My name is Joe Fishel and I was planning to make this tape for quite a while and I never got around to it. Today I have a free day and I figure I'm gonna sit down and chat with you and tell you all about me. I was born in Poland in Będzin in 1921 and I had two brothers and two sisters. My father's name was Bendit. My mother's name was Rivka and they were born in Będzin, Poland and they were related to each other. They were first cousins. And they were married in 1913. We had a grandmother by the name of Perle living with us before the war. My grandfather's on my mother's side name was Elimaloch. My grandmother's name was Perle. She lived while I was born. The rest of my grandparents were not alive. On my father's side, my grandfather's name was Meyer and his mother's name was Yeral, which Aunt Rinky is named after her. My father was born in 1896 and my mother was born in 1898. My grandmother Perle died in 1934 and my father died in 1931.
Now I'm going to tell you a little more about my cousins and so forth. My mother's name was Rivka and she had one brother, his name was Chaim Leib. And he had two sons, one was named Meyer and the other one was Yaakov. And then he had six daughters. I don't remember their names, but six daughters should be sufficient because I can't think back so far. My father had a much bigger family. He had three brothers, of course one sister and two daughters in the United States. One was named Mannes one was named Yosef Hersh and one was named Shaya. Mannes had four children, two boys and two girls. Yosef Hersh had six children, three brothers and three girls. And Shaya had four, one boy and three girls.
And this was my closest family we ever had. We were very close to each other. We used to see each other practically at least once a week or more. Sometimes we used to see each other every day because we lived close to each other. We didn't live too far away from each other. So in a small town, if you want to see somebody, you just walk out in the street and you see everybody you want to see. We have quite a few second cousins on my grandmother's side. And on my grandfather's side, on two grandfathers' and grandmothers' sides, which we were very friendly with them. We were not too close with them, but we were very friendly. As far as I remember, I can't go back too far.
I remember when my father died. I can describe to you today what happened to my father. First, I'd like to tell you what I heard, because I was very young when my father died. My father had a factory from shirts. He used to deliver all the shirts he could make to Woolworths. We had a Woolworths in Katowice. Katowice was only 15 miles away from Będzin. And all the shirts, he had a friend over there. His name was Simberknopf. I don't know, he lived, he knew him for quite a while. He went to America and he got hooked up with the Woolworths stores in the United States. Then he came back and he opened quite a few stores in Poland. And this man told my dad, whatever he has, whatever he can make whatever he can produce, he'd be glad to take it from him.
So that's what we did. We had about 15 machines working every day, about 15 girls, making shirts, different kinds of shirts, sports shirts, all kinds of shirts. My father used to be a specialist. He used to be a cutter. I found out a little later, when I was a little older, my father could cut out, there was a hundred yards of material, or 200 yards of material. He could always cut out an extra shirt out of this material, which nobody else could do. So that's why he was a very good professional man. He knew what he was doing. He didn't know how to sew, but he knew how to cut all kinds of new designs and different things on the shirts. And he was very good at it.
My dad was not a too religious man. He used to go Shabbos to the synagogue, but during the week he didn't go. He used to go sometimes in the evening, you see. But we lived in a town where most, I would say 95% were Jews, you see. So we had synagogues all over. Wherever we went, we had synagogues. We used to come Saturday, Friday afternoon all the stores used to close up. Nothing was open. Saturday all the stores were closed on account of Shabbos. We used to have big soccer matches on Saturday. My dad used to love to go to the soccer matches on Saturday. Mother used to be mad. Sometimes he used to take me along and sneak me in there too. But he always told me, "When you come home, don't tell mother that I'm taking you to the soccer match." Sundays we used to go to the soccer match.
My dad used to love to swim. And he used to take us all the time to the lake and swim with us. And I was too young to enjoy my father. I wish I would be a little older. But the time came in 1931 when my dad came home. It was on a Sunday afternoon, and he took sick. He had an attack, a gallstone attack. In Europe, before the war, they didn't do anything to you. They gave you a painkiller, and then he continued with the pains. And he was screaming. It was something awful. The man was laying a whole week in bed. The doctor came, probably gave him an aspirin. That's all they did before the war. And all of a sudden, one Friday night was around this time of the year. It was around, I think it was January the 7th then, 1931. We all went to sleep. We all got dressed for the next day to go to school and we wished him good night. We went to sleep at 12 o'clock at night.
He passed out on us. I don't know if he had a heart attack or... he just died on gallstones. And it was a miserable day the next day. It was a funeral, the funeral was awful cold. It must have been about 25 or 30 below zero at the time. I'll never forget this. You know, in Europe, funerals are not like over here. They used to take you out of your own house. You know, my father was laying on the floor all night. Thursday and Friday they used to take him out of the house. And they used to carry him about five, six miles. That's the way it used to be, funerals. It was a very bad day of our life. Everything, after my father died, everything changed. The whole, the whole thing changed.
See my, I had a older sister by the name of Lola. She went to business school. Well, you know, after my father died, there was nobody to run the business. My mother was trying and we couldn't do it. So little by little, we sold everything out. We sold the machines out. We sold the material out. You know, when you start selling things, and there was a woman, one lady. She had five kids on her hands. I had a sister by the name of Fela. She was my second sister. And Fela went to school then too. We all had to quit school. Then I had a brother by the name of Elimaloch. He went to high school. He had to quit school. I and Dave were the only ones who... I went to school, but not Dave. Dave had to stay home. But we all had to turn around and pitch in. See, in Europe it was proper. Everybody should pitch in for rent and for food. You know, everybody who went to work had to pitch in. So my sister got a job. My older sister. My younger sister got a job too. And they all started making money. We didn't make any big money. We couldn't hardly support ourselves. You see, then my brother had to go to be an apprentice. He used to make sweaters. So in order to become a sweater man on a machine, you have to be an apprentice. So he was an apprentice. He worked for two years for free. And then, about around '36, '37, '38 he would start making some money.
But times were very rough. Right after my father died, 1932, 1933, there were days we went around hungry. There were days everybody went to work without any food. It wasn't easy. It was a very hard life. But nobody knew that we were going around hungry. See, the house always used to look clean. Everybody was dressed nice. And we never complained to anybody. We never complained. I had a lot of friends, rich friends around me, you know. By rich, you know in Europe if somebody had enough food on the table and he was dressed nice, he was rich. It isn't like over here. So, times were very rough between '32 and '35. They were very, very, very bad. We lived in a beautiful apartment. We had a three-room apartment on the first floor. So, our landlord was nice enough, after my father died, to let us stay for two years, can you imagine? Without paying rent. We paid them all back afterwards.
When everybody started working, we all started pitching in and we all paid our rent. We paid all our bills off. And about 1936, 1937, mother started opening, she opened a little restaurant. My grandfather was very well known in Będzin. He used to have a big restaurant. All the big senators and councilmen used to come to him. And he was very well known. If somebody wanted a favor, a government favor or something, he was right there and helped them. Sometimes he used to free guys, you know, when they used to go to the military. He saw to it that they shouldn't go. He could do miracles. When he died, all this disappeared. And the same thing was when my father died. We were very well known in Będzin. But old-timers knew who we are. Young people, you know, my age, they, people know me.
What sticks out on me the best was holidays. The holidays were the nicest part of the whole European culture and European life. Because holidays were something beautiful. Of course when you're a child, everything is beautiful to you. I was about 10, 12 years old. Purim, I'll never forget. Purim was the nicest holiday. In Europe, especially in Będzin we used to have people going around just like people go around Halloween here. But they used to make big parties, Purim parties. So we used to have an uncle by the name of Bendit and one uncle by the name of Sruko[?]. Sruko[?] had his, they both have stores, paint stores. They were very well off people. I mean very well off. They had a lot of property and they had money and everything else. So they were the rich uncles. And the rich uncles used to invite the whole family over to read the Megillah and make a big party. In Europe the parties were just like weddings. We used to spend the whole evening. We used to go to 8 o'clock and a lot of people used to come just like Halloween to the doors, knock at the door. And we used to give them money or we used to give them food. And we always used to go once a year. As a child I'll never forget this. This was the highlight of the year of course. We used to go to our uncle. They used to read the Megillah over there. And we used to have a big, big dinner. So much food. I've never seen so much food in my life. So all year we always talked about this dinner. He used to read the Megillah for us. And we used to "daven" and we used to "bench". We used to sing all kind of different songs. And that was fantastic.
And we had two groups. One group was at Bendit's and one was at his house. And then about 12 o'clock, 12:30 I never forget, my parents used to get together in their house. So one house used to have about 30, 40 people every year. And that was a lot of people, let me tell you something. And we had so much fun, just like a wedding, you know. I mean, old-time European weddings. They're celebrated, of course we, I fell asleep. They celebrate usually 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. Then Sukkot was a beautiful holiday too. I'm telling you, we lived in an apartment, 58 apartments, and every apartment had sons. And they used to sing, z'miros there, so beautiful you have no idea. All the time, every Saturday night. They'd open the windows, and one used to sing nice, and prettier than the other one. But Sukkot was especially nice. We had about three big Sukkot on the whole, on the first floor, then all the balconies had a Sukkot. We all, for all the years, we used to eat in the balcony. On the third floor, my neighbor used to have a balcony, and my father always used to eat upstairs. I always wanted to go down, because downstairs were a lot more kids, and there were more fun downstairs than upstairs. But Sukkot was beautiful. We used to sing, and we had the best good time. This is what I can remember in my young years.
These are the parts that always stick out on me the most. I have to go back to 1929, when I was a little boy. I'll never forget this. My Uncle Manas went to Israel. He went to Israel, and he had it pretty good at home in Będzin. He made a pretty good living, but for some reason they decided to go to Israel in 1929. And he was not the type to go and start working there in a kibbutz. 1929 was very rough times over there. He went over there and stayed about six months. In the middle of the night, somebody knocks at our door, and here they are, the whole family. There were about five or six people. And we had to bed down on the floor. We bed them down, and it was a pretty rough time of our life. My dad, may he rest in peace, I'll never forget what he always used to say. "I don't know why." He loved his brother, but he could never stand his wife. She was just like somebody I know. They stayed with us for about two weeks in our house. And then they found an apartment, and they moved out of there.
See, my father had a chance to come to the United States, because I remember Judas always begging him to come to the United States. And he never wanted to go away. They loved the Będzin very much. See, they did very good over there. And when Manus went away, they found out that he was going to leave the country too, so the creditors were after him. They didn't want to give him any credit, so he begged everybody not to talk about going away or something. I'll never forget, that's what he always used to say. The creditors didn't want to give him any credit anymore, because they thought he was going to leave the country. Because Manus, when he left the country, I think he must have done something to the creditors. I never forget, I had a cousin by the name of Alter Fischel. He was Shia's son. When he was a young man, I never forget, when he was 16 years old or 17, my father always used to tell me, "This guy is a genius, and I'm going to take him out, and he's going to make a mensch out of him." So my father always used to show him how to cut and everything else, and then he turned him over to one of his friends, who had a big shirt factory, and he started working for him, and all of a sudden he switched around and became very popular, and he opened himself a store for himself. When he opened the store for himself, he forgot my father on the way up, you see. So my father got mad at him, he said, "You'll never talk to him again." I don't know what happened between them two, something must have happened between them two very bad, because when my father died, he never came to the funeral. They were very close. And I don't know if my father asked for help, or he asked for whatever it was, and he didn't want to do it to him, so he probably had a big argument. They never saw each other again. So I was trying to bring this out.
I know, I think the Alter has some sons, I don't know if they live in Germany or in the United States. I never saw them. I don't know if I should still carry around a grudge against those people or I should be death resentful or hateful because all the years I knew this in Germany, I never made a point to go and see those guys because I was hurt because my father died. He never showed up to the funeral even so that's why we always were hurt and mad at him. We never saw those people afterwards for quite a while. I didn't even notice they live in town. That's how we felt about him. And I don't know if I -if I do the right thing if, I don't do the right thing but I still if I ever see those people again I think I got enough in me to forgive him for it because it's not their fault you see that's their father's fault, so if I ever run across them I think I'm gonna talk to those people and try to make up and try to make them understand. Or try to talk to him and explain him what happened because I don't think they know they were too young to realize that probably their father probably didn't tell him about it. I never talked about it right now I have a chance to tell my stories or I want -I want somebody to know what actually happened.
Times are very rough from 1931 until about 35, 36. Yeah, you know all of us started growing up we all started getting jobs I took a job when I was 12 years old and I went to night school to make up high school, had a hard time -very hard time before the war in 1939 I made 95 złoty here and just like 95 dollars then that was a lot of money for a boy I was 15 years old 16 years old in '39. So it was a lot of money for a guy like me. I worked in a, there was a factory by the name of [?] what I did I did mostly payrolls and Europe didn't have checks I come here they used to have taxes taxes just like check you know the people used to write for 30 days a note they used to go through the bank and we used to deposit those those notes to the bank the bank carried it for 30 days the bank charged the people so much for carrying so everybody used to pay for these notes and I was in charge of this.
The first job of mine was in 1934, 35. I think I was working on a organization -in Europe they used to have people carrying around leaflets like we had a meeting or something I used to be to carry it I used to carry around to different people different members in my hometown, then I learned how to type and one of my friends saw me there his name was Fisher Henny Fisher and he kind of come to like me. He said tell you what I don't think so you make enough money here I'll give you another job, so he promised me a job. One day he calls me said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to take you over to my place where I work and I introduce you to my boss and you got a better future over there than here." And about 36 I went over there and the boss knew my mother very well, he was my mother's age.
My mother was very popular when they have young years and he knew her very well, he started talking to me and he gave me the job right away. I started making 75 złoty. Plain labor at the time used to make two and a half złoty a day - can you imagine how much we made, that's how we made -that's how the wages were. A lot of money I used to make 75, my brothers got out of the apprenticeship. And he used to make 60 or 70 dollars and my sister was making money both sisters were making money so everything went back a little bit to normal, we didn't have to go around hungry anymore. My mother opened a little restaurant - I don't know if I told you already about it at home and she was cooking. During the holidays we had Jewish soldiers coming for the holidays -for the high holidays. We had a big Seder my mother cooked for them they used to come in for breakfast, lunch, and dinner we had about 30 40 soldiers. And we made enough money - made enough money and paid all the bills for the whole year and this went on for 36 to 39 til the war broke out. When the war broke out we still had some money coming for the Jewish Community Center they paid us off during the war that's how we lived through the first period of the war 1939 we lost our jobs right away in 39 and this is how the war started. The war started in 1939 on a Friday I'll never forget. The German bombard Poland and the war started seven o'clock, by nine o'clock we knew there's a war. We lived through the first period of the war 1939, we lost our jobs right away in 39. We didn't even know there's a war. We saw planes flying we didn't know where they're going and it didn't take him long to take over the country and they took over the country in no time. They were Friday afternoon, Saturday morning they were already in Będzin, the Germans. So the first what they did they closed up there was a synagogue in the church in our town, they closed up the whole neighborhood and burned the whole synagogue out with the people in them. They didn't let them out, it was the first how do you do.
They showed us how to behave and believe you me, it was very rough. You ran out of food we had to stay in line for bread every morning, so I used to get up five o'clock in the morning in order to get first in line then we had a uh policeman -a German policeman if things weren't going. You know people were hungry they were pushing or something so he took out every fifth guy. The first week every fifth guy and shot him, I was pretty fortunate I wasn't - I wasn't the fifth so that's how I lived through this. The following week they put out announcements because all the Jews have to wear white bands with a star on it. Any Jews thats going to be found without a star in a white band in the street is going to be shot to death.
So everybody had to put a band down and I was living close to the police station and I have to get and every, every time they needed somebody to clean the place they grabbed me because I walked out with my band they knew notice I'm Jewish so they grabbed me to the police station. I got acquainted with a policeman and he didn't believe when he first saw me he said I'm Jewish because from all the pictures and all the propaganda what they showed them Jews that looked like Arabs their long beards, you see we had some of this in Poland too. They go around and you know how they steal how they rob people that's what they show them the propaganda machine all of a sudden he sees a normal boy just like I am short cut dressed like a human being so I had a conversation with the guy and he told me about it he says he never knew this, that the Jews looked like I am if I wouldn't have worn the band he would never know about the Jews.
The Germans didn't know who was a Jew but the Poles helped them if there are Jews couldn't be found or something the Poles were there right away to show who is a Jew so after we had our bands on so they didn't have a hard time finding out who was a Jew. It was very hard to get out the streets because every time you went in the streets somebody hit you, they chased you, they run after you. It was very miserable the first two months then everything settled down alright we know our places we knew where we couldn't go where we could go so we always just stayed together you see but I was good like I said every second day every third day to the police station then I that was my my job already I didn't let him catch me anymore I said I'll tell you what I'm gonna come in here every day and clean your place you shine your shoes so you wouldn't have to grab me all the time. So the guy got acquainted with me he kind of liked me so he helped me out he always gave me a piece of bread or something like this and I did we have another sergeant by the name of Mischka he was a regular killer he used to go around with a big dog, a german shepherd, and he used to beat up on people.
He couldn't he couldn't stand anybody I'll never forget my cousin, from Paris Jakub he beat the heck out of him the guy was laying for about two weeks in the hospital and the guy went around afterwards he was - he was so mad at me after he got beat up he was he slowed down he was kind of scared. They were looking for my cousin for about three weeks my cousin took him - ran away to Paris during the war. He told them that they shot him and buried him right away this is what they told him so for some reason he let go of it. In the meantime my cousin went to Paris he changed his name and from Paris, anyway, in 1943 was shipped out to the concentration camp and he lived through the concentration camp to tell the story about it and I was in Paris in 1965. He told me the story and he had a brother was the same way he came into Będzin with a with a big car, big Mercedes, as a German officer. And who turned him in? A Polack turn him in that's how they they caught him and they hung them.
And I kind of got tired around October 1939, I said I'm gonna take off and go to the Russian zone. Russian zone was about a hundred, hundred fifty miles away from Będzin, from my home town. We picked up one morning. I didn't want it. I said goodbye to my parents my mother and all my sisters and brother I said, "I'll tell you what, I'm taking off. I can't stand being here. I'm young. I want to go to Russia. A lot of people came from down the other side and they say this, 'the Jews in Russia have it pretty good to get jobs, they're not discriminated.' So I said why don't I go over there and if I like it over there I'll bring you all over there." That wasn't easy. We went, you know the first couple three weeks war started everybody went everybody run places I wound up in Lwów where I met some friends from home-from Będzin and I was together with them and all of a sudden after being four weeks. I was very miserable, you slept on the floors and different kind of apartments.
After being there about three weeks, I couldn't take it any longer. They put out one morning, it was in October, they put out some signs all over the streets, "everybody has to register for work." And so I said, "I always have time to register." It was around Monday. I said, "I still have time till about Friday. So I want to be the last to register." I didn't want to register right away. Some guys registered, they took him and sent them to Donbas. Donbas was a coal mine. When they sent him away, they told him where they're going. I said, "it's a coal mine I got plenty of time to go." So I picked up and turned around and went to Sarnoff[?]. It was about 25-30 miles away from Lwów, to Sarnoff[?].
I got acquainted with some people I knew from before the war and I stayed with them for a couple, three days and they smuggled me back to Germany. I said, "when I die, at least I'm going to die, my whole family I don't want to stay there if I couldn't bring them over there with me and to Donbas, you know, to the coal mine I didn't want to take my mother along. So I figured I'm going to go back, I was very homesick. Every time I took a picture of my sisters and my mother I cried, and I couldn't take it after all. At the time I was about 16, 17 years old, it was very hard on me. So the first opportunity I had to cross the border, I went back. I came back I never forget my mother, she starts screaming at me. "Why the heck did you come back? Why didn't you save yourself? We don't know what's going to happen to us. At least I know you would be safe there." And I felt good about it and she left us. So I told her "I'm going to be wherever you're going to be. And I don't want to go away, I'm going to stay right here with you. And whatever happens to me, or to you, it should happen to me. I don't want to go nowhere."
Sure enough, we stayed around there for a year. And after a year about October the 7th or 8th, I got a knock on the door. We still lived in our old apartment, still our furniture and everything. But, like I said, we had odd jobs, we were very hungry. The ration cards what they gave us wasn't enough to live on and we didn't have any money saved or put away like some rich people, that they could go out and buy on the black market. We couldn't afford to do it. We only left whatever we got on the ration cards, and I saw my mother shrink. You know, she was getting skinny all the time. It broke my heart, just looking at her. So, when they, in October the 5th, came into our house in the middle of the night, they knocked on the door. And I figured, this is it that was what took us out to a house of orphans, a Jewish house of orphans. They called it "Sierociniec," and they had a big auditorium over there. And they kept 300 guys locked up in the auditorium. We were there for about... Two nights.
The first night they shipped out the first shipment, 150 boys, and I was picked to the second shipment. The first shipment went to Germany, They went to the worst camp there was. Most of these guys didn't last too long, because they worked in a powder factory. They used to make powder for ammunition, make bullets, all kinds of bullets. Most of these guys died like flies. The second transport went to Bałtyc Saybusch, Jeleśnia. Jeleśnia was on the Polish border, so we were in contact with Polish people. We could speak our own language, and the Poles helped us out as much as they could. Of course they didn't help us out because they were good guys, just because we did some business with them.
I'll tell you about this, what we did with them a little later. First I want to tell you how they do when we got to Elysium[?]. We came into Elysium[?], we were, I told you we were 150 guys. They took us off the train, we didn't know where we were going, everybody kept a suitcase in his hand. We were walking 7 miles from the train depot to the camp. It was only 7 miles, but the roads in Poland were so deep in mud. A foot deep in mud. You know the Polish farm towns, don't have no sidewalks, they don't have no roads. I mean they didn't have them then, now maybe they do have, but then they didn't have anything. So you were just walking in about a foot deep mud. We were lined up 150 guys. These guys were screaming the SS, we should walk faster, we couldn't hardly walk. They had some boots on, we had shoes on. Most of these guys lost their shoes, walking in this mud. It was very miserable, so we finally arrived at the destination. So we walked in a big farm, it was a farmhouse -a big farmhouse. You know they used to have cows in them before.
So they let us in over there, and we stayed overnight without anything. We had to lay down on the floor, you know in October it was pretty cold. That was the first how do you do that we got from the election[?]. So the next day we woke up, there was no food, still was no food. So they divided groups and 25 people to a group. We always used to hang out around you friends, we always used to have 3 or 4 guys staying together. So I was pretty fortunate as they took 3 guys, 3 friends of mine and sent us to the same camp. We got into this camp, it was a little town in Poland Wyszowate. It was close to Cicha[?] -Cicha[?] and we saw it were two little towns. We worked both these towns. What we did over there is, they used to hang down old farm houses and build new prefabricated homes, because they brought down a bunch of German Volksdeutsche from Bessarabia, from Hungary and from Lithuania. They used to make out of ten farms one farm.
So we used to tear down ten Polish old houses, and out of the ten houses we built one prefabricated home. And we did all those buildings, we painted the houses, we did everything inside, and it was pretty good. Life was not bad, because we stayed in contact with Polish people. Usually over the weekends we used to go -we used to have only one SS man watching us. And this man was an old man, and lived close to our barracks. We were not under guard like other camps were, closed, under closed wires. We were free, we were open. We used to go to work in the morning, seven o'clock and get up at five and after five we did our chores. The food was pretty good like I said before. The bread was delivered once a week to us, it was from a Polish bakery and right away we got acquainted with a Polish baker.
We used to give him something, we gave him some clothes or something, so he gave us a couple or three of loaves of extra bread. You know for twenty-five people three or four loaves of bread was a lot. The same thing we did with the meat. See we were not responsible like those big camps, where you have two or three thousand people, everybody steals from you. You know instead of getting a quarter of a pound of bread, they always got a little less than a quarter of a pound, because those big shots in those other camps used to steal from you.
And here we were in a camp, we got whatever ration used to belong to us, and it was very important. It was very nice to be in a camp like this we were just actually like a family. After being four or five weeks in this camp, things start going much better you see. For a while at the beginning they used to shove us around, they told we are a bunch of Jews, we don't know how to work, we don't know what to do. Then they found out that we did a pretty good job, tearing the houses down and building the houses. You know you take a 21 year old man, or a 17, 18 year old man, the oldest in our camp was 22 years old. You take 17, 18 year old guys, we were willing to work, we didn't mind working, work was fun. So we didn't get any mail from home for a while at all, then we started getting mail. The mail opened but all the letters went through a censorship. See they censored all our letters, when we got in the camp, and the same thing going out. And we couldn't say anything bad about the camp, we wrote home it's so good and everything is fine you know, and that's what the Germans wanted you see.
After being four months in this camp, they gave us three days vacation, for a weekend to go home. You know we were workers, hard workers. We showed us we work hard, there was one, the Lagerführer. He was the top man from the German, gave us vacation for three days. So you know we used to go home and every time we went home we took along plenty of food. We used to come home on vacation, just like a bunch of brokers you see, bringing food home. And food was very hard to obtain in my home town, nobody had any food. First ride the first year 1940-41 was very very hard, and it's gotten worse as the years went along. It's gotten even worse, but somebody came home like we used to come home. We used to come home with chunks of salami, big ones.
And that's something they used to see us bring home different things I don't know, we were lucky. For some reason whenever we went, you see we used to go with -they used to call it a Wache, a guard. And the guard was guarding us, he was supposed to be guarding us, but after he took us home he went his way and we went our way. But in the meantime when you go with a guard and the guy wears a big gun, everybody respects him and that's what happened. Whatever we had in our pocket nobody checked us, normally if we would go without a guard they wouldn't let us go through. They wouldn't let us take all this stuff along, when we went with him we took everything home. So we came home and we left enough food for about 2-3 months.
I never forget a first time when I went home. My brother wasn't home anymore, my oldest brother they came in and got him, and he went to this bad factor of what I was telling you. And I don't think he last more than 2-3 months, he died right away, they put him in in the powder factory and from there nobody came out alive. And it didn't take very long for them to die over there at least, alright, they didn't suffer too much. First of all they died for hunger, and secondly they died probably who knows from what. So I was very upset, Dave was only about 10 years old at the time I think, and you know he was a little boy and he started becoming a carpenter. I don't know, he was an apprentice carpenter, he was trying to learn a trade during the war, so you know just in case if he gets some place he should have a trade.
My mother wasn't looking so good, she didn't feel good. My sister and the baby was home, my older sister was home. And of course things were awful bad, they were rough every day, they weren't getting any better, they were getting worse. Just like people are waiting for their death, we didn't know what's going to happen next day, we didn't know that they were going to kill us like this. We knew that something was going to happen, the worst could happen, we figured maybe they would send us out to work. So like I said, we didn't mind working, we showed them that we know how to work.
I forgot to mention one thing which is very important for me, I have to mention. I had a friend, a gentile friend, which came into Będzin in 1938 before the war. He was a very handsome guy, very nice boy, and he kind of looked Jewish, he didn't look like a gentile. And his father opened a big bar next to our house, right next to our house and we got very well acquainted, we were very close friends. I introduced him to all my friends, he didn't have any friends, he didn't know anybody I introduced him to my friends and I introduced him to some of my girlfriends too, nobody knew that he was even a gentile. He used to come over to my house and spend a lot of time in our house, evenings after work. We spent a lot of time together. When the war broke out, when I went home, when I was home his father called me away to the side and said he would appreciate very much if I wouldn't come into his place anymore. He said it in a very nice way, and then I found out they turned Volksdeutsche. That means they're Germans, they've become German. You know, they were afraid they were going to take the bar away from them. They were coming from Oberschlesien, that means they were originally Germans. And they turned Poland, they turned Polish, then they become again Germans.
So I just politely stepped out of the house and I said, I'll tell you what you don't want me around here, I don't have to come around. I didn't lose anything yet and I don't have to see you, I just walked out. You know, I didn't mean any harm and maybe he didn't mean anything either, but I could feel it. You know, usually when I used to come home, the guy used to stay right away, he used to come to the house and be glad to see me. And all of a sudden, you know, I was out two days, I went over the first thing, and the father was forced to tell him I was home but he never told him I was home. So that was the end of the conversation, I just walked out, I never saw the guy again. I came home a few more times, and I never even talked to him -I saw him, he walked by on the street I never wanted to have anything to do with him. If that's the way they felt -you know, some Poles, they were afraid they'd gonna lose their jobs or they'd gonna lose their business or something. So they didn't want to have anything to do with Jews, and he was one of them. So, I lived without him.
You know, that was only the beginning, it was the first year after the war. You see, it was 1940 I'm talking about. You know, a little later it got even worse, these guys were... Sometimes, if a Jew was trying to hide these guys, like him, were showing the Germans where the Jews are hiding. If a Jew was hiding... A Jew that was trying to hide a Jew or something, to save his life. So these guys, the Volksdeutsche actually, used to go around and they used to dig him out wherever they used to be. So I kind of feel awful bad about this guy and when I met him, he was one of the nicest men there was. And, you know, you live with a guy, you know him for a couple years, and I could never understand why a guy should turn this way and be this way. I spent that time three days at home.
Most of the time I spent with my sisters and brothers. Of course, Dave was a little guy and one of my oldest brothers went to camp and he didn't last long. After six weeks they didn't let us know, we found out as he died after six weeks being in camp. And I saw all my friends, but the friends did -most of these friends were tailors. The Germans needed uniforms so they turned the whole town over to a camp of tailors. And they had maybe ten or fifteen thousand people from my hometown employed as tailors there. So as long as they needed them, they kept them there until 1943. And after '43, they took all the Jews out of Będzin. They called it Judenfrei, they took them to Auschwitz.
And I forget it was in June 1943, because I was home still in April, I went home on vacation in April and I saw my mother. The last time I saw my mother in April was for Passover, I came home for two days and I stayed home for two days. And then we got a telegram to come right away back so I have to tell you about my mother. You know, I came in, you know when you're young, you run around like crazy you want to see your girlfriends, your friends. So all this sticks out in my mind, all my life, the rest of my life. I'm going to remember this. My mother said, "Joe, you came home only for two days. Spend a day with your mother, your girlfriends can wait." She said to me, "You got only one mother. You will never have more than one mother in your life, so spend a day with me. Don't run around with your girlfriends or with your friends." But when you're 17 years old you know, you stay with your mother for a half hour, then you still want to see your friends. And I went out and saw my friends, then I came home and she cried.
Those tears her tears, I'll always see them the rest of my life. I'm gonna see her tears, the way she talked to me, the way she was upset. She said, "this is the last time you might see me. So please spend the rest of the time with me." Next day I didn't go nowhere and I spent the whole day with her. And right now I feel bad, because I didn't spend even the first day with her. Because the more I look back about it, the more it bothers me deep down inside, because I didn't spend both days sitting around and talking to my mother. Because this was the last time I saw her in my life and June, July, there was Judenfrei.
She was actually home until the last minute until the last Jew was home in Będzin. That was 1943 in July, they took them all out. They took them all to Auschwitz from there, this is the last word I hear from them, and from my sisters. I'll never forget when we came back to camp, the second day after getting the telegram, everybody was waiting for us. What they did, they took the SS man, what was so nice to us. They took us home on vacations all the time, and they sent him to Auschwitz, because he took us home. They found out that all this taking home, and all those things we were doing were illegal and the man wasn't there to run the rest of the crew. So they took the man and they took the foreman, they used to call him the "Shiba." The main man, the Jewish fellow that used to run the camp, they took him, with the SS man, and they sent him away to Auschwitz.
Let me tell you something, two days later, we did get a new SS man and he was from Auschwitz. And he was just a plain killer, plain killer, I'm telling you. He beat the heck out of us and he made us clean the rooms, he made us throw everything out, he made us be so miserable. We couldn't go out, we couldn't do nothing anymore. For a while, he used to take away the horses, what we used to use, you know, to pull the wood. What we used to build us houses, and we were the horses, we had to pull all the wood up to the hill. A couple of guys got killed because they couldn't hold on, and those banks[?] came back on him. And he was so rough every day, you know, after being so good, being in camp all the two years, we didn't even notice we were in a camp.
That was the beginning of feeling we were really are in a camp. We couldn't go out, we just couldn't stick our noses out, and those Polish farmers didn't know what happened to us. So they used to come close to us, but he was staying outside with a gun and watching the barracks. We couldn't go out, and after four or five weeks, he kind of let off. I got to him I told him, he was certain we were telling stories and different things. I told him, listen, you were here with us, we all tried to live together now. For you being so mean to us, and doing everything you do to us. It isn't the right thing what you're doing. Those other camps, by the way, around us, they didn't feel it. Everything was fine over there, but our camp was in the worst shape we've ever been.
So I kept on talking to him, I said, "You're sitting here, you're starving. You haven't got no money, you haven't got nothing, why don't you come on, wake up. Let me go out, I'll bring you some food." The minute he started listening to me, I knew right away that I got him in my pocket. It took him three days he tells me, "Joe, I don't know what you're doing." See, I used to clean his house up, I used to clean his barrack up. I had a chance to talk to him, and I said, "If you let me go out, you're not going to be sorry. Just let me step out of here." First thing what I did, I went to the bakery, and I went to the meat wholesaler. Well, he used to bring us meat and I gave him some stuff. And he gave me a big salami. The bakery gave me a couple of loaves of good bread, I brought a couple, three, four pounds of butter and some eggs, and when he came back, I left it in his room. When he came back, he saw all that stuff in his room, I was kind of scared maybe he was going to turn me in. Or that I tried to bribe him or something, but he had a smile, he started singing every day.
And he started looking away what we were doing, after two months, so help me God, that guy changed. In fact, that happened in April, in June and July. We had a soccer team coming in from a different camp. To our place, we played soccer, it was a whole celebration. To get together, can you imagine, that's what I did to this guy. And even he offered us to take home, but we didn't want to take any chances. They told us next time they catch us, they shoot us down like dogs. So we didn't want to take any chances. In about June, we came back from work, and all of a sudden, the SR -the SR was the storm troopers who were staying all the way around our camp. And they took us out from this camp, we didn't know where we were going. That was 1943.
So one of the guys, I'm not lying, so help me God, he told me -he gave me a, -because our Kapo was gone, he went to Auschwitz so nobody was there to be the foreman. So one of the SS Army gave me one of those stick and he said, "you take over, and if somebody steps out of line, beat the heck out of them." I said, "I don't step forward, I can't do those things. I've never hit anybody in my life and I'm not going to do it." So he hit me and got somebody else in my place. Anyway, they took us in, I'll never forget this, they took us in to Annaberg. Annaberg was at Durchgangslager, that means they kept us there for a while. And then they shipped us out from Annaberg someplace else.
You know, it was very hard for us to get used to all the food they served over there, it was very hard after being, you know, being on our own. We had plenty of food all of a sudden they sent us in to camp with the Russians. You know, everything is Russian and you just get so much. I had a hard time getting used to it, for the first two, three weeks I didn't eat. So we only stayed in Annaberg for about two weeks, they shipped us out. We wind up after two weeks in Gräditz, Gräditz is by Fallbrecht. There were two camps, Fallbrecht and Gräditz, and let me tell you something, Gräditz was just like an old brewery before. There were about six floors, everything was in one building, and we slept, the rooms were very big. And we had bunk beds, three high. They were just wood, plain wood and they gave us one cover, one blanket to cover up. We didn't have no hay on it, nothing.
We lay down, we had to sleep, then we went to work. We had to go to work, and this particular camp, the cook was one of my friends. He was actually at home, before the war, I don't think I would associate with him, but I knew him.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I stayed up for about two weeks and I got away from this job and I got another easier job. By easier, it wasn't that easy. Can you imagine a person like I? I used to get up four o'clock in the morning. We had one hour time to get dressed and wash up or take a shower and get ready and stay outside until they count us up until about five, from four to five you were staying outside, no matter what the temperature was. And five, five o'clock we went to the train depot. It took us about an hour to walk to the train depot, but by the time we got to the train depot, most people were exhausted already. So we finally got on the train. Everybody who got on the train fell asleep. We had about a 45-minute ride from our camp, I mean from the train to the camp. So we had to walk another 45 minutes. By the time we got through, it was seven o'clock, we got to the big factory over there. We started working. You know when you get up four o'clock in the morning and you're out three hours by seven o'clock everybody was all wore out then you have to put an eight hour day work without food. You can't imagine how good it was and how what we went through.
One morning while I was in camp I was there about maybe two months we got up in the morning there were three guys hanging on the, on the tree there were three Jews from Holland and Belgium, they were trying to break out of our camp they couldn't go too far they went only 10 miles away and they got caught. So we got up in the morning we went to the train and they took off. They said go on without us. By the time when we got to the place where we worked three guys were missing so they were looking for them by the time when we got back to camp already they had those guys pulled in they sent a car and they dragged them in for 10 miles. By the time they came to camp they were dead already, and for the last - for the same week these guys were hanging on a tree to show us what's going to happen to us if somebody's gonna have I - just think about running away. So can you imagine getting up every morning you see three guys hanging there? Well this is the kind of life he went through and this drag down every day. You know we used to get beatings and stuff like this in fact I went out and I - still in this camp, we still have our clothes from home.
I never forget this, so I was talking to a Polack, you know we used to work with foreign people: Polish or French or Belgians or English people. So I, he needed a suit and I had one suit, what I brought from home was a nice suit and I promised him I'm gonna sell him the suit and he was supposed to give me ration cards for the suit. So what I did, see we used to have our own uniforms I put my use my good suit underneath of those uniforms and I couldn't get a hold of the guy. I had to go far away where I used to work, so we usually take a piece of lumber, a pipe, or anything and drag on our shoulders and go over to them and turn those things over to him or go to the bathroom and meet in the bathroom. So let me tell you something on the way over my SS man caught me and the suit was sticking out he said, "what the hell are you doing with that suit?" You know right away that thing that's me tried to run away, he took - he took that thing out of me - he took the suit off of me, when I came back to the camp I got 100 lashes for it I couldn't walk on my feet for - for two weeks. They had to drag me away and I was laying on the front for about two weeks and after two, three weeks I felt a little better.
They sent me to camp and the reason why I was alive because I had a lot of good friends over that camp, I always had friends wherever I went. And the doctor liked me and he didn't let anybody do anything for me, he helped me put some cold ice on me while I was sick. It was a doctor but what can a doctor do if he hasn't got no medicine. He just had a title that's all he had, he came in and helped me as much as they could. About four, three - four weeks later I went out to work again and then by -by around the middle of December a typhus sickness broke out. I'm telling you people were dying like crazy I'm [?] and I was laying I don't know how I survived. I - I prayed every day I should die already but I couldn't die for some reason. My time wasn't up that's why I didn't go because I saw young - young guys my age they pull them away every day and I think out of our - but I don't know how many people were that out of 20,000, there were about 35 guys left.
I got up one morning I went down to the shower and I was starting to shower, and all of a sudden - you know when you went to the showers bodies were piled up just like wood. You know people are burning wood they have it outside, this is how the bodies were lined up up to the ceiling. You know when you get up in the morning you go down you see so many bodies and you see most of your friends bodies, makes you sick turns your stomach over so I was downstairs and I was trying to shower and all of a sudden that my cook walked by me. And he said, "Joe what are you doing around here. You're not supposed to look at those bodies it's not for you." And he grabbed me he took me up to his kitchen, and he kept me for two weeks in his kitchen. You know in the kitchen, there was plenty of food it was nice and warm and there were about 35 guys left. And they shipped all those 35 guys out and I was left with him and then the transit the whole transport from there went to Fallbrecht whatever it was left you know the cooks there was maybe -maybe 40 guys left and the whole thing. We walked over to the other camp, and he become a cook over there. So on the second camp there was a guy from my hometown, uh a nobody it was a shiva[?] he was a foreman. I stayed once in line and the guy you know he didn't like somebody so he reached to go around with that and he hit everybody, so I came up from a hard day's work to stay in line there. And this guy comes up and hits me and the cook saw it from from the window as he hit me. He got out and beat the heck out of this guy, he picked him up and told him, "if you ever beat anybody from my hometown," - it was actually his hometown too, that foreman. "If you ever beat anybody from my hometown I'm gonna kill you." That's what he told him and he let him he should let him have it.
I was in this camp I went through hell in this camp but I was feeling much better I had somebody you know -if I had something something wrong or something I could always go and cry to him. So one morning they got us all together in the camp and they say they need electricians it was already March or April. I was always a professional man, no matter what they need, I always was a professional man. Just to get out if some place was bad, I always wanted to get out it can't be worse than it's there I figured. So I stay in line, they took our clothes off and they gave us some old rags to wear.
And they tell us they're still shipping us out, to a different camp. You know the word goes right away around the camp, when they take your clothes off that's they ship you to Auschwitz. So how I said, "to hell with it," they're going to ship me anywhere. It doesn't make any difference - it doesn't make any difference now. So I, I said I'm gonna make the best out of it I'm gonna go. Sure enough I went out there. Where they ship us? They ship us back to Annaberg. Like I told you before Annaberg was a camp where from Annaberg they shipped all over, all over Germany people. They used to keep them for a week or days then from there they shipped them further up. We got into Annaberg and all of a sudden a whole bunch of people from my - from our hometown came from - from the outskirts of Będzin. They cleaned up the whole city, they sent all the people into Annaberg they were right there. The people have a lot of gold they had all kind of watches and big things, but they didn't go outside working and us they kept over there because they needed - they needed a couple hundred guys to go out and work in Annaberg and then Annaberg was not bad. The camp was good we had nice bunks to sleep on nice clean blankets.
The food wasn't bad either. So I finally got out of our shoes and I'm sitting there and everything is fine, I never forget we were there about three or four months and we were doing a lot of big business with - with gentile people. You know with French people, we used to bring a lot of food in, you know we used to take out shirts or suits or anything or a watch and the camp was prospered. You know you couldn't do those things but we took - I took a chance, we always used to take chances. Anybody who didn't take any chances couldn't survive it. I got my licking already once or three twice or three times but I had to go again and do the same thing over again. I never stopped that's how I survived. So around September I never forget this, was Yom Kippur day. I got my half a loaf of bread it was about a half pound of bread for two days I got it in the morning we knew it's Yom Kippur we had to work. I kept the whole bread for a whole day, I never touched it. There was a few guys like me I passed in Yom Kippur believe you me it was so hard never piece of bread in the pocket not to eat but we didn't eat. That made me feel good afterwards as you start eating the next day. The following day, we used to come home to camp sometimes used to get a cup of tea guys and say you know a few prayers. And you know lock ourselves in the - in the room, and say a few prayers and that's all. I want to tell you something we always do this for the Jews. So after about being six, seven months in this camp things was very good - it was 1944 it was very good.
Around September, October we were out working and all of a sudden the SR comes around and circles around not the camp, but the place where we were working. The whole thing is all circled around we didn't know what happened, once we saw the SR we knew there's trouble. We knew there's trouble, is to be all too and that was the time when started liquidating all the cities -where they liquidated, there were no Jews in the cities anymore. So they started liquidating certain camps and when we saw the SR we said oh we're going to Auschwitz. We knew exactly where we're going. Sure enough they got us all together, put us on a train and we went to Auschwitz. I didn't know then we heard about Auschwitz but we didn't know what they're doing in Auschwitz. When we got into Auschwitz we saw right across from us, we saw some car loads of dead bodies. They used to bring them in from the camps around Auschwitz to the crematoriums, we saw those guys unloading dead bodies. I want to tell you something there wasn't that wasn't a pleasant view when I saw them. If I didn't die then right then and there I don't know how I did it. We came into Auschwitz and the SS man was staying around there with dogs in the hand and we made a right turn, and we marched into camp. So while we were walking one of the SS men said, "you're pretty lucky people because you made a right turn, if you would have made a left turn you wouldn't have been alive tomorrow," that's all he said. He didn't say not we didn't we didn't know what he was talking about.
We got into this camp it was pretty miserable inside. We had the same thing, we had we had big barracks, we were not used to. I was staying I think block number nine or, seven or nine or, I don't remember by now. And that barrack three - three beds, three bunks. One on the bottom, one in the middle, one on top. With no - nothing but one blanket was there and the same night we went to the showers. What they did right away they shaved us. They gave us some numbers, we came and everybody got a number in their arms and our arms were swollen. They were twice as big as they were you know before they they started putting the needles in. The same night we went to take a shower, we didn't know what the shower was -what was. You know in Auschwitz, people when they went to take a shower, they went to the crematorium. For some reason, I heard a little later that they needed some people to Dachau camps. That's why they're getting to get a lot of young guys my age they're going to keep us in Auschwitz for a while they're going to ship us out. You know every day you get up you hear different stories and we have selections every day you know there was a guy an SS man by the name of Mendel - Mengel and Mengel was the son of a gun. He was the one who made the selections, if he didn't like the way he looked he told you to go to the left. So he picked every third or fourth or fifth guy out he didn't like he told him to go to the left. When he went to the left they went to the gas chamber, and we didn't know where they're going.
We were inside we saw everything what's going on. We saw columns of people coming in every day and we didn't know where those people are going. And we didn't notice that crematoriums over there. The smell was awful over there in this camp, it was awful. You know when you're young you just want to survive, you don't care what's going on behind you and who is doing it. If you see somebody die you just let him die that's all you can do nothing about it. Because you want to survive and that's what exactly happened to us. Everybody becomes so selfish, he didn't he didn't think what the next guy is doing. So we went out just about four or five weeks and all of a sudden one morning you get up, they need some people. They need the carpenters and electricians and plumbers. I'm a carpenter so I stepped in with the carpenters and then after everything, everybody was called up to get - the SS man says, "whoever is not a carpenter or a plumber or electrician should step out because otherwise you're gonna shoot you down." I said, "I decided to be a carpenter I don't give a damn, I'm a carpenter I don't care I'm getting the hell out of there." I was - I just wanted to get out in the worst way and I get in the other camp now, they can't they shoot me I don't care what they do over there. I said, "I'm getting out."
So I finally - they shipped us out to Dachau, it took us three days and three nights. They give us a loaf of bread some jam over there and that's how they put us in one of those cattle cars and they got us in to Dachau - we came into Dachau and Dachau had little camps around just like we had in Yelachia[?]. They had little camps around and they're like a number one, number two, and number three. So they sent us to Lager number six and Lager number six were Hungarian Jews. They were just fresh out of -of out of Hungary you see and these people were not hungry. They were just like I and I came into Gräditz. They couldn't eat their food over there and we were already professionals, you see we had already four years in there. So we know how to handle those guys we came in there were 26 of us. We had one of just a special 'commando' they called us. They put us, needed all the hard work and all the worst, worst thing we could do there in this camp but in the morning during the day they put us in - in the kitchen. You know we used to unload trucks with bread or trucks with salami. So you know what we did one of us guys took a whole lot of bread and salamis and instead of going into the kitchen, he went to our barrack you know you pick up a load like this you got enough food for about two, three weeks to exist.
See the whole problem was this, they didn't even miss it they didn't even notice it's missing because most these guys didn't eat on a treif you see they came home they were very religious Jews. So they didn't eat they - they gave it away to some different guys. So if they didn't get their rationing they didn't even notice they missed it, you know and after a while you know when you get hungry you want your meat back so they realized what these guys were doing we had a couple guys from Sośnicowice. They were characters I'm telling you they did everything, everything they could they did to get something to eat. So we didn't stay there too long we only stayed there two months and they got rid of it, so they sent us over to a different camp and that camp we went to was Lithuanian Jews. And those Lithuanian Jews were very rough there was still a Dachau camp around Dachau there is there was Kaufering it was Lager number one and that was the most miserable camp we ever had we got in there I think in November or November December it was so cold we worked at night we went to go we went to work usually at 11 o'clock and we stayed there til about we came back around nine ten o'clock in the morning so we slept we slept usually during the day and about 10:30 we were ready. I mean we left about eight nine o'clock again the camp and we started at 11 again and in this camp we were building bunkers, uh concrete bunkers. You know they have ammunition factors under the bunkers and we were building this, and that's how we did every night we unloaded truckloads of cement. It was so cold especially this particular year was so cold every night was 35, 30 below zero.
A lot of people died walking to work, we used to walk about 45 minutes to work. And every day a few people, three, four, guys died and we had to carry them home, bring them home to an evening camp. We left them where where we stopped to work, we left them there, and in the evening we have to carry them back home. And it wasn't so easy to to walk you know in a body, and a bunch of guys are carrying your body into camp. I was it was very hard. In the camp we had we slept but 16 guys to a little - in a little room. The floor was, there was no floor but they had wooden pictures on. Everything was better on the floor that's how we could make here just one blanket and there's some wood. They made wood to lay down, they just made just like a pillow up -up high on your head and that's how we laid there. We had one one burner - one coal burner and we got so much coal you know per barrack. And if the coal ran out we didn't have a coal, we always had enough coal and it always used to give us enough coal. We used to come home, the evening or in the morning, whenever we came home we walking home from work or going to work. By the time we got there we were all wet sweaty and full of mud. So by the time we came home we had to clean the mud off from our shoes, so we can get up next morning go back to work. Sleep. We didn't have, you didn't get too much. We must have gotten about four or five hours every night and on Sundays they made us clean their barracks and you know -and everything was clean, spotless clean. Every time they had something else, we couldn't rest. There was no no no way we could sit down and relax and you know stay in the barracks. So we stayed there and through the winter it was a hard winter. Then in March it got a little warmer and I got out a little bit more and the evenings - when we used to go to work I used to take off instead of going to work.
I used to hide in a bunker because the Americans were coming already they were bombing every night there was an alarm. You know there was an alarm, you know if the Germans didn't show up to work they were afraid. So there was a total chaos already started in March. So I used to pick up I used to come to work, I used to go instead of work I used to go down lay down in the bunkers. There [unclear] was showed up when we were ready to go home, you see. So nobody knew if I worked, I didn't -they didn't pay attention too much. And we stayed - uh in this camp, we stayed there till before the liberation in April the 26th. They took us out and they took us all into Dachau we can never forget this night, we all came into Dachau. In April the 26th Dachau turned on the - the crematoriums. They never had any crematoriums, only crematoriums for dead bodies and they were supposed to put us in the gas chambers we came in there wasn't enough room even to sit down or lay down there. Everybody was standing up, people were dying just like herrings standing up. It was so bad we stayed there for one night and the next morning they opened the gate and they told us this we're going to Switzerland. They're going to march us into Switzerland. The death march started then we were marching day and night the first day we marched out at 27 to 28 and the 29 we were marching to Germany, to Bayern. And we marched through the streets and you know people were dying like crazy every day - every minute somebody else just stopped, that you couldn't go anymore.
But around the 29th to 30th of March we parked in a forest, all of a sudden I see everybody lining up in lines. You know they what they did we had some very shoot guys SS trucks came into this forest with bread, with a whole load of bread and he was supposed to take it up for the Germans to the front. So he came in his forest just to lay down for a while they put him to sleep they didn't kill him but I put him to sleep they used something on him and the guy went out like a fly so the Kapos most these guys start unloading the truck and bread and most Kapos used to have white bands on their arms. So I took a handkerchief and put them around my arm and I'm a Kapo too. So I went up stayed in line they load up those breads and they went to certain places and dumped this bread off. And I instead go to the place to dump it off I went to Mainberg and dropped it off but I was hoggish, I didn't have enough. This so I wanted to go back but the second time they caught me and beat the heck out of me. But in the meantime, I had a couple three loaves of bread in my barracks. There was no barrack we used to make a - a tent we used to take two or three blankets and put them down right in the forest and we were laying sleeping under the - under those blankets. Next morning I got up and we made some fire over there and I - of course I was staying there all night and needed -bread what we what we organized, me and our friends, then I had a third friend. Next morning, we got up we made soup out of bread, he used to cut up small pieces and put and put it and get some water and boil the water and bread. And this how we survived you know, we - we wherever we could wherever we could organize and get something, we did get. And now you know when young you don't you don't pay attention, you just try to survive you do everything possible to survive. So uh I - I got this bread, you know if you get a couple most loaves of bread so you're feeling for - you're feeling good for another couple three days, you know and that's what happened.
I felt good for another couple three days and then in my May 1st I parked in a forest and I said I'm not going I couldn't walk anymore. My shoes was all torn and it snowed and it was so miserable, I said I'm not going any farther no matter what it would happen. Next day I got up in the morning and all of a sudden I look around the forest nobody's around me so they left I overslept or something they left, most of these SS men start running away and they left the groups in the forest alone. So I - I didn't like to push myself I just stayed. First of all, I couldn't hardly walk anymore. So I think I'm going to sit under the tree and wait - see what's going to happen sure enough a guy came up with a big and a big whole horse and said the war is over you guys can go wherever you want to. So we had some Russian prisoners and Polish prisoners and all kind of prisons and these guys started taking the rifles and start shooting at the Germans. You know what they were what there were a few left. And I was away from the whole group and all of a sudden I see a whole battalion of Germans coming back. They're taking all those guys where they were shooting at those Germans and they put them on a bridge they took them over to a bridge. And the bridge was dynamite and they knocked out a dynamite. You should have seen corpses flying it flew 10 floor, 20, 30 feet high. They dynamite the whole bridge with all the guys and I'm sitting there I - I. First of all, I couldn't walk I couldn't do a doggone thing and I'm sitting there for a day - day or two. May the second, American soldiers came in that forest and found me laying there. When they found me laying there they didn't know who I am. I said, "go ahead and shoot me," in German, I didn't know who they are. So he asked me what language I speak. I said I'm speaking Polish, so they brought a Polish chaplain, a guy who could speak Polish.
And a guy picked me up and took me in his little jeep. And he said not to worry, you're liberated, we are Americans, we're going to help you and all that stuff. So they took me in there. I was in the hospital for a couple, three days. And I didn't want to stay with the group, and all of a sudden I walk out in the street, it was in Bartels. I see a big bus, with about three or four guys with KZ uniforms like I used to wear. And these guys weren't actually Poles, and they were Volksdeutsche, and they were actually Germans. They worked for the Germans, and then when the war was over, they turned around and became Poles. In order for them to be able to drive wherever they wanted to, they needed people like me. You see a skinny guy with my uniform on. This way they could go wherever they wanted, nobody would stop them. So they took me on the bus, and the bus had a big sign that we were going back to Poland. I figured maybe I'm going to go home to Poland and see what's going on. Maybe somebody's still left here, but he picked up and drove for about three or four nights. Three days and three nights. They stopped in every little town. They used to rob, steal, and kill. And I... I wasn't kind of excited. Wherever they went, I didn't want to go with them. And all of a sudden the truck broke down near Stuttgart. And I went into the hospital and I had some... I don't know what kind of... I caught a cold or something. And I was very sick. Temperature and everything. So the doctor took me in. He cured me after three, four days being there. I told him, I'll tell you what, I'm Jewish. And I don't want to go out with those fellas. Because they're out to kill everybody. And I don't want to get shot. And I don't want to get killed.
So the German doctor said, "I'll tell you what, I'll let you stay for a few days in my house. I heard that these guys are supposed to leave in a couple days. So I tell them that you're very sick, so they'll leave you alone." And that's what happened. I stayed in the hospital. He kept me there about six, seven more days, extra days. I didn't know where to go. But after a week, he said, "Joe, if you want to stay with us in our house, you're more than welcome. You can stay as long as you want to." So I was with him for a couple, three days. And then all of a sudden, a chaplain, a Jewish chaplain, comes into the hospital. I told him he should look for, if he runs across a doctor, if he runs across a Jewish, somebody Jewish, tell him that I'm here. Because I thought I'm the only one Jew left alive. I didn't know that even somebody exists. I thought everybody died and I'm the only one, one person alive. So that chaplain walks into my hospital and talks to me. He spoke good Yiddish, too. And I spoke to him and he said, "I'll tell you what, if you come over Saturday to the Eskim house," the Eskim house was a, they had, they had just a, for the weekends, for Saturday and Sunday, they had special services for all the American soldiers over there. And he said, "a lot of Jews are coming over there, and we just start organizing. Maybe we're going to get some more Jews to get together."
That's how I found out that she's from Rava Ruska. I was just trying to hang on to anybody. It didn't make any difference who it was, and especially when she was my age, and she was a Jewish girl, which she was one of the first Jewish girls I met after the war, so I was kind of very excited, and I couldn't stay away too long. Instead of going there Wednesday, I went there Monday. I'll never forget, we went right away. We went there swimming, and we had good times together, and I got hooked. That's what happened. After two months being together, I wanted to go to Poland in the worst way. And Hannah Newberg said she would like to go. So Hannah says, "Why don't you two get together and go to Poland?" So instead of going to Poland, we did check out from Stuttgart, and we went. So we wind up in Landsberg. That was about 150 miles away from Stuttgart. And there she met Milton Newberg. When she met him, he didn't want to let go of her. So instead of going to Poland, we had to turn around and go back to Stuttgart.
About Dave, I didn't hear anything. He was here three months after the liberation. It's already July, August. And I didn't hear anything. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, Milton, after two months, he comes over. It was already September, October. Milton comes down and said, "Joe, I think we should get married." In Germany, what we did, we had a very good time. We lived with about five guys in a house with two girls cooking for us. And every day we had different parties. Different parties, you know. Our wedding was in November, but before I talk about the wedding, I want to tell you how I got a hold of Dave. All of a sudden, in October, I met a guy by the name of Finkelstein. He comes over to Stuttgart, and I got to talk to him. My hometown, I got to talk to him. He asked me, "How is your brother?" Just like this. I said, "Well, brother, if I didn't drop dead then, I don't know how I survived." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "I just saw your brother last week." "Where did you see my brother?" He said, "In Bergen-Belsen."
Bergen-Belsen was about 600 miles away where maybe we were stationed. He saw her with my cousin, Sima Fishel. I couldn't believe what he was saying. I said, "Are you joking me, or are you pulling my leg or something?" He says, "No, I'm not joking. I'm telling you the truth." So right away I said to Helen, I said, "I'll tell you what. Tomorrow I'm picking up and I'm going to go to Bergen-Belsen." And it wasn't just like to go into a train and pick up a plane, catch a plane and go there, because everything was burned out. The train was moving five miles an hour. So I was hitchhiking. I did everything possible. All of a sudden I came halfway the same way. So a friend of mine says, "Hey, he probably found out it's you in Stuttgart and he's on his way. I just saw him yesterday. He's already on his way to your house." So I had to turn around and go back home. And here I go back home. And my brother was home already three days. I took good care of him.
And a month later we got engaged. We got engaged. So we were actually the first couple in Germany where we got engaged in Stuttgart. So we started planning the wedding. It's not like you go into a store here and get your merchandise for your money. Here we're talking about a place where everything was Russian and nothing was available in the store and we got planning a wedding. We weren't talking about a small wedding but we were talking about a big wedding. So I had a good friend of mine. His name was Charles Sachs in Wigdoblen Stuttgart. And I and Milton, we all started going out to the pharmacy. We had some cigarettes. We were dealing with the black market over there. We had plenty of money. We had cars. We bought a transportation business. Me and Milton, we were partners there. And we had a couple of good... The reason why we had this business was because we needed gas to drive our private cars. In order to get gas, you had to be in business. That's why we bought a business. So, anyway, we started going out to the farm and we started organizing. We bought a half a cow. And we bought all kind of bread and all kind of liquor. We had so much liquor. We had liquor enough for 350 people. And meat, and bread, and everything what we needed. And the girls were doing all the cooking. It was not like you go into a caterer now, then we had to do all our work.
And all of a sudden Helen got sick. The week of the wedding, two days before the wedding she got sick. And I'll never forget this. She had the flu. And she took all kind of, I don't know, lumps[?]. They gave her everything possible. The day of the wedding she felt good. She danced practically all night. We had a wedding. And then this wedding night, we had three orchestras. We had a Jewish orchestra, we had a German orchestra, and we had a Gypsy orchestra. And you talk about people, 20, 21 years old, 24, 25, everybody had a fantastic time. We invited people, we hardly knew them. But whoever we saw, we saw anybody, any Jewish fellow that went by there, what came through our town was invited. And for some reason, there was more love then than now. You know, people don't care no more for anybody. Then everybody was care, we cared for each other. And I'm telling you, we danced all night. And the Germans, we had a police inspector there, we had the Bürgermeister, the mayor of the town. And these guys were so drunk, we gave them so much to drink, they, you know, during the war they couldn't get anything. And all of a sudden, they come to a party with all the food and all the drinks. We cleared all the tables, from all the other tables, we gave them. Next morning, they had to go to work. They couldn't go to work. They were all drunk, laying on the floor. We had to carry them all home. It was a lot of fun. I'll never forget this, our night, our wedding night. Then I took all kinds of pictures. We were celebrating a Polish wedding for a whole week like this. Every night, we went out and danced. There was enough food to eat for every night for everybody down there. So, we went out and we enjoyed ourselves.
We moved out from this house with the boys where we were living. We moved into our three-room apartment, a furnished apartment. It was a beautiful apartment. Milton and Helen moved into their own apartment, too. They had a beautiful apartment, but not too far away from us. We used to see each other at break every night. All our friends used to live together. We lived very close to each other. So, in the evenings, we used to get together all the time. Have parties, play cards, do something. We always had something to do in Germany. And then, around January, Helen got pregnant. We had a baby, a boy. And the baby didn't live too long. He lived only six weeks. He caught pneumonia after six weeks and died. So, we had a hard time for a while, you know. And, you know, when you make parties, you have a lot of friends coming to you. When the baby died, you know, everybody was shying away from us. We went through a very bad period of our life. We didn't want to see anybody. We didn't care for nothing for a while. Then we picked our life back up and we went back to normal. We started living.
1946, people were starting flying out to the United States. And at the time, that's all you need is a letter from somebody from the United States. And, yes, you got relatives or friends. Then you could go over to the United States very easy. And, we didn't have anybody. We didn't know anybody at the time. Rudy Fox left, I think it was in June '46. And, sure enough, where did he go? He's landed in Omaha, Nebraska. And, what happened then? I have to tell you a little story about what happeed.
I didn't know where my relatives are. The only one thing I remember was Galveston, Texas. I remember my dad always telling us a story as they landed in Galveston, Texas. So, I told us they lived there. And, we were looking for him for a whole year, from '45 to '46 for about two years. Every soldier we saw, We told him to write in the paper that I'm looking for Chaim Mervitz[?]. And, I always put down Galveston because I didn't know the difference. For me, Galveston is Galveston. So, all of a sudden, Rudy comes into Omaha, Nebraska. And, you know, Mr. Fox and mine aunt were very close friends. They were invited to our wedding at the Blackstone Hotel and during the wedding, for some reason, they were talking how nice the wedding was and everything else. So, Rudy takes out some pictures and says, "If you think this is a nice wedding, we just had a wedding in Germany, you should have seen that wedding." So, he pulls out my picture from our wedding. And, he shows and features the picture. And said, "these are my nephews," that's how we got in touch. Next week, I get a letter through an American soldier. There's the uncle and aunt Judas lives in Omaha, Nebraska. So, when we got this letter, we went up to the to the council. We told them we got our uncle together on the list, you see. In the meantime, Aunt Judith and Uncle Herman they pushed me in the center and they made out papers for us right away to come over. So, Dave came over four weeks before we did.
In fact, he came over March '47. And he was still, he was still in time to come to Aunt Lil's wedding. The wedding was on a Sunday, and we arrived Sunday in New York. So, we couldn't make the wedding because it was too late, in fact we stayed a few days in New York before we came to Omaha. And the trip to Omaha was so bad, it took us about 32 hours to get to Omaha. They kept us over there for two, three days, and we visited New York. We ran around like crazy in New York. We loved the country because, you know, we come from a country where we didn't get anything, we didn't have enough fruit, we didn't have enough food, we didn't have anything. All of a sudden, there was such a beautiful windows, we went window shopping all of the time. And the windows, you could get anything you wanted, anything your heart desires. We didn't see this since 1938, a year before the war, because everything disappeared before the war. And all of a sudden you come to a country with all of the goods, with fruits and vegetables and everything else. We sure went wild. So we after 2 days, 3 days being in New York we took off for Omaha. When we came into the train, we told the guy that we are going to Omaha. He said, "you got a long ways to go" and we didn't know what a long ways means, you know. We never knew the country was that long and that big. So then we kept on riding and riding and riding and I think we rode it day and night. And we finally arrived in the afternoon, and I'll never forget this. We arrived in Omaha, and Aunt Judith and Uncle Herman was waiting for us at the train depot. We came up there and the commotion was so big, you have no idea. They took us over took us home and took us home and then I think they love on 31st and Decatur and all the friends were there and there was quite a commotion and we just loved every minute.
We played around for a week and then after a week, the week was over they were looking for me for a job and I didn't know what job I am going to get. My first job was at Hinky Dinky warehouse the reason. I never forget, I went to Hinky Dinky. The reason why I went to Hinky Dinky so they make big money over there. At the time they was still making I think a $1.50 an hour a dollar and a quarter and the laborers, the minimum wages was 75¢ so most people used to make 75¢ or 80¢. We couldn't get an apartment, it was very very hard to get an apartment. So Mr. Fox finally found one apartment that was right on 16th street by the post office, right on top of the post office. There was one room apartment and the cockroaches were running around, bugs all over we turned on the light middle of the night the bugs were all over it was just pitiful you know coming from Germany and having a beautiful apartment with two maids and walking in this mess, it was very very rough. In the mean time, Helen was pregnant at the time and we had a baby, yeah when we moved up there. Now first we moved into a little apartment and then this really a polished one where we got on 16th street.
I went to work at Hinky Dinky I worked very, very hard. We were carrying bananas, and I'll never forget, and I used to come home with blue shoulders because we carried bananas on the shoulders and I was crying. For this, we had to come all this way to the United States and you should work so hard. Because in Germany for two years, we didn't do anything we had blackmarketing and we had plenty of money and all of a sudden they put me into work. I mean to work, not just to mess around and the work was very very hard and everything got to me. I was working with a black guy with one arm and, I'll never forget as long as I live. His name was Art, you know while he was handicapped, he worked harder, much harder than anybody else. And he was trying to show me this, he can work with just one arm much better than people with two arms. So I was in trouble all the time, I couldn't keep up with him, I had a hard time keeping up with him. And this went down I think about 4, 5, 6 months then they put me on the night shift. We used to unload on the night shift, unload carloads of lettuce and ice. Now most American guys that came in lasted only 2 or 3 hours, and I got used to the service so quick I didn't mind. I couldn't get another job, I couldn't speak the language, so what can I do I had to take what they give me. You know it's very hard to come from a different country with a different langauge it was hard for me write and read, I couldn't write and read at all, and I couldn't speak on top of it.
I never forget one time, when we lived on 16th street, there was about 2 months after I got here in this country. I went off to the post office to get a stamp to mail letters when I got to the window I forgot how to say stamps. So I went I told him I wanted Briefmarken - Briefmarken means stamps in Germany. So the guy was staying and laughed at me. He know what I want, but he wanted me to say stamps and I forgot how to say stamps, I didn't remember. Say, I used to carry my dictionary around and all of a sudden I left my dictionary at home, I'll never forget, this sticks out the most in my life. So I went back home and I got my dictionary and I came up to the window and I said, "please stamps." So the guy started laughing at me, and he told everybody around what he did to me. You know, and you see people like idiots, I was their idiot. I was standing there just because I didn't know how to say stamp. The guy knew what I wanted, but he didn't want to give it to me until I come back and tell him what I wanted. You know some people were very helpful. Some people helped me out. I used to go to work, I had a address in my pocket with a piece of paper and showed the guy, because I couldn't talk, I didn't know what to say. So I showed a bus driver a address and he used to drop me off exactly where I wanted to go. That's the way it was at the beginning, believe you me it was very very miserable.
If I would have had a ticket to go back to Germany, money enough to go back to Germany, I would turn around and go back to Germany. But thanks God, I didn't. Because I used to sit at the radio day and night, listening to the radio to learn how to speak. For Helen it was much easier because she learned in Germany. When she came over, don't forget this, she came down to the Nut House and Uncle Herman showed her a letter and she was reading to him in English. She couldn't get over it after being here two months in this country. She spoke English. After being two, three months in this country, she spoke perfect. So for her it was much easier than for me. I was a lost person. And one good thing was that at the time when we came over, we had Rudy for a friend. We used to see each other, we used to get together over the weekend. We spent all the time with them. Most of the time. So, you know, you come to a strange country, you don't know anybody, and especially, like I said, some people were not too helpful. In fact, the older folks, and you just know, Uncle Herman used to come home from work, they used to lay down, take a nap, and afterwards they used to go out and visit with their friends. So we went over to their houses, and those people, we usually used to speak Jewish.
But with us around, they spoke English. And I used to say, why don't you speak Yiddish? Because I can understand, too. So after being here a year or two in this country, I realized that these guys don't even know how to speak English. So that's the way it worked when we came home. We always used to look at each other and say, what the heck is going on? We just feel like a bunch of dumbbells around us. Then, Norma was born in October in 47, the same year when we came over. It was very hard. We didn't have any money to buy a crib. We didn't have any money to buy anything. But some occasion came along, we were talking to one of the old ladies there and she said she's got a house for sale on 19th Street. If I would have $1,000 down, I can buy the house. And let me tell you something, I was making, I don't know, $60 a week. We were saving out of the $60, we was saving $45. I used to go and buy postal savings bonds. And we didn't have the $1,000, we had seven hundred dollars, then Uncle Herman loaned me $300. And we bought a house for $1,000 on 19th Street. And I never forget, we got into this house, we start painting the house. We painted inside. We couldn't paint outside, but we painted inside. And Chloe moved in with us. And she lived upstairs. We rented the apartment to them. For some reason, we always had people coming over to the house, all the time.
I never forget, Uncle Herman used to love to come over to our house, because our house was very clean. And he used to drink coffee. He always used to go out in the evening for a cup of coffee. So he used to call. He said, "Helen, I'm coming over." You know, about 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock at night, I was kind of hungry. So I used to take out a big salami and cut up a slice of salami and a piece of bread and eat. Eat a salami sandwich about 9:00, 9:30. When he came in, he said he turns his stomach over, "How can you eat that late?" Then when you're young, you can eat late. You can eat 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock. Now I realize, what he was talking about. I couldn't eat now this kind of salami at night, late at night. So I couldn't figure out what the guy is saying. I could eat two, five sandwiches then.
Of course I wasn't as heavy as I was now. I only weighed, at the time I only weighed about 155, 160 pounds. Only. You know, and I worked it off. I went to work and I worked it off. I worked along with myself for lunch all the time, two, three sandwiches, and a banana and an apple, orange, all the time. What sticks out in my mind mostly is when they put me on the night shift. They put me to work from 4 to 12. And I was working there and it was very miserable because on Sundays we worked from 4 to 12. And I was especially during the summer. Everybody went swimming and I had to go and I had to go and go to work. I had to leave Nona with a little boy and I wanted to go swimming and she wanted to go to the park and I had to park for that. That was the worst time of my life was on Sundays. So this went by and after a while I lost my job. I went on another job. The first two or three years were so miserable here. It was very, very bad. Working hard, not making enough money, not saving, but we were very happy. Whatever I made, I was satisfied.
After being here about a year or six months, we picked up and went to visit the Newbergs in New York. I'll never forget that trip to New York. It was just wonderful. We didn't have enough money. We had enough money to fly in. We didn't need any money over there. They took us out once in a while. We went to the Radio City Hall. We went all over by bus or by subway. And we had the best time of our lives. We stayed there for two weeks or a week. I don't remember how long. This was between jobs when I lost my job. I said, "I got time now. Let's go." Like I said, vacation was very important to us to go away. We went there and we enjoyed it. When we came back, we started all over. I was always in the hole. I didn't have any money. So this is how life was after 1947.
Helen got pregnant with Renee, but it was about 12 months, 30 months apart. And she didn't want to have the baby. But we went through, we went through hell. And thanks God that she had Renee, because they both were raised together. We raised them both together. She couldn't understand how to raise two kids. So it was very hard to raise one at the time. We raised both of them together. And only about, it's going to be only about 18 months apart or 19 months apart. So, Renee was born, was the same thing. He didn't have any money to buy a crib. He didn't have any money to buy anything. So Mr. Fox bought us a crib. And we paid it back. Afterwards we paid it back.
