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Toivi, you wanted to talk about the Shtetl about the place where you lived as a small

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boy. Thank you for allowing me your time. It is December, eh, 15, 2009. This is Thomas

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Blatt, alias Toivi Blatt, which is his Polish name. Please talk about your Shtetl

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I’m born in a small Jewish town, Izbica in Eastern Poland. The, the town had about 3,600 people, that’s

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all 96% Jewish. It started in the 16th century und eh, it was very poor. Very religious, orthodox. There

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was a famous rabbi in Izbica Landau eh . My father was well off in Izbica because he had a liquor store.

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Eh be, he was in the Polish eh, volunteered to the Polish legionnaires, Piłsudski’s legionnaires

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and he was wounded. Eh, because of it, he had this eh business, the liquor store. So we had a way to,

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to, to make a living. Most of the Jewish had little shops , they were peddlers For me, Izbica was the

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eh centre of the world. I didn’t want to go any place else, I loved this town. Izbica was used by

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the Germans later as a trap, because on three sides Izbica was surrounded by hill sides. And the fourth

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side was a river. So it was enough for Germans to put a few soldiers on the hill sides and no.., nobody

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could escape from the town. Because from the top of the town you could look down and see everything,

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from the top of the hill. Izbica was later used as a transit ghetto and we’ll speak later about this.

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Eh what could I say? I had eh a brother, Hersz Ber we used to live in a house which years, years ago

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was a beautiful house caughs, two floors and now, and I remember 1938 and ’39 to the fall, it already

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was devastated, no repairs, the dach, the, the roof used to leak and eh but I still was happy to be

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there. When it was raining we had some trouble, because the water from the hill side that used go down

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to the , to the town and we had a water up to the knees practically some time. My father was not particularly

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religious and they called him Leibele Goy. Goy was a synonym of a person who doesn’t believe, who

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is tough and so on. Eh at one time my dad, I remember him many times he closed the windows, the shutters,

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locked the door, he smoked cigarettes on shabbes, eat eh non-kosher meat, I’ve seen everything eh

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and I realize eh, eh he shouldn’t do it, but he has done it and later he he, he get me to try, and

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Rasko too and I did try, it was very good. And I didn’t understand why it is forbidden for Jewish

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to eat it. So it was an old house and the later generations after generations, you know, it was divided

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in the, for, for the, for the family for in, in eh, on the end side I remember in 1938/’39, eh, eh,

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it were few very small eh rooms for each eh member of the extended family. We did live in a two room

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apartment we had to say, eh, it was a kitchen, a small kitchen, there was there over there a bed for

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the maid, hm, and eh eh later another room had a table, some chairs and still later was this bedroom,

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had two beds, very close to each other. And eh not far was the cemetery with a lot of trees and each

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morning did the, eh, I, all remember, looking through the window, a flock of birds did go over from,

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from the trees, eh, on the cemetery and they flow over our house, I still remember this.-

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Is it easier for you to talk German? Or is English all right?

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Eh

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Es kann auch in Deutsch. Ist das leichter?

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English is okay?

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Eh, I said, I said, very religious, eh, my, my dad didn’t go to, to the Sjiel every day, but eh Yom

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Kippur he did go. He had his own place I remember on the western side I think of the Sjiel eh

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Did you go with him?

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Once in a while, it was only once in a year Yom Kippur.

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Of course

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[grins]

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[laughs]

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So what else do I remember? We didn’t have toilets. If you want to

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Of course

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if you want to go, you did run to, out house and, eh, half a mile away, many times I didn’t make

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it in time. And eh I remember the, eh, we called Wasserträger, the guy who delivered water.

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Water

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He was always a person mentally ill, eh, he did deliver water in buckets, we had in the home a big container

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von metal sheet, eh, twice a day he did bring us the water. No, it wasn’t like now. To make a meal

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was a big job, it wasn’t like now you go to the wall, you turn a switch and you have eh water cooking

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Yes of course

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and when you really need to go to the eh special closet and pick up wood and start

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a fire in the kitchen, eh was a whole ceremony and finally there were some meal,

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good meal if my mother made it. I remember the commandant of the police, Bürgermeister,

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used to come to us, eh Fridays to try my mother’s fish, carp.

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Oh it’s lovely, carp, isn’t it?

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Pardon?

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Wonderful

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Yes

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An old traditional Jewish carp is

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Yeah, and eh, they put the rifles in the co, in the corner of the room and I immediately

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fast closed the rifle, checking, my mother was shaking because, don’t touch that

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[grins] because it could shoot immediately. Later when they eat, they say thank you,

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they kissed my mothers hand, they wanted to be elegant. And they left.

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So they behaved well towards Jews?

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Pardon?

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They behaved well

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Yes, but

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towards Jews?

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the same policeman later were beasts they took us to the train stations on. This I remember, I

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remember her see them dancing on the street. I remember when the Jews, a Jewish Jud from Zamość,

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a neighboring city, that eh arrived Saturday on bicycles without a hat, eh, oh God! The Zamosce

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goy might hear, the, the, the, chassid orthodox Jews, they chased them with stones..

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Really? ..yes, chased them out from the city immediately. Saturday, with a bike, without

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a hat! I went out, I had, eh took down my hat, immediately I put on my yarmulke,

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you should leave a second without yarmulke I did I wear, I did wear payes.

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You?

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Yeah, can believe me, looking at me, I mean, me with payes Hm. But, eh, eh, say so, there

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said so many people, Oi, Toivi, I can’t believe it! If your grandpa would get up von,

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eh von, von his grave and look at you, the way you are now, he would go voluntary back

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to the grave. Because I didn’t have payes, I didn’t have tzitzis some kind

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Yes, but it’s a different time, and look what has happened

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Yeah

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[laughs]

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So eh, I, I was no Jew actually according to the standards that time, how you should behave. I should

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say, eh eh, eh, eh, a blessing for bread and for water and eh, I, I did know a few words and I hated

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the Jewish school. I lo, I loved the Polish school. On Sunday was no mathematics.

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You like mathematics?

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No! I hated it.

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Okay

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But I left eh, I left eh, I liked the public school, and I did, in, in literature I was very good. And

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eh eh, eh I liked, I remember, liked religion. When other kids were saying oh, religion is not important,

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we go to the, to the river, I was sitting and listening, it was a beautiful stories about Salomon, about

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eh David so I didn’t understand why the guys didn’t want to listen the stories.

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The Bible is narrative, it is beautiful

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Yes

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Yeah Beautiful

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[eats]

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So on

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I didn’t’want to, I didn’t want to go to the Jewish school, the so-called Cheider

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Yeah?

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Because there was a long table, there was about eight boys sitting and each one had a seder, a book

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and you read a paragraph later the rabbi, the rabbie, not rabbi, the rabbie said: next one. The next

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one would start to read a paragraph and went on this, I didn’t understand it. Everything was in Hebrew,

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so eh, after a while the you yawn and the rabbi had, the rabbie, had a when you eh would yawn he put

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in his eh his stick which he did eh point at in the book, he put in the, in the mouth.

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Ja.

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The guy who, yawned, oh God. This is what I remember and I didn’t learn anything in the

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jiddish school and when I went sometime to the Sjiel, pretending I know something, I took

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this b, this book, the sacred Thora, how you call it, and was shaking, I , the other people

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were shaking, and when it’s time, when everybody said Amen, I repeated Amen

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[laughs]

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and it was good. You know, but they didn’t have an idea that I don’t, except

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this paragraph, I don’t know, nothing more. [coughs] And later, what do they have

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else? I didn’t have Bar Mitzwa, no. And probably I wouldn’t have because I hated

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the school, the Cheider. You have Bar Mitswa when you were thirteen

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You prepare for half a year or a year, so we had other problems than Bar Mitswa. So I didn’t. Ja, I,

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I did read a lot. As a matter of fact, I did go to the position, but this was already in the war

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and I, before the war, I did read a rot, a lot because, m, my father was considered eh Piłsudski’s

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k, legionair, volunteer eh, in Poland, in, in the fight for Poland. So my mother eh had privileges.

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And she could take books, loan books from the, eh, Polish Library.

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Hmhm

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So she took books from over there, and I steal it in the evening and did read it. There was some

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serious book eh, what I understood quite a lot. Eh, one book did eh effect me in a way, eh, I remember

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until now. It was the title too I remember, Gdy budzi sie bestia When the beast is awake. Awakened.

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It is a story of people that were thrown, eh, the tr, the ship sink and they were thrown on a, on

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an is, island and there were two women and eight men and they, oh, the whole story, eh, v, eh showing

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from the nice people before and they, when, when the ship was eh complete and how later they became

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beasts, fighting, with feelings of, for the woman and, and this did eh, never did, and every time

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later in the war, this book eh, eh, I, I, I have seen eh, eh, the way the book was eh, eh that the

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eh book portrayed the people eh exact the way you do, eh they are.

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That eh people could change. As a matter of fact, they ask me now what do you did learn from

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the Holocaust and I can’t really speci, eh, pin point, but one thing I know I learned that

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nobody knows them selves in, in normal eh conditions they could be nice and polite, eh if something

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changes, you could be a, a, a beast. Depends everything, on the conditions you live in. In

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the situation, the political situation, eh, economical situation. Anyway,

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You learned a lot

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Pardon?

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You learned a lot from those books

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Yeah, I, I remember till now, you can see, and also I stopped believing in God slowly.

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I mean, I ha, eh, eh, I still didn’t believe what I learned that God could do

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everything, she, so, eh, eh, it was dark in Izbica, eh, the, as far as I remem,

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eh, remember we didn’t have electrical light, we had kerosene light

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Yes, Of course

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because winter time is five o’clock you go to bed [grins] so, but eh, eh, I remember when the eh,

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eh rabbi died. And eh his wife, children were crying, you know, it wasn’t like now, a funeral, everything

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is quiet, you know, in that time you did scream on the street and your hand, a finger, so

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Tear your clothes?

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Yes, and I was thinking why did the rabbi die? It’s a rabbi, he should live, long, long,

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long, he’s Gods person! he was and later, than later the synagogue was on fire. And I

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said something is wrong. A synagogue is a, eh is Gods eh home, can he prevent it from burning?

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Anything else could burn, but not a synagogue! And so a little, flashes of disbelieve.

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Eventually I said goodbye to God in Sobibor. There is a survivor from Sobibor. I, I go

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out a little bit. There is a survivor from Sobibor, Esther Raab.

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Yes

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Esther , and I heard her saying, Esther, had, what, eh why did you survive, I mean, what, what

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eh, had, tell me about your survival, she said God. God, because of God. Once it made me really

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mad and I told her, Esther okay, you did come to Sobibor with two sisters and your parents. They

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were taken away, you was left. You can’t take it at one side, I survive because of God. If this

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is the case, your parents and your sister died because of God too. And I don’t want the hear

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anymore about God. So, I stopped believing at all, if you ask me now, I believe that something

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exists which is running our world, but not in the sense of eh God, if you beg him, you pray to

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him and he will help you. Eh, if I would be a believer, I believe in a terrible God. Eh, anyway,

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going back to Izbica. Eh in Izbica eh it was not so , or eh I’m going eh to Toivi Blatt, eh a

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friend of mine, I did never say I’m going to Toivi Blatt, I’m going to, to, to, to Toivi Leibele

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Goyish. Eh every man, every person had a, how you call it, eh synonym

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Yes, a pseudonym

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and, and this, told the whole story eh very, there was a guy,

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we called him Jo, eh, I’m going to Dziobaty lojne

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What is Jojne, a city? Join is an English word. Yes

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Your name

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but what does it mean?

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J, eh, no, no, it’s a Jiddish word, I don’t know, but Dziobaty is in Polish,

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Dziobaty is chicken pock Jojne, and you needed not have chicken pocks or you

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go to, another, our neighbor, eh, Liza Schetszke. Liza is a name

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Of course

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an Jiddish name

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Schetszke is straw, you know you make it for the, for the food for the horses, eh, you

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got, is, it’s straw from the, from common straw when, which you cut a little, eh

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Yes

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eh this is called Schetszke, this was food for her horses, he dealed with horses, so I did

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know Liza Schetszke, Schetszke horse, he’s a, he had something to do with the horses.

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Eh, now there was Lu, Lume Janku, Janku is a name, but Lume means, eh, their leg

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Leg, leg

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is bad, lame, lame, Lame Janku and everybody has it and eh we d, they,

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the story of his, at least part of his story who he is and. Were there many people, two hundred or three hundred people, 

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How many people were there? I have a list actually of Jews from 193. In that time there were 3000 or so much.

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That is a lot

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Many of our jews were there, many, many. Exceot that the, the Bu, the

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Bürgermeister, the major of the city, commandant of the police, the policeman,

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the postmaster, were Christians. The rest only Jews. Yes?

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So you talked about everybody knowing each other very close

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Close after I was liberated and I go to Izbica for my hiding coming to Izbica with another

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two Jews and we stay in the middle of the market place, I look around in a place where

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everybody didn’t know each other, where no door was open for me, ai, Toivi look here,

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come in, come in, come in, they would say always, friendly I didn’t have where to go.

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I can’t go to my home because some, eh, eh, eh other people living over there and eh,

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so I did run away from over there, from the same day, it was terrible.

209
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It struck me that your book really stops at this moment

210
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Yes, yes, when I did run away. That was a bit later, yes. So.

211
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So you went back to Izbit, Iz, Izbica

212
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I go every year back to Izbica. This year eh, yes I was there this year in Izbica too. It’s a

213
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strange place, I, I meet, eh, boys, Christian boys which chased me want to deliver me to the Nazis

214
00:23:20,416 --> 00:23:28,030
and eh, in Germ, eh, and I talked eh, they read my late, latest interview in Polytika

215
00:23:28,030 --> 00:23:28,800
Yes?

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Ja. Too bad, because I have it here in the home. Anyway eh I meet guys which did eh, give, give,

217
00:23:38,256 --> 00:23:47,417
give, eh deliver Jews to the Germans. You can’t do anything. And in my latest interview, I,

218
00:23:47,417 --> 00:23:56,873
I said to this interviewer from Polytika, eh, lately that eh in Germany, in Frankfurt and Berlin

219
00:23:56,873 --> 00:24:06,132
I have seen many houses with little eh brass eh labels, as if here eh was eh, was living a Jew

220
00:24:06,132 --> 00:24:15,194
and this and this and this name, a memorial in some way. I remember in some way. Than I say,

221
00:24:15,194 --> 00:24:24,454
no, no this is a co, eh completely different story, you don’t mention they were Jewish. Many

222
00:24:24,454 --> 00:24:33,713
Jew, many Christians in, in Izbica they don’t even know that we in the history of of, of eh,

223
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easily said that their houses were actually 100% Jewish houses, yeah.

224
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It’s a kind of silence

225
00:24:47,090 --> 00:24:55,031
Yes, the, eh, the, eh, I was wondering, I eh, when I spoke to German people, German public, I can speak,

226
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I spoke a few weeks ago, about 800, eh people, eh, have, a feeling that they are listening what I’m

227
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talking about, the feeling, a feeling, I’m reaching somebody and in Poland eh I have a different

228
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feeling. They still, they still don’t go out open, they still going, come in, how could they help

229
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Jews and so through this? That if a Pole helps the Jew he’s really a hero. Because they the common

230
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conditions in Poland were different than the conditions in another country. But eh eh, but how many

231
00:25:32,985 --> 00:25:40,698
were of them. And they were afraid of the neighbors a young man eh, me, a Pole delivered to the, into

232
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the eh Sobibor, brother too, my father didn’t want to go out, von, where, where will he go, go, go

233
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out from the ghetto and he will be immediately delivered and beaten and so on. So this was our situation.

234
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And the, the German didn’t recognize the, eh, who’s a Jew, who is not a Jew. They were taught,

235
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eh, to, eh, they were, eh, they teach them about Jews in Germany and the, the typical Jewish that we

236
00:26:11,473 --> 00:26:19,262
have big eyes and a long nose and this and this and this, so they wouldn’t be able to recognize the,

237
00:26:19,262 --> 00:26:27,204
they looked for Jews with long beard without, I don’t know, the Poles, so then the Polish youth sought

238
00:26:27,204 --> 00:26:30,029
them, saw who was a Jew, who was not.

239
00:26:30,030 --> 00:26:30,378
Tovi, I have two themes I want to come back to. I want to come back

240
00:26:30,378 --> 00:26:30,680
to the Polish attitude, because it is so important for you.. Polish? 

242
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,298
..The attitude towards the Jew. But let us now go back to your old

243
00:26:33,298 --> 00:26:35,630
place. You never expected The poles to become so hostile?

244
00:26:35,630 --> 00:26:44,177
I thought my, eh, eh, I was naïve, naïve was I. When I have seen a Pole beating another Pole and

245
00:26:44,177 --> 00:26:52,898
this was the first year of the German occupation, [swallows] I thought ‘what’s happened here?’

246
00:26:52,898 --> 00:27:01,533
He’s a Polish policeman beating another Pole for something, I don’t know for what, when we have

247
00:27:01,533 --> 00:27:10,080
a common enemy! Why does he bea, beat his brother? And later I was thinking what’s happened here

248
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:18,452
in Izbica? swallows The Germans invaded Poland Now a German was a Polish enemy and we should get

249
00:27:18,452 --> 00:27:26,825
together, the Poles, now we have a common enemy, should get together Poles and Jews and not hurt

250
00:27:26,825 --> 00:27:35,372
each other at least. I was never to understand it why the Poles, and some of the police eh helping

251
00:27:35,372 --> 00:27:44,181
the Germans. But later eh, I was aware what the partisans would do eh, it was difficult to understand

252
00:27:44,181 --> 00:27:49,240
why eh, eh, we are, we are not together facing this enemy.

253
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:56,460
Did you expect this to be when the Germans invaded Poland?

254
00:27:56,460 --> 00:27:58,870
No, that what I say, I expected that now we have a common enemy.

255
00:27:58,870 --> 00:27:59,650
Yes, exactly, yes

256
00:27:59,650 --> 00:28:01,450
I think, we were closer than ever. Yes

258
00:28:01,450 --> 00:28:06,770
But why eh is happened that it was further, further away.

259
00:28:06,770 --> 00:28:07,720
Yes, sure

260
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:08,910
No, because, you see

261
00:28:08,910 --> 00:28:09,370
Yes, I understand

262
00:28:09,370 --> 00:28:17,782
The Poland didn’t want eh, eh, the, eh, the Jews. The Jew was a competitor in business and

263
00:28:17,782 --> 00:28:26,378
eh, many aspects. So in, in, eh, they were happy. I want to say it plain. They were happy that

264
00:28:26,378 --> 00:28:34,974
their dream, Poland without Jews, is finally coming true. So eh they are saying till now, many

265
00:28:34,974 --> 00:28:42,290
Poles, that one good thing which Hitler has done is cleaned up Poland from Jews.

266
00:28:42,290 --> 00:28:47,261
I know, I know. But when the, the Germans invaded, when

267
00:28:47,261 --> 00:28:51,690
were you for the first time confronted with this?

268
00:28:51,690 --> 00:28:58,370
When I, eh, when the war started my parents were, were, eh, seeking shelter in the forest.

269
00:28:58,370 --> 00:28:59,090
Yes

270
00:28:59,190 --> 00:29:03,790
When they did come back the Germans moved out from, from Izbica.

271
00:29:03,790 --> 00:29:03,940
Hm

272
00:29:03,940 --> 00:29:08,989
They did come to Izbica when the fighting was on, later there was agreement

273
00:29:08,989 --> 00:29:13,770
between the Sovjet Union and the Germans, about the division of Poland.

274
00:29:15,100 --> 00:29:15,290
Molotov-Ribbentroppact

275
00:29:15,290 --> 00:29:22,324
So Izbica did go back to the Germans. When I arrived with my parents from the forest, eh, eh, I

276
00:29:22,324 --> 00:29:29,581
was also, take a look the war is end, at the end, Poland surrendered and I didn’t see one German

277
00:29:29,581 --> 00:29:36,690
soldier. And my brother said ‘oh, next to the bakery there are still two soldiers’. So I run

278
00:29:36,690 --> 00:29:43,725
to the bakery, there they are, loading bread on the bike, they had regular bikes, and eh he did

279
00:29:43,725 --> 00:29:50,020
throw me a siga, eh, candy and I said to, Danke schön, eh, scheinen dank, in Jiddish

280
00:29:50,020 --> 00:29:50,360
Hmhm

281
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:57,150
So you correcting is not a scheinen dank, is danke schön. They looked nice, eh, and they left,

282
00:29:57,150 --> 00:30:03,798
so this was my first encounter. When the first Germans, I heard, arrived in Izbica they shot,

283
00:30:03,798 --> 00:30:10,375
they killed about six Jews. But everybo, everybody said ‘oh is because the war conditions,

284
00:30:10,375 --> 00:30:16,809
they did just come in and shooting, fighting with the J, with the Polish soldiers’. So I

285
00:30:16,809 --> 00:30:23,528
remember many Jews said oh, if they would shoot at least two hundred Jews, three hundred Jews,

286
00:30:23,528 --> 00:30:30,105
that would be a blessing. Because all Jews would run away together with the Russians. And so

287
00:30:30,105 --> 00:30:34,680
we said oh because of war conditions. And later it was too late.

288
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:43,910
But you, when did you for the first feel this hostility from the Poles?

289
00:30:44,770 --> 00:30:45,670
From the Poles?

290
00:30:45,670 --> 00:30:46,280
Yes

291
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:56,159
Eh when the Germans did come back to Poland, eh to Izbica, the Russians left, the Germans come back.

292
00:30:56,159 --> 00:31:05,899
But for about a week there was, how would I say, eh, a, a lawless city. And that time eh two Polish

293
00:31:05,899 --> 00:31:15,640
men, Krudakosky Manjek and another one I can’t remember, eh, written, in my book, threw a grenade

294
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:25,086
to a group of Jews talking on the street. Killed a woman so on that point the Jews eh, the Poles

295
00:31:25,086 --> 00:31:35,220
came across because the Polish people and the Jews because the Jews cooperated with the, eh communists.

296
00:31:35,220 --> 00:31:44,862
It’s in a, in a way true. What is true? True is number one that Izbica was poor, poorer than the

297
00:31:44,862 --> 00:31:54,308
poorest. I remember Friday, this little town, smelt of kerosene. Why? Because Saturday, Saturday

298
00:31:54,308 --> 00:32:03,852
started Friday. Shabbat. And the poor Jews were eh, this was, they went and washed herself in, eh

299
00:32:03,852 --> 00:32:08,870
it was louse, from the dirt, it was louses and they

300
00:32:08,870 --> 00:32:09,040
Louses

301
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:11,510
washed herself, with the hair, with kerosene to get it

302
00:32:11,510 --> 00:32:13,050
With kerosene caps, yes

303
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:20,619
Yes, so they smell, eh, eh, when the, there were very poor, the Jews, who belonged to the

304
00:32:20,619 --> 00:32:28,040
Communist Party did she, the poor people. My father didn’t, didn’t eh, belong, but other

305
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:35,219
Jews, so we didn’t, they didn’t see, the Poles which were in the, in the Communist eh

306
00:32:35,219 --> 00:32:42,721
organization with the Jews, but they see the Jews. But it was a Jewish town, was mostly Jews.

307
00:32:42,721 --> 00:32:50,223
But were Poles too. And eh this was the eh revenge for the Jewish cooperation within, eh with

308
00:32:50,223 --> 00:32:57,805
the Communists. And from that time on la, eh, so, eh, as it did go to that point, that a group

309
00:32:57,805 --> 00:33:03,209
of Jews with eh, eh, the leader was m, m, eh, Miriam eh Reutenstein

310
00:33:03,210 --> 00:33:03,380
Hmhm

311
00:33:03,380 --> 00:33:09,403
my relative, went to Krasnystaw to the nearby city inviting the G, the, the German

312
00:33:09,403 --> 00:33:14,985
they should come in because it started to be impossible to be, to be lawless

313
00:33:14,985 --> 00:33:19,980
the town. And so, eh, pretty soon the German military eh kommendatur

314
00:33:19,980 --> 00:33:29,159
Kommandantur was established and everything was quiet down. But eh, in the end the Polish police eh,

315
00:33:29,159 --> 00:33:38,338
the Germans established Polish police, which collaborated with them and later the Bürgermeister was

316
00:33:38,338 --> 00:33:47,425
eh eh German, Volksdeutsch and eh, so it was going on we have seen it. A lot of Poles would like to

317
00:33:47,425 --> 00:33:56,604
help Jews but were afraid of the neighbors. And a lot of Poles were sorry for Jews, can’t do much.

318
00:33:56,604 --> 00:34:05,967
The point is, is there were Poles which did help of course, but eh, they were afraid of the neighbors,

319
00:34:05,967 --> 00:34:15,422
because so, all the one voted the Germans that he or their par, the, the, eh, the people eh hiding Jews

320
00:34:15,422 --> 00:34:22,490
and the whole village was burned down. So that was a difficult situation. Ja.

321
00:34:22,490 --> 00:34:27,630
You were delivered by Polish policemen

322
00:34:27,630 --> 00:34:29,790
No, by Polish friend.

323
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,990
Okay. Can you tell the story please?

324
00:34:32,990 --> 00:34:33,280
Eh

325
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:34,800
This I would like

326
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:40,560
Eh, must go fast from the beginning, just fast. Till I come to the story I will tell you the story.

327
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:41,940
Sure

328
00:34:42,130 --> 00:34:51,449
Okay. The Germans arrived in 1939 . Izbica was established as a ghetto two Gestapo men arrived in Izbica

329
00:34:51,449 --> 00:35:00,857
and s, eh, eh, established a Ausser office eh outside office of Gestapo. They were terrible people. Every

330
00:35:00,857 --> 00:35:09,818
day they killed Jews on the street when they went on the stree, eh, out eh to the street. The street

331
00:35:09,818 --> 00:35:19,406
was empty. And if somebody by chance, and Jews went through, then they shot him. Terrible, later of course,

332
00:35:19,406 --> 00:35:28,815
eh, the, re, resetteled Jews from the, eh, eh, Posznan eh district to Izbica and later Czech Jews arrived

333
00:35:28,815 --> 00:35:37,954
and later German Jews arrived, and eh, there were a few a short time, eh, time in Izbica and then were

334
00:35:37,954 --> 00:35:47,274
taken to the eh death camps, they were killed. Eh my parents were in Izbica till late. Finally, in April

335
00:35:47,274 --> 00:35:56,413
28 actually a little bit earlier, earlier, my mother send me to Hungary. She one day she told me Toivi

336
00:35:56,413 --> 00:36:05,732
tonight you are leaving for Hungary. And I said ma, what, what do you mean, Hungary? I did know a little

337
00:36:05,732 --> 00:36:14,872
bit about Hungary. In that time, in 1942, the Hungarian people did live a relatively peaceful way. The

338
00:36:14,872 --> 00:36:24,012
killing of the Hungarian Jews started in 1944 when they sent them to Auschwitz. But 1942 was peaceful.

339
00:36:24,012 --> 00:36:32,973
So the dream of many Jews in Izbica was, how could I close the border to Hungary. At that point some

340
00:36:32,973 --> 00:36:41,934
Polish Christians, a group, under the leadership of Mishta Gayosh, they eh, told some Jewish people,

341
00:36:41,934 --> 00:36:51,342
for money we could you smuggle, we could smuggle you to Hungary. What they have done, they smuggled them.

342
00:36:51,342 --> 00:37:00,482
So I told my ma I know that the people which are smuggling Jews to Hungary for money, but did you hear

343
00:37:00,482 --> 00:37:09,532
the rumors, my mother asked me yes, I heard. Did you hear that the people were, are taken to a forest

344
00:37:09,532 --> 00:37:18,762
close to the Hungarian border and at a point they are telling the Jews, they already crossed the border

345
00:37:18,762 --> 00:37:28,081
to Hungary? Please sign the letter that you did cross the border so your parents, or your relatives will

346
00:37:28,081 --> 00:37:37,221
pay. And when you doing it, they killed. And everything is taken away from them. So my mother told me,

347
00:37:37,221 --> 00:37:46,361
yes Toivi, we know. But here we are waiting to be killed. Hungary, maybe it’s not true, maybe, maybe

348
00:37:46,361 --> 00:37:55,680
eh is only a rumor. Up to you. So I said okay, let me think a minute, I’m going. It was two o’clock,

349
00:37:55,680 --> 00:38:04,909
I did go out to our group which are waiting, the leader, Gayosh, had already, he bought tickets for us,

350
00:38:04,909 --> 00:38:14,318
they gave us tickets and, into the darkness of the night, we managed to get out from Izibica to the train

351
00:38:14,318 --> 00:38:23,279
station. The train arrived, we were eight people, we jumped in the last wagon and we were on the way

352
00:38:23,279 --> 00:38:32,329
to Hungary. But we didn’t make it. I was recognized. We, b, eh, it was a Jew, eh, a beautiful girl,

353
00:38:32,329 --> 00:38:41,290
but she has eh, eh, typical, I would say Semitic features. By the Semitic I mean, she had dark hair,

354
00:38:41,290 --> 00:38:50,250
curly hear, a little the nose was a little bit shoot, shoot a little bit too big maybe, eh anyway if

355
00:38:50,250 --> 00:38:57,419
somebody was looking for Jewish persons, he could recognize that she is Jewish.-

356
00:38:57,240 --> 00:38:58,370
But you

357
00:38:58,370 --> 00:38:58,650
Pardon?

358
00:38:58,650 --> 00:39:01,720
But you were very light

359
00:39:01,750 --> 00:39:10,403
Yeah, yeah, this is the, when I talk about tra, eh, this, this girl so, she was a girl and from Izbica

360
00:39:10,403 --> 00:39:18,632
she was standing close to the window, pretending that she’s observing the scenery, but actually

361
00:39:18,632 --> 00:39:26,777
she hide her face. Then the conductor come and ask her for the tickets, she turned her face. And

362
00:39:26,777 --> 00:39:34,921
it’s look like some fellow traveler did recognize her, because pretty soon, two, two Ukrainian

363
00:39:34,921 --> 00:39:43,235
policemen arrived and took her away. At this point I made a mistake. And instead to be exited like

364
00:39:43,235 --> 00:39:51,380
all the other eh, oh, they got a Jew and so on, I didn’t know what to do, I was, I was fifteen

365
00:39:51,380 --> 00:39:59,864
years old I was so scared and I had a paper and I pretended to have been reading when everybody else

366
00:39:59,864 --> 00:40:08,178
was excited and talking, he’s a felon, not in just reading. And so probable it was too dark like

367
00:40:08,178 --> 00:40:16,407
a sort eh, when my face, when my paper was ripped from my face, the cop is Ukrainian, papers? Now

368
00:40:16,407 --> 00:40:24,721
I did give my birth certificate eh forged birth certificate from the majors office, I was eh, that

369
00:40:24,721 --> 00:40:32,865
time was my name Ptaszek You are Jewish! No I’m not Jewish. You are Jewish! I’m not. You are

370
00:40:32,865 --> 00:40:41,519
Jewish! No. My face, eh, but my mouth said no, but my face said yes. [grins] But in, he still wasn’t

371
00:40:41,519 --> 00:40:50,088
eh sure because I had lighter hair and, and my nose was a little bit ku, shorter and eh so and Poland

372
00:40:50,088 --> 00:40:54,330
was away to eh find out if I , this man is Jewish.

373
00:40:54,330 --> 00:40:54,590
Hm

374
00:40:54,590 --> 00:40:59,563
They simple check if you are circumcised. So he wasn’t sure, he

375
00:40:59,563 --> 00:41:04,460
took me to the toilet, look down looked up to me and looked down

377
00:41:04,460 --> 00:41:12,023
he was surprised and now eh, I see he is confu, he’s confused a little bit and now he’s, he’s,

378
00:41:12,023 --> 00:41:19,359
calls, Iwan, Godishuda. It was another gendarme which was further in the wagon and Iwan come see,

379
00:41:19,359 --> 00:41:26,695
Iwan looks down, Iwan you, look up, Iwan looks some confused. Why? What’s happened? I had tried

380
00:41:26,695 --> 00:41:33,805
to correct the damage they already do to me, the circumcision. They are done with a string and

381
00:41:33,805 --> 00:41:41,141
with a look different but no miracles, it didn’t help. The only, result was that everything was

382
00:41:41,141 --> 00:41:48,628
shown, eh, because of it they recog, their logical was they think I must be Jewish if I manipulated

383
00:41:48,628 --> 00:41:55,965
the, and they arrested me. Now to tell you the story till I, did come back to S, to Izbica, which

384
00:41:55,965 --> 00:42:03,377
takes you a whole day and night. So I will skip a half a year. I will just tell you, they arrested

385
00:42:03,377 --> 00:42:07,310
me. I was a half a year in jail in the city of Stryj

386
00:42:07,310 --> 00:42:09,630
That’s described in your book, yes

387
00:42:09,630 --> 00:42:17,558
Yeah and later I did eh, I was in hospital and the last miracles with the g, I was listed

388
00:42:17,558 --> 00:42:25,575
as killed, because they killed another person instead me, and I eh, the twenty, eh, or the

389
00:42:25,575 --> 00:42:33,504
eighteen of April 1943 I was back in Izbica. And eh find out that my parents, that Izbica

390
00:42:33,504 --> 00:42:41,521
was considered Judenrein, v, earlier, and took, and they took all the Jews to Sobibor. And

391
00:42:41,521 --> 00:42:49,360
then later there was established general Judenstadt, Jews eh, did eh, s, allowed to come

392
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:56,220
back. And this was a lure because a, a lot of Jews were hiding in the forest.

393
00:42:56,220 --> 00:42:56,430
Hm

394
00:42:56,430 --> 00:43:00,150
So the

395
00:43:00,780 --> 00:43:01,770
And your parents were still in Izbica?

396
00:43:01,770 --> 00:43:09,085
Eh, eh, my father was hidden, in hidden, was arrested, was at Gestapo. My mother was a, was

397
00:43:09,085 --> 00:43:16,401
a Polish eh woman, in Warsaw. I was in jail. And my little brother was some place hidden in

398
00:43:16,401 --> 00:43:23,717
the, in, in eh Izbica. Anyway, but now was a new eh, eh order, the Gestapo p, eh let my dad

399
00:43:23,717 --> 00:43:31,032
out, put in a, a, a, von, eh, dabei eh crown, in a Schein that Izbica is eh getting a Jude,

400
00:43:31,032 --> 00:43:38,589
eh, Judenstadt. The, if Jews should come back and put it so that some Jews being in the forest

401
00:43:38,589 --> 00:43:44,780
freezing because this was, eh, January, February, eh did come back to Izbica.

402
00:43:44,780 --> 00:43:45,350
Hmhm

403
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:57,095
The Germans simple lured them back. And my dad and my ma did come back eh and so I arrived eh

404
00:43:57,095 --> 00:44:07,850
later, the situation was eh, that about 200 Jews were in a tannery. There was a tannery

405
00:44:07,850 --> 00:44:08,560
Hmhm

406
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:16,344
and they let the tannery work as work because leather was a strategic product, eh until they will

407
00:44:16,344 --> 00:44:24,449
finish the job for the Gestapo and so on, so this was a group of illegally in Izbica. When I arrived.

408
00:44:24,449 --> 00:44:33,116
April 28 arrival shut me up and I understood that this is the end of Izbica, of our life. I was apprehended,

409
00:44:33,116 --> 00:44:41,543
taken outside, pushed into a group of the Jews which were already apprehended, were gathered by soldiers.

410
00:44:41,543 --> 00:44:49,407
Then I can manage to slip out from the group of the soldiers. My guard, the soldier who, who, who,

411
00:44:49,407 --> 00:44:57,111
the, who, he, he, he was standing next to me, but he want to smoke a cigarette, smoked, the wind

412
00:44:57,111 --> 00:45:04,815
had blown to, so he turned away his head, far away from wind, picked up his collar from his coat

413
00:45:04,815 --> 00:45:12,600
and smoked that cigarette. At that point I slipped out and mingled with the people, Polish people

414
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:20,304
who had come and eh see my friend, Jannick Knapschick, a Polish friend, and ask him Jannick help

415
00:45:20,304 --> 00:45:28,008
and he said go to the barn, run to the barn, I go to the barn and eh, the barn has a lock on the

416
00:45:28,008 --> 00:45:36,033
gate and I was not far of home and on the hillside start to yell, Toivi run! Run! What’s happened?

417
00:45:36,033 --> 00:45:44,299
Jannick is coming. So, if Jannick is coming, why should I run? He will open the g, the eh, the padlock.

418
00:45:44,299 --> 00:45:52,003
But Jannick is coming with a German man, he’s a Jew, so the German took me to the market place

419
00:45:52,003 --> 00:46:00,108
and have seen out there that my parents, my brother sitting over there, so were two truck, two trucks

420
00:46:00,108 --> 00:46:07,972
arrived, covered with canvas. They told us to go in and eh, the trucks start to move in a northern

421
00:46:07,972 --> 00:46:10,219
direction where Sobibor was.

422
00:46:10,220 --> 00:46:16,330
So you were betrayed by a Pole?

423
00:46:16,330 --> 00:46:16,740
Pardon?

424
00:46:16,740 --> 00:46:19,430
You were betrayed by your Polish friend?

425
00:46:19,430 --> 00:46:26,120
I was betrayed, yes. My brother too for sure. And eh in the front of the two trucks was a jeep with

426
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:32,811
a machine gun, soldiers in the back too, a jeep, machine gun, and we start to move in the direction

427
00:46:32,811 --> 00:46:39,569
of Sobibor. But still hoped everything could be taken away from somebody, hope will be there for the

428
00:46:39,569 --> 00:46:46,192
last minute. So this hope, because on the way from Izbica to Sobibor, where two off ramps to death

429
00:46:46,192 --> 00:46:52,815
camps, to concentration camps. And everything is better than a death camp. Actually if a for a Jew

430
00:46:52,815 --> 00:46:59,573
it was a blessing, he, he was looking and he, if he made to a concentration camp. If you was healthy

431
00:46:59,573 --> 00:47:05,250
and young you still had a chance to survive. In a death camp no selections, nothing.
Exactly.

433
00:47:05,250 --> 00:47:14,967
So but we were passing the off ramp to one concentration camp and the truck didn’t turn and the second

434
00:47:14,967 --> 00:47:24,592
co, concentration camp, Travniki, until the next stop we know will be Sobibor and there is a talk, lead

435
00:47:24,592 --> 00:47:34,123
through ourselves of the, inside the trucks are the Germans, we will die anyway and a talk, these were

436
00:47:34,123 --> 00:47:43,561
young people and all the people will remember like my father said, no, we’ll die anyway, let die eh

437
00:47:43,561 --> 00:47:52,998
as a family. And so we come to Sobibor. We are ordered to go down and down, I was seeing not far away

438
00:47:52,998 --> 00:48:02,529
a big fence, a long fence, green fence, it was green because it was interwoven with pine branches, and

439
00:48:02,529 --> 00:48:11,967
a gate with the name SS Sonderkommando So, told us to go in, open the gate, get in, went in, the gate

440
00:48:11,967 --> 00:48:21,311
is closed behind us. I look around, eh, and again, eh, eh, eh, a flicker of hope how could this be a

441
00:48:21,311 --> 00:48:30,749
death camp? It’s a neat, nice, in the left side [swallows] was a little house eh Trojan style, with

442
00:48:30,749 --> 00:48:40,934
a, with a wooden sign, Schwalbenest, is which means Swallows nest, and eh, next to it was eh, got assignment,

443
00:48:40,934 --> 00:48:50,932
a name eh for this eh little house, this was the commandant’s villa the Schwalbenest. Opposite in another

444
00:48:50,932 --> 00:49:00,744
side of the road was a, eh, platform, assembling eh, eh, and it looked like a train station, like a small

445
00:49:00,744 --> 00:49:10,368
train station. It was a sign to Warsaw, to Lublin, eh, pretending to be a train station, but it was not

446
00:49:10,368 --> 00:49:19,993
for the Polish Jews because the Polish Jews eh were aware eh, that this is eh, death camp, just was for

447
00:49:19,993 --> 00:49:29,804
Jews from Holland, from Germany, from Czechoslovakia. They didn’t know that eh this is a killing place.

448
00:49:29,804 --> 00:49:39,522
So arrived and pretty soon the German eh Frenzel, which who, who I met after the war and spoke with him,

449
00:49:39,522 --> 00:49:48,867
had a interview with him. And he start to yell women and children one side, men down other side. And

450
00:49:48,867 --> 00:49:58,678
he separated. I was with my mother at that time, I said, eh, said goodbye to my mother and I, eh, feeling

451
00:49:58,678 --> 00:50:08,209
that I had a better chance as a man, I went to the men. And later when the division was completed, the

452
00:50:08,209 --> 00:50:18,020
women and children were ordered to go further on. It was about 200 meters. Eh and eh, was a small closing

453
00:50:18,020 --> 00:50:27,365
behind the barbwires over there, also eh gr, green, interwoven with pine branches, where you can’t

454
00:50:27,365 --> 00:50:36,709
see the, what’s going behind. And the man was, eh were still standing and he start to ask eh about

455
00:50:36,709 --> 00:50:46,053
eh to the crowd about that they need some people in that time because a lot of us committed suicide.

456
00:50:46,053 --> 00:50:55,678
He start to ask who is a carpenter, who is a mechanic, is a, eh eh whatever that they need. Me, fifteen

457
00:50:55,678 --> 00:51:05,209
years old, fifteen and a half, eh, eh, eh, a boy my age goes to school, so I didn’t eh, but I pushed

458
00:51:05,209 --> 00:51:14,740
myself to the front, to this German, tell him eh, begging God he should, take me, he should eh take me

459
00:51:14,740 --> 00:51:24,177
out, the German and finally he did take me out. Said komm eraus du Kleiner. And he included me in the

460
00:51:24,177 --> 00:51:33,708
forty people he selected to work in Sobibor. And this way I worked in Sobibor. My first job was to eh,

461
00:51:33,708 --> 00:51:43,053
eh, first was I, I replaced the, dried out, eh branches, pine branches in the, in the, in the fence.

462
00:51:43,053 --> 00:51:52,397
The second job also was sorting clothing. When after the people went to their death, there were, eh,

463
00:51:52,397 --> 00:52:01,835
eh, mountains of clothings. So I sorted eh pants to pants, jackets to jackets and so on. The last job

464
00:52:01,835 --> 00:52:11,272
was I eh eh, you call me fireman. I did I did, eh, I had a, I had a room like this, bigger, in a big,

465
00:52:11,272 --> 00:52:20,803
had a big oven and I was burning documents. That so was my job. Documents, books, soiled clothing, and

466
00:52:20,803 --> 00:52:30,428
this way there was day after day, was dangerous days eh, as I, eh, always eh fast, schnell and eh there

467
00:52:30,428 --> 00:52:39,865
was a few tragic days. People wonder how could you clean, how could you kill people and impossible to

468
00:52:39,865 --> 00:52:49,303
kill so many people in such a short time. It was pe, it was possible if people didn’t know what’s

469
00:52:49,303 --> 00:52:58,834
going on. For example a Dutch transport of 3,000 Jews arrived at the train station the, the luggage in

470
00:52:58,834 --> 00:53:08,365
Sobibor, their luggage was taken down, they held, eh, it was a special group of Jews which helped them

471
00:53:08,365 --> 00:53:17,803
to take the baggage down, later they were ordered by Germans to leave the luggage on the platform, it

472
00:53:17,803 --> 00:53:27,241
will be delivered later. And eh, they went further on to a big yard and there They were, eh, oh, they

473
00:53:27,241 --> 00:53:36,585
were eh, they had a sho, eh, the German had a short speech. The German Von Tanik, he’s a doctor in

474
00:53:36,585 --> 00:53:46,209
a white uniform, he held a short speech, eh, apologizing for the three day difficult trip, but now they

475
00:53:46,209 --> 00:53:55,834
are here already, take a look, it’s beautiful here and eh und eh, because of eh sanitary reasons they

476
00:53:55,834 --> 00:54:05,552
need to have a shower. Please undress yourself, you’re going, people undressed and they go to an alley

477
00:54:05,552 --> 00:54:14,896
called Himmelfahrtstrasse, straight to the gas chambers. Before that of course their hair were shorn

478
00:54:14,896 --> 00:54:24,240
and later went down to the gas chambers. Eh, s, eh, went all to the gas chambers and eh, later was a

479
00:54:24,240 --> 00:54:29,566
big scream, slowly, and slowly quiet and they’re dead.-

480
00:54:29,380 --> 00:54:31,360
You heard them screaming?

481
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:38,027
Yeah, and I’m sure eh, screaming , the gas went in that eh last minute, I’m sure the first

482
00:54:38,027 --> 00:54:44,765
minutes, when they, instead of water through the shower head gas did come out I think they were

483
00:54:44,765 --> 00:54:51,574
thinking this was kein, eh, mis eh, mis- malfunction, some, some, to the last minute, I’m sure

484
00:54:51,574 --> 00:54:58,383
they didn’t know that it, they, they will to be die, they were there dying actually. And so it

485
00:54:58,383 --> 00:55:04,270
went fast. Three, they killed 3,000 people, take a, three, three hours, four hours.

486
00:55:04,270 --> 00:55:06,030
But the ones who were waiting?

487
00:55:06,030 --> 00:55:06,610
Pardon?

488
00:55:06,610 --> 00:55:09,570
There were people waiting while the others were gassed

489
00:55:09,570 --> 00:55:10,520
When the other were gassed

490
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:11,220
they couldn’t ?

491
00:55:11,220 --> 00:55:12,630
then other people were undressing themselves.

492
00:55:12,630 --> 00:55:14,630
And they could hear the screaming?

493
00:55:14,630 --> 00:55:17,680
Oh yeah! I’m sure. I heard it, in the same place. Decided,

494
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,020
no, what’s happened? And they didn’t know.

495
00:55:20,020 --> 00:55:21,420
They didn’t, they still didn’t?

496
00:55:21,420 --> 00:55:28,653
No, no, no way, there was no way to tell them because they wouldn’t believe anyway. They just, a few

497
00:55:28,653 --> 00:55:35,674
days ago, they did live in human conditions and are going to the ga, they wouldn’t believe it. No

498
00:55:35,674 --> 00:55:42,907
way! As a matter of fact a boy did try to tell and they didn’t believe, they went to the German that

499
00:55:42,907 --> 00:55:49,999
the boy is eh telling some absurd. So eh later we just sorted and then finally eh with, with a, with

500
00:55:49,999 --> 00:55:57,019
the Dutch people was like that. Eh before they went to the gas chamber you, eh, we, we cut them the

501
00:55:57,019 --> 00:56:04,040
hair. And the young girls used to say ‘oh mister don’t, don’t, eh, cut too short’ and so on

502
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:11,274
you, Po, was, if it was a Polish transport, the Polish people did know. They didn’t play around with

503
00:56:11,274 --> 00:56:18,649
them, we chased them and the Polish eh women, I remember, eh, didn’t care how, how you cut their hair,

504
00:56:18,649 --> 00:56:26,095
just they said how could you do it. You’ll, you kill too. And things like that. Finally you had arrival

505
00:56:26,095 --> 00:56:33,399
of the Je, eh Russian Jews from the Soviet Union, from Minsk, a lot of former prisoners of war arrived,

506
00:56:33,399 --> 00:56:40,633
Jewish people, recognized as Jews in the POW camp. And eh pretty soon we had military men, because the

507
00:56:40,633 --> 00:56:48,008
Polish Jews we didn’t know much about military stuff and now the Russian Jews eh, Frenzel, the German,

508
00:56:48,008 --> 00:56:55,100
took out about seventy people eh from the Strassfolk because he had a lot of work. And he picked out

509
00:56:55,100 --> 00:57:02,404
young people, they were military people, so they had, with them, eh, with the help of them we organized

510
00:57:02,404 --> 00:57:09,850
a revolt, we killed the Nazis, you luring them to different places and there nobody did see and we killed

511
00:57:09,850 --> 00:57:12,120
them, took the pistol, not using

513
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:12,120
Did you kill yourself? No. Never

514
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:12,970
Did you help killing?

515
00:57:12,970 --> 00:57:20,710
Yeah, of cou, I did, we lured the Nazis. I went to a, Sessman, I went to him, eh, Oberscharführer,

516
00:57:20,710 --> 00:57:28,451
we fa, we did find a beautiful leather coat in the store room, w, exactly your size. Would you like

517
00:57:28,451 --> 00:57:36,114
to try it on? And they liked stuff like this, he went to this place in the, in the store room and,

518
00:57:36,114 --> 00:57:43,854
while he was trying on, the G, the coat [swallows] putting in the hand, the hand were eh ho, holden

519
00:57:43,854 --> 00:57:51,986
back immediately and he was killed with an axe. And so eh, eh, eh, in, in the, the escape was [swallows]

520
00:57:51,986 --> 00:57:59,570
had two phases. The first phase to kill the, the Nazis. I was going around, another young eh, eh,

521
00:57:59,570 --> 00:58:07,311
eh, another two youngsters were going around looking for the Nazis he, we have seen a one, we start

522
00:58:07,311 --> 00:58:15,052
to lure him. Go there and there, there, there. Practical all, all of them went, were, were asked to

523
00:58:15,052 --> 00:58:22,871
be, I and other people, and the second phase was an open revolt. We had already guns from the kills,

524
00:58:22,871 --> 00:58:30,690
t, SS and if they, in that time was only we yelled hurray, hurray. eh, and we threw ourselves on the

525
00:58:30,690 --> 00:58:38,509
bonfires and the rest of the Germans, and we escaped. According to German report eh 320 escaped. Eh,

526
00:58:38,509 --> 00:58:46,562
but again, you was immediately eh, they chased us, the next day they eh, they did eh grab in the forest

527
00:58:46,562 --> 00:58:54,225
about 100 escapees, only 52 survived. Yeah. That’s the whole story. I saw at eh, a Polish farmer

528
00:58:54,225 --> 00:59:01,966
agreed to hide us eh, later he did come with a gun, shot at us, we were three boys and eh, only one

529
00:59:01,966 --> 00:59:05,249
survived for, for, from all of them. Yeah.

530
00:59:07,400 --> 00:59:11,128
When I read your book it’s always a hesitation, is this

531
00:59:11,128 --> 00:59:14,400
Pole going to help me or is he going to betray me?

532
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:20,944
You didn’t know what kind door you open. Absolutely, eh, and I suspect most strongly

533
00:59:20,944 --> 00:59:26,881
that Dreszer who went into this house and you were in forest, if you remember,

534
00:59:26,881 --> 00:59:33,045
we were in forest running away from Sobibor an the that he was actual apprehended

535
00:59:33,045 --> 00:59:37,840
in he didn’t survive, so he probably was killed by the Poles.

536
00:59:39,780 --> 00:59:40,090
Aha.

537
00:59:40,090 --> 00:59:43,547
Or delivered to the Germans by the Poles. I, I was eh, with

538
00:59:43,547 --> 00:59:46,770
one of the boys, but he was wounded in the finger only.

539
00:59:46,770 --> 00:59:48,110
What was his name?

540
00:59:48,110 --> 00:59:53,310
Schmoel, Schmoel Waiczyn. His brother survived the Soviet Union.

541
00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:59,790
So you were always running for the betrayal of Poles after you came out of the camp?

542
00:59:59,790 --> 01:00:06,979
Yes, but they didn’t recognize me. I was a few times apprehended by German, eh in

543
01:00:06,979 --> 01:00:14,168
a Jewish section of the town in Izbica, eh only Jews. Mostly the Jews in Izbica, in

544
01:00:14,168 --> 01:00:21,617
the last months were in the left side of the town. On another side of the road. In the

545
01:00:21,617 --> 01:00:29,240
right side were only Poles in that time. And eh once I was apprehended by German because

546
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:35,130
I wasn’t eh, the star. Are you Jewish? I said no and he went away.

547
01:00:35,900 --> 01:00:38,380
No, but I’m talking about after the war

548
01:00:38,380 --> 01:00:38,990
About what? After the war

550
01:00:38,990 --> 01:00:45,929
Oh, after the war. Yeah. I wouldn’t eh risk to go to our village after the war. No, no, n, if

551
01:00:45,929 --> 01:00:53,088
I went, if they would know I’m Jewish, no way. As a matter sometimes, I was forced to go through

552
01:00:53,088 --> 01:00:59,590
our village so I was afraid that somebody will recognize me, more than eh, in the war. Eh.. Can you

554
01:00:59,590 --> 01:01:09,795
..in the war, in the war they told oh the Germans have finished the Jew. And now the German as they

555
01:01:09,795 --> 01:01:19,685
gone, are gonna, still Jews left, so they didn’t and a lot, eh I mean, one guy eh could kill

556
01:01:19,685 --> 01:01:29,050
Jews and next it, but was a man which you did want to help and eh this was a crazy world.

557
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:30,430
Hmhm

558
01:01:30,430 --> 01:01:36,149
But some people risked, my teachers, risked their life actually

559
01:01:36,149 --> 01:01:40,780
to help me. Two of them were Germans. The teachers.

560
01:01:42,110 --> 01:01:44,880
Can you, can you tell the story?

561
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:54,850
Eh it’s nothing to it, I write about this eh when, when, when we were surrounded in before they took

562
01:01:54,850 --> 01:02:04,540
us to Sobibor I have seen many Poles looking from the windows, you know, from the, behind the curtains

563
01:02:04,540 --> 01:02:14,135
eh on the market place, where is an, and I have seen s, some that crossed the market place is smiling

564
01:02:14,135 --> 01:02:23,540
and this teacher, eh, eh, eh, a German, eh Polish ancestry, I mean, German ancestry he went through

565
01:02:23,540 --> 01:02:32,850
the market with his head like that, didn’t want to go like that, you could see that he was sorry

566
01:02:32,850 --> 01:02:42,160
for us. It sounded good to smiling, hm, so in, eh besides I went to, when I escaped from Izbica to

567
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:51,850
Ostica, I was eh, I went to this teacher. Eh Steindl was his name. And he had given me food, he talked

568
01:02:51,850 --> 01:03:01,255
to me another eh teacher too, at night time, because I did go night time, for, eh looking for food,

569
01:03:01,255 --> 01:03:10,565
that helped me, were Poles which helped me, I wouldn’t survive otherwise. Some eh, but a lot eh,

570
01:03:10,565 --> 01:03:20,920
when another Jews were hidden I did go free in the villages. Eh once, was because my father was a legionnaire

571
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:30,230
and his friend, so-called Pilsu, Piłsudski’s, that eh, when I told that I’m the, the, the son

572
01:03:30,230 --> 01:03:40,205
of eh Blatt, he did help me. Eh a couple, the Jews were killed in the village, I did run around practical

573
01:03:40,205 --> 01:03:49,610
open. The eh a car eh, eh, eh that eh grabbed me once, they wanted to grab the Polish organization,

574
01:03:49,610 --> 01:03:53,600
but they let me go. Also because my father

575
01:03:54,180 --> 01:03:56,580
Because they were also hostile to Germans?

576
01:03:56,580 --> 01:04:07,014
Eh, but my father eh, you see, it was a order from general Grot, he has a head, he was the head of

577
01:04:07,014 --> 01:04:17,449
the Polish Unterground. It was order, order 116 number that any person eh in the forest or what I,

578
01:04:17,449 --> 01:04:27,670
eh, eh, any person which has a gun illegally, he’s not the partisans, eh, should be considered

579
01:04:27,670 --> 01:04:37,892
an enemy and killed. Was mostly directed, by a lot of historians, in my opinion too, it was all,

580
01:04:37,892 --> 01:04:48,540
mostly directed for Jews. Because some Jews had guns. To survive, not to rob, to survive, to defend.

581
01:04:48,540 --> 01:04:58,761
So, because this order a lot of Jews were killed. And eh eh I describe everything exactly in the

582
01:04:58,761 --> 01:05:07,280
ja. So how, how is this eh, you go to an organization to rent a place like this?

583
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:08,370
Ja.

584
01:05:09,070 --> 01:05:10,800
You have the number, maybe I should do the same thing.

585
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:16,300
Yes, I’ll give it to you. I’ll mail you, I’ll mail you.

586
01:05:16,300 --> 01:05:19,328
What I will do, I will put also my house, my apartment

587
01:05:19,328 --> 01:05:22,020
in Gdansk to rent. Three years that it is empty.

588
01:05:22,020 --> 01:05:26,180
I want to come back to the interview. Is that okay? I’ll,

589
01:05:26,180 --> 01:05:30,130
I’ll give you the internet address, I’ll give it you.
Ja, ja. Okay. Okay

593
01:05:30,130 --> 01:05:40,150
Don’t worry. It’s ’45 and you, ’44, and you are free.

594
01:05:40,150 --> 01:05:40,320
Yeah

595
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:41,230
What happened?

596
01:05:41,320 --> 01:05:49,642
What happened? [grins ] If you would read this article written in the Polytika, a couple of months ago,

597
01:05:49,642 --> 01:05:57,883
has a interview with me and the title is, he picked it up and I am, in, in exactly the journals picked

598
01:05:57,883 --> 01:06:06,528
up, the title is ‘Still running’. You never, still run, till now. I went, went out of Izbica of course,

599
01:06:06,528 --> 01:06:14,931
and this part you know, was in Lublin went to my grandparents’ house, stood them on, on the door, seen

600
01:06:14,931 --> 01:06:23,334
a different name on the door, it looked empty ja? Eh, this is also in Lublin, and finally I eh I don’t

601
01:06:23,334 --> 01:06:31,817
know, eh, eh, what will it be, eh, which way, give us are able to exist, aha, they’ll go to the kitchen

602
01:06:31,817 --> 01:06:39,978
and we went to the social kitchen and did eat, then we go to the Catholic monastery, somebody told me

603
01:06:39,978 --> 01:06:48,461
they give free meals, I went over there and I did eat it by heart and the nurse and the, and a nun comes,

604
01:06:48,461 --> 01:06:56,702
oh, take off your hat. And I was like I’ve held like a thief that steal, I’m stealing food because

605
01:06:56,702 --> 01:07:05,024
I’m Jewish and here is a monastery, I shouldn’t pretend so finally I told the I’m Jewish. And she

606
01:07:05,024 --> 01:07:13,185
allowed me to eat with the hat and I have still have this eh von, before the war, I, I was eh, I hate

607
01:07:13,185 --> 01:07:21,507
to go without a hat. A Jew doesn’t go without a hat. So she let me sit with the hat, with the hat she

608
01:07:21,507 --> 01:07:24,820
did give me food over there I did eat and

609
01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:27,840
Where did you sleep?

610
01:07:27,840 --> 01:07:28,020
Pardon?

611
01:07:28,020 --> 01:07:28,950
Where did you sleep?

612
01:07:28,950 --> 01:07:33,130
I slept in a s, in a house in Lublin von der UNNRA. You know UNNRA?

613
01:07:33,130 --> 01:07:33,520
Yes

614
01:07:33,520 --> 01:07:39,774
UNNRA, eh, is eh, was a philantropical organiza, American

615
01:07:39,774 --> 01:07:45,260
organization. Eh, Relief Agency, UN Relief Agency.

616
01:07:45,260 --> 01:07:46,110
Uhuh

617
01:07:46,110 --> 01:07:53,386
Eh, eh, they had eh, a room like that with wooden eh beds, so I was sleeping in

618
01:07:53,386 --> 01:08:00,110
a, always wet bed, that was a shame, but that is as from nerves probably.

619
01:08:00,300 --> 01:08:01,810
I don’t understand

620
01:08:01,810 --> 01:08:03,080
I made wet the bed.
Okay

622
01:08:03,080 --> 01:08:09,873
Every night. And it was a shame because here was a, so that, this remember because I was nervous.

623
01:08:09,873 --> 01:08:16,245
You had to go out and see a truck, a militair trucks and that time we hadn’t so many cars

624
01:08:16,245 --> 01:08:22,898
like here, we had no cars at all, except military. Mister, could you take me there, I’m going

625
01:08:22,898 --> 01:08:29,481
to Poznań, would you take me to Poznań? Okay. So you could go to Poznań you drove, you made

626
01:08:29,481 --> 01:08:35,854
it in the city, another train, another truck, and you, many times I rode on top of the tru,

627
01:08:35,854 --> 01:08:42,647
on the, on the train, on the roof of the train. Just watching for the tunnels[grins], shouldn’t

628
01:08:42,647 --> 01:08:47,269
cut my head. So and eh till now, I like to travel. I just running.

629
01:08:47,270 --> 01:08:50,850
So you, you started a kind of traveling life?

630
01:08:50,850 --> 01:08:51,570
Pardon?

631
01:08:51,570 --> 01:08:53,350
You started traveling?

632
01:08:53,350 --> 01:08:53,970
Yeah. Yeah.

633
01:08:53,970 --> 01:08:56,720
Did you know where you were going to?

634
01:08:57,240 --> 01:09:04,742
No. Only the truck will go to Wrocław I go with it to Wrocław. Eh here the eh and it was liberated,

635
01:09:04,742 --> 01:09:11,948
the Russian tanks comes to the village and eh, a Jewish captain of a tank start to talk to me and

636
01:09:11,948 --> 01:09:19,153
finally the tanks had a order to go move out, after the Germans, and I stood on the tank and then

637
01:09:19,153 --> 01:09:26,284
I didn’t want to go down and the captain, you must go down, it’s a military vehicle, you, we

638
01:09:26,284 --> 01:09:33,564
can take it, no, I gonna go on with you and he made me to go down. And I was all disappointed that

639
01:09:33,564 --> 01:09:40,770
even the Russians didn’t want me. [laughs] So anyway, eh and eh, I was running and, always, and

640
01:09:40,770 --> 01:09:48,198
traveling. I feel the best when I travel. And I have find out how, how did he come up with the title

641
01:09:48,198 --> 01:09:53,770
‘Still running’. Did the Poles, I didn’t talk about running, nothing.

642
01:09:53,770 --> 01:09:56,290
But I haven’t read that, read that article.

643
01:09:56,290 --> 01:09:56,700
Eh, eh

644
01:09:56,700 --> 01:09:58,740
It’s in Polish

645
01:09:58,740 --> 01:10:00,580
too bad we didn’t go to my place here.

646
01:10:00,580 --> 01:10:01,170
Yeah.

647
01:10:01,170 --> 01:10:01,890
This eh

648
01:10:01,890 --> 01:10:05,788
Yes, but still also the people who look at this video, they

649
01:10:05,788 --> 01:10:09,620
have not read the article. So you should tell me the story

650
01:10:09,620 --> 01:10:14,160
Yeah, I have a lot of eh, the, documentaries which I made

651
01:10:15,760 --> 01:10:15,940
Uhuh

652
01:10:15,940 --> 01:10:19,331
I think they’re very good as documentaries, I have it also here.

653
01:10:19,331 --> 01:10:22,260
Too bad we didn’t go to me, I would show it to, to you.

654
01:10:22,260 --> 01:10:27,330
Yeah, but if you show a documentary, it’s not on the tape

655
01:10:27,330 --> 01:10:27,610
Yeah

656
01:10:27,610 --> 01:10:31,586
I mean, we, we need this okay, so, so you started, let

657
01:10:31,586 --> 01:10:35,490
us start again. You started running, running, running

658
01:10:35,530 --> 01:10:36,210
Yeah

659
01:10:36,210 --> 01:10:38,020
And you ended up in the United States

660
01:10:38,020 --> 01:10:38,220
Yeah.

661
01:10:38,220 --> 01:10:38,570
How

662
01:10:38,570 --> 01:10:48,411
I went from Poland to Israel and from the emp, in Israel I met American tourist, a Jew, and she took

663
01:10:48,411 --> 01:10:58,154
me to America. In America I worked the factory, till I learned the language later opened electronic

664
01:10:58,154 --> 01:11:08,488
store in three cities, Santa Barbara but I had one thing always in my mind, to write my memories, finish,

665
01:11:08,488 --> 01:11:18,231
publish a book, made a film and that actual what I have done. And this is my testament, how would I

666
01:11:18,231 --> 01:11:28,073
say. My will. This are mine, message, my book. What could happened if we are negligent to understand

667
01:11:28,073 --> 01:11:38,210
the political movement, eh, actions you, you fail to understand the signs, the marks for for, of coming

668
01:11:38,210 --> 01:11:49,134
, a coming Holocaust. Israel is scaring me a lot. First of all, right or wrong, but is generating anti-Semitism

669
01:11:49,134 --> 01:11:59,173
in the world, strong anti-Semitism. What do you want? Poland, the biggest anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism

670
01:11:59,173 --> 01:12:09,113
is in eh, in the Catholic countries. What do you expect? Eh, as I said before a kid growing up seeing

671
01:12:09,113 --> 01:12:19,053
on the wall a cross and Jesus nailed down on the cross, daddy what is it? Oh this is a cross. And who

672
01:12:19,053 --> 01:12:28,993
is on the cross? Jesus. And why is this? Because Jews sacrificed him. This is it. This will be a mark

673
01:12:28,993 --> 01:12:39,031
till the end of his, this kid’s life is a, the, the, the seeds of anti-Semitism. Either I hate Jews,

674
01:12:39,031 --> 01:12:48,873
they killed Jesus. I will kill the Jews because they killed Jesus. Ready answer. So and eh, the, but

675
01:12:48,873 --> 01:12:58,911
Jesus teach love you, each other, forget this eh guild is on, people don’t think about this. But the

676
01:12:58,911 --> 01:13:02,749
Jews killed Jesus he will grow with it.

677
01:13:02,750 --> 01:13:06,635
But you have this message to the world, but you were running,

678
01:13:06,635 --> 01:13:09,820
you never settled down, you never married, family?

679
01:13:09,820 --> 01:13:20,293
Yeah, I’m married, yeah, and I divorced, I divorce. I was with one wife eh twenty years

680
01:13:20,293 --> 01:13:30,060
and another one twenty years. Very honest, twenty years with one girl, oh. [laughs]

681
01:13:30,060 --> 01:13:30,150
Enormous

682
01:13:30,150 --> 01:13:33,050
[laughs] It’s okay, ai, twenty years! Long time.

683
01:13:33,050 --> 01:13:35,530
And during that time you were still running?

684
01:13:35,530 --> 01:13:36,190
Pardon?

685
01:13:36,190 --> 01:13:43,580
During that time, you were still running? During the time you were married, you were still running?

686
01:13:43,580 --> 01:13:47,900
The whole time? Yeah, every year, I, I did need to go to Poland.

687
01:13:47,900 --> 01:13:50,620
Oh you want to go to Poland then?

688
01:13:50,620 --> 01:13:51,320
Yeah.

689
01:13:51,820 --> 01:13:55,240
And you immediately started to go back to Sobibor or?

690
01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:58,284
Yeah, in the 1944. The war was still going on. And I

691
01:13:58,284 --> 01:14:01,270
have pictures which are made eh in that time. Yeah.
You went back to Sobibor?
Yeah.

694
01:14:01,270 --> 01:14:03,940
What did you find?

695
01:14:03,940 --> 01:14:15,733
On that time you could find the hair still because they st, just put sand over it and they made it

696
01:14:15,733 --> 01:14:28,129
nice, but later the Poles start to dig and they dig out hair and different stuff. I have my own museum,

697
01:14:28,129 --> 01:14:39,802
a lot of stuff. Which I must send to Yad Vashem as artifacts and melted eh railroad tracks, I was

698
01:14:39,802 --> 01:14:51,355
in Lublin, I went back to the farmer with the Russians, eh, soldiers, a few officers and we took

699
01:14:51,355 --> 01:15:03,029
back, we want to kill the farmer as orders. Either he did hide or his wife said he was in another

700
01:15:03,029 --> 01:15:15,063
town. We didn’t find him. But we did find the money. Took back the money. And I did live from this

701
01:15:15,063 --> 01:15:26,616
money for a while. Later I was an eh eh, a, a personal manager in, first I, I was walking in the

702
01:15:26,616 --> 01:15:34,799
Polish security eh looking for Germans for hiding eh SS. In Silesia.

703
01:15:34,800 --> 01:15:35,940
Yeah

704
01:15:35,940 --> 01:15:44,860
And eh later I was studying and later they threw me out from the studies and I was working as a social

705
01:15:44,860 --> 01:15:53,781
director in a resort place and later Gemulka did come to power and he told every Jew could move out if

706
01:15:53,781 --> 01:16:02,701
he want to, to Israel. In 1957 I applied for eh a visa to leave Israel, to live, leave Poland and then

707
01:16:02,701 --> 01:16:11,796
they give me the visa, I went to Israel. In Israel I picked up my manuscript which was send eh with the,

708
01:16:11,796 --> 01:16:20,542
the, di, diplomatical post to eh Israel. There I wasn’t able to take it out with the train, when I

709
01:16:20,542 --> 01:16:29,463
left. In eh Israel I met eh, eh, my eh future wife, Dina, American, she and we were together for about

710
01:16:29,463 --> 01:16:38,470
twenty years. Until we divorced. I have a son and my daughter, grandchildren and I have here a daughter

711
01:16:38,470 --> 01:16:47,216
and two grandchildren and two grand grandchildren. [grins] And eh I eh was successful in business. I

712
01:16:47,216 --> 01:16:56,311
did always want to leave something more tangible for the future, because I felt I have something always,

713
01:16:56,311 --> 01:17:05,319
I can’t die with this, so wrote the books. I had a film. And actually, that what I had planned is it,

714
01:17:05,319 --> 01:17:14,152
is already done. I have done it. In my small way. If you can’t do something the big way, you do the

715
01:17:14,152 --> 01:17:23,248
small way. That’s what I’ve done and eh, eh I hope my, what I leave, historians will use it and they

716
01:17:23,248 --> 01:17:32,256
will see the picture how, what’s happened a long time ago. Because the murderers are still alive. The

717
01:17:32,256 --> 01:17:41,614
victims are still alive, you know, they’re dying. Eh, that what’s happened when the Holocaust happened.

718
01:17:41,614 --> 01:17:50,622
And the worst of it which make me real upset, is in Poland, where things happen, which takes only a few

719
01:17:50,622 --> 01:17:59,630
eh, eh, a few eh, hours travel to Auschwitz, to different places to see what’s true. Even here, there

720
01:17:59,630 --> 01:18:08,463
are people denied. Eh professor Wende, that Nazis had swimming pools and so on, and so on, and so on,

721
01:18:08,463 --> 01:18:17,208
that the prisons had regular visits to the swimming pool. This is life, you can do it different way.

722
01:18:17,208 --> 01:18:26,041
De, democracy is sometime, eh, dangerous. It’s giving people freedom a freedom also to lie, to hate

723
01:18:26,041 --> 01:18:34,962
eh, t, eh, eh, dictatorship, if you say good dictator, dicta, dictator maybe it’s not so bad. So but

724
01:18:34,962 --> 01:18:43,707
eh otherwise eh I’m not afraid of the leftist I’m not afraid of rightist, the most critical part

725
01:18:43,707 --> 01:18:52,540
is the middle that depends on innocent and people will, will go, to the left or to the right. This is

726
01:18:52,540 --> 01:18:54,290
important. Eh in our

727
01:18:54,290 --> 01:19:02,660
But Toivi, you told me that one moment you got very angry with the inscription in Sobibor

728
01:19:02,660 --> 01:19:05,520
Eh, they here were killed eh two hundred

729
01:19:05,520 --> 01:19:05,630
Yeah

730
01:19:05,630 --> 01:19:05,740
the

731
01:19:06,150 --> 01:19:08,220
No, what is the first time you did

732
01:19:08,220 --> 01:19:13,464
In, than , was I, eh, was angry, I was mad, they are lying. It was eh, it was

733
01:19:13,464 --> 01:19:18,980
a, eh time when everything was a lie in eh, in Auschwitz too. They didn’t speak

734
01:19:18,980 --> 01:19:24,497
about Jews, they speak of eh Czech, so many Czech did they kill, so many eh Poles

735
01:19:24,497 --> 01:19:28,720
were killed, eh, it was difficult to find a sign Jews. Because

736
01:19:28,720 --> 01:19:32,540
So which period was this? Was it in the sixties?

737
01:19:32,540 --> 01:19:33,410
Pardon?

738
01:19:33,410 --> 01:19:34,400
In which year

739
01:19:34,400 --> 01:19:41,603
In which year? Eh, all the time, until the new solidarity era. So eh so I felt s, the

740
01:19:41,603 --> 01:19:48,638
ambassador of everything, I went to the minister, she had talked to the minister of

741
01:19:48,638 --> 01:19:54,910
culture, minister of religion, oh yes, yes Mr. Blatt eh do hear telephone?

742
01:19:54,910 --> 01:19:56,120
No, I don’t

743
01:19:56,450 --> 01:20:03,973
Oh yes, yes, Mr. Blatt, we will eh, eh, do, we look, so final I thought I must do it a different way.

744
01:20:03,973 --> 01:20:11,200
And I went to the kitchen, I went to the local dignitaries from Wlodawa eh? And they did help me.

745
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:13,320
Tell me?

746
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:19,066
Yeah, I need to give some nice gifts to them and, and one day I’ve done it. I don’t

747
01:20:19,066 --> 01:20:24,615
want to talk about it much because the people are still alive and I could hurt them,

748
01:20:24,615 --> 01:20:30,295
but b, mention their names, but the day, every day I help, I was able to take down the

749
01:20:30,295 --> 01:20:35,250
sign, the old one, I still have it in Poland hidden, the old sign, that one.
You still have it?

751
01:20:35,250 --> 01:20:44,670
Yeah, that 250, fifty eh Russians were killed. So I have it hidden. And eh

752
01:20:44,670 --> 01:20:48,620
So what does the sign say? 250 Russians were killed here?

753
01:20:49,610 --> 01:20:50,300
Russians, with

754
01:20:50,300 --> 01:20:51,270
and 250

755
01:20:51,270 --> 01:20:59,887
big letters, I have in my, my, you don’t have it, it is another book, they let us, and

756
01:20:59,887 --> 01:21:07,820
Poles, Jews, gypsies in small, tiny letters. But fat letters do say 250 Russians.

757
01:21:07,820 --> 01:21:08,580
250,000 or 250

758
01:21:08,580 --> 01:21:09,180
Yes, 250,000

759
01:21:09,180 --> 01:21:09,740
Okay, okay.

760
01:21:09,740 --> 01:21:18,184
Anyway, so I took it down and eh, for a lot of money, because I did need to do it fast or while the,

761
01:21:18,184 --> 01:21:26,966
eh atmosphere is okay, and I spent about 14,000 dollars or 12,000 dollars for signs to make it overnight

762
01:21:26,966 --> 01:21:35,748
practically. In Polish, in eh in eh in German, in French, in Dutch. With the Dutch sign I made a mistake

763
01:21:35,748 --> 01:21:42,250
which are, the ambassador called me later I should correct it. [sighs] Anyway

764
01:21:42,250 --> 01:21:43,670
You made a new sign?

765
01:21:43,670 --> 01:21:45,370
I made these new signs now.

766
01:21:45,370 --> 01:21:45,870
Good

767
01:21:45,870 --> 01:21:51,962
And eh I put it in and it will stay although I finally missed this point probably I, I wouldn’t

768
01:21:51,962 --> 01:21:57,991
able to change it, we need to go the commissions and the minister of culture and here and there,

769
01:21:57,991 --> 01:22:02,890
I’ve done it and it is, it will stay that way, nobody will take it down now.

770
01:22:06,360 --> 01:22:06,540
Hm

771
01:22:06,540 --> 01:22:10,620
The half of people, Germans, were very sympathetic to my

772
01:22:12,540 --> 01:22:14,430
When did this co, idea come into your mind?

773
01:22:14,430 --> 01:22:15,490
When?

774
01:22:16,000 --> 01:22:25,720
Did this idea come to you to do this?

775
01:22:25,720 --> 01:22:25,940
Idea?

776
01:22:25,940 --> 01:22:26,270
Yeah, when, wanneer, kamm es in Ihren Kopf?

777
01:22:26,270 --> 01:22:26,680
Ja, when?

778
01:22:26,680 --> 01:22:27,960
When yes?

779
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:29,720
When? Now, years ago?

780
01:22:29,720 --> 01:22:30,200
Yes, years ago

781
01:22:30,200 --> 01:22:33,350
When, nothing eh, eh, the war time had to survive.
Yes?

783
01:22:33,350 --> 01:22:43,487
And I put it in my book, the first thing. It’s a sort of survival. Was, has nothing to do with

784
01:22:43,487 --> 01:22:53,414
Judaism, has not, I was a Jew but I need to hide, I didn’t think, just think how to survive.

785
01:22:53,414 --> 01:23:03,341
Eh no political reasons, no this to survive. Now eh Jewish, no? My mother used to say does it,

786
01:23:03,341 --> 01:23:13,162
is it worth it to give a lie six million, in that time did they not even know six million, to

787
01:23:13,162 --> 01:23:23,194
give a life just to be Jews. Every generation practically did they kill Jews. They ke, they say

788
01:23:23,194 --> 01:23:31,220
that eh how many years ago, I forgot, there were as much Jews as eh British.

789
01:23:32,580 --> 01:23:33,420
Uhuh

790
01:23:33,420 --> 01:23:42,627
But it is eh, now 90 or 70 million and Jews are still fourteen because they fall out, anyway, I thought

791
01:23:42,627 --> 01:23:51,388
that eh religions on eh far away now. I, I don’t believe the, I believe that it was written by a

792
01:23:51,388 --> 01:24:00,507
bunch of uneducated people, maybe smart, maybe intelligent, stories about eh, eh frozen eh salt, about

793
01:24:00,507 --> 01:24:09,178
this, that eh, eh, I still believing in this stories, but eh, I am a Jew, a national, I would say

794
01:24:09,178 --> 01:24:17,849
I’m an, a, a nationalistic Jew. I know I am a Jew, the point is this, that the eh, the Bible is

795
01:24:17,849 --> 01:24:26,700
the Jewish history. Can not go away from it. Eh you are in a way religious if you eh believe in the

796
01:24:26,700 --> 01:24:35,371
history of Jewish history and then, I was thinking, eh, I had a Polish eh girlfriend and she want

797
01:24:35,371 --> 01:24:44,042
I should convert. To Christianity which to marry her. Because her mother wouldn’t allow it. And

798
01:24:44,042 --> 01:24:52,714
I was surrendered to do it. But later I thought, hell, I’m Jewish, generations, of, generations

799
01:24:52,714 --> 01:25:01,653
survived till now being Jewish, didn’t give up and I’m o, the only one left von der family, long

800
01:25:01,653 --> 01:25:10,593
family, eh, if I give up, Hitler has another victim. No. I told them sorry but I’m Jew, I am a Jew

801
01:25:10,593 --> 01:25:19,533
and will stay a Jew. If you don’t want to, sorry. So, but I feel eh n, nationalistic, I’m a Jew,

802
01:25:19,533 --> 01:25:28,472
I wouldn’t give up eh, eh, eh, eh, feel, many Jews bef, before me suffered and I should be the one

803
01:25:28,472 --> 01:25:37,144
to close the, the, the, the, the saga of the Blatt’s? Nein! No. That’s all. Eh, analyzing the

804
01:25:37,144 --> 01:25:45,815
past life, I, I’m still in Sobibor. And the dreams. And the dreams I were logical, in the pain,

805
01:25:45,815 --> 01:25:54,576
and become scared and very real. No wonder when I wake up finally eh and I go eat breakfast I want

806
01:25:54,576 --> 01:26:03,337
to go back to bed. Because the dreams, although I sleep good, but they eh finishing me. And when I

807
01:26:03,337 --> 01:26:07,360
get up, eat a little, want to go back to bed.

808
01:26:07,360 --> 01:26:08,440
Really?

809
01:26:08,440 --> 01:26:15,944
Yeah and I could sleep till three o’clock. And later, but after, afternoon late I get, I feel

810
01:26:15,944 --> 01:26:23,527
good, feel strength. Otherwise eh I still now, I’m tired, and the dreams always eh, one thing,

811
01:26:23,527 --> 01:26:31,269
that I had the chance to survive, I had a chance to escape from Sobibor, once the guards they look

812
01:26:31,269 --> 01:26:39,010
some place else and I could run in the forest because I walk in the forest and I don’t do it and

813
01:26:39,010 --> 01:26:46,831
later the Germans come to kill me and this is the end and I’m sorry I didn’t escape and another

814
01:26:46,831 --> 01:26:54,414
dream is that they forced assessment in Sobibor, Wagner send me out to the city of Lublin to buy

815
01:26:54,414 --> 01:27:02,155
something and I figure out, oh now it’s time to escape but he expect me back in an hour, eh, eh,

816
01:27:02,155 --> 01:27:09,739
while the eh, eh, rol-call will take place twelve o’clock. So I figure out now is eleven, till

817
01:27:09,739 --> 01:27:17,954
I go to the train station will take fifteen minutes and I need that train who will, eh leave immediately

818
01:27:17,954 --> 01:27:25,854
and I figure out I will not manage to leave fifty kilometers past eh Lublin because they will notice

819
01:27:25,854 --> 01:27:33,990
in a, in about an hour I’m not there and they will probably notify all the police. Anyway, everything

820
01:27:33,990 --> 01:27:41,889
is logical I think. And I decide to go back to Sobibor. And again they come to kill us all and again

821
01:27:41,889 --> 01:27:49,394
I’m sorry I didn’t take the chance. Things like that which is eh maybe he did put it right,

822
01:27:49,394 --> 01:27:52,080
the journalist, eh still escaping.

823
01:27:52,240 --> 01:27:55,840
You spoke once with Frenzel, when did you speak with Frenzel?

824
01:27:55,840 --> 01:28:02,730
In 1963 I think. Or ’64 or ’66.
What happened?
Pardon?

827
01:28:02,730 --> 01:28:06,940
What happened? What did he say? What did you discuss?

828
01:28:08,330 --> 01:28:14,027
Eh we discussed, we didn’t discuss, I wrote in that time one of my books.

829
01:28:14,027 --> 01:28:19,421
Eh, one is my biography eh From the Ashes of Sobibor the other one, the

830
01:28:19,421 --> 01:28:23,980
Sobibor, the Forgotten Revolt, is a sort of the revolt only.

831
01:28:27,120 --> 01:28:28,640
Hmhm

832
01:28:30,420 --> 01:28:39,844
And I did want to know, because I was allowed eh to be in, eh to go to see the Lager 1, Lager 2. I was

833
01:28:39,844 --> 01:28:49,268
not allowed to go l, to Lager 3, nobody at first. Lager 3 was the place where the gas chamber was. Was

834
01:28:49,268 --> 01:28:58,693
closed down with a special fence . In Lager 3 they gassed and they burned the people. Eh so, but I did

835
01:28:58,693 --> 01:29:08,672
want to write my book and t, Frenzel didn’t know what’s going on. [coughs] Although I, being in Sobibor,

836
01:29:08,672 --> 01:29:18,004
It was always eh, eh, interesting, how would I say, I did want to know what’s happened and how this

837
01:29:18,004 --> 01:29:27,243
machine works. In a minute as I took a risk and I did go and check over the here and there, eh so eh

838
01:29:27,243 --> 01:29:37,130
Frenzel was sentenced to life in prison. After sixteen years in jail his lawyer did find some discrepancies

839
01:29:37,130 --> 01:29:46,554
between testimony of two witnesses and on this basis he did, his lawyer did win a retrial. Frenzel’s

840
01:29:46,554 --> 01:29:55,794
retrial. But, so Frenzel delivered was in Hannover and he eh when the court session where he was eh,

841
01:29:55,794 --> 01:30:05,496
he did come to Hagen, when the cou, where the court w, eh take place and from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

842
01:30:05,496 --> 01:30:14,735
he went to the court. In that time they called me as a witness. So I testified against him and so on

843
01:30:14,735 --> 01:30:24,252
and he did live, eh, eh, he had, he lived in a, eh, in a motel eh, the same street I did live in Hagen.

844
01:30:24,252 --> 01:30:33,492
So I wrote down about 17 questions and asked a friend of mine to eh go to Frenzel, he lives here not

845
01:30:33,492 --> 01:30:43,009
far and try to get an answer for the questions for my book. And he left. And a few minutes later I have

846
01:30:43,009 --> 01:30:52,341
a phone call from him, Toivi I want to talk to you. A, at that point I didn’t know what to, what to

847
01:30:52,341 --> 01:31:01,765
do because eh going to him I’m making him again a person. If I talk to him he can’t be so bad. Eh,

848
01:31:01,765 --> 01:31:11,190
that he picked me up when selected me to work, it’s not because I should live, because I should work

849
01:31:11,190 --> 01:31:20,707
over there and the time will come and he could kill me the same way. What I was thinking? With the time

850
01:31:20,707 --> 01:31:29,946
I will be gone, my friends will be gone who could point a finger ha, eh my friends from Sobibor, how

851
01:31:29,946 --> 01:31:39,740
could you do that, eh, Frenzel will be gone but history is history. I go to him and I don’t care because

852
01:31:39,740 --> 01:31:49,165
I will do my part for the history. And this is important because never happened till now that a victim

853
01:31:49,165 --> 01:31:51,660
should talk direct with the

854
01:31:52,390 --> 01:31:52,790
Incredible, incredible

855
01:31:52,790 --> 01:31:59,575
so, do you see the picture? And I did go and I remember, eh, I agree we, we talk to him

856
01:31:59,575 --> 01:32:06,283
in the lobby. And I remember opening the door, he was sitting at that table like this,

857
01:32:06,283 --> 01:32:12,990
a bottle of beer, and my German friend Kurtz Bockman was sitting here, I went over and

858
01:32:12,990 --> 01:32:19,854
oh he stood up, he clicked his heels like a officer should do and my, he, I think he did

859
01:32:19,854 --> 01:32:26,484
want to give me, he would shake my hand. And he, and I ask him, Frenzel, you remember

860
01:32:26,484 --> 01:32:32,100
me? He looks and he answered me like that, no, you was just a little boy

861
01:32:33,100 --> 01:32:33,280
[laughs]

862
01:32:33,280 --> 01:32:37,420
No, and I remember, was a little boy. We did talk about four hours.
And what did he tell?

864
01:32:38,050 --> 01:32:45,611
But he said, eh, he said eh, sorry, but I know you can’t forgive me eh, and, but I said

865
01:32:45,611 --> 01:32:53,003
I can’t one thing understand, understand, reading now about Israel how they fight the

866
01:32:53,003 --> 01:32:59,630
Arabs, how they win, I can’t understand why you did make the revolt earlier.

867
01:32:59,950 --> 01:33:00,740
He didn’t understand

868
01:33:00,740 --> 01:33:06,900
Yeah. Eh, you, you fight, you were, and it was things like that, we talk and eh, it was all about

869
01:33:06,900 --> 01:33:08,360
What did you answer?

870
01:33:08,360 --> 01:33:08,780
Pardon?

871
01:33:08,780 --> 01:33:10,110
What did you answer?

872
01:33:10,110 --> 01:33:11,630
What I did answer?

873
01:33:11,840 --> 01:33:12,000
Yes

874
01:33:12,000 --> 01:33:20,250
Oh, I did answer, it was different times, there were four years eh Just in the dirt, step down, our

875
01:33:20,250 --> 01:33:28,416
spirit was broken eh, that eh they lied and get the, the, the, always said we survive, the hell we

876
01:33:28,416 --> 01:33:36,583
will survive and eh, anyway, I don’t remember exactly, I have it written down, but eh, we talked

877
01:33:36,583 --> 01:33:44,583
for a long time. As I ask him if he was sorry and so on, why don’t you go, because of a lot of

878
01:33:44,583 --> 01:33:52,750
people say it never happened to him, why don’t you go and say I was there, I have done, done it,

879
01:33:52,750 --> 01:34:01,000
I was a part. So he answered me, oh, you know, I can’t. you see here, here, here, in the big jobs

880
01:34:01,000 --> 01:34:09,000
there are still Nazis. And If I go and, and talk a, eh, eh, like that, eh, I would, I wouldn’t

881
01:34:09,000 --> 01:34:15,250
manage. Something like this, and later [sighs] of course I left and he left

882
01:34:19,940 --> 01:34:20,300
Hm

883
01:34:20,300 --> 01:34:20,590
Yeah

884
01:34:20,590 --> 01:34:22,110
Were you angry?

885
01:34:22,110 --> 01:34:22,810
Pardon?

886
01:34:22,810 --> 01:34:25,650
Were you angry with him, were, did you hate him?

887
01:34:25,650 --> 01:34:33,513
You see, I wasn’t angry. I didn’t feel anything. Because if I would have some feelings, I wouldn’t

888
01:34:33,513 --> 01:34:40,696
be able to talk to him. Some friends of mine said, oh, from Sobibor, I would kill him, I would,

889
01:34:40,696 --> 01:34:47,879
I’m eh, would kill, we could kill him when he was in court, many of who survives was in court

890
01:34:47,879 --> 01:34:55,364
cursing him. It’s good if they kill him. If I kill him, let’s say, I go to jail. If I got, got,

891
01:34:55,364 --> 01:35:02,699
eh, to jail, who would suffer? My family would suffer, my children would, eh, co, and my children

892
01:35:02,699 --> 01:35:10,033
would consider me me, a murderer, a different times. Besides, killing somebody is nothing. It’s

893
01:35:10,033 --> 01:35:17,443
very easy to kill, it’s very difficult to live I would say [grins] So eh eh, so I’ve done the,

894
01:35:17,443 --> 01:35:24,701
but I think still, till now, done the best of it, I did eh eh put my little thing to history eh,

895
01:35:24,701 --> 01:35:31,884
if he, if Frenzel would, giving mostly technical, had a, Gazkammer, eh, gas chamber works , eh,

896
01:35:31,884 --> 01:35:39,521
eh, is only for, for, for his, historians for researchers. Eh I will have time, I will write a little

897
01:35:39,521 --> 01:35:47,309
bit more, because I spent, I met eh this year the brother, one of the murders who we killed, Vallaster,

898
01:35:47,309 --> 01:35:54,568
we killed him in the, when we revolted. But his brother has come to Sobibor and I met him there.

899
01:35:54,568 --> 01:35:57,289
He asked for forgiveness. This year.

900
01:35:57,560 --> 01:35:58,800
Really?

901
01:35:58,800 --> 01:36:07,142
Yeah, this year. So eh and I’m still digging in the papers, but I’m already, I, I want to finish

902
01:36:07,142 --> 01:36:15,152
my third book because I think it’s b, it’s more interesting in, interesting, it’s, is very

903
01:36:15,152 --> 01:36:23,328
interesting because when before all my energy, everything was directed in surviving after the war,

904
01:36:23,328 --> 01:36:31,671
completely different issues that pop out. What shall I do, shall I go studying, I was too impatient,

905
01:36:31,671 --> 01:36:39,930
I was always on the run. Eh it’s like I want to free myself from the, from the fences of Sobibor.

906
01:36:39,930 --> 01:36:48,190
Eh, now, political reasons, their party and one way the party is hating Jews and killing Jews. They

907
01:36:48,190 --> 01:36:53,530
killed the leader of the revolt in Lublin after the war. So they

908
01:36:53,530 --> 01:36:55,510
You mean the communists?

909
01:36:55,650 --> 01:36:59,670
No, not the communists. The opposite Nationalists.

910
01:36:59,670 --> 01:37:00,840
Okay, sorry, young Nationalists

911
01:37:00,840 --> 01:37:10,705
Yeah. Eh, and eh so eh you did look for, for a safety place, was a political party PPR which apply,

912
01:37:10,705 --> 01:37:20,272
eh, eh, take in Jews. So I did go there. And eh later I did eh want to take some revenge in, eh,

913
01:37:20,272 --> 01:37:30,038
I walked in the, in our section I think, section four of five, eh looking for the Nazis. And later

914
01:37:30,038 --> 01:37:39,506
I escaped from Poland, come back to Pol, from Ll with the Polish ? come back to Poland and they

915
01:37:39,506 --> 01:37:47,080
say you escaped from Poland. And I, just find my way, my way to, to America.

916
01:37:47,080 --> 01:37:54,000
What do you expect from the Demjanjuk trial?

917
01:37:56,440 --> 01:38:02,160
[sighs] Demjanjuk trial. Demjanjuk got a couple of arguments. One of

918
01:38:02,160 --> 01:38:07,881
the arguments is take a look. They let, there was eh, eh, comma, eh,

919
01:38:07,881 --> 01:38:13,350
eh were c, c, criminal proceedings against the men from Trawniki.

920
01:38:13,350 --> 01:38:15,200
Yeah.

921
01:38:15,240 --> 01:38:17,540
They let free. The commandant of Trawniki.

922
01:38:17,830 --> 01:38:18,000
Yeah

923
01:38:18,000 --> 01:38:26,164
The commandant they let free. I was over there only eh, eh, guard. Why do you suing me? They let free

924
01:38:26,164 --> 01:38:34,410
the commandant. Then other argument would be, now that’s in Trawniki, I know in Trawniki they killed

925
01:38:34,410 --> 01:38:42,332
Jews too, but there were no gas chambers. So they sent him to, to eh, Sobibor. Now here everything

926
01:38:42,332 --> 01:38:48,880
takes in different dimension. A guard actually is the lowest rank in the, eh, eh,..
Yeah

928
01:38:48,880 --> 01:38:57,741
..in the army. A guard in concentration camp, in a jail, is standing guard so the prisoner

929
01:38:57,741 --> 01:39:06,401
should not escape. But a guard in Sobibor, a death camp, was a chain in, was a link in

930
01:39:06,401 --> 01:39:15,363
the chain. And they did, he worked, helping to kill the Jews. The seventeen Germans which

931
01:39:15,363 --> 01:39:22,110
were over there in that time, they wouldn’t be able to kill 3,000

932
01:39:22,110 --> 01:39:22,370
Exactly

933
01:39:22,370 --> 01:39:30,531
Dutch, but [finger on table] they were the murderers. He is a murderer. That’s all. But, but

934
01:39:30,531 --> 01:39:39,126
again, the point is this, that all, why did it n, eh, in, in the Sobibor trial for killing 130,000,

935
01:39:39,126 --> 01:39:47,114
three years, what is this, it’s nothing. Eh, but, eh but eh, in that time there were still

936
01:39:47,114 --> 01:39:55,276
the old Nazis, they were still the old Nazis eh in power and there were charges and than . Now

937
01:39:55,276 --> 01:40:03,437
is a different generation. This don’t answer why I long time ago where his sentence is very,

938
01:40:03,437 --> 01:40:11,425
very, very, very little though. So now I don’t know. I think that eh he will be considered

939
01:40:11,425 --> 01:40:19,499
guilty but because he was already in jail, the eh will let him spend the rest of his years in

940
01:40:19,499 --> 01:40:27,400
home arrest. Could be. Because to America he can’t go back. He does have, he has lost his

941
01:40:27,400 --> 01:40:35,735
citizenship so that’s all we could do. Why? I guess I remember him?. No. How could I remember,

942
01:40:35,735 --> 01:40:39,989
when I don’t I remember the face of my parents?

943
01:40:39,990 --> 01:40:48,763
Now if a thought , if he was in that time when I was in Sobibor, he is a murderer, I have

944
01:40:48,763 --> 01:40:57,636
seen them, I have seen them pushing the people to the gas chambers, not direct, but I went

945
01:40:57,636 --> 01:41:05,030
on to eh, about five meters before the gas chamber was the cutting barracks

946
01:41:05,030 --> 01:41:07,680
Exactly, thanks

947
01:41:07,680 --> 01:41:08,590
Yeah.