Joe Fishel Testimony (Transcript Only)

 

Jan 10, 1989

Some of the first things you can remember when you were a kid. Father's funeral, only 10 years old.

One Sunday my father came home, he was in great pain, he went to the doctor, he didn't know what was wrong. He only had gall stones, they found out after a few days. So they cure him only with pain killer, they didn't know how to cure them. He used to cry all night, he was in great pain. Gave him a pain killer would last only an hour and it would come back. He was laying for 8 or 10 days. It was on a Thursday night, January 7, 1931, we went to bed around 9 or 10, that particular day he was feeling pretty good, doctor says maybe he's going to get better, he's going to be able to sit up maybe get around a little. So we went to bed, he told us to shine our shoes tomorrows a school day, so we did and everybody kissed him goodnight. At 12 he woke up, must have been a heart attack, he keeled over and died. My mother started screaming.

In Europe they didn't take you to a funeral home, they put you on the floor in your apartment. He was laying there all night. The following day we had the funeral, it must have been 30 below zero there. In Europe, when it snowed, the snow was laying from Oct. till March. It took them a long time to dig the grave. Before the war, they didn't have cars like we have over here, we had a hearse with a horse, put the body in and everybody's walking behind the hearse, there were about six of us to walk, I was trying to sit with the guy with the hearse, but it was so cold, I couldn't it was freezing, so they walked me, I walked to the cemetery. My feet got numb, we froze, everything about it was the worst day of my life. Being 10 years old it was pretty hard, I didn't know what hit me, you find out later I didn't know right away what hit me.

We came home, we had to put everything to gether, when somebody dies you go to the synagogue for prayers twice a day, for a whole year, every day. In the morning I used to get up at 7 and then in the evening I'd go at 5 for prayers.

 

Times were very rough, my sisters were young, one of the sisters was 16 years old, one had a job, the other ws finishing school. My older brother was graduating from 7th grade, we had to go back to a normal life. It was rough, without my father was a businessman, he had a pretty good business, made a pretty good living, and all of a sudden things stopped.

There was no welfare, nobody there to help you there. Except the Ixandlord let us stay there for two years without paying the rent. He was a good friend of my mother, and for the kids, he felt sorry for us and that's why he did it.

I kept going two more years till I graduated from school. Then I had to drop out and get a job. Everybody was trying to mnake a living. Whoever brought the money home, he wasn't keeping it for himself, you brought it home and put it on the table and my mother paid the bills, bought groceries with it.

I went to Mizrathe school, actually a private school, everybody had to pay, so they let me stay for two years after my father died, without paying. They felt sorry for me, because my older brother went to school. I couldn't pay, so I continued and stayed until I continued. Then after I graduated I looked for a job, and found a nice job.

I was working for an organization, in Europe they didn't have mail like they do here, they used to send out invitations, for meetings, they had a carrier, I was the carrier. I used to print out the addresses and carry them to the members. I used to write different invitation. First thing I learned was to type, and I was very good. I didn't make much money, I made some money, whatever I made helped out. To get into a profession over there, you had to be an apprentice for two years, like my oldest brother, he used to make sweaters, in order to become a sweater man he had to work two years without getting paid, had to work late hours, learn the profession, then you start making money.

I wanted to make money right away, I was working there for a year, a friend of mine came in from a big factory, he kinda liked me, his name was Fishel196, he said how would you like to have a job, companies name was 199, pfennigs, the boss knew   my mother really well. Coincidentally, he knew her younger years, he started talking so much about my mother when she ws younger, how pretty she was, he had never dated her, but she was something else, he was always crazy about her. So it made it easy for me, the guy gave me a job, I started making 90 Zloti a month, like 90 dollars, for a boy my age to make 90 dollars was a lot of money. A labor would make a zloti a day, a zloti and a half. I was 14 years old, and on top of this, I had a ticket to go on all the streetcars free. The company that used to send me with the invitation, I used to back and forth, I kept it, took advantage of it. ON top of this, they gave me a ticket to go from one city to the next, Katowicz, about 12 miles away, close to my town. We used to go there, get the money for the payroll, before the war they didn't have any checks. Everything ws in cash, I used to carry the money from K. I used to go twice a week to the bank, and bring money for the company, we used to deposit money there. I stayed there until the war ws on. I was carrying a lot of money, thousands, not just hundreds, before the war this was a lot of money. A thousand, two thousand was a lot. I'd go to the bank, get a deposit slip. I'd go in and get my money. My boss filled out everything. It was in a good sized suitcase, nobody knew what was in it, of course, brought a lot of change, used to have single zloti's, brought it back to the industry, put it in the safe, they made out the payrolll. I larned all those things.

After a year's time I was very happy working for this company. I could breath, run around wherever I wanted, I was a big shot in my home town. To have a job lke this, to go on a street car any time you wanted to, because people couldn't afford to buy tickets to go on the street car to go to another city. I went up, showed my ticket and they let me on.

So I had a good job, I was making money. My brother was making money , both my older sisters were making money, my youngeor brother was too young.

Around 1935 my mother started a little restaurant, for high holidays, like for Passover, we had young Jewish soldiers come over to our place and eat three times a   day. They ate the unleavened bread, they couldn't eat the chow from thje army, she cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner. 30-50 soldiers, from this mother made enough money to pay for the whole year. We paid off our bills. Then we started to getting dressed like human beings. For 2 years ti.me we didn't buy any clothes, we went around hungry. Then all of a sudden, by the time 1939 came around, everything had turned around

The minute the germans came into Poland, I lost my job, everybody lost their jobs. We went back to the misery. They took all the jobs from the jews.

I lived right next door to the police station. Brand new building, the guy grabbed me once, put me, so I could shine my shoes and clean his room. He didn't know I was Jewish. After about a week, the Germans pujt out posters that said all the Jews had to wear white arm bands, so the following morning I came in to the Police Station, he sees me with the white arm band, he says what the hell are you wearing a white arm band, you're not Jewish, what the hell are you talking about. I said, how am I supposed to look if I'm Jewish, You are supposed to wear a long beard, you're supposed to look like an arab, you're supposed to steal, you're supposed to be a thief here, you're supposed to kill people. See that's what they told people,they put so much hatred in thej propaganda against us. Still after the day was over he was supposed to hate me and he couldn't figure it out.

Penalty they could shoot you if you didn't wear the arm band. All week I was there, for me it was a big deal, cause the guy gave me a piece of bread, and bread was very hard to get. First of all I was glad to have something to do because we were just sitting around and we were waiting, we didn't know what was going to happen the next day. The first day they stepped in they had surrounded the synagogue and burnt it down without letting the people within escape, shooting them if they ran.

Rabbi's were no leaders, always, they made a leader the president of the city, there were 10 guys who knew how to lead the city, they didn't have anything to lead   because the Germans told them what to do. If they didn't do what they want, they kill them. They didn't have any choice.

Factory I'd worked at continued to make paint, without my services.

Then we have problems with our food. Right across from us and the police station was a bakery. We had an SS guy who went around with two german shepherds, Mishka 373, he used to go along and let the dogs loose on people. He was the worst SOB in the world. The germans, any germans could do whatever they wanted to do. There was no law, the only law was if they wanted to kill you they'd kill you. This guy Mishka, see in the morning, in order to get gbread, we had to get up at 5, and if they ran out, whoever was still in line got no bread. So I lived close, got up, ran to the line. ONe morning he comes in, him and his dogs, he starts screaming we weren't standing in line straight, he wants his lines straight. He calls up every 5th guy and shoots him, he says tomorrow if its the same, we're going to do the same thing then. That was the first how do you do. With the synagogue, what they did, whoever tried to run away they shot him.

So in 1939 in Poland, across the street from us, I lived on a very popular street, they built a brand new house, a guy, he was German governor, he used to be a polish governor, and he had three sons, the oldest was 17, then 15-13, they all wore German uniforms, with swatzika's on. I walk out one morning, the youngest, the 13 year old, I walk by him and he stops me, he asks me, how come I didn't take my hat off, I said I didn't know I had to take my hat off, and he slaps me. I'm that tall and he's a little guy, and I've got to stand at attention, I couldn't move, and he's got a little rubber hose in his hand, and he hits me over my two cheeks, and I have to stand at attention, and I start bending over he hits me in my stomach, and the blood is pouring from both sides, and he had a gun he'd shoot me, take my family out. So I had to take it, then he spits in my face and walk away.

After the end of Oct. I said, I'm not staying here, I'm going to Russia. We heard people come back from Russia who said its much better, you can get a job. I figure,   why am I going to stay here, something good is not going top come out of it. It got worse every day. We couldn't get no jobs, nothing. They started isolating us, we couldn't nothing.

We couldn't do this, that, etc.They were shooting everyday, anybody they saw after 8:00, they see you walk they shoot us. It was something awful, I said, to my mother, I think I'm going to leave, see what it's like, and if its half decent, we can live there, I'll come back and we'll all go.

Then you could still get on a train, even if you had a band. I went into 449, very close to the russian border, they hand me over to a smuggler, a guy who smuggles people over the border. I ran into a Polish guy, they were waiting for guys like us. In the evening, they saw guys like us, they'd say, come on, you want to cross the border, tonight we'll take you over the border. I didn't have any money. I had a few shirts and couple pairs of pants.

He took us over to the house at midnight, we were ready to go across, the germans come in, it's open up, these Poles put it up. I thought they were going to kill us. They took all the clothes away from us, they take everything away, they are looking for gold, for money, all over. I begged for myself, I tell them I'm a poor guy, I say I've got 2 shirts, a cou]ple pairs of pants, let me have them, so he gave me back the pants and the suitcase. They found some money on the other guys but they took away everything they had. The germans themselves put us on the boat to go to Russian side. We come over to the other side, we were afraid the Russians would shoot us, you don't want to move at night, so we stayed in the forest.

In the morning, we still had our white bands, so in the morning the Russians chased us, they knew if we had white bands we were from the other side. They put us in a camp over there, but they let us go after two days. I went into W00f477, in the Ukraine, one of the biggest city. I was trying to meet some people I know or something, I ran into some people from my home town. I ran into the guy I used to work with. He took me over to his house, we took a shower, we ate, after 2 or 3 days,   he said, Joe, your're on your own, you can't stay here. The guy did me a favor, he let me in, you're only good for one or two days. I met another friend, there, he said I'm sleeping in the library, if you want to stay there with me, fine. I says, I want to sleep inside, wherever it's warm. It's Oct.

I couldn't find a job. It was pretty miserable, here I left my family behind, I had never been away in my life, it's very hard to be away, every night I get up and go crazy

END OF 1ST SIDE AL-JOE

There were a lot of people out of jobs, they were looking for jobs, and the Russians wanted to give them jobs, but they wanted them to send them to the coal mines, they put out signs all over the towns that they need people to send to Siberia. So I walked up to the office and I asked the guy, where am I going, I'd like to know, so the guy tells me. You are going to Siberia in the Coal mines. In the mean time they offerred you a 100 dollars, some bread, some cheese and that was on a Monday, but you have to come back on Friday. They were leaving Friday. They gave you the money ahead of time to get prepared, so I took the money, and I took off, I said, I've got enough. I said, I'm not going to Siberia, they were looking for us, so I went close to the border, the German border and I lived in Chummitch 34 in a farm. Before the war I was with a girl, acquainted with a girl on vacation, me and my sister got to know her very well. When I got into Shummich I was looking around for these people, they were very rich. And I didn't know, I knocked on the door, told her who I was, and she was glad to see me, and said, listen "I'm trying to get back to Germany, can you help me." They let me stay there for 3 or 4 days, they fed me and everything else, and then they found me somebody who would take me back to German. So I went to Sunnock 57, it is fright across from the German border, and I made the same trip back. But it wasn't as   bad coming back as going. I stayed with some jewish people in Sunnock, and it wasn't as bad. I came back and things got rough there. And there was nothing to do. Everyone was glad to see me.

A year later they came in in the middle of the night, got me out, got me to work. And I was pretty fortunate because I got to go to thiws camp. They had two shipments, 150 and 150. The first shipment went to Germany. The ones that went with the first, most of these guys dies, right away. They sent them to a powder factory. And I was fortunate, it was a working camp, then they didn't have concentration camps. 1940 they didn't have any concentration camps yet. We were one of the first to get in, they didn't have any wires around us, 150 people, they took us, we stayed over night, the first shipment went out first thing in the morning, and we went out the same noon. We didn't know where we were going. We got into Illuska95, in Poland, and we had to march 5 miles to camp, the roads were mud, we couldn't hardly walk. The SS screamed, they kicked everybody, I was young, 19 20 years old, the oldtimers had trouble when they got into the mud. It took us 2 hours to get where we were going. They put us up in a big horse barn, put us all in there, we lay down there, it was so cold, everybody passed out till next morning. Next morning, one of the big shots come in, told us we brought you out here to work, as soon as you work we are going to feed you, clothe you, everything. The next morning they divided us up into groups, 4 groups, of 30-35 people. There were 4 groups, 4 different little towns, about 6-8 miles away each town. We were all from the same town, friends want to stick together, so we got ahold, some close friends, and we wind up in Oosola 133, one went to Reicha 137, one to Blinka 139, one to Chicka 138, four different cities.

We got a house, one house, a polish house, they'd kicked everybody bout. We had bunk beds, and they we had another little house, they made a kitchen out of it. The SS man who was watching us was living next door to us. There was no barb wire,   nothing. This day, there was nothing to do, so we went out, washed and bathed, got the mud out.

Following day he said we're going to work. The big man, was very fair, camp officer. He said, if you guys work, you're going to have everything. He kept his promise. This camp was a model camp. Most camps were full of wire, they killed them, they beat them, in our camp we worked, they fed us good. We didn't complain, the food was good. You know, when you cook for 30 people its not for 500 or 1000, so you know you get your rations. There was nobody there to steal because we were friends, nobody was going to take away. We got in in 1940 in Oct. or Nov. end of Oct. and we stayed there until July of 43. We just move from one city to another, 6 miles further down, when we got through with our farm, to tear down so many houses and build them houses, what we did we tore down old farms, farm houses, so many houses and build them houses. The Germans brought over guys from Bessarabia, Hungary, called Lithuanians, and one German took over 10 Polish farms made one farm out of it. So we had to destroy 10 farm houses and build one house for him. All we did was tear down the houses, and then we prefabricated the houses, painted them inside and outside. They were Germans who had lived in Hungary or Lithuanians.

So they brought them. They figured they are going to produce more than poles. They took all the poles and sent them to Germany to work. Some of them they moved over to. . ., they didn't kill them like they killed us. They existed. See a Polish farmer never had any money. Whatever they produced and he could sell, that's what he lived in. A lot of them lived in the hills, on top of the hills, and the Germans didn't want the hills so they let these poles stay. They took only the bottom land, the good land. We got acquainted with these poles, we weren't supposed to get out of the camps, the guy who were watching us was an old guy, would fall asleep, so we got out. The poles didn't have any clothes, no shirts, anything, shoes. We went out, we had plenty of clothes at camp, we brought some clothes to camp, we would trade. After 2 or 3 months the old guys let us go home. When we'd go home, the Poles didn't have any   money to use their ration cards. THey couldnt buy anything, we'd give them a shirt, a pair of pants, they'd give us all their ration cards. We had plenty of clothes, people died, there was plenty of clothes, so we gave them to the poles and we took the ration cards to buy anything we wanted. We'd find a Gentile friend, we paid them so much, they'd take the ration cards. To get a piece of bread, bread on the black market was so high, if you had a ration card, you could live for three months.

So that was what we did, we went home and back and forth. We used to have a baker who sold the camp bread, so we'd give him some shoes, or clothes, a shirt, and hed give us another 5 loaves of bread, so we had the ration cards plus whatever we got. So this camp was fantastic for us, it was better than being at home. Especially, you go home ever 3 or 4 months, we worked pretty hard, but after work we used to go swimming, we had a lake right behind the building. This went on till 1943. Once we went home on a holiday, it was in 1942, most of the camp went home for the holidays, and the polish people, the german guys called up our Big shot over there and said, how come the jews aren't working. And we found out most of us guy were home. The next day I get a telegraph that says I have to come home. Right Away. I picked up the train and went back the same day. The picked up the SS man who had given us the paper to let us go home. We had filled out the papers for him and he was old and he signed them, we tricked him actually. They took the SS man and sent him to Auschwitz because he'd let us go, they destroyed him. We came back and we were beat up so bad that you have no idea. The following week we get another SS man, and this guy comes out direct from Auschwitz, it was 1943, it was May. This SOB was the worst, he took all our horses away, we had to be the horses, they used to carry our loads.

He used to come in and we used to clean the place up, and he used to tear it apart, just like in the military, after a days work, we were through, and we were tired, and we had to clean the house, wash the floors. For 6 weeks he gave us so much misery.

 

Everybody was trying to give up. After being so good, this SOB comes in, he was a dirty old man, a hungryman, very bhungry. All of a sudden he asked me to come in and clean up his place. "You come in tomorrow and clean up my place." So I went in and cleaned, I got to talk to him. He'd never talked to anybody, Haltenschnauzer haltenschnauzer, keep your mouth shut. Once he talks to you, you can have a conversation. All of a sudden he opens up and talks to me. So I was going there for a week, 10 days, I said. Why don't I send in a girl, she can cook for you. I said, I tell you what, if you let me go, I got a bakery here, I got some meat people, they make the best salami in the world. I make his mouth water. And I keep on telling him, he wouldn't tell me it was okay to go, but I could smell it, I could feel it. He would say, do whateaver you want to, go to hell. After a few days I went into the bakery, went into the meat market, bought a salami, a big salami. I told them story, they missed us, they wondered what happened. At the bakery, everyweek we use to come and leave them something extra, and they'd send some extra bread, all of a sudden we didn't show up, the same thing with the meat market. And I told them we got a knew guy, an SOB, but to be patient and everything was going to be fine. I went out to my farm friends and they gave us some butter, a couple dozen eggs, two salamis, a couple loaves of bread. I put them in his room, I didn't tell him, son of a bitch comes back at night, he doesn't say nothing, he doesn't know nothing. He saw what was going on though. But all of a sudden he comes over and he sings and whistles. Our whole life changed cause he let go. For two months we were so in the dumps, we wish he would die, we wished to kill him. Things came so much now that he was fed and happy. We arranged to have soccer games on Sundays. So we went to have games between our different groups, 6 or 7 miles away. So he said it was okay to do it.

The same guy after two or three months, he takes us on vacation. We told him what was happening, we'd run out of clothes to trade. We have to go home. He took us home, with a gun on him.

 

the last time I was home was in June of 1943. In August of 44, they liquidated ghetto houses, tore them down and destroyed them, they took everybody away. I came home, I was young, you want to run around. My mom said. You only have one mother, spend some time with me, not your girlfriends. You can have a lot of girlfriends, 10 wives, but you only have one mother. I spent the next day with her. Now I feel bad I didn't spend all my time with her. When you are young, you don't realize what could happen, we never figured stuff like this could happen. She knew this was going to happen. She said, "You might not see me again." We didn't know they were killing us, even though they were killing us every day.

We were there until August 43, they circled the camp in the morning, we didn't know, we were sleeping, two of my friends got tipped off, they got out, even today, I didn't know what happened to them. But when we start counting, there were two missing.

They came in rough, see we had our old man, we'd got used to him, and all of a sudden they came in with the S.R., they were the yellow guys, with the yellow uniforms, these Sobs were brutal. Right away it was come on, come on get going, get going. And this guy was looking for a leader, because our leader, our capo , and he was tryhing to give me a lash to hit the people to make them go faster. I should hit those guys, I said I'm not going to do it, I can't do it, go to hell and he hit me, and he took us out of this camp, and we didn't know where we were going.

The first time I saw a real concentration camp, in 1943, actually it was a concentration camp, actually a transit concentration camp, they send you from this camp in Annenberg, in Silesia 432, OverSilesia, so we were over there about 1 months, then they sent us from there in January to Gradditz, where I met the cook Meyer. Oct. etc. who knows.

He saw me, right away he was glad to see me, he said If you need something I'm here, don't hesitate to call on me. For the 1st 6 weeks I didn't need him, I couldn't eat   the food. Their food was so bad, they boiled some potatoes with peelings in, there was nothing in there, I couldn't eat until I got hungry.

I was staying in line after I came home from work, one guy from my home town, by the name of Schickman, polish jew, there were all jewish 453 capos, he was trying to be, when he hit me he was good with the Germans, make himself a good name with the German, that's why he hit me. I said. Why are you hitting me, what the hell you doing this for. I didn't stand straight in line, so the Germans would kill people for this, he was trying to be the same way to stay good with them. So Meyer Brauner in the kitchen saw him do this to me, he went out from the kitchen and grabbed the guy, picked him up and told him, "Don't you ever touch anybody from my home town, don't ever hit anyone." There were some guys allright.

We were working so hard in this camp was the worst camp I'd been in in my life. Coming from a good camp, this camp was unbelievable, we went through so much hell in this camp.

END THIS TAPE

see below where we start the above again

Our town we had two large synagogues two large churches. We had little synagogues. In town we had a lot of people living in apartments, together, four or five stories high, 60 or 70 inhabitants, and most every apartment house had synagogues. We were religious people, we used to pray twice a day, about 80 % of oujr people were religious.

There were about 35,000 in the town, the gentiles mostly lived on the outside of town, inside it was mostly jews.

The gentiles who lived inside town, most of them were janitors of the houses, because, come friday night, as religious jews, we are not supposed to turn our lights out or warm our food on Saturday, so we had gentile janitors do this for us. They would turn the furnace or stoves on, and that was how we could cook.

 

I'll never forget the janitor was an old man, 50 or 60 years old, we always used to make fun of him, to us he was a really old man. He was a nice guy, he and his wife. they were nice people. But, the doors of the apt., in front we had a door, and at 10:00 the doors were closed, locked. Sometimes when we went to a how, when we came home we had to ring his bell to let us in. You know, when we are young, an older man, we made fun out of him, so we walked in, we always used to run away, we never paid him, older people, they used to give him 50 cents or a dollar. We used to gang up on him, 4 or 5 guys, first he opened the door for us, and he stuck out his hand for us to give him money, and everybody started running, so this old man used to scream for a half hour, bitched and bitched, we used to get the biggest kick out of him. sometimes we used to wake him up later, 12 or I. After a while he never opened the door, he knew he wasn't going to get paid.

We used to get along with everybody over there, it was a nice town, we had three movie theatres, very nice ones, two hotels. We had all kind of movies, most of them were American movies, we used to see all the best movies. Course in 35 or 36 a cowboy movie was the best movie, we used to go see Tom Mix. When TM was in town, it broke down the movie theatres, everybody came, kids used to come from all over. He was on on Saturday and Suns., we used to fill up the theatres. Tom Mix was our hero at the time. Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy were big heros, they had subtitles, they sang in English. Jimmy Cagney was my hero then too. We saw a lot of movies. Our life was to go to soccer matches, our biggest excitement, to go to a soccer match and go see an American movie.

We had about 5 or 6 different teams, A B C clubs, most of the time, we had one good team and we used to follow them. If they played sometimes, they played a gentile team, we used to follow them, they played about 8 ten miles away. After the game was over there was always a fight. Always a fight, they used to fight, they used to chase us for miles. If we Won. If we lost everything was fine. Most of the time I   used to run home 15 minutes a half hour before the game was over. That's how I used to live through some of those brawls.

Once a year they used to have like an Olympics, all over the country, but the most important game was soccer. And I used to play soccer myself, I played not on the A league, I was in a junior league, only 13 14 years old, I played pretty good. Usually we played, neighborhood, against neighborhood, one street against another street. Sometimes we start out in the morning and go at it for hours.

We didn't have any swimming pools like we have over hear, but we had lakes, beautiful lakes. They were little lakes, with grass all the way around. We also had beaches. In the summer time, most of the time, we used to go to the beaches,we had two or three months vacation. We used to get up in the morning go to the bveach, spend all day, we played ping pong there, soccer.

On day, heh, heh, I decided, I found out that about two or three miles from our beach, we couldn't stick our noses out, if we had gone over there, we would have gotten beaten up by the gentiles. It was not private, but in our home town you could only go to a certain point, if you crossed the line, you were chased or beaten. It was like you stay in the ghetto, you get out of the ghetto, they saw you, they chased you and beat you.

One morning, I figured, these guys are coming in a little later, I'm going to get over and see. They were always talking how good the water is, the water was supposed to be warm on the other side. Must have been a hot spring. They always talked about it, it was like a forbidden apple, I wanted to see it in the worst way. I was curious so I picked up, me and a friend of mine. We were all alone, nobody was there. We were swimming and having fun. A half hour later, we were through swimming, we tried to get out of the lake, bang, they were there. I just had enough time to put on my clothes and start running. I run for maybe 3 or 4 miles and they chased us, and chased us, and chased us. Until we got into our ghetto. In our ghetto they stopped, stopped chasing us. That was the way we lived, you see, I was used to   it, it didn't bother me anymore. They were not nice at all, if they would have caught me, they would beat the heck out of me. And they would get a kick out of it, and I would be all bloody and that is all. But I never give them a chance, I run a little faster than they did. I always ran a little faster. I remember a friend of mine, he lives in Israel now, I saw him in 1965, he was one of the guys, when they chased them, and he'd run and then turn around and got himself a two by four, and when they walked by he'd beat the heck out of them, and then he'd run away.

He told me the story. But I didn't want to stay and fight. Listen, I wasn't a fighter. I was a fighter in my own way, but not to stay and fight and beat somebody up.

The girls and boys, we had separate organizations between the boys and the girs. We used to get together and talk. WE used to meet each other. There was a main street in my hometown. You could go out, after school was over, and after dinner was over, and you could walk down the street and you saw all your friends you wanted to see, everybody was promenading, out walking. It was a nice thing to see a girl that I like, I took off my hat, said, hello, hello. I never forget, I was hooked on one girl and her sister went out to a party or something, and we were babysitting, together. And we were laying together and god forbid I wouldn't hit her, I would lay a hand on her, she would have slapped me if I had. We were having a good time just sitting, holding our hand and talking to each other. It was a lot of fun, and ~I used to see this girl quite often, I'd drive by I looked up at her, I was sort of in love with her, I was 13 or 14 years old, what can you do.

When I came home from vacation, what I told you once, my mother told me, Girls you are going to have a lot, but mothers you are only going to have one. I'll always remember that it'll always stick with me.

My mother had just one brother, and the brother had five daughters and two sons. He had a good job, he was working, all his kids were professional. We used to see them all the time. They had it pretty good, by good, that means they had enough food to eat, they could clothe thereselves and pay the rent. That was very good, in   those days. ON my fathers side, my father had four brothers and one sister, the sister lived in the united states, and most of the brothers had about four or five kids, so I had quite a few cousins, one cousin lived in sosnofitz601.

When I started working I had a ticket that I could go by streetcar or by train to Sosnofitz, so I used to stop over there and see them all the time. They had three sons and two daughters. Family kept on growing. I told you about Purim.

Purim is just like halloween, we used to read a scriptures from the Bible and we had a big feast, people used to come around, all dressed up, in all kind of costumes, native costumes, and poor people used to come around and we used to give them some money or some food. The whole family used to be together and we used to read the scriptures and we would have a big party. This was the highlight when I was a little boy, I was waiting for Purim. We didn't have food, food was a big food then. We got together and we ate big food, and we drank.

In our hometown we had four schools. One was a Mizrachi school, a private school (reform?) and a Hagada ? school, a regular orthodox school, then we had a high school, we call it ?. And we had a professional school, taught professions, they were all jewish school. Also a regular city grade school, belong to the city, everyone could go. I went to the Mizrachi school, you had to pay, we didn't pay too much. After my father died I had to get out of school. In Mizrachi they taught you Hebrew and everything else. In the Haguda they taught you only Hebrew, Yiddish, and the bible. Then they used to go to the public school a few hours to learn some other things.

Not orthodox, I used to ride the streetcar and train on saaturday's, very few jews did this in 1936. My job with the factory, it imposed on me, right away the guy asked me, told me I'm going to have to work on SAturdays, we worked a half a day. When I used to ride the streetcar I always used to get off a few blocks from my house, I didn't want anybody to see me. I wasn't supposed to be doing it, but I did.

We used to have parades, there used to be a holiday, a government holiday, we used to all get out, We used to parade, and after the arade we used to go to the   synagogue. We used to have an old rabbi, he's like someone you see on Fidler on the Roof, guy with a beard. We used to have a man just like him, and everytime he had a speech in Jewish, we were singing to him in polish. We used to sing ________ Long live the rabbi, he said ___________698, Nah, nah. He didn't want this attention. This always sticks out.

The early life, when you are young, you don't pay attention to the world's problems. We went after our lives, it was a nice town a nice little city, we had a lot of friends, everyone was very ffiend.y. At 6:00 when I used to walk out, we had a main street with a wide walker to walk. People used to sit on the balconies, all kind of balconies, people used to look down, and if you wanted to see your friends, you'd meet everybody, you'd go out and see your friends, until about 10 when all those doors were closing up. Everybody disappeared. Up till 10 you'd see everybody marching all over.

When I came over here, I couldn't see those things, I missed that. That's why I miss this a lot.

We had a crazy guy, in every city they have some kind of crazy guy, kids would run around and chase them. We had a Moita733, he was a water carrier, we didn't have any water in our houses. We had to carry water. In 1935,36 they used to have pumps on each block. IN the winter time we used to have a guy like him carrying the water to your house. Everyone, the young boys, they used to chase him and make fun of him.

He was the city crazy guy. Everybody felt sorry for him, gave him some money.

Gentile friend moved in in 1937, right next to our apartment. They bought a bar in our area. In a bar, jews and gentiles were hanging out.lt was not a bar where you buy whiskey, bars were beer and a little restaurant they would wserve some food, that was a bar. I got acquainted with him very well, in fact, I introduced him to all the girls, he was a stranger. He didn't look like a gentile, he looked like a jew. FAct of the matter he used to come over, see I couldn't eat in their house, I was hungary, but I   couldn't eat there, because when you are a little religious, you aren't supposed to eat in a gentile house, in Europe, it wasn't kosher. So I went into the restaurant, I saw so much food, and I couldn't touch it, and I was hungary mind you.

Home remedies. When I was young I never used to get colds. WE used to get, my mmother bankis, put some heat in it, some fire in it, and put it on your back, I don't know what they call it. My mother when I was little, when we got sick, the first thing we got, was one of these. No medicine then, just a pain killer that lasted for a while.

I don't remember being sick before the war, I don't remember if I had measles, chicken pox.

Family traditions, I would like to have all the traditions kept alive. In fact, I like to keepthe traditions as long as I can. Because it is very important for a person to have some beliefs, I always believe din god. I was never too religious man, but I believe in religion. I believe everybody should have a right to practice his own religion. believes in something, I respect them. No matter how he believes, I don't respect people who don't believe at all. Even when I was in camp, I believed there was a god. That kept me going. I wouldn't be alive today without it.

Purim was our best, our biggest holiday. The family got together. Not only just my family, but my 2nd & 3rd cousins got together.

Sometimes we got 100 people, 50 and 50, we divided into two places, that's a hell of a lot of people. We had different kinds of songs, we had them from generation to generation.

We were sitting at home in 1940, in Oct. things were very rough. Up to then, we didn't have any jobs, we couldn't work, do anything. We worked odd jobs, we cleaned the streets, they grabbed us, whatever they could. One morning I get an invitation. To report to a certain place. See, what they did, they took the young kids my age, and they shipped them off to Germany. The Jewish community center, they got letters   from the Germans, they needed 300 people, they went to the JCC and said give us 300 people tomorrow, next week. This is how they startted with the shipments. I was in the first shipment of jews they shipped out of my home town.

I was very fortunate, they took us into a big auditorium, and kept us there all afternoon and all night. They told us to bring just a suitcase and some clothes. NOT too much. So everybody carried a suitcase in his hand, a couple shirts and whatever you had. We registered in a certain place. They invited about 300 people down. The first transport went to Germany to an ammunition factory. Most of these guys lasted 6 weeks, two months, they worked them to death.

I went out with the second shipments, very fortunate, I went to a model camp. I think the Germans did this purposely. They sent us to a camp on the polish border, to Jelesnia to Bautrup-Saybusch. Jelesnia was in Poland, it was just like Denver, all kind of Denver, it was a resort place. We got in there, it was raining it was pouring. I'll never forget this. We were walking in mud, up to our knees in mud.

kAnd everybody had to carry a suitcase, and the SS, they were such a miserable SS. They all looked like dogs, old guys 50-60, they looked like gangsters, when they looked at them, they tought we were making fun out of them. This is the kind they were. They kept on screaming and beating the heck out of them, we had to walk four miles to get where they wanted us to get. By the time we got there, some of them couldn't make it, and they beat the hell, we had to carry some of these guys. There were older guys too.

We got into this camp and they divided us into 40 people to a camp, we went to four different little cities, Glinka, Ujsolty, Chincha.

The guy who runs the show, the whole show, the commander, he was from Silesia, he was a nice guy. He told us right away, if you guys are going to work for me, you got to do your job, if you work, I'm going to treat you right, you are going to have all the rights you want, as long aas you will do your job right. We wanted to work, we were willing to work, we didn't mind.

 

The next day they put us up in a little, old Polish house. They gave us two girls to cook for us. Every little town had two girl cooks.

Everything was rationed then. We went and paid the guys out, give us more food. This went on till about 1943. These camps were specially made for us so we can go home, and they sent us on vacation, as a model camp. So people, who were at home, when they get an invitation, they wouldn't get scared, they should come. That's how they got all those other people to Auschwitz, you see. "Hey this guy comes home on vacation." I can see it now, they didn't have to do this then, everything was figured out then.

It was even nicer, because at home it was so miserable, they kicked you around and beat you, they did everything possible. And the people at home, they were jealous, we are there, at least we are settled already. That's why most of the people went.

We heard about people being killed, but when you are 15,16 years old, you don't want to pay attention, killed, who'se going to kill me, I'm alive. You just want to be alive, and want to do your things. We heard about AUschwitz, but who could believe they are going these things. Some gentile came back and said, hey, I heard they are killing some jews in Ausch. I couldn't believe it. Over there they were mass murdering killing as opposed to the general slaughter in Bedzin.

In 1943, in this camp we lived, went home on vacations, but when they got us out of this camp, they circled the camp. I don't know if the two guys who were missing that morning got away, I tried to get ahold of them after the war, couldn't find them.

In 1943 in August, they took us out to Anaberg, it was a transit camp. From there they send you all over the country. They sent us from Anaberg, from there they sent us to Gradditz. Our job of tearing down the houses and put up the prefabricated houses was all through.They couldn't find anything else. As long as were able and physically fit to work, they kept us.

 

The camp at Gradditz was at an old mill. 4 floors high, you had to go up the 4th floor. There were no bathrooms, of course there was a bucket. You had to go all the way downstairs to use the bathroom. It was very bad, you had a hard time getting used to it. The food we had there was very bad, it was hard to get along. Just miserable. About 6 or 7 weeks I didn't eat anything, then when I got hungery I ate a little bit of bread, here and there. We went out to work, the work was so hard, they pushed us around, shoved us.

We used to make concrete blocks, we used to work by a machine, the machine would throw in the cement, and we carried away four wet blocks to dry out. The machine knocked it out, we used to carry them away. If you broke a block, they beat the heck out of you. And we used to run back and forth, when I got through working everyday, I couldn't walk, when I came home I didn't feel like eating, drinking, nothing. We used to get up at 4:00 a.m., at 5:30 they counted us, we were standing outside in the winter and in the summer, didn't make any difference. In the morning we would get ujp and wash, they had some coffee if you wanted some coffee. Our rations we got in the evening when we came home from work. We ate, got our bread for the next day, we got a little soup and this was supposed to last until the next night. We ate it all up, and the next day we didn't eat anything. By 7:00 the train moved out from Gradditz, we used to go about 20-25 miles away from camp to work. We built bridges, concrete work, hard work, morning to night.

Women had their camps too, Fallbrook was a woman's camp. They had to work too. They worked in different factories.

I lost probably 40 lbs. the last 6 7 weeks in this camp, I got the point, I didn't care anymore, I didn't want to live. Then a typhus sickness broke out. There was no medicine, they didn't give us any medicine, and hundreds of people died daily. END TAPE 1st side

 

Start 2nd half, typhus at Gradditz

They were bringing some new people up, and they didn't last long. Everytime they brought another guy, I pushed the guys, when I woke up, on the right side and the left side, and they were dead.

One morning I went down to the shower. There were bodies piled up just like lumber. All my friends were like that. All my friends I used to go to work with, I see dead bodies. I couldn't walk anymore upstairs. Meyer the cook there, grabbed me up, he kept me there into the kitchen for three or four weeks. He took me in, I didn't do any work, he helped me, he put me back on my feet, he fed me, I gained some weight back and then he said you're on your own, I can't do anything more after 4 or 5 weeks.

He told them I was kitchen help. I was always counted in. You couldn't be missing.

We used to go to work, 40 miles in the morning, one Wednesday morning, all of a sudden two guys were missing. Two guys from Holland. These guys were supposed to have outside help, they had it set up. They thought for sure they were going to make it. They did make it. WE went to camp in the morning and they were missing, they couldn't find them. The whole group went to work. When we came back home, we find those two guys hanging on a tree. They find them about 12 miles away, the guys who were supposed to pick them up didn't show up. They dragged them in behind a car for 12 miles. Then they hung them up, for three nights and three days. And you have to get up and go out at 5:00 in the morning and see those bodies hanging. We barely lived ourselves, we just existed. After the typhus sickness, there were only about 25-30 guys left. So we walked over, about 3 miles, to a different camp and they dumped us with some other people. There was a quaraintine over   there because they were afraid of the typhus, and we didn't go to work. Once you didn't go to work, you couldn't organize and get an extra piece of bread or an extra potato. When we were outside with all the foreign people, we always used to get something, that's how most of them survived. From the rations we got, we could never make it. They just, as long as you could do the work, they didn't care how you did it, if you die or starve.

We were never good enough for the guards. If we didn't stand straight they hit us. They didn't tell us to move over, right away, bang. No mercy.

The ones that converted, like the Poles, The Ukraines were the worst. The Lithuanians were bad. After the war, why didn't the Lithuanians, Ukranians go back, it was because some of them became Germans, they killed their own people. The ones who didn't have anything to fear, they went back. The U.S. put them in D.P. camps, and then they brought them over here, because they were the big Nazi's. The U.S. knew, everything.

In four years when they bring a lot of papers out, they will see that they protected them all.

This was the worst year of my life, from 1943-1944. In 1944, all of a sudden, they got us together on a field, about 2 or 3 hundred guys, they needed that many for some place.they took our shoes, our clothes and sent us out in dirty rags. We thought for sure we were going to Auschwitz.

They sent us back to Anaberg the transit camp, we went in there and came into Anaberg, it was good, they had a good bed, you could sleep over there, was nice and clean, they give you some good, new clothes, I mean it was clean. They shaved us   up, they bathed us. Anaberg they kept it nice and clean. If the Red Cross came in, they saw this camp. It always looked good, it had to be clean, that's why they kept this camp. I was here for 3 months.

June, July, and all of a sudden I decided to go out, they used to send us out to work, we used to work very hard there. We always used to do business

with the French, the English, there were a lot of Holland prisoners. They needed a pair of shoes, and I used to go to camp, we had a lot of shoes there, because a lot of people came from home and brought two or three pairs of shoes. So if I got a pair of shoes, I could turn them in and I would get five or six loaves of bread. I'd give the guy a loaf of bread and have five loaves for myself. And for 5-6 loavesr of bread, you could live like a king.

Everyday, to be able to eat a piece of bread, was just like finding millions. But you had to take a chance, if they caught you, they caught me, I got caught. I had a suit under me, I had my uniform, the stripe uniform, and underneath I had a jacket and pants. I was supposed to do some business with a guy, supposed to turn it over. So an SS man saw me, 1st of all I didn't belong where I went, he said what the hell you doing here, and I bent over a bit, I was picking up something, pretending I was working, so he saw my suit in the back. The guy turned me in, and when I got into the camp they stripped me and I got a hundred lashes on my butt. I was sick for about 6 days, I couldn't walk. I was pretty fortunate, the guy from the Red Cross, he was a doctor, a doctor without medicine. He was there, who knew the girl who was my sister's friend, he watched me, put some ice on me, kind of helped me out to get onto my feet. And after 6 days, you had to go to work. Get the Hell out. We used to go home, we used to get some potatoes from somebody, and we'd put the potatoes in our shirts, and when we went through the gates they'd find the potatoes and they   used to beat the heck out of us. We did everything possible to survive you see. We worked at night, there used to be German farms all the way around thje factories, we used to get out, they had potatoes buried in the ground, we used to go out and grab some out, pull some out, and eat them. The Germans used to complain next morning, hey, You stole some potatoes from us, so the next day,m they watched us already, but we did it again, we had to survive.

That went on till about Sept. 1944, camp was miserable, in sept, all of a sudden, the circuit around the whole camp, where we were working was encircled with Nazis. They took us down to the train depot and we didn't know where we were going. We're going nowhere, we didn't know where we were going. We wind up going to Auschwitz.

\ We come into Auschwitz, and right across, there's a carload, like a cattle car, and we see people unloading these bodies, and right away with dogs, come on, come on, come on, lets go, lets go, lets go, so I walked out right in the front. Now I find out, they divided, the second part went to the gas chambers. The first guys get out go to camp, but we didn't know.

We didn't know what they do in the second. I got in the book how many people were in, and what got into the gas chambers and what into camp.

All of a sudden I'm standing there in line, and they tatoo our arms,

my hand got so swollen, a guy stands there a puts a needle in your arm, and

you scream, and there's nothing you can do, and that's the way they wanted you and that's what they did. We stayed there a couple three hours, we didn't know what the   hell was going on, we didn't know where we are, we didn't know Auschwitz. In the afternoon, about 4 or 5, it got a little dark,

they took us to the showers, now I know they took them to the showers, and they kill them. We went to the showers, and we came out, and everything was allright with us. Because they needed us for different camps. There was one guy, whoever he didn't like, they put in the gas chambers. He told you to go to the right, you went to the right and was all done.

We got into camp, it was Block 9, Birkenau, auschwitz, we came in and there was a capo, he was a foreman,he run the show. He said, you son of a bitches, I'm going to kill you here, all of you, one by one, I'm going to

kill you. If you don't listen know what I'm going to tell you, you'll going to get killed by tomorrow, you're lucky you were sent to the gas chambers. And he screams and beats the heck out of everybody.

there were 3 high bunk beds, only wood, with a blanket on top, and alift up under your head so your head was up a little bit. And that's how you had to lay down, and lay there. But we were glad that we were in already for the whole day. Then they didn't bring us any food that day. Next moprning they brought us bread and coffee. We stayed there about 6 weeks, we saw carloads and carloads of people, we were right in there, and you don't believe that they are killing people there. We heard about it, but we didn't want to believe it. We saw carloads coming in with children, yhoung people, old people. We didn't know. We stayed there about 6 weeks. They needed professional people. I just wanted to get out, whatever they needed professional, I always was a professional. See actually the Jews they didn't let them be professionals, you could be a helpers to professions, but making a professions they   didn't have a chance. I knew about it, because I went through hell already since 40, all those new people there, they were green,I learned right away. How to get out of things, and how to get in and everything else. So all of a sudden I'm a plumber, so he takes out maybe 2 hundred people, they needed people in Dachau, professional helpers, so, I'm a plumber. So he gets 200 people together, and says, I want you to know one thing, whoever lied and he's not a plumber or a carpenter or an electrician

he's going to get shot, so some of these guys got scared and they walked out right away, and they put them in the gas chamber. Just get over here on this side and that's it.

I finally got a piece of bread and some jam, a half pound of bread and some jam was supposed to last three days to get to Dachau. You know they had problems in 1944. They were bombing the stations, instead of taking two days, it took us four days, so we got into Dachau. They had little camps around Dachau, we got into Lager 6, where there were Hungarian jews who just got in. In 1944 they started bringing in Huyngarian jews, late, old men who were religious people and they didn't want to eat like I, so we had a picnic.

We ate all their rations, you see, and we gained some weight. Every few months you had to have something like this to recuperate, and keep me going. We were there in this camp for about 3 or 4 months. The work in these camps was so hard you have no idea. We weren't doing any plumbing, who said plumbing. They didn't need any plumbers. We worked construction work. We were unloading cement all night. They gave us some wooden shoes, with wood soles, if you step in the snow, if you ever tried to work in the snow with wooden shoes. It was so miserable. There was no help. We worked with poor people, they didn't have anything.

 

I worked for a German, he kind of felt sorry every once in a while, he dropped a piece of bread every once in a while from his sandwich, he brought a potatoe, cooked a potatoe. It was the same thing, we used to go out in the fields and steal from the fields, we used to steal. In order to survive in camp you have to take chances, you have to keep your eyes open all the time.

And this went on until the war was over.

We used to go to work at 11 p.m., till 7 a.m., and every night, the Americans are coming. So sometimes we didn't work, it was the best night for us, because the alarm was on. They were coming over bombing all the time. We used to come home to the barrack, small 12 barrack, with wooden floors and a blanket on top of it, and that's how we had to live. The only thing that kept us going, was that the other guys couldn't eat their rations, and we'd get their rations.

When we worked at night, somtimes we used to help out in the kitchen. We had a bunch of guys there, they were shrewd guys, when we used to unload meat or something, and the guy who was supposed to go into the kitchen with one load, he went to or barracks with it. So we had enough food for a month. And they didn't miss it, there were a lot of them that didn't eat, because it wasn't kosher you see. But after a few weeks th ey started getting smart, and they were missing those things, getting hungery. They got us out, there were 6 boys, they kept on sending us from one camp to the other.

Meyer stayed in Gradditz and was liberated there.

Dachau was a group of lagers, little camps. We heard the Americans were coming close already, we heard guns and everything else,we didn't know why the germans   were getting all the little camps together at Dachau, what they were supposed to do. they were supposed to gas us, but the Americans were too close they couldn't do it, they turned on the gas chambers, but the Americans were too close.

Once I got home from work and there was no room to lay down, people were dying standing up. There was no room, we were packed in like Herings. People were dying standing up. April the 26th, there was a death march. They told us we were going to Switzerland. So we marched everyday so many miles, and at night, they took us into the forest and we slept, and the next day they took us over ag=ain. And about May 1st, people were dying, they were dying, in the streets. They told us we were going to switz. and we belieaved them, we didn't have any choice.

Close to Munich, it was cold, snowing still outside. One night About April 29 ore 30th, a german drives in a truck load of bread. There were three ss that drove, and the capos, Germans, they used to run the camps, they used to go around with sticks, whips, they had white bands Jew? They had some kind of powder and put those guys asleep, and we unloaded the whole truck, they start unloading the truck, I had my eyes open all the time. I see that there is some action going on, let me see what's going on, I walk up and see what they are unloading bread, I say I'm going to unload bread too. I stay in line, and load bread, I took two loaves of bread. We had two blankets

and we made like a tent, me and my friend, and so I said listen, on my way over, let me drop off two loads of bread. I've got something good going. And he was afraid, he wouldn't do those kinds of things. I go back and I get beat the heck out of me. They said, what the hell are you doing here, they didn't notice I got two loaves of I had two loaves of bread, this last me three or four days. Next morning, we couldn't show anybody bread, we had to slice the bread and put it around on our   bodies. The next morning we made some soup out of bread, we warmed up some water and put pieces of bread in the water, and make it hot, some salt, that's how we ate.

The Russians, they were so mean to the prisoners. Everytime a person used to die, they used to eat skins of the people, dead horses, whatewver they saw, they were so hungery they ate anything. One day, the day before the war was over, we found ourselves in the forest, I said, I'm not going anywhere. I'm sitting right here. I moved away from the whole crowd all the way on the side and I lay there, here it's snowing, it's cold, miserable. I wake up and there is nobody there, nobody there. A couple hours later, a guy comes in on a white horse and says the war is over. Sure enough, the Russians, that's all they needed. They started killing the Germans, taking their guns and shooting the hell out of them. An hour later, here comes a German patrol back, they took all the Russians and put them on a bridge, the bridge was dynamited. I've never seen people fly like this, they let that bridge go, and I've never seen anything like it. I was lying there quiet,

I don't want to have anything to do with anybody. 2 days later, I'm still laying there, and all of a sudden, Americans come with machine guns. I started crying. I said, why don't you kill me, shoot me already,I haven't eaten for two day, kill me, I've got enough. So he asked me what nationality I am, I spoke a bit of broken German, I thought they were german, but all of a sudden I saw a different language, the guy says, I'm an American, I spoke to him in Polish. They brought over a pollack, cause they had all kinds of

translators right away. And the guy kisses me and hugs me, and says don't worry, we'll take care of you, you're in American hands, sothey take me in, they pick me up,   just like you'd pick up a little cat. Put me on the jeep, drove me into the hospital.

I come into the hospital the guy start me out on a little piece of toast, I said, I'm liberated, why don't you give me something to eat, I'm hungery. For about a week or two they kept me on a light diet, didn't eat anything.

We got out, and I saw the big bus going to Poland, and I picked up with those guys and I went to Poland. Now I look back, I can see, they needed a front, and we were the front. They needed us in the worst way.

Travelling around with the bus guys, outlaws.

I had my uniform, the KZ uniform, to the Americans, they felt sorry for us, they tried to help us. In Bessinghaim, I was in the hospital. The boss of the bus, something went wrong with the truck, we stopped and I'd taken sick, I got pneumonia and went to the hospital, stayed for about 10 days.

These guys were robbing and stealing and killing there. They were a bunch of drunks. And I wasn't about to stay with them. I'd overheard things. I told the doctor I don't want to go out with them, I'm jewish, they're a bunch of drunks, and I don't want to get shot. These guys one of these guys, they are going to kill somebody, they're going to get killed, who the hell knows what they're going to do.

And I wanted to get away, he says he'll take care of it, he tells them I'm going to have to stay in the hospital another 10 days, cause he's very sick, and they took off and left me alone. I stayed for another week, I told the doctor who I am, and I told him I'm jewish.

 

I told him I'd appreciate it if he got ahold of someone. I thought I was the last jew alive, I had been liberated alone, not with a group. So he got ahold of a chaplain, a jewish chaplain in the American army, he told me why don't you come to Stuttgart and we're having services, maybe you will meet somebody you know, he told me there are a lot of people coming over there, just like I am.

That's where I went after a week, over to S, and I met my wife there. I walked in, and there were two girls, speaking Polish. And everybody wanted to get, just some news maybe, she saw my brother, maybe she saw my sister.

But I found out that they were from Raba?Ruska, far away from my home town, and we got acquainted, and we didn't want to let go of each other, we stick to each other, and after a week, I move over to the apartment bldg. they lived in. I got my own apartment there. We lived together. And the, the mayor of the town, he was from Vienna, nice guy, he got us a nice house.

Four boys and two girls shared the apartment. The soldiers used to come over and have dinner with us. They brought some food, some wine, some cigarettes, and for this we trade in for food.

I knew I had some relatives in the U.S., but I didn't know where they lived. I wrote letters to the press, but all I knew was that they had landed in Galveston. I didn't get anywhere.

 

We had plenty of food. We started black marketeering, we used to get cigareetes and trade for cash and the soldiers, they are______, they used to come and have the home meals. Every Friday night we used to have services, and eat dinners. We got very friendly with them, we used to write at the beginning, I'd see one or two, but they got away from me.

This was the place where a german Nazi left, fleeing the country. A lot of houses were empty because their owners were Nazi's who did something wrong and were afraid for their lives. They took off.

At that time, there was no punishments. Nobody punished anybody. I want to tell you something. A jew is very forgetful. A jew doesn't carry a grudge all his life, just like me. What's the use, I can't go around thinking about those things. You have to forgive and forget, but it is very hard to do it. You take any different nationality, they would do different than we did. After the war was over, I had a guy gave me, go ahead and shoot them, I would never shoot them, I would never kill anybody. I couldn't kill a fly. They were bad, I should be bad too? They got out, they got so much out, they had help from America, from the Catholic church. They were hiding them. Help them escape. The one that doesn't suffer, they don't know, it didn't bother them. The poles, the only ones that sufferred, they were the ones that were politically involved, in the resistance. If you went about your business, didn't have to become german, you could stay public, if you wanted it a little better you could become german, you get better jobs and everything else. In Auschwitz right now, they have all Polish heros, "How many heros did you have?" They weren't heros like you know, they were heros, they were out there trying to change, they wouldn't help me if I need help, they wouldn't help me. We had a lot of help sometimes. Whoever wanted to did. Most of the time we didn't have any help. They threatened us more   than the Germans.

A pole, a lithuanian or a Roumanian when they changed over to germans, they were a 100 percent worse than the germans. When he turns around, he's against you a thousand percent. Not only to us, but to their own people too.

The converted poles, become a folks_______, he was trying to bury his own people.

Everybody did it in camp (traded rations, scamed) in order to survive. The ones that couldn't do it, didn't survive. There were a lot of guys who came in, see the reason why we did it, see I was in since 1940. The later guys came in and couldn't last long, because they couldn't do the things we did. They died right away. They came into camp they weren't used to it, we got used to it little by little. We got used to the whole, the bad things, the worst thing, we survived all those things. You take a man like you, I take you out from the house, after one month you die. If you have to live under the conditions we had to live in, most of them died, they didn't last longer than one month, after two or three weeks they were eating grass. At first they wouldn't eat the non-kosher, when they started getting hungery then they had to go back and eat.

We had a double wedding, 325 people. What happened, we had a party one night over at the house, my friend came down and he decided, let's get married. I said, what's the rush. He said I want to be married, if it were up to me I could probably have waited another 6 months. I wasn't in a hurry to get married.

So when we got married, we decided to have a big wedding, people we ran into. We invited everybody in town, we invited any friend we saw. Come to the Wedding, Come to the Wedding. It wasn't like a wedding over here, nobody give you anything.   We went out onto the blackmarket and we bought all kind

of meat, bread. We had a wedding nicer than the weddings over in this country. IN 45, you know, the police chief and the mayor of the town, and they couldn't believe what they saw over there. We had three different orchestras, we had a jewish guy playing a trumpet, a gypsy orchestra. We drank, eat, sang all night. Everybody was laying on the floor, the Germans got so drunk. End TAPE

We'd talked about being liberated, in 1945, May the first when a guy came up on a white horse and said the war was over. I was laying there and I didn't want to move, I was laying under a tree, it was snowing at the time. No that I didn't want to move, I couldn't move, I weighed at the time 65-70 lbs.,

and I said, whatever happens, happens. So, there were a lot of Russian prisoners with us. The Russians started grabbing the guns from the germans and they started killing Germans off. About a couple hours later, a whole batallion of Germans came back and they got ahold of most of the Russians, and they put them all together and took them over to a bridge, and the bridge was dynamited. They didn't know, nobody knew, they told them they would take them across the bridge. That's all I hear, is boom, and bodies flying in the air. There must about 7 or 8hundred. They killed them all off. The whole group on May 1st, marched out of the forest and I said I'm going to stay and see what is going to happen, I didn't want to go. I was far away from the whole group, I was trying to get away as far as I can. Whoever they caught, they put them in the group and marched them up to the bridge, but I was far away.

 

The next morning May 2, it was snowing, all of a sudden a jeep shows up and there were two Americans with guns in their hands pointing at me. I thought they were german, I talked to them in German and said, go ahead and shoot me, it don't make any difference, I can't walk any more. This is the end of the rope, whatever you want to do with me, do with me. So he asked me what language I speak and I told him Polish and he went and got a Polish chaplain over, and he grabbed me and put me on this jeep, just like you pick up a little kitty.

It was raining, there was snow, and it was wet, I was wet. I was so hungery I could have eaten a horse up. So, they took us into the hospital and I stayed in the hospital for a couple weeks. They started me out with toast and tea. Most people after the war, they started going to the farmers, and the farmers thought they were doing them a favor, they fed them butter, milik and all that stuff. The doctor explained to me in the hospital, "You can't start out with any greasy stuff, you have to eat dry stuff, whatever we give you is the right thing to eat." So I ate whatever they gave me, and after a couple weeks I got on my feet. And I walked out and saw this bus come up with these guys with a sign that says they are going to Poland, so I picked up and went with them.

The bus broke down by Bad Telz (close to Munich), I got on that bus. These guys were a bunch of hoodlums a bunch of murderers. They were killing. They drove all night. Anybody who could speak a different language than the germans the first week, they did anything they wanted to. Then things settled down, the Americans came in and straightened things out, and after a week,everything went back a little bit to normal.

In the mean time, these guys took advantage of whatever they could. I was actually the front man for them. They were looking for guys like me with uniforms   (from the KZ) and everytime the Americans saw a guy with these uniforms they felt sorry for them, they said, do whatever you want to, go wherever you want to. I realize this afterwards, after being with them for

about 10 days, I realize what they did, what they were up to. They didn't need me. We slept in the bus, they had all kind of equipment, and everytime they stopped in a town, they robbed food, they robbed clothes, whatever they could they'd throw in that bus. And the American soldiers, they'd see us, feel sorry for us, and give us food. And then the truck broke down in Besingham.

I went to a doctor and told them who I was, and I didn't want to stay with these bunch of killers. I was supposed to be in the hospital for 4 or 5 days, and he kept me 10 days as I asked. Then I went to Stuttgart and met my wife.

They got ahold of a jewish chaplain, he talked to me. When I was in Besingham I didn't know if any jews were alive, I thought I was the only one jew alive. I wasn't liberated with a whole bunch of guys from my camp. I was alone. I wasn't in the hospital with a bunch of people. I was liberated in a small town, they put me in the small town hospital. See, most guys they grabbed them and put them in one big camp, but since I was separate from the bunch, that's why I didn't know if somebody's alive or not. When this guy told me that there were services Friday night and why don't you come up.

So I went up there on Saturday after noon and sure enough my wife was there and a girl friend, and we started talking.

You know you can't come into town and you are jewish (just like that, without proof). First of all the rabbi calls you in and makes you read. You know you look   Jewish and you know everything, and you know a little bit how to read Hebrew. So I went in, read Hebrew and everything was fine. That's how I got my papers. First thing they gave me was ID, because I didn't have any papers at all. The guy asked me my name, he gave me an ID (rabbi). I had a letter, in English and German, to help me, whatever I need, Americans should help me. When they stop me, I took out the letter, and they were always ready to help me. When I had the uniform on I didn't have to have this letter. But when you put on regular clothes then it's a different story.

I kept the striped uniform for just a few days. When I got off the bus

I just wanted to get out of uniform because I didn't want people to recognize, you know, ten days after the war you don't want be a prisoner of war. I got in, got some clothes, put some regular clothes. The doctor got me a jacket at a clothing store, got me some shoes and everything in Besinghaim.

I met my wife, see she lived in Stuttgart, my wife had been in Germany since 1943. She had gotten false papers. Her girlfriend and her had met and Helen had sang the songs to recognize they were jews.

They stayed together after that. I moved into their little apartment, it wasn't like today, you didn't move in right away, I had to get my own apartment. Then some friends came from my home town, they didn't have any place to go, so we put them up.

The government gave us a house of a Nazi that fled. My friends had been in different camps, and they came into town and they stayed with us. We had two girls,   my wife and her girlfriend and this was how we got acquainted, we stayed together.

5 months later I found out my brother was alive. I was in Stuttgart and I was riding a streetcar and all of a sudden I see a friend of mine from my hometown, arrived to Stuttgart. He came from Bergen-Belzn, he comes up and was glad to see me and shakes my hand and says "Hey, how's your brother?"

I said, what brother. I didn't know who he was talking about. I had two brothers. He said, "I just saw your brother two weeks ago in Bergen-B."

Dave found out the same day I found out, that I am in Stuttgart.

He picked up and went toward my place, and I find out and pick up and try to go look for him. It isn't like now, the trains were bombed out, everything was bombed out, you have to hitchhike rides, you have to go on a freight train, anything. It was very hard, I just got 60 miles from my home town, and I found out in Ludnsgsburg, and I came into a DP camp. I come in and a guy says hey, "I just saw your brother, He's looking for you, he's gone to Stuttgart."

So we missed each other. So I turned around from L. and came back and my brother had been there for 2 days. My wife had taken care of him. My brother was so young he had to go to school in Germany. He was 14 or 15, born in 28, 17 years old. He went through hell, too, in his camp.

We got together, we promised each other not to separate anymore.. So he lived with us, and 4 weeks later I got married, with Milton Newberg who had lived in the same home town I did. He saw me while I was going with the girlfriend and we were going to go toPoland. We saw the guy on the way, and she turned around and went   back with him to my home town. We were partners you know.

Right after the war everbody was messing around with black market.

Everything, with cigarettes, with whateaver you could. We made money, we bought things. Everything was black market. You couldnt get anything, in order to get food, we had to get cigarettes from American soldiers, and we'd turn around and get food. It wasn't a big black market, you know, little things, we dealt with each other.

I told you about the wedding, 350 people, three different bands. After our wedding, we celebrated practically every night, we got together, there were about 4 or 5 jewish families that lived in our neighborhood, so we'd get together and celebrate with them, everybody had a brother and a sister. So we'd get together every night, sit down at the piano. This Milton Newberg, he was a trumpet player, piano player and everyone would sing around him.

We built a car. We used to go from one city to another. We had some friends 50 miles away, so we decided to build a car since we like to go over and visit them. We sat down and made a plan of what we needed. We had a frame for a Mercedes, no wheels, no nothing. We used to go to farmers, and when we'd see an old broken down car, we'd ask them for parts, we took parts out, paid them, and it took us about a year and a half to put a car together.

When we got it all through, it was a convertible, we painted it yellow and red. When you are 21 years old, you want to have something somebody should see it.

We were driving around with our girls in the back, some young guys in back, 19-21 years old. Nobody ever saw a car like we had over there. This lasted only about 3   weeks. We had an American, he was our mayor, they had a German mayor, and they had a government, American mayor. He was a german, he spoke good german, he had German ancestors, and he couldn't take it, he couldn't see us driving a car like this, he said, he made us an offer, he said you take the money or I take the car. I think he gave us 3 or 4 hundred. It was a lot of money, 300 american dollars and you were a millionaire. We didn't have any choice. He was going to take away our license.

Then me and Milton Newberg went into the transportation business.

You had to have something legit in order to get gas, in order to get gas you had to have a business. We had a friend that was running a transportation business. He took us in as partners, we paid him so much in German moneys. Then we could get gas, and everything, we had 3 big trucks we'd drive around. For a 100 dollars you could get a truck, you could trade 100 dollars

for 7 or 8 hundred marks, then it went up to a thousand and thousands or more and still you couldn't get anything for the marks.

That kept us busy, being in transportion, we had someplace to go.

We lived in a little town, Fellback, about 20 miles from Stuttgart, and we used to go to Stuttgart and visit our friends and see the new people that were still coming from Poland, from Germany. We saw different people and had a lot of good times, weddings, everybody was getting married. Parties and weddings was all we did after the war. It was a hard time to settle down and say I'm going to stay here.

About 2 months before I left German, the german we were in business with, he said we should buy this factory that was bombed out, you come back in a few years   and we'll have two or three hundred people working there, you'll make a lot of money. But I just wanted to get to the states, I wanted to leave Germany, I didn't want to have anything to do with Germany. I just wanted to get out. And then what happened is that Truman opened the doors to the people, for the DPs.

He let 250 thousand people into America, I just had to have a letter. I had a letter from my uncle, and I had one from my uncle living in Omaha. I went to the consulate and they accepted me right away. Two months later we left Germany. We had to have somebody we could fall back on, so that when we came over the government wouldn't have to take care of us.

We left Germany, left everything, we didn't have anything to take along with us. We had a few things. From Stuttgart we went to Breman-Hoffan. It was a military barracks, there was no heat. They separate the women from the men, even if you were married. The food was so lousy it was something awful. We had to be there for 4 weeks before we could leave, waiting for the ship to come, little boats, military boats, and we had to wait for it to come back. After being there a week, I picked up and went to Stuttgart and I had to go back and get some food, get everything we need, I said, I got cigarettes and everything we need, I said, to my wife, why dont' we get a hotel room there for a week. I didn't want to stay in the camp, it wasn't a concentration camp, where you are forced to be there, we could go away for a while, as long as you kept in touch. I'd go in about every three days and told them what we were doing staying a week in Hamburg.

So we finally warmed our bones up, it was so cold, we were freezing, so hungery, and all of a sudden, I came and everyting turned out to be all right. We took a train to the boat, about 14 or 15 miles. No heat in the train compartments. It was so cold. Here we were liberated, and you are ready to go to America, and because the   Germans, and nobody had anything over there. We finally came to the boat on Friday afternoon we got on the boat. First thing, everybody got all dressed up, and all of a sudden it's nice and warm on the inside. We had a good dinner on the boat. People started complaining they weren't getting enough food and I was sitting with the captain and he said, just waite till tomorrow morning, they are going to have enough food. Sure enough, the boat started moving, and they didn't come down for breakfast. Half the people got sick, the complainers they were laying there for 7 days. They couldn't lift their heads up, they didn't even shave.My wife was very sea sick, I had to drag her up and down all the time.

I wasn't sea sick, of course, the first day I wasn't feeling so hot, but I got used to it, that's all.

I went into the kitchen, it was empty, plenty of food. It took us about 10 days. We came over to the states, I came into New York, Ellis Island. We saw the statue of liberty, we came in on a sunday, and my brother had left four weeks before I did, and my cousin had a wedding the same sunday that we

arrived to New york, but we couldn't get off the boat to the plane until Monday. We had to stay all night Sunday on the boat, and get off the following day. ]

In the mean time, my cousin Lil, my uncle Herman's daughter was married. I wanted to go to the wedding in the worst way, but couldnt get there. When we got into New York the first day, they took us up to a hotel and I went for a walk.

When I went down for a walk and saw those stores with all the fruit, and all the clothes, we hadn't seen anything like this since before the war.

 

It was 7 years. I couldn't get over it, I though I was in heaven. They gave us some money to buy some things. I went in to buy a piece of chocolate, I hadn't had chocolate in years. You don't know what it means to go into a store and buy whatever you want after you haven't had it for so long during the war.

We had the best time of our lives in New York. We stayed there, Milton Newberg, they had come over two months before we did, they were in New York, we stayed with them for two or three days. We went to movies, we wall around. We saw more of New York in three days than most people who live there. We went to Radio City Music Hall, all that. We went back two years later and saw everything, we really hit the town with the Newbergs.

I was there once on broadway, right on broadway, in Times Square. I was there, this I'll never forget as long as I live, this moment, We were there and when they ring the bell everybody was kissing everybody, you didn't know who you were kissing. You don't forget those things, as long as you live you never forget those things.

END TAPE, follow with other side, Chicago to Omaha