| Len's cousin
Comments on the Holocaust
Sonia: He was the leader of the Jews, and he said “Someday,” in German, “our brothers in America will take revenge on him.” Before he died he said it. My cousin was there in my home town after the war and the neighbors told him all the stories of Gorski. [She probably meant Gorki.] Stand up, dying. And our people will take revenge.
And if not the war [?] The war on the homes, maybe rape the girls. The did things that it’s unbelievable to think that animals will [2 words unclear] go out of the church Sunday, written here on the belt, “God is with us,” white gloves -- they wouldn’t touch like this -- and the Poles, the Ukranians, the Lithuanians -- They were the worst. The Germans were disciplined people. Hitler told them to do it, they did it. The Poles you don’t have to tell them. You don’t have to tell them. They went on their own.
After the war, you know how many people died? There was HaShoa -- the movie, HaShoah... After the war, how many Poles are in Klusan [phonetic] Poland. A few, a few thousand, maybe. So the Polish people came out, and said, “Thanks God they got rid of the Jews.” They have all the business, they took everything from us away. The Polish people now after the war.
M: Poland is one country that was 100% anti-Semitic, even without Jews. There are no Jews in Poland. But you ask every Pole, every trouble, it all comes from the Jews.
Sonia: And where did they build Auschwitz, Maidonick, Treblin? You found in Poland because they [had] the cooperation with all the... In Holland, you will find people, in other countries that people used to hide the Jews, help out, not.. And they were involved 100 percent. We talk now about the Polish, I hate them more than the Germans.
Germany was sent to do it, and they did on their own. To take away a shirt from a man, from the Jews, they killed, they would do everything. You know? How can you believe this? How can you believe this? And this happened. This happened.
M: You know, when we were sent out from Poland, there was 20 kilometers [10 seconds missing] You know, 20 kilometers from our home town, it was half way to the town that we were sent out to. It was also a little village, and there were quite a few Jews in there.
Now, we passed by that village, and, you know, I don’t think anyone bothered to find out what happened to them. Were they sent out, too? Or what? Nobody bothered. All of a sudden, you were so busy with yourself, that the next village, everybody knew everyone from there, because people used to go for the market there and everything. Everybody was mixed in, everybody knew everyone from there. Nobody know what happened to them. I don’t think anyone ever thought, “Hey, what happened to the Yidin from Cajatow [?]”
Nothing. And then again, we [words inaudible] from Ostroleka, actually. I don’t remember anyone talking about “What happened to them?” You see, a German came to our home town and told us to try to leave, and we left actually sooner than we got expelled or anything. We didn’t wait.
But the fact is, we were in Lomza then, then we went to Bialistok, but we never bothered to find out what happened to the Yidin from Ostroleka. Nothing.
You can’t judge it at all, what happened to [word inaudible]. I feel [word inaudible]. No wonder they say that people wouldn’t even believe it. Because it’s unbelievable stories, you know. Imagine not to think even what happened to them. I imagine they were sent out because most people from our home town eventually wound up later either in the camps, or they were sent out you know. All perished, you know. But they must have been sent out. But we never bothered to find out what happened to them. You left, and you were busy, and that’s all there is to it. And the daily chore of surviving every day was a job in itself. It was a job in itself.
Sonia: But now the people who came from Europe, the pain, the nerves -- a lot of people, it’s coming back nightmares. Well like they have [?] my sister in-law’s mother, so they killed the children and her husband in front of her. And you can’t [several words inaudible]. “Where’s my children?”
M: She’s 80 years old, you know, and now she wants to know where here children are. But I’ll tell you something. It’s amazing that people like this could live that long, yet, after such an ordeal. I think human being much have enough love in it that.. to be able to survive and ordeal like this.
Still, in a city, I told you that was our grandmother’s family there, the Friedmans there. And one morning, we have seen a fellow from our home town, a young man, and he had a little berth [?] you know, and he was all white. The time we had seen him before, he was a dark fellow, he was a black fellow; he was all white, you know. And we asked him what happened.
And there were four people, and two Germans took them into the bush, mad them stand each near a separate tree, and told them to stand up and keep it like this over their head, and the first one that moves get shot. And they left, the Germans.
And they were standing and standing until they... one of them must have weakened, and he moved a hand. And he was waiting to get shot. And he didn’t. And he felt himself comfortable by moving the hand a little bit, and then he said, “What the heck, I might as well put it out altogether.” He put it out, and then he turned around. There’s no Germans. But he got white. Overnight. Instead of being black, you know, he was all white. All white.
And how could he forget such a night, huh? As a matter of fact, I was once at mother’s uncle, that was our Baba’s brother, Friedman. And Germans came in, and they ordered everything that could be smoked and everything that could be drunk on the table, to bring it up. So, my uncle went up [sic] to the basement, he brought up some wine. But smoking, apparently [?] he didn’t smoke, he didn’t have anything for smoking. And they took out the guns, and they said they were going to shoot us because they don’t want to pardon [?] the smoking stuff. And he took a few minutes. We all thought we were going to get shot. But somehow, I don’t know what happened, they took away the wine, then they left.
But you don’t forget that, you know.
Sonia: But my Alex [tape unclear] says a German soldier [word unclear] us, this man. He couldn’t move for weeks.
M: No, what happened was this. This was in our home town, actually. After we came back.
I was going with a friend of mine, in the street. The law was that you have to get off the street when you see a German soldier. As soon as they came, they made a curfew [word inaudible] that you can’t go from, I think it was, six in the evening till eight in the morning, because you can’t be in the street. If you see a German soldier, you have to yield the right of way. You have to get out of the way, you know. In some places, they made the Jews couldn’t even walk on the sidewalk, only in the street.
But anyway, two soldiers went by, and I was discussing with a friend of mine, [word inaudible] politics, actually. And I remember, just now, we were talking about the Hitler-Stalin agreement. And we were arguing about it, whether it was right or wrong, you know. And the German soldier noticed that two fellows are going, they don’t go off the street. And he turned around and said, “You Polish pig” you know. “Polish swine,” he said, “What do you mean, you didn’t get off the street?”
[Words inaudible] “I’m not Polish, I’m Yiddish! I’m Jewish. So I don’t want to get hit as a Pole. If I’m going to get hit, I want to get hit as a Jew. What the heck. I get hit as a Pole, you know?”
And he took out the rifle, and with the butt, you know, he gave me over the head. For a week, I couldn’t straighten my head up. I was..
Sonia: He could have shot you.
M: He could have shot me too. But he said, “You Polish swine,” he said, “what do you mean [words inaudible]”
I said, “I’m not Polish, I’m Jewish.” And he took [words inaudible] into me right away. [laughs]
Len: It’s funny.
M: It’s funny. It’s not funny. We were people, we had rights. You know what it means without rights. You could do with me anything you want, you got no recourse. Whether it’s a [word inaudible], it’s a kid, whether it’s a German, they could do anything they want. And you got no recourse, no court, nothing. No judge and no judgment.
[background talk inaudible]
There was still no comparison to the people who were left under German rule. At least you see, at the beginning, they were not ready yet, they didn’t know what to do with us, so the laws were not as strict, you know.
Len: And also, they were trying to get you out, rather than kill you right there.
M: You see, their policy was always, always not to let you know that you are getting killed. Till the last minute, they did everything they could to run things as smooth as possible, because they figured the less friction, the less trouble there is, the less the world would know. You see, if everything goes quiet, they wipe out the community and tomorrow it’s all forgotten.
As a matter of fact, what their plan was, really, is to wipe out the whole European Jewish community, if possible, and of course, they figured it might come to the world, they were thinking about somebody else, too, you know, let’s reason. [Some words unclear here] But, that was their plan, and then make a museum.
Len: They did make a museum.
M: That’s right, in Czechoslovakia, where they had, yes. And they were collecting stuff out, in fact, and everything, and they thought they would have a museum that future generations, they’ll all in all that at one sometime, some parasite, or whatever they want to call them, lived, you know, they were called “Jews,” and this is the way they looked, and this is the way they were praying, and this is their things that they did, you know.
But their plan was really to annihilate the whole population with no exception. Till [?] generation, they used to leave them a day longer, that’s all. But they killed them anyway. And the idea of it was to do it all quietly.
I have a book here from a town, the Holocaust Book from a town, and the guy says they used to make a petition, before... they called an actyeh, that means, they came for the last march before they killed them. So, they would come a week or two weeks before, and do exactly the same. The only thing is, nothing happened. In other words, they were preparing the people to think in the last minute, that when they will come for the last action, that the people should be calm, because they knew already two week before that the same thing happened. To reassure them.
And this way, first of all, they won’t run away, and... You see, the most they were afraid was witnesses. They didn’t want any witnesses, and they tried always to do a 100% job, you know. And in some cities, they succeeded, that the whole city was wiped out without a witness left. But in some cities, like this particular town, they ran away a lot. A lot of them got killed running away, but still quite a few survived in the bushes, in [word inaudible] near their home town.
One fellow tore up a cinema with Germans, with people, and they were fighting back and they killed a few Germans, and a lot of them managed to get away. And that was for the Germans a very minus in their book, because that means somebody who survived, they will be able to tell the story. They tried to do everything they could to hush it up. Even in the camps, in the gas camps, what they used to do, they called them zumbercommander [phonetic] That means a group of people who were working on the cleanup, the [1 word inaudible] and the ashes and the corpses [several words inaudible]. They used to work a few days, and then they used to be thrown in. There should be nobody left to tell the story, you see.
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