we we marched to <span class="populated place">Buna</span>, which was uh very... <span class="populated place">Buna</span> as such really didn't exist yet. </sentence><sentence id="409">It was only part; the <span class="building">barracks</span> were built, but the rest of the <span class="populated place">city</span> didn't exist. </sentence><sentence id="410">First thing what we had to do really was so called "[planien (ph)]," which meant straightening out the <span class="env feature">ground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="411">And uh besides they didn't have any <span class="spatial object">equipment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="412">They didn't have any <span class="spatial object">tractors</span>, or very few ones; and the <span class="dlf">railroad</span> was there, but uh everything else must have been done by hand. </sentence><sentence id="413">So the first day, what we really did was were just working on the on the <span class="dlf">grounds</span> try try to straighten it or making <span class="dlf">holes</span> and cover them up again. </sentence><sentence id="414">Just a...just a job so uh we would we would do something. </sentence><sentence id="415">Uh it was also very distressing to uh to get perhaps numbers to be tattooed, and so on. </sentence><sentence id="416">To get the numbers, we did not know what the reason was we are doing; because they just called the number and you got some two pieces of of uh of uh linen. </sentence><sentence id="417">Uh, written on it, you know, your number; and they...you should, you should have it put on your trousers or on your on your coat. </sentence><sentence id="418">And uh uh after...after that, we uh we were...uh we, we got numbered in the <span class="building">barracks</span> where we could stay. </sentence><sentence id="419">We every every <span class="building">barrack</span> uh had its uh uh...(pause) Every <span class="building">barrack</span> was uh...had <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> uh... (pause) I mean, <span class="spatial object">beds</span>; and uh there were about five people, I don't know anymore whether they were five or six people on each on the <span class="interior space">levels</span> to be uh (pause) where where the people could sleep. </sentence><sentence id="420">I don't know if I pronounce it properly. </sentence><sentence id="421">Anyhow ... (pause) </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="494">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="495">Would you like to take a drink of <span class="env feature">water</span> now, just for a moment? </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="498">A: Ican . ( </sentence><sentence id="499">Drinking) </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="502">Q: Let's start thinking back now to what you were just describing as your experience in <span class="populated place">Buna</span>, as a...as a <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="503">The kind of work you were doing... </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="506">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="508">Q: ...what life was like, and how long you stayed there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="510">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="511">In in <span class="populated place">Buna</span>, I stayed from the 28th or 27th October 19 uh 40 40... </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="514">Q: It doesn't matter the year. </sentence><sentence id="515">Just ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="518">A: It...it was until...until year "45. </sentence><sentence id="519">And uh from the beginning, I was uh (pause) didn't have any special job, just just straightening the uh <span class="env feature">ground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="520">But later on, by sheer incident [NB: accident], they were looking for somebody who would who who could paint uh...who could paint the arbeit..--ph), who was a uh SS man who took uh who took care that people would be working or what kind of recommend they got their kommando and so on. </sentence><sentence id="521">How how would...where they would be working. </sentence><sentence id="522">And uh uh since I was... by sheer incident or luck, I I got some pencil and some piece of paper. </sentence><sentence id="523">And I painted the SS man; because he was always riding a <span class="spatial object">bicycle</span>, and I I painted him. </sentence><sentence id="524">This really should have been some gift to him, ona on aa <span class="spatial object">bike</span>...like for children, on a <span class="spatial object">tricycle</span>. </sentence><sentence id="525">Of course, this was a joke. </sentence><sentence id="526">And if he didn't take it as such, you likely could have been destroyed. </sentence><sentence id="527">And...but luckily, it didn't happen; and uh he was very happy with it, and I got a job in a in a uh <span class="building">barrack</span> where there were painters who had painted. </sentence><sentence id="528">And also they worked in a in a in a <span class="building">building</span> where...where they were making numbers for for prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="529">So the the first thing, for about a week or two weeks, I was making numbers for for prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="530">And these will take quite nice job. </sentence><sentence id="531">Later on, I was uh I was uh replaced by uh by a by a German uh German opera singer from <span class="populated place">Munich</span>. </sentence><sentence id="532">His name was Kiep (ph); and because he was German he he got the better kind of a job. </sentence><sentence id="533">But...and I was...but I was told in the evening, if I want to I can come by my free will... can paint still the number. </sentence><sentence id="534">Which was a very good thing to do, because what happened uh--not that every every every haftling or every prisoner had to have...had to have a number--but the number was extremely important because if it was stamped, it was a big number. </sentence><sentence id="535">But you could have a smaller number done by hand, and the smaller numbers meant you became...you were more or less prominent. </sentence><sentence id="536">The SS knew about it, that it is uh that uh something like that exist. </sentence><sentence id="537">But somehow they did let it go, and people were very often treated according to what kind of a number they had. </sentence><sentence id="538">What I did, I used to come then. </sentence><sentence id="539">And in the evening, when I was...after after work, and work and worked there probably two hours. </sentence><sentence id="540">For that, I got more soup. </sentence><sentence id="541">And uh having more soup was a quite...a quite uh, I think, important; because you lived a little bit better. </sentence><sentence id="542">Not only that, you could...that I could uh have twice as much, but I could have... I did have also a uh a friend who was who was taking care of me otherwise. </sentence><sentence id="543">He darned my uh my uh my socks, or whatever I needed; and I gave him again the soup. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="570">Q: You mentioned that you stayed in <span class="populated place">Buna</span> until 1945. </sentence><sentence id="571">What happened then to cause you to leave <span class="populated place">Buna</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="574">A: Oh, what (stutter) because on the 18th of January, the uh... Pardon me, "45, uh came the...the Russians came quite close, and therefore I had to leave <span class="populated place">Buna</span>. </sentence><sentence id="575">But they...actually, what mattered in in <span class="populated place">Buna</span> the life was not only like that... Uh, I don't know if I should have said, perhaps, that I got uh uh I got a <span class="spatial object">Czech kapo</span> for whom I made a uh number. </sentence><sentence id="576">And he was...he was a communist; and I asked him if I could work for him. </sentence><sentence id="577">And uh the <span class="spatial object">Czech kapo</span> uh was quite good man. </sentence><sentence id="578">He he didn't beat his people, and uh it it did. </sentence><sentence id="579">And I got...he got the first kommando; and the first kommando was divided among people who worked in the in the <span class="building">electro magazine</span>, part of them, and the second part were...were the...the musicians. </sentence><sentence id="580">The musicians were many of outstanding musicians who played all over <span class="country">Europe</span>, but there they were playing only for people who were working in the morning. </sentence><sentence id="581">So they gave their coming in the evening. </sentence><sentence id="582">And since they were quite prominent people--meaning that they had a better clothes a little bit--we had a little bit better clothes just the same as they did. </sentence><sentence id="583">Uh and uh what...what happened was uh many different events did perhaps the kapo in the in the in the <span class="building">Malerei</span> [NB: <span class="building">paintshop</span>, or <span class="building">artists" studio</span>], where they make where they were making the the uh uh (pause) ...the numbers. </sentence><sentence id="584">He was... he was changed from uh...from uh...because he was half Jewish, and they had uh they they were told in the cases they would prefer to be Germans. </sentence><sentence id="585">They would have the possibility to become if they would also; and uh there was not everybody... Uh, no, wanted say that uh it was there was perhaps a <span class="building">bordello</span> in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="586">I mean, these were the funniest things what what happened too. </sentence><sentence id="587">Not only the horrible things. </sentence><sentence id="588">And then he became a German the next day, for which he could go to the <span class="building">bordello</span>. </sentence><sentence id="589">And uh there...there, he told to to the girls there. </sentence><sentence id="590">And he suddenly discovered that she's from the same <span class="populated place">city</span>, and they know each other; and he didn't perform as he should. </sentence><sentence id="591">So the SS man started to scream at him. </sentence><sentence id="592">And uh anyhow nothing happened; but I mean just as a funny thing, what what which were happening there. </sentence><sentence id="593">Uh another thing is, there was even also an opera in <span class="populated place">camp</span>, for... Not for everybody, but more or less for the prominents of the...of the prisoners, and the SS. </sentence><sentence id="594">And the operetta was "Rosamonte." </sentence><sentence id="595">And uh I had another friend who was uh painter, who became also the kapo of the painters. </sentence><sentence id="596">He painted like in... like a magician some pictures; and nobody didn't know what was what was happening. </sentence><sentence id="597">I mean, what was on on on it. </sentence><sentence id="598">And then he turned it around, and he painted the whole thing upside down. </sentence><sentence id="599">And he painted some pictures, you know. </sentence><sentence id="600">Another funny thing was when uh they were uh uh uh... Pardon me...(pause) I wanted to say, there was a dentist and uh he was Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="601">And one day, there were...there were...there were SS men going with one of those prostitutes, and he had to have his teeth uh redone or something. </sentence><sentence id="602">He had to... Anyhow, he was sitting there; and the prisoner told him--the SS man--he should open his mouth, which he did, and keep it like that. </sentence><sentence id="603">The girl was in the...in the other <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="604">And uh so they...so the <span class="spatial object">haftling</span> went to to to the girl. </sentence><sentence id="605">They had their business done, and the SS man was still sitting there with with his mouth open. </sentence><sentence id="606">Another SS man walked by and looked at it, and he started of course to scream. </sentence><sentence id="607">I don't know what really happened to the prisoner, but this was kind of a funny thing what happened. </sentence><sentence id="608">On the other hand, horrible things did...did happen. </sentence><sentence id="609">If somebody did escape, there was uh uh... Did happen a couple of times that people did escape, but very seldom anybody was saved. </sentence><sentence id="610">But anyhow we had to stand for, of course, for hours until the guy was caught. </sentence><sentence id="611">And it took hours and hours. </sentence><sentence id="612">Anyhow, they caught the man. </sentence><sentence id="613">And uh all...we we were standing there, and he was he was sitting on the edge of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="614">They poured cold water on him. </sentence><sentence id="615">And it was, you know, in January. </sentence><sentence id="616">You can imagine. </sentence><sentence id="617">He didn't last too long, but he he froze to death. </sentence><sentence id="618">And the all...all kommandos, all the haftlings had to walk in front of him and uh see the the...how how horrible the end is for anybody who tries...who tries to to escape. </sentence><sentence id="619">And there were various people who did try to escape. </sentence><sentence id="620">And I think some did. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="669">Q: Well, as we speak of escape, perhaps you can recall how you left the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, <span class="populated place">Buna</span>. </sentence><sentence id="670">And how you eventually found your way to freedom. </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="673">A: Uh to get out of <span class="populated place">Buna</span>, uh this was uh on the 18th of January. </sentence><sentence id="674">It was freezing, and uh the Russians were coming much closer to <span class="populated place">Buna</span> than the Germans expected. </sentence><sentence id="675">They were doomed. </sentence><sentence id="676">And uh actually what happened, my...where I was working in the <span class="building">electro magazine</span>--this was where the Czech kapo existed--uh, the situation was quite good, at least for me. </sentence><sentence id="677">And I could...[ had enough of food that I could uh for for lunch or something, that I could also get couple more uh prisoners who would...who got some soup and so on. </sentence><sentence id="678">Because I was working there in the <span class="building">office</span>, which was uh very uh uh... I mean, it was an excellent job to have under those conditions. </sentence><sentence id="679">The only way probably how how I did survive, because I was in the <span class="building">office</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="680">In the <span class="building">office</span>, I could uh uh...1 could quite uh move around. </sentence><sentence id="681">And I also painted some pictures for the uh for the civilians there. </sentence><sentence id="682">Because there were civilians uh and uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="693">Q: When the Germans realized that the Russians were getting closer... </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="695">A: Right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="697">Q: ...what did they do at that point that allowed you to leave <span class="populated place">Buna</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="699">A: They...they didn't do anything. </sentence><sentence id="700">I mean, uh the Germans... they said, "Alright. </sentence><sentence id="701">Pack your things, and let's go!" </sentence><sentence id="702">But because uh, I... had many uh...L...I knew many of the civilians in the... in the...in the job, they called me on the side and they gave me some some bread and some butter and uh uh they gave me goodbye. </sentence><sentence id="703">And this was the only thing they could do. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="709">Q: And then you started to walk... </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="711">A: And then we started to walk to <span class="populated place">Gleiwitz</span>." </sentence><sentence id="712">The the thing is that generally prisoners had a long coats, which were... | mean, they were very poor quality; uh but the striped coat... But I had only a short one since I didn't walk. </sentence><sentence id="713">And what was prohibited, I had under the uh some uh some pieces of of rags or whatever sewn in the coat. </sentence><sentence id="714">So it was a short one, but it was it was twice as warm as the others. </sentence><sentence id="715">And uh... &gt; Subcamp of <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, located in <span class="region">Upper Silesia</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="722">Q: How far did you walk, and how long did it take? </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="724">A: That's what I wanted to say. </sentence><sentence id="725">From there on, uh we walked to to <span class="populated place">Gleiwitz</span>, which was about two days. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="728">Q: And eventually? </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="730">A: But we had...we had to walk, we had to walk, and... Which was very difficult; because not only that many prisoners couldn't stand it any more and died on the <span class="dlf">road</span> and were shot, but many SS men did the same, too. </sentence><sentence id="731">So it was not only the...it was not only the prisoners who were who were under such a stress. </sentence><sentence id="732">Even the elderly SS couldn't...couldn't...couldn't stand it themselves. </sentence><sentence id="733">We got to <span class="populated place">Gleiwitz</span>, and in ... There was a pandemonium, really; because nobody didn't know what was happening and they did not know whether should people should con...continue with with their <span class="spatial object">kommandos</span> as they were or not. </sentence><sentence id="734">And I...after two days... Well, I was not really deranged...doesn't seem like anybody else decided I had to move, so I did. </sentence><sentence id="735">And moved with them. </sentence><sentence id="736">We got on a <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="737">And on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and we traveled for about ten days. </sentence><sentence id="738">The only thing is uh the bread what I had from the from the people in the uh in the <span class="building">electro magazine</span>, where I used to work; and then what we got on the <span class="dlf">road</span>. </sentence><sentence id="739">And on the <span class="dlf">road</span>, we had only some a half of a loaf and some marmalade, and this was it. </sentence><sentence id="740">And the <span class="env feature">water</span>, we didn't get; because it was in January, and what we got was only when the snow was coming down and we we had some uh some water. </sentence><sentence id="741">I was still in a pretty reasonably good shape, because I had some bread and so on. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="754">Q: But it sounds like that's a fantastic story that you're into now. </sentence><sentence id="755">We're going to have to pause here for a moment while the tape is being changed, so if you'd like to take another drink of water and .... </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="758"> Tape #2 TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="761">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="762">Mr. Bruml, if you'd like to remember again where we were talking just a few moments ago about the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride. </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="765">A: Now if I recall, there are too many things which happened on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> is if very few I can I can recall because the situation was such that people who were uh for for many days without food. </sentence><sentence id="766">They were dying. </sentence><sentence id="767">They were laying on the <span class="env feature">ground</span> of the of the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, and many of those other people that uh the the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> was not that big. </sentence><sentence id="768">It was a <span class="spatial object">cattle wagon</span>, an open one. </sentence><sentence id="769">And you can imagine that we didn't have any <span class="env feature">water</span>. </sentence><sentence id="770">The only <span class="env feature">water</span> was the <span class="env feature">snow</span> which was coming down. </sentence><sentence id="771">But somehow, I don't recall that much because it was every day was the same - it was pandemonium. </sentence><sentence id="772">Uh on one side of the of the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, were sitting the painters. </sentence><sentence id="773">On the other side of the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> were the uh gardeners. </sentence><sentence id="774">There was another comp...uh and we know each other uh another group, I mean the gardeners. </sentence><sentence id="775">And in between was the main <span class="dlf">pleps</span> (ph) of the prisoners who were so called musselmans. </sentence><sentence id="776">They...we were undernourished, but they were even much more so. </sentence><sentence id="777">They had only generally a very few days to to to survive; and out of the uh <span class="spatial object">transport</span> of five thousand people, probably only two, two and a half thousand survived. </sentence><sentence id="778">There were there were very often killing each other, because they thought that somebody was dying already. </sentence><sentence id="779">They took his shoes, and uh the situation was very horrible. </sentence><sentence id="780">But even if I talk about it, somehow it is like pulled together in a way that you really don't recall. </sentence><sentence id="781">Every day was the same. </sentence><sentence id="782">Every day was so horrible that you don't remember the day before. </sentence><sentence id="783">Uh after, and we went through <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> going to the <span class="region">south</span>. </sentence><sentence id="784">Some people did throw - they were standing on <span class="dlf">bridges</span> and they threw some food so the people behaved quite well because what what happened really we went through <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span> going from the <span class="region">north</span> to the <span class="region">south</span> in <span class="country">Austria</span>, and uh we stopped at <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="785">They thought that they will get rid of us in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, but the <span class="populated place">Mauthausen camp</span> was already, it was a horrible <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="786">Very few people did did survive. </sentence><sentence id="787">The, later on when I, when we were in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, uh they told us, there was inscription on it how each <span class="country">nation</span>, how long the people survived, and I think Jews were I think only two uh two uh weeks. </sentence><sentence id="788">They thought them, anyhow, we were very lucky not to be denied the <span class="dlf">entrance</span> and we continued with the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="789">After ten days we we stopped and uh we were in <span class="populated place">Dora- Nordhausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="790">This this was uh first we were dosed with some uh petroleum, with water, you know, the disinfection, in January and standing there for hours so you can imagine not that many people survived after that. </sentence><sentence id="791">Uh but uh in <span class="populated place">Dora-Nordhausen</span> was established really as uh as a <span class="populated place">camp</span> where they were making uh parts. </sentence><sentence id="792">It was done under under the <span class="env feature">mountain</span>. </sentence><sentence id="793">The <span class="populated place">camp</span> and people were making, they they had - pardon me - they also <span class="dlf">railroads</span> there and they were working on the <span class="spatial object">V-2</span>. </sentence><sentence id="794">Uh anyhow, what happened with me I got uh I didn't uh, I I got in a <span class="building">barrack</span> and I was told not to uh try to uh just try to escape, to work, which I did. </sentence><sentence id="795">The the probably very seldom that somebody was running around and uh didn't work, but somehow I did, I I managed to do that. </sentence><sentence id="796">I had a <span class="spatial object">broom</span> and I was cleaning and doing things like that. </sentence><sentence id="797">But finally they caught on me and they, I was told I was in a <span class="spatial object">transport</span> going to another <span class="populated place">camp</span> by the name <span class="populated place">Ellrich</span>.* </sentence><sentence id="798">Luckily, I had uh uh some uh German kapo who told me--uh he was from <span class="populated place">Elsass-Lothringen</span> [NB: Alsace-Lorraine]--that I would not under any circumstances go with with this group, because they go to a <span class="populated place">camp</span> by the name <span class="populated place">Ellrich</span>, and out of that nobody comes generally. </sentence><sentence id="799">Uh later on I did...I did see it, because when I was standing there I saw <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> of people bloodied, just cadavers and going out of there. </sentence><sentence id="800">So I didn't get into that; and uh whatever...what happened, I hid myself in a stack of of uh uh uh under some <span class="spatial object">stack</span>. </sentence><sentence id="801">And uh I hid until... </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="841">Q: Was that a <span class="spatial object">haystack</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="843">A: A <span class="spatial object">haystack</span>, right. </sentence><sentence id="844">That that's what they call it. </sentence><sentence id="845">I was looking for the word. </sentence><sentence id="846">And uh L..I stayed there "til the morning, when the...when all...all the...disappeared. </sentence><sentence id="847">They were at some two prisoners set on me, so I had to get out. </sentence><sentence id="848">Which I I did. </sentence><sentence id="849">And uh I I had some uh prisoner, who who whom I knew he was a kapo. </sentence><sentence id="850">I shouldn't go there under any circumstances. </sentence><sentence id="851">And tried to avoid it, which I did. </sentence><sentence id="852">And uh I I saw some people writing some some names. </sentence><sentence id="853">So, I am...I just went there and put my name on it, too. </sentence><sentence id="854">And uh I said I couldn't go with it because I just keeled over, and I just cannot remember what would happen. </sentence><sentence id="855">So they sent me to a <span class="building">barrack</span>. </sentence><sentence id="856">And this was a <span class="building">typhus barrack</span>; which I of course did not know. </sentence><sentence id="857">But I had injection before I didn't get anything. </sentence><sentence id="858">And since they...I had a friend there again who knew the <span class="spatial object">kapo</span> and said I am a painter. </sentence><sentence id="859">So what happened, they opened the...the <span class="dlf">windows</span> and let me out every day; and I used to go to another <span class="building">barracks</span>, and painted pictures. </sentence><sentence id="860">Uh, they were horrible pictures like uh swans, and... and sun, and... You know, and the things which generally people like, you know. </sentence><sentence id="861">I mean, uh lower class people like ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="881">Q: What happened to all those pictures that you painted? </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="883">A: Unfor...unfortunately they they got beat up (ph) in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="884">They were horrible. </sentence><sentence id="885">Anyhow, from.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="889">Q: Were you able to bring any pictures out with you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="891">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="892">No. </sentence><sentence id="893">The only thing, the the the... And uh anyhow, from there on, I uh... Yeah, I I was hiding until...for a couple of days. </sentence><sentence id="894">I don't know--seven days or ten days. </sentence><sentence id="895">And uh, I...I just felt I could not hold out anymore. </sentence><sentence id="896">And I went to the <span class="building">Arbeitsdienst</span>, which was uh...they were taking people who worked... uh, so they would be working you know. </sentence><sentence id="897">Uh, prisoners, I mean. </sentence><sentence id="898">And uh I J asked them that I would love to work, because uh I just cannot stand, you know, cleaning outside. </sentence><sentence id="899">They were utterly surprised. </sentence><sentence id="900">They wanted to know uh what is my profession. </sentence><sentence id="901">So II told them I am a painter, and they gave me a <span class="building">barrack</span> where there were only three guys. </sentence><sentence id="902">And they were all Czechs; and uh the thing is, they were...they were doing quite 3 SS-Baubrigade (construction brigade) camp, which functioned as a subcamp of <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span>, <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> and <span class="populated place">Dora-Mittelbau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="903">Located in <span class="populated place">Sachsen province</span>. </sentence><sentence id="904">well. </sentence><sentence id="905">They...the problem is only they didn't have anything to do; and uh they were getting soup and so on. </sentence><sentence id="906">They were...they had a very nice life; but then I would come there, that would be the fourth one. </sentence><sentence id="907">And they were not Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="908">I was the only one. </sentence><sentence id="909">So they tried to get me out. </sentence><sentence id="910">Not that...you know, it's self-preservation. </sentence><sentence id="911">I cannot blame them for it. </sentence><sentence id="912">And...and uh from there, ...but nevertheless I was with them. </sentence><sentence id="913">So they sent me in a German German uh <span class="populated place">SS camp</span>, and I should paint there for for for the SS some inscription. </sentence><sentence id="914">Uh, which I did; and uh the paper on which I was working was very primitive uh war (ph) kind of a paper, which the ink spread on it and it just didn't work out. </sentence><sentence id="915">But the SS man who saw me to do that, started to scream. </sentence><sentence id="916">They sabotage. </sentence><sentence id="917">Luckily, the uh the <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span> came and started to bombard. </sentence><sentence id="918">So uh II had to rush out of the <span class="populated place">SS camp</span> to the <span class="populated place">prisoner's camp</span>, and uh uh what I uh uh and uh (pause) and at that time I came back again to to continue. </sentence><sentence id="919">And he came...he came. </sentence><sentence id="920">He saw what...what was happening. </sentence><sentence id="921">He started to scream that uh they will hang me the next day. </sentence><sentence id="922">I had to give him my number, and I had to run back to the <span class="populated place">prisoners" camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="923">And somehow, he didn't...he didn't do it. </sentence><sentence id="924">I didn't hang. </sentence><sentence id="925">I am still here. </sentence><sentence id="926">Uh...and uh later on, I got a job again with the with the SS to go out with prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="927">And these were some German young boys--some sixteen, seventeen--who escaped. </sentence><sentence id="928">And they had to show...they had to show where they hid, how they ran out of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, how they could escape. </sentence><sentence id="929">And I had to make earlier drawings of it, and they took the drawing. </sentence><sentence id="930">They put it with all the papers and sent it to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>; and...and hung the prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="931">And ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="975">Q: Well, we're just at that point now where we're going to be uh closing the interview. </sentence><sentence id="976">And I would like you to try to remember the last days in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, and the first days of your liberation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="979">A: The last day of the uh... Yeah, I have to get to to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="981">Q: And from this <span class="populated place">camp</span> to <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
104
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="983">A: From...from this <span class="populated place">camp</span>, it was again five days. </sentence><sentence id="984">And after five days, it was again a horrible kind of experience. </sentence><sentence id="985">We came... </sentence></p></dialogue>
105
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="989">Q: Walking? </sentence></p></dialogue>
106
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="991">A: ...to...to... No, it was not walking. </sentence><sentence id="992">It was a <span class="spatial object">train</span>; and the <span class="spatial object">train</span> went through the night. </sentence><sentence id="993">And uh five days out, five days. </sentence><sentence id="994">And I I just cannot remember any more, but I know that we came to <span class="populated place">Hamburg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="995">And uh the uh during...during the night very often happened that we have seen burning <span class="spatial object">trains</span>, bombardment. </sentence><sentence id="996">And also we uh...a <span class="spatial object">plane</span> came, while the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was going, and and started... Uh, you could see the reflectors on the <span class="spatial object">plane</span>; and they started to bomb. </sentence><sentence id="997">And uh we could jump out of the <span class="spatial object">train</span>; but SS was already out of the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and they would they would shoot anybody who would run away. </sentence><sentence id="998">But uh we did finally arrive in <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="999">In <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>...uh there, it was...1 think, most of the...of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> was uh uh German inhabitants. </sentence><sentence id="1000">Pardon me, uh German uh women women inhabitants. </sentence><sentence id="1001">And uh (pause) the the events were not, this this was really the last more or less to date in in <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1002">So then there were already inscription that it is under the <span class="building">Red Cross</span>, but the SS was still there. </sentence><sentence id="1003">They...they could...could shoot. </sentence><sentence id="1004">Finally uh we saw the uh the the English, who came in. </sentence><sentence id="1005">And they put in charge, because there were very few people with <span class="spatial object">tanks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1006">So they put in charge SS; but the Hungarian SS. </sentence><sentence id="1007">The Hungarian SS was not exactly much better than the than the German one, but still they they knew that this is the end. </sentence><sentence id="1008">Anyhow, so they didn't do that much. </sentence><sentence id="1009">Some people tried to escape. </sentence><sentence id="1010">These was the Russian, through the canalization...through the <span class="dlf">canals</span>; and uh they were shooting in. </sentence><sentence id="1011">So I don't know that anybody survived, but I did. </sentence><sentence id="1012">Uh the the <span class="dlf">door</span> was not anymore, uh the current was cut off, but the <span class="dlf">door</span> was still there. </sentence><sentence id="1013">So with couple of friends, we jump on the on the <span class="dlf">door</span> and tried to get over. </sentence><sentence id="1014">Which we did. </sentence><sentence id="1015">And uh run run in the <span class="env feature">woods</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1016">Finally, we got uh many of those prisoners were running around in the in the <span class="dlf">farms</span> and so on. </sentence><sentence id="1017">The farmers of course they knew that this is the end so they gave us food and so on and uh many of those prisoners ate as much or tried to gorge themselves as much as as they could, and they got very sick because all the time what we were eating was uh, there was only bread or or soup which was soup, so any any little bit of fat was uh really dangerous to to your intestines. </sentence><sentence id="1018">Uh after that uh the the British came and people were still running around trying to get to the <span class="dlf">farms</span>, and they took some uh some uh radios and oh some uh some coats and so on what they got. </sentence><sentence id="1019">Some they didn't get. </sentence><sentence id="1020">Something like after every war, people don't behave normally and rationally as they should. </sentence><sentence id="1021">Uh I know we were in some in some family. </sentence><sentence id="1022">They were quite nice people, so they they told us we can lay down on on the <span class="spatial object">bed</span> and sleep, and that was quite nice of them, and uh then we uh then I got back again to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> because we were told by by the by the British we had to go back again so we did, and uh I got uh a job with the British. </sentence><sentence id="1023">I I got uh in with some paper that I was serving of uh I was working for the <span class="building">UNRRA</span> and uh I stayed with with the British till the I think the July because uh there was a magazine they had some shirts and whatever, some uh uh (pause) underwear and so on. </sentence><sentence id="1024">And I had to to supervise it. </sentence><sentence id="1025">I had to and since I knew Czech and some some uh and I knew German, some some English I could uh I was working for for the British all the time. </sentence><sentence id="1026">And I was also the leader of the <span class="building">Czech barrack</span> and uh I could uh by uh... Yeah I also, pardon me, and I was also supervising the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1027">Many of the German girls, many of them were widows--and young, some eighteen, nineteen years old--and they were they were giving food to the to the prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="1028">And one had to take care of you know so the people wouldn't go twice or three times for the same soup and so on. </sentence><sentence id="1029">Uh there were ... (pause) </sentence></p></dialogue>
107
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1070">Q: Well, as you're pausing, it gives me an opportunity to tell you that the tape is almost finished and we wanted in these last few minutes for you to tell us how and where you met your wife. </sentence></p></dialogue>
108
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1072">A: Oh. ( </sentence><sentence id="1073">Pause) Should I say now? </sentence></p></dialogue>
109
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1076">Q: Right now. </sentence></p></dialogue>
110
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1078">A: This was kind of a very interesting thing and this did happen very often to us. </sentence><sentence id="1079">I met my wife going with one girl who was friend of mine and I was standing in one <span class="dlf">row</span> and my wife was standing in the other <span class="dlf">row</span> of people to try to pronounce dead people for really dead, so we can inherit from our relatives, our parents, any possessions, and since uh I was the only one who from the male who who did survive that <span class="populated place">camp</span>, which my wife was just trying to find out if anybody did survive be...besides men, and we were looking at each other and we thought that we somehow, that we somehow know each other. </sentence><sentence id="1080">And this this was the thing that we tried, I mean uh we we just thought that uh it is quite interesting anything like that happening. </sentence></p></dialogue>
111
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1085">Q: That was in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
112
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1087">A: This was not. </sentence><sentence id="1088">This was already when we came back again to to <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
113
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1091">Q: To <span class="populated place">Prague</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
114
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1093">A: And uh (pause)...but what what was really very interesting was that I did not know my wife. </sentence><sentence id="1094">Neither she did know me. </sentence><sentence id="1095">Nevertheless, she did know my brother; and I knew her her father, because her father was uh something like a tinsmith. </sentence><sentence id="1096">He had a small <span class="building">shop</span> and I was working in that in that <span class="building">shop</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1097">I wanted to have as much knowledge of different professions which I could do. </sentence><sentence id="1098">So I was working there for a week, or I didn't know even her her father. </sentence></p></dialogue>
115
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1105">Q: Well, that was a very nice coincidence then to the story of how you met your wife. </sentence><sentence id="1106">And with that, I'm going to thank you again for taking this time to share with us your thoughts on this... </sentence></p></dialogue>
116
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1109">A: I thank you, I thank you just the same very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
117
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1111">Q: Well, you've done beautifully. </sentence><sentence id="1112">Thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1115">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="1116">Photographs () This is my family. </sentence><sentence id="1117">My father Henry, mother Irma and my small brother Otto. </sentence><sentence id="1118">None of them, of course, survived. </sentence><sentence id="1119">And me, in the...in the front. ( </sentence><sentence id="1120">2) This is a picture of me in <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>, the last day of <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span> in "45. </sentence><sentence id="1121">And this was done by Kurt Fanderfalde. </sentence><sentence id="1122">Used to be a communist, and escaped to to to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
119
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: ray none buch
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0045
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0045_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504545
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1920-09-18
9
+ birth_year: 1920.0
10
+ place_of_birth: new york city, ny
11
+ country: usa
12
+ experience_group: soldier
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: checked
20
+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1989.h.0363
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">RAY BUCH December 28, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Ray, can you, uh, tell me your, your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: I'm Raymond Stephen Buch, B-U-C-H. It's German. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And where were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">New York City</span>, in <span class="populated place">Manhattan</span>, in the <span class="building">Harlem Hospital</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: In what year? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: In the year 1920, in September 18th. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="15">Q: Um, where did you grow up? </sentence><sentence id="16">Tell me a bit about your family and about your parents. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="19">A: Well, my folks were from, uh, the <span class="country">Ukraine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">Uh, my mother came from the <span class="region">Polish side</span> of the <span class="env feature">Bug River</span> and and my father was on the <span class="region">Russian side</span> and, uh, they were childhood friends and they immigrated to the <span class="country">United States</span> at different times and met in <span class="populated place">New York</span> and my father was in World War | and, uh, in the infantry which, uh, I was quite proud of as you'll find out later. </sentence><sentence id="21">And, uh, he bought a <span class="dlf">farm</span> in <span class="region">New Jersey</span> and we shortly moved to <span class="region">New Jersey</span>, that is the father and mother, and, uh, when my mother was pregnant with me she went to a lying-in <span class="building">hospital</span> which happened to be in <span class="populated place">New York City</span> because the <span class="spatial object">railroad train</span> went right through our <span class="dlf">farm</span>, stopped at the <span class="building">house</span> and picked her up and delivered her to <span class="building">Pennsylvania Station</span> and she took a <span class="spatial object">cab</span> to the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="25">Q: Okay. </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="27">A: There was no such facilities in <span class="region">New Jersey</span> at the time. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="29">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="30">Um, tell me then a little bit...you grew up in <span class="region">New Jersey</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="33">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="34">Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="35">Then we went back to the <span class="populated place">city</span> for a couple of years and I got to be a, uh, street bum and, uh, kids learned how to smoke cigarettes and rammed around and got into gang fights and the usual. </sentence><sentence id="36">And, uh, at, uh, age ten we moved back to the <span class="dlf">farm</span> because of the Depression and we were on a <span class="dlf">farm</span> until I was inducted into the Army. </sentence><sentence id="37">I became a carpenter before I went in the Army, and that's why I was in the engineer... in the engineers. </sentence><sentence id="38">We had, uh, uh, I had the background for it, having built <span class="building">factories</span> and <span class="building">movie theaters</span> and different <span class="building">structures</span>, <span class="building">houses</span>, <span class="building">barns</span> and so on in <span class="region">New Jersey</span> before I went in the Army. </sentence><sentence id="39">And in the <span class="dlf">Armny</span> I picked up on that and learned a lot of new things. </sentence><sentence id="40">Learned how to blow up the things that I had built, and which was a terrible thing in my mind--when we had to destroy <span class="building">buildings</span> and <span class="dlf">bridges</span> and even <span class="env feature">trees</span> which we blew down occasionally to, uh, to make the war effort a little more, uh, well, not useful but to learn what we had to do in service, in combat. </sentence><sentence id="41">And it stood us in good stead stead because the things we learned were, uh, important to the Army and nobody else. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="51">Q: Right. </sentence><sentence id="52">Uh, tell me about when you uh, what were the circumstances in which you were taken overseas? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="55">A: Well, we went, we [were] inducted in the Army, in the Armed Forces, in 1942, uh, late in "42, in November, and we maneuvered in <span class="region">Louisiana</span> and <span class="region">Texas</span> for approximately a year, uh, a little over a year, and, uh, we, uh, then went to <span class="region">Texas</span> and the plains of dry, plains of <span class="region">Texas</span> near <span class="populated place">Abilene</span>, at <span class="building">Camp Barkley</span> and then we went to the <span class="env feature">desert</span> to get desert training at <span class="populated place">Patton</span>'s <span class="building">desert training center</span>, which is now a national monument. </sentence><sentence id="56">And in those days it was bleak, dreary, miles of endless wastes, and typical of <span class="region">North Africa</span> where we thought we might go. </sentence><sentence id="57">However that war ended before we got there. </sentence><sentence id="58">So we trained in the <span class="country">States</span> until September of 1944. </sentence><sentence id="59">And then we shipped from <span class="region">California</span> to <span class="populated place">Camp Kilmer</span>, <span class="region">New Jersey</span>; and from there to <span class="country">England</span>, because the 12th Armored Division had taken our equipment. </sentence><sentence id="60">We were landed in <span class="country">England</span> instead of directly in on the continent. </sentence><sentence id="61">Then from <span class="country">England</span> we got trans-shipped to the continent. </sentence><sentence id="62">And we landed at <span class="populated place">Cherbourg</span>, and we started to track east towards the, uh, <span class="region">fighting front</span>. </sentence><sentence id="63">And about the time we got there--December 16th, 1944--is when the Battle of the Bulge started. </sentence><sentence id="64">So we were thrown into the Battle of the Bulge, and that was our first baptismal of fire. </sentence><sentence id="65">And, uh, first couple of days we lost hundreds and hundreds of men, wounded and killed. </sentence><sentence id="66">Approximately 300 killed and a couple of thousand wounded. </sentence><sentence id="67">And, uh, from there we went to the <span class="dlf">Siegfried Line</span> after crossing the <span class="env feature">Rhine River</span>, and we traveled across <span class="country">Europe</span>, uh, like vagabonds, thirty miles at a time. </sentence><sentence id="68">We'd stop and wait for the rest of the infantry to catch up. </sentence><sentence id="69">We were in an <span class="building">armored division</span> which would go thirty miles in a day easily whereas an <span class="building">infantry division</span> were lucky to go three or four miles in a day. </sentence><sentence id="70">So we were always ahead of our, uh, <span class="spatial object">support units</span>. </sentence><sentence id="71">We had infantry in our own units, which defended the people who were, uh, in spear-heading as we called it. </sentence><sentence id="72">And, uh, we travelled across Europe, uh, for, uh, weeks at a time and towards the end of the war was just a continual pack, pick-up, pack-up, dig-in, pack-up and go, go, go. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="91">Q: Was the fighting very heavy at that point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="93">A: Uh, well, we had a lot of pockets of resistance. </sentence><sentence id="94">The German people, the Volksturm and the SS would drive the local farmers into shooting at us. </sentence><sentence id="95">If they didn't shoot at us, they would shoot the farmer. </sentence><sentence id="96">And they made feeble attempts at trying to shoot us naturally and the SS, uh, troops kept moving back in towards the interior of <span class="country">Germany</span>, and, uh, the, well, you know, this went on a couple of months. </sentence><sentence id="97">I'm trying to talk here in a few minutes and describe, uh, uh, a couple of months of activity--it's very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="98">The, uh, thing that I remember was we started to see our men being killed and because of our men being killed, a couple here and a couple there, we would kill whole squads of Germans the way they mowed down the, uh, prisoners and, uh, their opponents. </sentence><sentence id="99">And sometimes the <span class="env feature">hillsides</span> would be covered with bodies of the Americans, or a <span class="dlf">hillside</span> would be covered with the bodies of the Germans, and then later on when they were trying to march the political prisoners that were in, <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> inmates or, uh, slaves on <span class="dlf">farms</span>, they would, uh, march them ahead of them trying to get them out of our way so we wouldn't see what we they had done to these people apparently. </sentence><sentence id="100">Anduh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="109">Q: Did you see any of this? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="111">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="112">These bodies were lying along the <span class="dlf">roadsides</span> where they'd fallen in exhaustion or they were shot because they weren't going fast enough and, uh, it was a terrible thing but, uh, it was practically a common occurrence in the last days of the war. </sentence><sentence id="113">From April 15th to the end of the war we saw this in many places and, uh, uh, the, uh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="117">Q: Was that your first contact with <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> victims? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="119">A: Was, was in April, about the 15th of April, yeah, we started to see the where they had been marched ahead of us because, uh, in because of the nature of the spear-heading, the 11th Armored was a part of Patton's 3rd Army which you see here on my cap, this is the 11th Armored Division, and I was in the 56th Engineers, and that's this little insignia right here which is our uniform insignia. </sentence><sentence id="120">And the 11th Armored patch was ordinarily worn on your shoulder and, uh, there there were several <span class="building">armored divisions</span>. </sentence><sentence id="121">We were one of them. </sentence><sentence id="122">The <span class="building">4th Armored</span> was a sister division, and we were leap-frogging ahead, uh, in spurts as it were until and then we'd rest for a day or two until the infantry caught up to, to, uh, contain the <span class="region">lands</span> that we had just over-run. </sentence><sentence id="123">And that's when we would see these prisoners who had been walking ahead of us for a couple of days. </sentence><sentence id="124">We'd catch up to them and we'd see the ones who had been, uh, uh, had died along the <span class="dlf">roadsides</span>. </sentence><sentence id="125">And by the hundreds in some cases, and then just here and there and then they tried to bury some and they were, made half-hearted attempts because they took too much time to bury them. </sentence><sentence id="126">They were trying to hide the, the ones that had died and then there were so many of them they just left them after a while. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="135">Q: All right, tell me if you would where you were as you were about to approach <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="137">How did you get there? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="138">A: Well, uh, we were in a <span class="building">combat command</span>. </sentence><sentence id="139">And <span class="building">Combat Command A</span> is the one I was in ordinarily. </sentence><sentence id="140">Uh, we were down in...in <span class="populated place">Linz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="141">We were, we forked out. </sentence><sentence id="142">A combat command, one would go to the left, one would go to the right and sometimes a third combat command called "CCR," or "Reserve," would take a central point. </sentence><sentence id="143">And there would be three prongs of us armored, uh, divisions spanning out and covering as much <span class="region">territory</span> as we could; and taking it in and and opposing and and mowing down the opposition with our heavy guns, our 75, uh, millimeter guns and three-inch guns on, uh, <span class="spatial object">tank destroyers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="144">And, uh, we kept going and going and until we got to <span class="populated place">Linz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="145">That was <span class="building">CCA</span>, but <span class="building">CCB</span> went, uh, to the <span class="region">north</span> ofus... </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="154">Q: Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="155">Translate. </sentence><sentence id="156">What is <span class="building">CCB</span>...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="160">A: Combat Command B. There are three combat commands in an <span class="building">armored division</span> - <span class="building">Combat Command A</span>, which is, uh, composed of select troops depending on a situation from the main body of the division which of 11,000 men, and, uh, CCB would be another group of men, engineers and tank destroyers, uh, or artillery depending on what we thought we needed, medical men and of course supplies always brought up the rear, following the trains- -they called it <span class="spatial object">division train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="161">And then CCR was a reserve command of troops ready to go to the aid of <span class="building">CCB</span> or <span class="building">CCA</span> whichever was needed. </sentence><sentence id="162">In most cases they were always in the <span class="interior space">back</span>. </sentence><sentence id="163">But when needed, they would be shifted to the front, or to relieve the pressure of one group that was in the front. </sentence><sentence id="164">For instance, <span class="building">CCA</span> was stuck in the, uh, certain section of <span class="dlf">Siegfred line</span> for a couple of days and couldn't get through and had some casualties, so they took them back and CCR replaced them. </sentence><sentence id="165">That's the, that's the, there's three parts--they call it a <span class="region">triangular division</span>, and those are the three parts. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="172">Q: So you were moving toward <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> ... . </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="174">A: Right, and <span class="building">CCB</span>, uh, were the ones that found the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="175">They, uh, the doctor--that's, uh, Doormeyer (ph), I believe it was, he had gotten a Red Cross, uh, official and they came down the <span class="dlf">road</span> and with a Red Cross flag flying on their, uh, <span class="spatial object">Volkswagen</span>, and, uh, our men spotted it and the one fellow, uh, Sergeant Albert, uh, J. Kosiek,! </sentence><sentence id="176">uh, was able to speak Polish and so did the doctor that was in this, uh, uh, vehic..uh, <span class="spatial object">Volkswagen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="177">And, uh, he said, "We have a <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="178">They're ready to surrender. </sentence><sentence id="179">We want you to come and take the...the Germans prisoner." </sentence><sentence id="180">And they came down to meet us; so they took us right to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="181">And, uh, the fellows were greeted with cheers and the SS troops had already evacuated because they knew what was going to happen to them, and they only left the ordinary German soldiers there who were guards. </sentence><sentence id="182">And these, uh, German soldiers, uh, had of course thrown all their weapons in and now the people had them. </sentence><sentence id="183">And they were ready to shoot all the soldiers, but, uh, we kept them from doing that and, uh, but they did hang some of the worst, uh, guards, some of the ones that had treated them the worst--the, they took care of them before we got there actually. </sentence><sentence id="184">They were hanging on the <span class="dlf">fences</span>, uh, butchered and, uh, desecrated; it's no worse than what they had done except here you saw an able-bodied man now hanging on an <span class="dlf">electric fence</span> and, uh, cut apart and they they were paying back a little bit you know of what they had gotten. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="196">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="197">Let's back up a minute. </sentence><sentence id="198">You are about, you are approaching the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="199">You have your your doctor in front of you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="204">A: Yeah, this doctor went, went, uh, took us right up to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> and right to the main <span class="dlf">gate</span> and, Ul exasare </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="206">Q: Describe that. </sentence><sentence id="207">Describe entering the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="208">Tell me exactly what you saw. </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="212">A: Well, uh, let let me put this, uh, let me get you straight on this. </sentence><sentence id="213">I had gone with <span class="building">CCA</span> to <span class="populated place">Linz</span> " Officially, Staff Sargeant Albert J. Kosiek. </sentence><sentence id="214">Platoon leader of First Platoon, <span class="building">Troop D</span>, <span class="building">41st Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron</span>, Mechanized. </sentence><sentence id="215"> and we had, uh, taken over two tons of dynamite off the <span class="dlf">Adolph Hitler Bridge</span>, my squad and I, because we don't want nobody else there because if, if there was booby trap we overlooked, it would have blown the whole <span class="dlf">bridge</span> and ourselves to bits. </sentence><sentence id="216">Meantime this was going on at the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="217">I'm telling you what Albert Kosiack told us, when we went back in 1975 and he had, we had, uh, we went over by <span class="spatial object">plane</span> and we went, we were together for a week or so, and we talked this thing over and, uh, I feel as if I were there. </sentence><sentence id="218">And, uh, well the people just hugged them fellows; they just, they--it was indescribable. </sentence><sentence id="219">They were so happy. </sentence><sentence id="220">They were screaming and they were trying to touch them and, uh, fellows and, uh, he said he'll never forget it and of course the doctor who was, uh, who could speak Polish was, was, the doctor told, uh, Kosiack told the doctor to have the people who now had the German machine guns and everything to please stack them up and, uh, we'll take care of them. </sentence><sentence id="221">So they set fire to them. </sentence><sentence id="222">So that the people wouldn't have the guns because they would be going down in the <span class="region">countryside</span> shooting everybody, so to keep them from doing that, they stacked all the guns and then they set fire to them. </sentence><sentence id="223">But the, by the time we got near, the people knew the war was over because <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span> and radios, they had, somebody had a radio--they had one radio in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>--and they knew the war was almost over. </sentence><sentence id="224">It wasn't over until the 8th. </sentence><sentence id="225">We got there on May Sth, three days before the war was over. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="242">Q: When did you physically get to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="244">A: I got into the <span class="populated place">camp</span> about May 10th, when they called for the engineers to come with <span class="spatial object">bulldozers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="245">I was in the engineers as I explained before, and my friend Al Salzman (ph) from <span class="region">Massachusetts</span> was a <span class="spatial object">bulldozer</span> operator so, uh, I was helping him and, uh, taking movies and black and white pictures, slides. </sentence><sentence id="246">I had all the film I needed because, you may think this is funny, but I had a lot of girlfriends and these girls were sending me film from the <span class="country">United States</span>, and I had all the movies that I took pictures everyday of combat. </sentence><sentence id="247">When I wasn't being shot at I was shooting with movie film and with, uh, black and white. </sentence><sentence id="248">And I have hundreds and hundreds of feet of movie film which unfortunately didn't all get <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="249">It was x-rayed. </sentence><sentence id="250">It was, uh, lost. </sentence><sentence id="251">It was stolen. </sentence><sentence id="252">It was buried. </sentence><sentence id="253">One, one, in one timea___ went right through my knapsack full of Battle of the Bulge pictures. </sentence><sentence id="254">The 35 millimeters, most of <span class="spatial object">mine</span> was gone. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="266">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="267">Let's let's get back, we're back from the film. </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="270">A: Yeah, right. </sentence><sentence id="271">Well, I'm just trying to tell you why I got the film in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="272">I had all film and I'm sorry I don't have all of the film that I did take. </sentence><sentence id="273">But anyway .... </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="278">Q: I want to see, for the purpose of this tape, I need to ask you if you would to describe the scene at <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> when you, Ray Buch, first went through those <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="280">A: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="281">We came up through the <span class="populated place">town</span> and, uh, it's on a steep <span class="dlf">hillside</span>, on the top of a <span class="env feature">mountain</span> and a <span class="dlf">quarry</span> is, uh, next to it which is below them and part of the <span class="env feature">mountain</span> which the <span class="populated place">camp</span> sets on, if they keep on quarrying there the <span class="populated place">camp</span> will fall down into the <span class="dlf">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="282">Uh, as we approached it looked like a hugh <span class="building">prison</span> which we have back in the <span class="country">States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="283">And that's exactly what it was. </sentence><sentence id="284">However, inside the <span class="dlf">prison walls</span> and in back of them were, uh, <span class="interior space">compounds</span> consisting of <span class="building">barracks</span>, which held a couple of hundred people and these were in the main part of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, on the top part and here we saw double <span class="dlf">electrified fences</span>. </sentence><sentence id="285">Uh, uh, people were by this time sunning themselves, and a lot of people were nude because they had no clothes: they had been worn off or torn off by those who were stronger and, uh, people were walking around nude because they didn't have enough clothes at the time. </sentence><sentence id="286">Uh, we had, uh, as I said there were other visitors coming. </sentence><sentence id="287">In fact I think the Russians came one of the days and they of course they started then to bring troops in from the <span class="region">Russian front</span>, from the <span class="region">American side</span>, (cough) excuse me, and from the German civilians nearby we started to get those people to come up by the truckload and we told them to dress in their Sunday best, and then we made them dig <span class="dlf">graves</span>, and, uh, we wanted them to see what was going on and then we had them carry the bodies, load the bodies in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>. </sentence><sentence id="288">We took wagonload after wagonload of bodies out to the <span class="dlf">grave site</span>, which was the <span class="dlf">soccer field</span> or the sport, uh, they call it the <span class="building">Sportplatz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="289">And, uh, we made the Germans handle, load them up in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> from inside the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, take them down to the the, uh, <span class="dlf">graveyard</span>, the <span class="dlf">grave site</span>, and unload them, put them down in the <span class="dlf">graves</span>, side by side, by the hundreds--would be a hundred and fifty people or so in a row--and side, practically on top of each other. </sentence><sentence id="290">They were such, they were all skin and bones and it was--I have pictures of them and movies which you'll see later, but the, uh, uh, bodies were so emaciated that that you you couldn't possibly understand how those people were alive and walking around. </sentence><sentence id="291">And, uh, some of those walking around looked better than the dead, of course, a little better than the dead and some of them looked worse, and they're still alive depending on their resistance or whatever--I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="292">But it was incredible that they were still walking in many cases. </sentence><sentence id="293">The walking dead we called them at that time. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="308">Q: What was the reaction of the German civilians to having to bury the dead? </sentence><sentence id="309">What did they . . </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="312"> 2 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="313">A: They, they all they just shook their heads. </sentence><sentence id="314">They were crying. </sentence><sentence id="315">They said, No, nein, nein--we didn't know--we knew they were a <span class="populated place">camp</span>," but they didn't realize what was happening to all the people because they had, uh, a <span class="dlf">quarry</span> with a <span class="spatial object">railroad</span>--they ran, uh, stone out you know on the <span class="spatial object">train</span> down below. </sentence><sentence id="316">On a <span class="interior space">lower level</span> there was a <span class="dlf">railroad track</span> to take the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, uh, the quarry stone out to different building projects throughout <span class="country">Austria</span>. </sentence><sentence id="317">Went to the main <span class="dlf">railroad</span>, down along the <span class="env feature">Danube</span>. </sentence><sentence id="318">And, uh, they didn't realize that the there would be carloads of, uh, uh, clothing going out from all these people, would be going out by the <span class="spatial object">carloads</span> to be reprocessed into new blankets and German Army uniforms or whatever, uh, from the people who had died. </sentence><sentence id="319">And they didn't incinerate any of the clothing the clothing because, uh, it was bad enough burning up the bodies that they burned, and, uh, the German people were were, knew there was a <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="320">They knew people was going to it but I don't thing they knew how bad it was. </sentence><sentence id="321">It's a similar situation in the <span class="country">United States</span>--now we have newspaper reporters that get in and we tear our <span class="building">jails</span> apart. </sentence><sentence id="322">We know what's going on because we're an open free public, but under a dictatorship, I believe that most of those people did not know and they acted as if they didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="323">And they cried. </sentence><sentence id="324">Of course we did too. </sentence><sentence id="325">I can cry right now thinking about how terrible it was and, uh, I had an empathy for them because, uh, I was of German descent. </sentence><sentence id="326">My parents spoke German and, uh, but however they didn't teach it to me because it was taboo in World War I and I knew my English and only knew a few words, mostly cuss words in German. </sentence><sentence id="327">When my father would get mad, he would say, . </sentence><sentence id="328">Uh, that, that's my imperfect German but that's what about the extent of my German. </sentence><sentence id="329">However I picked it up over there and I was able to interview a couple of the girls. </sentence><sentence id="330">I picked on girls because they were pretty as, as you, as I said before; I don't know why but the these girls always did me favors and this one girl said that she had been marched ahead of the German troops from <span class="region">Silesia</span> and coll... and the story confirms what I had said earlier about marching them from the ea..<span class="region">western front</span> towards the center of <span class="country">Germany</span> and from the <span class="region">eastern front</span> towards the center of <span class="country">Germany</span>, and they had marched all these thousands of people in, uh, to <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> from various <span class="populated place">camps</span> around the east and <span class="region">west</span> and this one girl was, uh, been marched for about a week she said ahead of the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="331">She says better to with the Germans than the Russians, because they were raping the girls and the women and it was pathetic. </sentence><sentence id="332">We had a <span class="dlf">line</span> of demarcation, the <span class="env feature">Steyr River</span>; the Russians on one side and the Americans on the other. </sentence><sentence id="333">And it was bedlam over there - screaming and killing and shooting and tearing the place apart. </sentence><sentence id="334">They [the Russians] would send the <span class="spatial object">toilets</span> back <span class="building">home</span> and the <span class="spatial object">sink</span>...the running water, they, forgetting that they needed running water. </sentence><sentence id="335">And they were just a bunch of wild animals, the Russian soldiers. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="360">Q: Let's come back to <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="362">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="363">Right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="366">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="367">You are in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="368">You have started to bury the dead. </sentence><sentence id="369">Uh, were you involved at all in helping to get the <span class="populated place">camp</span> organized? </sentence><sentence id="370">What, what was done? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="376">A: Well, the <span class="populated place">camp,</span> the doctors started coming in and they had already had, uh, uh, experience April 15th, uh, out in, uh, <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="377">It was one of the biggest ones we overran, which was around April 15th. </sentence><sentence id="378">So by the 5th of May when we got there, and a couple of days later when the engineers got there to, to start digging <span class="dlf">trenches</span> to bury the dead, uh, they were pretty much, uh, they pretty well knew what they had to do to help these people, so we rushed in supplies and, uh, emergency supplies from, uh, the Army medical, uh, supplies and surplus, uh, Army uniforms and, uh, the, uh, various <span class="building">factories</span> and <span class="building">warehouses</span> around that the Germans had or the Austrians had were utilized to supply foo. </sentence><sentence id="379">We raided those in other words, and we, the civilian population had, was, had to go without. </sentence><sentence id="380">In fact that winter, the following winter, they a lot of them almost starved. </sentence><sentence id="381">Uh, but we were trying to to feed these people. </sentence><sentence id="382">And, uh, our division set up the, uh...and Colonel Seibel was in command, and he was in command of <span class="building">CCB</span> at the time as I mentioned earlier. </sentence><sentence id="383">And he directed the, uh, uh ...the proceedings, that is, uh, the cleaning up of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> and the burning of this and burning of that. </sentence><sentence id="384">Some of the clothes and things that we, were burned up and old, uh, <span class="building">latrines</span>--uh, they were filthy. </sentence><sentence id="385">Uh, we tried to get rid of some of the things that were contagious that would spread germs and so on. </sentence><sentence id="386">So the people themselves were still dying because they were beyond help. </sentence><sentence id="387">We got there too late and they died daily, uh, by the hundreds the first few days and then they tapered off and there was a few, maybe a dozen a day, uh, thirty days later. </sentence><sentence id="388">But, uh, we were there for about thirty days, our division, and then the <span class="building">26th Infantry Division</span> took over. </sentence><sentence id="389">In fact, some of those came in early so they could see how we were doing it. </sentence><sentence id="390">Our men stood guard to keep the, uh, people under control because some of the, the Russian prisoners were very aggressive anduh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="406">Q: What does that mean? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="408">A: Well, they they wanted to shoot every German that came in the place because they had been, uh, put in, incarcerated in this <span class="populated place">camp</span> and they were skin and bones and they, they were ready to tear them apart with their bare hands, so we had to have our men walking around with guns to keep everything, keep the keep these people from uh killing each other or killing their former, uh, masters so called. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="410">Q: What was your role in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="412">A: Well, I was, uh, an engineer and and as I said our, my project was to, uh, help bury the dead because my buddy, Al Salzman, was on a <span class="spatial object">bulldozer</span> and I helped him grease it and maintain it and, uh, had opportunity to see quite a lot of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="413">Well, and so did he, and its amazing how, uh, you can forget details. </sentence><sentence id="414">There was so many things going on and if somebody prompts you or if you see a picture, they'll bring back a whole story just about a picture. </sentence><sentence id="415">Uh, a picture can tell a thousand words. </sentence><sentence id="416">Well, I took a lot of movies and maybe they'll be put on tape later and that'll explain some of what I'm talking about. </sentence><sentence id="417">But, uh... . </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="424">Q: What other parts . . . </sentence><sentence id="425">you've, you've described the burial of the dead very well and I thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="428">A: Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="430">Q: Uh, what other parts of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> did you see? </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="432">A: Oh I, we went through the, uh, <span class="building">barracks</span>, the different <span class="building">barracks</span> to see how the people were. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="434">Q: What was the condition of the <span class="building">barracks</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="436">A: All right. </sentence><sentence id="437">The <span class="building">barracks</span> were, this was, in the few days that we were there, the first few days that we were there, there were still some dead in the <span class="spatial object">bunks</span>, and we were getting the German people to take them out, and they threw them out like (ph)_ out in the <span class="dlf">yards</span>, and they were piled up there. </sentence><sentence id="438">Then from there they took and put them into <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and took them down to the <span class="dlf">graveyard</span>. </sentence><sentence id="439">And now in the <span class="building">barracks</span> where the, uh, people, where there were six hundred in a <span class="building">barracks</span>, there were two and three people in each <span class="spatial object">bunk</span>. </sentence><sentence id="440">They were so skinny from malnutrition that, uh, two people could sleep side by side very easily and they, there were so few <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> they had to take turns sleeping. </sentence><sentence id="441">And, uh, uh, I took pictures, movies inside the <span class="building">barracks</span> and, uh, I'll never forget these people were so weak that the ones who had, were stronger, would strip the clothes off of the weak ones who couldn't fight back and put those clothes on themselves because they were better for instance than their own. </sentence><sentence id="442">None of these people were issued clothes. </sentence><sentence id="443">They had uniforms and when the uniforms wore out at this late stage of the war, why they were nude. </sentence><sentence id="444">And there were so many women just lying nude in their <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> they and I I felt bad about taking movies of them so I got some of them waving but I didn't make it a point to ... and anyhow I didn't get all those movies <span class="building">home</span> anyhow. </sentence><sentence id="445">But I do have some in the <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="446">This will explain what I am talking about. </sentence><sentence id="447">It was unbelievable. </sentence><sentence id="448">The <span class="building">barracks</span>, uh, in the <span class="building">barracks</span> the <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> were four to six high and had to climb up like monkeys and some of them were too weak to get to their <span class="spatial object">bunks</span>, so they sleep on the bottom one and the ones that were stronger would sleep on top. </sentence><sentence id="449">And, uh, that's where I interviewed the young lady from, uh, <span class="populated place">Sil</span>... <span class="region">Upper Silesia</span>, and you'd wonder when you see her, uh, why she looked so, uh, well-nourished. </sentence><sentence id="450">It's only because she had of her own via...volition, of her own free will, marched with those prisoners ahead of the Russians to get away from the Russians. </sentence><sentence id="451">And, uh, it was an anachronism in the middle of all this starving, starv...and starved people and these human skeletons to see someone looking as well as she did. </sentence><sentence id="452">But there were quite a few others that had just been marched in a few days before and hadn't had a chance to starve. </sentence><sentence id="453">The way, I hate to even, it, it, it's so silly when you think back on it, how these people just starved to death. </sentence><sentence id="454">They would give them rations of one piece of bread, a crumb of bread for a day, and a lot of times the bread was moldy and we started feeding them with soup and, uh, bread which we made from the flour we got <span class="populated place">downtown</span>. </sentence><sentence id="455">We got the <span class="building">bakeries</span> going and a little later on we got carpenters in, from the German soldiers, carpenters and plumbers and to get everything back in order because a lot of things were destroyed in the, by the people in fighting and then they destroyed it themselves because they were so sick of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>--they were trying to knock down <span class="dlf">wire</span> and everything. </sentence><sentence id="456">It was, uh, double <span class="dlf">electrified fences</span> to keep them in the <span class="dlf">compounds</span> and, uh, the bodies were just thrown outside the <span class="building">barracks</span> into pile, into piles in the <span class="dlf">streets</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="457">There's no place else to bur...there's no place to bury them in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, the <span class="region">upper part</span>, until we started digging these <span class="dlf">trenches</span>. </sentence><sentence id="458">And, uh, let's see.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="482">Q: What else did you see in <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="484">A: Well, as I said, the people were lining up, uh, uh, to, uh, go to these, uh, <span class="building">soup mill</span>... or <span class="interior space">kitchens</span> or <span class="spatial object">soup pots</span> and what always struck me so odd, the people would be walking without shirts or without pants on, and they didn't think anything of it; they were so used to seeing humans nude most of the time. </sentence><sentence id="485">They stripped them everyday and hosed them down. </sentence><sentence id="486">This is stories that they told us later. </sentence><sentence id="487">But I actually saw and have movies of people walking around without clothes on and think nothing of it. </sentence><sentence id="488">The men in particular. </sentence><sentence id="489">Uh, the women weren't that, uh, uh, aggressive. </sentence><sentence id="490">In other words they, they were more polite. </sentence><sentence id="491">They tried to hide themselves. </sentence><sentence id="492">And the women that were nude in their <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> would put their hands over their breasts and it was pathetic. </sentence><sentence id="493">Very sad. </sentence><sentence id="494">I'm, I'm glad that it, that it has never been that bad since, uh, that is that we we haven't publicized these things, but what we do know and we hope that it never happens again and, uh, if these pictures will help prove a point, I'm sure they won't happen again. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="506">Q: Did you see the <span class="dlf">quarry</span>? </sentence><sentence id="507"> 0 </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="510">A: Oh yes. </sentence><sentence id="511">It was, as I said, it was down, uh, uh, below the <span class="populated place">camp</span> itself. </sentence><sentence id="512">The <span class="populated place">camp</span> was on the highest point of the <span class="dlf">hill</span>. </sentence><sentence id="513">The <span class="dlf">quarry</span> was, was starting to go into the side of the <span class="env feature">mountain</span> towards the; ultimately they, as I said earlier, the <span class="populated place">camp</span> would have fallen in if they quarried that far. </sentence><sentence id="514">But the the <span class="dlf">staircase</span>, they, they quarried the <span class="dlf">staircase</span> right out of the stone of the <span class="env feature">mountain</span> and, uh, there were big blocks of stone. </sentence><sentence id="515">It was a typical <span class="building">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="516">They were making building blocks for the <span class="dlf">bridges</span> and the <span class="dlf">highways</span> and also for stone <span class="building">buildings</span> that they, uh, were putting up here and there. </sentence><sentence id="517">Uh, most of the stones were going for, uh, <span class="dlf">highways</span> and for reinforcing <span class="interior space">underground bunkers</span> and things like that and the people had to carry stones up the <span class="dlf">stairs</span>, to the main <span class="populated place">camp</span> because they built a hugh <span class="dlf">dividing wall</span> between the quarters of the SS troopers and the, uh, <span class="interior space">kitchen</span> and the <span class="building">infirmary</span> or the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="518">They built a <span class="dlf">stone wall</span> between those and the, uh, <span class="building">barracks</span> where they had the experimental prisoners, where they they inoculated them with all kinds of, uh, germs or they froze them in <span class="spatial object">vats</span> of water and, uh, experimented generally. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="528">Q: Describe if you would what the <span class="building">experimental compound</span> looked like. </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="530">A: Well, uh, if you've ever been in an <span class="populated place">Army camp</span> in the <span class="country">United States</span>, you'll see rows and rows of <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="531">Well, these were a little closer together. </sentence><sentence id="532">Uh, it reminded me of <span class="spatial object">chicken coops</span> on a big <span class="dlf">chicken ranch</span>, and, uh, there was about seven rows of them and about ten <span class="building">buildings</span> in each <span class="dlf">row</span>. </sentence><sentence id="533">And there was about two hundred people in each one of those <span class="building">barracks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="534">They were smaller than the ones down at the lower side of the <span class="populated place">camp</span> where, where the quarry prisoners, uh, were quartered, and, uh, I don't know uh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="540">Q: What was the condition, what were conditions like inside these <span class="building">barracks</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="542">A: Uh, well they were less crowded because, uh, they still had the <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> but they had about three high and they still had about two people in in each one, but they weren't, they weren't as elaborate, hugh; the <span class="building">buildings</span> weren't as big as the ones in the <span class="populated place">lower camp</span>, the lower section of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="543">Uh, they were smaller and only about two hundred people in each, which is almost what we had in our own <span class="building">Army barracks</span> in the <span class="country">States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="544">We had about a hundred and fifty--well not a hundred and...uh, the bigger ones did but we had about seventy-five men and where we had seventy-five men, they had two hundred. </sentence><sentence id="545">That's how much more crowded the <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> were on top of each other whereas we only had <span class="spatial object">bunks</span> on the <span class="interior space">floor</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="550">Q: What were the condition, the physical condition of these prisoners? </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="552">A: Well, it was very much the same as these the ones that we saw ear... earlier who were when we first came in--the ones who were the strongest naturally had the guns and everything. </sentence><sentence id="553">And but these people that we saw were very weak. </sentence><sentence id="554">They were all starved and all trying to eat a little soup. </sentence><sentence id="555">Uh, we had already started <span class="interior space">soup kitchens</span>, the first, first day we got there practically. </sentence><sentence id="556">Because the Army, we have so many cooks-- every one, every company has a cook--so we didn't eat. </sentence><sentence id="557">We forfeited our food and told our mess sergeants to take it to the <span class="populated place">1 camp</span>, which they did for the first couple of days until we got steady stream of supplies coming in. </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="564">Q: Did you go in to the <span class="building">experimental labs</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="566">A: No, I, I, they didn't have them set up. </sentence><sentence id="567">They, uh, these experiments were going on before we got there. </sentence><sentence id="568">This is what these people were telling us. </sentence><sentence id="569">I didn't see any of, of these inno...inoculations or bathing in ice water or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="570">It's just, uh, what the people were telling us and what the records show now that from all kinds of witnesses and from the German records and so on. </sentence><sentence id="571">It collor...you know; it confirms the stories that we heard then. </sentence><sentence id="572">Couldn't-- they were unbelievable. </sentence><sentence id="573">In fact most of the guys were in a daze--so when they got, they couldn't, they they didn't want to comprehend what they had seen. </sentence><sentence id="574">They wanted to forget it. </sentence><sentence id="575">If you ask any of the fellows about what they saw at this <span class="populated place">camp</span>, they--it was terrible. </sentence><sentence id="576">It stunk and the smell was awful. </sentence><sentence id="577">As I said, I was brought up on a <span class="dlf">farm</span> from age 10, and <span class="env feature">farm</span> smells didn't bother me, uh, even the vilest, and they were vile--you know, these dead people. </sentence><sentence id="578">Some of them had been dead for a couple of days or more and then they had dysentery and their rectums were all sore and the, the skin was eaten away. </sentence><sentence id="579">These were people that are still alive let alone the dead ones, and they smelled. </sentence><sentence id="580">But I--the, the decaying flesh I was used to because on a <span class="dlf">farm</span> we had all sorts of dead animals and it was much the same. </sentence><sentence id="581">To me, I wasn't, uh, it didn't bother me. </sentence><sentence id="582">But most of the fellows remember the smell because they were city boys. </sentence><sentence id="583">They had not, uh, been exposed to this type of thing. </sentence><sentence id="584">So and as I said, uh, have thought it since then, we were in order and we were used to it because we had seen these bodies along the <span class="dlf">road</span> for a few days before we got to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> and, uh, we had seen these stripped uniforms and these these human skeletons that, uh, were dead as we went by them, as we went, as we were spear-heading. </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="605">Q: Was there anything else about <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> that strikes you in particular? </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="607">A: Well, the the security they had: they had the, they built another <span class="dlf">stone wall</span> between the double <span class="dlf">electrified fence</span> which was the original partition between the, the German officers" <span class="interior space">quarters</span>; they had a double <span class="dlf">electrified fence</span> with this <span class="dlf">trench</span> in between with barbed wire on the <span class="env feature">ground</span> over the <span class="dlf">trench</span> and, uh, the the security that they had to provide for themselves to keep these people from climbing over the <span class="dlf">wall</span> to get at them. </sentence><sentence id="608">And, uh, they had machine gun nests at every corner of the <span class="dlf">walls</span> overlooking the compound, and, uh, the other thing I couldn't get over was how the people were all out in the sun trying to sun themselves because they were confined in the <span class="building">barracks</span> a lot of them and they weren't even out working anymore. </sentence><sentence id="609">They were just kept in the <span class="building">barracks</span> and they'd feed them with a few crusts of bread and it was a real mess. </sentence><sentence id="610">Everything was smelly. </sentence><sentence id="611">There were no latrine facilities and, uh, they were doing it out in the <span class="dlf">streets</span> in you know their bowel movements and so on--such as they had, which wasn't very much. </sentence><sentence id="612">And I was a medic and I was amazed at having been in, having taught first aid before I went in the Army and being a medic at times in the Army on maneuvers, I was a medical aide, corpsman we called them. </sentence><sentence id="613">Uh, I was quite stricken, uh, stricken I should say by the fact that the genitals, or genitalia of the men and the women were the last things to apparently go because they looked normal. </sentence><sentence id="614">The women's breasts had 2 shrunk quite a bit, but their nipples and, uh, and looked normal. </sentence><sentence id="615">And the men's penises and testicles were about normal. </sentence><sentence id="616">And the rest of them were absolutely bones and, uh, with skin stretched over them. </sentence><sentence id="617">And that's the one thing that I'll never forget is, is the condition of, of the things that are needed to reproduce life. </sentence><sentence id="618">They're the last things to go, as far as I could see. </sentence><sentence id="619">In other words, Mother Nature was trying to save the reproductive organs. </sentence><sentence id="620">It was the one thing that struck me out of looking at all these thousands of dead whenever we buried them. </sentence><sentence id="621">And as I said, we had these, uh, they couldn't dig the <span class="dlf">graves</span> fast enough so we got our <span class="spatial object">bulldozers</span> to dig the <span class="dlf">trenches</span>, push the dirt out and then was a, uh, was a token for the Germans to get shovels and start to shovel the dirt back into the <span class="dlf">trenches</span>. </sentence><sentence id="622">Well we'd have been there for another two weeks burying them if we had to do everything by hand. </sentence><sentence id="623">We did dig a few <span class="dlf">trenches</span> by hand, but we then used the <span class="spatial object">bulldozers</span> because there were so many. </sentence><sentence id="624">They had them stacked up by the hundreds waiting to be buried. </sentence><sentence id="625">They couldn't dig the <span class="dlf">graves</span> fast enough by hand, so that's why we got the German, uh, civilians in there to, uh, handle them. </sentence><sentence id="626">They put them down in the <span class="dlf">graves</span> and laid them side by side and then they would throw a few shovels of dirt in and I'll never forget as the <span class="spatial object">bulldozer</span>, as Al pushed the, uh, stone and sand back into the <span class="dlf">trenches</span>, you would hear a stone crunching the ribs and the bones of the poor bodies down below. </sentence><sentence id="627">It was, because this was <span class="dlf">backfill</span> for the <span class="dlf">soccer field</span> was made out of <span class="dlf">backfill</span> and from the <span class="dlf">quarry</span> and there were a lot of hard stones mixed in and when they pushed the stones in they further crushed the poor things that were laid to rest in that, uh, <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="628">After the war they said that they moved the bodies to the <span class="populated place">upper camp</span>--see this was down at the <span class="interior space">lower level</span>, the <span class="dlf">sports field</span>. </sentence><sentence id="629">Then there was another <span class="interior space">lower level</span> down around on the <span class="dlf">quarry level</span> and, uh, there's now a third <span class="dlf">graveyard</span> up on the top where the, uh, the old <span class="building">barracks</span> used to be for the experimental prisoners in the upper part of the <span class="populated place">camp.</span> </sentence><sentence id="630">The <span class="dlf">stone wall</span> is gone now that was in between, the <span class="dlf">electrified fences</span> are long gone and shortly after we got most of the people into <span class="building">medical tents</span> away from the <span class="populated place">camp</span> even. </sentence><sentence id="631">We moved them out into <span class="building">field hospitals</span>; we burned the <span class="building">buildings</span> down because they were that smelly and filthy from all the you know unclean--there's no place, no la...no facilities for <span class="building">latrines</span>. </sentence><sentence id="632">They had these <span class="dlf">ditches</span> in the <span class="dlf">streets</span>, and when the rains came, it would wash everything down the <span class="env feature">hillside</span>. </sentence><sentence id="633">So all that's gone now and it's, it's a <span class="dlf">graveyard</span>. </sentence><sentence id="634">They said they moved the bodies from that <span class="dlf">sports field</span> or <span class="dlf">soccer field</span> but when I went back in 1975 the <span class="env feature">trees</span> had grown over it already in 35 years. </sentence><sentence id="635">I went there 35 years later and, uh, the, it was so changed. </sentence><sentence id="636">It was a big <span class="building">museum</span> now. </sentence><sentence id="637">Where we had seen all these <span class="building">barracks</span> there were only; they left three of, uh, in the first <span class="interior space">row</span>, I think there were three, no four left which were now made a <span class="building">museum</span>. </sentence><sentence id="638">They showed, they had those on exhibit. </sentence><sentence id="639">But the huge <span class="building">barracks</span> down below--they had six hundred to eight hundred people in them were all gone, used up for other purposes. </sentence><sentence id="640">But we did burn most of the <span class="building">barracks</span> in the <span class="region">upper part</span>. </sentence><sentence id="641">We left a few in the front which apparently were the cleanest. </sentence><sentence id="642">And, uh, we went back in 1975 and the Austrian civilians had a dinner for us. </sentence><sentence id="643">They provided us with, uh, a chauffeur and a <span class="spatial object">limousine</span> and they, uh, it was unbelievable how they treated us. </sentence><sentence id="644">We were like heroes. </sentence><sentence id="645">And the people, when we went back were hugging us again and trying to touch us and they were grabbing souvenirs and we were giving out little buttons like I have here from my various outfits. </sentence><sentence id="646">These are unit insignia. </sentence><sentence id="647">Here's the <span class="building">41st Cavalry</span> which happens to be the unit that was the first ones in the <span class="dlf">gate</span>. </sentence><sentence id="648">And this Michael Green who was in the 41st Cavalry is going back to Europe this, uh, in 1990 for the 40th Anniversary, 45th Anniversary and, uh, he's bringing 3 some of these along to give to the people for souvenirs. </sentence><sentence id="649">But, uh, we were back again in 1980 and we're trying to go back every five years, and we meet the people that we released, and we meet their children, and now we're bringing our children and it's a great thing that the survivors of <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, and there were around 12,000 alive when we got there. </sentence><sentence id="650">And I guess maybe un another couple of hundred died and so there were 11,000 actual people alive when we got there, but the ones coming back are the families of the victims who died in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="651">They come back by the thousands. </sentence><sentence id="652">But we were back in 1975 there were around 12,000 people there and you wouldn't know how they got there because every <span class="dlf">road</span> was full of these big, uh, <span class="spatial object">tourists bus</span> that hold fifty people--they were lined up like, uh, <span class="spatial object">cars</span> around a <span class="building">football stadium</span> in the <span class="country">States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="653">Incredible where they come from <span class="country">Spain</span> and <span class="country">Hungary</span>, <span class="country">Hungaria</span>--all the countries of Europe and, uh, we were, as I said, when they found out we were the liberators they couldn't do enough for us. </sentence><sentence id="654">They practically tore the, they wanted our hats; they wanted, they were going to tear the clothes off us. </sentence><sentence id="655">We were real celebrities. </sentence><sentence id="656">So I felt good about that and I'm; I just felt so sad about all those that were killed, over a hundred twenty thousand were killed in that <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="657">Or more. </sentence><sentence id="658">They're not sure. </sentence><sentence id="659">It's between a hundred twenty, hundred fifty thousand that they know of. </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="713">Q: Is there anything else about <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> that you remember in particular? </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="715">A: Well, nothing except that it was made so the people couldn't get out, and as I said it looked like a <span class="building">prison</span> when we first observed it, and it was more like a <span class="building">prison</span> when you got in it, uh, because they don't have the double <span class="dlf">electrified fences</span>. </sentence><sentence id="716">Our <span class="building">prisons</span> have <span class="dlf">fences</span>, but not electrified, and, uh, the, uh, condition of the people--the human skeletons walking around was another thing that impressed me. </sentence><sentence id="717">As I said the, uh, that anybody could be alive and that thin when they looked like bones, their legs, their arms, their feet looked swollen in many cases. </sentence><sentence id="718">That was the only thing that looked anywheres near normal was from their ankles down to their insteps. </sentence><sentence id="719">Uh, the rest of the bodies were, uh, skin drawn over their faces as if it were shrunk in the heat or whatever--just unbelievable. </sentence><sentence id="720">And I don't know what else to say...the smells as I said were terrible, but I wasn't too fazed by that for some reason, and I think it was because of my upbringing on a <span class="dlf">farm</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="727">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="728">Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="729">You had mentioned that some of your men were in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="730">Were you in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> as well? </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="735">A: Uh, no, only after the war. </sentence><sentence id="736">Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="739">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="740">Tell us if you would please, you were in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> for thirty days roughly? </sentence></p></dialogue>
104
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="743">A: Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
105
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="745">Q: Where did you go from...no, before we do that, what--by the time you left at the end of thirty days--what shape was the <span class="populated place">camp</span> in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
106
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="747">A: Oh, as I said, we started to burn some of the <span class="building">buildings</span> and, uh, the, uh, we backfilled the 4 <span class="dlf">trenches</span> and the <span class="interior space">latrines</span> and most of the people were gone. </sentence><sentence id="748">The ones who could walk started walking <span class="building">home</span> within a couple of days. </sentence><sentence id="749">And, uh, the ones who were very sick we moved out into <span class="building">field hospitals</span> and, uh, some of those that stayed were trying to help us get the records to find out and to check on how many people were killed and to keep track of everything and we had some of the people working there because they didn't want to go <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="750">A lot of them were Russians and they didn't want to go back to to <span class="country">Russia</span>, so, uh, we tried to keep them, uh, working in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> and they, because the they said if we go back to <span class="country">Russia</span> it will be the end of us. </sentence><sentence id="751">And it was we found out later. </sentence><sentence id="752">They were sent to the <span class="dlf">salt mines</span>, to <span class="region">Siberia</span> in other words, and, uh, that was something that I didn't think of until just now, but, uh, they were glad to be left behind. </sentence><sentence id="753">They didn't want to go back to <span class="country">Russia</span> and we, they, uh, incidentally from after we let the, as I say, uh, should say, we took the demolitions off the <span class="dlf">bridge</span> in <span class="populated place">Linz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="754">Our group, our engineers were then sent out into, uh, north of <span class="building">CCB</span> and the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, and thousands, hundreds of thousands of German soldiers and White Russians tried to surrender to us. </sentence><sentence id="755">And we accepted their surrender, and, uh, in place, but they wanted to come into <span class="country">Germany</span> you know, on our side of the <span class="dlf">line</span> because they didn't want to be anywheres near the Russians and unfortunately our politicians had said this is the <span class="dlf">line of demarcation</span> and all those Russians on that side, I mean Germans, will have to go back to the Russians and so a couple of hundred thousand soldiers that surrendered to us were returned to the Germans [Russians] and shipped to <span class="region">Siberia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="756">But that was, that was the 6th of May. </sentence><sentence id="757">In fact it was the afternoon of the Sth, the 6th and the 7th, and on about the 8th I got to the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, and I was there on and off for a couple of days, but the main part was when we got the the <span class="dlf">ditches</span> or <span class="dlf">trenches</span> dug for the <span class="dlf">graves</span>. </sentence><sentence id="758">That was my main job there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
107
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="771">Q: Where did you go when you left <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
108
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="773">A: Oh, we were sent into various little <span class="populated place">cities</span> in <span class="country">Austria</span>, uh, to maintain order and, uh, make sure there was no looting by the, uh, prisoners who had gotten away from the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="774">They were all over. </sentence><sentence id="775">They were going to march <span class="building">home</span>, but they wanted clothes. </sentence><sentence id="776">They were either stealing it from the Germans or taking it from the Germans, and they were fighting going on and we had to maintain order. </sentence><sentence id="777">It was a real <span class="building">madhouse</span>. </sentence><sentence id="778">And, uh, we were sent to <span class="populated place">Schwanenstadt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="779">And then from there we were, as engineers, we were sent out to maintain <span class="dlf">roads</span> and rebuild <span class="dlf">bridges</span> and, uh, <span class="building">electrical plants</span> and, uh, to guard the prisoners in <span class="populated place">Ebensee</span>, which was a <span class="populated place">camp</span>--a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>--and it was now full of SS prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="780">And these haughty bastards, as we called them, were very independent; and, uh, they...they wouldn't...they didn't want to do anything. </sentence><sentence id="781">They thought they were still lords of the universe, being SS and being used to that, uh, having control, uh, full control over civilians and full control over the German Army. </sentence><sentence id="782">They were the masters of Hitler, they were, uh, Hitler's, uh, supermen. </sentence><sentence id="783">And, uh, we now had them crawling because we didn't feed them. </sentence><sentence id="784">They were digging up worms and eating worms. </sentence><sentence id="785">They dug up all the <span class="env feature">grass</span>. </sentence><sentence id="786">It was in May and June that we started putting them in, in late May. </sentence><sentence id="787">And they were digging up the <span class="env feature">grass</span>. </sentence><sentence id="788">They were eating worms. </sentence><sentence id="789">I mean it. </sentence><sentence id="790">And, uh, they were waiting, praying for rain and we had a few days of rain and the worms would come near the top and they would dig them out. </sentence><sentence id="791">And so we started giving them crackers and things, give them a couple of crackers from our <span class="spatial object">K-ration boxes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="792">And we'd get a wristwatch which was worth maybe seven or eight dollars, and then we sold them to the 5 Russians for over a hundred. </sentence><sentence id="793">And some of the Russians later on were paying five hundred to a thousand dollars for a <span class="spatial object">Mickey Mouse watch</span>, in particular. </sentence><sentence id="794">And we were getting these watches from the SS men and then selling them to the Russians for souvenirs, because we all had watches. </sentence><sentence id="795">We could get them anytime in the <span class="building">PX</span> for about ten bucks. </sentence><sentence id="796">And here we were getting a hundred dollars to five hundred dollars. </sentence><sentence id="797">And some of the fellows that were able to go to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> and trade with the Russians got over a thousand dollars for a wristwatch that we got for a cigarette. </sentence><sentence id="798">The cigarettes were worth money to them. </sentence><sentence id="799">They were like gold. </sentence><sentence id="800">And every soldier had a pack of cigarettes, a carton of cigarettes, a week issued. </sentence><sentence id="801">Whether you used them or not, you were entitled to a <span class="spatial object">carton</span>. </sentence><sentence id="802">So a lot of the guys learned how to smoke; and I hate to say this, but many of them are dead now because of the lousy habit. </sentence><sentence id="803">And their wives always complained, "Oh, yeah, he's been smoking like this ever since he got out of the Army, and dying of emphysema and lung cancer." </sentence></p></dialogue>
109
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="835">Q: Let's go back to <span class="populated place">Ebensee</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
110
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="837">A: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="838">There we had double <span class="dlf">electrified fences</span> for them. </sentence><sentence id="839">We left them in place. </sentence><sentence id="840">And, uh, we had <span class="building">guard towers</span> and <span class="spatial object">machine guns</span>, and that's what we took turns guarding. </sentence><sentence id="841">And I hated that. </sentence><sentence id="842">I was only there a couple days. </sentence></p></dialogue>
111
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="849">Q: Can you describe the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence><sentence id="850">In addition to the <span class="dlf">fences</span>, what what did you see? </sentence></p></dialogue>
112
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="853">A: Well, the, the main <span class="building">barracks</span> were in back of it and, uh, I just stayed, we had <span class="building">guard towers</span> in a <span class="dlf">wire enclosure</span> which we had put up in front. </sentence><sentence id="854">It was something new. </sentence><sentence id="855">We had built that. </sentence><sentence id="856">And I...I'd seen <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, so I didn't go to look at the <span class="interior space">quarters</span> there because I figured they're all the same. </sentence><sentence id="857">And we were too busy taunting the SS men. </sentence></p></dialogue>
113
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="863">Q: How did you taunt them? </sentence></p></dialogue>
114
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="865">A: Well, by offering them cigarettes and then crushing them in front of them and then stamping on them. </sentence></p></dialogue>
115
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="867">Q: What, uh.... Did you make the <span class="spatial object">SS</span> do, uh, certain chores? </sentence><sentence id="868">How did you...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
116
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="871">A: Well, there was so many of them. </sentence><sentence id="872">And there was really nothing much for them to do. </sentence><sentence id="873">We made them build the <span class="dlf">fences</span>, yeah, their own "<span class="dlf">corrals</span>" you might call it. </sentence><sentence id="874">Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="875">But we didn't trust them to to do what the ordinary soldiers were doing back in <span class="populated place">camp</span>, in <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="876">There, they were restoring the facilities and cleaning up and they were doing the buggy- lugging (ph) when they burnt the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="877">And they were burning up anything stuff that was Nazi that they didn't like--I got a Nazi flag. </sentence><sentence id="878">I said, as | was watching it burn. </sentence><sentence id="879">I said, "Oh, I'll grab that and see if it's...." And it bur... guess it's full of <span class="dlf">holes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="880">L..I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="881">I've never unrolled it since I picked it out of the burning pile. </sentence><sentence id="882">And I got it in the <span class="spatial object">car</span>. </sentence><sentence id="883">I was going to show it to you, if you were interested. </sentence><sentence id="884">But that's the only souvenir that I got from the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
117
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="899">Q: The SS, uh, I assume eventually you got, uh, <span class="interior space">soup kitchen</span> up and you fed them finally? </sentence><sentence id="900"> 6 </sentence></p></dialogue>
118
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="903">A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="904">Well, as I said, I was only there a couple of days because I hated guard duty and, uh, it was just standing there watching these guys do nothing. </sentence><sentence id="905">They'd play cards and dig for worms and they didn't have much to do. </sentence><sentence id="906">There was not much of an <span class="region">area</span> to dig for worms. </sentence><sentence id="907">In a couple of days the worms were gone. </sentence><sentence id="908">Unbelievable. </sentence><sentence id="909">So they were and they were without shirts, they were, uh, their uniforms were, uh, either torn off of them or whatever by somebody but a lot of them didn't have any shirts. </sentence><sentence id="910">They had pants and, uh, as I said we taunted them the way they did, uh, the civilians. </sentence><sentence id="911">They would shoot the civilians if they didn't fire at us earlier in the war and, uh, many times the people said the SS made them do it, which was true enough. </sentence></p></dialogue>
119
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="921">Q: Did you see any trace of the real prisoners of <span class="populated place">Ebensee</span>, the former prisoners of <span class="populated place">Ebensee</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
120
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="923">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="924">Uh, the <span class="populated place">camp</span> was, I had been working at <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span> and most of those prisoners now the same as in our <span class="populated place">camp</span> had, uh--well, those who were well were walking <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="925">They weren't going to wait for <span class="spatial object">convoys</span>. </sentence><sentence id="926">And the sick ones were already in <span class="populated place">camps</span>, uh, <span class="building">hospital tents</span> with the 26th Infantry Division. </sentence><sentence id="927">See, the <span class="building">26th Infantry Division</span> later took over <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="928">And, in fact, I think they got the credit for taking <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="929">Because by the time the newspapers finally got there, they claimed--the 26th Infantry Division claimed--they had liberated the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="930">They did, in a way; but not the way the <span class="building">11th Armored</span> did. </sentence></p></dialogue>
121
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="939">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="940">We are almost finished with the tape. </sentence><sentence id="941">Is there anything else that you want to add, anything else that you saw that relates to the Holocaust? </sentence></p></dialogue>
122
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="945">A: I'd like to bring out a point which I don't see, uh, discussed very often. </sentence><sentence id="946">And that is the fact that I personally knew thirteen men that were killed in action, and some right along side of me. </sentence><sentence id="947">And, uh, three hundred were killed in the Battle of the Bulge in the first few days of combat. </sentence><sentence id="948">And then ultimately we lost eight hundred men killed, and four thousand wounded or injured; and, uh, these were all expended in the effort to save <span class="country">Europe</span> from Hitler's Nazi terrorism. </sentence><sentence id="949">And, uh, I'd like to bring that out, that we made a lot of sacrifices and those fellows that did it did it for the freedom not only of the <span class="country">United States</span> but of Europe. </sentence><sentence id="950">And it's a point that is only brought <span class="building">home</span> when you go over and you walk over their <span class="dlf">graves</span>, which I did. </sentence><sentence id="951">And you think of the 45 years, it was 40 years when I walked on the grave of my best friend, accidentally. </sentence><sentence id="952">I backed up to take a picture of Patton, his <span class="spatial object">monument</span>, which is at the head of the <span class="dlf">uh___ Cemetery</span>. </sentence><sentence id="953">And I backed up to get the big <span class="spatial object">cross</span> in and I put my hand down on a <span class="spatial object">tombstone</span>, and as I walked around it I looked and it was August uh Heddenbock (ph), my buddy from back <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="954">And I just bawled. </sentence><sentence id="955">And I am sorry. </sentence><sentence id="956">I'm just overwhelmed. </sentence><sentence id="957">But that is what I'm thinking about--how lucky we are, all of us, to be here, to see the tapes, to have a free world, and even with the events happening today to see it coming to pass that our efforts have not been in vain. </sentence><sentence id="958">And that is the one thing that I would like to emphasize is that we lost a lot of good buddies. </sentence></p></dialogue>
123
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="973">Q: I cannot think of a more fitting way to end this interview, and I thank you very much. </sentence><sentence id="974"> 7 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="975">A: Well, I thank you for the opportunity to express these thoughts and, and hope then as I say that it will never happen again. </sentence><sentence id="976">Thank you, Doctor, for interviewing me. </sentence><sentence id="977">I appreciate it. </sentence><sentence id="978"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
124
+ </body>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: thomas none buergenthal
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0046
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0046_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504546
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: none
9
+ birth_year: 1930.0
10
+ place_of_birth: lubochina
11
+ country: czechoslovakia
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.341.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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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 <span class="spatial object">camera</span>'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: <span class="building">Thomas Buergenthal</span>. </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 point. </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 Zilina(ph). </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 Zilina(ph). </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 <span class="region">no-man's-land</span> between <span class="country">Poland</span> and, and <span class="country">Czechoslovakia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="60">The last time when we -- in <span class="region">no-man's-land</span>, 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 <span class="spatial object">suitcases</span> 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 <span class="building">British Consul</span> 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 <span class="building">British Consul</span> -- there were quite a number of refugees in our position -- were put on a <span class="spatial object">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 object">plane</span> -- the <span class="spatial object">train</span> -- never got very far; because we were bombed by <span class="spatial object">German planes</span> and had to abandon the <span class="spatial object">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 <span class="country">Soviet Union</span>, across the <span class="env feature">Bug River</span>; and came back and decided -- actually, he had crossed over to see whether we should go to the <span class="country">Soviet Union</span> -- 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 object">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">Kielce</span>, and eventually ended up in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> of <span class="populated place">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">Kielce</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="122">A: Well, <span class="populated place">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">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">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="interior 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 outside -- 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">&gt; 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">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="interior 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="interior space">playground</span>, and separated all the children, and that became the, the famous massacre of the children in <span class="populated place">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">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">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 object">carts</span> for -- <span class="spatial object">wooden 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 object">bicycle</span> or taking something to one place 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 <span class="spatial object">radio</span>. </sentence><sentence id="275">He would listen to the <span class="spatial object">radio</span>, and I would sit <span class="region">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 object">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="312"> . </sentence><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 object">cars</span>, <span class="spatial object">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 object">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 object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="323">The way those <span class="spatial object">trains</span> were set up, the, the Germans had machine guns at the end of the, the <span class="spatial object">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 object">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 place 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="building">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">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="spatial object">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 <span class="populated place">Zigeunerlager</span>, 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 object">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 <span class="dlf">Birkenau section B-IIe</span>. </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 <span class="spatial object">laundry</span> and sau -- I don't know what they called it. </sentence><sentence id="385">A place where people... The <span class="interior 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="interior 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>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="413">Q: Can you tell me what working in a <span class="building">laundry</span> consisted of? </sentence><sentence id="414">I mean, you survived this way. </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <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 <span class="building">laundry</span>. </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 place 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>
69
+ <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>
70
+ <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 <span class="populated place">camps</span> 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 <span class="dlf">barbed wire</span>, and there was <span class="populated place">Camp D</span> and C and B, and so forth. </sentence><sentence id="439">The, the <span class="interior 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 place in that <span class="env feature">environment</span> 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="interior space">gas chambers</span> and the, and the <span class="building">crematory</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <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>
72
+ <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 <span class="env feature">cloud</span> hanging over the over the place. </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="interior 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>
73
+ <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>
74
+ <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 place, 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="interior 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="interior space">gas chambers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="499">They made a decision to take us to the <span class="interior space">sick ward</span>, instead, until they had a larger <span class="spatial object">transport</span>. </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 "<span class="building">Kritze</span>""." </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 place 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="interior 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>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="545">Q: How did a German help you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <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 <span class="dlf">D Lager</span>" -- which was, which was sort of the major <span class="populated place">camp.</span> </sentence><sentence id="550">And there was actually there were <span class="building">barracks</span> that sort of children's <span class="building">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 Kapo. </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>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="568">Q: We were in Lager D. </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="570"> w <span class="dlf">Birkenau section B-IIf</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="571"> " Scabies (German). </sentence></p><p><sentence id="572"> a <span class="dlf">Birkenau section B-IId</span>. </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="574">A: We were in <span class="dlf">Lager D</span>, with a, with a group of, of children, and I really don't remember what we did there very much. </sentence><sentence id="575">But it -- that the treatment on the whole, given how bad it had been in various other places, was not, not all that bad. </sentence><sentence id="576">We -- there were two of us -- three of us -- who became friends. </sentence><sentence id="577">And we had to do all kinds of chores. </sentence><sentence id="578">I remember once we, we broke into the <span class="interior space">SS kitchen</span> and I drank my first glass of milk in a, in a long time. </sentence><sentence id="579">If they had caught us, I suppose they would have beaten us to death. </sentence><sentence id="580">We did those things. </sentence><sentence id="581">We had to, I think what I remember we had to pick up garbage, and engage in those activities. </sentence><sentence id="582">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="583">They lined us all up. </sentence><sentence id="584">They came in to announce that the <span class="populated place">ca -- camp</span> was being liquidated. </sentence><sentence id="585">Lined us up, gave us some food, and began to march us out of, out of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="586">And that started the famous death march out of <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="587"> 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="588">The, the, the three of us kids were together. </sentence><sentence id="589">The kids were put--the, the children's <span class="populated place">camp</span> group was put in front when we first marched out. </sentence><sentence id="590">But it was -- Polish January is cold, and we didn't --we carried blankets. </sentence><sentence id="591">But after about a 10, 12-hour walk that we began to, to be very tired. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="592">The children began to, to fall back. </sentence><sentence id="593">People from the back were pushing, that we weren't going fast enough. </sentence><sentence id="594">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="595">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="596">And by that time, we had, we had rested, and then we could run up again and we would stay warm. </sentence><sentence id="597">And I don't know how long we did this, but at -- suddenly in the evening there was -- they stopped the <span class="spatial object">column</span> 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="598">Well, we had had experience. </sentence><sentence id="599">And we didn't go. </sentence><sentence id="600">And all the children from that group then were, were taken away and apparently shot. </sentence><sentence id="601">So we were the only three that, that stayed. </sentence><sentence id="602">We -- and it wasn't easy. </sentence><sentence id="603">There were all kinds of--we, we carried bread, and people kept pushing to get the bread. </sentence><sentence id="604">And everybody had a slice of bread, food, clothes, blankets; and we, we couldn't carry them. </sentence><sentence id="605">After a while, we didn't have anything any more. </sentence><sentence id="606">After three days, we, we came to <span class="populated place">Gliwice</span>, where they did another Selektion out. </sentence><sentence id="607">But the three of us managed to, to run. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="608">The, the test was whether you could run across some <span class="dlf">square</span>, or something. </sentence><sentence id="609">And we together held each other up, and, and made it. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="610"> That's in <span class="populated place">Gliwice</span>. </sentence><sentence id="611">They put us on a <span class="spatial object">train</span> which took I think twelve days or so to get to the destination -- my destination. </sentence><sentence id="612">The <span class="spatial object">train</span> stopped at another place, but that was <span class="populated place">Oranienburg</span> -- which is near <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> -- where the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> of <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> was. </sentence><sentence id="613">I suppose what is noteworthy about the <span class="spatial object">train</span> ride: again open <span class="spatial object">cars</span>, January 1945, Polish winters. </sentence><sentence id="614">The <span class="spatial object">train</span> was packed with people. </sentence><sentence id="615">You couldn't breathe. </sentence><sentence id="616">And if you were small, as, as we were, it was very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="617">By the time we arrived, you could walk in the <span class="spatial object">car</span>. </sentence><sentence id="618">People died in tremendous numbers of exposure, of hunger, everything else. </sentence><sentence id="619">And whenever somebody died, they were thrown overboard as the as the <span class="spatial object">train</span> moved. </sentence><sentence id="620">I think, in my, in my <span class="spatial object">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">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="621">There you might have an interesting footnote to that experience: in <span class="populated place">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="622">At the same time, a, a German -- our German guard, who was sitting on our <span class="spatial object">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="623">We -- well, the, the <span class="spatial object">train</span> eventually ended up in <span class="populated place">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="624">By that time, I -- the cold was so bad I, I lost some -- my, my legs were totally frostbitten, my hands. </sentence><sentence id="625">Eventually, the toes, some toes had to be amputated. </sentence><sentence id="626">But, you know, <span class="populated place">Oranienburg</span>, in <span class="populated place">Heinkel</span>, I remember taking off my shoes and never found my shoes again. </sentence><sentence id="627">They were, they were good shoes. </sentence><sentence id="628">We were there and nothing much happened. </sentence><sentence id="629">Then after two weeks, we were taken to the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> of, of <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> -- which was a German Musterlager,"deg which had been there already in the in the "30's. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="630"> 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="631">We were put in, in <span class="building">barracks</span> there, after actually marching. </sentence><sentence id="632">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">Sachsenhausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="633">German kids were throwing stones at the group that was, that was marching. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="634">It was almost a relief to end up in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="635">I don't know how long I was there before I couldn't anymore, with my feet. </sentence><sentence id="636">My toes had turned totally black. </sentence><sentence id="637">And the, the -- it wasn't pain; but the nerves were -- I just, I couldn't sleep. </sentence><sentence id="638">I, I could feel everything. </sentence><sentence id="639">I then went to -- they had a <span class="building">hospital</span> there. </sentence><sentence id="640">And because it was a <span class="populated place">model camp</span>, it was actually a well set-up <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="641">I went there, went into a <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="642">They looked at my foot. </sentence><sentence id="643">And before I knew it, four people grabbed, stretched me out on the <span class="spatial object">table</span> and operated right there on the <span class="spatial object">table</span>, with the I think chloroform or some other thing. </sentence><sentence id="644">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="645">It was black. </sentence><sentence id="646">He saved my other foot -- I didn't loose any, any toes on, on my other foot. </sentence><sentence id="647">My, my hands were, were fine. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="648">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="649">But it was coming to the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="650">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. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="651">So I was, I think, in the, in the <span class="interior 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></p><p><sentence id="652"> The <span class="building">Heinkel facility</span> was a subcamp of <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="653"> 8 "<span class="building">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><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="655">Q: Tell me, if you would, about your stay in that <span class="interior space">hospital ward</span> and your meetings with the Norwegians. </sentence><sentence id="656">What -- first, what was the <span class="interior space">ward</span> like? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="657">A: Oh, just a big <span class="building">barracks</span> with, with <span class="spatial object">beds</span> where people -- some were dying, some had...had minor injuries. </sentence><sentence id="658">A lot of people -different thing. </sentence><sentence id="659">Every so often, people would be taken out, people would be released. </sentence><sentence id="660">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="661">They were called out. </sentence><sentence id="662">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="663">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="664">It was curious. </sentence><sentence id="665">The, the one thing that I remember from that <span class="interior space">ward</span> is something which we -- which people who haven't been in <span class="populated place">camps</span> don't realize. </sentence><sentence id="666">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="667">It, it didn't leave us. </sentence><sentence id="668">Let me give you one example: in this <span class="interior space">hospital ward</span>, we had as a <span class="spatial object">ventilator</span> 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="669"><span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span>, as I said, was about twenty kilometers outside of <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="670">And when the Allies bombed <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, the <span class="spatial object">planes</span> would fly over <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="671">There's another story to this, which I can tell you later. </sentence><sentence id="672">But at any rate, the bombing, of course, the <span class="spatial object">bombs</span> would fall pretty close. </sentence><sentence id="673">And one day, there, there was a very severe bombing attack, and people were getting out of their <span class="spatial object">beds</span> because of the fear that the <span class="building">barracks</span> would be bombed. </sentence><sentence id="674">And, and there it was all wood and would have been burned. </sentence><sentence id="675">And suddenly there was a tremendous crash of a <span class="spatial object">bomb</span> falling, and a man screaming he's been killed by the <span class="spatial object">bomb</span>. </sentence><sentence id="676">But what had happened was that the piece of wood that had plugged up the <span class="spatial object">ventilator</span> had fallen down, and just fallen on him. </sentence><sentence id="677">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="678">There were many instances of that going on. </sentence><sentence id="679">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 <span class="populated place">camp</span> from the bombing attack. </sentence><sentence id="680">Because the bo -- the the <span class="populated place">camp</span> was known to the Allies; and they avoided bombing it. </sentence><sentence id="681">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="682">And so it was really the safest place nearby. </sentence><sentence id="683">And that, to us, we were beginning to feel that the war, that we were maybe winning. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="711">Q: This is a good moment to change tapes, I think. </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="713">A: Uh-huh. " </sentence><sentence id="714">6 Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930); Norwegian explorer, Nobel peace prize winner. </sentence><sentence id="715"> TAPE #2 </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="719">Q: Okay, in the <span class="building">hospital</span>, you tell me that you were befriended by Norwegians -- particularly Odd Nansen. </sentence><sentence id="720">Can you tell me something about him, and about your relationship with him? </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="723">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="724">He, he was writing a diary in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="725">I, of course, didn't know about it at the time. </sentence><sentence id="726">I found out after the war. </sentence><sentence id="727">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="728">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="729">And brought me ex -- as a matter of fact, brought me paper and a pencil to draw. </sentence><sentence id="730">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="731">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="732">But he, he helped me immensely. </sentence><sentence id="733">I, I think he, he saved my life. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="734">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="735">At that point we, we didn't see each other again. </sentence><sentence id="736">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="737">But wanted to find him and wanted to thank him. </sentence><sentence id="738">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="739">It was a diary of the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> that, among other things dealt with <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="740">And that it was a Norwegian who had published it. </sentence><sentence id="741">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="742">And, of course, it was he. </sentence><sentence id="743">There's a great story to this because I -- mail, of course, was very slow in those days, after the war. </sentence><sentence id="744">Food was very scarce. </sentence><sentence id="745">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="746">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 object">Norwegian military truck</span>. </sentence><sentence id="747">And the soldier came out, and asked whether this was our <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="748">And we said, "Yes." </sentence><sentence id="749">And he said he had a little package for us. </sentence><sentence id="750">And so we said, "Well, give it to us." </sentence><sentence id="751">And he said, "No, no. </sentence><sentence id="752">It's, -- we need to carry it." </sentence><sentence id="753">And they -- then a group of Norwegian soldiers jumped out of the <span class="spatial object">car</span>, and brought this tremendous <span class="spatial object">crate</span> -- <span class="spatial object">wooden crate</span> -- of food that had been collected by Norwegian children, with a letter from him. </sentence><sentence id="754">And shortly thereafter, he came and actually took me to <span class="country">Norway</span> for a few weeks. </sentence><sentence id="755">And -- because he had thought that I had died in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="756">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="757">So it was a wonderful reunion when we when we finally got together. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="758"> u Folke Bernadotte (1895-1948); Swedish statesman, Count of <span class="populated place">Wisbourg</span> and nephew of King Gustav V. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="759">Q: Okay, let's go back to you in the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="760">When were you released from the <span class="building">hospital</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="761">A: I really wasn't. </sentence><sentence id="762">The camp -- 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="763">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="764">We, we really couldn't walk, and the people in the <span class="interior space">hospital ward</span> were left behind. </sentence><sentence id="765">And we assumed that they would come in and shoot everybody in our <span class="spatial object">beds</span>, and it was extremely -- I remember the day when people lined up, and then it became extremely quiet. </sentence><sentence id="766">And you couldn't hear anything. </sentence><sentence id="767">You only -- and we waited, basically, on the assumption that any minute now they would, they would come in. </sentence><sentence id="768">Nothing happened. </sentence><sentence id="769">And of all the people in that, in the <span class="building">barracks</span>, I probably could move better. </sentence><sentence id="770">By then, I had a crutch; and I could move on, on one leg. </sentence><sentence id="771">And finally, I went out to look. </sentence><sentence id="772">With all this silence. </sentence><sentence id="773">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="774">And the Germans had left. </sentence><sentence id="775">You -- by then, you could hear already the rumbling of artillery in -- in the background. </sentence><sentence id="776">And there wasn't a soul to be seen. </sentence><sentence id="777">Nothing happened for a while, except, you know, we, we realized that maybe we were, we were going to live. </sentence><sentence id="778">The shooting came closer. </sentence><sentence id="779">Eventually the <span class="dlf">gates</span> swung open and Russian troops came in. </sentence><sentence id="780">And they began ringing the, the <span class="spatial object">camp bell</span> to say that we were free. </sentence><sentence id="781">There was -- that, that was freedom. </sentence><sentence id="782">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="783">I had eaten so little in that time that I couldn't eat. </sentence><sentence id="784">I remember the only thing I took was a pickle. </sentence><sentence id="785">I found a pickle, and, and I ate it. </sentence><sentence id="786">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="787">As a matter of fact, I'll come back to that later. </sentence><sentence id="788">I couldn't eat for anything very much, for weeks after my, my liberation. </sentence><sentence id="789">Just couldn't. </sentence><sentence id="790">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="791">The Russians did nothing, really. </sentence><sentence id="792">There was no -- unlike from what I hear about the <span class="populated place">camps</span> that were liberated by the British or American troops, or French troops, there was no doctors sent in. </sentence><sentence id="793">No first aid. </sentence><sentence id="794">No supplies. </sentence><sentence id="795">Nothing. </sentence><sentence id="796">We were just simply told we were free, and we could go. </sentence><sentence id="797">And the direction we should go was away from <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, because <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> was still not, not captured. </sentence><sentence id="798">This was about April 20th or so, 1945."* </sentence><sentence id="799">And so whoever could move, went. </sentence><sentence id="800">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="801">And we got out into <span class="populated place">Sachsen</span> -- into <span class="populated place">Oranienburg</span>, the <span class="populated place">town</span> where <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> was, and there the <span class="building">houses</span> were empty. </sentence><sentence id="802">The Germans had, left their <span class="building">homes</span>, left food almost on the <span class="spatial object">table</span>, and, and had left, and we sort of 8 <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> was liberated April 27, 1945. </sentence><sentence id="803"> moved from one place to another, from one of these <span class="building">homes</span> to another, until we came upon a group of the -- a <span class="region">Polish division</span> under Russian command -- the First Division Kosciusko". </sentence><sentence id="804">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="805">The -- the Polish soldiers saw me, assumed I was Polish. </sentence><sentence id="806">I, I spoke Polish. </sentence><sentence id="807">And didn't --they had to speak German at the time, of course. </sentence><sentence id="808">And asked me whether I was from <span class="country">Poland</span>; and I said, "Yes." </sentence><sentence id="809">And then they said, well, they'll take me to <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="810">And so what they did was take me along in with their group. </sentence><sentence id="811">And their -- this particular group was the scout company of the <span class="populated place">First Polish Division</span>. </sentence><sentence id="812">And I became the mascot of the, of the <span class="populated place">Division</span>. </sentence><sentence id="813">I was given a horse and a, a little <span class="spatial object">cart</span>. </sentence><sentence id="814">As a matter of fact, they had, they had captured a <span class="building">German circus</span>, and this was a small <span class="spatial object">pony</span>. </sentence><sentence id="815">I had my <span class="spatial object">pony</span>, and moved with the troops. </sentence><sentence id="816">And actually, I always say I helped capture <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> with my troops because we actually moved on <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="817">And I was in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> before <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> fell, because the, the troops came in. </sentence><sentence id="818">The Russians had already advanced, Russian troops had already moved in. </sentence><sentence id="819">But I was in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> before <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> fell, on the outskirts of <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> -- actually, in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> with Polish, troops. </sentence><sentence id="820">It's never mentioned that Polish troops were in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> among the conquerors, and it, it's true. </sentence><sentence id="821">We, we were there. </sentence><sentence id="822">We, actually, until <span class="country">Germany</span> surrendered I was -- we were still following German troops beyond <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="823">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="824">And I was moving back with them. </sentence><sentence id="825">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">Siedlce</span>. </sentence><sentence id="826">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">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="827">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="828">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="829">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="830">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="831">And from -- and would be shipped from there to <span class="country">Palestine</span>, and I signed up for this group. </sentence><sentence id="832">Problem was that, that I was the only one who had been in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> and in other <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="833">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</span>, and they thought that if I ran away it would blow the @ The <span class="populated place">Tadeusz Kosciusko Division</span> appeared in July 1943 and was comprised of Polish patriots under Russian command. </sentence><sentence id="834">Alexander Werth. </sentence><sentence id="835"><span class="country">Russia</span> at War. ( </sentence><sentence id="836"><span class="populated place">New York</span>: <span class="building">Carrol and Graf Publishers, Inc.</span>, 1964), 653. * </sentence><sentence id="837">deg Zionist youth movement directed at educating Jewish youth for <span class="populated place">kibbutz</span> life in <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="838"> whole operation. </sentence><sentence id="839">So I was put on to, on the list. </sentence><sentence id="840">The list was sent to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 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="841">In the meantime, something unbelievable happened. </sentence><sentence id="842">My mother had survived the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="843">And my brother, my mother's brother was here in the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="844">And they began looking for me all over, of course, after the war. </sentence><sentence id="845">And they couldn't find me. </sentence><sentence id="846">My mother never gave up hope that I was alive. </sentence><sentence id="847">Everybody told her, "It's impossible that he survived." </sentence><sentence id="848">But she believed that I survived. </sentence><sentence id="849">And among other places where they looked, of course, was the Jewish Agency for Palestine. </sentence><sentence id="850">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="851">And that's how they, how I was eventually reunited with my mother. </sentence><sentence id="852">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="853">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="854">And there was the Joint operated with the <span class="spatial object">Brichah</span>" |, which had bribed a lot of people on the <span class="dlf">border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="855">And that's how I got to <span class="country">Germany</span> in "46. </sentence><sentence id="856">That was really three years after I'd been separated from my mother. </sentence><sentence id="857">But the -- I think the most telling thing is, is the faith that my mother had that I was alive. </sentence><sentence id="858">And there was no way for anybody to shake her in the belief that, that I was alive. </sentence><sentence id="859">And I, I really never looked. </sentence><sentence id="860">I assumed that if my mother or father were alive, they were going to find me. </sentence><sentence id="861">And -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="965">Q: Can you describe that meeting? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="967">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="968">She had gone to a, a <span class="building">station</span> earlier, and I recognized her, yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="971">Q: Where did you go once you and your mother were reunited? </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="973">A: You'll be surprised to hear it when I say to <span class="building">school</span>, as a good academic. </sentence><sentence id="974">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="975">My father and mother had a, had different meeting places that they had agreed upon if they survived the war. </sentence><sentence id="976">One was in <span class="populated place">Kielce</span>. </sentence><sentence id="977">My mother had actually gone back to <span class="populated place">Kielce</span> -- walked from <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="978">She was liberated out not far from <span class="populated place">Ravensbriick</span>. </sentence><sentence id="979">Walked, got back, mainly walking, into <span class="populated place">Kielce</span> looking for us; escaped out of <span class="populated place">Kielce</span>, left <span class="populated place">Kielce</span> just a few days becau -- before the pogrom after the war, 2 Literally "flight" (Hebrew). </sentence><sentence id="980">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="981">Yehuda Bauer. </sentence><sentence id="982">Flight and Rescue: <span class="dlf">Brichah</span> (<span class="populated place">New York</span>: <span class="building">Random House</span>, 1970), vii. " </sentence><sentence id="983">The pogrom to which he refers took place on July 4, 1946. </sentence><sentence id="984"> 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="985">I came, and I had really no schooling whatsoever, and we lived in <span class="populated place">Gottingen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="986">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="987">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="988">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 <span class="building">Stiirmer</span> and other German newspapers. </sentence><sentence id="989">Initially it was difficult. </sentence><sentence id="990">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="991">And initially, I had this desire of sitting on my <span class="interior 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="992">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="993">It helped to -- we spoke about <span class="populated place">Nansen</span> before. </sentence><sentence id="994">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="995">And his whole approach to the Holocaust and to the problem was one of reconciliation. </sentence><sentence id="996">And that made a great impression on me, living in that <span class="env feature">environment</span> and seeing people who hadn't participated in these killings. </sentence><sentence id="997">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="998">Made a lot of friends. </sentence><sentence id="999">Then, in 1951, I, I came to the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1000">I came initially alone, just to stay for one year. </sentence><sentence id="1001">Came to live with my uncle, who lived in <span class="region">New Jersey</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1002">And never went back. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1034">Q: What did your mother do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1036">A: My mother remarried; stayed initially in <span class="country">Germany</span>, but really remarried. </sentence><sentence id="1037">And she and her husband, who had been also in, in <span class="populated place">camp</span>, in some of our <span class="populated place">camps</span>, went to <span class="country">Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1038">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="1039">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="1040">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="1041">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="1042">She still comes to visit only. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1050">Q: And when you came here, you did work in a <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1052">A: Yes, but -- I, well, I came. </sentence><sentence id="1053">I had a wonderful -- my uncle and aunt were wonderful to me. </sentence><sentence id="1054">They took me in. </sentence><sentence id="1055">Was just living as a -- I mean, obviously it was my family; but they, they weren't wealthy. </sentence><sentence id="1056">They were, they were people who themselves worked in the <span class="building">factory</span> and <span class="building">stores</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1057">They took me in. </sentence><sentence id="1058">They had one daughter, and they treated me like a son. </sentence><sentence id="1059">And I came in December. </sentence><sentence id="1060">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 school</span> student like everybody else in the <span class="country">United States</span> and enjoyed it very much. </sentence><sentence id="1061">I, I liked it. </sentence><sentence id="1062">I was treated very well. </sentence><sentence id="1063">They -- I was tremendously impressed with the very different atmosphere in the <span class="building">high school</span> from the <span class="env feature">German environment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1064"><span class="country">Germany</span> was academically higher. </sentence><sentence id="1065">The <span class="building">American high schools</span> are a wonderful laboratory of democracy in so many ways. </sentence><sentence id="1066">I liked it very much. </sentence><sentence id="1067">And the teachers, I felt, were very good. </sentence><sentence id="1068">And they helped me immensely. </sentence><sentence id="1069">And they helped me get into <span class="building">college</span>, and so forth. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1088">Q: Is there anything you'd like to add? </sentence><sentence id="1089">Any part of the story you want to fill in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1092">A: Well, you know, I, I think I, I should go on with the, with the <span class="building">college</span> story, in a sense because it, it's sort of relevant I think for Americans too, in many ways. </sentence><sentence id="1093">It's almost part of <span class="country">Americana</span> in its, in its true sense. </sentence><sentence id="1094">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="1095">All I knew was that I wanted to go and become a lawyer, and, and, and write. </sentence><sentence id="1096">And, of course, to many people that seemed totally outrageous. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1097">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="1098">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="1099">And she said all small <span class="building">colleges</span>, that I should write to. </sentence><sentence id="1100">And she told me what to write, asking for a scholarship and admission, and that's what I did. </sentence><sentence id="1101">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="1102">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="1103">Well, I couldn't, couldn't afford it. </sentence><sentence id="1104">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="1105">And <span class="building">Bethany College</span>, I received the catalog. </sentence><sentence id="1106">I opened the catalog, and it said, "This is a <span class="building">Christian college</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1107">Coming from <span class="country">Europe</span>, with my experience, I thought that meant that, that they didn't want me. </sentence><sentence id="1108">So I didn't apply. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1109">And time went by -- a number of weeks, or months. </sentence><sentence id="1110">One day I get called to the, my <span class="building">counselor's office</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1111">And she says that "There is somebody here from <span class="building">Bethany College</span> who would like to meet you." </sentence><sentence id="1112">And I'm introduced. </sentence><sentence id="1113">And the first thing the person says to me is, "Why--you, you, you wrote to <span class="populated place">Bethany</span>, we sent you the catalog. </sentence><sentence id="1114">Why didn't you send in your <span class="spatial object">application</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="1115">I hemmed and hawed, and didn't quite know how to explain this. </sentence><sentence id="1116">Finally, I told him the truth. </sentence><sentence id="1117">And he said, "Oh, this isn't the case at all! </sentence><sentence id="1118">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="1119">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="1120">And that's where I went. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1121">And they were--this, this is a <span class="building">school</span> that's founded by the Disciples of Christ. </sentence><sentence id="1122">I found it to be an extremely liberal <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1123">Nobody cared what religion I had. </sentence><sentence id="1124">They treated me wonderfully. </sentence><sentence id="1125">I got a good education. </sentence><sentence id="1126">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="1127">And -- but they were the ones who gave me this, this wonderful break. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="1128">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="1129">And I've always been extremely grateful to, to <span class="building">Bethany College</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1130">Q: That's quite a story. </sentence><sentence id="1131">That's -- thank you. </sentence><sentence id="1132">Very much. </sentence><sentence id="1133">That's it. </sentence><sentence id="1134">TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ </body>
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+ </html>
RG-50.030.0047_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: josef none none
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0047
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0047_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504547
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1915-06-25
9
+ birth_year: 1915.0
10
+ place_of_birth: vienna
11
+ country: austria
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: przemyśl
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1989.a.0338
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">JOSEF September 22, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell me your first name, please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Josef. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: Where and where were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Vienna</span> in 1915 -- June 25th, 1915. </sentence><sentence id="10">And after a few years, when I was a little boy, my parents moved back to <span class="country">Poland</span> and -- before World War I. This was <span class="region">Galicia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="11">And I was living in the <span class="populated place">town</span> of <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span>, and I went back with my parents and I living in <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span>. </sentence><sentence id="12">This was my <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: Ok, tell me about your parents. </sentence><sentence id="18">What did your father do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="21">A: My father, he had a small <span class="building">grocery store</span>, like small <span class="interior space">cafeteria</span>, and he worked with my mother in the <span class="building">store</span>. </sentence><sentence id="22">And -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="25">Q: Did you have brothers and sisters? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="27">A: Yes, I have one sister, and I have four brothers. </sentence><sentence id="28">So it -- how many? </sentence><sentence id="29">Three brothers, and I was the fourth one -- and one sister. </sentence><sentence id="30">Together, five children. </sentence><sentence id="31">And we went to <span class="building">school</span> in <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span>, and my sister was going to the <span class="building">school</span> in <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span> until war time. </sentence><sentence id="32">And my older brother, after graduation from <span class="building">high school</span>, he went to <span class="country">Italy</span>, to <span class="populated place">Bologna</span>. </sentence><sentence id="33">He was studying medicine there. </sentence><sentence id="34">So we were <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="35">And after he finished the studying, he was still working in <span class="populated place">Bologna</span>. </sentence><sentence id="36">He was a scientist, and a very good physician. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="47">Q: Ok -- what, tell me -- let's bring it back to you, ok, since we want to focus on you. </sentence><sentence id="48">Tell me, you have a family, it's -- you're growing up in the <span class="populated place">town</span> of <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span>. </sentence><sentence id="49">Did you go to -- what kind of activities did you take place in? </sentence><sentence id="50">Were you in <span class="building">Jewish school</span>? </sentence><sentence id="51">What kinds of -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="57">A: No, when I was in <span class="building">high school</span> -- first of all, when I was in <span class="building">public school</span>, how my life start? </sentence><sentence id="58">I went one time with my father to a dentist, and I look around and I said, "I would like to be a dentist." </sentence><sentence id="59">So my father look at me and said, "Ok, if you will be a good pupil, student, you will be a dentist." </sentence><sentence id="60">But this dentist, he was a good psychologist, and he said, "If you like to be a dentist, you can come to my <span class="building">office</span> to watch after <span class="building">school</span>, after homework, and you are very welcome." </sentence><sentence id="61">And I was coming to him, and when I graduated from <span class="building">high school</span>, still I was coming to him, and I was assisting him. </sentence><sentence id="62">And I learned about everything else from his work. </sentence><sentence id="63">Then when war broke up, no, that's it, I couldn't do nothing. </sentence><sentence id="64">then after war was finished. </sentence><sentence id="65">I am going a little too -- then I start to study in <span class="building">grad school</span>, dentistry. </sentence><sentence id="66">But during the war, first when the German attacked <span class="country">Polish country</span>, this was in September Ist, 1939. </sentence><sentence id="67">There was a terrible time. </sentence><sentence id="68">There suddenly became <span class="spatial object">airplanes</span> and they start to bombard people on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="69">There was exactly vacation finishing, and the children, they have first day at <span class="building">school</span>, and they came in this beautiful weather. </sentence><sentence id="70">The sun was shining and they was walking on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="71">And suddenly came <span class="spatial object">planes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="72">You -- we didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="73">We thought this is our own <span class="spatial object">planes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="74">Very low. </sentence><sentence id="75">And they suddenly start to with machine guns killing the people on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="76">Throwing bombs, was killed, terrible thing. </sentence><sentence id="77">And then we heard on the news that this is for the war. </sentence><sentence id="78">The Germans attacked <span class="country">Polish country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="79">So after two or three days, there was -- the President of the <span class="country">Poland</span>, he gave an order to young people to run away to <span class="region">east</span>, in the direction of <span class="country">Russia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="80">So we went, four brothers together in the <span class="region">east</span> to the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>. </sentence><sentence id="81">We came there. </sentence><sentence id="82">It was terrible way because we were going only really walking, running, and during the day time the <span class="spatial object">planes</span>, they are going low on the way and was killing people, he <span class="building">refuge</span>, the <span class="building">refuge</span> -- no, the refugees. </sentence><sentence id="83">Ok, so this what happened and <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>, when we were there a few days there came Russian and the German, they went back and they took the part of <span class="country">Poland</span> and half of part of the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span> where we were living. </sentence><sentence id="84">So the <span class="populated place">city</span> was divided by <span class="env feature">river San</span>. </sentence><sentence id="85">One side -- east -- was <span class="country">Russian</span>, and <span class="region">west</span> was German. </sentence><sentence id="86">So we can see each other. </sentence><sentence id="87">And I worked there in <span class="building">polyclinic</span>, but -- and during this time, when was Russian. </sentence><sentence id="88">My parents, they still were working in our place. </sentence><sentence id="89">And my brother, elder, was in <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="90">And the young-- younger brothers, they were working in the place to get some work because everyone supposed to working. </sentence><sentence id="91">And then started another war. </sentence><sentence id="92">And this was in June 22, 1941, the German attacked <span class="country">Russia</span>, and in a few hours later they were in our <span class="populated place">town</span> and other they came. </sentence><sentence id="93">So it was kills. </sentence><sentence id="94">There was -- after this, the Russian came back and they was fighting about the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span> one week, seven almost days. </sentence><sentence id="95">So, in the morning, there were Russian. </sentence><sentence id="96">At night, there were Germans. </sentence><sentence id="97">And every person was hiding deep, you know, in the <span class="interior space">cellars</span> and other, other places because we didn't know what to do. </sentence><sentence id="98">After seven days, the Russians got to go back, pulling back, and the Germans are coming. </sentence><sentence id="99">So we were -- we want-- wanted in the beginning to go with Russian, but they said they won't take us civil people. </sentence><sentence id="100">Only they was going by themselves. </sentence><sentence id="101">So we left there, and the Germans came. </sentence><sentence id="102">And after a few weeks -- this was 1941 -- they start to make orders, <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> Jewish -- segregate Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="103">Everybody has to work -- arbeit." </sentence><sentence id="104">And start to be difficult life, but still we didn't know what. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="153">Q: How many of you were together? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="155">A: In this time, we were four brothers together. </sentence><sentence id="156">My sister was still in <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>, in <span class="populated place">Lemberg</span>." </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="159">Q: Could you hold up the photograph of your family, please, so we can see it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="161">" Work (German). </sentence></p><p><sentence id="162"><span class="populated place">Lemberg</span> is the German name for <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="163">A: Yes. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="164"> TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="165">A: But I will explain who is who. </sentence><sentence id="166">So this is my father. </sentence><sentence id="167">This is my mother. </sentence><sentence id="168">This is my older brother, the physician. </sentence><sentence id="169">And this is my sister, and this is my younger brother, who were killed in the war -- like in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="170">They took them to <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="171">This is the mother-in-law of my youngest brother's wife. </sentence><sentence id="172">This is her mother and her father. </sentence><sentence id="173">They was together killed in 1942. </sentence><sentence id="174">Those taken to a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> from <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="175">That's my close family. </sentence><sentence id="176">This is from <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, when we were there. </sentence><sentence id="177">We were working. </sentence><sentence id="178">This is for my oldest brother, the physician. </sentence><sentence id="179">He worked in <span class="building">hospital</span>, and there was like a <span class="building">field hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> -- small <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="180">He was working like a physician there, and this is his ID. </sentence><sentence id="181">And this was my ID. </sentence><sentence id="182">I was working with him there, the same, given in, in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="201">Q: Thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="203">A: So in the beginning, when we were in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, we have to go. </sentence><sentence id="204">We were organized. </sentence><sentence id="205">Young people -- everybody has to go in the morning under the guard to do work. </sentence><sentence id="206">So I was working with my older brother. </sentence><sentence id="207">We have to -- they took us to a special place. </sentence><sentence id="208">We were loading coals in the <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> forward and back, under heavy guard, from morning until late evening. </sentence><sentence id="209">And nothing to eat. </sentence><sentence id="210">Only you have to work in there. </sentence><sentence id="211">If you have something with you -- a piece of bread, anything -- you could have. </sentence><sentence id="212">And we work very hard. </sentence><sentence id="213">Then -- this was like in 1941. </sentence><sentence id="214">Then in 1942, they start to take so- called Aktion" -- take people from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and make smaller <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="215">So they surround, for example, one part of <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="216">And this part people couldn't live there. </sentence><sentence id="217">They have to go to the <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, to the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and they was taking them out. </sentence><sentence id="218">Nobody knows where they were sent. </sentence><sentence id="219">There's only -- they're taking us another place. </sentence><sentence id="220">They will have good life working, and this and this. </sentence><sentence id="221">So the people cannot say no because there was an order. </sentence><sentence id="222">So you have to stay. </sentence><sentence id="223">So this was in 1942. </sentence><sentence id="224">1941, they, they asked to get -- to give to them thousand young boys. </sentence><sentence id="225">But the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, the -- no. </sentence><sentence id="226">In <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, the people who are partners like small government in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, they, they was taking time. </sentence><sentence id="227">They didn't like to give the young people. </sentence><sentence id="228">They wanted to have a list of young people. </sentence><sentence id="229">So this was going to 1942. </sentence><sentence id="230">And then in the beginning of 1942, they said, "Two thousand." </sentence><sentence id="231">And they came. </sentence><sentence id="232">They have at least -- they came to our <span class="building">home</span>, and they wanted to take me. </sentence><sentence id="233">But my younger brother, he was a little physical stronger, he said, "No, I will go." </sentence><sentence id="234">And they took him to the concentration labor-like camp in <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>. </sentence><sentence id="235">And this was the young boy who they later hanged. </sentence><sentence id="236">And they took him there. </sentence><sentence id="237">He, he voluntary -- he was going because he wanted to save my life. </sentence><sentence id="238">And I was still working with my, with my parents and, Murderous campaigns undertaken by the Nazis for political, racial, or eugenic ends (German). </sentence><sentence id="239"> and my brothers in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="240">We apparently didn't know about deaths, what's happened to my brother. </sentence><sentence id="241">But my wife how she told you, she was going over there. </sentence><sentence id="242">She was in contact with us. </sentence><sentence id="243">She help us. </sentence><sentence id="244">She was working with my mother and father in this small <span class="building">shop</span>. </sentence><sentence id="245">She was like our own sister, like a daughter. </sentence><sentence id="246">She was very attached to us. </sentence><sentence id="247">We were attached to her. </sentence><sentence id="248">But she was Aryan. </sentence><sentence id="249">She had no -- Catholic, so they didn't touch her. </sentence><sentence id="250">So she can go some. </sentence><sentence id="251">She was sneaking under the <span class="dlf">fences</span> in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, and she brought something and this and this. </sentence><sentence id="252">We have contact. </sentence><sentence id="253">When they took my brother to <span class="populated place">Lvov</span>, she was going to see him, because she was a girl and she was Catholic. </sentence><sentence id="254">She could go close and see something. </sentence><sentence id="255">He can go to the <span class="dlf">fence</span> or something. </sentence><sentence id="256">She ask some watchman who are same day. </sentence><sentence id="257">Maybe they let her go to talk. </sentence><sentence id="258">So she was in contact with him. </sentence><sentence id="259">One thing she make arrangement with him, but she will break. </sentence><sentence id="260">He asked her that he wanted to run away and maybe she will hide him. </sentence><sentence id="261">So she has to bring him some clothes, this and this; and they make arrangement where, where he has to come to see her. </sentence><sentence id="262">And this time she came but they make special hours when she will meet him. </sentence><sentence id="263">But there was now going the <span class="spatial object">military trains</span>, and all kinds of <span class="spatial object">civil trains</span> were stopped. </sentence><sentence id="264">First, military. </sentence><sentence id="265">So it was a couple of hours, maybe two or three hours late she came, because the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> was - - she couldn't come. </sentence><sentence id="266">In meantime, he -- according to, to his agreement with her -- he left the, the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, and he saw a woman who was similar to my wife. </sentence><sentence id="267">He came to her. </sentence><sentence id="268">And then she was not this right person. </sentence><sentence id="269">So when he was turning back, he want to go back, some watchman, they find him. </sentence><sentence id="270">They saw him. </sentence><sentence id="271">Now they took him back to, to <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="272">And when my wife came to see him, they told her it's too late. </sentence><sentence id="273">They hanged him. </sentence><sentence id="274">So she came very depressed. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="347">Q: Let's make something very clear. </sentence><sentence id="348">Slow down a minute, please. </sentence><sentence id="349">Relax. </sentence><sentence id="350">We have plenty of time. </sentence><sentence id="351">You are about 18? </sentence><sentence id="352">How old are you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="359">A: 24 at this time. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="361">Q: 24 at this point, all right. </sentence><sentence id="362">Your wife was 16, 17? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="365">A: She was 17, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="367">Q: All right. </sentence><sentence id="368">We need to make clear that she was obviously not yet your wife. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="371">A: No. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="373">Q: And that there was indeed -- because she was Catholic, you would have tended not to think in those directions. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="374">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="375">She was only very, very attached to us. </sentence><sentence id="376">She was like a relative. </sentence><sentence id="377">We, we love her very much, and she love us very much. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="378">Q: Let's talk now -- I want to talk about you. </sentence><sentence id="379">I don't want her story, or her side of it. </sentence><sentence id="380">I want your side of it, all right? </sentence><sentence id="381">Your brother has been has been taken, has been killed. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="386">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="388">Q: What did you do? </sentence><sentence id="389">Where were you at this point in time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="392">A: In <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, in <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span>. </sentence><sentence id="393">And we got the message. </sentence><sentence id="394">We didn't tell the parents what was happened. </sentence><sentence id="395">To them, they didn't know about it. </sentence><sentence id="396">And we work. </sentence><sentence id="397">And then -- and this was July -- in August 1942. </sentence><sentence id="398">They make another <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> -- smaller -- another Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="399">They took our parents, and they took away. </sentence><sentence id="400">And I remember when they was concentration them in the place I was staying, and I was crying. </sentence><sentence id="401">And there was staying a young soldier. </sentence><sentence id="402">He asked me, "Why are you crying?" </sentence><sentence id="403">I said, "They are my parents!" </sentence><sentence id="404">He said, "You will never see them." </sentence><sentence id="405">I said, "They supposed to take them to, to a job to work." " </sentence><sentence id="406">They will murder," he said. " </sentence><sentence id="407">You will never see him -- them." </sentence><sentence id="408">If you want, you can bring them little tea or something to drink. </sentence><sentence id="409">But go fast." </sentence><sentence id="410">And I was running back to <span class="building">home</span>, and I prepare something for them, and I came. </sentence><sentence id="411">It was too late. </sentence><sentence id="412">I saw them already pushing to the <span class="spatial object">cattle wagon</span>, with sticks. </sentence><sentence id="413">They was pushing. </sentence><sentence id="414">And my father, he turns -- like my mother was turned down; and he looked and he saw me, and he said like this [gesturing father waving goodbye to Josef]. </sentence><sentence id="415">And this was the last thing what I saw. </sentence><sentence id="416">Then -- and there was in the meantime other Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="417">And we still working hard. </sentence><sentence id="418">And, and November 18, 1942, there was the Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="419">Right before the people, they was finding out that they were an Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="420">So they make under the <span class="interior space">kitchen</span> an <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="421">There was like an <span class="dlf">entrance</span> to <span class="interior space">cellar</span>, and we make like a <span class="interior space">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="422">Was hiding <span class="dlf">entrance</span>, and we make like a <span class="building">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="423">And we were sitting there. </sentence><sentence id="424">There was almost thirty people there, and we are sitting. </sentence><sentence id="425">And we went on November 17th at night there hiding. </sentence><sentence id="426">On November 18th, in the morning, start to be the Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="427">We heard noises, shooting, screaming. </sentence><sentence id="428">And barking dogs and everything. </sentence><sentence id="429">And we heard what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="430">Then, almost at the end, was almost probably before seven o'clock, after six, before seven o'clock in the evening, there was dark because the weather was snow, cold. </sentence><sentence id="431">And somebody pushed the <span class="dlf">window</span>, and they said it was covered with sack -- with straw. </sentence><sentence id="432">We didn't know about that. </sentence><sentence id="433">Because was called a sound from the people who were Ordnungs," the people who was helping the, the, the SS men. </sentence><sentence id="434">He pushed with a stick the, the, the sack with straw, and was a little light. </sentence><sentence id="435">Because we were sitting in dark, but still came a little light inside. </sentence><sentence id="436">He said, "If somebody's hiding there" -- he said this automatically -- "has to get out, because we will throw grenades insi-- inside." </sentence><sentence id="437">So there was a woman near the <span class="dlf">window</span> sitting. </sentence><sentence id="438">She pushed her daughter, and said, "Go. </sentence><sentence id="439">Save your life." </sentence><sentence id="440">She pushed her through the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="441">4 Ordnungsdienst [Order Service] (German). </sentence><sentence id="442"> The daughter was maybe eight, nine years old. </sentence><sentence id="443">And she pushed her, and she start to scramble go through the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="444">And suddenly, the SS man who was far away, they was almost finished the job. </sentence><sentence id="445">They turned back and saw the girl coming out, and this guy, he was helping her. </sentence><sentence id="446">They came back. </sentence><sentence id="447">And they start to beat her and kick her with feet in, in the face in front of <span class="dlf">entrance</span>. </sentence><sentence id="448">And then the mother start to scream. </sentence><sentence id="449">And they opened the <span class="dlf">doors</span>, and they said, "Out! </sentence><sentence id="450">Out! </sentence><sentence id="451">Out!" </sentence><sentence id="452">And there was standing a <span class="dlf">row</span> with soldiers and with policemen with rifles. </sentence><sentence id="453">And they throw us -- "<span class="env feature">Ground</span>! </sentence><sentence id="454"><span class="env feature">Ground</span>!" </sentence><sentence id="455">And was they hitting us with rifles. </sentence><sentence id="456">Who got down, they killed him on the spot. </sentence><sentence id="457">Who could run has to go another place. </sentence><sentence id="458">And they, they -- L, I, with my brother and my cousin, we were running. </sentence><sentence id="459">We got the full blows, but we survive. </sentence><sentence id="460">We came to the place they keep us together. </sentence><sentence id="461">And there came a sergeant, and he said, "Now, we will shoot you. </sentence><sentence id="462">Stay in a <span class="interior space">row</span>." </sentence><sentence id="463">And my older brother, who was saying to me, he said, "Aim your chest to the rifles. </sentence><sentence id="464">Because," he said, "They will hit you in the arm or in your ear. </sentence><sentence id="465">They will not shoot you twice. </sentence><sentence id="466">And they will put <span class="dlf">line</span> -- put you in a great big <span class="dlf">line</span>, and you will suffocate. </sentence><sentence id="467">So try to aim yourself," he said, "and stay." </sentence><sentence id="468">And we were staying in <span class="dlf">line</span>, and they with the rifles, they wanted to shoot us. </sentence><sentence id="469">Suddenly came an officer, an SS officer, and he's asking, "What's going on here?" </sentence><sentence id="470">They said, "No. </sentence><sentence id="471">We find they're hiding Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="472">According to the order, they're supposed to voluntary come here. </sentence><sentence id="473">They didn't come, so we picked them up. </sentence><sentence id="474">And now we have to shoot them." </sentence><sentence id="475">He look on us. </sentence><sentence id="476">He said, "No. </sentence><sentence id="477">The <span class="spatial object">train</span> still is under the <span class="building">station</span>. </sentence><sentence id="478">We need fat Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="479">We need there for some -- " He said like soap or something, I don't remember so. " </sentence><sentence id="480">Put them to the <span class="spatial object">train</span>." </sentence><sentence id="481">And he put us -- they put us to the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="482">There was in my <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> was over a hundred people like sardine together, you know. </sentence><sentence id="483">And was -- this was winter. </sentence><sentence id="484">But we were thirsty, dry mouth, dry tongue. </sentence><sentence id="485">high temperature. </sentence><sentence id="486">We was sitting, and we couldn't, we couldn't breathe. </sentence><sentence id="487">And they locked the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="488">There was <span class="dlf">barbed wires</span> on the small <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="489">And the <span class="spatial object">train</span> start to move. </sentence><sentence id="490">And one man, he hang himself in the <span class="spatial object">train</span> in the <span class="dlf">belt</span>, and they tried to cut him off, and they cut him off and he was angry. </sentence><sentence id="491">He said, "No. </sentence><sentence id="492">I will not go for -- so you will have to... No! </sentence><sentence id="493">Don't! </sentence><sentence id="494">No!" </sentence><sentence id="495">He was screaming. </sentence><sentence id="496">He hanged himself. </sentence><sentence id="497">And I was going, I said to my brother, "No, I will not go there. </sentence><sentence id="498">I will commit suicide. </sentence><sentence id="499">I will not go." </sentence><sentence id="500">He said, "Don't do this. </sentence><sentence id="501">Don't." </sentence><sentence id="502">I said, "No, I will never go." </sentence><sentence id="503">And I was going little by little, they helped me came to the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="504">And I don't know how I find in my pocket pliers. </sentence><sentence id="505">I have this small pliers. </sentence><sentence id="506">And I start to break the <span class="dlf">barbed wires</span>. </sentence><sentence id="507">I was working a long time, and I cut my hands, was bleeding. </sentence><sentence id="508">And I broke the <span class="dlf">wires</span>. </sentence><sentence id="509">When I was in <span class="building">bunker</span>, I had a loaf of round bread. </sentence><sentence id="510">And I saved them. </sentence><sentence id="511">They was taking us, I took the bread. </sentence><sentence id="512">Here I had little <span class="dlf">belt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="513">And when I broke the <span class="dlf">wire</span>, I said, "Push me through the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="514">I will jump." </sentence><sentence id="515">And the people start to push me and my head forward. </sentence><sentence id="516">Was tight, but when I was looking down, I was on the running, you know, the wheels <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="517">And then I saw the <span class="dlf">tracks</span> and the small stones, like gravels. </sentence><sentence id="518">Everything. </sentence><sentence id="519">I said, "No. </sentence><sentence id="520">I will not go with my head, because I will -- right to the <span class="spatial object">wheels</span>." </sentence><sentence id="521">It was like instant. </sentence><sentence id="522">One second, I wanted to commit suicide. </sentence><sentence id="523">Another second -- like instant -- I said, "Put me back! </sentence><sentence id="524">Put me back!" </sentence><sentence id="525">They, they pull me back, and I said, "I will go with my legs forward." </sentence><sentence id="526">And they pushed me with my legs, and I was hanging on the left hand. </sentence><sentence id="527">I was holding the <span class="dlf">window</span> outside. </sentence><sentence id="528">I was hanging, and the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was in good speed. </sentence><sentence id="529">When the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was taking a <span class="dlf">curve</span>, I jumped forward and I was sliding. </sentence><sentence id="530">And suddenly I felt severe pain in my chest, and I was unconscious maybe a few minutes. </sentence><sentence id="531">I don't know how long. </sentence><sentence id="532">Then when I came to my normal condition, I saw in my breast there was a <span class="dlf">hole</span> like a fist. </sentence><sentence id="533">And this hurt my chest, because I stopped on a small <span class="dlf">post</span> with wires. </sentence><sentence id="534">There were some <span class="dlf">wires</span>. </sentence><sentence id="535">And I came out, and the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was far away, and I was running up the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="536">The <span class="spatial object">train</span> -- there was snow, and I was looking where would I find my brother. </sentence><sentence id="537">No, but I find two other boys who jumped. </sentence><sentence id="538">One has broken here bone, clavicula (ph) bone, broken. </sentence><sentence id="539">One was moving. </sentence><sentence id="540">Another, his face scratched, but nothing special. </sentence><sentence id="541">So I helped. </sentence><sentence id="542">I took the, the <span class="dlf">belt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="543">I put like here [showing that he tied the arm to the man's side], to, to keep the hands not moving. </sentence><sentence id="544">And I said, "We have to run away." </sentence><sentence id="545">So we are going under the <span class="dlf">hill</span> just like small way. </sentence><sentence id="546">There was snow. </sentence><sentence id="547">And we were going to the place that was called <span class="populated place">Lipowice</span>. </sentence><sentence id="548">Was after <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span> maybe seven kilometers, maybe more. </sentence><sentence id="549">And I went there, and I told them, "I have here a man." </sentence><sentence id="550">And normal, in wintertime of skiing, and I was coming to him to buy tea or coffee or some cookies. </sentence><sentence id="551">And I said, "I will go to him. </sentence><sentence id="552">Maybe he will give us <span class="building">shelter</span> for one night. </sentence><sentence id="553">But then he will think in the morning what he have to do." </sentence><sentence id="554">And I went to him, and I knocked on the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="555">He opened, and I told him who I am. </sentence><sentence id="556">He was a nice man. </sentence><sentence id="557">He was scared, very, because he knows what happens. " </sentence><sentence id="558">Nobody has seen you?" </sentence><sentence id="559">I said, "No, no." </sentence><sentence id="560">And he gives us the <span class="building">shelter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="561">We were sitting on the <span class="spatial object">bench</span> all night. </sentence><sentence id="562">And he give some to drink, you know, coffee or anything. </sentence><sentence id="563">People drink only water, because we have very high temperature, very. </sentence><sentence id="564">Then in the morning we said goodbye. </sentence><sentence id="565">And we said to each other, "Everybody's going in different way. </sentence><sentence id="566">They will not catch us together. </sentence><sentence id="567">Only separate way." </sentence><sentence id="568">As a matter of fact, after war I met them. </sentence><sentence id="569">They survive. </sentence><sentence id="570">So I went to my friend, who was working in <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="571">And I went to him. </sentence><sentence id="572">I was holding my loaf, bread loaf, under my arm, and I was looking like a working man who's going to work. </sentence><sentence id="573">And when I came to him, he was scared. </sentence><sentence id="574">I told him what's happened, and he said, "Ok, I will try to do the best for you." </sentence><sentence id="575">And he was keeping me in a small <span class="building">cottage</span>, which was his mother's <span class="building">cottage</span>, but she was not in this time at <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="576">So he said, "Stay here." </sentence><sentence id="577">He locked me inside. </sentence><sentence id="578">And I was there all day, and I didn't know what to do. </sentence><sentence id="579">And I was..."Maybe I can trust him, maybe no. </sentence><sentence id="580">Maybe he can go to <span class="building">Gestapo</span> or something, and this will be the end." </sentence><sentence id="581">But on the evening, he came. </sentence><sentence id="582">Was about eight o'clock. </sentence><sentence id="583">He said, "Joe, I am sorry. </sentence><sentence id="584">I was going around. </sentence><sentence id="585">I cannot find place for you. </sentence><sentence id="586">I cannot keep you, because my wife she is scared. </sentence><sentence id="587">We cannot risk our lives. </sentence><sentence id="588">So what you want to do? </sentence><sentence id="589">Tell me. </sentence><sentence id="590">I will bring you in any place." </sentence><sentence id="591">He worked in <span class="building">hospital</span>, and he had those <span class="spatial object">carriage</span> with two horses. </sentence><sentence id="592">Always he could travel, because he can ride this. </sentence><sentence id="593">So there was -- on the other side of the <span class="populated place">Przemysl</span> there was a <span class="dlf">bridge</span>. </sentence><sentence id="594">So to go to the <span class="populated place">town</span> where I was living before, we have to cross the <span class="dlf">bridge</span>. </sentence><sentence id="595">But on the <span class="dlf">bridge</span>, there was always watchmen, German. </sentence><sentence id="596"> They were watching who was crossing; they were looking inside you're not smuggling something. </sentence><sentence id="597">So he said, "I will risk my life and your life. </sentence><sentence id="598">But you have to lie down under my feet. </sentence><sentence id="599">I will cover you with a blanket. </sentence><sentence id="600">I will keep my feet on your face. </sentence><sentence id="601">And I have the <span class="dlf">pass</span>, so I will try to go. </sentence><sentence id="602">But don't move. </sentence><sentence id="603">We will see. </sentence><sentence id="604">Maybe we'll be lucky." </sentence><sentence id="605">And really, we went there. </sentence><sentence id="606">They stopped him. </sentence><sentence id="607">But they know him, and he's showed them the <span class="dlf">pass</span>. </sentence><sentence id="608">They was looking inside, but they didn't look too much. </sentence><sentence id="609">He was holding the feet on my back. </sentence><sentence id="610">And we passed. </sentence><sentence id="611">So they came <span class="populated place">downtown</span>, close to my <span class="dlf">street</span> that I was living. </sentence><sentence id="612">He said, "Joe, good luck. </sentence><sentence id="613">That's it. </sentence><sentence id="614">And do what you want." </sentence><sentence id="615">I said thank you, and he left. </sentence><sentence id="616">So I didn't know where to go. </sentence><sentence id="617">I went back to the place where we were living before. </sentence><sentence id="618">And I went to <span class="interior space">cellar</span>. </sentence><sentence id="619">There was not <span class="interior space">basement</span>, only <span class="interior space">cellar</span> -- open <span class="interior space">cellars</span>. </sentence><sentence id="620">And I was sitting there, and, and I saw this is not realistic because the people who maybe who lives there know who was living there, they can come back to <span class="interior space">cellar</span>. </sentence><sentence id="621">They will see me. </sentence><sentence id="622">There was <span class="interior space">open space</span>. </sentence><sentence id="623">And there's -- in fact there were rats and mice and <span class="env feature">dirt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="624">So I said, "Maybe Stefania, maybe she will let me stay for one night." </sentence><sentence id="625">And I went <span class="interior space">upstairs</span>, and I was knocking at her <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="626">And she -- first she asked me, I told her quietly, "It's me." </sentence><sentence id="627">And she opened the <span class="dlf">door</span>, and she saw me. </sentence><sentence id="628">Now, I was really in very bad condition. </sentence><sentence id="629">And she was very mercy to me with her really soft heart. </sentence><sentence id="630">She was most caring. </sentence><sentence id="631">She helped me to wash and this -- and she gave me her <span class="spatial object">bed</span> to sleep. </sentence><sentence id="632">And her sister, she was wondering what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="633">Because she saw me first, little sister. </sentence><sentence id="634">And she explained her how this, anyway. </sentence><sentence id="635">And the morning, she put me under the <span class="spatial object">bed</span>; and on the front of me, she put a sack with potatoes. </sentence><sentence id="636">She had a sack of potatoes there. </sentence><sentence id="637">So I was behind the sack of the potatoes, and she covered me blanket. </sentence><sentence id="638">She said, "Don't make noise, because the people are coming -- friends and this -- and they cannot see you." </sentence><sentence id="639">So this was for a few days. </sentence><sentence id="640">Then she went to my brother. </sentence><sentence id="641">He worked in, in a <span class="dlf">farm</span> which was under supervision of military, belonged to the military, and they -- all brothers was going through the military. </sentence><sentence id="642">So my brother was working there with his fiancee. </sentence><sentence id="643">And when was the Aktion in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, they hold the people there because they know they will go back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, and they will take them. </sentence><sentence id="644">The, the -- no, the SS will take them. </sentence><sentence id="645">But they wanted to save them, because they needed them for work. </sentence><sentence id="646">So they told them stay this night and one day more here. </sentence><sentence id="647">They were sleeping there. </sentence><sentence id="648">So my wife, she came. </sentence><sentence id="649">She told him what's happened, and she told him that I survive. </sentence><sentence id="650">I came, and I'm at her <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="651">He was very happy. </sentence><sentence id="652">And he was crying, also, because we lost the rest of the family. </sentence><sentence id="653">And then his wife, and they was taking them back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> under guard -- I don't know how -- she run away. </sentence><sentence id="654">And she came to us to <span class="building">home</span>...to...to my wife's, where I was hiding temporary. </sentence><sentence id="655">No, she said, no, she will not go to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="656">She doesn't like to go. </sentence><sentence id="657">I didn't like to either go to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, but my brother, he went back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> with the group. </sentence><sentence id="658">And then he came there. </sentence><sentence id="659">He start to contact with us. </sentence><sentence id="660">And then he told us in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> now is quiet, temporarily is quiet. " </sentence><sentence id="661">Nothing there, nothing. </sentence><sentence id="662">No Aktion. </sentence><sentence id="663">So you maybe you'll come back." </sentence><sentence id="664">After a few days, we went back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="938">Q: What was the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> like at that time? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="939">A: This was no -- there were a few <span class="dlf">streets</span> they surrounded with <span class="dlf">fences</span>. </sentence><sentence id="940">And there was watch, like police. </sentence><sentence id="941">Police watch-- watching men, Polish, and there was German. </sentence><sentence id="942">Was the stationary because when it was Aktion, it came special group--SS or special military group who was taking the Aktion then or doing this. </sentence><sentence id="943">But when this other, they left to the domestic people to take care about the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="944">That the people cannot get out, that cannot go in. </sentence><sentence id="945">But my wife's little sister. </sentence><sentence id="946">She was going, playing and she was the messenger. </sentence><sentence id="947">She was bringing some message. </sentence><sentence id="948">We wanted something. </sentence><sentence id="949">We asked her. </sentence><sentence id="950">She would prepare in, in the evening. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="963">Always I was under the <span class="dlf">fence</span> sneaking through the <span class="populated place">town</span> and I was coming and I took her to pick up something. </sentence><sentence id="964">No. </sentence><sentence id="965">In the meantime, my brother, he got typhus and his friend got typhus. </sentence><sentence id="966">That was terrible thing, but we need something to -- there was no medicine. </sentence><sentence id="967">Nothing but something to, to keep them strong, to fight the temperature. </sentence><sentence id="968">So my wife, she prepared a sugar or milk or some cheese, butter -- something. </sentence><sentence id="969">And I smuggled this back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="970">Some drugs like painkiller drugs, you know, against high fever. </sentence><sentence id="971">This was, she could get without a, a prescription. </sentence><sentence id="972">So, like aspirin, you know -- such things like that. </sentence><sentence id="973">So kids, they survive, thanks God. </sentence><sentence id="974">But one time -- I have to tell this story. </sentence><sentence id="975">I was going from <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, and, and my watch was 8:30. </sentence><sentence id="976">But the, the curfew was until 9:00. </sentence><sentence id="977">After 9:00, they can catch anybody on the, on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="978">They can kill without asking if you have no permission to go on the <span class="dlf">pavement</span>. </sentence><sentence id="979">And I had always dressed similar to the dress like the young <span class="populated place">Hitlerjugend</span>,deg they were wear. </sentence><sentence id="980">Those high shoes, short tight black pants, and nice coat and a nice hat with a, with a -- with the, with a -- like a, no, like a shaving thing, you know? </sentence><sentence id="981">Like a feather, yes. </sentence><sentence id="982">And I was going always dressed in this. </sentence><sentence id="983">But this time I had an <span class="spatial object">attache case</span>, because I was going to my way to pick up some food and my watch. </sentence><sentence id="984">And I changed my dress from my old dress to this dress. </sentence><sentence id="985">I forget to put this -- I'll show you this false document. </sentence><sentence id="986">And I'm going... There was a <span class="dlf">bridge</span> from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, which was going to the <span class="populated place">town</span>, but the, the <span class="dlf">bridge</span> was going from <span class="dlf">street</span> to the <span class="building">factory</span> which there was fixing broken <span class="spatial object">cars</span>, <span class="spatial object">trains</span> and everything. </sentence><sentence id="987">So -- but on the side was entrance to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, but this was blocked by <span class="dlf">barbed wires</span>. </sentence><sentence id="988">And was like a <span class="dlf">road</span> that you cannot go to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="989">But always I was going through the <span class="dlf">holes</span>, and I was going to the <span class="dlf">bridge</span> down to the <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="990">And when I was going <span class="interior space">downstairs</span> to the <span class="populated place">town</span> already, suddenly a flashlight went to my face. " </sentence><sentence id="991">Oh," I said. </sentence><sentence id="992">"That's it!" </sentence><sentence id="993">And in German language, somebody said, "Hande hoch!"" </sentence><sentence id="994">I put my "Hande hoch," and the <span class="spatial object">attache case</span> fell down. </sentence><sentence id="995">So he came close. </sentence><sentence id="996">And I said, "No, this is <span class="building">German police</span>. </sentence><sentence id="997">That's it! </sentence><sentence id="998">They will finish me." </sentence><sentence id="999">But I said why. </sentence><sentence id="1000">And then came this Polish policeman. </sentence><sentence id="1001">He was speaking German. </sentence><sentence id="1002">He asked me, "Who are you? </sentence><sentence id="1003">Where are you going?" </sentence><sentence id="1004">I said, "No, I will not tell him that I am come from <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1005">I said, "I am going from the <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1006">I worked for my father." </sentence><sentence id="1007">I said, "Dinner -- lunch. </sentence><sentence id="1008">And I -- dinner -- and I am going back from <span class="building">factory</span> &gt; Hitler Youth (German).6 "Hands up!" ( </sentence><sentence id="1009">German). </sentence><sentence id="1010"> <span class="building">home</span>." " </sentence><sentence id="1011">Give me your documents." </sentence><sentence id="1012">And I am looking in pocket, and I don't have my -- they called the ID card was Kennkarte" in German, ID card. </sentence><sentence id="1013">I was looking. </sentence><sentence id="1014">I said, "I am sorry. </sentence><sentence id="1015">I don't have in this dress. </sentence><sentence id="1016">But if you like to come with me to the <span class="building">factory</span>, there everybody knows me and, and they will tell you who Iam." </sentence><sentence id="1017">And I told, "I will go with you back." </sentence><sentence id="1018">Then we will be close to the <span class="dlf">entrance</span> to the <span class="dlf">block</span>, entrance to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1019">I will give him a blow, and I will jump to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1020">But he was smart. </sentence><sentence id="1021">He said, "No, no. </sentence><sentence id="1022">No way! </sentence><sentence id="1023">No way!" </sentence><sentence id="1024">I said, "Why?" </sentence><sentence id="1025">He said, "Maybe you are a spy." </sentence><sentence id="1026">I said, "What kind of spy? </sentence><sentence id="1027">You are a Polish man, and I am a Polish man. </sentence><sentence id="1028">And I am a spy for whom? </sentence><sentence id="1029">I am spying for <span class="country">Germany</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="1030">He was working for <span class="country">Germany</span>. " </sentence><sentence id="1031">I'm not spying for <span class="country">Germany</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1032">He said, "Don't touch me." </sentence><sentence id="1033">He start to swear to me: "You such -- out. </sentence><sentence id="1034">And you, we're going to <span class="building">Gestapo</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1035">And I know if he will go with me, and this is -- he said, "You know, it is 9:30." </sentence><sentence id="1036">And I show him my watch, was 8:30. </sentence><sentence id="1037">He said, "Throw your watch under the running <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1038">This is 9:30." </sentence><sentence id="1039">My watch was not working. </sentence><sentence id="1040">And I was late. </sentence><sentence id="1041">After curfew, curfew. </sentence><sentence id="1042">So he said, "We are going to <span class="building">Gestapo</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1043">And like this, and I know if he will go on the <span class="dlf">street</span> at night with this -- with me, the German, you know, police, they are going also patrols. </sentence><sentence id="1044">And they will see him holding. </sentence><sentence id="1045">They will take me from him, and they will kill me on the spot. </sentence><sentence id="1046">So I, I know the psychology of the Polish people. </sentence><sentence id="1047">I start to talk him: "Hey, you are a tall guy and I am a little short man. </sentence><sentence id="1048">And you are holding me under gun. </sentence><sentence id="1049">What you think, that I will kill you or I will run away?You're supposed to be ashamed! </sentence><sentence id="1050">You're a coward." </sentence><sentence id="1051">Like this. </sentence><sentence id="1052">And he said to me, "You don't --" I said, "You're a coward." </sentence><sentence id="1053">So he put his gun here, the rifle. </sentence><sentence id="1054">He walked with me like this, and we start to talk Polish. </sentence><sentence id="1055">I talk to him Polish. </sentence><sentence id="1056">So, really, there was going a German patrol, but they look on us and they didn't touch. </sentence><sentence id="1057">Because he was a policeman, and I was talking to him Polish. </sentence><sentence id="1058">He was talking to me Polish. </sentence><sentence id="1059">They didn't understand what we were talking about. </sentence><sentence id="1060">So they thought maybe I'm also a, a secret police. </sentence><sentence id="1061">So I am going with him. </sentence><sentence id="1062">So one thing passed away behind me, and then we are going, there was a <span class="dlf">street</span> up. </sentence><sentence id="1063">And I see from far away, like maybe two hundred yards, a small light. </sentence><sentence id="1064">And there stand a watchman as the Gestapo watchman. </sentence><sentence id="1065">That's the <span class="building">Gestapo office</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1066">I said, "This is the end!" </sentence><sentence id="1067">And I talked to him. </sentence><sentence id="1068">No, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="1069">He is taking me there. </sentence><sentence id="1070">I said, "Listen, if I am a partisan, you know, they are watching you. </sentence><sentence id="1071">Your whole family will be killed, and you will be killed. </sentence><sentence id="1072">They will put in fire your <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1073">You will not survive." </sentence><sentence id="1074">I said, "I don't care. </sentence><sentence id="1075">They will kill me, but you will -- " He said, "I don't care. </sentence><sentence id="1076">Now this is wartime, and this is my duty." </sentence><sentence id="1077">And sudden, I don't know, came to my mind something. </sentence><sentence id="1078">And I hit him with my right hand. </sentence><sentence id="1079">He was taller than me. </sentence><sentence id="1080">I hit him once right, and then upper cut his left. </sentence><sentence id="1081">He fell down like a piece of wood. </sentence><sentence id="1082">I felt I have such power because this was death -- life or death. </sentence><sentence id="1083">And I was so angry. </sentence><sentence id="1084">I was said to him, "You dirty pig! </sentence><sentence id="1085">You will get what you deserve! </sentence><sentence id="1086">I could kill you right now," I said, "but I will not do this. </sentence><sentence id="1087">I will not make my hands dirty." </sentence><sentence id="1088">And I turn around and I was going on the <span class="dlf">hill</span> TID card (German). </sentence><sentence id="1089"> the <span class="dlf">street</span> down. </sentence><sentence id="1090">I was not running. </sentence><sentence id="1091">And then, in the last minute, I start to run away. </sentence><sentence id="1092">And I came to my wife at night. </sentence><sentence id="1093">I was out after 10:00, and she was, "What's happen?" </sentence><sentence id="1094">And I told her the story. </sentence><sentence id="1095">And I was all night staying there. </sentence><sentence id="1096">And next morning, I told her, "Go look on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1097">Watch what's happen." </sentence><sentence id="1098">She went. </sentence><sentence id="1099">She came, said, "Nothing. </sentence><sentence id="1100">No nothing, and nobody." </sentence><sentence id="1101">I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="1102">You know, quiet. </sentence><sentence id="1103">And in the evening, I was going back to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1104">And when I was jumping through the <span class="dlf">bridge</span>, I heard shooting -- [Imitating shooting sound].And I went myself, and then I saw, look what's happen. </sentence><sentence id="1105">There are another like SS man or maybe not SS man, but he was a secret police. </sentence><sentence id="1106">There was lying a woman he took from the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1107">A woman, he was taking off her shoes. </sentence><sentence id="1108">She was still alive, and he was taking off her shoes. </sentence><sentence id="1109">He killed her because he felt she was a Jewish person. </sentence><sentence id="1110">They found her. </sentence><sentence id="1111">Anyway, I went to <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1112">And I came to there, and I was there for a while. </sentence><sentence id="1113">Then her sister always was with her and counting, and I came back. </sentence><sentence id="1114">I talked to my wife was yet to find a place to hide, because in this place we cannot stay. </sentence><sentence id="1115">I said, "I have to come with my brother, with his fiancee, and my friend and his daughter. </sentence><sentence id="1116">Would be about five to seven people." </sentence><sentence id="1117">And so we organized. </sentence><sentence id="1118">She's under -- "The beginning," she said, "it will be very hard." </sentence><sentence id="1119">So I said, "Listen. </sentence><sentence id="1120">We have to do this." </sentence><sentence id="1121">So she was looking, and she find on the <span class="env feature">hill</span> is like a side <span class="dlf">street</span> on the border of the <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1122">The name of <span class="dlf">Tatarska (ph) Street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1123">And this was like a nice small <span class="building">cottage</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1124">And I came with her once there before she made the arrangement. </sentence><sentence id="1125">And I said, "This is perfect for this purpose." </sentence><sentence id="1126">So she make the whole thing legal. </sentence><sentence id="1127">She says she make -- she get the papers. </sentence><sentence id="1128">And when she moved there, I came there with my friend. </sentence><sentence id="1129">And first we were looking around; and I think, "We have to make a <span class="building">bunker</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1130">So under her <span class="spatial object">bed</span>, I cut a piece of <span class="interior space">floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1131">We start to digging <span class="dlf">hole</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1132">We were digging, and she was taking in the evening in a <span class="spatial object">sack</span> this <span class="env feature">ground</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1133">And there was some <span class="env feature">trees</span>, and between them she was putting the, the, you know, the <span class="env feature">soil</span>, so nobody would see the <span class="env feature">soil</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1134">And we make such in that two could stay there. </sentence><sentence id="1135">The <span class="interior space">attic</span> was too open. </sentence><sentence id="1136">And there was like a ladder from the <span class="dlf">hole</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1137">There was a <span class="dlf">hole</span> between <span class="interior space">attic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1138">So I was thinking, "Later." </sentence><sentence id="1139">But for first thing, I said, "Instead of sit in the open <span class="interior space">attic</span>, maybe we will be there." </sentence><sentence id="1140">But then came the father of, the father of the girl, and, and came another, my friend. </sentence><sentence id="1141">So was a little more people. </sentence><sentence id="1142">And I...I don't know what to do. </sentence><sentence id="1143">I said, "Now we have to go <span class="interior space">upstairs</span> because we cannot be in the <span class="dlf">hole</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1144">So we are, we are sitting in the open <span class="interior space">attic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1145">And then I told to my wife, "Look, maybe we will find an old wood, something that we can call and make a first <span class="dlf">row</span> similar to this round wood." </sentence><sentence id="1146">This would be nothing new. </sentence><sentence id="1147">And I said, "We will make a false <span class="dlf">wall</span>, do something." </sentence><sentence id="1148">Was very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="1149">She was running around many places, and then she find somebody. </sentence><sentence id="1150">And they brought her this, and she said she like to have this for wintertime for, for fire. </sentence><sentence id="1151">So they left this. </sentence><sentence id="1152">And she brought this little by little inside. </sentence><sentence id="1153">The neighbors was asking, "What?" </sentence><sentence id="1154">She said, "No, for I like to cut this and cut for wintertime." </sentence><sentence id="1155">So was not for -- not I wanted. </sentence><sentence id="1156">Then when she brought the -- we measured everything. </sentence><sentence id="1157">We cut it by little and we make numbers that everything will fit. </sentence><sentence id="1158">Then we have to nail this. </sentence><sentence id="1159">There will be noise. </sentence><sentence id="1160">So I advised my wife make washing, laundry -- everything. </sentence><sentence id="1161">And ask them if they have ropes and nails, that you will put them in <span class="interior space">attic</span>, you will hang them and they will dry. </sentence><sentence id="1162">The, the, you know, the washed <span class="spatial object">laundry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1163">So that. </sentence><sentence id="1164">So they did, and this time, instead of putting nails and put, you know, the ropes, we know they, they were fast. </sentence><sentence id="1165">Then we put a little also outside, and if you put everything there, there will be not now, they will be exact like is dirt and, and from the spiders. </sentence><sentence id="1166">The -- took from our place they put another place. </sentence><sentence id="1167">Was look exactly like old thing. </sentence><sentence id="1168">And this the, the <span class="interior space">attic</span> was shut in maybe like two <span class="dlf">yards</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1169">I make sure of it. </sentence><sentence id="1170">And I make, make the <span class="dlf">roof</span> was going on an angle, so I make a small <span class="dlf">door</span>, so that I can every time open, watch and close right away if somebody will come. </sentence><sentence id="1171">And I was this what I have my curved spine. </sentence><sentence id="1172">And that's because almost two weeks I was laying like this, because I was watching always if somebody not come. </sentence><sentence id="1173">And it's hard to know. </sentence><sentence id="1174">We were there. </sentence><sentence id="1175">It was very fine. </sentence><sentence id="1176">And then the people that come, little by little, from ghetto-- then my brother and his wife, they came, the last ones. </sentence><sentence id="1177">But so other people, they came little by little. </sentence><sentence id="1178">There was story how they were coming. </sentence><sentence id="1179">But my wife, I think she thought about it. </sentence><sentence id="1180">So anyway, we were all 13 there.. Now we have to organize food and organize the regime control that we do not do something which can be dangerous to our life. </sentence><sentence id="1181">So I make like the [indecipherable]. </sentence><sentence id="1182">Every two hours somebody sitting watching. </sentence><sentence id="1183">They will be not snoring at night. </sentence><sentence id="1184">So we have a stick with a rabbit, this was from a rabbit like with the tail. </sentence><sentence id="1185">And I told them if somebody was snoring, you go to your nose to wake up. </sentence><sentence id="1186">But don't make noise. </sentence><sentence id="1187">Because you have to be, perhaps somebody will wake you up and try to sleep on the stomach. </sentence><sentence id="1188">Everybody on the stomach, not on the back because you will snore. </sentence><sentence id="1189">That was dangerous, number one. </sentence><sentence id="1190">Number two, no smoking. </sentence><sentence id="1191">The people, they want to smoke. </sentence><sentence id="1192">They were smoking anything. </sentence><sentence id="1193">I said, "No smoking, because the, the smoke will go to the place within the, the <span class="dlf">wall</span>, or they can see at night light through, or can be a fire. </sentence><sentence id="1194">We don't need this." </sentence><sentence id="1195">So there was really a fight to convince the people that this is tragedy. </sentence><sentence id="1196">This is not for us. </sentence><sentence id="1197">Then one, the woman who came with her two children, she got typhus there. </sentence><sentence id="1198">And she, she was infected in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, but after a few days, after a week, the typhus develop. </sentence><sentence id="1199">And she had high fever, temperature. </sentence><sentence id="1200">She was talking. </sentence><sentence id="1201">So I was the one who was taking care of her. </sentence><sentence id="1202">I said nobody could come close to her. </sentence><sentence id="1203">So it was really tough, because there was not too much <span class="interior space">space</span>, but she was -- I was watching her. </sentence><sentence id="1204">I shave her hair, and I said to my wife, "Do anything what you wanted to get something." </sentence><sentence id="1205">Because after experience with my brother in <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, to keep her going. </sentence><sentence id="1206">And she was trying to buy for her sugar and something, and aspirin and this and this. </sentence><sentence id="1207">And anyway, I, I make also a prescription for heart, you know, some medicine to keep, make the heart going. </sentence><sentence id="1208">And she went to <span class="building">pharmacy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1209">And I said, "Maybe, we ok. </sentence><sentence id="1210">Maybe, no." </sentence><sentence id="1211">And she made it. . </sentence><sentence id="1212">I don't know how. </sentence><sentence id="1213">She got started. </sentence><sentence id="1214">It was another story, but a lot -- she made it, she got it, she came. </sentence><sentence id="1215">Anyway, the children were prepared if she, God forbidding, passed away, that we in the <span class="dlf">hole</span> will make a, we will make a <span class="dlf">hole</span>, a <span class="dlf">grave</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1216">We will put her temporary there. </sentence><sentence id="1217">Because we had to be prepared for everything, I told them. </sentence><sentence id="1218">But anyway, she survived, was Ok. </sentence><sentence id="1219">Then I convinced the people stop smoking, and about snoring. </sentence><sentence id="1220">Then was problem with, with food, because this woman she wanted special, special food all the time. </sentence><sentence id="1221">But something was very difficult to get. </sentence><sentence id="1222">This was not so easy. </sentence><sentence id="1223">Was tough time. </sentence><sentence id="1224">But we were sitting. </sentence><sentence id="1225">Was many, many stories, like my wife told you. </sentence><sentence id="1226">They came, they gave her two hours to move out. </sentence><sentence id="1227">We asked her to run away, to save her life and her sister. " </sentence><sentence id="1228">No," she said no. </sentence><sentence id="1229">And she was staying, and she survived. </sentence><sentence id="1230">Then came the German. </sentence><sentence id="1231">They came, they have two nurses -- there were two nurse and their two boyfriends. </sentence><sentence id="1232">And they was almost everyday sleeping there. </sentence><sentence id="1233">So we were above them. </sentence><sentence id="1234">And sometimes there was little noise, because they can hear. </sentence><sentence id="1235">And I was feeling that this is very dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="1236">They are there. </sentence><sentence id="1237">And one time, like my wife told, they came. </sentence><sentence id="1238">They was holding my wife, and one nurse also was with them and one was running. </sentence><sentence id="1239">There was like not <span class="dlf">stairs</span>, only there was like no... </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1522">Q: <span class="dlf">Ladder</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1524">A: <span class="spatial object">Ladder</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1525">And...and no -- you can hear the noise if somebody stepping on the -- so I was hearing something. </sentence><sentence id="1526">And I closed the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1527">And suddenly came one of the nurse. </sentence><sentence id="1528">She was looking around, going around looking, not quiet. </sentence><sentence id="1529">Was the last moment. </sentence><sentence id="1530">And she went down, and she told them no. </sentence><sentence id="1531">So my wife, she saw what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="1532">Then she bought chicken, and she was holding the chicken in, in the <span class="dlf">hole</span>, and the chicken was making noise. </sentence><sentence id="1533">Something to, you know, to mask the noise. </sentence><sentence id="1534">And this was what we're doing to, to try to, you know, to camouflage everything. </sentence><sentence id="1535">Then about food. </sentence><sentence id="1536">Her little sister, she was coming bringing something bread. </sentence><sentence id="1537">I have always there a few loaves of bread, which changing I make some mess, like a <span class="interior space">nest</span>; and there was exchanging every time fresh and they all using what we were eating. </sentence><sentence id="1538">And to not make suspicious the, the neighbor, so she says, "She is bringing bread and she is selling bread." </sentence><sentence id="1539">And always was going in this way, that they couldn't count how it is. </sentence><sentence id="1540">What was hiding. </sentence><sentence id="1541">And she never was talking to people. </sentence><sentence id="1542">She could play with little children, and never -- she never said a word about us. </sentence><sentence id="1543">And one time, they came. </sentence><sentence id="1544">My wife, she didn't come to work. </sentence><sentence id="1545">And there was another, she has to work. </sentence><sentence id="1546">So she was -- a few days she didn't come because she was feeling sick. </sentence><sentence id="1547">She didn't feel good. </sentence><sentence id="1548">And I see through the <span class="dlf">window</span> -- because always we were watching to see if someone could see a policeman is coming -- a Polish policeman and a German policeman is coming. </sentence><sentence id="1549">So I told her, "Go with us to the, to the" I said, "to the <span class="building">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1550">Hide. </sentence><sentence id="1551">And they will only your little sister. . </sentence><sentence id="1552">She will tell them that you went to buy some food, you know, in the <span class="populated place">village</span>, something." </sentence><sentence id="1553">And they knocked on the <span class="dlf">door</span>, and she opened. </sentence><sentence id="1554">They came. " </sentence><sentence id="1555">Where's your sister? </sentence><sentence id="1556">Who are you, your sister? </sentence><sentence id="1557">Where's your sister?" </sentence><sentence id="1558">Said, "She went to the <span class="populated place">village</span> to...to buy some food." </sentence><sentence id="1559">The policeman, he turned and slapped her in the face. </sentence><sentence id="1560">She fell down. </sentence><sentence id="1561">And he said, "Why are you lying? </sentence><sentence id="1562">Your neighbor, they told us that she was just now out here in the <span class="dlf">yard</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1563">And she start stutter "Why I, I have to lie? </sentence><sentence id="1564">She went -- she has to go through the <span class="dlf">yard</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1565">So she was in the <span class="dlf">yard</span>, and she went to, to the <span class="populated place">village</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1566">How she can go to, to the <span class="populated place">village</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1567">She has to go through the <span class="dlf">yard</span>, so maybe they saw her." </sentence><sentence id="1568">She talk to them. </sentence><sentence id="1569">I, I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="1570">She told she told them that she's going to, to buy food, and they look and they start to look around. </sentence><sentence id="1571">She didn't have nothing there. </sentence><sentence id="1572">A piece of bread and a little soup. </sentence><sentence id="1573">Nothing. </sentence><sentence id="1574">He said, "That's all you have?" " </sentence><sentence id="1575">Yes." " </sentence><sentence id="1576">You're alone at <span class="building">home</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="1577">She said, "Yes." " </sentence><sentence id="1578">You sleep alone?" " </sentence><sentence id="1579">Yes." " </sentence><sentence id="1580">You're not afraid?" </sentence><sentence id="1581">She said, "Why I have to be afraid?" " </sentence><sentence id="1582">That's what you are eating?" </sentence><sentence id="1583">And she said, "Yes." </sentence><sentence id="1584">They left her, and she didn't say nothing. </sentence><sentence id="1585">And they left her, and, and my wife was hiding, and she came out. </sentence><sentence id="1586">That was one episode. </sentence><sentence id="1587">There was many, many episodes during the time. </sentence><sentence id="1588">There was almost two years. </sentence><sentence id="1589">Every day, each hour was something that our life was threatened with gun. </sentence><sentence id="1590">At the end, when our -- one thing was good. </sentence><sentence id="1591">They have a <span class="spatial object">radio</span>, the German. </sentence><sentence id="1592">And they was listening to the news, and I was listening to the news. </sentence><sentence id="1593">And we can, they are listening to us we can thinking how they are going back. </sentence><sentence id="1594">They're running away. </sentence><sentence id="1595">And I said to my wife, "Soon or later, very soon, you will have your Russian. </sentence><sentence id="1596">Because they give them hell, and they ran." </sentence><sentence id="1597">And all my -- almost I find the day when they will come. </sentence><sentence id="1598">And I remember the last day when we heard there was fighting. </sentence><sentence id="1599">And we can hear the noise of the different noise of different bullet, different <span class="spatial object">rifles</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1600">The Russians have different rifles, and the German have different rifles. </sentence><sentence id="1601">We heard the difference in the noise. </sentence><sentence id="1602">So I said to my wife, "Probably they will come, but they are fighting." </sentence><sentence id="1603">We cannot go down, and we have to stay in the <span class="interior space">attic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1604">But the bullets and ding, ding, ding, you know, was hitting. </sentence><sentence id="1605">I said to my all people there, "Listen, we have to lie down. </sentence><sentence id="1606">Keep something between your teeth. </sentence><sentence id="1607">If somebody -- they will hit somebody, you cannot scream. </sentence><sentence id="1608">If somebody will be dead, he will be dead. </sentence><sentence id="1609">This is our last chance. </sentence><sentence id="1610">But if they find us, if somebody will scream, she will be killed and her sister will be killed. </sentence><sentence id="1611">And we will be killed. </sentence><sentence id="1612">Because everybody now look for each other. </sentence><sentence id="1613">So you have to be prepared that something will happen no worse, nothing." </sentence><sentence id="1614">And we are lying down and listening, and she went down with her sister. </sentence><sentence id="1615">She went down, and with the neighbors was waiting. </sentence><sentence id="1616">And anyway, we under-- we can hear the bullet. </sentence><sentence id="1617">Some start to be more close, and some start to go away. </sentence><sentence id="1618">And I said, "I think probably the Russian are coming. </sentence><sentence id="1619">Because listen to the Russian sound of the bullets, the noise. </sentence><sentence id="1620">But we will see." </sentence><sentence id="1621">Then early in the morning, by six or seven o'clock in the morning, I look through the small thing. </sentence><sentence id="1622">They are going about six German soldiers with rifles, the helmets. </sentence><sentence id="1623">All came back going on the <span class="dlf">street</span> up. </sentence><sentence id="1624">I said, "My God, still, still there are Germans here." </sentence><sentence id="1625">And suddenly it came out a few boys with the armbands and a few soldiers, Russian soldiers and to them, "Hands up!" </sentence><sentence id="1626">And they fell down, and they were begging. </sentence><sentence id="1627">I said, "Thanks God, we are free!" </sentence><sentence id="1628">And that's it. </sentence><sentence id="1629">Next day, this what happened -- or the same day. </sentence><sentence id="1630">I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="1631">Came two Russian, White Russian. </sentence><sentence id="1632">One was the lieutenant and one was a sergeant. </sentence><sentence id="1633">And they came. </sentence><sentence id="1634">She was in the <span class="dlf">window</span> singing, and this happened. </sentence><sentence id="1635">And they came, and first they asked, "Is Germans here?" </sentence><sentence id="1636">She said, "No, there are no Germans here." " </sentence><sentence id="1637">Can we come?" </sentence><sentence id="1638">And said, "Ok." </sentence><sentence id="1639">They came inside. </sentence><sentence id="1640">And my wife, she closed the <span class="dlf">windows</span>; and they start to talk this and this and not so. </sentence><sentence id="1641">My wife asked them always, "How far are Germans? </sentence><sentence id="1642">Maybe they can come back." </sentence><sentence id="1643">They was suspicious. </sentence><sentence id="1644">"What?," </sentence><sentence id="1645">they asking. " </sentence><sentence id="1646">What?" " </sentence><sentence id="1647">Because," she said, "there was one time that he went back, the Germans came back. </sentence><sentence id="1648">So this is what I'm asking." </sentence><sentence id="1649">He said, "Don't worry. </sentence><sentence id="1650">They are chasing them. </sentence><sentence id="1651">They are running away. </sentence><sentence id="1652">They are loosing their pants, pants." </sentence><sentence id="1653">And they said, "They are running away. </sentence><sentence id="1654">They will never come back here." </sentence><sentence id="1655">And we heard. </sentence><sentence id="1656">We were standing behind the <span class="dlf">doors</span>, but we heard this. </sentence><sentence id="1657">And we came and sat. </sentence><sentence id="1658">But look, we couldn't talk, because we didn't talk, only were whispering for almost two years. </sentence><sentence id="1659">We couldn't walk, because there was not walking up and down, just not exercise. </sentence><sentence id="1660">We were pale, you know, and terrible. </sentence><sentence id="1661">And they picked up their rifles. " </sentence><sentence id="1662">Who there?" </sentence><sentence id="1663">They thought maybe partisans. </sentence><sentence id="1664">So she told them. </sentence><sentence id="1665">And one of them was a Jewish lieutenant and his family was from <span class="country">Ukraine</span> killed by Germans. </sentence><sentence id="1666">And he -- and his sergeant, he was a regular Russian. </sentence><sentence id="1667">He said, "My, my goal is to chase the German and give them back what they did to my family, to my family." </sentence><sentence id="1668">He was crying. </sentence><sentence id="1669">He was kissing us, hugging. </sentence><sentence id="1670">He said to my wife, "You are really hero! </sentence><sentence id="1671">You are really hero!Without weapons, without nothing, you could fight so many as in the little girl, the sister." </sentence><sentence id="1672">They took pictures, and said, "What you need? </sentence><sentence id="1673">We will give you what you need." </sentence><sentence id="1674">He said, "We have the <span class="building">German hospital</span> here, there, there. </sentence><sentence id="1675">The whole thing there. </sentence><sentence id="1676">Loaded with everything. </sentence><sentence id="1677">What you -- dresses, shoes maybe. </sentence><sentence id="1678">And we will bring you meat." </sentence><sentence id="1679">And we said, "No, no. </sentence><sentence id="1680">Not now. </sentence><sentence id="1681">We would like to have freedom." </sentence><sentence id="1682">And how we did it, because we were afraid about neighbors still. </sentence><sentence id="1683">So we told them that -- it was night, we will go, the men, with them back to <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1684">And next day, they will bring us, we will come back like guerrillas who are coming to, you know, with the army. </sentence><sentence id="1685">And we will look for my wife. </sentence><sentence id="1686">I will ask the neighbors about her. </sentence><sentence id="1687">We will come like guests. </sentence><sentence id="1688">We came. </sentence><sentence id="1689">We survived; we will hug her, we will kiss her. </sentence><sentence id="1690">So they will not suspect that it was us she was hiding people. </sentence><sentence id="1691">They said, "That's a good idea." </sentence><sentence id="1692">And we went, and the women and children were still with my wife there. </sentence><sentence id="1693">Next day, in the morning, we came with them. </sentence><sentence id="1694">There was a <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> with horses and everything was there. </sentence><sentence id="1695">We had rifles with us. </sentence><sentence id="1696">And I came, and I am looking; and I asked one neighbor. </sentence><sentence id="1697">I know them, because when I saw them, I said, "Hey, do you know if still around a...a girl?Her name is Podgorska, Stefania Podgorska. </sentence><sentence id="1698">She's my friend, my, my neighbor. </sentence><sentence id="1699">I have to seek her." </sentence><sentence id="1700">She said, "Why, yeah, yeah, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="1701">She is a good girl. </sentence><sentence id="1702">She's...she's..." They thought maybe we would kill her. </sentence><sentence id="1703">Because some people came to take advantage, maybe somebody that paid them or hanged them. </sentence><sentence id="1704">Said, "No, no. </sentence><sentence id="1705">She is my good friend. </sentence><sentence id="1706">She's -- I'd like to see her." </sentence><sentence id="1707">She said, "Well, she lives there." </sentence><sentence id="1708">We were going there. </sentence><sentence id="1709">We knocked on the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1710">She came: "Ahhh! </sentence><sentence id="1711">Hi. </sentence><sentence id="1712">Hi." </sentence><sentence id="1713">And we were greeting each other. </sentence><sentence id="1714">And there was beautiful thing what she did. </sentence><sentence id="1715">They -- we start to give to her some food, bring everything. </sentence><sentence id="1716">And we lived -- </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1913">Q: Ok, we've got about two minutes. </sentence><sentence id="1914">Is there anything -- this is quite a story. </sentence><sentence id="1915">When you, you had embraced, you were free, where did you go? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1919">A: In <span class="populated place">town</span>, to find an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> to live. </sentence><sentence id="1920">And next day, I find <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1921">Was occupied by German, some people. </sentence><sentence id="1922">German, and they run away. </sentence><sentence id="1923">They left everything they had. </sentence><sentence id="1924">Everything was there. </sentence><sentence id="1925">So I moved to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1926">And I took the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1927">And then I had -- twice they came because there was some band of people who were killing people who saved Jewish life and, and the survivors. </sentence><sentence id="1928">They killed them. </sentence><sentence id="1929">They said, "One bullet for the survivor, two bullets for this who saved them -- for them who saved them." </sentence><sentence id="1930">And they was going around, but after a while they caught them. </sentence><sentence id="1931">They came twice to my <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1932">I was living with my brother, his fiancee, my wife, her sister; and we lived there. </sentence><sentence id="1933">And they came. </sentence><sentence id="1934">That was on the <span class="interior space">second floor</span>, and there was a <span class="interior space">balcony</span> outside. </sentence><sentence id="1935">There was knocking on the <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1936">So it was night, was like in winter, in February. </sentence><sentence id="1937">And they said -- I said, "Who are there?" </sentence><sentence id="1938">And they said, "Milice! </sentence><sentence id="1939">Milice!(r) Open!" </sentence><sentence id="1940">I said, "What are you looking for?" " </sentence><sentence id="1941">You have to go with us to, to work. </sentence><sentence id="1942">We have to fix the <span class="dlf">bridge</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1943">Is broken <span class="dlf">bridge</span>." </sentence><sentence id="1944">I said, "No, I'm not going at night with nobody. </sentence><sentence id="1945">You have some business to me, well, come in the morning when it's lighter." </sentence><sentence id="1946">People. </sentence><sentence id="1947">I will see who's who. </sentence><sentence id="1948">They start to swear to me. " </sentence><sentence id="1949">Open the <span class="dlf">door</span>, or we will break the <span class="dlf">door</span>!" </sentence><sentence id="1950">Like this, like this. </sentence><sentence id="1951">1 saw who were there. </sentence><sentence id="1952">I run on the <span class="interior space">balcony</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1953">I was screaming for help, help -- and they start to run away. </sentence><sentence id="1954">This was number one. </sentence><sentence id="1955">And then a few months later, another time they came. </sentence><sentence id="1956">So the commandant of the <span class="populated place">city</span> -- there was a Russian commandant. </sentence><sentence id="1957">And I went to him, and he told me, "Listen, you will never survive here." </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1997">Q: You left, is that true? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1999">A: Yes, I left. </sentence><sentence id="2000">He said, "Go to another part of <span class="country">Poland</span>, where nobody will know you. </sentence><sentence id="2001">Nobody. </sentence><sentence id="2002">Change your name from the Pol -- Jewish name or German name to the Polish name." </sentence><sentence id="2003">And we did. " </sentence><sentence id="2004">Under new name, go and stay in another place of <span class="country">Poland</span> where nobody knows you. </sentence><sentence id="2005">Maybe you will survive." </sentence><sentence id="2006">But the best thing that I will tell, if I don't tell you this in secret. </sentence><sentence id="2007">I ran away from him. </sentence><sentence id="2008">This no place for me to live. </sentence><sentence id="2009">We want to survive. " </sentence><sentence id="2010">Go <span class="region">west</span> in the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2011"><span class="region">West</span>, if you can." </sentence><sentence id="2012">And this happened. </sentence><sentence id="2013">I went to <span class="populated place">Krakow</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2014">I changed my name. </sentence><sentence id="2015">And then I went to <span class="populated place">Wroclaw</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2016">I was studying. </sentence><sentence id="2017">I was accepted there. </sentence><sentence id="2018">Again, I studied from beginning my dentistry. </sentence><sentence id="2019">I graduated. </sentence><sentence id="2020">I was working. </sentence><sentence id="2021">I was assistant, and until I left <span class="country">Poland</span>; and now I am here, thanks God. </sentence><sentence id="2022">And I am very happy I am in the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2023">I went here to <span class="building">Tufts University</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2024">I graduated, and I am a dentist. </sentence><sentence id="2025">Thanks God. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2053">Q: We have I think two seconds. </sentence><sentence id="2054">Take out the picture that you did in hiding. </sentence><sentence id="2055">Just hold it up. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2056">Q: Ok, you drew that in hiding? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2058">A: When I was hiding, I was drawing. </sentence><sentence id="2059">This was the old man who passed away after war, a few years after war. </sentence><sentence id="2060">This is a woman and mother of two children. </sentence><sentence id="2061">This is her son. </sentence><sentence id="2062">And this is my brother's fiancee, and this time. </sentence><sentence id="2063">No, excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="2064">This is the wife of my friend, who -- she was survived, my wife, she saved her life and her husband. </sentence><sentence id="2065">He passed away in, in <span class="populated place">Jerusalem</span>, I think so. </sentence><sentence id="2066"><span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2067">He was a dentist. </sentence><sentence id="2068">Then, here we have what? </sentence><sentence id="2069">That is my brother's wife. </sentence><sentence id="2070">This was his fiance. </sentence><sentence id="2071">And this is a father, he's a dentist still in <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="2072">He 8 Militia (French, but adopted into many languages). </sentence><sentence id="2073"> was with his daughter. </sentence><sentence id="2074">We saved him and his daughter. </sentence><sentence id="2075">And I was drawing at this time the faces. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2094">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="2096">A: Thank you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="2098">Q: That's it. </sentence><sentence id="2099"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ </body>
73
+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: ion none butnaru
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0049
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0049_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504455
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1918-12-04
9
+ birth_year: 1918.0
10
+ place_of_birth: huşi
11
+ country: moldavia
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1990.381.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1"><span class="populated place">ION BUTNARU</span> May 3, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: We're on. </sentence><sentence id="4">Tape is rolling. </sentence><sentence id="5">Please tell us your name. </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: My name is Ion Butnaru. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: When and where you have been born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: Iam born in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, a small <span class="populated place">city</span> from <span class="country">Moldavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="14">At...December 4th, 1980...1918. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: Please tell us about your family, about growing up in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> before the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="19">A: My family is from <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">My grandfather was born in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, my father born in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="21">What I can tell you? </sentence><sentence id="22">They make a living being <span class="dlf">vineyards</span> [NB: <span class="building">vintners</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="23">They plant their <span class="dlf">vineyards</span>. </sentence><sentence id="24">They harvest the <span class="env feature">vineyards</span>. </sentence><sentence id="25">They sell the wine. </sentence><sentence id="26">They are very good winemakers. </sentence><sentence id="27">As a matter of fact, all my young...my childhood, my young years I spent on the...in the <span class="env feature">vineyards</span>. </sentence><sentence id="28">So what more I can tell you about? </sentence><sentence id="29">I learn...1 was in <span class="building">elementary school</span> in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, and, uh, <span class="building">high school</span> in Hu _i. I couldn't go to the <span class="building">university</span>, because I was taken to work for the army in 1939--November 11, after the war broke between <span class="country">Germany</span> and <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="41">Q: Let's go back for a moment, please, and tell us about the community life in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="43">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="44">Uh, uh, the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, it was a very interesting <span class="populated place">city</span> from a social point of view. </sentence><sentence id="45">They are, uh, Romanian, of course, the majority. </sentence><sentence id="46">It was a Bulgarian population, who, uh ... they, uh ...they, uh, were vegetable, uh...gardeners. </sentence><sentence id="47">There are a kind of Hungarian people, they are most of them <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>...<span class="dlf">vineyards</span> [NB: vintners]; and Jewish population. </sentence><sentence id="48">The Jewish population, it wasn't so big. </sentence><sentence id="49">Around thousand, or twelve hundred, uh, families. </sentence><sentence id="50">Uh, the maj...majority of them are, uh, shopkeepers and, uh, artisans--tailors, shoemakers, uh, <span class="dlf">roof</span>...uh, uh, they... they deal with roofings. </sentence><sentence id="51">And, uh, from a cult...cultural point of view, it was interesting that it was a <span class="building">library</span> organized in the...in the...by the Jewish community, which each of us...almost each generation of boys and girls from the <span class="building">high school</span>, they work as a volunteers in this <span class="building">library</span>. </sentence><sentence id="52">So, uh, they organized, uh...they were organizing, um, the literary festivals and artistical festivals. </sentence><sentence id="53">We...uh, I mean, it was a very interesting, uh, cultural life. </sentence><sentence id="54">There was, uh, small <span class="building">newspaper</span>, which I start when I was seventeen years old to publish some articles regarding the...the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="55">Epigrams--I liked this kind of thing when I was young. </sentence><sentence id="56">So it was a kind of apprenticeship writing, to this small <span class="spatial object">newspaper</span>. </sentence><sentence id="57">And, uh, I have a cousin. </sentence><sentence id="58">The cousin, he was a lawyer. </sentence><sentence id="59">He...he was a very talented, uh, writer and journalist; and he gave me...gave me the courage to start to do this. </sentence><sentence id="60">I mean, it was the beginning on my writing career, how to say. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="79">Q: Would you tell us a few words about day-to-day life of your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="81">A: Uh, it was nothing exciting. </sentence><sentence id="82">My were...my father was very busy with our <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>. </sentence><sentence id="83">She...he woke up in the early, early hour of the morning, being there. </sentence><sentence id="84">Because I don't know if you know, a <span class="dlf">vineyard</span> is taking a lot of work to...to maintain it, to keep it. </sentence><sentence id="85">And, uh, my mother was <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="86">I have a sister, which she is...she is older as me--seven years. </sentence><sentence id="87">She married very young. </sentence><sentence id="88">She moved out from our <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="89">So I was alone. </sentence><sentence id="90">It was nothing... Uh, I had friends-- boys and girls from my generation. </sentence><sentence id="91">But we spent all the time, our leisure hours out in the <span class="env feature">vineyards</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="103">Q: What happened to you once the war broke? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="105">A: As a matter of fact, it happens in this...in 1939, in the summer, I was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="106">I was... took a cold. </sentence><sentence id="107">I...I caught a cold. </sentence><sentence id="108">I don't know how to say in English "pleurisy"; I have water in my...my lungs. </sentence><sentence id="109">I was very, very sick. </sentence><sentence id="110">But in... later in the summer, in the beginning on the September, I start to recover. </sentence><sentence id="111">And I...I was in our <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>, because it was fresh air. </sentence><sentence id="112">And, uh, I have received good nourishment from my...my family. </sentence><sentence id="113">So, uh, when war broke, I was <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="114">Uh, I was <span class="building">home</span>, recovering from my illness. </sentence><sentence id="115">And in November, when I first...I received an order to present myself to the...my uh...my, uh, regiment, I could try to postpone the military duty, because I was still not recovered. </sentence><sentence id="116">But I want to do this, because L...I understood there wasn't any reason to postpone. </sentence><sentence id="117">Because anyway I'll be...I'll have to go to...to... to the army. </sentence><sentence id="118">So, uh, in November 11, when the war broked, already I was in the army. </sentence><sentence id="119">And I was tried...uh, I...I trained very hardly. </sentence><sentence id="120">And it was a very hard winter in 1939- 1940; and after then, the spring of 1940, I was sent, uh, on the <span class="region">military zone</span> in <span class="region">northern part</span> of, uh, <span class="country">Moldavia</span> where my regiment belongs. </sentence><sentence id="121">I was in the Regiment, 9th Regiment of Infantry from <span class="populated place">Rimnicu</span> S rat. </sentence><sentence id="122">So being in the army, I was trained during the during the summer and we walked to the <span class="building">fortification</span> facing... facing the Russian coming from the <span class="region">northern part of Moldavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="123">We didn't know about if they'll ...if they'll come; then nobody thought... But we worked to this kind of <span class="building">fortification</span> all the period of time. </sentence><sentence id="124">And the summer of, uh, 1940, it was a Russian ultimatum asking Romanian to cede the <span class="populated place">Bessarabia</span> [and], uh, <span class="region">northern part</span> of <span class="populated place">Bukovina</span>. </sentence><sentence id="125">I was, uh, near...uh, two or three kilometer fr...from, uh, uh, small <span class="populated place">city</span>--the name is <span class="populated place">Her_a</span>--which, uh, which never was, uh, in the occupied by the Russian. </sentence><sentence id="126">But it was in the <span class="region">Moldavian part</span>. </sentence><sentence id="127">And the Russians, they were interested to have, uh, <span class="dlf">bridge</span> in[to], uh, uh, <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="128">So they took...they took this <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Her_a</span>, too. </sentence><sentence id="129">And, uh...and after then, we retreat. </sentence><sentence id="130">It was, uh...I retreat from, uh... with the whole army, the Romanian army, from this point "til Roman--the <span class="populated place">city</span> Roman. </sentence><sentence id="131">Day and night, day and night; uh, because it was... We were under very big pressure, because behind us it was the Romanian army from <span class="populated place">Bessarabia</span> [and] from <span class="populated place">Bukovina</span>, who has to escape. </sentence><sentence id="132">And, uh, after then, being in Roman--as a matter of fact, in a <span class="populated place">village</span> near Roman--I, uh...I being Jewish, and, uh, with other people...and other soldier being Jewish, we were expelled from the <span class="building">Amny</span>." </sentence><sentence id="133">And I remember, because I was on act...on active duty. </sentence><sentence id="134">I didn't have even civilian clothes with me. </sentence><sentence id="135">So they give me some kind of clothes from the...from their <span class="building">warehouse</span>, which didn't fit on me. </sentence><sentence id="136">Which was...I was almost naked. </sentence><sentence id="137">And I receive orders to present myself to the to the regiment in <span class="populated place">Rimnicu S_rat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="138">And it was...it was a problem to, uh, to take the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and to make the journey to... to, uh, <span class="populated place">Rimnicu</span> S rat, because everybody, it was military. </sentence><sentence id="139">And who was was dressed like me, know...know...they know exactly that...that I...I was a Jew. </sentence><sentence id="140">So it was...it was very dangerous to make this trip to, to <span class="populated place">Rimnicu</span> S_rat; because uh, well, I...I could be beaten or just threw out...threw out of ...of the <span class="dlf">window</span>--which that happened to many people. </sentence><sentence id="141">So I managed to escape. </sentence><sentence id="142">And, uh, I present the second day I was to the regiment. </sentence><sentence id="143">And they give me...they give me a order to go <span class="building">home</span>, and to wait for new...new...new disposition. </sentence><sentence id="144">I arrived <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="145">And after three days or four days, I receive an order to come back to the <span class="building">regiment</span> on September Ist, 1940. </sentence><sentence id="146">I come back. </sentence><sentence id="147">And I was...I, I was sent to, uh, in the <span class="building">working battalions</span>. </sentence><sentence id="148">It was not yet in the <span class="populated place">labor camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="149">All the former soldiers, they have to go to the work...to the <span class="building">fortification</span>. </sentence><sentence id="150">And I was sent to the <span class="env feature">Carpathian Mountains</span> and, uh, the <span class="populated place">city</span>...the small <span class="populated place">city</span> <span class="populated place">Tirgu Neam_</span>, working the <span class="dlf">fortification</span> facing the <span class="dlf">Hungarian border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="151">That's...this was the period of time when the br...the war broke. </sentence><sentence id="152">And, uh, when in the summer of 1941 I was <span class="building">home</span>, sent back from the working battalions. </sentence><sentence id="153">And I worked in the <span class="populated place">city</span> [of <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>], sent doing kind of cleaning the <span class="dlf">streets</span> and something like this. </sentence><sentence id="154">Not...not too hard. </sentence><sentence id="155">It was very humiliating, because everybody knows us. </sentence><sentence id="156">But we didn't have another choice. </sentence><sentence id="157">I remember that the war broke against the Russians on June 22nd [1941]. </sentence><sentence id="158">It was Sunday. </sentence><sentence id="159">Saturday, in the afternoon, all Jewish male from, uh, the age of eighteen to sixty, we have to present ourselves to the <span class="building">police quarter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="160">I didn't know why. </sentence><sentence id="161">So I was there; and there we were locked up. </sentence><sentence id="162">Nobody can leave. </sentence><sentence id="163">We left...we slept in the <span class="interior space">courtyard</span> of the <span class="building">police quarter</span> in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="164">And in the dawn, we're sent to an unknown destination. </sentence><sentence id="165">What was known, it was that I heard going to the <span class="populated place">villages</span> that the war broke. </sentence><sentence id="166">And we heard the orders that everybody has to go to war against the...the Russians. </sentence><sentence id="167">As...an interesting story which I remember, that we arrived in a small <span class="populated place">village</span> in a nearby <span class="region">county</span> near, <span class="populated place">Tutova</span>, is the name of this <span class="region">county</span>. </sentence><sentence id="168">And the <span class="populated place">village</span>, the name is <span class="populated place">Bogdana</span>. </sentence><sentence id="169">I can't forget it. </sentence><sentence id="170">And we stood there for one night waiting for some orders. </sentence><sentence id="171">I don't know what kind of order we expected. </sentence><sentence id="172">But I remember, that it was in afternoon of this same day that, uh, an officer from the <span class="building">gendarmerie</span> came to us. </sentence><sentence id="173">And we know very well who the gend...the...the...the <span class="building">gendarmerie</span> is. </sentence><sentence id="174">They were the most " This would have been early in August 1940. </sentence><sentence id="175"> oppressive part of the Romanian Army. </sentence><sentence id="176">But I have to tell you that this man, it was a very kind man. </sentence><sentence id="177">And he told us, "Don't be afraid, as long as you are under my <span class="region">jurisdiction</span>. </sentence><sentence id="178">If I...if I have to go to eat, I'll never eat if I know that you are hungry...uh, hungry." </sentence><sentence id="179">His name is [Gheorghe] Pris caru. </sentence><sentence id="180">And I remember that after the war, I wrote about this man, in September 1944. </sentence><sentence id="181">But from...from <span class="populated place">Bogdana</span>, it comes the order to go to a <span class="populated place">city</span> of Birlad.(Cough) Iam sorry. </sentence><sentence id="182">And now, in the Birlad, we are...we embarked on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, the <span class="spatial object">cattle train</span>, and sent to a camp--<span class="populated place">deportation camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="183">And the <span class="populated place">city</span>, it was <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="184">And we arrived in <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span> after a journey of two or three days. </sentence><sentence id="185">But on this our journey to <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>, I want to tell you something which I like to be made...made...make it public. </sentence><sentence id="186">We stopped in a <span class="populated place">city</span>--the name is <span class="populated place">Craiova</span>--to change the <span class="spatial object">engine</span> to go to <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">It was in the morning. </sentence><sentence id="188">The soldier opened the <span class="dlf">doors</span> from the <span class="spatial object">cattle cars</span>. </sentence><sentence id="189">And some of us stepped out, just to take a breathe of fresh air. </sentence><sentence id="190">And a petty man from the... working, uh...a worker from the...from the <span class="dlf">railroad</span>, come to these people and...and start to mug them, taking their money and things which they have. </sentence><sentence id="191">An <span class="spatial object">engine</span> makes a maneuver, and ...and the neighbor from the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="192">And the <span class="spatial object">mech</span>...the mechanic from the <span class="spatial object">engine</span> saw this man mugging people. </sentence><sentence id="193">He stopped the <span class="spatial object">engine</span>, stepped down; and he went to this guy who who continued to do it, to mug. </sentence><sentence id="194">He slapped him in the face. </sentence><sentence id="195">He said, "Give back everything!" </sentence><sentence id="196">The guy, uh...the...the guy, he was afraid of [the mechanic], and he gave everything [back]. </sentence><sentence id="197">This man stepped up on the <span class="spatial object">engine</span>, started the <span class="spatial object">engine</span>, and he'll go continue his work. </sentence><sentence id="198">I don't know his name. </sentence><sentence id="199">I never saw him in my life. </sentence><sentence id="200">But I feel that I have to tell this story. </sentence><sentence id="201">In the beginning on the war, when in <span class="populated place">Ia_i</span> the Jews start to be killed by the Romani...the same people. </sentence><sentence id="202">We arrived in the camp of <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="203">It was something unbelievable huge. </sentence><sentence id="204">I want to tell you that this <span class="populated place">camp</span> of <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span> was built by the Polish army. </sentence><sentence id="205">When Polish was destroyed and occupied by the Russian, a part of the Polish Army was evacuated in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="206">So this...this <span class="populated place">camp</span> was built by the Polish Army. </sentence><sentence id="207">Now in this period of time, the Polish Army left <span class="country">Romania</span>--this is another story. </sentence><sentence id="208">So it [NB: <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>] was a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="209">It was the first <span class="populated place">concentration [camp]</span>, beside other: <span class="populated place">Caracal</span>, and <span class="populated place">Lugoj</span>, and <span class="populated place">Miercurea-Ciuc</span>, and so on. </sentence><sentence id="210">But this was the biggest of all of them. </sentence><sentence id="211">And, uh, this <span class="populated place">camp</span>, it was a very interesting mixture of people. </sentence><sentence id="212">It...it was divided in four and seven classes...uh, seven departments. </sentence><sentence id="213">And this department one or two, it was ...it was some opposition of the Antonescus--and, uh, generals and, uh, diplomats, which they paid to stay there. </sentence><sentence id="214">And the third class, it was a <span class="building">Legionary</span>--the fascists. </sentence><sentence id="215">I'll tell you that, entering in this...in this <span class="populated place">camp</span>, I said to myself, "Hey. </sentence><sentence id="216">At least, here I'll be, uh, nobody's yelling to me. </sentence><sentence id="217">No...no ...no...no...no...nobody will call me dirty names, and so on." </sentence><sentence id="218">Walking in front of this, uh, [third] department of the <span class="populated place">labor camp</span>, which we didn't know who they are--these people, they start to yell to us and curs...cursing us. </sentence><sentence id="219">I said, "Here, too?!" </sentence><sentence id="220">Where there are the Legionnaires. </sentence><sentence id="221">And department four, there were womans. </sentence><sentence id="222">The <span class="building">department five</span>, it was the evacuees. </sentence><sentence id="223">We stood [NB: stayed] in the <span class="building">evacuees department</span>. </sentence><sentence id="224">It was the <span class="building">department number six</span>, it was the suspects of communists. </sentence><sentence id="225">And number seven, these were the communists. </sentence><sentence id="226">There are separate <span class="interior space">quarters</span>, but we managed to communicate with each other. </sentence><sentence id="227">Of course, not with the Legionnaires! </sentence><sentence id="228">Uh, after a short period of time, uh, part of us they sent to work in the <span class="interior space">garden</span>...in the gardening. </sentence><sentence id="229">And another part, there are sent the place...it was, uh, <span class="populated place">Valea</span> or <span class="populated place">Valea Jiului</span>, which was, where it was a famous lieutenant commander-- Trepadu_--which was the criminal, and after the war he was judged as a criminal. </sentence><sentence id="230">Uh, we stood [NB: stayed] in...in the camp of <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span> with a period of time, uh, four months, almost four months, when we are sent back in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="231">And we are put in, uh, a <span class="populated place">local camp</span>, into the <span class="interior space">courtyard</span> of the <span class="building">Jewish community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="232">We are obliged to wear the yellow badge. </sentence><sentence id="233">And we are from time to time allowed to go <span class="building">home</span> and to change our underwear. </sentence><sentence id="234">Talking about this, I want to repeat another story about this, what happens. </sentence><sentence id="235">When I received my first, uh, "approval," how to say, to go <span class="building">home</span> to change my, my, uh, underwear, it was in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="236">Uh, I remember that it was way to go to...to my hou...my parents" <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="237">And I know [one is] quite, uh...not a very, uh...not a center of the <span class="dlf">street</span>; but I said, "No, I have to go through the center of the <span class="dlf">street</span>." </sentence><sentence id="238">I'm wear the badge, so I ...I didn't care. </sentence><sentence id="239">I want to go see people, and people to see me; because everybody knows me there. </sentence><sentence id="240">And I remember that walking on the <span class="dlf">street</span>, I saw a girl which it was a very good friend of my young years. </sentence><sentence id="241">And she saw me, too. </sentence><sentence id="242">But she saw...seeing me coming with the yellow badge, she crossed the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="243">She didn't want to talk to me. </sentence><sentence id="244">And I walked farther. </sentence><sentence id="245">And it was in the center of the <span class="dlf">street</span>; people usually walked in the center, they stood [NB: stayed], they talk to them. </sentence><sentence id="246">And a friend of mine, uh, which are very close, he was a...a Romanian. </sentence><sentence id="247">And he saw me. </sentence><sentence id="248">And in front of all the people, he came to me and he hugged me. </sentence><sentence id="249">It was just a rebellion, to hug a Jew with a...with...with a yellow badge. </sentence><sentence id="250">And I want to say this, and to be--how to say?--forever. </sentence><sentence id="251">Because I can't forget this. </sentence><sentence id="252">Unfortunately, he died after the war. </sentence><sentence id="253">He was...he has tuberculosis. </sentence><sentence id="254">But doesn't matter. </sentence><sentence id="255">I want to talk about my friend. </sentence><sentence id="256">Uh, in this period of time being in <span class="populated place">camp</span> in <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>, it happened something with my father which it was very important and very difficult period of time. </sentence><sentence id="257">As I told you, my father, it was a very well-known person in <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="258">A very honest man, with a... with a high degree of dignity and pride. </sentence><sentence id="259">If he borrows from somebody...somebody something, every penny he give back. </sentence><sentence id="260">And he kept his whole word. </sentence><sentence id="261">So I told you that Sunday morning, on June 22nd, we were sent to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> to..to <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="262">So it was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...somebody knocked to our <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="263">We know--my father told me, my mother-- they never even saw these people. </sentence><sentence id="264">And he start to talk: "Hey, Mr. Butnaru! </sentence><sentence id="265">How are you?" </sentence><sentence id="266">In Yiddish. </sentence><sentence id="267">And he said, my father, "I don't know who you are." " </sentence><sentence id="268">Oh, it doesn't matter you don't know me. </sentence><sentence id="269">Don't worry! </sentence><sentence id="270">The Russians are coming. </sentence><sentence id="271">Our brothers will be here. </sentence><sentence id="272">You'll be liberated!" </sentence><sentence id="273">My father was very... "Who are you, sir? </sentence><sentence id="274">I don't make politics. </sentence><sentence id="275">I don't talk about this. </sentence><sentence id="276">I have my problems." </sentence><sentence id="277">And this man, he continued to talk in this way. </sentence><sentence id="278">And after that: "Don't worry, we'll see each other." </sentence><sentence id="279">And he left. </sentence><sentence id="280">And this afternoon, my father was arrested with another nine people from <span class="populated place">Hu</span> _i. Leading person, and director of our <span class="building">bank</span>, uh, a bookkeeper, a young lady, a pianist--and they're beaten to death to try to tell, ask them...ask them to tell them where their...they have their communist meetings. </sentence><sentence id="281">And my father was a communist? </sentence><sentence id="282">I don't know if you are talking about somebody who is a...to speak in Hindu language. </sentence><sentence id="283">And after then, [they] were sent in a trial. </sentence><sentence id="284">Because the war...the <span class="populated place">war zone</span>, it was very close from <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="285">They was to be to be sent to a <span class="building">military court</span> to be judged. </sentence><sentence id="286">Their luck it was that the <span class="dlf">military front</span> moved far away very fast from <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, so they they weren't anymore in this jurisdiction of the <span class="building">military court</span>. </sentence><sentence id="287">The, a <span class="building">martial court</span>. </sentence><sentence id="288">So they were sent to a <span class="building">military court</span>, but not, uh, for the <span class="region">front zone</span>. </sentence><sentence id="289">I don't know if you understand me exact. </sentence><sentence id="290">It was a trial in...in the <span class="populated place">city</span> <span class="populated place">Gala_i</span>; they sent to this <span class="building">court</span>. </sentence><sentence id="291">How much they hate the Jews, they couldn't do this mockery. </sentence><sentence id="292">So they acquit them, all of them. </sentence><sentence id="293">But they ask the local authority from the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> to kept them like... like, uh, hostage, as a guarantee. </sentence><sentence id="294">If will be a sabotage somewhere in this neighborhood of our <span class="populated place">city</span>, they'll be shot. </sentence><sentence id="295">So when I came <span class="building">home</span> from the <span class="populated place">city</span>, from the <span class="populated place">camp</span>...from the Tirgu Jiu, I was very surprised that my father didn't come to see me. </sentence><sentence id="296">Only my mother. </sentence><sentence id="297">Everybody, waiting from my mother, for...for my father; because everybody's looking for relatives to come. </sentence><sentence id="298">Uh, I talked to some people who knows me, and everybody said, "Okay. </sentence><sentence id="299">Is okay with your father. </sentence><sentence id="300">Don't worry." </sentence><sentence id="301">But I didn't know to what to worry, because my mother hadn't any opportunity to write me being in...in the camp of <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="302">Later on, I saw my mother come--of course, wearing the badge. </sentence><sentence id="303">And she told me this story that my father is not <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="304">Uh, my father is arrested in a military, uh, <span class="building">barracks</span>, near the the...the <span class="dlf">border</span> of <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="305">So after a couple of months, we are allowed to go <span class="building">home</span>, as the...as the...as the <span class="populated place">local camp</span> was dismantled. </sentence><sentence id="306">And my father was allowed to come <span class="building">home</span>, too; but he has to present himself each week to the police to sign in, in...in a book that he didn't leave the...the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="307">Uh, in this period of time in <span class="country">Romania</span>, it was the <span class="building">Legionary government</span> with Antonescu. </sentence><sentence id="308">It was in the fall of 1941.7 The situation, it was terrifying. </sentence><sentence id="309">My father lost everything--the <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>, the harvest. </sentence><sentence id="310">It happened to be a very good year with wine, and full of...it was the...the <span class="interior space">cellar</span> full with wine. </sentence><sentence id="311">And, uh, they start to take the <span class="building">houses</span> and everything. </sentence><sentence id="312">One night was...I was arr...arrested by the <span class="building">Legionary police</span>; and kept arrested... </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="524">Q: Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="525">This happened before the <span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="528"> &gt; Antonescu declared <span class="country">Romania</span> a "<span class="populated place">National Legionary State</span>" after King Carol II fled the <span class="country">country</span> in September 1940. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="529">A: After. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="531">Q: After? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="533">A: After. </sentence><sentence id="534">I told you. </sentence><sentence id="535"><span class="populated place">Tirgu Jiu</span>, it was on the beginning of the war with <span class="country">Russia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="536">It was the summer of 1941, and I stood in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> "til September 1941. </sentence><sentence id="537">In September 1941, I come back. </sentence><sentence id="538">My father was hostage, and I was in a <span class="populated place">local camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="539">In the fall of 1941 the <span class="populated place">camp</span>, <span class="populated place">local camp</span>, was dismantled. </sentence><sentence id="540">My father was allowed to come <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="541">The <span class="building">Legionary government</span>, it was in full power. </sentence><sentence id="542">We took out...we lost everything--the <span class="env feature">vineyard</span>, the <span class="building">house</span>, everything. </sentence><sentence id="543">From our big <span class="building">house</span>, we are allowed... allowed to live in a one <span class="interior space">room</span> in...was near...which was a <span class="interior space">kitchen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="544">It was all which we possessed. </sentence><sentence id="545">One day I was arrested, I said...I told you, by the <span class="building">Legionary police</span>. </sentence><sentence id="546">And I have to confess, I wasn't beaten. </sentence><sentence id="547">I heard people yelling and moaning, because they were [being] beaten. </sentence><sentence id="548">They didn't beat me. </sentence><sentence id="549">Because all of them, they are former colleagues and from our childhood. </sentence><sentence id="550">And they didn't dare to do this to me. </sentence><sentence id="551">They didn't do this to me. </sentence><sentence id="552">But they are my friends, all of them. </sentence><sentence id="553">So we decided we have to do something. </sentence><sentence id="554">We decided to do something; because the situation, it was very dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="555">And if I was so lucky not to be beaten once, who knows what will be the second time? </sentence><sentence id="556">So one night...one day, I went to the <span class="populated place">police quarter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="557">I paid a fee; and my father found a friend of ours, and he bribed a police...a policeman from the <span class="building">office</span> to give me the...the auth...authorization to leave the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="558">And I left the <span class="populated place">city</span> to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="559">My father and my mother left in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="560">So in January...no, in December. </sentence><sentence id="561">December 1941. </sentence><sentence id="562">So in the beginning of 1942--no, 1940...1941 ... No. </sentence><sentence id="563">I am a little bit mixed...no, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="564">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="565">Uh, no. </sentence><sentence id="566">There were... </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: It's all right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="603">A: No, no, no. </sentence><sentence id="604">In 1941, it was the Legionary movement. </sentence><sentence id="605">Uh, the war started in, uh, 1941 in June, so you have to...in the...to ...to make to edit this part of... I can try to...to tell again. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="609">Q: That's fine. </sentence><sentence id="610">Don't worry about it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="613">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="614">Iam mixed a little bit the dates. </sentence><sentence id="615">Because I want to be very precise. </sentence><sentence id="616">So we, uh...L..I was in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> in 1941, in January. </sentence><sentence id="617">Uh, to...of a...to a family...to a relative of ours, very close relatives. </sentence><sentence id="618">As, uh...as they lived near <span class="populated place">Hala</span>... the place which is <span class="populated place">Hala Traian</span>. </sentence><sentence id="619">The <span class="dlf">street</span>, it was <span class="building">Miti_a Constantinescu</span>; and not so far from the <span class="populated place">Jewish quarter</span>, which is <span class="dlf">V_c_re_ti</span> and <span class="dlf">Dude_ti</span>. </sentence><sentence id="620">I remember when the, uh, Legionary revolution...uh, rebellion started. </sentence><sentence id="621">&gt; We heard, we...we are Close to...to the <span class="spatial object">radio</span>, listening to what happens on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="622">I...L..1 remember the shootings around the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="623">And, uh, one, I...I...[ looked through the <span class="dlf">windows</span>; and I saw the, the, the Legionary in their...in their <span class="spatial object">trucks</span>, and with with the...the flags and the green &gt; The Iron Guard rebellion took place from January 21-23, 1941. </sentence><sentence id="624"> flags and tri-colored flags, running on the <span class="dlf">streets</span> with their <span class="spatial object">motorcycles</span>. </sentence><sentence id="625">I saw across the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="626">I watched through the <span class="dlf">window</span> when a... when a...when a...a <span class="spatial object">car</span> stopped in front of the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="627">Uh, three or four people, they would go out. </sentence><sentence id="628">Here, they enter the <span class="building">house</span> and, uh, they took somebody and left. </sentence><sentence id="629">And, uh, I remember very vividly that the second day, the second day of the rebellion," when we heard that the Legionary, they, uh, the gave up, they...they surrendered. </sentence><sentence id="630">I went to V_c re ti and to <span class="building">Dude ti</span>, and I visit them. </sentence><sentence id="631">I remember...uh, <span class="building">house</span> after <span class="building">house</span>, it was pillaged and burned. </sentence><sentence id="632">Uh, I saw...I was in the ... on the front of the <span class="building">morgue</span>, which is situated not close from the <span class="env feature">River Dimbovi_a</span>, with the...surrounded by <span class="spatial object">tanks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="633">And people--Jews--trying to enter in the <span class="building">morgue</span>...in the <span class="building">morgue</span>; because they want to recognize the...the relatives, their loved ones, who they are killed in...in this period and then during this, uh, rebellion. </sentence><sentence id="634">Uh, I have very vivid memory of this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="635">I tried, the <span class="building">house</span> which were...where lived, which was not attacked by the...by the Legionnairies. </sentence><sentence id="636">But I remember very well everything. </sentence><sentence id="637">After then, the relatives--it was an uncle of ours--he left to <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> to see what happens with my family. </sentence><sentence id="638">Because they didn't want to allow me to go <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="639">And, um, he stood there for a period of time--two weeks, three weeks--and he came back. </sentence><sentence id="640">And he said to me, "I think you can go <span class="building">home</span> now. </sentence><sentence id="641">But, uh...(pause) you'll find your father okay. </sentence><sentence id="642">He is okay now." </sentence><sentence id="643">I didn't know what happens. </sentence><sentence id="644">He had a stroke. </sentence><sentence id="645">He used to go... (Crying) I'm sorry. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="680">Q: It's all right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="682">A: (Pause) He used to go everyday on a certain point on a <span class="dlf">street</span>, looking to his <span class="dlf">vineyard</span> like somebody's going to see a beloved one. ( </sentence><sentence id="683">Crying) And one day, coming <span class="building">home</span>, he had a stroke. </sentence><sentence id="684">Somebody has to carry him <span class="building">home</span> on his shoulder. </sentence><sentence id="685">He couldn't walk. </sentence><sentence id="686">But it happens that he was a very strong man; and he...he managed, how to say, to survive this. </sentence><sentence id="687">And when I came <span class="building">home</span>, he was a broken man. </sentence><sentence id="688">He was very...he lost a lot of weight. </sentence><sentence id="689">But he used to walk, and he talked; and it was a miracle. </sentence><sentence id="690">So he didn't know nothing. </sentence><sentence id="691">And the summer, when the war start, I told you that he was very, very hard...very brutal beaten by the officer who...who tried to find out he... he was a communist. </sentence><sentence id="692">But he was...he...he managed to...to...to survive this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="693">So, after the <span class="populated place">camp</span> I told you, we're in...in the <span class="populated place">local camp</span>; and we, uh...we were sent to work to clear the <span class="dlf">street</span> of snow, and the <span class="dlf">highways</span> of snow. </sentence><sentence id="694">Because I...I told you, <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, it was a very important point to go to the <span class="dlf">front line</span>. </sentence><sentence id="695">So the <span class="dlf">highways</span> should be cleared by snow; the...the <span class="spatial object">tanks</span>, and the comm...and the <span class="spatial object">lorries</span>, and the [soldiers] too can walk. </sentence><sentence id="696">And the springtime, we...we used to work in the same, uh, way around the <span class="populated place">city</span>; and...and the summer of 1942, it was the first detachment of Jews sent to <span class="populated place">Bessarabia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="697">Which is just a new chapter in my life. * </sentence><sentence id="698">January 22, 1941. </sentence><sentence id="699"> It was the first labor...<span class="building">labor battalion</span>, <span class="populated place">labor camp</span>, which I was sent. </sentence><sentence id="700">I was sent...the <span class="populated place">city</span>, it was <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>, the capital of the <span class="region">county Cahul</span>. </sentence><sentence id="701">The <span class="dlf">railroad</span> stopped in a certain <span class="building">station</span>--the name, it was <span class="populated place">Bulg_rica</span>--thirteen kilometers [<span class="region">northeast</span>] from <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="702">So if somebody has to go to <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>, has to stop... make a stop in this <span class="building">station</span>, <span class="populated place">Bulg rica</span>, and to take a <span class="spatial object">coach</span> or something--which we didn't (laughter) take, of course--to go to <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="703">But not...this is not the point where I am talking about, <span class="populated place">Bulg rica</span>. </sentence><sentence id="704">When we arrived there, it was in the middle of the summer. </sentence><sentence id="705">And a terrible, terrible stink. </sentence><sentence id="706">It was an insupportable stink. </sentence><sentence id="707">We couldn't understand what is this smell here. </sentence><sentence id="708">And, uh, I asked...we asked people, "What...why is this smell here?" </sentence><sentence id="709">They didn't want to answer. </sentence><sentence id="710">So, arriving in <span class="populated place">Bulg rica</span>, we put...we were put in a <span class="spatial object">column</span> around...surrounded by the...the gendarmes, and...and went to the...to the direction to, uh, <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="711">We entered in this <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>, and it was a Dante-esque view. </sentence><sentence id="712">Try to imagine: You enter in a <span class="populated place">city</span>--empty <span class="populated place">city</span>, empty <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="713">Nobody on the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="714">The <span class="building">houses</span>, they don't have <span class="dlf">doors</span>. </sentence><sentence id="715">The <span class="dlf">windows</span> are smashed. </sentence><sentence id="716">Everything is pillaged. </sentence><sentence id="717">Just one dog, or a cat, running on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="718">In the center of the <span class="dlf">street</span>, it was, uh...it was some <span class="building">buildings</span> occupied by the Romanian administration. </sentence><sentence id="719">And we asked to stay there, to be sent in a certain direction. </sentence><sentence id="720">We didn't know nothing. </sentence><sentence id="721">Sitting there, waiting for orders, some Jews start to...to walk around. </sentence><sentence id="722">An officer come, uh, uh, with a horse... riding a horse. </sentence><sentence id="723">And he saw the people, uh, walking around; and he start beating them with...with...with a whip. </sentence><sentence id="724">With a whip, so everybody was very concentrate. </sentence><sentence id="725">A friend of mine, he was a little bit older as me--two or three year older. </sentence><sentence id="726">He told me, "Do you know something? </sentence><sentence id="727">I was here in <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>, in...in my military duty in an artillery regiment...the art...the number 30[th] Regiment of Artillery from <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="728">And I remember that in a Purim night, Jews from <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span> used to go to this regiment and ask the commander to allow the Jewish boys in the Army to come to this <span class="building">Jewish houses</span> to celebrate the festi... the...the festivity of...the festival of Purim. </sentence><sentence id="729">So I remember that the <span class="building">house</span> is not so far. </sentence><sentence id="730">It's very close from here. </sentence><sentence id="731">Do you want to go with me to this <span class="building">house</span>? </sentence><sentence id="732">I want to see this <span class="building">house</span>." </sentence><sentence id="733">And we went. </sentence><sentence id="734">You know, it's a very interesting moment which I can't forget. </sentence><sentence id="735">And I think I wrote about this in my book. </sentence><sentence id="736">Imagine, I went in this <span class="building">house</span>--completely empty. </sentence><sentence id="737">And this guy start to tell me, "In this <span class="interior space">corner</span>, it was a <span class="spatial object">piano</span>. </sentence><sentence id="738">And on this <span class="spatial object">piano</span>, a young lady plays a <span class="spatial object">piano</span>. </sentence><sentence id="739">And the <span class="building">house</span> was full with people, and the smell of food. </sentence><sentence id="740">And everything, it was alive. </sentence><sentence id="741">And now everything is dead. </sentence><sentence id="742">Only ghosts." </sentence><sentence id="743">And I understand then why it was this smell in the ...in the <span class="building">station</span> of <span class="populated place">Bulg rica</span>. </sentence><sentence id="744">It was a common grave, a <span class="building">mass grave</span>. </sentence><sentence id="745">The people from <span class="populated place">Bolgrad</span>, they are shot and put in this <span class="interior space">grave</span>. </sentence><sentence id="746">After then, uh, we swear...we went to, uh...to a <span class="populated place">village</span>, the name it was <span class="populated place">Cubei</span>. </sentence><sentence id="747">It was a <span class="building">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="748">We start to work in this <span class="building">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="749">A hard labor. </sentence><sentence id="750">We went...we were obliged to make a cubic meter of stones taken from the, from the... from...from the <span class="env feature">earth</span>. </sentence><sentence id="751">And we worked "til then late in the fall. </sentence><sentence id="752">We were exhausted, without clothes. </sentence><sentence id="753">And we are sent by <span class="spatial object">train</span> to, uh, <span class="populated place">Dobruja</span> [<span class="region">region</span>], to another famous, uh, <span class="dlf">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="754">It was <span class="populated place">Turcoaia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="755">The <span class="region">county</span>, it was <span class="populated place">Tulcea</span>. </sentence><sentence id="756">The <span class="populated place">city</span> was M cin. </sentence><sentence id="757">And I remember that leaving from...from <span class="populated place">Bulg rica</span>, from <span class="populated place">Bul</span>...<span class="populated place">Bessarabia</span> to...to <span class="populated place">Turcoaia</span>, to...to <span class="populated place">Gala_i</span> to <span class="populated place">Br_ila</span> to cross the <span class="env feature">River</span>, uh, Da...Da...<span class="env feature">Danube</span>, it was terrible cold... cold. </sentence><sentence id="758">And I didn't manage to enter in, in, in a...in a wag...<span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="759">So I stood on the <span class="dlf">stairs</span> of the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="760">And I said, "I'll froze. </sentence><sentence id="761">I'll got froze." </sentence><sentence id="762">And I...L...1 go down, and I put around me a...a...some <span class="spatial object">rug</span>. </sentence><sentence id="763">I have a <span class="spatial object">rug</span>. </sentence><sentence id="764">I slept on this <span class="spatial object">rug</span>, so it protected me. </sentence><sentence id="765">And I didn't froze. </sentence><sentence id="766">I have this <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="767">So we cross the <span class="env feature">Danube</span>; and we start to work in <span class="populated place">Cubei</span>...in, uh, <span class="populated place">Turcoaia</span>, to the <span class="dlf">quarry</span>. </sentence><sentence id="768">It was a very hard situation there. </sentence><sentence id="769">We are under the command of a certain Captain Munteanu--a degenerate drunkard, [who] played cards. </sentence><sentence id="770">He...he need money all the time. </sentence><sentence id="771">He took ours...all our money which we still have. </sentence><sentence id="772">And uh...and it was late in October, late in November, when we were allowed to go <span class="building">home</span> for a short period of time to change our clothes, to take our winter...winter clothes. </sentence><sentence id="773">And after the Christmas, we have to go <span class="building">home</span> [NB: to the <span class="dlf">quarry</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="774">Then I wrote on this card, on a... "I have to go to <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="775">It's after Christmas." </sentence><sentence id="776">We go back to...to <span class="populated place">Turcoaia</span>, and we stood [NB: stayed] there over the winter. </sentence><sentence id="777">In the spring, we start to work to, uh...um, at some <span class="dlf">railroad</span>, to transport the...the... the, uh, stone from the <span class="dlf">quarry</span> which we...we brought out. </sentence><sentence id="778">And, uh, it was "til, uh..."til the "43, late in "43, when we moved to another, uh, <span class="populated place">camp</span> not...not so from...from our <span class="building">hou</span>...from <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="779">It was near <span class="populated place">Birlad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="780">It was part of improvement of our life. </sentence><sentence id="781">Because we managed to have some friends in <span class="populated place">Birlad</span>; they brought us some food, some...brought some clothes. </sentence><sentence id="782">So it was a little bit easy for us. </sentence><sentence id="783">We sit over the winter in 1943-1944; when, uh...when we were brought <span class="building">home</span> in summer of "44. </sentence><sentence id="784">And we worked to the <span class="dlf">highways</span>, to repair the <span class="dlf">highways</span> near the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="785">And, uh, in 1944, in August "44, it happens that the Hu_i, it was, uh, occupied by, uh, liberate [NB: liberators]--we can say "liberate," but it's...it's the truth--by the Russian Army. </sentence><sentence id="786">After a day, the Romanians, uh, took over the... the <span class="populated place">city</span>; which it was, uh, fig...<span class="dlf">street</span> fights. </sentence><sentence id="787">But the third day, the Romanian retreat...the Romanian Army, uh, surrendered; and, uh, we were, how to say, liberated. </sentence><sentence id="788">And, uh, it was for us, the war, it was over. </sentence><sentence id="789">It wasn't over for the rest of the <span class="country">Romania</span>; but of this <span class="region">part of Moldavia</span>, this part of <span class="country">Romania</span> where I lived with my parents, we managed to...to...to go through this period of time with my sack...sack with bones. </sentence><sentence id="790">So we survived. </sentence><sentence id="791">What do you want to ask me more? </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="902">Q: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="903">I... would like to know what happened to you after the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="906">A: After the war, I need a pair of pants. ( </sentence><sentence id="907">Laughter) I need a a jacket. </sentence><sentence id="908">And my father didn't have the money to give me, to ...to buy this. </sentence><sentence id="909">I was young. </sentence><sentence id="910">I want to talk to girls, to, to met people. </sentence><sentence id="911">But I need the pants. </sentence><sentence id="912">So my father give me his only one suit. </sentence><sentence id="913">And we go to a <span class="building">tailor</span>, and he tried to manage to arrange for myself. </sentence><sentence id="914">So I was very well elegant in this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="915">So we start to reorganize the life in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>. </sentence><sentence id="916">We need a mayor. </sentence><sentence id="917">We need a prefect. </sentence><sentence id="918">We need the police. </sentence><sentence id="919">We need a...a <span class="building">Chamber of Commerce</span>. </sentence><sentence id="920">We need to start to... to open the <span class="dlf">windows</span> of the <span class="building">stores</span>, and to have a normal life. </sentence><sentence id="921">And we're not...we start to have...to open the <span class="building">schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="922">I receive a job as a Secretary of the Comm...of the <span class="building">Chamber of Commerce</span>. </sentence><sentence id="923">I entered it; everything it was destroyed and broken. </sentence><sentence id="924">We didn't have...we didn't even have pencil to...to ...to start to write some orders and to give some authorization. </sentence><sentence id="925">We had everything, (laughter) but it was a very funny situation. </sentence><sentence id="926">Nobody...nobody give us order. </sentence><sentence id="927">But we have to do something. </sentence><sentence id="928">But I remember that after a short period of time--is to say three weeks, four weeks, of a kind of republic in <span class="country">Romania</span>--a delegation of the government from <span class="country">Romania</span> come in <span class="country">Moldova</span> [NB: <span class="country">Moldavia</span>] to see what happened there. </sentence><sentence id="929">Because nobody knows in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> what happens in <span class="country">Moldova</span>. </sentence><sentence id="930">So they start to say to us, "Look. </sentence><sentence id="931">What you are, stay...stay in place. </sentence><sentence id="932">You are the policeman; you'll be the policeman. </sentence><sentence id="933">You are the mayor; you'll be the mayor." </sentence><sentence id="934">So, uh, that we...they...the first thing what they did, they organized the Communist Party. </sentence><sentence id="935">Which I didn't belong. </sentence><sentence id="936">I said, "It's time to think about." </sentence><sentence id="937">So 1944, 1945 and 1946, I didn't join the Communist Party. </sentence><sentence id="938">In 1946, I said, "It's any reason to stay in Hu_i?I don't want to do this here. </sentence><sentence id="939">And I don't know...I don't think I have a future." </sentence><sentence id="940">So we moved in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>...to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="941">I tried to have a job. </sentence><sentence id="942">I couldn't have a job, because I didn't...I wasn't a Communist [Party] member. </sentence><sentence id="943">Later...later, in 1947, when the Carol [II], the king, has...was obliged to...to abdicate, it was no other way." </sentence><sentence id="944">So I said, "Okay, your way. </sentence><sentence id="945">I am a Communist, too." </sentence><sentence id="946">So we joined the Communist Party, and I have a job. </sentence><sentence id="947">And, uh, I was a member of the Party "til I left <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="948">And I remember when I received the citizenship here in <span class="country">America</span>, the guy...the person from the <span class="building">Immigration Office</span>" asked me, "But you are a long time in the Communist Party." " </sentence><sentence id="949">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="950">Fora long time, I have to eat." " </sentence><sentence id="951">But how come?" </sentence><sentence id="952">And I said, "Sir, you have a very nice job here, asking me why. </sentence><sentence id="953">Do you suppose if you have this job in <span class="country">Romania</span>, asking people why, you can be or have the job without being a Communist Party [member]?" </sentence><sentence id="954">And he start to laugh, "I know the story." </sentence><sentence id="955">So I was a full soldier. </sentence><sentence id="956">I clapped, when I have to clap. </sentence><sentence id="957">I have to stay ...uh, say, "Hurray," when I have to say, "Hurray." </sentence><sentence id="958">And that was the life. </sentence><sentence id="959">But after the war, it was something interesting in my life, living in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> with a friend of mine. </sentence><sentence id="960">His name is Anton Celaru. </sentence><sentence id="961">I don't know if you know him. </sentence><sentence id="962">He was a journalist working for <span class="building">Informa_ia</span> <span class="populated place">Bucure_tiului</span> for many years. </sentence><sentence id="963">We stood [NB: stayed] in. </sentence><sentence id="964">We, uh, all here with Titi Fierstein, we, uh, printed then a newspaper. </sentence><sentence id="965">I remember that the newspaper, the first newspaper after the war in this <span class="region">part of the world</span>, has reprinted in two...two hundred copies. </sentence><sentence id="966">And they sold these copy through a <span class="dlf">window</span>; because everybody wants to have this copy...uh, this newspaper. </sentence><sentence id="967">What I remember about this <span class="building">newspaper</span> is that my first article-- which I wrote after the "liberation," [so] to say--it was an open letter to the <span class="building">Major Pris_caru</span>. </sentence><sentence id="968">&gt; Tt was not Carol II who abdicated in 1947, but his son, Michael I--who became king when his father fled the <span class="country">country</span> in September 1940, shortly after Antonescu came to power.8 Immigration and Naturalization Service (also: INS). </sentence><sentence id="969"> Do you remember I told you, from this gendarme. </sentence><sentence id="970">I said, "I feel like I have the duty to wrote to you, and to thank you now for your humanity. </sentence><sentence id="971">For the human feelings. </sentence><sentence id="972">When we are down, we are nobodies, you told us you can't eat as long as you know that we are hungry. </sentence><sentence id="973">So I am writing this letter to you." </sentence><sentence id="974">L...I didn't know if he is alive. </sentence><sentence id="975">I didn't know where he is. </sentence><sentence id="976">The story is that people from <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span>, who after I left the ci...my <span class="populated place">city</span>, they find him. </sentence><sentence id="977">And they ask him to come to...to live with them. </sentence><sentence id="978">But this is another story. </sentence><sentence id="979">So, uh, I come in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="980">I had a job in the <span class="building">Ministr</span>...in the <span class="building">Department of Art</span>. </sentence><sentence id="981">And I was sent in a <span class="populated place">city</span> <span class="populated place">Lugoj</span>, in <span class="populated place">Banat</span> [<span class="region">region</span>], uh, being a Concierge Cultural--a cultural counsellor. </sentence><sentence id="982">I don't know what. </sentence><sentence id="983">After then, I was, uh, brought back in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="984">I give, I...I receive a...a...an "advancement" [promotion], how to say it; and, uh, I was General Inspector. </sentence><sentence id="985">I work with Octav Livezeanu and Eduard Mezinceascu. </sentence><sentence id="986">And, uh, after then, I was, uh, a kind of manager of the Department of the <span class="building">Cultural Houses</span> from the <span class="populated place">city</span>...the Commitee Culturale, how to say; and, uh, I worked a lot of time there. </sentence><sentence id="987">Suddenly, they remember me. </sentence><sentence id="988">And they say, "Hey, hey! </sentence><sentence id="989">Just a minute! </sentence><sentence id="990">Who was your father?" " </sentence><sentence id="991">My father was a <span class="dlf">vineyard</span> [NB: vintner]." " </sentence><sentence id="992">So you don't have a ...you don't have a...a sound origin. </sentence><sentence id="993">You don't have...you are not...you are not a friend of ours. </sentence><sentence id="994">You are...you are just a com...a road companion." </sentence><sentence id="995">And they...they fire me. </sentence><sentence id="996">And I was without job, with...being a Communist, a member of the Communist Party, without a job. </sentence><sentence id="997">And [they're] telling me that I...1...J am...1 am an enemy of the people. </sentence><sentence id="998">Later...later on, I receive a job--the <span class="building">Department of Agriculture</span>. </sentence><sentence id="999">I said, "I don't have nothing common with this. </sentence><sentence id="1000">I...1 don't know nothing about this." </sentence><sentence id="1001">So I have to have this job for a good part of my life. </sentence><sentence id="1002">And, uh, because I didn't have nothing in common, with, uh...and I couldn't find a job in the Ministry--the Department of the Culture. </sentence><sentence id="1003">They didn't want to give me back the job. </sentence><sentence id="1004">I found a job as a Secretary Literary was a...with a...with the circus, which I worked. </sentence><sentence id="1005">And kind of a period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1006">And they built the new <span class="building">building</span> of the <span class="building">circus</span>; I was the director of there--of this <span class="building">building</span>, of this <span class="interior space">hall</span> of activity, of cultural activities there. </sentence><sentence id="1007">And after then, I moved to, uh...I was General Secretary of the...of the <span class="building">publishing house</span> of the Tourism, with Pop Simion was the director at this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1008">I don't know if you know some...something about <span class="populated place">Pop Simion</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1009">A nice man. </sentence><sentence id="1010">After then, I said to myself, "I build enough socialism. </sentence><sentence id="1011">The socialism is blowing in <span class="country">Romania</span>; and [it] can blow without me, too." </sentence><sentence id="1012">So what I have to do? </sentence><sentence id="1013">To emigrate, it was not easy. </sentence><sentence id="1014">Because we had some familial problems with the parents of my wife; so we couldn't leave the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1015">But I didn't want; I considered I built enough socialism. </sentence><sentence id="1016">So one day, see, I said to myself, "I am sick. </sentence><sentence id="1017">Not just tired." </sentence><sentence id="1018">So I managed--paying a good money--to be retired as being a sick man; and from this position, after a couple of years, I emigrate to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1134">Q: Uh, we have to stop now because we need a short time to change tapes. </sentence><sentence id="1135"> [ </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1136">A: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="1137">So I immigrate to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1138">I have this point...] [TEXT IN PRECEDING BRACKETS NOT ON VIDEOTAPE] TAPE #2 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1139">Q: We are on tape again. </sentence><sentence id="1140">And I'd like to ask you to describe for us the conditions of arriving in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> immediately after the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1143">A: You know, I...I tried to recollect this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1144">It's... You know, never... didn't think never about this. </sentence><sentence id="1145">But it was a kind of explosion. </sentence><sentence id="1146">A kind of rejoice. </sentence><sentence id="1147">You have to understand, from a psychological point of view, this situation of this specially of the young people. </sentence><sentence id="1148">Suddenly, from the bottom of the society, you were somebody. </sentence><sentence id="1149">You have to have...you can...have the opportunity to have a job. </sentence><sentence id="1150">You have a certain position--a certain position which you can never dream to have. </sentence><sentence id="1151">You are a human being, too. </sentence><sentence id="1152">You walk on the <span class="dlf">street</span>, and people salute you. </sentence><sentence id="1153">And I remember something which I like to tell you. </sentence><sentence id="1154">There is something which I just forgot. </sentence><sentence id="1155">One evening, I walked with a friend of mine. </sentence><sentence id="1156">A girl. </sentence><sentence id="1157">As usual in the center of a small <span class="populated place">city</span>, everybody know each other. </sentence><sentence id="1158">And walking on the <span class="dlf">street</span>, that was a group of three or four boys--old hooligans. </sentence><sentence id="1159">I know them. </sentence><sentence id="1160">And they saw me coming with the girl. </sentence><sentence id="1161">And they blocked my...my, uh... I... couldn't go through them. </sentence><sentence id="1162">It was only one way to do this--just to to go around them. </sentence><sentence id="1163">In the same way in which I did all my life. </sentence><sentence id="1164">And I said [to myself], "This...now, I don't want to do this." </sentence><sentence id="1165">And I said, "Sorry. </sentence><sentence id="1166">I have to go through." </sentence><sentence id="1167">And they parted, and I went through them. </sentence><sentence id="1168">It was the first time in my life then when I said, "I am somebody. </sentence><sentence id="1169">You can't stop me." </sentence><sentence id="1170">It was for a short period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1171">After then, I learned my lesson. </sentence><sentence id="1172">The same Janet with another haircut, in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1173">But anyway, it was a vety...very interesting period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1174">People get married. ( </sentence><sentence id="1175">Laughter) Everybody wants to ...to get married, to...to have a family, to be together. </sentence><sentence id="1176">Uh, everybody is...uh, a lot of people went to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>, or to <span class="populated place">Ia_i</span>, to start to...to study. </sentence><sentence id="1177">We worked there in...in...in our <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1178">We have our friends. </sentence><sentence id="1179">Myself, I...L..I thought I have to...to...to get to get married. </sentence><sentence id="1180">But that happens like in life...as in life. </sentence><sentence id="1181">And I didn't do this then. </sentence><sentence id="1182">So it was a very interesting period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1183">But shortly, a lot of things changed. </sentence><sentence id="1184">People there are poor. </sentence><sentence id="1185">They are poor. </sentence><sentence id="1186">The ...the war paid... Everybody paid a great fee in this war. </sentence><sentence id="1187">So, uh, nobody had an opportunity to do something to improve the life, of condition. </sentence><sentence id="1188">And the meantime, <span class="country">Moldavia</span> was st...st... striken...strucken by a, uh, drought. </sentence><sentence id="1189">It was a fantastic famine in <span class="country">Moldavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1190">So when...when we... I was in <span class="populated place">Hu_i</span> and <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>; from leaving <span class="populated place">Hu i</span>, I tried to send something to my parents. </sentence><sentence id="1191">But it wasn't enough. </sentence><sentence id="1192">It was a very high inflation in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1193">Everybody had...has to pay million. </sentence><sentence id="1194">They...they print <span class="building">mill</span>...paper--bills, money--for five million leu." </sentence><sentence id="1195">Only, for five million you can buy nothing. </sentence><sentence id="1196">Absolutely nothing. </sentence><sentence id="1197">So it was a very hard period of time in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1198">And the famine, and the people there are go...going from one part of the <span class="country">country</span> to another part of the <span class="country">country</span>. " </sentence><sentence id="1199">Unit of Romanian currency. </sentence><sentence id="1200"> And I remember when I received my first job, in March 19...in 1989 [NB: 1949], in <span class="populated place">Lugoj</span>, in <span class="populated place">Banat</span> [<span class="region">region</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="1201">In <span class="populated place">Banat</span>, it wasn't famine. </sentence><sentence id="1202">It happens it was a luckier... luckier part of the <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1203">And I went to a <span class="building">restaurant</span> and I asked to give me something, some, uh...some food. </sentence><sentence id="1204">I couldn't eat, because it was period of time when I didn't [have] what to eat in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1205">And so it...it was a very hard situation in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1206">Very hard. </sentence><sentence id="1207">I don't talk about the political situation; because from the political point of view, it was start to be hard from the end of 1980...1948 and beginning of 1989 [NB: 1949]. </sentence><sentence id="1208">It was a period of changement, from the political point of view. </sentence><sentence id="1209">But as individual, it was hard to live in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1210">We didn't have what to eat. </sentence><sentence id="1211">So for me, when ...when...when my boss in the <span class="building">Department of Arts</span> told me, "Where do you want to go to have a job in <span class="region">province</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="1212">I said, "Everywhere it's something to eat!" </sentence><sentence id="1213">So they send me to <span class="populated place">Lugoj</span>, which is a heaven for me. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1285">Q: Could you describe, please, your arrival in <span class="country">United States</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1287">A: Arrival in <span class="country">United States</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1289">Q: Your coming to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1291">A: We arrived...we arrived on the...on the October 27 or 29-- something like this. </sentence><sentence id="1292">In the fall. </sentence><sentence id="1293">Hey, it's interesting, what I...what I felt for the first time. </sentence><sentence id="1294">Uh, we, uh...we, uh...I, uh...we receive a... We are transferred from <span class="building">Kennedy Airport</span> to, uh, La...<span class="building">LaGuardia Airport</span>; and I received a <span class="interior space">room</span> in a <span class="building">motel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1295">It was hot. </sentence><sentence id="1296">It was stuffy. </sentence><sentence id="1297">No <span class="env feature">air</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1298">And as a Romanian, I went to open the <span class="dlf">doors</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1299">But the <span class="dlf">door</span>, it was locked. </sentence><sentence id="1300">I went to open the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1301">The <span class="dlf">windows</span> there are locked. </sentence><sentence id="1302">And I said, "Where in Hell you can have a little bit of fresh air in <span class="country">America</span>?" </sentence><sentence id="1303">And my daughter said, "Look, you have the <span class="spatial object">air conditioner</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1304">Turn the <span class="spatial object">air conditioner</span>, you have fresh air." </sentence><sentence id="1305">It was my first contact in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1306">But before all this, the man from the Customer [NB: Customs], he opened .... I brought from the <span class="building">American Embassy</span> from <span class="populated place">Paris</span> a... a yellow envelope. </sentence><sentence id="1307">And the lady from the Ame...from <span class="building">Embassy</span> from <span class="populated place">Paris</span> told me, "You have to give... Uh, don't open this envelope; because you have...there are very important documents here. </sentence><sentence id="1308">And, uh, you have to give to the Custom." </sentence><sentence id="1309">And I give the envelope to the Custom, and they open the...the...the envelope. </sentence><sentence id="1310">And he gave to me, to my wife and to my daughter my...our "green card." </sentence><sentence id="1311">And he said, "You are a resident in <span class="country">America</span>, and you are all welcome here." </sentence><sentence id="1312">So I, as an American resident coming there in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1313">Because we came to be unified with our family. </sentence><sentence id="1314">Uh, I remember, regarding our arrival here in, uh...I remember that I had a discussion with the director from <span class="building">HIAS</span> from <span class="populated place">Paris</span>--a certain Schwartz (ph). </sentence><sentence id="1315">Gentleman Schwartz. </sentence><sentence id="1316">And he told me once, "You have... you'll have problems to accommodate in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1317">But don't be...don't worry. </sentence><sentence id="1318">Go to <span class="populated place">Boston</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1319">You'll find there people there who they are not related with you. </sentence><sentence id="1320">They'll help you. </sentence><sentence id="1321">They don't let you down." </sentence><sentence id="1322">I looked to this man. </sentence><sentence id="1323">And I said, "Maybe he knows what he's talking about." </sentence><sentence id="1324">But I was...I was very afraid. </sentence><sentence id="1325"> Later on, when I wrote and I published my last book, Moshe Kopf and His World, I wrote a short story about this encounter with the man with a straight face. </sentence><sentence id="1326">Uh, I think I said it's a tribute. </sentence><sentence id="1327">I remember my social worker--a lady. </sentence><sentence id="1328">He [NB: she] has a small...a small <span class="building">office</span> in <span class="populated place">Boston</span>, in the Jewish Family [Services]. </sentence><sentence id="1329">And I talked to her so many times. </sentence><sentence id="1330">And I says...every time when I left from this <span class="building">office</span>, I said to myself, "If somebody has the opportunity to record the echoes of the voices who talk to this lady [in] this small <span class="building">office</span>, it'll be a universe of human sufferings!" </sentence><sentence id="1331">And I said, "I have to pay [NB: repay] this something for this lady." </sentence><sentence id="1332">And my first publish...published, uh, piece which I wrote, it was an open letter to this lady--"The Unseen Diploma." </sentence><sentence id="1333">She had behind her her diploma as social worker. </sentence><sentence id="1334">But I talked about her soul, her wonderful, uh, human feelings. </sentence><sentence id="1335">So I wrote a piece, which is in my book, too--"The Unseen Diploma." </sentence><sentence id="1336">And there are a lot of people who tried to help us. </sentence><sentence id="1337">And with my broken English, when I start to talk to people everybody's saying, "Oh, your English is very good!" </sentence><sentence id="1338">I know how good is my English. ( </sentence><sentence id="1339">Chuckling) But I know those people try to understand us. </sentence><sentence id="1340">They give us <span class="building">shelter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1341">They give us food. </sentence><sentence id="1342">They give us hope. </sentence><sentence id="1343">You understand...have to understand something. </sentence><sentence id="1344">I discover my identity, not living in <span class="country">Romania</span> so many years. </sentence><sentence id="1345">I didn't left <span class="country">Romania</span> a young man. </sentence><sentence id="1346">I don't want to say I'm a old [man] now, but I wasn't young then. </sentence><sentence id="1347">I discovered my.... I suffered like a Jew in <span class="country">Romania</span>; but I didn't know I am Jew, because I never considered. </sentence><sentence id="1348">I was a Romanian! </sentence><sentence id="1349">Here, I discover Iam Jew. </sentence><sentence id="1350">And I discover the whole story about the Holocaust, and what happened in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1351">Here, in the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1352">You know, I had a job at <span class="building">Boston University</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1353">Being here in <span class="country">America</span>, I said--and I...I didn't have [a job]--"Without a language and a good English, what I can do? </sentence><sentence id="1354">The only thing which I can do is to be a kind of a bookkeeper or accountant, or something like this." </sentence><sentence id="1355">So I attended a <span class="building">university</span> course, which I finished with A+. </sentence><sentence id="1356">And I have a diploma in accounting. </sentence><sentence id="1357">So I was in accounting, but I am a writer by profession. </sentence><sentence id="1358">So each...each lunch time, every day...absolutely every day in my lunch time, I went to the <span class="building">library</span> and make research in trying to find out about the <span class="country">Romania</span>, Romanian Jew, Romanian history, and so on. </sentence><sentence id="1359">So...so I start to write my book, The Forgotten Holocaust.* </sentence><sentence id="1360">This book is not my book. </sentence><sentence id="1361">Each <span class="dlf">line</span>, each word, each page--I did it. </sentence><sentence id="1362">I written...I write it. </sentence><sentence id="1363">But this doesn't belong to me. </sentence><sentence id="1364">It's the book of my generation, of my people. </sentence><sentence id="1365">And being here in <span class="country">America</span>, I had opportunity to read it...to write this. </sentence><sentence id="1366">Living so many years in <span class="country">Romania</span> and going so many years in the <span class="building">library</span> of that <span class="building">academy</span> in <span class="country">Romania</span>, making research from my books which I wrote there, I never think about it. </sentence><sentence id="1367">Because nobody give me the opportunity to see a newspaper, a piece of paper regarding this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="1368">So if somebody is...can accept this euphemism "born in the second time," I am born.... I emigrate, because being a Jew in <span class="country">Romania</span>.... Here in <span class="country">America</span> that I discovered [myself] to be a Jew, living here in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1369">This is...it was something which which I can't forget. </sentence><sentence id="1370">It is not to...to say, "Thank * 1.C. Butnaru, The Silent Holocaust: <span class="country">Romania</span> and Its Jews (<span class="populated place">New York</span>: <span class="building">Greenwood Press</span>, 1992). </sentence><sentence id="1371"> you, <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1372">You did this, so and so." </sentence><sentence id="1373">This relationship between me and <span class="country">America</span>, it is another kind. </sentence><sentence id="1374">A kind of a... And I have to tell you something. </sentence><sentence id="1375">My character...my character, uh, Moshe Kopf, in my last book, he used to live in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1376">And he has to exp...to ...to talk to somebody, to express himself; but he was afraid. </sentence><sentence id="1377">So he wrote a letter to himself. </sentence><sentence id="1378">And the second part of my book, when he lived in <span class="country">America</span> [NB: <span class="country">Romania</span>?] </sentence><sentence id="1379">waiting for the America visa, he wrote to a friend of, uh, him letters in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1380">Arriving in <span class="country">America</span>, he wrote letter to the same le....uh, friend. </sentence><sentence id="1381">And it is a letter which is very important to this problem--me and <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1382">My relationship with the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1383">Moshe Kopf, walking in <span class="populated place">New York</span> one day, met a very interesting person--Christoforus Columbus. </sentence><sentence id="1384">And he start to...they start to walk, to talk together. </sentence><sentence id="1385">And Moshe Kopf said to...to...to Christopher Columbus, "You know, Master, you did a great job discovering <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1386">But, you know, if you are doing something to be good, you have to do it in a right time. </sentence><sentence id="1387">You discovered <span class="country">America</span> too late!" </sentence><sentence id="1388">And Christopher Columbus asked him, "What means, "too late." " </sentence><sentence id="1389">Of course it is too late! </sentence><sentence id="1390">If you discovered <span class="country">America</span> when the Jew were liberated by Moshe [NB: Moses] from their...their slavery ...Slave situation in <span class="country">Egypt</span>, instead of cross the <span class="env feature">Red Mer</span> [NB: <span class="env feature">Red Sea</span>], you can part the <span class="env feature">water</span> in the <span class="env feature">Atlantic</span> here. </sentence><sentence id="1391">He is ...". </sentence><sentence id="1392">How to say? " </sentence><sentence id="1393">He knowed how to do the job. </sentence><sentence id="1394">He can part the <span class="env feature">water</span> in the <span class="env feature">Atlantic</span>, and the Jew can arrive in <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1395">And he can avoid so much persecution, blood, and tears, and so on." </sentence><sentence id="1396">And Christopher Columbus said to him, "Maybe you're right. </sentence><sentence id="1397">Who knows?" </sentence><sentence id="1398">And he depart from him, and he go back on his, uh, <span class="spatial object">pedestal</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1399">Moshe Kopf, leaving <span class="populated place">Christopher Columbus</span>, he thought...he said. </sentence><sentence id="1400">And Christopher said, "Come back. </sentence><sentence id="1401">I want to tell you something. </sentence><sentence id="1402">Go back and discover your <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1403">I discovered a <span class="region">territory</span> which is <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1404">But everybody who is arriving on this <span class="dlf">shore</span> has to discover his own <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1405"><span class="region">Two Americas</span> are not the same." </sentence><sentence id="1406">No sir. </sentence><sentence id="1407">I discovered my <span class="country">America</span> here. </sentence><sentence id="1408">And I am very grateful for this. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1527">Q: I think that this is a beautiful end. </sentence><sentence id="1528">Uh, thank you very, very much for coming. </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="1531">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="1532">Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk. </sentence><sentence id="1533"> PHOTOGRAPHS () <span class="populated place">Village</span> scene. </sentence><sentence id="1534">Ion's family in <span class="populated place">Hu _i</span>, circa 1922-23, in the <span class="dlf">vineyard</span> belonging to his uncle-- shown on the far right of the picture. </sentence><sentence id="1535">The <span class="dlf">vineyard</span> originally belonged to Ion's grandfather, and was given to this uncle as a wedding present between 1912 and 1914. </sentence><sentence id="1536">From left to right in the photograph are: Jon's aunt (his father's youngest sister), an old woman whom he identifies as the mother-in-law of his aunt and wife of the man on the far right of the picture, Ion's sister (now living in <span class="country">Israel</span>), Ion's aunt (his father's oldest sister), Ion's cousin Solomon (nephew of his grandfather), Aaron Butnaru (lon's grandfather and the family patriarch), Ion's grandmother, Ion's cousin Mathilda (then a small child), Adele (a friend of Ion's sister), Adele's father (owner of the <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>), Ion's Uncle Yerachmiel (brother of his grandfather), Sarah (a small child--probably a cousin). ( </sentence><sentence id="1537">2) Ion at age 22 in December 1942. </sentence><sentence id="1538">Just after this photo was taken, he left <span class="building">home</span> for a <span class="populated place">labor camp</span> in <span class="populated place">Turcoaia</span>, in the <span class="region">Dobruja region</span>. </sentence><sentence id="1539"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ </body>
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+ </html>
RG-50.030.0050_trs_en_cleaned.html ADDED
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: jeanine gutman butnaru
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0050
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0050_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504549
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1925-06-25
9
+ birth_year: 1925.0
10
+ place_of_birth: bacău
11
+ country: romania
12
+ experience_group: survivor,resistance
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.382.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1"><span class="populated place">JENINE BUTNARU</span> May 5, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell me your name, please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Yah, sure. </sentence><sentence id="6">Uh, my name is Jenine Butnaru. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: Where were your born, and when? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: I was born in <span class="country">Romania</span>, near the <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Bac_u</span>, uh June 25th, 1925. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: Tell me about your family--about your parents, first. </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="16">My parents uh...uh lived in <span class="populated place">Bac_u</span>. </sentence><sentence id="17">My mother was not originally from <span class="populated place">Bac_u</span>, [but] from another smaller <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="18">But when she got married, she moved to <span class="populated place">Bac_u</span> with my father. </sentence><sentence id="19">They had a <span class="building">grocery</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">And my mother used to help my father. </sentence><sentence id="21">They were working together. </sentence><sentence id="22">Uh, my father was a--how to say? </sentence><sentence id="23">A very special person. </sentence><sentence id="24">Uh, not because I am his daughter; but uh everybody used to say the same thing. </sentence><sentence id="25">He was a very good and uh kind, and very...Uh, a man who helped everybody, whenever everyone needed something, you know. </sentence><sentence id="26">He could...you could wake him up at midnight or 2 o'clock in the morning. </sentence><sentence id="27">And uh if he was called to help somebody, or to...to bring something to somebody, or you know to call a doctor or something; he would do anything for everybody and anybody. </sentence><sentence id="28">He was really a very good-at-heart uh man. </sentence><sentence id="29">And he suffered a lot during his lifetime, because he fought in the...the First War...World War...World War (laughter) First... Okay. </sentence><sentence id="30">And he was just on the first uh <span class="dlf">line</span> of the <span class="dlf">battlefield</span>. </sentence><sentence id="31">He was decorated uh on the <span class="dlf">battlefield</span>, you know; and he was wounded at a certain moment. </sentence><sentence id="32">And um...he was taken uh prisoner, as a prisoner. </sentence><sentence id="33">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="34">And when uh...well, when the [First] World War was over, he came back to <span class="populated place">Bac_u</span>, his native <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="35">Uh... uh, they were uh a big family. </sentence><sentence id="36">They were 10 children--uh, two girls and eight brothers. </sentence><sentence id="37">Uh, well, my father had a stepmother; because uh the first wife of my grandfather uh passed away. </sentence><sentence id="38">So my grandfather remarried, so they had more children. </sentence><sentence id="39">So...but she was a very good mother for my husb...for my father, too. </sentence><sentence id="40">Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="41">Uh, and they lived all in the same <span class="populated place">city</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="42">Now, most of them are now in <span class="country">Israel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="43">They emigrated during the years. </sentence><sentence id="44">And um...he was very close to...to his family, to his brothers and sisters. </sentence><sentence id="45">And um...when the Second World War broke out, you know, uh we were already in...we moved to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> in "38. [ </sentence><sentence id="46">In] 1938, we moved to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="47">Uh, my father has been very sick, very ill; and uh he lost everything--his <span class="building">shop</span>, everything. </sentence><sentence id="48">So we moved to...to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="49">And um...he got a job, a very small job, over there; because he was very sick before. </sentence><sentence id="50">And um...we went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="51">My sister--I have an older sister, two years older than myself. </sentence><sentence id="52">Excuse me--than myself. </sentence><sentence id="53">And um...then when, you know, the Fascists came to power and the...all the Jewish students and youngster were uh thrown out from all the <span class="building">schools</span>, all grades of the <span class="building">schools</span>, uh we went to this <span class="building">Jewish schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="54">And um...that were organized uh...then, at that time. </sentence><sentence id="55">Because uh the young people, they had...there were this dreadful measures against Jewish people and Jewish students. </sentence><sentence id="56">They had to go uh...in uh to...to the labor...<span class="populated place">labor camps</span>, most of the youngster. </sentence><sentence id="57">And um...they weren't allowed to...to be in the <span class="building">state school</span> anymore. </sentence><sentence id="58">So a whole system of <span class="building">school</span> had to be organized and put up, in order to fit in all these Jewish students and pupils--from <span class="building">kindergarten</span> to <span class="building">elementary schools</span> to <span class="building">high school</span> and <span class="building">colleges</span>. </sentence><sentence id="59">And um...the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span>, uh they...uh had the very bright uh leaders. </sentence><sentence id="60">And um...they organized all this, all this...the system of <span class="building">schools</span> for everybody. </sentence><sentence id="61">Every student and child. </sentence><sentence id="62">And they printed books, schoolbooks. </sentence><sentence id="63">They printed <span class="building">university</span> courses. </sentence><sentence id="64">And um...they uh...organized this...this classes. </sentence><sentence id="65">So we went to this uh Jewish... I went to <span class="building">Jewish high school</span>; and my sister, and everybody. </sentence><sentence id="66">It was very hard at the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="67">Because they were not... You know, it was the beginning of this uh <span class="building">schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="68">And they had teachers, Jewish teachers; because the Jewish teachers were not allowed to...to teach in the <span class="building">state schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="69">Uh, very high level teachers. </sentence><sentence id="70">And um...but they had to rent, you know, <span class="interior space">apartments</span> or <span class="interior space">rooms</span> for the <span class="building">schools</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="71">Uh, they organized the <span class="building">schools</span> in some old <span class="building">synagogues</span> or old <span class="building">Jewish schools</span>, or just rented some other uh...uh <span class="interior space">apartments</span> for the <span class="building">schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="72">So it was quite uh hard to adjust. </sentence><sentence id="73">But the teachers were so good. </sentence><sentence id="74">And everybody was so willing to...to learn, you know, and to...to be at the same level with the other students. </sentence><sentence id="75">And besides, uh the <span class="building">synagogues</span> uh played a big role in uh keeping the uh Jewish tradition and culture and spirit, you know. </sentence><sentence id="76">So they organized all kinds of uh meetings and festivals. </sentence><sentence id="77">And um... Not just religious, uh from the point of view of religion; but culture in the same times. </sentence><sentence id="78">You know, tradition. </sentence><sentence id="79">And uh they had uh...you know, uh chorus--a music uh chorus, with students. </sentence><sentence id="80">And um...it was a place where we met, you know, and were able to discuss all our...all our, you know, disappointments and sufferings. </sentence><sentence id="81">And um...uh then they organized uh this uh...some <span class="building">professional schools</span> and courses. </sentence><sentence id="82">Because uh they said, "Well, if not all the students will be able to attend the <span class="building">schools</span>, at least they should have a profession later on." </sentence><sentence id="83">So they organized all kind of professional uh courses. </sentence><sentence id="84">And um...you know, technical, electrical--like to be a tailor, or to be a carpenter, or to be a shoemaker. </sentence><sentence id="85">And I went to a course of uh bookbinding. </sentence><sentence id="86">I took a course of [this], because I like to read, (laughing) you know, and being related more to this. </sentence><sentence id="87">So L...1 went to take this course. </sentence><sentence id="88">And besides they organized the <span class="building">clinic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="89">How to say, <span class="building">polyclinic</span>--health center-- for the Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="90">Because uh they couldn't go to be treated anymore to the state uh <span class="building">health centers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="91">So they organized. </sentence><sentence id="92">And uh, you know, the best doctors and surgeons were treat...treating these people, sick people--Jewish sick people. </sentence><sentence id="93">And in the same time, they organized the...around this <span class="building">health center</span>, uh medical courses for medical students. </sentence><sentence id="94">So they were able to attend these courses. ( </sentence><sentence id="95">Sigh) </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="178">Q: Tell me what...what your parents were doing during this time. </sentence><sentence id="179">And what was your daily life like as a family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="182">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="183">Well, as I said, we...we went to all the holidays, to the <span class="building">synagogue</span>, to all the festivals. </sentence><sentence id="184">Um, they tried, you know, to...to make the best of the life that was, you know, going on that time. </sentence><sentence id="185">And um...they had a lot of frustration, of course. </sentence><sentence id="186">You know, because uh...uh they felt like pariah, you know, among other people. </sentence><sentence id="187">You know, everybody feeled... felt the same. </sentence><sentence id="188">And um...we tried to be as much as possible together with our friends and family, of course. </sentence><sentence id="189">And um...you know, not to...to suffer of spiritually too much, you know. </sentence><sentence id="190">And um...they tried to...to help us, you know, with, you know, what we needed to have; everything we needed, you know, our parents. </sentence><sentence id="191">So they didn't have too many meals at that time, you know, in this period of time. </sentence><sentence id="192">Because they lost almost everything. </sentence><sentence id="193">And besides, because my father had a...a <span class="building">store</span>, you know, uh they were obliged to give to the state and to the army uh clothes and food. </sentence><sentence id="194">You know, I remember. </sentence><sentence id="195">I was, you know, still quite young. </sentence><sentence id="196">Uh, my parents had to buy; you know, they...they loaded two big <span class="spatial object">couches</span>...<span class="spatial object">coaches</span>...<span class="spatial object">carriages</span>, <span class="spatial object">coaches</span>, with, you know, clothes--all kinds of clothes and boots and winter coats--and food and everything. </sentence><sentence id="197">Uh, you know, they [NB: the Romanian government] said that uh due to the fact that they [NB: her parents] had a...a <span class="building">grocery</span>--they had a <span class="building">shop</span>, you know--they must have been very uh...at least rich or something like this. </sentence><sentence id="198">So they had to...to give a lot of things. </sentence><sentence id="199">Really, they had to buy new things, just new things. </sentence><sentence id="200">Not, you know, old things--clothes, or... So then, you know, linen for <span class="spatial object">beds</span> and pillows and um...comforters and um...all kinds of things, you know. </sentence><sentence id="201">Because they were sent uh on the <span class="dlf">battlefields</span>, for the army on the <span class="region">front</span>. </sentence><sentence id="202">Anyway. </sentence><sentence id="203">So it was uh really hard for them. </sentence><sentence id="204">Really hard for them. </sentence><sentence id="205">But they had to do it. </sentence><sentence id="206">They were obliged, you know, to do this. </sentence><sentence id="207">And um besides, uh all the Jews were obliged, you know, to clean the <span class="dlf">streets</span> from the snow. </sentence><sentence id="208">To, you know, to uh do all kinds of uh "<span class="populated place">city</span> work," how to say, you know. </sentence><sentence id="209">But especially the Jews were put to clean the <span class="dlf">streets</span> and the snow; and to...to keep clean everything, you know, in the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="210">Which was, you know, hard for older people like my...my parents. </sentence><sentence id="211">Nothing for younger people; but it was harder for older people to do things like this. </sentence><sentence id="212">And besides, you were always afraid that somebody will knock at your <span class="dlf">door</span>. </sentence><sentence id="213">And, you know, there were so many people arrested, you know, for no reason. </sentence><sentence id="214">And uh you always lived in a kind of terror, you know; scared that somebody will... When you heard the uh bell ringing, you were scared who...who could be. </sentence><sentence id="215">You know, you were afraid somebody would come and take your father, take your mother, arrest you. </sentence><sentence id="216">And um...this was the way of life, then. </sentence><sentence id="217">And um...as I said, uh they put up this uh very good <span class="building">schools</span> and <span class="building">colleges</span> and <span class="building">universities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="218">Were uh brilliant teachers, you know. </sentence><sentence id="219">They organized even a uh...uh, how to say, uh medical uh...uh <span class="building">college of medicine</span>...<span class="building">college of medicine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="220">Was a brilliant teachers. </sentence><sentence id="221">Very well known teachers. </sentence><sentence id="222">And the leaders of the Jewish communities, you know, who were in the uh...the underground resistance movement in...in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="223">You know, they did...they organized all this. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="266">Q: Did you have any contact with this underground resistance? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="268">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="269">Of course! </sentence><sentence id="270">Of course! </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="274">Q: Tell me about that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="276">A: Because the Chief Rabbi, it was Alexander Safran the Chief Rabbi of <span class="country">Romania</span>, at that time. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="277">It was a very well known Zionist and activist and leader--uh, Dr. [Wilhelm] Filderman. </sentence><sentence id="278">It was another one, <span class="building">Benvenisti</span>." </sentence><sentence id="279">Then it was one who was called uh...[{Unescu (ph), Marcu Unescu (ph)]. </sentence><sentence id="280">He organized the best <span class="building">college</span> for students on every <span class="dlf">field</span>. </sentence><sentence id="281">It was called uh...uh (<span class="building">Unescu (ph)] College</span>, in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>...in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="282">And um... </sentence></p><p><sentence id="283"> " Misu Benvenisti was president of the local Zionist Organization and a member of the underground Jewish Council organized by Dr. Wilhelm Filderman. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="284">Q: Maybe I'm not clear. </sentence><sentence id="285">My...my question is, did you have any contact with this <span class="interior space">underground</span>? </sentence></p><p><sentence id="286">Were you involved in helping with any of it? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="287">A: Uh, yah. </sentence><sentence id="288">You know how we were involved? </sentence><sentence id="289">We uh...we worked as volunteers. </sentence><sentence id="290">Uh, in the <span class="building">hospitals</span>--<span class="building">Jewish hospitals</span>--doing all kinds of...you know, of work it was uh needed. </sentence><sentence id="291">Uh, I worked serving in the <span class="building">canteens</span>, you know, where poor people, you know, they didn't have what...where to eat, what to eat. </sentence><sentence id="292">And they organized these <span class="building">canteens</span>. </sentence><sentence id="293">And we worked as volunteers through this <span class="building">underground organization</span>. </sentence><sentence id="294">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="295">You know, in the <span class="building">hospitals</span>, in this <span class="building">canteens</span>. </sentence><sentence id="296">Uh... In <span class="building">libraries</span>, <span class="building">Jewish libraries</span>, we used to work. </sentence><sentence id="297">But I worked in a <span class="building">canteen</span>, and I worked in a <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="298">Yah, just as volunteers. </sentence><sentence id="299">Besides going to this uh binding book courses and going to <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="300">You know, besides this, uh I worked as a volunteers for a few years. </sentence><sentence id="301">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="317">Q: When did things begin to change for you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="319">A: Well, after "44. </sentence><sentence id="320">Uh, when, you know, the war was over and uh we were liberated. </sentence><sentence id="321">Because we were in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>, in uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="325">Q: Wait a minute. </sentence><sentence id="326">Excuse me. </sentence><sentence id="327">I'm unclear. </sentence><sentence id="328">You had said some... Let's go back...before "44. </sentence><sentence id="329">You told me earlier that in 1941 you were in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="330">Uh, were you there during the uh massacre of <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="337">A: Oh, yah. </sentence><sentence id="338">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="339">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="340">During the rebellion in "41. </sentence><sentence id="341">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="347">Q: Let's talk... Talk about 1941. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="349">A: Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="351">Q: What happened? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="353">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="354">The...you know, the...the fascist Legionnaires--or they were called the Organization Green Shirts--uh, they were very antisemitic, of course. </sentence><sentence id="355">They organized this rebellion in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>, in <span class="populated place">Ia_i</span> and other <span class="populated place">cities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="356">And they killed a lot of Jewish people, and they put fire to their <span class="building">houses</span> and to their <span class="building">stores</span>. </sentence><sentence id="357">And um...it was really a terror for the Jewish...uh...the Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="358">Really. </sentence><sentence id="359">We were scared. </sentence><sentence id="360">We had to stay all the time, almost, <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="361">You know, we were scared to walk on the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="362">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="363">And um...we were not allowed to do anything, really; to participate in anything, or to do anything. </sentence><sentence id="364">Because uh they could kill us. </sentence><sentence id="365">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="379">Q: Can you describe what happened as they came through? </sentence><sentence id="380">As the Legionnaires came through, what did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="381">A: Uh... We...we just uh...you know, we couldn't do nothing, really. </sentence><sentence id="382">You know, we tried through this Jewish organization to...to do something with this underground resistance organizations. </sentence><sentence id="383">Uh, to help, as I said--going to <span class="building">hospitals</span>, [as] volunteers, or going to uh...to the <span class="building">canteens</span> to serve. </sentence><sentence id="384">And um...going to this uh <span class="building">Jewish school</span> that they organized. </sentence><sentence id="385">Because we were young. </sentence><sentence id="386">I was young, anyway. </sentence><sentence id="387">You know, I couldn't do uh something uh different. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="395">Because it was very dangerous, first of all. </sentence><sentence id="396">And we were not allowed. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="399">Q: During the massacre of <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>... </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="401">A: Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="403">Q: ...was there a... Did you see a lot of burning? </sentence><sentence id="404">Did you see any of the killing? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="407">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="408">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="409">L...I...we saw at the <span class="building">morgue</span>... You know, we went to the <span class="building">morgue</span>, where around there we saw people standing in <span class="dlf">line</span> to recognize people who were killed. </sentence><sentence id="410">And we saw a lot of uh corpses. </sentence><sentence id="411">You know, bringing in corpses all the time. </sentence><sentence id="412">And I saw all this fires going all over, you know, this burning. </sentence><sentence id="413">The whole <span class="dlf">street</span> was burning. </sentence><sentence id="414">And it was not far from our <span class="building">house</span>, because I could see the flames on the...on the <span class="env feature">sky</span> from our <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="415">How they put fire to all the <span class="building">houses</span> and the <span class="building">stores</span> of the Jewish people in this <span class="region">Jewish area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="416">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="427">Q: How long did the massacre last? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="429">A: Uh, it uh lasted uh a few days. </sentence><sentence id="430">A few days in January. </sentence><sentence id="431">January "41. </sentence><sentence id="432">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="437">Q: What did you do after it was over? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="439">A: Uh, after it was over... Well, everybody started, you know, to...to look around. </sentence><sentence id="440">To see what...what happened. </sentence><sentence id="441">And life started to, you know, to resume its...how to say, its way. </sentence><sentence id="442">Or its normal...in a way, normal way, you know. </sentence><sentence id="443">But it was a very hard period of time. </sentence><sentence id="444">It was after such a terror, you know. </sentence><sentence id="445">And um...such a scare period of time, scareful period of time, for everybody. </sentence><sentence id="446">And then, you know, they...the other, the Antonescu government, you know, he took the power. </sentence><sentence id="447">So things changed, in a way, a little bit. </sentence><sentence id="448">You know, not they ...it was better for the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="449">But uh anyway uh they were no more killing after the...the Legionnaires, you know, uh uh were no more in power. </sentence><sentence id="450">But it was another hard period for...for the Jewish people with even under Antonescu, until "44; because they were again...against the Jewish people, you know. </sentence><sentence id="451">There were all these deportations, and um...all the...the uh measures against the Jewish people, you know. </sentence><sentence id="452">The Jewish population in general. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="467">Q: Can you tell me about the deportations? </sentence><sentence id="468">What did you see? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="471">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="472">Uh, we lived in...in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="473">And from <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>, uh uh not many people were deported from <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="474">From other <span class="populated place">cities</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="475">A lot of <span class="populated place">cities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="476">And from <span class="populated place">Bessarabia</span>, and from the part of uh...the <span class="dlf">border</span> with <span class="country">Hungaria</span> [NB: <span class="country">Hungary</span>], uh many, many Jewish people were deported. </sentence><sentence id="477">From <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> itself, not too many were deported. </sentence><sentence id="478">I don't know how we escaped in this way, you know. </sentence><sentence id="479">We didn't escape the bombardments, for instance. </sentence><sentence id="480">In "44, when the American came...before the Russian came to liberate <span class="country">Romania</span>, uh...the Americans started to bombard the <span class="dlf">railroads</span>. </sentence><sentence id="481">And there's a <span class="populated place">city</span> where--uh uh <span class="populated place">Ploie_ti</span>, where is uh the oil, you know-- because they wanted to...uh they didn't want to allow the Germans, you know, to advance to...to do... They had to cut the Germans [off]. </sentence><sentence id="482">So the Russians came, and the Germans left. </sentence><sentence id="483">So they uh tried to cut. </sentence><sentence id="484">They bombarded the <span class="populated place">city</span>, not to give the Germans the necessary oil to fight uh farther, you know. </sentence><sentence id="485">So we had big bombardments even in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="501">Q: What did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="503">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="504">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="505">We...we stayed there in the <span class="interior space">cellars</span> all the time, you know, with pots and pans over our heads. </sentence><sentence id="506">And scared to death, really. </sentence><sentence id="507">Because they were heavy bombardments. </sentence><sentence id="508">Because as I said, beside the <span class="region">oil areas</span>--uh, <span class="populated place">Ploie_ti</span> is a <span class="populated place">city</span> very close to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="509">Very close. </sentence><sentence id="510">And so they crossed...you know, they flew over <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> to go to <span class="populated place">Ploie_ti</span>, you know; and from <span class="populated place">Ploie_ti</span> to <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="511">And to cut the...the Germans--who were, you know, advancing. </sentence><sentence id="512">And um...so they bombard <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> and <span class="populated place">Ploie_ti</span> and other <span class="populated place">cities</span>. </sentence><sentence id="513">So it was very, very scary, and very... You...you could be killed. </sentence><sentence id="514">We spent almost all the time in the <span class="interior space">cellars</span>. </sentence><sentence id="515">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="516">The bombs were fall...falling, you know, very close to our <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="531">Q: Tell us about what happened after that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="533">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="534">After uh then, the Russian, uh they liberated. </sentence><sentence id="535">So we said, "Now, we'll have freedom. </sentence><sentence id="536">And our life will be much better and easier." </sentence><sentence id="537">You know, the Communists, they came to power. </sentence><sentence id="538">Of course, it was better in a way. </sentence><sentence id="539">But uh still, you know, um...you couldn't uh be very happy. </sentence><sentence id="540">Because uh it was for a certain period of time was better for Jew...the Jewish people, because they could get jobs and they could uh, you know, have some uh, how to say, "opportunities," you know, to work and to...to have a little bit a better life. </sentence><sentence id="541">But then, it was again uh hard...hard. </sentence><sentence id="542">Because they started to...to close, you know; to uh give less uh opportunities and um "advantages," how to say, you know, for the Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="543">So we started to think, you know, for the future of our daughter, especially, you know. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="555">Q: Wait. </sentence><sentence id="556">Let's back up, because I didn't know you'd gotten married. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="559">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="560">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="561">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="565">Q: Tell us about meeting your husband. </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="567">A: Yah. </sentence><sentence id="568">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="569">I was uh... I was um working at the <span class="building">Writer's Association</span> in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span> for many years. </sentence><sentence id="570">And my husband, he was a writer. </sentence><sentence id="571">He worked in this <span class="dlf">field</span>--you know, <span class="interior space">culture field</span>. </sentence><sentence id="572">So he came over there. </sentence><sentence id="573">And so we met at the <span class="building">Writer's Union</span>. </sentence><sentence id="574">And then, after two years we got married. </sentence><sentence id="575">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="576">And um we...we had our daughter. </sentence><sentence id="577">And then, we said... We couldn't leave earlier, because my parents have been very sick. </sentence><sentence id="578">My father died, then my mother was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="579">So we couldn't leave earlier. </sentence><sentence id="580">We wanted to leave earlier, but we had to stay with my mother. </sentence><sentence id="581">You know, we couldn't leave her. </sentence><sentence id="582">Because my sister, she left before, the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="583">And um...when we heard... You know, after my mother died...after almost two years, we...we left the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="584">We...we uh started, we...we decided to emigrate, you know. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="603">Q: And this was in what year? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="605">A: In "76. </sentence><sentence id="606">Yah. </sentence><sentence id="607">In "76, we came here. </sentence><sentence id="608">So, as I said, for uh...we are not anymore young people. </sentence><sentence id="609">And it's hard to start from the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="610">So...but we saw just that our daughter wouldn't have any...any future, you know. </sentence><sentence id="611">Because they always asked about your background, if you want to go...she wanted to go uh to uh the <span class="building">university</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="612">Uh, they...the Communists always said, you know, "Your background is not good. </sentence><sentence id="613">You are not from uh workers, you know..."background," how to say, you know." </sentence><sentence id="614">If you are intellectual or something, or if your parents had a <span class="building">shop</span>, you know, it means you are not good uh citizens, how to say. </sentence><sentence id="615">Not the right uh level. </sentence><sentence id="616">So it would have been very, very hard for her to get into the <span class="building">university</span>, you know, to...to learn, to study. </sentence><sentence id="617">And um...we said that uh we have to think at her future, you know. </sentence><sentence id="618">And that's why we decided to...to leave. </sentence><sentence id="619">It was hard to start from the beginning, and at our age. </sentence><sentence id="620">But for..just for her, we decided that we have to leave. </sentence><sentence id="621">And we are really very glad that here she had the opportunity. </sentence><sentence id="622">And she could go to <span class="building">school</span> and um...uh study and um...It's really a great <span class="country">country</span>, where if somebody works hard and wants to achieve something, you know. </sentence><sentence id="623">And you have all the opportunities and all the uh <span class="dlf">doors</span> open, how to say. </sentence><sentence id="624">And um...uh regardless of your beliefs or, you know, race or whatever, you can really achieve whatever you want if you really want and work hard, you know. </sentence><sentence id="625">And the freedom, that's something that it's the first, you know, the most uh...uh wonderful thing, you know, that you can have, really. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="648">Q: Is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="650">A: Uh, well, that's uh...I'm...we are really very happy here, and um we are very uh grateful that uh this <span class="country">country</span>, you know, allowed us to...to come here and um to...to work and to be free. </sentence><sentence id="651">And um...for our daughter to...to achieve something, you know, to do whatever she wanted to do and to...to be able to raise a family. </sentence><sentence id="652">And uh to speak whatever you...you...to speak your mind, how you say. </sentence><sentence id="653">You know, to say whatever. </sentence><sentence id="654">In <span class="country">Romania</span>, you were afraid to talk, you know. </sentence><sentence id="655">You are...are always uh under the uh threat that somebody is going to hear you and will tell the security; and you will be arrested, you know, and put uh into <span class="building">prison</span>, into <span class="building">jail</span>. </sentence><sentence id="656">And here, you have freedom of speech, and of everything, you know. </sentence><sentence id="657">Uh, whatever you think, you can uh fight for your uh beliefs, you know. </sentence><sentence id="658">For whatever you...you...you feel you like to...to do or to say. </sentence><sentence id="659">Yah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="670">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="671">Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="674">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="675">Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="676"> PHOTOGRAPHS Q) Six men in uniform, circa 1919. </sentence><sentence id="677">At the far left, is Jenine's father. </sentence><sentence id="678">She explains that he was taken prisoner, along with his comrades, during World War I. (2) Six young people in street clothes--four women and two men. </sentence><sentence id="679">Jenine is on the far right of the picture; the others are her colleagues. </sentence><sentence id="680">The picture was taken in 1945 in a <span class="dlf">park</span> in <span class="populated place">Bucharest</span>. ( </sentence><sentence id="681">3) A young woman and a young girl--Jenine and her older sister, Sophia. </sentence><sentence id="682">This is a pre-war photograph, but no specific date is given. </sentence><sentence id="683"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ </body>
80
+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: father francis cegielka
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0052
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0052_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504550
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: none
9
+ birth_year: 1908.0
10
+ place_of_birth: grabow
11
+ country: poland
12
+ experience_group: non-jewish,helper,resistance
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: none
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">FATHER FRANCIS CEGIELKA October 2, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: We are on camera. </sentence><sentence id="4">We have started to film. </sentence><sentence id="5">Would you tell me your full name please? </sentence><sentence id="6">Give me your name. </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: <span class="building">Father Francis Anthony Cegileka</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: Where were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: In <span class="populated place">Grabow</span>, the province of <span class="populated place">Poznan</span>, <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="16">But <span class="country">Poland</span> under occupation of German in 1908, we still lived under the German power. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="19">Q: Father, if you would lean back and relax. </sentence><sentence id="20">I will move my <span class="spatial object">chair</span> forward if necessary so that you can hear me, but </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="23">A: We have started? </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="25">Q: We have started. </sentence><sentence id="26">It's important that you be comfortable. </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="29">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="31">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="32">Uh...Tell me about your family. </sentence><sentence id="33">How many people were in your family and what... </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="37">A: We were 9 children, five brothers and....uh...six brothers and three sisters. </sentence><sentence id="38">And...uh...we all had been educated first of all in the <span class="building">German schools</span> and then since 1918, we had the opportunity to be taught in the <span class="building">Polish schools</span>. </sentence><sentence id="39">And in my case I had to go to the <span class="building">college</span> also and did then I studied theology in <span class="populated place">Rome</span>, being called according to my judgment and conviction to the priesthood I had to study theology, philosophy and theology. </sentence><sentence id="40">And I entered the Society of the Catholic Apostolite, and after the first preparation, that is to say, <span class="building">grammar school</span>, <span class="building">college</span>...uh...after I have finished also philosophy in <span class="country">Poland</span>, I was sent to <span class="populated place">Rome</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="45">Q: Could we...could we back up a little bit? </sentence><sentence id="46">I'd like to know a little more before we go into those years. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="49">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="51">Q: About your childhood. </sentence><sentence id="52">When you were...uh...a young boy...uh...I'd like to know a little bit about what life was like for you and your parents as a young...as a young...when you were a young boy in <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="55">A: You see, when I was 6 years old, then I started the <span class="building">grammar school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="56">Yet in...in 1918, we..we are very unhappy because of the war. </sentence><sentence id="57">And my father was convoked to the army as the officer because he was ordered the <span class="building">school</span>, and did then in the first year of...uh... the battle between German...German and Russian soldiers, he was taken into Russian captivity already in 1915 and he was there, which he knew Russian of course, so his conditions of life were not so difficult there. </sentence><sentence id="58">And the...the Russians have esteemed him and used him rather for the more secretarial work, not handwork. </sentence><sentence id="59">In 1918, he benefited and profited by the...uh...disorder because of the Russian Revolution and the __. </sentence><sentence id="60">You see, just by his judgment he knew what to do and came to our family in 1918 and...uh...when <span class="country">Poland</span> became independent, he also had to enter the Polish army. </sentence><sentence id="61">But after some months he came back <span class="building">home</span> and continued his business work. </sentence><sentence id="62">He was an exporter of food to greater <span class="populated place">cities</span>, also to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, during the occupation of <span class="country">Poland</span> by Germans. </sentence><sentence id="63">And so our conditions of life were rather good and we had the opportunity to be developed really in the atmosphere of a loving family. </sentence><sentence id="64">And when other members, my brothers and sisters heard about the my life's decision that I will go to priesthood, then they also sympathized with me and helped me really to reach that priesthood by their sympathy, by their prayers and so on. </sentence><sentence id="65">And so...and....uh...uh...in 1920, I went to the <span class="building">gymnasium</span> of <span class="populated place">Naklo</span> in <span class="country">Poland</span> and...uh...there I was 2 years and then transferred to <span class="populated place">Wadowice</span> to the <span class="building">high school</span> of my society. </sentence><sentence id="66">And...uh...it was in the dioceses of <span class="populated place">Krakau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="67">And...uh...then after I had finished the <span class="building">high school</span>, I entered the <span class="building">preparatory school</span> for priesthood and...uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="82">Q: What made you decide to go on and to enter the <span class="building">preparatory school</span>? </sentence><sentence id="83">Why did you become a priest? </sentence><sentence id="84">Want to become a priest? </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="88">A: You see there was in me some conviction that this is my way of life. </sentence><sentence id="89">It was not my decision, strictly speaking or theologically speaking, but some preparation from above. </sentence><sentence id="90">You see, we do believe in...uh...in our faith that all the vocations of priesthood for religious life come from God himself. </sentence><sentence id="91">And no doubt in order that this cause may mature, you may live a very dignified and religious also family. </sentence><sentence id="92">My parents were very faithful members of the <span class="building">church</span>. </sentence><sentence id="93">All my brothers and sisters too. </sentence><sentence id="94">It was really the proper atmosphere. </sentence><sentence id="95">Also helping to deepen my conviction, there is my place. </sentence><sentence id="96">And did then after I finished philosophy, I was sent to <span class="populated place">Rome</span> to the <span class="building">University</span> to study theology and...uh...to get a doctor degree in theology. </sentence><sentence id="97">So...uh...27 I went to <span class="populated place">Rome</span> and for 4 years I studied there at the <span class="building">Gregorian university</span> and at 31, I received the Priestly ordination and also my doctoral degree. </sentence><sentence id="98">And I went to <span class="country">Poland</span>...back to <span class="country">Poland</span> just to celebrate really my priesthood ordination in my...uh...<span class="populated place">parish</span> where my family lived. </sentence><sentence id="99">And then my professor who became Rector of <span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span> in <span class="country">France</span>, he came also for the celebration of my priesthood in my parish where he was a vicar and then invited me to come to <span class="populated place">Paris</span> just to help in his <span class="building">Secretariat</span>. </sentence><sentence id="100">My superiors have allowed, and I spent the first year of my priesthood in <span class="country">France</span>. </sentence><sentence id="101">Then 32 came back to <span class="country">Poland</span> and start...and taught...uh...the proper __ in <span class="building">minor college</span> and then in the superior classes. </sentence><sentence id="102">It was 4...uh...24. </sentence><sentence id="103">Yes, that's right. </sentence><sentence id="104">24 and 28, first in the first classes of <span class="building">colleges</span> and then <span class="building">superior classes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="105">And in 1938...uh...the Primate of <span class="country">Poland</span>, Archbishop of <span class="populated place">Poznan</span> who was also Director of the...uh...<span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span> outside <span class="country">Poland</span>, he was asked by my former professor, Director of <span class="building">Polish Catholic mission</span>, that my superiors may help...may really allow me to come again to <span class="country">France</span> and work there. </sentence><sentence id="106">And...uh...I was working for some time and...uh...then in 1938, my superior, former teacher of Latin, has resigned and the Primate has nominated me as superior of the <span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span>, that is to say of the Pastoral care of all Poles in <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="107">And we had there are about 50 priests who worked for the Polish people only, and as a young Priest I became a Superior of them. </sentence><sentence id="108">Traveling from place after place during summer. </sentence><sentence id="109">It was some days in which I remember some <span class="populated place">Polish parish</span> has celebrated some feast and so I visited also in this way the territory of <span class="country">France</span>. </sentence><sentence id="110">And then ..then when the war came, to <span class="country">France</span>, 1939, we have really also suffered much. </sentence><sentence id="111">And then...then suffered much because...especially because Germans...<span class="country">Germany</span> has occupied <span class="populated place">Paris</span>. </sentence><sentence id="112">And...uh... here really is my great, I would say, for for martyrdom because in...on October 26, 1940 ...uh...Gestapo came to the <span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span> in <span class="populated place">Paris</span> and told me, "Gentleman." </sentence><sentence id="113">He didn't call me father. " </sentence><sentence id="114">We have in possession all of your sermons which you delivered to the <span class="spatial object">French radio</span> to the Polish people against our German system. </sentence><sentence id="115">You will not be free anymore. </sentence><sentence id="116">This is the day that we make really the end to your freedom. </sentence><sentence id="117">You come with us and we will place you in the <span class="building">prison</span> of <span class="populated place">Paris</span>." </sentence><sentence id="118">You see 26...26th of October 1940, I was arrested and placed then in <span class="building">prison</span> in <span class="populated place">Paris</span>. </sentence><sentence id="119">And then there I was...from October 26th to November 26th, 1940. </sentence><sentence id="120">That is to say, in the <span class="populated place">Paris</span>, <span class="populated place">Parisian</span>...<span class="building">Parisian prison</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="154">Q: Father, don't...don't worry about dates. </sentence><sentence id="155">Truly. </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="158">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="160">Q: Tell...tell me why you had been arrested. </sentence><sentence id="161">The Gestapo referred to radio programs. </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="164">A: You see... </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="166">Q: Tell me. </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="168">A: Because...because they collected my radio sermons and believed that I am great enemy of Nazis, and they have not tolerated...you see people also in <span class="country">France</span> who would say something against them, for the Nazis, for the Gestapo. </sentence><sentence id="169">You see their system was sacred. </sentence><sentence id="170">Nobody had the right to offend them. </sentence><sentence id="171">And then I always remained with the same conviction. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="176">Q: What had you been saying on the <span class="spatial object">radio</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="178">A: Well, that Nazism, Hitlerism is not only an enemy of Jewish people, but they are also anti- Christian system. </sentence><sentence id="179">That is to say, not only a system to purify <span class="country">Germany</span> from Jewish population, but also to not with us. </sentence><sentence id="180">It was impossible for them, but to take really under their influence the whole <span class="building">Catholic church</span>. </sentence><sentence id="181">And then...so in my radio sermons, as I told you enlighten by the French government, I consoled the Polish people already occupied by <span class="country">Nazi Germany</span> that Nazism really must collapse because it is not only anti-Jewish system, but anti-Christian and human system. </sentence><sentence id="182">Everything what was for us dignified, you see, was just condemned by Nazis, rejected by Hitlerism. </sentence><sentence id="183">And do not forget I told them that the whole world is not dependant of Nazis, but God is taking care of us. </sentence><sentence id="184">And so do not cooperate. </sentence><sentence id="185">Do not get discouraged. </sentence><sentence id="186">You will suffer no doubt, but in your suffering you will find always our sympathy and the sympathy of the whole <span class="country">Europe</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">And because, you see, of this tax of this approach to Hitlerism I was not allowed to live as a free person. </sentence><sentence id="188">So they considered me as an Enemy No. </sentence><sentence id="189">1. </sentence><sentence id="190">And then from <span class="populated place">Paris</span> after 1 month of being in <span class="building">prison</span>, I was just transferred...transferred to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, and on my way to in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, I was few days in <span class="populated place">Trier</span>, ___, <span class="populated place">Hanover</span>, and came to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> on December the 10, 1940...1940 to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>, __. </sentence><sentence id="191">And really that in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> was a place of torture. </sentence><sentence id="192">And...uh...you see no freedom. </sentence><sentence id="193">Just closed in the <span class="interior space">cell</span> and...uh...I was really free only 2 times a month to take some part in the of all the prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="194">Twice a month I was able to leave the <span class="interior space">cell</span>. </sentence><sentence id="195">Otherwise, <span class="interior space">cell</span> was my unique, only place to live. </sentence><sentence id="196">But in...uh...the week which we called Holy Week, I was really taken into the <span class="interior space">black cell</span>, that is to say without a light, without a light, without water, without anything, and there was a left there for 6 days. </sentence><sentence id="197">That is to say, imagine only you have no possibility to look through the <span class="dlf">window</span> because everything was closed. </sentence><sentence id="198">You didn't have any possibility to take <span class="env feature">water</span> or some...take some food because they didn't bring it to you. </sentence><sentence id="199">After this Holy Week, I was really exhausted. </sentence><sentence id="200">But this was not sufficient for them. </sentence><sentence id="201">You see, they...I suppose they tried just to kill me, and they came at the end and felt...treated me so cruelly that I was fully exhausted and perhaps it seemed to them that I am not living any more, but to be sure they took me to the <span class="building">hospital</span> where conditions were certainly not easy but better than the <span class="building">prison</span>. </sentence><sentence id="202">So after some days I have recuperated and then they have taken me back to the . </sentence><sentence id="203">But with more normal conditions of life. </sentence><sentence id="204">That is to say, I have received the regular food as other prisoners, but only with the privilege to leave for the <span class="building">Priminate</span> twice a month. </sentence><sentence id="205">And from ____ I was from December 10, 40. </sentence><sentence id="206">On July 29, 41, I left <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> and then transferred to the <span class="populated place">camp</span> of <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> close to <span class="populated place">Berlin</span>. </sentence><sentence id="207">And then I came to <span class="populated place">Sachenhausen</span> on July 29th, 41, and was there to February the 3rd, 1942. </sentence><sentence id="208">And there I was also...uh...well, what I say, exhausted. </sentence><sentence id="209">You see because the conditions in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> of concentration are not easy or were not easy. </sentence><sentence id="210">Neither here nor there. </sentence><sentence id="211">And so after 3 weeks in the <span class="building">hospital</span>, I was for them fit to be transported to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="247">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="248">Let's stop a moment. </sentence><sentence id="249">If you could. </sentence><sentence id="250">I want to put this down. </sentence><sentence id="251">Can we stop and pause the tape a moment please. </sentence><sentence id="252">Uh...Steven, are you there? </sentence><sentence id="253">Can you...we're having sawing or hammering of some kind coming through. </sentence><sentence id="254">Would you please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="263">A: Okay, Father we are back on camera. </sentence><sentence id="264">You had wanted to tell us the dates of where you were on each place. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="267">Q: But I have already told you. </sentence><sentence id="268">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="269">And we came to <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> and in <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> I was from July 29, 41 to February, the 3rd, 1942. </sentence><sentence id="270">And then I was transferred to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> to the <span class="building">prisons</span> of <span class="populated place">Kothen</span>, <span class="populated place">Leipzig</span>, and <span class="populated place">Nuremberg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="271">And on February the 13th, 1942, I came to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="272">And...uh...finally, we shall speak about it later, on Sunday, April 29, 1945, we were liberated. </sentence><sentence id="273">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="274">But in <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span>, you see, the conditions were not as cruel as in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="283">And I spent there some time just...uh...doing things as other prisoners and particularly taking care of cleaning the <span class="dlf">roads</span> and the <span class="dlf">streets</span> in <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="284">Deprived of any liberty!And then...then, of course, I was not beaten there as the other prisoners. </sentence><sentence id="285">And so I still was able to continue my life in the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="286">In <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, it was really not easy to live and to survive because as the renowned French politician wrote in his book, he was also in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, and in his book, Liberate Root of Liberty, he says in that book that the <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> for him was an organized Hell. </sentence><sentence id="287">And you see if somebody very intelligent person really writes so that not only for him, but for all the people, it was really life in <span class="populated place">Hell</span>, without any hope, without peace, without liberty. </sentence><sentence id="288">You have been considered just there as a <span class="spatial object">mechanical instrument</span>, moved here and there. </sentence><sentence id="289">And...uh...in my case as the Polish priest, also, we had to work everyday in this so called plantation. </sentence><sentence id="290">And the...the work was really not easy and then every day, every day the same work. </sentence><sentence id="291">And without enough food. </sentence><sentence id="292">And then with the spirit of persecution you see. </sentence><sentence id="293">All those Gestapo people who really tried to direct our work, we our not human and..uh.. although...although they were very...uh...I would say...uh...against all of us. </sentence><sentence id="294">Yet we tried to avoid their discipline you see. </sentence><sentence id="295">And we did when they have...when they have...uh...come to us, we tried to do our best. </sentence><sentence id="296">When they disappeared, we just relaxed. </sentence><sentence id="297">And so they didn't have the true judgment of our work, but when they have seen that we really were not working what they have beaten us. </sentence><sentence id="298">And you see, some Gestapo people were very cruel without any sense of justice and the mocked kindness. </sentence><sentence id="299">And many people beaten, and the <span class="dlf">plantation</span> had to be transferred to the so-called <span class="building">hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="300">And there the Gestapo men finished them. </sentence><sentence id="301">You see, there was a <span class="building">hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="302">I was there also for...uh...some days just to heal my wounds here on the legs. </sentence><sentence id="303">And...uh...we didn't have the true conditions which a sick person should have in the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="304">You see, they treated us just as some living instrument and moved us here and there, also without the proper food. </sentence><sentence id="305">But in those conditions, it was really very important to have a firm will and peace of heart. </sentence><sentence id="306">How was it possible to find peace of heart in such conditions? </sentence><sentence id="307">And I answered just by your faith. </sentence><sentence id="308">You see, if you believed in God, in his not only justice, but also Law, then you knew that you are under his protection and if he permits all that suffering to us, it is also on the basis that we, the mortal priest, are co-responsible for the salvation of the other people. </sentence><sentence id="309">And you cannot be safe according to our gospel, but taking also part in some suffering. </sentence><sentence id="310">St. Paul in his Epistles tells us that our Lord has suffered for us and they offered to God that suffering, but in order that the suffering may be a stripe to us, we had to complete also that suffering by giving our part. </sentence><sentence id="311">And so if you have such faith that your suffering really can bring some fruit to you, to your brethren, then you have found also energy and strength to survive. </sentence><sentence id="312">And...uh...we say very often that suffering can break or make you. </sentence><sentence id="313">It can break you if you see nonsense in the suffering, but if you find out that there is some value also of suffering and because of this in the popular language, we say that it can make you...it can make you stronger. </sentence><sentence id="314">The more so stronger if you are a believer. </sentence><sentence id="315">If you think that everything is under the divine control. </sentence><sentence id="316">And in this faith and in this spirit you can really energize also your body and bring more peace for your daily life. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="353">Q: How did that help you in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>? </sentence><sentence id="354">What was in...in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, how did your faith help you. </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="357">What...what kind of things did you do in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="358">A: You see, it was really...very great danger to lose faith in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="359">If your faith was not firm. </sentence><sentence id="360">Why? </sentence><sentence id="361">Because the German Bishop have received from Himmler the privilege that he has also given to the German priest a <span class="building">chapel</span>, and they had the possibility to have their prayers, devotions, masses, and so on, but under one condition: no one accept German priests were allowed to take part all of the devotions performed in the <span class="building">chapel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="362">But here the danger for some people...you see some people really intended, not only priests but lay people, intended to go to the <span class="building">chapel</span> and pray a little. </sentence><sentence id="363">But there was a custodian, the priest, who according to the order of Gestapo was not allowed to...any body to enter a <span class="building">chapel</span>. </sentence><sentence id="364">And so the lay people said, "Well, how can I believe if this minister of God is so cruel just not to allow me to go to the <span class="building">chapel</span> for a spiritual comfort? </sentence><sentence id="365">and obeys rather a Gestapo order and not God's way. </sentence><sentence id="366">We have to answer, "There are also _____ people among the priest who act not according to their conscious, but according to the order received from the civil authority." </sentence><sentence id="367">But in order to replace for our use <span class="building">chapel</span> here and there when we were not specially...specially controlled by Gestapo, we formed really little group of people, and consoled each other and prayed with each other and so some little common utarian groups have been formed. </sentence><sentence id="368">And also it was...uh..for us also a joy when some priest custodian, not allowing according to the order of Gestapo enter the <span class="building">chapel</span> to...not German priest, that he has just closed his eyes and allowed us to enter. </sentence><sentence id="369">And then so from time to time it was also for us a spiritual consolation to pray and this <span class="building">chapel</span> was reserved only for German priests and...uh...well some priests were so friendly to us that they also brought to us some part of the Holy whole. </sentence><sentence id="370">You know what it means? </sentence><sentence id="371">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="372">And so we were...uh...also not only consoled by strength you see, by this sacramental help and assistance. </sentence><sentence id="373">So you must say that the German priests tried to help us also, but too many were fearful and fearful...and...for example, to such an extent, that they say, "No, I will not do it. </sentence><sentence id="374">I cannot." </sentence><sentence id="375">When I was really in <span class="populated place">Berlin</span> in the <span class="building">hospital</span> after this torture of the Holy Week then some men who took care of us sick people...uh...he, knowing that I am priest, said, "Well, if you so wish I can prepare for you perhaps the possibility to say Mass." And I said, "I would be so grateful to you, but you must ask the priest, the chaplain to give you all the instruments and say...for saying Mass. I approached the <span class="building">prison</span>, say Father and told him, "Father," I have all the opportunities for saying Mass here without being controlled by anybody in some secret place. </sentence><sentence id="376">Will you be so kind and give me everything that is necessary for celebrating." </sentence><sentence id="377">And he said, "Father, I am too afraid. </sentence><sentence id="378">Do you think that I should expose myself to go to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>?" " </sentence><sentence id="379">Never mind." </sentence><sentence id="380">You see, we had also such sadness, such opportunities that on the one hand you had the possibility to be strengthened spiritually. </sentence><sentence id="381">On the other hand, fearful people who could help you and that chaplain was really...I would say very cranky even. </sentence><sentence id="382">He feared too much the Gestapo, and even <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="383">If really somebody is in the need spiritual...spiritual need I should help him, also if I will be exposed to some suffering. </sentence><sentence id="384">We all are members of one family. </sentence><sentence id="385">And members which should help one another. </sentence><sentence id="386">And so this spirit you see of common utarian sympathy assistance was lacking also in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, but as a rule we must say that all the priests except those that were in the <span class="dlf">German block</span> for priests...uh...with some exception of course...all other priests tried to help each other. </sentence><sentence id="387">And...uh...so in this case, we can also understand why we have survived being helped, assisted by others, although not materially but spiritually. </sentence><sentence id="388">By this assistance, we really received new energy for survival. </sentence><sentence id="389">So then after many months...you see, at the end of 1944, we have received the privilege to receive packages from our parents. </sentence><sentence id="390">And then really we have received many packages our families. </sentence><sentence id="391">They tried to do their best in order to send us packages with the necessary...uh...food in order to strengthen us. </sentence><sentence id="392">And as a rule, Gestapo has allowed us to accept to receive all the <span class="spatial object">packages</span> and so from October 1944 til the end of the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> on Sunday, 29th, we really became stronger people. </sentence><sentence id="393">And we may say prepared for liberty not to go from <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> even to <span class="building">hospital</span> or to some other <span class="building">institution</span>. </sentence><sentence id="394">So packages sent us by our parents really were a great blessing for us. </sentence><sentence id="395">And one thing, we priests, Polish priests, noticed that packages sent by our Mothers came intact without corruption. </sentence><sentence id="396">And then from other members of families, here and there there was food and damage by this or other conditions. </sentence><sentence id="397">And so one idea came to a priest and he composed a beautiful song in honor of our mothers and we sang, you see, this song, really giving not only our thanks but expressing our deepest affection to our mothers to our family also, but especially to our mothers. </sentence><sentence id="398">And so we, on this occasion, started also our psychology, and came to conclusion that really love for a mother is the deepest mother besides the love for a God. </sentence><sentence id="399">And then also this renewal I would say of that...uh...uh...love for our mother, with the food, really made us more normal people. </sentence><sentence id="400">And...uh.. when I was also in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> in...uh...in the <span class="building">hospital</span> for some days, one priest was dying and called, "Mother," in such despair. " </sentence><sentence id="401">My dearest Mother." </sentence><sentence id="402">I approached him and told him, "Father, be consoled. </sentence><sentence id="403">You will find the blessed mother in <span class="dlf">Heaven</span>." </sentence><sentence id="404">And he said, "Father, do you understand the deep love of a dying person fora mother?" </sentence><sentence id="405">And I said, "Well, I was not in this state of dying yet, but I understand that Mother really counts as the great consolation in the last moment of life." </sentence><sentence id="406">You see, we perhaps have not realized enough what great really strength is our love for a mother, and the love of Mother for us. </sentence><sentence id="407">Mother lives for her children. </sentence><sentence id="408">Not always children live for their mothers. </sentence><sentence id="409">But our suffering, for example, in this case in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> really renewed in us the worthiness. </sentence><sentence id="410">There is no greater love after our love for God, than the love for our mother which is not always developed, but different occasions can really develop to such an extent that it will become strength and renewed energy for us. </sentence><sentence id="411">So then came the blessed day of...uh...April 29. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="466">Q: Can we hold it a minute. </sentence><sentence id="467">I would like not to get to the liberation yet. </sentence><sentence id="468">I would like to go back for a moment. </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="472">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="474">Q: You have mentioned being in the <span class="building">hospital</span> several times. </sentence><sentence id="475">Could you tell us about the events that led up to your being in the <span class="building">hospital</span> and you told me an extraordinary story before. </sentence><sentence id="476">Tell us about that. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="477">Q: You see, when we speak of the <span class="building">hospital</span> in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> or in <span class="populated place">Sachsenhausen</span> then we should not believe that the name of <span class="building">hospital</span> was identical with the conditions of a <span class="building">civilized hospital</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="479">You were there only an <span class="spatial object">instrument</span>...uh...which really received here...here and there some care, but most minimal. </sentence><sentence id="480">When you came to <span class="building">hospital</span>, then all the people who took care of the sick people believed you came here to die. </sentence><sentence id="481">And so if you didn't have the interior strength and the...the hope to survive, the little food which you have received was not able to help you to survive that. </sentence><sentence id="482">And so many people really died there and how many? </sentence><sentence id="483">Well, for example, in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> 868 Polish priests perished. </sentence><sentence id="484">Eight hundred sixty eight, and 3 of them...200 of them in the medical experiments, by torture in the <span class="building">prison</span> __. </sentence><sentence id="485">And the Polish clergy <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> order no.clergy of ordination, we were 1,718 numbers....1,718. </sentence><sentence id="486">And as I already told you, 868 were...died, and was martyred, of course. </sentence><sentence id="487">And...uh...then we must say that the...uh...priests slowly...at the end of 1944 received really some better conditions of life to such an extent that they have received also a permission that a French Bishop who was there also in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> has ordained a gentleman deacon to the priesthood. </sentence><sentence id="488">You see, unheard... </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="500">Q: Did you see the ordination? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="502">A: Yes, I...we did. </sentence><sentence id="503">Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="506">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="507">Please. </sentence><sentence id="508">Put...put that down. </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="512">A: And it was Karla Lisner, Deacon Karl Lisner. </sentence><sentence id="513">He was ordained by the French Bishop. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="516">Q: Tell us about that ordination as you saw it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="518">A: Well, for us it was great day not only because we witnessed the ordination of that Karl Lisner, but because we really....uh...have...have experienced some spiritual atmosphere. </sentence><sentence id="519">You see, when you are deprived of any spiritual assistance and help and ordinary conditions of human dignified life, when you take part in such a great ceremony then you are liberated really and strengthened. </sentence><sentence id="520">And perhaps in our materialistic times, we do not realize...uh...what kind of help and assistance we are losing, becoming indifferent to all the religious exercises and so on. </sentence><sentence id="521">In that...in that..-uh...<span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> when, for example, such occasions happened that we had the possibility to assist during the Mass or before the Moment in the <span class="building">chapel</span> or in this case, to be witnesses of the ordination. </sentence><sentence id="522">Oh, this was really a day of great spiritual elevation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="528">Q: The Germans permitted this ordination? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="530">A: You see, it was already...already 1944, as I said. </sentence><sentence id="531">He was ordained...ordained by the bishop in December 44, and from October 1944, we had already better conditions because of food we have received from our families. </sentence><sentence id="532">So this is the case. </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="536">Q: You had started...we sort of got off the <span class="dlf">track</span> a little bit to tell about your experience in the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="537">How did you come to be in the <span class="building">hospital</span> in the first place? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="540">A: You see, because work in...in the <span class="building">plantation</span>, I collapsed out of exhaustion. </sentence><sentence id="541">And so I was unable to walk, to move. </sentence><sentence id="542">So the so-called Kapo, you see of that group of people in which I also worked, ordered some people to bring some...uh...uh...<span class="spatial object">car</span> that I may be transferred to the <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="543">And so I suppose that the reason, the only reason was the exhaustion. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="544">And...uh...I didn't...didn't get much medical help, but I had the possibility to relax, to be free from the work. </sentence><sentence id="545">And did then also after some days, the possibility to approach the other prisoners also sick and console and strengthen them. </sentence><sentence id="546">And so in some case, it was not only a blessing for me to be there in the <span class="building">hospital</span> but also for those who needed also some advice, some help, some encouragement and so on because many sick people out of exhaustion, of being deprived of any assistance, help and encouragement died. </sentence><sentence id="547">Or if they didn't die, they die yet, then they were more murdered and burned in the <span class="building">crematorium</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="548">Q: You had said also you were in the <span class="building">hospital</span> another time for your legs. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="549">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="550">That's right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="553">Q: Could you tell us about that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="555">A: Uh...This was just only some hour in which I was there. </sentence><sentence id="556">There had seen what happened and given me some...uh...] would say means to stop the blood and so on and to cover all the wounds. </sentence><sentence id="557">I was there really for some hours to get some help, some assistance, but you see if you...if you did then have some inner strength and I would say...uh...desire to survive and to overcome all sufferings...also the very little sickness would you suffer, brought you to <span class="building">crematorium</span>. </sentence><sentence id="558">You see when you speak of <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, then you just cannot think of normal conditions of human life. </sentence><sentence id="559">The more so of the proper conditions in the <span class="building">hospitals</span>. </sentence><sentence id="560">They had to reopen also <span class="building">hospitals</span> you see because well the human eye needed it and international opinion also. </sentence><sentence id="561">So many, so many, I would say, people knew about all these things and conditions in the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>, then they just try also to visit or show here we also <span class="building">hospital</span> we care of the sick people, but the visitors didn't have any possibility to talk with us, to speak to us, to ask how do you feel. </sentence><sentence id="562">And on the day if some visit was...uh...really programmed in the <span class="building">hospital</span>, then they have prepared better food, for the eyes you see. </sentence><sentence id="563">But really inhuman conditions. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="573">Q: Tell us about that. </sentence><sentence id="574">Were you...uh...ever beaten and tortured in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="577">A: You see, not tortured but perhaps not taken care of. </sentence><sentence id="578">This was the case. </sentence><sentence id="579">And so, for example, if...if 1 was weak because of exhaustion, then they have not tortured me there in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="580">Perhaps because I was priest. </sentence><sentence id="581">But they didn't assist me. </sentence><sentence id="582">You had to just take care of yourself. </sentence><sentence id="583">And other people if they really were sick, they became victims of torture. </sentence><sentence id="584">Many, many people really just disappeared because the Gestapo inflicted such great and did suffering to them that they had to finish their life. </sentence><sentence id="585">So conditions which were not human you see, and because of this you can understand why the many also writers, as I have quoted , the French writer, why they have spoken of <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> as of the organized Hell. </sentence><sentence id="586">And many people really died and tortured in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="587">I told you about, for example, Polish priest. </sentence><sentence id="588">We were there 1,718 and 868 perished. </sentence><sentence id="589">That is to say, died. </sentence><sentence id="590">And...uh...300 of them..uh..died because of tortured suffered in the medical experiments. </sentence><sentence id="591">The doctors tried to see what they can expect from...from...uh..., for example, if the tortured such person to such an extent or another one. </sentence><sentence id="592">You see, we are experimental people. </sentence><sentence id="593">And...uh...we must say that... uh...the German priest were rather more protected than we, the priest of other nationalities and the more so lay people. </sentence><sentence id="594">But some people knew how to organize also their lives and survive in better conditions. </sentence><sentence id="595">This is the case. </sentence><sentence id="596">And so then came the day of liberation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="617">Q: At this point, we pause. </sentence><sentence id="618">We need to pause here and we will change tapes and then we will talk about liberation. </sentence><sentence id="619"> TAPE #2 </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="623">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="625">Q: Let us go back. </sentence><sentence id="626">If you would put that down. </sentence><sentence id="627">I would like to ask you now that the tape is on. </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="631">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="633">Q: The questions I asked I asked you when the tape was off. </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="635">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="636">Yal. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="639">Q: Uh...Could you tell me first, please, how you went about...uh...saying confession in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="641">A: You see. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="643">Q: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="644">You're on. </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="647">A: We heard confession just by walking with some person who asked us for this privilege or we were hidden in some corner of the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> because to hear confessions...you see it was really for the Gestapo some cause of a torture, and we tried to help the people that really in such way that these are became the victims of torture. </sentence><sentence id="648">And, also, during the work when we were not controlled by Gestapo, some people came to us and...uh...working a little, we have heard their confession and of course, tried to help them, strengthen them, to deepen their faith, confidence. </sentence><sentence id="649">And then, you see, one thing that you can communicate with another person and share, things which are great interest for you is most helpful, particularly in such conditions in which we lived in...in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="650">And...uh...because of this we must say and repeat again that suffering can break, but also make you. </sentence><sentence id="651">Through suffering you can benefit so much that you can have an idea of it only after you finish your way of the <span class="spatial object">cross</span>. </sentence><sentence id="652">And...uh...this is really so that we may open our eyes more fully to the mysteries of our life, to the mysteries of our destiny, and then in our Christian life to complete what is wrong thing of the suffering of Christ for us. </sentence><sentence id="653">YOu see, Christ, according to our faith, has paid the majority of the price for the ticket to Heaven, but on the condition that we also give our part that the price may be made fuller. </sentence><sentence id="654">If we are not interested in it, then the precious suffering of Christ for us, for you, for...a person is lost. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="663">Q: In <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>, how did you help comfort people? </sentence><sentence id="664">Was this legal and open in the daytime or did you have to do it illegally and secretly? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="667">A: Uh...Secretly. </sentence><sentence id="668">It was not allowed legally to bring to the people some religious comfort. </sentence><sentence id="669">You see, Nazi's most really diabolical system, trying to finish with faith, with religion and annilihate, everything what was not Hitlerism. </sentence><sentence id="670">It's a totalarian system, and then anti-Christian among the religious and no doubt that the Jewish people suffered really many losses but it was also and so because for Hitler, Judaism was a religion and then after finishing Judaism, they would like to finish Christianity. </sentence><sentence id="671">But they didn't have the possibility of it. </sentence><sentence id="672">You see there was a diabolical system : </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="679">Q: How did you go about trying to bring comfort? </sentence><sentence id="680">What did you do? </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="683">A: Well, you see, first of all, then we have offered to them a promise to help if we can and this are another case because they came to also with some difficulties in their work, in their lives. </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="685">Q: The other prisoners you mean? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="687">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="689">Q: Yal. </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="691">A: And so if you can help me, well how and this way or anther. </sentence><sentence id="692">And then particularly to...they came to receive some spiritual help, spiritual assistance that is to say to revive their faith that we live not only here on earth. </sentence><sentence id="693">This is only prelude to our eternal happiness, which we should deserve also by our suffering. </sentence><sentence id="694">And...uh...for some people there was also the question, "Why should a God permit such suffering?" </sentence><sentence id="695">You see, why? </sentence><sentence id="696">He is God. </sentence><sentence id="697">And so we had to explain to them that suffering, as such, is a part of our life. </sentence><sentence id="698">That Hitler has brought to us such really tremendous suffering, it is really his guilt, his responsibility and for us, and the patient to suffer it as much as we can for our greater and _ You see nothing happens in the history of humankind without the permission of the of the divine providence. </sentence><sentence id="699">Nothing can happen. </sentence><sentence id="700">And so we must say, "But why God permits sufferings?" </sentence><sentence id="701">Well, this is for the cure. </sentence><sentence id="702">We should really admit it that sometimes we come in our life to such better development that no other medical, physical or spiritual, can be helpful to us except suffering because in the days and or hours of sufferings we really came to the better...uh...recognitions of our conditions of life. </sentence><sentence id="703">And there is also an importunity for the renewal of our faith. </sentence><sentence id="704">And...uh...uh...the opportunity to strength our whole. </sentence><sentence id="705">My suffering will be rewarded there. </sentence><sentence id="706">Here is a temporary only pilgrimage for me. </sentence><sentence id="707">There will be eternity. </sentence><sentence id="708">And so your faith, you see, was the greatest help in overcoming your suffering, despair, and to collapse. </sentence><sentence id="709">Without your spirit strength, it was impossible just not to collapse. </sentence><sentence id="710">Our body has very limited energy and if that body is not energized by our spirit and some reasonable explanation of your position or your suffering, then there is no hope of survival. </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="731">Q: Did you come into contact with non-Christians while you were in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="733">A: Uh...Very rarely, because you see that they had separated the Jews and...uh...other Muslims, if they were there, from us. </sentence><sentence id="734">And it was only accidentally that we met, for example, some Jews or some Muslims. </sentence><sentence id="735">And otherwise you see Christian people were not so limited in their liberty to communicate as we with non-Christians. </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="739">Q: Alright. </sentence><sentence id="740">You had started to tell us you...what happened as liberation approached. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="741">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="742">Q: What. </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="744">A: You see then in April we all remained in 45...we already heard of the victory of anti- German...uh...German soldiers, in the <span class="dlf">battlefields</span>, and it was for us also a great help and assistance for strengthening our bodies, our minds, and our lives. </sentence><sentence id="745">But slowly in April...in April, we noticed that German soldiers really are collapsing on the front, receiving here or there some information and then we have also heard that the American soldiers are approaching ____and so also <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="746">And...uh...some movement...uh...of the Gestapo people in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> on April 28 told us that really the American army is approaching. </sentence><sentence id="747">And you see all the Gestapo people and controllers of our <span class="dlf">blocks</span> left their place and we remained alone without indigilence. </sentence><sentence id="748">So we left our <span class="dlf">blocks</span>, not going to work, and tried to come to the big public place of our official reunions. </sentence><sentence id="749">And that's one moment this approaching one soldiers to the <span class="building">tower</span> and slowly, the Germans soldiers you see do not defend him to enter the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> knowing that they are lost already. </sentence><sentence id="750">So the first soldier, American soldier you see, who came there to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> was a lady, and she was Miss. Margaret Higgins of <span class="building">Washington Post</span> or <span class="building">New York Times</span>, and she was such tremendously benevolent lady. </sentence><sentence id="751">We didn't recognize her as a lady and so everybody has kissed her and embraced her. </sentence><sentence id="752">She also and finally reunion, but finally, she said, "I am a lady in the sold...in the soldier's uniform," but don't fear. </sentence><sentence id="753">I am here just to help you as much as I can. </sentence><sentence id="754">And so we sang hymns of her thanksgiving to that lady. </sentence><sentence id="755">For us at that time, the great liberator. </sentence><sentence id="756">That is to say she came to us really as the representative of the American army, and after our first congratulations and songs of Hallulah...uh...other American soldiers entered <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> and what did they do?Brought many <span class="spatial object">cars</span> of food. </sentence><sentence id="757">And so we all have been invited to come and take as much as we only wished. </sentence><sentence id="758">It was a glorious day. </sentence><sentence id="759">And you see for some people it was the dangerous day because they had eaten too much and collapsed. </sentence><sentence id="760">You just cannot change your <span class="spatial object">system</span>, you see, so rapidly. </sentence><sentence id="761">But you just...uh...uh... should admit one thing. </sentence><sentence id="762">That your body is just asking you to fill it with food and food. </sentence><sentence id="763">If you have not guided your knowledge and with your mind, well you have taken too much. </sentence><sentence id="764">And then after the glorious day, we have...uh...received also the permission to prepare ourselves for leaving...uh... <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="765">And what that means, you have disposal to ask. </sentence><sentence id="766">And the...the French...French... uh...Consul from <span class="populated place">Paris</span> sent really to...uh...<span class="populated place">Dachau</span> some cards and in one card they have invited me also to join them, the Parisians, and come back to <span class="populated place">Paris</span>. </sentence><sentence id="767">And so it was a victorious day. </sentence><sentence id="768">And because of the packages which I have received from my family as other prisoners do, I was strong enough just to take again my <span class="building">office</span> of Director of <span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span> and function there and liberate the priest who helped...suffered for me with great, really willingness to do whatever he was able to do. </sentence><sentence id="769">And so already at..uh...uh...L...I would say...at the end of Spring we really have recuperated fully and continued our work. </sentence><sentence id="770">Some people still trying to find means, for example, the Poles to come back to <span class="country">Poland</span>; other group to <span class="country">Italy</span> and so on. </sentence><sentence id="771">I was personally in this good position that I was stable to reach <span class="populated place">Paris</span>...uh...some 3 or 4 days after liberation and..uh...live my normal life. </sentence><sentence id="772">But having possibility I tried to use them to bring also help to other people in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> and help them or assist them in their return to their places. </sentence><sentence id="773">And so Friday was the end of our real remarkable which for men became only torture one after the other, and many really ...uh...died and didn't survive to experience the date of liberation. </sentence><sentence id="774">Such is the case. </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="807">Q: Indeed. </sentence><sentence id="808">If you're are in <span class="populated place">Paris</span> and your story is not over. </sentence></p></dialogue>
104
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="811">A: Not over. </sentence></p></dialogue>
105
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="813">Q: You're in <span class="populated place">Paris</span> and you, I gather, was not in quite <span class="populated place">Paris</span> either. </sentence><sentence id="814">The Communists didn't like you you told me. </sentence></p></dialogue>
106
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="817">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="818">You see... </sentence></p></dialogue>
107
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="821">Q: Tell me. </sentence></p></dialogue>
108
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="823">A: I continued my work for two years. </sentence><sentence id="824">But being free and...uh..in agreement with the French government, I tried to purify the <span class="populated place">Polish parishes</span> in <span class="country">France</span> from any Communistic influence. </sentence><sentence id="825">And...uh...to such an extent slowly...uh...uh...the General Council of Polish Communistic Government, you see, went to...uh...uh...the First Minister of French Government...uh...saying that I am just intolerable, that I persecute the peaceful people. </sentence><sentence id="826">And so some person was sent to me just to find out what is the matter. </sentence><sentence id="827">And I told him, "Well, you see, such is the case that we were not only against the Nazis, but also against Communist. </sentence><sentence id="828">And for us Communists was also intolerable. </sentence><sentence id="829">And there are so many, so many communistic delegates from <span class="country">Russia</span> to Polish groups that I had to defend our Polish citizens against this infiltration of communistic sick... sickness." </sentence><sentence id="830">And then I really never allowed to infiltrate in our Polish organization...we never allowed the communists to really bring to them some damage. </sentence><sentence id="831">And I have received the answer of the communist...the French government congratulations. </sentence><sentence id="832">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="833">The former anti-really to hide the people that they may not become victims of communists, but now you see the...no photographs here. </sentence><sentence id="834">The communists...the communists after they have not received any help from ...from French government and to pacify me, they went to the <span class="interior space">upper story</span> to delegate. </sentence><sentence id="835">And what did they do? </sentence><sentence id="836">They told him, "Your Excellency. </sentence><sentence id="837">Certainly Christianity can develop only in peaceful conditions of co- living and that this present and you must correct him or even dismiss him." </sentence><sentence id="838">And so after the...uh...uh... communistic country left, the upper story delegates, the delegate of delegate, the future Pope...uh...jumped when he heard, call me and asked, "Father, what is the matter? </sentence><sentence id="839">I have received here so many accusations that you do not allow the people to live in peace and calm." </sentence><sentence id="840">And I said, "Of course. </sentence><sentence id="841">We must now purify our ranks from communistic...communistic influence." " </sentence><sentence id="842">And what about your relationship with the Polish government?" " </sentence><sentence id="843">I do not acknowledge the communistic government and the Consul General who...uh...calls himself Polish General Consul, is for me not any representative of Polish government because this Polish government is fully and entirely strange to our Polish...uh...people. </sentence><sentence id="844">And I will never allow to...the communists to infiltrate our Polish ranks." </sentence><sentence id="845">And he said, "Well, you are responsible for your conditions of life, but try only not to offend them." </sentence><sentence id="846">And I said, "Well, the...these communists personally will never be offended by me in my conversation, in my repression, and so on." </sentence><sentence id="847">And I told the delegate, "If the communistic consul general comes to our <span class="building">church</span>...uh...to the <span class="building">Polish church</span>, I will accept him really as the faith will. </sentence><sentence id="848">I will also hear his confession. </sentence><sentence id="849">And so be sure that in the matter of religion, those communists will not be persecuted. </sentence><sentence id="850">If they would like to become really faithful to the <span class="building">church</span>, they will have all the opportunities barred to bring the communistic poison to our Polish ranks will be excluded, but you see when the communistic ambassador didn't succeed to pacify me, going to the French government, and then...uh...to the <span class="interior space">upper story</span>...to delegate, they went to the Provincial Superior of my <span class="region">Province</span> in <span class="populated place">Warsaw</span>. </sentence><sentence id="851">And they said, "If you do not dismiss Father Cegielka from the office of the Superior of <span class="building">Polish Catholic Mission</span>, we will close your <span class="building">houses</span>. </sentence><sentence id="852">And the Provincial answered, "He is not subject to me in his <span class="building">office</span>. </sentence><sentence id="853">He was nominated by the Cardinal , the Prime of the <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="854">And so I have no power. </sentence><sentence id="855">I cannot do anything." </sentence><sentence id="856">And so the communists have understood that he cannot do anything and cannot just send me away from my <span class="building">office</span>. </sentence><sentence id="857">So they went to the General and said, "If you do not dismiss this man from the <span class="building">office</span> in <span class="populated place">Paris</span>, that will be end of...uh...many priests in <span class="country">Poland</span>." </sentence><sentence id="858">And so the General...the General </sentence></p></dialogue>
109
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="895">Q: The General of your order? </sentence></p></dialogue>
110
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="897">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="898">The General wrote to me saying, "Father, you see I have received such bad news that they will close many things which are dear to us. </sentence><sentence id="899">Our <span class="building">schools</span>, <span class="building">institution</span>, and so on. </sentence><sentence id="900">And perhaps it would be advisable that you will ask the Primate to...uh...free you from that <span class="building">office</span>." </sentence><sentence id="901">And so because it was the interest of the society which I belonged, I asked Primate just to free me from this <span class="building">office</span> and he...he received...has written me letter, "Father, with great really sadness, I must really give you the possibility to leave your <span class="building">office</span> of the Polish...of the Director of the Polish <span class="building">Catholic Mission</span>, but I take this with a great sorrow because you are needed so much here." </sentence><sentence id="902">So after he wrote me this letter, I really asked him to nominate his successor. </sentence><sentence id="903">And he said the best thing would be that he who has helped the Polish mission during your <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>, may now take that...uh...<span class="building">office</span> instead of your __. </sentence><sentence id="904">You see this was the case of the decision to send me to <span class="populated place">honorary camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="905">That is to say I was unable to go back to <span class="country">Poland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="906">Unable also to work in <span class="country">France</span> because they would...they communists would have suspicioned that I just had left...left my <span class="building">office</span>, but still not being officially called Director, I still infiltrate all the possibility...possibility sections and bring...bring really for them great losses. </sentence><sentence id="907">So the General asked me to come to <span class="populated place">Rome</span> for some months. </sentence><sentence id="908">I was helping him a little here and there, and then from <span class="country">America</span> he has received some petitions from...uh...congregations of Sisters to send some priest to <span class="country">America</span> who would give them retreats. </sentence><sentence id="909">You know what a treat is? </sentence><sentence id="910">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="911">And so he asked me whether I would go. " </sentence><sentence id="912">Of course, if you wish." </sentence><sentence id="913">And so I came to <span class="country">America</span>. </sentence><sentence id="914">And being here, I was invited...uh...to give retreats in many places so I was traveling from place to place. </sentence><sentence id="915">I was even asked to come to <span class="country">South Africa</span>. </sentence><sentence id="916">Twice I was there. </sentence><sentence id="917">And to <span class="country">Canada</span>. </sentence><sentence id="918">And always busy, busy _____. </sentence><sentence id="919">And after 20 years of giving retreats, you see, I had to...uh...relax because of the constant traveling and in 1968, I received the position of Proper Sorrow, of college person and then in <span class="populated place">Philadelphia</span> was teaching, and teaching the students in <span class="building">colleges</span>. </sentence><sentence id="920">I was also composing a special manuals, you see, to help them just not only to hear, but to read and when they read the material which we have explained to them and really accept some Christian education and Christian philosophy in <span class="building">college</span>. </sentence><sentence id="921">And...uh...during the last years of my teaching, I received some special privilege. </sentence><sentence id="922">That is to say, in 72 and something 70, I was nominated as outstanding educator of <span class="country">America</span>, a honor for me. </sentence><sentence id="923">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="924">And...uh...then I had to stay with my society ____, and I now am the Director of <span class="building">Infant Jesus Shrine</span>. </sentence><sentence id="925">That is to say some charter to which come pilgrimages...uh...and get also some spiritual help. </sentence><sentence id="926">So this would be the end. </sentence><sentence id="927">Thank you so very kindly. </sentence></p></dialogue>
111
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="960">Q: Father, thank you very, very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
112
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="962">A: Thank you so much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
113
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="964">Q: You are very special. </sentence></p></dialogue>
114
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="966">A: Thank you for renewed thanks and for your patience. </sentence><sentence id="967"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
115
+ </body>
116
+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: ralph none codikow
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0055
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0055_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504553
7
+ gender: m
8
+ birth_date: 1930-04-09
9
+ birth_year: 1930.0
10
+ place_of_birth: kaunas
11
+ country: lithuania
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ ghetto: none
15
+ camp(s)_encyclopedia: none
16
+ camp: none
17
+ non_ss_camp: none
18
+ region: none
19
+ needs_research: none
20
+ data_entry: cl
21
+ accession: 1990.416.1
22
+ revisit: none
23
+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
25
+ <!DOCTYPE html>
26
+
27
+ <html lang="en">
28
+ <head>
29
+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
30
+ <title>Document</title>
31
+ </head>
32
+ <body>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="1">Q: Would you tell me your name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="3">A: My name is Ralph Codikow. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="5">Q: Where and when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="7"> A I was born April 9th, 1930, in <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>, <span class="country">Lithuania</span> and lived in <span class="populated place">Panemon</span>, <span class="country">Lithuania</span> all my life until I was 11 years old. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: Where is <span class="populated place">Panemon</span> in relation to <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: <span class="building">Panemon</span> is on the outskirts of <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: Ralph, would you tell me about your parents and about your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: Well, we were an average family in <span class="country">Lithuania</span> before the war and...uh...my father, mother and a brother. </sentence><sentence id="16">I had a brother who was 7 years older than I was. </sentence><sentence id="17">And my father was in the ...<span class="building">lumber business</span> and lived there with his father, grandfather that I know oflived in <span class="country">Lithuania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="18">Before that I don't know. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="23">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="24">What was your childhood like growing up? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="27">A: Well, it was a pretty happy childhood. </sentence><sentence id="28">I went to eider when I was about 6 years old, then at 7 I went to <span class="building">Hebrew gymnasium</span> which is a <span class="building">high schoot</span> until about...until I was about 10 years old. </sentence><sentence id="29">And then in 1940... </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="33">Q: Hold it one second. </sentence><sentence id="34">Before we get to 1940, tell me a little bit about...uh...the friends you had, the things you did during the day as a child. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="37">A: Well, it was...it was an average life. </sentence><sentence id="38">We had a...we lived in a nice <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="39"><span class="populated place">Panemon</span> was a small <span class="populated place">community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="40">It consisted of one long <span class="dlf">street</span> with a few <span class="dlf">alleys</span>. </sentence><sentence id="41">And it was the <span class="dlf">gateway</span> to which were...were <span class="building">summer homet3</span> B for the people who lived in <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>. </sentence><sentence id="42">They used to come over to spend their weekends in the <span class="env feature">woods</span> and the <span class="env feature">forests</span> where they had built <span class="building">summer homes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="43">Also was real close by and it was beautiful <span class="env feature">beach</span> and we used to spend our weekends there and it was real nice before the war. </sentence><sentence id="44">And then in 1940, when the Russians took over <span class="country">Lithuania</span>..*uh...we didn't have any more <span class="building">Hebrew schools</span> and we had to go to <span class="building">Yiddish schools</span> and that's when we started g ~ learning Yiddish. </sentence><sentence id="45">I think Hebrew was outlawed or something. </sentence><sentence id="46">And I studied there for | year in a different <span class="building">school</span> until the Germans came in. </sentence><sentence id="47">And...well...uh...we could talk a little bit...uh...about that one year. </sentence><sentence id="48">This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="49">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="50"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="65">Q: Ya. </sentence><sentence id="66">Tell us about that. </sentence><sentence id="67">Well, uh my father had to leave his business because uh you couldn't be a businessman under the _--_ Russian regime, and he tried to get a job several times and had difficulties because he didn't belong to any party, and he was not involved in politics. </sentence><sentence id="68">And being...having been in business before the war, it was a little difficult to get a job. </sentence><sentence id="69">So we kind of struggled through that year, but it wasn't too bad. </sentence><sentence id="70">We made it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="77">And...uh...and then in 41,when the Germans took over, that's when all Hell broke loose, so to speak. </sentence><sentence id="78">Uh...First of all, I remember like it was yesterday. </sentence><sentence id="79">It was on a Sunday morning. </sentence><sentence id="80">And I had sat up until 4:00 in the morning making some names for my...for my...for the uniforms of my basketball team. </sentence><sentence id="81">I was about |4years and I was...at 4:00 in the morning when I was extremely tired I went to <span class="spatial object">bed</span>. </sentence><sentence id="82">And at 6:00 in the morning, I was woken and told that the <span class="country">Germany</span> invaded <span class="country">Russia</span> and they're going to be in our <span class="populated place">town</span> any day, the German army, and we have to leave because that may save our lives. </sentence><sentence id="83">So we had a horse and <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">My father...uh...got it all together and we packed some of our belongings and took all...took my ...well, my whole family which consisted of my brother, my mother and my father and also my grandfather from my mother's side. </sentence><sentence id="85">And we just started toward <span class="country">Russia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="86">Uh...We...I don't remember exactly how long it took us...a day or so to get to a small <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="87">I believe that <span class="populated place">town</span> was where my father was born and I think it was named...I'm not really very sure. </sentence><sentence id="88">And that is when the Germans met us and the <span class="dlf">border</span> was closed, and there was no need to go any further. </sentence><sentence id="89">So we walked into the first abandoned <span class="building">home</span> we found, probably was a <span class="building">Jewish home</span>, other people who ran away, and we decided to stay overnight and see what happens the next day. </sentence><sentence id="90">And in the meantime, I remember...uh...a few hours later, we heard some knocks on the <span class="dlf">doors</span>, vicious knocks...uh...by the Germans and they were looking for Jewish people I believe. </sentence><sentence id="91">They were yelling there were any Jews hiding here and naturally, we admitted that we were Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="92">So I remember they were kind of...a little vulgar and then they asked...uh...what time it was. </sentence><sentence id="93">One incident, and my brother kind of being proud of his Bar Mitzvah watch showed...showed him the watch and told him what time it was. </sentence><sentence id="94">They said, "Well, give me that watch immediately." </sentence><sentence id="95">And my brother kind of resisted, so when the Germans start pulling up his rifle, my mother went over grabbed his watch...grabbed my brother's watch and just handed it over real fast. </sentence><sentence id="96">And this was our first introduction to the German army Then the next day, I believe, we saw that there was no use to hang around. </sentence><sentence id="97">There was no use to stay in that little <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">We still had our horse, our <span class="spatial object">wagon</span> and some of our belongings and we headed back <span class="building">home</span> back to <span class="populated place">Panemon</span>, through <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>. </sentence><sentence id="99">On the <span class="dlf">road</span>, they had....some Lithuanian army, I believe it was, had set up a place where they intercepted all the refugees who had tried to leave and tried and kept them...stopped all of us and told us to move over to that particular, big huge place it was on the <span class="dlf">road</span>. </sentence><sentence id="100">And they just kept us there for no reason at all. </sentence><sentence id="101">We...we spent a few nights there I believe outside on the <span class="env feature">ground</span>, <span class="env feature">sky</span>. </sentence><sentence id="102">It wasn't too bad. </sentence><sentence id="103">It wasn't cold...cold. </sentence><sentence id="104">It was summertime. </sentence><sentence id="105">And no...no one knew what the future's going to bring. </sentence><sentence id="106">But after that I remember...1 believe that they took us to the Seventh or drove us to the Seventh the whole family. </sentence><sentence id="107">Exactly I don't remember how it happened, but I remember that our next stop was the <span class="building">Seventh Fort</span> in <span class="country">Lithuanian</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="139">Q: Tell us about the <span class="building">Seventh Fort</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="141"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="142">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="143"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="144">A: Well, the <span class="dlf">Seventh port</span> was, I believe, an <span class="building">army base</span> before the war. </sentence><sentence id="145">It may have been some kind of a <span class="dlf">military defense area</span> or something like that, but it was pretty green...pretty and they separated immediately the men and the women. </sentence><sentence id="146">Uh...I remember that my brother was 7 years older than I was, and when my grandfather went with my father on my one side, and my mother and I...they took us in another <span class="region">area</span> of the <span class="building">Seventh Fort</span>. </sentence><sentence id="147">I was 11 years old at that time. </sentence><sentence id="148">And we spent...and we spent...the exact amount of days...I don't remember how many days we spent there, but I...1 remember that right before they took us to the <span class="building">Ninth Fort</span>, and the <span class="building">Ninth Fort</span> was a similar place as the <span class="building">Seventh Fort</span> in <span class="country">Lithuania</span>, they had given them an order to some of the younger...uh...younger people who were with the meant to...to go to the women's side, and I...someone told you...that I think the order was that all the children up to about 15 or 16 could go to the women's side and my brother tried to go over. </sentence><sentence id="149">I don't know, he probably thought maybe it is safer and my father may have told him to do 60.And...uh...they didn't let him through because they said he looked older. </sentence><sentence id="150">Actually, he was 18. </sentence><sentence id="151">And he looked older, and they didn't let him in...let him go to...to...uh...his mother. </sentence><sentence id="152">And...and right after that we heard and knew that everyone was shot over there. </sentence><sentence id="153">All the men were shot, but my father was not there. </sentence><sentence id="154">This is another long story. </sentence><sentence id="155">My father was a volunteer in the Lithuanian army. </sentence><sentence id="156">I believe when <span class="country">Lithuania</span> in 1916 or something like that, he volunteered in the Lithuanian army to defend the...the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="157">And while <span class="country">Lithuania</span> was independent between 1916 and I believe1940, these volunteers took a in certain prominent Close Lithuanian life. </sentence><sentence id="158">They were ...and they were honored many times. </sentence><sentence id="159">My father had medals of it, and we were pretty proud of it. </sentence><sentence id="160">Uh...So before they told all the youngsters or after to go to another side, to the women's side, they also announced that everyone who was...they called themselves and those are volunteers. </sentence><sentence id="161">Every man who was a volunteer in the Lithuanian army to present themselves to the Lithuanian...uh., </sentence><sentence id="162">soldiers who probably did the massacre afterwards, and that they would take them out of there. </sentence><sentence id="163">And indeed, they did. </sentence><sentence id="164">They took them to a different place, which was called the...the <span class="building">Yellow Prison</span>. </sentence><sentence id="165">They called it the <span class="building">Yellow Prison</span> in <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>. </sentence><sentence id="166">And I know that my father was there. </sentence><sentence id="167">So at that time my father was not shot. </sentence><sentence id="168">It was only my brother and my grandfather. </sentence><sentence id="169">Then the...and....uh...my father was...uh...in that <span class="building">prison</span> I remember. </sentence><sentence id="170">And later on when we were released from the <span class="populated place">Ninth Fort</span>, after being there...uh...and..-uh...my father came <span class="building">home</span> one day and...uh...he...we asked him how he did that. </sentence><sentence id="171">He was in <span class="building">prison</span>. </sentence><sentence id="172">And he said he had promised the guard officers uniform and boots if he would let him go to see his family. </sentence><sentence id="173">He said, "Well, I'll let you go, but you better be back." </sentence><sentence id="174">And my father came to visit us. </sentence><sentence id="175">He spent a few hours with us and my mother begged him, I remember that. </sentence><sentence id="176">She begged him not to go back because it's not going to be there very good place. </sentence><sentence id="177">We knew about that. </sentence><sentence id="178">And...uh...he did go back, and...uh...they were shot over there also. </sentence><sentence id="179">They were shot. </sentence><sentence id="180">We heard all kinds of stories. </sentence><sentence id="181">Who knows why? </sentence><sentence id="182">But, we really don't know why. </sentence><sentence id="183">We really hoped and thought that being...being Xo the volunteers they were and respected before the war, the Lithuanian army who really directed most of these...uh...I don't know how to call it...uh...would...would really let them free, but they didn't. </sentence><sentence id="184">Uh...well, after...after this, we...uh...went to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="185">They...when the orders came, they told the Jews have to leave their <span class="populated place">towns</span>...their <span class="populated place">towns</span> and <span class="building">homes</span> and belongings. </sentence><sentence id="186">Well, not all the belongings, but...uh...that you couldn't take with you and move to that designated <span class="region">area</span> around <span class="populated place">Kovno</span> which was called the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">And my mother and I...we just took the things that we had. </sentence><sentence id="188">Couldn't...tried to exchange our <span class="building">home</span> with This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="189">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="190"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection some Lithuanians, but I guess we just were not successful. </sentence><sentence id="191">Some people did. </sentence><sentence id="192">Some people gave up big <span class="building">mansions</span> for little <span class="building">homes</span>, and...uh...they moved in there, but there was not enough <span class="interior space">room</span> for everyone so they...people who had those <span class="building">homes</span> took in their families, their friends, whoever needed it, and we were sharing. </sentence><sentence id="193">I and my mother, we shared a <span class="interior space">room</span> with a neighbor of ours who...uh...was...we were close before the war and...uh...that lady had also lost her son and her husband, and her daughter, who was my brother's age and I think they were friends...uh...had a <span class="interior space">room</span> that they acquired somehow from some relatives or friends in one of those <span class="building">houses</span>, and they took us in and we...shared one <span class="interior space">room</span>, the four of us. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="246">Q: Can you...can you go back. </sentence><sentence id="247">You had told me before that while your father was in <span class="building">prison</span> your mother had taken his papers and tried to do something? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="250">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="251">Well...well, my mother always cherished papers, a being the, that volunteers...and his medals. </sentence><sentence id="252">And that was...we tell that was a precious thing because most of the...most of our encounter all the misfortunes that we had until then were always caused by Lithuanian soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="253">And we didn't see that many Germans around at the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="254">I'm sure they gave all the orders. </sentence><sentence id="255">They were involved. </sentence><sentence id="256">But I we didn't see them. </sentence><sentence id="257">So we felt...she felt especially that those papers and medals may come in handy someday. </sentence><sentence id="258">She always kept them on her. </sentence><sentence id="259">Uh...Well...there's so much to talk about... </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="270">Q: You had gone ahead and you are in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> now? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="272">A: Yes, I'm in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> now. </sentence><sentence id="273">But...uh...there was another incident that if I may I should back up a little but that's always stuck with me too is when...when the Russians came in, although we were not in great shape financially either, but my father since he was a volunteer and he was in the army, he kind of had respect for some...for the Lithuanian Army...for the Lithuanian army before the war. </sentence><sentence id="274">And he was friendly with some...uh...people in high command. </sentence><sentence id="275">And he find out where we lived there a general who was I think the Chief of Staff of the Lithuanian army and when the Russians came in they sent him to <span class="region">Siberia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="276">And...and he had left his wife and children in our <span class="populated place">town</span>, and my father knew them. </sentence><sentence id="277">And I remember that whenever he could, he used to take some packages over there or even lumber to heat the <span class="building">homes</span> because in <span class="country">Lithuania</span> most of the <span class="building">homes</span> were heated by lumber, good lumber. </sentence><sentence id="278">And he...he was quite friendly with them and tried to help that particular year. </sentence><sentence id="279">And right after the Germans occupied <span class="country">Lithuania</span> right before the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, we were sitting in this <span class="building">lady's house</span>, Mrs. Mudrick was her name, and...uh...just talking about the future in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and things like that, where we're going to move <span class="building">homes</span> or whatever and I...I looked through the <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="280">It, it was about two <span class="building">houses</span> away from ours in <span class="populated place">Panemon</span>, and I looked through the <span class="dlf">window</span> and here was the General walking with his wife and was going back to their <span class="building">home</span> in the...on the... They lived...they had a <span class="building">home</span> in the outskirts of <span class="populated place">Panemon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="281">And I kind of felt a great feeling because I felt this is one man who probably could help release my father from that <span class="building">Yellow prison</span> that he was in. </sentence><sentence id="282">And I pointed her out to my mother, "Look who's walking by here. </sentence><sentence id="283">Why don't you go out and talk to him really quickly. </sentence><sentence id="284">I'm sure he knows us. </sentence><sentence id="285">Especially...she knows us, and maybe they can do something," my mother went out real quick. </sentence><sentence id="286">I was with her and I remember that for a minute they acted like...like...they didn't This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="287">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="288"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection even know us or pretended anyway. </sentence><sentence id="289">And...uh...she told them who we were and they nodded and she begged them to see if they'Il...can do something about releasing my father. </sentence><sentence id="290">But needless to t say, nothing happened. </sentence><sentence id="291">That is one incident that stayed with me. </sentence><sentence id="292">Uh...Alright, I guess now the next thing is the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="316">Q: Tell us again which <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> you were in and how did you get there? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="318">A: Well, from what I remember it was quite simple. </sentence><sentence id="319">We just walked or...or took a <span class="spatial object">bus</span> or something. </sentence><sentence id="320">I really don't remember exactly how we got there. </sentence><sentence id="321">Maybe on a <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>? </sentence><sentence id="322">No, I cannot. </sentence><sentence id="323">I'm not sure. </sentence><sentence id="324">I'm not sure. </sentence><sentence id="325">I know that we were there in 1941, and I was!1 years old with my mother and she had arranged to live in that <span class="interior space">room</span> with Mrs. Widrick and her daughter, Rita. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="334">Q: You are not in <span class="populated place">Kaunas</span>. </sentence><sentence id="335">You are in <span class="populated place">Kovno</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="338">A: Well, <span class="populated place">Kaunas</span> and <span class="populated place">Kovno</span> is the same thing. </sentence><sentence id="339"><span class="populated place">Kaunas</span> is in <span class="country">Lithuania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="340">Uh, well, from the beginning, I remember there was Aktions. </sentence><sentence id="341">They called for 500 people, and they called four thousand people to work, and they called for all kinds of things. </sentence><sentence id="342">And some came back, some people didn't come back, but those things did...did not affect me personally because, as I said, you know, being young, you...you don't understand a lot of things. </sentence><sentence id="343">I 12 know...my...my mother used to go to work every day in a <span class="building">brigade</span>. </sentence><sentence id="344">I don't remember exactly what she was doing and, but then we tried...we tried our best to survive. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="352">Q: Did you see any of the roundups? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="354">A: Uh...Not, not exactly. </sentence><sentence id="355">I seen a lot of roundups. </sentence><sentence id="356">Iseena _lot of brigades going in and out, but...uh...there weren't...I could not distinguish between the ones who went and came back and the ones who went and didn't come back. </sentence><sentence id="357">Uh I was a go-for when I was about 12, 13 years old, I became a go-for for the administration in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>.. running around with papers, back and forth to <span class="building">offices</span>...And...uh...I thought maybe...I really don't remember what I was thinking. </sentence><sentence id="358">I...1 was just doing what I was told to do, After...and...and that's it. </sentence><sentence id="359">When I was about 14 I believe, I started to work in a...in a <span class="building">clay factory</span> where weQ 5 * 2 used to manufacture pottery, clay...out of clay. </sentence><sentence id="360">And that <span class="building">factory</span> was run by afamily of qenerations of...of pottery makers, and they were very experienced and dida very beautiful job.;5 ft </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="368">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="369">Let's just pause. </sentence><sentence id="370">We need to change tapes. </sentence><sentence id="371">AtZ </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="372">Q: Tell us about your &gt;**ning.- &lt; &gt; Qvlve I t(a ew13 </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="374">A: Well...uh...so, | was doing some running for that place, running around, delivering to the pottery, and also trying __ to help out with the clay, kneading clay and so on and so t forth. </sentence><sentence id="375">A avery important uh part of my life happened in that <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="376">When I worked there, I'm sure that's whenX the... F st of the people know about the children's aktionSwhich was the selection of the young children whomthey...they picked out from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and took to the Ninthb ffi rt and killed them all over there. </sentence><sentence id="377">This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="378">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="379"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection As...as...uh...weheard, I was...the day they hAd that selection, I was at thepottery, at the <span class="building">ceramic factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="380">And I guess the boss orthe leader of that <span class="building">factory</span> had heard that there's ata selection...they're rounding up all the children. </sentence><sentence id="381">Well, hewas kind of concerned about me...uh...and he said, "Well, wegonna...since they're rounding up children we're going to;:ao put you to work and make you look important. </sentence><sentence id="382">So let's seeif...what we can do about it." </sentence><sentence id="383">I don't know...I don't knowif I understood what was happening, what our destiny was, but he all of a sudden put me next to his old uncle who wast 9 @t the best pottery maker, a real artist, and he put me rightnext to him to knead...knead the clay to prepare the clay ..for him to put on that <span class="spatial object">machine</span> and he was making the <span class="spatial object">pots</span> and <span class="spatial object">vases</span> and things likethat. </sentence><sentence id="384">And I remember two~3 ;6tUkrainian soldiers walked in. </sentence><sentence id="385">They looked around. </sentence><sentence id="386">They didn't see any children untilthey spotted me. </sentence><sentence id="387">And they walked up to me and they said, "How old are you?" </sentence><sentence id="388">And! </sentence><sentence id="389">14 believe I said, "I was about 14." </sentence><sentence id="390">Maybe I was 15.Maybe I was 14." </sentence><sentence id="391">And onesaid to me, "Come with us." </sentence><sentence id="392">Wellt Ir3 ;au didn't move that fast. </sentence><sentence id="393">I just kept on working, and the other one looked at me andsaid, "Aw, let him stay." " </sentence><sentence id="394">Oh no." " </sentence><sentence id="395">Let him go. </sentence><sentence id="396">Let him go. </sentence><sentence id="397">Come on. </sentence><sentence id="398">Come on." </sentence><sentence id="399">AndWz Ssthen the...the boss, Ske name i~ Nicholas, and he intervened 0 and said, "Well, this is a real good worker and we need him here. </sentence><sentence id="400">n And he said, "Okay, let's leave him here. </sentence><sentence id="401"><span class="dlf">wJ</span> And the second one insisted that I stay, and they walked away and _ t__ this is how I remained that timt and uh this was an0 4 60important...uh...event, that <span class="building">clay factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="402">I think stayed in the <span class="building">clay factory</span> untilthe evacuation to the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span> in <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="403">But I think before that...beforethe <span class="building">clay factory</span>, we had a very importantO This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="404">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="405"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection I...Ididn't...I didn't know what to a_ think. </sentence><sentence id="406">I thought my mother had lost her sind right there. </sentence><sentence id="407"> 4;rS; oF Il \ tt~i~IL h. To find him on the wrong side since he was, poFtiswbartywas I think a single person. </sentence><sentence id="408">I don't think he had his familyO g a anymore. </sentence><sentence id="409">Well, to shorten it, they took us down about, oh, 50 yards or 100 yards ina different place after we were selected on the right side which was the wrong sideand...uh...they were waiting for more people to come and when they had a certainamount...on that side they usedot:2~ to...they took us into the little <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="410">And that is different...altogetherdifferent story about the little <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="411">Well, as we were standing there and waitingto be taken to the little <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, I spotted that man standingt Mabout 10 yards from us and said to my mother, "Here he is just like you 8aid." </sentence><sentence id="412">And shesays, "Run over to him and tell him to come over and stay with us." </sentence><sentence id="413">And I did. </sentence><sentence id="414">Andhe kind of worked his way to us. </sentence><sentence id="415">My mother asked him, "How did you get over here?"Well, I tried to save a lot of people,O 9'6~ children, and...and the commandant wouldn't even listen to me. </sentence><sentence id="416">He just put us on thewrong side and here we are." </sentence><sentence id="417">And he was just as scared and just as weak as I was. </sentence><sentence id="418">My motherW)S 4t&lt;;&lt;, M# ,r Jke aOlr something. </sentence><sentence id="419">And everytime I woke up I could see her sitting, not sleeping at all. </sentence><sentence id="420">At 6:00 in the morning,5:00,X1~O-D 6:00 in the morning, we heard bang gr~yelling, screaming, insults, dragging people. </sentence><sentence id="421">We ran out and we saw already some...uh...rows of humanity being taken I think in theX] aj) direction of the <span class="building">Ninth Fort</span> which we knew...which <span class="dlf">street</span> led to the <span class="building">Ninth Fort</span>. </sentence><sentence id="422">Andas we were in the <span class="dlf">line</span> in front, almost by the <span class="dlf">gate</span>, my mother decided, she said,"Well, now __ ttr. </sentence><sentence id="423">X h we're going to try to come back." </sentence><sentence id="424">She said, "Ba , give/{ 4t me your papers." </sentence><sentence id="425">And she took the medals and my father's .. paper and she ran up to oneLithuanian officer and told him that...pretended that Mr. Raston was her husband andsaid that he was a political prisoner, that he was a , a volunteer before the war,that he did some good things forXD <span class="country">Lithuania</span>&lt;&lt;, and would he help us in...in sending us back to _i8 the big <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="426">Well, one...one said, "Well, don't worry wherever you'regoing you're going to be working. </sentence><sentence id="427">You're...you're just going to change places. </sentence><sentence id="428">Itwon't be/; ;<span class="populated place">UD</span> much different." </sentence><sentence id="429">And she went to another one. </sentence><sentence id="430">Another one wouldn't even listen toher. </sentence><sentence id="431">The third one said I could not do anything about it, until Mr. iesCcn and I kindof gave up and told herl "Let's...let's go where everyone else goes." /; </sentence><sentence id="432">And uh she said, "One more." </sentence><sentence id="433">She saw _ she spotted thislieutenant, Lithuanian lieutenant, and she walked up to himand she kind of with her last breath tried to explain the} 3 " 6M situation. </sentence><sentence id="434">And he said to her, "Look, I cannot do anything about it, but...but theGerman commandant is going to come over in a few minutes and rsached...he took us andhe put us on the <span class="dlf">sidewalk</span>, rather than in the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="435">And he said, ~You stay here This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="436">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="437"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection andwhen the German commandant comes, we're going to present to him these papers and seewhat he can do} 3 aU3 about it." </sentence><sentence id="438">And that felt very tood at that moment except that about a minute later,some soldier walked up, Lithuanian soldier, and he saw us standing on...on thesidewalk, not where everyone else was standing. </sentence><sentence id="439">And he had, 3: q O a <span class="spatial object">club</span> in his hand and without any question he smacked Mr. ..9*6ten on his ear and split his ear and...uh...my mother on her back, black and bluemarks on her back, and told us to get back in the <span class="dlf">row</span> with all the other people. </sentence><sentence id="440">Atthat time # ffi that officer noticed it and he came over and he said to him, "Look, Itold them to stay here and I want them to stay here 19 and don't touch them." </sentence><sentence id="441">A minute later the German appeared, the Germancommandant. </sentence><sentence id="442">And the way it was situated was like/ 4 ag3 this. </sentence><sentence id="443">The <span class="dlf">gate</span> of the small <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> was the end of one <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="444">The whole thinghappened...the way it happened was like a interception from which four or fivestreets...<span class="dlf">streets</span> branched out. </sentence><sentence id="445">The German commandant wastX 40 standing in the middle of the <span class="dlf">interception</span>. </sentence><sentence id="446">The <span class="dlf">gate</span> was on one <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="447">About 90degrees of that <span class="dlf">gate</span> was the <span class="dlf">fence</span> of the big <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> from which we had come. </sentence><sentence id="448">No gate.3ust <span class="dlf">barbed wire fence</span> with German guards and the Jewish policea ff n an the other side of it, pretending to watch what'shappening or to guard or whatever they were doing there. </sentence><sentence id="449">a&gt;&gt;a Xs Probably seeing what was happening. </sentence><sentence id="450">knothes German was J b <span class="spatial object">SLt</span> standing there,the lieutenant ran over quickly, took the medal the papers, and walked over to theGerman commandant and he talked to hiw. </sentence><sentence id="451">What he said I don't know, but I heard theGerman yell, "Where are those Jews? </sentence><sentence id="452">Where are those Jews?" </sentence><sentence id="453">So he ran...he came overquickly and got us and...uh...my mother walked up to him quickly and told...ff 40 repeated her story, and he said, "Back in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>." </sentence><sentence id="454">And we could see...before I gotto the <span class="dlf">fence</span>, I could see the 3ewish police...there was no <span class="dlf">entrance</span>, but the Jewishpolice16; 65r who were on the other side tore the <span class="dlf">barbed wire</span> with their hands and their feet,tore apart...made a <span class="dlf">hole</span>, and we just crawled back in. </sentence><sentence id="455">And...uh...that day 10,000people died.sUD One of the nen who vent was a cousin who we really hadn't 20 seen, but we learned afterwards that she was there. </sentence><sentence id="456">And...uh...this is, Iguess, how we survived that one.g q p But...uh...it just worked out exactly the same way my mother ~1,8,~8 zr~ predicted. - </sentence><sentence id="457">~ . </sentence><sentence id="458">Probably one in a million. </sentence><sentence id="459">From what I understand is thatthere may have been a few othersIn C~) who hid in <span class="interior space">attics</span> or some other places that day instead of going to the <span class="building">Ninth Fort</span>,and I think when somebody told me afterwards...when the Jewish police and the firemencame i io check they found some people hidden and later got them out of there. </sentence><sentence id="460">Theybrought over uniforms and they dressed n a&gt;Dthem up as policemen and they just gotthem back in. </sentence><sentence id="461">I FaP S&gt;ftdon't think there was very many, but I know that...uh...thatAo*WenQwe came back, we were the only ones. </sentence><sentence id="462">O </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="558">Q: Where did you go? </sentence><sentence id="559">What happened to you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="562">A: Well, we went back to our place, to our...where we lived in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and we continuedthe <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> life and actually the = Ats ktt B e atD children's aktion and...uh...was after...after tWz nd they would go outcontinue living in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> until the evacuation. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="564">Q: And did you see the children? </sentence><sentence id="565">The children aktion that you had described earlier? </sentence><sentence id="566">&gt;} <span class="dlf">D</span> </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="570"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="571">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="572"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="573">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="574">And uh the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> kept on shrinking all the time,21 less and less people. </sentence><sentence id="575">And even the <span class="region">area</span> was reduced and I believe in 44 when the Russian army got closer to <span class="country">Lithuania</span>, X for sone reason and just evacuated us and took us to theconcentration camp. </sentence><sentence id="576">But before that happened...uh...peoplewere trying...trying to build some bunkers~ They werecalled <span class="interior space">bunkers</span>, which were hiding pl*ces. </sentence><sentence id="577">They kind of5 <span class="building">C1D</span> expected that some day when the war was over that theGermans would not leave a trace of U8. </sentence><sentence id="578">SO they builtbunkersX And in that ceramic factorA there was a <span class="building">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="579">And actually I...1 forgot to mentionXmy mother was hidden in; q that <span class="interior space">bunker</span> in the <span class="building">ceramic factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="580">And...uh...from what Iunderstand Gb*Ae was later that...when they evacuated theghetto and some of the people stayed in the <span class="interior space">bunker</span>, they;4 D just put the whole...they just put a fire to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> andthey burned everything and everyone in there. </sentence><sentence id="581">And I don'tknow if any people survived that day. </sentence><sentence id="582">But I know there wassome people hidden in this <span class="building">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="583">They had it prepareda ~: r real well. </sentence><sentence id="584">They pretended they were building a <span class="spatial object">furnace</span>...afurnace...0 <span class="spatial object">oven</span> for the ceramic because you had to take it utsst <span class="dlf">Dv 15 iZq</span> and burn it. </sentence><sentence id="585">And that was the ; fEceceee 11ve in-the big <span class="interior space">bunker</span>. </sentence><sentence id="586">AndI think I know...1 think I heard that one of my aunts also was in one of those <span class="interior space">bunkers</span> and she disappeared ffi right afterw~&gt;~ </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="601">Q: What was life likeAfor you in the ghetto?22 </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="603">A: Well, it all depends. </sentence><sentence id="604">It all depends. </sentence><sentence id="605">It was different for all people. </sentence><sentence id="606">For me7 Well,when I was working...running a " so around and working, it wasn't that bad. </sentence><sentence id="607">Matteroffact...uh...I even had a chance to play soccer in the te~_ a1 6mb <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="608">I had a <span class="dlf">PtSBt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="609">I had some friends. </sentence><sentence id="610">We formed a soccer team. </sentence><sentence id="611">We played there among ours Qlvesand...uh...and ..uh...as a matter of fact, I had a good friend who was the captain of our team. </sentence><sentence id="612">He was studying at that time...incidently, we had a...I believe an <span class="building">arts school</span> in a o . </sentence><sentence id="613">a O the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="614">And that <span class="building">arts school</span> consisted of about four or five students, one or Mwo \teachers. </sentence><sentence id="615">And...uh...they were0 iC OC c .1 &lt;9 0 (0 0 ~ ag=wsug some veedbeSteatA.training. </sentence><sentence id="616">And one of the friend of ~ine heard that we were studying in this <span class="building">arts school</span> and 1Q 1 qb remember waiting for me and rushing him to get out of <span class="building">school</span> so we could have a little more time to play and...uh...later on this <span class="building">arts school</span> played another big part in my life. </sentence><sentence id="617">Uh...Otherwise I really don't remember too much. </sentence><sentence id="618">It was&gt;;L ~nb just routine every day. </sentence><sentence id="619">I remember one incident when my mother went to work and she took me with...with her because she got a chance to go to <span class="building">home</span> ~ in <span class="populated place">Panemon</span> because the brigade was working there for...I don't know who...theQ; g D military or somebody. </sentence><sentence id="620">And I remembert we went and came to our <span class="populated place">hometown</span> and we walked into the <span class="building">barracks</span>, the <span class="building">military barracks</span> which was situated behind a <span class="building">home</span> across the <span class="dlf">street</span> from our <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="621">And the people across the <span class="dlf">street</span> from ouraa +~ <span class="building">house</span> were <span class="country">Lithuanians</span>, very good friends of ours. </sentence><sentence id="622">They had 23 a <span class="building">restaurant</span> and I remember walking through...uh...I think she had made...Ithink Oer mother ~w walkeda 3 crD through several times and there was a board in the <span class="dlf">fence</span> that was loose, especially made I think for my mother to go over the board and walk through to their <span class="interior space">backyard</span> and into their <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="623">And I remember those people real well. </sentence><sentence id="624">Weofl v se&gt;4 M *v R&gt;&gt; s aUL walked through there and we walked up nnd otood boforc this <span class="building">restaurant</span> and I remember that lady was there, Mrs. , friends before the war. </sentence><sentence id="625">They were very nice to me. </sentence><sentence id="626">Andused to be our friends before the war, her sons, and even made one time at iaSi~ r;*S forme, <span class="building">amsttk</span> , a very small one. </sentence><sentence id="627">It was very cold. </sentence><sentence id="628">And This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="629">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="630"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection 0 they poured water, used toa3 q b freeze them within an hour. </sentence><sentence id="631">And they were good friends of ours. </sentence><sentence id="632">And I remember that they kind of helped us a little bit with some food. </sentence><sentence id="633">I remember when my mother used to come back from that job, I remember we ate pretty good. </sentence><sentence id="634">This was Q amaid sharing this food. </sentence><sentence id="635">| remember during my during my stay in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, in the <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>, most of thetime I spent thinking about this food more than anythingelse. </sentence><sentence id="636">I don't think I wa6 that scared to die or anythingaW No else, just tried to get some food just to feel better..That...that I remember. </sentence><sentence id="637">Is there anything else. </sentence><sentence id="638">After this... </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="678">Q: You are back in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="679">What happened to you?24ad: 5 t </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="682">A: Well. </sentence><sentence id="683">To me? </sentence><sentence id="684">Nothing that...nothing that I can remember! </sentence><sentence id="685">XtAte cllJ(tm)V~c- "ts <span class="building">MoR Mir</span> . </sentence><sentence id="686">The big aktionQ I believe I ~\; <span class="building">J 13</span> was 12 years old. </sentence><sentence id="687">i~_S*&lt; </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="694">Q: Let's hold it a minute. </sentence><sentence id="695">They need to change tapes. </sentence><sentence id="696">j 3CX5 3m </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="697">Q: Would you tell us about your family&lt; </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="699">A: Prom what I remember was this. </sentence><sentence id="700">There were no <span class="building">schools</span> inthe <span class="building">school</span> in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="701">If there were any, I didn't know --_ about it. </sentence><sentence id="702">Uh...We had some friends as I said who came from...who also were German-Jewish refugees who came to live _ol ; | in <span class="populated place">Panemon</span> and my parents became friends of theirs. </sentence><sentence id="703">And __ they were religious people, very religious people, and...uh...tbere were all the Jewish traditions andso Ol~q O forth. </sentence><sentence id="704">They also made it to the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. </sentence><sentence id="705">And remember when I was about 12, 12 and a half, my mother...uh...said that this gentleman...I forgot his name...would teach me the Sa orah and everything that one needs to know to havea Bar o Mitzvah. </sentence><sentence id="706">So every day he used to come over. </sentence><sentence id="707">I used to go over to his place and we would study4*F 1 I don't remember how long, but...uh...but by the time the day of the Bar Mitzvah came, I remember there was a <span class="building">house</span> and there were25D z ; D quite a few people, 10, 20 and I remember the women being in d,~ the back and...uh...they were styihq their Saturday prayerd g ust like in the normal times, and when it came to my paronks I remember that I think I did fairly well with myuL ~&lt; ~. And one thing I can remember that day, I had neverO)"457 seen my mother cry so hard and that day, it was...it was I remember it was impossible to stop her. </sentence><sentence id="708">Although&gt; @; a after...after the Bar Mitzvah, they had a little party. </sentence><sentence id="709">Whoever had anything brought over, and we managed to03 a 3 celebrate. </sentence><sentence id="710">That was one incident I remember clearly. </sentence><sentence id="711">And...uh.*.in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> every day life, work and we heard, of course, all kind of incidents. </sentence><sentence id="712">If I were to go to very day life, there was a hanging in the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> that I remembero 3;%5 clearly because...uh...uh...one...they...they claimed they found in fact, one of the inmates with a revolver or a pistol trying to smuggle into the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>. &amp; </sentence><sentence id="713">And uh natura}ly the Gestapo apprehended him and uh we were ordered everyone was ordered to appear in one place. </sentence><sentence id="714">And the <span class="spatial object">gallows</span> were all prepared ~ They brought him back. </sentence><sentence id="715">I remember having seen him coming out of the = all beaten up, swollen, hardly recognizable, andI.. <span class="populated place">OQ</span> remember the hanging incident. </sentence><sentence id="716">I This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="717">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="718"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection 1 was maybe 12, 13 watching through a <span class="dlf">window</span> because...uh...they had him $4; a pistol or something. </sentence><sentence id="719">And I believe because of that...the # +O <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> had to sacrifice a lot of people for him because they wanted to punish <span class="country">US</span> and took some innocent people and just 26Wtg t3 did kill them Xe=roTth of that incident. </sentence><sentence id="720">It was not...it was not pleasant. </sentence><sentence id="721">You had to move from <span class="populated place">place</span> to place. </sentence><sentence id="722">As they were shrinking the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, we had to move from place to place. </sentence><sentence id="723">And...uh...tried to do the best...make the best of it. </sentence><sentence id="724">1 am sure that there were a lot of other incidents thatt6 "2 thappened. </sentence><sentence id="725">I'll probably think of them later, but right now I cannot think of them. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="755">Q: What happened then? </sentence><sentence id="756">Do you remember? </sentence><sentence id="757">90 </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="761">A: Well, when...when they evacuated us. </sentence><sentence id="762">We were one of the last ones to be evacuated, to <span class="country">Germany</span>, to the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="763">They took us in a <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="764">We traveled to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="765">I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="766">I don't remember how long it was. </sentence><sentence id="767">But I remember coming to <span class="populated place">Stutthof</span> and uh and they separated the women from the men and...uh...kept the women in the <span class="populated place">Stuffhof camp</span> someplace around <span class="populated place">Stutthof</span> and the men they took to <span class="populated place">Landsberg</span>. </sentence><sentence id="768"><span class="populated place">Landsberg</span> was a...was the first stop in t <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="769">That was a <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="770">A small one I believe not far from <span class="populated place">Munich</span> and not far from <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="771">And I remember being separated with my mother already and I justO G qocontinued with the <span class="spatial object">trains</span> to deeper into <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="772">And that __ is the last time I heard of my mother until after the war. </sentence><sentence id="773">I had some people who were with her and told me that she _ died in the last days of the war. </sentence><sentence id="774">The exact details they | O5 CDnever told me, but...uh...probably for some reason probably 27 not to upset me or other things, but the exact way I don't know, but I know she...she died in the last days. </sentence><sentence id="775">And...uh...I came to <span class="populated place">Landsberg</span>, and there were a lot of men, young men and older men. </sentence><sentence id="776">And we stayed there not too long, and they ordered all the children up to 17 years old to q O assemble and...uh...and they took us away. </sentence><sentence id="777">They took us away to...to <span class="populated place">Dachau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="778">We were about 131 I believe, and we stayed in <span class="populated place">Dachau</span> for | week and then they shipped us out to <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>, <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="779">And...uh...when we came to <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="799">Q: Tell us about that ride. </sentence><sentence id="800">Ot </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="803">A: Well, the ride to <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="804">We were...we were put in three <span class="spatial object">wagons</span>, three <span class="spatial object">railroad wagons</span>, <span class="spatial object">train wagons</span>, 131 ofusand D we we were stopping someplace. </sentence><sentence id="805">The only thing I really remember from that ride is that we came to a place in a <span class="building">train station</span> where some Russian prisoners were able to walkup to our <span class="spatial object">train</span> and there were some <span class="dlf">port holes</span> in our cattleOg # 513 <span class="spatial object">trains</span> and warned US to see and try to...try to escape if we could because...uh...they said if you are Jewish and you are.. going to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> or <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>, that's where they kill them Oq &gt;&gt; D all. </sentence><sentence id="806">So if you have a chance, just run away. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="807">And some of us couldn't . </sentence><sentence id="808">And it...it took quite a while to get there. </sentence><sentence id="809">And one incident I remember was that since we&gt;q # O were all Lithuanian children that none of us spoke Polish so --_28 to try to escape was useless or we wouldn't know to talk or how to talk. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="810">Butin my...in my <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>, there were two boys who did speak Polish, a little or a lot I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="811">I knew they knew something about it. </sentence><sentence id="812">And they told us that a they were going to jump and escape. </sentence><sentence id="813">Now, we hada big _ dilemma because if they escaped and we knew from the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> 1b <span class="building">Qdifone</span> did anything wrong, all of us would be done. </sentence><sentence id="814">So we </sentence></p><p><sentence id="815"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="816">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="817"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p><p><sentence id="818"> 2 had a plan made up with them thst they...we would try __ to...there were two older German guards in that <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and = we would try to distract them to try...there were maybe 60 qOofus or 50 of US on that <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and we would try...there was only...the was only made of about we were maybe about 5 or 10 kids involved in that. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="819">And...uh...we said like this, that they're going to go through that <span class="dlf">port hole</span>, _ tnD try to climb down the step of the <span class="spatial object">train</span> and stay there for awhile until maybe the moment that the <span class="spatial object">train</span> slows down a little bit...I believe the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was going about maybe 40 miles an hour, 50 miles an hour, and when the <span class="spatial object">train</span> slow down and maybe in a <span class="region">brushy area</span> where it would be softer...softer to <span class="env feature">land</span>, they would try to jump. </sentence><sentence id="820">And to protect us because out of 50 kids someone had to see that they were jumping out and not to tell the Germans that would have been the end of every one of us. </sentence><sentence id="821">So we decided with them that they're going to jump and in about a couple of hours later, we would pretend...we would be about...and...100 miles away...120 miles away from that <span class="region">area</span>...a couple of hours later, we would pretend that we just saw the kids jump, and we would tell the German guards that here two kids have jumped out and here they are. </sentence><sentence id="822">They're laying right here watching us. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="823">And...uh...maybe that would save us and...uh...in the meantime, Seli thit wl; ;D-, they wouldn't...they wouldn't even look for them that far away and...uh...maybe they would. </sentence><sentence id="824">So we did itZ; q <span class="dlf">D</span> that way. </sentence><sentence id="825">We...we took four...four of us, starting talking to the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="826">They were kind of older and they were not from the <span class="building">SS</span>. </sentence><sentence id="827">They were from the Wehrmacht, so...so you could speak to them once in awhile. </sentence><sentence id="828">They would...I remember someone was talking to them about knives, about other/3 61) things. </sentence><sentence id="829">I don't remember the conversation. </sentence><sentence id="830">About we were watching the <span class="building">homes</span> or the <span class="env feature">greenery</span> while the <span class="spatial object">train</span> was going by. </sentence><sentence id="831">We just talked to them and kept them busy. </sentence><sentence id="832">And all of a sudden, like we said, about two hours later, one kid ran up to us and started to pretend that he's telling me a? </sentence></p><p><sentence id="833">bao secret~ And they got excited and they asked whatts happened. </sentence><sentence id="834">We said, "Go look quick. </sentence><sentence id="835">Quick. </sentence><sentence id="836">Through that <span class="dlf">window</span>, the <span class="dlf">port hole</span>, two kids just jumped out." </sentence><sentence id="837">First, they didn't believe it and then they kinda looked and then3 <span class="region">AO</span> they said, "Well, it took you too long. </sentence><sentence id="838">They were right there." </sentence><sentence id="839">And thirdly, they started to call the officer somehow and made some signs that we should stop the <span class="spatial object">train</span> reco+(tm)blc and to recount them because if they took them to , we/ # 61D were missing. </sentence><sentence id="840">Now that took a little while. </sentence><sentence id="841">And they30stopped the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="842">They took us all out and they counted us three times, and two were missing. </sentence><sentence id="843">SO they...they asked us,Where did it happened. </sentence><sentence id="844">And they said, "About five minutes# <span class="dlf">dD</span> ago, they all jumped out, and we reported it, we saw it. </sentence><sentence id="845">"And okay, from what I understand they did call the localpolice in that <span class="populated place">town</span>, but that may have had been 10towns...those kids were about 10 <span class="populated place">towns</span> behind us...andthey...they were looking for them. </sentence><sentence id="846">What happened? </sentence><sentence id="847">We don'tknow. </sentence><sentence id="848">But from what I heard lately, I think one...ne of/4 4O them did survive. </sentence><sentence id="849">Someone told me a story that one kid whenthey were transported from...uh...from...uh...we were goingto <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span> to <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> jumped the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="850">One of theLithuanian kids jumped the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, and he's somewhere iny 5 ; &gt; <span class="country">Israel</span> right now. </sentence><sentence id="851">And I'm trying to see if we can makecontact and meet him. </sentence><sentence id="852">And...uh...that I learned recently ayear...maybe a few months ago. </sentence><sentence id="853">So we then we came toAuschwitz,- <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="854">We were led in. </sentence><sentence id="855">We were kept for3 about 3 days in quarantine, and we didn't know why in <span class="building">abarrack</span> with straw, not even a <span class="spatial object">shower</span>. </sentence><sentence id="856">Very little food. </sentence><sentence id="857">And we could see a lot of concerned inmates, old timers whoused to come in and out, in and out, talk to us, and ask usZ S q t questions. </sentence><sentence id="858">And we found out...out later, the reason westayed there about four days before letting us into thecamps is because this is the first transport of children </sentence></p><p><sentence id="859"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="860">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="861"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p><p><sentence id="862"> 3 whowere let into <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> alive. </sentence><sentence id="863">There were some childrenyC CnD before who came with their father or families. </sentence><sentence id="864">WhenI say 31 children, 13, 14, 15. </sentence><sentence id="865">And we were the first...it was late in the war andthings had started to change a little bit. </sentence><sentence id="866">So what happened, we don't really know. </sentence><sentence id="867">But they told us U aO later that...uh...they were very surprised and happy that wewere the first ones let in, and we were in quarantine ini --a...in a <span class="populated place">camp</span> which was called <span class="populated place">A-lager</span>, <span class="populated place">A-lager</span>. </sentence><sentence id="868">WciL~ we /6 <span class="spatial object">qO</span> didn't doanything from...just looked for food. </sentence><sentence id="869">Try see what...uh...we could do.b...That's allwe thought about. </sentence><sentence id="870">There were hot days and cold days and all kinds of days. </sentence><sentence id="871">J7;6t And I remember after quarantiner they took us to a children's <span class="building">barrack</span> in the...theD-Lager, which was a working lager, <span class="populated place">working camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="872">They were a lot of <span class="building">kommandos</span>,people who used to go to work every day and come back. </sentence><sentence id="873">And we had those appells whereyou had to get up early in the morning, stand in that place being counted day andnight, twice a day to make sure that everyone of <span class="country">US</span> was there. </sentence><sentence id="874">And at the beginningl didn't do anything there either. </sentence><sentence id="875">There was notn 4 <span class="dlf">D</span> too much work for us, I believe. </sentence><sentence id="876">But there was one brigade that used to...that usedto come out of this <span class="building">barrack</span>. </sentence><sentence id="877">And they were some children whopushed...uh...some...they called q K it a <span class="spatial object">roll wagon</span>....it looked like a...like abuggy or like a horse and <span class="spatial object">buggy</span>, without a horse and iVet collected garbage in someplaces in the <span class="populated place">camps</span> and the <span class="building">crematoriums</span> and things like that. </sentence><sentence id="878">That was not a bad jObcause when you u6ed to gol t aUDto some of those places and being a child or young men, you used to meet some womenand older people who used to give 32d.%you some_share withatheir rations or bread or whatever they v had. </sentence><sentence id="879">But...uh...that was hard to 4 ve into until one day, 1%;~ O remember it was pouring rain, mud to your knees, and you hadto go and push that <span class="spatial object">wagon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="880">Well, some of the kids who wereworking there before kind of hid or didn't show up,/ 4 t6D and...uh...half way volunteering and half way being picked Igot into that job. </sentence><sentence id="881">And as I said before, many days thathelped me because people used to hand <span class="populated place">Fe</span> some things, foodand things like to eat, which was the most important thing/ 5 ;O in that time. </sentence><sentence id="882">We stayed there not very long, maybe a fewmonths. </sentence><sentence id="883">The...the <span class="building">crematorium</span> had quiet2 down...quietedD down from what I understand. </sentence><sentence id="884">They...they didn't exterminatepeople in those days as much as they did in the earlier daysuntil one day we woke up and we did see all kind of flamesgoing through those <span class="dlf">chimneys</span> and we knew that's what's goingon. </sentence><sentence id="885">We knew that they were burning people over there, but&gt;&gt; 5 that day they...someone told us...I don't know how therumors started. </sentence><sentence id="886">They had rounded up about 3,000gypsies...gypsies and just took them to the <span class="building">crematorium</span> andjust gassed them and burned them like they did...they did&gt;&gt;D Q O the Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="887">And that was...uh...kind of scared. _.. </sentence><sentence id="888">Needless to say, also...now it's coming back to me...uh.. Hthose A and D lagers, we were...we were...there were &gt;&gt; ~ QO selections too. </sentence><sentence id="889">I almost forgot about those.9e day we 4 _ were on the <span class="building">appellSplaNK</span> where we were supposed to stand every morning and evening and th- Ke--an KO ~n~aNt <span class="dlf">KdR- b33___</span> and he looked over. </sentence><sentence id="890">We...I was in a children's <span class="building">barrack</span> anda | ;n he looked us over, and...uh...I think that was before thatGypsy incident and he looked us over. </sentence><sentence id="891">He asked us our ages. </sentence><sentence id="892">And...uh...1 remember I think I was about 14 at that...atthat time, and ...uh...the kid next to me, he asked him hisa I aD age, and he told them 14. </sentence><sentence id="893">THet marked down his number. </sentence><sentence id="894">Uh...I had felt that was not a good sign, so when he walkedup to me, I told him I was 15. </sentence><sentence id="895">I tried to lie about a year. </sentence><sentence id="896"><span class="dlf">D</span> He looked at me twice and just walked by me. </sentence><sentence id="897">Well, thatafternoon they came to pick up all the kids who[*...whosenumber they had written down. </sentence><sentence id="898">I never heard fromthem @_ againg Uh Another incident, also in <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="899">Sne dayWa a. n they showed up with a measuring </sentence></p><p><sentence id="900"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="901">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="902"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection </sentence></p><p><sentence id="903"> 4 <span class="spatial object">instrument</span>, measuring device 7 likea asquare. </sentence><sentence id="904">And we had to walk under it. </sentence><sentence id="905">And Iremember you never knew whether to be tall is better or tobe short is better or to older or to be younger. </sentence><sentence id="906">You neveraw R O knew. </sentence><sentence id="907">There was a lot of deception, a lot of lies, andconfused us completely. </sentence><sentence id="908">And this I think, also, wasa; Q D instrumental in..in some of us not being as resistant as weshould have been because we were completely lied to,deceived and mishandled and by the time some of us woke up, .. Q. it was almost too late. </sentence><sentence id="909">This <span class="spatial object">measuring device</span> I remember walking through it and I barely touched that bar-SSacross and my number was not taken that da H Some of the shorter =* ones I remember was taken. </sentence><sentence id="910">But you really never knew what S was the right wayX They had you confused completelyg And 34 after that...I believe after <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>, we went...they evacuated us or theytook us out to...uh...what they called...we went to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> for one day, and theydid...and then <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, that was the big concentration;3 %~ <span class="populated place">camp</span> near <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span>. </sentence><sentence id="911">And then they took us to which was called <span class="dlf">farm</span>. </sentence><sentence id="912">And that <span class="dlf">farm</span> wascalled _ <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> again. </sentence><sentence id="913">There were different names. </sentence><sentence id="914">They separated a lot of us, andl wound up in that ofaq~ y <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> where I was very sick. </sentence><sentence id="915">Had pneumonia and stayed in...there was aHungarian-Jewish doctor took care of the little <span class="building">hospital</span>. </sentence><sentence id="916">He had a few <span class="spatial object">bedsand</span>...uh...he took care of me with some medicines. </sentence><sentence id="917">I was there for quitea few X weeks I remember and just barely got better or well by the time they took us to <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span>. </sentence><sentence id="918">And that was quite aa 4 q O march. </sentence><sentence id="919">Also I...another incident happened. </sentence><sentence id="920">I forgot to tAo94(Otalk about that one...in <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> when we got the needles.w _I don't know, 5, 10 of us got the neelles and we were just a G (tlaying in whatthey call a <span class="building">hospital</span> and the main doctor who took care of us was a French-Jewishdoctor. </sentence><sentence id="921">He was extremely kind, understanding and tried to help us. </sentence><sentence id="922">Matter ;ao offact, he saved our lives there. </sentence><sentence id="923">I remember before ..evacuation day, we had to be sick about 21 days in order to be declared notcontagious and...uh...I think that day we; were about 17 days in the <span class="building">hospital</span> and we remember himrunning back and forth trying to doctor all kinds of peoplein charge and what we remember, he signed something or 35 declared us well enough, we were not...we were not contagious anymore. </sentence><sentence id="924">Itwas touch and go until he was ableX 1D to declare us not contagious and...and they were able to evacuate us with everyoneelse. </sentence><sentence id="925">In that of <span class="populated place">Birkenau</span> ....(Pause) we were...we were most of us were working atW +C/r on;6 6 Z S the <span class="spatial object">tincv</span> I don't remember. </sentence><sentence id="926">I didn't work at the time. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="927">When I was there, I was sickand I didn't do too much.aL q O And...uh...if not for that Hungarian doctor, I wouldn't have survived there either. </sentence><sentence id="928">Because I must have been well enough to make that long trip to <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span>. </sentence><sentence id="929">Wewere...we were(b about 6 days I believe and 6 nights. </sentence><sentence id="930">We were walking for many, many, many days...formany hours and I think at night we stopped just for a little sleep a few hours. </sentence><sentence id="931">Andthen I think we were on <span class="spatial object">trains</span>. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="932">They put us on <span class="spatial object">trains</span> right before9D we got to <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span>. </sentence><sentence id="933">And it was wintertime and it was open <span class="spatial object">wagons</span> and you...wegot...uh...one of my eyes was very infected and...uh...I lived with that throughBuchenwalda N qOmost of the time. </sentence><sentence id="934">Some days it was better, some days it was worse. </sentence><sentence id="935">But I don't thinkthat I had any treatment for that. </sentence><sentence id="936">Uh...In <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span> we were again in a <span class="building">children'sbarrack</span>, ina S n quarantine for 66. </sentence><sentence id="937">They brought 66 I believe in the back of the <span class="populated place">camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="938">In that <span class="building">barrack</span>,there were a lot of Hungarians, Slovakians, German, Polish Jewish children and someof us, Lithuanians. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="939">And...uh...we didn't do any work because we; 3 were in quarantine. </sentence><sentence id="940">And we...when you were in quarantine, they didn't make you work. </sentence><sentence id="941">Theday...36 </sentence></p><p><sentence id="942"> This is a verbatim transcript of spoken word. </sentence><sentence id="943">It is not the primary source, and it has not been checked for spelling or accuracy. </sentence><sentence id="944"> http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection 5 </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="945">Q: Let's wait a little bit. </sentence><sentence id="946">and we're going to change tapes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
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+ interviewee: eva brust cooper
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0056
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0056_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504466
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+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1934-03-18
9
+ birth_year: 1934.0
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+ place_of_birth: budapest
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+ country: hungary
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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: 1991.a.0137
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
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+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">EVA BRUST COOPER December 9, 1991 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Could you tell us your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: Yes, my name is Eva Cooper. </sentence><sentence id="6">My maiden name was Eva Brust and I was born in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> in <span class="country">Hungary</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="9">Q: And when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="11">A: I was born in 1934. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="13">Q: And could you tell us a little bit about your life before the war. </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="15">A: My life before the war was very, very nice. </sentence><sentence id="16">I remember living in a very nice <span class="building">house</span>, actually an <span class="interior space">apartment</span> on the <span class="region">Pest side</span> of <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="17">You probably know the <span class="populated place">city</span> is divided by the <span class="env feature">Danube</span> and the part that I lived in we had mostly <span class="building">apartment houses</span> as opposed to the other part which was <span class="building">private homes</span>. </sentence><sentence id="18">And I was...uh...besides my parents, obviously, I had...uh...nannies and governesses and we led a very, very comfortable life with lots of vacations and...uh.. parties and I went to <span class="building">elementary school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="19">And... uh...in <span class="building">school</span> we had...uh...we had religious education in the <span class="building">public school system</span>...uh...besides the languages, arts, geography, history and math, everybody went to their own religious classes during that particular period so as Jewish children went to a <span class="building">class</span> where a Rabbi taught Jewish history, Hebrew, whatever. </sentence><sentence id="20">Catholics went to <span class="building">Catholic class</span> and Protestants went to <span class="building">Protestant class</span> and everybody mingled and got along very well and I was never aware of Jewish or not Jewish or anything else pertaining to religion until much later. </sentence><sentence id="21">And until 1944, which was when I was 10 years old, I really don't recall anything particularly disrupting my life. </sentence><sentence id="22">In retrospect, now I understand that many things were going on since 1939. </sentence><sentence id="23">I was aware that my father was in <span class="populated place">labor camp</span>, but I thought that was just being a soldier and he always came back. </sentence><sentence id="24">Uh...He went several times and came back and I...my mother did go help my father...run my father's business. </sentence><sentence id="25">My father was in paper...<span class="building">wholesale paper manufacturing business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="26">Uh...But otherwise I, personally, was not aware of having to be afraid or being concerned until 1944. </sentence><sentence id="27">And that was a particularly special day in my life because my birthday is March 18th and I was having my 10th birthday party in my...my <span class="building">home</span> with all my friends. </sentence><sentence id="28">They were really my parents" friends, children who I was brought up with, as well as some of the mothers and a lot of the nannies or governesses. </sentence><sentence id="29">And it was an early evening party of hot dogs, and...uh...we lived on a fairly main <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="30">We heard marching of soldiers and we looked out the <span class="dlf">window</span> and the German army at that point, to my recall, was occupying <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="31"><span class="country">Hungary</span> was the last of the <span class="region">Eastern European countries</span> to be occupied. </sentence><sentence id="32"><span class="country">Poland</span> and the other <span class="country">countries</span> had already had German troops in them. </sentence><sentence id="33">And everybody started running around and there went my party. </sentence><sentence id="34">Everybody went <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="35">And the reason being that they were all afraid and that the Germans at that time were occupying <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> and...uh...that's when our whole world really fell apart. </sentence><sentence id="36">Uh... There were a lot of negotiations. </sentence><sentence id="37">I didn't really know what was going on. </sentence><sentence id="38">Everybody tried to keep the children from worrying and...uh...we lived in...uh...a designated <span class="building">house</span> that was called the <span class="building">Jewish house</span>...uh... which happened to have been the <span class="building">building</span> which we were in. </sentence><sentence id="39">What that meant is that several <span class="building">houses</span>, <span class="building">apartment houses</span>, were designated <span class="building">Jewish houses</span> where the Christians had the option to stay or go. </sentence><sentence id="40">In a <span class="building">Jewish house</span>, the Jews stayed and the ones that were not the <span class="building">Jewish houses</span>, the Jews had to leave. </sentence><sentence id="41">Also we had a fairly large <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, and we were only allowed to live in one <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="42">But because my father was fairly active in the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span>, we were able to pick the families to move into all the other <span class="interior space">rooms</span>. </sentence><sentence id="43">So we had friends and family move in. </sentence><sentence id="44">Uh...My parents" <span class="interior space">bedroom</span> because our...our <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="45">We had friends in the <span class="interior space">living room</span> and somebody else in the <span class="interior space">dining room</span> and somebody else in my...in my old <span class="interior space">room</span>. </sentence><sentence id="46">Uh...That's when I first was aware of the fact that things were not quite the same. </sentence><sentence id="47">Also, one of the laws that came to pass at the time was that Jews could not have help, servants or whatever you want to call them. </sentence><sentence id="48">And...uh...so all our so-called staff, which consisted of my governess and a cook and a maid, had to leave. </sentence><sentence id="49">Uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="85">Q: What were the <span class="interior space">sanitary facilities</span> like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="87">A: Uh... Well, it was difficult because we had <span class="interior space">bathrooms</span> and all that but it was a...it was really really interesting from a child's point of view. </sentence><sentence id="88">It was a time of sharing and pulling together. </sentence><sentence id="89">I was an only child, so I thought it was just terrific to have all these children running around and I was always brought up very properly, to behave myself and speak when I was spoken to, and here they were all these people running around. </sentence><sentence id="90">And one of my father's very good friends who was a lawyer and had a great deal of...a tremendous sense of humor wrote poetry for the <span class="interior space">bathroom</span>, to the effect that the men were to put the <span class="spatial object">toilet seats</span> down after use and all sorts of funny things. </sentence><sentence id="91">We just thought that this was great fun and we played jokes...uh...on the grownups and...uh...but things did progressively get worse because... And one of my first personal experiences as a child was when a little girl who lived in the <span class="building">building</span>, who stayed in the <span class="building">building</span>...all the Gentiles chose to stay in the <span class="building">building</span> in their own <span class="interior space">apartments</span>, but they kept the whole <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="92">And one little girl said...I asked if I could play with her in that afternoon as we usually had, and she said no, she couldn't play with me. </sentence><sentence id="93">I said, "Well, how about tomorrow?" </sentence><sentence id="94">And she said, "No, she can't play with me tomorrow either." </sentence><sentence id="95">And I said, "Well, why not?" </sentence><sentence id="96">And she said, "Because you're Jewish." </sentence><sentence id="97">And I said, "Well, I don't really understand what that means or what does that have to do with anything anyhow." </sentence><sentence id="98">And she said well, she didn't know either, but her parents said that she couldn't play with a Jewish child." </sentence><sentence id="99">So... </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="113">Q: What was a typical day like for you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="115">A: Well, by this time we weren't going to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="116">We were only ...Jews were only allowed to shop and <span class="building">market</span> in the <span class="building">stores</span> late in the afternoon. </sentence><sentence id="117">They were only allowed on the <span class="dlf">street</span> ..uh...for an hour or so, when the produce and most of the stuff was gone and what was there was not terrific. </sentence><sentence id="118">Uh...my father would go to the <span class="building">Jewish Community Center</span> to see what he could do. </sentence><sentence id="119">Uh...My father was a prominent person in the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> so that the wealthy Jews still had some influence and were able to do such things, such as acquiring the...the Star for our <span class="building">building</span> to remain in our <span class="building">house</span> and...uh...to get much more information than we would have gotten otherwise. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="125">Q: Tell us about the <span class="spatial object">Star</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="127">A: There was a Star outside the <span class="building">house</span> that designated being a <span class="building">Jewish building</span> so anybody that would pass by that was not <span class="building">Jewish building</span> would know that this was a Jewish Star...<span class="building">Jewish house</span> and...uh...the Jews had to wear yellow Stars. </sentence><sentence id="128">Had to be exactly put on each item of clothes as a certain measurement that had to be...and it had to be put on the left upper shoulder of each garment. </sentence><sentence id="129">In other words, that when you went out on the <span class="dlf">street</span>, you should always be identified and if somebody wanted to spit on you, kick you, shoot you, take you away, that's what you were to do. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="133">Q: Did you go out on the <span class="dlf">streets</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="135">A: Yes, I did go out on the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="136">We did go out. </sentence><sentence id="137">I have this...my...my little boyfriend who is 11, and he and I would go out and do some stuff in the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>. </sentence><sentence id="138">We would also buy newspapers and sell them within the <span class="building">building</span>. </sentence><sentence id="139">And...uh...we also, I remember...nobody in my family smoked, but people did. </sentence><sentence id="140">Europeans smoked a lot. </sentence><sentence id="141">And we would pick up cigarette butts from everybody...wherever we could find them, take out the leftover tobacco and roll them in tissue paper. </sentence><sentence id="142">I have no idea where we got the tissue paper. </sentence><sentence id="143">And sell them to the smokers, because there was a shortage of all things. </sentence><sentence id="144">And so having this and, of course, the fact that we were children everybody bought it for us and we decided that we would support our parents because we did realize that nobody was working. </sentence><sentence id="145">And I'm not sure we supported them, but it was again great fun. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="157">Q: Did you have any frightening instances on the <span class="dlf">street</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="158">A: No, I never had any frightening instances on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="159">No. </sentence><sentence id="160">Uh...I did have...uh...a lot of fun things in the... in the <span class="interior space">apartment</span> as a I said because we were friends and we had all the people. </sentence><sentence id="161">We played tricks on people and stuff like that. </sentence><sentence id="162">But, it was getting to be frightening because you ...you had sense of doom. </sentence><sentence id="163">You had a sense that there was... there was a lot of whispering going on, and sometimes not knowing what is going on is almost as bad as sharing and being told that okay, these are the things that can happen. </sentence><sentence id="164">Uh...There were a lot of <span class="spatial object">trucks</span>...uh...obviously, going on the <span class="dlf">street</span> with lots of people in it, and everybody was making up stories about where they were going. </sentence><sentence id="165"><span class="populated place">Labor camp</span>, to the <span class="country">country</span>, all sorts of things, but it was...it was getting obvious even at my age that people were being picked up, but I didn't know why. </sentence><sentence id="166">And this lasted from about the middle of March until...uh...the fall in October. </sentence><sentence id="167">And in October, the <span class="building">Jewish houses</span> did no longer protect the people that were there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="178">Uh...my parents were able to...uh...get the Wallenberg protection papers. </sentence><sentence id="179">Raoul Wallenberg, under the Swedish king, was able to protect and save a lot of people. </sentence><sentence id="180">They were designated <span class="building">Swedish houses</span>, <span class="region">protectorates</span>, where they claimed that Jews could be saved and we did go to such a <span class="building">house</span>...uh...for one night and they had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. </sentence><sentence id="181">I don't know how many. </sentence><sentence id="182">But my parents decided that there were just two many Jews under one <span class="dlf">roof</span> and if the...if the Germans really wanted to get rid of a whole bunch at a time, we would be better off going somewhere else where...where it would not be so obvious that we're together. </sentence><sentence id="183">I think that night that we left our <span class="building">home</span> in October was the first time that I was really scared and I think that was the experience that, as a young adult, stayed with me for a long time. </sentence><sentence id="184">I was very attached to a <span class="spatial object">pillow</span> that I carried. </sentence><sentence id="185">We had no <span class="spatial object">suitcases</span> to take with us because we had to travel light. </sentence><sentence id="186">Uh...we were dressed, all of us, in several layers of clothes so as to have some warmth and have some change and I did take my <span class="spatial object">pillow</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">And...uh...I also had long...long hair. </sentence><sentence id="188">I had long braids which were cut in case the <span class="spatial object">sanitary facilities</span> were non existent and I shouldn't get lice. </sentence><sentence id="189">And I remember asking my parents...uh...where're we going to sleep that night. </sentence><sentence id="190">And my parents said, "We didn't know." </sentence><sentence id="191">We were just hoping that somebody would take us in. </sentence><sentence id="192">I said, "But we have to have a <span class="spatial object">bed</span>. </sentence><sentence id="193">We have to sleep." </sentence><sentence id="194">And that was really very upsetting and as I said that took me a long time. </sentence><sentence id="195">I always like to know where I'm going to sleep. </sentence><sentence id="196">I don't like to go. </sentence><sentence id="197">I have to know where my <span class="spatial object">bed</span> is going to be. </sentence><sentence id="198">And we went to somebody's <span class="building">house</span> who took us in for one night, that night, and again everybody whispered and it was really scary. </sentence><sentence id="199">People were being picked up on the <span class="dlf">street</span>. </sentence><sentence id="200">And from then on, we went to several places. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="224">Q: Did you actually see people being picked up? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="226">A: Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="227">Q: And what were your thoughts as a child? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="228">A: That I didn't know where they were going, and I didn't really get a lot of answers. </sentence><sentence id="229">I mean I was asking questions, but I guess my parents were...this was not the time for the truth. </sentence><sentence id="230">It was just time for me to be quiet and do what I was told. </sentence><sentence id="231">I remember very distinctly once taking issue with something that I had seen, and my mother gave me a very stern lecture and she said that if she says it's black and if I know that it is white, but if she said that it is black, it is black and I am never, ever to question because that's how people get killed. </sentence><sentence id="232">And this was not a time that people came up and said, "Are you Jewish," and my parents obviously were going to say no, and if I would have answered, "Oh, yes, we are Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="233">Why are you telling a lie?" </sentence><sentence id="234">That could get you into a lot of trouble. </sentence><sentence id="235">So I was really at a very young age told...was told to just do what I'm told and not to ask questions. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="244">Q: Were you still wearing your star? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="246">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="247">No. </sentence><sentence id="248">At this time we were so serious. </sentence><sentence id="249">This was not admitting to being a Jew. </sentence><sentence id="250">This was hiding...uh...and my mother did not look Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="251">My father did. </sentence><sentence id="252">And, of course, it's very easy to determine if a man is Jewish or isn't, especially in those days so that my mother always did all the talking. </sentence><sentence id="253">And...uh...she was very competent and very strong willed and...uh...was able to handle these situations. </sentence><sentence id="254">We did go to somebody's <span class="building">house</span> where we stayed for two weeks. </sentence><sentence id="255">Uh...A man worked for my father and my father gave him the position as superintendent of one of the <span class="building">houses</span>, <span class="building">apartment houses</span>, that my father owned, and he let us stay in the <span class="interior space">basement</span>...uh...for a couple of days, and brought us food whenever he could. </sentence><sentence id="256">And a very nice family who I think was aware that something that was going on, told the superintendent...uh...that they were going to be away for quite awhile and sort of insinuating that without their knowledge but it's okay, if we stayed in their <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="257">Uh...I don't think we ever met them, but that's what the superintendent told us, that it's okay for us to be taken to this spot. </sentence><sentence id="258">He would bring us a <span class="spatial object">tray</span>. </sentence><sentence id="259">There was a <span class="spatial object">radio</span>. </sentence><sentence id="260">Uh...We listened to...uh...Radio Free Europe, and this lady happened to have had the best collection of child...of children's books, and I remember reading Little Lord Fauntleroy and a lot of the children's classics. </sentence><sentence id="261">I remember that very well. </sentence><sentence id="262">I was a avid reader, and that was the only place during the war that there were books that I read. </sentence><sentence id="263">I used to remember taking a <span class="interior space">bath</span>. </sentence><sentence id="264">I was too hot and I almost passed out. </sentence><sentence id="265">And one of the things that happened that I recall very clearly...and it's interesting because my mother just finished her interview and she didn't mention it...my father was having a kidney stone attack or had...we thought he had a kidney stone, and he was having an attack. </sentence><sentence id="266">And he had no choice. </sentence><sentence id="267">He had to go to a doctor. </sentence><sentence id="268">So he went and he left...uh...quite late in the afternoon so as...so as to be dark and my mother and I sat there wondering if he would ever return, if he was going to be caught or what. </sentence><sentence id="269">But he had to go because he had I guess ...I'm not sure but he must have had a kidney problem before because the choice was not to stay. </sentence><sentence id="270">It was not going to go away. </sentence><sentence id="271">Anyhow, he returned. </sentence><sentence id="272">I don't know what happened to the kidney or the stone, but he came back. </sentence><sentence id="273">And from then on, we went to a place in the <span class="country">country</span>, a very beautiful <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="274">And by this time, there was a lot of bombing going on because the Russians and Americans were bombing. </sentence><sentence id="275">The Germans were starting to lose the war, so their interest in the Jews were getting less except if they happened to see any, they shot them. </sentence><sentence id="276">But I mean, it was not as active involvement in killing the Jews as to save their necks because they were losing the war. </sentence><sentence id="277">I remember somebody being shot. </sentence><sentence id="278">I think it was a Russian or a German. </sentence><sentence id="279">I'm not sure. </sentence><sentence id="280">But I know there was a dead body, and somebody went out and stole their shoes or whatever they could off the body. </sentence><sentence id="281">But I don't really remember the details. </sentence><sentence id="282">I just know that this was a body and people went and stole things off the body because peple were now at this point didn't have shoes, didn't have clothes. </sentence><sentence id="283">The food situation was terrible. </sentence><sentence id="284">And I was an obnoxious, terrible eater. </sentence><sentence id="285">I still am. </sentence><sentence id="286">I don't eat if I don't like it. </sentence><sentence id="287">And most of the children just ate whatever there was to eat, including horsemeat off dead horses, but I was not having anything to do with that. </sentence><sentence id="288">So I had a hard time being fed because sometimes when something was found that was edible I save it up for a week and chop up little pieces of it and I would just eat it because I wouldn't eat if I didn't like it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="332">Q: What was your contact with other children then? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="334">A: Very little. </sentence><sentence id="335">At one point, we were being hidden and there was another child there. </sentence><sentence id="336">And that's when I was told that I was not to say that we were in hiding, that we were friends of the family. </sentence><sentence id="337">And I really don't remember too much about that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="342">Q: What were the living conditions at that point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="344">A: Terrible. </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="346">Q: Can you describe them? </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="348">A: We slept on the <span class="interior space">floor</span>...on <span class="spatial object">beds</span>...as groups of people, together. </sentence><sentence id="349">I don't remember the sanitary conditions as far as <span class="interior space">baths</span> or <span class="interior space">showers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="350">I remember my mother mending things when they were torn. </sentence><sentence id="351">Wearing the same dress, you know, over and over again. </sentence><sentence id="352">Sometimes rinsing things out in little <span class="spatial object">pails</span> if there was enough time for it to dry to wear again. </sentence><sentence id="353">And then as the bombing got worse and worse, we moved. </sentence><sentence id="354">We didn't move, we walked to the <span class="region">countryside</span>. </sentence><sentence id="355">I wouldn't call it a <span class="populated place">suburb</span>. </sentence><sentence id="356">It was really <span class="region">countryside</span>, <span class="populated place">village</span>, peasants, a lot of poor people lived there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="366">Q: Before we go into that, is there any story about your mother making a cake? </sentence><sentence id="367"> A Oh, yes. </sentence><sentence id="368">This is as a matter of fact happened in the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="369">I was, as I said, a very bad eater and my mother, some way or other...out on a walk, saw some people that had some food and stole an egg. </sentence><sentence id="370">And out of this egg, she whipped up a I guess what you could call yellow cake thing and there was the one egg and I guess she had the other ingredients. </sentence><sentence id="371">So I ate that for a very, very long time. </sentence><sentence id="372">And then this...this was in the <span class="country">country</span> and there was a lot of bombing going on. </sentence><sentence id="373">It was sort of getting towards the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="374">We all slept on the <span class="interior space">floor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="375">Usually I slept between my parents. </sentence><sentence id="376">The <span class="spatial object">toilets</span> there I remember, they were on the outside. </sentence><sentence id="377">We used to take trips to go to...to an <span class="building">outhouse</span> kind of a thing. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="378">Q: About how many people were with you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="380">A: I don't know, but a lot. </sentence><sentence id="381">I think maybe a dozen or...I mean, not fifty or a hundred but maybe a couple of dozen people. </sentence></p></dialogue>
61
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="384">Q: All Jews? </sentence></p></dialogue>
62
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="386">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="387">Not Jews. </sentence><sentence id="388">At this point there was a mixture of people because the war was ending and people were hiding. </sentence><sentence id="389">There was...at this point in the war, people tried to keep alive from bombings that were going on. </sentence><sentence id="390">There were a lot of shooting and bombs and this all sorts of things going on as far as our physical safety. </sentence><sentence id="391">And at one point I remember and I was going to ask my mother and I don't remember but we were in front of the <span class="dlf">firing line</span>. </sentence><sentence id="392">We Were lined up to be shot and I think they were by Russians, but then something happened and we all walked away. </sentence><sentence id="393">But I remmeber thinking that we were going to be shot. </sentence><sentence id="394">I mean, I was aware of the fact that there was a lineup and there were guns. </sentence></p></dialogue>
63
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="404">Q: Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into the <span class="dlf">line</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
64
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="406">A: We were...we were walking. </sentence><sentence id="407">We were walking from one place to another place, and we were caught. </sentence><sentence id="408">And whoever was with us...there were other people with us... </sentence></p></dialogue>
65
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="412">Q: Who caught you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
66
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="414">A: The...the soldiers. </sentence><sentence id="415">And...uh...and that's really all I remember. </sentence><sentence id="416">I don't really remember...I know there were bad guys, but I don't know whose side they were on. </sentence><sentence id="417">By this time, the Russians started coming. </sentence><sentence id="418">And they kept saying that they were winning the war, and there were not too many Germans around. </sentence></p></dialogue>
67
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="424">Q: Do you remember being in the <span class="dlf">line</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
68
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="426">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="427">Oh, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="428">Q: What...do you remember your feelings as a child? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="429">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="430">I was scared. </sentence><sentence id="431">I mean, I don't know if I thought about death as far as that's concerned, but I know that it was bad. </sentence></p></dialogue>
69
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="435">Q: How many people were in the <span class="dlf">line</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
70
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="437">A: I think two dozen. </sentence></p></dialogue>
71
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="439">Q: And what were their feelings there? </sentence></p></dialogue>
72
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="441">A: I mean, there was a lot of, you know, crying out and talking and negotiating and foreign languages and stuff like that. </sentence><sentence id="442">And then all of a sudden it was dispersed and we just walked away. </sentence><sentence id="443">And then we stated walking back toward <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> because we were told that the Russians and the Americans and the English, liberation had occurred and that the Germans were gone. </sentence><sentence id="444">And it took a long time to come back because the <span class="dlf">roads</span> were bad. </sentence><sentence id="445">There were a lot of bodies and still there was still some bombing going on because there were still groups of Germans all over the place. </sentence></p></dialogue>
73
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="451">Q: What was your reaction when you would see a dead body? </sentence></p></dialogue>
74
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="453">A: I just wanted to...oh, I think we were all very happy to see them, especially if they were German. </sentence><sentence id="454">I mean, there was like...like almost a game of...of Germans. </sentence><sentence id="455">I remember later when we were back in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="456">I was back in <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="457">The Germans were being hung outside on <span class="env feature">trees</span> and stuff, and I remember everybody was very joyful and as a child, you just sort of go along with it and just...it almost becomes meaningless. </sentence><sentence id="458">You just walk through the bodies, and you're just happy you're alive. </sentence><sentence id="459">And we walked back... </sentence></p></dialogue>
75
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="467">Q: Do you remember the physical exhaustion? </sentence></p></dialogue>
76
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="469">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="470">Especially with a child, you know. </sentence><sentence id="471">You're always tired and you want to stop and you couldn't stop. </sentence><sentence id="472">You had to go to the next destination. </sentence></p></dialogue>
77
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="477">Q: What condition were your clothes in at this point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
78
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="479">A: Not very good. </sentence><sentence id="480">Funny, I don't remember anything about shoes. </sentence><sentence id="481">But I...L..just...I don't know. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="482">Of course, we were also cold, because by this time, you know, we had gone through the winter, and I remember being cold. </sentence><sentence id="483">I still am. </sentence><sentence id="484">I'm always cold. </sentence><sentence id="485">My hands are always cold. </sentence></p><p><sentence id="486">And my hands and feet were frozen and... </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="487">Q: Did you ever leave your parents" side at this point? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="488">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="489">No. </sentence><sentence id="490">At one point, I was supposed to be sent to a <span class="building">convent</span>. </sentence><sentence id="491">And also some arrangements were made. </sentence><sentence id="492">A lot of Jewish children were being sent to <span class="building">convents</span> because the nuns were going to take care of them and save them. </sentence><sentence id="493">And then...I don't think I wanted to go and my parents just decided that we would all get through the whole thing together or...or not at all. </sentence></p></dialogue>
79
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="500">Q: Any question of conversion for you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
80
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="502">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="503">Actually, before all this, we were told that...that...if you had non-Jewish papers, Catholic papers...by a certain date that you would be...considered a half-Jew and possibly not be taken to <span class="populated place">concentration camp</span> or whatever. </sentence><sentence id="504">So we did acquire Catholic papers and my father didn't. </sentence><sentence id="505">My mother and I went to <span class="building">church</span> and we learned whatever it is. </sentence><sentence id="506">I don't...Cath...whatever you call it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
81
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="512">Q: Catechism. </sentence></p></dialogue>
82
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="514">A: Catechism and the beads and all that kind of stuff. </sentence><sentence id="515">And we actually had to take a test or at least I remember taking one, and I remember reciting the...uh...what everyone recites, and so we had papers. </sentence><sentence id="516">I don't know of my mother still has them, but we had papers saying that we were converted. </sentence><sentence id="517">My father wouldn't do it, but he thought it would be a good protection for us. </sentence><sentence id="518">Subsequently it didn't help anybody anyhow because it was just another gimmick, but we did have the papers. </sentence></p></dialogue>
83
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="524">Q: What was the attitude of priests and nuns during your <span class="spatial object">classes</span> and learning? </sentence></p></dialogue>
84
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="526">A: Fine. </sentence><sentence id="527">They were happy to convert, and I guess they were hoping maybe ultimately that people would remain. </sentence><sentence id="528">And a lot did. </sentence><sentence id="529">A lot of people who came to this <span class="country">country</span> when we came...families of my parents I knew had converted when they came to this <span class="country">country</span>, raised their children as non-Jews. </sentence><sentence id="530">Well, we always remained Jewish and after the war was over the paper that was just a piece paper that may have saved our lives at the time, but it probably wouldn't have. </sentence><sentence id="531">So it sort of served its purpose. </sentence></p></dialogue>
85
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="538">Q: When you were out of the <span class="country">country</span>, were you aware of what was happening in other <span class="region">parts of Europe</span> and the <span class="populated place">work camps</span>? </sentence><sentence id="539">Do your parents talk to you about it? </sentence></p></dialogue>
86
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="542">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="543">Yes. </sentence><sentence id="544">By that time we were aware of <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="545">I don't know if I personally knew what that meant and I think the grownups had difficulty acknowledging that there could be such a thing as...as...as <span class="spatial object">ovens</span> where they...where they gassed people. </sentence><sentence id="546">I mean, to comprehend that whole thing is...is very, very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="547">And a lot of people who should have at the time believed that it existed refused to believe it because it was so mind-boggling and I don't reallythink I had any particular feelings or total awareness of just exactly...I knew we were in hiding and I knew we were running away from being taken away. </sentence><sentence id="548">And then as we started coming back, I remember my father saying that if there was anybody in our <span class="building">home</span> he would just kill them. </sentence><sentence id="549">Which is most unlikely because he was a very, very gentle man. </sentence><sentence id="550">But you do get angry. </sentence><sentence id="551">But I think it was when it was all over for us, I think it was a relief that it was over and some of the anger kind of went away. </sentence><sentence id="552">And I am an only child and since my parents and I survived together, that was already a good beginning. </sentence><sentence id="553">A tremendous amount of our relatives were gassed in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>. </sentence><sentence id="554">Most of these relatives being my grandmother's sisters, brothers, and their children. </sentence><sentence id="555">Then after the war were the horrors of identifying people. </sentence><sentence id="556">Yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
87
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="572">Q: What were your thoughts as you were coming back to your <span class="interior space">apartment</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
88
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="574">A: I just wanted to go <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="575">I had enough of all this. </sentence></p></dialogue>
89
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="578">Q: So you went back to your <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="579">What were your feelings? </sentence></p></dialogue>
90
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="582">A: I went back to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>. </sentence><sentence id="583">Glad to be <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
91
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="586">Q: What did you do when you got back? </sentence></p></dialogue>
92
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="588">A: The <span class="interior space">apartment</span> was a mess. </sentence><sentence id="589">Interestingly enough, the <span class="spatial object">furniture</span> and all, that was there. </sentence><sentence id="590">It was not totally destroyed. </sentence><sentence id="591"><span class="interior space">Windows</span> were gone from bombings. </sentence><sentence id="592">This had nothing to do with the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="593">This was, you know, the shooting. </sentence><sentence id="594">And...life just short of started all over again. </sentence><sentence id="595">I went back to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="596">People found whoever they found. </sentence><sentence id="597">People cried. </sentence><sentence id="598">They cleaned up...the cleanup process was really the bodies and they were just all over the place. </sentence><sentence id="599">At our <span class="building">temple</span>...in the <span class="interior space">backyard</span> of the <span class="building">temple</span> -- the <span class="building">court</span> I guess is what you would call it -- became a <span class="dlf">graveyard</span> for those who could not be identified or they were such...they were so totally disfigured that they were not recognized. </sentence><sentence id="600">My father went to identify people and, you know, one of the ways to identify these bodies that were practically not recognizable through their teeth, through dental something. </sentence><sentence id="601">I'm not sure what, but it was like their teeth or through birthmarks, stuff like that. </sentence><sentence id="602">So that was a horrible experience. </sentence></p></dialogue>
93
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="618">Q: This is something you witnessed? </sentence></p></dialogue>
94
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="620">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="621">And...uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
95
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="624">Q: And your thoughts when you would see sights like this? </sentence></p></dialogue>
96
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="626">A: Scared. </sentence><sentence id="627">And...but I guess it's interesting, you know, from a child's point of view, because I...I was with my parents. </sentence><sentence id="628">I always felt a certain amount of security and that I really think is what helped me come out of it fairly well-adjusted, I guess. </sentence><sentence id="629">For a long time as an adult in this <span class="country">country</span> or as a young adult, I never wanted to go anywhere without knowing where I'm going to sleep and I do not like sirens because we always ran to the <span class="building">shelter</span> and I always knew that when the bombing started that there was the potential of being killed. </sentence></p></dialogue>
97
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="634">Q: What kind of <span class="building">shelters</span> did you go to? </sentence></p></dialogue>
98
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="636">A: Well, when we were still living in our <span class="building">house</span>, there was...the <span class="interior space">basements</span>, became <span class="building">bomb shelters</span> ad they were not set up with first aid. </sentence><sentence id="637">There were <span class="interior space">underground facilities</span> under the <span class="building">building</span>, and whenever the bombings and sirens went off, everybody ran to the <span class="building">shelters</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
99
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="640">Q: What did you take with you? </sentence></p></dialogue>
100
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="642">A: Nothing. </sentence><sentence id="643">Just whatever we had. </sentence><sentence id="644">Some food, if there was any to be had. </sentence><sentence id="645">A flashlight, that kind of thing. </sentence><sentence id="646">As a child, you were just sort of dragged along to go and be quiet, and that was a safe place to be and when the...uh...when it was over, then you came back up again. </sentence><sentence id="647">And at this point it was obvious that many <span class="building">buildings</span> were bombed out and sometimes people died. </sentence><sentence id="648">So, you know, toward the end of the war, you didn't know if you were going to survive because...or not survvie because you were a Jew or just because you could get killed from the <span class="spatial object">bombs</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
101
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="656">Q: Did you ever talk about not surviving with your parents? </sentence></p></dialogue>
102
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="658">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="659">No. </sentence><sentence id="660">And so by 1945 we were back <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="661">My father tried to get his business back and for a while it looked like everything was going to go back to normal, but then the Russians sort of started taking over what the Germans had taken over before. </sentence><sentence id="662">And my grandparents had come to this <span class="country">country</span> in 1939 to visit the World's Fair and my grandfather I guess he was smarter than most of us, had planned to stay. </sentence><sentence id="663">He just didn't tell my grandmother because she wouldn't have left. </sentence><sentence id="664">And so we came out here to this <span class="country">country</span> in 1947. </sentence><sentence id="665">It took a while to get papers and visas and all that kind of stuff. </sentence></p></dialogue>
103
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="674">Q: When you first came back to the <span class="interior space">apartment</span>, did you try to look up friends? </sentence></p></dialogue>
104
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="676">A: Oh, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
105
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="678">Q: Some survived. </sentence></p></dialogue>
106
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="680">A: Oh, yes. </sentence></p></dialogue>
107
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="682">Q: What did you talk about with them? </sentence></p></dialogue>
108
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="684">A: Most of my friends were children of my parents" friends and they all survived. </sentence><sentence id="685">And I think we were just really talking about all the things that happened and busy listening or not listening to each other's stories. </sentence><sentence id="686">A lot of these youngsters...well, they're not youngsters any more, they're my age. </sentence><sentence id="687">A lot of them are in the <span class="country">States</span> and <span class="country">Canada</span>. </sentence><sentence id="688">Somehave stayed in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="689">I have not stayed in touch with any of them. </sentence></p></dialogue>
109
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="696">Q: What are some of your feelings about leaving <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> to come to this <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
110
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="698">A: I didn't want to leave. </sentence></p></dialogue>
111
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="700">Q: Why not? </sentence></p></dialogue>
112
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="702">A: Well, that was my <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="703">I mean, after...after the war was over, there were my friends. </sentence><sentence id="704">There was my family, whatever there was, and it was an adventure coming here and we came through <span class="populated place">Paris</span> and then we went to <span class="country">England</span> and we sailed on the <span class="spatial object">Mauretania</span>, which doesn't exist any more, but it was a <span class="dlf">Cunard Line</span> and we travelled first class. </sentence><sentence id="705">It was a wonderful trip. </sentence><sentence id="706">And then when we came here, it was a very, very new life for everybody. </sentence><sentence id="707">But a child adjusts very quickly. </sentence></p></dialogue>
113
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="714">Q: Did your father have any experience with Adolph Eichmann? </sentence></p></dialogue>
114
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="716">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="717">My father, because he was an important person in the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span>, met anybody and everybody that came to do any kind of negotiating and basically Eichmann wanted money from the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> and the wealthy <span class="populated place">Hungarian Jewish Community</span> had a great deal of money and he made all sorts of deals to promise to release some people or take less people to <span class="populated place">prison camps</span> for money. </sentence><sentence id="718">So it was a trade. </sentence><sentence id="719">And my father was in on some of the negotiations. </sentence><sentence id="720">They were not intimate friends, but as my mother told the story, that he was a perfect gentleman and elegantly dressed, as all Germans were, as opposed to the Russians, who were boors and did not, you know, their uniforms were not as the Germans" were. </sentence><sentence id="721">The Germans always were saluted and were, you know, in their own horrible way were always perfectly behaved. </sentence><sentence id="722">Such as Eichmann who obviously was not a perfect gentleman otherwise. </sentence><sentence id="723">And the Russians were...were just the opposite. </sentence><sentence id="724">But when the war was over, there were a lot of American soldiers were and my parents became quite friendly with some of them. </sentence><sentence id="725">And the, as I said, the <span class="spatial object">wheels</span> started working...to my father, was not really thrilled about coming to this <span class="country">country</span> in the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="726">I mean, he thought that everything was just...that was his <span class="building">home</span>, and... </sentence></p></dialogue>
115
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="738">Q: What were your feelings to go out on the <span class="dlf">streets</span> as a child when the freedom came about? </sentence></p></dialogue>
116
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="740">Were you...did your parents let you go out after the war was over? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="741">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="742">No...after the war was over, for your own personal safety, there was no...there was no more problem. </sentence><sentence id="743">Very slowly it was really the government, because of the Russians, the Americans left and and the Russians stayed. </sentence><sentence id="744">But that took a while. </sentence></p></dialogue>
117
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="749">Q: Did you go back to <span class="building">school</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
118
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="751">A: Oh, yes, I went back to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
119
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="753">Q: And what were your experiences with your non-Jewish classmates? </sentence></p></dialogue>
120
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="755">A: It all passed. </sentence><sentence id="756">As a matter of fact, one of my best friends was non-Jewish, and at one point after coming out to this <span class="country">country</span>, I tried to bring her out because she was having hard times there. </sentence><sentence id="757">And I tried through a <span class="building">Jewish agency</span> and through a <span class="building">Catholic agency</span> to bring her out and then I lost track. </sentence><sentence id="758">But I never had any...my only experience with...with so-called anitsemitism besides the large scale of things was with one child who said she couldn't play with me because I was Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="759">But otherwise, it was not a one-to-one thing. </sentence><sentence id="760">It was the whole <span class="env feature">world</span> was collapsing and being Jewish I was part of that world. </sentence></p></dialogue>
121
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="767">Q: But you didn't feel singled out at <span class="building">school</span> after the war was all over? </sentence></p></dialogue>
122
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="769">A: No. </sentence><sentence id="770">Not at all. </sentence></p></dialogue>
123
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="773">Q: And then what were your thoughts as you were travelling from <span class="populated place">city</span> to <span class="populated place">city</span> to come to the <span class="country">United States</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
124
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="775">A: Well, that part was really...again, it was a very nice trip. </sentence><sentence id="776">It was a pleasure trip coming out. </sentence><sentence id="777">I mean, we weren't running away with...with clothes on our backs. </sentence><sentence id="778">By this time, my father had acquired some of his properties back. </sentence><sentence id="779">We weren't penniless. </sentence><sentence id="780">We weren't escaping. </sentence><sentence id="781">We packed our belongings and we were taking a trip. </sentence><sentence id="782">We had left options that if my parents didn't like it here to come back, to go back to <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>. </sentence><sentence id="783">Things were packed, ready to be shipped if we had said to ship it or not. </sentence><sentence id="784">And as I said, wecame out first class and my grandfather was here. </sentence><sentence id="785">My uncle was here. </sentence><sentence id="786">We had relatives here. </sentence><sentence id="787">It was a difficult adjustment for my parents. </sentence><sentence id="788">New language. </sentence><sentence id="789"><span class="country">New country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="790">Different lifestyle. </sentence><sentence id="791">My father was a very prominent person in <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, and here he wasn't. </sentence><sentence id="792">So it took a long time for him to adjust...and probably a little bit faster for my mother. </sentence><sentence id="793">But I went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="794">I literally got off the <span class="spatial object">boat</span>, went to <span class="populated place">camp</span>, and then went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="795">And except for the fact that I spoke with an accent and I was probably a little embarrassed that my parents did, I just became an American teenager. </sentence></p></dialogue>
125
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="817">Q: Where did you settle? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="818">A: In <span class="populated place">New York</span>. </sentence><sentence id="819">I lived in <span class="populated place">New York</span> all my young and old adult life. </sentence><sentence id="820">I went to <span class="building">schools</span> in <span class="populated place">Manhattan</span> and I have one daughter and three grandsons. </sentence><sentence id="821">And that's the story. </sentence><sentence id="822">I think that I got involved with the <span class="building">Holocaust Musuem</span>...actually, my daughter had pointed out to me about a year ago a <span class="building">New York magazine</span> had written an article about the Hidden Children Conference that had taken place last year in the summer, and she thought it would be something...something I should look into. </sentence><sentence id="823">And I did. </sentence><sentence id="824">And I did attend the Conference and I realize that with my generation...it's kind of the end of the <span class="dlf">road</span> for the people that have been there, that participated. </sentence><sentence id="825">That after me it's just history, which is very different from having been there. </sentence><sentence id="826">And I think that's for us who...whatever way participated in the war, it's very important to record the history, to tell our children and their children. </sentence><sentence id="827">And when I attended the Conference, I went with mixed feelings, thinking, you know, the war is over. </sentence><sentence id="828">This was fifty or forty years ago. </sentence><sentence id="829">What am I doing here? </sentence><sentence id="830">And I found the <span class="building">Conference</span> very, very moving. </sentence><sentence id="831">I found a lot fo Hungarians. </sentence><sentence id="832">Some from similar and some from different backgrounds. </sentence><sentence id="833">A lot of the nationalities formed support groups within themselves. </sentence><sentence id="834">The Hungarian women of my generation formed a group. </sentence><sentence id="835">The Hungarian women that have been meeting monthly and during the Conference besides meetings and people still searching for each other and people finding each other...there was also a large <span class="spatial object">library</span> of books on the Holcaust. </sentence></p></dialogue>
126
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="854"> And I bought one book: the name of it was Remember Never to Forget. </sentence><sentence id="855">And it was a book written for children in a very simplistic way with pictures, black and white <span class="dlf">barbed wire</span>, but nothing particularly scary, certainly if you don't know what it's all about. </sentence><sentence id="856">And I bought the book thinking that one of the days when my grandchildren are old enough, I will read it to them. </sentence><sentence id="857">And I forgot all about it. </sentence><sentence id="858">And this summer I took my oldest grandson who is six and a half to the <span class="spatial object">train</span> to pick up somebody and as we were standing at the <span class="building">train station</span>, he raised his right hand in sort of a Hitler salute and said, "Heil Hitler." </sentence><sentence id="859">And I was very upset and I tried very hard not to scare him. </sentence><sentence id="860">He didn't think he was doing anything bad. </sentence><sentence id="861">And we sat down on a <span class="spatial object">bench</span> and I said, "Adam, I don't ever want you to say that again, and I want to tell you a little bit about who Hitler was, what he did, and how it affected me." </sentence><sentence id="862">And he really was fascinated. </sentence><sentence id="863">He's a very bright little boy and he's very curious. </sentence><sentence id="864">And I said, "When we go <span class="building">home</span>, I have a book that I'm going to read to you," which I subsequently did. </sentence><sentence id="865">But the reason he did this "Heil Hitler", because we had been watching "The Sound of Music", and he loved the music and that was one of the salutes. </sentence><sentence id="866">So that's where it all came from. </sentence><sentence id="867">But the concept was still there and I had to get rid of his other brothers, because they really were too young, and he and I went into a <span class="interior space">room</span> and read this story. </sentence><sentence id="868">And since then he has very often asked me to tell him stories. </sentence></p></dialogue>
127
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="884">Q: Any other final message you would like to leave? </sentence></p></dialogue>
128
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="886">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="887">It should never happen again. </sentence><sentence id="888">That's it. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="889">Q: Okay. </sentence><sentence id="890">Well, thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="891">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="892"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
129
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: stephen none dachi
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0057
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0057_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504554
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+ gender: m
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+ birth_date: none
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+ birth_year: 1933.0
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+ place_of_birth: budapest
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+ country: hungary
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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: east
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+ needs_research: none
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+ data_entry: cl
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+ accession: none
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
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+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">STEPHEN DACHI November 19, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell me your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Stephen Frank Dachi. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: 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">Budapest</span>, <span class="country">Hungary</span>, in April of 1933. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Uh, tell me about your your early childhood. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: Well, I was a child of a couple of doctors. </sentence><sentence id="14">My father was a dentist and my mother was a pediatrician and uh in 1936, when I was not quite three years old, my father passed away in a sort of a medical uh mishap and uh then my mother died shortly thereafter, so I was left to be raised by my grandparents, uh just before the war started, and my grandparents were living in <span class="populated place">Timisoara</span>, in <span class="country">Romania</span>, so that from <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> uh I ended up uh going to <span class="populated place">Timisoara</span> and that's where I went to <span class="building">school</span> and lived until uh after the war in 1948 when we left. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="17">Q: What was <span class="populated place">Timisoara</span> like for a young child? </sentence><sentence id="18">What was your family life like, friends, that sort of a thing? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="21">A: Well, uh that small <span class="populated place">city</span> of about a hundred thousand people was a little bit out of the mainstream of the worst of the war and uh life was uh was fairly uh fairly quiet, but uh there were plenty of periods of danger and excitement uh during the war that is, when uh...there were uh lots of bombing raids because <span class="populated place">Timisoara</span> was on the <span class="dlf">railway line</span> and uh when the Allies were bombing the <span class="dlf">Ploesti oil fields</span> in <span class="country">Romania</span>, they were also bombing the uh <span class="dlf">railway tracks</span> that were leading the oil away from the <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="22">And then uh once in a while uh German troops would come through. </sentence><sentence id="23">Uh there weren't any occupying forces there normally. </sentence><sentence id="24">Of course, <span class="country">Romania</span> was fighting on the side of the Axis uh powers during the war, but occasionally uh some Nazi contingent would come through and uh uh come into <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="25">I remember once uh one of their commanders made a speech from the main <span class="building">theater</span> saying that that night there was going to be a Jew hanging from every second <span class="dlf">window</span> on the main <span class="dlf">square</span>, and uh they did round up and take people away. </sentence><sentence id="26">I, I remember in uh going to <span class="building">school</span> in the morning sometimes and having my classmates tell about how their fathers were taken away in the middle of the night uh almost always never to be seen again. </sentence><sentence id="27">So there was plenty of tragedy, plenty of stress and excitement. </sentence><sentence id="28"> Uh we...our family was not Jewish but we were nevertheless uh uh always in danger anyway. </sentence><sentence id="29">My grandparents uh were very conscious of having this small boy to raise and my grandmother was always talking about how she had to somehow live uh until I was twenty- one to uh fulfill her responsibility that she assumed when my parents passed away, but I know uh because they told me that uh, you know, they lived in dread of that knock on the <span class="dlf">door</span> in the middle of the night also, and they kept a couple of vials of poison on their <span class="spatial object">bedstands</span>, because they told me that they were not going to be taken away, that if the Germans came to take them away, they would commit suicide. </sentence><sentence id="30">Uh I don't know what would have happened to me uh but in any case that did not happen. </sentence><sentence id="31">Uh and we uh we lived with that until finally the Russian troops came through in uh in...sometime in the spring or summer of 1944. </sentence><sentence id="32">The Germans were pushed back and uh then we had to start worrying about about the Russians. </sentence><sentence id="33">Uh I was uh I was a Hungarian citizen living in <span class="country">Romania</span> and at the time <span class="country">Romania</span> had switched sides and was now fighting on the side of the Russians. </sentence><sentence id="34">Now they switched sides just as the Russians reached the <span class="dlf">Romanian border</span>, so uh there was not that much destruction in <span class="country">Romania</span>. </sentence><sentence id="35">Uh but <span class="country">Hungary</span> put up very stiff resistance because the Hun...uh the Hungarian Nazi uh government was one of uh Hitler's firmest allies. </sentence><sentence id="36">Admiral Horthy... </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="53">Q: Excuse me...if we can save some of that and let the historians give that kind of a background...I'd like to stick with your story...you have a particularly interesting one at this point. </sentence><sentence id="54">Uh what happened to you when the Russians came in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="57">A: Well, because I was a Hungarian citizen and the Hungarians were still fighting on the side of the Nazis, uh the Russians were rounding up Hungarians to take them away uh and so one day a Russian soldier came to our <span class="building">house</span> and uh said that I was going to go with him, and my grandmother uh who was a Romanian citizen and was not involved in this so they didn't uh ask any questions of her...uh said "Well, you're not taking him away" and he said "Well, we are, so you better give him a winter coat because he's going far away where it's going to be cold." </sentence><sentence id="58">So my grandmother, bless her soul, she thought that if she refused to give me a coat that they wouldn't take me away uh but of course they did. </sentence><sentence id="59">So then uh we uh...I was taken to this <span class="interior space">basement</span> of a <span class="building">police station</span> where the people on that particular day where being rounded up, and I recognized some of them and I know that subsequently uh, you know, none of those people that I saw there were ever seen again because we were uh scheduled to be taken away uh to <span class="region">Siberia</span>, but just as uh this round-up was in the...going on and we were in there in the <span class="interior space">basement</span>, the German bombing raid came and there were bombs flying around all over the place, exploding right around us and uh glass shattering and uh <span class="dlf">door frames</span> cracking and people...guards, prisoners, everyone was uh was uh lying down on the <span class="interior space">floor</span> with their heads...hands covering their head and uh, you know, I was eleven years old, so I thought this was the time for me to make a getaway so I just climbed out the <span class="dlf">window</span> and ran down the <span class="dlf">street</span> without worrying about my safety or life...1 mean there were bombs falling right on the <span class="dlf">street</span> where I was running. </sentence><sentence id="60"><span class="env feature">Craters</span> would open up in front of me and I had to get around, but I managed to somehow uh get away from there and then I ran to a <span class="building">synagogue</span> uh some distance away and there uh a rabbi took me in and hid me in the <span class="interior space">basement</span> for several days until uh the the round-up seemed to abate and uh he told me that because during the war so many people had helped save Jewish lives by hiding people...that was done somewhat more in <span class="country">Romania</span> maybe than in <span class="country">Hungary</span>...uh that he was uh reciprocating a little bit, taking some people in now that uh the tide had turned and uh so he he kept me there for a few days and then eventually I went back <span class="building">home</span> uh but decided no one will ever get me again, and uh uh, you know, we always uh slept and sat, whatever, with with a <span class="dlf">getaway path</span> in mind in case someone came in to get us. </sentence><sentence id="61">To this day, in in any <span class="building">restaurant</span> I go to, I always sit with my back to the <span class="dlf">wall</span> and facing the <span class="dlf">door</span>, because deep in my subconscious I'm still on the alert for somebody coming in to to get me, so these things stay with you forever. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="67">Q: You are...you had escaped. </sentence><sentence id="68">You're now with your grandparents. </sentence><sentence id="69">Tell us what happened. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="73">A: Well, uh afterwards uh ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="75">Q: You were liberated or...the Russians had come in. </sentence><sentence id="76">Did they leave you alone after this or...? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="79">A: Yes, they uh...the Russians uh didn't come around again to get me, at least, and then the war ended in "45. </sentence><sentence id="80">I had uh [had a uh an aunt who with her husband had moved to <span class="country">Canada</span> before the war, and so in 1948 we managed to get papers and uh uh got out of there, uh bribing the authorities and having all of our earthly goods taken away from us in exchange for a passport and an exit uh visa. </sentence><sentence id="81">Uh we couldn't get our papers at the same time, so I had to uh travel...1 went first. </sentence><sentence id="82">I went by myself from <span class="country">Romania</span> all the way to <span class="country">Canada</span> and then later uh my uh my grandmother followed. </sentence><sentence id="83">My grandfather had already died. </sentence><sentence id="84">In those three years, from the end of the war until 1948, uh we found out how a few of our family members had perished. </sentence><sentence id="85">Uh almost all the members of my family died during the war, one way or another. </sentence><sentence id="86">Uh my sister...I had a sister who was eight years older than I was who when my parents died chose to remain in in <span class="country">Hungary</span> and went to live in a <span class="building">convent</span>, and uh during the war the Nazis sort of seized this <span class="building">convent</span> and used the women for housework and uh whatever else...sewing and Lord knows what what else...and then when uh during the siege of <span class="populated place">Budapest</span>, they uh...when the Nazis were fleeing <span class="populated place">Budapest</span> eventually...this was in the winter...uh they took my sister and all the other women in the <span class="building">convent</span> with them. </sentence><sentence id="87">My sister already had uh an advanced case of TB they call galloping consumption and so on the <span class="spatial object">truck</span> uh when she got too sick uh on the <span class="dlf">road</span> to <span class="country">Austria</span>, they just threw her out on the <span class="dlf">roadside</span> and left her there to to die in in uh the <span class="env feature">snow</span>, and we found out about this because uh another woman who was on the <span class="spatial object">truck</span> with her who survived came to visit us sometime later to tell us the story, and, you know, that was a common thing that uh many people who survived the Holocaust or the war in some way...at the end of the war they made a special effort to go and visit whenever they could the families of people that that died next to them or that they saw, so that they could recount the circumstances. </sentence><sentence id="88">That happened a lot and we had two or three such visits about other relatives as well as my sister. </sentence><sentence id="89">So that was one act of human solidarity that the few survivors tried to to do as a good turn for the relatives of those who had perished. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="101">Q: How did you then...you were in <span class="country">Canada</span>...you got to <span class="country">Canada</span>...what what did you do then as a young child. </sentence><sentence id="102">You were now thirteen, fourteen... </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="105">A: Fifteen...yes. </sentence><sentence id="106">I was fifteen. </sentence><sentence id="107">Well, when I got to <span class="country">Canada</span> I finished <span class="building">high school</span> and my uncle and aunt had helped me get there, and then I went to <span class="building">university</span> and eventually in the "50's uh I studied dentistry in at the <span class="building">University of Oregon</span>. </sentence><sentence id="108">That's how I first came to the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="109">And then when I got my dental degree in 1956, I did some advanced uh work, graduate work and I got a graduate degree in uh oral pathology, uh specializing in diseases of the mouth and the face and the neck, and then uh I went into uh academic life and was one of the founders of a new <span class="building">college of dentistry</span> at the <span class="building">University of Kentucky</span> in <span class="populated place">Lexington</span>, where five of us started a new <span class="building">school</span>, really from a from an empty <span class="env feature">cornfield</span> and at the end of that period when the first class graduated from there in 1966, I decided to uh to look for let's say new horizons and like so many people uh looked toward a second career. </sentence><sentence id="110">So in 1967 I left the <span class="building">school</span>, left the <span class="building">university</span> and uh initially took a leave of absence and uh joined the staff of the Peace Corps and I uh worked as a Peace Corps Deputy Director and then eventually as a Country Director of the Peace Corps, first in <span class="country">Columbia</span>, then in <span class="country">Venezuela</span> and finally in <span class="country">Brazil</span> and uh that turned out to be a very good and uh wonderful learning experience and so I, uh resigned my professorship...can't stay on a leave of absence for ever ..and uh then I was recruited into the Foreign Service and I became a Foreign Service officer with the United States Information Agency, USIA, which uh has the press and cultural sections of <span class="building">American embassies</span> around the world, and they call it USIS...so I worked and stayed with them from 1972 until now and I've had a series of assignments around the world including being uh Cultural Attache in <span class="country">Hungary</span> in uh in the "70's, and then on loan to the <span class="building">Department of State</span> as Consul General in <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span>, <span class="country">Brazil</span> in the mid-"80's. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="118">Q: So you were in <span class="country">Brazil</span> in the mid "80's and something rather extraordinary happened. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="120">A: Yes. </sentence><sentence id="121">Something...something very extraordinary happened. </sentence><sentence id="122">Uh I remember the day it all began very clearly. </sentence><sentence id="123">On June the 6th 1985...it was only about three months after Lee and I, my wife and I, had arrived to <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> to take up my duties as Consul General and uh the phone rang in the morning and it was my press attache, Jim Dandridge, who was calling me to tell me that he had heard on the radio and was watching on <span class="spatial object">television</span> at that very time, that there was an exhumation going on uh for the alleged remains of Josef Mengele and that he thought I should uh know about that. </sentence><sentence id="124">And that was quite a...quite a startling way to start a day which was the first day off, the first holiday that I'd had since I'd arrived, and all of a sudden all of these dim memories came into my mind because I, I really hadn't followed the story of Josef Mengele as closely as perhaps many others had, but it all came back to me in a ina flash about a half a million people whose death he was involved with and uh all of the many times that he had been sighted or thought to have been found before. </sentence><sentence id="125">Uh but I didn't have too much time to to think uh you know, long thoughts because uh things, events began to cascade uh you know, at a very rapid pace. </sentence><sentence id="126">UhI started getting uh phone calls from the <span class="building">Embassy</span> in <span class="populated place">Brasilia</span>, the <span class="populated place">capital</span>, from the <span class="building">State Department</span> in <span class="populated place">Washington</span>, from television, from networks, from newspapers, uh from everywhere because uh, you know, there had been so many times when Mengele had been found and it turned out to be a hoax or false news that uh, you know, if this if this was going to be the real thing, there was tremendous interest everywhere, and more specifically as far as our government and the <span class="building">Department of State</span> and the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> were concerned. </sentence><sentence id="127">Uh there had been an agreement signed only recently between the German, Israeli and American governments that we would coordinate and cooperate on any further Nazi hunts and here uh there was this going on and the U.S. government knew nothing about it, so they were anxious to find out very quickly. </sentence><sentence id="128">And so I began uh right away to to look for my German counterpart, the <span class="building">German Consul</span> there who was very busy uh with all the events going on, but I insisted that he meet me and uh he uh he was not anxious to do it, but eventually uh I didn't...I didn't uh let up and so about midnight that night in a <span class="building">restaurant</span> we finally met and he told me the first part of the story, that a few days earlier German uh police had raided the <span class="building">home</span> of Hans Seidlmeier, who was a manager of the <span class="building">Mengele family enterprises</span> in <span class="populated place">Ginzburg</span> what was then <span class="region">West Germany</span>, and uh had found some papers, notes, letters with some addresses on them indicating that uh uh where Mengele either was or had been, so without any knowledge as to whether he was alive or dead, the German authorities immediately came to <span class="country">Brazil</span>, contacted the Federal police and had staked out this <span class="building">house</span> uh whose address they they gleaned from this information, but after a few days of staking the <span class="building">house</span> out and not seeing any any old man who looked uh he would possibly in uh Josef Mengele's category of age group or whatever, they raided the <span class="building">house</span> and uh and uh came upon this couple, Wolfgang and Lisalotte Brossert, uh who were German Brazilians and who uh quickly admitted that they had had a role in in uh sheltering and protecting Josef Mengele for the last few years of his life according to the story they told and that when he died by drowning on the <span class="env feature">beach</span>...he was with them at this <span class="env feature">beach</span>...that he had had a stroke while he was uh...this is what she said...that he had had a stroke while he was swimming there in this <span class="populated place">beach town</span> of <span class="populated place">Bertioga</span>, and uh that uh he therefore drowned because he couldn't get out of the <span class="env feature">water</span>, and Mrs. Brossert uh decided right there that she didn't want to expose and reveal the whole story of of Mengele's hiding and so on and their role in it most importantly, so she went to some length to bury him under a false name and by bending some rules about the identification of the dead and so on, buried him there some uh five or six years before and uh now took the authorities there for the exhumation and was quite uh forthcoming with information. </sentence><sentence id="129">Uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="141">Q: Who persuaded her to take the authorities? </sentence><sentence id="142">How did they convince her that she had to do this? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="145">A: You mean to to give the information now?...Well, I think she thought the game was up. </sentence><sentence id="146">I think that uh it was uh...she had to make a choice as to whether she was going to try to uh keep up with a whole new package of lies and deception, and I think she probably decided right away that that would be impossible and it would be too complicated and that uh that she couldn't get away with it so I think uh from the beginning she decided uh to cooperate. </sentence><sentence id="147">In other words, she made a decision to bury him under false name, hoping that somehow uh that would do it, but once once she saw that the game was up, one one of the things uh she said when they first raided her <span class="building">house</span> apparently by...according to press reports, was uh "I didn't think it would take you this long to uh to get here." </sentence><sentence id="148">So uh...but in in the <span class="building">house</span> there, aside from the various uh uh stories that she told, they also found some photographs. </sentence><sentence id="149">They found a diary that was allegedly that of Mengele that was taken away by hand-writing experts, and uh and some other memorabilia and then she told many stories about Mengele's son having come to visit both when Mengele was still alive and after he died, he came to retrieve some of his possessions, including part of the <span class="spatial object">diary</span>, but she didn't tell him about another part that she kept, so the <span class="spatial object">diary</span> ended up being divided into two two parts. </sentence><sentence id="150">Uh in any event, uh when they exhumed these what were essentially were just bones, then the big project began. </sentence><sentence id="151">Is it him, or isn't it him? </sentence><sentence id="152">And how do you, how do you identify a set of bones that have been buried not too many years ago archaeologically speaking, but quite a few years ago, five or six years. </sentence><sentence id="153">So uh there there were a lot of a lot of sensitive factors involved. </sentence><sentence id="154">First of all, this exhumation took place in <span class="country">Brazil</span> and the Brazilian government and, to some extent, the Brazilian medical experts were very eager to prove that they were fully competent to do such an examination and uh and the Brazilian government was very eager to prove that they didn't need any foreigners interfering in their internal business, so at first they said that they wouldn't give any visas to foreign specialists to participate in the identification and I received a call from <span class="populated place">Washington</span> that day telling me that I'd better go in quickly and speak to the Chief of Police uh to to see if we could persuade him to change his mind, because uh these people had to come in, so I went uh the very next morning to call on uh a man who now is has a very widely-known name around the world....Romeu Tuma, who at that time was the Chief of the Sao Paulo Police. </sentence><sentence id="155">Now he's the chief of the <span class="building">Federal police</span> for all of <span class="country">Brazil</span>. </sentence><sentence id="156">And I had met him before. </sentence><sentence id="157">I didn't know him well. </sentence><sentence id="158">As I was riding down in the <span class="spatial object">car</span> to see him and I was thinking just what what would I say, you know, so I got there. </sentence><sentence id="159">He was a very...he's a very decent, nice man. </sentence><sentence id="160">Uha very unusual human being. </sentence><sentence id="161">A very unusual policeman, and I said to him, Dr. Tuma, I uh I was born and raised in <span class="region">eastern Europe</span> also and most of my family perished in the war and in the Holocaust, and this man that we're talking about here, uh is responsible for the death of at least 400,000 people. </sentence><sentence id="162">Four hundred thousand people. </sentence><sentence id="163">And I said that relatives and the survivors and all of their kin, all of the human beings who have shared this terrible historical tragedy, are scattered all over the world and their wounds in many, many, many cases haven't healed yet, and they never will until they know what happened to that man, and even then those wounds will only heal very superficially. </sentence><sentence id="164">But Dr. Tuma, all of those people around the world have a right to be present here when we go through this process. </sentence><sentence id="165">They have a right to be witnesses, to be present at the most important identification that we could do in our lifetimes, any one of us. </sentence><sentence id="166">They deserve to be here and these specialists coming from other <span class="country">countries</span> are coming here on their behalf. </sentence><sentence id="167">They're coming here on behalf of all of mankind that suffered this horrible tragedy. </sentence><sentence id="168">And to Dr. Tuma's great credit, he immediately sensed and understood this, and he immediately said yes and the the little mini-crisis was over and the people came and we could begin a more thorough approach of international cooperation in solving this vitally important puzzle, So several groups came. </sentence><sentence id="169">There were quite a few specialists who came from <span class="country">Germany</span> to join those who had been there initially who were mostly policemen. </sentence><sentence id="170">And then there was a group of forensic specialists who were contracted by the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> which uh in the last, in the previous few years had inaugurated an <span class="building">Office of Special Investigations</span>, specializing in uh pursuing Nazi uh war criminals and Nazi questions. </sentence><sentence id="171">I think that <span class="building">office</span> was established during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. </sentence><sentence id="172">And uh the U.S. Marshall's Service and the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> also sent uh fingerprint experts and hand-writing experts and other such specialists. </sentence><sentence id="173">And then the <span class="building">Simon Wiesenthal Center</span> in <span class="populated place">Los Angeles</span> who retained the services of an independent, private group of forensic specialists, some of whom who had played very important roles in the identification of the disappeared Argentine citizens after the dirty war there in the "70's where several thousand people disappeared without a trace, and also the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> specialists were very experienced in in these world famous cases, so these uh people all began to to arrive and showed up and the Israeli government sent an observer whose name was Menachem Russek", who I think worked for their Justice Department, to follow events, and I remember vividly the first meeting that Dr. Tuma had with all of these newly arrived specialists and their Brazilian counterparts, trying to organize and plan how this process would be done, and I had already met most of them but I hadn't met Mr. Russek, so at the end of the meeting as people were walking out, I followed Mr. Russek and I went up to him and he was a short man with with silver hair, very ruddy cheeks and quite a spring in his step and he was walking out the <span class="building">building</span> and I was sort of walking behind him, and I introduced myself. </sentence><sentence id="174">I told him who I was and I said to Mr. Russek, I said, "I hope that uh we can do this whole process well enough to reach a satisfactory and scientifically acceptable outcome. </sentence><sentence id="175">I know how much that means to you and how much it means to all of mankind." </sentence><sentence id="176">And up to then he'd been sort of walking along and when I said that, he stopped and he turned and looked me in the eye and he pondered the matter for a moment and then he said, "The first time I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Josef Mengele in person was in <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span> in 1945 and I certainly hope to have the pleasure to meet him in person one more time," and with that he stopped and turned again and walked right out, but to me in those few words, the whole drama, the whole tragedy, the whole sensitivity of this case came to life in such a powerful way that uh, you know, that the feeling that people have, the need that people have that somehow justice should be done...now you can't do justice with a man who's killed 400,000 people, but you can do the close...closest thing to it no matter how distant. </sentence><sentence id="177">You can somehow close the <span class="dlf">circle</span>, and if this man in fact died of a natural death without having been brought to justice, then at least let's be clear about the fact that he really is dead and close the <span class="dlf">circle</span> in that small but very important way. </sentence><sentence id="178">Well, uh then the work began. </sentence><sentence id="179">Now I was still only an observer at the time, although uh people knew that I had been an oral pathologist uh at that time I was still the Consul General following events for the <span class="country">U.S.</span> government as part of the agreement that existed. </sentence><sentence id="180">And the specialists went to work uh doing those things that can be done. </sentence><sentence id="181">Now the two basic ways in which remains can be identified are fingerprints, which of course don't exist when only bones remain, and dental x-rays, but in order to use dental x-rays to identify remains, you not only have to have x-rays taken from the skull of the remains but you have to have x-rays "Menachem Russek, an Israeli police superintendent charged by the Israeli government with the task of tracking war criminals. </sentence><sentence id="182"> from the person known to be the one we're seeking to identify that were in some authentic file prior to his death, and by comparing the two you would have one of the most accurate and reliable ways of identifying remains that are currently known to medical science. </sentence><sentence id="183">Unfortunately, there were no such x-rays available in Mengele's <span class="spatial object">Gestapo files</span> or anywhere else. </sentence><sentence id="184">The only thing that was available in those files was a dental chart which uh from my standpoint as a dentist and with a with a knowledge in dental charting of of the 1980's was uh extremely incomplete. </sentence><sentence id="185">The only thing that chart had was an indication of which teeth that Mengele had examined at the time he entered the <span class="building">SS</span> in uh 1939, which teeth were present and which teeth were absent. </sentence><sentence id="186">That was the only thing on that <span class="spatial object">chart</span>. </sentence><sentence id="187">Now had a tooth in the skull...had there been a tooth in the <span class="spatial object">skull</span> that was present in the <span class="spatial object">skull</span> which was marked as missing in 1939, it would have been proof positive that this was not the skull of Josef Mengele, but there was no such tooth. </sentence><sentence id="188">Uh and other than that one feature, the <span class="spatial object">chart</span> was of no value because he obviously lost quite a number of teeth between 1939 and whenever he died or whenever this skull was being examined, but that was of no value in comparing it to the <span class="spatial object">chart</span>, so uh the specialists on these teams went ahead and did some various anthropological examinations that showed that these bones belonged to an old man, that he was a Caucasian male and not of some other racial origin, that his height was extremely close to the height that Mengele was known to have had, and uh there were a number of other examinations carried out on the bone bones, that were consistent with with Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="189">But the the really very important examination that was done was was a procedure called craniometry, in which which is a also very accurate procedure. </sentence><sentence id="190">It just hasn't been around long enough to hold up in <span class="building">court</span> the way dental x-rays would but nonetheless is very uh very accurate in which a number of features of the face, angles and sizes of ear lobes and the comer of the nose, the angle of the bridge of the nose and the lips, the chin and so on, are measured. </sentence><sentence id="191">And then with a scientific measurement can be compared to an overlap and uh this was done with great care there, and it was shown by comparing the photograph of the young Mengele from the SS files with the photograph of the old man that was found in Mrs. Brossert's <span class="building">house</span>, that all of these features matched perfectly and then by superimposing these same features on the <span class="spatial object">skull</span>, which is part of this technique, it was shown that all of these measurements and features coincided between the photograph of the young man and the old man and between both of these photographs and the skull. </sentence><sentence id="192">So between this very powerful positive identification evidence, the other things, the measurements that were taken on the bones and the fact that many things matched with what was known about Mengele, all of the specialists there uh agreed that there was more than ninety-five percent chance that these remains were definitely those of Josef Mengele and uh the American specialists in particular said that with their extensive experience in court testimony, that that evidence was completely sufficient in any American court of law, it would be considered conclusive proof that these remains were that of Josef Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="193"> So based on that, they decided to call a press conference and announce the results and I remember very vividly a meeting that was held just before the press conference in which Dr.Tuma had gathered all of the people involved in this procedure, and at the end of this whole process and he said "Now I would like each of you individually to stand up and tell me what your findings are." </sentence><sentence id="194">And he went around the <span class="interior space">room</span> and each individual stood up and said "Dr.Tuma, based on the examination that I've performed and the data that I have seen, I believe that these are the remains of Josef Mengele." </sentence><sentence id="195">And each one in turn stood up and said that in front of all the others, in front of Dr. Tuma, including the American specialists from the <span class="building">Simon Weisenthal Center</span> and the specialists from the U.S. Department of Justice. </sentence><sentence id="196">And I was sitting next to Menachan Russek again who was taking notes uh but was there as strictly an observer, and uh I didn't know what was going through his mind and I don't want to speak for what may have been going through his mind, but I did ask him, "How do you feel now at this moment, Mr. Ruseck, in light of what you said to me before," and he said with that wonderful Jewish sense of humor, he looked at me and he said "Well, better I should stand on his <span class="dlf">grave</span> than he on mine." </sentence><sentence id="197">And so at the end of this, the press conference was held. </sentence><sentence id="198">The results were announced and the news went out all over the world. </sentence><sentence id="199">And then there was a brief period of sort of silence on the <span class="spatial object">world screen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="200">I mean a lot of people were very skeptical at first, who had to re-examine their their feelings in light of this powerful evidence that had come out, but there were...there were others who who had a hard time reaching that point. </sentence><sentence id="201">Frankly, uh, you know, I don't claim to have been through the Holocaust the way uh the survivors from the <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span> have because | don't think anyone can have that kind of a painful and unbelievably cruel experience that they've suffered but uh even from the little bit that I did, I can certainly see and understand how someone who went through that experience could never accept that in this life a man capable of perpetrating such unspeakable cruelties to their fellow human beings as well as to them, could somehow be allowed by by fate to die a natural death and not be brought to justice. </sentence><sentence id="202">That anyone who can't accept that because of what they've been through because they can't believe that such a thing could occur, I can certainly sympathize with. </sentence><sentence id="203">That's quite different from looking at the evidence and looking at the facts because there are many things in feelings that go beyond facts and conclusive evidence and so on. </sentence><sentence id="204">In any case, not too long after that, people started to file their reports from these teams of specialists and in those reports there was another item that occurred while these examinations were going on that I was involved in, because as we were looking there at the photographs and uh people were projecting on the <span class="dlf">wall</span> the drawings of all these features of Mengele's face from the photograph and the superimposition with the skull, I noticed in a photograph of the old man that there was a scar right here on the face, and I noticed on the skull that was also being projected on the <span class="dlf">wall</span>, there there was a <span class="dlf">hole</span> in the bone in roughly the same <span class="region">area</span>, and I was reminded of the fact that the woman...there were two...you know there were two couples who had protected Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="205">The first one were the ones who hid him for something like fourteen years, because he was in <span class="country">Brazil</span> from 1961 until 1979, and the first fourteen years of that he was hidden by this couple of Austro-Hungarians called Geza and Gitta Stammer, and then when finally they split up, that's when the Brosserts came into the picture as his second set of protectors and uh Mrs. Stammer had recounted that for many, many years, Mengele was afraid to leave the <span class="building">house</span> at all. </sentence><sentence id="206">He wouldn't go to any doctors or dentists, but that he had a number of times a badly swollen face from an abscessed tooth. </sentence><sentence id="207">And because Mengele had been a doctor, of course...uh, you know, I shudder to even say the word because, you know, a aa sub-human being like that shouldn't use the word doctor even if he earned such a degree in <span class="building">school</span>, but in any case he was a physician and so he lanced these boils inside of his mouth a number of times in order to to treat the abscess without having to go to a doctor, and because I'd been a professor of oral pathology and the head of the Department of Dental Diagnosis at the University of Kentucky and Kentucky is a a poor state in which in <span class="region">eastern Kentucky</span> particularly, and in the days that I was there in the "60's, there were hundreds of people who who suffered from a lack of dental treatment, even in emergencies, and who would who would have these infections that normally in this <span class="country">country</span> nowadays are treated automatically, uh they let them go for months and years at a time and I saw many patients who who would have abscesses that came and went and they never even had the tooth pulled where eventually the infection would break through the bone and enter the sinus above the teeth, you know, the <span class="env feature">sinuses</span> we have in our head, and uh set up an infection inside the <span class="env feature">sinuses</span> and then through that <span class="dlf">hole</span> it would periodically drain, either inside the <span class="dlf">mouth</span> or out, outside on the face, and so because Mrs. Stammer has said that he had several episodes of swollen jaws and face and I saw on this picture being projected on the <span class="dlf">wall</span> that there was a <span class="dlf">hole</span> in the bone in about that place and that there was a scar on the face on the spot where this what they call a <span class="dlf">fistulous track</span>, the <span class="dlf">track</span> where the infection drains out would have occurred and there was similar to what I had seen before with patients in <span class="region">Kentucky</span>, that uh that may be a an important link. </sentence><sentence id="208">And so the uh the American specialists said well, that's very interesting. </sentence><sentence id="209">Why don't you...why don't you come and uh take a look at the <span class="spatial object">skull</span> itself and see whether you, whether you still feel that way, so that's when I uh first went into the <span class="interior space">room</span> where they had the bones and, you know, I held this <span class="spatial object">skull</span> in my hands to to to look at it, and holding that <span class="spatial object">skull</span> in my hands I was transfixed. </sentence><sentence id="210">I I drifted off into into another state of mind that uh, you know, I had never experienced before and all of a sudden I saw myself standing in a <span class="building">railway station</span> where 400,000 people were lined up on both sides of the <span class="dlf">track</span>, standing there with their tattered, torn clothes and their their badly beaten appearance, and I took that <span class="spatial object">skull</span> and I walked down those <span class="dlf">tracks</span> showing, showing it to everyone there and saying "Here, behold this <span class="spatial object">skull</span>." </sentence><sentence id="211">Here we are, all of us, from different worlds at this time, being present at a what...I don't know...this this vision didn't go beyond this. </sentence><sentence id="212">I didn't know the answer, but I showed that <span class="spatial object">skull</span> to everyone of those 400 people in the few seconds that it took, in my mind, and then the vision passed and I was back with the skull and I saw the <span class="dlf">hole</span> there and I suggested that this was indeed very much like a maxillary sinus, a sinus of the upper jaw infection and that I thought this was consistent. </sentence><sentence id="213">Well, this was an interesting piece of evidence matching what someone said who had harbored Mengele, with the actual findings in the skull, so the Americans all thought this was very interesting. </sentence><sentence id="214">They all accepted this although none of them had really seen a case like this before. </sentence><sentence id="215">It's so rare nowadays to have people who will let something like that go for months and years, that uh even these forensic specialists really hadn't encountered it, and uh here I have to tell you another little story that uh uh was to me has been a very moving one. </sentence><sentence id="216">But that evening I went <span class="building">home</span> and I was talking to Lee about the fact that, you know, I have some cases, and I had some slides of people just like that of uh people who had sinus infections draining to the face and that these slides were part of my teaching slides that I had used at the University of <span class="populated place">Kentucky</span> and here it was almost twenty years since I've used them...eighteen years and wouldn't I love to have those slides so I could show the specialists that uh that uh, you know, there was some basis in fact of what I was talking about. </sentence><sentence id="217">Well, these slides were all...I had several thousand slides...six, eight, ten thousand...I don't know how many, and they were all stored in the <span class="interior space">basement</span> of my mother-in-law who lives in in the <span class="region">greater Washington area</span>, or lived in the <span class="region">greater Washington area</span> and I thought to myself, "How am I going to get these slides. </sentence><sentence id="218">How am I going to get the three or four slides I need from these ten thousand." </sentence><sentence id="219">So I called my dentist in <span class="populated place">Washington</span>, a friend of mine, good friend of mine. </sentence><sentence id="220">His name is Jay Slotkin (ph). </sentence><sentence id="221">He's a periodontist. </sentence><sentence id="222">And he's Jewish and I called him up and I said "Jay, this is what's going on. </sentence><sentence id="223">I wonder if you would mind going to my mother- in-law's <span class="interior space">basement</span> and getting out these ten thousand slides and going through them and finding these slides that I need and sending them to me." </sentence><sentence id="224">I was calling him about seven thirty or eight o'clock in the evening, and he said "Well, I'll be glad to do that." </sentence><sentence id="225">He says, "When do you think you would need that." </sentence><sentence id="226">I said "Well, tomorrow morning is when I would need them." </sentence><sentence id="227">So he sort of sucked in his breathe for a moment and then he said, "Alright" and we made arrangements and he went out to <span class="populated place">Springfield</span>, <span class="region">Virginia</span>, to the <span class="interior space">basement</span> of the <span class="building">house</span> where my mother-in-law lived and he got down from the top shelf all of these boxes of <span class="spatial object">slides</span>, and he got a colleague friend of his. </sentence><sentence id="228">The two of them went back to his <span class="building">office</span> and that entire night they went through all ten thousand slides that I had until they found the four or five that I needed and the next morning a courier picked them up, gave them to the Pan Am pilot and they flew them down the next day so that I could show them to the specialists as convincing that uh that uh you know, that I knew what I was talking about. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="320">Q: At this point we need to pause. </sentence><sentence id="321">We'll change tapes. </sentence><sentence id="322"> Tape #2 </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="326"> TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="328">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="329">We're on. </sentence><sentence id="330">We're back on camera. </sentence><sentence id="331">Uh you're uh dentist friends and colleagues had found these, these slides that you needed...tell us what happened when you received the slides, and if you could repeat the question. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="336">A: Well, uh when uh...you know, what happened when I received the slides? </sentence><sentence id="337">Well, uh the slides by that point were just a very important sort of final detail that made the American specialists accept the validity of what I had said about the <span class="dlf">hole</span> in the skull. </sentence><sentence id="338">Uh but then that was just one more thing and the press conference went ahead as I said earlier and uh everything was closed, but I always felt that I wanted to be sure that Jay Slotkin knew and appreciated how important the role he had played in this case because I knew that it had meant a great deal to him. </sentence><sentence id="339">Uh but this was in 1985. </sentence><sentence id="340">I didn't get back to <span class="populated place">Washington</span> until 1988, and uh during that time, very sadly Jay uh began to fall ill and has developed a uh this rare disease called A-myotropic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's Disease. </sentence><sentence id="341">It's the same condition that uh Senator Jacob Javits had not too many years ago. </sentence><sentence id="342">It's an awful thing because gradually all the muscles become paralyzed and a person eventually has to live in uh in uh what amounts to a total iron lung, and be uh be maintained on life support systems, and their mind of course stays perfectly clear, and uh this has happened to Jay and uh at the end of 1990 he is stabilized but in a condition wh...and he's being cared for with a wonderful uh group of professionals, but he is completely paralyzed, but when I came back in 1988 uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="350">Q: Let's let's stay with this if we can. </sentence><sentence id="351">I need to stay with the with the Mengele search sequence, if that's all right. </sentence></p></dialogue>
58
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="354">A: Do you want me to finish the story about Jay or not? </sentence></p></dialogue>
59
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="356">Q: All right. </sentence><sentence id="357">If if we could make it brief, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="358">Yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
60
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="362">A: Well, I don't have to. </sentence><sentence id="363">It's up to you. </sentence><sentence id="364">Well, I was going to say when I came back through arrangements with his friends and family I went out to his <span class="building">home</span> and uh it was a very moving experience in telling him this story that I'm telling now as he sat there uh paralyzed and listening to this, so uh, you know, we were all in tears when we finished but I felt uh the satisfaction of knowing that I could at least tell him it first hand, the story of what role he had played in this case, and it was the first time that I learned the uh meaning of the Yiddish word uh mitzvah, which people were telling me that I had done and uh I felt very good about that. </sentence><sentence id="365">Uh but to get back to the sequence of events, uh by the fall or late summer of 1985, it uh started to become apparent that there was a discrepancy in what the German and Brazilian doctors had written and what the American doctors had written about this <span class="dlf">hole</span> in the skull and about the about the possible sinus infection, because the uh the Americans were the ones who questioned me about it, and it was the Americans who who accepted uh what I had to say, but because it was marginal to the uh...back in June...to the process itself, the Germans and the Brazilians never really paid much attention to this little dialogue and in their report they simply wrote that there was an unexplained <span class="dlf">hole</span> there that uh must have been caused by something or other, possibly after the death of the individual, so when this discrepancy began to show up in the published reports, it was apparent that it had to be resolved right away. </sentence><sentence id="366">Otherwise it would forever leave a vast <span class="dlf">gap</span> for people to say that well, there's still unresolved questions and so on. </sentence><sentence id="367">So uh they called me from the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> and they said that we'd better go ahead and do some pathological studies on this <span class="dlf">hole</span> to see whether it was something that was caused before death, or after death, and of course that can be done by pathological studies because you can prepare tissue from the bone to be examined under the <span class="spatial object">microscope</span> and any evidence of infection that obviously had to be there before death would still be seen in the bones, whereas if it was just a fracture or some other break that occurred after the bones were buried or the body was buried, then there would be no evidence on the <span class="spatial object">microscope</span> of any signs of infection or inflammation or any other healing process that might have occurred, so it's very easy to tell the difference. </sentence><sentence id="368">So I contacted the uh Brazilian pathologist who worked in uh association with the <span class="building">coroner's office</span> and uh then I put on my hat of the pathologist instead of the Consul General's hat, and then the two of us went ahead and in his <span class="building">laboratory</span> with his techniques and procedures, uh tissue was prepared from uh the <span class="spatial object">skull</span> in this particular <span class="region">area</span> around the <span class="dlf">hole</span>. </sentence><sentence id="369">It was examined under the <span class="spatial object">microscope</span> and it was quite clear that there was a lot of evidence of bone infection, of what some people call osteomyelitis uh that had occurred around this <span class="dlf">hole</span> and uh then we prepared the photographs and so on and I was able to to advise the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> that indeed uh this was something from a dental infection and not something that occurred after death. </sentence><sentence id="370">Well, this was so important that the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> then reconvened as many of the specialists that they could co...get, to come to the <span class="building">Smithsonian</span> and this was in about January of "86, the year following all of these events, and I came up and I put on a little seminar to the specialists who were there, showing the slides and all of the evidence that I had worked up together with my Brazilian colleague who had done the laboratory work and uh based on that, everyone who was present...the German specialists as well as the American...agreed that this was evidence of a bone infection of osteomyelitis in the in the jaw skull and that uh both the Brazilian and Germans then modified their report to show that. </sentence><sentence id="371">So that closed a small <span class="dlf">gap</span>, uh but it still left the big issue open. </sentence><sentence id="372">I said earlier that the specialists at the end of their first set of studies said that the probability was more than ninety-five percent, based on the evidence they gathered, that this was Josef Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="373">And that's good enough for <span class="building">courts of law</span> and it's good enough in almost all the cases, but Josef Mengele is not one of almost all the cases. </sentence><sentence id="374">Josef Mengele was very special, and if somehow that ninety-five plus percent could be moved to a hundred, we still had an obligation to try. </sentence><sentence id="375">And when I was up here at the at the Smithsonian conference, the people at the <span class="building">Justice Department</span>, and the head of that <span class="building">office</span> is Neil Scher", uh pointed out to me that the diary which had been found in the <span class="building">home</span> of Mrs. Brossert when the original police raid occurred at the time in June of 1985 when Mrs. Brossert led people to the <span class="dlf">cemetery</span>* in <span class="populated place">Embu</span> for the exhumation, that this diary was taken away and was examined by hand-writing specialists from the two <span class="country">countries</span>, I presume, but that there was quite unanimous agreement by these specialists that this hand-writing in the diary was the hand-writing of Josef Mengele, because that could be compared with samples of his hand-writing that was available in the SS files, which had been guarded in safe-keeping by the <span class="building">Office of Special Investigation</span> at the <span class="building">Justice Department</span>, so we had an authenticated diary which hand-writing experts agreed about that. </sentence><sentence id="376">And in that authenticated diary, Mengele had many references to visits to both physicians and dentists and the one and and so they gave me uh the information about a number of visits to doctors that eventually after he dared come out of hiding at least on those occasions when he had to go to a doctor or a dentist which was in the second half of his eighteen years in <span class="country">Brazil</span>, uh that he would make notes in this diary. </sentence><sentence id="377">His diary spoke nothing about the war or his personal views about the Holocaust or anything else. </sentence><sentence id="378">His diary was just a sort of a mechanical writing down of whatever happened to him on any given day to keep him...presumably to stave off boredom. </sentence><sentence id="379">There was no substance. </sentence><sentence id="380">There was no thought. </sentence><sentence id="381">There was no meaning in these diaries. </sentence><sentence id="382">It was just a little hour by hour log. </sentence><sentence id="383">So in uh...they asked me if I could, if I could ask the Brazilian federal police to track down the doctors and dentists to whom references were made in the diary and I did that and the police was very cooperative and they uh did find a number of these people, some of whom uh remembered having treated someone like Josef Mengele uh but of course had no x-rays to to go by it. </sentence><sentence id="384">Uh others didn't remember. </sentence><sentence id="385">Others had died or couldn't be found, but the most important key person was the man who according to the diary had done a root canal treatment on Mengele in uh 1968...excuse me...1978...right, in 1978...and about that degNeil M. Scher, Department of Justice, Director of the Office of Special Investigations, <span class="building">Criminal Division</span>. </sentence><sentence id="386">His final report was published in 1992, entitled In the Matter of Josef Mengele: A Report to the Attorney General of the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="387">&gt;The remains of Josef Mengele's body was exhumed on 6 June 1985 from the <span class="building">Nossa Senhora do Rosario Cemetary</span> in <span class="populated place">Embu</span>. </sentence><sentence id="388"> particular case, Mengele had written in his diary "...I went to see Dr. Gama" in <span class="populated place">Sama</span>" ...S - A -M-A....that was what he wrote. " </sentence><sentence id="389">I went to see Dr. Men...uh I went to see a dentist by the name of Dr. Gama in <span class="populated place">Sama</span> to have a root canal done and he did this root canal on my upper first molar, upper tooth and I paid him two thousand cruzieros on the first appointment on December uh December the 6th, and that uh I went back for a second appointment on December the 9th and paid another one thousand cruzieros for a second appointment." </sentence><sentence id="390">He kept close track of how much he was paying people. </sentence><sentence id="391">And so we asked the Brazilian police to find the Dr. Gama also because that might be a person who would have these dental x-rays because you have to take x-rays to do a root canal. </sentence><sentence id="392">And if we could find an x-ray at...with a dentist whose name came from an authenticated diary on which everyone agreed was really that of Josef Mengele, then you would have solid, irrefutable evidence, a chain of evidence. </sentence><sentence id="393">Uh but the police interviewed a Dr. Gama and uh this Dr. Gama didn't remember anything whatsoever about the case, and that was as far as the police investigation went uh with these various doctors including this one. </sentence><sentence id="394">So then Neil Scher asked me if I could take this a little further, given that I was a dentist and I was down there and and go a little bit further with this Dr. Gama to see whether he might remember something, or maybe looking at his charts we could discover some evidence, so I went back and with the agreement and cooperation of the Brazilian federal police, uh I went to see Dr. Gama, who in fact was uh very cooperative, and he told me that uh he didn't think that he had anything to do with Mengele because for one thing he didn't do any root canals, but that he referred his root canal patients to another specialist whose name was totally different, but in any event he went to see his specialist friend and he retrieved from him all of the charts of patients that he had referred to him in 1978 and 1979 for <span class="dlf">root canals</span>, and he brought me the charts to look at and there were thirty-five, forty of these, so I went through those uh very quickly to se...and it was obvious that none of these uh remotely resembled anything that could have been Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="395">If you take forty charts of people who've had <span class="dlf">root canals</span>, first of all uh over half of them were women. </sentence><sentence id="396">Then of the remaining half uh, you know, half of them had root canals done on their lower teeth, not on their upper teeth, and then of the remaining few and many of them had root canals done on their front teeth, not on their back teeth, so we only had three charts left of people that this particular Dr. Gama had referred for root canal treatment during the time period in question that matched the diary, who had root canals done on their upper back teeth, and all three of those people were still alive and existed in that <span class="populated place">community</span> and could be found and so that pretty well definitely tuled out this Dr. Gama on a variety of different <span class="dlf">grounds</span>. </sentence><sentence id="397">So then the question came up uh well, there must be other Dr. Gama's around, and this is "Dr. Hercy Gonzaga Gama Angelo. </sentence><sentence id="398"> where I began to get really exercised about this case and seeing what I could do to to to take it a little bit further, so together with my assistant uh Vice Consul by the name of Fred Kaplan, we began to to...well, first of all, uh pour over the diary. </sentence><sentence id="399">It was in German and it was kind of hard reading. </sentence><sentence id="400">His hand-writing wasn't all that good, but I was trying to get more information out of there and at the same time trying to find out if there were other Dr.Gama's in the <span class="region">area</span>, and then we had the, really the top question was what does Sama stand for. </sentence><sentence id="401">He said he went to see Dr. Gama in <span class="populated place">Sama</span>, but there is no <span class="populated place">town</span> called <span class="populated place">Sama</span> in the area of <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> and uh there was abundant evidence to prove that Mengele didn't wander very far away from his <span class="building">hideout</span>, so he wouldn't have traveled two hundred miles to see a root canal specialist. </sentence><sentence id="402">He would have had it done somewhere close to where he lived, so we uh went to all of the different dental associations and uh so on and uh with the help of a dentist uh friend of mine in <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span>, we put together the most comprehensive list possible of Dr. Gama's in the state of <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="403">The <span class="populated place">city</span> of <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> has a population of about sixteen, seventeen million people, and the state of <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> has about thirty-two million people. </sentence><sentence id="404">We are talking about a big <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="405">So we put together this list and we came up with about eighteen dentists by the name of Gama, of whom one, of course, was the one I'd interviewed and already ruled out, but of the remaining Gama's, most of them had graduated from <span class="building">dental school</span> after 1979, at least a majority of them had. </sentence><sentence id="406">Uh one had died. </sentence><sentence id="407">One had moved away from <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> immediately upon graduation. </sentence><sentence id="408">Uh to make a long story short, there was no Gama left who could remotely fit the situation that uh we were trying to to clarify. </sentence><sentence id="409">So at the same time I was pouring over this diary and saying now what could Sama stand for. </sentence><sentence id="410">What could Sama stand for? </sentence><sentence id="411">It's obviously not the name of a <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="412">There is no <span class="populated place">town</span> by the name of <span class="populated place">Sama</span>. </sentence><sentence id="413">And by reading the diary over and over again, I realized that when it came to names, Mengele was using a bit of a code. </sentence><sentence id="414">When he didn't want a possible reader of his diary to know who he was referring to, he would use an abbreviation of using initials. </sentence><sentence id="415">The first initial of the first name, and the first one or two letters of the second name. </sentence><sentence id="416">And so I noticed that there was a repetition of this pattern throughout the diary, and then I started to think of <span class="populated place">Sama</span> in terms of how I could interpret that word as a possible abbreviation. </sentence><sentence id="417">And it finally came to me in a ina flash that Sama could very possibly stand for <span class="populated place">Santo Amaro</span>, the name of a <span class="populated place">suburb</span> of <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> where I was living, and where he was known to have lived with the Brosserts and the Stammers. </sentence><sentence id="418">And so I got very excited at this thought, so Fred Kaplan and I went back to the <span class="building">Consulate</span> and we picked up a phone book with yellow pages in it. </sentence><sentence id="419">Now in <span class="country">Brazil</span>, the <span class="spatial object">yellow pages</span> are not used very extensively but it was the first thing that was in my way, so I picked it up. </sentence><sentence id="420">A lot of people have unlisted numbers and so on, but uh in any case we looked under dentists in <span class="populated place">Santo Amaro</span> and there was the name of a Dr. Gama that hadn't turned up on any of our lists before. </sentence><sentence id="421">So we made a test phone call there to ask for an appointment and the assistant told us that Dr.Gama specialized in root canal treatment, so I immediately got back in touch with the Brazilian federal police and they gave me an officer to come with me when we went out there. </sentence><sentence id="422">And we went to the <span class="building">office</span> of Dr. Gama who uh, you know, we told him why we were there, and he, of course, remembered the Mengele case from the press uh the year before, but he didn't remember having treated the man six years earlier and of course normally one would not expect him to remember that, because at the time he treated it, there was nothing unusual about the matter. </sentence><sentence id="423">The unusual thing was six years later, but that doesn't help you remember back to a routine case. </sentence><sentence id="424">He had no reason to dream that he might have been involved. </sentence><sentence id="425">So he said...well, he said he had eight thousand charts uh but we we said we would like to go through those charts right then and there. </sentence><sentence id="426">It was the police officer and Fred Kaplan and I. And I said to him, "Now we are looking for someone on whom you did a root canal on his upper first molar on December the 6th, 1978, and got two thousand cruzieros, and you had a second appointment and got a thousand cruzieros," and he said "Well, you're welcom to go through these charts." </sentence><sentence id="427">Now it was a lucky thing that he still had them. </sentence><sentence id="428">Uh in in modern <span class="building">medical and dental practice</span>, of course, it's routine to keep complete records. </sentence><sentence id="429">But years ago it wasn't so routine and then less advanced <span class="country">countries</span> as far as medical care is concerned, some people still don't keep records, particularly since there's a there's a tendency not to pay taxes and uh so it was a pleasant surprise to see that Dr. Gama had complete records for all of those years, and he had complete charts. </sentence><sentence id="430">So we started going through the charts and it was very easy to go through quickly because he happened to write the date when a first...when a patient first went to him in the upper left hand corner of this six by nine cardboard, uh you know, index card, so by looking just in in that corner, we could go through very quickly and eliminate all the people who went to him after January of 1979 when Mengele reportedly died and then we were looking for the other date. </sentence><sentence id="431">And after about thirty, forty minutes, we came across a card that had those entries... December the 6th, 1978, first molar, two thousand cruzieros...December the 9th, so on. </sentence><sentence id="432">And then we turned the card over on the other side and we saw that the name that was written in there was Pedro Hochbichler, which was the known alias that Mengele had had used when he was hiding in <span class="country">Brazil</span> and the address on <span class="dlf">Estrada Varenga</span> was the same one uh the <span class="building">house</span> where he lived by himself for a number of years when the Brosserts were helping him and protecting him but not harboring him in their own <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="433">As a matter of fact, I I ran into a lady when I gave a a talk in <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span> about Mengele who told me that she had lived in the <span class="building">house</span> next <span class="dlf">door</span> with her parents and that they used to see this man going for walks every day in front of the <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="434">It looked just like the pictures and so on and at that address, but he never spoke to them and he wouldn't greet them back when they said hello and the father wanted to invite him in for coffee or something as a neighbor, but he never accepted and would never speak to them. </sentence><sentence id="435">So here we found this <span class="spatial object">chart</span>. </sentence><sentence id="436">So then, uh he was flabbergasted, of course, and fascinated, but he still couldn't remember anything about the man except that the handwriting on the chart was clearly his and he said, "Yes, that's my hand-writing so, you know, if that's what you wanted, I treated him." </sentence><sentence id="437">So we said, "What we really want is to see if you have any of the x-rays," and he said, "Well, no I don't because I always send the x-rays back to the dentist who referred a patient to me" and we said "Well, who referred this man to you." </sentence><sentence id="438">And he looked on his <span class="spatial object">chart</span> and he said, "Well, and that was Dr. Tutiya"." </sentence><sentence id="439">Now that's a Japanese name but there are over a million Japanese Brazilians living in the <span class="region">Sao Paulo area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="440">It's the largest <span class="populated place">Japanese community</span> anywhere outside of <span class="country">Japan</span>, and there are many, many professionals in the health professions and elsewhere who are second, third generation Japanese, born and living in <span class="country">Brazil</span> as Brazilian citizens. </sentence><sentence id="441">And in questioning...this is a flashback...but in questioning Mrs. Stammer and Mrs. Brossert about whether they knew of who had been Mengele's dentist when he finally started going to one again, swore that they couldn't remember the name but that he was a Japanese dentist. </sentence><sentence id="442">Uh subsequently the <span class="building">Justice Department</span> satisfied itself uh by way of its investigation that uh the women were indeed telling the truth and they did not remember the name, but uh definitely they remembered that Mengele was referring to a Japanese dentist and once said that he wanted to go to a Japanese dentist because since all Japanese look the same to him, he assumed that Japanese couldn't tell the difference between one Caucasian male and another, which is perfectly consistent with the kind of mentality the man had. </sentence><sentence id="443">So I asked Dr.Gama "Where is Dr. Tutiya" and he said "Well, he's just a <span class="dlf">block</span> and a half down the <span class="dlf">street</span>." </sentence><sentence id="444">So we thanked him very much and the three of us walked out of there and crossed the <span class="dlf">street</span> and, you know, the adrenalin was just pumping like crazy and there was a <span class="building">record store</span> there that was playing, you know, loud music on a loud speaker for the <span class="dlf">street</span> and that sort of enhanced the sort of trance-like or movie-like atmosphere as we were, you know, brimming with excitement walking the <span class="dlf">block</span> and a half involved to get to the <span class="building">office</span> of Mr. Tutiya, Dr.Tutiya. </sentence><sentence id="445">So we got there. </sentence><sentence id="446">We knocked on the <span class="dlf">door</span> and uh yes, he was in. </sentence><sentence id="447">And he saw us and the police officer showed him the photograph of Mengele, one of the photographs that had been found in Mrs. Brassart's <span class="building">house</span>, and he said "Oh yes. </sentence><sentence id="448">That's the man with a hat." </sentence><sentence id="449">And the reason he said that is because in <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span>, it's extremely unusual to wear a hat. </sentence><sentence id="450">People don't wear hats in <span class="populated place">Sao Paulo</span>, but Mengele wore a hat because many years ago, his first wife still in <span class="country">Germany</span> who subsequently divorced him, but when he was leaving to flee <span class="country">Germany</span> and went to <span class="country">Argentina</span>, she said "Oh, they're going to find you because you have such a high forehead that you're going to be easy to find all your life." </sentence><sentence id="451">And so in <span class="populated place">Buenos Aires</span>, according to records that I read, he actually tried to have a hair implant done of the high part of his forehead, try to shrink that down, but of course that didn't work. </sentence><sentence id="452">You can't grow hair on the part of skin that never had hair, so then he started wearing a hat in order to to reduce the size of the visible part of his forehead, so he always wore a hat and these photographs were taken with him wearing a hat and this dentist immediately recognized that. </sentence><sentence id="453">degDr. </sentence><sentence id="454"><span class="building">Kasumasa Tutiya</span>. </sentence><sentence id="455"> And we asked him if he remembered something about it, and he had a vague recollection but but uh we said "Well, do you have any records of Pedro Hochbichler." </sentence><sentence id="456">So he said "well, just a moment." </sentence><sentence id="457">And he went in a little <span class="interior space">room</span> in the back and opened the <span class="spatial object">drawer</span>. ... </sentence><sentence id="458">I could see him from the <span class="interior space">front room</span>...went through some envelopes and charts and pulled out a chart just like that and brought it out and showed us that he had done a great deal of dental treatment for this man, including two partial removable dentures and a lot of other dental treatment, and so we said, "Well, do you have any x-rays." </sentence><sentence id="459">And he said, "Well, let me go back and check" and then he went back in the <span class="interior space">room</span> and opened another <span class="interior space">drawer</span> and was in there for what seemed like an eternity but finally came out with a little brown envelope, opened it up and six or seven dental x-rays dropped out on the <span class="spatial object">table</span> and that was a very moving and very emotional moment and uh we uh took the x-rays and the other records with us. </sentence><sentence id="460">Of course, this was legally sanctioned by the police officer who was with us, and uh the dentist, of course, was also perfectly willing to cooperate and uh I immediately called Neil Scher in <span class="populated place">Washington</span> and he had an associate who worked on this case for the whole time, a very fine professional called <span class="building">David Meyerwell</span> (ph). </sentence><sentence id="461">I called them and told them what had happened. </sentence><sentence id="462">Of course, they knew that we were doing this, so they were very excited to hear the results and it was Neil Scher who started me on this process. </sentence><sentence id="463">Uh and then I also called Dr. Lowell Levine, who is an American dental forensic specialist who had been down on the original team in June in <span class="country">Brazil</span> in "85 and did the dental specialty work, and he came back immediately and uh then we had these x-rays which were located only through the decoded information from an authenticated diary of Josef Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="464">There was no other way to find these x-rays. </sentence><sentence id="465">I I used the <span class="spatial object">diary</span> found there. </sentence><sentence id="466">It was authenticated by hand-writing experts from <span class="country">Germany</span> and the <span class="country">United States</span>, used the information I gleaned from there, broke the code in which it was written, and using only and exclusively information from that authenticated diary, found the dentist and these x-rays. </sentence><sentence id="467">Therefore, these x-rays could be taken with absolute certainty as belonging to Josef Mengele. </sentence><sentence id="468">Then it was only a matter of Dr. Levine coming down and matching those x-rays with the x-rays taken of the skull which had been found in <span class="populated place">Embu</span> at the time of the exhumation and when there was a hundred percent coincidence in all of the details of those x-rays, that allowed the case to be closed with a hundred percent certainty that should lay to rest in a scientific way the fact that Josef Mengele is dead. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="582">Q: Dr. Dachi, thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="584">A: Thank you. </sentence><sentence id="585"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ ---
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+ layout: transcript
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+ interviewee: isaac none danon
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+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0058
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+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0058_trs_en.pdf
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+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504555
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+ gender: m
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+ birth_date: none
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+ birth_year: 1929.0
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+ place_of_birth: split
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+ country: yugoslavia
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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: gg
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+ accession: none
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+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
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+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">ISAAC DANON November 6, 1989 </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Would you tell us your name and where and when you were born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: OK. </sentence><sentence id="6">My name is Isaac Danon. </sentence><sentence id="7">They call me Mike--my nickname. </sentence><sentence id="8">I was born in <span class="populated place">Split</span>," <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span> in 1929. </sentence><sentence id="9">I lived there with my family, my mother and father. </sentence><sentence id="10">I have three sisters. </sentence><sentence id="11">One is older than me, two years older, <span class="populated place">Blanka</span>. </sentence><sentence id="12">And my two younger sisters, one is Sarah-- she is about two years younger than me. </sentence><sentence id="13">And the youngest sister, her name is Esther. </sentence><sentence id="14">She is about five years younger than I am. </sentence><sentence id="15"><span class="populated place">Split</span> is a small <span class="populated place">town</span> on the <span class="region">Adriatic coast</span> of <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>, about 50,000 population before the war. </sentence><sentence id="16">We lived there with uh there was about 200 other Jewish families in <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="17">We had a rather active Jewish life. </sentence><sentence id="18">We had our <span class="building">synagogue</span>, was one <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="19">We had a <span class="building">social club</span>. </sentence><sentence id="20">| think it was called "<span class="building">Yarden</span>" [Hebrew meaning "Jordan"].And we had our regular <span class="building">Zionist clubs</span>. </sentence><sentence id="21">We had a lot of friends. </sentence><sentence id="22">Uh, the kids were going to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="23">I was going, at that time, before the war, the last year of <span class="building">school</span> that I went to was first <span class="building">Gymnasium</span> which was an equivalent to fifth grade. </sentence><sentence id="24">And we had a lot of friends, both Jewish and non-Jewish friends. </sentence><sentence id="25">The, I don't remember any particular uh antisemitism being present in our <span class="populated place">community</span>. </sentence><sentence id="26">Maybe some individual cases here and there, but not organized and not uh surely, not uh legal type. </sentence><sentence id="27">Although as the things got worse in <span class="country">Europe</span>, there was more activity by some groups that were sympathetic to the Nazis, but uh I belonged to some uh <span class="building">clubs</span> and some organizations like uh like you would have here, Boy Scouts, but it was mostly a national organization for sports and patriotism and there was no antisemitism that I can remember. </sentence><sentence id="28">The war came to <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span> in early 1941. </sentence><sentence id="29">We first were hit by that when my father was drafted into the service, into the Army. </sentence><sentence id="30">They have like a general mobilization. </sentence><sentence id="31">He was forty, but they took him anyway. </sentence><sentence id="32">And uh there was some kind of a <span class="building">palace</span> coup, I guess. </sentence><sentence id="33">The King took over the reign of the government. </sentence><sentence id="34">He was a small boy, became 18, took over the government and broke relations with <span class="country">Germany</span> and the Axis and we knew things were going to happen then. </sentence><sentence id="35">And sure enough about two, three weeks later, the German and Italian forces invaded our <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="36">We were very lucky that we lived in the part that has been claimed by <span class="country">Italy</span> for a long, long time--<span class="region">Dalmatian Province</span>, or the coast along the <span class="env feature">Adriatic</span>. </sentence><sentence id="37">And when...of course, when they [the Italians] attacked, they took the <span class="country">country</span> over in less than two weeks; and the Italians occupied that part. </sentence><sentence id="38">So that's one good thing that happened. </sentence><sentence id="39">When the Italians took over the <span class="country">country</span>, that part of the <span class="country">country</span>, I can describe the occupation as being benign. </sentence><sentence id="40">We as Jews had the same difficulties or same lack of problems as the rest of the local population. </sentence><sentence id="41">There were shortages of food and other materials and rationing which you expect with a war, but otherwise we didn't fare much worse than the rest of the population, with some exceptions, let me say. </sentence><sentence id="42">For one thing uh Jews could not work in the public life. </sentence><sentence id="43">They couldn't be teachers or officials of any kind. </sentence><sentence id="44">They couldn't work in the <span class="building">offices</span>. </sentence><sentence id="45">And we, the kids, we were not allowed to go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="46">But a little ingenuity solved that problem. </sentence><sentence id="47">We took the Jewish teachers and we formed <span class="building">Jewish schools</span> and that took care of that. </sentence><sentence id="48">I unfortunately couldn't go to <span class="building">school</span> because my " Also known as Spljet among some Dalmatian speakers of <span class="country">Serbo-Croatian</span>, and Spalato among Italian speakers. </sentence><sentence id="49"> father needed me in our <span class="building">business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="50">We had a, I guess you could call it a <span class="building">dry goods store</span>. </sentence><sentence id="51">Very small one uh and most of the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> was involved in either some type of small trades or they were in some of the professions, although we did have some that were rather poor in the community. </sentence><sentence id="52">But anyway, uh during the Italian occupation our life was not too bad with some minor exceptions. </sentence><sentence id="53">As uh I think back, occasionally they would flood the <span class="populated place">city</span> with some "antisemitic" slogans. </sentence><sentence id="54">I remember some of the instances where my uncle who was a barber, they came with a big sign says, "Jews are not welcome here," and they wanted him to put it in his <span class="dlf">window</span>. </sentence><sentence id="55">And he says, "OK, you want me to put that. </sentence><sentence id="56">Fine. </sentence><sentence id="57">I'll put it and here are my keys and here are the scissors. </sentence><sentence id="58">You take over. </sentence><sentence id="59">I'm Jewish." </sentence><sentence id="60">So, we had these little instances. </sentence><sentence id="61">One case that I remember and that was the worst case that happened was right after my bar mitzvah was one Saturday and the following Friday; I guess there was some kind of activity. </sentence><sentence id="62">The Germans were coming to help the Italians celebrate, so they [the Italians] had to demonstrate how good they were as far as the Germans are concerned. </sentence><sentence id="63">So the local Fascists came to <span class="building">synagogue</span> and asked everybody to leave, and as people were leaving, they were hitting them with clubs of the uh rifles and kicking them and few little things like that. </sentence><sentence id="64">Although I do remember in my, some older people that were there, they would go out, then they wouldn't bother them. </sentence><sentence id="65">But the worst thing was next morning when we came, you know, we saw what was happening, we were afraid that they might come and take us or something like that, but so we went early in the morning and we saw they had taken all the things out of the <span class="building">synagogue</span>, the torahs, the books and they put them in the <span class="dlf">public square</span> and they had a big <span class="spatial object">bonfire</span>. </sentence><sentence id="66">Uh the <span class="building">synagogue</span> was in a section called the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> which was the real <span class="populated place">ghetto</span>, the type uh that, uh the word itself means, you know, where the Jewish were kept, but this was right outside the <span class="dlf">public square</span> so most of the Jews didn't live there. </sentence><sentence id="67">I mean hardly anybody, but the <span class="building">synagogue</span> was there because it was a very very old one. </sentence><sentence id="68">Uh anyway, when we came, we saw that, and then we went to our <span class="building">store</span> and we saw somebody was trying to break in, but our <span class="building">store</span> was so small we didn't even have the glass plates, so nothing happened. </sentence><sentence id="69">But they did go around and broke the <span class="dlf">windows</span> of the <span class="building">Jewish stores</span> and they looted the stuff, so that was our "Kristallnacht." </sentence><sentence id="70">But the following day the life went on as though nothing happened and we just didn't have a <span class="building">synagogue</span> anymore. </sentence><sentence id="71">But during the whole period before that, like more than a year that the Italians had occupied the <span class="country">country</span>...uh that portion of the <span class="country">country</span>, we lived uh peacefully and normally except for some of these instances. </sentence><sentence id="72">In fact, uh a lot of immigrants--a lot of Jews that were able to escape from other parts of the <span class="country">country</span> that were occupied by Germans and "their quislings"--they also came to this <span class="populated place">town</span> and this <span class="region">area</span>. </sentence><sentence id="73">And they found a haven over there. </sentence><sentence id="74">Uh as I mentioned earlier, there was about two hundred uh Jewish families in <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="75">Well, after a few months the number swelled to four or five thousand, and then maybe up to ten thousand people that came from other places and at that point the Italians started getting panicky. </sentence><sentence id="76">The Italian authorities, they asked the Jewish community to disperse them throughout the <span class="region">area</span> that they [the Italians] controlled, and then finally they started taking them away to, I guess we can call them <span class="building">internment centers</span>. </sentence><sentence id="77">Both, different <span class="region">areas</span> along the <span class="region">occupied coast</span> and also in <span class="country">Italy</span> proper. </sentence><sentence id="78">Uh I didn't think of this too much, but Italians were really, uh what shall I say, they helped many people. </sentence><sentence id="79">They saved us for one thing, and they and many times when the Germans were, their quislings, the Croatians, they wanted to occupy certain <span class="populated place">towns</span> or they wanted to take certain Jews away to <span class="populated place">concentration camps</span>, the Italians would step in and say, "This is our <span class="region">area</span> and you can't cross." </sentence><sentence id="80">And it was, for them it was, you know, a territorial issue which for us it was a case of life or death. </sentence><sentence id="81">But our problems really started after the fall of <span class="country">Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="82">That's when uh Mussolini fell, of course, and the Italians uh signed a, I guess uh - what is it - they capitulated to the Allied troops. </sentence><sentence id="83">Well, in these <span class="region">areas</span> that were occupied by Italians became like uh <span class="region">free areas</span> and it was free-for-all, who was going to grab what. </sentence><sentence id="84">The Partisans" came out of the <span class="env feature">mountains</span> and they took over some. </sentence><sentence id="85">The, the Croatian quislings took some over. </sentence><sentence id="86">The Germans took some, but the <span class="populated place">town</span> where we lived was taken over by the Partisans, uh the underground resistance. </sentence><sentence id="87">They came out and I guess they compromised themselves, the local population who helped them and who didn't. </sentence><sentence id="88">And I found out that my older sister, she had been working in the <span class="interior space">underground</span> which we didn't know about even though my sister and I were quite close. </sentence><sentence id="89">But at that time she was uh less than sixteen years old and but there was things to do for everybody during the war. </sentence><sentence id="90">Anyway, uh my sister at that point joined the Partisans and so did many uh local youths. </sentence><sentence id="91">They, the Partisans were trying to get them to join them and go into the <span class="env feature">mountains</span> and uh I would say a lot of them did join, but we remained in the <span class="populated place">city</span> and the Partisans tried to hold that <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="92">They had taken, they had uh disarmed the Italian Army. </sentence><sentence id="93">They had some, some arms now, and the new recruits that had joined them, so they were going to defend the <span class="populated place">city</span>, and they tried that for two, three weeks, but the German troops just came over with their full armor and everything and they took over the <span class="populated place">city</span>, but not before they came in, we were, we [a]wakened in the middle of the night by neighbors banging at the <span class="dlf">door</span> and saying - I remember one lady yelling, "Mr. Danon, Mr. Danon," to my father--he was the mister--anyway, "Mr. Danon, the Germans are coming." </sentence><sentence id="94">So we knew that the Germans always take the men first and we were ready to escape. </sentence><sentence id="95">My father and I, we had our <span class="spatial object">backpacks</span> all packed in advance. </sentence><sentence id="96">We put them on, said goodbye to my mother and my sisters and we went away. </sentence><sentence id="97">That's the last time we saw our <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="98">We went into the <span class="env feature">mountains</span>. </sentence><sentence id="99">And uh we joined the Partisans there. </sentence><sentence id="100">At first not as fighters, but we just traveled with them and did what ever could be done and we traveled with them for a couple of months through the <span class="env feature">mountains</span>. </sentence><sentence id="101">This was, you, you hide during the daytime and you tippy- toe at night crossing <span class="dlf">German lines</span> maybe several times, you know, going from one place to another until we arrived to one of the <span class="env feature">islands</span> uh on the <span class="dlf">coast</span>. </sentence><sentence id="102">Actually, what people were doing, they were going to the <span class="env feature">mountains</span> and they would come to the <span class="dlf">coast</span> and they would uh maybe there would be a little uh <span class="spatial object">rowboat</span> or a little junk and in the middle of the night they would go aboard one of these and go to the, one of the <span class="env feature">islands</span>. </sentence><sentence id="103">Only the <span class="env feature">islands</span> weren't safe because Germans could always come over there too. </sentence><sentence id="104">Now we went to one of these <span class="env feature">islands</span> and we were with the Partisans there and my father and I were, I guess I won't call it conscriptive--we were regular military unit at that time. </sentence><sentence id="105">Uh, I was assigned to a <span class="building">machine shop</span> where we repaired ammunition and other equipment, automotive and what not, and my father was uh, I remember they called this the, the duty that they assigned to him--"ekonom," which, uh, meant supply sergeant. </sentence><sentence id="106">And uh we were there for four, five months, I guess. </sentence><sentence id="107">Time just, it's not too clearly in my mind right now. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="214">Q: What <span class="env feature">island</span> was that? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="216"> * Communist resistance forces led by Joseph Broz Tito. </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="217">A: Well, the <span class="env feature">island</span>'s called <span class="populated place">Hvar</span>, H - V - A - R. I can't pronounce r's too well. </sentence><sentence id="218">Uh and it's a relatively large <span class="env feature">island</span>. </sentence><sentence id="219">It had two little <span class="populated place">cities</span> and the one where we were in was called <span class="populated place">Starigrad</span>, which means <span class="populated place">old city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="220">Uh, anyway one time the Germans did invade that <span class="env feature">island</span> and there was fear because there was not too much in the way of defense. </sentence><sentence id="221">Uh, and this was in the middle of the war. </sentence><sentence id="222">The Allies were uh stuck down <span class="region">southern Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="223">Uh, there was, uh I guess we all read about the <span class="populated place">Monte Cassino</span>" or wherever they were, they couldn't move forward and uh there was nothing happening anywhere else. </sentence><sentence id="224">Even the Russians, the <span class="region">Russian front</span> had stalemated, been stalemated for a while, so this was middle of the war and it could have gone either way and we were pretty fearful at the time. </sentence><sentence id="225">Well, anyway, my father and I guess he wasn't having a very easy time of it. </sentence><sentence id="226">Uh, first the work was hard for him and and there wasn't enough food and the people who depended on him to obtain food, like supply sergeant meant getting flour and making sure the bread was made and uh you know other food uh was provided and clothing and what not--they were always complaining and uh they were blaming him for all the shortages and so I remember uh he somehow disappeared or--I didn't see him for several days and they kept pestering me, uh you know--"Where is your father? </sentence><sentence id="227">What happened?" </sentence><sentence id="228">This and that. </sentence><sentence id="229">I didn't know. </sentence><sentence id="230">And I guess my father had left. </sentence><sentence id="231">He had uh gone some other <span class="dlf">route</span>. </sentence><sentence id="232">But two weeks later I received a very official uh teletype telling me to report to another <span class="env feature">island</span> and report myself to the command of the <span class="interior space">hospital unit</span>. </sentence><sentence id="233">I had no idea what that was all about. </sentence><sentence id="234">Well, I made arrangements to go there, and this was another <span class="env feature">island</span> called <span class="env feature">Vis</span>, V - 1- S. And this <span class="env feature">island</span> was uh formed into a strong point by the Partisans. </sentence><sentence id="235">It was the furtherest [farthest] <span class="env feature">island</span> from <span class="region">Yugoslavian coast</span> and closest to <span class="region">Italian coast</span>, closest to the point where the Allied troops were. </sentence><sentence id="236">So this was used by the Allied troops to help the Partisans. </sentence><sentence id="237">At this point, if 1 can introduce a little politics here, uh the Allies had started recognizing the Partisans as the fighting force as opposed to other, there was a fellow by the name of Dra_a Mihailovi_,* who was left by the King uh to, I guess, to organize resistance, but he evidently didn't do the job that they expected, or maybe there were political differences and the Partisans were communist-oriented and the other ones were uh for monarchy and so there was a lot of internal struggle, but let me get away from that. </sentence><sentence id="238">But uh anyway the Allies had started recognizing and helping the Partisans. </sentence><sentence id="239">So, this uh <span class="env feature">island</span> was made into a <span class="building">fortress</span>. </sentence><sentence id="240">They used that to bring the supplies and also there was another point that the Allies were trying to convey a message to the Germans that they were going to open a new front, a <span class="dlf">second front</span>, at the <span class="region">Balkans</span> and come through there, so they were encouraging the local population to escape, and the local population had developed like an <span class="dlf">underground railroad</span> you can almost call it. </sentence><sentence id="241">They would get themselves to the <span class="dlf">coast</span> and from the <span class="dlf">coastline</span> they would come by <span class="spatial object">junks</span> to these, to this particular <span class="env feature">island</span> and the uh British Navy would come and pick them up there and take them to <span class="country">Italy</span>, where they had like &gt; <span class="populated place">Monte Cassino</span> was the strong point of a <span class="dlf">German defensive line</span> that delayed the Allied advance on <span class="populated place">Rome</span> until June 1944." </sentence><sentence id="242">Dragoljub (Dra_a) Mihailovi_ (also Mihajlovi_) was the leader of the _etniks, an anticommunist Serbian resistance force loyal to the royal Yugoslav government-in-exile. </sentence><sentence id="243"> I would call it <span class="dlf">regroupment points</span>. </sentence><sentence id="244">They would create uh units of uh refugees, I guess by location, and take them to <span class="country">Egypt</span>, to the <span class="env feature">desert</span> to wait for the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="245">Well, uh when I came, I gotta go back now to my <span class="spatial object">tele</span>... telegram that I received. </sentence><sentence id="246">When I presented myself there, that actually my father had sent it to get me to come there and I met him there again and he told me that he has, he had joined this group that was going to <span class="country">Egypt</span> and he was going to go with the troops and he told me to sign up for it also at the first opportunity and we'll meet there. </sentence><sentence id="247">And I did that and I know he went one time and uh the first opportunity that I had when the British uh <span class="spatial object">ship</span> came--uh, they were small <span class="spatial object">PT boats</span> or something that would pick up thirty, forty people, uh you know, pile us up and go across the <span class="env feature">Adriatic</span> and we went uh over there. </sentence><sentence id="248">I went there with the British to a...the <span class="populated place">town</span> was called <span class="populated place">Bari</span>, B - A - R - I.There was a big <span class="populated place">city</span>, where all the refugees were coming but from there they would ship us by <span class="spatial object">trucks</span> or <span class="spatial object">trains</span>, mostly <span class="spatial object">trucks</span>, to the other side and further [farther] down south, <span class="region">southern tip</span> of <span class="country">Italy</span> where there were a lot of uh <span class="building">summer homes</span> from the rich northern Italian people. </sentence><sentence id="249">This was in the winter. </sentence><sentence id="250">So they would organize these groups and from there they would take them to <span class="populated place">Naples</span> and to <span class="country">Egypt</span> from there. </sentence><sentence id="251">Well, anyway, that's where I, I was taken and I met my father there again and we were in those <span class="populated place">camps</span> uh, waiting for our shipment to <span class="country">Egypt</span>. </sentence><sentence id="252">While we were there, uh there were many people incidentally. </sentence><sentence id="253">By the thousands they were coming from all over. </sentence><sentence id="254">While we were there, we learned that my mother's two sisters were also there in the vicinity and my mother's brother was in <span class="populated place">Bari</span> uh, with his family, so we had some family that was still alive. </sentence><sentence id="255">Uh, if, if I can go back a little bit, uh--this was about my family, my parent's family. </sentence><sentence id="256">My parents! </sentence><sentence id="257">family, both of them came from a <span class="populated place">town</span> called <span class="populated place">Sarajevo</span> in <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="258">Well, my mother's parents came in the early "90's. </sentence><sentence id="259">They came down to <span class="populated place">Split</span> which was our <span class="populated place">home town</span>, and they settled there and they had uh whatever they did- -I don't remember now--but as I remember my grandfather, he was the "shamas" [sexton] at our <span class="building">synagogue</span>. </sentence><sentence id="260">That was his occupation. </sentence><sentence id="261">But as the children grew up they got married and some went to different locations, and one of my, two of my mother's sisters went back to <span class="populated place">Sarajevo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="262">Uh so when the war broke out, they were in <span class="populated place">Sarajevo</span>. </sentence><sentence id="263">So one of them was able to come down to <span class="populated place">Split</span> and stay with the rest of the family, and they were saved. </sentence><sentence id="264">The other one perished in the war. </sentence><sentence id="265">On my father's side, he had his parents and five brothers. </sentence><sentence id="266">They were also in <span class="populated place">Sarajevo</span> but some of them lived right outside <span class="populated place">Sarajevo</span>, in a little <span class="populated place">town</span> and and none of them were saved. </sentence><sentence id="267">They all perished with one exception, my Uncle David, my father's brother who was in the [Yugoslav] Army during the mobilization and the Germans captured them and they shipped them someplace wherever they had their Army prisoners and I guess he passed as a non-Jew and that's how when the war ended when some of them were repatriated, he was still alive. </sentence><sentence id="268">So when we were talking about who was able to be saved and who wasn't, my father counted twenty-eight of his relatives that died. </sentence><sentence id="269">Relatives meaning mother, father, brothers, sister-in-laws [sic] and their children. </sentence><sentence id="270">So but anyway, back to where we were in <span class="country">Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="271">We lived there uh for a couple of weeks and then when it was time to go to <span class="country">Egypt</span> my father got cold feet and he says I'm not going to the <span class="env feature">desert</span>. </sentence><sentence id="272">So in the morning when they were gathering us all to go to <span class="country">Egypt</span>, my father got me out of <span class="spatial object">bed</span> and we left the group. </sentence><sentence id="273">We booked, uh took a horse and <span class="spatial object">buggy</span> from a local uh farmer. </sentence><sentence id="274">He took us to the nearest <span class="building">train station</span>, we boarded the <span class="building">train station</span> and we went to the <span class="populated place">town</span> where he dropped us off. </sentence><sentence id="275">It's a <span class="populated place">town</span> called <span class="populated place">Lecci</span> [<span class="populated place">Lecce</span>], L - E- C - C - I [E], in <span class="country">Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="276">It's near <span class="populated place">Bari</span> but maybe about fifteen miles or so. </sentence><sentence id="277">Anyway, and that's where we settled and my father got a job there with the Allied occupation forces as a uh censor, uh read the mail, and I was just hanging around the <span class="dlf">streets</span>. </sentence><sentence id="278">I had friends. </sentence><sentence id="279">I had, uh don't forget I was thirteen years old there and then. </sentence><sentence id="280">I had a uniform that I brought with me which was an American or British soldier's uniform, like an Eisenhower jacket, a military thing you know and I would parade there with my friends enjoying life, you know, uh, uh as a thirteen year old would, uh showing off my clothes, you know. </sentence><sentence id="281">Well anyway uh there was very uneventful at the time and then, this was June "44, the end of June. </sentence><sentence id="282">Uh, they [the Western Allies] already had, they opened a new front in <span class="populated place">Normandy</span>" and all that and we heard that there was an invitation from the American government for a thousand people, a thousand displaced persons to come to <span class="country">United States</span> and uh OK, we said, "Let's go. </sentence><sentence id="283">Shall we go, yeah." </sentence><sentence id="284">We signed up and this was quick like you know. </sentence><sentence id="285">They took our names. </sentence><sentence id="286">I understand there was a lot of people who signed up but only a thousand could go. </sentence><sentence id="287">Uh we didn't know for sure whether it was just Jewish or not, but anyway we signed up and we were getting ready to go and three days before we were ready to leave, we learned that my mother and two sisters had come to <span class="populated place">Bari</span> also. </sentence><sentence id="288">Now this is a story in itself the way the refugees would uh--it's almost like uh <span class="dlf">telephone lines</span>, you know. </sentence><sentence id="289">You would go into the group and you say, "Is anybody here from such and such a place?" </sentence><sentence id="290">And they say, "No, we are not, but we know somebody who is," you know, and we know so and so and oh yeah, but he knows somebody who knows somebody. </sentence><sentence id="291">And that's how we all met you know, after the war. </sentence><sentence id="292">And that's how my mother when she came with one of the groups uh, you know, the <span class="spatial object">British naval vessel</span>, and they told her that we know somebody who is also from <span class="populated place">Split</span> who may be related to you, you know. </sentence><sentence id="293">And they said, "Well, his name is so and so," and he says, "That's my brother," you know. </sentence><sentence id="294">So we all, we got together and within the next three days the miracle of bureaucracy--they were able to clear my mother and my two sisters and we, uh we were picked up at one point in <span class="populated place">Bari</span> and we boarded <span class="spatial object">trains</span>, uh different people are coming from different parts of <span class="region">southern Italy</span> and we went to <span class="populated place">Naples</span> uh in <span class="spatial object">trucks</span>. </sentence><sentence id="295">Well, we stopped off for three days for delousing sessions and all that. </sentence><sentence id="296">Boarded a <span class="spatial object">ship</span> and one of the <span class="spatial object">ships</span>, uh I forgot its name, uh Henry something or other, but it was a <span class="spatial object">ship</span> that was taking the American soldiers back and it was one of the regular <span class="spatial object">troop ships</span> and we were given one little <span class="interior space">corner</span> with uh, uh, what do you call these <span class="interior space">sleeping quarters</span>, <span class="spatial object">hammocks</span>, yeah, five deep, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="297">And uh we waited in <span class="populated place">Naples</span> for enough <span class="spatial object">ships</span> so they can form a <span class="spatial object">convoy</span>; and we departed from there near the end of July. </sentence><sentence id="298">Thirteen days uh on the <span class="env feature">sea</span>. </sentence><sentence id="299">Several times they thought they saw the <span class="spatial object">German U- boats</span>, and they went through the routine of putting that fog, artificial fog. </sentence><sentence id="300">We as kids, we enjoyed all that. </sentence><sentence id="301">1 was fourteen by that time. </sentence><sentence id="302">On August 3rd, 1944, we landed in <span class="dlf">New York Harbor</span>. </sentence><sentence id="303">I believe it's <span class="populated place">Bayonne</span> or some place, wherever the <span class="spatial object">troop shipments</span> were uh being unloaded. </sentence><sentence id="304">And we got into <span class="spatial object">trains</span> there and we went overnight. </sentence><sentence id="305"><span class="spatial object">Train</span> stopped in front of a <span class="populated place">military camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="306">We got out; and this was <span class="region">upstate New York</span>, near a <span class="populated place">town</span> called <span class="populated place">Oswego</span>. </sentence><sentence id="307">This was an old <span class="building">Army base</span> called <span class="populated place">Fort Ontario</span>. </sentence><sentence id="308">And that's where we spent next year and a half. </sentence><sentence id="309">Uh I can tell you about our life over there, if you want to hear it. </sentence><sentence id="310">Well, uh first, uh well, this was summer time of course, August then. </sentence><sentence id="311">In September was when the <span class="building">schools</span> opened. </sentence><sentence id="312">We were invited to join the <span class="building">schools</span> in the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="313">None of us knew any English at the time. </sentence><sentence id="314">I speak a few foreign languages but English ? </sentence><sentence id="315">Anglo-American-Canadian forces landed on the <span class="region">Normandy Peninsula</span> of <span class="country">France</span> on June 6, 1944. </sentence><sentence id="316"> was not one of them. </sentence><sentence id="317">But anyway we started going to <span class="building">school</span>, and our, our parents were uh just staying there. </sentence><sentence id="318">What bothered us mostly was the <span class="dlf">fence</span>. </sentence><sentence id="319">We were not allowed to go out except to go to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="320">We had little passes and we had to return, sign in and out. </sentence><sentence id="321">That was a little disappointing. </sentence><sentence id="322">But basically that's uh what happened. </sentence><sentence id="323">And we spent there until the war was over actually, and then I guess there was a lot of discussion whether we should go back or not. </sentence><sentence id="324">Uh we had signed that we, before we came we had signed uh what kind of agreement with the American government that we were going to stay there for the duration of the war, and then go back. </sentence><sentence id="325">And uh, when the war was over I guess we were being asked whether we wanted to go back. </sentence><sentence id="326">Some people did go immediately because they left their, part of their families. </sentence><sentence id="327">But uh many of us, most of us, wanted to stay in the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="328">So there was a lot of politicking and this is another story altogether and this was documented in this uh book that uh was written, let's see, the book is called "<span class="populated place">Haven</span>," "The Haven," and it was written by Ruth Gruber.deg She was closely involved in that so she would know more about that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="444">Q: Can you--was your father involved in the politicking at all? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="446">A: No, my father was, uh actually what happened to my father - he was demoralized at the end of the war. </sentence><sentence id="447">Uh he had this little business that he ran in <span class="populated place">Split</span> during the war and uh he, when we left, he knew that everything was gone. </sentence><sentence id="448">All the lifetime's work. </sentence><sentence id="449">And his family was all gone. </sentence><sentence id="450">They were killed. </sentence><sentence id="451">And he just gave up on everything. </sentence><sentence id="452">So even when we came out, uh after we were allowed to remain in <span class="country">United States</span>, he couldn't do anything. </sentence><sentence id="453">He didn't work or anything else. </sentence><sentence id="454">It was uh, he was psychologically drained. </sentence><sentence id="455">I wanted to mention something else about my sisters and my mother. </sentence><sentence id="456">After my father and I had left, we didn't know what has happened or how they were going to manage. </sentence><sentence id="457">All we knew is that Germans usually take the men first and women hopefully uh later or whatever, but anyway we were hoping that things could work out. </sentence><sentence id="458">Well, my sisters and my mother told me later their story and maybe I can bring out some of those points. </sentence><sentence id="459">Uh, my mother was in a panic and had these two younger sisters as I mentioned: my next younger sister, Sarah, she was nine year old and then this was the youngest one, Esther, six years old. </sentence><sentence id="460">And I understand that my nine-year old sister was the hero of the family. </sentence><sentence id="461">She led everybody along. </sentence><sentence id="462">She says, "OK, this is not the place. </sentence><sentence id="463">It's not safe here. </sentence><sentence id="464">Let's go into hiding." </sentence><sentence id="465">And she forced my mother to make arrangements to go into hiding. </sentence><sentence id="466">First they stayed wherever our <span class="interior space">apartment</span> was. </sentence><sentence id="467">Then somebody else took them in, similar to the story of Anne Frank, while the Germans were around, you know. </sentence><sentence id="468">They were still hiding and they would go outside in the <span class="dlf">streets</span> and see what was happening, and uh that wasn't too safe. </sentence><sentence id="469">Uh then they talked to a person who had a <span class="dlf">farm</span> like a--this was lots of vineyards in that part of the <span class="country">country</span>. </sentence><sentence id="470">They had a big uh <span class="dlf">vineyard</span>, maybe about thirty, forty miles from the <span class="populated place">city</span>, so they had friends who had friends and they took them to this <span class="dlf">farm</span> which is, you know, you're away from civilization. </sentence><sentence id="471">Nobody comes there. </sentence><sentence id="472">So they were safe there for a while and my mother had some money that uh we were able to save up and I remember when my father and I left, they split up the money, hopefully uh in case either side deg Ruth Gruber, <span class="populated place">Haven</span>: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees (<span class="populated place">New York</span>: Coward-McCann, 1983). </sentence><sentence id="473"> needed you know. </sentence><sentence id="474">So uh my mother was paying them whatever, and then after a while these people were also afraid, so they wouldn't keep my parents any more so my sister, she took my other sister by one hand and my mother by another, and they went into the <span class="env feature">mountains</span> and they traveled on foot without shoes, you know--that's the kind of stuff--through, well there were no <span class="dlf">roads</span>. </sentence><sentence id="475">Even today <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span> doesn't have any <span class="dlf">roads</span> to speak of, but you know, you go through the <span class="dlf">donkey trails</span> and uh they ended up the same way that we did. </sentence><sentence id="476">The same spot, only nine months later. </sentence><sentence id="477">That's my mother and my two younger sisters. </sentence><sentence id="478">My older sister, she, after the fall of <span class="country">Italy</span>, she joined the Partisan fighting unit and she was uh she's, right now she is 4'10" in high heels (laughter), so she's a little girl but anyway she was there carrying her load and uh she tells a story about how they would attack from one side and they went around the other side of the <span class="env feature">mountain</span> and attacked the Germans from the other side to give the impression that there was more of them. </sentence><sentence id="479">And she got wounded in the leg and she still has problems with that leg. </sentence><sentence id="480">Uh I, occasionally I would ask her stories about uh the war, you know, and they had all these what they called German offensive. </sentence><sentence id="481">First offensive, second offensive, sixth offensive, and she was in all of them as a fighting Partisan. </sentence><sentence id="482">They had both men and women. </sentence><sentence id="483">There was no distinction at the time. </sentence><sentence id="484">Incidentally this sister of mine, her name is Blanka, she never came to <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="485">She stayed there, but I guess she had a pretty pleasant life after the war. </sentence><sentence id="486">The first wasn't so, and then she got married and they traveled throughout the world and she lived in <span class="country">India</span> and <span class="populated place">Cairo</span> and uh, uh some place in <span class="country">Africa</span>--I just couldn't keep track of all the places. </sentence><sentence id="487">She studied in <span class="populated place">Moscow</span> and in <span class="country">Italy</span> and she's been to <span class="country">Israel</span> a few times. </sentence><sentence id="488">She comes here every other year, so she didn't have such a bad life after that, but anyway .. . </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="534">Q: Can you tell me a little bit more about your life in <span class="populated place">Fort Ontario</span>? </sentence><sentence id="535">What the kind of restrictions were like? </sentence><sentence id="536">Uh, what your daily life was like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="540">A: Oh, OK. </sentence><sentence id="541">Sure. </sentence><sentence id="542">In <span class="populated place">Fort Ontario</span>, that was when we first came, we were a bunch of, oh what should I say, proud kids. </sentence><sentence id="543">We were not going to let anybody give us the impression that we are poor and uh we needed help from anybody. </sentence><sentence id="544">See, it was little thing psychologically that when we came here, we were greeted, welcomed and all that. </sentence><sentence id="545">But Americans are the most generous people in the world is beyond question. </sentence><sentence id="546">But they are also naive, so they would ask us questions like uh, "You see this--this is bread. </sentence><sentence id="547">Did you ever eat this before?" </sentence><sentence id="548">You know kind of thing--I mean it's mind-boggling. </sentence><sentence id="549">And that puts us on the defensive. </sentence><sentence id="550">So we would say, "Oh, sure, we had it good on the other <span class="region">side</span>," and uh we were a little bit--what should I say--snotty kids. </sentence><sentence id="551">Anyway so we had this <span class="dlf">fence</span> that prevented us from going outside and that bothered us a little bit. </sentence><sentence id="552">And this was a <span class="populated place">military camp</span>. </sentence><sentence id="553">There was uh ample opportunity for sports and uh food uh like we hadn't seen before. </sentence><sentence id="554">I mean quantities, you know. </sentence><sentence id="555">We were just coming from the hungry <span class="country">Europe</span>, so life was pretty good. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="572">Q: Was it run by the <span class="building">American military</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="574">A: Uh, no. </sentence><sentence id="575">What they did--this was put under what they called War Relocation Authority," They " The War Relocation Authority was charged with administering <span class="populated place">Fort Ontario</span> under the overrall created a unit called <span class="building">Emergency Refugee Shelter</span> under the War Relocation Authority which was part of the Department of the <span class="interior space">Interior</span>. </sentence><sentence id="576">This is the very same group that interned the Japanese during the war, if you are familiar with that story.* </sentence><sentence id="577">Well, anyway, they were in charge of us. </sentence><sentence id="578">The, the military brought us over to the <span class="country">United States</span>, but then it was handed over to the <span class="building">War Relocation Authority</span>. </sentence><sentence id="579">And they had a civilian administrator that was appointed by this <span class="building">unit</span>, uh by the Authority. </sentence><sentence id="580">Uh, it was a very democratically-run organization. </sentence><sentence id="581">One thing they did teach us was democracy at its best. </sentence><sentence id="582">You know, we elected representatives and we were voting on everything from uh what kind of menu we were going to have to uh who was going to do what, uh, we even were required to take jobs, you know, the grown-ups, not--the kids went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="583">That, that was a well-organized uh little <span class="populated place">town</span> of one thousand people. </sentence><sentence id="584">Uh... </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="597">Q: What were the living conditions like? </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="599">A: The living conditions were <span class="building">barracks</span> which were boarded up to fit family units. </sentence><sentence id="600">In other words, they would take one large <span class="building">barrack</span> and sub it into maybe three or four <span class="spatial object">units</span>. </sentence><sentence id="601">For instance, there was five of us. </sentence><sentence id="602">My mother, father and myself and two sisters. </sentence><sentence id="603">And we were given two <span class="interior space">rooms</span> and uh they had <span class="spatial object">sink</span>, one <span class="spatial object">sink</span>. </sentence><sentence id="604">You know they had put in some plumbing in there and uh we uh had no problems with that. </sentence><sentence id="605">The only thing that bothered some of us was the <span class="env feature">snow</span>. </sentence><sentence id="606">It would pile up ten ten feet high, you know. </sentence><sentence id="607">I had come from <span class="dlf">Adriatic coast</span> which even in winter it's a very mild climate, and here this was snow covers the <span class="env feature">ground</span> the end of September and you don't see the <span class="env feature">ground</span> until late April or early May. </sentence><sentence id="608">So, this was uh a little bit different for us. </sentence><sentence id="609">But I looked back on those two years that we spent there, uh a year and a half, as some of the very pleasant part of my youth. </sentence><sentence id="610">Uh in <span class="building">school</span> we, most of us excelled because we were really used to uh stringent demands on our academic performance, and we came to the <span class="country">United States</span> here and the only, the only difficulty that we had was learning the language. </sentence><sentence id="611">Well you learned the language under total immersion in six weeks, you know. </sentence><sentence id="612">So we were doing pretty good and we made friends with some local people. </sentence><sentence id="613">Not too much because simply we were not allowed to go in and out. </sentence><sentence id="614">We just go to <span class="building">school</span> and back. </sentence><sentence id="615">And later they would give us passes; Saturday afternoon we could go to a local movie, but heck, they had movies inside for us, you know. </sentence><sentence id="616">Only, maybe not first-run movies but there was something going on every night recreation-wise. </sentence><sentence id="617">It was really a pleasant life all around. . . </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="637">Q: Did it turn out that most of the people there were Jewish? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="638">A: Yeah. </sentence><sentence id="639">There was, out of a thousand people when after all was said and done, some dropped out so there was about nine hundred and ninety-two people," I would say nine hundred and fifty were Jewish and the thirty or so, forty were not. </sentence><sentence id="640">But we had people from I forget how many <span class="country">countries</span>, seventy countries. </sentence><sentence id="641">They were from all over. </sentence><sentence id="642">Oh, that was an interesting thing. </sentence><sentence id="643">You want to make an announcement like they would say there's going to be a movie tonight - and they would come and you have to say it first in German, because I guess German was the most widely understood language. </sentence><sentence id="644">And <span class="country">Serbo-Croatian</span> is the language of <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="645">And there was about three hundred people from <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="646">And logically so, because they, the <span class="dlf">route</span> that people came, but uh, let's see, they, uh they were not too powerful I guess in our politicking within the <span class="populated place">camp</span> but there was Italian was spoken because we came from <span class="country">Italy</span>. </sentence><sentence id="647">Yiddish was a very prominent language. </sentence><sentence id="648"><span class="country">Serbo-Croatian</span>. </sentence><sentence id="649">Uh there were a lot of Polish people that had left <span class="country">Poland</span> and gone to <span class="country">Belgium</span>, you know, through their uh <span class="dlf">water route</span> from <span class="populated place">Danzig</span> and what not. </sentence><sentence id="650">And they spoke French and Polish and Yiddish. </sentence><sentence id="651">And uh it was like a <span class="building">United Nations</span> walking on the <span class="dlf">streets</span> there, except for the kids who spoke English, and we tried not to speak our own languages. </sentence><sentence id="652">Anyway, that's, in a nutshell. . . . </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="653">Q: . . </sentence><sentence id="654">the Jewish life was there in the <span class="populated place">camp</span>? </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="657">A: Oh, in the <span class="populated place">camp</span> we had uh Jewish life of course. </sentence><sentence id="658">There were uh two <span class="building">synagogues</span>. </sentence><sentence id="659">Like anything else, you have two Jews; you have three different opinions. </sentence><sentence id="660">And we had one conservative and the other one was ultra-orthodox and uh we had uh services, regular services and we had a uh choir. </sentence><sentence id="661">I am pretty observant, I would say, and my family was, and uh I guess many people were not, so you knew there were always services at the <span class="building">Orthodox "Shul</span>" [<span class="building">synagogue</span>]. </sentence><sentence id="662">But ours was strictly Friday night or Saturday morning and it was a <span class="building">military chapel</span> and uh the way the <span class="dlf">chapel doors</span> were made they had crosses on them, so some people objected to worshiping there because they didn't feel comfortable with it. </sentence><sentence id="663">So they started their own, you know, internal, but it was, Jewish life was not restricted or not promoted any more than anywhere else, but we had, Jewish uh papers were coming from <span class="populated place">New York</span> and uh I would say in <span class="populated place">camp</span> the life was absolutely, uh was not only congenial but it was conducive to uh culture, uh cultural development and everything else. </sentence><sentence id="664">Educational programs galore, you know. </sentence><sentence id="665">Recreation. </sentence><sentence id="666">It just uh, it was fantastic. </sentence><sentence id="667">Uh for some people who were professionals this was a delay in their advancement, but for me I was moving right along. </sentence><sentence id="668">I had finished fifth grade in <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>, and during the war like three years I hadn't gone to <span class="building">school</span>, so five grades you don't retain very high education. </sentence><sentence id="669">So they put me here in seventh grade, and not only all that period that transpired that I didn't do anything academically but also I was with uh older people, so six months I was moved to eighth grade and in the next six months I was in the ninth grade and so I was getting what they called high honors and uh we were all pretty good. </sentence><sentence id="670">I wasn't the best. </sentence><sentence id="671">I mean there was, my friends, each one was competing who was going to do better. </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="687">Q: We have just a few minutes left. </sentence><sentence id="688">Uh, is there anything specific that you remember, any </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="691"> deg The official number was 982, 368 of whom were from <span class="country">Yugoslavia</span>. </sentence><sentence id="692"> incident from your time with the Partisans uh that you would like to share, or anything else that you have not yet talked about? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="693">A: You know, let me see. </sentence><sentence id="694">There could be a few <span class="dlf">points</span>. </sentence><sentence id="695">First of all, I--as we were talking earlier, I tried to remember--there there were some people who were uh compassionate and who were good and helpful and did something for us. </sentence><sentence id="696">For one thing, the neighbors who came in the middle of the night, knocked at the <span class="dlf">door</span> and told us about the Germans coming; how they knew it I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="697">I think they were connected uh with the local Nazi groups in some way. </sentence><sentence id="698">Uh the neighbors above us, they were strictly Nazis from way back, but anyway, these other people, they must have learned from them. </sentence><sentence id="699">They told us so, that may have saved our lives, my father's and mine. </sentence><sentence id="700">Also the Italian uh people whoever they were at the time, like if it weren't for them, I mean all these Jews who came from other <span class="region">parts of Europe</span> that were saved, if it weren't for them I don't know how many more would have perished. </sentence><sentence id="701">Uh but there was an interesting episode uh during the Partisans. </sentence><sentence id="702">Uh, my father, I told you, he wasn't handling it too well; the work was hard and all that, but he had a bad experience uh one time. </sentence><sentence id="703">Uh, he's religious and every morning he would say his prayers. </sentence><sentence id="704">Well, uh he would go outside the <span class="dlf">farm</span> where we were living and do it, say it out loud, his prayer, and he would cover his head with a kerchief, and he would put it around his ears to hold the kerchief like this, and a farmer must have seen him, and he reported [him] to the Partisans. </sentence><sentence id="705">Now to put it in the perspective, there was a lot of problems with uh people uh, I mean the Partisans were never safe because somebody would report them to the Germans and they would come and, you know, the, the spies were all over, so this peasant thought that he was uncovering somebody that was talking. </sentence><sentence id="706">He looked at my father and he noticed the ears. </sentence><sentence id="707">There was a a hanky over his head, so he reported him and they came and took my father away, and this was a <span class="building">kangaroo court</span> kind of thing, and uh they say, "OK, admit that you were talking on the earphones and reporting to Nazis." </sentence><sentence id="708">He said, "I'm Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="709">What do I need to tell them?" </sentence><sentence id="710">And they said, "Comrade Danon, we know everything. </sentence><sentence id="711">We know it all. </sentence><sentence id="712">It's been told to us so you can't hide it anymore. </sentence><sentence id="713">Admit it. </sentence><sentence id="714">It will be easier on you." </sentence><sentence id="715">And this is the thing that broke the camel's back I guess, the straw that broke the camel's back, but there were incidents like that. </sentence><sentence id="716">Uh a few of them you know, and that's why he left. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="741">Q: He just ran away at that point? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="743">A: Sort of, yeah. </sentence></p></dialogue>
51
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="745">Q: Can you tell me anything about how the <span class="populated place">Jewish community</span> coped with all these refugees coming in? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="747">A: Oh yeah, that was interesting. </sentence><sentence id="748">Uh, the, all these refugees that were coming in--at first they were on their own, but then later many of them just had no means of uh support, I think the international uh Jewish uh community stepped in, and I think it's B'nai B'rith was one of the groups. </sentence><sentence id="749">Another one was uh <span class="building">Societe IsraC</span>/lite Mondiale--something like that--from <span class="country">Switzerland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="750">They were uh sending uh some money to the <span class="building">Jewish community</span> in <span class="populated place">Split</span> to distribute. </sentence><sentence id="751">Third way was that the people who were coming in, they were, we, our family was assigned two different families that would come and get their lunch. </sentence><sentence id="752">Uh, one family would come three times a week, and another one would come three other days a week. </sentence><sentence id="753">You know, in other words we would cook instead of for five people or six people, we would cook for eleven people. </sentence><sentence id="754">And uh that's how it worked. </sentence><sentence id="755">That's how some sustained themselves. </sentence><sentence id="756">Others had some, uh something that they had brought with them. </sentence><sentence id="757">Some had some gold coins and there would be a lot of trading and and some would go into some kind of business, uh business meaning that they would go to one <span class="building">store</span> and say, "What are you selling? </sentence><sentence id="758">Maybe you give me some samples," and they would go offer to another. </sentence><sentence id="759">I know one guy was uh taking peanuts and roasting them and making little bags and selling them, you know. </sentence><sentence id="760">And it was a meager existence, but they managed and of course this little support that they would get every two weeks and I remember there was once or twice that the money didn't come from <span class="country">Switzerland</span>, so we, the locals, were asked to make a heavy contribution. </sentence><sentence id="761">Uh what is heavy, I don't know the numbers, but you know, enough so we can make the distribution at least until something comes from <span class="country">Switzerland</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
53
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="777">Q: Where did these people live? </sentence></p></dialogue>
54
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="779">A: Uh, that's the thing--some had families but uh after a while, you know, there's just no <span class="interior space">room</span> and uh where the <span class="building">synagogue</span> was, there was some--not <span class="building">synagogue</span>, I'm sorry--where our <span class="building">club</span> was uh the <span class="building">social club</span> was, the <span class="building">social club</span> was filled with uh <span class="spatial object">mattresses</span> and uh blankets and they slept on the <span class="interior space">floors</span> and I guess they would rent a <span class="dlf">farm</span> someplace and they would fill thirty, forty people in there. </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="781">Q: Thank you very much. </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="783">A: You're welcome. </sentence><sentence id="784">I enjoyed talking to you. </sentence><sentence id="785"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
57
+ </body>
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+ </html>
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1
+ ---
2
+ layout: transcript
3
+ interviewee: hetty d'ancona de leeuwe
4
+ rg_number: rg-50.030.0059
5
+ pdf_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/oh_findingaids/rg-50.030.0059_trs_en.pdf
6
+ ushmm_url: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn506774
7
+ gender: f
8
+ birth_date: 1930-05-01
9
+ birth_year: 1930.0
10
+ place_of_birth: amsterdam
11
+ country: netherlands
12
+ experience_group: survivor
13
+ ghetto(s)_encyclopedia: none
14
+ 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
19
+ needs_research: none
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+ data_entry: gg
21
+ accession: 1990.347.1
22
+ revisit: none
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+ tags: transcripts
24
+ ---
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+ <!DOCTYPE html>
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+
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+ <html lang="en">
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+ <head>
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+ <meta charset="utf-8"/>
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+ <title>Document</title>
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+ </head>
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+ <body><dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="1">HETTY D'ANCONA DE LEEUWE February 13, 1990 </sentence></p></dialogue>
33
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="3">Q: Will you tell me your full name please? </sentence></p></dialogue>
34
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="5">A: My name is Hetty d'Ancona Deleeuwe. </sentence></p></dialogue>
35
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="7">Q: And where and when were you born? </sentence></p></dialogue>
36
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="9">A: I was born in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, Ist of May in 1930. </sentence></p></dialogue>
37
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="11">Q: Tell me about your family? </sentence></p></dialogue>
38
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="13">A: My family was an everyday family. </sentence><sentence id="14">Middle class. </sentence><sentence id="15">I would say lower middle class and we were just an average <span class="building">household</span> in a <span class="populated place">suburb</span> part, <span class="region">southern part</span> of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> and later on we moved to a part of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> that's more towards the <span class="populated place">ghetto</span> and uh my father had a business, and we had the business in our <span class="building">house</span> and we lived upstairs on the <span class="interior space">second floor</span> and downstairs, the <span class="interior space">first floor</span>, was our <span class="building">factory</span>. </sentence><sentence id="16">And we had a very comfortable life, at least I remember that everything went always fine and uh for my parents, I was an only child and my parents were very kind and we went to grandparents, to uncles, aunts - I had some cousins and we just had a very comfortable life. </sentence><sentence id="17">And I think that my parents knew that something was brewing in the background but <span class="country">Holland</span> being neutral uh was not prepared to fight the Germans, so even though many people most likely thought something might happen, it was a big shock when the Germans invaded <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="18">And I was only ten at the time. </sentence><sentence id="19">I had just had my tenth birthday, and I don't remember that I knew how critical it all was, but I remember that <span class="populated place">Rotterdam</span> was bombed. </sentence><sentence id="20">I remember that they bombed part of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, the oil co...the <span class="spatial object">containers</span> where they kept the oil at the <span class="dlf">harbor</span>, and it was terrible fires there. </sentence><sentence id="21">And I remember that they prepared the <span class="building">hospital</span> across the <span class="dlf">street</span> from where we lived for wounded soldiers but before everything was really settled in our mind that this was war, the war was over and the Germans had taken over <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="22">And uh nothing serious happened in the beginning. </sentence><sentence id="23">It went oh I would say like the average life, it went on and then when we uh.... </sentence></p></dialogue>
39
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="35">Q: Tell me, tell me what, tell me what an average life was? </sentence><sentence id="36">What did you do during the day? </sentence></p></dialogue>
40
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="39">A: Well, I went I went to <span class="building">school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="40">In the summer we used to go out sometimes for months and uh my father stayed and came only for the weekends, and <span class="country">Holland</span> not being so large we went to the <span class="env feature">ocean</span>. </sentence><sentence id="41">We went to the <span class="env feature">beach</span>. </sentence><sentence id="42">And my mother usually rented a <span class="interior space">room</span> in a pension or somebody's <span class="building">house</span>, and we stayed there, sometimes with friends. </sentence><sentence id="43">Sometimes family came over. </sentence><sentence id="44">Usually for a month, and that went on. </sentence><sentence id="45">I mean there was nothing that pointed to the fact that we couldn't do that anymore but I don't know exactly when it happened, they started to register people. </sentence><sentence id="46">And but me being very little and being not always informed of all the hardships that were going on, | really didn't know much about it, especially because I was only ten or eleven and uh I didn't have to register. </sentence><sentence id="47">It was only for people who were older and at that time we got like ration cards and we got like a personal sort of passport but me being small, didn't own one, and uh so everything sort of went along and then at a certain point there were Dutch collaborators, NSB" they called them. </sentence><sentence id="48">And they had fights with Jews in the <span class="region">Jewish part</span> of <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="49">That's the old part of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="50">And that most likely was provoked. </sentence><sentence id="51">I think that was just a set-up and that was the beginning of the final solution. </sentence></p></dialogue>
41
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="65">Q: What happened to you during this time? </sentence></p></dialogue>
42
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="67">A: I just went to <span class="building">school</span>, but when I was in fifth grade with, I was about eleven and a half I think, we were told that we couldn't go to the regular <span class="building">public school</span> anymore, even though there were lots of Jewish children in the <span class="building">public school</span> and especially in the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> where I lived and lived lots of Jews in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, so we were pushed to a <span class="building">school</span> in uh sort of very poor <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, and the standards of that <span class="building">school</span> were so much lower than the <span class="building">school</span> that I was used to go to. </sentence><sentence id="68">I was sort of in a <span class="building">preparatory school</span> for <span class="building">high school</span>, and uh wasn't a uh no no <span class="building">special school</span>, but you know, there were grades and and levels and so that <span class="building">school</span> really was not for me. </sentence><sentence id="69">I was, not that I was the brightest but I uh was just a middle, average student, but that <span class="building">school</span> was just only so boring for me, so my parents decided that I was going to go to a better <span class="building">school</span>, so I ended up going to the <span class="region">south part</span> of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> where there was a <span class="building">school</span> where they accepted me. </sentence><sentence id="70">Also only for Jewish children of course. </sentence><sentence id="71">Cause I was a pariah I couldn't go to a regular <span class="building">school</span> anymore. </sentence><sentence id="72">Jewish teachers, Jewish teachers were one of the first steps the Germans took to kick them out of the <span class="building">public school</span>, and so we got our own Jewish teachers back and uh I had to walk to <span class="building">school</span> then, very far because I wasn't allowed on the public transportation and we were not allowed to have <span class="spatial object">bicycles</span> being Jews. </sentence><sentence id="73">The non-Jews could have their <span class="spatial object">bicycles</span>, although it was very hard to obtain one and to keep the tires and things like that because everything sort of vanished. </sentence><sentence id="74">There was very little food, and everything was rationed. </sentence><sentence id="75">The clothes was rationed, shoes, name it - everything was rationed but the Jews uh were outcasts. </sentence><sentence id="76">We had to deliver our copper. </sentence><sentence id="77">We had to bring in our <span class="spatial object">radios</span>. </sentence><sentence id="78">In "42 somebody who my father knew walked in and said, Mr.d'Ancona, this is it. </sentence><sentence id="79">Goodbye. </sentence><sentence id="80">And my father had to leave his own <span class="building">business</span> and the Germans took over our <span class="building">business</span>. </sentence><sentence id="81">Not long after that they dismantled the whole thing and there were like maybe eight or ten <span class="spatial object">sewing machines</span> and a <span class="spatial object">machine</span> that they used for cutting and they dismantled it all. </sentence><sentence id="82">And the <span class="spatial object">machine</span> they used for cutting, my father had sort of made himself, so my father helped them dismantle it knowing that they never were able to put it together again. </sentence><sentence id="83">And all that went to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="84">Everything went to <span class="country">Germany</span> from <span class="country">Holland</span>, and uh so that too. </sentence><sentence id="85">And my father went to an organization in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> that provided jobs and things, not because my father needed the money that desperately at that time, but being without a job was dangerous. </sentence><sentence id="86">Everybody who didn't have a job was for sure picked up. </sentence><sentence id="87">And my father became a teacher for quite a while. </sentence><sentence id="88">First, out in the <span class="country">country</span> in a <span class="building">Jewish school</span>, and later he was a teacher in <span class="building">high schools</span> in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="89">In the meantime, more people were picked up. </sentence><sentence id="90">First that started with the provocative work from the NSB that they you know they had like fights in <span class="populated place">town</span> and then they picked up the Jewish man and then in retaliation they started "National Socialistische Beweging. </sentence><sentence id="91">Nazi movement in <span class="country">The Netherlands</span>. </sentence><sentence id="92"> picking up very young men, sixteen, eighteen years old, and those were the first who went to <span class="populated place">Mauthausen</span>, I think, or <span class="populated place">Buchenwald</span> and nobody ever heard from them again. </sentence><sentence id="93">They might have sent a card that they were fine, that they were working, and that was it. </sentence><sentence id="94">My parents kept all the information they had from us. </sentence><sentence id="95">I didn't know anything. </sentence><sentence id="96">I knew it was bad. </sentence><sentence id="97">We all had a bag at <span class="building">home</span> with clothes and I think some food but uh we, I really didn't know exactly what was going on and I still wonder till today if anybody really knew what was waiting. </sentence><sentence id="98">I don't think that anybody realized how bad it was. </sentence><sentence id="99">Of course it was when when they kept on picking up people and they pushed people to certain <span class="populated place">neighborhoods</span>. </sentence><sentence id="100">They were kicked out of their <span class="building">houses</span> and they had to move, and they picked them up there. </sentence><sentence id="101">My uncle had to go to work in <span class="country">Germany</span>, my mother's brother, and we never heard from him again. </sentence><sentence id="102">And I don't know who really knew what was on the other side of the <span class="dlf">border</span>, but I never knew that they were really killing the people there like they did, and uh it was every time uh as the the years went by, as the months went by, it was tighter and tighter. </sentence><sentence id="103">And there were people who had like exemptions. </sentence><sentence id="104">Exemptions because they quote "bought their freedom with diamonds." </sentence><sentence id="105">People who were wealthy or for the Germans needed industrial diamonds and there were people who did certain jobs so they had a certain exemption, and we had an exemption because we were Sephardic and my father worked on that with lawyers and we had to go for pictures and uh they could prove the Germans thought that being Marranos we uh were really not Jews. </sentence><sentence id="106">And we went digging in our roots for hundreds of years. </sentence><sentence id="107">And after the war we found out that if we had had one or two more relatives who we would have known for sure were not Jewish, we would have made it. </sentence><sentence id="108">We would have been declared, gentile. </sentence><sentence id="109">But at that time we didn't know that. </sentence><sentence id="110">So we didn't make it. </sentence><sentence id="111">And at some point in time then all my relatives were gone. </sentence><sentence id="112">My grandparents were picked up. </sentence><sentence id="113">All my friends were picked up. </sentence><sentence id="114">All my uncles and aunts were gone, and we were really the only ones left, practically. </sentence><sentence id="115">He decided that it was time to go. </sentence><sentence id="116">Now before that I had finished <span class="building">school</span> and I had to go to <span class="building">high school</span>, you know, <span class="building">Jewish high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="117">There were hardly any children left in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> at that time. </sentence><sentence id="118">That was in "42, in the summer of "42, so I went to <span class="building">school</span>, a mid...a <span class="building">middle school</span> you can say where I did some work, <span class="building">school</span> work. </sentence><sentence id="119">Most of the time we were busy sending packages to the <span class="populated place">camp,</span> the <span class="populated place">camp</span> in <span class="country">Holland</span> for everyday some of the children were picked up and when we found out, we sent packages to <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span> to help them with whatever they needed. </sentence><sentence id="120">So <span class="building">school</span> was sort of a crazy thing. </sentence><sentence id="121">There was not much schooling going on. </sentence><sentence id="122">Teachers left. </sentence><sentence id="123">Teachers never showed up the next day. </sentence><sentence id="124">You know, it was a big chaotic mess, so we, I had private lessons at the very end. </sentence><sentence id="125">That's how late we left <span class="building">home</span>. </sentence><sentence id="126">I had a private tutor with a few more children and who taught us from math to languages to geography, history, name it, uh but that ended, of course when, I left in October of "43. </sentence></p></dialogue>
43
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="189">Q: Tell us about that time. </sentence><sentence id="190">Uh what you had told me before, your father was in the <span class="interior space">underground</span>. </sentence></p></dialogue>
44
+ <dialogue class=""><p><sentence id="193">Tell us about that? </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="194">A: Well, our <span class="building">house</span> was sort of on the <span class="dlf">border</span>, really on the outside of the <span class="populated place">Jewish quarter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="195"><span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> uh had an old <span class="populated place">Jewish quarter</span> and the Germans put <span class="dlf">fences</span> sort of around it and when you entered it, it said Juden fer tal, only for Jews. </sentence><sentence id="196">Couldn't go in there. </sentence><sentence id="197">There was <span class="building">stores</span> that only for Jews and gentiles couldn't go to that part of the <span class="populated place">city</span> and so we were really outcasts and separated from the rest of the world. </sentence><sentence id="198">And we lived just outside of that part of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, so we were a little easier uh to reach, and from the outside uh we could get company, non-Jewish company. </sentence><sentence id="199">It was a little dangerous for them because they really shouldn't be seen in <span class="building">Jewish homes</span>, but it was not as impossible because in the <span class="populated place">Jewish quarter</span> it was dangerous for a person who didn't wear a star uh to show his face. </sentence><sentence id="200">So, since we lived where we lived, my father was involved with uh now regular daily, but then it was the underground newspaper and we got like forty or fifty uh when they came off the press, and then they were put into envelopes and I went to the <span class="spatial object">post box</span> around the corner and mailed them. </sentence><sentence id="201">I don't even know that at that time I knew what was in there, but I took like two or three and I mailed them in the <span class="spatial object">mail box</span> and uh everybody took a few and so it was the underground news sent around. </sentence><sentence id="202">And we uh, my father did during his hiding period, he made staff cards for the English army and put it to charts all the little <span class="env feature">rivers</span> and all the little details of the part of the <span class="country">country</span> where he lived so that when they came that they knew every <span class="building">house</span> and that they could identify every place. </sentence><sentence id="203">And we had people sometimes staying in our <span class="building">house</span> overnight, when they didn't have a place to go, and my parents weren't too scared. </sentence><sentence id="204">They figured they didn't have a lot to lose I think and uh so they tried to help other people, Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="205">We had a person staying with us for quite a while uh when they first started to transfer the Jewish teachers out of the <span class="building">public schools</span> because since my mother was a teacher originally, she was still involved with the union, the teachers union, and the head of the teachers union really spoke out against the Germans and tried to protect his Jewish teachers, so when he was that out-spoken, he was looked for by the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="206">They didn't condone that, so they were after him and he came and stayed with us for a long time, because I think they didn't expect him to stay with Jews. </sentence><sentence id="207">So, he survived the war, I guess, that uh sort of they forgot about it and I think he went back <span class="building">home</span> after a couple of months, but he stayed with us for quite a while. </sentence><sentence id="208">He was a very nice interesting old man uh not being Jewish but really loving all his Jewish teachers and his colleagues. </sentence><sentence id="209">He really spoke up and that was at the very beginning when things started rolling and it was so well orchestrated by the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="210">It was a plan that was put little by little by little into place and we were all pushed together in the end. </sentence><sentence id="211">There was no escape. </sentence><sentence id="212">There was no escape. </sentence><sentence id="213">And you had to leave your <span class="building">house</span> and people thought well, you know, so we leave it and live in another <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>. </sentence><sentence id="214">They really didn't think much of it, but once they all were gathered in that <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, one day they had a big ring of Germans around that <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, then they picked up everybody and shipped them off cause even though we had many times that people were picked up at night at <span class="building">home</span> when they did like <span class="dlf">street</span> or they did like a little <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, they uh had this plan of eliminating the Jews out of the <span class="country">Netherlands</span> I think. </sentence><sentence id="215">And uh they had like little, little occurrences of picking up here and picking up there, but there were really two big razzias in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> with razzias, big uh where they picked up the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="216">I don't know what the English word is for that. </sentence></p></dialogue>
45
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="240">Q: Round-up probably. </sentence></p></dialogue>
46
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="242">A: Round-up, yeah. </sentence><sentence id="243">And one was in the <span class="region">southern part</span> of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, and one was in the center of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> which was the <span class="populated place">Jewish neighborhood</span>, and ... </sentence></p></dialogue>
47
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="246">Q: Let's hold it for one minute please. </sentence><sentence id="247"> TECHNICAL CONVERSATION </sentence></p></dialogue><dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="248">Q: You were talking about the round-up. </sentence></p></dialogue>
48
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="250">A: OK. </sentence><sentence id="251">So the the people in the <span class="region">southern part</span> of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> were rounded up, and that was I think in the early part of "43. </sentence><sentence id="252">And then later on in the center part of <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> which was more like the <span class="populated place">Jewish neighborhood</span>, and we were also picked up at that time and of course it was like a whole <span class="populated place">city</span> affair, and so they came to our <span class="building">house</span> and they picked us up. </sentence><sentence id="253">They went <span class="building">house</span> to <span class="building">house</span>, and you had to show your Ausweis, your identification cards, and Jews had a J on theirs, so everybody who was Jewish had to come along. </sentence><sentence id="254">And since we had this special exemption for being Sephardic, we were put in a special part of the <span class="spatial object">holding pen</span> you can say. </sentence><sentence id="255">All the other people were shipped to <span class="spatial object">trains</span> and were sent to <span class="populated place">Auschwitz</span>, or first to <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span> and from there on to wherever, but we were put in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span> in a sort of a <span class="interior space">playground</span> outside. </sentence><sentence id="256">It's near where the old <span class="building">synagogues</span> are now and the uh <span class="building">museum</span> and there we had to stay all day, and the head of the Germans came. </sentence><sentence id="257">I still see him in my mind, and with a whole range of (ph) ladies he had with him, and so he came and we had to present ourselves, family for family, and we had to show our papers. </sentence><sentence id="258">Now I was too young to have my own papers, but my parents had papers, and so he told us we could go <span class="building">home</span> because we had this special exemption. </sentence><sentence id="259">So walking after eight o'clock at night, which was the time that we Jews couldn't walk in the <span class="dlf">street</span> anymore, was was very scary. </sentence><sentence id="260">And then to have to go <span class="building">home</span> and everybody looking at you. </sentence><sentence id="261">We were so scared that the Germans at the corner of the <span class="dlf">street</span> were going to pick us up again. </sentence><sentence id="262">Somehow we made it <span class="building">home</span> and then we lived <span class="building">home</span> still for a couple of months. </sentence><sentence id="263">At that time my father's brother's daughter lived with us, so she went as my sister, because she being a little younger uh didn't have papers either. </sentence><sentence id="264">So she lived with us at that time and she went through that day of being caught and she made it through, too, because we couldn't show that she wasn't, was not our family so that was fine. </sentence><sentence id="265">She however ended up going to her mother who was hidden. </sentence><sentence id="266">They were caught and they never survived the war. </sentence><sentence id="267">It was very sad of course, because we were very close at that point. </sentence></p></dialogue>
49
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="286">Q: You had another friend who you grew up with? </sentence></p></dialogue>
50
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="288">A: I grew up with a friend uh since birth. </sentence><sentence id="289">We played together in the <span class="spatial object">playpen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="290">We went together to <span class="building">kindergarten</span>. </sentence><sentence id="291">We went together to first grade. </sentence><sentence id="292">Then we moved and to another part of the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="293">Wasn't so far, and we still stayed very best friends until the day that she was caught, we were together. </sentence><sentence id="294">We did everything together. </sentence><sentence id="295">We went on vacation together. </sentence><sentence id="296">We played together. </sentence><sentence id="297">We, whatever we undertook uh we were always together. </sentence><sentence id="298">People thought we really were sisters I think. </sentence><sentence id="299">And she went to another <span class="building">school</span>, sort of a more <span class="building">orthodox high school</span> cause she came from an <span class="building">orthodox home</span>, and I went to a <span class="building">public school</span> even though it was a <span class="building">Jewish school</span> it was still a <span class="building">public school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="300">And uh she was was brilliant. </sentence><sentence id="301">She was beautiful girl. </sentence><sentence id="302">She was very very smart. </sentence><sentence id="303">She was, everything she could do. </sentence><sentence id="304">She was good in languages. </sentence><sentence id="305">She was terrific. </sentence><sentence id="306">She could play <span class="spatial object">piano</span> beautifully and one day the Germans came and the family was picked up and never heard of again. </sentence><sentence id="307">Her father survived which in a way is so hard. </sentence><sentence id="308">When you lose everybody that was around you all your life. </sentence><sentence id="309">His wife, his daughter, his son - they were caught. </sentence><sentence id="310">And some people at a point like that just gave up and also went to the <span class="populated place">camps</span>. </sentence><sentence id="311">And they just volunteered to go with their families. </sentence><sentence id="312">Some people did that but never saw their families anyhow because by the time they reached the <span class="populated place">Dutch concentration camp</span>, <span class="populated place">Westerbork</span>, their family already was gone over the <span class="dlf">border</span>. </sentence><sentence id="313">We were very scarce of information. </sentence><sentence id="314">We really didn't know, I think, what was hanging over our heads even though we all had packed <span class="spatial object">suitcase</span> ready to go, uh with most needed items, | still think that a lot of people thought they were going to work. </sentence><sentence id="315">And a certain extent the younger people were put to work. </sentence><sentence id="316">But nobody knew how. </sentence><sentence id="317">I don't think anybody knew. </sentence><sentence id="318">My father knew a little more what was going on because he had traveled to <span class="country">Germany</span> before the war, and not looking very Jewish, he walked in the <span class="dlf">streets</span> and saw what they did to the Jews, and he would have liked to leave. </sentence><sentence id="319">We didn't, were not of any means. </sentence><sentence id="320">My father had a good living. </sentence><sentence id="321">I mean not fantastic but we never went hungry, but he figured it was time to leave, but we had no chance. </sentence><sentence id="322">I don't know why we couldn't go to <span class="country">England</span>. </sentence><sentence id="323">I don't know why we couldn't go anywhere else in the world but apparently that wasn't available. </sentence><sentence id="324">I know we had a number. </sentence><sentence id="325">We had an affidavit for the <span class="country">United States</span>. </sentence><sentence id="326">But our number wasn't up yet, so we had no choice. </sentence><sentence id="327">The second or the third day that the war broke out, that they were fighting in <span class="country">Holland</span>, we tried to leave. </sentence><sentence id="328">We rented a <span class="spatial object">car</span> and we tried to leave then by <span class="spatial object">boat</span>, <span class="spatial object">fishing boat</span> or so, but there was no way. </sentence><sentence id="329">There was no way. </sentence><sentence id="330">Lots of Jews committed suicide. </sentence><sentence id="331">So I have an idea that lots of people did know that it was going to be very bad for the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="332">But me being only ten when the war broke out, I really didn't know much. </sentence><sentence id="333">But then after we came back <span class="building">home</span> in May, after that big razia, and there were very few people left in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, we tried very hard to find out if the Germans really thought that we were Marranos or the percentage of our Jewishness was so low that they would declare us non-Jews, and at one day my father decided that we better leave, because there were practically no Jews left in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>. </sentence><sentence id="334">We were really very late in leaving <span class="building">home</span> and the Germans did come a week after we had left <span class="building">home</span>, so whatever was left of our possessions of course they took. </sentence><sentence id="335">We just left. </sentence><sentence id="336">I left <span class="building">home</span> myself without anything. </sentence><sentence id="337">I just walked out of the <span class="building">house</span>, and a lady came to pick me up, and I had nothing with me when I left. </sentence><sentence id="338">And much much later I got some of my clothes, but very little. </sentence><sentence id="339">But it's impossible for people to understand how hard it is to just leave your <span class="building">home</span>, your parents, and know that you most likely never see your parents again. </sentence><sentence id="340">Leave everything that was everything to you, just behind, just close the <span class="dlf">door</span> behind you. </sentence><sentence id="341">There's an, it's hard to explain how difficult that was, and being a parent myself now, I don't know how my parents could have done it. </sentence><sentence id="342">It's so painful. </sentence><sentence id="343">It's so painful to say goodbye to your one and only child, and don't know where she is going to. </sentence><sentence id="344">My parents didn't know where I was going. </sentence><sentence id="345">They had this connection with the man who I later found out saved two hundred and fifty Jewish children, and who perished himself in <span class="populated place">Bergen-Belsen</span>. </sentence><sentence id="346">He was caught at the end of the war and he perished himself, not being a Jew, but being treated as a Jew because he helped the Jews. </sentence><sentence id="347">And he found a place for me all the way at the other side of the <span class="country">country</span>...uh I'll see. </sentence><sentence id="348">Showed my parents the picture of a lady who's going to come the next morning to take me away. </sentence><sentence id="349">And [had to take all the stars off my clothes like and this stuff was very yellow, and very poor quality. </sentence><sentence id="350">Was no quality. </sentence><sentence id="351">You can't even call that quality, and it ran through all your clothes. </sentence><sentence id="352">So you had to be very very careful that people couldn't see that a star had been on my coat and a star had been on my dress, and uh had to brush it off very carefully, so when I left the <span class="building">house</span> early in the morning, I was scared to death of course that my neighbors were going to see me leave the <span class="building">house</span> - I don't know how I made it to the, to the <span class="spatial object">tram</span> because we went on the <span class="spatial object">tram</span> to the <span class="building">railroad station</span>. </sentence><sentence id="353">And there she handed me over to a young man in his very early twenties and with this young man was a young boy, maybe eleven, ten, something like that, and the two of us went on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="354">Uh it was awesome. </sentence><sentence id="355">It was very scary because I had no name. </sentence><sentence id="356">I had no papers. </sentence><sentence id="357">I didn't know who I was. </sentence><sentence id="358">I didn't know who the man was that was taking me. </sentence><sentence id="359">I didn't know the child that was with me. </sentence><sentence id="360">I didn't know anything. </sentence><sentence id="361">I was a nobody. </sentence><sentence id="362">And Germans are always all over, so if they had come to me and asked me who I was, I wouldn't have been able to answer the man. </sentence><sentence id="363">And it uh it's a trip I think that might have taken two or three hours on the <span class="spatial object">train</span>, but in my mind it took like, like forever. </sentence><sentence id="364">We had to change <span class="spatial object">trains</span> at a certain point, and low and behold I bumped into a lady I knew. </sentence><sentence id="365">She was an aunt of my father, not Jewish, who was going to visit her grandchildren who were hidden. </sentence><sentence id="366">But when I said to this young man that was my guide, uh oh, this is my aunt, he right away pushed me in the <span class="spatial object">train</span>. </sentence><sentence id="367">I mean we were going first class the rest of the way uh to where we were going, because he didn't want us to meet of course. </sentence><sentence id="368">So at a little <span class="populated place">town</span> that I had never heard of, the <span class="spatial object">train</span> stopped. </sentence><sentence id="369">And we got out. </sentence><sentence id="370">It was on the <span class="region">Dutch side</span> of the <span class="env feature">river Maas</span> near <span class="populated place">Venlow</span>, right near the <span class="dlf">German border</span>, in the <span class="region">southern part</span> of <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="371">And the young man told me to stand there and wait till he came back. </sentence><sentence id="372">And he took this young child, this boy, with him and well, maybe he was back in an hour, I don't know, but that lasted forever for here I was, all on my own. </sentence><sentence id="373">| didn't know where I was going. </sentence><sentence id="374">I didn't know where I came from. </sentence><sentence id="375">I had no idea. </sentence><sentence id="376">I was so scared. </sentence><sentence id="377">And then he came back, maybe an hour later but to me it like, like days later, and he took me on the back of the <span class="spatial object">bike</span> that he had picked up at the place where he had dropped off this boy. </sentence><sentence id="378">And he took me like for ten minutes on the back of the <span class="spatial object">bike</span> to the people that hid me. </sentence><sentence id="379">There was a mother and some children, and they were very, very kind to me. </sentence><sentence id="380">But I blew it the first second, because there was a visitor and I was supposed to be a relative from <span class="populated place">Rotterdam</span>, but I didn't know the people of course, so I acted very strange and I said yes sir and no sir and yes ma'am and no ma'am and so the visitor of course understood that I wasn't just some relative. </sentence><sentence id="381">But they kept quiet. </sentence><sentence id="382">I stayed with those people for nearly two years. </sentence><sentence id="383">And they, they risked their life. </sentence><sentence id="384">They risked their whole livelihood. </sentence><sentence id="385">They took me because they felt they had to save my life, and they were very orthodox Protestant Christians. </sentence><sentence id="386">And they figured God had sent me and they had no choice, and they were very brave and uh the man was a repair man at the, at the <span class="dlf">Dutch railroad</span>. </sentence><sentence id="387">He repaired <span class="spatial object">cars</span>, and they were very blue-collar family, but they're very, very neat family, very fine, fine people. </sentence><sentence id="388">They took me in, no rewards. </sentence><sentence id="389">And I mean from the small income they had it was very hard to feed another <span class="dlf">mouth</span>. </sentence><sentence id="390">And we had like coupon cards for rationing, but since I didn't have any papers I didn't get any of those cards either. </sentence><sentence id="391">And the <span class="interior space">underground</span> provided us with that. </sentence><sentence id="392">Once a month they came, usually, and then they brought me a card, but sometimes they didn't have them. </sentence><sentence id="393">They were stolen. </sentence><sentence id="394">And they were, they had to risk their own life of course too, to get all this, and having to take care of all those children, which I didn't know at that time, uh they they had an enormous job, so sometimes they brought me cards, and the family that I lived with had to have some help because we had no food. </sentence><sentence id="395">There was very little food at that time. </sentence><sentence id="396">The place, the spot of the <span class="country">country</span> there was sort of well-provided with vegetables and fruit and most of the people did have a little more. </sentence><sentence id="397">Maybe because we were Protestant in a predominantly Roman Catholic part of the <span class="country">country</span>, my step-parents weren't as well liked and they didn't have anything in common with those people. </sentence><sentence id="398">They were sort of strangers in <span class="populated place">town</span>, so for us it was even harder than for many other people to get extra food. </sentence><sentence id="399">We got very little from the farmers that were around us, so they needed my coupons very badly, but they didn't always come. </sentence><sentence id="400">I stayed there of course much too long for the neighbors and the friends to be the relative from the <span class="populated place">city</span>. </sentence><sentence id="401">They understood that there was something more, and in many of the <span class="building">Protestant homes</span> in this <span class="populated place">town</span>, there were Jewish children hidden. </sentence><sentence id="402">The, I guess the <span class="building">church</span> had something to do with that and uh we went through terrible times there. </sentence><sentence id="403">Being at the <span class="dlf">border</span> we were nearly bombed every night. </sentence><sentence id="404">The, right over the <span class="dlf">border</span> was a big <span class="building">German airfield</span>, and practically every night the bomb...<span class="spatial object">bombers</span>, coming back from <span class="country">Germany</span>, dropped a few bombs at the <span class="building">airport</span>. </sentence><sentence id="405">We gave them nicknames but it wasn't so funny for every night we were up and we were in <span class="building">shelters</span>. </sentence><sentence id="406">Now one of our neighbors had a <span class="building">shelter</span> that was outside which was supposed to be safer. </sentence><sentence id="407">They build that themselves. </sentence><sentence id="408">And so everybody from the <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span>, from our little <span class="dlf">street</span> went there at night when the alarm sounded. </sentence><sentence id="409">But after the war they told me that the man who owned the <span class="building">shelter</span> had told my neighbor that he didn't like this Jewish girl in his <span class="building">shelter</span> anymore and they never told me that until after the war of course, but my step-parents were a little worried because if word was going around that I was Jewish the Germans would come. </sentence><sentence id="410">My step-father for sure would have been picked up. </sentence><sentence id="411">His older son would have been picked up and the family would have been in shambles. </sentence><sentence id="412">They would of course have picked me up. </sentence><sentence id="413">I mean I was the Jew, but they uh they decided that it was not safe anymore to go to those people, so when there was alarm at night we stayed in our own <span class="building">shelter</span>. </sentence><sentence id="414">Uh the man who told that to my step-parents, my war parents, uh was a marshall. </sentence><sentence id="415">Say you can compare that with the <span class="building">Coast Guard</span>. </sentence><sentence id="416">And uh was an officer and uh most of the people at the <span class="building">border control</span> were of course with the Germans. </sentence><sentence id="417">They, but this man was definitely not. </sentence><sentence id="418">He was a real good Dutch citizen and he sheltered me. </sentence><sentence id="419">He told the man that if he didn't keep his mouth shut about me that he wouldn't keep his mouth shut about this man who had this outside <span class="building">shelter</span> because he did a lot of things that apparently were not right according to the Germans, so he shut him up. </sentence><sentence id="420">But my step-parents didn't like to go there anymore anyhow. </sentence><sentence id="421">So, in the end of the war we were at the part where many troops were dropped for the Battle of <span class="populated place">Arnheim</span>, when the really dirty end of the war sort of set in. </sentence><sentence id="422">And uh we saw them coming over and they didn't really come in our <span class="populated place">town</span> but they came near, and from that time on the war really came as the war, the fighting part of the war came close to us. </sentence><sentence id="423">And the Germans were in our in our <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> and they were, out of our <span class="populated place">neighborhood</span> you saw lots of troop movements and we heard of lots of shooting and and bombings. </sentence><sentence id="424">When they came very close to us, we even had Germans live in our <span class="building">house</span> and that was extremely scary because my step-mother was in the <span class="dlf">field</span> reaping some potatoes most like cause everything was cut off. </sentence><sentence id="425">We had nothing to eat. </sentence><sentence id="426">We had no <span class="env feature">water</span>. </sentence><sentence id="427">We only had to drink well water and so she went to the <span class="dlf">fields</span> to find potatoes. </sentence><sentence id="428">The men couldn't show their faces anymore because they would be rounded up and shipped to <span class="country">Germany</span>. </sentence><sentence id="429">My little step-sister went with her mother and I was <span class="building">home</span> alone with two men who couldn't show their faces to the Germans because my step-father, working for the <span class="dlf">Dutch railroad</span>, was on strike. </sentence><sentence id="430">In September of "44 the Dutch government in <span class="country">England</span> decided that the <span class="dlf">Dutch railroad</span> had to go on strike in order to help the invading troops, and to make sure that the Germans didn't have much transportation, so my step-father was quote "sick in <span class="spatial object">bed</span>" and the son was, I think he must have hidden himself in the <span class="building">house</span>, so when the Germans came in the <span class="building">house</span> I was the one who had to talk to them. </sentence><sentence id="431">So they looked through the <span class="building">house</span> and they decided that they were going to take this <span class="interior space">room</span> and this <span class="interior space">room</span> and this <span class="interior space">room</span> and they were going to come back that night. </sentence><sentence id="432">So at night I had to go. </sentence><sentence id="433">I mean, they, my my uh family didn't feel it was safe for me to sit there and discuss the war with the Germans for one moment they could say, oh maybe this girl is Jewish and that would have been the end. </sentence><sentence id="434">So they made some sort of a story up that I was very tired, not being used to working so hard, and I went to <span class="spatial object">bed</span>, and I was, every night I was gone when they came. </sentence><sentence id="435">They stayed for about two weeks in our <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="436">It was very very tense, but everything was tense. </sentence><sentence id="437">I mean the fighting got closer and the uh and then they, they had so many things going in the <span class="building">house</span> that were against the rules of the Germans that uh you know anyth...any moment something could happen to us. </sentence><sentence id="438">Very close to our liberation the Germans decided that all the inhabitants had to leave the <span class="populated place">town</span>. </sentence><sentence id="439">And since we were on the <span class="region">Dutch side</span> of the <span class="env feature">river</span> uh they wanted us to go to <span class="country">Germany</span>, and they evacuated everybody. </sentence><sentence id="440">At that point the family that I stayed with was worried that if they were going to ask for my papers that they couldn't show anything and uh saying well it's got lost, that was just not good enough. </sentence><sentence id="441">So they decided that the whole family was going to go under since we felt that any moment we could be liberated, so we ended up in a bombed-out <span class="building">house</span> and the <span class="interior space">basement</span> was still intact. </sentence><sentence id="442">There was some sort of a <span class="dlf">roof</span> still over the <span class="interior space">basement</span>, so and we knew in that <span class="building">house</span> there was food, so the neighbors, the border guard family and us, we went to this bombed-out <span class="building">house</span> and we stayed there for about three, four days. </sentence><sentence id="443">Uh that's where we were liberated. </sentence><sentence id="444">All the other people who had left <span class="populated place">town</span> were on the wrong side of the <span class="env feature">river</span>. </sentence><sentence id="445">They had to wait another half a year. </sentence><sentence id="446">However when we came back to our <span class="building">house</span>, now the English and the Americans didn't want us to stay in our <span class="building">house</span> because they weren't going to cross the <span class="env feature">river</span> at that point and they didn't want all those civilians around, so we were all evacuated into a place that was away from the fighting. </sentence><sentence id="447">And there we stayed for couple of months, in a <span class="interior space">room</span> somewhere in somebody's <span class="building">house</span>. </sentence><sentence id="448">I think at that time there was some sort of a <span class="spatial object">newspaper</span> being printed already. </sentence><sentence id="449">It was like free <span class="country">country</span>, and we had nothing. </sentence><sentence id="450">We uh were very poor. </sentence><sentence id="451">We had no clothes. </sentence><sentence id="452">We had no shoes. </sentence><sentence id="453">We had no food. </sentence><sentence id="454">It was still, everything was very scarce but there was some sort of free press of things like that going and apparently in one of those <span class="spatial object">newspapers</span> that my family got hold of, they asked about Jewish survivors, and so over the time of maybe two weeks or so they asked me questions, and I never under...never got a feel of what they were doing. </sentence><sentence id="455">You know, I was sort of innocent. </sentence><sentence id="456">One day they asked me what was your mother's name and the next day they asked what was the <span class="dlf">street</span> you lived in, and so they got my family's history on paper and they supplied that to a Jewish organization. </sentence><sentence id="457">My step-parents apparently had found out that my mother was caught and they never told me. </sentence><sentence id="458">But not knowing where my father was, they decided that they were going to stay with me, that I could stay with them as long as more details were going to be available. </sentence><sentence id="459">And so I stayed with those people for all those months while we were evacuated, but they gave the details of my family to this Jewish organization and they apparently compiled a list of people who survived so we went back to our <span class="building">house</span> which was damaged and empty. </sentence><sentence id="460">Everything was stolen in the meantime. </sentence><sentence id="461">We had nothing. </sentence><sentence id="462">Uh in, then the war was finished in May and very soon after, somehow, my father came to pick me up. </sentence><sentence id="463">When he was liberated he saw my name, number one on the list, being a little <span class="dlf">d</span> and a capital A, in Dutch it means that I'm on the top, that they discard the <span class="dlf">d</span> and the <span class="spatial object">van</span> and so <span class="populated place">Ancona</span>, so I was number one on the list and when my father walked out of <span class="building">jail</span>, he nearly fainted I guess when he found out I was still around. </sentence><sentence id="464">So he came on a <span class="spatial object">bicycle</span> without tires, all the way from the northern, most northern part of <span class="country">Holland</span> to practically the most southern part of <span class="country">Holland</span>. </sentence><sentence id="465">Fought his way through all sorts of <span class="dlf">check points</span> and he crossed the <span class="dlf">bridges</span> that were absolutely not passable but he talked his way through, also with papers from the underground, being able to show that he had worked in the underground. </sentence><sentence id="466">And he came to get me. </sentence><sentence id="467">So in I guess in the middle of May I went with him back to the <span class="region">northern part</span> of <span class="country">Holland</span> because we really didn't know what we were going to do. </sentence><sentence id="468">And then about a month later, we got a telephone call, not that there were <span class="spatial object">telephones</span> at that point, but somehow we got a telephone call through the <span class="building">post office</span> in this little <span class="populated place">town</span> where my father was, that my mother had appeared in <span class="populated place">Amsterdam</span>, which was absolutely a miracle. </sentence><sentence id="469">But she's the only one who came back. </sentence><sentence id="470">No uncles, no aunts, no cousins, no grandparents, no friends from our friends, circle of friends. </sentence><sentence id="471">From my family, my mother was the only one who came back. </sentence><sentence id="472">And that was only due to the fact that she went late. </sentence><sentence id="473">She didn't go, she didn't leave <span class="country">Holland</span> until the summer of "44 and she started out in <span class="populated place">Theresienstadt</span>, which was bad, but not as bad as the rest of course. </sentence><sentence id="474">So she could hold on and she was strong and young, but she nearly didn't make it of course. </sentence><sentence id="475">She she, there were hundreds of miracles that made her survive. </sentence><sentence id="476">So after the war, our family was back intact. </sentence><sentence id="477">But we had nothing. </sentence><sentence id="478">We had nothing. </sentence><sentence id="479">We had no, no living. </sentence><sentence id="480">The <span class="building">factory</span> was gone. </sentence><sentence id="481">All our belongings were gone, and what lot's of people don't realize is that the Germans took our bank accounts, they took hold of that. </sentence><sentence id="482">My father was born in just in the other century, so he was like 42 or so. </sentence><sentence id="483">They took away his life insurance. </sentence><sentence id="484">They cashed in on everything that was worth something. </sentence><sentence id="485">So when he came back in his 40's, in his middle 40's, he had to start all over again with nothing, absolutely nothing. </sentence><sentence id="486">And not the support of a family. </sentence><sentence id="487">I mean he used to do business. </sentence><sentence id="488">His oldest brother was his accountant and his other brother was an advisor and here he had to start all over with nothing. </sentence><sentence id="489">No advice. </sentence><sentence id="490">Nobody was there, and there was nothing really to start a <span class="building">business</span> with. </sentence><sentence id="491">It was very, very difficult. </sentence><sentence id="492">But somehow he had to, and he did it. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="698">Q: When did you, how long were you in <span class="country">Holland</span>? </sentence><sentence id="699">Where did you stay? </sentence></p></dialogue>
52
+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="702">A: I stayed in after the war. </sentence><sentence id="703">11 went to, I went back to <span class="building">school</span> which was impossible. </sentence><sentence id="704">I had wasted more than three years and I guess the effect of the war was such that when I was fifteen and I had to start where other children are when they're twelve, it was not that I was so sophisticated. </sentence><sentence id="705">I I can't compare myself with children at this time of age, being fifteen years old I was very innocent and I was still a little girl, a fifteen year old girl now is not a little girl anymore, but uh the war had taken its toll I think. </sentence><sentence id="706">I just didn't have the, the courage to go <span class="building">school</span>, <span class="building">college</span>. </sentence><sentence id="707">I went for three years to <span class="building">high school</span>. </sentence><sentence id="708">Had to start all over again of course and I called it quits, and when I was eighteen I went to work. </sentence><sentence id="709">And it was very hard to be Jewish in <span class="country">Holland</span> where there was nobody there. </sentence><sentence id="710">You had no relatives. </sentence><sentence id="711">All my old friends were gone, and even though I came from an absolute non-observant family, I was always as a little child already drawn to being more Jewish. </sentence><sentence id="712">So uh most of the people my age group didn't survive. </sentence><sentence id="713">There were very few young children and I had a very hard time. </sentence><sentence id="714">I had a very difficult time and I felt that I owed it to my, my people. </sentence><sentence id="715">My uh future was going, only going to be right if | was going to marry a Jew. </sentence><sentence id="716">I had feeling that was the only thing I could do for myself to stay sane and not having the chance to meet that many Jewish people. </sentence><sentence id="717">You know, there some few. </sentence><sentence id="718">There were a few groups in <span class="country">Holland</span> who, who got together. </sentence><sentence id="719">I waited till, I waited. </sentence><sentence id="720">I I was engaged when I was twenty-five but that didn't work out, so I waited a longer time so I left in 32 to get married. </sentence><sentence id="721">I was married in <span class="country">Holland</span> and I came to the <span class="country">United States</span> where my husband worked in the <span class="country">United States</span>, so it took a while to find the right person. </sentence><sentence id="722">And I'm not sorry but that's how it went. </sentence><sentence id="723">There were very, very few Jewish girls who married Jewish boys, and the ones, there were just a lot of inter-marriage at that time and I wasn't ready for that. </sentence><sentence id="724">I couldn't do it, so to find the right husband was not the easiest task. </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="748">Q: OK. </sentence><sentence id="749">Hetty, is there anything you want to add? </sentence></p></dialogue>
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+ <dialogue class="Answer"><p><sentence id="752">A: I don't know. </sentence><sentence id="753">Is there anything you would like to know? </sentence></p></dialogue>
55
+ <dialogue class="Question"><p><sentence id="756">Q: No, I don't think so. </sentence><sentence id="757"> </sentence></p></dialogue>
56
+ </body>
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+ </html>