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RG-50.549.05.0011

If I am living in the United States, it is the most wonderful place to live. If you ask me to live between Jews and the United States, I am not comfortable with it. I was more comfortable in Jews to live in Israel or to live in Poland. And there is a reason to it and it is very difficult to raise out from history the past and the relations between American Jews and world Jewry at all. It is a very difficult task. And even now, with their best will, with their greatest contribution to Israel—which 1s a feeling of guilt, of course—the relations between old American Jews and the new American Jews, except this which became very rich and involved in commerce and science and so forth, but the Jewish volks, volks... that means the Jewish Jews. The Jewish Jews which 43 are speaking still Jewish, which are reading Jewish books and they have the Jewish folklore and they still have the memory, the heritage of European Jewry, 1s still differentiated.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Do you consider yourself an American now?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Yes, I’m an American, loyal American, a loyal citizen and I know about what happened in the United States, politically and socially and I am very involved. I mean spiritually, because physically I can’t more. But I was a member and I still am a member, but not so supportive as I was, I am a Republican. I cannot say I don’t like Democrats because they are democratic. But I don’t like Democrats because they are more socialistic. And whatever smells of socialism or communism is for me, a red flag. And this is also a part of my Israeli past, which was the Labor party, which was the priority movement for many years. And still they are trying to be, I don’t know what the outcome will be. Barak’ is a Socialist and a member of the Socialist Labor party. And so are many of the desert members. And I don’t like the religious extremists in the same way like I don’t like the liberal extremists. I am used to a middle way, to a way of tolerance and living in harmony with everybody.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

When did you come to the United States?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

In 1980.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

And did you come directly to Kentucky?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Do I come?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Did you come directly to Kentucky?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Yeah, because my son was living in Kentucky, I came to Kentucky.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Do you remember your first impressions of the United States and of Lexington?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Well, I came to the United States before I came to Lexington. I came to New York several times. And I make tours in Canada and California and Florida. I make Caribbean. And I knew about American life and I met American people. I had my own idea about America. And my idea about Jewish America didn’t change from the beginning until today. However my two brothers are living here since ‘48, here. But they are still Polish Jews. They are Americans, but they are Polish Jews. That’s what I meant before what I said.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

What is your idea about, what is your idea about Jewish America?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Jewish Americans are Jews which speak Yiddish, love Israel, enjoy their life in the United States, are good citizens here and live a Jewish life. It mustn’t be Orthodox, it mustn’t be strictly religious, but humanitarian Jewish life, with everybody humanistic. That is my Jewish life, very humanistic. Our great Rabbi and teacher, however it is a Rabbi, but a great Rabbi, the Orthodox Rabbi, when it came to he, to him one famous gentile person. “I will become a Jew if you will ' Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001. Ad teach me the Torah, how long I will stand on one leg.” He says, “No problem, love your neighbor as yourself. This is whole Jewish religion and whole Jewish Torah, the most important thing.” And that’s what it is, what I mean, a Jewish American or an American American or a Polish American. Love the people who you are live with and you have to live with and everybody to see a human being. That’s my opinion.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Are you a member of a synagogue here in Lexington?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Yes, I am a member of the conservative movement. I accept it. There were asked about many things which they change in the meantime when I approach the synagogue. There were no women called to the Torah. There were no women Rabbis. Now there is. But if they ask my opinion and I said, I will not be an exception. I am for the majority. You decided that you want it this way, I will agree. But not that I am fond of it, not that I like it. And that it my opinion.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

You think that women should have the same traditional roles that they had in Orthodox Judaism?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

No, they have to have more liberal. But I still cannot accept a woman going to the Rabbi, because it is against the Halachic teachings. I mean, I accept it, but I don’t find it nice. And the teaching there is, if a woman is not clean, she shouldn’t come between the community. She is not clean, that means when she has her menstruation. Only after she goes, she has menstruation, after she finished and take a ritual bath, she is clean. And she is even with everybody. I don’t say she is not even, I don’t say this is a dirtiness or an illness, but it’s against the teachings of our sages. And if you go on to take off barriers one by one, officially as permissible, you take the balance off Jewish religion. One of the two. You want to be Jewish you have to follow the teachings. Even when you don’t follow, but you don’t have to revolutionize it. That what I think. Iam not kosher, for example. I am not doing a lot of things. I am riding on Shabbat. But my opinion it is in those times, Shabbat there was no cars to ride on Shabbot. There was no electricity to light. There was many things which I found it. But that’s for me, but I don’t say it is permissible. It 1s not permissible, but I find it, I can do it. If somebody doesn’t like it, it’s not my problem. It’s his problem. But I can do it. I can do everything which I found, in my opinion, it is an answer which is logic.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Do you have friends here in Lexington, who are Jewish or non-Jewish or what kind of community do you have here?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Well, I can say really friends are non-Jewish. This is the majority. Maybe there are some numbers really which I can say they are not Jewish. Three, four families maybe or something like this. But not to count as a really friend. These are really the Polish people, which are helping me in need, when I had to go to an emergency, I call to the Polish people. They come even in the middle of the night and they bring me to Emergency. My wife is not driving and they bring me. I don’t have to go in ambulance. And other things also, they are really good friends. So, I really don’t differentiate it. Because you ask me I say they are accidentally Polish or Christian or Catholics and they are accidentally not. But they are my friends and they are my friends, but not because of they are Polish, because they are Catholics or they are Christians. I don’t know if I have even one Catholic, exception of Polish people. 45

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Has it been important to you at all, did it, was it... let me start over. Was it ever important to you to talk about with other people your experiences during the Holocaust. Did you get to a point where you felt like I really have to tell people that’s what I experienced and to be around people who understand?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

I was talking several times in school, whoever invite me to give them, I give them my own experience. But there was now a Remembrance day in the St. Luke church where there are members, two or three Christians which are my friends. And they are always counting on me that I will be the speaker. And I for nine years will be making the Remembrance. They make it this year, too and I went to them, I don’t know I show it to you or you have it? No? I promise you to give it to you, my talk. I have to make a copy. I forgot to make a copy. I will give it to you someday if you will ask for it. And they make it in such a honorable day that was really a pleasure to talk to these people and to explain to them, this time I spoke generally about the situation. In the previous I gave from my personal experiences. And they are always anxious and they are... End of Tape 5, Side A 46 Tape 5, Side B

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Well, you asked me if I spoke to people. I must tell you, to my disappointment... I don’t know, maybe not disappointment, but take the reality like it is. I didn’t have occasion to say my opinion or even something about the Holocaust to Jewish people. If they invited me to the Temple when there was Remembrance Day, they were asking me to light a candle. That was all. And they were making some prayers. And the same was here in our synagogue, when they make. And they come such a small number of people that it is really not worth it even to open your mouth to talk to them. But I wasn’t asked to talk about the Holocaust. I wasn’t asked. They talk, they make some prayers and that’s all. And that was very miserable, miserable. I was ashamed that I was a part of this Remembrance Day. And that’s it. Jews are not interested in it. Maybe they have it enough in books. Maybe they read about it, if that’s possible. I don’t know. But even when it is written, even when they read about it, I think, in my opinion, they have an opportunity to hear it from the first source. They should ask to hear of it, they should. But I don’t know why they didn’t. Very ignorant, very ignorant. And then they are not interested. The people, the few people who survive, they are not interested, because they know the same, they have their opinion. And the other people are here, born here or for years are here, they are already, they are already accustomed of the American habits, of the Jewish habits. That’s what it is. They are not interested.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Do you feel that the people who were born here and who are from here, are less, have been less receptive to you personally than have the newcomers?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Well, I feel it, I feel 1t maybe personally, but I don’t blame them. Maybe they were expecting more involvement from my side in their community life, which I couldn’t do, first of my age, secondly my language is not good enough to expose my... it is maybe improved already, but in the beginning my English was good to read, to understand. But to speak with my accent, to talk about my experience and to be active in their community, it wasn’t easy. It was maybe difficult. I even proposed and asked the Rabbi I can help him with the Hebrew lessons in the Sunday school maybe. But he never asked me. And nobody did ask me to give a hand to something like that. Maybe to a money drive, maybe they will ask me to do it, but that’s not my specialty. I will not do it. And that’s one thing. The other thing is, which one influential person told me, that they feel humiliated in my company. That I am too special for them, so therefore they are hesitating approach me. Well, I don’t know what is true, what the reason 1s, but this is the reality what I told you. Iam a stranger for them and I will remain always to them a stranger. However they are friendly. If I approach them they answer my questions, but that’s all, that’s all. What can you do? That’s the reality. And you have to live with it and we take it. And we learn after so many years of life, you learn to live with the reality, with each reality. This is the main source of our strength, to take the everyday reality in our life as custom life. And that’s it.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Last time after we finished our interview you mentioned off tape, something about the “business” of the Holocaust or the business that the Holocaust has become and I wonder if you would say something about that. Does it bother you or do you feel that the Holocaust has been overly commercialized? 47

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Again, I don’t know who will hear this tape, but in the meantime there will be more business in this field. You know, each community tries to make a museum, a Holocaust museum, which in itself is maybe a nice deed. But who will come to this museum? I think the Holocaust museum which is in Washington is the one which was a necessity, very important. And it fills all the spectrum of Holocaust and of Jewish life, before the war, in the war and after the war. Maybe there are some nuances which come out which are not of value. But to make so many, I think people will not be interested to go to the main museum where they have everything. And this happens because of the way how Jewish society is built in the United States. It has to be a society, it has to be a president, it has to be a vice-president, it has to be a secretary, it has to be members of the board and so forth and so forth. Maybe in itself it is as a social thing, maybe it is good, maybe. But I think a majority of the raised funds goes to administrative use, the paperwork and to expenses which are not profit of the social needs of people who really needs the help. That is what I think. And about commercializing the Holocaust, I think when you take thousand books and you put them in a computer and you take the essence, I think from these thousands you will make one book which includes everything. So there is no need, in my opinion, for so many editions, for so many work with it in... I don’t know, I don’t know. Of course, you can see a lot of people who became very famous because of the Holocaust, very famous. But I don’t want to criticize them. I don’t want to criticize nobody. But I think it is a crime if somebody makes it only for the business.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

I’m coming to the end of my questions. Is there something that we haven’t talked about that you'd like to talk about?

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Well, I gave, I gave a sketch about my experiences and about how I see it. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have, in general, what to say about. And especially to the future generations of Jewish people. Maybe somebody will listen to it. Maybe somebody will try to understand my point of view. But it is in the moment, I am ninety years old and I passed through all kind of Jewish life with joy and suffering. It is like one Jewish sage said: “It is good to be born a Jew. It’s good to die a Jew, but what do you do in the meantime, this is the problem.” From the beginning until the end, the Jews have a very rich historical experience of life, which many other religion or communities don’t have. Not because they wanted, but the wind of history put the Jews in the center of cultural life. Even in the world. Not only in Germany, not only in Poland or in Russia or in Palestine or Spain or in the United States. Everywhere where the Jews were the center of civilized life, of cultural life was concentrated in the Jewish communities or singles. Jewish Nobel Prize winners, there were scientists in the United States in medical field, in general science are not compatible to no one other people. Maybe this is the reason that the jealousy of other people brings them to hatred. I cannot wish that the Jews wouldn’t concentrate of all this progress and culture and civilization. A country they have to do everything possible what brings progress to the world. But I am turning to the other point not to cover this with egocentric religious or national use. To take it more in human general perspective and civilized ways. This is my advice and this is my way of thinking. And that, and we will remember this, this can maybe, maybe some day bring to make us even with other nations in civilized world. That we will not be scapegoats in any way, which we were during all our history from the beginning until today. To avoid it, listen what I said. Thank you.

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RG-50.549.05.0011

Thank you very much. 48 Conclusion of Interview 49

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Okay, so we’re just going to start with a test of your voice. How many days were you in Ireland?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

15, plus a traveling day at each end. We were gone for 17 days.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And what kind of... what was the most memorable sights, some of the most memorable sights that you saw?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Well, the Cliffs of Moher, and believe it or not my brother.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Oh, your brother?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yeah, my brother happened to be in Ireland at the same time and we managed to meet.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Was that pure coincidence?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Pure coincidence, right. I got an e-mail from him two days before we left about my cousin’s cell phone number. And I said what is this all about? And called him to find out. I didn’t know he was going to be there and he didn’t know I was going to be there.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

That’s something.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And we met. That was fun.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Okay, it’s June the 13" of the year 2000 and we are in the home of Alexander Rosenberg for an oral history interview that’s mainly going to focus on his experiences after the Holocaust because he has been interviewed by the Survivors of the Shoah Foundation once before. And we’re mainly going to be following up on that interview and asking some pre-war and wartime questions to clarify and expand and then moving on into the post-war era. And my name 1s Arwen Donahue and we are in Louisville, Kentucky, this is tape number one, side A. I guess what I’ Il do is just briefly summarize for the tape some of what was discussed in your first interview and then you can correct me if I get anything wrong. So, Mr. Rosenberg was born in 1927 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and moved with his family in 1937 to... well, moved to Berlin and between then and 1937 and then moved to Holland in 1937, where he lived until he and his family were deported to the Westerbork camp in Holland. And were there, and that was, you said you weren’t certain whether it was 1942 or ’43, when you were...?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

That is correct. I keep thinking it was September of *42 and we were there until the beginning of ‘43. My brother thinks I’m off by a year, but I think he’s off by a year. I clearly remember 1 Easter of ‘44 and we had to have been there about a year by that time, so I think my dates are correct.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And Easter of ‘44 what you remembered was being in Bergen-Belsen.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

That is correct. Yeah, it was an air attack... well, a group of B-17’s was returning from a bomb run, possibly Hanover, and the escorting fighter planes came down to have a look. And our super-smart guards decided to let go with machine guns from the guard towers and they fired back. And nobody got hurt, but I clearly remember that incident.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

I wanted to ask you a little bit more about Bergen-Belsen, but I guess first what we’ll do 1s... okay, so you were deported from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen some undetermined date. And then were in Bergen-Belsen until 1944.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

“45.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Oh, yeah, around April 10", 1945 you were away, and it was close to the time... of course. And liberated somewhere outside of, somewhere in Germany.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yeah, east, Tribitz (ph) was the name of the little village, which is about ten, 15 miles east of Torgau. Torgau is on the river Elbe, where the German and Russian troops met on that same day, April the twenty-third, that we were liberated early in the morning by the Russian army.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Let’s go back then, one question that I had was about your earlier childhood before the war started. And you had mentioned in your first interview something about your family. Your father was an investment banker. You had a brother who was ten months... was he ten months older or younger?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Younger, younger.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Ten months younger. And did you, and you said that your family was not very religious. You basically went to synagogue for high holidays. Was your family really very assimilated?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yes, I would say so, with hindsight in particular I would say so. Yes. My dad certainly considered himself German first and never expected the violence to get to the level that it did. And certainly would not affect him since he was a veteran of World War One that was wounded. Had volunteered for the army in the first place and was wounded, I believe two or three times and had the Iron Cross, which I’ve been trying to locate and can’t find. So that I would say they considered themselves primarily German and assimilated is the right word.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Did you speak Yiddish or Hebrew?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

No.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Were any of your friends, were most of your family friends Jewish and your own personal friends? 2

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RG-50.549.05.0012

I think so, but I wouldn’t know for sure. In Amsterdam I would say that was not necessarily the case. But I really don’t remember, I remember only really family from Germany. I don’t remember any children from school or acquaintances of my parents. For that matter I wouldn’t know what their religion was. So, I really can’t answer.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And then another question from a different time. When you were living in Amsterdam, I believe you mentioned in the first interview that before your family was actually caught in a round-up and deported to Westerbork, you had been caught in another round-up and somehow managed to get out. Now that wasn’t clear to me from the first interview what had happened during that time.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

I don’t remember whether I was picked up at home or off the street and taken to a collection point where we were supposed to have been deported somewhere. And I walked away from it, and wasn’t challenged in the process and got back home.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

So it was just you? It wasn’t members of your family?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

I don’t know. I think it was just me, that’s right.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And what happened the second time when your whole family was deported?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

The second time they, as they always did, they came in the middle of the night and you had five minutes to get dressed and get your, your bags were always packed because you knew it could happen. And you were hauled off in a truck along with other people, taken to the railroad station. Put on a train not knowing where to. And then I went to Westerbork, which was the transit camp that the Germans had established; it’s in the eastern part of Holland near Zwolle. And we were held there for about six months. I don’t think there were any other deportations. There may have been one or two trains before we were hauled out. And I think the general impression was that they were going to go to Theresienstadt. Why I don’t know. But... never heard of Belsen before. As a matter of fact, we were one of the earliest ones in there. Belsen was... I’m not sure if it was on a previous tape or not. When we got there, of course it was a very large facility. Part of it was a Russian POW camp. But obviously designed for officers, because they had little cabins and gravel walks between them and that sort of thing. And then there were two sections to the non-POW prisoners. One was for, called criminals and the second section was for the Jews. And as they started to fill up the Jewish section there were a number of trainfuls of Jews from Holland, a lot of Hungarians, French women. They were the wives of officers who were POW’s from the French Army. And then after the, in ‘44, after the invasion of Italy, a lot of Libyan Jews that Rommel had shipped off to Italy and they had been held in camps in Italy and apparently under Red Cross supervision. They all had British uniforms and heavy British, woolen coats and the like, and lots of good food.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yeah, you did talk some about that in the first interview. When you were heading towards Westerbork, did you know anything about Westerbork before you arrived? 3

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RG-50.549.05.0012

No, never heard of Westerbork. And of course, you know, it’s maybe a two hour train ride at most. No, never heard of it before, at least I hadn’t, I don’t know whether my parents ever had. No idea.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Did you have any idea at the time of what had started to happen to Jews?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

No, no. They always said we’d be relocating in a work camp or whatever. Or vague promises of exchanging for money, that relatives, particularly in America could buy you and so forth. But no, nobody had any inkling of what lay ahead in terms of the violence.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And you talked in some detail about what you remembered of your time in Westerbork and that you had been, you had contracted polio. Had you really recovered from the symptoms of that by the time that you were deported to Bergen-Belsen?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

I would say so. The problem that I had were primarily with the right knee and I still have some problems with that knee. But I was spared the recurrence that apparently happened to older people when it was discovered in the last ten or 15 years or so. It must have been a fairly mild case even though polio, of course back then was rampant.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Tell me if, I have an impression, and tell me if it’s correct. I have the impression that your family was fairly close-knit and that you’re weren’t necessarily forming strong bonds with other people outside of your family. Is that correct?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yeah, I think so. I don’t think anybody formed any bonds at all. It was a matter of survival and I don’t mean to imply that you tried it at the expense of somebody else. But once we realized, I’m not sure we really realized, but when it became a matter of trying to survive, you didn’t and a fellow that was in the bunk either with you or next to you may not wake up in the morning. Nobody really tried to get attached to anybody else. You didn’t form any bonds other than to, you didn’t try to antagonize anybody, but there wasn’t any real friendships or relationships of any kind. Well, there really wasn’t much time either.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Do you remember, was there kind of a gradual sense of deepening horror and insecurity or was there a moment when you really, that you remember having been really, realized what was happening?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

No, it was, that was, 1n a way the tragedy was that it was a gradual tightening of the noose, so to speak, in that... I remember the first two days in Belsen, there was so much food we couldn’t eat it. There was no nutrition, but a liter of soup, even if 1t was only a liter of warm water with nothing in it. You’re not used to drinking a liter of volume, a quart. It took two days and you ate it all and were hungry. And then the amount of food that you got kept getting less and less. And initially there were, the guards kept changing constantly and surprisingly they kept getting more and more vicious rather than less so. The last group which maybe was there for a year, year and a half, I don’t recall for sure for how long, were World War One veterans who were too old or too feeble or had been wounded. But they were not suitable for frontline service in the German Army. And you would think that they would be not so hateful. And they weren’t maybe the first 4 week, but they got there very quickly, got to be pretty vicious. And I’m not sure whether they were told to or it was a natural progression as the sensitivities wore off.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

So even as a young child you grew somehow hardened to this experience would you say?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Well you had to if you wanted to survive. You couldn’t, it wasn’t that you wouldn’t help somebody up if they had fallen, but you had to be very careful. Yes, you probably were... maybe more encapsulated than hardened.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Do you remember private conversations that you were able to have with your family?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

None, absolutely none. I don’t really remember very much. You remember the weird things but not the everyday. And I’m sure that others would have remembered something totally different that I don’t even remember happening. Like that Easter Sunday, the fighter attack. Well, because of it, one of the barracks that got shot up was the warehouse. And one thing the Germans had were cans of beef in its own juice. And apparently some of those got bullet-riddled so they had to use them right away. For a couple of days we actually got food, but then they made up for it for a long time with nothing, because the food was gone again.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Do you remember the day that you were deported from Westerbork to Bergen-Belsen? Anything about that?

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RG-50.549.05.0012

No, nothing 1n particular. They, I guess in the afternoon the train was pushed into, the empty train was pushed into the compound. It was passenger cars. Then they posted names, they called them out and you had to be there whenever, an hour or so later. Got on the train, nobody knew where it was going to go. Supposedly it was just a relocation and they always promised you something better. Of course it never was. But particularly initially you didn’t know. And I guess they had to, that I’m sure explains why there was no really massive resistance. If you knew you were going to go to the gas chamber you may as well try and fight it. So you get shot on the spot. I think that’s why there’s, the general docility of the deportees.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Had transports been leaving from Westerbork for some time before yours left? In other words, were you...

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RG-50.549.05.0012

We were not the first ones, but yes, but I don’t know whether we were the third or fifth or tenth. But yes, there had been others. And of course you never got any feedback in terms of where they went or how they were treated.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

So, you may have had the sense then that at any point your name could be called and you’d be getting on the...

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RG-50.549.05.0012

Yes, yes, I think so. Yeah, I think it was generally recognized that Westerbork was a transit camp and not a permanent installation. So, I think so.

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RG-50.549.05.0012

And about your time in Westerbork, I’m sorry, in Bergen-Belsen. You were there relatively early as you just mentioned. And I wondered if in the long term you feel that having been there 5 early on enabled you to, or was an advantage as far as... you did mention that it was an advantage as far as food. But I wondered if your resistance was stronger and if you knew the system better?

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Well system, there was really no system. But yeah, I think so, because the people who came very late, particularly if they did not come from another camp but straight from home so to speak. They were plunged from a normal diet to 200, 300, whatever it was, calories a day. And I think they died faster than those of us who, even though they may have had physical, physically more reserves than we did, who our reserves were spent. But we may have been a little bit more cautious. And also we were so disease-ridden and I don’t know whether our immune systems had strengthened. Those are medical issues that I don’t know about. People who were plunged into this diarrhea, flea, lice, you know all the vermin. They could not tolerate it as much as those of us who were exposed to it more slowly.

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To what extent did you have contact with the other members of your family while you were in Belsen?

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We saw them almost every day. My dad and my brother and I, we were in the same barrack. At night the men and the women were separated, but during the day they could mingle freely if you were there. We all were in work details. My mother worked in the, what do you call it? Hospital, there was no hospital, so the infirmary. So, she physically stayed inside the camp. My dad worked, I think he worked the whole time on the shoe disassembly detail. I was on it for a little while before they shipped me outside to work details outside. My brother was working outside the camp too, I think. But I don’t remember where, what details he was assigned to.

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And what about, you mentioned having to steal food 1n order to survive. Was that something that the newer prisoners maybe wouldn’t have known how to do or that you kind of eventually learned?

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Well (laughs)... no, I think everybody... you didn’t steal from each other, generally. Even though it was a matter of survival. I mentioned the Libyans who came from Italy. They came with humongous quantities of food. And we had the opportunity to steal some of it. And we actually buried it between the tracks so we could bring it back slowly. The other thing is being on the outside you were, not always, but sometimes you were patted down, and so you couldn’t have anything on your body that didn’t belong to you. They must have had a bad storm some years prior to establishing the camp. Bergen-Belsen was inside a military training camp, similar to Fort Knox. A lot of trees had been, had fallen over in this storm or storms. And they had cut the trees and hauled them off, but there were the roots, you know, standing up. And for a number of months I worked in the woods digging up those tree stumps, which were then, were hauled into... once a week they came out with the horse-drawn wagons and we had to load those tree stumps that we had dug up on it and they were hauled in. There was another detail inside the camp that was chopping them up into firewood. That’s the one I was assigned to the day of that air attack. There were blueberries growing in the woods and one, of course we ate as much as we could, but also we all had, like a bag that was tied to your belt inside your pants. So you could pick berries and bring them in for the family to eat. So there was that and then, of course, if we could we stole the food from the guards. [Laughing.] Boy, they’d take a whipping. They 6 would get their food and most of the time if they didn’t finish it, it just sat there. And if somebody, we got a chance, we would try and get those cans and eat it. But apparently one day we ate them before they had eaten and so we got a pretty good whipping for that. It was probably worth it. It was good food. They didn’t eat too bad. They got pretty decent food.

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Was there a real uniformity of cruelty among the guards or were any of them kind at all to you?

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There was one sergeant, who the rumor had it later on that he was a spy for the British, he seemed to be more of a... I wouldn’t want to call him humane, but had a better sense of humor. And some individual guards were exceedingly cruel and would use any excuse to either kick you or club you with a rifle or shoot you, shoot at you. There was one incident that I recall where one of the guards was giving one of the men, this was in the woods, gave him hell. And he responded in Dutch, “Man, you’re crazy.” And it turned out to be a Dutchman, the SS guy was a Dutchman, and boy did he beat the living daylights out of him, out of the prisoner. And then when we came back that evening, the sergeant was there and he, we all had to stand at attention. And he demanded to know if anything had happened and this turkey said, “Yes sergeant, this man said I’m crazy.” The sergeant said, “That man was right, detail dismissed.” We got sent on. But it varied. Some of them would turn their back and just did their job. But they constantly changed. You never knew. You never spoke to any of them. Some of them would drop a cigarette butt and walk away. Others would drop the cigarette butt and wait for you to, try to pick it up and then step on your fingers. You never knew.

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What about friendships in Belsen? Did you, was it still pretty much each one for his own?

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Yeah, you didn’t have time for friendships. You tried to sleep as long as you could in the mornings. You had a few minutes to wash your face and get dressed and stand at reveille, that’s not the right word.

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Roll call?

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Roll call, thank you. Until they got done, depends on how they felt whether they got done or not. And then you went to wherever your work assignment was and then when you came back at night, there could have been another roll call before or after and you may have got something to eat and you went straight to bed. There was never any time to talk to anybody, unless somebody you worked with, the guard had a back turned you could talk to each other. But most of the time you couldn’t. They wouldn’t let you.

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So was it seven days a week, every day the same?

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Oh yes, pretty much so. Except they got better food on Sundays. They got three cans instead of two.

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Did you have any sense of time or way to keep track of time?

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Yeah, you knew pretty much what day of the week it was, what time of day it was, I’m not sure. I don’t think anybody had watches. Because at noon time they would bring the food out to 7 where you were working. We may get five or ten minutes to eat and that was it. And sunrise and sunset, but other than that whether it was ten of eleven or ten of twelve, nobody cared whether you knew it or not.

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You mentioned that you were transferred after you were chopping the stumps into the detail that was meeting the rail cars as they were coming in, and you said something about the Libyan Jews. I was wondering if you, were you there when the French women prisoners were coming 1n?

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No, I think they were already in the camp. Trains came and went all the time, not only with prisoners, but also soldiers. They used the same railroad station. Occasionally we would meet POW’s. The Americans always were good. They would throw us packs of Camels where we could get them. But I don’t remember when the French women came. There were only two hundred of them, so they may have come in a group with others. Probably since very few of them died, I would think they probably came fairly late. But I just don’t remember.

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I read something about it, that was partially why I asked. It mentioned they came in the first half of ‘44 from Drancy in France. And I just was curious if you remembered anything else.

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