Eli Modenstein Shoah Foundation Testimony

Today is November 22nd, 1995. The survivor's name is Eli Modenstein. The interviewer is Sheryl Tatelman. We're in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the United States, and we'll be interviewing in English. I'm Sheryl Tatelman, and I'm here with Eli Modenstein. We'll be doing the interview in Lincoln, Nebraska, on November 22nd, 1995. Could you tell us your name, please?

My name is Elisha Modenstein. However, when I came to the States, I changed it. I made it shorter then, I made it Eli. That's my legal name now, Eli Modenstein.

And Elisha Modenstein, how was that spelled?

It was spelled E-L-I-S-H-A. Eli is E-L-I.

(laughs) And, uh, when were you born?

I was born April 30th, 1918.

And where?

Mława, Poland.

Mława, how was that spelled? Mława.

M-L-A-W-A.

And what, what were the names of your parents?

My father was Shmuel [Samul] Modenstein, and my mother was Faiga Modenstein, born Altman.

And they were born, both were born in Mława. Mława?

So the family lived for a long time in Mława. Even their parents lived there, as far as I know. I never met them. And, the last grandmother passed away half a year before I was born. And that's why they named me after her. Her name was Lifta. So they named me, as a boy, they named me Elisha. Uh....

Did you have brothers and sisters?

Yes, uh.... We were a large family, actually. My father was married twice. I was from the second mother. So the first, uh, wife passed away, and she left them with four children, two boys, two girls. And then he married my mother, and they had six more children. I was the youngest from the boys, and after me, there were three girls. Uh, nobody survived from those. Uh, however, from the first wife, uh, one brother and two sisters, I'll, I'll think back, one brother and one sister survived from the first five. The reason for, my brother left for Argentina in 1923, when I was a little boy, five years old. And he lived through the war there, in a year, and before, he, uh, took down from Poland, one of my sisters, the one older from me. She got married in Mława, and she went to Argentina, and finally settled in Uruguay. And, the other sister left about a month before the war started. Uh, she went to Israel. She was with one of the illegal, you know, aliyot that had, Israel, and she was kept in (unclear), and finally, after some months, they got certificates, then, that was still Palestine at that time. So, those, uh, people survived. There were, uh, the brother in Argentina, the two sisters and me. All the rest of them were killed in the war.

And what was your life like before the war? There were ten of you.

Uh, we were a middle-class family, and, um, my personal life, I was a young man at that time. my personal life, I was a young man at that time. Let's say, pick it up after school. Well, I was about 15. You know, you don't care about much. I belonged to a sport club. And as a matter of fact, I became vice president of the sport club a little later, and the war broke out. That's what I was doing. And, uh, we used to like to dance, go out dancing, you know, and enjoy life as young people, without much, uh, responsibility at that age. So I enjoyed myself. I had a lot of friends, and I had money, and I enjoyed life.

What kind of livelihood did yo- did your family have?

Uh, we had, uh, two businesses. We had old iron metal business.

Iron metal?

Iron metal. We would call it a junkyard in here. And, uh, we had a small oil factory where we made linseed oil and also eating oil, for frying. Linseed oil and eating oil, or frying oil. Frying oil. Linseed oil is for, uh, painting. And in season, we also made putty to put around the windows, you know. This was my specialty.

Putty?

Putty, yeah. And, uh, so our income, we were a middle-class family, and we had our own home, our own business.

Were you expected to help with the business?

Oh, yes. My father passed away when I was 13 in 1933. Actually, I was maybe closer to 15. Um, And at that time, I start helping. My older brother took over. My mother pitched in. She had a family, you know, big house with children. So, uh, I start working in the business. Uh, and actually, I enjoyed it. We used to have sm- blacksmiths coming down, and they needed, uh, certain sizes of, uh, iron plates, which were about maybe six, seven, eight millimeters thick. Which would be like a half an inch to three-quarter inch. And we used to cut them with a chisel and hammer. We didn't have any torches in those days, I'm talking about in the late 30s. So I used to enjoy. I didn't have to do it. We had people working it. I used to enjoy just to pick up a sledgehammer, you know, and work and help cut those, or even railroad ties, you know, the rails, metal rails. We used them for building at certain sizes, like a meter, 60 pieces long, which would be four and three-quarter feet. We used them for balconies. They hang balconies in it. They put one part into the building, and the rest of it stuck out in the building, the balconies, on the building. So, uh, we used to lay the rail on the side, cut in the narrow edge, and a little bit on the other edge, then raise it up with something under, and drop it down and break it. And I used to enjoy doing it. And, I think, being used to hard work, which, I'd done it for pleasure, helped me survive in the later years when I got in a concentration camp. Because I, I could shovel the whole day, and they didn't bother me.

What kind of schools did you go to as a child?

Oh, I went, actually, to a few different schools. I went to a religious Zionist school. Then I went to Orthodox Talmud Torah, they called it. And, uh, after that, I went to a public school. And, uh, my father, being a religious man, he didn't want me to go to gymnasium. They were, a co-educationer with girls and boys. So I had a private tutor, which I got my education from. I had the education, at least equivalent of a high school education here.

And what kind of child were you?

You mean if I were a good child? You mean if I were a good child? (laughs) Uh, I think I was always, uh, behaved. Uh, you didn't see any not-behaved children in the old country, for some reason. I think the upbringing was more eager, and, um, they demanded more of you. You also were brought up, in some way, you, you knew your place. When, like, for instance, some older people came in the house, to visit. As a child, you always moved in a corner, and sat quiet. And I think something like this stays with you. And I can tell even today, I'm not so, uh, you know, front-out with people. I would, uh, I'm a little shy still. Which, actually, at my age, I shouldn't be anymore. No, no way. (laughs) It's kind of- unconsciously, it's still there. You said that you, your family was an Orthodox family. Your father was a religious man. Yes, he was a reli- religious man, and that's the reason I went to Talmud Torah, And, uh, I finished the Talmud Torah, uh, which were eight class, and, uh, you learned everything in it. Chumash and Rashi and Gemorrah and [unclear] and Mishnaiahs, the whole works. And, um, a lot of it, even at my age now, and I don't, uh, keep it up, so to speak of, only when sometimes I'll pick up, I have some books. I kind of like to look into it. There are a lot of smart, you know, verses in it, and uh, you can always learn something.

What was your family li- family life like?

Oh, we always had our meals together at certain times, especially holidays. The daily meals were all together, you know. And then at mealtime, you usually talk about politics, you know. Like, for instance, here, you'll have young people who'll talk about football, baseball. Our conversations were who's prime minister, what the prime minister said, what's going on in the House of Representatives, which we call the same. All the issues in the paper, or anything new came out. We elaborated, they shared their own idea, you know. And, uh, there were a lot of parties, even Zionist parties, there were a lot of parties. I, for instance, I was in Betar. My older brother was in Poalei Zion, you know. I had this fri- a sister, uh, she still lives in New York in a nursing home, she was in HaShomer Hatzair, you know. Another sister was in the Kaluts. So we always had something to debate about, who is right and who is wrong, and made it interesting, uh, where we grew up.

What was your bar mitzvah like?

My bar mitzvah wasn't too elaborate. My father was already not feeling so good. So I had my bar mitzvah in the, it was a small synagogue. We called it a shtiebel. And, uh, I had my speech, and then, uh, we served some things like drinks, and cake, things like that. Uh, not elaborate like they make them in here. I don't know. Only they had more meaning to it, because your speech was usually on the Sedra, which was in that particular week. On the portion of the week. On the portion of the week, and, your opinion, your comments on it, as you thought of it. And, uh, like I said, I had some religious learning behind me, so I was pretty good for it. And this was going on till my father passed away in, uh, '33. And then we worked in the business, and, uh, I used to belong, at that time, I belonged, uh, probably at the age of 17, in Maccabi. So evenings we used to go down, and meet friends over there. We always had something to do, you know, young people, boys, girls. We did a lot of dancing, especially Saturday night. Uh, (coughs) we used to have a record play, which we plugged in into a radio, you know, and danced away. (laughs) So we had good times, till the war came on along.

Um, what was your interaction with the Gentile people in the town?

Actually, the town I lived in was about 20, 21,000 population. However, the core of the city was Jewish. Very few Gentiles, very few, in there. Um, however, if there were elections, they'd usually be, uh, non-Jewish picked in the elections, because they had the majority. See, they had outskirts from town, where the Gentiles lived, was incorporated for election time, into, into the city. Uh, I didn't have any Gentile. I knew, uh, a lot of Gentile people, and, and they knew me, you know, from the business. Uh, only a close friend, I never had. As a matter of fact, I was in Poland last year, and, uh, they going in uh, one place, the group. And I noticed a fellow, which used to live in the street behind me, not far from me. I remembered his name. You know, he recognized me, too. We were the same age, born in 1918. And, uh, we became good friends. As a matter of fact, last, uh, Christmas, I was in, a church, you know, for Christmas. So, seems like, uh, after so many years, you see somebody from your hometown, and you recognize, you feel like, close, closer than there would be in normal time. Most of my friends were Jewish friends.

Did you ever encounter any anti-Semitism before the war?

Yes, I did. However, I, personally, for some reason, they respected me. I was in good health. I could, you know, fight back if I had to. I had some occasions, very, very seldom had. Only, the anti-Semitism in Poland was there. We had, uh, a particular person, his name was Tureski, you know, And he was always going around, you know, don't buy from a Jew, you know, stayed in front of the Jewish store and tell Polish people, which came in for the market days, uh, don't buy from a Jew, you know, things like that. And sometime in the market days, there were Jewish people, uh, like, um, tailors and shoemakers, and they had their stands, and sold clothes, or shoes, or boots. Uh, there were cases, where they, a whole bunch of them, just went in the marketplace, and turned over everything, you know. Uh, (coughs) this was close to the beginning of the war, when this was going on. And, uh, their slogan was, the Jews go to Palestine. Actually, most of my friends, which their parents didn't have their own businesses, they didn't have any future. They didn't have anything really to fall back on. Uh, they finished school and a lot of them, most of them emigrated, either to Palestine, or Argentina, or, you know, South American countries. Although I still had some good friends, which we enjoyed each other till the war came.

What was your relationship like with your brothers and sisters?

Very good. We were a very close family, even, we were, uh, from different mothers. You couldn't tell the difference. As a matter of fact, uh, my brother, the oldest one, which went to Argentina, um, I can't I, I remembered his address. See, I didn't have anything in writing. When the war ended, I remembered his address, and I wrote him a letter. And we were in touch, and then, I brought them down here to Lincoln, for a visit. Actually, he was twice here. Uh, the second time I brought him down, my younger daughter got married. I sent him papers and tickets. And, uh, so we were very close. And then we were quite a few times in Israel, where he moved from Argentina in 1974, due to the fact that his daughter, and son-in-law, and two children moved there before. I think in '71. So, each time when I went, I used to go for Passover, and have Passover, the Seder, you know, with him. Unfortunately, he passed away in '93. Only here at the ripe age, he was 91. So he had a full life.

Was he the oldest of all the brothers and sisters?

He was the oldest.

And what was his name?

Chaim. Chaim Ben Zion.

Was there any of the brothers and sisters that you were particularly close with?

There wa- in particular, I was with my older brother. Hirsch Meyer was his name. And he was a few years older than me, from the same mother. And, uh, you know, in the old country, uh, you didn't have so many rooms like you have in here. So we had a bed, we slept together. And when he used to go to a movie, you know, he came back at night. I was a little boy. He used to tell me the story, what there was then, I used to, you know, enjoy it. So we were very close. And later, before the war, he was married. And he had a little boy, five, six years old when the war started. Actually, both brothers had little boys. At the same age, there were maybe a month, two apart. And, uh, got lost in the war.

You were talking about the shtiebel you went to, the, the small synagogue.

Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit about that, what it was like there?

Oh, it was like, I would say, one big room, kind of wide with, with, uh, columns, ceiling probably, maybe nine feet ceiling. And there was the cabinet where they kept the scrolls, aron qodesh, you know, and a big table for reading the Torah in the middle of the room. And I would say maybe 30, 40 people, mostly older people. And the younger people like me and my brothers, so when father was alive, he used to go with him Saturday. However, they were inside, we were staying outside and debating politics, you know. And. uh, when I was a boy, about, uh, oh, 10, 12, 13, they used to send me, uh, to buy, uh, pastry, you know, while the services were going on, we were outside eating those. Uh, then, uh, the holidays, like Purim, you know, there was something, uh, different than you see in here, especially Simchas Torah, you know. Uh, religious people didn't drink the whole year. However, Simchas Torah, then that's a mitzvah, the drink. And I remember in particular the one, which was, uh the gabbai, in the synagogue, He used to go around to all the people and take a drink, you know, and he wish a gut yontuf. By the time he finished, he was drunk. And I remember distinctively, there was a few years before the war, that he actually was laying in the gutter. And he was a pious, you know, religious, wonderful man. And that's what he did. He just overdone it. That was a big miss for the doer. And we kids, we enjoyed those things, singing with the Torah, you know. You feel that you participate in it, you know.

So it sounds like those were good days for you.

Oh, they were very good days. Uh, When I look back, sure, we have a nice life here. Oh, it's a different life. You don't have the camaraderie among people which we had growing up. You know, here, you don't want to go to anybody's house without calling, or waiting to be called, you know. Over there, it was a different thing. You want to go someplace, you just knock on the door. You walked in. If you came at supper time, they usually invite you over, sit down, eat with us. It was a different approach to everything. And, um, and there's something which I'm still missing. And, uh, wherever I go to Israel and meet some of my old friends, you know, school friends, they feel that you just saw them yesterday, not, not that you were apart for a few years. You know, I usually go every two, three years. You feel like we saw each other yesterday. It's a good feeling. And, uh, they'll tell you anything there is about us, anything which you wouldn't think anybody will tell you anything about his private life, or his family life, or what's going on between him and his wife, and he, anything, you know, to complain about, they'll tell you. It's your own fine idea.

November 22, 1995, with Eli Modenstein. You were talking about your life before the war. When, when did this life start to change?

Actually it started, everything started about September 1, 1939. Germany attacked Poland. It was early in the morning, and we heard planes go by, not too many, and dropping bombs. There were a few casualties, and the whole city, an uproar, you know, took off. We were close to the German border, about 10 miles, 18 kilometers, maybe 11 miles. And, everybody took off. People didn't have any way, even, uh, no autos or even horse and buggies. Um, like I mentioned, we had a junkyard. And so it happened that one, um, farmer came by, and he lost one of his wheels on the wagon. So he came in, if he could find a wheel, in the junk. Which he found. So, uh, to make a deal with him, we put some, um, clothes, you know, and packages on the, on the horse and buggy, You know, and one of my youngest sisters got on the wagon, and he took off. You know, and I was afraid for my little sister, and I ran after him, it took me a few miles till I caught up with him. Anyway, I got up with him, and, um, I don't remember exactly how we got in a little town about, uh, 12 miles from my hometown. I had a cousin over there, and so this was the idea to get there and stay with him for a few days, till the front, you know, moves, gets quiet.

So you wanted to go just by yourself, or to take your family?

Uh, that's what the whole family was planning to do. And, uh, they came afterwards. I don't remember how they came. They must have got ride too, because like I said, they were 12 miles. And my mother was already an older lady, and, um, (clears throat) we met again at the cousin's place. The war started on September 1st, which was on a Friday. Uh, so Friday, Saturday, we were in this little town, uh, by the name Sękowo. And, uh, Sunday, German planes attacked this little town. So, uh, you could see a lot of cows were killed from the bombs. Some people next to them. And again, people took off again from there, you know. And I, together with mother and sisters, uh, we did separated from my older brother and his wife and their little boy. And, um, we went in the direction of Płock, a larger city. We had some family over there too, so this is why we go there. And didn't take, we stayed a few days, I don't know, two, three days. And the German army caught up with us again, and they figured there's no use running anymore. They better go back. And actually, I started back, you know.

Back to Mława?

Back to Mława, you know. And I remember walking, you know, the highway, and a German patrol stopped us with officers, asked me in German, you know, where to go in a certain direction, which I showed them, this way you're going. Didn't say anything. And I just marched down till I got to my hometown. I must have been like 45, 50 miles away when I started back. And then we came back, and, uh, my house was, wasn't, uh, destroyed, was standing. We moved back in, and, uh, we started opening up the oil factory. We stopped making oil, people stopped coming, you know, buying, already at that time, to start buying the German money. And, um, this was going on for a few months. There was no radio, no paper, nothing. We didn't know any German either. Only little by little, you start picking up. That's close to Yiddish, you know, so we just picked it up from there. Till, uh, the iron business didn't go at the time, everything was laying there. Till, uh, one man came, and he showed us a paper that he's supposed to take over the iron business. He was a German. Nothing you could do. So we prepared to load everything on, on wagons, horse and buggy wagons, and wheeled it over to a different place, from the yard we had. And, uh, at that time, they started taking people to work, to clean the streets, to different things, you know, cut, uh, wood for the German army. Uh, you didn't get paid for that. Actually, you could get beaten up, too. So to be more secure, we asked this man which took over the business, if we could work for him. For nothing, you see. And he was a nice fellow, actually. We got along just fine. And the same thing happened with the oil factories we had. One Volksdeutsche from a nearby town came. His wife was German. He was a Pollack, he was a sergeant in the Polish army. So he came, he took over the oil, oil factory. And he also took over a candy factory from somebody else. So he wanted to move in the candy factory where we lived. And he moved us in, in the place where the candy factory was, you know. Just four walls. So we moved in over there, and we lived there, until the close of the ghetto, actually. The life in the ghetto, you couldn't go out of the ghetto.

When did it become a ghetto?

The ghetto became on, uh, December 1940. Until then, you could go and move around. Only you had your, uh, Jude star, a yellow star. You had to wear in the front and in the back. And you couldn't walk on the sidewalks. When a German soldier came by, you had to take off your hat for him. And, uh, if they picked you up to work, you know, you didn't get paid for nothing.

And when you say they, was it the Germans?

The Germans.

The soldiers themselves?

Right, right. One time I was walking in the street, you know, and a few of them, you know, picked me up. Loaded us on, on trucks, and took us to the railroad to unload coal. And, uh, like I said, I was used to shovel. So I knew how to shovel, you know, wiggle down to one side to the bottom, and then you could shovel. See? If you want to take a shovel with coals from the top, that isn't so easy. So anyway, there were a few of us. And we worked the whole day taking off from the railcars into our trucks. And at the end, you know, let us go, and that's it. We were glad we hadn't gotten beaten up for it. So those things were going on constantly. If I wasn't among them, some others would share to do those works. And like I said, I worked in this junkyard for this fellow. Me and my brother and older brother. So, um, this was going on, uh, till about '41. And one day, we went out of work. They came in, and they had the whole, uh, population go to one place, you know, a big lot. And they erected a scaffold, and they hanged three people on it. There was a friend of mine, which lives now in England, his father. And then I had a friend, which I went to school with. He was a policeman in the ghetto. It was him. And I don't remember what was the third. Anyway, the whole population had to watch it. I wasn't there. I, with a few other people in my family, we had an attic from the kitchen. We could remove a board, you know, and crawl up from the table with a chair and crawl up into the attic. And we stayed there. However, one sister-in-law went and took my younger sister with her. And after the hanging, the SS shot into the people. And my little sister, she was about ten at that time, got killed. And what was her name? Her name was Chana. And, um, so happened they buried her across the street, almost, from our window. She was buried there, and a few other women. Same place. So was this the first time that you remember people being shot in the ghetto? Uh, no, this wasn't the first time. Uh, no, let me go back. This was the first time when this happened. And then afterwards, they had picked up a hundred people, a few months later. Could have been in '42 already at that time. They picked up a hundred people. They kept them for a few days. And then they took them all out on a field. They had them, you know, dug a big hole. And everybody from town had to be there. They lined up 50 in front of the hole, which they dug. And they announced, if we'll hear one little scream, we're going to shoot the other 50. So they shot us 50 people. Among them was a friend I went to school with too. And, uh, nobody raised their voice or said anything or breathed, even. So to save the other 50 people, this was a second time. Eventually, from time to time, somebody got shot for something. Or nothing. They happened to be in the way of somebody. So this was the life in ghetto, uh. We had rationed everything. We had to have cards to get a minimum of things. And you had tickets you had to buy to get water, in the pails. So, uh, there was one place where they distributed the water. You went with a couple pails. And they had a cart and they punched the holes. And you had to carry it home, which was, you know, like half a mile. Only that time, I was, you know, 21. I could take two pails and walk like nothing. And that's the way the life went on. And, there were sicknesses and typhus started. Uh, no medicine or doctors, actually. Uh, [coughs] there was a friend of mine, which learned to be a nurse. She was a doctor in the ghetto. And she took care of all those sick people, mostly typhus. And there was one friend, which got hung. He got sick on typhus, and they took him out from the hospital for the hanging. This was going on until the end of '42. And then, they closed up the ghetto.

Before you tell me about that, can I ask you a few more questions about the ghetto?

Yes, please.

You said that you had to move from where you were?

We moved from the place we lived, from Płocka 31 to a street in Warszawska. I don't remember the number. There where the candy factory was. And we lived there till the end of the ghetto, when they liquidated the ghetto. And you moved there because of this particular gentleman that... There were no places where to move to, you see. Uh, they created the ghetto in a couple streets. And the city, which was a good-sized city, they had 3,500 Jewish people. They packed them in, in those houses, which were available. So in one apartment, you could have three or four families. Like, uh, we lived there, and it was my brother, his wife, and a little boy. And there were two families from a different town, which they brought in. To my hometown, from Rypin. There was a father, mother, and two daughters, grown up already. One must have been 22, 3, the other one maybe 18, 19. And, uh, then was, uh, theirs, uh, I think, the wife's brother, and a wife with one child, a little girl. So we all lived in two rooms, small rooms. I would say 10 by 10, 10 by 11.

Did you have enough to eat in the ghetto?

Uh, we ourselves, my family, we did. Uh, due to the fact that I looked more like a non-Jewish, like, Christian, and my Polish was perfect, no accent whatsoever. I used to go to, out of the ghetto, you know. And I knew a lot of people, and used to do a lot of dealing with them. And I used to bring in different things to eat.

So did you have to, was this before the ghetto was closed?

This was, the ghetto was already closed. However, there was a gate, there was Jewish police watching the gate. And I knew the people, and they kind of looked the other way. When I went in, if I brought something, like for instance, I used to bring coals.

Coals?

Coals, yeah. And I used to bring potatoes, as a matter of fact, when they took, I saw it, when they took, I saw it, I had 1,500 kilograms of potatoes. A kilogram is two and a half pounds. That's about 4,000 pounds of potatoes I had put away for the winter. Outside, you know, made a big hole, covered with straw and, uh, dirt, and had a little opening for it. So when we were driven out of the ghetto, this was left. So, uh, we managed, my, my family in particular, we did. There were a lot of people, which, uh, lived under Russians and got []. And, uh, they used to go around and ask for a piece of bread, or, or, a few potatoes, things like that.

And did you ever do any work in the ghetto? You said that sometimes you were assigned to do these jobs.

I did a lot of things in the ghetto. Uh, before I started working for these men in the junkyard, I used to go out with, every morning they took out, uh, an amount of people, a few hundred people. And I used to go to clean the toilets, outside toilets, you know, uh, cutting wood, you know, so on, and cutting with axe. Or they were taking apart the buildings which were bombed out, though there were not any machinery like they have now, you know, those, tanks where it's swinging in and knocks down the walls. One used to crawl up, you know, take off from the top, go down to the bottom. And we cleaned them up, put them away in stacks. So there was always, or, or, clean the street with a broom. It was always something they took you out for.

You said that you knew some of the Jewish police.

Yes. Uh, they were working under the supervision of the German police. Only they were never, not never, most of the time, they were alone, you know. And, uh, when they could, they looked the other way. When the Germans were there, they acted differently too, you know. They had to do it.

How did people get chosen to be in the Jewish police?

I don't even know if they were volunteering. I doubt it. I think they assigned one person, and this person picked some stronger, younger people to, uh, be the policemen. And for the most part, how did the Jewish people inside the ghetto treat each other? With respect, we cared for each other. We helped each other. You can imagine that three or four different families moving in, in a one- or two-room, you have to cook in the same stove, a coal stove, or wood stove, which you don't turn on with a switch. You have to blow in and make the fire going, and they have to cook three or four families separately. And three or four women, they get along. So we did. We knew the circumstances, and we did the best of what we had.

At that time, did you have any idea of what was going on or how bad that things could get?

No, no. Actually, those people which lived with us, from Rypin, one of the townspeople came at a later time. He came back from, uh, more east, and he told us what he heard over there, what they're doing. Like, they take people on trucks and they gas them, and you looked at them, you're crazy. We would do things like that, you know. Nobody did believe that anything like that would go on. Uh, although, I forgot to mention, I had a radio hidden. And at that time, you had to have an antenna to run a radio, you know. And especially, if we wanted to pick up, what we could pick up, England or Moscow. So, uh, we used to take it out late in the evening when it was dark already, and I hooked up a wire. We had drain pipes, aluminum drain pipes. I hooked up the wire, you know, into the house. We listened to the news at a certain time, and hide it away. If they would find the radio, they would kill us all, you know. So we knew a little bit what was going on. Only the beginning of the war, they were going forwards all the time. There weren't any good news for us, you see. So, um, however, we knew something. And we hoped that the war will end soon. Only it didn't end soon. It took six years.

When did the Germans start to take people out of the ghetto? Was it gradually, or all the years?

No. No. They came, actually, at one time. We, they took us out on a big field, not far where we lived. And they picked out the older people. Amongst them was my mother and my sister. And they made them march, you know. There were posts standing every few feet, or maybe 20 feet. And they showed them where to go. They went in an abandoned, uh, mill, flour mill. The machinery was gone, so they kept them over there for a couple days. And then they shipped them out.

Where to?

I'm not sure. Either they went to Treblinka, or they went someplace east, where they killed them. So how my mother lost her life, and sister? I don't know.

But that was the last time you saw them?

This was, this was the last time I saw them, sure. And, um, then a few days later, very shortly afterwards, they let us know, nobody went to work or anything. The ghetto was closed off with the German police on the outside. And they told us they're going to resettle us to a work camp. In other words, we'll be working there. We'll get to eat. And, uh, we'll be treated, you know, humane. And, uh, one day, they announced, together again on a certain spot, and, uh, they marched us to the railroad train. And actually, before they marched out, they asked us, you know, they went around with boxes to give up any, you know, gold, silver, or money. You can keep, uh, your ring, a wedding ring you could keep. All the rest you had to give up. And there was a little girl, a friend of my sister, and that time he was in Israel, the friend. Actually, he was a policeman, in the Palestine, before the Jewish state was established. His little sister, they picked her out from the group, you know, and they looked at her and they pulled out five German marks. Why didn't you give it up, pulled out his gun, shot her in the head, right in front of everybody.

How old was this girl?

She was, this girl could have been, 12, 13, maybe 14 years. So, you know, after seeing that, a lot of people started emptying their pockets, and throwing away.

When did this happen?

This happened in, I think October '42. Or was it already November? And they had already taken away the older people. Older people were gone already a few days before. These were the people which were still, uh, in good health, younger people. So, uh, they marched us to the railroad trains, put us on the trains, closed the doors, and away we go.

Were these cattle cars?

Cattle cars, right.

And where did you go?

We went for about three days, till we came to Auschwitz.